Youth Ministry and Me

Last Sunday I preached on Galatians 4:1-20 on Gospel Freedom.

You can listen to it here or download it here

It is a pretty complex passage.  But I think it's all about the Spirit.

Click here to listen to me preach on the book of Philemon.

Main point: Christians are duty bound to act out of love towards their fellow believers.

Philemon is an example of how a Christian should act out of love towards a fellow Christian. A radical way of life!

I've got a sermon on Philemon coming up on Sunday. I'm looking forward to preaching it, but I have a young adult camp that I'm heading to at 9:30pm tonight (about 1.5hrs away) straight after our youth program finishes.

All in all this means I'm very busy and I'm not sure how good my sermon will be. I really need to get it finished today...

It's a great personal letter written by Paul to Philemon regarding Philemon's runaway slave Onesimus.

Few things that I've noticed already. Philemon owned slaves and whilst Paul might hint that Onesimus should be released (vv. 16-17) He does not explicitly condemn slavery or ask for Onesimus to be released. What does this mean about the Bible's view on slavery?

Whilst that is interesting, I don't really think it's the main point of the passage. It's not dealing with slavery but rather with how living out the gospel in fellowship and community with others should look markably different to the world around us, that as members of God's kingdom, changed and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are to be people who act out of love for our fellow brother and sister despite what the world says. That is, Paul is asking Philemon to act out of love for his fellow brother in Christ, Onesimus, and to forgive his wrongs despite Philemon's right - by the worlds standards - to treat him as a slave. Not only that but Paul sends this letter to the whole house church, not just Philemon, showing that our lives and actions towards each other are meant to be lived out in community with other believers. You don't have private sins or grievances against others, it all affects the whole church.

I think that is the line I'll be taking in my sermon. Anyone think I'm heading down the heretical path or missed the point of Philemon entirely??

For our boys club that meets on a Tuesday night I'm doing a series of short (5min talks on What a Godly Man is). This was the first one, it was all about the heart. That is it's what's in your heart that makes you Godly.

I'll post those talks which I have notes for on here when possible.

Godly Man Studies - It's All About Your Heart

To download, click here

Here is a resource I wrote today that you can use if you think it's any good.

Lunchtime small group bible study: The Tongue

To download click here

Mikey posted links to two sermons preached by a guy named Pete Woodcock at a Tassie MTS conference I was at a few years back.

They were really great. Engaging, funny, truth telling, faithful. I remember one of them went for just over an hour and I didn't want him to stop. That's saying something!

If you like them, you can find a heap more of his sermons here

On Good Friday night we had a youth service. It was really good!

Click here to listen to my talk/sermon.

Last year I went to the Youthworks Youth Ministry Conference.

Today I found audio from one of the talks there by Josh Apieczonek on loving the unloved.

Listen to it here. I thought it was really great!

I preached again on Sunday night.

Not the greatest time to preach as I had my end of Greek intensive exam the next morning and had to spend much of the weekend studying, but oh well.

It was on Luke 22:1-23

Listen to it here

On Sunday I preached on Wisdom.  My passage was Proverbs 4.  You can listen to it by clicking here (right click and choose save as to save a copy).

I'm preaching on Sunday night on Proverbs 4... I was given total free range to preach on whatever I wanted... That is a really daunting thing, I had no idea what to do.  So I liked the stuff we did on wisdom literature at Ridley this semester so I chose to preach on that so I could learn some more.

I preached on James 3:1-12 last Sunday night at HTD. Click here to listen to it! (Right click and chose the 'save' option to save a copy to your hard disk!)

My notes/sermon text...

Tongue facts:

• Close to fifty percent of the bacteria in the mouth lives on the surface of our tongue.

  • when kissing, we tend to swap 256 colonies of bacteria with our partner

• 85% of the population can curl their tongue into a tube.

• Every person has a unique tongue print.

• Relative to size, the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body

• And not only is it the strongest muscle but, as we heard in the reading, the bible tells us that even though the tongue is small, it boasts of great exploits. And tonight we're going to unpack just what it is our tongues are capable of, and hopefully you will feel encouraged to tame the weapon of mass destruction that is your tongue.

1:19 – Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger

1:26 – If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but devieve their hearts, their religion is worthless.

Elsewhere in the NT we see that our speech is important. In Eph 5:4 Paul says:

Entirely out of place is obsecene, silly , and vulgar talk; but instead, let there be thanksgiving.

Jesus also has a bit to say about the potential destruction that the tongue can bring.

Matthew 12:34 – How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

12:37 – for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned

In Proverbs in the OT we also see that the bible warns us about the tongue and our speech.

