Camp Joy - Thursday Night

Introduction

What do you think the word faithful means?

If you look this word up, you’ll find that the word faithful means reliable, true, or trustworthy. Last week Lindsey and I went to Indianapolis for a church meeting and we flew in a plane - that plane was faithful to do its job, it took us from one place to another place without any problems. On Monday, when you got in the church bus to come out to camp, the church bus was faithful and brought you out to camp without any problems. It’s a good thing when things are faithful and do their job… but did you know that sometimes planes break down? Sometimes at the airport your flight gets delayed because a plane has a problem. Sometimes the church bus has to go into the shop because it has a problem. These things are usually faithful, but sometimes they break down.

Some people think that God is the same way. They think that God is usually faithful. God is mostly faithful. God is almost always faithful. The reason why they think this is because sometimes they get sick. Sometimes things don’t go their way. Sometimes they suffer. And they want God to take away the hard thing they’re facing. When He does, they’ll say that God is faithful. When He doesn’t, many wrongly think that God is not faithful. Tonight, we’re going to wrap up Hebrews 11 and be reminded that God is forever faithful. In fact, He can’t be anything other than faithful! Sometimes that means that we’ll go through hard times in life, but because God is faithful we can trust in Him and know that He is always with usl

Let’s finish up this chapter

Hebrews 11:32–40 CSB

32 And what more can I say? Time is too short for me to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, 33 who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the raging of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, gained strength in weakness, became mighty in battle, and put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received their dead, raised to life again. Other people were tortured, not accepting release, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36 Others experienced mockings and scourgings, as well as bonds and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they died by the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, and mistreated. 38 The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and on mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground. 39 All these were approved through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us.

Humans have always loved stories about heroes. Nowadays, people make movies that will earn billions of dollars and tell a story about a hero doing something incredible. We love stories about heroes. Usually a hero story goes something like this: There’s a person who is a good person but something bad happens and they work really hard to do the right thing and eventually they win the game or the battle and the bad guys lose. Some Bible stories are just like this - hero stories. What is one of your favorite stories in the Bible?

David and Goliath

Daniel and the Lions Den

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the Fiery Furnace

Peter walking on water

How about the story of Job losing almost everything that he had? What about Jonah pouting whenever the people of Nineveh turned away from their sins?

There are some stories in the Bible where God’s people don’t get the happy ending that we might expect them to get. There are many times in the Bible where following Jesus means that you go through hard situations and sometimes, you suffer. Even in these moments, the Bible reminds us that our God is faithful. Let’s look at the two options that we have whenever hard times come.

Biblical Faith Can Lead Us To Escape Suffering (32-35a)

Sometimes whenever we are friends with God through faith in God, God helps us to escape our suffering. We’ve seen that in this chapter with the example of Noah as Noah and his family were safe in the Ark whenever the flood covered the earth. We’ve seen that with Moses as God parted the waters of the Red Sea and Moses and the Israelites walked across on dry ground. We’ve seen that with Abraham as God provided a ram so that he didn’t have to sacrifice Isaac. Sometimes, whenever we have faith in God and trust in Him, He helps us to escape the suffering that we are facing. We see this in our lives today as well. How many of you have ever prayed for someone who is sick to get better? Have you ever seen God answer those prayers and the person does get better? That’s awesome when it happens because God helped us or our friend or family member escape the suffering and sickness that they were facing.

Whenever I was in 7th grade, one of our youth boys Sunday School teachers at church had a heart attack and the doctors didn’t think that he was going to survive. He had no brain activity and he wasn’t responding to anything the doctors were doing. This was a good man and he and his wife had just had their 2nd baby girl. As a church we decided that we were going to have a person or family from church pray for this man 24/7. We took turns throughout the day and night praying for Jason. After nearly a full week, Jason woke up. God had answered our prayers as thousands of people were praying for a miracle. Aren’t you thankful that God can answer our prayers like this? This is good news and it’s still true today - regardless of the obstacle we’re facing, God is greater and stronger. He can help us to escape the suffering before us and we are to have faith in His power and His perfect plan. Look at the examples of things that God does through His people in these verses

Conquered Kingdoms

Administered Justice

Obtained Promises

Shut the Mouths of Lions

Quenched the Raging Fire

Escaped the Edge of the Sword

Gained Strength in Weakness

Became Mighty in Battle

Put Foreign Armies to Flight

Received Their Dead Back to Life

That’s quite a list! God doesn’t do these things because of how awesome these people are. God didn’t shut the mouth of the lions for Daniel just because Daniel was such a nice person and because he said the right things to say. If that’s the case, then every single Christian could walk into the lion exhibit at the zoo and pray a prayer and God would protect us. That is a silly thing to think! Why did God protect Daniel? Daniel had faith in God, he stood on God’s Word when it would have been easier to disobey God’s Word, and God chose to deliver him. Daniel would have been just fine if he wasn’t delivered because he trusted fully in God… if he escaped, that was great. If he didn’t escape, that was fine too. Because he had that much faith in God that regardless of what happened, it was ok!

Whenever we are faced with a hard decision in life - one that will cost us - we have to be willing to do what is right, even if the outcome isn’t the best. We know that God can heal us and help us because He has all the power in the world. Sometimes He will do this, just like He did for Daniel, Abraham, Moses, Noah, and countless other people in the Bible. There are some people, though, who only think that God will make their life better. That He will always do what they want God to do. There are a lot of people, even some who go to church, who treat Jesus like the Genie from Aladdin. If you are nice and ask for something, He will give you exactly what you want. There’s a reason that God doesn’t always give us what we want… because sometimes what we want and what He wants are totally different things. This is why it’s so important to trust in God’s plan and place our faith in Him. We place our faith in God and sometimes when we do this, He will help us escape from the suffering that we’re going through… but other times He gives us a different answer

Biblical Faith Can Lead Us To Endure Suffering (35b-40)

How many of you like surprises? What is the best surprise you’ve ever received?

