Well, good morning and welcome to Crossland Community Church. We are a community of refuge and hope for all people. Just a little more rain, and we could be doing these in the parking lot, but we're going to still do them in here where the water is warm and so is the love of God and the love of Christ.
We're thankful that you're here, and I love the fact that nothing is going to stop or delay the plans and purposes of God for your life. Nothing. They were both scheduled before the rain to be baptized today, and while many of you, especially if you're watching online, made a wise decision staying home because we don't want anybody ever to travel in our direction and put yourself in harm's way.
Over the next couple of days, as the backwaters still continue to drain into creeks, please, please be careful, okay? Just because it's not raining doesn't mean that there isn't danger in those waters still. Turn around, okay? Turn around, don't drown. Go back, don't tempt it, okay?
But in this moment, I'm telling you, the Lord knows how to provide. The Lord knows what He's doing. What you're going to witness today is not salvation; that's already happened privately. What you're going to witness is the beginning of profound transformation because the Lord is about to honor their faith and honor their obedience by getting in these waters, and He's going to begin to move in them in ways that are undeniable.
We want that for you. We don't want baptism as much as we obviously want your salvation, but we would love for you to join us in these waters because it really will change your life. I promise you that.
Why don't you tell everybody who you are?
And Abigail, let me ask you two very important questions. Are you absolutely convinced you've accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior?
Yes.
And are you convinced that He's accepted you as well?
Abigail, what an honor and a privilege it is, therefore, to baptize you as my sister in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are buried together with Christ through baptism.
If you've ever really wondered whether or not God can save, all this is a New England Patriots fan. God can save anybody, anybody He chooses.
Why? I'm not sure.
Matthew, let me ask you two very important questions. Will you be an Eagles fan from this day forward?
No.
All right, let's stand and go back to the act of worship. Are you absolutely convinced you've accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior?
I have.
Matthew, are you absolutely convinced that He's accepted you as well?
Praise God! I'm so glad you're my brother. I really am, and it's an honor to baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are buried together with Christ through baptism.
Great job! Beautiful, beautiful.
All right, let's go ahead and stand to our feet and continue to worship our God.
Thank you.
Week six of this series called "Something Greater is Here," and we have not been focusing on the Someone who is greater. We're focusing on the things that He did that are greater.
And today, we're going to—last week it was a greater rest—and today, we're actually going to look at greater promises.
And it's hard to imagine when you think about it that greater promises could possibly have been offered than the promises that preceded the coming of Christ because those promises are quite outstanding. In fact, what the Bible will show you today is that it calls the promises of the Old Testament actually obsolete. Like, obsolete, not needed anymore.
You know, and it's a mind-blowing reality. Because when they kind of were introduced by God, they were mind-blowingly unique, never had been heard of before. It's kind of like, you know, floppy disks. How many of you remember, like, if you're under 35, you don't even know what a floppy disk is. You wouldn't even know what to do with it.
I'll tell you what you do. You got to put it in the A drive. You're like, "What's the A drive?" Right. There was an A drive, a C drive, which was your main drive. There was a D drive. Like, computers had multiple drives. And there was this little three-and-a-half-inch thing called a floppy disk.
And what was amazing is you could put, like, information on it. And that information could be carried from computer to computer. Like, you could actually go from one computer to another with it. And now we have the cloud.
You're like, "But when the floppy disk hit, I'm telling you, it was earth-shatteringly profound how much information you could store, how much information you could transfer." Because computers used to honestly be as big as my table, and they weren't portable.
Unbelievable, people. Think about the telephone, right? When it first came on the scene, it had a cord. And people were amazed. You could talk from one room to another, one home to another. And then, you know, wow. I mean, it was like the greatest device ever. But you were always stuck where the handheld device was.
And then you remember that moment. Man, all of a sudden, there was the cordless phone. Now, the cordless phone had an eight-foot antenna on it, but it was still cordless, okay? And this became a breakthrough moment for all teenagers because you could talk to your significant other in really goofy ways in your bedroom without anybody hearing.
