A Pure Heart, a Good Conscience, a Sincere Faith
First B Jackson
2018-05-20

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Discovery class probably maybe even still be going down there right now in my office on the third Sunday of the month. That's discovery class. Oh, yeah. Wanted. Our tables and our

So I wanna hear just ended up, and it's a major part of the fabric of this church, so I wanted to give you all an update on on what we did this year and what it's all about. I wanna his mission is reaching boys and girls with the gospel of Christ and training them to serve him. And these kids announcement from four years old to fifth grade are the next generation of the church. So we take it pretty seriously, discipling them and teaching them the the scriptures and and what God says about how to live, and we do it through games and scripture memory and a large group teaching time. And and we have a lot of fun doing it, and we have a lot of really wonderful volunteers that help many of you who are in this room.

So there are an army of volunteers and stuff poised all around the sanctuary right now. And as soon as Ray's done with his sermon today, we're gonna tear this room apart and set up. You wanna grant me, there's gonna be a 30 foot long track running down the middle here. All the kids spent the last six weeks making cars, and we're gonna have timers and slow motion video and music, and and it's gonna be a blast. And then we're gonna celebrate also with some awards, lots of awards for the kids that worked really hard this year.

So by the numbers, this year, we had 32 club nights over the course of forty weeks that represented 56 of these kids' time or lives. We've reached 74 total kids from six different churches. So it's not just the first b ministry, it's a valley wide ministry. 34 volunteers helped us out and did a lot of work this year. We really love all the work they do and love their heart for kids and appreciate what they do.

And all told, over 2,500 verses were memorized by the kids. We pray that those verses are going from their heart head to their heart. But those scriptures are in their in their heads, and we we we trust that God will use them in their But on that note, we are also building our team for next year's Iwana starting now. So if you have gifts of technology and marketing and promotion, we can use a tech person in Iwana. If you have a a patient mentoring and encouraging spirit, we could use you to help listen to verses for kids.

If you think you're a a teacher and you wanna help teach and and share what the Bible says, we need teachers for all the age groups. So

So this is a chilling experience. I'm gonna invite first Georgia. If y'all don't know Georgia and Sam, they're twins, and she was born two minutes before. And I'm gonna invite her in first. She was they have both accepted Christ, and they have been tracking together.

I won't keep you here very long about that. But then in between. So they're going from fifth into sixth grade. So that is going from Oana and then to the possibility of going to wildlife and then young life. Someone like, Ally, if you'll come forward and talk about wildlife and young life, here's your mic, and I will go change clothes.

Good morning. Good morning. So it I'm just curious. Does anybody have a young life background or been to young life when you were younger? That's awesome.

Yeah. So it's always fun to see different connections with Young Life, and life's a worldwide organization. So I'll just tell you a little bit about Young Life if you're not familiar with it. Because I'm sure you remember what it's like to be a teenager. It's pretty tough.

There's academic pressure, trying to navigate the social scene with your family and your friends, and then still trying to figure out who you are and what you believe, it's not easy. And you need people around you to help you figure that out. So Young Life focuses on fun, friendship, adventure, and a sense of significance. So Young Life goes to where our teenagers are and in hopes we can form friendships with them, no strings attached. And in doing so, we hope we have the privilege of telling them about a god who loves them like crazy.

And I'm sure you are aware of this, the reality of Jackson is a majority of our teenage friends don't go to church. They don't have a faith background. They don't have someone asking them questions about faith. And so Young Life pursues those kids that don't go to church. And our hope is that we form friendships with them, introduce them to who Jesus is, and then invite them to church, invite them to join a congregation in a church body for their life.

So part of that experience is what we call Young Life Camp, and that's just a summer trip we take with middle school kids and high school kids. This year, we're going to Oregon for middle school and Colorado for high school. And if you can imagine a five star all inclusive resort, that is the experience of Young Life Camp. It's incredible. And they get to hear the story of the gospel all the way through.

And many of them, for the very first time, they've heard it and get to process it through it with their friends. So in doing that, we are hosting a fourth of July themed color run. It's a five k. It's on June 30. It's Saturday before fourth of July, kinda get everyone pumped up, patriotic theme.

And it's just a way for kids to raise money for this trip. So there's two things you could do. You can run-in it or walk in it on June 30. Or if you're unable to, you can go to the website. You can just donate.

And the kit and all the money that we raise from this particular event will go to kids that are gonna be going on our summer trips. So just a side note too, Firstbeat is a huge supporter of Young Wife and really believes in reaching out to teenagers who don't have a faith and just wanted to thank you from the bottom of our heart. Thank you for caring about teenagers, and our community really means a lot. So thanks.

And a sincere faith. But today, sincere faith is gonna be important because he mentioned some insincerity today. So a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. He also goes on in the first chapter to say, now this saying is trustworthy and deserved a full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He came to save sinners.

Salvation is important and it's forefront in this book. And Presires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, and truth is very important in Timothy. He has already mentioned in the first chapter that there are certain persons, certain persons, certain persons, he calls them that three times, and then he says they're false teachers. And so there's some sort of heresy that is happening in Ephesus where Paul has left Timothy. And in the midst of that, Timothy is trying to set up a church that glorifies God and lifts up the truth.

Says, I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God. It's important. The household of God is really important, which is the church of the living God. And Jesus said, I will build my church. Of and then having a complete reversal and seeing all of the scripture through the proper lens and seeing that it's all about Jesus, he goes into this very high Christ centered, Christ centered him.

To several years later. But Paul says to them, be careful attention to yourselves. First of all, stop your show. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all of the flock would working in complete submission to the spirit of God. He was seen by angels.

Was excuse me. Brother church. Seen by angels, he was a plumb line, and it's about our whether we're moral morally lax, let's say, or absolutely perfectionist and pure. Okay? There is a plumb line, and society at times tends towards moral laxity.

And then sometimes it swings towards absolute you know, more perfectionistic holiness maybe would be a good term for it. But that a lot of times in times of tremendous moral laxity are the times where some heretical cult person, somebody will come in and pronounce and say, oh, this is terrible. This is terrible. And the reason is because you've got it all wrong about God. This is where you need to be, and then swing back towards perfectionism.

And I know I have slide on it, but I'm gonna just go ahead and demonstrate. So let's say we got one circle. It's right here. And this circle is the physical realm. We can things we can see, taste, smell, hear, feel, touch.

Alright? These are things that we can explain by science and know about Now these things overlap right here. Do you get that? I had a professor in the college that called that the neglected middle. We do pray.

Why do you pray? The benefits of knowing God, spiritually. By devoting himself to the deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons through the insincerity of life. Now this is a hard one for me to get up here and preach because I very much the first century, in this case, the people who were insincere liars whose consciences are seared, they forbid marriage. They just forbid.

They said, we don't marry. Now it might have been that they forbid marriage