Hi Passionate youth reaching out today is Monday, July 11th. My name is Georgia, I’m Gaby, and I’m Noah and this is Start Up, helping you start your day with an upward focus. What has control over us, sin or righteousness?

Romans 6:19.   “I am using a human analogy because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you offered the parts of yourself as slaves to moral impurity, and greater and greater lawlessness, so now offer them as slaves to righteousness, which results in sanctification.”

Paul doesn’t endorse slavery, because God doesn’t endorse slavery. The illustration of slavery works because we all know what slavery is. Slavery forces people into situations where they have NO control over their decisions or their actions.

It’s the same with sin.

When sin is in control of our lives, we are slaves to sin, and this slavery produces death.  But we know that when Jesus died on the cross, he delivered us from the bondage sin puts us in.

Paul encourages us to now become voluntary slaves of righteousness, which brings life. We need to let God’s righteousness take control of our lives, so that we can become holy.

When we choose to give God control of our lives, we are trusting that He knows what’s best for us. One way this can be seen is when you tell the truth. Telling the truth to someone can be hard sometimes. God knows this, and He still calls us to be courageous and tell the truth. In giving God control, we are trusting in him to guide us through the rest of our lives.

The challenge for this week is to come to Hawkwood Baptist Church’s Stampede Breakfast, and invite a friend. Come hang out with us and enjoy free food and good music. Go to hawkwood.ca for more information.

Thanks for listening to today’s startup, you can find all the details of our youth group online at hbcyouth.ca. We are also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, just search for hawkwood youth.

https://www.facebook.com/hawkwoodYouthPYRO/

https://twitter.com//HawkwoodYouth

https://www.instagram.com/hawkwoodyouth/

Hi, Passionate Youth Reaching Out, today is Friday, July 8, My name is Grant and this is Start Up, helping you start your day with an upward focus. Today we are doing our best to understand what is “the law”, and what is “grace”.

Romans 6:15-18 (HCSB)

15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! 16 Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey —either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were transferred to, 18 and having been liberated from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.

What is the law, and what is grace?  See Paul asks the question, “Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace?”  So what is law and grace?

The law is talking about the law that God gave to Moses as he led the nation of Israel from Egypt to their promised land.  That is where the 10 commandments are found.  Sometimes is even called “The Law of Moses,” because Moses received the law from God and passed it on to all the people.

The people said that they would obey the law, and they were thankful for the law. They recognized that the law is God’s truth, if they kept the law, then they would be inside of God’s minimum requirements for right living. The problem is that they all failed at keeping the law.  Even the bare minimum standard for right living is unattainable for us.

That’s why the message of God’s grace is so welcome.  God’s grace says that we can be forgiven for wrong living and God can do a work in our lives to where we become people who live in the right ways.  God’s grace works like this, Jesus came to earth and obeyed the law completely, and he did it on behalf of everyone who will follow him.  When you repent of your sin and follow Jesus, you are agreeing with God that sin is wrong, and that you have sinned, and that you don’t want sin to have any place in your life.

Grace is better than the law because Grace helps us where the law condemns us.  Grace helps us live amazing and full lives, by God’s standards.  The law just shows us how weak we are on our own strength.  Grace shows us how strong God is, and that he can save us from our sin.

Challenge

The Challenge this week is to do something kind for one of your neighbours in Jesus name.

Invitation

I want to invite everyone to our Stampede Breakfast on July 17.  I am telling you about it early, in case you want to volunteer.  It runs from 9 to 11 on that Sunday and I would love to see a whole bunch of youth volunteering before, during and after the breakfast.

Thanks for listening to today’s StartUp, you can find all of the details about our youth group online at hbcyouth.ca.  We are also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, just search for Hawkwood Youth.

https://www.facebook.com/HawkwoodYouthPYRO/

https://twitter.com/HawkwoodYouth

https://www.instagram.com/hawkwoodyouth/

Hi Passionate Youth Reaching Out, today is Thursday July 7, My name is Grant and this is Start Up, helping you start your day with an upward focus. Did you think that becoming a Christian would automatically make you stop sinning?  I wish it were that easy, but because its not, here is some good teaching from the Bible.

Romans 6:12-14 (HCSB)

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under law but under grace.