You could go into the dining room. You no longer had to literally talk to your boyfriend in the living room where everybody else was. It's just amazing. Now, I mean, you have an iPhone, right? Or any type of handheld communicating device.
What's amazing when you think about iPhone, they have captured the concept maybe better than anybody of building in obsolescence. Have you ever had that moment where you update your iPhone and it no longer works the way it once did? You know that is them doing that intentionally. And they've owned that.
I mean, all of a sudden, you'll update it, and your ringer doesn't ring as loud anymore. You're like, "I didn't do it. I didn't drop it. I didn't go into it." It's them.
Now, all of a sudden, things that used to work no longer work. That was the whole point of the update. Have you noticed how they're capable? And this is just my spouting against Apple for a moment. How they, like, almost every phone has a different cord, and that cord doesn't work with that anymore.
It's like, "I'm going to strangle, you know, Steve Jobs when I get my hand on him." There are companies that build in obsolescence all the time. But you have to remember, when most of those, like refrigeration—think about that.
There was a time when it was salt that kept your meat from becoming putrefied and nasty. Now, like refrigeration, it literally changed Appalachia and Kentucky. When the rest of the United States was not dying from dysentery—and this is not more than 60 years ago—they were still dying from dysentery in eastern Kentucky because they didn't have refrigeration.
They were eating spoiled meat and getting sick and dying. Refrigeration is mind-blowing. Just think about the promises of God, okay? When they hit the scene in Genesis chapter 12, these were extraordinary and unique because every one that God offered Abraham was a self-initiated promise and an unobligated promise.
God was never obligated to anybody about anything, and yet He willingly obligates Himself to man based upon the promises He makes. No performance that He demands. He went to Abraham and offered him five promises, and all Abraham had to do is what we saw last week we have to do. The hardest work you will ever do is believe.
He believed, and it was credited to him as righteousness. But when you think about Israel, most of the promises they were given would take 430-plus years for them to experience, and in that time, knowing the promise and waiting for the promise, and being surrounded by an environment that definitely had the ability to defy—not necessarily deny, but defy—the authority of our God.
The absolute ability of their God to fulfill these promises had to be running through their heads. You can imagine how after—it was just 13 months after 430 years of slavery that they were brought to the edge of the promised land.
I think we need to have a little more understanding and compassion for these people because, yeah, great, great. They saw the miracles of what God had done, but they only had 13 months of experience with God. No wonder they still didn't fully trust that there was a place for them, kind of thing, right?
So you add all the tension of the environment in which you live, with the delay waiting for what God's going to do, you create a lot of tension in the hearts of people who trust this God and His promises, okay?
But when Christ comes, amazingly, we're told—you'll see it—that He offers greater promises. God offered these people a place, okay? He offered them a great name. He promised Abraham, "I'll make you a great nation. I'm going to lead you to a great land. I'm going to give you great blessings, and I'm going to curse anybody greatly who curses you."
Phenomenal promises, and yet the ones we see in the New Testament from Christ and His work are considered greater. So here's the key. How are we like the Israelites?
Well, the truth of the matter is, while we're not enslaved in Egypt, so to speak, the world in which we live metaphorically is considered Egypt in the Bible, that we are, if you will, enslaved by the principles of this world, that we don't have the full and final freedom that God has promised us that we're going to one day have.
You still live in a world where things happen, crises happen that seem to, at times, have the ability to deny the authority and the ability of our God. If you add to that the delay of awaiting the fulfillment of an individual or universal promise, it truly can and does create tension in our faith.
Don't deny the fact that, yes, we do have moments where we have questions for God. We shouldn't have questions about Him, but we do have questions for Him because we're living in the same type of situation.
But I will tell you today what will happen. The same hope that God had for Israel should be experienced by the church, and even in greater measure. And this is the truth: the greater promise of Christ, okay, can embolden, empower, and encourage us because here is the one difference between us and Israel.
So many of those promises have already been fulfilled that God made. Did God, in fact, lead them to a great place? Absolutely. Has God, in fact, allowed them to experience great prosperity? Absolutely. Has God made Abraham's name great? Well, here we are 4,000 years later, and we're still talking about him.
