It's VBS Sunday, and time to talk about the Assurance of Pardon

Read 1 John 1

VBS…  Wow!  It’s a week like no other in the year.  We pack in Bible verse, prayers, stories from scripture that come alive in the telling, great snacks and games, and just good fun make up what for many might just be the best week of the year.

And, of course, there is the pool party.

And then there is the Sunday after Bible school.  I am thankful that the VBS leaders could wake up this morning.  There is tired and there is VBS tired.  Some are already taking kids to camp.  Things really happen around here.

I am also thankful that there are some here this morning that are usually not in attendance.  I know that most of you came to see your kids, but I want to let you know something.  God is love and God loves you.

If you have read very little of the Bible, I am going to give you some insight into things that you probably already suspected.

First, all of this—creation—is no accident.  The Apostle Paul told his readers to look at the evidence of creation itself and know that there is a Creator.  We know this to be true.  We know one true God and we know him best by his Son, whom today we call Jesus.

We know that God created us as the best part of everything.  He even made us in his own likeness, in his own image.

On top of that, he let us make our own choices.  That part didn’t seem to work out too well for us much of the time for we often made bad choices. Not all the time, sometimes we made very bad choices—terrible choices.  This is what we need to understand.  God loved us then and loves us now and will love us tomorrow and love us forever.

That does not mean that there are no consequences for our bad choices.  It means that God will never stop loving us.

A lot of people think, that If I am as good as the next person, I can go to heaven.  They may think that, but it is not in God’s word.  That’s not what he told us and as he is God, it might be good to know what he told us.  He is, after all, the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

God knows that we can never be perfect without him.  He allows us to try.  And even though we know inside that we can’t be right with God all on our own, we still try to live the way we want and hope—no wish—that everything works out for the best.

Anybody here ever been short on money and when it came to your bills you just wished for the best.  You knew that you should make a budget and stick to it, but you just wished for the best.  If you are not careful, the water and electric get cut off while you wish for the best.

A lot of people look at life the same way.  I’ll just hope for the best.  If there is a heaven, surely they will let me in.  If there is a hell, oh well, I should have lots of friends there.  We will take over the place.

Let me tell you this morning that there is a heaven and there is a hell and God desires that no one go to hell.  He desires that all come to know him and the abundant life that he has in store for us now and forever.  That is the desire of God’s heart.

But he lets us make our own decisions.  Except for one.  God decided that he would make us right with him.  He would do the one thing that we could never do on our own.  He shed his own blood to take away our sin.

I’m not going to cover how God’s people used to make sacrifices for their sins.  They did.  They were temporary and they could not truly make us right with God.

But God did.  By the blood of Jesus—a divine sacrifice—we are in good standing with God.  Jesus paid it all.  We are saved.  We are reconciled to God.  We are ransomed.  We are rescued.  We are his!

And we should live the rest of our lives in grateful response to God.  We should live exactly as we were made to live—as holy and righteous people.

But we don’t.  We still fall short, but we never fall out of God’s grace.  Grace is undeserved forgiveness.  It’s unmerited forgiveness from God.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Humankind was not getting better.  We were anchored to our sin; yet, God himself made the sacrifice for us so that we could live forever enjoying the God who made us.

But we still fall short, and so we come to the memory verse for this year’s VBS.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Life still has struggles, and trials, and things that come out of left field that we make a mess of, and yet, God loves us.  We do not lose our right-standing with him.

We cannot undo what Jesus has done!  We can live being ungrateful for what he has done, but the blood of Jesus is more powerful than your worst sin.  Jesus paid it all!  He set us free from sin and we will know eternal life with our loving God.

But we still mess stuff up again and again.  So, what are we to do?

Confess!  Confess to God what you have done.  Let him know that you know you missed the mark.  He already knows.  This lifts the burden from you. 

God wants you to get back to living a full life.  He tells us to give him these burdens that we try to carry on our own.   He has paid the price for our sin and he wants us to live to the full.  He wants us to live an abundant life.

If you know Jesus as Lord and have sinned, confess.  It is just that simple.

The promise—the assurance—that we have is that he will forgive us.  He will forgive us.  There is no deliberation over the matter.  He will forgive us.

Now that’s cool beans.  God’s love is so great that he forgives us time and time again.  Once you have professed Jesus as Lord, you need not worry about any sin that you commit.  God has given us his assurance of pardon.

That doesn’t mean that we run amuck.  It means that we do our best to please our Heavenly Father, but when we falter, we confess and get back to doing the best we can.

His forgiveness is promised to us.  His pardon is assured.

If you do not live with this assurance because you have not yet received the gift of life abundant and life eternal through Jesus Christ, do not hesitate to make that decision today.