If not sinning was automatic, Paul wouldn’t have to teach us about it.  The truth is that sin still has some level of temptation against us, we don’t automatically stop sinning when we become a Christian.  But we do know that Jesus has already paid the price for our sins, and that God calls us Right and Good, and that his Grace will always be a part of our lives. So relax, you are not going to fall out of grace with God.

Here in Romans 6, Paul has switched gears from saying that we are saved by faith alone to now building on that teaching.  Yes we are saved by God, and its all because of Jesus and not at all because of anything that we did.  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have to obey God, and follow his teachings.  The next gear that Paul is teaching is saying that we can live lives of increasing holiness.

Sometimes we think that being a Christian only concerns things that happen in the spiritual realm, but being a Christian actually affects every part of who we are, and that includes the way that we use our body.  For example, the words that you speak can be used as a weapon for good or for evil.  The actions that you take can also be used both ways.

As Children of God, we don’t have to do good to be saved, but the good that we do is still of immense benefit to us.  You can think about every action that you take as being used as tools for your righteousness.  You do things with your body for good, and find out that God is doing a work in your heart as well.

Challenge

The Challenge this week is to do something kind for one of your neighbours in Jesus name.

Invitation

I want to invite everyone to our Stampede Breakfast on July 17.  I am telling you about it early, in case you want to volunteer.  It runs from 9 to 11 on that Sunday and I would love to see a whole bunch of youth volunteering before, during and after the breakfast.

Thanks for listening to today’s StartUp, you can find all of the details about our youth group online at hbcyouth.ca.  We are also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, just search for Hawkwood Youth.

https://www.facebook.com/HawkwoodYouthPYRO/

https://twitter.com/HawkwoodYouth

https://www.instagram.com/hawkwoodyouth/

Hi Passionate Youth Reaching Out, today is Wednesday July 6, My name is Grant and this is Start Up, helping you start your day with an upward focus.  We know what the power of sin feels like over us, what we need to come to know is the power of God working in us.

Romans 6:6-11

6 For we know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that sin’s dominion over the body may be abolished, so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin’s claims. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over Him. 10 For in light of the fact that He died, He died to sin once for all; but in light of the fact that He lives, He lives to God. 11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

We all know what the power of sin feels like.   We know what it is like to give into temptation, and to find out that whatever was tempting us can’t deliver on its promise, because we are left feeling wrong and out of step with God.

What we need to discover, is what does the power of God feel like. Jesus knows the power of God, for Jesus was crucified for our sins and raised by the power of God back to life on the third day.  (And yes, I know that Jesus is fully God and fully man, but he did lay aside the rights and privileges of his divinity to become like us and to die for us, and to be resurrected in victory.)  So Jesus now knows Gods fully power on display, and he is alive to God and dead to sin.

We find ourselves as followers of Christ in the position where all of that power is available to us as well.  We are dead to sin, it has no rule over us, but so often we still sin.  What does it mean for us to consider ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

In large part, its about identity, at the very core and at our most base level, who are we?  If we are Christians then the answer is we are Children of God.  God calls us righteous, God gives us his Holy Spirit, and God has made every tool and weapon against sin available to us.

But are we going to live out our true identity as Children of God and live victorious over sin, or will we forget who we are and once again give sin dominion over us?  Don’t fall into the trap of identifying yourself as a sinner when God has called you Holy.  Instead, think of yourself as alive to God, and when sin does creep into your life, deal with it with full power of God. We’ll find out more about that tomorrow.

Challenge – The Challenge this week is to do something kind for one of your neighbours in Jesus name.

Invitation – I want to invite everyone to our Stampede Breakfast on July 17.  I am telling you about it early, in case you want to volunteer.  It runs from 9 to 11 on that Sunday and I would love to see a whole bunch of youth volunteering before, during and after the breakfast.

Thanks for listening to today’s StartUp, you can find all of the details about our youth group online at hbcyouth.ca.  We are also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, just search for Hawkwood Youth.

https://www.facebook.com/HawkwoodYouthPYRO/

https://twitter.com/HawkwoodYouth

https://www.instagram.com/hawkwoodyouth/

Hi Passionate Youth Reaching Out, today is Tuesday July 5, My name is Grant and this is Start Up, helping you start your day with an upward focus.  The nation of Israel was better off after God saved them from a life of slavery, and so our we.

