Made New (2)

Introduction

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about being Made New. We started by looking at how if you are in Christ you are a new creation. We looked at 2 Corinthians 5:14-20 and focused specifically in on 2 Corinthians 5:17 that says,

2 Corinthians 5:17 CSB

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!

If this passage is true, then really three things happens:

You are made into a New Person. That is, you are no longer the old self, in fact when this happens our old self actually dies and you live in Christ. It means the passions, the desires, our wants, all change radically as we start to live into this new identity as a new person.

The second thing we talked about happening is that you develop a New Perspective. We used the imagery of new classes through which you now view the world. Your perspective is no longer worldly or human focused, but it’s not eternally focused and you view others through the a new biblical lens.

The final thing we talked about is that you now have a New Purpose. As a new creation in Christ, you become an Ambassador. Your whole purpose now is to be like Jesus and reconcile others to God by pointing them to Jesus. Our purpose is to live in a way that points others to Jesus and it is through Jesus that they can then find new life.

The challenge I gave to all of us at the end of that was to live like the new person God created you to be.

How have you been doing with that?

Last Week

Rachel shared her final thoughts with you all and I know a lot of you weren’t here for it, and let me tell you I think you missed a great thing. I would super encourage you to maybe ask Claire if she could send you a copy of her recording of it.

Rachel shared from a quote and a song from the Lion King that fits our faith so well. She talked about how being Made New means that you now have the Holy Spirit of God living inside of you. The Holy Spirit is there to guide you and to move you. He is there to keep you and to remind you of the truths that you know and have read about in His word. Her encouragement to us all was really to believe that and know that as we leave. Know that even though we are leaving and won’t be around to remind you of your identity as a child of God, the Holy Spirit is in you and will never leave you.

She reminded us of

This Week

It’s my turn to give you my final thoughts. It’s crazy to believe that today is the last message I will share with you as your youth director. It has been an awesome past three years getting to serve you all and before I share, I really do just want you to know that Rachel and I love you. Thank you for letting us be your leaders.

This is not goodbye. We still have next week we’re we’ll all get a chance to share about some of the ways we’ve seen God move as we have our end of year celebration. And then like we announced early, we also have our Senior Celebration happening on June 10th, so don’t forget to RSVP for that. On Sunday June 13th, we’re gonna have a commissioning service at church and then I think a farewell lunch afterwards so you are all invited to that as well! Then after that, Rachel and i will be around for a couple of weeks before leaving in mid-July. So this isn’t the last time we’ll see each other, but it is the last time that we’ll have a normal youth group. And so as I was thinking of what I wanted to leave with you all, I thought what better place to end then where we began.

For those of you who were hear at the time, does anyone remember what my first lesson was about? It was about:

The Great Commandment

The great commandment is found in Matthew 22:34-40. Let’s read that together right now and then we can talk about it.

Matthew 22:34–40 CSB

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test him: “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

Three years ago when Rachel and I started serving here, I wanted to start with this passage to set the scene of where we wanted to go. We wanted to focus in our this command and the two parts to it so that the rest of what we did would ultimately fall under these two things. That whatever we did would come out of a deep love for God and a deep love for our neighbor.

I’m going to be honest with you. It’s easy for me to look back over the three years and see ways in which I didn’t do this very well. I can see holes and gaps in the way that I led that if I could go back and change I would want to do better. I can think of different weaknesses in my leadership and ways that I feel like I’ve let some of you down.

But I can also look at each of you and see ways that despite my shortcomings as a leader, you’ve grown. I’ve seen some awesome things in you all as a individuals and as a group that make me so thankful and stoked to know you.

I know that I haven’t done my job perfectly, but I’m so thankful that that’s not the point. It’s not about how perfect we can be, it’s about how perfect God is. And whether or not we are living out of that or trying to live out of our own strength.

I want to leave you guys with the same thing we started with. The Great Command that Jesus himself spoke.

When the pharisees came up to Jesus to try to trap Him they asked him for what the most important command is out of the 613 commands they were already following. Jesus summed up the entire old testament in one command in two parts: To Love God and to Love others.

