Opening Game – Scavenger Hunt
Before the game starts, hide an envelope with money in it in your pocket.
Split the students into two groups.
Choose one student from each group and pull them aside. Tell them where the treasure is, but tell them that they cannot give their teammates any hints at all.
Send the surely confused students back to their groups and tell everyone to start looking for the envelope—without giving them any rules or hints to where it may be.
After teams have been looking for a while, start passing out clues. For every true clue you give the students, also give them a false clue.
After the students run around confused for a few minutes, eventually give them enough true clues to allow one of the groups to end up back in the youth room. They will tell you the password to get the envelopes final location. Your pocket 🙂
Teach – Evangelism
Wasn’t that a confusing treasure hunt? As you may have realized I was giving you false clues part of the time to make harder on you. Did it make it more difficult to find what you were looking for? Absolutely.
You were being lied to. By your youth pastor. Now why would I do that? Well because it’s fun to lie (joke). No that’s not why, but we will get to that in a moment.
Let me ask you this, Wouldn’t it have been easier if I had given you directions at the beginning of the game? If I had handed you this map with the exact location of the treasure, would that have made it easier absolutely.
Now, I’m going to confuse you all just a little bit more. What if I told you that (names of students you pulled aside at the beginning) knew where the treasure was the entire time?
Pause and allow students to react.
That’s right, they knew exactly where the treasure was. They even knew which of the clues that I gave you were wrong! They knew and they said nothing. If they had spoken up, your entire team would have won!
What kind of friend keeps their mouth shut when they know something that could help their friends? What jerks you are (joke) Just kidding.
So why didn’t they talk? Why didn’t you tell them?
Answer- Because you told us we couldn’t
Well that’s right, in this specific case it was because I told them they couldn’t. Let me ask you this? Who in your lives is stopping you from talking to others about Jesus? I know for me it was no one. You know who it was, It was myself. I was the one who convinced myself it was not my responsibility to talk to others about Christ.
Well that was a mistake. And God made that completely obvious to me. You see we were made to serve him. He is a part of each and every one of us. And the problem is that so many people don’t realize that is the case. So what do they do? They try to fill that empty hole in their hearts with other things. Sex, Alcohol, Drugs exc.
I know that was me. When It came to sinning I was the worst of them. Guys, I pretty much did it all. I didn’t know what was missing in my life, but I knew I was missing something. I believed in God, but I didn’t have a relationship with him.
So then one night, I fell on my knees and I prayed to the lord. I was honest with him. I admitted my guilt, and asked for help. I honestly didn’t expect much to happen, but my parents had introduced me to the lord and I was desperate. Then God did something amazing. He answered my prayer. You see the bible says in Matthew
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7
This could not be more true. This is evident in stories like mine and stories like Raymond.
The problem is sometimes God does not always answer your prayer in the way you expect him to! Often times it takes time for you to realize how God is working in your life.
In my life, God made it obvious to me through a series of events that I was on the wrong path. It just took me some time to figure out how God was working in my life.
This was true of my high school story. You see I Desperately wanted to be cool. And I was. Just kidding. but seriously. I felt that all that mattered was what my peers thought of me. And for a while that worked. I was an actor in high school which meant I was great at lying. But the truth was I was lying to myself.
I was in the cool group. I hung out with the SRH crowd. Even though I had never set foot on a quad or dirtbike. We all sat together at lunch and I did everything I could to convince myself and them that I fit in. I drank with them. I even did an 8 mile rap in irish just to get attention.
The problem was I staked everything on those people…and people fail you. We all fail. Even the best of us. But I was blind. I was convinced these people were my friends. I was convinced they had my back. Until they didn’t that is.
It was prom night Jr. year. We all went to my FRIEND Scotties house after prom, because everyone knows that’s when the fun happens. His house was pretty big. He had a decent size house with one of those doors that leads into a laundry room that leads to another door that leads to the garage. Now the garage was where we all went to get our huka smoke on. So I was hanging out in the garage with a few of the people who I hung out with when one of the guys, asked me to come inside to hang. So I followed them in when all of a sudden both doors shut and it became pitch black. There were 4 other guys in the room and they jumped me. These people who I thought were my friends beat me up. Now I wasn’t badly hurt or anything, but it really took an emotional tole on me.
