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I. Introduction.
I. Introduction.
“From the arcade to a prehistoric world.”
“From the arcade to a prehistoric world.”
Imagine that you are in an arcade, like the Scandia family fun putt putt place down the road here.
Okay, I’m gonna need your imagination to work today! Work with me now!
The mini golf was fun, and then after a delicious slice of super greasy arcade pepperoni, you played some skee ball.
Got like 40 tickets, not bad! Maybe you can cash them in for some gummy bears or Chinese handcuffs at the counter before heading home.
Hey, you don’t have to be a kid to have fun!
Imagine that you are tired, so you sit down in one of those photo booths.
Your bestie walks off to get slushies so you put a doller and a couple of quarters into the machine. “Smile” Cheese!”
You are expecting the flash to pop and burn your eyeballs but instead, the machine almost explodes with bright lights and sounds as though you are torn through space to another dimension!
Whirling lights, the sound of a hurricane and Wham!!!!
All of a sudden, the photo booth lands in a tropical forest!
Glutinous mud is oozing through your laces, into your shoes as you step out into what?
The moist heat already has sweat trickling down your spine!
Then you notice there are no buildings, no cars, none of the trappings of an industrial age, nothing at all!
Wait, wait wait wait...
The plants are freakishly huge!
A dragonfly sorta looking thing bigger than any bird you’ve ever seen, zips past you and now you are really getting concerned!
And then, as you clear the dense jungle brush, you see a great valley spreading out beneath the cliff you are standing on.
And that valley, is ranged far and wide with yeah.......Dinosaurs!
That’s what I said: Dinosaurs!!!!
Jared! Do I have your attention?
Sounds like chapter one in a childrens book!
Thrown back to Crutaceous or Jurassic or some other prehistoric time!
Okay, kind of far out, but just imagine that actually happened to you!
Imagine the photobooth/ time machine that got you here, sank into the tar mud patch it landed you in!
No going back! You are comitted now!
Seems like a lifetime! after two long months of surviving, and learning how to sleep high up in a tree, and when to get water and how to evade the carnivores, just imagine how you would feel if you found another person!
Another person from America! California! 2020!
You find out they arrived in their own photo booth a year earlier!
They got stuck here too!
And somehow they have survived!
They have thrived!
A treehouse high up, with defensive posture, a crude early warning system, traps and deadfalls, spikes and caltrops sewn into the grass.
Not bad!
This other survior, has fire, clean water, some basic crops, a few good spears and edged weapons and more than all of that: skills.
He knows how to survive! He’s strong! capable!
And you realiize this is gonna be a good friend to have!
Oh man, you would want to get that person on your side!!!
“Hey, man, you watch my back, I’ll watch yours!”
“Oh no, Pastor’s gone off the deep end!”
“Oh no, Pastor’s gone off the deep end!”
“Help us Lord!”
Pastor Louw has gone and fell and hit his head in the shower and after all this awesome conference preaching we just came from, the pastor is talking crazy!
Dinosaurs and time machines from the pulpit!
Well, I’ve got a confession to make:
It’s all part of my strategy to get your attention!
I’m setting you up to learn about Covenants!!!
About the only thing that made it possible to survive in the ancient world, was the ability to make a covenant with someone else!
“Because nobody is so big, they don’t need help!”
We all need a true friend, someone to watch your back!
I want you to realize what it must have been like for men like Adam and Abraham to walk this world when they did!
The value of covenants!
The value of covenants!
So the basic ideas is this:
The Old Testament characters that we read about, lived in a pre modern world without any protection!
Things were done the old fashioned way: Right of Might!
If you were strong enough to rob the next village over, burn him out and take their posessions, there was nobody to stop you!
No rule of law! No laws at all!
No law enforcement!
No financial or banking system, no currency even.
No standards for living or how to treat others,
No authority to protect your or your rights!
Hah! What are individual rights in a ancient world??
Eventually city states began to develop and various people groups sorta began to organize themselves.
The fertile crescent, ancient Mesopotamia, some basic civilization starts to develop and your Bible mentions such places as Ur of the Chaldees, Abraham’s home town.
“Make sure you stick to the rules, pay your tribute, and get inside the walls before dark! Man the ramparts if we’re attacked, share or bargain with your crops, pull your weight and together we can all survive.”
It was not easy living back then!
Now some pretty smart people at Houston Baptist University put together a timeline based on the ages of those men listed in Genesis and they say that From Adam to Noah’s flood was 1656 years.
Now I couldn’t tell you, I was not there!
But the Scriptures do tell us that it did not take mankind very long to mess things up!
So much so that God decided: “This project is too far gone to fix, humanity is so very violent and so evil, I’m going to start fresh!”
Twice he cited violence as a reason to judge the earth!
Now folks, I’ve never had a problem with Chuck Norris beating the tar out of a bad guy!
John Wayne palms his sixgun and the villan goes down and the heroine is saved!
Yay! I mean, pass the popcorn!
NO, the violence cited in Genesis, was something so wicked and terrible, the victimization of the innocent and weak!
The spilling of innocent blood!
No law! No help, No police, no trial, no justice!
