Wendesday Night Youth Group: August 19th

Bible has a lot of things to say to us. It actually has everything we need to know in order to have life and even experienced godliness. Okay? So slow and I got a question for you. So do you have any goals?

All right, say that Sloan. Listen, we're talking about goals. I'm asking, do you have goals Sloan wants to be an engineer and E was really wanting to say something and see what it, what is your goal? Okay. Anybody else have any goals?

Call. Alright.

Olin College. Alright Kelly. What's your what? What's a go? You might have Kelly wants to one of Kelly's. Goals is to play piano up here on the worship. Team hyper, what's your goal?

You want to be a black belt in martial arts?

Goals at start here, guitar. Into our biology class, get into a biology class. Is it? Is it a goal? hey, you guys Alright, Emma. What's your goal? Learn how to play piano wrong with your goal.

I don't know what that means, but that's okay. What's your Golden Ox? You want to be Taylor Swift? All right.

Okay, here's the deal tonight. Everybody stay tonight. Everybody eyes on me older guys. You're being watched by younger people. What's your goal?

What kind of car do you want to get? Rx-3.

Mazda 3. That's a goal of Lenin's RH. How many I'm going to stop at here because I need to get, I need to get done. I need to get into this. I forgot how hard this is to teach middle schoolers and high schoolers. Tonight, I want to talk to you about our goal for you, every beginning of the semester. The very first night we have youth group. We have what we call Vision night and are wall signing ceremony. So we're going to see this while over here. There's some names on it. We're going to have some new people sign this wall, but Vision night is about making sure. You understand what we're about here at Webster student Ministries. Okay? and so, really what that is, is that we have goals for you Goals, we have goals. We have, we have somewhere. We want you to end up, okay? And so, I'm going to take you guys through. Not only are key verse which is Colossians 1:28 but I'm going to I'm going to take you through some of the scriptures around it that really helped help me to show you what I really and what we here in the student Ministry want for you. Okay, so we're going to look at Colossians 1:24 through 29 before what? Let me read it first and then I'll pray. Okay. If you had don't have a bottle, if you have a Bible open up, or you can read it up here, I would love for you to have hands on the Bible though. I want you guys to learn how to do this. Alright, here goes. Alright, guy named Apostle Paul talk Talking. He says now I rejoice in my sufferings for you and I am completing in my flesh. What is lacking in Christ Affliction for his body? Affliction being like sufferings for his body. That is the church. The body is the church verse 25. He says, I have become its servant. I have become its servant according to God's commission that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known. That is the mystery hidden for ages and generations. But now revealed to his Saints, God wanted to make known among the Gentiles or non Jewish people. The Glorious twelfth of this mystery which is Christ in you the hope of glory. All right, this is a different version of that we normally read of our r p verse, but this is how it goes. We Proclaim him. Who's he talking about? We Proclaim Jesus warning, everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. I labor for this striving with his strength. That works powerfully in me.

All right, let me pray God. And the name of Jesus, just ask for your help. I pray that this would all these kids. The students from every age would be able to hear you tonight. I pray God for locking in. I pray that they would lock it and that they would hear what you have to say to them. Please use me, please. Use me tonight in Jesus name. Amen. All right.

Okay. so, our goal for you, our goal for you is essentially what we are laboring for, okay, does anybody know what labor means? Say it loud work. Okay. So I want you to think when I say what we labor for and what we work for, I want you to think of a time, maybe you work really hard. Have you ever dug a ditch? Mr. Brian might hire you to work for him. One day up in Cashiers building houses. It might be hard labor. Okay? Is cleaning your room, hard labor. Yes, no yes, no maybe so you don't know.

