Welcome, everyone! We're so glad that you're here with us today. Welcome, welcome! We love you guys. Glad you're connected there, everyone connecting with us online. We're so happy to have that connection with you. Thank you for joining us online today.
If you're at our Antioch campus today, so the rest of you know that it's a little warm in here, and the reason is one of our AC units is not working well today. It's going to be a really warm day, so I see a lot of people already fanning. Don't worry, I'm not cutting it short. I don't care if you're warm; sorry, I'm not cutting it short.
Week one of our members, I won't call her name, but Rhonda Jennings asked me if I'd heard a joke about Moses. She said, "Who was the most insane person in the Bible?" She said it was Moses; he was a real basket case. I thought of another line that went really well with it. I thought I had never heard it before; it just came to my mind. You know how I think? You know he was a real basket case when they found him; he was still in denial. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Let's thank Bob Stevenson on the drums today. Yeah, appreciate it! Goodness, I'll be here all day.
So, we are so happy to be continuing our message series that we're doing through the book of Exodus. If you got your Bibles with you, go ahead and be turning to Exodus chapter 2. We're several weeks into the series; we're just now getting to chapter 2. It's going to take us about six months to get through the whole thing—really about six months to get through the whole thing, six and a half counting the ones we've already done.
So, we're going to take some time and really go in-depth and look at it verse by verse as we go along. What we've said for the last three or four weeks is that God has a plan, right? It's a good plan. We need to know that about God; we need to grasp that and hold on to that. We're going to need that reminder over and over again when we face the hard challenges that we face in this world.
The second thing we see that we need to hold on to is this: God's plan rarely looks like we think it's going to look. It rarely happens the way we think it's going to happen and the timing we think it's going to happen. We think we've got an idea in our mind of what we think it ought to look like, and very rarely does it play out the way we think it ought to.
But we remember when we don't understand things, when we're lost in the moment and don't realize what's happening, we don't see the big picture. We've got to hold on to this: God is good; he's got a good plan. His plan is for his glory, and it's for our good. We've got to hold on to that even when we don't understand what's happening, why it's happening, or how things are ever going to work out the way we think they ought to work out.
And I don't pretend to be able to understand all of God's plan. I mean, there are a lot of times I can look back, right, and see God's plan was at work. I could see how he connected the dots, but in the middle of it, I've got to tell you, there are many, many times I just don't understand what's going on the way it's working.
But here's the good news: I don't have to know all of that. I don't have to understand all of that. My wife often says, "I don't know how; I just know him," right? Isn't that the most important thing? When you know God and you know his character, you don't have to know all the other details of how everything's going to work. You can just learn to rest in your faith, your trust, in a God who loves you, who has a good plan that he's working, even when we don't see it or understand it.
God is at work in the mess that we're in the middle of. He's at work in the mess that our loved one is going through right now. He's at work in the mess in our community, in our culture right now. He's still at work, even in the mess.
So, we've got to cling to that reality. Like Pharaoh's decrees that we've been looking at in Exodus, especially looked at the introduction of that last week, we need to understand that even Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the world at that time, issued these decrees, and God was still in control. Even while he was issuing these decrees, even while he was trying to execute his plan, God was still the one working out his good plan for his people.
So, I want us to be built up and rooted in what we've been learning about the nature of God's plan and the character of God as it relates to the affairs of men.
I had someone ask this again recently, and it's a legitimate question: What do pastors do during the week? Have you ever thought about it? What do pastors do during the week? I mean, you know what I do now, right? You know what I do here on Sundays, but what do pastors do during the week?
And I've got to tell you, besides playing golf and resting—don't even play golf! I don't even play golf. The pastor's main role, of course, is to care for the members, to prepare and equip, to teach and lead and direct and guide the affairs of the church. But we also, during the week, oftentimes enter into impossible situations with the people that are part of our congregations.
It's not unusual for me or other pastors to sit across from people who are struggling and say to them emotionally, to sit across from moms and dads whose children seem bent on destruction, to sit across from people that are facing a diagnosis of illness that they didn't expect, to sit across from people whose finances are a wreck and they don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. They don't know how they're going to pay their bills or how they'll ever recover from this.
We often talk about this, and sometimes we'll be sitting across from people who lead our groups here at the church and who are struggling with something that's going on with one of their group members and trying to help them and answer them in the best way possible. It's a tough thing sometimes.