 

Romans 6:3–5 (HCSB)

3 Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in a new way of life. 5 For if we have been joined with Him in the likeness of His death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of His resurrection.

In the book of Exodus we read the account of God rescuing the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt.  It was a hard journey for those people to travel from Egypt to the land that God had promised them, and there were many times along the way that they wanted to go back to a life of slavery and give up on God’s way.  But God wanted for them to now walk in a new way of life, a new way of thinking and doing things, and so God gave them laws and instructions, and a ways to worship Him and to hear his voice.

We can relate to those Israelites crossing over the dessert on route to their promised land.  We too have been freed from a life of slavery, but our master was sin.  Now God is taking us on a journey and he has given us a new identity, a new way to think of who we are.  We are his children, we have his laws and instructions, and we are now identified as being in Jesus Christ.

Don’t long to go back to the slavery of sin, don’t wish that you could go back and be your own self.  You have died to sin, so that you can walk in a new way of life.  If God has joined our life to Jesus, who died for our sins and then was raised to life on the third day, then we are also joined to his resurrection. We now life in this new way of life as well. They were better off leaving their life of slavery, and so are we.

Challenge

The Challenge this week is to do something kind for one of your neighbours in Jesus name.

Invitation

I want to invite everyone to our Stampede Breakfast on July 17.  I am telling you about it early, in case you want to volunteer.  It runs from 9 to 11 on that Sunday and I would love to see a whole bunch of youth volunteering before, during and after the breakfast.

Thanks for listening to today’s StartUp, you can find all of the details about our youth group online at hbcyouth.ca.  We are also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, just search for Hawkwood Youth.

https://www.facebook.com/HawkwoodYouthPYRO/

https://twitter.com/HawkwoodYouth

https://www.instagram.com/hawkwoodyouth/

Hi Passionate Youth Reaching Out, today is Monday July 4, My name is Grant and this is Start Up, helping you start your day with an upward focus.

 

Romans 6:1–2 (HCSB)

1 What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

To help us understand Paul’s point, lets imagine a situation. There is a teenager who stole $3,000 from their parents. The teenager then wasted the money before the parents found out. If the parents forgave that teenager the debt, how should the young person respond?  Hopefully they show repentance, gratitude and then obedience towards their parents.

Here is how this affects us.  God has forgiven us our debt of sin, and it shows God’s extreme love to do this, because he paid the debt.  How should we respond to God?  We should show repentance, gratitude and obedience towards God.

But some people make the argument that a better response is to then keep on sinning even more, so that everybody can see how much God loves you.  Paul puts it this way, “Should we keep on sinning so that grace may multiply?”.

Remember the teenager who had been forgiven the $3,000 by very kind parents?  Should that teenager then go out and steal even more money and then show off the parents kindness?  Absolutely not.  Should we keep on sinning to show God’s kindness?  Absolutely not.

Instead, we should want to obey God and stay away from sin, for we know what it cost him to forgive us.

Challenge

The Challenge this week is to do something kind for one of your neighbours in Jesus name.

Invitation

I want to invite everyone to our Stampede Breakfast on July 17.  I am telling you about it early, in case you want to volunteer.  It runs from 9 to 11 on that Sunday and I would love to see a whole bunch of youth volunteering before, during and after the breakfast.

Thanks for listening to today’s StartUp, you can find all of the details about our youth group online at hbcyouth.ca.  We are also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, just search for Hawkwood Youth.

https://www.facebook.com/HawkwoodYouthPYRO/

https://twitter.com/HawkwoodYouth

https://www.instagram.com/hawkwoodyouth/

Hi Passionate Youth Reaching Out, today is Friday July 1, Happy Canada Day!  My name is Grant and this is Start Up, helping you start your day with an upward focus.

 

Romans 5:18–21 (HCSB)

18 So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone, so also through one righteous act there is life-giving justification for everyone. 19 For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 The law came along to multiply the trespass. But where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more 21 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

God’s law not only gives us insight into his character, it also gives us insight into sin.  Before the law, we knew the pain of sin, we knew the curse of sin, but there was a lot of how sin worked that was beyond understanding.  When God gave the law though, understanding multiplied in regard to sin, now people were able to see on a much more detailed level how sin works.  In that way, the law came along to multiply the trespass, to teach and inform us about how sin works.

