Title: Youth!
youth!
Joshua 14:6-15
2007. 5. 19. (Sat) Tel Aviv Joppa Church - Youth Sunday
Today is "Youth Sunday" that I have decided. He said that there is no such thing as Youth Sunday in the church calendar. When I was in Korea, I was doing youth ministry, and this thought came to me. The world knows the importance of youth. So, around the third week of May, 'Coming-of-Age Day' is set to celebrate the young people who turn 20 years old, but the church wondered if there should be something for the young people. So, I set the third week of Coming-of-Age Day as “Youth Sunday” and kept it myself. We also held a coming-of-age ceremony for eligible young people. I know some churches do something similar to me, but I think it would be good for the entire Korean church to do the same.
I think you can understand the importance of youth without emphasizing it. I think it is all contained in the saying, "The church lives only when young people live." It does not simply mean that there should be more young people in the church, but it means that the church has hope for future generations only when young people have deep encounters with God, have faith to overcome the world, and stand with a vision to change the world.
Although our church is a new church, young people make up more than half of the elderly. I believe this is a grace and blessing from God.
Actually, there was a vision God gave me when I was leading the youth club in Korea. It was the so-called 'one thousand visions', and it was a vision that gave me a thousand young people and asked them to use me to devote themselves to the kingdom of God. The youth department I was in charge of had up to one hundred and fifty people, but the vision of one thousand people did not come true in Korea.
One of the ministries that our church considers its mission and is trying to focus on is youth ministry. There are still about a dozen young people, but I hope to become a church that serves more young people in the future. Many young people will come to Israel in the future, whether they come for study abroad, kibbutz experience, or travel, and I hope that our church will become a “center of youth missions” for them.
This means that our church does not end with simply providing a place of worship and providing delicious Korean food to young people, but by providing them spiritually and training them in the Word and prayer so that they can have a deeper encounter with God while in Israel. The Lord wants to serve as a 'spiritual center'.
That is why I hope that our young people will grow in faith while in Israel, and help them find not only their career path but also a vision of life while praying over the path that lies before them, so that our young people can dream of the kingdom of God.
Furthermore, living in Israel is not just an experience, but because we have lived in Israel, we become intercessors for Israel, and missionaries with dreams of Jewish and Arab missions can come out through our church. I hope to be there. So, we want our church to become a church that sends missionaries to Israel. Isn't that cool? I believe that such a day will come.
What kind of people do you define as young people? In most cases, we define youth by age. Although not absolute, based on age, adolescence refers to unmarried men and women between the ages of 20 and 34. And, according to their own heart, they define themselves as youth. There are people who say that you are young at heart.
Who is the young man? Are you simply young when you are younger? I don't think so. If there are things that are youthful, I think that person is a youth. On the other hand, if you are young and don't have youthful qualities, I don't think that person is a young person. So, what are youthful things?
A man named Sydney Greenberg defined the difference between a young man and an old man, listen.
“If we trust people, we are young. But if we don't trust people, we're old.
If we know how to enjoy life, we are young. But if we give up everything, we are old.
If we are looking for new ideas, we are young. But if we rely solely on the traditions and methods of the past, we are indeed old.
If we try to be beautiful, we are young. But if we only recall the past, we are old.
If we are looking for fellowship and enjoyment, we are young. But if we can't break free from loneliness, we're old.
If we long for happiness, we are young. But if we are only reminiscing, we are old.
If we know how to give love, we are young. But if we are only willing to receive, we are old.
If we still have dreams, we are young. But if we give up our dreams and look only at today, we are old.”
There will be a lot of things you can relate to. This person is also defined according to what he has and what kind of attitude he has to live, not based on the age of the young and the elderly. I think it's a "dream" if one standard of who is young and who is old is set. If there is a dream or vision, the person is a young man regardless of age, and if there is no dream or vision, the person is an old man regardless of age.
The representative person who can be a young man because he has a dream is the man named Caleb who appears in today's text. If we could define Caleb in one word, we could say that he was "a man of dreams." The person who was able to be a young man until the end because of his dream, that person is Caleb. And Caleb is the model for how we can live as young people. So today, we are going to see what is youthful through Caleb and what kind of attitude we should live as young people.
1. First, Caleb was a positive and enterprising person.
In Numbers 13, it is recorded that the Israelites spyed out the land of Canaan while they were in a place called Kadesh-Barnea in the wilderness of Sinai. Twelve men, one from each tribe, spy out the land of Canaan for forty days. Then come back and report. However, the report of ten people and the report of two people are different. It is the same that the spies are a land flowing with milk and honey, and that the land is inhabited by strong peoples, but the conclusions are different. First, ten people report.
"We cannot go up against the people. They are stronger than we are... The land we went through spying out is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw there were of great stature, and there were descendants of the Nephilim. We saw the giants of the Anakites, and we looked like grasshoppers in ourselves, and we must have been like them in our sight" (Numbers 13:31-33).
report like this. It seems realistic, but it is a very negative and passive report. It is said that when all the people of Israel heard these words, they lifted up their voices and cried out and wept all night long. At the same time, they blamed Moses and Aaron and wished we had died in the land of Egypt or in the wilderness, and ultimately blamed God.
Then Joshua and Caleb, who were watching this, took off their clothes.