Is that land as great as God said it was going to be? Yes, because here we are 4,000 years later, and nations are still fighting with each other for dominance of that land. That's how great that land is.
Has Israel been blessed? Extraordinarily. Have they been cursed? You bet. Think of the promises that preceded Christ. We have seen Genesis 3:15, right? That the one born of the seed of the woman would come and crush the head of Satan. We've seen that.
We have seen the crucifixion. We have seen the resurrection. We have seen the ascension. We have seen Pentecost. All of those predicted promises of the Old Testament fulfilled.
So the truth is, we do stand in a position where we have far more evidence of the validity of God's promises than Israel did. And here's what we have. The reason the promises can embolden, empower, and encourage is because we have evidence of the past experiences of God fulfilling the promises He makes.
Okay? So today, we're going to look at a couple of different passages. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to list seven of the greater promises that come through and from Christ as in comparison to the previous promises.
So here we go to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians. It's imperative that we're going to lay the foundation. But as surely as God is faithful, it starts right there.
Okay? Because if God isn't faithful, then the promises aren't worth any more than the paper they're written on. The key to this is the trusting of God.
Right? When Abraham finally went to God and said, "I'm having a hard time believing," God called him out of the tent, told him to look up to the stars. And He said, "So shall your offspring be."
Now, there aren't as many children of Abraham as there are stars. But on this day, there's over 2 billion of them. And in the last 4,000 years, there's no telling how many children of Abraham there are.
Because you become a child of Abraham, it says in Romans chapter 4, by expressing the faith of Abraham. And here's the faith of Abraham: he believed God.
It didn't say he believed the promise. See, if you're placing your faith in the promise rather than in the God who makes the promise, the tension's going to be even greater. If you're focusing so much on the promise, then the person who made the promise, who is capable of fulfilling the promise, it does create a lot more tension on you.
You must know the promise in order for it to embolden you. But it all starts with God's faithfulness. The ultimate empowerment of a promise is the faithfulness and the character of the God who makes those.
And He is absolutely going to fulfill it. In fact, what God does every time He's offered man a promise is He willingly obligates Himself to you. He's now obligated to you.
In fact, He's so obligated—this is going to sound crazy—He must fulfill the promise He made or He's not the God He says He is.
So when you and I are in that tension-filled season and the experience of life and the expression of the promise are really not lining up, what should we do? Hold God accountable.
I'm going to show you how to do that. And it sounds crazy. You're like, "Who would do that?" I'm telling you that is the best thing, one of the greatest demonstrations of faith is the ability to go to God and say, "Listen, I didn't make this promise; you did. You said that there is a peace that transcends all understanding, and it will guard my heart and mind as long as I pray with thanksgiving.
Well, I'm very thankful; I'm praying constantly, and there's no peace. I'm doing what I got to do, and you started this, not me. You said it; I didn't ask for it. I didn't say, 'Hey God, if I pray, will you give me peace?' You said, 'If you pray, I will give it to you.' So you know what? You're not holding up your end of the bargain right now."
You're like, "Who would talk like that?" Read the Psalms. The imprecatory psalmists were out there, "Where are you? Who are you?" What do you think Job was doing? "Who do you think you are? If you're half the God you say you are, come on down here; I want a hearing."
Be careful. He got that hearing. And the first thing God said is, "Who is this man to darken my presence with such ignorance? Sit down, and now you listen to me."
Well, did God honor His promise? Of course He did, okay? It's all about the faithfulness of God.
Let's start there, okay? So, as surely as God is faithful, our message, Paul says to the Corinthians, is not yes and no. In other words, God does not shift like shadows. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
It is not yes today and no tomorrow. That's not how God works. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me and Silas and Timothy, He was not yes and no, but in Him it has always been yes.
When it comes to the promises of God, it will always be yes, okay? Because these promises, the nature of them are so mind-blowing. Think about this: they are always initiated by God.
