Temptation

Last youth group we talked about temptation and how Satan temps us. I mentioned that when you fish, as a fisherman, you know what the fish wants and you know how you can tempt the fish into biting the lure and into the hook. Satan does the same to us. He is like a fisherman who knows how, when, where, to tempt us. What we forget is that each piece of bate that Satan dangles out in front of us also contains a hook. He uses this bate hoping we will take a bit, and not realize there is a hook in there. Once we take that bite Satan is able to get a hold of us.

Everyone Is Tempted
- Temptation is something you can't escape. We are not perfect and most of us are weak. When we are tempted we don't look into the future, but intead concentrate on the NOW and it's immediate gratification.

Temptation Is A Test Of Faith
- When we are tempted, if we are able to take a step back, look at the situation dangling before us, realize that this situation is embeded with a hook, that we can walk away.

How Does This Help?
- When we are tempted, it is very easy to take hold of the lure and bite into the hook.
- If we take the step back and look what Satan is presenting you, you can invite God into the situation. Would he approve what you are about to do? We he want to do it with you?
- If you invite God into the situation he can meet your needs, but you must trust Him.

How To Annoy Your Parents

What better topic can we cover on Parent Night other than "How To Annoy Your Parents!" Many of you reading this believe you have this down. You are the king or queen, prince or princess ar annoying mom and dad. But what I mean by annoy isn't what you are thinking.

Now, whether you are a Christian or not, whether you have walked with the Lord most of your life or today is your very first time learning about God, one thing that influences and impacts you for the rest of your life is family!

TRUTHS ABOUT FAMILY

1. God Created Families
- Before the first family, the first children, there was sin! Adams and Eve sinned.
- Adam and Eve had children named Cain and Abel. Now Cain was the "good" one and Able was the "bad" one. To make a long story short, Cain took Able into a field and killed him! That was the start of humanity, the first family was out of control!

2. God Uses Family To Communicate Our Role In His Family
- Those of you who have a relationship with God have some point invited Him into your life. You said, "God, I want to be a Christan. I want to be life Christ. I want to be part of God's family!"
- Hebrews 2, "Jesus, who makes people holy (Holy does not mean perfect, but just meant set apart.) Those who are made holy are from the same family. He's not ashamed to call them brothers.
-God uses the word "family" to communicate our role in the bodt of Christ.

BASIC RELIZATIONS REGARDING SUCCESS WITH YOUR FAMILY

1. Realize That A Healthy Family Brings Life
- Ehesians 6, "Children obey your parents in the way the Lord wants...Honor your father and mother."

2. Realize That You Can't Control Your Family
- You think you can control them but you can't. The only person you can control is yourself!
- You can do this by choosing to honor and and to love.
- You must love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind and all your strength.

3. Realize That You Can Control Your Attitude
- Why would a loving God want us to honor our parents? Why does He want us to respect them?
- Gravity: I don't understand gravity, but I know it's true. Because if I step off something like a stage I am going to fall and fall hard!
- Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it does not apply.

Excuses, Excuses

So we have not had youth group for 3 weeks due to bad weather and unfortunate events! This week we continued to talk about Witnessing; the excuses we use for deciding not to witness to people.

THIS WEEK: Excuses, Excuses; Reasons We Choose Not To Witness

As I just mentioned, when it comes to deciding not to witness, the biggest reason people decide not to share their faith is out of fear of rejection. But we did discover, even if someone rejects you in the name of Christ Jesus that it stores up rewards that God has waiting for you in Heaven.

1. Fear Of Being Rejected:
When it comes to the fear of rejection ask yourself this: Are you more worried about that people think of you, or about what God thinks of you? Too many people are afraid of what others will think.

What’s the worst that can happen anyways when we decide to witness to a lost soul? ANYONE KNOW? The answer sounds bad, because it is DEATH! The worst thing that can happen is the person can kill us and send us to Heaven. Is that such a bad thing? Of Course not!

Philippians 1:21 says this, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
This verse was written by the apostle Paul while he was in prison. He saw Christ as the source and secret of continual joy. We live for Christ, and we die for Christ. That is the belief of a true believer and disciple of Jesus Christ.

2. Don’t Know How To:
Another reason for not witnessing is because people feel like they don’t know how to. But if you are a Christian and have asked God into your life, this means that someone lead you to Jesus. This also means that you actually do to know how to lead someone to the Lord.