11:9 – With their mouths the godless would destroy their neighbours

11:11 – A city is overthrwon by the mouth of the wicked

18:6 – A fool's lips bring strife, and a fool's mouth invites a flogging

18:7 – The mouths of fools are their ruin and their lips a snare to themselves

18:21 – Death and life are in the power of the tongue

Finally, right back at the beginning of human life on this earth, in Gen 3:12, after the fall, one of the first sins humans are guilty of involved our tongue, as Adam tried to weazle his way out of his own responsibility.

So lets look more closely at what James says about the tongue. James 3:1

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters,* for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

James begins this passage, where he talks about the power of the tongue by warning people that they should think twice about becoming teachers, because those of us who teach will be judged with greater stirctness by God. Why does James start here? When he is going to talk mainly about the great and dangerous things the small tongue can do, why start with a warning about becoming a teacher?

Well teachers teach with their tongue. They use words to educate. They stand up, and with their tongue they teach people what to think, say, feel. They encourage people, and rebuke people. Because the tongue is so vital to the teacher, and because the tongue is so difficult to control, not many of us James says, should want to be teachers.

James continues:

2For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle.

We all make mistakes. We all do things we regret... If you've never done something you regret, you will have certainly said something you regret. I do this all the time. I can be quick to form an opinion and even quicker to express it. Over the last few years I've mastered the art of saying something and then going into back tracking damage control. I've been known to open my mouth without thinking, and to dig very large holes with my mouth and jump right into them!

Now thankfully, often this is superficial and ends up being funny. But not always. Sometimes my tongue gets the better of me. I say things that are mean. I say things to make people think more of me, or that I'm better than someone else. Towards the end of my high school years, I was part of a group that dished out some very mean and vicious speech towards another guy who was part of our youth group, who we found a bit annoying and frustrating. He was understandably devastated by our childish actions, and I think our speech probably damaged this guys relationship with Jesus as well as essentially destroying his relationship with his Christian brothers and sisters.

No one in this room has spoken without making a mistake. And what we say has power. James goes on to show this in the next verses:

3If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.

I just want to take a moment to get our heads around these two analogies... According to Wikipedia,

“A bit used in equestrian activities is a piece of metal or similar synthetic material that is placed in the mouth of a horse... and allows a rider to control the animal”

A wild, running horse is a powerful thing. There's a reason when you talk about the power of your car you talk about horse power. But these big impressive animals, which can run in any direction can be relatively easily controlled... By placing a small bit into their mouth. This allows the rider to direct and control the horse.

Likewise big sailing ships are impressive things. I remember watching a Tall Ships race finish in Hobart one year, and I was suitably impressed with their size and the way such a big boat could be propelled by the wind. Likewise, when I've been sailing, I really love it when the engine of the boat gets turned off and we are just sailing under the power of the wind. But, in both cases, the rudder is vital. It determines direction. When you're sailing on a yacht, you need to turn the rudder to make sure you stay in the right line. It's the same on a big Tall Ship. Both these boat's direction is ultimately determined by the rudder.

And James is saying that our tongues are like the bit in a horses mouth, or the rudder on a ship. They determine our direction. You see if we keep using our tongue to say bad things about other people, to slag them off behind their backs, to stir up rumours and gossip, then we are not heading in a direction that is making us more like Jesus. But if we are building up each other, encouraging, not spreading rumours, not gossiping, praising Jesus, speaking up for our faith to our non-Christian friends, then we are heading in a good and Godly direction.

As both the horse bit, and ship rudder are small when compared to the thing they give direction to, so too the tongue, James says in verse 5a:

5aSo also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.

Our small tongue is capable of a lot. And it's not all good. James continues:

5bHow great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature,* and is itself set on fire by hell.*

James again is saying that the tongue, even though it is small, can have a devestating and damaging effect. Like a spark that sets a massive forest on fire, so our tongues can cause us to sin, and if left unchecked can draw us away from Jesus.

We know that it is hard to control the tongue, to control what we say. James is saying in verse 6 that our tongues are so hard to control, because they are by nature, sinful.

The tongue, by virtue of being the most difficult of all parts of the body to control becomes the way that all the evil of the world around us comes to expression in us.

And it's so easy for the devil, to use our tongue to cause mass destruction to our lives, and the lives of our friends.

No other 'member' of the body, perhaps wreaks so much havoc on the godly life.

7For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, 8but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

Not only is the tongue the place where our sin comes to the fore. But the tongue is untamable. You can practice all you like at saying nice things, you can try really hard to be nice. But you won't be able to tame your tongue. When you get tired, or a bit annoyed at someone, your tongue will slip... you might be tempted to slag someone off behind their back, or swear at the ref when they make a terrible call. Even when you're in a great mood but you stumble and stub your toe... you will see that your human efforts to tame your tongue will have been worthless.

But as followers of Jesus, we believe that we are given the Holy Spirit. And it is by the power of the Spirit that we can tame the tongue. The Holy Spirit can start us on a process of transforming the tongue, into a vessle that praises God. But the fact that our tongues are being transformed doesn't mean it is ok to allow our tongue to be a weapon of mass destruction, a spark setting ourselves on fire. James continues:

9With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. 10From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters,* this ought not to be so. 11Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? 12Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters,* yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

In these verses James is warning us about the relaity of sinful humanity.