If you were to go from Genesis 12 to 2 Chronicles 36, that is basically the historical period of Israel, okay? 109 times in those chapters, it reflects the promises, right? One time, it's a promise between two people. The 108 other times the word promise is used, it refers to promises God is making, promises God is fulfilling, and promises God's going to eventually fulfill.
108 of the 109 times, okay? You could easily say the primary theme from Abraham to David is promises made, promises kept. It's overarching, and He initiates all 108 of that.
He doesn't go and try and negotiate. God initiates the promises that He makes, okay? These promises most often are unilateral, not bilateral. God offers it, period. He doesn't negotiate. It's not contractual.
He went to Abraham and said, "I will make your name great. You'll be a great nation, right? I will prosper you. I will bless you. I will curse those who curse you, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed by you."
He didn't say, "Now Abraham," that's not what he had to do. He just offers these promises, okay, to His people, and it's always been yes, okay?
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ, okay? So, every promise God has ever made, you find its fulfillment in Christ. They're all yes in Jesus, and so through Him, the amen, which means that is true.
True. That's true. That's true. That's true. Right? That's true. That's true. You can do it ten times, don't I? Right? Amen, amen, amen. That's true. That's true. That's true. It's spoken by us to the glory of God.
Now, it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ, okay? Here's some of the promises. He anointed us, set a seal of ownership on us, put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
So, God has made a down payment. He's put the Holy Spirit in your life all to guarantee. I'm going to go back and see it's always yes.
How can you trust this? How do you? Because God is faithful. Because God is faithful. When God says, "I will meet all your needs according to my glorious riches in Christ Jesus," He means it.
You can now hold Him accountable to that. He's obligated Himself to you and me through the promises that He makes. I know it sounds insane, but it is absolutely the truth.
And He has proven His intention to fulfill everything that He has promised with a guarantee. And that guarantee is the Spirit of the living God.
And we'll see this in just a second, who comes to live in your life. So, let's start with looking at basically the nature of God being a promise maker, self-initiated promise maker.
You can trust the greater promises of Christ when you look at all the other promises that have been fulfilled in Christ. That everything God said to Abraham has come true and is still continuing to come true.
The prophecies that are made, like about the slaughtering of the lamb in Isaiah 53, that's already happened, okay? About Pentecost in Joel chapter 2, that has already happened. About the return of Christ back to heaven, that has already happened.
So many of those promises, they're all yes in Christ. What does that do? That gives you and me the confidence to trust the even greater promises you're about to see.
And to think we should need anything more. But the promises we get through Christ and from Christ are even greater than that.
So here we are in the book of Hebrews. And the writer says, "In fact, the ministry Jesus has received is as superior—this is the priests and the prophets and the kings—as superior to theirs as the covenant of which He is the mediator, that would be the new covenant, is superior to the old one."
So if you were to say the new covenant instituted on the final night of Christ's life is superior to the old covenant, you would be correct. Absolutely, undeniably true. It's right here. It's a superior covenant. It has surpassed the old one.
Since the new covenant is established on what? Better—and on the count of three, you can say it really loud, really, really loud. One, two, three.
Better promises. Like better. Better promise. Like it's in, like you're going to be kidding me. No. Like because the old ones are obsolete. They've been surpassed by something that's far superior.
When the promise hit Abraham and the people of God, they're like, "Wow." But now it's like it's even greater and better and superior promises because it's a superior covenant.
"For I will forgive their wickedness. Here's a great promise. And then I'll remember their sins no more."
We're going to look at that one in a second. By calling this covenant new, He has made the first one—I'm not making this up—obsolete.
I know. And I'll show you the same. But it's like, think about that. Now it doesn't mean it's insignificant. Doesn't mean it doesn't have some role to play. But at the end of the day, it's obsolete.
And what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. I read some articles this week about like handheld calculators. They're going to be a thing of the past. You know, they're just not going to be used anymore because you got one on your phone.
You're not going to buy a calculator. You have a calculator. Some more of these things that are just, they're going to fall off the face of the earth because they're obsolete and they're outdated and they soon disappear.
