FBCF Youth

Romans 1
Everyone knows that there is a God.

Romans 2
We are all guilty before that God.

Romans 3
We are all sinners.

Romans 4
Justified by Faith.

Romans 5
Jesus brought us to God.

Romans 6
Sin=Death, Jesus=Life

Romans 7
The law is and shows us we are bad.

Romans 8
God’s children are not condemned.

Romans 9
Predestination

Romans 10
Righteousness for everyone who believes.

Romans 11
Everyone can be included.

Romans 12
Transform and not conform.

Romans 13
Respect Authority

Romans 14
Don’t judge because you are not God.

Romans 15
Unity in the body is important.

Romans 16
Greet and Love everyone.

For whatever reason, we havent been meeting as often as we normally do.  Or maybe, I was just gone some.

Either way….we are back on track now.

Last wednesday night, we broke it down nicely and got in to the idea of giving. Not so much giving money or things, but giving ourselves.  What a thought…..have you given yourself fully to God?

Acts 20:35 Paul quotes Jesus saying “it is more blessed to give than to recieve.”We looked at that passage, we watched a video, and then we were challenged to give ourselves.

Paul says he does not count his life as worth anything.

Where are the young people who love Jesus and want to give their all to Christ?

I know they are out there…Jesus always has a following.  Lets rise up and give ourselves to His purposes for His glory!

Last week, we did not have Youth at our church.  We were in the middle of a Revival week and therefore Youth was cancelled.  Nevertheless, we had many youth attend the Revival services and God continues to work among our Young people at FBCF.

This past Wednesday though, we did meet.   And it was good.

Each year at Halloween, we let the children carve pumpkins and sometimes the Youth help out.

This year, I met with the Youth in the YouthRoom for about half the evening.  We were in there until about 7:40.  Then we went ouotside to carve pumpkins and have Hot Chocolate and cookies. It was awesome.

While inside though we took a break from Mark.

I asked 3 questions which are appropriate this time of year.

1) Can we legitimately be scared of the dark?  Either way, then why are we?

2) Are there such things as ghosts?

3) Are there such things as demons or evil spirits?

As the culture declines and families do with it, sadly there are more and more young people who are fascinated by evil and many things associated with it.  It chills me to think of so many teens seeing Halloween and things related to witches as such an awesome thing.

We discussed these three questions.  I wish more people could have heard our discussion.

Here are my conclusions:

1) No and No. 1John 1:5 “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.”  The biggest reason we are scared of the dark is because we have trained ourselves to be. And that is bad, because now Satan uses that to make us more afraid and less faithful.

2) No. Ghosts are defined as someone who has come back after dying.  This is not possible.  Hebrews 9:27 “it is appointed for man to die once and after that to face judgment.”  Sorry, but there is no chance. This is God’s world.  The moment you die, you are before Him, to be judged by Him, and to be sent to heaven or hell by Him.  There is no opportunity to come back as a ghost.  Sorry.  Any argument in support of ghosts would have to be explained around this truth.

3) Yes and absolutely.  Satan is not infinite like God.  So, he has armies.  He has demons that work for him and with him.  But let us remember what the Scriptures teach. God is over the demons.  They answer to him and obey him and know him.  Like Luther said, “the Devil is God’s devil.”  So the follower of Christ living by faith has the power of God which is bigger than demons.

May we think about things that matter as we take part in this years Halloween.

Jesus is better.

This past Wednesday night, the YouthRoom took a turn in a different direction.

For some strange reason, every so often when I walk into the room and see 20-30 teens there eagerly waiting to hear me teach God’s Word to them, I become overwhelmed with excitement and energy and responsibility to the duty of being fatherly to them…all of them.  So on Wednesday (after they did a few rounds of ‘improv’ which made us laugh), I began talking to them about how hard life is.  This wasnt intended to be our Bible study.  I was merely talking to them about something on my heart. Well, turns out that took 20 minutes, and we were running out of time. So, I scratched our study from Mark 2 ( will get back to it next time), and I concluded the night following the same discussion concerning ‘life being hard.’

