Sermon Title: Bake a cake.
Scripture Text: Jeremiah 31:31-34
Example:
Real love is what we experience when two or more people come together with open hearts already filled with love, and the love from their hearts overflows as it is openly and joyously shared. If you come to a relationship with a feeling of emptiness and unworthiness, you cannot experience real love. Real love is not the cake - it is the icing on the cake.
-It takes a while to learn to bake a cake. We have to work at it. Learning more about baking a cake every time.
? Its not just learning to bake:
-Its that icing on the cake that God wants our relationship with him to be like.
Now hear the reading of God’s Word:
Jeremiah 31:31-34 NLT
31 “The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. 32 This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord.
33 “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”
This text has been discussed and looked at in not a few ways. We can make it hard and see all kinds of ways and places it can be stuck, jammed and slide into different Scriptures location or our minds. But there is only one way that makes since when its all said and done.
The RIGHT place is when our Savior Jesus the Christ came to earth and lived with us but did not sin. The RIGHT place is when he died and rose again.
When Jesus came and died and rose again and brought in this new forgiveness of our sins for always when we believe in him and what he did and he wants us to obey him so we will know that we know him.
How do I know and understand this. Well let’s look as we bake this cake:
Romans 10: 9-13
9 If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. 11 As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” 12 Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. 13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
We shouldn’t obey God because we think that guarantees a painless life.
We should obey God because obedience leads to a fulfilling life.
(Icing on the cake.)
We should obey God because Jesus taught us to do so.
Just saying we believe in God through Jesus doesn’t make us Christians.
Knowing how to bake a cake but never baking one our just throwing in our own items in doesn’t do anything for anyone. But if we believe we can bake a cake and start working towards that with a great recipe we are doing something. After we bake that cake we get to learn how to make the icing that goes on top. Then one day we make this beautiful and delicious German Chocolate Cake.
God will meet us where we are. We couldn't handle it if God did a data dump on us with all that we need to know. So God comes along with us as we learn who he really is and learns how to cook His way. Then one day between God and us working together we have a wonderful relationship with our Savior.
Matthew 7:21-23 NLT
21 “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter.
?Its believing and doing.
One day, if the Lord doesn't come back, we are all going to die (Hebrews 9:27). When we believe in Jesus we will pass from this life to the next and thennnnnnnnn we will have all the icing we can eat on our cake.
1 Thessalonians 4 NLT
The Hope of the Resurrection
13 And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died.
15 We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves. 17 Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. 18 So encourage each other with these words.
Most everyone here knows the story of Job. Job didn't have much patience. Today that word "patience" would be interpreted “endurance”. He never gave up. Hollered and screamed at God and confronted his friends but his relationship with his God was always there. Job lived a horrible life to say the least. It probably seemed like a life time to him. But he baked his cake and made his icing in the end. It had to be delicious when he finished it.
Listen to what Job had to say:
Job 19:25-27 NLT
25 “But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
and he will stand upon the earth at last.
26 And after my body has decayed,
yet in my body I will see God!
27 I will see him for myself.
Yes, I will see him with my own eyes.
I am overwhelmed at the thought!
Summation:
I am overwhelmed also - are you? If you haven't taken the first step today this is that day. You can come forward or you can talk to any Christian here. All have read the great cook book and can tell you about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They will tell you how tasty the cake called “faith” in Christ is. Take that first step today.