Just try and conceive in your mind right now, what on earth could be better than a land that God could lead me to? What could be better than a name that God could give me? How do you surpass these things?
And that's what happens in Christ. We live with confidence because the new promises are greater than the previous promises. That is true. You're absolutely right.
So what are they? I've only given you seven, and I'll probably touch on a few more in this list. They're all in your program. This is just seven. There's a lot more than seven, okay?
Number one, and these aren't necessarily in any order until the next page, but unlimited resources. He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us, how will He not also give us all things through Christ Jesus the Lord?
That's a promise. In fact, what's crazy is it's that God gave the most profound portion of the promise up front? And He's like, "Look what I did first. I'm not going to back out now."
He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us, how will He not, how on earth will He not give us all things through Christ Jesus the Lord? He will.
Now, Paul tells us that, and that was Paul as well, in Philippians, "And my God shall meet all your needs." Now, we all know that God won't meet all your wants, but He loves to meet some of them.
But when you and I are in this space where we literally have a legitimate need in life—physical, spiritual, emotional, intimately—and that need is not being met, I would encourage you to stop talking to the person you think that's supposed to meet that need, like your spouse, and start talking to the God who promised that need wasn't supposed to exist in the first place.
Like marriage is an amazingly faith-filled relationship that when you're called into it, you are now God's colleague. You become God's conduit, okay? And God is going to use you. You're like the drinking straw, and your spouse loves Diet Coke.
God has more Diet Coke than your spouse is ever going to need. He pours it into the glass, but it comes into your life through the drinking straw. If you're the husband, you're a drinking straw.
Wives, if you're—there's no Diet Coke in the cup, stop looking at your spouse. He's the drinking straw. That's why you're so frustrated. God is the one who promised to fill your glass with Coke.
God says, "I meet all your needs." Why would we want to settle for a limited human being to step into the position of an unlimited God? Right.
So if your husband isn't meeting or your spouse isn't meeting your need, then the first conversation is with God. Now, I know what's going to happen. He's probably going to hopefully work with your spouse. I get all that.
But you can save yourself a lot of heartache by just going to the God who promised to meet your needs. You can't name one area of your life that you don't have a need that God hasn't already obligated Himself to meet.
He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us. How will He not also give us all things through Christ Jesus the Lord? You talk about an un...
See, the promise that God made to take care of Israel was, "I'll give you manna once a day," right? "I'll get you a little water from the rock. I'll make sure your shoes don't, you know, wear out. Your clothes will still be garments 40 years later." And He did all those things.
If you think, okay, that that compares with God saying, "I will give you all you need," it's just like, it's an insane promise. Exactly.
What about a prepared place? Now, the promised land—it's still, like, I think so many of us long. And the day's going to come, I hope, that we'll organize a trip and we'll go as a church and we'll keep doing it every other year or something.
And if you want to go, we'll figure out a way to get you there, okay? And just to be able to walk where Christ walked and see what Christ saw. And for now, you got to go to Greece and Rome because it's hard, obviously, to tour the promised land.
But you can go where Paul walked and all those beautiful things. But it's just—why is it still in the news? Right? It's such a phenomenal place.
And it's got, I wouldn't say a mystique. It's just because it's God's place that the devil wants it so bad. And nations have been warring for the ownership and the occupancy of that land since God made the promise. They really have been.
But Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God? Trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If that were not so, would I have told you that I'm going there to prepare a place for you?
And if I should go and prepare a place for you, then I will come and take you to be with me that you might be there also."
As intriguing as Israel is, it's not heaven. As intriguing as—see, the promised land is a great place. But even when Abraham first got there, you know what was there? A famine and the Canaanites. It was already occupied.
It was just him and his family. What are you going to do? Well, they decided, led by God, to go to Egypt. What happens when he gets to Egypt? He sees Pharaoh. He's afraid for his own life.
So he decides to take Sarah, his wife, and tell Pharaoh, "This is my sister." To which Pharaoh replied, "I know you're not from Kentucky, bub. You can't marry your sister; that's your wife." He did it.