During our church Kidz Choir program back in December of 2022, I got a call from Lindsey asking me to come home real quick and it sounded like something was wrong… so I came back home and asked her what was wrong and found out that she was pregnant with Isaiah! That was a pretty awesome surprise!

Sometimes, we see surprises that aren’t so nice, though. Kind of like when you bite into a cookie expecting chocolate chips and quickly discover that it’s actually raisins. That’s an awful surprise!

Look at verse 35 of Hebrews 11 - there’s a shift in the middle of the verse. “Other people were tortured.” This is a surprise. The first few verses are positive and we see that God delivers people like Daniel, Moses, Abraham, Noah, David, and many others. This is what we expect to see more of in the verses that follow… but we don’t. We see a twist - other people don’t get to escape suffering, they are called to endure through suffering. Have you ever been told that if you trust in Jesus, your life will get better? We have to define what better means. If we mean that when you follow Jesus, you have more hope and a better future because you know that you’re going to be with Jesus forever then yes, Jesus makes your life better. But for many people around our world, whenever they repent of their sins and place their faith in Jesus as Savior, that means that their life gets a lot harder. There are people who might not want to be around them because of their faith in Jesus. In fact, there are people in our country who lose friendships and even job opportunities because they follow Jesus Christ. I made a commitment when I was in 9th grade to teach an after school class at my church on Wednesdays. I also ran track and field and was getting ready for high school track. I asked my coach if I could stay late on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday to get the same amount of time in and miss Wednesday’s and teach this class at church. My coach looked at me and said, “You have to make a choice, it’s one or the other.” So I chose to teach the class at church and not run track. That was a touch decision. I didn’t feel in the moment like following Jesus was making my life better. People were upset at me on our track team! But it was the right choice and I knew it in the moment, even though it was hard.

Jesus never said that following Him would be easy. In fact, He promises the opposite

John 16:33 CSB

33 I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”

In this world we will suffer. There will be problems. Things won’t always be easy… but we can still have peace in the midst of our problems because Jesus Christ is faithful and promises to always be with us! Look at some of the problems God’s people have had according to Hebrews 11.

Tortured

Mocked

Stoned

Sawed in Two

Died by the Sword

Poor

Mistreated

Does that sound like a fun list of things? Not at all! Why would God send His people through these things? Look at James 1:2-4

James 1:2–4 CSB

2 Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.

Whenever we go through trials and tests, we grow in our faith. We depend more on God than ever before. We learn more about God’s power and we are able to tell other people about our faith than we would if we didn’t suffer. Some of the best Christian’s I’ve met have been those who have suffered the most for their faith. Think of Paul in the New Testament. He was beaten, betrayed, shipwrecked, stoned, put in prison, and eventually he died for believing in Jesus. Why would he be willing to do all of those things for Jesus? Because Jesus saved him and Paul wanted everyone he knew to know about Jesus - Paul’s life was no longer just about Paul, it was about Jesus. If you’re a Christian tonight, your life is all about Jesus! Paul was ok going to prison for his faith because he knew that God had a perfect plan and if that plan meant that he had to go to prison for telling people about Jesus, then he would keep telling people about Jesus in prison. Did you know that many of Paul’s letters were actually written while he was in prison? Listen to what Acts 16:25 says

Acts 16:25 CSB

25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

They were in prison because of their faith and Jesus and they weren’t complaining about it. They were praising God in jail. They prayed and sang and the other prisoners listened. If God kept him in prison, that was fine. If God delivered him from prison, that was fine. Paul’s goal in life was to tell people about Jesus and nothing would stop him from doing that.

If you have faith in Jesus, your goal is to glorify Jesus and one way you do this is by telling people about Him!

When was the last time you told someone about what Jesus Christ did for you?

A week?

A month?

A year?

Never?

This is what we are supposed to do, guys. To not just know about Jesus, but to make Him known to others. This is one of the things that we do at camp is talk about Jesus… but you can’t just do this at camp. You have to do this at home too! You learn about Jesus at church, but you can’t just learn about Jesus at church. Once you’re a Christian, Jesus becomes your life. Everything you do should be to tell others about Him. As you do this, some people will listen and respond positively. Other people will listen and respond negatively. Some people won’t want to listen. Other people will listen and they won’t know what to do right away… that’s ok! Our job is to tell people about Jesus. To tell people that our greatest problem is our sin and that the only solution is to repent of it and place our faith in Jesus and ask Him to forgive us.

If you’re here at camp and you have not repented of your sin and placed your faith in Jesus, we’ve been talking about this an awful lot this week, but truly there is nothing more important than doing that tonight. If you have done this but you haven’t followed through with baptism or if you don’t go to church, I’d love to talk with you and I know our other adults would love to talk with you about this as well and figure out a way for you to come church and if you need to get baptized, nothing would make me happier than to talk with you and schedule a time for you to get baptized! We must respond in faith to what the Bible tells us to do. Sometimes that’s a hard thing to do. But it’s always worth it. If you have repented of your sins and asked Jesus to change you already, do you trust in God during the hard times just like you do in the easy times? It’s easy to trust in God while we’re at camp… but tomorrow you’re going to go back home. We all face hard times in life - when you face a difficult decision or hard situation, do you trust in God or do you look somewhere else? My encouragement to you is to keep your eyes on Jesus. Trust in Him, regardless of the situation, and remember that He is always faithful. He has a perfect plan for your life! He wants you to trust in Him and tell others about Him. Think of the name you put on the cross on Monday night - let’s ask God to help us tell those people about Jesus!