Cast Off Your Weights

Introduction

**Play the weighted race game.

**Ask the Students, what do they view life as?

The Bible compares life to being a Race.

3 Times in the New Testament, God compares our lives as being similar to a race.

**Ask the students where one example of life being compared to a race is?

**If nobody knows it, the one who researches it and tells it next week gets to pie me in the face when I come back.

**Ask the students, what are some advantages to have when you are involved in a car race?

**Speed, low weight, and good driving are the primary advantages to have when in a car race.

**Ask the students, what are some ways we can have good speed?

**Ask the students, what are some good ways to have lower weight?

**Ask the students, what are some ways to have good driving?

Say we had a great engine, it was the biggest and fastest on the market, and say we were the best drivers around, we practiced every single day, but our car was the heaviest car on the track. Would we likely win the race?

No.

See the fact of the matter is, is that even if we have everything else in check on our car, Having too much weight on our car is so Impactful, that if we do not lose the weight on our car, it makes all the other upgrades on our car useless.

The same is true for our lives. Think of your body and soul as the car. You are in a race to gain a rich reward in heaven one day when Jesus comes back. And you may put all the effort into yourself that you can. You can read the Bible 4 times a day everyday, pray every 30 minutes everyday, go to church every time the doors open, but you know what, if you do not Cast off the weights of your soul, you will never get anywhere.

Hebrews 12:1

Hebrews 12:1 ESV

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

According to Hebrews 12:1 we are:

All in a race before God.

All have weights that are holding us down in our race.

Isn’t it nice to know that God is so awesome that He acknowledges the fact that as humans, we all have weights that hold us down?

I want to ask you all a question, What are the weights that are currently clinging onto you?

What is holding you down, and slowing down your run in your race of life?

What sins are you committing that are keeping you from getting closer to God?

For all of us we may have different answers to those questions, for some it may be the anxiety of trying to fit in, or the anxiety of trying to be the cool person at school, or the anxiety of trying to be successful. You all go through a lot, you are all faced with things that even me and Brianna were not faced with in High School.

Times are changing rapidly and with the changing comes more weights that society is trying to pin on all of you.

But the greatest thing I love about God is that:

He not only acknowledges the fact that we have things that weigh us down, but He shows us how we should deal with them, He says:

“Lay aside every weight”

Do you know what that He is saying? He is saying that we have to stop, and get rid of our weights.

This is so reassuring because it tells us that

We do not have to deal with these things if we do not want to.

We can remove them out of our life.

Never buy into the lie that the things you are dealing with right now is the same things that you will be dealing with all your life.

Do not buy into the lie that this is how it is always going to be.

You do not have to be anxious your whole life.

You do not have to be scared your whole life.

You do not have to be angry your whole life.

You do not have to be depressed your whole life.

Through Jesus Christ, you can Stop and get rid of all these things.

**Pass out the rocks and sharpies

Now what we are about to do is I want everyone of you to right down on this rock every weight that you are currently carrying, and if you have too many to fit on one rock, thats fine we will give you another one.

Once you have wrote down the things you are dealing with right now we are all going to go outside and pray against all these things, and if you are ready to start your Journey with Jesus to be healed of these things, you are going to throw your rock as far as you can.

This is symbolizing the inward decision that you are making to lay aside your weights, so that you can now move on and make good progress in your race in life.