God Doesn't Change, Even if...

Connect

Hey guys! Welcome to our very first event of the Faith Students Year. We still have some things planned for you tonight that we hope you will enjoy, and if enjoyed it, then invite your friends next week! We want you to always stay connected here. This is a safe place for you to ask questions, learn about your purpose, and learn more about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

ASK

So who in here has just entered into Middle school for the first time this school year? What about first time High Schoolers? Freshmen!

Keep your hand raised if you’ve enjoyed the change so far?

Raise your hand if you’re like it could be better.

Now raise your hand if your like, this ain’t nothin new to me.

Express/Tell

So the thing we can all agree on today is that we’ve all experienced some sort of change just within this year. Change happens to everyone almost everyday and there are good changes and bad changes right?

An example of good change, is maybe high schoolers getting a job and making some money to save up. Maybe bad change is getting a job.

Middle schoolers maybe a good change you’re experiencing is your parents are starting to trust you a bit more. Maybe you’ve just got a cell phone. Bad change for my boys is that you’re starting to get smelly. Bad change for the girls, you have to be the ones to smell it.

On a bit of a serious note, how many of you have experienced change in your family because of COVID?

Maybe things you used to do before you don’t do anymore because there is a sense of fear that no one really likes to talk about.

Maybe you had to switch to being home schooled as a result.

Some changes we experience are big, others are small, regardless,

Everyone experiences change.

We wish we could avoid change sometimes, but you can’t control the change that happens to you.

The question we need to have answered today is,

When everything changes, where can I find hope?

THE BIBLE

This is where I start to tell you about our Good God.

So let’s turn to the Bible for this. If you don’t know, The Bible is God’s love story and it tells us about His faithfulness to save His people who constantly abandon Him. We have a place in this story and God is the one who keeps the story moving.

We are going to look into a part of this story by seeing how God helps us the most in times of change whether big or small.

If you have a Bible go to Hebrews chapter 1. If you have your phone follow along with me or watch the screen.

Hebrews 1:10–12 (NLT)

He also says to the Son,

“In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundation of the earth

and made the heavens with your hands.

They will perish, but you remain forever.

They will wear out like old clothing.

You will fold them up like a cloak

and discard them like old clothing.

But you are always the same;

you will live forever.”

Imagine that you love chocolate, and everyone else loves chocolate. But then a new candy is introduced to you and you stop eating chocolate forever. Now because you stopped eating chocolate, everyone else who still loves chocolate now hates you and wants to kill you.

This is what was happening when the writer of Hebrews was writing this. The people used to be Jewish, but Christ comes and now people want to follow Jesus because His ways are the true ways. But the people who are very strict on their Jewish beliefs now have a desire to hurt those who decided to follow Jesus.

A message is needed for these people for encouragement, and the author starts out with these verses talking about Jesus, “you are always the same; you will live forever.”

Out of all things to say, the ways you can encourage someone, the ways you can help someone, why start with this characteristic about Jesus?

1. Even if things change, God is always in control.

There is nothing that surprises God, and there is nothing that happens outside of God’s will.

There is a reason why we can find hope in this because of what is written to Christians in Romans 8:28

Romans 8:28 (NLT)

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

If you believe in Jesus Christ, you have no reason to worry about the current changes in your life or the changes that are to come because He has everything working together for a good purpose for you.

This would hopefully change the way we saw the worst tragedies and that is what can be difficult to believe.

We wouldn’t consider a loss of a family member or a friend a good things. We wouldn’t consider failure a good thing. We wouldn’t consider a lot of things as good things, but the thing is that

we can always put our hope in God that He is even working out what we consider the worst of things to be for a good purpose.

When you do put your trust in God, you’re not just putting your life into the hands of an idea, your putting your life in the hands of the one who made the heavens and the earth. your putting your life in the one who created time and space from nothing but the sound of His voice. You’re putting your trust in the all powerful and all loving God who exists outside of time and yet He entered into Time out of His own choice to love us.

2. Even if things Change, God takes care of you.

Tree Illustration

Let’s look really quick at a Tree.

Trees endure change every year. Every year they go through storms, they go through snow fall, they go through hot summers, they go through everything. And it causes the tree to change too. When fall begins, we are going to notice the colors of the leaves change and begin to fall. During the winter they are going to look dead, but when spring comes the leaves will begin to bloom again and summer time they will look healthy and strong. How is it that a tree can live through so much change and continue to live?

It’s all about the roots

The root system of a tree performs many vital functions. In winter, it is a store-house for essential food reserves needed by the tree to produce spring foliage. Roots absorb and transport water and minerals from the soil to the rest of the tree. Roots also anchor the portion of the tree above ground.

Look at this picture of this tree, notice one thing, the roots are always bigger than the tree.

I don’t know about you, but today I believe that we can find a lot of hope about knowing that our God is bigger than any change that we may ever endure.

Isaiah 46:4 (NIV)

Even to your old age and gray hairs

I am he, I am he who will sustain you.

I have made you and I will carry you;

I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

If you put your faith and trust in God throughout any circumstance, God promises to nurture us and care for us. Like a root that reserves the needs of a tree, so does God give us His Holy Spirit to empower us during the hardest seasons of your life, He gives us the strength when we are weak, he gives us joy when we are upset.

Because even if things change, God takes care of you

3. Even if things change, God is able to Save You

The biggest change to ever happen to humanity was when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve.

Because of this, our natural desires are to serve ourselves. We live in a me-centered world where we do everything we can to make ourselves happy at other people’s expense. God intends for us to have a relationship with Him, but we cannot approach Him because He is perfect and we are not. God is a perfect Judge and one day we will stand in front of Him having to give an answer for all of our sin and we will have a huge fine that we cannot pay. Since we can’t pay that fine, God has prepared a place for us known as Hell where we will receive Justice for all of our wrong doings. I Don’t know about you, but I don’t want that to be the place where I spend eternity. But God is merciful, So God made a way so that we can be with Him rather than be sent away from. So God sent His only Son Jesus Christ to legally pay our debt by dying on the cross. Jesus lived a perfect life that we could not and on the cross there was an exchange. All of our mistakes and sin was put on Jesus, and the perfect nature of Jesus was put on us. That way when we stand before God, He doesn’t see all of our mistakes and evil, He sees the perfect nature of His Son Jesus. All you have to do is believe that Jesus died on the cross, He rose again from the dead 3 days later, repent and turn away from our mistakes and live a life that says , “thank you for saving me.”

Although sin changed the entire world, God made a way for us to be saved, and that is through Jesus Christ.

If today you want to make that decision to follow Jesus and put your trust and commitment in a God who does not change even if our lives change, then I want to pray for you, and I also want you to fill out the I HAVE DECIDED card. We want to get to know you, and pray for you and hear your story.

PRAY