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on the altar

surrender 14 event-driven student ministry outlines

garth heckman

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The God Who Runs . . . To Us . . . youth meetings on God’s love a n d h o w h e w o r k s i n o u r s a lv a t i o n But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

— L u k e 1 5 : 2 0

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L e f t Li m p i n g ( W r e s t l i n g wi t h G o d )

Wha t I t ’s All Abou t Jacob was forever changed on one fateful night (Genesis 32). He wrestled with God and won.

How could he win? Only through his own submission to God. You want your students to want more from God! But whether it’s them or you, the same message applies: we quickly learn that going deeper in our relationship with him comes with a price.

Jacob cried out “Bless me!” He learned to wrestle with God and God taught him how to submit. This is a great message and a great youth meeting for those who have not yet made Christ their Lord and Savior—or for those who have yet to submit everything to God.

Ge t It S t a r t e d What’s needed: Virtually nothing—pretty cool for the first activity, right? All you need is some long tables where your students can sit across from each other and lock thumbs!

There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned wrestling match! Have your students team up with one another and . . . thumb wrestle. Here are some ideas for this activity. ( Warning: be careful or you might turn this into an Olympic event!)

Set up students who seem at least somewhat closely matched, have them lock four fingers and limber up their thumbs, and then call out each bout with the classic “One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war!” After thirty seconds almost every pair will have a winner. For the few that haven’t, call time out and announce that the person with the shortest hair wins.

Hint: Be ready to make up a few of these “tiebreaker” calls on the fly.

Keep pairing up winners until you have an ultimate victor! Watch for overly competitive students; the point here is to get them laughing—at each other and, mostly, at themselves!

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The finish: Give the ”champion” a ring pop or a baby pacifier as the first-place prize—but don’t let that out until you reach the final winner—and explain that their thumb may be too sore to suck after all that exercise!

W here It’s Found i n th e Bib le Genesis 32:26-31 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

Youth Talk Outline It’s growing by leaps and bounds! It’s known as MMA; that stands for Mixed Martial Arts.

Maybe you’ve seen it on YouTube or on TV. It can be gruesome and exciting all at the same time.

Two men enter a cage and only one exits the victor. Each man works to beat, wrestle, hit, punch, kick, and use submission holds to wear down his opponent.

Many times the loser is the one who tires first and allows his foe to put him into a submission hold—he’s either choked or pressure is applied to a leg or an arm to the point of snapping. Then he’s literally forced to “tap out.” It’s his way of saying, “Enough—I give up.”

F o r d i s c u s s i o n wi t h y o u r g r o u p : • There’s a growing—maybe morbid?—interest in watching teen girls or women fight; there are some pretty intense fights posted on the Internet. Talk for a minute or two about why people like to watch fights online.

• At school, if word gets around that two people are going to fight, an instant buzz is created among the students. This isn’t a good thing, but it is reality. Why does this exist?

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lef t limping (wrestling with god)

• The Scriptures are based on good vs. evil, Jesus vs. the devil. This is a battle worth talking about! How do we get ready for this battle?

1. Not Flesh and Blood a. So why do we wrestle?

We wrestle to win; no one wrestles to lose. But depending on the fight you are in, you may have no chance but to lose no matter how hard you fight.

Everyone has seen or heard about a big fight on TV and said, “I would fight that guy for 10 million dollars!” We think that even if we got knocked out it would be worth it. What we don’t think through is the time and sacrifice it takes to get to the place where someone would pay someone else 10 million dollars to get into a ring and fight.

There was a far greater sacrifice made in order for us to fight. Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we could fight with him and win.

Are you in a winning battle or a losing one? How many people have been in battle after battle and seem to always come up losers? How many seem to always win?

These may have “won” fame, fortune, and fun—but they still feel empty and inside they sense their losses.

Here’s the great news: God wants you to win!

For discussion: • Have you had any battles you’ve won, but in the end you still felt like a loser?

• Go deeper: Can you think of any times when you could lose a battle and still feel like a winner?

B u r s t:

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Branded:

b. What do we wrestle against?

We think: Wouldn’t it be great to see the spiritual enemy in our lives? We could just sock him or her or it or whatever it is in the nose! But often we aren’t looking for the real enemy.

Perhaps God is doing us a favor by not letting us see the enemy. If we could see Satan, would it make the fight easier or harder?

