I'm Suffocating

Who's got their costume picked out already ? Who's like ? I'm not even dressing up at all ? Gotcha , we're having a costume party next week here at Youth and I have no idea what I'm gonna dress up as , so that's gonna be real interesting to see what I come as .

But I'm excited for this series as we step into Halloween , as we step into just what God is gonna speak tonight , and so if you're taking notes oh , if you're taking notes I want you to write down the title of my message , and the title of my message tonight is I'm Suffocating . Everybody say Suffocating .

I love definitions , so I looked up the definition of suffocating and if you didn't know what it meant , here's what it means Making one feel trapped . Who in here doesn't like enclosed spaces ? You claustrophobic ? Anybody in here ? We got a few people who are claustrophobic . Okay , I can't relate . I'm not super claustrophobic , but I know some of you in here are .

But I love this definition of suffocating because it talks about making one feel like we're trapped , and tonight we're gonna be talking about being trapped in our life , being trapped in , maybe , who we are in our own life , and I believe some of you in here tonight maybe you feel like you are trapped in your life .

Now I'm gonna define what I mean by that , because you're probably like what do you mean ? How can I be trapped in my own life ? See , what do I mean ? So many of you , I believe , have trapped yourself in a false identity , a false identity . What do I mean by that ?

You have trapped yourself in an identity that is not truly you and you have been faking it until you can make it . You have been pretending to be somebody that you're not . And listen , I know that this is a topic of subject , because if you were here last week , many of you wrote on cards . Who remembers that ?

We wrote on some cards last week , yeah , and a lot of you actually put on your cards that I pretend to be somebody that I'm not , that you go to school , and you basically fake it until you make it . You're not being who you truly should be when you're at school or when you're with your friends . So I know that this is actually happening .

So I know some of you in here can relate to this , and you have trapped yourself in a false identity . You've trapped yourself and you aren't being the real you and see what I think it comes down to .

As I've thought about this idea of being trapped in our own life and being trapped in the false identity that we have created , I've asked myself why do you feel that way ? I've asked myself why do they feel like they can't be who they truly are ? And what I've come to the realization is is that they're afraid .

We're all afraid to be who we are really meant to be . Why is that ? Why are we so afraid ? It's because we are worried . We're worried that people are gonna make fun of us if we be who we really are supposed to be , that people will judge us if we be our true self , that people will look at us and make fun of us .

That people will look at us and be like I don't want any part of who they are , I'm gonna leave . And so we're afraid to be who God has actually designed us to be , and so what we're doing now is we are so afraid to be that person because we're afraid that people are gonna leave , people are gonna judge and people are gonna make fun of us .

So we're afraid to be who God has actually called us to be . We're afraid to be everything that he has designed us to be . Can I tell you something and this is kind of what we're gonna talk about is all of those things have to do with the opinions of others . How many of you in here value other people's opinion on anything ?

Like you buy a new , you're buying like a soda and you want your friend's opinion , right ? Everybody wants a friend's opinion , right ? We all value people's opinions , right ? I value my leader's opinions . I value Juan's opinion . I value the people above me . I value my wife's opinion because I wanna know what she thinks .

I wanna know what she thinks of something that I'm doing . We all value opinions in here , but I believe some of us we look at other people's opinions and we take those on ourselves and so much we care so much about other people's opinion , about our own life .

I don't know if any of you can relate to that in here , where you care so much about anybody else . Does anybody else wanna be honest and admit that you care about what people think of you ? I'll raise my hand . I care a lot about what people think of me . I wanna be liked . I wanna be perceived as a fun person . I wanna be perceived as the fun guy .

But sometimes I'm not the fun guy . I gotta learn to be okay with that . But we all value other people's opinions . We value the good opinions , but when it comes down to the negative opinions , we don't like it .

See , and I want to tell you tonight , as we talk about this idea , is that the only opinion that you should be worried about in life is God's opinion . Oh , and it sounds so easy to just be like oh , I should worry about God's opinion . That's so easy , it is . It sounds easy , but it's not easy . And I want to encourage you at this .

If you are taking note , you can write this down . See , people's opinions will drag you down , but God's opinion will actually build you up . And if you think about this most of the time , yeah , people can build us up , right . One could say hey , josh , great message tonight and that would build me up .

