Through Many Snares (Hebrews 13:1-6, Jeff Kliewer)

Those of you who don't know me, my name is John. I'm actually a veteran. And because of that,

I like to do things on time. I don't like to be late. I was talking with somebody, and Jeff came down and tapped my shoulder.

He said, you're late. That's why

I had a big smile on his face. Listen, we are here together in the presence of God, celebrating the relationship that we have, because it was one for us.

This thing is really hot. I don't know if we can down that a little bit. We get to be in the very, very presence of God.

Now, we know that we're here on Sunday mornings. And I pray that our hearts, our minds, are turned and focused on God while we're here.

But this is an all -week thing, 24 -7. We have a Savior.

We have a relationship with this God. Psalm 84, too, writes it this way.

My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the

Lord. Now, this describes a person who has a relationship, and that relationship is so special.

I said I was in the military. I was in the Navy. I'd be on deployment for six months at a time. And the first time I went overseas,

I wasn't yet engaged, but we were about to be. And I remember how my heart just wanted to see and to be with my girlfriend.

She's now my wife. That's a lot of years ago. Does your heart ache and long and faint to be in the presence of God, not just here now, but all week long?

We pray that's who we are, because that's who our God is. We're called the bride of Christ.

We have this relationship with Him. So now this morning, we're here, and I want to ask that we would just, in our quiet of our own hearts, bow your head.

Turn away those plans you have for this afternoon. Put them out of your mind. Put your focus on the throne.

God, it is so good to be in your presence. It is so good to be fed by your word, to be taught, to be empowered by your

Holy Spirit, to know that we have an advocate sitting at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us, knowing that our lives matter to you and that our lives are empowered by you.

Father, be with us this morning, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. To my left is a baptismal, and we are looking forward to, after this service, we have three people who are going to be obediently going into the waters of baptism, proclaiming their identity publicly with Christ.

And we get to be witnesses to that. So we're looking forward to this time.

It will be at the end of the service. And then please come back at 6 o 'clock tonight as we have our prayer time as a church family, as we turn our hearts, our desires, our worship back to the

Lord in corporate prayer. So come back at 6 o 'clock and join us for that. This past week, we did not have our

Isaiah class because Pastor Jeff and myself, we were out of town at a pastor's conference.

But we're back, and we're going to be resuming at noon on Wednesday as we continue in our study in the book of Isaiah.

So please come back for that. Last Monday, we had our congregational meeting.

We set our nominating committee. Be in prayer for them. They're the individuals that will be listening to the

Lord's lead and listening to your inputs as you listen to the Lord's lead for our new elder and deacon that will come on in next

March. Continue to remember Operation Christmas Child, the boxes that are out there.

These are an opportunity for us to bless children in the world who don't have the gifts, who don't necessarily get to experience

Christmas. And we get to put these boxes out there. Now, Cornelia has promised that if we take all those boxes out there, she'll find more boxes.

Let's bless those children. And let's remember, pastor's going to talk a little bit and a couple of times.

We don't know who it is we're blessing when we're blessing them. But we do know that God's love is amazing.

And gentlemen, not tomorrow, but a week from tomorrow, I want you to ask your wives to wake you up at 530 so that you could come here at 6 o 'clock for the men's prayer breakfast.

And so join with us in that. Let's turn to prayer. Our dear Father God, we're awed by your love.

Being in your very presence, having our hearts long and ache to be with you is a good thing.

Thank you, Lord, that we can share this time together. Pray that this longing would be an all -week thing.

We thank you, Lord, that this morning we're going to celebrate with three individuals who will go into the waters of baptism, obediently proclaiming their identity.

Lord, let it touch their hearts and be a moment in their walk of faith that will always be special, and that we get to witness it, and that it would touch our hearts.

Lord, we continue to pray for those in our midst who are in need of healing. Think of Bob Zellum.

We pray, Lord, for decisions that are being made this week. We pray for Terri Kamlin as she continues in treatment on the cancer.

And we do lift those in grief who have lost recently. Father, be with those missionaries in Haiti who have been taken hostage, men who have evil on their minds who think that by taking these missionaries, they'll gain financially greed and covetousness.

Lord, touch their hearts and show them that these individuals are just there to proclaim your truth, and that it's for their good to hear this truth.

Protect these missionaries. We pray that this situation would be resolved. Protect your church, we pray,

Lord, from compromise. And here at Cornerstone, as your lamp is lit, proclaiming truth, we pray that it will always remain strong.

Protect our pastor. And as he opens the word today in Hebrews 13, as we learn some of the applications of the deep truths we've already learned in Hebrews, give him your words and prepare our hearts.

We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's rise up.

Let's praise him with grateful hearts, a God that knows our every need and that's able to provide.

God is able, that he will never fail.

He is almighty God, greater than all we seek, greater than all we ask.

He has done great things. He lifted up.

He defeated the grave. Praise to life is able.

God is with us. God is on our side. He will make us done.

Praise to life is able. In his name, we overcome.

It's hard. Here I am to bow down.

Here I am to say that you're my

God. You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether one.

Oh, so highly exalted. Glory of sin, glory of sin.

We sin and fall together to see my sin upon you.

I'll never watch it cost to see my sin upon my

Christ to see my sin.