And so first, I want to leave you with the encouragement to Love God. A people who have been made new by Jesus’ death on the Cross and resurrection from the grave, our primary focus should be loving God. The verse tells how we are to love Him:

1. With all our Heart

2. With all our Soul

3. With all our Mind

Essentially, Jesus is telling us to to Love God with our whole self. In order to truly Love God fully, you have to let your love for Him come from every aspect of your self. Your love for God should be a deep emotional connection from your heart, it should be a deep connection down to your very soul, and it should be a deep connection where your thought and discerned and asked questions with your mind and have come to the conclusion that you love Him.

In order to do all of this it requires you guys to know Jesus as He is revealed in scripture. Don’t fall into the trap that you can know God fully outside of the bible. Do the hard work of reading your bible and studying God and knowing Him through His word.

You also need to be in community with other believers. I don’t know exactly what youth group will look like next Fall, but I want to encourage you all to keep meeting together. Keep studying the word together. Keep talking to your small group leaders. Keep encouraging each other to focus on God and to Love God with your whole self. For you Seniors in here who are also transitioning on to your next steps in life, I hope that you’ll find a new community at college of other believers who can encourage you to do the same and who you can encourage. Check out some of the campus ministries like Resonate or Cru or RUF. Get involved with other believers in community and stir one another on to loving God.

I’ve known a lot of people who know a lot about God but who don’t actually love God. They know a lot of theology or a lot of the bible, but they don’t actually love God and honestly it shows and you just end of feeling bad for people. It’s almost like knowing all the right steps on how to make a delicious cake. You have all the ingredients, you have the oven preheated and you have the cook book opened, but your not actually putting the things together and so this delicious cake is ultimately not coming together.

And so as the school year comes to end, as youth group comes to an end, as Rachel and leave LifeWay, I hope that you all will obey Jesus’ command here and fall deeply in love with God.

The second thing I want to leave you with is to Love Your Neighbor. In another parable, Jesus clarifies that your neighbor is really everyone around you. Anyone who you might come into contact. Jesus here is basically telling us to love everyone. That’s why you’ve probably heard me make the joke E.L.E - Everybody Love Everybody. It’s sort of just a funny way of echoing Jesus’ command here!

It’s super easy to love your friends. It’s easy to even love the people here at youth group. But Jesus’ command here goes far beyond that. We are called to not only love our friends, but to even love our enemies. Love the people who hate us. Love the people who think differently then us. We can love them because Jesus first loved us.

Story of Freshman year and relational struggle with Taylor.

I’m thankful that God was able to reconcile that friendship. It doesn’t mean that we are the closest friends in the world, but we are good friends who care for each other and always have a great time catching up. I hope that you too can love those who are inside the faith.

But I also hope that you’ll strive to love those outside the faith too. The people at your school who maybe don’t believe in the Gospel or who are even angry at the Gospel or hate Christians. Love those people too because honestly those people probably have a lot of hurt and pain in their lives that leads them to a lot of anger. And the only thing that is going to help them is if they can experience God’s love for them through you.

And so as the school year comes to an end, as youth group comes to an end, as Rachel and I leave LifeWay, I hope that you all will obey Jesus’ command here and love others deeply.

As I close out this message I want to leave you with a blessing. Blessing is a word that we hear a ton of and sings songs about, but I think we don’t necessarily think through the meaning behind it. Simply put, blessing means to speak good or to do good to someone. Blessing from God is not just the things we receive from Him, but it is the relationship we have with Him. Our relationship with God is meant to fill us up and pour into others. And in the same way, we experience blessing so that we might bless others.

I want to read to you probably the most famous blessing in the bible and my prayer through it is that you will be blessed so that you can bless others.

Numbers 6:24-26 says:

Numbers 6:24–26 CSB

“May the Lord bless you and protect you; may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.” ’

We’re now going to head into the last small group of the year, and talk about what it looks like for us to love God and love others. Let’s pray before we head out.