We're at hospitals a lot. I was again this week. We're at funeral homes a lot with families that have lost loved ones; they're dealing with grief. It's not uncommon for us to feel that way about our lives. It's not uncommon for us to sit across the table or room with people who are facing what looks like, at the moment, dark, seemingly impossible things to get through in their lives.
And I count it a privilege to get a front-row seat for lives in a fallen world that are leaning into Jesus during those times and then watching him work in the impossible situations of our lives. What an honor to see God connecting the dots, to see God providing what only God can provide, to see God healing what only God can heal, to see God restoring what only God can restore.
God's got a good plan; it's for his glory, but it's also for our good, even in the messes, even in the dark times, even in the struggles that we have to go through.
And I say that today because I want to show you what I think today is an unbelievably impossible situation, but God is at work in the situation.
So let's look at this, Exodus chapter 2, beginning with verse 1. Open it up in your Bibles, pull it up on your smartphone or tablet; we'll put it up on the screens as well.
Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him, coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby; he was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said.
Then her sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?" "Yes, go," she answered. So the girl went and got the baby's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me; I will pay you." So the woman took the baby and nursed him.
When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, "I drew him out of the water." That's what the Hebrew name Moses means—to be drawn out of the water.
When we see this text, sometimes we don't fully grasp, and we touched on it a little bit last week. There are a lot of directions to go with these passages today, and I covered some of them last week, and I want to go a little further with that this week. There's so much here to unpack that we can just read through again these first ten verses and maybe not catch all the significance of the seemingly impossible odds against this child that are at play.
I mean, just threats beyond anything we could even imagine are facing this child. Remember that there were these two midwives that had been given instructions by Pharaoh that when a Hebrew baby was born, if it was a boy, they were going to kill it, and they didn't follow through with it. Remember what heroes they were? But then Pharaoh was not content to leave it at that.
In his mind, these Hebrew male children being born were such a threat to him that he had to go further, and he issued a decree that is one of the darkest moments in history. He called on all of his people, everybody, that if they saw a Hebrew boy baby, they were supposed to take that baby and throw it into the Nile River to die.
You see, he wasn't just recruiting some Gestapo force to go out and do this; he had convinced the people that this edict was good, was right, and that they should participate in extinguishing all the male babies born to the Hebrew women.
So, one of the first things working against Moses that makes the odds seem impossible for him to have any life at all was the king's edict that he had issued. It set his face against Moses' little life at three months old. This is the edict from the king; he gave this order, remember back in Exodus 1 and verse 22, to all his people: "Every Hebrew boy that is born, you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live."
Now, because we live in America and we are in a democracy—a democratic republic—some people don't understand that, but that's the organization of our government. It's a democratic republic, which means that the founding fathers set up three branches of government, and the reason there are three branches of government is so that there would be checks and balances for anything that was passed and that the people had to abide by.
Now, it doesn't always work well; it's sometimes a mess, but it's there for some protection against something like what this Pharaoh just did. See, we don't understand what it would be like for some evil dictator to be able to issue a decree, and it's law all at once as soon as he says it, without any checks and balances, without having to run through any filters, without having to get any approval.
He could just say it, and it was law. That's the way they operated in Egypt; that's the authority and the rule of the Pharaoh. So we understand we don't know quite what it would be like.
On top of that, the Egyptians would have seen Pharaoh as divine, as a god—maybe not the God; they believed in many gods—but in their view, Pharaoh was like a god speaking to them. Now, Pharaoh had—the Pharaohs before this one even had developed that idea with the people. They wanted to be revered; they wanted to be worshipped; they wanted to be looked up to like they were gods.
And so the Egyptians would hear this edict, and not only is it automatically law just because it came from Pharaoh, but they would see it as a god telling them to do this. And this god had convinced them that the Hebrew male children not only needed to be killed, executed, but that it was a good thing to do this—to kill these babies.
Just like throughout history, like we talked about last week, that's the tactic that's been used to make it seem like a good thing to do something really, really awful.
Now, not everybody bought into it. We already saw that last week. There were some people—these five women especially—we talked about last week. If you missed it, you can go back and catch it on our YouTube channel. But there were five women who didn't buy into it and play along with it.
And what I love about this is that even though he had swayed the overall conscience of the nation, God used the people he thought were the least threat to him to overthrow him. And this edict that he gave, God used these women and their positions to overthrow the edict of Pharaoh to the point that God was able to even rise up above the Pharaoh's edict to accomplish his very good plan for our good and for his glory.
