A Youth Service
Marty Redhead
It’s great to see you all at church this morning, and as a youth ministry we hope that you not only enjoy what the young people have to say, but that you go from this place having meet God.
Steph and I got back at the start of this week from a 10 day holiday in the Gold Coast, and it was fantastic. We had an amazing time and the weather was hot, the sun was always shinning and the pool was just nice to sit beside. But it’s so great to be back. Back to see our young people, back to see our church and to continue pressing on in the things that God has for us. And it’s so good to be in church this morning. For me there is no other place that I’d rather be than in the house of God. Because the church is the hope of the world. When Jesus left this planet after he died and rose again, he looked at his disciples straight in the eye and said “boys, you take it from here”. God’s plan for the salvation of man was to send his one and only son to the cross to die a sinner’s death, so that you and I could have a relationship with him and spend eternity in heaven. But the hope of the world rests in the bride of Christ, which of course the Bible says is the church. We as the church of Jesus Christ are plan ‘A’ for saving this planet. There is no plan ‘B’, we are it. We are God’s plan to see his Kingdom come here on earth. And God knows that we can do it. He believes in us more than we believe in ourselves, and he knows that his bride, his church, can see the community of people they live in changed and pointed towards Christ. That’s why I love being in the house of God, because you and I are the solution that God has to save the planet.
This mornings message I have entitled ‘Complacent Christianity’. Sometimes in our walk with Christ we become complacent about the God that we serve. We get comfortable with just doing God and forget about the power that He has placed in us. We forget that God desires us as a people to walk in a close intimate relationship with Him and that our lives be far from complacent. I believe that this morning God wants to do something fresh in the life of our church and impart his Holy Spirit to those who would want it. As a youth ministry our hope is that this morning you will walk away from this place having meet Jesus. We believe in a God who can heal broken lives, heal physical pain, bring relief to your suffering and see you live the life that God has planned for you. I believe God desires to pour out his Spirit on his people and if you are willing, I encourage you to come along with me and see what God will do.
If you have your Bibles, then turn with me to the book of 1st Samuel 4. If you don’t have your Bibles then that’s fine, because I brought mine and so you can share with me. And read with me from verse 1.
1st Samuel 4:1-11
Let me give you a bit of the background to this scene. The Israelites are well established in the promised land of Israel. As a people they have seen God’s hand on their lives as they left slavery in Egypt, as God provided for them in the dessert time after time with quail and bread for them to eat. They have seen God do miracle after miracle by parting the waters of the red sea and allowing them to cross on dry ground. They saw God literately tear down the walls of Jericho and all they had to do was walk around the city with musical instruments. They have seen miracle after miracle with God’s hand constantly giving them victory in battle and defeating their enemy. BUT, they had became complacent. They thought they’d put God in a box, carry him out to battle and expect the same result.
Don’t rely on past experiences with God.
How many of us have experienced God in a powerful way and seen God do amazing things in our lives, and then try and live off that experience for years to come. Not realising that God desires to pour out his Spirit on all of us, all of the time. Now please don’t get me wrong, I am not preaching that God is always an experience. That’s just not true. And more often that not we have to walk on with God in what we know, and not just what we feel. So please don’t confuse what I’m saying. What I am asking though, is when was the last time you experienced God?
See the Israelites knew what God could do, but they’d just forgotten about it and thought that if they grabbed onto the physical with God, then that would be the same. They thought that since they were in deep yoghurt and losing the battle against these pesky Philistines, that instead of seeking God’s face they’d just grab Him and take him where they wanted to go. Never once in that passage does it say they stopped, dropped to their knees and asked God what they should do. The Israelites had experienced God, had seen his power, but had forgotten about it and had grown complacent in their faith. They got comfortable with their surroundings, had tried to predict God and now paid dearly for it. 30, 000 men died because the Israelites grew complacent.
When I was growing up, I was always involved in music. And if you were to look back at my music career it would look sketchy at best. I first started out playing the piano, which if you had read my column in the Ensign this week you would know that it did not go well. My sister played piano for a long time so it seemed right that I’d follow in her footsteps and play as well. My Aunty who lived in Gore at the time and was a very accomplished music teacher, taught me, but I only lasted about 4 months.
