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Muddy Waters
Acts 16:25-30
Here's video
footage of an attempted child abduction last week:
The U.S. Department of Justice reports [from 2002]
797,500
children (younger than 18) were reported missing in a one-year period of
time studied resulting in an average of 2,185 children being reported
missing each day.
203,900
children were the victims of family abductions.
58,200
children were the victims of non-family abductions.
115 children
were the victims of “stereotypical” kidnapping. (These crimes involve
someone the child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who
holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills
the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently.)
Over 10 years ago my wife
had the frightening experience of not knowing where Jacob was. She called
out for him, and looked around, because he liked to hide. But then she saw
it: the front door open and the screen door cracked! She can tell you about
the panic she experienced as she ran out that door, extremely pregnant w/
twins, and began to search the neighborhood for the little guy. What a
relief when she saw him down the street… “hi mommy!”And little brother Aaron is now trying to unlock doors and leave.His new name is 'bolt' because he would like to...and also because of
the keyed deadbolts we've added!
Question: If you had a child that
was lost, and if you had the chance to get a message to that child, telling
them what to do, and how to get home…would you make that message simple or
complicated? (simple! So it is w/ our souls’ salvation)
[read text]
In Acts 16, a man asked,
“What must I do to
be saved?” I’m happy to report that
God has made it
simple. Simple enough for a child to understand!Jesus said…[slide]
Is. 35:8 (speaking of
the King’s highway [to heaven]) the wayfaring men, though fools, shall
not err therein. This means a stranger w/out good sense can find his way
on the gospel road.
Salvation is so simple and plain…that often times
the intellectual giants stumble over it, while little children have no
trouble…but oh, how we adults are guilty of churning the crystal clear
stream of salvation into muddy waters of confusion and doubt!
Ill.—catching crawdads on
Current River in MO w/ dad…I had my net, and would try to snag those boys,
but I would stir up the silt and mud along the bank as I aggressively tried
to “make it happen”…I was making it difficult on myself, and dad told me so,
and I did much better when I let all the silt settle and just looked with
clarity…it was crystal clear!
And salvation is so simple we can only recognize it and “catch it” if we
look thru our childhood eyes God gave to all His children![now I'm ready for some Hillbilly Handfishin'!]
Jesus said in Mt. 11:25
thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them
unto babes.
Our
God does not put a
premium on ignorance…nor a penalty on intelligence. But
He does indeed stress the simplicity of salvation! God wants people to be
saved!
I Pet. 3:9 “God is not willing that any should perish…” God
is not playing keep-away w/ salvation. He wants you to be saved even more
than you do. (He went a million miles to make it happen…only 1 step short!)
I.The Meaning of Salvation
…what must I do to be
saved? First of all, we have a misunderstanding of the term “saved.”
What does it mean to be saved? Gk=
sodzo
- sodzo: means, “to be
delivered.”But,
delivered from what? What was this Philippian jailer wanting to be saved
from? Some say, the earthquake (no, it’s over)Some say, saved from his superiors who would kill him since the
prisoners escaped. (no, the prisoners didn’t get away) He said, what must
I do to be saved…well, saved from what? Delivered from what? We give the
invitation at the end of the message, and invite lost people to be
saved…from what? The Bible says, whosoever shall call upon the name of
the Lord shall be saved…from what?
Let’s allow an angel to answer the
question… When an angel announced the birth of
Christ to Joseph and Mary, he said, thou shalt call his
name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. To be saved is
to be saved from sin!
People don’t like that word, sin, anymore! They
find it offensive. Remember when drunkenness was a sin…now “disease”
Pregnancy out of wedlock/mistake, accident Children rebelling vs.
parents/mal-adjusted (see me after the service and I’ll show you where
the adjuster is located!) shacking up/cohabitation… abortion/freedom of
choice… homosexuality/alternate lifestyle... adultery/affair [so
sophisticated]… gossip/prayer request
Willie Nelson, before IRS
caught him, when still had money, built his own golf course on his own land.
Someone asked him about “par” (explain) They asked what par was on his
course. He said, it’s my golf course, par is what I want it to be. He
pointed at the first hole, “that’s a par 47, yesterday I birdied it”.
That’s how a lot of people approach sin these days, they think they can
just define it for themselves…never mind what God says about it…they “feel”
it’s ok! It’s secular humanism…and no matter what evil happens in this
world, the talking heads are all over the TV saying, these people aren’t
wicked, they’re just sick…they’re not evil, they’re just sick… …yes,
they’re sick alright, they’re sin-sick, and so are we!
The Bible
points out the very root of the problem and calls it what it is: sin! We’re
born w/ a sin nature…we aren’t born w/ a spark of divinity, we’re born w/
seeds of rebellion. That’s the bad news…the good news is: Jesus
Christ came into the world to save us from sin!
Saved from 3 things:
(as it pertains to sin) 1. Penalty of
sin—Rom. 6:23 (quote) The apostle Paul calls it the “body of death”
In ancient Rome, they killed criminals in several gruesome ways:
crucifixion, thrown to wild animals, and another way: when convicted of a
capital crime, many were executed by being attached to a cadaver, a dead
body, usually of someone who died of a loathsome disease…they would tie the
corpse to the back of the criminal, who was required to work, eat, sleep w/
that dead body tied to him…as it decayed and decompose, the disease would
overtake the criminal, who would then die a slow, agonizing, humiliating
death, attached to that cadaver.
