Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world.
So that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church, located in Kernersville, North Carolina. I just want to go through some passages of God's Word because I want you to have the future in mind today. I believe that we ought to be thinking ahead and we ought to be looking towards the future and part of looking towards the future is remembering the past. Part of making sure that I head the right direction in the future means I remember what God did before.
You're going to face some things in life, and you need to know that I have hope in those circumstances because God has proven himself in the past. Are y'all with me? Say amen. You pray for Brother Tom Wagner. We sent the call out.
His wife, Terry, and she collapsed with a brain aneurysm. They're in Vermont, of all places, ministering. And she immediately obviously was rushed to the hospital, non-responsive. And they did surgery. They feel like they were able to get the aneurysm somewhat repaired before it hit the heart.
They're worried about stroke and function and all these things if she recovers and They are cautiously optimistic. One good thing is that today they were able to get her off the ventilator for the first time since coming in, and she's breathing on her own some right now.
Now, she might have to go back on or off different things. She'll be in intensive care a while, but. You know, when you face something like that, you're in Vermont preaching, and your wife collapses, and all of a sudden now you're looking at weeks sitting in a hospital in Vermont, you're not home. What kind of hope do you have in that kind of situation? I'll tell you: the hope you have, you remember what God has done before.
Now, God's going to choose what He wants to do, and we don't know the future, but we have hope in the future. You say, well, what if she dies?
Well, can I tell you, we have the greatest hope if she dies. You know, to the Christian, death is heaven. You know, how is that bad? That's a wonderful thing. We can have a hope.
The worst you can do to a Christian is send them to heaven. Have you ever thought about that? And I want to look at some passages today and just give us some quick principles for Anniversary Sunday. I hope you'll be here tonight. Our kids competed in master's clubs, regionals, and things, and they did some music and some different things, and they're going to be doing some of that tonight for you.
We're so excited. We're so proud of them, all that they did yesterday. And I got some videos and things, although I couldn't be there. And we're very proud of them, what they've done. We're going to cast some vision, and we're just going to need your help.
On April the 28th. We desire to let this community know that we care about them, and we are moving church to Harmon Park at 5 o'clock. on April the 28th, that's Sunday night. And I need you there. Our choir is going to sing.
We're going to have hand bells. We're setting up. We're going to have bouncies and things for the kids. We're going to have free food. You need to bring lawn chairs and you need to help us carry some chairs.
And you need to start getting word out. And when I say, listen, Kerwin, I'm counting on you, it means you need to let your neighbors know, hey, listen, our church is doing something different. We're just going to have a big church service in the park for the whole community. Why don't you come? Why don't you come with us?
Get your lawn chairs. There's stuff for the kids to do before and after and free food. And listen, we've got a couple radio stations that have now told us they're going to help us bend over backwards, help us get word out. They think it's a fantastic thing that we want to have church in the community. And so we need your help on April the 28th.
And may I say this too? On April the 20th, our ladies' conference, our ladies need to sign up.
Now, we've got a great signup so far, but only 20 of our ladies.
Now that hurts me as a pastor a little bit.
So, ladies, you need to, we got to know we're going to feed. We've got to know for the food.
So, get on and sign up. Get it done. Don't scare me to think that we got all these other churches bringing their ladies and our own won't come.
So, listen, I know you'll come through, but sign up, get on there. It is so close. It's not far away. We just got some great things happening. And this week I've been...
Thinking back. because I need some hope looking ahead. Look at Joshua chapter 4 and verse 5. Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of Jordan. Let me explain.
This is kind of one of the most climactic events in all of history. The Israelites have been wondering for 40 years. And now the time had come. It was this. The news media uses this word a lot.
It was a poignant moment. I've always thought that was a dumb word. Just say it's a special time, okay? But a point that everybody wants to sound so smart. It was a poignant moment behind them.
They were leaving the weary wilderness of wandering For 40-something years. There was a whole generation of them that they had had funeral after funeral after funeral because of their lack of faith. They were not. Allowed to enter the promised land. They wandered because of their lack of faith.
And so now that whole generation had died off, and now here's Joshua, Moses was gone, and now they are literally in Canaan. Imagine they'd heard the stories their entire life. They'd wandered in the wilderness in tents, eating manna, following a pillar of cloud by day, a fire by night, all these different things. And now they're actually standing in Canaan. Wow.
