Thank
you, cadets, for leading us in worship this morning. It’s good for
all of us to see your faith and the relationships you have with your
counsellors as they lead you to trust in Jesus and grow into men who love and
serve Jesus. Your cadet theme this year is, “Stand Firm,” reminding us
that faith and trust in Jesus will not always be easy, that there will always
be people who won’t understand why you trust Jesus and follow him. The verses
from Paul also remind us that there will be people who will try to make you not
trust Jesus and to even stop following Jesus. This is why the verses from your
theme this year are so important to hear.
These
verses come near the end of Paul’s letter and out of his relationship with
them. In some ways, these verses are like a prayer for them, to shape who they
are in their faith. Paul’s writing as both a friend and a teacher. “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous;
be strong. Do everything in love.” In these 2 short verses, Paul gives
us 5 commands to help us in our faith: “be on your
guard,” then he goes on with, “stand firm.”
Paul then calls us to “be courageous,” and
then to “be strong.” Finally, Paul tells us
to “do everything in love.” When we live
with Paul’s words in our hearts, we’ll be able to stand firm when challenges to
our faith in Jesus show up.
Paul
commands them to “be on your guard.” Guards protect
the people; they actively patrol their area so that nothing bad happens and
enemies aren’t able to sneak in and hurt people. any danger they come across
they deal with quickly, even before the people they’re protecting even know
about the danger. Peter talks about being alert and watching out for Satan, 1 Peter 5:8, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil
prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Paul warns about lies or temptations that
might cause people to doubt Jesus and his love for us. We protect each other
from the lies and temptations, and to do this, we need to know what we believe
about Jesus and why. This is why Bible study is such an important part of the
cadet meeting, this is why your counsellors have committed themselves to learning
the Bible and Jesus so they can help you grow strong in your faith and
recognize the dangers when they come and help you stand against them.
Paul
then calls us to “stand firm in the faith.” This is a
command to trust in Jesus and what you believe so that you don’t fall. It’s
like when you stand and push against each other; it takes work to not fall over
or step backwards. If someone is sneaky or tricks you, they can fool you into
falling. This is why Paul puts standing firm in the
faith right beside “be on your guard.”
Satan’s not only like a roaring lion, he’s also a liar and trickster, always
looking for ways to get you to do things that make God unhappy or even angry.
Trust what your parents and counsellors are teaching you about Jesus, but also
read the Bible yourself, talk to God in prayer asking him to help you stand
firm, and come regularly to church on Sundays to praise God. These are 3
pillars of faith we’re focusing on in Bethel to help us “stand firm in the faith.”
Now
Paul encourages us to “be courageous.” Paul echoes
Psalm 31:21, “Be strong and take heart, all you who
hope in the Lord.” Courage and strength are
often connected to each other in the Bible. Courage is doing what you know is
right even if you’re scared. It’s easy to do what’s right when everything is
going well and everyone agrees with you. It takes courage to do what’s right
when things are hard and people disagree with you, and may even be trying to
get you to not do what is right, doing what the Holy Spirit is guiding you to
do. They may try to force you to do wrong, they may trash your reputation, mock
you, and chase your friends away, they may even try to hurt you, insult you, or
do even more to stop you from doing what God says is right. It’s hard to be
courageous, it can be lonely to be courageous, this is why God gives us friends
who also follow Jesus, gives us a church family to help us be brave.
Along
with being courageous, Paul calls us to “be strong.” How do you get a strong body; do you lie on the
couch or bed all day watching videos, playing games, doom scrolling, or
watching tv? Do you get strong by eating junk food and slacking off? It’s a lot
of work to become strong physically, and it’s just as much work to become
strong spiritually in the Lord. To become strong physically you need to eat
right, work out and exercise, get enough sleep, and doing all the right things
to build your muscles. It might make you sore at first, but it slowly becomes
easier. To become strong spiritually to help you be courageous, it also takes
hard work.
Becoming
strong spiritually in your faith takes exercising your heart and mind. Studying the Bible with your family, friends, at
cadets and church is one of the big exercises. It might seem hard at first and
there will be lots you don’t understand, but slowly you’ll learn more and
understand Jesus better. Doing the things Jesus tells us to do by putting your
faith in action like helping others, even if it means missing out sometimes on
things you want to do, being generous with your time and even money, encouraging
each other and building others up, standing up for what is right, protecting those
who are being bullied are some of the ways we exercise our faith to become
stronger and braver. We do this together as cadets and as a church family so
the world can see who Jesus calls us to be.
We become stronger in the faith together by putting
God first, focusing on learning the Scriptures instead of your
phone, talking to God instead of watching people online, spending time with
fellow Christians and praising God instead of focusing on yourself. Satan will
try to get you think that God isn’t really that important, he’ll try to get you
to think that a little sin isn’t that bad and that website’s alright, he will
try to distract you from paying attention to Jesus. Satan will try to use your
hurt, use the things people have done against you to doubt God’s love. When we
lose things that we love, Satan will use that to try and weaken our faith. The
more you read scripture, pray, and spend time with your Christian friends and family
worshipping, the stronger your faith grows and the deeper your love for God
grows, the better you become at recognizing Satan’s lies. This is why your
parents and counsellors are so important, because they set you an example of
being strong for Jesus by trusting in him and following his way.
Paul
ends these commands by encouraging us to “do
everything out of love.” This echoes
Jesus’ command “to love God with all your heart,
soul, and mind, and to love your neighbour as yourself.” This looks like
caring
about others and wanting what’s best for them, even if you don’t like them.
This means that part of love is wanting them to know Jesus and God’s love for
all people. Love leads to a willingness to forgive and to offer grace even when
it’s hard, even if it takes time to move from your head to your heart. Naomi
Tutu writes, “How we walk through the world makes a statement about the
world we want.” When we see in the Bible how much God loves the world he
created by sending his only son Jesus to come to earth to bring us back to God,
taking our sin away on the cross, and showing us how to follow God. We ask God
to show us how to live in our world with others. We know how important being in
a relationship with Jesus is, knowing why Jesus came for us, and together working
to become the cadets and people Jesus teaches us to be as his followers.
Cadets
and our church family help us to be ready, alert, strong, and courageous
in living for Jesus, doing this together, not by ourselves. It’s not always
easy, we need to help each other, encourage each other, build each other up so
we can stand firm in what Jesus teaches. We can stand firm because Jesus has
given us the Holy Spirit to help us be bold and strong for him to stand firm in
the faith. When it gets hard, Jesus calls us to come to him and he’ll fill us
with his strength and protect us, he will give us a place to rest our souls. We
know that we can trust him because of his love for us. Trust in Jesus’ love and
sacrifice, trust in his strength and promises, walking together as we stand firm
in our faith.