Right , his opinion has just built me up so people can build you up , but when it comes down to it , when it comes down to being who God has created us to be , we're so worried about people's negative opinions , we're so worried about the false opinions that people are going to say about us that that's what we are afraid of and those are the opinions that drag

us down . Those are the opinions that we lock ourselves onto . See , it's so easy to think of the negative more than the positive . I can have about 95 of you in here there's not 95 of you in here , but say 95 . There's 100 kids in here and 95 of you told me after tonight hey , josh , great message .

And then five of you came up to me and said , josh , that was the worst message I've ever heard you give . Can I tell you what I'm going to do tonight after I leave ? I'm going to focus on your five , those five people that said it was a bad message , and I'm going to focus on the 95 . So we like to focus on the negative opinions of others .

We focus on the negative side of things rather than the positive sides of things . And see , the thing that I love about just opinions is that people got a both positive opinion and a negative opinion . But you want to know what's interesting about God ? He doesn't have a negative opinion about you .

God doesn't have a negative opinion about anything that comes to your life and to who you are , because God has created you exactly how he wants you to be and he loves you just as you are . So he doesn't have a negative opinion about you . So only God has positive opinions about who you are . God has positive opinions .

See , god's opinions will build you up , but people in this room and people in your life will tear you down with their negative opinions . And people got their opinions , see , when I was in high school . So when I was in your age group , when I was going to high school , in junior high , I cared a lot about what people thought about me .

Now , if I was still in high school today and I was here telling you this , I would say I had no idea that that was who I was . I would not admit to you that I actually cared about what people thought . Back in high school I actually said over and over again I don't care what people think of me .

I could care less if anybody says anything negative about me . I don't care . I don't care what you think and I would say this over and over again but really when I look back on my life in high school , in junior high , I never really understood this or figured this out until later in life .

I was actually pretty depressed when I was in high school and I never really would consider myself a depressive person or a person that gets depressed . But when I was in high school I actually got really depressed and I didn't know this until years later .

But what I did was I cared so much about what people would think about me that when I was around people which was all the time I lived a life where I actually almost pretty much 24 seven was around people . See my family , my mom and dad . They worked at the children's home where they also were parents to 10 other people , 10 other kids .

So we had in our house 10 other guys about my age that were living with us . So my parents were parents to these kids as well . And what my life would be for like six , seven years is I would be around people , pretty much 24 seven . So 24 seven of my life I was pretending to be somebody that I wasn't .

I was putting on this fake persona that are this false identity of somebody that I really wasn't . I was trying to fit in , I was trying to be popular , I was trying to get people to like me . I was trying to laugh , I was trying to make jokes . I would cuss just to be funny . I would . I would do all of these different things to be liked .

And the moment that I would get by myself , the moment that I did take a step back and was by myself I found myself actually a lot of the time because I couldn't be at home . Remember , there's 10 other people living with us I would take a penny board . Anybody know what a penny board is ? No longboard . Anybody got an idea what a longboard is ?

Man , y'all are just lacking here . Okay , some

of you do . I had a little tiny skateboard . I'll just put it that way . Okay , I had a little tiny skateboard that's called a penny board , and I used to ride this thing around all the time and back before AirPods existed , I would take my headphones and I would put them up through my shirt .

I would listen to some music and and I didn't listen to the typical music in those moments that you would think I would listen to , I actually listened to very sad , depressing music . Now that I look back on my life , I listened to some weird stuff , okay , and I , when I look back on this , it was because in those moments I finally found myself isolated .

I found myself alone for a few minutes . And when you're alone for a few minutes , you you get to analyze who you actually are , and what I realized is I was somebody that was faking it all the time , and it actually changed who I actually was , because I was faking it so much that it began to take a toll on me .

It began to change my mental health , it began to take a toll on my entire life and I always just was sad when I was by myself . I just didn't feel like I could be who I was actually meant to be . See , there's a scripture verse in Galatians 1-10 that says For am I seeking the approval of man or of God , or am I trying to please man ?

If I were still trying to please man , I would not be a servant of Christ . See , I love this scripture verse because it tells us that we cannot serve God and people . So if you are trying to please your friends , your family and everybody else in your life .