3. Fear Of Losing A Friend:
For younger people, this is one of the primary reasons they choose not to share their faith. But think of this, if you don’t share your faith with a friend, what kind of friendship do you really have if you go to Heaven when you die and your friend would possibly go to Hell. If you have been friends for 10, 20, 30 years, but are willing to be separated for 800 million years, what kind of friendship is that? If you are not eternal friends, are you really friends at all? So share your faith with your friends. They will thank you in the long run.

Witnessing...

For those of you who could not make it this Sunday here is a summary on what we covered...

First of all we played a great game called Butt Cherades! Yes...sherades using your back side. Both teams did really well and tied! Max won the suck a drink through a twizzler strawl contest. We also did some celebrity impersonations and watched a clip from the movie Elf, not to mention the Elf dancing video!

We covered the topic of witnessing.

There are three things that can happen when you witness to someone...
1. They can accept Christ
2. The can reject Christ
3. You can plant a seed

We discussed that the biggest fear a person has when it comes to witnessing is the fear of rejection....but the following verses tell us that is okay to get rejected.

“If you are insulted because of the name Jesus Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.”
1 Peter 4:3

The Bible tells us that if we ever get rejected in the name of Jesus, we will be blessed and the glory of God will rest upon us!

“Blessed you are when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.”
Luke 6:22-23

When you get rejected in the name of Jesus, God has rewards waiting for you in Heaven that will make any earthly reward seem like nothing! This is why we need to store up treasures in Heaven while we are on earth.

After reading and going through these two verses we know this: Just by knowing God, every time we share our faith, it is a winning situation. We don’t ever have to worry about Satan trying to talk us out of witnessing, because the Word of God says that we can’t lose! Every time we witness is a winning situation…this is why we need to witness to lost souls and other believers.

Jesus Cries Over The Death of Lazarus

John 11:1-45

Main Characters in story: Jesus, Martha, Mary, Lazarus

The Bible says that Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. They were his good friends. Word was sent to Jesus that Lazarus was sick and two days later Jesus leaves to come "heal" Lazarus and bring him back from the dead.

In this story Martha and Mary, who were faithful followers of Christ Jesus, were upset with Jesus. They believed if Jesus would have left right away he would have been able to save his friend Lazarus. But Jesus tells them this, "He will rise again." Why? Because, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

Well, the story continues to show that Jesus was human. Why? Because in verse 35, the shortest verse in the Bible, it states that, "Jesus Wept." He cried over the death of his good friend. This means Jesus had feelings! He was in human form...the all-mighty God cried!

Three Places in the Bible where Jesus cries.....

1. "During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears... - Hebrews 5:7

2. "As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it..." - Luke 19:41

3. "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. Where have you laid him? he asked. Come and see Lord, they replied. Jesus Wept." - John 11:33-35

Boy Wonder Gains Giant Victory

“…Man looks at the outward appearance,
but the Lord looks at the heart...”
1 Samuel 16:7

“…The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart….”
1 Samuel 13:14

Israel wanted to be normal. They were not a wimpy tribe anymore. Now they were a nation. Nations back then had kings and Israel demanded they get a king. So they appointed Saul, who was of the tribe of Benjamin. By chapter 13 in 1 Samuel Saul has already blown it. Saul wanted war against the Philistines and went against what the Lord’s prophet, Samuel had told him to do. He was supposed to wait for Samuel for 7 days before fighting the Philistines. Samuel did not show in the 7 days so his men began to leave because of the fear they had of the Philistines.

See, the Philistines had 3,000 chariots, 6,000 charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore (a lot of soldiers). Israel did not even have chariots and a lot less soldiers, so it was understandable how they were scared to fight such a well equipped Philistine army.

Saul proved he could not be a good king so years later enter David, a handsome young man; the youngest of eight brothers. (Saul was king for 42 years!) David was a boy forgotten by his father, ignored by his siblings, but chosen by God. He was destined to lead the nation of Israel.
God loves to do that! Choose the wrong people. He chooses leaders from unexpected sources. He chooses people with common outsides and uncommon insides.

In this series, we will see what the kind of heart God can do. Five major incidents in the life of David show the kind of courage, love, worship, forgiveness, and repentance that show why he was destined to lead the county of Israel.

In 1980, play-by-play announcer Al Michaels made a call that even non-sportsfans recognized. He cried into his microphone, “Do you believe in miracles!?” The occasion was the United States hockey team victory over the Soviet Union; one of the greatest sporting upsets of all time. David had killed Goliath in this hockey game.

In 1968 Joe Namath guaranteed that his Jets would defeat the powerhouse Baltimore Colts to win the Super Bowl. Again David delivered and had beaten the unbeatable.
A couple of decades later an unknown boxer named James “Buster” Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson to win the heavyweight championship of the world. David struck again. How the mighty have fallen!

