Snowblast #1 PM

Intro

In our world today we are being fed, that we are enough for each other, that religion and God is dead and stop going to church, its all made up, their is no God who wants a genuine relationship with you.

You can be all for you, you don’t need anybody to tell you what to do, you are your own person, that book is thousands of years old, its out of date.

The more we listen to the world the more we begin to believe the lies that it tells us, the more corrupted we become.

So for the next couple days, and nights, as we gather together.

Let’s stop, lets think, lets listen, let’s hear, let talk through some of these major points.

The points churches shy away from.

The talks that makes our parents get awkward.

Let’s role up our sleeves and talk about dating, why its important to not have sex until you are married, why our focus need to be on God and not images that we look at on our phones and the crazy, often distasteful things we think in our minds.

Let’s talk about porn and masturbation and how it is ripping apart families and relationships, and how we can over come that feeling of shame through Christ.

That the shackles that keep you attached to your phone can be broken and healing can come .

Let talk about how our relationship with God.

Let’s be real and raw.

Let’s talk about doubts, let talk about why it is easier to connect through a phone or social media and not with God.

Let’s talk about how can we need to bring God into our relationships.

So can we do this, can we leave all the world has told us this past year or even today and let’s get serious with God, lets unplug from all the world has and lets plugged into the source of life and grace and mercy.

Will you join me on this adventure?

I hope so, I mean you did decide to get on the bus and come here.

And not every who signed up came.

We added some people and lost others.

And you know I use to get so bummed out by students who choose not to come.

And while I am still bummed they aren’t here.

I am so thankful for who God brought here.

God brought each and everyone of you here for a reason and a purpose.

And you have a choice tonight and the rest of this week.

You already made the hardest choice by showing up today at 1:00 to leave.

But you have one more choice to make.

You can choose to return the exact same as you came to Snowblast or you can embrace your relationship with God and you can take the time here to grow and to air out any questions you may have about God or relationships.

But what you get out of this weekend is 100% up to you.

It’s not up to any of your leaders, it’s not up to me.

It’s up to you.

We are going to have some fun and we are going to have some laughs, we are going to get personal, we are going to share tears maybe, we are going to get honest and real.

That is what snowblast is all about.

I know some of us have not been here ever.

We are about 50/50

Freshmen and Sophomores this is all new to you.

Juniors and Seniors you have been here before and you kinda of know what to expect.

Snowblast is a time where we get a chance to talk about relationships, like those dating kind, or maybe some friendships that are just weighing on you.

Snowblast is a time to ask questions and if you have questions ask them.

Grab any leader here and ask away.

If you want to remain anonymous we have a box here that will be up here all week that you can drop a notecard in and we will answer them later this week.

Our first night, I wanted us to talk about something meaningful.

Something that is going to impact your life no matter where you are.

Tonight we are going to about relationships.

But not the kind that everyone sings about.

Not the ones that help Taylor swift keep selling record and make us hate Jake Gillenhall.

No we are going to talk about the relationship that matters most in your life.

Your relationship with God.

So tonight, if you could please open to Matthew 22; and lets begin with Vertical Relationships, but first lets pray.

Pray:

So our first topic for snowblast is Vertical Relationship.

Our vertical relationship, is the relationship with God and you.

How is my relationship with God?

Are we just limping in here?

Are we on fire?

Are we on 365 day streak on the Bible App?

This is our personal relationship with the creator.

I believe we have to get this right.

If you leave with anything from this weekend, it is how important your relationship with God is.

That if we miss this we miss the point.

If we take the focus off of God and we try to work on other relationships without first looking into our relationship with the father we most likely will not be successful in our relationships, or the relationships that we do have will be surface level and will not be deep.

I think to a certain level isn’t this what we all want, don’t we all want to have relationships with people that are not so much of hi, hows the weather, but relationships where people are asking how is your mom, or hey how are you work through that sin that you have in your life.

We all have a desire to be know.

It is what we crave.

We want someone to know us.