You know sometimes labor and when it's really hard as when it's things that we don't want to do. That's why I'm thankful for this passage because one of the very last verses that we read is that it's a work. I'm doing this work and it's a god working in me his strength in me because I'm going to be honest with you everything. I'm telling you guys tonight I in Caleb. Caleb the human being standing before you really stinks at okay. Because if I had my way, I would be on the couch with a bag of chips and the new PS4 that I just bought playing Elder Scrolls. Oblivion, or Skyrim? Yeah, I just got Skyrim today. Thank you. So if I had it in me like to do this work to see these things in these goals that I have for it. Like we have for you, I couldn't do it without Jesus. Oh, that's one of the first things I want you to know because Jesus is here in this room and he's working through me. He's working through all these people, we can only do this. Savannah can only do the work that she's doing. Discipling young ladies, Arlene Kroger's with her husband. She can only do that because of the holy spirit in her, okay? Because if you leave it to us, we're going to fail you we're going to stink. Where does stink? Okay? But I want you to understand what God wants us to do for you and and see happened in your life. So here's what. Where do you live? I'm going to show you what we labor to see. Okay, if I say okay All right, I'm going to show you from these verses cuz what we're doing. I am taking the Bible and I am exposing it to you. I don't have anything of myself. I just have the Bible. Okay. So, the first thing I want you to understand tonight older kids and younger kids, we labor to make the word fully known to you. Make the word fully known to you. What is it? What am I talking about? When I say the word?

Say that loud. Thank you Julio. Thank you. We want to make the word or the Bible. What? God we would say it's God's. Words or thoughts about everything? It comes from God. All right, we want God's word, the Bible fully known to make it fully known to you. This is what Paul said. He said I have become its servant of the church is serving. He saying God make me work in labor and serve the church so that

I can he can make the word fully known for that if you ever wanted. Like, right in your Bible, important things is it important thing from Colossians 125 you could Circle in your Bible. By the way, he's saying, I want to make the word fully word of God. Fully known. Is he saying? I want to make the word of Paul fully known. No. Who's he say in the word of who? God. So

he's not pulling stuff out of thin air out of imagination. He's pulling things that God gave him and he's taking the scriptures in the Old Testament and showing the people at the church. Then then, so that's what we're going to labor here for. We want to make, you know, the Bible. So that's why number one, we will have Bible preaching. So I'm going to, I'm going to preach at you. Gus is going to preach at you Savannah's. Going to preach it. You whoever is up here. when they're talking unless they're giving a testimony of some sort, they're going to take the Bible and then preach it to you because we don't want you to just take my or are Imaginative cool ideas out there because they're they're going to fail you. It's going to all the things that we could give you all the things that people could give you. Ideas about life and whatever they're going to fail you only God's word is going to prove true and prove reliable and be good for you. So we're going to have Bible preaching next. We want you to bring your Bibles.

we want you to bring your Bibles, so I'm saying, We want to make the word of God fully known to you. So please, will you bring your Bible? Also with that said, we want you to try reading the Bible by yourself. I'll tell you what, here's something else. I said Bible preaching and I said, I want you to bring your Bibles. I want you to take everything that we say here and I want you to find out if the Bible actually says it. Okay, don't just take my word for it.

I could be lying to you. I'm trying not to buy the way anyone could lie to you to test. So test it with a bottle cuz where we want you to bring your bodies as we want to preach the Bible and then also Doesn't have the word bible in it but this is also why we're going to talk about hard things, 6th graders. I am really sorry. But sometimes you're going to hear words in here and about. We're going to talk about things that are real life like I'm not going to say them now, but you're going to hear things going to be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe they talked about that in youth group, okay? And why is that? Because the Bible actually talks about the hard things in addresses, do these things in that, everybody's going through, whether it's drug addiction, or Other things. Okay, we're going to talk about those things in here because the Bible has things to say about it. All right. So we labor to make the word fully known to you. Okay? Second thing I want you to understand Is that we labor to make the gospel? Clearly revealed for you. Does anybody know what gospel means? Sammy. What does that word mean?