B.C. beat Notre Dame, who was unbeatable at the time….Versailles beat Muncie Central to become the smallest high school team in history to win a state title; the movie Hoosiers was made off this game....Clinton beat Bush who was thought to win in a landslide....Ford cars bested General Motors in sales.... a not so well known man called Tiger won the Masters, and the tortoise outran the hare.

All of these stories have something in common. The little guy beat the big guy. The underdog beat the favorite. It is funny how things like this happen. Have any of you ever experienced anything like this?

In this session we want to look at godly courage in its elemental form by observing David in action. Only by working on the individual components of courage can we develop this godly character trait ourselves. We want to see that real courage is the by-product of some deeper disciplines and convictions. When we develop those we can fight as confidently as David did.

“You come against me with sword and spear and javelin,
but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty.” - 1 Samuel 17:45

The Israelite/Philistine standoff lasted weeks because the armies were encamped on opposite sides of a steep valley and neither wanted to make the first move and attack uphill. Goliath proposed another solution, calling for two champions to settle the conflict with minimal bloodshed.

The natural choice for Goliath’s opponent was King Saul, who himself stood a head taller than anyone in Israel. But he was fascinated by the seemingly unbeatable giant, who stood over nine feet tall, comfortably wore 125 pounds of armor, and carried a spear with a 15-pound warhead. Saul refused to fight, reinforcing the fear he had shown before, (see 1 Sam. 13 and 15).

David, on the other hand, had proven his courage before. He had killed a lion and had killed a bear. As a lowly shepherd boy, David was intrigued by the promised reward of wealth, tax exemption, and the princess’ hand in marriage to the one who could defeat Goliath. Naturally, David stepped forward. The rest, after one throw of a rock, as they say, is history! David defeated Goliath. He beat the unbeatable.

Historical background of the story: (Saul looked like a chump!) Why?

First, Goliath called for a man, but Saul sent a boy. Worse still, the boy was his own armor-bearer. So as Goliath’s armor-bearer assisted him, Saul’s fought in his place.

Second, Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin, whose warriors were legendary slingers (Judges 20:16). The sling was perfect for this battle, enabling the fighter to keep his distance from the giant. David showed up Saul with a weapon the king probably could handle pretty well himself.

Drawing on David’s sources of courage
1. We draw courage from the smaller, past victories God has given us.
Experience with lions and bears gave David courage against Goliath (v. 34-35). In the same way, our past victories can carry us into future battles. Faithfulness in small things makes us ready for big things.

2. We draw courage from the spiritual perspective God has given us.
In Goliath, David saw a spiritual challenge not a physical one. He knew God would give the victory to a man of faith (v. 36-37). We, too, need to see the spiritual realities behind our physical circumstances.

3. We draw courage from the skills God has given us.
David used a sling rather than conventional weapons. We’re all gifted by God in unique ways. When we walk in those gifts and are true to who God made us to be, we have courage (v. 39-40).

4. We draw courage from the supernatural resources God has given us.
Goliath attacked with iron weapons. David attacked with an iron-hard faith in God. Our weapons are the authority of his name, the promises of his Word, and the assurance of his presence (v. 45-47).

QUESTIONS:
1. What is the most courageous thing you have ever done?
2. How would you define courage?
3. How is godly courage different from pride or arrogance?

Courage is a defining mark of those who have God’s heart. Jesus showed us God’s fearlessness, which we should follow. In fact, as Christians we’re to fear God alone (Luke 12:4-5). Fearlessness is a function of true faith, which believes in God’s presence and promises (Heb. 11:6). In the incident we’re studying today, courage changed the entire course of David’s life. His future turned on one fearless act. It moved him from sheep-shepherd to people-shepherd and King of Israel.

Read and discuss 1 Samuel 17.
· If you had heard Goliath’s taunts and challenges, how would you have felt?

· How did David’s response to Goliath differ from everyone else’s?

· Compare and contrast David, Goliath, and Saul. How would you summarize each?

· Both David and Goliath had courage, but of two different kinds. What was the difference?

· What are some areas of your life, no matter how small, that call for courage today? If you have it, what might the future pay-off be?

What are your current life-battles that we can pray about?