Yet where sin was multiplied, grace multiplied even more.  Here is what I mean,because of the law we know the extent of sins consequences, and we see the sever punishment and wrath that God justly has towards sinners.  But that same law has made God’s grace all the more amazing in our understanding.  We see just how kind and loving God is to save us from our sin, we see how powerful he is to be able to overcome sin, and we see just how hard and terrible it was for Jesus to suffer the place of us, the sinners.

Now the righteousness of god rules in grace, and the result is eternal life through Jesus Christ.  The law shows us how bad sin is and how lost we are without God’s help.  And at the same time, God’s law shows us the depths of his love, as he is willing and wanting to forgive us of our wrongs.  Jesus has died so that we can be saved.  All praise and glory belong to God alone.

Questions & Answers

I hope that you are having conversations with your friends and with your family about what does it mean to live a Christian life.  If you ever come across a question in a conversation that you want to get more information on, please send it on to me.  You can ask your questions, or your friends questions, and I will take one of the podcasts to answer it for you, and for anyone else who might have that same question.

Challenge

The Challenge for this week is to be a peacemaker.  We are blessed by God when we make peace in Jesus name.  Look and pray for opportunities where you can show God’s kindness and grace to others, and where peace can grow in that place instead of anger.

Thanks for listening to today’s StartUp, you can find all of the details about our youth group online at hbcyouth.ca.  We are also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, just search for Hawkwood Youth.

https://www.facebook.com/HawkwoodYouthPYRO/

https://twitter.com/HawkwoodYouth

https://www.instagram.com/hawkwoodyouth/

Hi Passionate Youth Reaching Out, today is Thursday June 30.  My name is Grant and this is Start Up, helping you start your day with an upward focus.  Death and Life are not equal forces as you will see in todays passage.

 

Romans 5:12–17 (HCSB)

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned. 13 In fact, sin was in the world before the law, but sin is not charged to a person’s account when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam’s transgression. He is a prototype of the Coming One. 15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if by the one man’s trespass the many died, how much more have the grace of God and the gift overflowed to the many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. 16 And the gift is not like the one man’s sin, because from one sin came the judgment, resulting in condemnation, but from many trespasses came the gift, resulting in justification. 17 Since by the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Death and Life are not equal opposites.  Sin and righteousness are also not equal.  When we consider death and sin, we see the absence of good, and the perversion of good.  Life and righteousness are far more powerful then sin and death.  Inside of life is the promise of abundance, hope, generosity, kindness, patience and so many other good things.

When Adam disobeyed God he started a pattern of sin that has passed down throughout history to every other human born, with the exception of Jesus Christ who escaped that pattern because Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  This pattern of sin is incredibly destructive to this world that God has made.  But Jesus sacrifice on the cross brings life back to this world in such a way, that it will be even better then before Adam had sinned.

The gift of life in Jesus is much more powerful then the curse of sin through Adam.  As amazing as the Garden of Eden sounds, our future with God in eternity is far better then the paradise that Adam and Eve enjoyed.  And this future is in its entirety a free gift of God, for all who will be called by Jesus name.

Questions & Answers

I hope that you are having conversations with your friends and with your family about what does it mean to live a Christian life.  If you ever come across a question in a conversation that you want to get more information on, please send it on to me.  You can ask your questions, or your friends questions, and I will take one of the podcasts to answer it for you, and for anyone else who might have that same question.

Challenge

The Challenge for this week is to be a peacemaker.  We are blessed by God when we make peace in Jesus name.  Look and pray for opportunities where you can show God’s kindness and grace to others, and where peace can grow in that place instead of anger.

Thanks for listening to today’s StartUp, you can find all of the details about our youth group online at hbcyouth.ca.  We are also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, just search for Hawkwood Youth.

https://www.facebook.com/HawkwoodYouthPYRO/

https://twitter.com/HawkwoodYouth

https://www.instagram.com/hawkwoodyouth/

Hi Passionate Youth Reaching Out, today is Wednesday June 29.  My name is Grant and this is Start Up, helping you start your day with an upward focus. Everything that you could ever need and everything that you will ever need is covered in this passage.

