We’re going to start our series on living at the beginning. Jesus is life. The life our souls ache for cannot be found anywhere else. Probably no one who comes to Hope would disagree with either of those statements. So we should all be fully alive from the depths of our souls, jumping into every day and each calling full of confidence and hope. But we aren’t. So what’s the problem? We’ll take this morning to remind ourselves of the basic truth of the gospel, and then see what gets in the way of that bringing life to our days.

Teens are living in a lost world and research shows they are more lost than ever. After a special worship service featuring Hope Youth voices, Pastor Dan will share some of the most common areas today’s teens are struggling with their faith, and how we can be more effective ambassadors for Christ.

We’re going to close our series on Remembering Who We Are by coming back to our namesake: hope. One of the simplest things we can do is hold onto it. But it may also be one of the most challenging. We lose our grip on it for so many reasons. We get discouraged, we get afraid, we get set on a particular outcome. But it is almost a paradox to live as a Christian or to operate as a church without living in a strong and abiding hope. Let’s take this morning and see what it looks like to live holding onto hope!

Communication is the backbone of any relationship. When you’re in elementary school, and you have a crush on that cute classmate, you may not be able to figure out HOW to talk to them. But in any mature relationship, the ability to connect through conversation and understanding is at the very foundation of friendship or family or romance. With the Lord, it may seem more complicated because He’s not just a human like we are, so there’s the awe of His greatness. And of course, we don’t talk to Him face to face like we do with people. But knowing God is a lot more like knowing other people than we realize. The two basic parts of our communicating with Him are reading and prayer. We’ll look at how to do both of these, and what they do for our lives with our Lord!

The problems of the world are easy to see. We walk through life constantly noticing how things are not what they should be. As Christians, we want the world to know Jesus and for good to triumph. But it can feel overwhelming and hopeless. What are we supposed to do about that? The actual answer is probably a lot simpler than it seems. We are to be people who do good. Look around your life and notice the chances you have to make a difference by doing something that is good. The act itself may be small, but the results are big. We have some Hopers who are actively involved in local ministry in Woodbury who can share with us how God is using them to do exactly that. Maybe we can join them in the good they are doing. Or maybe the Lord will use their experience to stir you up to the good He wants you to do.

Social media has definitely generated more outlets for conversation. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is probably something to debate, but it highlights an area where Christians should excel. Because we know the King and are confident in His reign over all, we can walk into every interaction with a security and peace that the lost don’t have. We can take instruction from God’s Word on what healthy conversation looks like and live that out in the discussions around us both virtually and in real life. Because of that, Christians should improve any conversation they enter. Maybe that’s not the norm, but it should be. Let’s take some time this morning to look at what we know and how to use it in our interactions with others.

This week at VBS our kids heard that they are God’s priceless treasure! This message is affirming and potentially life changing and it is one we happily tell our children. But at some point as adults we either stop telling each other this or at least we stop believing it is true about us. What we believe is that we have to prove our worth, justify our existence, and chart our own course. Our “treasured-ness” now comes with caveats and conditions. This isn’t the message of Jesus Christ. His life, death, and resurrection is a testament to your incomparable worth, value, and beauty.

If you’ve ever been around a young couple newly in love, you know how crazy love can make you act. The great thing is that the couple doesn’t realize they are doing anything strange; for them, it is just as natural as breathing. Love makes us do stuff and changes how we act. For believers, that is a great way to practically think about loving others. Jesus told us to love our neighbor and Paul tells us it is the main thing for Christians. Hopefully, we are already loving people like Jesus loves them. But today, let’s kick off VBS by asking ourselves if we have room to grow in loving others. Can we love people like crazy?

Social media has given us a different spin on the idea of ‘sharing’. We can share posts that we like from others, and we can share our lives with others (or at least the parts we want them to see) on our own posts. With all the different platforms, it would seem we’ve become experts at sharing. Most of the time, we enjoy sharing the parts of our lives that bring us joy, excitement, and celebration. There are those who also share some of their deep struggles and questions about life. As believers, we have the amazing privilege of sharing the best Person and the best news with others. The truth is we should be more eager to do this than virtually anything else in our lives. But we often aren’t. And we don’t. So let’s remind ourselves that one of the basics of knowing Jesus and following Him is eagerly sharing Him with others!