So the first threat Moses was facing was the king's edict, and secondly, if the king had pronounced this law into existence, then there's no reason this male child born should have been spared except that maybe God, right? The God—the real God who has the real power—is greater than the power of this false god, Pharaoh, and could work against his edict for his purposes.
And so his mother was convinced this child should live, and she tried her best to hide him for three months. Can you imagine how hard it was? Because not only is the king's edict working against Moses, but the king's subjects were working against Moses too, right? Since they believed that this was the law now, since they believed it was coming from a God who gave the law, then they were more inclined to try to do this very thing that Pharaoh had told them to do.
So what Moses' mother has to do when this baby is born is hide the baby as best she can. Can you imagine the joy of this birth? You've got this new baby boy, and you can't even enjoy having this new baby out of fear that somebody is going to discover this baby.
Now, at first, newborns, generally speaking, some of them can be pretty quiet, and within the first three months, you can be sure they haven't stayed quiet for three months. I mean, you can know that with absolute certainty. And now Moses' mother has God's word to that, so she's getting to take care of her baby and nurse her own baby for the first three months.
She realizes as she gets to the end of the three months it's getting too dangerous; the baby is getting too loud. There's no way to keep hiding this baby now. I've got to have some other way to protect this child's life because if any of the Egyptian people discovered this baby, even if they didn't throw it into the Nile, if they just told people about it, what could happen?
Somebody else who was afraid to disobey Pharaoh would make sure this baby was killed. Can you imagine trying to hide this baby for three months like that? As I was preparing for this message over the last several weeks, I was able to find a diary of Anne Frank. Many of you may be familiar with that. She was a German Jew whose family hid from the Nazis during the Holocaust.
She ended up being found, and she was put into a concentration camp, and she ended up dying there in the concentration camp. Her dad was the only member of the family that actually lived through the Holocaust. But while they were hiding—and we're all thankful for this—in great detail, talking about what was going on as they were trying to hide from the Nazis, because she wrote, you couldn't ever be found.
You got real nervous if someone sneezed. If you sneezed and someone heard it, that means you could be rounded up and sent off to a concentration camp and killed, or you could just be shot on the spot. Her diary was filled with a kind of stress and fear of her family.
We have to read this and think this is a very similar situation to what was happening in Moses' house with his mom and his family. They had to be careful that no one found out about this child. How stressful would that be? I mean, some of you even think, you know, you bring a baby into the service, and you think, "Oh, I got to keep the baby just perfectly quiet," right?
Call me out; I'm not going to call you out. I'm glad you're here, and I'm glad the baby's here. You know, we do have a good nursery, but not everybody's comfortable right away taking their baby to the nursery, and I understand that. You know how you can tell a dead church? There are no babies around. We got lots of babies at Lakeshore—lots of young children, and I love that.
Well, here's the thing: Moses' mom is desperate. She says if this baby is found, it will be the end of his life. So Moses has Pharaoh's edict working against him; he has Pharaoh's subjects working against him who would carry out this edict on his behalf. But there's another threat that he faces that a lot of people don't realize, and that's the Nile River itself.
Look at Exodus 2, verse 3 again. It says, "When she could hide him no longer," all right, he's three months now; he's getting too loud and active. She took the child from Ephraim, coated it with tar and pitch—that's to keep it waterproof and make it float—then she placed the child in it and put him among the reeds along the banks of the Nile.
Now, for those of you that may not be familiar with the Nile River, a lot of you probably are. This is not some small stream we're talking about; this is a large, powerful, mighty river. The Nile River doesn't disappear during the dry periods; it keeps flowing strong all year long, year after year.
So let's talk about the Nile. It's the second longest river in the world; it's 4,258 miles in length. The mouth of the Nile River is the Mediterranean Sea. The output of the Nile River—it's called the discharge of the river—is 99,940 cubic feet per second. That's how strong the water flow is. That's equivalent to 6.2 million pounds of water; that's equivalent to 4.2 million pounds of water per second in motion in that river.
You imagine how hard it was for mom to put that basket in that river and trust that somehow this baby's going to be okay, somehow it's all going to turn out fine. And we just read that, "Oh, she placed it among the reeds." Friends, let me tell you something: a river that strong, the current just ebbs and flows and swirls and places, it would be so easy for that to get dislodged and washed down the river in a moment, in a second, and you wouldn't be able to catch it.