If you're trying to please all of those people and still try to serve God , can I tell you it's not gonna happen . Not because I'm saying it , but because this is what the scripture verse says we cannot serve God and serve people . See , because God , what God has for you , is something so much greater and so much better than what people have for you .

See , I guarantee you a lot of you can relate to this idea is that your friends will try to get you to do things that you know you're not supposed to do . Some of you in here , I'm sure you got friends that don't even wanna come to church .

You got friends that you've invited to church and they're like , yeah , I'm not coming to that , yeah , I don't wanna go to that . That sounds stupid . So you got friends that don't wanna come to church . So actually , you have friends that might be pulling you away from church .

Or you have some friends that are trying to get you to do things that you shouldn't do . So now that you're hanging out with those people , you're hanging out with the people that are gonna do those things , but then you're also trying to come to church on a Wednesday night and you're trying to build your relationship with Jesus .

But then you have your friends pulling you to do things that you shouldn't be doing . And see , that's why I never went to church when I was your age , because I was with those friends that were doing those things , and instead of going to church , I would choose to be with those people . I would choose to do those things .

So you cannot serve your friends and God . You cannot have both , and I want you to ask yourself some mental questions , just in your head , about , maybe , why you do the things that you do . See , are you doing ?

Am I doing this for myself or others , whatever that might be , am I saying certain things for myself or am I saying certain things for other people ? Am I acting this way for myself or am I acting this way for others ?

Because I think , if you ask yourself those questions and you're like man , am I doing this because I wanna do it or am I doing it because others want me to do it ? Because I think , most of the time , if we ask ourself this question in those moments , we're doing it because others want us to do it .

I'm doing it because others are tempting me to do this , and I think you need to ask yourself those questions and I wanna encourage you with this don't live for the opinions of others . I think that's so important for some of you to hear in this room . Do not live for the opinions of other people .

Others' opinions don't matter , and I think in this generation your generation is so often is looking for the opinions of others . You're looking for other people to like you . You're looking to be popular , you're looking to fit in , you're looking to be cool , so you're gonna do whatever you can to get those opinions , to get that validation from people .

Can I tell you do not live for the opinions of others . Don't do it . It's a waste of your time . It's not worth it , because God has designed you for so much more than that . God has gifted you with abilities and a life that he wants to give you that you can't even begin to imagine what he wants to do in your life and there's some of you .

I wanna say this I believe somebody in here needs to hear this and I want somebody to hear this . You are worth getting to know . I don't know who needs to hear that . I don't know who needs to take a picture of that . I don't know who needs to write that down on their forehead and look at it every time you wake up in the mirror .

But you are worth getting to know . And I'm not talking about the fake person you are when you go to school . I'm talking about the real you . The real you when you are by yourself in your room , no one else is watching and you can finally be who you are supposed to be . That is the person that is worth getting to know .

That is the person that your friends wanna see . That is the person that God wants you to become outside of your room , outside of your house . He doesn't want you to go to school and be somebody completely different . He doesn't want you to go to that bonfire or that group friend or that person's house and be somebody different .

He wants you to leave your house , leave your room and be the person that you are when you're by yourself , because you are worth getting to know . I love this scripture verse in Isaiah 44 and 2 and partial in 24 . It says this is what the Lord says he who made you , who formed you in the womb and who will help you .

Your redeemer who formed you in the womb . I am the Lord , the maker of all things , who stretches out the heavens , who spreads out the earth . By myself , see , I love this scripture verse because it tells us that God made everything and God has formed each and every single one of you .

Before you were even born , when you were in your mother's womb , god was forming you to be the person that he wanted you to be . He was creating you to be exactly who you were meant to be , which means God has spent time on you . He spent his energy on you . He spent every ounce of his living being . He just created everything that you see .

He's created the heavens . He's created everything on earth , so everything you see on earth . He's created all the universe . He's created all of it . But he took the most time on you in creating who you are supposed to be and you are worth getting to know . God has created each and every single one of you to be who he wants you to be .

But see , there's so many of you in here who aren't willing to accept who God has created you to be . There's a lot of you in here who won't accept that . You're not willing to be that person . Sometimes , actually , when you're by yourself at home , you look at yourself in the mirror and you don't like what you see .

