One of the days we were in North Carolina, we decided to boat over to a rock jump. We chose this specific rock jump because there were also some lower jumps for the kids to do. As we were pulling up to it, some crazy whim came over me and I thought, "Hey, why not?". It really didn't look that high and I've known TONS of people who have done this exact jump and made it look really easy!
So I climbed up there and walked toward the edge. And then I looked OVER the edge. And I froze. It looked A LOT different from up there and all I could think was, "What did I get myself into? What was I thinking? This is NOT happening!" Over the next minute or so I tried to think up a way to get out of doing it. Since none of the other adults in the boat were brave enough to even climb up there, I could easily just turn around, go back down and be done.
But then I looked down at my little girls sitting there watching me. How many times have I said to them, "I know you're scared but if you just do it, you're gonna have so much fun!" And in that moment I realized I HAD to do this. Not for me, but for them. I had a purpose and a reason to do this jump. And all of a sudden - it was easy. I made the girls count down from 10 and when they got to 1 I just did it. I jumped.
It was no less scary going down and, oh man, did it hurt! (What I'm actually scared of is not the fall or hitting the water - it's going too deep under the water and it taking forever to get back to the top! So when I jumped I put my arms out to prevent that from happening - OWWWWW!) But no matter how petrified I was that I was going to die, having a reason and having a purpose outside of myself for taking this plunge changed everything.
We're kicking off our first night of Community for the year and we are so excited that YOU are here. And it's not just because we like you and we want to hang out with you (we do!) but there is SO much more to it than that. There is a bigger reason and a greater purpose for WHY we are all here and that is what we're going to talk about tonight.
My question for you is "Why are YOU here?" Maybe this is your first time here. Maybe you're here because someone invited you and for some reason you said "Yes". Maybe you're here because your parents are making you come. Maybe you're here because these are your people and you want to hang out with them. Maybe you're here because you knew the guy or girl you like was going to be here tonight. Maybe you're here because you know you need some God in your life and you think this is probably a pretty good place to do that.
Whatever your reason is, even if you think it's NOT really a good reason, we really are SO glad that you are here! I hear a lot of little complaints and I've been doing this for a long time, so this is nothing new: "She's just here for a guy!" or "He's not here for the right reasons!" and this is what I have to say about that - I DON'T CARE! No matter what your motivation for being here, we really just don't care as long as you're here! And every time you are HERE, you are putting yourself in a position to HEAR from God and that is awesome. Just come and let other people come - regardless of what gets them in these doors!
But here's the deal - all of those reasons are great to get you in the door, and maybe even keep you coming for a while. But someday that reason isn't going to exist anymore - maybe your crush fades or your actually start DISliking the people here and NOT wanting to be around them. Maybe your parents will give up and stop forcing you or maybe all of this will just get old. And you'll be like me, standing on top of that rock jump - are you going to do it or not? Are you going to keep coming? Like me looking down at my little girls, will you have a purpose that is strong enough to keep you here when all that other stuff fades?
And I believe there's only ONE purpose that's going to work, ONE purpose that will make it worth it to take that jump, to keep coming even when everything inside of you says not to. And His name is Jesus.
Of course that probably seems pretty obvious that our purpose here, at a church would be Jesus, but let me break it down like this: Our purpose here at COMMUNITY and every event we do is: Jesus. But specifically it's to KNOW, LOVE and SHARE Jesus.
First of all, KNOW.
We're going to start in John 17:3: "This is the way to have eternal life—to KNOW You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one You sent to earth."
We KNOW the one true God by KNOWING the one He sent, Jesus Christ.
A lot of people believe that it's good enough to just know ABOUT Jesus. You know, the basic information - He was born on Christmas, died on Good Friday, rose again on Easter. Long hair, flowing robes, and a halo around His head. He performed miracles and said some cool things about God.
But this verse doesn't say "to know ABOUT Jesus" it says to KNOW Jesus. There is a really big difference between knowing ABOUT Jesus and KNOWING Jesus.
Tim and I absolutely love the show "Survivor". We have watched every season of Survivor for 13 years - we're coming up on Season 27 this fall and we're so excited! Anyway, we've seen so many seasons of Survivor that we KNOW Jeff Probst, the host of the show, really well. We can even predict what he's going to say and do in almost every episode of the show. "Once the votes are read, the decision is final. The person voted out will be asked to leave the tribal council area immediately." We like to try to predict how they're going to show him travel from the island to the live show during the finale episode. There are a lot of things we know ABOUT Jeff Probst. But since we've never met him or talked to him or had any personal experience with him, we don't actually KNOW Jeff Probst.
So when John 17:3 says that the way to eternal life is to KNOW Jesus, it's not talking about knowing the information about him. It's talking about KNOWING Him as a person and having a relationship with Him.
It sounds kind of funny to say that you can KNOW this person who lived 2000 years ago, but it's VERY possible and VERY real. Here's how it works:
1) To know means to CONFESS
Romans 10:9 says, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." If you want to begin a true relationship with Jesus, you must confess - or admit - what you believe. You have to take that INFORMATION that you know - that Jesus lived, died and rose again and make it personal - for YOU. You have to choose to make that apply to YOUR life. That's it. You don't have to be a good person to have a relationship with Jesus. You don't have to clean up your life first. You don't have to know the Bible from cover to cover, you just have to CONFESS that you believe in Jesus and want Him to be the Lord of your life.