Can you imagine how hard it was for Moses' mom and sister to place that basket there among those reeds and then just have to watch and pray that everything was going to be okay with this baby? And he's three months old. Some of you may have a three-month-old right now. Think about this: how could he defend himself? How could he protect himself? Even if he were found, what could he do? Fight Pharaoh and his army? He's three months old; he's a baby. He couldn't swim if he was dumped into the water; he didn't know how. He had never been in the water like that; he couldn't survive that.
It seems like a totally helpless situation. All the odds are stacked against this baby surviving any scenario here, but it's the only thing the mother could think to do. She was so desperate that maybe somehow this baby would be saved, would be spared; somebody would take pity, somebody would have a heart for this child that found this baby.
And what we see in this space is the sovereign hand of God at work. We see in this space God's reign and rule over every aspect of creation. Pharaoh was blinded and hardened that this savior of the Hebrews is going to end up being brought into his own house. That's how blinded he is with his own plan, not realizing that the Hebrew God has a better plan, a bigger plan, a more powerful plan than his.
We see that the people are unable to see and find Moses, and we see that the Nile River doesn't sweep Moses away, but quietly he's tucked into those reeds. And it's just so lucky, isn't it, that that day who comes to bathe there? Pharaoh's daughter!
See, he didn't think of his own daughter as any threat. Pharaoh wouldn't think of her as a threat, and she goes down to this river to bathe at this spot. Now, we don't have all the details; maybe Moses' mother knew that was a regular place that she came and was praying that something good would happen there. We don't know all of those details, but we know how risky this is that even if it was Pharaoh's daughter that found him, that she would have a heart for this baby, right?
She couldn't guarantee that; she didn't know that's the reaction that she was going to get, even if it was that lady that found this baby. So the sister's there watching, and she comes to bathe there; she finds that baby in that basket tucked into the reeds, and the Bible says that her heart went out to this child.
Even Pharaoh's own daughter could not swallow this edict when she saw this baby. She could not accept this evil dark plot that her father had come up with. I'm convinced that God put something in our hearts and our minds that if we look deep into it, even with all the evil around us, there's something he put in there.
We are created in his image; we are created in the image of the God who creates life and sustains life, who cherishes life. I think Moses' daughter had that in her heart, and she sees this baby, and she just cannot bring herself to think it would be okay to kill a baby like this, that somehow that would be a good thing to kill a baby.
You see, with all these things against Moses, even this river, God is working even through the daughter of the Pharaoh who issued the decree to protect and bless this baby for the purposes of his good plan for his glory and for our good.
I want to remind you what we see repeated so far in Exodus is that God has a plan, and it's a good plan, and he's working that plan even when we don't see it or understand it or know it. I'm sure Moses' mother is questioning, "Could this be part of God's plan? This edict is out there, and I've got this male son, this baby who's three months old. Could it possibly be God's plan that this baby would not be allowed to live? How could that be in God's plan? And how could it be in God's plan that I have to take this baby and put it in a basket and put it in a river where he could wash away and die, or if he's found, he could still be killed? How is God at work in all of that?"
But then Pharaoh's daughter finds the baby, gets her servant to bring the baby to her, sees the baby; she so much has her heart go out to this baby that she wants to be sure this baby is cared for.
And so she—I love the irony of this, right?—Moses' sister goes up to her right away when she sees her with the baby and says, "Would you like for me to get one of the Hebrew women to nurse this baby for you?" Pharaoh's daughter is in no position to nurse the baby, right? She can't do that. This is something a Hebrew woman could do, right? That was able to nurse a baby.
So the sister gets to pick what woman out of all the Hebrew women. Moses' own real mother gets to nurse her baby for the first three months of his life, and then she takes the baby to Pharaoh's household, to Pharaoh's daughter. And you know what happens? She adopts Moses as her own child, to be raised upright there in the palace of the guy who's trying to eliminate the Hebrew people.
This Hebrew baby is raised up with the best of care, with the best of education, with the best of provisions in the world at that time. Do you think God's got a good plan, a better plan than any of us can come up with? A plan that even can work and accomplish what he wants to accomplish?
Does God seem totally against us in every way? Absolutely! Moses had everything against him. He had the king's edict; he had the king's subjects; he had the Nile River. And God used all of those things that seemed to be a threat to put Moses exactly where he wanted Moses to be.
