January 31 YOUTH Sunday – I Corinthians 13.1-13, * Jeremiah 1.4-10 “View from the Womb” Pastor Jacqueline Hines

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A few weeks ago, our youth went on a retreat. They had a good time. We are fortunate to have such dedicated Christian adult chaperones who are willing to sacrifice a weekend to nurture our children.  The whole idea of youth at Bethel makes us a little nervous because we look around and we long to see a whole lot more of them in the pews. We have done very well in nurturing our young people. Some have preached, some have given brilliant testimonies, some are working responsibly in part time jobs. We see others driving in the church parking lot, some have gone off to college and have come back to serve. Still, we would be happier to see more young people in the pews and in our Sunday School classes.

No matter who comes and goes, God has been faithful to us, and we have done our best to be faithful to God. The prophet Jeremiah paints a picture for us, helping us to understand that each one of us was formed by God in our mother’s womb. Each one of us is called to be as faithful as our God. 

This week I heard the story of a man who grew up with a birth certificate that read “father unknown, mother unknown.” It was reported that his mother was or   abandoned him as a newborn in the hallway of an apartment. He was assigned a number  - abandoned baby # 33678 and passed from one foster home to another. When he grew old, he was still trying to heal, so he wrote a song to his mother that he had never known. He expressed how she may have had a good reason for abandoning him. She may have been young, or sick, or thought this was the best situation for him and for herself. His sang how his greatest fear was that she simply did not want him.

It is our human longing to be accepted and never rejected. God makes it clear that we are precious and accepted. God speaks to Jeremiah in verse 5 what he speaks to all of us children, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you;…’

God made us on purpose! God made is with a wonderful plan in mind. God made us to be useful and helpful in the kingdom of God. We learned in kindergarten that every one of us loves feels special and accepted when we have an important job to do. And, in God’s view, every person is special and every job is important.

When the teacher asks the class who wants to be the line leader, every hand goes up – oooh, oooh, oooh, I do, I do. That enthusiasm lasts until about 7^th grade. Then teachers may have to use more introspection and more psychology and refined teaching skills to get students even to do their homework. The same goes for parents who are working to help young people remain eager to serve and make excellent life choices.

As adults, God asks us to remember that we are carefully shaped in our mother’s womb, that we are consecrated, we are hand-picked, not always to be prophets like Jeremiah, but we are hand-picked for a very, very important job for which we are especially designed.

As we get older, we have had enough rejection in this world that it is more challenging to see ourselves as special and chosen even by God. We get to a point when God asks, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for me?” We tend to run in the other direction. 

Charles Stanley gave a sermon this week about why we don’t answer God’s call to serve.  He says we put off eagerly accepting God’s call because we are fearful of being inconvenienced or uncomfortable, or we ignore God’s call because we don’t want God in our finances or because our family may object.

God does not give us excuses for not blessing US, so we do well to eagerly offer ourselves to God.  We are blessed and we have no real excuse not to serve. God eagerly waits to be chosen by each of us.

Just think a moment. If you are driving and get three blocks from home and realize you forgot something important, what would be so important that you would go back home for? If you had any kind of emergency, what would you reach for first? Would you leave home without your cell phone? Would you leave home without the word of God in your heart? God treats each of us as a first priority.  God wants to be first in our lives, too. 

Our relationship with God, like all our other relationships, can lead to weighty matters.  Every day we have a choice to look at the weight in our life and stay weak, or we can work the weights and get stronger day by day by day.  

As we are working side by side to build the kingdom, and we wonder why others  are not doing what we want them to do, we need to remember to have patience and show mercy. It is said that when we make new year’s resolutions, intending to improve our spiritual lives, get spiritually healthier and stronger or get closer to God, 87%  of the time, those thoughts fade from our mind before the end of March.

We need to pray that our own strength would last until our work is done and we need to pray for the strength of others.

Like Jeremiah God gives us God’s words to speak  or to do whatever God wants done. And God gives us the strength to want to do it as badly as we wanted to do it in grade school!  Amen.