This is a talk I gave at BadgerTEC 43. TEC (Teens Encounter Christ) is a 3 day weekend retreat for teenagers. There are TEC weekends all over the country, and BadgerTEC hosts weekends twice a year throughout south-eastern Wisconsin. This was my 16th time serving on team for a TEC weekend, and my first time serving as spiritual director.
Raise your hand if your favorite holiday is Christmas. Raise your hand if your favorite holiday is your birthday.
Raise your hand if it’s Easter.
My favorite holiday is probably Christmas. At Easter, I usually get to see family, which is fun, and on my birthday, I get presents, but on Christmas, I get both. Family and presents. What more could you want in a holiday?
For our faith life, obviously Christmas is really important, but Easter is just as important, because Easter is about Jesus rising from the dead after his crucifixion on the cross, and Jesus’ rising means something for us.
This weekend at TEC, we’re here to walk through some of the life of Jesus. I believe each one of you has been called here for a purpose. Even if you don’t know exactly why you came, if you don’t really like singing or listening to talks, I believe you’re here for a reason.
Part of what I like about coming on a retreat weekend like this is that it’s a time to take a step back from my normal life.
Yes, I’m in seminary preparing to be a pastor, but I don’t usually sleep in a church building. I don’t know, maybe Pastor Brian does, but for me, spending 55 hours straight in church like we’re doing this weekend is something different.
This is a time to think about faith, to think about what it means to be a Christian.
Being a Christian really doesn’t seem that hard, most of the time. Going to church on Sunday isn’t really that tough, and I know for me growing up, youth group was where my friends were, where I wanted to be.
Yes, you probably know people who don’t believe in God, who might even make fun at you for going to church, but it’s usually not that big of a deal.
Living a Christian life doesn’t even sound that hard. I mean, Jesus taught lots of good stuff, like love your neighbor and help each other. What’s the problem with that?
But there must have been some problem, because Jesus got into trouble for what he said, enough trouble to be executed, to die on a cross. People felt threatened by Jesus. Jesus had this way of challenging people to live differently.
I usually think of Jesus as a pretty nice guy, but he wasn’t exactly shy about telling people how to live.
He wasn’t really good at minding his own business. Instead, he told people to do some radical stuff, not just like loving their neighbors, but also loving their enemies, and to give everything you have to the poor. And even more threatening than that, he told people they weren’t good enough to be with God. He told people that they needed a savior, and that he himself was the way to God.
Know what I think is hard about being a Christian? Following.
Saying you’re a Christian isn’t hard, but actually following Jesus is tough!
A big part of it is that following Jesus means giving up control. If I say Jesus is my savior, then that means I’m admitting I need someone to save me. I’m admitting that I’m not strong enough, or good enough on my own.
I mean, I think I’m a pretty good person overall. I like to go to church, I like to help people, I even usually recycle. But I’m not perfect. When I see someone on the street with a sign asking for help, I don’t usually help them. Oh, I feel bad about not helping, but not enough to do something about it. I’d rather watch Netflix than go volunteer somewhere. Saying I’m a Christian means saying I’m in need of help, that I need Jesus.
Here’s the thing: If you’re a perfect person, then you don’t need Jesus to save you. If you can do everything completely right, keeping every commandment, including how you think – Jesus said even thinking angry thoughts about someone is like murder – if you can do everything on your own, then you don’t need Jesus.
But if you’re honest, I bet you know you’re not perfect. And if you think you’re perfect, well, you’re lying to yourself. Look at the person next to you and say: “I’m not perfect, and neither are you.”
The Bible calls this stuff we do wrong “sin,” and it separates us from God. Sin is doing bad stuff, but more than that, it’s self-centeredness. It’s putting ourselves before others, relying on ourselves instead of on God.
When I start thinking I’m this great person because I’m going to be a pastor, or I have it all figured out because I get to be the “Spiritual director” this weekend, or if you think you’ve got it all together because you’ve got college scouts coming to recruit you, that’s sin.
When I get so focused on myself that I don’t even notice the people around me who need help, that’s sin.
And even when I get so down on myself because I’m not as good at praying as I ought to be, or because I’ve been trying to lose weight since May and I’ve lost all of 5 pounds, that’s sin. It’s relying on myself instead of God.
We can’t help it. We’re naturally selfish. Obviously it’s good to try not to sin, but it never works. And the consequences of sin, the ultimate result of the selfish, messed up things we do in our lives is death. In Romans 6:23, the apostle Paul describes it like this: “The wages of sin is death.”
What does sin lead to? Say it: Death.
On the cross when he died, Jesus took our sins on himself. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but he let himself be killed out of love for us, out of love for you. The cool thing is, Jesus didn’t die for you mistakenly thinking you were this great, perfect person.
If anyone really knows everything about you, it’s God.
I seem like a pretty decent person, I hope, and usually, I am. But there’s stuff I’ve done that only I know about, thoughts I’ve had that I don’t want others to know. I’d bet that’s true for you, too.
