Youth Ministry Starts in Sunday School

Sermon outline

You cannot mature as a Christian while you sit on the throne of your own life; become a living sacrifice by putting God on the throne and taking your place as His steward.

1. Everything for life and godliness, and the daily course correction

   God's divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, so when something is not working it is a knowledge problem, a word problem. Every area of life has a principle in the word to realign to. The Christian life is a marathon, and because we all have a nature that pulls the other way, we need constant course corrections back to the word to stay on the narrow way.

   Illustration: The early moon missions had less computing power than a smartphone, yet reached the moon by making a course correction every ten minutes. At points in the journey they were ninety degrees off, and still they landed.

   “This Christian life is not a sprint, it's a marathon. And on that marathon, every ten minutes, we should have a course correction.”

   • 2 Peter 1:3-9
   • Matthew 7:14

2. Leave the milk and go on to the meat

   By now many ought to be teachers, yet they still need the first principles. Coming forward at every altar call because you think the last week disqualified you is elementary doctrine; once you know you are sealed by the blood, you move on. The meat of the word is the deep things of God, knowing His voice and your new identity, and putting away old ways until new ones become second nature.

   Illustration: As boys he and his brother Adrian, like many others, went forward to give their lives to the Lord at every altar call. Cute in a child, he says, but annoying when a sixteen-year-old throws his toys out of the cot like a five-year-old.

   “We must grow as Christians. We can't keep going onto the same thing.”

   • Hebrews 5:12-14
   • Hebrews 6:1-2

3. Becoming a living sacrifice, by the mercies of God

   We cannot grow or mature until we stop serving ourselves and serve the Lord Jesus; renewing the mind by giving a tithe of our time to the word is the first step. Paul appeals by the mercies of God because God is good, not standing with a sjambok waiting for the next person to falter. It is His love toward us, not ours toward Him, that drives the Christian life, so the voice of past condemnation loses its hold. Romans 12 is for every born-again believer, and to prove His will means to see it manifest to the physical senses.

   Illustration: When people have said the worst about you and God blesses you anyway, it is like hot coals on their heads, because they tried to bring you down and God promoted you.

   “It is not our love for God that drives us forward. It is God's love towards us that drives us forward in this Christian life.”

   • Romans 12:1-3
   • Psalm 37:4
   • Psalm 23:5
   • Matthew 5:39
   • Romans 12:20
   • Matthew 6:33

4. None of these things move me

   Paul, a Hebrew of Hebrews, trained at the feet of Gamaliel and blameless under the law, counted all of it loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ. For him to live was Christ and to die was gain, so there was nothing left to threaten him with. Whatever your education, family or upbringing, from a squatter camp to a silver spoon, if you have God you have everything.

   Illustration: In the films the villain who cannot kill the hero goes after his family, and only makes him more dangerous, because now he has nothing to lose.

   “Even if I had nothing, because I have God, I have everything.”

   • Acts 20:24
   • Philippians 1:21
   • Philippians 3:4-8
   • Isaiah 66:1

5. King or steward: who sits in the throne room of your life

   With a congregant standing in for God, he acts out the believer on the throne sending God off to fix the colleague and the difficult lady, then dragging God behind him like a chariot as his own plans change daily. Then he reverses it: God on the throne, the believer as steward who says yes, Lord, and makes the course correction. When God is King He acts, orders and gives the blessing, and the steward carries the King's authority and resources.

   Illustration: Millions of people watching the same football match, half praying for one side and half for the other. God intervenes in our personal lives, not in universal things like that.

   “As long as I'm sitting on the throne of my life, God can't move.”

   • Galatians 2:20
   • Matthew 6:33

6. The way up in God's kingdom is down

   Getting from king to steward involves a great deal of dying to self. Jesus washed His disciples' feet and said the greatest is the servant. When we are king we are limited by the money in the bank, the resources in hand, the people we have and our own stinking thinking, and we go round the mountain like Israel for forty years on a journey of days.

   Illustration: Early in ministry he fought tooth and nail for an expensive scrolling text screen and against a young woman's suggestion of a new projector. The church bought the projector, it is what they have used ever since, and he went to every person to apologise. Pastor did not make him do it.

   “The way up in God's kingdom is down.”

   • Matthew 23:11

7. Pride is the enemy's inroad; identity is meekness

   Pride has "I" at the centre. Miriam resented that God used only Moses and objected to his Ethiopian wife, and God called her out publicly. Moses was called the meekest man on earth, and he could write that about himself because he spoke from his identity in God. Lucifer fell because he considered himself equal to God. Dying to self is not overnight; it is a decision and then many course corrections, taking the offence to your war room instead of answering back.

   Illustration: Some people are so important that to change a light bulb they just hold it up and let the world revolve around them.

   “When you do that, it's not arrogance, it's identity. That's meekness.”

   • Numbers 12:1-10
   • Numbers 12:3

In this message