by Pastor Afolabi Oladele

Youth with a mission is the theme of our gathering and I want to say to you that until you resolve the identity question of who you are, you haven’t started. I repeat, until you resolve the identity question of who you are, you have not started; and as the Lord gives grace, I’ll take you through both the word of God and the testimony of other people, bringing you face to face with the question you have to deal with in your life first and foremost, before you take a step in what direction you want to go.

Do you know who you are? The word of God gives us different examples of people; some like Adam, were presented to us in full maturity, we saw their lives, we didn’t know their beginning. Someone like Elijah, he just appeared on the scene and you saw the mighty things that God wrought in his life. Examples of such men, like Elisha; we knew nothing about their beginnings or how they were born; they just appeared on the scene. Notwithstanding, they were worthy of God, men of renown who achieved things in their lives. And there are also others that God showed us right from the womb who they were, like Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”(NIV) So you find in the Word, different categories of people, men that God mightily used, some you’ll find them just as I gave you the category of examples of Elijah and Elisha, some you will find like Jeremiah, Samson, John the Baptist, even the Lord Jesus Christ. You will find two key things here, so crucial to the introduction in resolving this question of identity. Some were indeed born of prayers, in the case of John the Baptist (Luke 1:13); in the case of Samuel (1 Samuel 1:10, 11). Aside prayer, you will also find another set of people that were born of promise; Isaac. And common to both classes is the fact that they were wonders in terms of achievement in things that God purposed for their lives. You may not be born of prayer like Samuel or John the Baptist but I can say definitely to you, you are born of the word of promise, because the word of God to the man that He had created was to replenish the earth, to multiply.

Every man that is born or created of God is a child of promise; so even if you are not a child of prayer, you can say assuredly, “I am a child of promise”. Are you persuaded of it? Because if you don’t know that, you haven’t started. Until you resolve in your hearts, your very foundation in terms of who you are, you’ll stand confused all your life. Tell yourself, “I’m a child of promise and I’m a wonder of God”. Do you believe it? Let that sink in your spirit; let it grip your thinking so that you dispel all kind of wrong things that have been pumped into your life; the things that don’t make sense when it comes to the realms of God. I want to say something to you further, many of you have had strange and bad experiences in your lives that you’ll think “oh, well, Pastor has just said this, what about this and that event that happened in my life that haunts me?” Do you remember the man David, after his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah, in Psalm 51, lamented the sin? So not everybody, notwithstanding the fact that they were children of promise or of prayer, have had it smooth sailing all their lives. But something happened in the life of David, a change in nature took place in his life when he began to speak those words Psalm 139, where he said, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”. God is the One that can bring about a change in your life, in your nature, independent of whatever circumstances has surrounded your life. You need to get a hold of  this so that nothing, no Satan, no demon should take advantage of you; after all, God says you are a child of promise, a wonder before God, one whose nature God can change if you will give Him a chance. We need to set this straight before we begin to consider the issue of whoever we are, what vision, and what mission.

So truth number one that we are establishing today is, if you cannot consciously recognize yourself as a child of prayer such as Samuel and John the Baptist, you should at least recognize yourself as a child of the word of God in Genesis 1:27-28. This was an important realization for David who surmounted a defective beginning as he expressed in his own word in Psalm 51:5. David came to know a changing nature that brought him a fresh realization of his origin, of who he was and of who he belonged to, in a powerful testimony which I want to examine a little bit in part before we go on to the substance of this part one of the Identity question today; so that you may know who you belong to, and the greatness of His power that works on your behalf. The more you soak yourself on this knowledge and understanding of who you are, who you belong to, whose you are, and let that drive your life, the more of an overcomer that you’ll become in the issues that you face.

