Understanding your purpose as a Youth

Scripture References: Luke 13:6 | Philemon 1:10-11

_______________________________________

OPENING

"3ny3 be f3 3nti ma wadware aba asore"
(It is not for nothing that you dressed up and came to church)

When we come to church, understanding is the reason.

DEEP NOTE

statement should be read as both diagnostic and prescriptive. The argumentative child is not necessarily rebellious — they are simply without a framework.

When purpose is absent, everything feels arbitrary. Instructions feel like control. Structure feels like oppression. Correction feels like attack. But the moment a young person understands where they are going and why the current season of discipline is preparing them for it, their entire posture changes. Purpose converts instruction into training. Purpose converts correction into preparation. Purpose converts patience into strategy.

Jeremiah 1:5 says God knew us before He formed us — which means purpose precedes birth. A youth who has not yet discovered their purpose has not yet connected with the deepest knowledge God has of them. Prayer, the Word, submission to spiritual authority, and faithful service are the environments in which that discovery happens.

________________________________________

POINT: BE PROFITABLE

Philemon 1:10-11 — "I beseech thee for my son Onesimus... which in time past was not profitable to thee, but now profitable both to thee and to me."

The purpose of the youth. A boy who was not profitable has become profitable. My boy through the training of Apostle Paul has become profitable.

"Cs3nka fo see kae wcbcfo wo mrantibr3m"
(It used to be said — remember your young people in their time of youth)

Be profitable or God will replace you.

"Ade3 3y3 3ne s3 nnipa agye watum na awurade apo wo"
(The worst thing is for people to celebrate your removal and God to reject you)

"Ma wo so 3mra mfasoc"
(Add value to the space you occupy)

The church is waiting for your manifestation.

DEEP NOTE

Onesimus is one of the most instructive characters in all of the New Testament epistles for a sermon on youth and purpose. He was a runaway slave — by Roman law, a criminal. By every social measure, a failure. He had literally fled from the place he was assigned to. Yet Paul, writing from prison, calls him "my son." Not my project. Not my case study. My son.

This is the language of spiritual fathering — the kind of investment that transforms a runaway into a returning, profitable servant. Paul's fathering of Onesimus in prison produced what Philemon's ownership of him for years had not. This reveals something important: the environment that produces transformation is not always the most comfortable or conventional one. Onesimus was transformed in a prison. Sometimes God uses the restrictive, the humbling, the unplanned season to do His deepest work in a young life.

The training of Apostle Paul was not a formal programme. It was proximity, investment, truth-speaking, and love. Every youth needs a Paul. Every assembly needs leaders who will father the Onesimuses — not use them, not dismiss them, but name them as sons and send them back transformed.

There are two layers of loss in the phrase "Ade3 3y3 3ne s3 nnipa agye watum na awurade apo wo." The first is social — to be removed from a role and have people rejoice at your removal. That is painful. It means your presence was so counterproductive that your departure is celebrated rather than mourned. But the second layer is theological and far more grave — for God Himself to reject you.

Matthew 7:22-23 is the scripture that haunts this statement: "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me.'" These were church people. Active, visible, vocal church people. But God disqualified them because their activity was never rooted in genuine fruitfulness. The preacher is not trying to frighten the youth. He is trying to awaken them to the gravity of their moment.

Romans 8:19 says "the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God." The assembly of Afrancho Central — the elders, the deacons, the mothers, the pastor — they are watching. Not passively. Eagerly. Expectantly. They have invested in the youth. They have prayed over the youth. They are watching to see if what was sown will produce a harvest.

"Manifestation" is the moment a thing becomes visible that was previously hidden. Your gifts are hidden. Your anointing is hidden. Your purpose is hidden — until you step into faithful service and allow God to make it manifest.

Matthew 25:14-30 — the servant who received one talent and buried it was not wicked in any dramatic sense. He did not steal. He did not destroy. He simply did not add. And yet the master called him "wicked and slothful" and took the talent from him and gave it to another. Passivity in the kingdom of God is not neutral. It is a form of disobedience.

________________________________________

POINT: DO IT FOR GOD, NOT FOR MEN

Imagine your singing became televised and your parents saw it. Would they be proud?

Some youth have become a disappointment to the family.

May the church see us and say we are proud of you. May the church increase the youth church for all to say the purpose of the youth has come to pass.

