What a joy to have our GEMS ministry lead our
service this morning and share about what they’re doing
and how God’s working through the GEMS ministry. Every year a Bible verse is
chosen to represent theme for the GEMS programme and this year it’s Standing Firm on God’s Promise from Psalm 62:2, “Truly he is my rock and my
salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.” There’s a
children’s song about this psalm that translates this verse, “He alone is my rock. He is the one who saves me. He is like a
fort to me. I will always be secure.” I grew up in Northern Ontario on
the Canadian Shield. The Canadian Encyclopedia tells us that “The Canadian Shield refers to the exposed portion of
the continental crust underlying the majority of North America. The crust… extends
from northern Mexico to Greenland and consists of hard rocks.” Basically, I grew up on top of a big rock. When my dad built our
house in Thunder Bay, we had to blast the rock for a smooth foundation, the
house never moved or shifted, it was solid and strong.
Growing up, my brothers and I lived beside a patch
of woods and we spent a lot of time building forts to
protect ourselves from the prying eyes of girls! We felt safe inside our fort.
That reminds us of who God is, that he’s our fort and he saves us from the
things that scare us. Sometimes it feels as there’s a lot of scary things going
on in the world. You’ve probably heard adults talking about a new war that’s
started up in another part of the world, you’ve lived through the pandemic the
last 2 years and many people were scared that their grandparents might catch it
and get sick, and sometimes there are things that we don’t understand that
scare us. I know that sometimes I’m scared of people around me fighting and not
wanting to be friends anymore. What are some of
the things that you’re scared of?
Even though there are lots of scary things
happening, God’s as strong as a rock, nothing can knock him
down. Three times the psalm tells us that God is a rock; he doesn’t want us to
forget that! Because God is as strong as a rock, even as big a rock as the
Canadian Shield, and because he loves us, he will save us from the things we
are scared of; he can take away our fear. Jesus tells us that we can trust God
because he’s our Father, and just like your dads and granddads and uncles, he
loves you and will help you when you need his help. I remember walking through
the woods with my dad, and even though there were bears and wolves in the
woods, I never felt afraid because my dad was there and he was big and strong
and I knew he would keep me safe. That’s what it’s like with God as our Father.
There were lots of scary things going on when Jesus
was here on earth too. No matter where they went,
there were soldiers making sure that everybody obeyed the laws of Rome because Caesar
was in charge. Even the Jewish people who were leading the people, the priests,
Pharisees, and Sadducees, were always fighting and arguing with each other.
When you’re growing up, it can feel scary when people in church fight and argue
all the time. I believe this is why in Jesus’ last prayer before he died, he
prayed that his people would all work really hard at getting along with each
other.
While Jesus was here on earth, he spent a lot of time telling everybody about God, his Father. Jesus
wanted everyone to follow and trust in God, he wanted them to see that God was
their heavenly Father and loved them a lot. Jesus taught his disciples and all
the other people what kind of people God wanted them to be and how they should
live as God’s children. Because being chosen to be one of God’s children is so
special and precious, it should be really important to us to want to make God
happy by how we live, right? Doing the right things doesn’t make us God’s
children, but it does show God and the world that we are really happy and proud
to be his children.
Jesus tells everyone a short story about building houses
to show us that when we do the things God wants us
to, it makes our lives a lot better. I love this story, “Therefore
everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a
wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose,
and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it
had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and
does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.
The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that
house, and it fell with a great crash.” Can you imagine seeing these
houses in a storm and then watching one of the houses fall down? How scary is
that? If you build a house on sand, when rain storms come, the sand under the
house starts to crumble or wash away and the house will come crashing down. Take a look at a
video of a house built on sand.
What is the rock that Jesus says we’re supposed to build our house on? Jesus has been teaching
the people all about the ways we should live that please God and help us to be who
Jesus calls us to be. When we do the things that Jesus tells us to do, it makes
us better and stronger people who are learning to love God more and more, and
to love other people more. It makes us strong people who will have the strength
to do the right things, even when it’s hard.
What does Jesus tell us to put into practice? Jesus starts by calling
us to be humble and care about other people. He tells us to be light and salt,
to do good deeds so that people will praise God in heaven. Jesus tells us that
anger and murder are wrong, and that men and women to treat each other with
respect and honour, and take marriage very seriously. Jesus teaches us to be
careful with our words, especially the words we tell God. Loving enemies
instead of hating is really important, and being generous shows love. Jesus
gives us the Lord’s prayer where he talks a lot about forgiveness. Jesus tells
us to make God more important than anything else and not judge others. Jesus
tells us to keep coming to God and seek God. This
is what Jesus calls the rock we need to build the house of our lives on. When
we make Jesus the most important thing in our lives, we find out that there aren’t
as many scary things around and we don’t need to be afraid.
A big part of who Jesus is, is that he obeyed his
Father in heaven in everything. On the last
night before Jesus went to the cross for our sin, he spent time talking to God
in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was afraid of dying for all our sin because
he knew how hard it was going to be and he asks God, “My
Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will,
but as you will.” Jesus trusts God and obeys God, even though what Jesus
did for us by dying on the cross for our sin was so hard, but by obeying God,
Jesus was given the strength to obey and to wash our sin away.
Building our houses on the rock means that we obey Jesus and do and be the people Jesus calls us to be. When we obey what
Jesus says, it makes Jesus happy and that makes us stronger and happier too.
It’s like when you do something that your parents or grandparents tell you to
do and when you do it, you see how proud they are of you, it helps you to keep
obeying them the next time they tell you to do something.
But sometimes it can be hard to obey, even if it’s Jesus telling us to do something. It can be hard to
forgive somebody who has hurt you, it can be hard to be generous when you think
you don’t have enough, or you’re saving up for something special for yourself. Even
adults can have a hard time obeying Jesus when it comes to doing something they
really don’t want to do, but when we do obey Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives us
the strength to do it and we become more like the house on the rock of God.
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