I know that sometimes the summer months can be lonely for youth.
Things slow down. You are not at school,
contact with other youth is reduced. There is a lot of time to think. And when
you spend more time alone, it’s also common to think that you are alone in your
struggles. There is an activity that we are going to do as an icebreaker to
simply to create an awareness that regardless of what you are going through,
there are others who gone through it before us and others that will go through
it later. And even if it seems there is no one who can understand, Jesus does.
So Here We Go……
We are going to Take It to the Next Level
We often feel we are alone in our struggles and
that no one understands us or there’s no one who can relate to us or understand
what we’re going through.
We don’t often realize there are people all
around us that have the same life situations as us – people who share so many
things in common with us. We were never created to function alone. That’s why
God gave us a community.
In fact, to prove we were never alone and that
there was someone out there who was familiar with our struggles, Jesus Christ,
our King left His throne room and became man. He walked the same land and lived
the same life. He was God with us – Emmanuel.
Looking at the Scripture
I have a lot of scripture today to show you that
even when you don’t think it God loves you and worries about what you think about
and how you feel. Like in….
(Hebrews 4:15-16)
“For we do not have a high priest who cannot
sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as
we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the
throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of
need.”
1.
Jesus
knows how you think and feel
(John
2:24-25)
- “But
Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no
need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man” see he is saying that he knows you, not
just the you that you let everyone else see, the you behind closed doors,
the you that you are happy with, sad with, disgusted with. We all that
person that we hide when there are other people that are around but he
loves that too. To show you again,
in…
(Acts
1:24)
- And
they prayed and said, “You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which
of these two You have chosen”
2. Jesus knows you inside and out
(Psalm
103:14)
for he knows how
we are formed,
he remembers
that we are dust
Psalm 139:1-4,
O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.
3. Jesus knows your suffering (Isaiah 53:3-7)
3 He was despised and rejected by
mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
4. Jesus will be with you and take care of you in all things
(1 Peter 5:7)
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
All of these scriptures were written long before any of us were thought of and hold true for each and every generation. So God has shown that when you think no one else loves you he does. So how will you let him show through you this week and show someone else that God loves them?