I mean, finally, this is going to happen. And as they enter Canaan, they get to the Jordan River. And they couldn't go any further. Because the Jordan River was so deep, so rapidly flowing, so rough, there's no way to cross it. They didn't have bridges like we have, and all these different things.
So they finally get to Canaan. And now they've got this insurmountable task. How do we get across this Jordan River? Oh, I don't know. Maybe we ought to think back and remember how, when they left Egypt out of bondage and they approached the Red Sea, what did God do?
He parted the waters.
So here's Joshua and all the people a whole generation later. 40 years later, here they are. They're at the Jordan. They can't get across, and what does God do? He does again exactly what he did when he made the promise to them.
What you don't get a lot of playing time about is the parting of the Jordan River. The Red Sea gets all the playing time, but guess what? God did exactly what he had done before. And he parted the waters of the Jordan. Guess what?
And Joshua and the children of Israel crossed the Jordan. But we have to make note of a very important act that Joshua did. He made the 12 tribes, he made the leader of each of the 12 tribes, all these men. As they crossed over that riverbed, that Jordan River. He made them pick up these big stones.
that were in the bottom of the Jordan.
Now listen. Nobody could get to those stones. Because the Jordan River was deep, it was rapid. It's not like this was. He made them pick up the stones from the middle of the riverbed.
So that he was going to have them stack them on the other side. And when people saw these stones, they were thinking, How in the world do they get those? Those are riverbed stones. I mean, those were at the bottom. You don't get those.
They didn't have cranes and all that nowadays.
So that was a sign that God parted the waters. It was going to be a reminder to them when future generations saw those riverbed stones stacked. This was going to be a reminder of what God had done. That God had allowed in part of the waters of the Red Sea, of the Jordan River. Are you with me?
Say amen. And that was going to be a sign of what God did 40 years before that. It was going to be a memorial. I wanted you to look if you would at Verse 5. And Joshua said unto them, Passover before the ark of the Lord.
Your God into the midst of Jordan, and take ye up. Notice this. Every man of you A stone upon your shoulder. According under the number of the tribes of the children of Israel. Can I give you a little phrase that I want to just point out here is this: we must each make our own memorials.
He said every one of you. Need to get a stone up on your shoulder. This isn't just, hey, we want a memorial, let's just have one guy get his stone. No, no, no, no. He says, listen.
Each of you need to get a stone. Each of you need to make a memorial. about this. And can I say something that I believe that our generation We have another generation coming. We are blessed as a church because any given Sunday, I have four generations sitting in front of me.
May I be a reminder to you that everybody has their own taste in music and their own things, but here at our church, We are trying our best to have a type of music that all four generations can enjoy and worship. It might not be the particular taste or exactly what every generation wants, but we want to make sure that it's at least safe, that every generation can participate. You might say, well, that's a little bit of a new song for me.
Well, guess what? What you sang when you were 20 was a new song then. And it was okay for you to sing a new song back in your twenties, so why is it now wrong for us to sing a new song when you're in your seventies?
So, you got to understand that here's four generations sitting in front of us. We all want a new song to sing, but we also want to make sure that we don't have a kind of music that people in their 70s and 80s get offended by.
So, at this church, we're just going to keep it where we are, and we're going to be conservative, but we're going to have life. And we're going to have energy and we're going to praise God. Can I have an amen right there? It means it's not about any just one of us.
So, Joshua says, Every one of you needs to carry a stone. Everybody needs to be involved. Everybody ought to be putting up a memorial of what God has done. And I want to challenge you on this anniversary Sunday, whatever you want to call it, we can't walk into Chapel Hill Hospital and not see some memorials of what God has done. May I say this?
The fact that we're still going there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure. You know the alternative? Caden wouldn't be here, and we wouldn't go to the hospital.
So while we don't enjoy being in the hospital, thank God we have a reason to still go. Amen. And so, what I'm saying in the future, we've got future generations, they're searching. They want to know what's real. They've heard all this stuff and they heard preachers and all this, but mom and dad seemed to not really be into it, didn't really follow it.
And we have a generation of people searching, and may I say something? They need to see our memorials. They need to hear what God has done. We each must make our own memorials. Look at verse 6: that this may be a sign among you that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye?
