LIVESPEAK

Summer SwitchSeek First

The PointSeek God with your best and get the rest.

LIVE SPEAKAnnouncement Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSQJP40PcGI)

Welcome (introduce yourself!)

How many of you have lost something? I have, and it is one of the worst feelings.

Share a story of losing something: 3-5 minutes

Examples: Can’t find cell phone (but you’re talking on it). Can’t find car keys. Can’t find a kid. Can’t find a friend. Build equity with the story—include details, humor, and suspense.

My example: Last year, my family went on a quick getaway to a hotel with an indoor water park. And since we are a family of five that means that Kristi and I play a zone defense with our kids. (picture of my family on screen) Apparently, our zone defense needs help. The reason I say that is because we lost one of our kids in the hotel. Don’t worry, we left him. Seriously, let me explain what happened.

My kids love to push the buttons on elevators and to be the first one on. Apparently, Tate, my youngest, wanted to get a head start, so he pushed the button and got on the elevator while the rest of us were checking out the water park through a window. We turned around, just in time to see the door close with Tate on the elevator.

Up, up, up the elevator went. We just watched the floor numbers light up. At this point, we weren’t too scared, we are professional parents and we knew the laws of gravity – what goes up, must come down. We knew that all we had to do was hit the elevator button and wait for him to come back down. So, we hit the button. And again we watched the floors light up as the elevator started to go down, down, down until it got to our floor. And just like that, the doors opened and… (add dramatic pause) the elevator was empty. Tate was gone.

Transition from your story to their world (hooks – how does this topic play out in their life?):

This is a horrible feeling. Some of you understand what we are talking about. You know what it means to lose something that’s important to you.

Generally, we can tell how important something is to us, based on how hard we search for it when it’s lost.

If I lose a sock, no big deal. If I lose a pen, I’ll get another one at church. If I lose my chapstick, I’ll buy more. If it’s not important, it’s not a big deal.

Now compare that to something that is important to us.

If we were to lose our phone, what would we do? Yep, we would go crazy. We would call it, track it, text it, wipe it. We are trying to get that phone to give you a beep, a ring, anything. Let me know if I am hot or cold. If we don’t find it in the first two minutes, we hop on social media from some other device to let everyone we know that we have lost our phone (so they won’t think we are ignoring them) and we would add an emoticon that is sad. Why? It is important to us.

LIVESPEAK

Or maybe what’s important to you is what you wear. And if you lost a piece of jewelry, a favorite shirt, or a shoe (studies show that we lose one shoe more than two shoes), we are hiring detectives to help us solve the case. We will clean the house, flip the house upside down, pull out a metal detector, call friends who borrow clothes, search siblings’ rooms, and enlist the help of others to find it. Why? Once again, it is important.

One of the most extreme ways I see this play out the most is when someone loses a pet. If you lose a pet what do you do? You post signs, you offer a reward, you go around the neighborhood yelling your pet’s name (Freddy, Freddy, Freddy!) and you didn’t care how stupid you look.

Slow down and make this next question stick, it is the setup to the transition:

Why? Why would we do all of these things? You lost something that was important to you and you are trying to find it.

But here is our big question for today: what happens if what you care about most isn’t that important? What happens if you get to the end of summer, the end of the year, or the end of your life, and realize that what you thought was really important wasn’t as important as you may have thought? And the most important things, the things you should have been looking for, you missed. In fact, you never even looked for it.

(You can reference the video if you show it at the beginning, or you can break and show the video here.)

In the video we may have counted the right number, but we missed the panda. Is it possible that we can live on earth that was created by God and to miss God? Is it possible to go into a summer break where we have more time and yet have less time for God? Is it possible, we are looking for the wrong things?

This summer, we want you to get this right. We want to show you what believe are the right things because we don’t want you to waste your summer. Let’s start off by seeing what God’s Word says. Here is the question to ask yourself: What should we be looking for this summer?

Transition to the Bible

Matthew 6:33 says…

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. Matthew 6:33 NLT

(Put this verse on the screen.)

It would be easy to read this verse really quick and think, “That sounds good.” However, if we read it too quick, we miss the point. Let’s break it down. Listen to what this verse is saying.

SEEK the Kingdom of God (side note: the Kingdom of God is the focal point of the Sermon on the Mount. In particular, the Beatitudes in Matthew 5): Look for God. Look for the things that He is doing. Look for them in the things He created. Look for them in the Bible. Look for them in your friendships. Ask for God’s help in finding them in prayer. Look for God. SEEK the kingdom of God, and the verse continues…

ABOVE ALL ELSE. When should you seek the kingdom of God? Say it with me – above all else. According to Jesus, we should seek God first. Now, this makes sense – Jesus is God’s Son, He thinks His dad is great. Of course He would say that. Jesus, are you saying I should seek God before my friends, before my feelings, before anything else? I think He is. I think He understands that sometimes, we wait to seek God until after we are facing the consequences of some bad choice. He has to be thinking, “I could have helped you avoid that guilt, the shame, the punishment If you would have asked Me first.”

