Family Service
[0:00] Turn back to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians 2, look again at verses 19 down to 21.
[0:20] Ephesians 2 verses 19 to 21. So then you're no longer strangers and aliens. The shame reads a funny word, aliens of course is meaning against strangers.
[0:32] Those who aren't born in the country. You're no longer strangers. You're no longer those who aren't born in the country. But you are fellow citizens. You belong now with everyone else who loves God in the household of God.
[0:46] Built in the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstones. So today we're going to build a house. Now it's too expensive for me to take in and to buy lots of bricks and cement.
[1:03] Also think of a mess it would make if I built a bag of cement. Also it's a weekend. So the builders are all off on weekend. So we can't build a real house. But instead we'll have to try and use our imaginations and build a house in our wee heads and think of the house we're building. So I'm very sorry I couldn't build a real house but I just couldn't afford that today.
[1:28] So what we read in Ephesians chapter 2, we see that Paul the man who wrote this letter, the man who wrote these words, who wrote to the Christians in the church in a place called Ephesus. A church just like car away.
[1:45] A long time ago, far away, people coming together to worship God. And in these verses, verses 19 down to verse 21, Paul tells them, he reminds them that now they're together.
[2:04] Together they build one house together. Together they're part of one house because what Jesus has done for them. What Paul is saying might sound quite strange. He's saying that if they are Christians, if they love Jesus, then they are part of a wall that God is building. If they love Jesus, then they are part of a house that God is building.
[2:30] Just like you build a house with stones and bricks. Paul says if we love Jesus, then when God builds his house and he places us as important parts of that house.
[2:46] So that's what we're looking at this day. Looking at how Jesus is our foundation. How Jesus is so important to everything we are and everything we do.
[2:58] So the first part of building a house, we have to be strong. Strong blocks. If we build a house with bits and pieces that aren't strong, the whole house will just fall down.
[3:12] So the first block we can start off with, our first block is the block of Jesus. Just pretend, pretend that's a big block. It's the best I can manage.
[3:23] Pretend that's a big, huge building block. And the Bible tells us here that Jesus is the cornerstone. The cornerstone, the cornerstone in Paul's day was the most important part of the wall.
[3:39] So please imagine, got a wall here and a wall here and this stone here in two points, that's your cornerstone. It keeps this wall up. It keeps this wall up. But Jesus is the most important part of the whole building.
[3:55] If the cornerstone wasn't placed properly, if it wasn't important enough, if it wasn't strong enough, this wall would fall down, that wall would fall down. The whole house would eventually fall down. The whole house would come crashing down.
[4:13] So Paul was saying, Jesus has to be at the very center of our lives. The very most important thing that we know is Jesus. And he has to be there where everything comes together to keep everything else strong.
[4:32] Now Paul was saying that if we who love Jesus and know Jesus, if we are to be bricks and stones in the house of God, then Jesus is what we are built on top of.
[4:44] He's the most important part of what we are. We can start building walls. So a few years ago, is that true story? A few years ago, my dad loved to build walls.
[4:58] So one day he asked me to help him build a wall with him. I am rubbish at building walls. My dad knows what he's doing. He's got the big stones first and smaller stones and smaller stones and smaller stones.
[5:10] So dad told me how to build a wall. So I started on my end of the wall, building it. I thought I was doing a really good job. My wall looked amazing.
[5:21] I see dad's wall was twice my size and twice the length of my wall and then my wall starts to fall apart. Because I didn't know what I was doing. I hadn't put the strongest, best stones where they should be.
[5:35] Where Paul tells us that Jesus has to be the center of our lives. Jesus has to be the most important thing that we know. He is the most important person in our lives. If he's not, then the rest of our lives will fall apart.
[5:54] If Jesus is not the center, if all that we are and all that we do is not based on him, then we'll find out very quickly, very quickly. Whilst things look as if we're going well in reality or not.
[6:07] And eventually everything will come crashing down round about us. If we love Jesus, if Jesus is at the center of our lives, then just like this building, our lives will be strong.
[6:26] We can be sure that no matter how windy it gets or how much rain comes against us or how scary things are, we will shake a wee bit and we'll be battered and we'll be wet and all windy and horrible.