Romans 5:6–11 (HCSB)

6 For while we were still helpless, at the appointed moment, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. 8 But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us! 9 Much more then, since we have now been declared righteous by His blood, we will be saved through Him from wrath. 10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life! 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have now received this reconciliation through Him.

This is the best example of God’s extreme love for you.  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Sin is rebellion against God, it is choosing your way instead of Gods way.  But in the midst of our sinful rebellion, God shows his extreme love and sent Jesus to die on the cross in our place.  The wrath of God that is held out for his enemies was put totally on His son.  And we our saved from God’s wrath, when we put our faith in Jesus Christ.

On our own, we are helpless to escape God’s wrath.  In Jesus, we are totally safe in God’s love.  Everything that we could ever need, and everything that we will ever need is all taken care of through Jesus.  The debt of our sin is paid in full.  Through the Holy Spirit we have the power to overcome sin and to know God’s love.  We can be called friends of God, all because of God’s love as demonstrated through Jesus Christ.

Questions & Answers

I hope that you are having conversations with your friends and with your family about what does it mean to live a Christian life.  If you ever come across a question in a conversation that you want to get more information on, please send it on to me.  You can ask your questions, or your friends questions, and I will take one of the podcasts to answer it for you, and for anyone else who might have that same question.

Challenge

The Challenge for this week is to be a peacemaker.  We are blessed by God when we make peace in Jesus name.  Look and pray for opportunities where you can show God’s kindness and grace to others, and where peace can grow in that place instead of anger.

Thanks for listening to today’s StartUp, you can find all of the details about our youth group online at hbcyouth.ca.  We are also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, just search for Hawkwood Youth.

https://www.facebook.com/HawkwoodYouthPYRO/

https://twitter.com/HawkwoodYouth

https://www.instagram.com/hawkwoodyouth/

Hi Passionate Youth Reaching Out, today is Tuesday June 28. My name is Grant and this is Start Up, helping you start your day with an upward focus.

Romans 5:3–5 (HCSB)

3 And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, 4 endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. 5 This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

A chain reaction that brings about hope, but begins with something in your life that brings about pain and suffering. If you know how the chain will progress, it helps you with the next steps. Maybe right now where you find yourself is affliction, difficult situations that test your faith. How could you possibly rejoice at that? Because we see here, that it is just the first step in a chain reaction that ends in hope.

There are many examples of this chain reaction in the Bible, lets use the story of Ruth as an example. Ruth was a Moabite lady who was married to an Israelite man who arrived in her land when his family fled a famine in Israel. After some time her husband died, and so did his brother and his father. This left Ruth with just her mother-in-law and sister-in-law. Economically, this was an incredibly difficult situation to be in, with no men to provide and protect them.

Ruth’s mother in law Naomi encouraged her to return to her Moabite people, but Ruth committed to going back to Bethlehem with Naomi. I think that we can accurately call that situation an affliction. But what happened, through a series of events their lives were put back on top again by a man named Boaz, who eventually married Ruth. You can even find Ruth’s name in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Ruth’s afflictions produced endurance, which proved her character which produced hope.

Your afflictions today aren’t made easy by this promise, but they are easier. Look at a hard situation as the beginning of a chain reaction that will grow you as a person, because the Holy Spirit is with all Christian’s, giving us God’s guidance and comfort through our life as a result of God’s love for us.

Questions & Answers

I hope that you are having conversations with your friends and with your family about what does it mean to live a Christian life. If you ever come across a question in a conversation that you want to get more information on, please send it on to me. You can ask your questions, or your friends questions, and I will take one of the podcasts to answer it for you, and for anyone else who might have that same question.

Challenge

The Challenge for this week is to be a peacemaker. We are blessed by God when we make peace in Jesus name. Look and pray for opportunities where you can show God’s kindness and grace to others, and where peace can grow in that place instead of anger.

Thanks for listening to today’s StartUp, you can find all of the details about our youth group online at hbcyouth.ca. We are also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, just search for Hawkwood Youth.

https://www.facebook.com/HawkwoodYouthPYRO/

https://twitter.com/HawkwoodYouth

https://www.instagram.com/hawkwoodyouth/