Optional: You can add a story here if you want. Any story of where you missed the mark. Keep it short. Examples: Lying to parents. Cheating at school. Going to the party JUST to hang out.

Seek God above all else, and the verse continues…

And LIVE RIGHTEOUSLY. When you seek the right things, and you find the right things, do the right thing. Live righteously.

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If the verse stopped here, we already have some good actions steps to have a better summer, but God connects it to a promise. If we seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously, what will God will give us? Say it with me, “Everything you need.”

Everything? That is pretty big. And if you are like me, you may be thinking money, more friends, maybe a six pack. I want to be like Justin Timberlake – I want to have sunshine in my pocket, or that good soul in my feet. Is God really going to keep up on His end of this promise?

The better question is, will you? You see, when we seek God above all else and live righteously, the things we want will begin to change to the things that God wants. God will give us everything we need.

We can put it this way…

Walk Away Point: Seek God with your best and He will give you the rest (repeat).

Transition to application

Some of you may be thinking, “Great, I am willing to give this a try for a day or a week, but what do I need to do next?” I think the answer is simpler than we think.

Let’s go back to what happens when we are trying to find something that we have lost. What do we do when we lose something? Most of have the same process. We retrace our steps back to the last place we had it. (Give example or go back and finish your intro story if you left it unfinished. Example: We found Tate. We went to the floor the elevator stopped on.)

If you’re not seeking God with your best, go back to the place where you last had it. If you’re feeling far from God, go back and do the things you did when you were close. If your life is going in the wrong direction, turn around and go in the right direction. Retrace your steps. Here is what you will find – God hasn’t moved.

For those who want to give more:

We are not the first ones to experience this. There is a book in the bible called Haggai. In this book, God’s people were taken captive and sent to other countries, when they returned to their homeland, Jerusalem, they found the great temple of God in ruins. God wanted them to rebuild it. They started, but then they stopped. They stopped seeking. They stopped looking. So God sends the prophet Haggai to wake them up.

"Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: 'Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it." Haggai 1:5

Sound familiar? It's that feeling of knowing your life is very full but not very fulfilled.

Listen to God’s diagnosis now in verse 9,

“You expected much, but see it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of My house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house.”

Their lives were so full of their agenda they didn't have much left for God's agenda. Their stuff was doing fine, but the work and priorities of God were in shambles. They were taking care of the important things, but missing the most important thing.

And then, it finally clicked, like it will for a lot of you today. When the people in Haggai’s day finally got the message and they began to put God first again, listen to what God says... "From this day on I will bless you" Haggai 2:19

Walk Away Point: Seek God with your best, and He will give you the rest.

Application: What would happen if each of us woke up tomorrow and we made a commitment to seek God first?

Would it change your family?

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Would it change your attitude?

Would it change your relationship with your friends?

Would it change your plans?

Would it change your summer?

Would it change you?

Tomorrow, you will wake up and you will search for something. You can search for things that will fill your schedule or you can search for the One who will fulfill your life. You can search for the things that you think you need or you can search for the One who promises to give you everything you need.

Seek God with your best and He will give you the rest.

CloseHave students close their eyes and bow their heads.

Bow your heads, close your eyes. This is the point in the night, where we switch from what is God saying to all of us to what is God saying to just you. For the next couple minutes, listen to what is happening inside of you. What does God want you to do?

I don’t know about you, but for me, this message is much harder to live than it is to hear. How many of you are like me, and if you are honest, so far this summer, you are seeking things that seem important, but you may be failing to connect with the One who is most important?

Insert hooks here: Maybe you seek after… or … or maybe for you it is … and you realize, those things are important, but they are not the most important thing and you want to get the most out of this summer. You want to seek the most important thing first. If that is you, I want you to raise your hand. (Pray for the students.)

With heads still bowed and eyes closed…

For some of you, this isn’t about reconnecting, this is about connecting. God doesn’t just ask for our best, He gave us His best. God sent his Son.

Many of you would honestly say you don’t really have a faith in God. Maybe you’ve put your faith in all the wrong things. Maybe your faith’s in yourself and your own abilities. You’ve tried to make life work out for you on your own. But whatever that looks like for you, you know your faith hasn’t been in God—but you also know that’s exactly what you need in your life.

You want to be sure that God is who He says He is and know for certain that He has a plan for your life. Well, today is that day for you to put your faith in God, and trust that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for YOU so that you could be forgiven.

The reality is, because we were born bent toward sin, we've all fallen short of God's righteousness—of His standard. There are those of you who recognize, I need God in my life right now. I need His forgiveness. I need His presence. I need to trust Him.

All I'm going to ask you to do is say, "Yes, Jesus, I turn to You and I give my life to You. I receive Your forgiveness and I trust You. Yes, I need Your presence. I need Your forgiveness. I need Your grace. Therefore, today, I surrender my life completely to You. Jesus take my life, be my Lord, be my Savior. I give my life to You." If that's your prayer today, would you lift your hands high right now and say, "Yes, I surrender." … (Have students repeat the prayer after you to receive Jesus in their lives and to begin to live for Him.)