Testify when you're young

Introduction

This week at Midweek we are starting a new series called TESTIFY. My hope is that your faith will begin to walk with you, that you will begin or continue to be encouraged to share what God is doing in your life, or that you will finally start looking at the working of God in your life so that when someone asks or God urges you to tell about what He is doing in your life and what Christ did for you then you will be ready and willing to share and invite them into a relationship with Christ themselves. For the next four weeks we are going to look at a few people in Scripture that did just this. They were in tune with what the Lord was doing in their life and they lived it in a way that glorified Him and the result was others coming to know God. Tonight we are going to look at Jeremiah and God’s call on his life…EVEN WHEN HE WAS YOUNG.

God has a plan (v5)

God told Jeremiah that he had a plan for his life BEFORE he was formed in the womb. When we understand that God goes before us and has a plan for our lives, we walk in confidence. Obviously there were doubts and if you read through all of Jeremiah you will see that he has those throughout his life as a prophet of God, but the constant spiritual support helped him along to proclaim God’s word to a stiff neck stubborn people.

However, Jeremiah does something that makes the difference…he has constant communion with God and that’s where he found his strength. When you rest in God you are given a strength that lasts.

God gave Jeremiah a message to tell and still people rejected him and even kidnapped him to take him to Egypt. Sometimes the truth is polarizing, but that doesn’t mean that it is wrong. It is through testing that faith grows.

God’s chosen vessels are often long in the making. What is God preparing you for? He is working in the preparation even now.

God disbands lies (v6-7)

What was Jeremiah’s response…doubt, excuses, and timidity. This could come from many places but God laid before a young Jeremiah a big plan for his life and it SCARED HIM TO HIS CORE. What happens when someone asks us to do something that we are uncomfortable doing, scared to do, or feel like we are uncapable of doing? We make excuses! When we walk in God’s plan for our life we are going to be asked to do things we know we can’t do ourselves.

How many times do you think to yourself that you are too young or too inexperienced? Or has someone ever told you that you’re too young to do something? Or have you thought how old do I have to be to be a disciple of Christ? How old do I have to be to walk in God’s plan for my life? God prepares you through your obedience and your mess ups.

God replaces lies in your brain with truth from His heart. God cares about you. Since He cares about you, He desires for you to know what He says about you. Why? Because that’s what is actually true about you! If God tells you something, run with it and replace the lies in your brain with the truth He instills in you through His word.

God is with you (v8)

God told many of His servants to “fear not” or “Do not be afraid” including Abraham, Moses, Daniel, Mary, Simon, and Paul. Fear is one of those things that will stop you in your tracks (Tell story about a friend Scotty being scared). God ALWAYS supports and walks with you in the mission assigned to you.

Now don’t get this wrong. Know that Jeremiah was hated for the truth he proclaimed to the Israelites. They didn’t like to hear the truth because it called them out in the things they were doing wrong (idolatry, child sacrifice, inhumane things that were disgraceful to God). He was often in physical danger because of the truth he proclaimed that God told him to say…but he survived all of these difficulties because God was with him and sustained him.

God equips you (v9-10)

God gave Jeremiah some clear instructions on what he was supposed to do. Uproot and break down the corrupt in the nation so that God can undertake the building and planting of the new. In the spiritual life, God has to first remove the sin before the sinner can begin to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Response is important when God has spoken to man, and Jeremiah, though perhaps slow and unwilling, was nevertheless by no means deficient in this respect. Jeremiah’s existence had purpose to it, and so does yours. You are not just a coincidental biological occurence here on earth. God has a plan for your life and He desires for you to walk in it, even in the days of your youth.

Because God has a plan for us, we can walk in purpose and on purpose. God can use your youth for Him and for your benefit.

Conclusion

There is a need in this world that God desires to meet with your life and testimony.

God has formed you in your mother’s womb and has thought of you before the foundation of the world. (Eph. 1:4)

God has called all of us on a mission. We all may live a different life with different experiences and different backgrounds, different friends, different influences, different preferences, different dwelling places, different family situations, different struggles, and over and over there is difference in each of us and God has made each of us uniquely and has a unique purpose for each of us. However, through all of that difference we have the same command and commission from Jesus. (Matthew 28:18-20 “And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”)

1 Timothy 4:12 “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”