YP Sing Address—P. Jennings
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Well, I guess I can start off by saying I have good news and I have bad news. I'm very used to talking to young people. That's the good news. The bad news is it's never more than two or three at a time.
And so this is an experience that I'll have to get used to.
First of all I might ask, is there anybody here with a stopwatch?
OK, set it for 15 minutes. Does it have a snooze?
OK, well I thought tonight I'd share a little bit.
Something that I just recently enjoyed and if I have time, something that I enjoyed a long time ago. You know, I was reminded today, yesterday, of what it was like when I was your age. I saw Darren walking around the motel or, you know, in the morning. We were, we got here on Friday night and and on Saturday morning I saw Darren walking around the motel. He didn't look like he had anything to do but read his Bible.
And I remember those days.
And those days have changed for me.
To where I've got four kids and.
All kinds of demands on my time. And so if it wasn't for the fact that I go to the assembly meetings on Wednesday night and I go to the assembly meetings on Lord's Day, and I try not to miss an assembly meeting, I'm not real faithful with digging.
The wells in my personal life anymore.
And I have to confess that, and I'm willing to confess that to you. I don't want to be anything more than I am in front of you all. I wish I read the word more, but with four kids, a job, a house to remodel.
A dog to chase. Sometimes you just, you're just tired at the end of the day. Well, thankfully.
There's one thing we do as a family. We go to the assembly meetings and I can't tell you how many hundreds of times I have gone to meeting worn out, both physically.
Both emotionally, sometimes pretty low spiritually, and almost every single time the Spirit of God revives my soul.
That's what the assembly is worth if you want to grow and develop in your Christian lives.
Make it to the assembly meetings. You guys have the privilege in most of your homes with him having family readings and that's great. Of course, that's wonderful. And many of you have grown in your soul to the point where you really want to read the word of God and the Lord is going to feed your soul. There was a time in my life where I had a lot of time. I had time to read the Word and I had time to read ministry. And so if I don't give this introduction too long, maybe.
I'll be able to give you something that I got when I was your age, something that really encouraged my heart. I'm afraid we're going to have to hit the snooze here.
I'm going to turn to First Peter Chapter 3 and give you something that we got as we were going through our assembly meeting on last Wednesday night.
Verse Peter 3 and verse 15.
This this, this, this verse. I guess this chapter has some significance for me because as we've been going through this chapter, the last few months of my my work life have been rather stressful. I've been going through some real, real testing in my soul and and had some difficulty maybe.
Accepting the place that my boss is taking and maybe a place that I used to occupy at one time. And so it's been some things happening and it's been very difficult to go through. And I think that my, my boy here, Clayton, he could, he could vouch for the fact that there's been some sometimes when dad hasn't been very happy. And you know what the word is, the word of God is always the solution. The word. Our solutions for our problems are always found in the word and and the Lord was faithful again to me.
But I just wanted to share this verse 2 verses 15 and 16 but sanctify.
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The Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you, a reason of the hope that is within you with meekness and fear, having a good conscience, that whereas they speak evil of you as evil doers, they may by be ashamed that falsely accuse you for your good conversation in Christ.
Well, this first struck me as we were going through it in our assembly meetings last Wednesday night. And I'll have to apologize for some who are sitting here who've already heard this, because as the Lord ministered it to me, I ministered it to them along with other things that were being ministered at that meeting. And I, I came to realize that this is the whole key to our happiness, whole key to our a faithful walk. It's the whole key.
To our testimony before the world, sanctify the Lord God or the Lord Christ in your hearts. I realize this might have somewhat of a technical significance. The Lord Christ, I'm not going to go into that side of it. Maybe that has to do with his coming glory and and just being occupied with the place that he's going to occupy in this world to have that in the enjoyment of our souls daily.
And that truly will help us. But I want to ask you, young people, as I will ask myself and try to continue to ask myself.
What's in your heart? What's in my heart? What what? What am I filling it with?
Is it Christ? Is it the Lord? Do I have a heart that's filled with the Lord? Is he special to me? And we throw around these words heart, and maybe we don't really realize the significance of it.
The hardest, the place where we we we keep those things that we dearly that we dearly love. It's the part of our being where maybe our affections are drawn.
Said Does the Lord occupy that place in my heart does when I go to work and I know that my work may be very stressful that day, but if I go to the Lord to work with the Lord set apart.
In my heart, I've got a special place for him.
Is that going to make a difference when I come across situations that just plain don't suit me? Is it going to help me to have the Lord so near that I realize, you know what, Whatever was bothering me really doesn't have that much significance?
