Examples to Learn From

Examples

Baptized

1 Peter 3:21 ESV

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

Receiving God’s Blessings is NOT Proof of Acceptance

300 Illustrations for Preachers Bishop Fled the Scene after Hitting Cyclist

Preaching Themes: Alcohol, Character, Church_Leadership, Sin

An Episcopal bishop, Heather Cook, struck a cyclist with her car and fled the scene in December 2014. While she was fleeing, Thomas Palermo, a married father of two, lay dying. Other cyclists tracked Cook down, confronted her, and she returned to the scene. The Diocese of Maryland placed her on leave and she was charged with manslaughter, leaving the scene of an accident, driving while under the influence of alcohol, and texting while driving. She had previously pleaded guilty in a 2010 DUI case.

Even the men and women pledged to serve the living God must always be aware that they too can fall into sin. It is imperative that we keep our walk with the Lord fresh and new.

—Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell

Spiritual Food and Drink

Rev 2:7,17

Revelation 2:17 ESV

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’

John 7:37–39 ESV

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Examples=Warning

Ephesians 2:3 ESV

among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

James 4:1–4 ESV

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Disqualifying practices

v7-10

For Us

Hebrews 3:17–19 ESV

And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.