But Jesus, even knowing everything about me, knowing everything about you, chooses to love us anyway, chooses to love us enough to die for us. There’s a verse in Mark 2:17 where Jesus says it’s not the healthy people who need a doctor, but the sick. I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners. That’s us!
You are a child of God, like Delaney talked about this morning. Yes, you make mistakes, to use the church word for it, you have “sin” in your life, and there’s times when you’re at your worst that you’re a pretty messed up person, but God still sees you as a precious child. God sees you as worth dying for.
Look at the person next to you and say, “You are a child of God.”
And when Jesus died for you, everything that separates you from God died with him. Jesus put to death everything you’ve done wrong, and everything you will do. The cross put to death your shame, your guilt, your fear.
You might still feel guilty about stuff, you might still feel shame, and you’ll even do things in the future that you know are wrong. But you’re freed from being a prisoner to that, because Jesus has put all of it to death.
That verse in Romans 6:23 keeps going. If you don’t already have it open, pull out your Bible and find Romans 6:23. It’s on page 980 in your TEC Bible. Like I said before, “The wages of sin is death” but that’s not the end. Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Take a pen and underline that in your Bible, because that’s one of the most important verses in the whole Bible.
Jesus died for our sins, but he didn’t stay dead!
The title of this talk is “Easter Mystery.” On Easter, we celebrate Jesus being raised from the dead, the resurrection. The mystery is that God brings life out of death. The church word for it is “resurrection.”
Jesus’ death isn’t the end of the story, and that means something for us.
In Romans 6:5-11, Paul writes this: “For if we have been united with [Jesus] in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has has died has been set free from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Out of Jesus’ death comes new life. Good comes out of evil.
This weekend is an opportunity to think about what it means to die to ourselves. Colossians 3:1-3 says, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
Then it goes on to talk about putting to death in yourself all kinds of things, like anger and lying, and instead, clothing ourselves with the love of God and what that looks like.
It’s a cool image, putting on the things of Christ like a beautiful robe, instead of the old clothes we’ve been holding on to.
This Easter mystery idea of life coming out of death is one of the themes of this TEC weekend. Today’s theme is “Die Day” where we’re talking about how we are called to die to ourselves. Dying to ourselves doesn’t mean losing who we are, or abandoning our lives. Instead, dying to ourselves means getting rid of what keeps us from being who God created us to be, who God calls us to be.
When we admit we don’t have it all together, when we give up control, when we admit that God can do a better job than we can, we can die to ourselves.
And when we die to ourselves, God gives us new life. Being a Christian isn’t about following God in order to get God to love you, or to get God to set you free from the sin and junk in your life. Jesus already loves you! Being a Christian is about learning how to live life trusting God’s love, learning to live in freedom.
Part of why we need to come to things like church and this TEC weekend is to be reminded that we are loved, that Jesus is alive, raised from the dead!
On Easter morning, God didn’t roll away the stone where Jesus was buried so Jesus could get out. God rolled away the stone so we could look in and see that Jesus is alive, so we could have hope.
God made you perfect, but we get in our own way. Our sin keeps us from living up to who God has created us to be. The Easter mystery is that when we die to ourselves, God gives us new life. When we let go of ourselves, God catches us.
And this dying to ourselves isn’t a one-time thing. As long as we’re alive, we’ll have times when we keep focusing on ourselves, putting ourselves ahead of God. Dying to something in my life doesn’t mean it’ll suddenly get better. But because of Easter, because of the resurrection, we know we’re forgiven — even when we keep messing up.
And God is always waiting to welcome us back, always ready to forgive, always there to remind us that we have died, but we have also been raised.
What would that look like for you? What might God be calling you to let go of, to die to?
Keep that question in mind today and during this weekend. Maybe it’s selfishness. Maybe it’s fear of failing at something. Maybe it’s not trusting God.
Maybe it’s ignoring people who need help. Maybe it’s anger at a friend, or at your family. Maybe it’s anger at yourself.
Maybe it’s judging what you think other people need to die to.
For me, I’m at seminary, in school to be a pastor, and I’m getting ready to graduate next year and go serve a church, but I have this idea of what I want that church to be like. I have these expectations of where I’ll be called, like a church with a big youth group and about 150 people in worship. But maybe I need to die to that and be willing to go wherever I’m called. Maybe I need to die to my need to be in control to let God bring new life.
Jesus describes it in John 12:24-25 as similar to a grain of wheat. This is actually the theme verse for all of TEC, and it’s printed on the back of your booklet. Read it with me. “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
In the next verse Jesus continues, “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Clinging to our own lives, our own way of doing things might work for a while, and it might be pretty fun, but it’s ultimately temporary. I can’t make myself live forever. To bear God’s fruit, we need to die to ourselves.
What about you? What are you clinging to that Jesus is calling you to die to this weekend?
Prayer