THY WORD IS TRUTH
John 17:17
“You and Your Household Will Be Saved.”
Today is the third Sunday in the season of Lent.
And lent is the season of reflection and repentance where we reflect on what Christ has done for us on the cross.
Last week’s sermon was on self denial for if we focus on ourselves we devalue the atonement.
If we can do something here on earth that affects our eternal destiny then we are in control and not God.
If we can by works or by any thing that we do or stop doing can affect where we go after our death then we do not need Christ at all.
And many of us including myself have lived our lives like that without anyself denial at all.
Christ’s command "to deny ourselves" is ignored as if He never said it.
Many have lived uncontrolled life style not only in regard to our eating and drinking habits but also with our spending habits as well.
We spend money that we do not have and we expect to be given more or to get more and have someone else pay for it.
We desperately need a change in this country or our children will inherit the wind and be at the mercy of our enemies.
And some may say in response to what I have said. It won’t happen to me, “I am a child of God”.
And we are children of God are BUT what happened to God’s disobedient children in the Old Testament for their continued disobedience for going their own way.
God put them in slavery in Egypt for 400 years and 1000 years later God put them into captivity again in Babylon and again for the same reason, disobedience. In both cases God delivered only a remnant and restored them.
So what about the claim that I am a child of God.
Is this claim truth or is it self delusion.
How can we claim to be children of God and continue to live lives of excess or coveting, greed, pride and over indulgence?.
How can we claim to be children of God when we continue to walk in disobedience?
The claim is false yet some of the worst offenders remain in the church with unchanged live in defiance of Christ own words to a church leader of his time, Nicodemous, telling him he must be born again!
Nicodemous was part of the sanhedren, a group of self assured claiming to be Godly men, but they were lost for they refused to be changed and recognize Christ as who he was.
But today we will look at what Christ has done for us and what the God of the Old Testament promised to those who were truly call to be his children and to those who bent the knee and walked with God.
And who were they.
The were the original Hebrews of the Old Testament, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And I heard so often especially on TV evangelist that the Jacob was looked upon as a deceiver and not a Godly man.
TV evangelist like Joel Ostean who can’t read more than one chapter of the bible at a time and relate chapters that are separated form each other but are on the same subject like the character of Jacob.
There are many evangelists who look at the God of the Old Testament as if He were not part of the Trinity.
They speak of the Old Testament as if the God revealed there is not the Father of Jesus Christ.
And Ostean and many others have preached that Jacob was a deceiver and stole Esau’s birthright and that was Esau’s claim but it was a false claim.
For two chapters earlier it was revealed that Esau sold his birthright of his own free will for an single mean of lentil soup.
Easu was not the victim of deceit but of his own self indulgent behavior which was such a slap in the face of God that God hated Esau for it.
But God does not hate anyone, He is the God of love. This is the ignorance of those who only read the New Testament who do not know the God of the whole bible.
The God of the Old Testament is a jealous God and with out Christ’s sacrifice and dying in our place, we will pay for our own sins and experience God’s wrath.
And it took the last prophet of God Malachi who lived 1000 years after both Esau and Jacob were in the grave to reveal what God thought about Jacob’s behavior versus Esau’s behavior.
And what were God’s word through the prophet Malachi. Malachi chapter 1 verse 1, Jacob I loved but Esau, I hated and that quote is repeated verbatim by the Apostle Paul in Romans 9 verse 12.
And many TV evangelists are so ignorant of the Old Testament that they miss this point completely.
They can’t read and take all that the bible says about a subject and balances all the scripture verses out for if they could they would have remembered that is was Jacob’s mother Rebecca that dresses Jacob up like Esau to get the blessing from his father the nearly blind Isaac.
It was Rebecca that dressed up Jacob to deceive Isaac and not Jacob’s choice to do so but the TV evangelist conclusion about Jacob’s character persists to this day.
The correct conclution of the Esau and Jacobs story is that Rebeccah is the deciever.
If Jacob was a deceiver, then how could God love him over Esau?
Jacob was a man of faith.
Today we are going to focus on the truth of this Scriptures when it comes to the subject of God’s promise of Salvation.
And this touches on who is included when it comes to being save and who is not included.
And this is the subject of election and who is the elect.
The three men of faith Abraham, Issac and Jocob and their whole household and even their servants were saved regardless of their character faults because God made a everlasting covenant with Araham that all the nations of the world would be blessed through the faith of Abraham.
So how shall we respond to the call of God to repent and be saved?
And the call of God is for every one but some respond to the call and some are too busy either to hear or if they do hear are to busy to respond and go their own way.
And that brings us to the doctrine of redemption and I should add again as the bible says this very concisely in one sentence.
