Ashfield Presbyterian Church Youth Group
 

Let's walk the talk!

FRUITLESSNESS = HYPOCRISY

There is an incident in one of the Gospels that shows that Jesus was not pleased with fruitlessness.

"Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, [Jesus] went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, 'May no one ever eat fruit from you again'" (Mark 11:13-14)

In the Bible, the fig tree is often used as a symbol for God's people. With a powerful illustration, Jesus was teaching that God curses hypocrites - people who claim to be his but don't bear any fruit for him. 

Think about how blessed the Israelites were. Chosen by God, he protected them, cared for them, gave them his law and finally sent them his Son. But rather than live for him in a productive way, they rebelled, resisted and finally rejected the Saviour, Jesus Christ. What a tragedy!

Think about how blessed you are. Are you responding to God's goodness and bearing fruit for him, or are you a hypocrite?

Some Christians look great from a distance. They go to church, read the Bible and do all those easy-to-spot activities. But when you get up close and examine their lives, you just don't find any fruit. They aren't really any different from unbelievers.

Let's not be like that. I encourage you to sit down today with one or two Christian friends. Perhaps we can do this at Youth Group tonight. Ask yourselves, "Are we serious about the Lord and about being productive for him? Or are we just being a bunch of hypocrites?"

Tonight at YG - during 'the spot - we're going to look at how we can demonstrate our faith in action in one of many ways. Let's walk the talk everyday!!!

Stay tuned....look forward to seeing you all tonight.

God bless.

Posted November 11, 2010 by email 
 

Food for thought

'God creates us free to be selfish, but he adds a mechanism which will penetrate our selfishness and wake us up to the presence of others in the world, and that mechanism is called "suffering". To put it another way, pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Why must it be pain? Why can't He wake us more gently, with violins or laughter? Because the dream from which we must be woken is the dream that all is well. The most dangerous illusion of them all is the illusion that all is well. Self-sufficiency is the enemy of salvation. If you have no need of God, you will not seek Him. If you do not seek Him, you will not find Him. God loves us, so He makes us the gift of suffering. Through suffering we release our hold on the toys of this world, and know that our time lies in another world. For believe me, this world that seems to us so substantial, is no more than the shadowlands. Real life has not begun yet.' - C. S. Lewis

Posted November 10, 2010 by email 
 

Recap on the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit and the Bible

  • The words of God, both the Old and New Testament, were spoken through men by the power of the Holy Spirit. (2 Timothy 3: v16).
  • The Spirit is the only one who knows the thoughts of God (1 Corinthians 2: v11).
  • The Gospel message can only be understood and accepted by those who have God’s Spirit (1 Corinthians 2: v14).


The Spirit and the Old Testament

  • In the Old Testament the Spirit was given to specially chosen individuals (eg. Moses, Samson, Saul and David) to carry out specific tasks— eg. leading God’s people and prophesying God’s Word.
  • The gift of the Spirit in the Old Testament should not be applied directly to Christians in New Testament time. The Old Testament recognises that a better and greater gift of the Spirit to God’s people was to come (Numbers 11: v29; Ezekiel 36: v24-27).


Baptised with the Spirit

  • The New Testament shows that Christians fulfil the promises of the new Spirit people - people who are baptised by the Spirit into one body, are cleansed and given new birth by the Spirit, and are controlled by the Spirit who lives in them (1 Corinthians 12: v13; Romans 8: v9).
  • The first baptism of the Spirit took place on the day of Pentecost. This led some of those who heard the gospel to repent, to receive for themselves the gift of the Spirit, and to join the church (Acts 2: v37-41).
  • All Christians are baptised with the Spirit, who have repented and believed in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and have given Jesus lordship in their life (1 Corinthians 12: v3).

Posted November 4, 2010 by email 
 

This Friday: 6 November - Anar's Chicken & gelato

...Don't forget about the 7pm start on Friday... we're meeting at church and will go from there to Anar's for dinner and we'll get some gelato afterwards

Posted November 1, 2010 by email 
 

PY Camp

Click here to download:
SCPromo.pdf (1.43 MB)

Hi guys, PY camp is comping up soon. 

Quick deets:It goes from Boxing Day to 1 Jan 2011, and will be at the Stanwell Tops.  The cost is $330 for the week and from what I hear, it's a really good week and lots of fun.  I'm not sure when rego closes but last year it was booked out early so if you can make it, you should register asap.

Posted November 1, 2010 by email 
 

What's on this term

November 5 - Anars is the place to eat in Croydon Park according to Vaughan, Croydon park also is the home of pure gelato!

November 26 - Community Service: details tbc

December 10 - End of term party

Posted October 13, 2010 by email 
 

PRAYER POINTS

Remember to pray for Amy and Tali as they start HSC on Friday!!

Posted October 13, 2010 by email 
 

the Holy Spirit...

Well, this term we are looking at the Holy Spirit and how the Holy
Spirit works in the bible and in our lives.

You may have heard a lot about the Holy Spirit... or very little. The
two foundational truths about the Spirit are that
1. the Holy Spirit is a person, not a force
2. the Holy Spirit is God.

The Spirit's work is all about glorifying Jesus Christ, not ourselves
so as we go through the studies it will be helpful to remember and to
think about these things!

Posted October 13, 2010 by email 
 

Why do the Israelites get 'special treatment' as God's chosen people?

Well, this is a really important question because the Israelite nation is the focus of the whole Old Testament (and the New Testament as well but I’ll get to that later)…

  • Let’s start with why they weren’t chosen.  The Israelites were not chosen because they were strong or mighty.  The book of Deuteronomy 7:7 says “The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples”.  So why then?
  • God’s way is to use the unexpected and the weak so that, through these things, people might come to see that it is God’s power at work.  If God used great people to do his work, we might make the mistake of thinking that this guy is great, rather than thinking that God is great.  God says this in the book of 1 Corinthians 1:27-31, “so that no person may boast before him”.  So God chose the Israelites to reveal himself not just to the Israelites, but also to the nations of the world.
  •  The other main point is that, all the way back in Genesis 12:1-3, God gave a very special promise to Abram (later called Abraham).  In summary: God would make Abram into a great nation, God will make his name great, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through Abram.  God did give the Israelites special treatment but not just so he could mete out punishment on anyone who isn’t an Israelite, he did it because God knew that, 2000 years later, Jesus would be born as an Israelite and it is through Jesus that God had his plan to save the world, including us. 
  • That brings me to another question, what about people who lived before Jesus came?  Well, God did give salvation to those people in lots of ways.  For example, in 1 Chronicles 16:8 & 24 Israel was meant to be an example to other nations, so that when foreigners saw the great things that God did for Israel, these foreigners too would know God.

The salvation we have in Jesus is better.  Because of his forgiveness, we are now God’s chosen people.  Galations 3:7 says “Understand then, that those who believe are children of Abraham”.  So, to get back to the question, the Israelites do have special treatment in the Old Testament, but this is because God wants Israel to be the means of teaching the whole world about Him.  And the best thing is that we are now God’s chosen people, the new “Israelites” when we are believing in Jesus.

Posted September 8, 2010 by email 
 

CY Combined Youth Praise Night

Praise_night_flyer10

Hi guys,
Next week (the 25th) we'll be heading to Cornerstone Youth's Praise Night at Concord Public School.

So, we'll be meeting early, 6:30pm at the church car park so we can head down there.

Check out the flyer, and get back to me (Vaughan) or Madi if you can make it!

Posted June 18, 2010 by Vaughan Smith