0:18 So I am a father of three teenage children. I have a fourth younger one who's not a teen yet. But incidentally uh they span the age group of 13 to 19. My teens, my youngest teenager is my daughter and I have two older boys uh 15 0:36 and uh 19. And so in a way I picture myself as speaking to my own children, having a conversation with my own children here today. I want you to picture for a moment the beginning of time. The Bible says 0:54 that in Psalms 139 that God created you in your mother's womb. He formed your inward parts that you were fearfully and wonderfully made. And imagine the beginning of time and 1:11 that God created you and you were alone in the garden of Eden. And we know the story of what happened in the Garden of Eden. God gave some commands of what not to eat and what you could do and what you had dominion over. 1:28 Would you have eaten of that fruit that God commanded you not to eat of? The truth of the matter is you have eaten of that fruit and we all have. The moment we disobeyed our parents or looked at something perverted or spoke a 1:47 lie or spoke a word of gossip or listened to something evil, we have eaten of that fruit. And that's the story of how the story of Adam and Eve is very much a story of each of us. And yet, if we were the only 2:05 one created in that garden and we had disobeyed the Lord's command, the Lord would have had no choice but to cast us out. And yet, our heavenly father would have sent Jesus Christ just for you. Just for you. Put your name there and 2:21 say, "Jesus was sent just for me so that I could get back to an intimate relationship with my heavenly father and know God as my heavenly father." And that's the truth of what Jesus did for me. That's the truth of what he did for 2:37 each of you. Jesus says in John 6:37, he says, "All that the father gives to me will come to me." And if we come to Jesus, we know that he will not cast us out. That's the promise we have. And it says later on in in the verses that follow that God's 2:56 will God's will was that for Jesus was that he not lose even one of us. Not even one of you teens must be lost. And so we have this promise that if we come to Jesus, he will accept us. 3:15 Regardless of how you feel about your situation today, regardless of how defeated you may feel, how you feel undeserving of the Lord's love, there's a beautiful picture in Song of Solomon of the Lord's love for us and how he 3:30 looks at us. I'll just share a few verses from there. Song of Solomon 1:6 talks about what I how I how my I might view myself, which says, "Do not stare at me because I'm ugly." That's the way many of you may be looking at yourself right now. 3:45 the the Lord doesn't have any hope for me. I'm so full of sin right now. I'm ugly. And yet the Lord says when you come to him and you come to him with humility and with repentance, Song of Solomon 4:7, Song of Solomon 4:7, he says, "I have 4:04 forgiven you. You are altogether beautiful, my darling, and there is no blemish in you." What a beautiful statement. That's the promise for each of you when you come to the Lord. Not with any righteousness of your own, not with any ability to do anything 4:20 for him on your own, but full of your sin and saying, "Lord, I want to come to you and you promise you won't cast me out." He says to you, "You are alltogether beautiful, my darling. There's no blemish in you." And a couple 4:33 verses later, it says in Psalm 4:9, it says, "You have made my heartbeat faster." You have made my heartbeat faster with a single glance of your eyes. And that's the picture I want you to have. Every time you turn your eyes, just turn a 4:48 brief turn to Jesus. Every time you turn your eyes towards God, his heart beats faster. He gets excited. We know and we see around us people getting excited because of relationships with the opposite gender. Young men and 5:04 young women getting excited. But this is the relationship that God wants to have with us which is far greater when we just look at him. When you just have a glance at him, he gets excited. He is so in love with you. And he wants to have 5:17 that intimate fellowship with you. And that's the story we read in the prodigal son where when the younger son returns back home, the father runs out to meet him and says, "Let's celebrate. My son who was lost is now found. Let's have 5:33 this big feast for him. Let me put a robe. let me put a crown on him. Let me put a ring on him. And that's the story of every time that we return to Jesus. Not the first time we ask him into our heart, but let's say you ask Jesus into 5:45 your heart and then you go back into a way of sin or you fell into sin. When you turn back and you repent to God the second time or the third time or the fourth time, he still runs out to meet you and he says, "Let's celebrate." And 5:58 there's a big celebration in heaven every time you turn to God. And that's the exciting message for you teens. You don't have to be defeated. You don't