Sermon Central
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What Happened
Contributed by Gregory Thomas on Jan 18, 2010 (message contributor)
Summary: It is good to memorialize the great acts of the Lord. Each new generation must learn what God has done for His people so that they will obey His Word and trust Him for the future.
What Happened
It is ideally a reality that we have lost sight of the things that attributed great successes to our 21st century people. Back when I was a child we had a reverence for God, because we watched him work in the midst of our eyes, we heard about what our parents and their parents had to go through to certain open up doors for our future, while there is so much that exists at the same time there is so much that doesn’t or is not so overt in its presentation.
It is good to memorialize the great acts of the Lord, provided that the memorials do not become idols. Each new generation must learn what God has done for His people so that they will obey His Word and trust Him for the future (Ps. 78:1–8) Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. 2 I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: 3 Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. 4 We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. 5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: 6 That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: 7 That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: 8 And might not be as their fathers:
1) A stubborn and rebellious generation;
2) A generation that set not their heart aright, and
3) Whose spirit was not stedfast with God.
When you have living faith in a living God, the past is not “dead history.” It throbs with living reality.
“
Crossing the Jordan” is not a picture of dying and going to heaven despite what some songs say. It illustrates the teaching of Romans 6: death to the old self-life and identification with Christ in resurrection power. Nobody but God can see the stones in the middle of the Jordan, but the record bears witness that they are there. So it is with the death and resurrection of Christ: we believe the record and thus experience the miracle.
The stones on the shore reminded the people that the old life was buried and they should “walk in newness of life” Rom. 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life
We Showed Respect For: 1) Pastor (Headship -Head) 2) Elders (Leaders - Neck) 3) Mothers (Leaders- Matter) 4) Deacons Disciples – Muscle)