You will still have trials and temptations and problems, but you will be forgiven and will be in good standing with God.

Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved!

Do not hesitate to know the forgiveness of God, the peace of the Lord, and his assurance of pardon.

Amen.

VBS--Lessons in loving obedience

Read Isaiah 65

Seven years ago something was missing from the life of our church body.  We have always been a friendly bunch.  People knew there was love here.  If someone needed help, they found helping people right here.

God’s love in action was a natural for our motto.

That’s who we were.  That’s who we are.  There is some identity to being known by your love.  Jesus said that everyone will know that we are his disciples by our love.

But 7 years ago, something was missing.  There was a hollow spot in who we were.

At the elders retreat that year, many of us were of the same mind and all were of the same accord by the end of the meeting.

What was missing was VBS.  Vacation Bible School had atrophied away to nothing.  It went from being a few days with little help to a day to not even attempting to put it on the calendar in the years previous.

It had seemed too hard.  It didn’t have any support.

But at this elder retreat in 2008, the leadership of this body knew that VBS was something that had been on the roadmaps of so many of our lives that it was inconceivable that we did not do it anymore.  It seemed unconscionable to put it in the “too hard” category.

We were led surely by God’s own Spirit to put Vacation Bible School back on the annual calendar, and we did.

How would we make it work this time?

We had no idea—not a clue—notta.  We knew it was exactly what we were led to do.  We could not fill in the who, when, and how.

We didn’t have a clue what we needed to do next.  The past few VBS attempts had just fizzled out.  What would we do to make this different?

We just didn’t know.  God knew.

Before they call I will answer;
    while they are still speaking I will hear.

Two young ladies, Laci Stegall and Kendra Walker came forward about a month later wanting to know if they could be in charge of the Vacation Bible School.  Others joined them.

VBS was moved to an evening format.

We had enough teachers.

We had enough helpers.

We had more kids than ever before.

We learned a little each year.

The transformation of the building into each year’s VBS theme took on an atmosphere of chaos and clutter.  Glue guns and duct tape were at every turn.

Ranches, forests, national parks, big back yards, and tropical islands emerged where there had been only carpet and walls before.

VBS was not just a church event again.  It was a big event.  It was and is a very big week in the lives of those who came and learned and those who contributed.

It is not just something that we do.  It is something that God has called us to do, led us to do, equipped us to do, and blessed us by doing.

During the course of the past week, many of the VBS staff probably thought that they had all of the blessing that they could handle.

I have said this before and it holds true this year as well.  There is tired, and there is VBS tired.

Paul wrote to Timothy that he felt like he was being poured out like a drink offering.  That’s VBS tired.  You get poured out until you have nothing left.

Then God fills you back up and you come back for the next day.

Much of the Old Testament talks about God’s people not heeding his call.  They turned away from him time and time again.  They were not tuned into hear his prophets.  They were out of tune with his heart.

Earlier in this 65^th chapter, God spoke through the prophet.

“But as for you who forsake the Lord
    and forget my holy mountain,
who spread a table for Fortune
    and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny,
 I will destine you for the sword,
    and all of you will fall in the slaughter;
for I called but you did not answer,
    I spoke but you did not listen.
You did evil in my sight
    and chose what displeases me.”

We do not fear judgment and wrath and punishment.  We are liberated from our sins by the blood of Jesus.

But don’t we want to please God?  He loves us so much, don’t we want to give him what he desires?

He can’t stand it when his people do not listen to him and he loves it when we listen and actually do what he tells us to do.

He loves it so much that he enjoys our response of loving obedience even before we begin.

Before they call I will answer.  God has already put in motion the logistics to support us when we answer his call.

The blessings are already on the way!

Seven years ago the Lord spoke to the elders of the church. 

They listened and responded. 

Leaders emerged.

Funding was provided.

Volunteers abounded.

And the children came, more than ever before.  The children came and were blessed.

The leaders and helpers were blessed.

VBS is an important week in the lives of these children.  It is also an example of what happens when God’s people hear God’s voice and respond in loving obedience.

He is already equipping us and sending us blessing before we take our first step.

VBS is more than a week for the kids.  It is a lesson in the blessings of obedience to God.

God’s Spirit is leading us and urging us and nudging us to stay on the narrow path of discipleship.  We need to understand that on this narrow path of loving obedience, countless opportunities to bring glory to God abound.

In fact, the more that we narrow our focus to living in loving obedience, the greater and more frequent the opportunities to bring glory to God become.

We should not respond to God’s love with obedience because it is something that we have to do.  It is something that we love to do for it pleases our heavenly Father and he is pleased to bless us for our loving obedience.

Amen.