And what I want to challenge you with is that instead of looking for this in others, I want you to start by looking at God first

Jesus spoke on the importance of having God come first.

In Matthew 22:34-38, this is where we are going to be camped at.

So if you have your Bible open up here.

So let me just give you a little background here.

Jesus is teaching about heavenly things and Jesus always had a big following and this time is no different.

Here is Jesus and he is being approached by Pharisee’s and also the Sadducees.

The Pharisee’s where trying to get Jesus to trip up and say something crazy that they could do the whole “got ya” kinda of thing.

They were not being successful.

So, now we enter the Sadducees, they were sad you see because they did not believe in the resurrection.

So they ask a questions to Jesus again, trying to trip him up.

They give him this ridicules story, again really doing the whole over the top-ness of the story.

They asked about things that they did not even believe in again to challenge Jesus.

Jesus tells them that they have no belief and they do not know the power of God.

Now enter again the Pharisees, these guys were trying to trip Jesus up, and here is what they said: Matthew 22:24-28

Matthew 22:24–28 ESV

saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”

So here we have the Pharisee’s you can almost picture them gathering in a circle and going, look, we struck out last time, he just made the Sadducee’s look like a joke so who can stump him.

They think they have one and one of them goes, look I got it, oh yeah this is going to be great!

I got it!

And this Pharisee who was a lawyer comes out and says; Teacher, The Pharisees says; teacher which is the greatest commandment?

It would have been like he just dropped the hammer on Jesus.

The Pharisee’s in the back are cheering, they are hooping and hollering!

They got him, I'm sure he was getting some holy high fives maybe a little smack on the rear, who knows but they think they trapped Jesus.

Jesus then goes “Love the Lord with all your heart, and with all your mind and with all your soul.

“This is the great and first commandment.”

Jesus is teaching us to keep our love for God first.

?He also goes on to give us the second commandment but we will talk about later, this week.

But tonight this is where we are going to be; this is where we have to be.

We need to get our attention right.

We have to fix our eyes on Jesus.

We can do this many ways but I was to look at three tonight.

Love God with all your heart

Love God with all your soul

Love God with all your mind.

We are going to look at all three of these: Starting with:

Love God with all your heart

Explain

We have all heard this passage, I am sure more then once but do we actually do this.

Do we love God with all our heart.

I mean we say that he is in our hearts but do we love him with our heart?

When we use that phrase what do we mean?

Love God with all your heart?

(Ask students)

How do we show love?

Actions

1 Corinthians tells us pretty clearly what love is.

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 ESV

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

What does our heart offer?

I mean my heart is not this picture perfect cut out it is this:

That is what our hearts look like, is this what Jesus is talking about?

No not our literally heart, but here is the root of what he is getting at.

The heart that Jesus would be referring to would be our whole body.

That we should love God with our body.

That our actions should show that we love God.

When we cruse, when we lie, cheat, when we lust, when use hurtful words, when we bully, when we disobey our parents when we watch porn, when we fool around just a little because its better then not having sex, or maybe we say who cares and just have sex anyway, our actions can say a lot about us and our actions can also tell who we love or what we are in love with.

Proverbs 27:19 says:

Proverbs 27:19 ESV

As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man.

Do you believe that, that our heart reflects who we are?

Show we your interest and I will show you your heart.

Application

What is your heart say about you?

What do you love?

What are your actions saying?

I mean in Jeremiah 17:9-10 it says:

Jeremiah 17:9–10 ESV

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

While our heart may be deceitful and sick it is capable of seeking out God.

Jeremiah 29:13 ESV

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

I mean God is literally saying listen if you seek me with your, if you seek me with your heart, you are going to find me.

I am not playing hide and go-seek here. I

want you to find me, I gave up my son that you could find me! Seek me come and find me!

So are you seeking him?

What is your body saying?

You should love God with all your heart and:

Love God with all your soul

Explain

With all our soul?

What does our soul mean?

Our soul is life, our soul is our emotions.