[6:39] But we will never fall down if Jesus is at our center. If we love Jesus, then Jesus is important to us. And Jesus is the most important person to us.
[6:53] If Jesus inspires us to do everything we do, then we will be safe and secure. Just like the building, before anything else we have to have this part right.
[7:09] There's no point saying, well, we know our Bible. No point saying I've been to church every day of my life. Mums and dads, no point saying I've grown up going to church and so that counts surely.
[7:23] No point saying I've been to church and I've done Sunday school, I've read my Bible, I know my catechism, off by heart. My mum and dad and grand and grandad were Christians, surely that's enough. But the reality is, if Jesus is not the center of all that we have, then it's not enough.
[7:39] If Jesus isn't the center of our lives, the core of some of our lives, then it's all meaningless. So Jesus has to be the very center. So the first block of our house is Jesus.
[7:52] He's there as the strongest and best block. If Jesus is not the cornerstone, we have nothing else. Our next block is the apostles.
[8:06] So who were the apostles? The apostles were men who were chosen specifically, men who were chosen for a special mission by Jesus. That special mission was to go around the country, go around the area, go around the world in some places.
[8:25] A useful world they knew about. And tell the good news that Jesus is king. Tell the good news that Jesus is alive.
[8:36] Jesus is a saviour. The apostles were men who went around the country and they established churches. They met Christians and they encouraged Christians.
[8:50] They were men who lived lives dedicated to Jesus. All of our lives, they worshiped Jesus. And as far as we know, almost all of them, they died in their service to Jesus.
[9:05] They died serving Jesus. They went to places where people didn't want to hear about Jesus. And they talked about Jesus to people who didn't want to hear anything at all about Jesus.
[9:17] And the people they talked to, they hated Jesus so much, they said, stop talking about him or we will kill you. But the apostles did not stop talking about Jesus. They kept going.
[9:28] They kept starting new churches and kept talking more about Jesus and telling more of the good news that Jesus is alive, Jesus is king, Jesus is saviour. And many of these men, they were killed because they didn't stop talking about Jesus.
[9:44] They lived lives based on him. And because Jesus was the most important thing in their lives, their lives were incredible.
[9:55] They were hard, they were tough, they were incredible. All they did was based on Jesus because Jesus was a centre of their lives.
[10:08] They then lived lives to serve him. The truth that Jesus is a cornerstone. The truth that Jesus is the most important person in the whole world, in the whole universe, is the truth that kept the apostles going through all they went through.
[10:27] Every Christian here today, the oldest Christian here today, if you ask them, what kept you going all these years, their answer will be, because I know Jesus, because I love Jesus.
[10:41] And that's what the apostles would have said also. Jesus is the cornerstone and Jesus is alive today and he keeps his church going.
[10:53] And we're here today in Caraway proves that, look where we are. Look how far away we are compared to this all started off thousands of miles away, thousands of years later. And here we are in Caraway together worshipping Jesus as our saviour.
[11:12] So the apostles, and the next rock, next stone to build our house is the prophets. So Jesus is there, we've got the apostles, now we've got the prophets.
[11:23] Our house is getting bigger, it's getting bigger, not quite there yet. Next stone is the prophets. All the way back to the beginning, God had a plan.
[11:37] And God's plan meant that one day Jesus would come. All the way back to the beginning, God was saying this to the people. I will send somebody who will save you.
[11:50] Somebody who will rescue you from all the bad things you've done. From all the times you've gone against me, all the sin you do, I will rescue you.
[12:03] So God chose people and he spoke to these people and he told these people what to say. And these people then went around and told people of our day. But one day a saviour is going to come.
[12:16] But one day in thousands of years, thousands of years, and hundreds of years, but one day Jesus will come.
[12:27] In the Old Testament we see hundreds, hundreds upon hundreds of predictions about Jesus, made by these prophets, hundreds.
[12:39] And Jesus fulfilled every single one of them. So these men said that Jesus would do this, that the ones who would come to save us, he would say this and do this and be like this.
[12:54] And Jesus came and he did all these things perfectly. It's not just, he was close to them. Everything these men said thousands of years ago, Jesus then came and fulfilled them perfectly.
[13:11] In the evening, the last few weeks, we've been looking at a man called Micah. Micah was a shepherd. He was a crofter in his village. He worked with sheep all day.