have to say, "Oh, I gave my life to Jesus, but again I fell into sin. You 6:11 can run back home and the Lord will celebrate you every time. And every time he will say to you, you are altogether beautiful, my darling. You are without blemish the moment you come in repentance." That's the beautiful 6:24 message. Some of the thing one thing that we tell some of the teens in our church who are considering baptism is really what we're saying when we're considering baptism is that we are just saying we can't do it on our own. We're turning to God to say 6:41 Lord we want to enroll in the school of Jesus Christ. We want to enroll in the school of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? It means that I say I don't have to pass an exam or to uh ensure that I can do something well. I can do some 6:59 math well or some English well. No, I'm in kindergarten. I get I want to my the only price of admission is that I come empty-handed and I say I can't do it. I can't do life on my own. And Jesus says, I'm going to teach you the ABCs. And 7:16 that's all you're saying is when you when when you get baptized or when you give your life to Jesus is saying, "Lord, I'm sick of my sinful life. I need your help. Teach me. Teach me your ways." And he's not going to and let's 7:27 say you make a mistake while you're writing your ABCs. He's not going to come to you and say, "That's it. You made a mistake. I'm expelling you. You're not good enough for the school." No, he's going to help you correct that 7:37 and write it down. He's never going to expel you from that school. Now, there are some who have chosen to drop out of the school. What does that mean to drop out of the school? It means that they have chosen as an act of rebellion to 7:50 say, "I know about Jesus. I've learned about Jesus. Maybe even I gave my life to Jesus, but I don't want anything to do with Jesus anymore." He will never expel you, but you some may drop out. But I want to say this as a reassurance, 8:05 as a word of encouragement so that you can live a life without condemnation. when you fall into sin, when you make a mistake with those ABCs and you return to God, he will not cast you out. He will never expel you from that school, from the school of Jesus 8:21 Christ. And that's the reassurance we have that he will forgive us an infinite number of times and he will celebrate us and he will say, "You are altogether beautiful, my darling. You're without blemish and every time you turn back and 8:35 look at me, my heart beats faster." But is that God's will for us to be like the prodical son constantly running away falling into sin again and again and running back and running back and running back? No. He has something far 8:48 greater for us. And that's that's what I want to talk about today. That's our topic which is that your each of you your body belongs to God. And the verse from which I took this theme was 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 19 and 20. 1 Corinthians 6 19 and 9:07 20. says, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God and that you are not your own?" What does that mean? It means that my body is meant to be the holy residence 9:26 of God. In a way, if the Holy Spirit would if God were to have a church, God's church is my body. That's his holy ground. And verse 20 says, "For you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body." 9:44 Many of you, I'm sure, are sports fans. Many of you have uh many interests watching soccer or football or cricket uh whatever it might be. Um do you know who many consider the greatest soccer player is a guy named 10:01 Leo Lionel Messi. Do you know that his left foot, he's a left, he's a left footed player, is said to be insured for approximately $900 million just his left foot. That's crazy. That 10:19 means some company or some uh sports team values him so much that they're going to pay so much money for him, they're going to in insure his leg for $900 million. I'm sure there's many of you who are fans of the IPL of the cricket league in 10:37 India. In in the cricket league in India, every year they have an auction where some of the best players are auctioned. You have a teams get a choice to pay a lot of money for a player. This past year uh a famous Indian player named Rishad 10:55 Punt a team spent 27 crores to get him on that team. He was auctioned which is the equivalent of $3 million. So you can see how people and the world are spending on their favorite athletes, spending on the parts of the body of 11:14 their favorite players. So invaluable if there picture this. Imagine there was an auction for you teenager. What would be what would be the bidding price for the auction for you? For your eyes or for your legs or for your hands? 