Now think about this: God's got a good plan. Moses is raised up in Egypt. Who is the best equipped person then to bring back before Pharaoh to get the people released from Egypt? Someone who knows the culture, someone who knows Pharaoh, someone who knows how Pharaoh works and what Pharaoh thinks. He knows everything about Egypt when he goes there on behalf of his people.
He was being prepared the whole time for the role God had in store for him to deliver the people from bondage there in Egypt. Now, Moses didn't realize it in the middle of that; Moses' mother didn't realize that; nobody saw it at the time, just like we often don't see God at work when we're going through junk, when we're going through struggles, when we're going through challenges.
We lose sight of the fact, "Oh, well, God's still there; he's still working; he's still the powerful God he's always been." He could even take, like we said last week in Romans 8, and work all things together for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.
And God's plan—and God used the worst of circumstances to accomplish that purpose. You've got a purpose in God's plan too, and God can take the best and the worst and everything in between—circumstances in your life—and use them for his good purpose, for his glory and for your good.
Don't ever doubt God's presence and power and provision no matter what's happening in your life right now.
There's one more thing working against Moses, and it's a common thing to everybody. It's something we all have working against us too, and that is the wages of sin itself.
See, we find ourselves today in a very impossible situation that we cannot get ourselves out of. It's impossible for us to take care of this in the same way Moses had no shot against Pharaoh and no shot against his people and no shot against the Nile River. In the same way that Moses had no way to fix this himself, we have a dilemma.
We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God, and we've got no way to defend ourselves or make everything right with God. You see, what happened with Moses and him being drawn out of the Nile River, it was all something that was pointing to something we're dealing with ourselves. It was foreshadowing God delivering us, drawing us out of darkness into his marvelous light through the plan he's been working throughout history, bringing the one who would crush the head of the serpent so that sin and death could be conquered for us.
God's got a good plan; he's always at work in this plan, bringing about the accomplishment of his plan to deliver us, to draw us out and draw us back into his care and his provision for us.
You and I find ourselves trapped, stuck in an impossible situation. It says in Romans 6:23, "The wages of sin is what? Death. But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
God's plan to crush the head of the serpent—the serpent was the embodiment of evil—and this Pharaoh is allowing himself to be used by the serpent, by Satan, by the evil forces at work in this world. And God still has his good plan at work even when it looks like evil is winning, even when it looks like evil is overcoming, even when it looks like we don't have a chance and the odds are stacked too great against us.
The embodiment of evil and brokenness is pictured in this rescue of this baby who had no way to rescue himself. It was a foreshadowing and a picture of every one of us. We're all that baby. We're all in a position where we cannot rescue ourselves. We are in danger of eternal destruction.
We are in danger of eternal destruction because of our sin. Because what really has you and me in an impossible situation, what really has you and me in an impossible situation is sin and the consequences of sin, which is death.
And I want to talk sin for a minute. It's warming up in here. I want you to get a picture of this. You think, "Oh good, I got to come when pastor was talking about sin and death." Yay!
Sin is often defined as missing the mark, and that is a good definition, but it's hard to understand what that's talking about. What does it mean to miss the mark? The mark is the perfection and holiness of God himself, right? He's a holy God; there is no sin in him at all. So sin and God cannot dwell together, cannot be in his presence.
Remember then it says all of us have sinned. So what does that do with our relationship with God? It separates us. We cannot dwell in his presence. Sin is rebellion—personal rebellion against God. It's when we make a personal choice to disobey God, to go against God's teaching, God's direction, God's will for our lives.
We willfully choose to think we're smarter than God; we know better than God; we've got a better plan than God; we're going to do it our way anyway. That sin, that's rebellion, and that cuts off our relationship with God. It separates us from the author of life, the giver of life, the sustainer of life. We can't have the life God wants us to have with sin in our lives.
And guess what? We can't eliminate sin. Once we've sinned, we've rebelled; we've got no way to fix it. And every one of us has done this. Every one of us at some point thought we knew better. Every one of us at some point, maybe even already today, thought, "Well, I know God's word says to do it this way, but I'm going to do it this way instead."
I just think the way the culture is doing it now, the way the world's doing it now seems to be working better, so I'm going to do it that way even though I know God's word says this. That's rebellion; that's sin, and that causes us to miss the mark of the holiness of God.
When we commit sin, God didn't make it complex. We're going to read later on in our study in our series about the giving of the law, right, where God gave the law to his people. Now, why did he give us the law? It's not because he thought we could keep it all perfectly; he knew we would not be able to do that.
