Things that Young People can do to Serve God Now

Free Sunday School lesson for pre-teens and teens on Things that Young People can do to Serve God Now in the Bible using the King James Bible.

Begin the lesson with a series of questions:

As a young person, you probably think that there isn’t a lot that you can do right now to serve God, and you give yourself the excuse that you’ll serve God one day when you’re an adult. Maybe you even read your Bible, and occasionally pray, and go to church and think that this is good enough. God can’t do much with you anyway.

Right?

This is a lie that your flesh and the devil will tell you to keep you useless and out of the way. The truth is:

None of us have any excuse to be idle or useless to God because there is always something that each of us can do.

Everyone should be familiar with the story of the lad with five loaves and two fishes. He used what he had to help Jesus perform a mighty miracle and feed five thousand men beside women and children. This story appears in all four gospels, but it is in the gospel of John 6:5-14 KJV that we learn it was a little boy who assisted Jesus by just doing what he could and giving what he had.

There are various stories of young people in the Bible being used of God, including young Miriam helping her brother Moses (Exodus 2:4-10 KJV), the captive maid telling her masters about the God of Israel and his prophet (2 Kings 5:1-14 KJV), and even Jesus himself as a boy sitting in the temple (Luke 2:42-52 KJV).

It’s easy to make excuses that we can’t be compared to Jesus, or we aren’t like these people in the Bible. But, how do you think that excuse will hold up when you face God at the Judgment Seat of Christ? (2 Corinthians 5:10 KJV)

Doing something for God requires building a relationship with him.

This has nothing to do with salvation, but it is something that all Christian, young and old, should be doing. Every. Single. Day.

Read the Bible.

Pray

Go to Church (While you can’t go to church every day, you can make decisions to surround yourself with godly people, godly music, and putting your time towards godly things – as opposed to listening to music with cuss words, tiktoks with cursewords and references to sex, ungodly tv shows, and other things that will weaken your relationship with Christ)

The way to establish a relationship with God (as well as anyone else) is by communicating. You must listen to God (by reading the Bible and coming to church), and you must talk to him through prayer.

Consistency is key.

Nurturing a relationship takes time. People complain that they pray for two days or read the Bible for one week then quit because nothing happens, as if something magical is supposed to happen that third day or that second week of doing what they are supposed to do. There is no beam of light that shines down from heaven if you make it to that magical third day. That isn’t how this works. Be patient. It takes time and commitment to have a relationship with God.

This relationship is also how God will reveal what your purpose in life is.

My Story

(Teachers, please share your own story, as it will be more meaningful to your students.)

When I was your age, I didn’t know what I liked. I just wanted to do something awesome with my life like travel to different places, cure cancer, etc. My mom always pushed me to be a doctor. When I was sixteen, after a major trial in my life, I really got focused on following God. I began doing those three things mentioned earlier in the lesson. I’d finally learned that God would reveal his plan for your life if you were faithful in the ordinary. Eventually, God showed me what he wanted me to be: a writer. It took me awhile to realize that I would need a lot of patience and time with this.

Years passed, and I was in college, praying really hard about God providing me a job. I felt burdened because I didn’t have enough money to help my parents, and I was their retirement plan, the daughter smart enough to make enough money to take care of them.

One day, God gave me peace about finding a job when I got out of college.

I had just graduated and was working several jobs (substitute teaching, writing articles online, and teaching English online) when the Spanish teacher at the local high school retired suddenly. Simply because I had a minor in Spanish, the board of education called offering me the job.

I never wanted to be a teacher, and I really didn’t want to take this job for various reasons, but after several days of intense prayer, God made it clear this was the job he’d provided.

It’s been eight years, and I’m so glad to be where I am.

I love influencing young people and teaching them how to do something with their lives. I love standing in front of a class and holding the attention of around twenty young adults, and they’re all listening to me. They respect me. I’ve always wanted to be a leader, and I’ve always liked attention; and this job, with all its liberties, gives me more than I wanted. Not having a lot of money doesn’t bother me so much because I love what I do. It’s saddening that so many young Christians will never know what God is willing to do for them all because they won’t make time to have a relationship with him.

For more information on building a stronger relationship with God, please refer to this lesson: The Importance of Having a Relationship With God

What can young people do for God?

All of us should be asking God to give us something to do, including kids your age. We all have talents and abilities that God has given us. I’m just going to give you some ideas that a young Christian can be doing instead of wasting time on their phone or idling.

1. Make a tract to share the gospel.

Develop a theme of your tract (5 thing evolutionists don’t tell you, The True Meaning of Beauty, Types of music and why that’s important, How to be saved.)
Use other tracts as templates/guides.
Draw pictures, write neatly, or type them out.
Ask the church to make copies for you to hand out.

I once found a handmade tract in a gas station. It was in the back of a candy box and written like a love note. I took it and read it as discreetly as possible, even dropping it on the ground when people passed the aisle in case the true owner came back looking for it. Only towards the end did I find out it was a gospel tract.

2. Be a creative writer.

Write a poem, song, or short story. Be original – read other poems, hymns, stories based on scripture to draw inspiration then map out your own idea.
Put notes to a Psalm in order to sing it. Take an insignificant Bible character and tell their story (lad with fishes and loaves), Queen Esther’s handmaiden, the lion who encountered Daniel, etc.