Life is so hard!  Even in thinking that and writing that, I still feel like I fail to grasp its difficulty especially for others.  Today, I preached a funeral for an 84 year old man who is survived by his wife of 61 years. These days must be hard for her.  I know of a 19 year old in Fairdale who is a  mother of two who was just killed in a motorcycle accident.  The driver of the Bike wasnt killed. These days must be hard for him.  Even more, the two children who will now grow up without a mother. Life will be hard for them as well.

My purpose in discussing this with our young people was this: are they ready for hard times?  what will get them through the difficulties?  Will their faith hold them up during the hard times?  Or is their faith so shallow that they will abandon it during the hard times?

As one author says so correctly “wimpy doctrine makes wimpy Christians”.

As the K2G (please see our 2 posts on the K2G on the left side of our youth page) attempts to explain our faith, trust, devotion, & dependence upon God is directly connected to our knowledge and understanding of God and growth in it.

So after that great discussion, we turned to 2 Timothy 3. Verse 1″But understand this. that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.” 

No doubt we are there. They may keep getting worse, nevertheless,…we are there.

If your commitment to following Christ is built only on what good He brings to you and good times, your following Christ will be short-lived.  But if your commitment to following Christ is built on good, rock-solid theology (Bible teaching) from all of God’s Word, then your followng Christ will remain even in the hard times.

2 Timothy 2:13 “if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself.”

Now thats good!

This past Wednesday night in the YouthRoom was powerful!  We came to a short and simple passage that at first didn’t seem like it was going to impact us so powerfully, but it sure did.

Our text was Mark 2:13-17.

This is the passage where Jesus calls Matthew to be His follower.  Now this Mark text along with Luke’s teach us that Jesus calls Levi here. But the parallel passage in Matthew clearly shows us that Levi was called Matthew too.  Levi is Matthew and Matthew is Levi.  They are the same person.

What is so powerful about this passage is that Levi is a tax collector.  He is most likely, a fairly successful and prestigious man.  So far, all the other disciples have been fishermen which tend to be uneducated common people.

This got us to thinking…Who can come to Christ?  Are there any limits?  Is anyone restricted from coming to Jesus in saving faith?

So I asked the youth…Can nerds be saved?  Can preps be saved?  Do you have to be smart to believe?  Do you have to be able to read to believe in Jesus?  Do you have to be a “good kid”?  Do you have to be a “goody goody” to follow Jesus?  Can an outsider be saved? Who can be saved? Who cannot be saved? What then does it take?  Or who can be saved? 

These are the questions we were discussing through this text in Mark 2.

After Jesus called Levi, they went back to Levi’s home and had dinner together with some of Levi’s friends who were also tax collectors and sinners.  Of course, when the legalistic hyper-religious pharisees saw Jesus having dinner with sinners, they couldnt stand it. They went crazy.

They asked the question “Why does He eat with them?”

To which Jesus answers one of the most simple but powerful truths in the Bible “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

So to the youth, that’s who can believe…be saved… and follow Christ — sinners.  Simple as that!  Jesus didn’t come to find the godly.  He didn’t come to find Christians.  He came to find His lost people and then change their hearts.  He came to save His people.

So we concluded in the YouthRoom by stating that the Gospel changes people.   And anyone can be changed by the power of the Gospel. 

I encouraged the youth with this…their youth pastor is not here in fairdale looking for the best kids. I’m not looking for the best-dressed, the prettiest, the most polite, the kindest, the most respectful, or the coolest.  All those things are well and good. They just aren’t the focus of the Gospel.  We at FBCF in the youth ministry aren’t looking for any of those things. Nope.  We are looking all throughout Fairdale for the kids that God’s is saving and for the kids who want to know and follow hard after Christ. 

Now, thats exciting!  Who can come to Christ? Anyone.  And I mean anyone! There are no restrictions. So, leave your old life, forsake your sins, and lets go follow Jesus!