As a parent you have the most influential role in a kids life. As a youth leader my job is to come alongside of you to help raise your child up in the way of the Lord. This is my effort to help you, by giving you the lesson we will go through on Wednesday nights so that you can see what you’re child is learning and have further conversation with them about it.
“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”
James 2:14-26(ESV)
Have you ever met someone who says they believe in something but they do not live like it?
For example; have you played on some type of team before; and you have one player who talks so much trash about how they are the best, they are gonna dominate the opponents. They go so far as to tell your fellow team players what they need to be doing in order to win, but when time comes to actually play the game, this person who was all talk, failed to live up to what they were saying. Maybe they were not as good as they made it seem. Or maybe they seemed passionate and competitive when they were talking but when it came time for them to play, they seemed to lack energy.
What about as a Christian, have you ever met someone who talks about loving Jesus and they talk about how they want to live their life following Jesus, yet their life looks the complete opposite?
As Christian’s we believe we have been born again. Born again meaning that there was essentially two versions of us. There was the old us, who did what we wanted, how we wanted, whenever we wanted. We lived life by our own rules. We did what we believed to be best even if in reality it was the worst. But then Jesus convicts us and changes our life so much that it is as if the old version of us died, and now we are a completely new person. We do not live any longer the way we used to. Instead we live our lives trying to do what Jesus did. We live by Him, for Him and because of Him.
The idea of being born again means that the Spirit came into your heart and gave you new life. You have a new heart and a new mind meaning you do not love the things you used to love, and you do not think the way you used to think. Now you have the mind and heart of Jesus living inside of you. There is an inner change in who you are.
But can you be born again(have this inner change) and not follow Jesus(live with an outward change)?
“While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Peter and Andrew, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”
Matthew 4:18-22(ESV)
What did the disciples leave behind?
(Answers: Nets, Father, Boat)
What do you think those items represented?
(Answer: Nets-source of income(career); Boat-possessions; father-loved ones in life, friends and family)
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:1-10 ESV
The Bible paints a picture of what life looks when you meet Jesus and it involves a radical transformation not just inside of us but this inner change displays itself by how we live. There is no healthy middle ground for the christian. You must either be cold or hot as Jesus says in Revelation
“So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”
Revelation 3:16 (ESV)
The idea behind being hot or cold, is that hot water was good for healing and cold water was good for drinking. Cold water was refreshing. But the idea that you as a christian, are neither hot nor cold. You are not refreshing to people in your life and your not healing to the people in your life, meant that you were lukewarm. You were like disgusting water that needed to be spit out. Your faith as James said is dead if there is no works.
And I want to close out with this.
If you look at your life, and you examine it. What would you say? Are you refreshing, are you healing?
What about what others would say about you?
Do other people in your life see how you live as a Christian and say “I want to be a christian too” or are you the reason others will never experience Jesus?
If you’re answer is that your life is lukewarm, but you want it to be like that hot or cold water. What you need to do is repent. Turn away from how you’re living your life right now, and instead begin to live like Jesus in everything you do.
This lesson was taught on September 13th
By Austin Neil Gregory
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