And God was sick of the suffering! Sick of the violence and the sin that had polluted his finest piece of art: Mankind!
And so, there’s gonna be a reckoning folks!
A flood is in the works, the likes of which this world has never seen before and never will again!
Then came warning! Because God always gives people time to repent!
Don’t tell me God is not merciful!!!
120 years and every one of them a gift! A chance to make good and do right and be saved!
Evil as they were, God was merciful to them!
120 years they got, a chance to change!
That’s more than we get!
He gave humanity the ability to choose him or not choose him way back at creation!
He did not force anyone to love and obey him then and God is still a perfect gentleman today!
In each frame of time, He does not force himself on anyone!
That’s why I tell folks: Don’t serve God because your wife or your mom tells you to!
Don’t go to church and sing and stuff just to stay out of trouble at home!
If Mom tells you to go to church or to be baptized, and you do it for her only, don’t expect any change!
it’s not coming from your heart!
It’s not a real thing unless it comes from your heart!
True love can’t be forced!
Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords has an amazing and awesome future for everyone in this building, everyone on this planet who would choose him!
And here’s how he does it:
God invites man into covenant!
What is a covenant anyway?
What is a covenant anyway?
So what is a covenant anyway?
A covenant was basically a contract, written in blood!
It was an agreement to cover someone else’s back in crisis.
In return, whenever you needed help, they agreed to do the same.
When your life and the lives of your entire family is at stake, trust me, it’s a good thing to have allies!
A covenant was a binding agreement in which you obligated yourself to the agreement forever!!
“I’ve always got your back!”
These days we write contracts.
“Sign on the bottom line.”
Okay, it’s legal now!
Legally binding!
The process was different back then. You didn’t need a pen, you needed a blade and your name.
back then, they’d split the carcasses of several animals and position the halves on either side of a path.
You would make your agreement with the other party and then walk between the halves.
And the meaning was: Let this be done to me, if I break my covenant with you!
Your names would be spoken.
And the covenant would always be made in the name of the greater party!
In other words, the strongest participant would endorese the agreement and enforce it!
Always, the covenant was made in the name of the greater party.
Remember that, it’s important!
You can read all about it in Genesis 15, where God makes a covenant with Abraham.
We know that Abraham had left his home and embraked on a quest: Looking for a city whose builder and maker is God!
Now those same smart Bible timeline scholars tell us that Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, 422 years and ten days after the flood.
The history nerd in me says wow!
Abraham lived to 175 years old.
That means he was born 247 years after the flood!
So yeah, maybe all the dinosaurs had died in the flood, but Abraham was still living in a world and a time that would make Genghis Khan look kind and gentle!
He needed allies!
And we read that he gets the best one you could ever have!
Because the very God of eternity was willing to enter into covenant with Abraham and obligate himself to a man!
It’s called a covennant!
And good news friend, He still does it today!
Now let’s talk about how you can enter into your own special relationship with God!
I am going to show you how it is done and before the day is over, I am going to make sure you can do it yourself!
I’ll help you!!!
Water Baptism in Jesus Name!
Water Baptism in Jesus Name!
Abraham has lived his adventure.
Now it’s your turn.
And let’s face it: Life is still no bed of roses!
What you need is a friend who will stick closer than a brother!
You need a covenant!
Okay, let’s all say this together:
“Water baptism!!!!”
Wait! I’m getting ahead of myself:
John chapter three records a meet and greet between Nicodemus, a local religious leader, a pretty important guy actually, and Jesus, otherwise known as Almighty God!
So here is how it all went down: John chapter three, verse one
There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
“Born of water.”
What is that exactly?
What do you say?
Baptism?
sure! Makes sense! but let’s be certain!
I mean, I want to enter the Kingdom of heaven! Don’t you?
Here’s an awesome trick when studying the Bible:
Remember this: Scripture interprets Scripture.
That means when you are not sure about the meaning of a particular passage, there will be other Scriptures that explain it!
So let’s connect the dots here from John 3:5 all the way to Acts 2:38.
Peter is preaching to the lynch mob that got jesus killed.
It has been fifty days.
And now they realize they have well and truly messed up!
“How do we fix this?”
They ask Peter: What do? How can we ever possibly make good?
This is what he said, and now you’ll see how that it explains JOhn 3:5 perfectly and practically!
Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Okay, let’s all say together: Water baptism in Jesus Name!
Hey, relax! We’re safe folks. This is 100% Bible!
Peter specifically preaches Jesus Name as the only valid formula for baptism!
Meaning when you are physically leant backward and under water, the actual name of Jesus, I.e. the Name of the greater party, is spoken over you!
This is how you enter covenant with Almighty God!
You are baptized in the personal name of God himself: The name of the greater party!
His is the name and his is the authority!
It means he’s bankrolling the whole thing!
He endoreses it!
Enforces it!
And his name is what makes the whole thing legal before the courts of heaven!
“The Active Ingredient.”
“The Active Ingredient.”
Say for example that Bro Waqa invites me over for some of Sis Vanessa’s amazing and I mean, awesome chicken curry.
After a while I’ve got some on my shirt but who cares! Y’all had some at our last potluck! It’s delicious!