It's like he gave us—that's why I know heaven's a much better place. When they get to the promised land, what happens when they cross the Jordan River? What's the first thing they find? A fortified city, Jericho.
Their nation is occupied by many foreign nations. They got a battle; they got a struggle. And if it isn't fighting the occupiers, it's then dealing with the temptations, and Israel didn't do a real good job with either one of them.
As great as the land is. "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Do you trust in God? Is He faithful? And trust in me. Because one of the greatest parts of Abraham's promise was the land, a place.
There's a place for you, a place for you. When you feel completely out of sorts, like you don't fit in your family, you don't fit in your workplace, you don't fit in this world. If you're in Christ, He's preparing a place for you.
He's preparing it. Think about Abraham and Israel, and they got there. Not only was it not prepared, it was occupied. That ain't happening to you.
And can this promise—this is where the book of Hebrews says these promises that God provides are an anchor for our soul. Landing in the holy of holies.
So sure, the winds blow, and they move us back to and fro, and back and forth. And sometimes they get you off course, but they're never going to blow you away. Because the promises of God anchor you in heaven.
This might be the one that we maybe neglect the most. Is there a place for me? A place for me. I don't fit here. I don't fit there. I don't fit here. I don't feel like I belong. That's because you don't.
We're told in the New Testament, you're foreigners and strangers; you're exiles. Believe them. We have a perfect person to guide us.
Jesus told them, "Do not leave Jerusalem until you receive the Holy Spirit from on high, whom I am sending. And He will empower you."
Okay? Now you think about Israel. Moses was a pretty good dude. I mean, just like courageous, wonderful murderer, but a good leader. You know what I mean?
40 years of punishment, he came out, and he led them. I mean, think about what he did. He went in, "Whoo, Moses, Moses, Moses, Moses." He ain't the Holy Spirit. He didn't have God. God's God.
And Moses was just with Israel. The Holy Spirit is in each of us. And He's going to guide you. He's going to lead you.
In fact, when He comes, He gives gifts to you. Then He empowers those gifts so that you and I can advance the mission of God on the face of this earth, which is no longer building a nation; it's actually expanding a kingdom.
And you get the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, when your life hurts so much, you don't even know what to say to God. The Bible says in Romans chapter 8 that He groans on your behalf with unintelligible words that only God the Father understands.
Moans and groans because of your agony. Did you know that? When you're left speechless because of the pain of life. He is speaking on your behalf. Incredible.
Unfettered access. With Israel, it was one man, one day per year could go into the Holy of Holies. That's it. One man, one man, one day per year, Holy of Holies.
But if you're in Christ, you can boldly enter the throne room of heaven with confidence and assurance to find grace and mercy in your hour of need. Boldly enter.
Bold. Like, you're so confident in your relationship, you don't cower. You don't go in with your head down like, "Oh, forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Can I have more?"
You're not Oliver. You're not looking for a bowl full of porridge. You're a child of the living God. You have been given the authority. The book of Hebrews is so clear.
And what it says just before this is, "Having been perfected once and for all by one sacrifice." That's why there's no more of a one man, one day, once a year. That system is obsolete.
Like, the access to heaven is for any person on any day, as many times a day, while there are still days, you can go in and access God directly yourself. You need no other human being.
In fact, you're a priest. You don't need a priest; you are one. Peter says we're a part of the priesthood of all believers.
This is so incredible when the promises are delayed. This is when you need that. You just got to go in and say, "Hey, these ain't my promises. You're obligated. I didn't make them; you did."
It's just like, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you." You live with a seek-first mindset.
God now obligates Himself to add unto you the things that the Bible says pagans run after. All these things will be given to you. This is just unbelievable.
And it's as simple as our Father, and you have your own sacred session with God Almighty. What a promise. This is great.
No remembrance of sin. We see it twice in chapter 10. That God willfully forgets what we have an inability to always remember. He just, as soon as he confesses it.
Now, I understand, I do, that this is willful amnesia on God's part. I know it's impossible, if you will. This is more of a—and it's true, but He no longer remembers it as being a debt that still needs to be paid.