11:33 I want to tell you that Jesus bid in that auction for you. And Jesus paid the insurance for not just your left foot, your right foot, your left eye, your right eye, your ears. He paid billions of dollars equivalent. That's what it means in this verse when 11:51 it says you have been bought with a price. The Lord said, "I'm looking at you. I'm looking at Sunil and I am going to pay billions of dollars for those eyes to be mine because they're so valuable to me. I'm going to pay billions of dollars for 12:07 those ears to belong to me." Satan may want to have it, but Jesus said, "I'm going to out bid. I'm going to outbid Satan and say, I'm going to pay billions of dollars for that tongue to be my tongue, for those hands to be my hands." 12:22 So, you're way more valuable than Risha Punt or Leonel Messi. Your eyes, your hands. The Lord has paid the immense price of his blood that was shed on Calvary for your body to be entirely his. And 12:40 that's the real story of why Jesus came. If I were to ask you, why did Jesus come into this world? Many of you will give me the Sunday school answer that Jesus came to forgive my sins so I can get to heaven. That's the first part of what we 12:52 talked about, right? that every time I return to him, he will forgive me. But Jesus came for something much greater. It says in Matthew 1:21 that he came to save us from his from from our sins. That means save us means prevent us from 13:09 even falling into sin, not just forgive our sins. And a couple verses later in Matthew 1:23, it says, this was the prophecy that was given about Jesus. It says, "Behold, the virgin shall be with child and she he shall bear a son 13:25 and they shall call his name Emmanuel." What does Emanuel mean? Which translated means God with us. I want to tell you the greater meaning or the hidden meaning which many don't talk about about why Jesus came to this world. 13:42 Jesus came to this world so that you can have Emmanuel. So that you can have God with you at all times. What does it mean? Not just to forgive your sins, but so that he can be with you at all times. So that he can be 14:01 living reciting in your body at all times. What does that mean? We many of us have prayed the prayer to say Jesus come into my heart. What does it mean when we say Jesus come into my heart? It means we're saying the Holy Spirit I 14:17 want this body I want you to come in and take up residence in my heart in my body. I want this body to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. But we have to be careful when we when we pray a prayer like that because then we're inviting Jesus 14:34 into our entire body. So I want to ask you teens if you're serious about that and if you want this promise that your body belongs to God knowing that God has paid this immense price for each member of your body. Is Christ 14:51 is Jesus a guest in your body? Is he a guest who's visiting once in a while just staying over for a couple days on Sunday morning in the meetings or in a meeting like this or when you read your Bible and then when you go to college or 15:04 when you go to school does he leave the home or is he really living in your home permanently? What is the sign that he's living? A sign that he's living in the home is he doesn't need to ask permission to open the fridge 15:22 or to use any room. He's not a guest. He's living in. So he can open any drawer, any fridge, any bathroom door, any bedroom door. He can go any way he pleases because he lives in your home. So let me ask you teens, if you really 15:41 are serious about your body belonging to the Lord, can you ask, can you allow Jesus to open any room in your heart, any room in your body? Can you share the passcode of your phone with him so he can go through your pictures, go through your social media? 16:01 Can he open your eyes so that when you're watching that show, when you're binge watching your favorite show, when you're scrolling down on social media, when you're clicking on a commercial on a advertisement on your laptop, 16:20 when you're seeing what your friends are doing, when you're listening to something that your friends are telling you, when you're speaking words, can you see? Can Jesus have access? Can Jesus be the one that controls your 16:33 tongue, controls your ears, controls your eyes, and say, "Jesus, I want you to be living in every part of my body. I want you to have full access to my browsing history. I want you to have full access to the words I say, to the 16:51 music I listen to, to the social media that I look at. That's what it means to have God with us. That's what it means. That's the reason Jesus came. So that he could have full access to you. So that he could own your billion dollar 17:09 eyes that he's invested in. So that he could own the billion dollar tongue that he's invested in, the hands that he has invested in, the ears that he has invested in. And we have to be really careful especially with our eyes, brothers and 17:25 sisters. The Bible says the eye is the lamp of our body. And if your eye is clear, then your body is full of light. So we have to be very careful as we offer up our lives to God and we say, "Lord, I really want your Holy Spirit. I want my body, my 17:44 eyes to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. If my eyes are full of light with the things that I receive in, then my body will be full of light." And that's how we want to live. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 9:24, it talks about us, 18:03 this Christian life that we go on, being like a race. We all can run that race, it says. And we all can win that race regardless of whether you're a great preacher or just a stay-at-home mom later on in your life or whether you work in a factory or you 18:23 work on cool AI technologies. It doesn't matter what you're going to do in the future. It doesn't matter whether you got an A in you got 100% in math or you're struggling in your school. The Lord says doesn't matter what your 18:37 intellectual ability is, how rich you are, how poor you are. All of you can what your ministry is going to be. All of you can run that race. All of you can run that race and all of you can win that prize. The same prize that Jesus 18:49 won, the same prize that Paul won, the same prize that our elders and the preach and the ones we look up to will win. It doesn't matter. You don't have to have a great ministry in the church that is visible, but you can run 19:04 that race and win that prize. But how do you win that prize? Win the prize is Jesus having complete control of your body. Jesus being Lord of your life, being full of the likeness of Jesus Christ, being full of the fruit of the 19:18 spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, all of these fruit. But how do you win that prize? It says in in that later on in that passage, it says that the one who wants to win that prize must exercise self-control in all things. 19:33 That's one of the fruit of the spirit that we read about in Galatians 5. Self-control. It means that we control our eyes, our ears, our mouth, our tongue, what we say, what we listen to. We exercise self-control. And a couple verses later it says Paul 19:50 says the way I intend to win that prize. 1 Corinthians 9:27 says by disciplining my body which now belongs to the Lord disciplining my body and making it my slave to say I'm body I'm not going to let you do what you feel like you want 20:05 to do. I'm not going to let my hands do whatever they feel like doing. I'm not going to let my ears do listen to whatever they feel like listening to. I'm not going to let my mouth speak whatever it feels like speaking in the 20:18 moment just because I was provoked. I'm not going to blame others for what I say. I'm going to discipline myself. I'm not going to let my hands go and do whatever they feel like doing. I'm going to discipline myself and exercise 20:30 self-control. And this is the way. If I do this every day, this is the way I win that prize. So, you can think of this race in our Christian life like a marathon. And in a marathon you have tens of thousands of steps. 20:48 And so in a way every day you can think of as a step in that race. And you can either stay still go backwards or you can say I'm going to take a step. I'm going to run fast and take a step towards the goal of saying Lord you will 21:06 be Lord of my eyes. That's why we say Lord. We say the word Lord. What does the word Lord mean? Lord means it was a olden day word for somebody whom you belong to, a master whom you belong to, whom you were a slave of, a king whom 21:22 you were a servant of. And that's what when we say Lord, we have to mean it that he's lord of our entire life. Lord of our eyes, Lord of our mouth, Lord of our ears, Lord, Lord of our hands. and we discipline our body so that he can 21:42 truly live and have access to every aspect of it. So just like when the prodical son came back, the father gave him a robe and a feast to celebrate. But in a way he called him, he put a ring on his finger which was a symbol of his 22:01 authority of his princely duty that he was giving to his son. So I want to say to you young teens, young men and young women, the Lord has a princely or a princessly duty for all of you. He you now have the 22:21 responsibility to behave like royalty. Don't dabble in the junk of the world. What the people in the world are uh the trash that they're looking at or that they're feeding on. That's a picture of the prodigal son eating that pig's food. 22:38 The Lord has a fatted calf for you. He has a great feast for you. Greater things for your eyes to see. To see him, to fellowship with him, to read your Bible, to listen to his words, to build people up with your mouth. That's your 22:55 princely duty. Not the pig's food and the trash of tearing people down or the music that would corrupt you or the gossip that would corrupt you or listening to evil words or listening to 23:13 evil things or seeing things with your eyes that are going to corrupt you. That's not the responsibility of a prince. That's not what the calling of a prince is. That's the calling for the trash for the beggars on the street. 