So why does he give us the law? To teach us that we couldn't keep it all perfectly, to teach us our need for a savior, to teach us how flawed we are and how much we need the covering of the blood of Jesus so that we don't try to just keep working at getting better and thinking we can finally reach that goal.
We can't! Think about it for a moment. The Ten Commandments aren't complex; they're simple. They're easy to understand. Don't lie; you understand that. Don't steal; you understand what that means. Yeah, all this stuff is easy, right?
Don't love things more than you love God—pretty easy to understand. Don't hate it when good things happen to people you don't like. Don't rejoice when bad things happen to people you don't like, right? Let's keep going. Obey your parents; don't have a heart full of lust; don't have a heart full of anger.
These are not complex ethics, people. They're very simple, clear, easy to understand things, and even then, not a one of us can keep them all perfectly. Not a one of us! You see, even one of us' disobedience is sin, and the wages of sin is death.
You see, it's an impossible situation for us to have life, to not suffer the consequences of the wages of sin. There's no way for us to get out of this ourselves. And then comes John 3:16 and 17: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that anyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but to save the world through him."
To crush the head of the serpent, to reverse the curse, to eliminate it, to bring the healing and restoration of the relationship between us and the God who gives life so that we are reunited with him, covered by the blood of Jesus, and the blood of Jesus to have life eternal.
And let me tell you something: eternal life doesn't start when you get to heaven; it starts when you say yes to Jesus, to his plan, to his offer, to his provision for you to have eternal life. But when you realize you can't do this yourself, you can't fix this yourself, you're willing to surrender yourself to the plan God has for your salvation. That's when you inherit, as a gift of God, life eternal from him.
Now, how do you say yes to God? That's important, isn't it? How do we do that? Well, let's look in the New Testament in Acts chapter 2. You remember Jesus came to fulfill the Genesis 3 promise that God made, that he was going to send someone born of a woman who would crush the head of the serpent. You remember that promise? It's the first messianic promise in the Bible.
Jesus comes, and he teaches like no one else ever taught, and he conquers death itself through his death, burial, and resurrection. He shows that he has power over sin and death, that he was tempted like we are yet without sin, and because of that, death had no hold on him, and he would raise on the third day and show us that it's through him that we can conquer the consequences of sin in our lives.
So how do we accept, receive, enjoy the promise? Well, in Acts chapter 2 and verse 36, Peter's preaching the first gospel sermon ever preached after Jesus has conquered death. He's ascended back to the Father, and he sent them his Spirit to empower them like he promised he was going to do.
To indicate that he was going to do something that he was going to do and to empower them to do the work he called them to do. And then in verse 36, as Peter finishes up that message, he says, "Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah."
So this Jesus has shown through the evidence of the miracles and the wonders and the signs, and especially the resurrection, he's shown himself to be the one who will be the one who will be the one who will be the one who will be the one with all authority and with all power and with a willingness to save us whatever it costs him to do it.
When the people heard this in verse 37, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Have you ever seen maybe in a cartoon commercial where somebody gets an idea and understanding of something, and all of a sudden it's like, "Right!" It's like, or maybe a light comes on over their head and a bubble over their head, you know, boom, a big light comes on like we get it!
We finally get it! We thought Jesus was not the one when we saw how he was arrested and we saw how he was killed on the cross, but now we know he was risen from the dead. Now we can see; we remember the evidences he gave us that God gave us through him, and we now believe what you're saying about Jesus, that this is the way to live.
And to live and to live and to live and to live and to live and to live is the one that God said in Genesis 3 was going to crush the head of the serpent. Then they understood he's the hope; he's the one; he's the only one that can do this for us. They were crushed; they were cut to the heart; they were convicted of their sin. They understood they couldn't fix this, but hope rose up in their hearts and minds: Jesus can fix this for us!
He's the one that is the promise of God; he's the one that crushes the head of the serpent who's conquered sin and death on our behalf. So they said, "Brothers, what shall we do?" I've talked about this before, but highlight that passage, would you, in your Bibles? Underline it, put a highlighter on there or something. Make sure you remember this question: "Brothers, what shall we do?"
That question is the most important question anyone could ever ask because it comes on the heels of understanding who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. And now they believe what Peter has just told them about Jesus, and because of that, they're convicted of their sin. And because they're convicted of their sin, they realize they can't fix this.
