God wants our youth to have a firm foundation.

 

God gives us the responsibility to give the youth a firm foundation, or as Paul states in Romans 16: 25/26: “Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past.”

To have a strong foundation, means to become “established”.

 

But what does it mean to be established?

As parents, we all want our children, and the youth of our churches and our people, to become established. It generally means that we want them to one day be strong and enabled adults, well educated, respected, honoured and recognised and productive members of society, with a good job, success, financial independence, and stability. These are some of the things we think about when we say we want our children – and ourselves – to be established.   

 

Established on a firm foundation is the opposite of being stuck.

It does not mean that progress has ceased. But it does mean that you have been founded on solid ground from where you are safely propelled to success. It means that you are enabled to wisely do the right things. It does mean that stability comes from wise choices and the ability to stand firm on those choices.

 

In a world as shaky and unpredictable as ours, where society sometimes change critical values with the fashion of the day and where economic down turns impact on billions of people and where wobbly morals kill just as many, we and our children need a word of wisdom, need a message, a gifting and an ability that will bring us stability and give us a solid foundation for life’s challenges.

 

In a world full of bad news, because of shaky fashions, wobbly morals, deceitful economics and shady politics, there is certainly a need for good news. And in a world where people are searching for purpose, meaning and a firm base for life, there is a need for the good news that will establish us on a solid foundation.

 

This is what God does through teaching the Gospel of Jesus through his Church. Paul says, “to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel” -our need is to be established and this is exactly what God does through the Gospel. God establishes us and our children and grandchildren on a solid foundation, in accordance with his Gospel.

And Paul calls it “my gospel”. The gospel preached and taught by him. God used his servant to establish people through Paul’s ministry.

 

Even today our Lord works through people – through parents and grandparents, through Sunday School teachers, youth workers, elders and preachers and educators. More importantly is what God chooses to work through us to bring stability and strength to our lives and in the lives of the next generation – the youth.

Who shuns the true teaching and preaching of God’s Gospel, rejects God’s very own choice of interventions to keep us all, and our kids, safe and stable, in him.

 

Let’s be faithful to the Lord and his glorious Good News, and by being faithful be safe and become established!