Previously...

Note: This page contains the material prepared by Doug, for the year 7-8 guys. it may not be the same as what your leaders have prepared, but the general ideas should be here. =]

[1 john 4]

How do you know that what you're reading here is true? or that what you hear at church or EYF is true?

John says anyone "that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God." Funnily enough, lots of religeons mention Jesus in their bibles, but none of them recognise who he is: that he is the only way, the truth, and the life. [john 14:6]

So make sure that what you or your leaders or preachers say doesn't make Jesus smaller than he is! because Jesus is ALL you need, no more, no less. Any more, or any less than Jesus, and its no longer the gospel.

When we think of love, lots of different pictures pop up in our heads, whether it be our friends, family or food, but all this is NOTHING compared to how much God loves us.

[v9-10] - We reject god, we are enemies to him, and go against everything that he says! But he still loves us, so much that he sent his son to die for us!

There's a reason why that's our theme verse this year: What does it mean for us.. that God loves us so much? Do we leave just leave it there?

[v11] We should love one another!

[1 john 3]

Being a christian is SO MUCH BETTER than not being a christian! Because we know that we're no longer slaves to sin, but we've been freed from sin [as seen @ EYF camp.. galatians 5-6]. SO WHY WOULD YOU WANNA GO BACK TO YOUR SINFUL WAYS!

John has bashed around this idea for a while, but he's repeating it so many times, since its sooo important!

But on another note... we see that its not easy living as christians, because the world hates christians! So Follow Jesus, and rely on him for strength to persevere, and to love one another.

1 john 2

Throughout the whole of 1 John (in fact through the whole bible) there's a big debate on whether you can still sin if you're a christian!

We all know that Sin leads to death. but [1 john 2:1] tells us that we shouldn't sin. but if we do, Jesus is there for us, he dies the death that we deserve, so that we might live.

Why shouldn't we sin? well its simple! Nothing that we do in this world.. [besides building god's kingdom] will be of any worth! check out v17: "The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."

so get on building god's kingdom!

[1 John 1]

Jesus has been around since the beginning, and is now revealed to us, that we may know him.

God is light, in him there is no darkness. Can we live our lives in whatever way we want, and ignore him? If we do, we either don't know him, or we're rejecting him! because in [1 john 1:6] if we don't live God's way, we're kidding ourselves!

So change the way you live. turn back to God. he'll forgive and purify us.

1. Read the passage. (obvious start, but some people dont! ><)

Well there's lots of different ways you can read the bible, and its really up to you, but i'll do a way in which it'll be the easiest for you.

Note: these following 4 points are in no particular order.

The Levi Mcgrath concert was awesome!
But one big thing i learnt from this concert was that there's sooo much we can be doing to help others, but we don't do it? Because we're too complacent.

Looking at his life.. he goes overseas, and works with the poor and homeless, partners with 'compassion Australia' to sponsor kids, and writes all this music to worship god!

and it really challenges us, that we CAN make a difference in the world, that we CAN help others and show god's love to others.

If you wanna do something about it.. then Please comment! :) (you can remain anonymous xD)
and consider sponsoring a child, http://www.compassion.com.au/

Why should we read the bible?

To finish off the series on prayer, we're going to look at another one of Jesus's prayers.
Looking at [Mark 14:32-42] , Jesus prays just before he is about to die on the cross.

In Jesus's prayer, Verse 36: "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."
"Abba, Father": Jesus acknowledges God for who he is: a personal God.
"Everything is possible for you": Once again, acknowledging god's power, and his control over everything.
"Take this cup from me": Jesus's prayer, as he knows that he's about to face some pretty painful stuff.
"Yet not what i will, but what you will": Shows Jesus's obediance to God, in doing everything that God wants, not what he wants.

In this passage, Jesus also tells peter to [38] "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."
As Christians, we're still not perfect people, we'll never be sinless, because we're still in this world, and our physical bodies are weak. they're sinful. No matter how hard we try, there's no way we can overcome sin, and that's why we have to watch [be aware] and pray [rely on God].