This Week's Lesson

Forgiveness and Walking By Faith - July 22, 2007

Ephesians 1:7 “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace”

Romans 4:7 -8 “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him”

The Bible makes it very clear that you and I can be forgiven from our sins. It says if you’re in Christ all your shame and guilt can be erased. It can all be wiped away; erased; a blank slate. This is what forgiveness is; it’s not putting blame on someone who has failed. God has forgiven us for the sins we commit. Every time we sin we fail, but it's okay. If you can grasp this concept of forgiveness you can walk through life with confidence.

God wants to have an intimate relationship with you; He wants a relationship with everyone. To do this we need to be able to make time for Him by sitting down, lying down, standing up, or whatever you need to do to have a personal conversation with God. The thing we don’t need to do is keep Him distant, because He wants to be involved in our lives. He wants us to confess our sins, because every time we sin, it hurts God. And when we confess our sins and ask His forgiveness, He makes us clean and new. Asking for forgiveness involves repentance from us. Repentance is an action: turning away from the sin, and turning towards God. And the more connected we are to God, the more He helps us resist temptation and sin, the less we sin, the more like God we become. The more like God we become, the less we are tempted period. The good news is- you won't have to struggle with the same sin for the rest of your life because God will help you and set you free!

So we all now know that God forgives! He wants to have a relationship with us and to have this relationship we need to make time for him daily and keep him close in our lives.

Think of a time you had to forgive someone you didn’t want to forgive?
Maybe you didn’t want to forgive one of your brothers or sisters for breaking something of yours that you really loved on accident? You know they did wrong, but out of love you forgave them.

How do you feel when you mess up and someone doesn’t want to forgive you?
You know you did wrong and you feel horrible about it. You say you are sorry, maybe shed a tear or two, and they still don’t want to forgive you. It feels horrible! Just remember that if you don’t like feeling unforgiven, nobody else does either. So when someone messes up and you get mad at them, just forgive them like Jesus forgave us.

Colossians 3:13 “You must make allowance for each other's faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”

In fact, Jesus tells us that unless we forgive others who sin against us, our sins will not be forgiven by God! Because holding grudges against others causes a hardened heart. And a hardened heart cannot be fully surrendered to God. So really, holding unforgivness toward others actually hurts YOU. It puts a gulf between you and God. Tear down the walls, and let yourself be free from grudges and hardness. God even says that if someone sins against you, you should forgive them 7 x 77 times! that's a lot of times!

Don’t turn your back on God! Strive daily to keep him close! Don’t allow yourself to give into bad temptations that will pull you away from God. Even if it seems like living for God is a struggle, remember that He wants us to live by faith. If you are seeking God, you can trust that He is working in your life, and taking you down the right path. O

Christians walk by faith. Though we do not always know where the Lord is leading us, if we study the Bible and stay tuned into the Spirit, we will be lead to where God wants us to be. On this path we walk, one thing is certain, we will encounter the lost. We will encounter someone who doesn’t know Christ and needs to know about God's forgiveness. In Luke 15: 11-32, there is a story called the Parable of the Lost Son. If you want to check out the story, you can check it out in Luke 15:11-32.

Is there anyone you are holding a grudge against? Is your heart hardened toward anyone or anything?
It’s better to remove a grudge than to keep thinking about it. No matter how long you hold a grudge it won’t get better. In the Parable of the Lost Son, the man’s oldest son was holding a grudge against his younger brother. He was angry because the younger brother took off and blew all of his money. When he returned home to find his father celebrating the return of his youngest son he was mad and was unable to forgive what his younger brother did.

Are you seeking revenge on anyone who has hurt you?
Seeking revenge is like biting a dog back that just bit you. Your pain won’t go away unless you can forgive them. While Jesus was being nailed to the cross, he asked for God to forgive the men who murdered him, because they didn’t know what they were doing (Luke 23:34). He did not seek revenge on them or curse them, but asked God for their forgiveness.

Also, in the parable of the Lost Son, we see that the son took his share of the money, ran away, and spent it frivolously on parties and other things. After he blew all his cash, he was homeless and hungry, and ended up having to eat pig scraps. After all the bad things he had done: insisted on getting his share of the money, run away from home, squandered all the money, etc.- he didn't think he could go home and face his father. But he decided that going home and working as a servant would be better than eating with the pigs. So he went home to ask his father's forgiveness, and ask if he would allow him to be a servant. But even though the son didn't deserve it, because he really messed up, the Father ran to the son with open arms, and loved him and welcomed him home. The point of the story that Jesus was telling is that God is like the Father who forgives us when we mess up. We don't ever have to be afraid to come home to God, no matter how bad we've messed up, because He will always welcome us home with open arms, and forgive us. And so we ought to forgive others.

Hebrews 10:18 “And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.”