Last week we heard Jono talk about how our faith saves us, but that that faith is only genuine if it gives birth to acts of love, that is real faith changes us, and makes us behave in a different way. James says in 2:17:

“faith by itself, it it has no works, is dead”.

One of the works that faith will produce in us is changed speech. And this is what James is alluding to in these final verses of tonights passage. You say you have faith says James, well look at your speech. Do you praise God one moment, and then curse other people the next? Can the same spring produce both fresh and distasteful, salty, brackish water? Even if there was some fresh water being produced, it would be being polluted by the distateful water, making the spring useless.

James wants us to use our speech as a way to check how our faith is going. A fig must have at it's source a fig tree. A grapevine produces grapes. Loving speech which brings glory to God must have at its source God. A heart that is changed by the Holy Spirit is the source of speech that builds up, that encourages, that praises God. The flip side is that speech which tears down, which is deliberately harmful, full of bitterness, has at it's source an unchanged, sinful heart.

Questions to consider:

Have you done some major damage with your tongue that you need to fix?

What does your tongue say about you?

What does it say about the direction you are heading?

Are you allowing your speech to be changed by the Holy Spirit?

Are you relying on your own strength in your battle against the tongue?

The principal of Ridley (the theological college I go to) came to my church and preached on Sunday.

It was a great sermon.

Listen to it here

So ages ago I said I had to preach on Dating. Well the good news is that it is finally happening this week. I haven't really got anything on paper yet, but I do have some reflections about the process of writing this sermon.

1. The bible is effectively silent on dating. Some would say what about the "unequally yoked" passaged in 2 Corinthians, and I would say that is only very secondarily related to dating and even then only speaks to marrying a non-Christian and that being a bad idea. Thus leaving, who can I date? what's the point of dating? Should I Kiss Dating Goodbye? How much can I touch/kiss my date? How long should you go out before you get married? Should I want to get married and therefore try to get a date or should I just 'wait for God to provide? How do you avoid getting overly intimately connected too fast, or too slowly...? Is there are difference between dating someone and someone being your exclusive boyfriend/girlfriend? Can you just go on random dates with a whole bunch of random people, of the opposite sex, at once?

I'm sure there are many more questions.

So anyhow, this makes the whole thing very complicated. Essentially it's an area that God has left to Christian wisdom. Which is nice, but complex!

2. Because of this, there are hundreds of books on Christian Dating. Ranging from Joshua Harris' classic I Kissed Dating Goodbye, to Dr Henry Cloud's How to Get a Date worth keeping: Be Dating in 6 months or your money back. Don't date, or go for it and do it lots! I've read a few other books as well on this topic. I'll probably try and do some book reviews over the coming weeks.

3. There isn't much Australian writing on the matter. Even though our culture is fairly similar to the US, thanks to the wonder that is globalisation, the casual date seems to be a less common thing to do in Australia. People to my mind, especially Christians seem to be very quick to define themselves into an exclusive boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. Is this good or bad? What should those relationships look like?

4. Dating is a very personal topic to me. Those who know me well, know I've had mostly a series of disastrous attempts at the whole boyfriend and girlfriend thing that have not really ended well. I certainly don't come to this topic as someone who has dated well in the past. I've found that I've needed to repent of attitudes and behaviours I've had/done in the past as I've been writing this sermon. On the same token, as I think about dating in my current situation, the pressure to come up with an approach that is workable for me is also important.

5. Parents of youth will be at this service probably with their own idea about dating, and they will want to know what the Youth Minister is going to be telling their kids about dating... no pressure!

6. I want to call people to repentance and faith in Jesus somehow.

I've got a fun few days ahead of me. I'll post the link to my sermon next week so you can listen to it to see what I came up with, and how i dealt with some of these issues!

Let me know what you think was good, bad, ok, etc.

Click here to hear my sermon from Palm Sunday

I'm preaching on Colossians 2:8-23 this Sunday night at our evening service at HTD.

I'm a touch nervous because it is going to be my first preach at the new church. So hopefully it goes well.

So if you could pray for me in my preparation and delivery, that would be great!

I'll hopefully be able to post a link to the audio late next week. So for those of you who have nothing better to do with your time, you can listen!

So I now go to a church (in fact I work for them) who post the sermons from the services the previous week on their website.

Our Vicar (the normal word for that is like senior minister or senior pastor) is an excellent preacher. You can hear this if you click here and listen to his sermons on 2 Corinthians. I've heard about the last 4 or 5 since I've been here. All amazing! He has a phd in Deuteronomy so if you listen to his sermons on that, you'll probably learn lots!

Check it out!