Have you ever wondered.. that if god has to take care and love so many people, that he might not have time to listen to all of us, and listen to our prayers?

John tells us, from both 1 John 3:21-23 and John 15:7 that God will grant our prayers if we pray according to his will!

But does that mean we can pray for lots and lotsa money and we'll get it? NO! Check out James 4:1-3. It tells us that if we have the wrong motive, we won't get what we want!

God knows what's best for us, and he'll give us what's best for us.

How does god answer our prayers?

But what if.. god doesn't answer my prayer?

So far in this year, we've talked about:
Quiet Times - God talking to us through the bible,
Living like Jesus - Looking to Jesus as our ultimate example,
Mission and Evangelism - Telling others about Christ,
but we haven't really looked at Us talking to god! and that's exactly what Prayer is: talking to God

In Matthew 6:5-13 Jesus teaches us how to pray.
He first gives us 2 examples of what NOT to do:

Following on from last week's 'Who cares about Mission?' this week our church prepared our Annual 'Mission convention'! Bruce Dipple from SMBC came to talk:

Mission, in its simplest, is making Jesus known to the world. And we are to be:

We also had 3 Workshops today: Overseas Mission, Local mission, and What we can do without going anywhere! i only went to the 'staying home' one... and that was about how Missionaries are human, and need support from home! What can we do?

So they are ways in which us not going on trips can 'make jesus known to the world'. But don't forget about your immediate community: your school friends, etc. They also need Jesus.

We're very honoured to have Simmie come over and give us a little talk / presentation on mission, and what it means!

but firstly... What is mission? Is it going over to a third world country, far far away and preaching the good news to them? It could be! but its also a lot closer home too. think about your English / maths class at school. There's almost definitely people who haven't heard about God's grace before! Keep that in mind.

tells us that God wants salvation to be brought to the ends of the earth, not confined to just Israel, his chosen people.

It is our role to make god known throughout the world! But this isn't just through evangelising, there are lots of other ways to reach out to the world: we only have to look to Jesus for our answer: he was loving, self-sacrificing, always helped others, he preached, built relationships with all sorts of people etc. We don't all have to be missionaries! But the bottom line is that Peter tells us to answer for our faith when the oppurtunity arises. [1 Peter 3:15] so when a non-believer sees us being different... we ARE to tell them about Christ!

But we have to see how urgent this is: Jesus is the only way. If they don't hear, how can they be saved?

[Hebrews 12:1-3]
as the title suggests.. its never easy being a christian. Throughout the whole of Hebrews 11 we see that in the Old Testament, it was through faith in God, that they were saved! and it weren't easy for them either! [like Noah building the ark, Abraham offering his son as a sacrifice etc.]

Our christian life is also a race, and as with most races, there's always obstacles there to throw us off track! obstacles such as sin, or perhaps even busyness / lazyness are often the problem!

So whenever we're stuck in the rough, look to Jesus!

[Luke 10:38-42] - Jesus with Martha and Mary

at EYF, you always hear about serving. whether it be in the music team or A/V, or help design something, help setting up etc. And its great that we serve, because it helps further gods ministry! if there wasn't a music team, it'd be hard to worship god in song! and without that person opening up the door, there won't be no hall to have EYF in! so serving is important.

but...

from Luke 10:38-42, we see that its all well and good to serve, but we shouldn't miss the point.. that listening to Jesus is our main focus! Because he is the one we're serving
One of the way God talks to us, is through the bible, so we can spend time with god through reading the bible!
There's this quirky term: 'quiet times' which pretty much means "spend time with god through reading the bible", and it helps us build up our relationship with him!
as we read little sections of the bible for Quiet Times, [it could be one or two verses, or a chapter.. however you wanna do it] we usually focus on 2 key questions:

There are lots and lots of things that we care about, in our lives. it may be our school marks, or getting the latest DS/PSP game, or our friends! and these things are great! but do we care about god?

Looking at Revelation 4:11, we see that god made everything in this world, so we SHOULD care about him, and give glory and honour to him.

The reason we do all this IS because god created us, and we do all that to give Glory and Honour to him!