Christ taught this to is disciple in a parable in the gospel of Matthew chapter 22 verse 14 when Jesus says “Many are called few are chosen”.
And if we are truly chosen then we must yield to Christ’s words and his teaching nor we a we to be just hears of His word and not doers of His word.
In other words, we claim to be saved but our actions and our lives tell otherwise for we are not changed at all.
We still sow to the flesh rather to the Spirit.
But let look at what God the Father says about who is chosen for salvation and then what Christ says to support that later in the New Testament.
In the Old Testament reading today the translators of the NIV have the heading “Israel’s Only Savior”
And what were Jehovah’s words in that reading we heard today? “Fear not for I have redeemed you (The doctrine of redemption in the Old Testament).
When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep you away.
The river Jordan’s water was piled up by God in a heap as the children of Israel walked through it on dry land when they went into the Promised Land.
“When you walked through the fire, you will not be burned.”
When Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were in the fiery furnace of Babylon they were not burned.
“For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”
And later on in the passage at verse 11 the God of the Old Testament says:
“I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is not other Savior.”
So if there is another Savior that will come in the New Testament, by this verse that Savior must be God.
And so when that Savior does come in the New Testament let us look to what He says in the New Testament reading for today.
The reading was from the book of Acts which is titled the acts of the Apostles but a more accurate title is and would be “The Acts of the Holy Spirit for it was the Holy Spirit that led all the apostle all over the Roman empire on three missionary journeys to plant and nurture the church of Jesus Christ.
Paul and Silas are in prison.
And here again God has allowed his chosen people to be put into captivity.
And then what happens. Did they stay there?
NO!
Did they break out by their own strength?
NO!
They were miraculously release by an act of God.
And what was the act of God. It was an earthquake.
The prison door suddenly burst open and everyone’s chains came loose.
And the jailer was about to kill himself because the prisoners had escaped. For it would be certain death for the jailer by his Roman superiors if for sleeping on his post the prisoners escaped.
The apostle said to the jailor, “Do not harm yourself we are still here” And what was the amazing reply of the jailor, “Sirs, what must, I do to be saved!”
What a question and we should remember it is not the first time this question came up.
For when Jesus of Nazareth was alive, he was asked the same question (What must I do to be saved?) by the rich young ruler who did not like Christ's answer for he would have had to given up his riches and to deny himself and follow Jesus which he was not able to do.
But let’s see what the Apostles tell the jailor!
They told him, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved and then they add. You and all the others in your house!
What an amazing answer?
What about all the unbelievers in the Jailors household who do not even know of the resurrected Christ or may not have know Jesus a Nazareth.
Was this a true statement by the Apostles or where they perhaps going overboard here.
How do we find out?
Well have the apostles ever made this statement before?
Did they tell anyone else that believing in Christ saves their whole household.
Remember, I have told this congregation that if God tell is something important he will tells us more than once.
So if our whole theology is based upon one scripture and it is not support by other scripture you are focusing on something trivial.
We are majoring on the minors.
So where do we go in the scriptures to find the same statement made to someone else by Paul and the apostles in the book of Acts so show that this is a major apostolic teaching from the Holy Spirit.
In chapter 11 of the book of Acts the Apostle Peter was sent to the house of a gentile named Cornelius to eat a meal with him and to eat food that was not Kosher and this was forbidden of him the dietary laws of the book of Leviticus.
And to make the long story short (or defer it to another sermon) this is what was told to Cornelius starting chapter11 verse 13, “Send to the city of Joppa for a man called Peter.
And he will bring a message through which "you and yours household will be saved.”
There it is again a promise that the faith of Cornelius and unclean gentile and his whole household will be save and who sent Cornelius this message?
Cornelius told the Apostles all 6 of them that appeared at Cornelius’ door that an angel had told him this message.
The Apostle Luke who wrote the book of Acts records that Cornelius’s whole household would be saved by the message that Peter would bring him came from an angel of God and not any man.
And what should we take from this second appreance of this phrase in the scriptures?.
Is it important that there be a strong spiritual leader in the family either female or male?
For if there is the faith of the one will cover the unbelief of the other.
Is it important that we have at least one Godly parent or grandparent.
And what a blessing it is if we have both.
Let me close in prayer:
Merciful God let us in this season of lent meditate upon the truth of your Word and the blessing of believing parents and grandparent. Help us to be as good a witness to our children as our parent have been. Help us to follow Christ and deny ourselves and pick up our cross and follow him evey day of our lives as Christ commands. We for our leaders that they would govern with wisdom and restraint so that our children would inherit a country and a planet that in better condition that it was given to us. For we are you people and we remember your promise that if we humble ourselves and repent and seek your face, You will heal our land. Amen
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