Maybe you don't like how you act , maybe you don't like how you present yourself . But see , can I tell you , all of those things is basically dissing who God created you to be .

It'd be like you inventing something and then dissing what you made , even though you could have made the most amazing invention in the entire world , but yet you're dissing what you just made . See , god does not want you to diss what he's made , because you are all special and perfect .

And if God loves you just the way you are , I wanna ask you a question why don't you , why aren't you willing to be who God has created you to be ? Psalms 139 , two through four , says you know when I sit down and when I rise . You perceive my thoughts from afar . You discern my going out and my lying down .

You are familiar with all my ways Before word is on my tongue . You , lord , know it completely . This scripture , verses , tells us God knows everything about you , every little detail . God knows what you're gonna say . God knows .

You're all sitting on your phones right now not listening , and I know there's a bunch of y'all , cause you just looked up at me , all y'all in the back and some of you didn't even look up at me because you're so addicted to your phone you're not even listening . Yeah , all y'all watching me now and y'all laughing too , cause you think you're slick .

I see everything . These lights may be bright , but I see it all . Y'all ain't slick . And Corey McKenzie right in front of you and you still doing it . Gosh Juan about to come , steal your phones in about two second and some of y'all sleeping too . It's fine , I get it , I'm boring y'all . It's fine , but that's just . Hey , listen , I'll just be real honest .

This might sound mean , but I'm gonna be mean , if that's okay , juan , can I be mean for a second ? I'm gonna be mean . Those of y'all that just don't wanna listen , y'all missing out on life . I'm just gonna put it that way . Those of you that don't wanna pay attention , I'm just gonna put it this way .

The pastor of this youth ministry is gonna be like I don't feel sorry for you and I hate to say it , because y'all missing out on a chance to grow and be an actual father of Jesus and just an actual human who wants to grow and be a better person . I'm just gonna put it that way . So , if you don't wanna pay attention , go for it .

You can sit on your phones those of you that wanna listen . I love y'all and I'm gonna teach you about how to love yourself and I'm gonna teach you how to take the mask off of the false identity that is being you . And I love the scripture verse because Jesus knows everything about you , everything about you .

So everything that you're gonna say , he knows it . Every action you're gonna commit , he knows it . He knows what you're gonna do tomorrow and he knows what you're gonna do tonight . He knows what you're gonna do six years from now . He knows who you're gonna marry . He knows when you're gonna die . God knows everything , everything about you .

He hears you , he sees you , he understands every hurt , he understands every pain . He understands everything about you and , honestly , he wants you to be who he has created you to be , because that is the best version that you could be of yourself . See , god made you to be real , not fake . He made you to be real and not put a mask on .

He made you to be real . See , I don't know about you , but we're coming up , like I said on Halloween , and it's easy to put a mask on If you ever see pretty much any crime ever committed . What are they wearing A mask ? Why are they wearing a mask ? Because they don't wanna be recognized . They don't wanna be identified .

They don't wanna get caught for being who they are . So what do they do ? They wear a mask . It's easy to run around rob a bank while you're wearing a mask . It's a different thing to run into a bank with a shotgun with your face , just poking out cameras looking at you at every direction , and try to rob a bank for a million dollars .

It's not as easy , see . It's easy , when you put on a mask , to walk around and be somebody that you're not . It's easy when you see like mascots . I always think of this . I think of when I see mascots at like an NBA game or something . They're like crazy , right . They're doing crazy stunts , they're doing crazy things , they're being absolutely nuts .

I picture , actually , when mascots take off their masks and go home . They're like the most chill person ever . They're like the most biggest introvert you'll ever meet . That's just what I picture , because when you put those masks on , when you put that costume on and you run out there in front of 10 , 13,000 people , it's easy to do stupid things .

It's easy to throw pie at people because , guess what ? That person doesn't know who you are . So when we walk around with a mask on and we put a mask on and , figuratively speaking , it's easy to be somebody that we're not .

It's easy to pretend to be somebody that we're not when you have a mask on , and a lot of you have been walking around with a mask on . You've been walking around with this false identity of trying to be somebody that you're not . And guess what ? It's easy to do . I did it for most of my life .