And all it takes to do that is a simple prayer and doing what we refer to around here as "accepting" or "receiving" Christ. You can do that right now! I'm going to pray and if you want to make Jesus your choice right now, if you want to have eternal life with Him and a real meaning and purpose in this life, you can just pray silently along with me in your heart. You're not born with this, you're not just "in" because you've gone to church or because your family is "Christian", it has to be a decision you make for yourself. If you haven't done that, why not now? God KNOWS you and He loves you deeply and He wants you to make the choice to KNOW Him. Why not pray right now and CONFESS Jesus for YOU?
Jesus, I know I need You in my life. I want to truly know You. I believe that You lived, died, and rose again. I accept Your forgiveness and the love that You have for me. Thank You for saving me, thank You for loving me so much. Amen.
2) To know means to CONTINUE
If for some reason Tim and I ever had the chance to meet Jeff Probst, it might go something like this. Someone might introduce us and we might say, "Hey, we're big fans of the show!" or something totally lame like that. Then we might have a short conversation with him about how we're from the Philadelphia area and he might say "Oh, I heard they have great cheesesteaks there!" and that would probably be it. I could have said that I MET Jeff Probst, but I still couldn't say that I KNOW Jeff Probst unless we started to spend time with him on a regular basis.
Once you CONFESS and meet Christ, the point of KNOWing Jesus is that you CONTINUE to KNOW Jesus.
How do you grow a relationship with Jesus? The same way you grow a relationship with a person. Two things: TALKING and TIME. If Tim and Jeff Probst decided they wanted to start being friends but they never talked to each other or spent any time together would their relationship grow? No way!
TALKING: You talk to Jesus the same way you talk with a friend. Just talk to Him! You can talk out loud or in your head, it doesn’t matter. He knows everything you're going to say because He's God - He just wants you to talk to Him and listen to Him like you would any other friend.
TIME: Any time that you spend praying, reading the Bible, listening to songs about Him, coming to Community, going to church on Sunday mornings, going to FCA on Tuesdays, serving Him - that's time spent in the best way possible - growing your relationship with Jesus.
This leads us to purpose number two which is LOVE. Our purpose is to help you go beyond just knowing Jesus and having a relationship with Jesus, but to actually LOVING Jesus.
I think sometimes when we hear the word "love" we get caught up in making it all about feelings. That's a little bit dangerous because even though love and feelings are related, they aren't always the same thing. It is possible to love Jesus without really "feeling" warm and fuzzy and it's possible to feel warm and fuzzy, but not really be LOVING Jesus. It's easy to feel like you really "LOVE" God when you're here singing and the music and the words are giving you that "warm, fuzzy" feeling, but truly loving Him is a much greater thing.
Loving Jesus, according to the Bible, can pretty much be summed up in this: CHOOSING Him and His ways and what He wants for you above all other things.
Jesus said it this way in John chapter 14:
John 14:15 “If you love me, obey my commandments."
John 14:23 “All who love me will do what I say."
John 14:21 "Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me."
Notice that Jesus doesn't say, "Those who really feel it, those are the ones that love me." A feeling of love toward Jesus may absolutely be involved. And as you KNOW Him more and grow in your relationship with Him, those feelings of thankfulness and admiration and just plain awe of Him will probably grow, too.
But the root of this love is the CHOICE to obey Him - to learn His ways, to listen to and choose the things that He wants for our lives over all the other options out there. We LOVE Jesus by choosing Him and His ways above our own.
For example, I love coffee. This means I’m at a restaurant or over at someone's house, and coffee is on the list of beverage options, coffee is going to be my choice. Out of all the other things available, I’m going to choose the one that I LOVE. That’s how you know I LOVE it! We love Jesus by choosing Him, choosing to obey Him in every decision, every day, over all the other options out there.
In the book of John, Jesus also mentions three other things that people LOVE instead of Him because they choose these things OVER Him. These are things we are tempted to CHOOSE and therefore LOVE instead of Him.
John 3:19 says, "And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people LOVED the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil." There's something inside of us, especially at your age, that just wants to be bad. There's something about the darkness, even though we can KNOW that it is most likely going to end bad, it just looks so GOOD! We know that we shouldn't choose sin, but we just can't say no. Regardless of what you SAY you love, what you choose is what you love and very often we choose to love the DARKNESS over Jesus.
John 12:43 mentions another one: "For they LOVED human praise more than the praise of God." Loving human praise just means caring more about what other people think of you than what God thinks of you and, therefore, allowing what other people think of you to influence the choices you make. We choose chasing after HUMAN PRAISE instead of living to please God.
And finally, John 12:25 says, "Those who LOVE their life in this world will lose it." It's a great thing to love life - I absolutely love my life! But when I am faced with the choice to obey God, but it means I will have to give up my comfort or take a risk and I choose the comfort, I am choosing to LOVE my life over Jesus and what He wants for me.
We are here to help you learn to love Jesus and make Him your first choice. That's why we stand up here and teach you from God's word - because you can't obey the things that Jesus said if you don't know what He said in the first place! And even if you do know what He said, it's still really hard and we are here to help you. THAT is our purpose. And we hope that no matter where you are right now, that THAT will become your reason for coming, too.
Like I said in the beginning - having a PURPOSE - knowing and loving Jesus - as the REASON that you come here will change everything when you're standing at that moment of decision. Because everything in the world is going to tell you, "You don't need that youth group, you're fine on your own! You're too busy, anyway. It's just NOT really that important. And besides it's all cliquey and awkward and they're all just hypocrites anyway." But if the reason you are coming is to KNOW and LOVE Jesus more, then none of that stuff will matter and you won't fall for the lies.
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