By these stones, what does this mean? May I say this, we need reminders in our life. What God has done. You know, a while back, I brought, it was very funny. A while back, I.
I showed you a coffee mug that I bought in Chapel Hill when Caden was born. And we were going through open heart surgeries, and it was a North Carolina coffee mug. But I got it there, and right when he was born, and I've always had that coffee mug. It just reminds me it's chipped and it's broken kind of thing. You might remember I shared that one time, and Brother David Averbeck sent a picture.
He had the exact same mug, the exact same one. He said, every time I use this, I think of you and pray for you and your family and all these things. And may I say this? You do what you want to do. Not everybody likes to keep things or put up things.
But you know what? There ought to be some things maybe in your house at the least. There ought to be things when you're sitting around talking with your kids and your grandkids. You should bring up some things that God has done. You should talk about it a little bit.
You ought to bring it up. We need reminders in our life of what God has done. You say, well, I'm not a person that lives in the past.
Well, if you're going to head directly in the future the correct way, you need to remember some things in the past. You need to remember what God has done. You need to remember how good God has been. Joshua said, I want you to stack these stones. What did stacking those stones do?
It didn't do anything. It didn't build anything. It wasn't a house. It wasn't a building. It was just there to be a sign.
We need signs in our life. We have some families in here that they've taken a law on their house. And they've even taken, you know, pieces of furniture and they've put things on there that their kids, something God does something in one of their child's life, they get an item, they put it on there so that their kids see that. It reminds them what God has done. I think it's a great thing.
Hang some stuff up. Listen, you know, instead of, I'm not against it, but instead of going to Target paying 300 bucks for a painting, put something up that reminds you of what God has done. Amen. Nothing wrong with that. Because you and I need those reminders.
Joshua said, Listen, God's been good. God was good 40 years ago. God's been good now. And we're going to put these stones here. And people are going to say, God.
Look, how in the world did they get those stones? That was in the bottom of the river.
Well, the only way was because God made it possible. May I say this? Secondly, about this passage, notice in verse 6 it says, when your children ask their fathers. What does this mean? Can I remind you of something the next generation is watching?
Your kids are watching. Your grandkids are watching. You say, What are they watching for?
Well, they're searching. They're watching for who and what they can trust. Yeah, they're searching for truth. They're searching for what is real. You see, we have a generation of people that don't go to church anymore because they're not really convinced that all this junk is real.
Yeah, they're open. They've sat in church too much, fallen asleep, bored. Everybody's singing the songs, acts like they're ready to die. The preacher gets up and barely, you know, it's just so, you know, segmented and no emotion involved and no heart involved. And church is just a business.
It's just something. We got to do for an hour on Sunday, and we live like the devil the rest of the week, but we act like we're whatever on church on Sunday. And this generation has seen that, and they wonder what's real. And may I say, he says, when your children ask, why are these? It means this.
He's already telling them, letting you know, your kids are going to wonder. They're watching. They're looking. They notice things. And they're going to say, why are these here?
What happened? And may I say that there is a lot that's been lost in our lifetime because there's not a lot of dinner around the dinner table. And I'm not the best to talk about it, but it's not because we just don't want to. Our lifestyle is different, and I understand that. But there's a lot lost around the dinner table.
And one of those things is we don't tell our children and our grandchildren and talk about what God's done. And what God has done, listen, I lived a different life, and I know that. But I'm going to tell you, just about every night of my life, I was in church and I had to hear my dad preach. And some of you are like, oh, how great would it be be in church every night of your life? It's not that great.
Now if I was pretending to be real spiritual and like what a heritage in church every night of my life, I wish I felt like that because I'll tell you, I got tired of church every night of my life. Homeschool till 4 o'clock in the afternoons about every day. You eat supper, you go to church. But can I tell you what every night I got to hear is my dad would preach and give illustrations? And I heard illustrations over and over and over again.
But I knew my my parents' life history. More than most kids do. You know why? I heard it every night. I know how they met.
I know how my dad got saved. I know how my mom got saved. I know that my mom's dad was a drunk, my grandpa. My grandpa was picked up in the gutter. on Gay Street, which is an actual name, not a description.