Do we love God with our life, do our emotions scream that we love Jesus?

Does our life represent that?

Our actions again, our choices we make, do they show Jesus or do they show ourself?

What does our life say?

Are we doing everything for God and his glory?

1 Corinthians 10:31 says:

1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Our souls should reflect this.

Our life should reflect this, I am not saying you have to go into ministry but should we be serving at our church yes!

Should we use the talents God has given us, yes!

Application

Does your life reflect this?

Or are you picking something else?

Does your relationship with God end then you leave on Sunday morning or after youth group or is it ever present?

Who do you say God is, and is this reflected in your life?

Are we living for him, do we have a relationship with him or are we just acquaintances with God know of him but we do not know him?

Do you know him?

Or do you know of him and does that reflect how you live day to day?

Love God with all your heart

Love God with all your soul and:

Love God with all your mind

Explain

All of your mind?

All your mind, the mind the mental activity, does that reflect Jesus?

Is our thoughts, focusing on Jesus, I mean our minds race all day long and do we ever stop and just give God a few moments?

Or do we just go go go, but what if we were to stop and focus on Christ.

Colossians 3:1–2 ESV

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

The earth will fade away but God will remain forever and ever.

What is Jesus getting at here?

I mean this whole passage was taken from Deuteronomy and Jesus is giving these people an answer that they already knew.

He was asked what is the great commandment.

It was to love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

I mean the people were trying to get him to mess up, they were trying to get him to say something wrong, but he hits this point.

This is the first and great command that we follow and obey God.

Application

So to love the Lord with our heart, our soul and our mind means that we should, we need to, we have to, love God with everything that we have.

With every fiber of our being we should be in Love with God.

We know that love that he shows us.

We sing about it.

In one of my favorite songs that I know may be controversal is

Reckless love:

The idea that God’s love can be descrided as reckless.

That God has this reckless love for us.

This love that he would leave the 99 and go after the one that is astray.

That there is no mountain he won’t climb, no wall he won’t break down.

This love that he wants all people to be saved, he dies on the cross to save them, even knowing that people will still reject him.

It’s a love we do not deserve to have.

That love is how I want to pursue Jesus.

I want to be reckless with my love, I want to chase after Jesus will all of my heart, with all of my soul, and with all of my mind.

Don’t you?

I mean if that is not a cry of your heart, then maybe you need to do a little digging and have a little time of reflection.

This has to be our desire, because folks this is the point.

This is what matters, if we don’t get this vertical relationship with God right, we will keep missing the mark over and over again.

We came here to get away from all the noise, we came here to snowblast to get refocused on God.

If we leave here without doing this we are missing it.

We are going to have a blast, I can promise you that, but we are also going to be getting personal, we are going to be diving deep.

We are going to be working on relationship with Jesus.

Because our relationship with Jesus will determine many of our relationship, whether is it dating, your family, your friends, who you say God is will influence those relationships.

So how are you following God right now?

Give an honest assessment.

It does no good to lie to yourself or us.

If you haven’t prayed in a week there may be an issue, if this is the first time you have picked up your Bible in weeks there may be an issue.

Be honest with yourself.

There are leaders here who love you, and they are all sold out for Jesus.

And I know that they all can help you and want to help anyway they can.

And guess what if you are not okay right now, that is okay, its okay to not be okay.

It's totally fine, because guess what we all have been there, or are there right now.

The only person you may be fooling is you and yeah you can fool your leader and you can fool your friends and family, but God sees right through you.

Let’s not even start this weekend with our first getting right with God.

So we are going to have a moment where we have this chance this opportunity to get right, to humble ourselves, to confess sin that we have to be open.

Can I have all the leaders come up here.

This is your chance, these leaders love you, and they are here for you, and if you need someone to pray with, to come down and say I’m not okay this is your chance, maybe you and God just need to chat where you are that is okay too.

Kevin, Austin and Eli are going play another song and in this time you are going to have a few moments to just get focused and get right with God.

Tethered