So how is this going to get fixed? And that's what they're asking Peter: "What in the world can we do? What in the world can we do to make things right with God in the face of our sin?" And Peter told them what to do.
Verse 38: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." He told that crowd there that day, "Here's what you need to do." It starts with repenting.
So many churches today, pastors today, Christians today would never say that first. You know what they would say first? "Just believe! Just let Jesus in your heart!" That's what they would say. That's the message that's being presented today as the way to make things right with God.
Now, did these people believe the message already? Of course they did! They wouldn't have asked what they needed to do. You see, they already believe. Now they're being told, "Since you believe, here's what you need to do with your faith, with your belief."
It's so important to repent. You're going to have this light of prayer and hope and to turn from your sin. That means to turn from your sin. The church needs to send out a clear message. Pastors need to start sending out a much clearer message that if this broken relationship with God is going to be healed and restored, repentance has to be an essential part of what we're doing here.
There has to be a willingness to turn from our sin. It doesn't mean we're ever going to be perfect; it doesn't mean we're going to start doing good works to earn ourselves again. No, that's not what repentance is. It's a sorrow for our sins that leads us to turn from that way of life and turn to the life God's calling us to.
The very word "repent" at its root means to turn around and go a different direction. You can't willfully choose to go on the same direction you've been going and have this broken relationship healed with the Father because the Hebrew writer tells us that our willingness to willfully go on sinning is like taking the blood of the covenant and trampling it under our feet. That's how serious this is.
We have to be willing to repent from sin. So when people ask me as a pastor, "What do I need to do to be saved?" Friends, for me to leave out repentance would be one of the worst, most cruel things I could ever do to that person because the Bible says apart from repentance, there is no forgiveness. It does not—it's not available apart from repentance.
If we want forgiveness of sins, it's connected to our willingness to repent, to turn from our sins. That doesn't earn our forgiveness; what Jesus did is what pays for it. But in order to receive it, we've got to turn from our sin.
So he says, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ." That baptism is that act of obedience in faith that shows that we do believe and we are repenting, and that's why we're doing this baptism thing, right? We wouldn't—baptism is of no value without believing and repenting. It has no value at all without those elements connected to it.
But if we believe and we're willing to turn from sin, he says to be buried with Christ in baptism. The Bible says in Romans 6 that when we do that, it is literally a picture of being buried with Christ and being raised up with Christ to a brand new life. It's like putting the old person to death and rising up to be the new person.
How do we become the new person? We're no longer living for sin; we're turning from that; we're going to live for Christ now. We're becoming a new person in Christ. He says, "Repent and be baptized." How many of them needed to do that? Is this just for certain people that need to do that? No! Look at what he says: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you."
You need to do this for the forgiveness of your sins, and he says every one of you need to do it in the name of Jesus Christ. You know what "in the name of" means in the original language? It means "by the authority of." This is not a plan that man came up with; whose plan is this? It's God's plan. Good! It's a good plan! Is God's plan for his glory? Is it for our good? Yeah! This is God's plan!
We need to quit trying to do it man's way and come up with man's plans. We can't get any better plan than a plan God's already got. Let's just follow God's plan.
So he says, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ." That means by his authority for the forgiveness of your sins, and he says when you do that, you're going to receive the gift—a gift from God—and that gift is the Holy Spirit himself.
God gives you his Spirit when you respond this way to his call on your life. Remember, that's the same Spirit he says later on that raised Jesus from the dead; it's now in you when you follow this plan. You think you might need the Spirit of God to live the life God's called you to? Yeah! You don't need to walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh anymore.
So he gives you his Spirit so you can walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh anymore. And I love the next part too, where he says, "The promise is for you," the crowd that was there, "and for your children," those generations coming behind them, "and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call."
For all whom the Lord our God will call! God's got a good plan; you're included in this plan. But in order for you to have the benefits and the blessings and the provision of this plan, you must respond to his call on your life.
Maybe there are those today that are hearing the call of God, feeling the leading and the prompting of the Spirit to take that step of coming under the plan of God for your life.
Now, wherever you're at right now, there are steps to take. If you already believe, then the next one is what? Repent, be baptized. If you don't have it, come to that place of faith, and it starts there. Decide the day that you do believe in Jesus; you do understand who he is; you do accept what he's done for you on the cross.