On Gay Street in Baltimore, Maryland, downtown. That's where all the bars are. My grandpa would get off work on Friday, spend everything he worked. He'd go down there and drink, and they'd get him out of those gutters on Monday morning and try to get him in enough sober to come to work so he could still pay some bills. My grandpa came from a Christian family, he was the black sheep.
He had nothing to do with church. My grandpa was a drunk, and he would beat my grandma, and he would beat people, and he would beat my uncles and all those things. And he'd come home drunk, and my grandma would have to grab my mom when she was little, and have to grab my uncle when they were young, and have to haul him out of that house to go to a neighbor's house because my grandpa would probably beat the pulp out of him when he got home. Listen, that's what my mom grew up in, and that's what she dealt with. But here, God miraculously saves my mom, and my mom decides to make something of her life.
And all those years later, my grandpa finally, cirrhosis of the liver, all that drinking, he goes to a surgery, and my mom literally watched my grandpa give his heart to Christ. To the point that right before my grandpa died, he would set his clock wherever my mom and dad were. If they were in California, it was three hours behind where he was in Maryland. And he would stay up till 10 o'clock at night so that he could start praying at 7 o'clock when my dad would begin the service and pray that people would get saved during an invitation. Guess what?
I heard that over and over again. And I came up believing that God can do this. I came up believing God can save a drunk. And God can put a marriage back together. I grew up believing that because I saw the signs everywhere.
Listen, this next generation, they're not going to come near church. If we don't start showing them how real and powerful God is. Joshua chapter 4 and verse 7. It says, then ye shall answer them when your kids ask. Why are these stones here?
Then ye shall answer them that the waters of Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. Here they are, they're entering the promised land, they have the ark of the covenant, and as they approach the Jordan River, God stops. those flowing waters. clears a path for them to go over. He says, you tell them what God did.
That God, the waters of the Jordan were cut off just like a water vowel, stopped. Look what he says. The waters of Jordan were cut off, and these stones shall be for a memorial. Under the children of Israel. Forever.
Look at verse 22. It says, Then ye shall let your children know. Saying Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For the Lord your God dried up the waters. Of the Jordan from before you until ye were passed over as the Lord.
Now, notice this: for the Lord, your God, He's talking to the kids. He says, when your children come up and ask you, what do these stones mean? He says, this is how you answer. Notice what he is saying to say to the children, your God. You know a problem?
We have a generation that's their God, but it's not the God of their kids. This is what he says. Notice this. Then ye shall let your children know, for the Lord your God dried up the waters. of the Jordan from before you until you were passed over as the Lord your God.
did to the Red Sea when he dried up from before us. He's reminding them. Let me tell you what you tell your kids. God dried these waters. Your God did this.
And your God did it 40 years ago. That's the God you serve. Listen, we have a generation of people that don't think God can do much. Can I tell you why? They haven't seen God do much.
Can I tell you why they haven't seen God do much? Because we've not been people of faith. We like comfort. We want to get our little system. We don't want to.
We want to be comfortable. We don't want to do anything that might offend somebody. Let me tell you something. If nothing else, And I'm not trying to make it about that. Trust me, it's what we're going through.
Trust me, this isn't a, if I've seen nothing else, I'm glad that my two oldest. Get to see what God's done in Caden's life. Because you know what? They might get married one day. Who knows?
Maybe. I don't know. But they might get married one day, and they might have kids. And you know what? I hope that they're healthy, thriving kids.
I hope I can hold my grandkids. And they don't have what my child has. But if somehow down the rhine something comes out and they might, one of their kids might have something, can I tell you something? They might be able to say, Well, let me tell you something. This doesn't look the best, and it might not be the easiest, but I watched what God did to my brother.
And I watched God bring him through five open heart surgeries and treatments and procedures. I watched God do miraculous things in his life. And the only other one died very, very young before two years of age. Every day Caden has had as a living, walking memorial to the goodness of God. And I'm glad that my sons see that.
And for what it's worth, I'm glad that you as a church see it.
Now, I wish we didn't have to go through it, but I'm glad that you can see that God has done miraculous things. And some of you right here, I've watched God do miraculous things in your life. That's why you ought to be part of a corporate body of believers, a local church, so that we can see what God does for people's lives. It's a memorial, it's a sign. What do these stones mean?
Why is this here? What happened? Oh, I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you what happened. Your God parted the waters so that we could take those rocks out of the bottom of that river on dry ground.
