Summer Camp 2021 Monday Night

Introduction

Psalm 115:1 ESV

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!

(pick a kid)

Imagine for a second that on my way to breakfast this morning I got attacked by a bear and (the kid) just happened to be walking past. I was hopeless and scared, but (the kid) came by and wrestled the bear; and he won! He saved me, and I went on to the breakfast hall and started telling everyone over breakfast about how awesome I am because I just fought a bear and won on my way to breakfast. Is there anything wrong with that?

We aren’t holy

We are facing down quite the bear in life: but our bear is sin. In fact, God’s people have been losing to this bear for thousands of years.

Did you guys know that the Bible tells a story like that? And I don’t just mean one part of the Bible; the whole Bible together tells one story. The story that it tells is that God created man, who ended up hating God and getting himself in deep trouble. Over the course of the entire Bible God continually saves his people from their own messes, and then they keep getting themselves into more trouble. Can you guys think of some parts of the Bible where God saved his people from a messy situation?

Red Sea

Wilderness

Daniel (fire and lions)

Judges

Exile

Do you guys know why the people were in messy situations to begin with?

God made promises to his people like Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David that if they loved and obeyed him, God would bless them with a paradise to live in, a huge nation that all lived together in harmony, and God would live there with them. But if they didn’t love and obey God, there would be consequences. Do you think the people obeyed, or didn’t obey?

What about you? If God made the same promises to you, would you obey or disobey? The truth is that God has made the same promises to us, and we have all disobeyed him, and we all deserve consequences for that.

how do we disobey? We sin against him in all sorts of ways. We disobey our parents, we get angry when things don’t go our way,

God is holy

But here is where we see how awesome God is: even though the people disobeyed him and hated him, he still loved them, and he still made promises to them to save them from themselves. Those promises are for us too.

We call this Hesed. Can you say Hesed? Hesed is an ancient word that people used to use to describe someone who loved others no matter what. In the Bible, this word especially means “steadfast love,” and it normally is talking about all of the promises that God made to his people even though they didn’t deserve them.

The Old Testament is all about God making those promises, and the New Testament is all about God keeping those promises. These promises are special because they don’t depend on us, but on God. He told us that if we believe in him that he will keep his promises, and we believe in his son Jesus Christ who did keep those promises, then we will be treated as if we were perfectly obedient all along. We get all the blessings that he promised to anyone who could obey and love him perfectly.

We ought to glorify God because of his faithfulness

So let’s go back to our bear story for a second. Life is like a hike where a Guide has made a straight path that will bring us safely through the woods. The problem is that we all have gone way far off the path and deep into bear infested woods. We knew that this was dangerous, but we did it anyway. Then, when we ran into a hungry and angry bear, and even though it seemed like it was the end for us, the Guide himself ran into the woods and fought off the bear. He even brings us back onto the path so that we can walk in safety again, but he was hurt bad by the bear, and he died from his wounds. He died to save you from the dangerous spot you put yourself in.

As you continue to walk down the safe path again, lets say you ran into another hiker. Obviously you are going to want to talk about your bear encounter, its too good of a story not to tell. But will you spend more time talking about yourself, or the Guide who came to save you?

In life, God has done wonderful things for us. He saved us from our sin by sacrificing his own son so that we can live. But his son didn’t stay dead; he rose up from the tomb after 3 days and he’s the King over everything right now.

Don’t you think that our biggest desire should be to tell people about the amazing thing he has done? Shouldn’t we want everyone everywhere to know how awesome he is, and how he saved us from death? He does the same for anyone who believes in him.

How does this change what we pray for? What should be the first, best, most important things we ask God to do?

To make it so that everyone knows about how awesome he is, and to help us to tell others about him too.