Psalm 139:1-2 “O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known [me]. Thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off”. (KJV)

I belong to the God of perfect knowledge, He has a perfect knowledge of me; He knows me, He knows you. I say this, bringing it in relation to what I’ve just said about David; some of you are constantly beseeched by terrible thoughts; even right now, there are things going on in your head that you will be afraid for people to know, but God knows. He knows my thoughts, I can’t hide from Him and the only way I can enjoy the fullness of who I am in terms of my identity is to tell Him my fears: “Dad, I’m in trouble, You can see what’s going on in my heart, I’m looking at that thing and its turning my head this way …” How long are you going to hide from the God that knows you? How long are you going to hide from the One who says you are a wonder? The scriptures say He knows my thoughts afar off, my standing up, my sitting down; that speaks about motion; every place that I go He sees and He knows, there is not a word in my tongue as He says here,

Psalm 139:3-4 “You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O LORD, You know it altogether”. (NKJV) You can’t hide from him who created you; the fact has been established, child of promise, a wonder before God, to settle you down in being able to contradict every thought that Satan can bring your way and when those thoughts become overpowering, the God to whom you belong, He knows those thoughts and can change you as He changed the nature of David.

Psalm 139:7-8 “I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there”. (NLT) Even if you thought of revolting from obedience to God, disowning a dependence on Him and shift and say “I’m shipping out of Nigeria”, where can you go that He doesn’t see? As you get a hold of this fact, submit yourself to the Lord, who has said precisely to you that you are a child of promise and that you are a wonder.

Next as we think of the Youth with a Mission, there has to be an understanding concerning the conduct and the responsibility of a child of vows, a child of prayers, or a child of promise. There are certain things that we want to pick out of the life of two men, I’ll take just one here and break it down. It goes beyond just the youths, this word applies to all who want to be classed as children of signs and wonder (Isaiah 8:18), whether you are pastor or you are parent. Let me take the case of Samuel. Hannah’s life taught a very important lesson: first, that care for our children is not only on account of the natural tie but more with an eye on the covenant of Grace that God puts on them. At what age do you think Samuel was taken to the temple? The Bible says he was a lad – little boy; that lets you know that nobody is too young to be in service to God. This little boy was taken to the temple, because of the commitment that his mother Hannah had made to God that “I’ll given this child to You, and I want to ask the God that answers prayers…” A  child of vow – given back to the God that grants vows;  a child of promise given back to the One who gives promise; and we see that parallel not only in the life of Samuel, we saw it also in the life of Isaac whom God asked to be sacrificed to Him. Like Hannah, Abraham obeyed. The question that I want to ask now as we are trying to trace the conduct and responsibility of children of vows is, now that you know that you are a child of promise, are you willing to give yourself back to the One who gave you as a child of promise?

It’s something worth thinking about; we cannot be preaching year after year without you understanding what is the conduct and the responsibility that God demands of you and me. And I’m earnestly praying that God who opens hearts and gives understanding, will open your hearts and give you understanding concerning this; so that you would truly be an army that is unleashed upon the people of this nation, not ones that are seeking for worldly pleasure, nor looking for the things of this world, but those who are totally given to God that will turn away the reproach of our nation. If Hannah had had many children, it would have been easy to do, wouldn’t it? If she had many to give one away, you would have said well that’s fine but Hannah had only one and Hannah had to give that one back to God; there has to be something to it but I want to tell you that God never owes anybody anything, because God gave Hannah many more children. See Jesus saying it in the New Testament in Mark 10:29.

Bible scholars are divided about the age at which the boy Samuel was taken to the temple; they gave two opinions: the normal age that they say a child is weaned is in the worst cases, three years; but the other school of thought say it is when a child puts aside all childish immature ways and they put it around the age of eight. Now, ask yourself, “Am I too young to be on mission for Jesus? No! But you need to go through “PROCESS”, until you become the full mature man that God wants.

Let’s take the parentage of Samuel. His father was a Levite, and that meant he was already of the priesthood line by  parentage, so what was special in what his mother did when in the third year she took him to the temple, gave him to Eli, and said “I have lent him unto the Lord?” The mother committed him to a Nazarene’s life, a life of total separation to God! Are you willing to give yourself totally to God? Are you? You are not too old and you are not too young, and there is a purpose to that. Don’t let anyone deceive you, giving your life totally to God robs you of nothing, if anything, it opens a great future for your life and we’ve seen in the life of Samuel. Did the child Samuel understand what his mother was doing? Yes, because the very first thing that he did when he got into the temple was that he ministered (1 Samuel 2:11.).

