The title of the conference this past weekend was, Where Are You? The year 7 conference in Coventry was wonderful – we had 12 young ones from cities like Manchester, Birmingham, Exeter, London, Cambridge, Bristol, etc. As I was sharing recently concerning this age group via, Year 7 Conference in Coventry this weekend! – we need the prayers of all the saints in the Body of Christ that “our children” who are now “our young people” would become “our brothers and sisters in the Lord”! And it happened – the Lord had a way to touch each one’s heart and to turn them to Him! I have compiled below some of the notes I took at the first two messages (and the last two messages will follow soon).
Where Are You? Hiding from God
First of all, we see in the Bible that God created us in His image and according to His likeness(Gen. 1:26) so that we may be for God! After He created us, God put us in the garden of Eden – so that we may choose to eat the tree of life! God made us in His image just as a glove was made in the image of a hand, and a Coke bottle is made to contain Coke. But Adam became fallen, and we would have made the same mistake / choice! He was tricked by Satan, but God didn’t come to judge or condemn man – He was disappointed with man, but more importantly He was worried about the poison that man took into him when he took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil!
So God came and called out to the man, Where are you?(Gen. 3:9) Man tried to hide from God – who already knew what man had done – but No One Can Hide From God! You may hide yourself from your parents, from your teachers, but “there’s nothing covered up which will not be revealed, and hidden which will not be known“(Luke 12:2-3). There’s nothing that God doesn’t know, and there is no place on earth, in the sea, under the earth, or even in the whole universe – that we can hide from God! God wants to come to us and to seek us – “When You say, Seek My face, to You my heart says, Your face, o Jehovah, will I seek“(Psa. 27:8).
Where Are You? Dead in Sins
This message was about the greatest tragedy and the most wonderful solution. The greatest tragedy is that man fell and is now dead in sin, far from God – there is none righteous, not even one!(Rom. 3:10-12) God’s desire is to obtain a wife – He wants to have a family, and He wants to have a house, a home. For this, He created man – but man fell and all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God(Rom. 3:23). All sinners will be judged by God – the punishment for sin is death(Ezek. 18:4). What we as sinners deserve is death.
Those who do not believe into the Lord Jesus will be judged and will suffer eternal punishment in the lake of fire! Though the lake of fire was prepared for the devil and his angels, whoever does not believe into the Lord will also be there! But the GOOD NEWS, the most wonderful solution, is that the Lord Jesus took all our sins on Himself on the cross. If each time we sin we would receive a stone, by the end of the day we would have tens or even 100 stones. All that burden was taken and bore by the Lord Jesus on the cross. He died on our behalf – we should have died for our sins on the cross, but He took our place to die on the tree. We were His enemies, but He died for us, in our stead.
We should have died – but the Lord Jesus died on our behalf. The nails which were driven into His hands were covered with His blood – the precious blood of Christ which was pure, and which blood now cleanses us from every sin. All we need to do is Admit that we are guilty and Repent, turning away from our sins and turning to God(Prov. 28:13; Acts. 3:19), Believe He is the Savior from sin(John 3:16, 18), and Confess our sins to the Lord(1 John 1:8-9). If we admit, repent, believe, and confess, God will forgive us – we will be justified, and our sins will be wiped away!
[sharing inspired from the recent Year 7 YP Conference, the first two messages. Coming soon: the last two messages]
Lord Jesus we Praise You that such young people could spend such time and hear such word! Lord keep cherish and nurish them to gain them fully for your goal and turn this age!