Good evening church truly blessed we are to be here on tonight. And just before I get started I would just like for you all to bow your heads with me as I got into prayer.
Dear gracious father I thank you for this day that you’ve allowed me to see. I thank you for waking me up this morning and lying me down last night. I ask that this word that I speak tonight may acceptable to you. I ask that you use me and guide me in your way. In Jesus name I pray Amen.
One day while I was at school just sitting and thinking to myself in class, the Lord came to me and said, “To receive your blessing you’ve got to be faithful.” I started wondering and asking what he was trying to get across to me. For many nights I prayed and asked God to show what he was trying to tell me. Well is just happened that one night after I’d just come out of bible study Min. Lisa gave me a call asking me if I would speak for their youth revival. I thought about it for a day and then accepted and furthered my study into the sign that in which God had given me. As for the youth tonight, I would just like to tell you that to receive your blessing you’ve got to be faithful.
Tonight, I will focus mostly of on the tenth verse of the second chapter of Revelation. And as we look at this tenth verse we find that John is giving the first warning to the church. At this time the church is going up against persecution. John’s second warning comes later in the letter to Pergamum. Smyrna around this time was suffering at the hands of the synagogue of Satan. These people of the synagogue of Satan where local Jewish citizens who opposed the church, meaning that they didn’t agree with the practices of the church.
Now many of you here tonight know my family, “The Carters” and some of the troubling situations we’ve been through. There have been times were the Lord has tested our faithfulness to him with death. Many know of the situations where my grandmother has been in and out of the hospital and yes there was one particular time where we all thought that she would be dead. But, through our faithfulness to the Lord he has kept her here. And as I look at the tenth verse of revelation the 2nd chapter I find the question showing up, “what does it mean to be faithful?” Well through the past experiences of my family I find that being faithful means to be committed. Committed to what you might ask? Why staying committed to the church and doing all the things that God wants you to do. Meaning being willing to go out and do things that you wouldn’t normally do.
I think about the times when church is over and it’s time to clean up the church (and I know that many of the younger youth aren’t accustom to cleaning) and how easy it is for the youth to mess up the church but we don’t want to clean up what we messed up. If we’re going to stay committed to God then we’ve got to respect his house, no matter what your house or bedroom may look like, we’ve got to keep his house clean. Like one of the members at my church use to sing “Get your house in order”. I always think about my other grandmother telling me that I’ll miss out on my blessing if I’m not faithful. For in Hebrews the 3rd chapter it says that “Moses was faithful as a servant in all of God’s House...but, Christ is faithful as a son over God’s House.” We’ve got to be like Moses and be faithful as a servant in Gods House.
We can see that in this world today many of our youth are trying to turn the church into a hip hop scene. That’s cool in all, but we come to church for one purpose and that is to serve God. Yeah, we can serve God through many different other ways, but we’ve just got to make sure we’re not sending out the wrong message to other youth. We see that today that there many gospel rappers that are coming up in the church and there’s nothing wrong with that. Just the other night on TBN Pastor TD Jakes was discussing about the up in coming Mega-Fest and how many of the youth’s life were being changed after they left Mega-Fest. But later on in the show one young man came on and he started rapping and everyone was really into his rap, they started dancing and shaking all around. I was quite shocked when some of the older people in the audience started dancing close to how most of the youth dance today. What I’m trying to say is that what they was doing because they was doing it for the Lord, but we’ve got to watch how much of that stuff we do in church because then we’d be attracting the wrong crowd into the church. I also have begun to see how many of us feel rejected from the church simply because we may not dress a certain way or act a certain way. We can’t let other get into our heads, we don’t come to church to impress others, we’re there for one purpose and that is to serve God. We’re missing out on our blessing because we’re thinking about what other people think.
Tonight I’ve just simply come to encourage the youth to be loyal to the work of the Lord simply because when you do what is right you’ll reap the benefits later. Like one song writer said “You ought to let go and let God have his way.” One of the ministers at my church preached one Sunday and said something that was so true “The more you stay humble to the Lord, the higher he’ll exalt you.” What he was saying was that the more faithful you are to the Lord the greater your reward will be later.
One night in bible study, my Bishop was talking about how to develop a powerful prayer life and that sometimes when we’re asking God about all of our problems and need, that we need to just stop and listen to God and then he started talking about how when we need certain things answered, how he’ll send messages through other people. Well earlier that day I was at Pastor Mark Carter’s house and as we were sitting there we started talking about what I would be trying to get across the youth. But, while pastor was talking he said something that really stuck in my mind, he said that GOD DON’T BLESS NO MESS. I remember the times when my choir director at church would ask me to sing on a Sunday when she knew that, that previous Saturday we didn’t go over any of my songs and for some of you it may be hard to believe, but I really didn’t want to sing that day. But I remember it would always end around to my grandmother and she’d come and tell me “you better use your talents while you can cause the Lord can take them away just as fast as he gave them to you.” Now I use all of my talents because I know I was blessed with them.
Today as I look at many of the younger musicians, I see that they’re all about gett’in the money for playing. This I something that God would take away your talents for. I mean yeah it’s alright if a person just wants to bless you with a love token for using your talent with them but don’t let I get to your head. What I’m basically trying to tell you is not to get caught up in these worldly pleasures. As I leave you I would just like to read to you this passage from Mathew the 6th chapter and the 19th through the 21st verse, and it says “ do not store up for yourselves treasures here on earth…but store up for yourself treasures in heaven…For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” For just like the members of Smyrna, they were spiritually rich but on earth they were poor. For their riches were in heaven waiting on them and I hope that, that’s where yours is. God bless you and remember that you can’t receive your blessing without being faithful.