The Bible says we all have a body of
death that is tied to us, it’s called “sin.” But praise God, Jesus came to
save us from the penalty of sin.
2. Jesus also
saves us from the pollution
and power of sin. When we get saved, the Lord says, I’ll
not only keep you out of hell (what most people think they’re saved from in
total) but I’ll give you a new nature…I’ll clean you up from the inside
out…I’ll give you power to get victory over bad habits, to learn a better
way to live, how to get rid of the things that don’t belong in your life,
and replace them w/ much better things.
Years ago a man in
England
was in prison, but he was pardoned by the queen…a friend delivered the
message to him saying, “I’ve got great news: you’ve been pardoned! You can
go free!”/his prisoner friend showed no emotion/ “don’t you understand? The
queen has set you free/he unbuttoned his shirt, drew it back, revealed a
large cancerous growth in his chest that was eating away his life/ “ask the
queen what she can do about this?” It’s not enough for us to be saved
from just the penalty of sin, we must also be saved from the pollution and
the power of sin. Not just the sin that would send us to hell, but the
sin that will continue to wreck our life right now. Not just the sweet by
and by, but the nasty now and now.
No wonder the author of “Rock of
Ages” wrote: “be of sin the double cure, save from wrath and make me
pure!”
The Bible says sin shall no longer have dominion over
you…there’s no sin you cannot gain victory over by the power of
Christ…yet some of you continue to be led around by the
nose by Satan himself, and you think you have no control over it…but I’m
here to tell you that Jesus has broken the power of sin in your life, and
you need to claim the victory and say, “enough is enough, I’m claiming the
victory today!”
Penalty/pollution (power)/ and…
3. One of these days, we’ll be saved
from the very
presence
of sin. Rev. 21:27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any
thing that defileth…but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
What must I do to be
saved?…saved from what? Sin!
[penalty/power/presence]
That’s the meaning of salvation…
II.The Man of
Salvation v. 31
Believe on what? No, believe on Who! People claim to believe in God.
Every person in hell will believe in God.That's not how you get saved...by belief IN, but rather by belief ON
someone!
And show me where the Bible
says to ask Jesus into your heart?It's not there.It's a
benefit of getting saved that He comes in, however!
People claim to believe
in the plan of salvation.You
cannot be saved by the plan of salvation…you can only be saved by the MAN of
salvation. (Jesus Christ) Salvation is not in
a plan/prayer…It’s not by works/a feeling/not by trying/not by
baptism/good intentions/keeping 10 commandments It’s not by any plan…it’s by the Man…the Son of Man, the
God-Man…Jesus Christ is the Man!
Jacob:
“You da man, daddy!”
That made me laugh, and it
made me proud, that he would feel that way about me…and it delights the
heart of Jesus Christ when we
realize that He’s the Man of Salvation…Salvation is in Jesus
Christ, alone.
Forsaking All I Trust Him
(faith) Faith is only as good as it’s object…is
Christ the object of your faith? Salvation is in Jesus
Christ, alone.
Meaning/man… III.The Method of Salvation
“Believe”
(v. 31) not in—mentally, intellectually (Js. 2:19) but on—emotionally,
spiritually
ill.—man who wouldn’t fly/when asked about it, said, I
know intellectually it’s ok [stats say it’s safest travel I can do], but
emotionally I can’t handle it/one day realized, I’m a grown man, wasting
lots of time, I’m gonna do it/bought ticket, got on board, buckled himself
in/made his destination/may have been white knuckles all the way, but he
made it!
What was the difference? Before he believed in
airplanes [intellectually…stats]/now
he believed on the airplane.
Millions believe in Jesus
Christ, (head), but will split hell wide open one day
because they’ve never believed on Jesus Christ
(heart), they’ve missed heaven by 18 inches! [tract on rack]
Ill.—Jerome, the early church father who translated the Bible from Greek
into Latin, said one night he had a dream/Jesus came to his house to visit
him/he gathered all his money to give as a gift/Jesus looked at him and
said, I don’t want your money/possessions…/same answer/ “Lord, what do you
want?”/your sin, that’s what I came here to get! Jerome later said, “In
my dream I gave Jesus my sin, and He gave me eternal life.” What an
exchange!But you have to
believe the exchange will go down that way!
Oh the simplicity of
salvation! Jesus said in Lk. 18 and in 2 other gospels: Suffer little
children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the
kingdom of God. 17 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever
shall not receive the kingdom
of God as a little
child shall in no wise enter therein. The children get it…we adults make
such a mess out of it…how we muddy the waters w/ confusion. We try so hard
to make it difficult.
The difficult part was done by Jesus
Christ/hard part/expensive/million miles crossed…only 1
step away, the step of faith of a little child (childlike faith), to come to
Jesus:
5 Facts
“I realize I need
to be saved” “I realize I can be saved” “I ask You to
save me!”
As easy as ABC Admit you are a sinner Believe on Jesus
Christ as your only hope for salvation Call on
Him to save you
