Goals - Week 1

INTRODUCTION

3 MINUTES

How many of you ever set a goal before? Maybe a goal to make a team, a goal to get an “A” in a class, or just a goal to make it through a whole day without fighting with your younger sibling? If you’re on social media, you’ve definitely heard of goals, right? #siblinggoals, #bestfriendgoals, #teamgoals, #baegoals, #squadgoals… the list goes on and on!

We didn’t have social media back when I was your age—actually we did…it was a face to face conversations, but I still remember what it was like to set some goals back then. Let me give you an example… cue flashback music!

PERSONAL STORY

· When I was in High School, I wanted to make the soccer team so bad and so I made that one of my main goals. Mainly I wanted to play because all of my friends were on the team and our team as awesome! We had many who went on to play college soccer from the team and we played for the state championship my senior year. But before I get ahead of myself, let me back up a few years. As many of you all know, wanting to be a part of team means you have you try out for it first. So, I tried out for the team my sophomore year… and I made it. I just knew after my try-out that I would be a starter. After all I played soccer for two years when I was in elementary school. So, I though this will be easy.

· But I was wrong. It was grueling and I was so behind the rest of the guys on the team. I was not as fast. I was not as coordinated. And I was not as good as I thought I was. Every day was a clinic and I was the student, and the first lesson that I learned was that I made the team because they needed bodies for the first team to practice against. That’s a blow to your ego. So, after that first couple of weeks, my goal changed from not simply being on the team but to make sure that I was not collecting splinters while riding the pine. I wanted to play in a game and I wanted to make some sort of contribution. So I worked hard. I got faster. I practiced my footwork. I got better. I gained a better understanding of the game. I knew my time would come.

· And then it happened. It was the fourth game of the year and coach called my number. I got to play. Finally, a chance to prove myself. I was so excited and nervous at the same time… which is never a good combination. I came into the game as a defender and I definitely made a contribution… on a goal no less after being in the game for less than 2 minutes of play. I will never forget it. There was a nice pass… followed by some amazing footwork… and before I knew it… I was on the ground. I was the deepest defender and I just got juked out of my shoes which left an one-on-one with the goalie. And they scored as I watched from the grass.

· Coach pulled me and I went back to the bench. That is how my first High School soccer game went. I finished the season and played in a few more games… not as a defender but as a midfielder. At the end of the year, the coach came up to me, thanked me for all my hard work, told me he saw a lot of improvement over the course of the season and then offered me a new position… team manager for the next season. I took the role and worked hard at being the best team manager I could be. I was still a part of the team. I still got to hang out with my friends and I got to be there for all the success they had. It looked a lot different than I had envisioned, but I reached my goals.

We can have all kinds of goals, but today we’re going to talk about some of the goals we can have when it comes to our faith.

TENSION

5 MINUTES

When you think about goals in your faith, what do you think about? Maybe things like praying more, or memorizing a bunch of Bible verses, or going to church every single Sunday, or avoiding that party, or not using cuss words. In fact, when you think about it, sometimes goals in our faith sound more like rules in our faith!

And here’s the thing: Life is already full of rules. As a student, you’ve got rules at home, rules at school, rules for the sports you play, rules for dating, rules for just about every single thing you do. There are literally rules everywhere and for everything. So why would you want to add one more thing to your life that comes with a list of rules? Why would you want to focus on your faith if it means one more long list of rules?

Because not only is following the rules not that exciting or fun, but it’s not always easy!

Following a bunch of rules can be exhausting and difficult! And sometimes, the list feels never-ending. I think that’s one of the reasons so many of us struggle with our faith. We come to church and hear everyone say that following God is all about freedom, and grace, and love, but it feels like it’s more about rules and restrictions.

For some of us, that’s enough to make us want to give it up entirely. The lack of freedom we feel leads us to believe that faith just isn’t for us.

For others of us, that feeling of rules and restrictions makes us feel like faith just isn’t for us right now. Maybe you’ll decide to follow God when you’re older, but for now, you want to have fun! You want more freedom, and that means you don’t have much room for faith right now.

Or for some of you, maybe all these rules make it seem like your faith just isn’t right. You’ve done your best to follow those “rules” or live your life “right,” but you just keep coming up short. You feel like you’ll never be able to reach your goals in your faith, and it just makes you want to give up.

If that all sounds like a bummer, it’s because it is! Nobody wants to come to church to hear about all the ways they’re not measuring up, or following the rules, or failing to reach their goals… just like I did not want to hear that from the soccer coach. But can I let you in on a little secret? There’s so much more to it than that! When we look at faith and following God only through the lens of rules, we’re actually missing the point. Because I think the goal of faith is about something else completely.

TRUTH

3 MINUTES

Some of you are probably thinking I’m crazy! Afterall, “What else could Christianity be about?”

