YP Talk—Caleb James
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Let's start with the word of prayer.
Our God and our Father, we give thanks for this day and for what we have been given from Thy Word already in the readings and in the address and the gospel as well. And so we ask Thy help as we open up Thy word one more time.
And we pray that there would be something for us that we can all relate to and be helped by. So we commit thy word to thee and ask for thy help in Jesus name, Amen.
Well, the other day I, uh, read an article online and the title of that article was Where are they now?
It just said where are they now question mark and the article was about some of the more.
Prominent professional athletes of the 90s, uh, who at that time were, uh, pinnacles of society, They were looked up to as celebrities, but their time has come and gone and now they're just kind of nobody.
Umm. It's kind of nostalgic, kind of sad, but kind of intriguing at the same time to see where these people are now, now that they're no longer stars.
Umm, but I was thinking about that question a little bit. Where are they now? And that's a question that can be turned around and, uh, pointed at us as young people, a group of young people here in Kirkland today. Where are we now?
You know, you think about it, and we all know each other pretty well.
We've, uh, more or less been raised together. We're peers, one of another. Umm, we've been raised in a Christian home and, uh, we've been saved the majority of our lives. We've had a tremendous amount of exposure to the word of God. But where are we now in our Christian life and our Christian growth and in our Christian character? Where are we now? I have a little adage.
That I wrote at the front of my Bible once. I'll read it if I can find it here.
It says this.
Thoughtfully to actions. Actions develop into habits, and habits form our character. Habits form our character. It's our daily habits that's gonna determine where we are now and where we're gonna be down the road from now. And, uh, by way of introduction, let's just read a verse and Proverbs chapter 12.
Proverbs 12 and verse 27.
It says the thoughtful man roasteth not that which he took as hunting took in hunting, but the substance of a diligent man is precious. The substance of a diligent man is precious. You know, a person whose diligent is marked by their good habits. And again, it's those habits that form our our moral character as Christians. And so just in the next maybe 5 or 10 minutes, I wanted to.
Just consider a few things that should be habits in our lives as Christians.
Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 5.
These are things, by the way, that I need to be encouraged by just as much as anyone else.
Hebrews, chapter 5.
And uh.
Let's read verses.
1213 and 14 Hebrews 5, verse 12. For when the time ye ought to have.
In futures you have needs that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk.
And not of strong meat, for everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even by those who by reason of use or another translation says.
On account of habit, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Well, here's one thing that we're encouraged to make a habit and that's to use the word of God. Use what we glean from the word of God. It says strong meat or solid food belongs to those who are of full age. We're told to study, to show ourselves approved unto God, a Workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, the word of God. We oftentimes hear that it's it's complete. It has everything that we need. We're told that it's profitable for.
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Doctrine for reproof, for correction, destruction and righteousness, I think, etc. It's a complete whole in and of itself, and it has what we need.
Umm, but it takes time to get a handle on the Word of God, especially for those of us who are younger. It takes time to, uh, become skillful in the Word of righteousness, to use the language of these verses here. And that's where that diligent study comes in.
Daily habitual study of the Scriptures, umm, we heard in the address this afternoon about how important it is to, to have that quiet time each day with the Lord, uh, when it's just the Lord and us. And it's probably good to have that time in the morning. And, uh, we're told, uh, in the scriptures that the Lord, who is our perfect example, got up each morning to gather fresh instructions from his father.
So that's what we get when we study the Word of God individually. But it's good to study the Word of God as a group too, not just as individuals.
Umm, a few of us back home in Spokane have, uh, gotten together in recent years for a weeknight Bible study. It's actually down in a little town called Pullman, which, uh, for those who aren't familiar with the geography of that area, Pullman is a little town that's probably about an hour and a half South of Spokane. And there's a couple of universities there and a number of the, the local young people are studying at universities.
And.
They made it a routine to get together and study the scriptures and when we come together to study the scriptures, we.
Oftentimes run into questions that come up and those questions really expose our lack of knowledge in the Word of God. But we all have a little part. We know in part and we prophecy in part, we're told.
And so we bounce those things around off each other and try to come up with an answer that has a scriptural backing. And sometimes that takes maybe two to three weeks or so, but it's worth it in the end.
As time goes on, I I become more and more convinced that the truth that we're being taught in our home assemblies and the truth that we're being taught in conferences like this really is.
The truth according to God's mind.
