Welcome to this week’s online youth lesson. You can catch up with previous sessions here.
We’ll start off with the song “See a Victory” from Elevation Worship:
Prayer needs continue to revolve around COVID. Please pray for the pastor, church board and the congregation after some new concern within our church.
Also, please continue to pray for Betty Herman’s recovery from COVID. She has shown slow, yet steady, improvement lately. Please remember Roy and Star in prayer, too, as they figure out what the next steps may be.
The Dillman family continues to recover from COVID, including Dave’s hospital stay and blood clot on top of COVID issues. Holly is still struggling with symptoms along with a bad eye infection.
Continue to remember Pat Mitchell, Candy Mitchell, Pat Snook, the Tony Jordan family and others who are still struggling with the repercussions of COVID.
Julie Hartley is dealing with shingles at this time and a swollen eye. Janice Sprenkel — the sister of Deb Bowersox and Bob Keister — found out that cancer has metastasized to her brain. She is planning to return home under hospice care. Please remember her and the extended family in prayer.
Finally, please keep Pastor Paul and the Sheets family in special prayer. The pastor lost his brother unexpectedly Saturday night to COVID. Of course, Sally continues to deal with the tumor in her pancreas, with a very hectic schedule coming up involving radiation treatments before surgeons can hopefully remove the tumor.
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Looking back on a large number of weekly online lessons, so many themes tie back to the struggles, anxiety and uncertainties of COVID, and rightfully so. It is an unprecedented situation that has impacted all of us. People have died, families are reeling from the ripple effects, and through it all, God asks us to lean on Him regardless of the storms we face.
As Christians, we can easily be sucked into the dark grays of COVID life, and feel muted despite God’s blessings — no matter how small they may seem at the time.
So this week, for a change, we want to cast away the black-gray-white doldrums and really focus on what God means to us, how he can imbue us with power to overcome obstacles and how we should celebrate that incredible process.
One of my favorite contemporary Christian music videos of all time is “Reason” by the group Unspoken. The music is catchy and upbeat, the message of the video behind the music may come across as controversial … a little girl keeps going through extreme measures to satisfy her need to “fly.” Check it out here:
The message portrayed is that God is the reason we keep striving for new heights and that he gives us the power to overcome, despite the circumstances we may find ourselves in.
What a thing to celebrate … and yet, it is human nature to struggle, doubt, mourn and give up ways too quickly. Consider the story of Lazarus, who dies in John 11, and his sisters’ response when Jesus shows up after the death.
Jesus arrives after Lazarus “had already been in the tomb for four days.” Jesus first comes to Martha, one of Lazarus’ two sisters. Her response to Jesus (from John 11:21-22 NIV):
“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
A few verses later, in John 11:32, we get a very similar response from Lazarus’ other sister:
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Jesus knows His power goes well beyond the grave, and he asks to be taken to the tomb holding Lazarus’ body. Check out the rest of the story from John 11:38-44 (NIV):
Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent meWhen he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Notice early in those verses yet another comment from Martha about the finality (in her opinion) of Lazarus’ death by suggesting his dead corpse would be emitting an odor since it had been there for four days. It is apparent she has given up on any sort of miracle in this situation, and yet, God provides one through Jesus anyway.
What the story is missing is the response to that miracle. Imagine for a moment the celebration as Lazarus re-unites with his sisters and the crowd witnesses such a milestone moment. Perhaps missing this part of the story is what feeds our inability at times to follow-through with the celebration at Jesus’ blessings in our own lives.
And looking back at Martha and Mary in their response to Jesus arriving on the scene if they had greeted him with confident expectation instead of dejected mourning? What if they gave Jesus a high-five, praised God for bringing Jesus to the scene and confidently walked him to Lazarus’ tomb as skeptical crowds watched on — ignoring the magnitude of Lazarus’ death because they knew Jesus had the power to tackle that situation.
I would imagine it would sound much like the theme of the newest Mercy Me song, “Say I Won’t.” Check out the powerful new video here:
Considering all this, a quick disclaimer. We are taught in the Bible not to be prideful or boast, but I suggest that having confidence in God isn’t necessarily falling into those potential personality traps as long as we are mindful of that. Also, having confidence in God to deliver us from a tough situation is important — but we also must remember that we ultimately are seeking God’s will in that situation and not our own. Just because Jesus has the ability to rise the Lazaruses in our lives, doesn’t mean He will — and we have to stay faithful in that His bigger picture for the situation is what is being served regardless of the outcome.
Over the past year, instead of hovering over the question marks, pain and anxiety of a pandemic and political strife — let’s take a moment to instead celebrate the blessings that God has given us in the midst of the storm. Let’s celebrate the power God gives us to do His work. We’d love to hear some of the praise-worthy moments of 2020/2021 for you. We shared a number of them as a group with those who were in attendance Wednesday night.
One of our responsibilities as Christians is to praise God. Some good examples of how to do so come from numerous Psalms dedicated to praise. Take some time to turn to Psalms in your bible and read through the following as proclamations of praise to Him, and use them as an outline for your own proclamations of praise even when things seem dark and unforgiving:
Psalm 100:1-5
Psalm 34:1-9
Psalm 111:1-5
Psalm 95:1-7
Psalm 92:1-8
Psalm 7:17
Psalm 103:1-6
Psalm 89:5-8
Psalm 117:1-2
Psalm 139:13-17