3. Plan a group activity.

This can include making a game up to play – such as tweaking a gameshow to ask Biblical questions (Are you smarter than a 5^th grader, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, etc.)
Plan a Bible study with your friends and make food. (A great Bible study my friends did when I was young is called Changed into His Image by Jim Berg.)
Plan a song to sing with your friends in church. Talk to an adult about singing a special, and they will help you with it.
Talk to your parents about planning a trip to the Creation Museum, Noah’s Ark, or a Church camp (if it’s summer).

4. Learn an instrument.

Music is a very important aspect of worshipping God. Many important Biblical and historical figures played instruments for God (David, Fanny Crosby, etc.)
Talk to your parents about getting a beginner’s instrument for Christmas or your birthday.
YouTube offers tons of free lessons, including singing lessons. Join your school marching band or join the church choir for other methods of free training. There are also plenty of members in the church who can play instruments/sing that you can ask for lessons.
Be mindful of what songs actually glorify God. Contemporary music isn’t always good for spiritual edifying. Talk to someone in church or your parents if you have questions about a song.

5. Plan a tract blitz.

A tract blitz is where you go somewhere and hand out a specific number of tracts or hand out as many tracts as you can for a specific amount of time.
Take a trip to the mall or with friends and plan to leave tracts in every bathroom stall, a certain number of stores, or given directly to people
If you are nervous about handout out tracts, leave them places. You can hide tracts in books at Barnes and Noble, in the candy aisle of a gas station, in the shoes at Walmart, in the bathrooms at McDonalds. One woman gave a testimony that she got saved from a tract that she found under a head of lettuce at Walmart.

6. Write a letter to a missionary.

There are lots of letters hanging on the wall of our church. Find a missionary who’s going to an interesting country or who has a story that inspires you, and write them a letter. Once you have it written, talk to your parents someone in the church about sending it if you don’t know what address to send it to or don’t have a stamp. (If your church does not have missionaries, encourage students to look them up online or look some up yourself to share.)
If it’s the mission’s conference, or if you know a missionary is visiting, make a care package. You can send a care package overseas to a missionary too if you have enough money saved up.

7. Draw or paint a verse picture.

If you love art, find a verse or a story in the Bible, and sketch out a picture to relay it. Then, write the verse or the book, chapter, and verse of the story that inspired your picture. You can even write out a tract or an invitation to the church on the back.
Give it to someone you care about, to a stranger, or if it’s small, leave it somewhere to be found. Just an invitation to church can change a destiny.

8. Teach a younger class.

You may be young, but there are kids younger in the church than you, and they likely think you are way cooler than any adult.
Volunteer to watch nursery on Sunday evening services and read Bible stories to the toddlers.
Read your Bible, pray, and plan a lesson (salvation, being a witness, being kind, reading the Bible, etc.) Once you have a lesson, volunteer to teach a younger class for Sunday School or Wednesday night service.

All of these are just ideas and suggestions to get you started, but it’s important to serve God with what you have. In Exodus 4:1-2 KJV, all Moses had was a rod in his hand, and that’s what God used when he went down into Egypt, stood against a world leader, to demand liberation for a people without the help of an army.

If you want to be used of God, he will use you.

God won’t hold us accountable for what we don’t have, but he will hold us accountable for what we do have (1 Peter 4:10 KJV). Invest what little time you have. Tithe what little money you have.

There may be 1,000 people who would be better at this than you, and there may be 100 adults who could do this instead of you, but if you’ll just make yourself available, God will use you (Ecclesiastes 9:4 KJV).

I know that life can be difficult. The world and everyone around you, even your own flesh sometimes, is demanding for you to get this or to become that.

That’s why establishing a relationship with God is so important. He is the only one who can help you get your priorities straight.

Desire alone isn’t going to get the job done.

Graveyards are filled with unaccomplished desires and dreams from people who waited just one day too late.

Story of Terah, Abraham’s dad. Terah means delay. Terah had a good desire to go to Cannan but died in Haran was where he stopped, and it was only halfway there. He died where he didn’t plan on going. Don’t look at your life today and think you’re too young. Don’t settle for the lie that God can’t use you.

Everything that you have today – it’s all temporary. What you do have is just what God has given you to work with for the time being, and God makes it clear that it’s enough to serve him if you’re willing to be used by him.

People all over the world are chasing things that will never satisfy them.

They are dissatisfied with life, hurting, hungry for more money, more beauty – something that will finally grant them happiness.

This world can’t make you happy.

The richest and most beautiful among us who don’t know God are among the most miserable.

Don’t get caught in the rat race, running towards adulthood at a breakneck speed so you can finally accomplish something. Accomplish something now (Ecclesiastes 12:1 KJV).

How many people has the world forgotten doing the exact same vain things that we do every day, and worrying about the same temporary things that we worry about?

Think about this quote:

“Life is short; ’twill soon be passed. Only what’s done for Christ will last.”
C.T. Studd

The rest of the poem directly references the Judgment Seat of Christ where we, as saved Christians, will stand before God as he judges our works (1 Corinthians 3:11-15 KJV).

Only a desire to be used of God will amount to anything, and God doesn’t forget (2 Timothy 2:11-12 KJV).

The world will forget you. The generation after you won’t care about you. Only God will remember, so he is the one we should be focused on. I can testify that there is nothing better than to lay your head down at night, knowing that you’ve done what God has created you to do.

If you enjoyed this Bible lesson about things that young people can do to serve God now, be sure to check out other lessons here.