23:27 But the Lord has taken you from that and said, "I've got something far greater than picks food from you. I've got royal duty for you. It is now your birthright. You've been adopted into the royal kingdom of God. You're a 23:39 son of the king. And he's given you a birthight. He's given you a birthight which is to be a representative of him with your eyes, with your ears, with your tongue, the words you speak, with your hands." Let me quickly show you the story of 23:57 Esau. Many of you know the story of Jacob and Esau. If you turn with me, Genesis 25 uh to uh 29-34. And I want you to picture this as each of you having a temptation in your life where you're being tempted by your own 24:16 flesh or by the de by the devil. And it says, "Jacob cooked a stew." Verse 29, Esau came into the field and he was famished. What does famished mean? He was exhausted. He was hungry. And many of us after a tough day at school 24:30 or after a difficult situation, difficult season in our life with our parents, with friends, we come home famished. And what do we do when we're famished? And we come and we see this tempting thing there. Esau said to Jacob, "Please 24:47 let me have a swallow of that stuff over there. I'm famished. And what does the tempter say? The tempter says, "Okay, I'll give this to you, but sell me your birthight." Verse 31. And Esau says in verse 32, "Oh, I'm so exhausted. I'm so famished. What use is 25:06 this birthright to me?" And then finally in verse 34 it says the tempter Jacob in this case gave Esau this food and he ate and drank and rose and went away. And this sad line at the end of this verse which says thus Esau 25:25 despised his birthight. And I want to use this as an analogy of uh how the devil will tempt us every single day. how your flesh will tempt you. Especially when you're tired. Especially when you're famished. Especially when you're exhausted. 25:39 Especially when you're frustrated with how the day went. Especially in the late night. And he will say to you, "Okay, give me your birthight. Give me this birthright. You're a child of God. Why don't you give me this birthright? I'll 25:55 give you this in exchange. Something that will satisfy you." And what are you going to say? Do you take so casually the calling of your heavenly father that you are royalty? Do you take your princely duties, your princely 26:10 birthright so casually that you despise it and you say, "When I'm tired, I'm not going to cry out to God for help, but I'm going to say, "Here, take my birthright. I I don't care about it enough. Let me see what you have to me 26:23 to feed my fleshly desires." And that's what many of us have done. And I'm not saying this as a word of condemnation. As I said in the beginning, if you feel guilty of that, run back to the Lord. He will forgive you. He's quick to forgive 26:37 you and he will say you're altogether beautiful. I will put back that ring on your finger. I'll restore to you your princely duties. But but for tomorrow, I don't want to be so casual with this birthright that the Lord has given me. 26:52 And I want to see my princely duties as serious. And I want to be a representative of the king here on on earth. David says in Psalms 119, he says, "I anticipate the night watches so that I may meditate on your word." Young men 27:07 and young women, I want to tell you that when you're most tired, the devil will come for you. When you're lying on your bed, keep your phone far away from you. Don't keep it on your bedside table. Keep your laptop away from you. When you're tired, 27:22 when you're famished, the devil will come for you. But can we say like David with the power of the Holy Spirit that the Lord gives to us, I will meditate on you on the night watches. When I'm tired, when I'm weary, when I'm 27:38 bored, I'm going to meditate on the Lord. I'm going to memorize his word and meditate on it. And I'm going to have him speak to me. I'm going to have his words, his commands, and his promises encourage me. It says, "In his presence 27:53 is fullness of joy. At his right hand are pleasures forever more." What does that word mean? His at his right hand are pleasures forever more. It means that the pleasure of this fleshly satisfaction that devil is offering you, the Lord has 28:12 says, "I have something far greater than that. I created all pleasures, but the devil has perverted it. Come to me, stay in my presence, and I will give you a pleasure that is far greater than the pleasure that you're getting from 28:25 scrolling through those reels or from watching that thing or for listen from listening to what you're not supposed to listen to or from participating in a conversation that is not something that that is of the Lord. The Lord says, 28:41 "Participate in a conversation with me. Talk to me. Listen to me. That's your birthright. And I will have I will give you a joy that will truly satisfy you. And I will give you pleasures that will be at my right hand and will be fully 28:55 available to you. I'll read