When I was in high school and junior high , I put on a mask of trying to fit in and it was super easy , super easy to pretend to be somebody you're not . But can I tell you , it was so much of a waste of my life .

I wasted so much time , I wasted so much energy because , can I tell you , it actually takes more energy to be somebody that you're not than it is just to be who God created you to be . And I think you've realized that . I think a lot of you have actually realized that it's so much easier to be you than it is to be somebody else .

And I wanna encourage you with this as we get ready to close .

Being fake does not produce growth in your life . Being fake actually stops growth , if you ever wanna become a better person , if you ever wanna grow in your relationship with Jesus , or if you ever wanna grow in who you can be . Because , can I tell you , so many of you can be so much more than what you actually are .

This generation has so much potential , so many giftings , and so many of you if I can be blunt are wasting your potential because you want to try to fit in and be cool for others . Can I tell you I wasted so much potential on my life . I wasted so much of my time and energy trying to be somebody that I wasn't .

And this message is not only for you , but it is for me and probably every other adult in this room , because every human being struggles with the idea of trying to just be who God has created us to be To God . God wants to bless every single one of you in this room .

If you didn't know that God actually wants to give blessings , god wants to give you everything in this world , but can I tell you , god wants to bless the real you , not the fake you or another way to put it . I've heard this in church before God can't bless who you pretend to be . God can't bless who you pretend to be .

If you want to see a miracle happen in your life , if you want to see breakthrough , can I just be honest .

A lot of you wrote on cards last week and you're looking for breakthrough and I guarantee you right now I'm gonna say this , and a lot of you are gonna agree with me what you wrote on that card , what you put on that card last week , probably happened this past week .

You probably failed at trying to free yourself from what you put on that card , and I see some of your head shaking up and down . That's okay . Ain't nobody here to judge ? I'm not trying to judge nobody . Listen , it took me forever , 12 years , to get away from my addiction . Okay , so I ain't judging nobody .

But can I tell you , the next step maybe is to start being who God actually created you to be , so that maybe God can start actually blessing your life and give you a miracle and maybe , just maybe , if you just start to be who God has created you to be , he will free you from what you wrote on your card . He'll begin to work a miracle in your life .

See , the sooner we take off the mask , the sooner we can enjoy everything that God wants to give us . And so that's my charge to every single one of you in this room tonight . Your charge this week is to take off the mask . Your charge this week is to not fake it until you make it . That ain't gonna get you nowhere , right ?

That's the worst saying this world could ever bring upon this generation , or any generation . But that's your charge this week Is to take off the mask and to start trying to figure out . Man , who does God want me to be ? Who does God want me to encourage this week ? Who does God want me to be around this week ? Who ? What am I supposed to say ?

What does God want ? Who's the people that God wants me to hang out with ? And those are the things that I wanna charge you with , because he's waiting for you to figure it out .

I say it all the time , every single week , me and my leaders . We can say so much , but it comes down to who are you gonna be , what are you gonna do ? And so we're gonna go . I'm gonna pray real quick , we're gonna go into small groups for the next 15 , 20 minutes and we're gonna talk about this and I encourage you to talk about it .

Our leaders are here , they wanna talk to you about these subjects that we're on , and so we're gonna go into small groups as soon as I pray for us , and if you know where your small group is , you can go to it . But let's pray just for this week . Lord , we just thank you for tonight .

We just thank you for what it is that you're doing in this space . Lord , we thank you for everything that you are speaking to each of these students that are in these rooms . God . And so , lord , we just pray right now that you would just begin to continue to speak to every student .

Lord , whatever it is that they're wearing , whatever mask that they are covering up with God , I pray that you would just begin to just free them from it . God , pray that you would free them from that mask of just trying to have a false identity and trying to be popular and trying to fit in and trying to be cool and trying to just get along .

Lord , and so we just pray against all of that and we just pray that you would just open up every student in this room to just continuously hear from you , lord . So , god , we pray a blessing over this week .

We pray a blessing over just the small groups and the conversations that we're gonna have for the next few minutes , lord , and we just thank you for what it is that you were doing in this space . We just give you all the praise and all the glory , and everybody said amen .