Then you take the step in faith of repenting, professing that faith, and being baptized into Christ. Wherever you are in that process, we've got the baptismal waters ready; we've got robes ready; we've got everything ready. You could take that step today.
It may be that you've already taken that step, but you know in your heart and your mind that even though you were supposed to repent, you've gone back. You've turned back again to sin in your life, willfully choosing sinful things that God has said for you to stay away from and to do other things instead.
Now, we all will fall from time to time, but every time we go back into sin, the message is still the same in Scripture. It's the repeated command in all of the Bible: by far, repent! Turn from that sin again that you may find forgiveness and refreshing from the Lord. You can take that step even today too.
Maybe you need a church home to connect with and be a part of as you live this out in your life. We invite you to make Lakeshore that church home.
Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that even today we see that you've got a good plan; it's still at work. And even though Moses couldn't see it yet, he was part of that plan that would lead to Jesus, who would be the one who would crush the head of the serpent, who would be the one who would fulfill your promise in Genesis 3 to bring us our salvation, even in the face of our sin.
Father, I pray for those who might need to take steps today of obedience in response to your call on their lives. May they have the courage, the willingness to be bold in their profession of their faith in Jesus and their obedience to your command. Just in Jesus' name that we pray, amen.
Let's stand and sing together. If you have a decision you need to make, just come right up front while we're singing.
Stay, you are God, and you are good.
A seat, please, for just a moment here. I'm going to ask Canny to come up first. She's got a good—I'll let you sit down for her. She's got a praise item to share. She had asked for prayer for her son and his girlfriend who had gotten laid off from their jobs, that God would provide what they needed and provide the next jobs for them. And they both got jobs, right?
That's great! Yeah, we just always want to praise God when prayer is answered for that. So thank you for sharing that; that's amazing.
Thank you, Jeremy. Come on up, and Davina, they come up asking for prayers. It's your brother, right? Yeah, you can come over here; that'd be good. You come over here too, man. There you go.
All right, I'll let you come to the mic. How about that? All right, yeah, come on up to the mic. There you go. Tell us your brother's name.
Davincio. Davincio, he's living a lifestyle outside of God's plan and will for his life, and it's a very dangerous lifestyle. Recently stabbed, is that right? Yes.
Yeah, so he's into some things, right, that are scary and dangerous and not good for his life. And she wants us—they both come to us as their church family, wanting us to join them in praying for her brother that God would reach in and intervene and turn his heart and his mind back to him.
So let's pray together for that right now, okay? Father, we just thank you that we can boldly approach your throne of grace through your Son, Jesus. Father, we pray for this young man that he just seems to be making so many bad decisions and involved in so many of the wrong things, and it's putting him in danger and others in danger as a person.
And we're going to pray for him, and we're going to pray for him, and we're going to pray for him because we're all one in God's plan. Let us pray with him, sure. So we want you to have faith in you that you will play a serious role throughout all of his plans, and you need to be real baking and appreciated for the children that come with you when you join your parents and that your families include you and your kids and where your family is going and everything else that you need your family and everybody else—all available that you need in opinion, your glory for your good and for the good work of your kingdom.
Father, may we see with our own eyes the answer and the turning around of this young man's life. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
God bless you; thank you. You can stay right up here; I'm going to need you in a minute. Stay right there. All right, thank you.
This time, Dr. Head's going to come and lead us at a time.
Christ's name, amen. We do want to thank you again for being here with us today. What a joy it is to have this assembly time together with the people of God. If you'd like to continue worshiping through the giving of offerings, we have our offering box in the back of the auditorium over on this side mounted on a post there, one in the hallways as you exit, mounted on a post there.
You can put your offerings down in the top slot of those boxes. You can also give online at lakeshorechristian.com or scan the QR code on your bulletin covers there; it'll take you to that page as well. And of course, you can mail in your offerings to the church office. Any way you do it, it's an act of worship, and it funds and supports the work and ministry of the church.
So we're so grateful for those who faithfully, consistently give to support you, and we'll see you next week. Bye-bye!
And enable us to do what God has called us to do as a church family, to bless so many people. I love being a pastor at Lakeshore and seeing how God's using you all to bless so many people in so many ways. Thank you for your faithfulness in supporting that.
At this time, Jeremy's going to come and share a few more announcements with you as we prepare for the weeks coming up. In your bulletins, you can follow along there with those announcements. Take that with you to help you remember those things that are coming up. Thank you.
on Apr 29, 2024