Isn't it like the first four of the New Testament? Matthew Mark, Luke, and John, these are good answers either, right answers. But gospel literally means something else. So you want to get it. The good news. Good news. All right, gospel in its original. Understanding what they would be reading if they saw the word in Greek, that was for gospel. They would think, okay, good, good news meeting like this word means, it's the kind of news that you receive when a king who conquered another land. And he's, he's coming in and it's saying, hey, this is good news about a new king who's going to be better for us. That's kind of what it means. So, we want to make the gospel clearly revealed for you. So that means we are going to talk about who Jesus. Look at this, he Paul start talking about the gospel, that's he says the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to a Saints, God wanted me to make known among the Gentiles, the Glorious twelfth of this mystery which is Christ in. You the hope of glory you might be thinking. Well that doesn't talk about Jesus's life death, Resurrection here and why this relates to the good news because for the people who are reading this, they are not Jews Jewish people. And at that time, it was only thought that it was Jewish people who are God's people, it's only Jewish people they can go to heaven. And here's Paul saying, no, the good news, the gospel actually means, Jesus is yours. Like you can have Jesus living in. You you can have a relationship with Jesus yourself. He saying we're making this known to you. He said, we are bringing to you what God has revealed to us now. Cuz did you know, the whole Bible points to Jesus? All of it, people didn't understand it before like, when they're reading from Genesis. And then they're going to Michael Malachi. I knew it wasn't him. When they're going there and then before Jesus came and he started preaching and then he died and resurrect a few or like, what what are we waiting for waiting for my sign and hears Jesus coming on and it's like, oh wow. Everything's about him. Okay, so We want the gospel to be clearly revealed to you. So that's why I, number one, we will always point you too. Jesus, if you ever hear is pointing to anyone else, Stop it. Now your parents, I'm serious. If you hear in this room, anything that points to Salvation or hope or peace or anything that is outside of Jesus, you hear me, say it or any of these people in the adult. In this room, you tell your parents and I give you permission to leave this youth group. If that happens, don't stay here. If we preach anything that is not Jesus. Do you hear me? Eunice church, Sunday, Pastor. Scott's going to retire and if we get another preacher in here and he starts preaching, something that is not Jesus. Go somewhere else. Stop it. I don't talk about that. So that's why we will always want you to Jesus and we will we will avoid trying to be your savior. Okay, I have a lot of ideas about a lot of things. I have I have opinions about your life, did you know, I have opinions of apple and then he hears a lot of my opinions. And I've gotten, you know, I am, I've been here, how long have I been here? Landed, I got six years. Yeah, I'm going into my seventh year.

You're griping. Okay anyway, I've made a lot of mistakes over my time here, dude, I'm serious. Like, I've made a lot of mistakes. Ask your mom, she worked with me. So here's what I'm trying to say. There's a lot of times that I'm coming, I'm coming to a student's life and I've tried to give my my rep Caleb's remedies and I've tried them in the Savior, I tried to fix stuff. I'm by God's grace, right? Honey, I'm I'm growing everyday. So I'm hopefully today not trying to be the Savior as much as I used to be, try to be. Okay. So anyway, but our goal here in adults. I want us to avoid trying to be the Savior for these kids. We can't stay these kids. We can't save them. Only Jesus can save you. And only Jesus is the one who's going to sustain you in life after you become a Christian. Okay? So we're going to avoid trying to be your savior name in Savannah. You just quiet anymore? It Stop it. Alright, next, we will try to model the gospel to you. I'm not only going to say things that are gospel centered in Jesus centered, but we are going to live them out. We want to leave them out to you. That means, I want to forgive people. I want to forgive, we want it for adults. We got to forgive each other. Like, even even in the big church, we got to forgive. Is everybody's going to make mistakes part of preaching? The gospel is doing it interactions. Nothing replaces the word speaking. It. But we're going to model the gospel to use. Okay. All right. I'm almost done. So we labor to make the gospel clearly reveal to you. And then lastly, we labor to make Christ fully grown in you. All right, we labor to make Christ fully grown in you. That's the whole reason we do this wall sign which we're about to do. We Proclaim Jesus warning, everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. I labor for this striving with his shrink. That works powerfully in me. Our goal for you hear the biggest goal. Like I do, I want you can't have Christ matured in you if you don't have Christ in you. So obviously, I want you to be safe. I want you to receive Jesus. What are you saying, Alexis? Take your hoodie off.

