Upward Devo: Practice 8: Good News

Do y’all know the names of any professional basketball players that play on TV?

Q. How many of you have heard of… ?

Michael Jordan

Kobe Bryant

Lebron James

These players know everything about basketball

They have spent most of their lives practicing

They know how to win.

But guess what?

Sometimes they make mistakes.

The miss shots

They miss the rebound

They miss passes

Even though they know exactly what to do, sometimes even they-as great as they are-can’t follow through.

Did you know that nobody is perfect?

Did you know that’s true when it comes to our relationship with God, too?

We can read the whole Bible a hundred times

We can go to church every week.

We can spend our lives learning about God

But no matter how much you know about God, no matter how much you try to be obedient to Him, you will still mess up sometimes.

We all do.

No one is perfect.

But making a mistake in sports is different from disobeying God.

Mistakes are on accident.

Sin, or disobeying God, is not on accident, is it?

It’s on purpose, whether we realize it or not.

Sin is doing our own thing instead of doing what God has told us is the right thing.

We sin when we do things like lie, cheat, disobey our parents, or hurt someone else.

The Bible says that we ll do these things.

We all sin.

Sin hurts our relationship with God.

God created Us.

He loves us, and He wants to be with us.

But God is also holy and perfect.

Sin is going against Him and what He has told us is right and true, so it separates us from Him.

You know when your parents go to work and you miss them?

It’s like that with God, except forever

Because of our sin, we are all lost.

We’ve wandered away from God, and we have no way to get back to Him on our own.

But guess what?

God loves us so much that He sent His son, Jesus, to rescue us.

John 14:6 ESV

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus is the only way back to God.

But how does that work?

Jesus came to earth a long, long time ago. He was born as a baby like your or me.

He grew up.

He spent time with His family, He made friends, He worked.

And then He started teaching God’s truth.

He started doing amazing things, like healing people.

He asked people to follow Him because He could show them how God wants them to live

And while Jesus did all of that, He never sinned.

Not once.

Some people got mad that Jesus said He was the way to God.

They arrested Him and nailed Him to a cross.

Jesus died.

But three days later, He came back to life!

He appeared to many of His followers before He went back to Heaven, where He is still alive today!

Jesus is our way back to God because He paid the price for all our sins when He died on the cross.

For your sin and for mine.

The Bible says the punishment for sin is death and being separated from God forever.

But when Jesus died, He took our punishment Himself, so when we ask God to forgive us for our sins, He will-because Jesus took the punishment and made a way for us to be forgiven.

And when Jesus rose again, He defeated death.

If we trust in Jesus, when we die, we get to live with Him in heaven forever instead of being separated from God.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

He is our way back to God.

When we believe in Jesus, He gives us new life, and He gives us the Holy Spirit, who helps us live in a way that follows God’s truth and God’s plan for our lives.

If we ask Him, Jesus will come and find us and bring us to God.

Jesus came to rescue us from sin and death.

If you have questions or want to talk more about what all this means, I’d be happy to talk with you after practice.

PRAY