this passage in Isaiah chapter 33 about how God wants to consume us with his fire and redeem each of our 29:08 body parts. Isaiah 33 14 to1 17 it says the consuming fire of God sinners in Zion are terrified trembling as sees the godless praise God that we don't have to be in that category we don't have to be terrified because the Lord has forgiven us and 29:28 accepted us we are no longer the sinner that is terrified we are no longer the one that is trembling because we're godless but who among us can live with God who is a consuming fire and with the everlasting burning. And I want you to 29:42 see this in verse 15 that it talks about the one who can live with God who is a consuming fire who seeks for every part of my body to be pure is the one who takes each of his body parts seriously in consecrating it 29:59 as a temple of God. The one in verse 15 who uses his feet to walk righteously to go to places that that the Lord leads. Who uses his mouth to speak with integrity and honesty. The one who shakes his hand so that he's not holding 30:18 anything unrighteous. The one who stops his ears from listening to things that are violent or evil. And the one who guards his eyes, shuts his eyes from looking at e at evil. That's the one. For those of you who may be scared of God, the Lord is is 30:37 your he the God is your heavenly father. He has accepted you. But he is a consuming fire. We must have a holy and reverence holy reverence for him because he cannot tolerate sin. Yet we are invited to live with him. And the way 30:49 we're invited to live with him is by walking righteously. By speaking with our mouth with integrity, by shaking our hands of anything that is not of him. By stopping our ears from hearing what we're not supposed to hear, 31:08 and from guarding eyes from evil. And so you can see even in this verse that the Lord has redeemed and consecrated each of our body parts to be holy for him. And it says later on verse 17 it says our eyes will see what should our eyes be seeing. Isaiah 33:17 31:25 eyes will be seeing God at all times seeing his beauty. That's how that's the purpose that he has for our eyes. I'll end with this final verse as an encouragement. Galatians chapter 6 verse 17. Galatians 6:17. I want you to read this as a 31:44 promise. Paul is saying this from the testimony of his life as one of the last uh words that he left with the Galatians. But I wanted each of you to claim this as a promise for yourself teams. It says, "Now let no one cause 32:00 trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brands of Jesus." In the olden days when uh slavery was common, if you were a slave of your servant, you were branded with a mark that indicated who your master was. And that's what when we say I am the 32:20 temple of the Holy Spirit. The Lord has paid a price for me. Therefore, I glorify him in my body, in every part of my body. It says in a way he has put this brand mark on me that says you belong to me. And so just like Paul, we can say and we can claim this 32:38 promise because the brandmark of Jesus is on me. I will not have any trouble. No one can cause trouble for me. There may be difficult circumstances. There may be trials that come that might seem difficult from the world's perspective. 32:53 But with God with me, it will not be trouble. Nobody in this world can cause trouble for me. No situation in this world will be troubling for me. What an encouragement and what a promise to claim that I can live a life of peace 33:09 with nothing, no competing friend or no person who's trying to bring me down in school or in college or no situation, no difficult exam can cause trouble for me because I have Jesus's brands on me because I 33:28 belong to him. So, I want to encourage you teens, if you are, if you're feeling defeated, if you're feeling ugly, know that if you run back to the Lord, he is quick to forgive. He looks at you when you repent. Don't come with 33:45 anything of your own. There's nothing you can bring that makes you worthy. Even if you try to obey all of his commands, it says in Luke 17:10, it says even if you obey all the things that you're asked to do, you're still an unworthy servant. So 34:01 regardless of whether you obey or disobey, you're still unworthy because you can't do it on your own. But if you run back to the Lord, the Lord says, "I have forgiven you. You are altogether beautiful, my darling. But more 34:14 importantly, I don't want you to run out again. I want to live with you. I want to have full access to every room in your heart, every room in your body. I want to have access to your eyes, your ears, your mouth. I want to put my brand 34:29 marks on you. And I will promise you that nothing if you as long as you give me full access to your body that there will be no trouble that will come your way. There will be nothing that will cause you trouble cuz I am living in 34:45 you. May this be true in each of our lives. May this be true especially for you teens. Amen.