It's so wonderful to know that I have him.
Let's just go on and read.
Well, I'll just be ready to give an answer to every man.
The reason to every man that asketh you, the reason of the hope that it is within you, with meekness and fear or reverence.
The Lord Jesus is in my affections if I am drawing from Him.
My strength, my joy and my happiness. Is it going to be hard if I'm in the enjoyment of the Lord? Is it going to be hard to tell others about Him?
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. These things are not hard to understand. Have we found it difficult to witness to the world those we come in daily contact with? Have we found it at times when we've been presented with an opportunity to share the Lord, that we just didn't have the right words? I have many, many times. But you know what? When the Lord is set apart.
In my heart.
My heart speaks.
There's been a few times when that has happened by the grace of God, and I know it's true.
Let me tell you also another thing that I believe is true about having the Lords set apart in our hearts, having a special place for him that nothing else occupies. What about the world? You know, I could stand up here and read verses from scriptures which tells you how far you're supposed to stay away from the world. And I could, I could mention the different pitfalls that the world has to.
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To hinder.
Your Christian life and your Christian development. I could sit here and name those things.
But you know what?
I came to realize that this verse has another significance, and it has power. If Christ is in my heart, there's not room for anything else. Do you want to live?
Really, above this world you want to be like the Eagles who rises above everything that this earth has to offer. Sometimes that's what happens in our Christian life, and it happens when we sanctify the Lord God in our hearts.
Having the Lord there, just kind of.
There's not room for what this world has to offer. I gave this illustration and meeting the other night. I have AI have a lawn that is very bad. It's the soil is bad. We just moved there a couple years ago and the grass doesn't grow very good. There's a lot of bare spots and I I want to keep sowing grass.
I could spend my money on weed killer and try to kill the weeds, but I know the real answer is to keep sowing grass because as the grass thickens.
It strengthens and the weeds die off. The grass will crowd out the weeds. And dear friends, that's what I want to convey to you this afternoon. This evening you want to walk with the Lord. And do you want to have you want to walk?
In Christian liberty not being.
Sucked into all of the pitfalls the world has to offer, Sanctify the Lord God in your heart. Plant the grass in your mind, the Word of God. Keep reading the Word of God and you will find that the world.
Can very well lose its attraction when the heart's filled with something else.
The end of verse 16 is the result.
This sanctifying the Lord God produces one thing.
How many young people here want to have a good conscience?
How many, how many of you want to have a good conscience? I do. Adam and Eve in the garden were a mess when they had a bad conscience before the Lord. If we sanctify the Lord God in our hearts, it will produce a holy walk, and it will produce a conscience that's at liberty before the Lord.
Do you want to have liberty in the Lord's presence? Do you want to be able to come to Him?
And not have to worry about what the influences of the world has done to your, to you and to your life.
Continue to sanctify the Lord God in your heart.
And there's another thing that this this wonderful instruction will do.
It will produce a good conversation.
A good manner of life. You know what? If you have Christ in your heart, there is absolutely no way you can hide it. There is no way if you have sanctified the Lord in your heart that others are not going to know it. You know, we can talk about being a good testimonial all we want.
But if I'm trying to be a good testimony, if I know all the rules, if I if I know what's pleasing to the Lord and what's not pleasing to the Lord, but I have no relationship with the Lord and I don't read his word and I don't stay close to Him and he's not in my heart.
What we're producing is really.
Not Christ.
But if Christ is in my heart.
Is the fruit of the Spirit.
His and Christ is going to let me just read this because I don't want to mess it up.
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Is that they falsely accuse your conversation in Christ.
Anything that is seen in your life and in my life before this world as a testimony, if it's not Christ.
It's not worth anything.
Do you want to live Christ?
Sometimes we in our assembly, we talk a lot about living Christ and talk a lot about the new life and and I sometimes I get it all confused and I think man, how can I live Christ until I came to this verse and it became very simple.
Is Christ in my heart? Am I walking with the Lord? Is He precious to me?
If he is, we don't have to worry about the results. They will be automatic. The life of Christ will be lived in you and in me, and it can't happen any other way. You know, we can live under legalistic principles. We can. We can know what's right, We can know what's wrong.
And we can try to do them, but that's not living Christ.
Christ can only be produced as we are in the enjoyment of Him.
Good. Now I have something else to share and it's kind of connected and it's kind of not. This is something I got from CHM when I was your age. Take it for what it's worth. It's not mine, but I enjoyed it. We're going through Ephesians chapter 4 and I'm going to start walking over on this. I'm wearing a path over there. We, we, we've been going through Ephesians chapter 4 and we're, we're going to get, if the brethren move along, we're going to get to the, the gifts.