"I don't remember that." You don't have to keep confessing the same sin over and over again because you're trying to pay your electric bill 30 times a month.
It's like 110 bucks, and you send him $110 every day of the week, every day of the month, every month of the year. And God's like, "You don't owe me. You don't, there's no bill. Why do you keep sending, you know, these payments in?"
And the reason we need this is this sets us free from shame. When you can't help but remember yourself at your worst moment, you got to realize God has no idea what you're talking about when you keep coming back to Him about it.
"I don't know what you're talking about. You don't owe me anything. All your sin has been paid for."
And even as we continue to live another great promise in 1 John 1:9, "If we confess ongoing confession of our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and once again cleanse us of all unrighteousness."
And 1 John's written to believers. And who among us, who among us doesn't have those moments where you can't help but remember yourself at your worst moment? Where it still has that little, "Oh, I can't, oh, I can't believe I did that."
We all have that. But what pulls you out of that immediately is knowing that God cannot remember what you cannot forget. It's an absolutely beautiful deal.
And because of this, there's no way there can be this—like, therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
"For the law of the Spirit, the Spirit who gives life has set us free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by human flesh, God did by sending His Son in the likeness of man."
And there's like, you are no longer under the law. You're not above it. In fact, now that you've been set free by the law of the Spirit who gives life, the law is no longer a burden. It becomes a boundary.
It's no longer a threat of punishment. It's God's implementation of protection that it's defense of God to keep you close. Because He doesn't want you to run out of the backyard and get hit by a car.
He doesn't want things needlessly coming into your life and harming you. The law is a perimeter. It's a boundary now for you and me. It's God's guardrail to keep you out of the ditch.
And surely hitting God's law through sin is not fun. If it were your car, it will damage it. And it does damage your life. But wherever there's a guardrail, it's an indication that what's on the other side of it is far worse.
You're better off hitting the guard. Now, granted, the law would say, "Stop running into me." But we have to have this comprehension that says, "I'm so glad I hit the guardrail. If it wasn't there, I would have went over the cliff."
The damage and the danger and the devastation would be far greater. God actually stopped me in my tracks. And that's because therefore now there's no condemnation through Christ Jesus the Lord.
"For the law of the Spirit who gives life has set me free from the law of sin and death. And what the law was powerless to do, not why? Because it was weakened by sinful flesh. God did."
And the law, it required payment and perfection. Christ did both of those. God did by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.
Take a breath. There is no way you're going to experience that if you're in Christ Jesus the Lord.
Consequences? Certainly. Condemnation? No possibility. No possibility whatsoever. You know, Israel was never made that promise.
Because the law was still active. The law of the Spirit who gives life had not yet come. It's far superior to the law of sin and death. When did that begin? In the garden? What did God say? "If you sin, you shall die."
You're not under that anymore. You're not above it. You're not beyond it. It's actually a great benefit now.
We will see Him again. You know, the Old Testament never told Israel, "Hey, don't worry. You'll see Moses again." Doesn't say that. "Hang on there; you're going to see David again. Just hang in there. When David comes back, boy, howdy, will things get better?"
Not in there. Not in there. That's like, what? Acts 1:11 is that scene where a group of disciples and followers are with Christ. And He's given them His last words about the Holy Spirit.
And you will be my witnesses. And then He just descends right before them. And it's such a funny scene when you think about it. Because the guys are standing there, and they're just looking up.
And the angel of the Lord finally has to come and say, "Thank you. Why are you just standing there staring up into the sky?" Well, because no one's ever done that before.
I've never seen anything like that before. Listen, I stared at my TV for about 15 minutes last night after Duke lost, and all God's people said, "Amen."
I never saw anything like that before. I was like, "Wow, that was impressive." I was like, "Unbelievable." I'll stop while I'm ahead.
But, and the angel said, "Do not worry. He will come back the same way He left." All throughout Matthew's gospel, the second thing, He's coming again. He's coming again. He's coming again.
He's coming again. He's coming again. He's coming again. He's coming again. Until He comes again, we could constantly be reminded of when He came the first time.
