Youth of The Nation 16 June 2002
West View Methodist Church Andrew Riddin
Aim: To encourage congregation to re-evaluate and react on the way in which we view and interact with, those appear to be hopeless.
Scriptures: Psalms 119: 1 – 10
Mark 5: 21 – 34
Ephesians 6: 1 – 4
Illustration: (Play “Youth of the Nation” by POD) This song paints a different picture for different people. Invite people to share what the song says to them. (Allow Response). To me, this song paints a bleak, but accurate picture.
Even though the theme title for my sermon is “Youth of the Nation”, I believe that all I have to say here is applicable to persons of any age. Let us break the song down, and see what we can discover.
A common element, is the feeling of despair and loneliness. Death and random acts of violence are frequently experienced. Despite being in a crowd, utter loneliness is experienced. A deep need for love and acceptance is experienced.
A stereotype is depicted. The singer says he knows what others will give as the reasons for the violence and death. Simply because “they” are the youth of the nation. What else would you expect?
The age of innocence becomes younger and younger. Here we have a 12 year old, who is experiencing such despair and self-esteem, that she seeks love in all the wrong places. The stories of the boys, tell of sexual promiscuity. They tell of the desperate need for love, affirmation and positive, nurturing attention.
The song tells of abandonment, of a desperate search for acceptance and of rejection. One cannot but help wandering, who will get the blame? Will God be blamed? Or parents? Or siblings? Or society? Or satan?
There is a need for truth. There is a need for confusion and doubt to be laid aside, and the truth spoken and taught. There is a need for hope.
Read Mark 5: 21 – 34:
Can we create hope for the hopeless? Can we grow hope? Can we buy hope? Can we offer hope?
I firmly believe that we are able to offer the greatest hope of all times, to the hopeless. The gospel of Jesus, is the greatest giver of hope which the world has.
I believe that as the mere presence of Jesus was enough to inspire the bleeding woman with hope, without her even having to ask, how much more will he give us hope if we should ask him?
I believe that hope is the same as any other gift from God. It is available freely to us, and all we have to do, is ask for it.
I believe that we, who call ourselves Christians, have a responsibility to the communities we serve, to be offering a place of hope.
West View has launched Ithemba, House of Hope, as one of the ways of providing that hope. Together with other ministries, West View is successfully implementing programmes and courses to offer hope.
But, programmes are not the only requirement for providing hope to the hopeless. There is more. The problem with programmes, is that they become the responsibility of a handful of individuals. Once programmes are in place, and running well, they are left in the hands of the “leaders”.
There are other responsibilities involved as well. These responsibilities carry more of an individual nature. They are responsibilities that each of us can carry out, and provide hope.
I want to look at four areas where we can offer hope.
1. H = Hopeless
2. O = Oppressed
3. P = Persecuted
4. E = Eternity
Let us examine each of these areas.
1. Hopeless:
We see in our Scripture reading from Mark, an example of the way in which Christ inspires hope in people. This woman, had been bleeding for 12 YEARS! She was at this stage pretty hopeless. She had been to doctor, after doctor. Specialist after specialist. She had been given thousands of prescriptions, none of which had helped.
Then, news of the approaching Jesus, inspires her with hope. She has heard of this Jesus, and what he has done for others. She dares to hope again. She reaches out, and touches Jesus’ cloak, receiving instant healing.
The response of Jesus is important. Jesus looks around to see who had touched him. He wants to pick out in this multitude of humanity, ONE person who touched him. When he found her, he did not condemn or rebuke her. He gently spoke to her, and rewarded her hope. She left that place with a new sense of hope.
This is the way we need to react to those who are hopeless. We must not condemn those who feel hopeless. We must gently support and encourage them. We must offer them Christ, who gives hope.
2. Oppressed:
Many people in our world today are still oppressed. Some are oppressed by governments, others by society, others by cultures, others by prejudice. Many are also oppressed by satan.
How do we react to oppression? Oppression in the physical realm is relatively easy to react to. We cause a scene. We stand up and make ourselves heard. We fight against the injustices. We elect people who we believe will right the wrong of oppression.
How do we react to spiritual oppression? We do the only thing we can do. We do the possible, and leave the impossible for God. He specialises in making human impossibilities possible. We pray. We stand in the gap, and intercede on behalf of those who can’t intercede for themselves. If we do not have the gift or calling of intercession, we need to find trustworthy people who do. We can get permission from the oppressed, to take their name to an intercessor. Our prayers and petitions are effective. When we are sincere about our request, God grants our request.
3. Persecution:
Persecution and oppression go hand in hand. The way we react to persecution is similar to the way we react to oppression. We should make a stand against physical persecution, and take a spiritual stand on spiritual persecution. We pray.
4. Eternity:
How do we bring hope for eternity? We offer our lives as living sacrifices to God. We live our lives in a way which will glorify Him. We offer hope for eternity, by offering a form of evangelism which speaks louder than our words. We can evangelise people more effectively through our lifestyle, than through our words. When we offer people the living Christ through our lives, we give them hope for their eternal future. They can make a decision to follow God, and then their eternal hope is secured.
Conclusion: Challenge:
In conclusion. I want to challenge each of us to go into this week, and seek just ONE person to whom we can offer the hope we have found in Christ. Be it someone who totally hopeless, or someone who is oppressed, or someone who is persecuted, or someone’s eternal hope, we can each find someone to whom we can carry the message of hope that is Christ.
Maybe you need to allow someone to cry on your shoulder. Maybe you need to change to way you interact with those around you. Maybe you need to spend more time in prayer. Maybe you need to be taking a stand on an issue.
My challenge to us, is that we would go out and make a difference in hopeless lives, by doing what we can do.
Let us go out and bring hope to a hopeless world.
