Lil’ Club info…

Howdy!  Welcome back to myself since I did not write yesterday.  Thank You.  Thank You.

I wanted to give you an update on Young Life Club on Monday.  Club numbers are dwindling like crazy.  Kids sure are funny creatures.  Aren’t we all?  Whether we have 2 kids or 42 kids on Mondays, we run club like we have 2,319 kids!  It sure makes the ones that come feel very special.  Kids are special!

Great songs by Chris and a funny skit and game by Dustin.  Dustin is a big, thick boy!  He plays football (starting Center) at the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor.  He bench presses 425 pounds.  That’s for real!  He walked out dressed up as a Young Life personal trainer named Bill, ‘The Thrill!’  Very funny.  Head band.  Athletic shorts.  Weight in left hand to ‘balance him out.’  Anyhow, the first step in YL Personal Fitness is nutrition and so we took 6 volunteers (3 girls, 3 guys) to join us at the front.  This was called the Blender Gender Challenge!  We blended up 3 different types of Happy Meals from McD’s….all of it!  Hamburger (chesseburger or nuggets), fries, drink, ketchup and BBQ sauce.  Turn on the blender and let it do its work!  Hmmmmmm…yummy!  The guys won 2 to 1.  No one heaved or threw up.  Now you may sigh…….

I gave the Club Talk and spoke about Moses since that is where I am reading these days and what I am learning about.  Each semester, we do basically the same Club Talk outline which looks similar to this:  Who is God, Who is Jesus, Person of Christ, Sin / Need, Cross, Redemption and Life with Christ!  We will do a couple of each one.  Same topic, different speakers and different stories and such.

So, I talked about my friend Moses.  Who he is, what he’s done, who he talked with and all that good stuff.  685 years prior, God had made a Covenant with Abraham that God would give his people the Promised Land known as Canaan.  Well, Moses is a descendant of Moses, from the tribe of Levi (the book of Leviticus is named after the tribe) and so that Promise is still good for them because it has yet to be fulfilled.  Moses has done a whole bunch of great things for the Lord,  really ‘Good Works!’  But in Numbers 20:8-12, we see something transpire that is gonna cost Moses dearly!  The Israelite people are complaining to Moses about how unhappy they are (gripe, gripe, gripe!) and so God has a plan to provide these stiff-necked people with some water.  In verse 8, God tells Moses to ‘Take the staff and speak to the rock before their eyes and it will pour out water.’  Moses gathers the people and in verse 11, it says, ‘Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff.  Water gushed out and the community and their livestock drank.

Did you catch it?  I sure hope so, I italicized it!  God told Moses to SPEAK to the rock and instead, Moses STRIKES the rock…twice.  What would you call this?  One kid yelled out, ‘Disobedience!’  Exactly… is how I responded!  Disobedience.  And because of this Disobedience, God tells Moses this in verse 12, ‘Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.’  Even in Moses’ disobedience, the Lord still provided blessing to his people!  So you are telling me because of Moses’ disobedience, God is NOT allowing him to enter into the Promised Land?  That is exactly what I am telling you!  Seems harsh, huh?  Well, I believe that Canaan (the Promised Land) is a type (picture, model, foreshadow of what’s to come) of heaven.  And because of our Disobedience, God does not allow us into heaven (Canaan).  James 2:10 says, ‘For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking ALL OF IT!’  WoWsers…  Moses did a lot of Great Things.  A lot of ‘Good Works.’  But because of his Disobedience, he was not good enough.  Good Works DO NOT get us into Heaven.  Should we do Good Works?  YES!  But Good Works DO NOT save us.  Perfection is demanded of anyone entering the Promised Land.  And so this is how I left our high school friends.  I told them that we (them, me, you, all of us) are like Moses and because of our Disobedience we would not be able to enter into Heaven.  But…….Although we are Helpless, we are not HOPELESS!  There is more to come.  There is more to the story!

I love to challenge kids / people to think!  Really Think!  You know, the kind that makes your hair melt to your head.  As kids layed down in bed that night, I hope that they were thinking about the Club Talk, Moses, Canaan, Disobedience and Helpless vs. Hopeless!  I hope you will do the same.

Random tidbits:  I heard this fun quote the other day…God tells us, ‘You catch’em, I’ll clean’em!’  I thought that was cool.

My sermon from Grace Bible Church is available for me to email to you if you would like.  If so, hit me with a comment on this post, call me or text me and I will send you the link.  We even took a video of it!  How about that?

So, there you have it.  I am heading up to the high school to tell kids that They Matter!  I am getting pumped because I am taking 3 high schools guys out of town for a few days during Spring Break!  They have NO idea what they are in for.  Wild At Heart!!!

Campaigners tonight is on the Art of CONFLICT!  This is gettin’ gooooooooood…