But then, in my enthusiasm, I tip my plate and drop curry all over her new Rug!
I am so embarassed! “Lord take me now!”
“I am so sorry,” I say “Sister will you please forgive me?”
And Sis Vanessa being such a nice, Christian lady, (Really)
She says “Sure I forgive you.”
See what happened there: I have repented and been forgiven.”
But the stain is still there!
Every future guest will know that some guy spilled his curry!
The only way to fix it is to wash the stain away!
That’s why it’s not enough to simply repent and recieve Jesus and make a verbal confession only!
I mean, the stain is still there!
You’ve got to wash it away!
Water is required!
If not, Jesus would have told Nicodemus something else!
“Except a man say sorry, he cannot enter into...” Uh Uh, That’s now what He said is it?
I’m telling you friend, you don’t get saved without water!
Egypt is a type or symbolof sin, the slavery of sin!
But God had something better for his people: He promised them a new land and a new way of living!
But he had to get them from point A to point B!
They needed a miracle!
Because the only way out was through the Red sea! (A massive body of water with an average depth of 1475 feet!)
What a miracle God performed that day! He parted the water and they passed through it!
And still today, it works the same way:
The only way to leave sin behind, is to pass through the water!
Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now say that Sister Vanessa puts that rug in the wash. sets the timer but does not put any soap into the washer...
Wash, soak, spin, and she pulls out that rug, having used no soap, do you think that rug will be stain free?
Nope! All you get is a wet rug!
Friend, if you want clean, what you need is a cleansing agent!
You need that active ingredient!
And that is the Name of Jesus! The personal name of Almighty God!
So we connected the dots from John 3:5 to Acts 2:38. Here’s another one:
Draw your next line to Acts 4:11-12
This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
I am telling this church, from the Word of God, that you must be baptized in Jesus Name!
This is how you enter covenant with God!!!!
If this is indeed the message of Scripture then we are going to see it played out again and again!
Right?
Okay, let’s see:
I mean, this stuff is too important to get wrong!
You can’t afford to take my word for it!
Let’s go to the book:
Colossians 3:17 (NKJV)
And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus!!!
For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then they asked him to stay a few days.
When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.’
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
In baptism, I am entering into covenant with Jesus!
It’s just me and Him! Because I have to work out my own salvation!
Nobody esle can do it for me.
So out of the two of us, who is greater?
Jesus!
We are baptized in the Name of Jesus, because His is the name of the greater party!
I am very grateful to some of those early baptists and Holiness people, and Pentecostals who after much darkness, preached this message when nobody else was really connecting to what the Bible says about covenant!
Perhaps you were baptized prior in the titles of Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
That’s great! You are trying to do what’s right and be saved!
People often, often ask me, “In that case, should I be rebaptized in the Name of Jesus?”
And I always encourage them: “Yes! You are going to be so glad that you did!”
See a title is not personal.
It is descriptive of your role: “Father, daughter, Boss, manager, excellency.” (The list goes on)
But a title however descriptive, does not actually identify you!
I am a Father, I am a son, I am a lover of icecream. (All 31 flavors)
But if I have to write a check, when I go to sign that check, I cannot write “Father.” and expect that check to ever clear the bank!
I can sign it “Lover of Icecream, Son, Brother, “or “commercial Tenant, or “Most handsome man alive!” or any other title real or imagined and it still won’t do me a lick of good!
See, the authority is in the name!
Sign your legal name and that check is golden!
The authority is in the name!
Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth,
C’mon, let’s get all those stains out!!!!
Get the water, get the cleansing agent, and let’s get er done!
So is a man or woman, boy or girl, entered into covenant with Almighty God!
He is now obligated to you and you to Him!
You have an ally now!
And life is only just getting good!
And listen: Don’t feel foolish to be baptized!
Jesus was himself baptized as a man!
He was without sin, why be baptized? Because Jesus is our great example!
And I have learned that this perfect genteman, this great one, will never ask you to do something that He won’t do!
Describe the trailer with tarp, hundreds of baptisms, so special, each unique and yet somehow the same!
(Describe the emphazema baptism candidate.)
Benefits!
Benefits!
What are the features and benefits of this covenant relatonship?
More than I have time to tell!
For one, All your sins are washed away!!!
Fresh start!
Clean slate!
Now somebody has got your back!
And what somebody!
The God of creation, maker of heaven and earth!
And when you choose to obey him, to enter Covenant with Him, He’s going to up the ante on you!
It is impossible to outgive God!
When you give Him your obedience, He will give you His Holy nature! His Holy Spirit!
I promise, it’s the most natural thing in all the world!
Here’s how it happens:
Describe! HG Baptism
Describe! HG Baptism
This is then, what we call the New Birth Process!
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Friend, when you are in a covenant relationship with God, you are born again!
God has now obligated himself to you!
He’s going to be with you now! wherever you go!
Not talking about some majic spell
This is something infinately better!
God on my side! watching my back forever and ever!
When you are sick, God can heal you! He will be with you!
Now He is Wonderful to you!
Now He is your Counsellor!
Now He is your Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father!
You may have guessed, we’re going to have a baptism service today!
Why dont we take this time to thank god for the covenant!