Thoughts Run Wild

Get to Know You

Tell us your name, grade, and what you’re excited about for this next school year.

Announcements

Move-Up Sunday is next week. Bring some cardboard boxes, and some clothes to get wet in. We’ll be at the Riechers and send an announcement out about it.

Our small groups will be moving from Thursday to Wednesday beginning on September 6th. We’ll be meeting at the church at 6:00 for a meal, and then the youth will help clear tables before small group begins.

Grace Church will be doing a small group for the Youth too. They’ll make some announcements about that too.

We’ll also have our 10 year anniversary celebration as Reliance on September 10th. We won’t have regular Youth Group that night but we’ll be at the Worden’s again with Grace Church.

Preview

We have some events

Review Time

Review the Gospel Questions with the Youth

Lesson

I would imagine that beginning school again for you guys is a mix of emotions. For some of you it’s not school since you’re homeschooled. Maybe family life is tough. Or friends. Or you’re overwhelmed with growing up and all of the new responsibilities that come with that. As exciting as some of these changes in life are, they can get overwhelming. We begin to worry about what’s happening in our lives. We want to take control of what’s happening to us, and we begin to believe that worrying about things asserting our authority over those changes.

In the sermon on the Mount, Jesus gently addresses this head-on. Let’s read it together.

Matthew 6:25–34 ESV

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

What are some things that stand out to you about this passage?

God takes care of living creatures and they don’t worry by collecting too much of their food or shelter.

Worry adds nothing. We don’t benefit from it.

Life is more than preparation for the next thing.

“Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

It’s easy to get caught up in the preparation for the next thing. When we do that, we can feel like our thoughts run wild. But, we’re also told to “hold every thought captive.”

2 Corinthians 10:3–6 ESV

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.

Here, Paul is talking about spiritual warfare. There is an argument being made that is against the knowledge of God. The way to combat that is to take every thought captive to obey Christ.

Back in Matthew 6, Christ commands us to not be anxious. To worry. To prepare for an idea of what tomorrow may or may not bring. Whether your clothes will be fashionable, your family will stay togehter, your peers will accept you, your grades will get better or worse, are out of your control in most ways. To try and change and prepare for tomorrow is to depend on yourself and not on God. Since only a perfect God can provide adequately for tomorrow and we don’t trust Him, we become perfectionists, or at least try to be. That only puts more strain on ourselves.

Paul’s admonition in 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 is that we should fight against that perfectionist, anxious argument that the world presents us with. We should take every thought captive.

How do we do that?

How many of you have had your “thoughts run wild?”

To hold every thought captive is to not believe or entertain every thought. It’s to examine it and ask the question, “do I need to think about this, yes or no?” After that, address it by writing it down for later, dismissing it outright, or doing it then and there. You are not your thoughts. Not everything you think needs to consume you. Hold those thoughts like prisoners and subdue them by your God given authority. It’s a divine struggle.

You’ve been reading Psalm 63 yes?

The psalmist in this passage is in dire thirsts. He describes himself as in a waterless place. But he looks to God to mediate his struggle, he doesn’t take it upon himself. He praises God in his circumstance instead of trying to maintain control of something he can’t; like the weather.

We should steward what we’ve been given. That’s without a doubt. But anxiety and worry domineer us when we burden ourselves with circumstances that only God knows, like what tomorrow holds. We should hold every thought captive. We should see our challenges as opportunities to trust the LORD.