All I Need To Know About Salvation And Serving God I Learned In Vbs!

SERMON BRIEF

Date Written: June 24, 2010

Date Preached: June 27, 2010

Church: OPBC (AM)

FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS

Series: Miscellaneous

Title: All I Need to Know… I learned in VBS!

Text: James 1:5 [ESV]

5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him.

INTRODUCTION:

WISDOM! This is something we all seek after… it is something we need to live our lives for Christ in this world! Here in our passage this morning we see how James in his ever so practical approach to living the Christian life… tells his readers… if you need wisdom… ASK GOD!

This past week we celebrated Vacation Bible School here in our church and this morning you have heard from some of the children who participated in that event. They learned about God in many ways, but the MOTTO for the week was… NEED WISDOM? Ask God! And that is exactly what James is saying here in this passage.

We do NOT have a full understanding of this world and this life OR our Christian walk, and we are constantly needing God to order our steps and guide our direction in life… so we constantly are seeking wisdom…

The problem lies with the fact that far too many believers are turning to a form of earthly wisdom to guide their spiritual walk. Earthly wisdom, although it SOUNDS solid and doctrinal… if it is NOT based on God’s Word, it will lead to despair, destruction and devastation in your life!

So preacher, where can I find this GODLY wisdom you are speaking about… Well, while studying for the sermon this week I read an article that stated, “All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten.”

This article claimed that true and reliable wisdom was not found at the top of the educational mountain, but it could be found right there in the sandbox of Kindergarten!

These are the things I learned:

Share everything

Play fair

Don't hit people

Put things back where you found them

Clean up your own mess

Don't take things that aren't yours

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody

Wash your hands before you eat

Flush

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you

Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.

Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

While contemplating on the simple yet profound earthly wisdom that I found in this article, God impressed upon me that while this earthly wisdom was not a bad thing… but it was NOT the godly wisdom we need for living for God and knowing salvation. God impressed on my heart that ALL we truly need to know about becoming a Christian and learning to serve Him can really be learned in VBS…

I have to admit, I was skeptical… I asked God, “It’s got to be more complicated than that! Surely it can’t be that simple?” God assures me that serving Him IS that simple… He impressed upon me that we don’t need to make it any more complicated than it is!

Now as much as we ALL know about the simplicity of the Gospel, I believe we all have a tendency to complicate matters and make things MUCH harder than they have to be… So I took a step back, and I looked at this year’s VBS and I saw that God was right! Everything you need to serve Him and live as a Christian can be found in what we learned in VBS this week!

During this wonderful week we learned about how God thinks about us, about what God can and does take care of us, what God wants FOR our lives, what God wants FROM us, and how we are called to live FOR Him…

We learned how much God cares for us

The first thing we learned from this year’s VBS was that if we desire to serve God and live as He desires… We had do know how much God cares for us!