So last Monday or so (I could check but I’m too lazy for that) I posted a bit of the sermon I was planning on preaching to the youth group at my church. I figured I’d give you the ending of that sermon for two reasons. Reason number one is that you might be interested. Reason number two is that I haven’t posted anything for some time and this is easier than coming up with something new and exciting to say.
With that heartfelt intro ringing in your ears, read on.
There are a few different ways I hear from God without actually hearing Him. The first way is, surprisingly enough, similar to the old WWJD bracelets. The difference here is that I don’t ask the air hoping for divine knowledge about what Jesus would probably, possibly, do if He were in a situation kinda similar to this one. What I do is find out what Jesus did. The more cynical among you is probably thinking that what Jesus did two thousand years ago is really not all that applicable to the entirely new, never before encountered situation that you’re currently going through. After all, this is the twentieth century. That’s, I don’t know, years and years after Christ.
King Solomon is claimed to be the wisest man who ever lived. When he was old and crotchety, he said, “there is nothing new under the sun.” When he said that, he wasn’t saying that there wouldn’t be any new inventions. What he was saying is that people are people. There aren’t any new motivations for us, no new sins, no new joys. What he had thousands of years ago is what we have today. And since most of the real problems people have that they ask God about aren’t related to computer’s crashing, but more related to where to go, what to do, and how to fix this problem with that person, I feel pretty confident in saying that what Jesus did two thousand years ago is very applicable to today.
Finding out what Jesus did is surprisingly easy. It’s written in a convenient book format you can find not only in most book stores, but in the dressers of many hotels as well. It’s called the Bible, but you knew that already. If you read that, especially the red lettered bits, you’ll know what Jesus did when this or that happened, and, what’s more, you’ll start to get a picture of not only what He did, but the kind of person He is.
Combined with all this reading, I pray. Reading the Bible lets you learn about God’s character. Praying lets you see that character in a different light. It’s like, to use a horribly trendy reference, reading someone’s blog and then actually talking to them. Not quite the same, but you get the picture.
Of course, all that reading and praying takes time. You don’t just become best friends with someone overnight, and Jesus is an especially complicated someone. So what do you do in the mean time, you know, between now and when you know Him so perfectly that you’ll just do the right stuff all the time because you and Christ are joined at the hip. You ask people. People you respect, people who’ve known Christ a long time. The old people you see in this room aren’t here in a weird attempt to regain their youth or to prove to you that they’re still cool. They’re here to help you make good choices when you don’t have all the information you need to make those choices. They’re here because they care about you and about where you end up in life.
I’m sure you’re sick of hearing this by now, but junior high and high school are big, disturbingly pivotal years in your lives. If your last year in high school is anything like mine was, people will be constantly asking you what you’re going to do. Go to college? Get a trade? Join the circus? There are hundreds of different choices, all with pros and cons. But is that really it? Is picking a career the big pivot point in your life? No. Don’t get me wrong, it’s big, but a lot of other things are big too. Like: who you hang out with after school, what you do with your free time, whether to drink, or smoke, or do drugs, and what to do about this God guy you may or may not be talking to. You make thousands of small decisions every week, and all those small decisions add up to form your life. They add up to form you, to mold who you are. And it’s those decisions, more than where you go to college or, frankly, whether you go to college, that concern me.
Right about here I went and gave this horribly personal insight into my own walk with God, and how I need people to talk to to help me hear from God as much as they (they being the students I was talking to) do, and that when I tried to do it on my own it didn’t work out so well, and that when I finally figured out I wasn’t living right it wasn’t easy to change because I had spent years and made millions of small choices forming me into a person I didn’t much like. Anyway, I said all that, but I took several minutes and didn’t use the massive run on sentence you just read.
We now pick up my sermon after the personal bit, just in time for my grand finale.
And that was my grand finale.
With that heartfelt intro ringing in your ears, read on.
There are a few different ways I hear from God without actually hearing Him. The first way is, surprisingly enough, similar to the old WWJD bracelets. The difference here is that I don’t ask the air hoping for divine knowledge about what Jesus would probably, possibly, do if He were in a situation kinda similar to this one. What I do is find out what Jesus did. The more cynical among you is probably thinking that what Jesus did two thousand years ago is really not all that applicable to the entirely new, never before encountered situation that you’re currently going through. After all, this is the twentieth century. That’s, I don’t know, years and years after Christ.
King Solomon is claimed to be the wisest man who ever lived. When he was old and crotchety, he said, “there is nothing new under the sun.” When he said that, he wasn’t saying that there wouldn’t be any new inventions. What he was saying is that people are people. There aren’t any new motivations for us, no new sins, no new joys. What he had thousands of years ago is what we have today. And since most of the real problems people have that they ask God about aren’t related to computer’s crashing, but more related to where to go, what to do, and how to fix this problem with that person, I feel pretty confident in saying that what Jesus did two thousand years ago is very applicable to today.
Finding out what Jesus did is surprisingly easy. It’s written in a convenient book format you can find not only in most book stores, but in the dressers of many hotels as well. It’s called the Bible, but you knew that already. If you read that, especially the red lettered bits, you’ll know what Jesus did when this or that happened, and, what’s more, you’ll start to get a picture of not only what He did, but the kind of person He is.
Combined with all this reading, I pray. Reading the Bible lets you learn about God’s character. Praying lets you see that character in a different light. It’s like, to use a horribly trendy reference, reading someone’s blog and then actually talking to them. Not quite the same, but you get the picture.
Of course, all that reading and praying takes time. You don’t just become best friends with someone overnight, and Jesus is an especially complicated someone. So what do you do in the mean time, you know, between now and when you know Him so perfectly that you’ll just do the right stuff all the time because you and Christ are joined at the hip. You ask people. People you respect, people who’ve known Christ a long time. The old people you see in this room aren’t here in a weird attempt to regain their youth or to prove to you that they’re still cool. They’re here to help you make good choices when you don’t have all the information you need to make those choices. They’re here because they care about you and about where you end up in life.
I’m sure you’re sick of hearing this by now, but junior high and high school are big, disturbingly pivotal years in your lives. If your last year in high school is anything like mine was, people will be constantly asking you what you’re going to do. Go to college? Get a trade? Join the circus? There are hundreds of different choices, all with pros and cons. But is that really it? Is picking a career the big pivot point in your life? No. Don’t get me wrong, it’s big, but a lot of other things are big too. Like: who you hang out with after school, what you do with your free time, whether to drink, or smoke, or do drugs, and what to do about this God guy you may or may not be talking to. You make thousands of small decisions every week, and all those small decisions add up to form your life. They add up to form you, to mold who you are. And it’s those decisions, more than where you go to college or, frankly, whether you go to college, that concern me.
Right about here I went and gave this horribly personal insight into my own walk with God, and how I need people to talk to to help me hear from God as much as they (they being the students I was talking to) do, and that when I tried to do it on my own it didn’t work out so well, and that when I finally figured out I wasn’t living right it wasn’t easy to change because I had spent years and made millions of small choices forming me into a person I didn’t much like. Anyway, I said all that, but I took several minutes and didn’t use the massive run on sentence you just read.
We now pick up my sermon after the personal bit, just in time for my grand finale.
And that was my grand finale.
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