There was a commitment in the heart of that young boy and I personally believe that in those three years that he was with his mother, she had been speaking to him, giving the testimony of how her life had been, the horrors that Peninah put her through and how she went into the temple and how God answered her prayers. This boy must have been wondering what kind of God that God is, and he must have wanted to know this God. The whole purpose of you being taught over the years essentially has been for that same sake: that you must know who this God is. The scriptures said “and the child Samuel ministered to the Lord before Eli the priest”, perhaps in learning his catechism, perhaps in doing simple errands: “hey, Samuel, go and bring me some water; Samuel, go and bring me the torah (the torah is the book of law) Samuel go and do that” In simple errands to the servant of God in the temple, the word of God recorded it as ministering to Eli. Ministering to the Lord here was simple errands because this young boy at three years old or even at eight, what could he know about the laws and the regulations that prevailed in the temple? So the only way he probably was ministering was simply errands that Eli was sending him. You need to understand, you can’t be converted in one day and in two weeks you become Billy Graham. Miraculously God can do it but it doesn’t follow His process.

Now, who were the other people who were ministering in that temple? Eli’s sons (described as vagabonds) were also there, but Samuel from his youth had become accustomed to another kind of mind, he wasn’t going to listen to the wrong people, he was listening to Eli! Know who your mentors are! Know who your teachers are! Know who you keep company with! These things are so important if you are going to be effective as a young man or woman on mission for God. According to the Levitical laws, the age at which one enters into the Levite ministry is seventeen or eighteen; yet the Word of God still recorded Samuel ministering to the Lord. In 1 Samuel 2:18, you will see the progression that he had done from verse 11: “But Samuel ministered before the LORD, [being] a child, girded with a linen ephod” (1 Samuel 2:18). Something had happened here: the difference between 18 and 11 is that he already had a linen Ephod on. When you have a linen Ephod, and you have already entered the priesthood. There’s a progression that comes with staying under authority, there is a progression that comes with learning from mentors, men of God, parents like he had, teachers whose hearts are given to God. There is a progression that comes with total separation to God, giving yourself totally to God, and learning to be under authority so that you can go through process. And as you go through process of those who love the Lord whose hearts are with God, you will get there, and that’s all we are praying for. Because God is in a hurry to finish the work, He’s only looking for those who are going to say “Yes Lord, here am I”.

1 Samuel 2:26 “And the child Samuel grew in stature, and in favour both with the LORD and men”. (NKJV) Who else was that scripture used to describe? Jesus! So Samuel was also a type of Jesus. You must have willingness to be under authority, having given yourself totally to God, you must learn from Samuel because he matured in what I call a most challenging environment, and I want to dwell a little bit on that, because that’s the excuse that many of us give is: how can I be in this kind of environment and be a Christian? The environment in which Samuel was is not in any way different from the environment we are today. What characterized the environment in which he was? This boy, his entire world was there in the temple but inside that temple, everything that you can replicate in the world was there, the children of Eli, whom the scriptures say were sons of Belial, stealing the very best of the sacrifices that the people offered to God. Covetousness, greed and self-interest were what they were demonstrating, exactly the same things troubling us in our nation today. A young girl who knows how much we pray for our country in the church, went to the NYSC office to process some of her papers, but the officer she met demanded for N5,000 to be able to get the papers she wanted out of the NYSC office. Just think about it; a Youth Corper earns about N19, 000, and if N5,000 is extorted out of the N19, 000, what would be left? How will the Corper go to work, how will she eat? So this young lady got home and said to her parents, “Dad, Mom, you are just wasting your time praying for this nation and its people; the people in government service now that you are praying for, are worse than those who were there”. But that’s not the answer; we don’t give up because the youths are the ones that are going to make that difference. Do you know what God is setting you up for? The people who are going to make a difference are the youths that God is grooming to be the next Samuels. Greed, covetousness and self-interest is what has driven us as a nation to where we are today and I know that by the word and the Spirit of God, God is determined to raise up deliverers who will turn away unrighteousness from this land. You have heard this word because you are the ones that God is setting up, and just as Samuel overcame the same contradictions to be a worthy instrument in the hands of God, strive to do same.