Awaken Youth Church
resurrecting a generation
Wednesday Replay: 06.10.09
Jun 11th
Throughout the summer we’re going to be challenging the students of Awaken to take their relationship with God deeper.
Last night, June 10th, we started a new series called “Deeper”.
The challenge from last night can be summed up in one question: “If Heaven or Hell were not an issue, would you even care about God?”
So often our relationship with God has been limited to our ticket into Heaven and Him helping us in time of need. Both of those are part of it, but they are not the whole part of it.
If we say we love God and truly have a relationship with Him:
1. He should have our heart
2. He should have our attention
3. He should have our pursuit
To listen to the message from last night:
And here are the message notes from last night:
Click here to view them
Upcoming Events
Jun 4th
Here are our upcoming events at Awaken:
Senior Share Night
August 5th
Scotland Mission Trip
August 6th-August 14th
We will be having Awaken every Wednesday night through August!
Wednesday Replay: 06.03.09
Jun 4th
Last night, June 3, we finished up our 4-week series on Job. There were 4 specific life lessons we learned from this great man of God.
They were:
1. Bad things happen to good people
2. Integrity
3. Lust
4. Opinions about God
We can all learn a great deal about life and our relationship with God through Job’s example. One of those things is that we can know and understand that God is really on our side.
From Last Night:
Everyone has their opinion about God. Most of those opinions are probably not true. We have to base our relationship with Him upon truth and not those false opinions.
3 specific truths we saw about God through the life of Job were:
- He loves to show mercy
- He loves to bless those in relationship with Him
- He is faithful
Here is the message recording from last night:
And here are the message notes from last night:
Click here to view them
For the Parents
May 28th
Welcome to our new site!
We’ve put this site together partially for you. Over time we will be developing this site more and filling it up with resources and such to help you in your relationship with your teens.
We will also be posting recaps from our Wednesday night services so that you have an idea of what’s being poured into your student’s.
If you ever have questions about the student ministry, please let me know!
Be blessed.
Above All Else
May 27th
Consider: Proverbs 4:23
“Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do.” – Proverbs 4:23 (NLT)
Solomon, the writer of Proverbs is laying it out straight. He made it clear at the beginning of this book that the whole point of Proverbs is to help people in life (see Proverbs 1:2-6).
In Proverbs 4 we have a challenge that above all else we’re to guard our heart.
Well, that’s easy, if Jesus lives in your heart, then you’re all good right? And you only need to make sure you “stay saved”. That’s guarding your heart, right?
Wrong. Dead wrong.
To live out your life that way is limiting the work of God in your life. Giving Jesus our hearts and lives is more than a stay-out-of-hell card. It is life and life more abundantly! And by not guarding your heart, you are giving the enemy an open target to derail that life.
The challenge to guard our heart is not so that we have to follow more rules and do’s and don’ts, but so that we can continue to move forward in this new life we have.
So how do we guard our hearts?
One way is to guard what you look at.
Jesus said in Matthew 6:22-23 “Your eye is a lamp for your body. A pure eye lets sunshine into your soul. But an evil eye shuts out the light and plunges you into darkness. If the light you think you have is really darkness, how deep that darkness will be!”
What Jesus just said there is, whatever you look at will affect you. And He even said that we can be looking at something thinking it’s light, but really it’s darkness… then He said “how deep that darkness will be”. It’s deep because we do not realize it’s darkness. We have let stuff into our heart unreservedly because we think it’s OK when all along it is bringing destruction and working death in our hearts.
This is not a cry for legalistic do’s and don’ts, but for each of us to raise the bar high in our personal lives so that our hearts will be guarded and we will be able to abundantly live the life Jesus came to give.
Because above all else, guard your heart.
This I Know
May 11th
Consider: Psalm 56
David was a man who really trusted the LORD.
He REALLY put his trust in the LORD.
The psalms he wrote make it clear there were several opportunities throughout his life where the only One he relied on was the LORD.
David wrote this in verses 9: “On the very day I call to You for help, my enemies will retreat. This I know: God is on my side.”
God was on David’s side… and He is on yours as well.
David understood and lived the fact that God was on his side.
Did things always go right or exactly how David wanted them to go?
Definitely not.
This passage was actually was written when David had been seized by the Philistines. So he was in the middle of a trial, yet he still declared that God was on his side.
He didn’t say “this I believe” or “this I hope” BUT he said THIS I KNOW. He was sure of who his trust was in. And the One who had his trust came to his rescue.
Identity and Obedience
Apr 14th
Consider: 1 Samuel 15
We’ve been talking about identity over the last month on Wednesday nights at Awaken. We’ve seen how God sees us and what He says about us. We’ve also seen how Jesus paid a huge price for our new identity in Him.