Ephesians 6:12 says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

This passage talks about rulers, powers, and the invisible things in the spiritual realms: for sure they include things like greed, peer pressure, drugs, low selfesteem, and popularity as the world measures popularity—those are the real enemies, to name a few. Too often we spend lots of our time fighting against these enemies on our own—maybe by giving in to them. And yet, all the time, there is someone who wants to wrestle for us.

Without God’s help we can wrestle against Satan all we want—and we’ll still lose. He desires to destroy us, steal from us, and ultimately to kill us. (John 10:10 16

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is a great Scripture to reference for this.) No matter how hard we try, we will lose that battle!

Or we can wrestle with God, like Jacob did. God also will win, but when he wins we also win. And we win by submission—ours!

2. What Do We Learn from Wrestling? a. We learn to trust God; we get to know him better This is a lot like a father who wrestles with his son: The dad can easily “win,” but it’s not his heart to win. What he really wants is to bond with his son. Wrestling with God will allow us to trust him and bond with him deeper while we wrestle, just as a dad does with his son. b. We learn new moves!

Every time a wrestler gets in the ring he learns something new, even when he loses! Any real wrestler will tell you it’s not about strength; it’s about technique.

A spiritual battle is the same: It’s not about our strength, but instead putting into practice the spiritual techniques we find in Scripture.

For discussion: • Name some of the lessons you’ve learned this year in your spiritual journey.

How will they help you fight spiritual battles? c. But the first battle is over who’s going to run our lives If we make the decision to wrestle with God and not against him, and to battle against evil, we’ve already won the most important battle!

After we submit to God we’ll continue to wrestle over life issues, but now we have someone on our side to wrestle for us. Remember tag team wrestling? It’s like that: you touch God’s hand and he steps in the ring and takes over.

B u r s t:

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Branded:

3. Say That Again? How Do You Wrestle with God and Win? a. You wrestle face-to-face with him (You might choose to read key sections of Genesis 32 again.)

Jacob came to a place where he faced God and had to deal with him directly. You can’t run from a fight and expect to win. Deep inside, Jacob knew all the things that he hadn’t ever dealt with—stealing, deceit, and more. He knew he needed to give up. He knew he needed to give in. And that was the most important battle. b. You win by giving in!

When wrestling with God you only win when you totally give in. The interesting thing behind Jacob’s prayer is that he was basically crying out, “I will not give up until you bless me.” Jacob understood he had things in his life that he needed God’s help to overcome—and he realized he needed total submission to get there.

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Sometimes when we wrestle with God we cry out the wrong things: “God, I will not give up until you make me popular” . . . “God, I will not give up until you give me a boyfriend” . . . “I will not give up until you get me into a good college.”

None of these is wrong, but they may be off track from what God really wants in our lives.

B u r s t:

Branded:

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W rap It Up In this great Bible story, we learn something about truly winning. The best way to win is to give in to God! He won the war for us on the cross through Jesus Christ. His death gives us victory and that victory is found through giving in to Christ.

No one jumps up and down and yells, “I’m a loser! I’m a loser! YEAHH!!! I’m a loser!” But that’s the irony of this story: When we lose, we win! Because we know that, in the end, God wins!

The TV show The Biggest Loser is ironically titled because that is the point: you win by losing. You go through all the pain, exercise, diet, and frustration—and for what? To be the biggest loser! But by being the biggest loser you are the winner! This is a great picture of what following Christ is like!

B u r s t:

Branded:

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Losing to God leaves you altered—and it leaves you changed!

Have you lost the fight yet—so that you can win? As we saw in Scripture, Jacob walked away from the fight with a limp. Today is your day to be a loser with a limp. As a symbol of giving in to Christ, the challenge is to take off one shoe so you can feel the limp.

A lt e r e d What’s needed: Absolutely nothing!—just prayer beforehand Follow the talk by asking your students to take a step to submit to God. Invite them to take one shoe off and come forward to pray. Tell them that they will feel a slight limp as they walk forward. This is a physical reminder both of Jacob’s struggle and of this night when they submitted more deeply to God. Take students wherever they are: Some may want to learn more about giving their lives to Christ, or be ready to; others may want prayer, or just to share what’s on their heart!

Options: You might ask your students to take a longer walk to the altar area than just straight down the aisles, or even challenge them to keep one shoe off until they get home and climb into bed. (OK, do this only in good weather, not when it’s 12 degrees outside!)

The more you can make the limp stick in their minds the better!

End the night with prayer.

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