The Savage Life (Part 1)

The Savage Life |Part 1 Living by a > PowerEphesians 1:18-19a Big Idea: A truly SAVAGE life is a life filled with hope, value and power!

Intro

So I’ve heard the word “savage” used a lot by high school students. However, I know there’s some of us who either

1) haven’t added this highly intellectual word to our vocabulary, or

2) have been using the word “savage” for a long time but still aren’t totally sure what it means. So I decided to do a little bit of research to find out exactly what the word “savage” means. And while there are various definitions, in essence, to be SAVAGE is to be “a hardcore person who did something nobody else had the guts to do …” [REPEAT] So to live a SAVAGE life is to “live your life in a way that few have the guts to live.”

I have a clip I want to show that I think exemplifies “savage” like nothing else

Story

The person I know who’s done the most SAVAGE things is my best friend growing up: Jeremy Hocker Through his college years he skated, rock climbed, cliff jumped, master Kung fu and surfed. He was SAVAGE! In fact, one of the reasons Jeremy was so good at skating was that he’s an adrenaline junkie. Jeremy is always up for an adrenaline rush—whether it’s kayaking through dangerous rapids, jumping off cliffs or climbing a dangerous bolder … with no rope … by himself … in the dark. The majority of the dangerous and thrilling moments in my life have been with Jeremy leading the way. Some of us might be or might become as crazy as Jeremy, but for your own safety, hopefully most of us won’t. However, I think many of us live our lives in similar fashion … we live our lives looking for the next adrenaline rush, thinking that following the next adrenaline rush is what will lead us to living a SAVAGE life. And just to clarify: living for the next adrenaline rush does not only apply to party animals or drug addicts

Application 1

The Normal life

— living life for the next adrenaline rush doesn’t have to look like a scene from the movie The Hangover! (Which hopefully none of you have seen.) Living life for the next adrenaline rush can be seen in your motivation to experiment with how far you can advance physically with your girlfriend or boyfriend. Living life for the next adrenaline rush can look like not being content until you spot your next “bae.” Living life for the next adrenaline rush can look like you equating your school year success with how well you do in your sport or hobby this season. Living life for the next adrenaline rush can be committing a significant portion of your thoughts to wondering if you’ll be able to connect with the more popular people at school this year OR scrolling through Instagram with “Insta-jealousy” for those who already are popular. Living life for the next adrenaline rush is the life most people live (not just high school students!,) and this is what is perceived to be the SAVAGE life. But there’s a verse in the Bible that challenges the reward of this “adrenaline rush” kind of lifestyle, and it’s a verse that might (as some of you say on Twitter) hit you “right in the feels …” Proverbs 14:12: “There is a way that seems right to a person but eventually it ends in death” So what I’m proposing to you tonight, and for the rest of this series, is that what many of us assume to be “the savage life” is actually the NORMAL life. It's NORMAL to live life looking for the next adrenaline rush! You might wonder, “What's wrong with living a normal life?” Nothing at all! But just understand that NORMAL doesn't necessarily lead to fulfilling or meaningful. Instead, according to the Bible, a NORMAL life can lead to disappointment, emptiness and regret. Personally, I'd rather live a SAVAGE life. However, I can also relate with living a NORMAL life.

Story 2

As a junior in high school heading into spring break, I thought I was going to go “visit” some colleges and do some really SAVAGE things (which were actually totally NORMAL things for a high school student to want to do!)—until my mom forced me to go on a retreat with a local church. At that point in my life, I thought I was living the SAVAGE life, as my life was wrapped up in my girlfriend, my sports (surfing, mma) and my friends. All of these provided the daily adrenaline rush I needed to have fun, significance and fulfillment—or so I thought. However, I began to see the cracks in each one of these things! My girlfriend broke up with me, I Lost my board and was suspended from mma, and some of those “best friends” started to turn on me. So I began to realize that these daily and temporary “adrenaline rushes” were all guaranteed to let me down at some point … Just like any sugar drink, right? Some buzzes last longer than others, but eventually, they all come to an end. So I began to long for something else to find fun, significance and fulfillment beyond the daily/temporary “adrenaline rushes” that the majority of people around me were caught up in. Deep down, I knew only God was going to be able to offer the joy, significance and fulfillment I was thirsting for. My prayer for every student here tonight is that you would come to the recognition that a truly SAVAGE life comes from living life by a greater power.