With that in mind…
There was a couple of lines that stood out to me in 1 Samuel 15 this morning and it deals with our identity and our obedience in walking out that identity.
Saul had been instructed to completely destroy the Amalekite nation… everything. And we find in verse 9 that Saul and his men only destroyed what was worthless to them or of poor quality. Anything they felt had value they kept.
Enter Samuel, the prophet of God.
Samuel confronts Saul about this disobedience. Checkout the conversation between the two men after Samuel initially confronted Saul (verses 16-19):
Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! Listen to what the LORD told me last night!”
“What was it?” Saul asked.
And Samuel told him, “Although you may think little of yourself, are you not the leader of the tribes of Israel? The LORD has anointed you king of Israel. And the LORD sent you on a mission and told you, ‘Go and completely destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, until they are all dead.’ Why haven’t you obeyed the LORD…?”
The conversation goes on with Samuel telling Saul that obedience is better than sacrifice, the point we’ve heard many times from this passage, but I wonder if we have overlooked a point that Samuel made to Saul?
Samuel reminds Saul of who he is and who God made him to be… the leader, the king of Israel. The main issue is Saul’s direct disobedience of the LORD’s command concerning the Amalekites, but could it also be Saul’s disobedience in living out his calling and identity from God?
God made Saul to be the king. He put him in that position and God expected Saul to lead. He expected him to fulfill the responsibilities of his calling.
In our own lives, God has given us a new identity. He’s made us a new creation. The very basic expectation is that we LIVE OUT that new identity. Could it be that we are disobeying God simply by not living the new life He’s given us?
No longer should it be about “is this a sin or is that a sin”. It now should be: are we living the life God has created for us? Are we being the person He’s made us into?
Surprise!
Apr 8th
Consider: Psalm 77
What a passage of scripture! Asaph just lays it out. He starts out by simply crying out to God. And cry out he does… he says he does it without holding back. He just goes for it.
Through this chapter we see a man who is in deep trouble (see verse 2). His life wasn’t exactly going smoothly. And it seemed that God had forgotten him (or so is the implication – see verses 7-9).
But then he reminds himself of who God is and how God has acted on behalf of His people in the past. He starts worshiping God for who He is and then reminds God of what He has done.
Check out verse 16: “When the Red Sea saw you, O God, its waters looked and trembled! The sea quaked to its very depths.”
Think about that.
The waters looked and trembled. What an amazing picture.
When the Israelites had left Egypt on their way to freedom were confronted with a barrier, a roadblock (a BIG roadblock). And there seemed to be no other way.
So often we feel like that… maybe we’re up against a wall. It seems like there’s no way out. There are no other options.
Oh, but there are.
Verses 16-19 lays out God’s surprise for Israel.
Verse 19 says “Your road led through the sea, Your pathway through the mighty waters-a pathway no one knew was there!”
A pathway no one knew was there.
So often we rely on the visible or logical solution… when all along God’s solution is there… He’s simply waiting for the moment He wants to reveal it to us. And while we’re waiting… it takes faith and trust on our part…
In this day and age… it’s very easy to find our own solutions to life problems. But with every situation in our lives the LORD has a way prepared for His children. And His way is always the best way.
Peer pressure?
Apr 7th
Consider: 1 Samuel 1-2
I came across something today that I’ve never noticed before concerning the life of Samuel and it has gotten my mind to thinking.
In 1 Samuel 1:28 we find Hannah dedicating her son to the LORD and “giving” him to Eli. 1 Samuel 2:11 tells us that Samuel is left there to assist Eli in the temple and that he became the LORD’s helper.
But then the story rolls over and let’s us know that Eli’s sons “were scoundrels who had no respect for the LORD” (see 1 Samuel 2:12). And for the rest of chapter 2 it goes back and forth talking about Samuel and Eli’s rebelious sons.
So here’s what I’ve been wondering about how was Samuel not affected by Eli’s son’s? Samuel had to have seen what they were doing. They were practically raised by the same man. They may have even lived together. So how was Samuel not affected?
Our immediate answer would be that the LORD protected him. I agree with that, yet I wonder how he seemed to be untouched from Eli’s son’s example. Samuel still had to make the choice. So why did he choose to not let them affect him?
It’s a known fact that children look up to people around them, especially people they spend a lot of time with. And those people WILL have an impact on the children whether it’s positive or negative.
So I’m still wondering how Samuel seemed to be unaffected by Eli’s sons.
Could it be that we’ve given peer pressure too much glory? Could it be that it’s more an excuse than it is a reality? Could it be that those young people who have relationship with Jesus are empowered to overcome, yet when it comes to sin, we quickly throw our hands up and say “oh, it must have been peer pressure”?
What do you think?
It has definitely got me thinking…!