We just finished a series of messages on Dealing with Life’s Trash. Before getting into it, I didn’t anticipate how intense it was going to end up being. It was a pretty “heavy” set of messages, but I think they were important.
Here are the main ideas from each message.
- Guilt: Our feelings of guilt should motivate us to take ownership of our sin and accept the grace that God offers to us.
- Death: Though death is certain, it can be valuable if it we let it refine us and give us perspective on the eternal and not the temporal.
- Pain: We all experience pain and suffering, but we have a God who experienced ultimate pain on the cross. Not because of the crucifixion itself, but because of the cosmic separation he experienced from the Father (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). He identifies with us.
- Fear: We looked at the life of Gideon and found that fear alters our perspective and makes us its prisoner. To be freed from fear we must discover that God is close to us and that He has a plan for us to fulfill.
For our message on Fear, two of our 8th graders (Paul and Cody) put together the following video for us.
(RSS readers click here to see video)
there was some leftover food on the knife that was used to stab the poor gummy bear, and that microwave is disgustingly dirty. Don’t ever eat anything from there!
I really really liked this series!! It was deep, and hit home which was hard, but it is issues most in the youth have dealt with or dealing with and need to see where/how they can go to God. I hope they really opened their hearts, souls, and minds!! becuase i know i did! and it truly changed alot!