Saskatoon Christian Centre

We had a great time last night...

Now that you've heard PETRA, your appreciation for RockNRoll is changed forever!!!!!!!

Here are the notes from last night's Exelerate:::

BEAT THE SYSTEM
PART 1

“All In”

Intro:

This 5-week series isn’t about peer pressure, although we’ll talk about peer pressure.

This series isn’t about standing up against the world, although we’ll talk about that too.

BEAT THE SYSTEM is basically a ‘how to guide’. How to beat the church system.

Let’s face it…you already know there is one.

You’ve been there before. You’ve jumped through the hoops. You did what you thought you had to do…to make the ‘important people’ around you happy.

In your own way, you’ve developed a strategy to BEAT THE SYSTEM.

But this is what I’ve realized from watching teens try to beat the church system year after year… They are living in an illusion, or a false reality.

Sometimes we mistake ‘not getting caught’ with ‘getting away with’ something.

But when it comes to God, Jesus, Church, the Bible, and right living…there are no shortcuts. It’s not a system…so you can’t beat it. And the simple reason for all of this is – all of these things are relational. And you can beat a system, but you can’t beat a relationship. Dig?

None-the-less, I watch people try to beat the church system (it’s not a “church system’, though) almost all the time…only to fall flat on their face 100% of the time.

So what this series will endeavor to do is this:

• It will explain the normal behaviour & thinking of youth group attending Christian teens.
• It will describe what church teens try to do & think to beat the ‘church system’.
• It will guide you through what to do to beat the system most Christian teens buy into.
• It will help you learn how to be real with yourself…and with God.

Message:

There are some things in life we just don’t like. Things like asparagus, olives, cabbage, yams, slow drives, people that can’t make up their mind, shoveling snow, country music. And that’s just a short list of things I really don’t care for.

I love my church, and I believe I work that greatest job in the entire world…but one thing that I really don’t care for are “church kids”. Weird, isn’t it?

Now when I say “church kid” I’m not talking about a Christian kid who loves Jesus and makes a few bone-headed blunders from time to time, but is on a real and genuine journey to be all that they can be in Christ.

They have an honest relationship with Jesus and that is COOL. That is what I’m after!

When I say “church kid”, I’m also not talking about the kid that is not sure what he or she believes, so for one reason or the other they are trying the whole church thing out for a while. They are trying to discover what’s up and what they really believe. That is also very cool. We want those types to come through the doors of Exelerate.

No, when I say “church kid”, I’m talking about the kid that has been coming to church for years, says they love Jesus, but are only a “Christian” when they really need to be in order to serve there purposes…like fooling their parents, teachers or anyone else in authority.

They are not a Christian; they are just a kid that goes to church.  That is a “church” kid and this is not cool.

In other words, they might have prayed the prayer of Salvation years ago, but their life never shows any true evidence of change. We often refer to this as “fruit”.

Matthew 7:16-18 (NKJV) - ¹⁶ You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.

How To Beat The Church System:

1.     Don’t have enough guts to go “all in” with anything you do.

This is the first characteristic of someone who tries to BEAT THE SYSTEM.

The “church” kid is living two lifestyles and doesn’t have enough guts to make a decision on who they are, what they believe, or how they are going to live…so they constantly have one foot on one side of the fence and one foot on the other side.

When they are in church, they love Jesus, sing the songs and are amazingly polite to everyone they meet.  But when they are with their friends, the same mouth they used to sing songs about Jesus just 24 hours before is now being used to talk crudely, dishonour girls, and tell inappropriate jokes. This makes me sick.  

To be honest, I have more respect for the teenager that says “I don’t believe in God, so I’m going to live my life this way” than I do the teenager that says “I do believe in God, I do love Jesus”, but then lives their life in a way that doesn’t reflect any belief in Christ at all.

God even prefers for you to make up your mind.

Revelation 3:16 (NKJV) - ¹⁶ So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.

Revelation 3:16 (The Message) - You're not cold, you're not hot—far better to be either cold or hot! You're stale. You're stagnant. You make me want to vomit.

How To Be Real:

1.     Live what you believe.

This means that you actually have the evidence to back up your “church talk”. This doesn’t mean that you’re perfect, but it does mean that you’re honest.

Face it, how much fun is it ever to do something that you don’t really about. Is it ever fun to play a game when you’re not even trying? If your heart isn’t in something, you’re just NOT going to get any joy out of it. That’s just the way it is.

So my challenge for you this week is to be “All In” on things like God, Jesus, Church, the Bible, living right, (you fill in the blank)!!!!!