After my failure as a piano player, I moved onto playing the recorder, at out of schools music. Nichi Russell started out as my teacher, and she must have had a little more success because I played that for a number of years until I progressed to the double bass. Now the only reason I wanted to play this monster instrument was because it was big, and rather different. I played that for a number of years and this was probably my most successful instrument, because I sat and passed with distinction, my Initial Double Bass Exam. That’s right, my initial exam. Not grade 2, not even grade 1, but my initial exam. I think my certificate is at the bottom of a wardrobe somewhere. That was over 10 years ago.
If you gave me a double bass and put it in front of me now, there is no way that I would know how to play it. I would know how to hold it, and look like I knew what I was doing, but there is no way that I would know what to do. I’ve forgotten, the experience I had in the past is now gone. Just because I played for 3 years, sat an exam and turned up to my lesson, doesn’t now mean that I can still play the double bass. The experiences that I had then does not mean that I can play now.
When was the last time you experienced God? When was the last time that you surrendered yourself to Him and said all I need is you Lord? When was the last time that you can say you had a genuine touch of the Holy Spirit?
For some of us we can’t even remember the last time that we had a touch of God. For some of us we’ve never had a touch from God. We think that there is no way that God could use me or touch my life, I’ve done too many things wrong. Or we think that God can never use me because I just don’t have what it takes. All that hearing from God stuff and being touched with the Holy Spirit is not really for me because I’m just not really a person God can use.
If that’s what you’re thinking, then you are the perfect person that God does use. In fact God specialises in using people who think nothing of themselves. If we look at the Bible we see that Moses was a murderer and a stutter yet he lead Gods chosen people out of slavery. Joseph was the youngest in his family and his brothers hated him, yet he became ruler over Egypt. Rahab was a prostitute, David was just a Shepard, Noah was old and Paul killed Christians. Jesus himself was born in a dirty old animal shed and the disciples that followed him were a bunch of no hopers who had some sketchy pasts. God is into using people who think they can’t be used. He takes what people said couldn’t work, and make something great out of it.
Look at me. I was a very average student at school, who played sport very averagely. I did not do flash on an musical instruments and the world had written me off as a very average, probably won’t amount to much kind of guy. Yet I put my hand up one day and said God if you can use me, then please do. And here I am. Serving in an amazing church, married to a beautiful wife, expecting a beautiful baby and seeing young peoples lives touched like I’ve never seen before. God has taken my life and made a some what ordinary, mundane, not amount to anything life – into an example of what God can do if we just allow him.
Let’s not live in past experiences. Let’s not be held back from what has, or has not happened. Rather lets seek a fresh touch from God and put our hand up and say ‘use me’.
Point number 2 – You can’t put God in a box
The Israelites thought that since they were losing the battle, they could go back to camp and get the ark of the covenant and everything would be alright. They thought they could get their box with God inside, march out and see the result they wanted.
You cannot box up God. He is the creator of the universe, the alpha and the omega. He is the beginning and the end. He created everything we see. With a single word he turned night into day. With a single sentence the world was created and everything in it was formed. With a single thought man was birthed out of nothing but clay and dust (and all the woman said amen). Through Moses God orchestrated the largest people movement the world has ever seen and lead them into the promised land. He is the God who spoke and the sun was born, looked and the planets were formed. He threw the stars into space, and created the only inhabitable planet in the entire solar system. He is the biggest thing the universe has ever seen, more powerful than any force we know and greater than anything you’ll ever see. You cannot put God in a box.
How often though do we try and do that. How often do we say we’ll take God here and here, but not here. How often does Sunday morning come along and you go to your wardrobe, put on your Sunday clothes, pick up your box that contains God and come to church? And yet when we go to work, or school, or where ever, we leave the God at home in his box.
God can be so much more in our lives if we just let him. Ephesians 3:20 says 20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. That means that God can do more than we ever hoped or dreamed of. He can take care of our financial situation, he can take care of our health, he can lead us into our future, he can right the wrongs people have done to you. Our Lord can do these things, and he wants to do these things. But he can’t do it while we hold Him at arms length. He can’t do it while we try and control what God wants to do.
The Israelites faced a problem, so they went and got what they thought was the solution to their problem. They went and got their box. Except God doesn’t work that way and he wants to be with us, spend time with us and not sit in our box. He wants to bust out and show us his love, show us his goodness, show us his power and his glory.
Our God wants to bless you. As a father to be I know that I will give everything good that my child asks for. If my child wants something, and if it’s going to be good for them, then I am going to do everything I can do to get it for my child. So how much more will God bless us as his Children when his resource is endless. He is our heavenly Father who wants to give all the good things to us that he can. But it’s up to us to ask, and it’s up to us to take God out of whatever box we may have him in.
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