[13:22] He was a hard working man. And God told him that one day, hundreds of years in the future, someone will be born in a place called Bethlehem and he will be a saviour to his people.
[13:37] This evening we'll see that in detail. For example, that God from the beginning has had a perfect plan to save his people.
[13:49] Since the beginning, God has been saying that one will come, will be called a saviour. One will come, will be called Jesus, who will be the most important man in the whole universe.
[14:05] One will come, the most important person in the whole universe. One will come, who will be our saviour. So Jesus is cornerstone, the most important part.
[14:17] The next brick is the apostles. They did all the hard work afterwards and they shared the gospel around the world. They were more Jesus apostles than the prophets.
[14:29] Prophets going right back to the beginning, saying that Jesus would come, that he was predicted. And then our top block of our house is Christians.
[14:47] So what is a Christian? Who are the Christians here today? Are Christians the ones in the nice suits? No. Are the Christians the ones who know everything in the Bible?
[15:01] No. Are the Christians the ones who never do anything wrong at all? No. Who are the Christians here today?
[15:15] People here today who are Christians are the people here who love Jesus. If you love Jesus here today and you know him, if you can say that Jesus has saved me and I love him for that, then you are a Christian here today.
[15:35] And what is a place of the Christian in these verses? We see that all this has come together. The prophets, apostles, all these men working hard and women working hard, let's think of the prophets working hard, living lives, serving Jesus, also that we here at the Incaraway could be here.
[16:01] Here we are talking about this Jesus who lived all these years ago, who lived all these miles away. How are we here? Why are we here?
[16:12] We're here because it's all true. The foundation of Jesus being at the center in the apostles and prophets, and there we are too, as part of this house that God is building.
[16:31] And the house of God, and we see in other places in the Bible, there's room for everybody. It's not just the nicest looking bricks, not just the most square, perfect bricks.
[16:43] God fits everyone into his house. The bigger bricks like myself and the smaller bricks like other people. There's room for all of us. Not one of us is too small.
[16:55] Not one of us too young. Not one of us too old for God to use in his house. For God to save us and make us part of his house.
[17:12] I was 12 when I became a Christian. I was 12 when God saved me. There's Christians here who are much older than that.
[17:23] Christians here who were saved when they were much older. There's no excuse you have not to come to Jesus today. Not one. You have them, but they mean nothing.
[17:35] Come to Jesus, make him the center of your life. Because there's a place for you in God's church. A place for you in the house that God is building.
[17:47] You have a place for you in that wall he is putting together. I finish off by saying this. We read in Matthew a story told by Jesus.
[18:02] Jesus said that there are two different kind of people. Those who built their house on sand and those who built a house on rock.
[18:15] I am bad at building walls. I'm even worse, I'm sure, at building houses. I would be awful at building a house. But we know that Jesus tells us if we love him, if we know him, if he is our God and our Savior, then we're like someone who builds a house and builds it on the rock.
[18:41] Who builds a house somewhere where it's steady, where it will never ever fall to pieces. If we love Jesus and know Jesus, it's like we're building our whole lives on a rock, on a mountain that will never move.
[18:58] But if we, as we grow up and get older and right now, build our house as it were on sand, if we don't know Jesus, if we're trying to do things in our own strength, trying to do things as we think is right, then we're building houses on the sand.
[19:17] If we might look good, the second bit of wind or rain comes, we're washed away forever. If Jesus isn't our Lord, then we have nothing in the end.
[19:33] And that's the reality of the situation we're in. If nothing else today makes sure Jesus is at the center of your life, at the center of all that you are, that He is your Lord, that you're building your life and building your house on Him as the immovable rock.
[19:53] Otherwise, you're building your life on sand and that one day will fall away beneath you and you will be swept away. If nothing else today, if nothing else, make sure you know Jesus.
[20:12] Make sure that Jesus is the most important person in your life. Make sure that He is the center of all that you are.
[20:23] The boys and girls have been busy all year, very busy all year, learning all about Jesus and all about why He is so important. So I think it's now their turn to come up on stage and to show us what we've been learning and to show us just how smart they are.
[20:40] So I'll go the way that the boys and girls come up on stage.