November 21, 2021
by Barrett Vanlandingham
The 2021 fall youth retreat is finishing up this morning (Sunday). Our theme for the weekend was “Thanks Be to God!” I thought that would be an appropriate topic that might plant some much needed optimism in our society today.
All of
our preachers and Bible class teachers eagerly took on the opportunity to dig
into this rich feast of God’s word beginning with 1 Corinthians 15:57, assigned
to Justin Tillison for Friday night worship.
In
this verse, the apostle Paul had just reminded the church in Corinth of some
very important things about Jesus: One, that Christ died, was buried, raised on
the third day, and appeared to hundreds of people before he ascended back to
his Father in heaven. Paul stated that some
people were mistaken in thinking there was no such thing as a resurrection from
the dead since without it, not even Jesus could have conquered the grave, which
would have meant very bad things for us including no hope beyond this life.
In
this chapter 15, Paul quotes Old Testament prophecy: “Death is swallowed up
in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” followed
by this exclamation point: “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
There
is perhaps no one who felt more grateful of this victory than Paul, since Jesus
appeared to him in a bright light and struck Paul blind in order to help him
see the error of his ways in persecuting Christians. This victory in Christ
gives us many reasons to be thankful.
On
Saturday morning, the youth minister at Sand Springs, Zach Foote, was assigned
to teach about being thankful for the church. “Therefore, since we are
receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship
God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire”
(Hebrews 12:28-29).
Next, our
Thomas Holton’s topic was on being “thankful in all circumstances for this
is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
Saturday
afternoon classes included being thankful “for His indescribable gift” of
grace (2 Corinthians 9:15), by Chandler Road’s youth minister, Michael Carney.
The NSU
Riverhawks for Christ campus minister Tyrel Hatfield was assigned to teach about
being thankful to God for leading us to “spread the aroma” of Christ (2
Corinthians 2:14-16). Tyrel will also be speaking here in Fort Gibson for our Sunday evening worship.
Saturday
night’s keynote was Chandler Road’s pulpit minister, Don Cherry, who had the
assignment of what it means to have “A Thankful and Overflowing Heart”
(Psalm 9:1 and Colossians 2:6-7).
Sunday
morning, I asked the pulpit minister from Stuart, Chris Rampey, to challenge us
with a message of “Letting Our Thankfulness Make a Difference!”
About
100 or so from area churches signed up for our weekend of fellowship and thankfulness.
God is good. Have a great week!