Youth Ministry Tip #2: Get to Know Jesus
Youth Ministry Tip #2: Get to Know Jesus, who He is, why He did what He did, and why He had to die on a cross to forgive our sins. The more you know Jesus the more your students will.
The heart, vision, and purpose of youth ministry is to enable our students to Get to Know Jesus.
Philippians 3:7-11,
7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
As Paul tells the Church at Philippi there is nothing greater in our life, in our ministry, in anything than Knowing Christ Jesus. In fact, he goes so far as to say that if we compare anything to knowing Christ it should look like trash. Yes, our filthy dirty trash. I don’t know about you but the last time I told my kids to go eat something, I didn’t say, “hey boys, go grab something out of the trash to eat.” The last time my boys asked for a toy or a present, I didn’t wrap up a bag of trash and say, “here you go boys, have at it!” I know better as a dad, that trash is this nasty, dirty, germ filled junk that our goal is to wrap it up in plastic bags, put it in a big plastic trash can and take it to the street to be sent away.
As I read Philippians 3, I realize that there are so many things in my life that I try and put not just near the same value as Jesus, but even above Him. But Paul describes that it isn’t just about knowing Jesus should be more important to us, but that anything, I mean anything else should be as Trash in our lives. There just is no comparison to knowing Jesus. Jesus is the only way we can be in a relationship with God the Father. Jesus is the only one who could pay the price for our sin and disobedience. Jesus is the only one who by coming to earth could send us the Holy Spirit to live inside of us. A perfect God can only live with Perfect People. I know the only way I will ever be perfect is if a Holy and Perfect God stands in my place for everything I have ever done that falls short of the Glory of God. Jesus did that for me.
What are we doing in our lives to show our students, our family, our friends, that we want to Get to Know Jesus more than anything else in this world? If you want them to get to know Jesus….we have to!