So we we want you to know Jesus and become a Christian. but we don't want it to stop there because we won't, we have a goal for when you leave, we want you to leave this ministry. Hopefully you stay the whole time. Some kids don't, and that's okay. I grieve that. I want. I want especially when you get in high school. Imma be honest. High School is really hard to keep kids in youth group. I pray used to hate but anyway, Our goal for you is that if you're going to sign this wall, we want you under your graduation date to look more like Jesus. Love more like Jesus and even love Jesus more than the night. You signed this wall, that's our goal for you. We want Christ formed in you, we want you to look like you. So that's why I number one we are going to call you up towards your potential if you are in Jesus and you come to a saving relationship with Jesus, you have potential to look like Jesus. And so, we're going to call you to that. That means accountability. If you know that word. All right. Second, we will pray for you. These leaders are going to pray for you. I'm going to pray for you. We are going to pray that God cuz we're going to do all this later, but ultimately, if God's not in it and he's not working, ain't no good. So we're going to pray for you. And then, lastly, we will Express expect great things for you. Like, we're expecting that man. If got, if God gets ahold of you, he is going to turn the world upside down, whatever it looks like in your unique life. We're going to be expecting that for you. and so I already expect that for for, for you and I So if that's why we're doing these things. So hopefully you understand what we're doing, what this semester is going to be about, we labor to make the word, fully known to you. We make the gospel clearly revealed for you. Make rice fully grown in you because our goal is to present you back to God, mature in Jesus. This is my main idea, right? Thing, and idea, I hope that I have clearly communicated so that when you leave here and your parents asked you what was Pastor Caleb talking about tonight? You can say well he said, his goal is to present me back to God maturing Jesus. All right main idea. so, with that said, With that said, before we get to the wall signing ceremony, I want us to have a moment. Okay, we haven't done this before on our walls, signing ceremony night, but I feel led to do it tonight.

I, I want to ask you, I already asked you about what goals you might have, but I want to ask you,

Middle school or high. Schooler adult. Whoever you are. What is your goal for being here? What is your goal for being here? Some of you may not have even gotten here, you may not choose to be here. I get it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't choose to be here, but I'm glad you're here, but I do want to ask you like, is there a possibility? You could actually make a commitment and in a goal for yourself for being involved in the ministry. You're not going to sometimes, you're not going to be able to make it to every youth group. I realize that you got some, you got Sports, some of you have jobs, some of you are going to get too cool for this group and it can be really annoying when everybody's really loud and you want to just walk in. I get it. We got other ways you can grow. We got grow groups coming up this Sunday. We got Middle School bro group that's here. We got high school bro. Group at the White House and other houses. I'm actually I'm going to go in and say this I'm extra for high schoolers. I'm praying about. Starting something at Burger King on Fridays. I know it's weird but it's right at the high school. So I'm going to I'm praying about it. I might like I'm thinking like 3:15 3:30, Zoe comes we might push it a little bit cuz she's got to drive it out of Mountain, but then I'm just thinking like I do I want you to grow up. What is your goal? What is your goal for being involved for being here and being a I want you to have a goal. I want six graders to have a goal. I want you to have an older kids. I want you to have goals for this too. So with that said I want us to turn the Ben. Can you turn those two lights off for a minute? Alright, here's what I'm going to do. I need everybody to lock in for a moment cuz we're going to wear to take a moment. It's not going to be so I'm going to have a song playing. It's actually been a song that's ministering to me as I've thought about these kinds of things for my life, and I just want you to listen to the lyrics and also just Pray through it. And perhaps you might need to make a make a commitment to God tonight about what what your life is going to look like. I don't know so.

It's on me, right? The computer. All right. So we're going to hopefully the sound get it, but don't make it too high because they're upstairs. So here we go. Let's close our eyes and just kind of listen.