Well get ready to celebrate because I’ve got good news for you: Christianity actually isn’t all about following a bunch of rules. In some ways, it’s actually the opposite. Real faith is about freedom.

How do I know? Well, to get the answer, we’re going to look at a letter in the Bible written by a guy named Paul. He wrote this letter to the early Christians in the community of Galatia. What’s interesting about Paul is that before he was a follower of Jesus, he actually strongly disliked Christians. He punished them, threatened them, and even had some thrown in jail. But then Paul had an amazing experience with Jesus, and all that changed. He became a Christian, a believer in Jesus, and eventually, a leader in spreading and sharing the message of Jesus with other people.

And the Galatians were some of those people! You see, the Christians in the town of Galatia were new Christians. And there was a group of people teaching them that in order to be Christians, they had to keep all of the rules that all of the Jewish people had always followed. Because of that, this newfound faith to the Galatians felt a lot more like slavery to a bunch of rules than it did freedom and life.

But that’s not what Jesus meant for our faith to look like, and that’s exactly what Paul wanted to make sure the Galatians knew. Here’s what he told them.

So Christ truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law (Galatians 5:1 NLT).

Don’t miss this! Do you see what Paul said? He said that Jesus came to set us free. And because of that, we don’t have to get tied up worrying about the rules. Because of Jesus, we can simply be free.

But how did Jesus set us free? Well, Paul went on to explain:

If you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace (Galatians 5:4 NLT).

What does all of that mean? Paul was saying that the Christians in Galatia didn’t have to worry about keeping up with all of the rules to make themselves right with God. Why? Because Jesus had already made them right with God! The more they focused on following the law, the further they were from the heart of their faith.

And the same is true of us. Because of Jesus, we are right with God. We don’t have to do anything to make ourselves better or closer to Him. Jesus took care of it for us. And when we follow Jesus, there’s nothing we can do to earn or lose our standing with God.

So you see, Christianity is really all about freedom. Freedom from trying to get right with God by keeping a bunch of laws or following a bunch of rules. Freedom from the weight of sin when we fall short or mess up. And freedom to live the best and most exciting life God has for us.

You see, what Paul wanted us to remember is that the goal of faith isn’t to follow all the rules; the goal is freedom.

Look back at the first verse we talked about today: “Christ truly set us free.” Freedom is what Christ came to bring us. This verse could’ve said anything. Christ truly wants us to follow rules. Christ truly wants us to always have good behavior. Christ truly wants us to know everything about religion.

But it doesn’t say any of that! It says that freedom is why Christ came—to set us free! The goal is freedom.

And that goal is so important that Paul wanted us to do whatever we could to hold onto it. That’s why he reminded the Galatians back then—and even us today—that we need to focus on freedom.

When we make following the rules the goal of our faith, we aren’t living in the freedom Christ came to give us. Jesus didn’t come to Earth to replace one set of rules with another; He came so that we could be free.

That’s what faith is actually all about! You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to get everything right. And you don’t have to keep making the wrong decisions just because you made them before. In Christ, you can live fully and in freedom.

Because when it comes to faith, the goal is freedom.

APPLICATION

2 MINUTES

So what does this mean for you? Does it mean you can do whatever you want and not have to worry about it? Does it mean the rules don’t apply?

Not exactly. Because the Bible also tells us that when we make choices that we know are bad for us, that’s not freedom either. That’s because of a little thing called consequences. You see the not-so-great choices we make can actually control us in the same way the rules we’re supposed to follow can control us. Neither one is the goal because neither one is real freedom.

Christ set us free to choose a path that leads to joy, peace, salvation, love, and life. That’s what freedom in faith means.

So today, start by doing these things:

1) Ask yourself: What’s holding me back from making freedom the goal of my faith? What are the “rules” I think I’m supposed to follow? Is it trying to be the perfect kid at home, or at school, or at church? Is it being the star athlete or straight-A student? Is it memorizing all the Bible verses or praying the perfect prayers? Is it hiding the bad choices I’m making because I think they disqualify me from faith altogether? Don’t forget, rules aren’t bad and believe it or not, we actually need them; they just aren’t the goal of our faith—that’s not what we are working towards.

2) Then, remember the freedom that is offered through Jesus. God didn’t send His Son to die for us so that we could follow the rules, or practice perfection, or be the most religious kid in the youth group. He came to set us free. And if you aren’t exactly sure what you think about this whole Jesus thing, maybe for you, a good starting point is to think about what it would feel like to know that you don’t have to follow all the rules, or feel the pressure of perfection, or be restricted by what you think Christianity is.

The goal is freedom. It’s the freedom to know that we have been made right before God through Jesus. We didn’t earn it and can’t ever lose it. God loves us as we are, and because of that freedom, we can live a life that honors Him. There are still choices that need to be made, but we can live a life that honors Him. Let us pray.