Youth April 13 Polluted by the world

Youth April 13 Polluted by the world So when I was a teenager way way back when we didn’t have google or bing. We had hours in the library and we had these ancient things called card catalogs and wait for it……. Encyclepedias lol. We had to thumb thru pages and pages of things to find info to write papers and do research. There was no get your phone out and google a few good answers in less than 10 seconds and quote them. There also weren’t at our fingertips reviews and info on books. If you were forced to read a book and didn’t like reading you went to cliff notes. These were summarized 20 page versions of 250-300 page books. You would go to the store and find cliff notes and know that you would get the majority of the book and hit all of the important parts. The book of James was cliff notes to the Bible. If you want to know how to live as a Christian then you would look at the book of James before you read the entire Bible. And, if you are even lazier than that you can just look at the two verses I share today. James says here is the bare essentials: James 1:26-27 If anyone considers himself religious The original word here was Threskos which actually meant devout Christian. So if anyone thinks of themselves as a devout Christian --- The athletic director at Pedro was once a dean. When Coach Sapp was a dean he would take things away that weren’t permitted like hats or cellphones and things like that. He would then start a dialogue with the students that would be 3 questions. That student had to answer those 3 questions before the end of the day in order to get their things back. One kid had his hat on in the cafeteria, I watched him walk over and take it. Towards the end of lunch the boy walked over to ask for his hat back. Dean Sapp told him answer three questions for me. He looked down and saw a Dale Earnhardt #3 belt buckle. So the questions started. 1 – Who is the main sponsor for Dale Earnhardt? 2 – What is Dale Earnhardt’s nickname? 3 – What color was his car when he drove for Wrangler? The kid couldn’t answer any of them so Dean Sapp told him he was embarrassed for him and he should take his belt buckle too. Lol Don’t you think God feels that way? Like hey you go to church and you play the Christian card when you can but you can’t even control what you say or how you say it? And yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue Oh man, it doesn’t say to be perfect, it says to keep a tight rein on it. Controlling it because reins in a horse’s mouth were meant to control them, so too your mouth and the things you say, the way you say them controls all of your body and all of it’s actions. He deceives himself and his religion is worthless. I spoke at a youth camp on a native American reservation a few summers back. Tara and I went and spent a whole week there. We had to fly to one city and take rental vans to the camp. Well, there were a lot of things that went on at the camp. We would wake up each morning to the kids standing around the flag wanting to watch it be raised on the flagpole, then breakfast and a morning Bible study. Then lunch and lots of games in the afternoon. Kickball, basketball, paintball, you name it we played it. I may or may not have stretched the rules to a few of the games in order to win. We drove a couple of the kids home at the end of the camp in our van and while we were driving the boy was just talking and we asked what his favorite parts were. Ofcourse it was some of the games and some of the crazy late night stuff we did. Then he turned to me and said I will never forget how much you cheated at the games. Lol Sometimes things outweigh the important things. He could quote my messages word for word but they were nullified by cheating at the games. The flip side of that is we can do some really great things, showing love and compassion to those who are hurting and turn around and erase it with our words. Not just vulgar language, but the way we say things and when we say things. Gossiping and rumor spreading are part of it too. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: I know it’s confusing because God knows we aren’t perfect, He doesn’t expect us to be but he does ask for atleast the bare minimum which is this: Devout Christianity that God accepts as pure is this, wow so if we get down to the bare essentials here they are: To look after orphans and widows in their distress I use this illustration a lot but think about Birthdays and Christmas. For the most part you give gifts to people who are going to give you gifts. You do that for 2 reasons: 1 – You don’t want to look cheap or like a loser when they give you a gift and you have nothing for them in return. 2 – It’s an even swap, you know that spending that money is bringing a return because they will be spending money on you as well. What if we take care of people in need who can’t help themselves and more realistically probably can’t repay you in any way. I am sure you have at some point heard the quote, :It isn’t really giving unless there is no way it can be repaid.” And to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. And the toughest part of this scripture. To keep yourself from being polluted by the world. I absolutely love youth ministry, I would do it til I am 80 if I was effective. I don’t see myself anytime soon wanting to just do adult ministry, youth ministry is important. But, there are parts of it that are easy because teenagers are real, they are honest and sometimes brutally honest. I can ask 20 adults how they are on Sunday morning and get fine, good or great. I can ask one teenager and get the short version of something bad going on in their life. It is also before they are completely decided on everything. So they are making decisions on what they believe what their morals are and what they truly believe. Then, college happens and early adulthood happens. That’s when all of the changes usually take place. They start to believe differently than they did before, the things they stood against they now indulge in. Why? Because there are new influences in their lives, they have a lot more freedom and well they start living different. True religion, true devout Christians keep themselves from being polluted by the world. What you watch, what you listen to and who you allow to influence you are all very important factors in just how acceptable your religion is to God.