Be profitable or people will say why have you taken the land without bearing fruit.

There is a church that says — brighten the corner where you are.

"Awurade na 3de adom wo 3na de3 wcde adom wo no wooy3"
(The Lord has graced you — and what you have been graced with, do it)

You are doing it for God and not for man. It is good that people appreciate you but because you know your purpose, you don't do it for the applause of men. You are doing it for God.

"Wctumi ka biribiara, wctumi sh3 biribiara"
(They can say anything, they can do anything) — because they do not know their purpose.

DEEP NOTE

The television illustration is a mirror test. Not for ability — but for character. The preacher is not asking whether you can sing well enough for TV. He is asking: is your conduct in this church something you would be comfortable with the people who know you best seeing in full?

Parents represent the ones who see you at home, who know the gap between your Sunday self and your daily self. If your parents watched you in church and felt proud — not just of your performance but of your posture, your faithfulness, your consistency — that is a life of integrity.

The deeper application is that God is always that parent who sees everything. He sees the rehearsal and the performance. He sees the attitude behind the song. He sees why you came forward and why you held back. Ecclesiastes 12:14 — "God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil."

When the preacher says some youth have become a disappointment to the family, he says it with pastoral weight, not condemnation. The good news of the gospel is that God is the God of the prodigal — the one who, even while the son was still a great distance away, ran to meet him (Luke 15:20). Disappointment is not disqualification. But acknowledgement must precede restoration.

"Brighten the Corner Where You Are" is a line from a hymn written by Ina Duley Ogdon. She had been invited to join a large evangelistic tour but was called to remain home and care for her ailing father. From that place of what felt like limitation and obscurity, she wrote a declaration of faithfulness — that the corner you are in right now is enough of a stage for God to work through you.

The preacher is applying this to the youth of Afrancho Central. You do not need a bigger platform to begin being profitable. Your section of the choir, your row of chairs, your Sunday school class, your instrument, your role on the hospitality team — that is your current assignment. Brighten it.

Luke 16:10 — "Whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in much." The path to greater influence always runs through faithful service in the present small place.

Colossians 3:23 — "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters." The phrase "all your heart" in the original Greek is ek psyches — from the soul. Not from the occasion. Not from the crowd. From the soul. That kind of work does not fluctuate with the applause.

When purpose is absent, "wctumi ka biribiara, wctumi sh3 biribiara" — they can say and do anything, because there is nothing anchoring them. But when you know your purpose, you are anchored. Criticism cannot move you. Discouragement cannot stop you. Comparison cannot derail you. Hebrews 6:19 speaks of hope as "a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul." Purpose, rightly rooted in God, functions exactly that way.

________________________________________

CLOSING CHARGE

God make us profitable and useful and not to be referred to as —

"Magye asaase ak3nt3n so"
(I have taken the land and produced nothing)

DEEP NOTE

This closing prayer is simultaneously a confession, a petition, and a covenant. The preacher is asking God not only to make the youth productive but to protect them from the specific indictment of occupying sacred space without producing fruit.

"Asaase ak3nt3n so" — upon the land without purpose. The land here is the church, the assembly, the body of Christ that has made room for these young people. To occupy that space and produce nothing is a particular kind of failure — because the land was prepared, the water was provided, the conditions were created. Yet nothing came forth. It is the failure of the fig tree in the most personal form.

The prayer is therefore also a surrender — Lord, we cannot make ourselves profitable by our own effort. We need Your grace to activate what You placed in us. Make us what You called us to be.

Let our presence add, not subtract. Let our chapter in this assembly be one that future generations will point to and say — they were here, and because they were here, something grew.

________________________________________

CLOSING PRAYER

Father God, we thank You for the grace You have poured out on this generation.
We acknowledge that we have not always been what You called us to be.

But we come to You today with one request —
make us profitable.
Transform the useless into the useful.
Turn the one who has occupied space into the one who fills it with fruit.

May the youth of Afrancho Central not be a generation spoken of with sadness.
May we be a generation whose fruitfulness testifies to Your faithfulness.

God, make us profitable and useful.
Let us not be a people who occupy space without bearing fruit.
Let the youth of Afrancho Central be a testimony.

Amen.

________________________________________

TAC-Ghana Afrancho Central Assembly

VISIT: tac-ghafranchocentral.org