And we're going to, we're going to read about the different gifts that Christ as it were, dispersed. And this room is full of the gifts that he has dispersed.
And I enjoyed something that CHM wrote and I've enjoyed it now for a long time. And that is if we turn back to the Old Testament, and this is unrelated to, I'm sure, to what the breastplate is all about. So it's an application, not an interpretation. But if we looked back into Exodus and we, we, we turned to the, to the place where the breastplate was the priest.
Where this breastplate something on his heart and it covered him and it had 12 Stones.
And each one of those 12 Stones were all alike, right? They were all the same.
Is that correct?
Where all those 12 Stones the same on that breastplate?
No, they weren't. They were all different. And you know, I don't know anything about gems. Probably Timothy could probably help us out. So I'm not going to go into any technical stuff, but each one of those gems was of great value.
And so when God designed the breastplate, he put some he put individual gems, 12 on the breastplate, on the on the breast of the priest place of affection, and they all shown in a different brilliance.
They all had the capacity to shine in a different brilliance. Not one of them was alike. Not one of them had.
A. Not one of them is more beautiful than the others. If you I don't know of anything about gems that I'm sure that if you put them under the light and you looked at each one, you would find that each one had a different quality that you could value and appreciate.
And I'm sure that's the reason why God put him on there.
Some of them were.
Maybe they were more prominent. Maybe it was if there was a deep red color or a deep green color, it would be more prominent than a, you know, somewhat clear colored gem.
But they were all of value. And this again, this is not something that I came up with and I trust that it's OK if I share something that I enjoyed, but it's we're just going to apply it to the to the the gifts that are found in the body of Christ.
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Each gift has a special beauty.
And I like to think that each gift is a reflection of Christ. It's a beauty.
That Christ has given for us to shine for Him. You know, there may be gifts that are more, one more prominent than the other. We've seen them this weekend. We've seen brothers whom God has called to be a tremendous blessing to the Lord's people. And we are so thankful for them. You know what I wouldn't want?
To leave my family.
And to go traveling about.
So that I could encourage the Lord's people. Oh, yeah, there's a side of me that would enjoy that I have. I, I think I have a little heart for the Lord's people. I wouldn't want to leave my family to do that.
No, God has called some to do that. He has placed some in the body that are that are more prominent than others. They have a role to play for your blessing and for mine. Some of the some of those gems.
They didn't have a whole lot of eye-catching brilliance.
And there's one last point that I want to make.
What happens when you take that breastplate and you put it in the dark?
What happens when you put the breastplate in the dark?
Do you lose?
The value do you lose the glory of those of those gems? It takes light to bring out the the beauties of those gems. And when those priests came into the holiest of all, or into the holy place and the candle, the candlesticks were lit, and the gold all around the temple.
Around the Tabernacle. What happened to the gems? They they erupted, you might say, in brilliance. Because of the light.
And that's the way it is, young people, with the gift that God has given you.
If it's not in the light.
You're going to lose. Your brethren are going to lose. It's not going to shine for the blessing and for the glory of God.
The Lord is sanctified in your heart if he has, if he's set apart there, if you have a place for him, what you say, I'm not going to let anything else occupy that that place.
Of affection and appreciation belongs to Christ.
Well, if you do that, there's going to be light.
In your life.
And God is going to use what He has given you to reflect the glories of Christ in ways that you may never have realized or possible. But let me remind you.
Those that breastplate didn't reflect anything in the dark. And if we make the choice to live our lives for the pleasures of this world.
Which unfortunately, I have been in many groups of young people like this before, and many of them are in that condition. They've decided that they're not going to avail themselves of the light of God's Word.
They're not going to avail of themselves of the presence of the Lord Jesus on a daily basis in fellowship with Him on a personal level. They're not going to take their youth and spend the time that they have when they're young, when they don't have when they're older.
It's going to affect the way that that little treasure God has given you for his glory and for the blessing of the body of Christ. It's going to be a it's going to affect the way it's, it's going to affect your usefulness. It's going to affect the way that that beauty shines. It's all for Christ. We're not here in in this world to make anything of ourselves. We're here.
For the glory of the Lord Jesus.
And so may I just ask?
That you can seriously consider continuing because I think I'm in a group of young people that really do have a desire to please the Lord. But I just want to continue. I want to continue to encourage you to sanctify the Lord God in your heart. Let's pray.