Oh, and by the way, your God did the same thing at the Red Sea 40 years ago. And because your God did it 40 years ago and your God did it here, I'm reminding you: your God can do it now. That's right. Amen. That's exactly right.
I want us to be at church memorials. I don't care if we don't ever grow another member of Pastors. I hope we do. I feel like we ought to be stewards, and we ought to try to grow. I can't find anywhere in the Bible where the Bible tells us to be comfortable.
I know at times people here like Why do you constantly change? I don't like ruts. And I don't like all that. Listen, I was born in the road. We were there seven days.
We're looking to the next place. I always had the next thing on the horizon: going here, going there. I didn't live a life where I lived in the same house and I lived in the same this and have the same friends. My life was constant change. I know that, but I don't like for a church to get comfortable and stuck and in a rut and dead and dry.
And all we hear is we show up to play a little game and to say we sang a song, to say we listen to the preacher and go on with life. I want God to do something great in our church, and I think one of the ways to do it is for this generation of kids that we've been blessed with and teenagers that we've been blessed with, they need to hear and know and see how good God is and how powerful. God is, and He ought to be their God, and their God did it then, and their God did it now, and their God can do it for the rest of their life. Amen. Remember this verse 24.
That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord. That it is mighty. Can I give you another one here? We must teach this generation. about the power of God.
We've got to know how strong God is. If our young people really knew how strong God is, they wouldn't pick a fight with them. If our kids knew how strong God was, they know there's no beating him. We live in a generation we're full of anxiety, we're full of fear. Why are we so full of fear and anxiety?
Because we don't understand how powerful God is. We almost don't think God's able to do anything. We don't think God's able to heal. We don't think God's able to prevent disease. We don't think God's able to, well, if I do this, this might happen.
And if I do this, this might happen. And if I do this, this might happen. I mean, think about it. God in heaven must think: what have I ever done to you? Why are you so full of fear every step you take?
Am I not strong enough for you? You know why those people wandered in the wilderness for 40 years? Because they didn't think God was strong enough to help them defeat the giants. Yeah. The spies came back.
Ten were Two, we're good. The spies came back. 10 of them are like, no, the giants are too huge. Grasshoppers are huge. The area is rough, it's tough, there's just no way.
Can I tell you something? They were full of anxiety and fear. And where did it lead them? It led them on an endless wandering for 40 years. But can I tell you what God did?
God said, Listen, I parted the waters of the Red Sea, and when they finally, by faith, got to Canaan, what did he do? He parted the waters of the Jordan. Look at me, folks. God is mighty. He can do it.
I have.
So much else here. But I'm going to share, but I'm going to stop. Happy anniversary to you. Let me tell you why this was on my mind. If you'll notice the passage we read Joshua.
He says, when your children come talk to you, he says, They will come and ask you in time to come. It's the name of our message today. Do you know in the King James Version of the Bible, the word future is not used? Why? Why?
Now you're gonna go home and Google it.
So did I. I googled it, I Yahoo'd it. Are you everything else I could do to it? That sounded horrible, didn't it? You know how the King James Version of the Bible alludes to the future.
The greatest news that anyone can receive is the news of the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is our desire for you to know him personally. Would you take a moment to hear this today? Every man is born with a sin nature. Romans three twenty three says For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
No matter how hard we try, we're not good enough to obtain God's glory. or to get to heaven. Because of that, sin carries the penalty of death. Romans 6.23 says, For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life.
through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of our sin, or the payment of our sin, only equals death and separation from God. But it's only through God's gift salvation through Jesus Christ that we can accept him as our Saviour. Jesus Christ paid for your sin debt. The Bible says in Romans 5:8, but God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
All you have to do is receive Christ. by faith as your Saviour. Romans ten nine says That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Verse 13 continues, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's as simple as admitting that you're a sinner believing that Jesus is the only way.
and calling upon his name. Bible says whosoever that's anyone can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Have you accepted Christ as your personal Savior? There is no greater day than today to take care of this. Would you accept Christ as your Savior?
If you have any questions, please give us a call at 336-993-5192 or visit our website at Kerwin Baptist Church. Dot com. or visits that person at one of our three service times. We hope you have a great rest of your day. God bless you.
Mm-hmm.