The worst part was Monday at school they didn’t just ignore it and forget it happened. They bragged about it. I vowed that I would no longer put my trust in people like that anymore. A few days later I met my best friend Chris York and he brought me to a nondenominational church called Alliance Church. God used the events and the people in my life to draw me closer to him.
Chris and I then slowly started to make a huge difference in our community. We made it our goal to bring others to Christ without fear. Have you all ever heard of the national day of prayer. Well on that day once a year we would all gather around the flag and pray. But we decided once a year was not enough. We made it a weekly thing . And I know we made a big difference. One person changed my life forever. Why??? He wasn’t afraid to introduce me to Christ. You see one person can make a difference. You shouldn’t be afraid to stand out. You should be proud of it.
Because we aren’t just dealing with a simple thing here. We are dealing with our eternal salvation. Life eternal. We get maybe 70 to 100 years if were lucky here. However with Jesus we are given Life Eternal.
Eternity – infinite or unending time.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. Romans1:16
You should not be ashamed to share your faith. Being in high school, you’re going to rub elbows with a lot of people who don’t know Jesus on a daily basis. You may even become close friends with some of them like I was. After high school this will become more and more difficult. Not for any other reason other than the fact that you won’t come in contact with as many people.
So going back to the game, There were two of you who knew the answer to the treasure hunt. You knew exactly where to go and what to do, while the entire rest of your group was lost. What type of friend would you be if you don’t tell others about Jesus?
I would Like to show you a quick video.
Not proselytize
Proselytize – convert or attempt to convert (someone) from one religion, belief, or opinion to another.
Evangelize – convert or seek to convert (someone) to Christianity.
You see these are the words of an atheist, and in this specific case, he’s got it right. If you truly honestly believe that Jesus is your savior, then you believe that when it comes down to it, anyone who does not know Jesus does not get into heaven. That is what the bible says.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
There is no other way into heaven accept through Jesus. By acknowledging in our hearts the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, we receive our ticket to heaven. There is no other way. And this may seem harsh, but it’s true. The bible makes that very clear.
So if you believe this, it means that anyone who doesn’t believe this will spend eternity in hell. Eternity separate from God. So as Christians it is your responsibility to push them out of the way of the bus. It is your responsibility to share Christ with them.
What’s the worst that could happen. They don’t want to hang out with you anymore? Lets compare that to the best case scenario. You save their eternal soul and them come to experience the joy that you have learned to experience through Christ.
You seen as we said earlier, If you know Jesus, you already have found the greatest treasure in the entire world. And it isn’t (prize at the end of treasure hunt) . Although that is nice.
So what is standing in the way of you sharing Christ with your friends.
If you think of knowing Jesus as a treasure, shouldn’t that motivate you to share him with others?
It’s easy to just go throughout the school year focused on yourself. It would be easier to not worry about telling people about Jesus this school year. But if you did that, you would be withholding the secret to the greatest treasure in the world.
Matthew 13:44
“The Kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”
Isn’t that verse so cool? It shows us how excited we should be over the fact that we know about Jesus and Heaven.
The man in this story was so excited that he rushed to give away everything he had so he could get the treasure.
Now, if he was that excited, don’t you think he told all of his friends once he got the treasure?
Maybe you’ve never thought of having a relationship with Jesus as having a treasure. I hope that after reading that verse, you will.
Think of how many people in your school don’t know Jesus and are just blindly wandering around looking for something.
Just like in the game, they don’t have clear direction on where they should be looking. They’re receiving false advice on where they should be going. They’re waiting on someone to tell them something that makes sense.
You could be that someone. You could be their Chris York.
Someone needs to tell the students at your school about the greatest treasure they could ever have. The question is, will it be you?
Let’s Pray.
briansweeneywebelieve.com 