VBS DAY 3 - Why Everyone Matters

God values you greatly. Everyone - young, old, sick, healthy - is a priceless treasure.

Hold up an object *cookie, or whatever…*

How much is this worth?

Let students discuss.

It’s really worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

It doesn’t matter if you make something that you love and try to sell it for $1,000,000 if no one will buy it.

If it cost you $100 to make it but you can only sell it for $50, guess what it’s worth…

$50.

What are some things we value in life?

Money, cars, etc…

Transition:

What about people? Do we value the people in our life?

In Luke 2, we read the Christmas story.

I’m not going to read from that tonight, but here is something we learn.

God left heaven, to come to earth to give His life as a sacrifice for us.

What a beautiful thing.

In Luke 4:29-31 “29 They got up, drove him out of town, and brought him to the edge of the hill that their town was built on, intending to hurl him over the cliff. 30 But he passed right through the crowd and went on his way. 31 Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and was teaching them on the Sabbath.”

From the beginning of His ministry, they tried to kill Jesus in his hometown.

The place he should have been most accepted, he was rejected and treated as an outcast.

What most incredible about this is that He didn’t stop… He continued.

WHy?

Because of 1 John

1 John 4:8 “8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

The other day I went to Family Dollar to try to grab a few things.

When I was checking out, the lady checking people out was named Jewel.

I didn’t ask, but Jewel just started telling me about all of her family troubles.

So in that moment, I did the only thing I could do, which by the way, is always the best thing you can do!

I prayed for her.

I asked her if it would be ok or if she would get in trouble and she said no that she would like that, so I prayed for her.

All Jewel needed that day, was exactly that, someone to just listen to her for a moment and remind her of God’s love.

How often do I miss out on that every day?

How often do you miss out on that?

The point tonight is that EVERYONE is valuable to God.

If I was Jesus, at the start of his ministry, I would have quit.

I would have said bump this, These people deserve hell, I’m out.

But he didn’t.

In fact he went so far as to eventually have his life threatened again...

And then not just threatened, but taken...

And as Jesus hung on the cross he said, “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.”

We have no idea how deep God’s love is for us.

But we do know that everyone is valuable to Him.

APPLICATION:

How are you treating others?

How am I?

It doesn’t matter how old or young.

How healthy or sick

How annoying or pleasant.

Everyone is valuable to God and we need to be continual reminders to the world around us that God is love.

But here is where this gets hard.

God doesn’t love everything.

He hates sin.

And God doesn’t want us to love what he hates.

So the tension of life is loving people as God does while also not affirming everything people do!

It’s knowing God loves me with a depth that He was willing to die for me, but taht doesn’t mean he affirms the sin in my life!

Jesus didn’t die to affirm everything in your life.

Jesus died, because he doesn’t like the sin in your life!

He paid the price that our debt of sin owes God.

He paid it.

So since he did that for us, how can we love others around us with the same love and grace and mercy we have been shown?

Let’s be sure we do that today.