“Youth are often ask me, What is heaven like?” – says coordinator of work with youth Mato Uhrin during the Sunday worship service in Martin. Mato always has the same answer: “I don’t know. „He follows with the question: “Did you experience something nice?”
Everybody has a little smile and says, “Yes!” After this, Maťo answers that this is the same good feeling will we have in the heaven. “You will be close the God; surrounded by God´s love and the joy of everybody who will be with you.”
REJOICE for the baptism
There was much rejoicing in our hearts brought on by the baptisms of two of the community’s young people, Viktoria and Roman. Viktoria is an 8th grade student in the Lutheran elementary school. She found God in her school and more so in later church youth groups. Roman’s story followed the opposite course. He came like an unbeliever in the youth groups in the church in Martin. But, God changed his heart, and he decided to enroll in the program “Mission work with children and youth” at the Bible school. It is not important whether you learn about God and His plan for world and then start to be believer like Viktoria, or if you start to be believer and later you want to know more about Him like Roman. The importance is not that we choose Him, but that He chooses us. He did it so that we “bear fruit” (John 15:16). This is perhaps the biggest reason for joy like this.
REJOICE for rejoicing, service, and community
The main topic of the sermon was rejoicing. The Bible’s words from Philippians 4:4 say: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” Coordinator Mato shows an example for rejoicing in young people. Their rejoicing shows us how great our rejoicing could and should be. We can find other reasons to rejoice in our community. One of these is to rejoice in service. In our church we felt it during the reconstruction of pastor’s flat last week. The other moments of rejoicing came into the community because of the love for each other. Our love should be like the love of Christ.
REJOICE for God´s kids
How does Paul talk about rejoicing in his letter to the Philippians? “Should we always rejoice in everything?” asked Mato. Of course we should not. “What’s important is that our rejoicing should come from within us during evangelism.” Everyone who believes should rejoice like this. It is the rejoicing of God´s children! God´s kingdom is closer and closer. But we still have our place here. We have a reason for rejoice because we have the gift of grace; because we are Christ´s; because two young people today came to God….
