Names of God: The Beginning

We started at Christmas, but there is more than enough material to cover a year. You could finish with Christmas, you could put Christmas in the middle and start in September. That being said, let me give you a little perspective on where we were as a group and my philosophy as youth leader. If you just want the lesson, skip down to "Lesson: The Names of Jesus".

Why would you post this at this time of year? I'm a big proponent of starting at the beginning. This is the beginning. It could also be the ending, but it's a familiar group of names of Jesus to your students. 

My Philosophy:

After 30 years of ministry, and more than 20 as a parent, I may have learned a few things. Our youth want to belong, our youth want to commit to something, they know the good Sunday School answers, but do they really know what they believe? Overall they did not. As youth leader, you need two dual tracks, the evangelistic track to bring them in from outside the church, and the discipleship track to ground them in the faith. When they launch into college, will they be like the wise man who built on the rock, or the foolish man who built on the sand? 

My main focus was to build them up in the faith and disciple them. When they go off to college and they are on their own in the world, what are the important things to them? 

Resources:

We started in January with the names of God in the Old Testament with this book: "Praying the Names of God" by Ann Spangler. 

Lesson Prep:

That's my notes from the lesson and yes we ran a solid 20 minutes. I am a story teller and very comfortable speaking. I have taught professionally and could teach a very technical trade class a week long without notes. 

I'm going to add in some notes and illustrations in a blue color. Feel free to "steal" mine or add your own. Make it your own, if you're not making it your own, it's not as real. The students know it. 

This is not a just add youth to make a lesson outline. I have used them, they never really worked for me. There's plenty of visual stuff here if you want to make a power point. Some of these lessons we actually had on Zoom during COVID lockdowns. 

Lesson: The Names of Jesus

This is a 2 part question:

What are some of your favorite Christmas Carols?

What are some of the names of Jesus in the carols?

Some of my Favorite Christmas Carols:

Get your hymnal, bookmark the pages. Read the lyrics, let it sink in.

- "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" - Emmanuel, Dayspring, Desire of Nations, Son of God

- "Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne" - Lord Jesus

- "Angels, from the Realms of Glory" - Christ, the newborn King

- "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" - Christ, newborn King, Prince of Peace, Sun of Righteousness, Jesus, Emmanuel

- "The First Noel" - King of Israel

Who knows what their name means?

What does the Bible say about a name?

- Prov. 22:1 "A good name is to be chosen over great wealth"

- Joy Lozier - The Loziers were a well known upstanding family in our community. Burt was a Boy Scout leader and man's man, could fix anything like MacGuyver (I'm dating myself). Burt was an engineer by trade, he retired medically early and became a missionary. He and one of his sons organized and built the highest hydroelectric dam in Ecuador to power HCJB radio, he built stuff for missions, for churches all over the US. They went to Ecuador many times. He and Roz raised 4 sons and a daughter. Joy had gone through some things, met a guy who had a sordid past, but was putting it behind him as a new believer in Christ. They were getting married and Burt took some time to counsel his future son-in-law. He decided he was going to marry Joy and take her last name. Why would he do that? He was a new creature in Christ. A new creation that needed a new name and a new reputation.

- Exodus 20:7 "Do not misuse the name of the Lord"

- Psalm 34:3 "let us exalt His name together" - Praise

- Psalm 103:1 "All that is within me bless His holy name" - Acknowledge God with every part of my being

- Prov 18:10 "The name of the Lord is a strong tower" - What do you do with a strong tower?

- Matthew 1:21 Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua, "The Lord saves" or "Yahweh saves"

- Matthew 1:23 Immanuel - God is with us - This one blows my mind, the infinite God, greater than the universe is with us!

- Did you ever get somewhere really dark and look up into the night sky and see the stars, the milky way, the faint smudges of distant galaxies, or maybe you got to look through a telescope at Saturn or Mars or the moon. God who spoke the universe into existence is right here with us and available for us 

This Christmas let's think about the names of Jesus and what they mean. 

This is a sermon from S. M. Lockridge that DC talk used in one of their songs. If I remember which song it is, I'll add the title here. Depending on your group, the time you have, you may want to start with that song. You could even play this video of the sermon at the beginning and at the end to open up a discussion. 

https://youtu.be/HksRbeKHnF8