Application 2

Living By A Greater Power The apostle Paul wrote down a prayer thousands of years ago that (unbeknownst to him!) was urging people to live out truly SAVAGE lives! He wrote in the book of Ephesians, chapter 1: “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” Ephesians 1:18-19a

Many of us have had our hearts blinded by the pursuit of the next “adrenaline rush,” but God wants to open the eyes of our heart and realize three things:

1) the hope He gives us,

2) the extraordinary value He places on us, and

3) the power He works through us. “… that you may know the hope to which he has called you …” Ephesians 1:18

When I think of the “typical” Christian, I don’t think of hope as a typical characteristic.

There are plenty of people who have grown up in Christian families, spent time in Christian schools and are far from being hopeful people.

Instead, a Christian can be perceived as someone walking around with their head down, complaining about how messed up the world is by saying things like, “Well, it’s a sick, sad, little world we live in … I mean it’s all going to burn anyways … Come, Lord Jesus!” Geez, that doesn’t sound very hopeful! Psalm 25:5 says, “ …my hope is in you all day long”

Followers of Jesus have so many reasons for hope! We have hope because …

1) No matter how bad we get or how bad life gets, we have a perfect record with God because of the grace of Jesus Christ!

Golf score scramble

2) One day we will actually see Jesus, and we will be able to experience life the way we were designed to experience it: without sin! 3) Our hope in Christ isn’t just for eternity, it’s for each day! Put it this way: it’s not that “eternity will be awesome but life sucks,” it’s that “eternity will be awesome and we have hope in this life because Christ is with us!” It’s SAVAGE to have this kind of hope … this kind of hope isn’t NORMAL! When we exchange our NORMAL life for a truly SAVAGE life, not only is a truly SAVAGE life characterized by hope, but also it’s characterized by value. We see how much value God has for us when we read this verse that refers to … “…the riches of [God’s] glorious inheritance in the saints” (NIV). A “saint” is not somebody who’s perfect, but somebody who has trusted God to forgive him or her and is viewed by God as perfect even though he or she isn’t. God calls these forgiven (yet imperfect!) people “saints” and “the riches of His glorious inheritance!” You’d think God is talking about somebody or something else being the “riches of His glorious inheritance” ... but He’s talking about us! This insane value should give you a glimpse of God’s insane love for you. We often look for this extraordinary value in all the wrong places. For example, we look for our “bae” to give us this value, we look to receive this value from our coaches or from our parents—and so it hurts when these people devalue us! A student recently shared with me how deeply it hurt to hear her parents say something that made her feel devalued, and another student who felt extremely devalued in the hurtful words of an ex-boyfriend. However, contrary to the imperfect value that the people around us place on us, the value Christ places on us is extraordinary! The question is: “Do we value the extraordinary value God places on us?”

Conclusion

When we exchange our NORMAL life for a truly SAVAGE life, not only do we receive hope and extraordinary value, but we also receive power that comes only from God. What does the power of God look like? The power of God is the ability for this kind of God-given hope and value to exist in the DNA of your own heart. The power of God is the ability of God to overpower your excuses, doubts and apathy and for hope, value and power to be real in your life! In the next several weeks, we’re going to continue to figure out what a truly SAVAGE life looks like. But overall, a SAVAGE life is one that is characterized by hope, value and power.

Are you experiencing this hope, value and power in your life?

If not, are you ready to live out a truly SAVAGE life, or are you going to continue to settle for NORMAL? A SAVAGE life is a life filled with hope, value and power.

Choose the SAVAGE life!