And we eat this meal because we know one day we're going to eat this meal with Him. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the only three that really cover the details of the meal.
John covers other things. Three times, twice in Luke and once in Mark and once in Matthew, we see Jesus say to them, "I shall not partake of this again until I partake of it anew again with you in heaven."
We're not the only ones waiting. He's waiting too. With greater anticipation than even we're capable of. He can't wait to have you at His table.
He can't wait to break bread with you and me and to pass the glass of wine once again. And we will be like the—in many ways, like the two men on the road to Emmaus whose eyes were opened. They're like, "Oh."
What can get you through until you see Him again? Because this is true; this cannot be denied. Because this is true, this cannot be reneged.
Cannot wait. Cannot wait. And He's not going to do it until we're all there. Every single solitary one of us.
If you're serving communion, I'd ask you to go to the tables and get your resources and then go to your station.
At Crossland, we believe a few things about communion. Number one, the name communion is a very beautiful and pure name for it. That's what Paul calls it. He calls it the fellowship meal, which is the word koinonia, from which the word community, the word common comes from.
And it is the common meal, the meal that is common amongst us all. It is the community meal, hence the terminology, communion. We commune together one another and with our one Lord and Savior.
The Lord's Supper, absolutely beautiful, glorious terminology as well. And this meal is for the followers of Christ.
Okay? And in order to come to His table, you must first step into His presence. And you've got to embrace and believe and trust who He is.
It's faith that does the work. The hardest thing you're ever going to do in your life is to believe that Jesus is the Christ.
And the Bible is calling us to believe in our heart that God raised His Son from the dead. And to speak with our mouths that He is in fact Lord, and you will be saved.
And the minute you're saved, it is our deepest honor to serve you. But you've got to make sure that you understand that you cannot come, as Paul is intending to the Corinthians, arrogantly or flippantly.
You must come humbly before God, acknowledging the body and the blood of Christ. And we, we sow, as Paul would say, we would beg you, implore you to consider such things.
And the minute you do, crazy thing. Right now, unsaved, you're obligated to God because the law is still effective in your life.
Amazingly, the minute you believe, God becomes obligated to you. Now, I don't know how I could possibly present it any clearer than that.
And if you want the glorious God in heaven to be obligated to you to fulfill the promises that He has made, you got to accept His Son, Jesus Christ.
The Bible says on the night that they were betrayed, He took the bread. He blessed the bread and then He broke the bread.
And He said, "Take this, all of you, and eat it. For this is my body, which is being given up for you."
The Bible says after they were done, again, He took the cup, again, He gave thanks and said, "Take this, all of you, and drink from it. For this is the cup of my blood, the blood of a new and everlasting covenant is being shed for you and for all men so that sins might be forgiven.
For as often as you eat this bread and you drink this cup, you proclaim my death until I come."
At Crossland, we practice rip and dip. If you have a gluten allergy or you're just not ready yet to pull from a common loaf, we do have fully sealed containers here.
Up in the loge, they'll be in the bowl as well. So you more than willing, just come forward and grab one and participate.
This section, we go from front to back. You'll stand up one row at a time. Come down the center aisle, go to your right, loop around the wall. You guys will do the same thing. Go into your left, just come down front and loop, and you guys will actually go to your right, okay, because it's too tight at the wall, and you'll loop around, okay?
And you guys up there, you'll just be served, all right? We'll pass the bowl by you. Let's go ahead and celebrate communion together.
And we don't need anything else but the blood. It is all that is needed. It is all that is required.
And yet, you promise to substantially bless us through promises that you make. You obligate yourself to man. Mind-blowing.
We're supposed to be obligated to you. We love you, Jesus; we can't wait to see you. Until then, we'll never stop believing in you.
It's in your name we pray. And all of God's people said, "Amen."
All right, may God richly bless each and every one of you. And remember, please, the backwaters are still coming. Do not think the creeks aren't going to rise because it stopped raining.
Be very, very careful. You are dismissed.
on Apr 06, 2025