My train of thought here, I believe that the truth is according to God's mind, that we've been taught. We've been taught that, umm, once a Christian is saved, he's always saved and he's never lost.
And there's a lot of people that see that differently. We've been taught that Christians aren't going to go through the tribulation, they're going to be raptured home 1St. And I found out recently that it's just the minority of Christians that believe in the rapture these days. We've been taught about how the Christian is not under the law, the Christian is under grace, the Christian is not saved by works, the Christian is saved by grace. We've been taught about.
The truth of the one body and the.
Truth of the Lord's table and things like that. And I believe that that really is the truth according to God's mind. It's not just what you would say that the brethren slant on the Scriptures. It's backed by the Scriptures, so.
We're told an act that the Bereans received the word with all readiness of mind, and then they searched the Scriptures to see that those things were so.
Were taught precious truth in the meetings and I don't, I don't want to make it sound like we have all the answers and and that we have arrived. That's that's not the case at all. But the truth that we were being taught, like I said, I believe it is backed up by scripture, supported by Scripture.
Let's turn over to uh.
First Thessalonians, chapter 5.
For another habit that we should have in our life.
1St Thessalonians 5 and verse 17. This is umm, almost the short, shortest verse in the Bible. It says pray without ceasing. Pray without ceasing. Someone has said that studying the word of God makes us knowledgeable Christians, but praying makes us devoted Christians. And here we're told to pray without ceasing. And I've heard it said that that means to always be in the the instantaneous attitude of prayer throughout the day.
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If we're faced with something, it should just automatically elicit a response of prayer out of us. That's what it means to umm.
Pray without ceasing.
Someone has said that we should have prayer hooks in our life, which are certain points throughout the day where we're just accustomed to praying. Maybe it's when we're doing a tour of some kind or brushing our teeth or when we're driving to work or something like that. That can be a prayer hook. You make it a habit to pray during that time. I've enjoyed a few verses in Mark's Gospel that show us that prayer is really the expression of our faith in God. The Lord himself says have faith in God. And then from there he talks about.
How important it is to pray and to have faith in God When we pray, if we do have faith in God, we're going to pray to him and pour out our hearts to him, like the psalmist says. And the more we pray, the less confident we are in ourselves.
I heard a story recently that I thought was kind of interesting. It was about two guys that that had a pretty fancy wristwatch, a Rolex or whatever, and as they were comparing their watches, they realized that there was a time difference of 10 seconds between the two watches. They kind of looked at each other well, got these nice watches, but someone's watch is probably wrong.
And just then a guy comes walking by and.
He's got a cheap watch. And they said, well, let's ask him what what his watch says. So they asked him and his watch was like 15 minutes off and they kind of laughed at him. And he said, well, this watch has never let me down, not even once because I don't trust this watch.
So Paul talks about having no confidence in the flash, and I have to admit that's something that I really struggle with. We naturally just have confidence in this rather than in God. That's where our confidence should be. Let's turn just to one other portion in, uh, Hebrews 10.
Hebrews, chapter 10.
And uh, let's read verse.
24 and verse 25 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love.
And to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another. And so much the more as you see the day approaching these verses seem to.
Tell us that we should take advantage of every opportunity that we have to enjoy Christian fellowship. It's times like that that we can really encourage one another and be encouraged ourselves. And the Lord always loves it when people get together for His glory, which is what we intend to do this weekend. So these are just a few.
Things that we could incorporate into our lives as habits, and hopefully most of us have already done this.
And if so, then we should not be weary in, well, doing just one other.
Portion umm reading closing in first Peter chapter one using second Peter chapter one.
Kind of cap this off 2 verses in second Peter chapter one.
Versus 10 and 11. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, he shall never fall, for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly.
In the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I just like that phrase there in verse 10. Give diligence to make your calling and election sure. And the next verse goes on to say that if we do that and we're going to have an abundant entrance into the Kingdom of God, let's close with prayer.
God and our Father, we give thanks again for thy word and for the treasures that we have in it. We give thanks that we could open it now for a couple minutes. We pray that these things would be precious to our hearts, Lord Jesus, that we would follow after thee with purpose of hearts. And so we give thanks for thy thy mercies that have been bestowed on us this day. And we just pray that they would be extended into the next two days of this conference. We could thanks again for the exercise of our.
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Brethren here in Kirkland, I have a conference. We pray for blessing to their hearts. We commit this evening into thy hands in Jesus name.
Amen.