So here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down.

Here I am to say that we're altogether, altogether whole to be.

I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.

And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb.

And they sang a new song, saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals.

For you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

And you made them a kingdom and priests to our God. And they shall reign on the earth.

Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.

We fall down. We lay our crowns at the feet of Jesus.

Yes, sir. Mercy and love is the lamb.

We fall down. We lay our crowns at the feet of Jesus.

The greatness of is mercy and love at the feet of Jesus.

We cry holy, holy is the lamb.

We cry holy, holy, holy is the lamb.

Praise you, Lord. God, you are worthy to receive all of our praise. God, we worship you this morning.

Amen. Is that the sound of the

Holy Spirit coming in, filling the room, waiting for the tongues of fire to distribute?

Let's pray. Father, we do cry holy, holy, holy, for you are, and there is none like you.

You are the one and only true God. And we bow before you this morning.

You are worthy to receive all glory and praise and honor and strength. We worship you this morning.

We pray as we come now into your word that you would train us in righteousness, that we would run well for you, that you would be pleased with our lives.

We honor you with our lives. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Bill Wagner, my grandfather, was a runner in World War II.

Now, the runner's job was to take a message from one part of the battlefield to another. And as he ran, he saw the

Nazi bullets flying from one side and the other. And he was reduced to tears on his knees at one point, calling out to God.

And he remembered that they had given him the soldier's Bible. These were very small Bibles that the

World War II soldiers carried with them in their pocket. So he pulled it out, and he opened to Psalm 91, which told him not to fear the bullets or the arrows that fly by day and the pestilence that stalks at night.

And from that moment on, he was no longer afraid of the war. He began to run not just for the

American troops but for Jesus and began to witness to all of his friends.

And God kept his heart at perfect peace. When he came back from World War II, he became a missionary, first a pastor in Indiana and then a missionary to Guatemala.

And he went preaching the gospel from town to town and then came back to the States. My mom grew up in Indiana and also on the mission field in Guatemala.

Well, Bill Wagner ran for Jesus. And as I grew up as my grandfather watching him,

I have never seen anyone who was so joyful, just constantly laughing, filled with joy, and he never met a stranger.

It could be the waitress. It could be the person walking down the street. He would find a way to strike up a conversation and entertain that person.

Loved the Lord, very consistent, faithful husband. But the reason I bring him up is because of something that happened at his death.

He fell very ill, and they had to call the ambulance. And my mom rushed over just in time to see them taking

Bill into the back of the ambulance. And as they did, he began to tell them stories from Guatemala and tell the gospel to the ambulance drivers and people in the back who took him to the hospital.

My mom came home and told us that. Yeah, he was telling one of his stories right when they loaded him up. And she was crying and laughing at the same time, just joyful that his heart was still where it had always been.

Well, he was in the hospital, and he would die a few days later. But just before he died, two days before he died, he was visited by a young man.

Now, the nurses at the nurses station pointed out that he was a very handsome man who came to see him, this young guy.

And the guy came in and started to talk, and as they conversed for about an hour, my grandfather began to weep tears of joy.

The man left, and my mom came in and said, What's the matter? Why are you weeping?

Well, he wasn't upset. He was crying tears of joy. Because, he said, this man who visited me told me all the stories, and they reminisced together about Guatemala, and about Indiana, and about the church he planted in Florida.

And they talked, and my grandfather just had this incredible peace and this joy because of this encounter that he had.

So my mom was like, well, who is this guy? Where did he come from, and how does this young guy know about something that happened back in the 1950s in Guatemala?

And how were they reminiscing about the good old times just before he died?

My mom asked the nurses, did you see a tall guy? Oh, yeah, we saw him. He was a good looking guy, the nurses said.

And my mom was so perplexed. Who was this that came to see my grandfather before he died?

Hebrews 13, 2 says, be careful how you talk to strangers, because you never know you might be entertaining angels unaware.

Was that an angel? Anybody think that was an angel? Anybody sure that was an angel?

How would you know that? You don't know because the very point in the text,

Hebrews 13, 2, is that you're entertaining them unaware. You don't know whether or not it was an angel.

As we go to Hebrews chapter 13, I open with that story because it's a very supernatural verse.

The idea that you could be talking to somebody, maybe somebody who's sitting here today is an angel.

We don't tend to think that way nowadays, do we? We're going to see it in the text, but before, let's go now to Hebrews 13.

Let me read it, and then I want to set up where we are before we take it verse by verse. So if you have a

Bible, turn to Hebrews 13. If you don't, I know you got a smartphone or something, right?

You can find it on there. Got to follow along. Hebrews 13, today we're doing verses 1 to 6.

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said,

I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper.

I will not fear. What can man do to me? So here we have in six verses, really five snares that can overtake the runner.

My grandfather in World War II was a runner. He took messages from one place to another. But after that, he continued to run.

He was running to Jesus, living his life for Christ. And these are the kind of snares that can come against us.

One would be lovelessness. Another, ordinariness. Third, we'll get into out -of -sightedness.

Fourth, adulterousness. And fifth, covetousness. But you see, if I just preach to you today, and tell you what to watch out for and what not to do, you can leave here and try really hard to be a good person.

Try really hard to do what's right and to obey what the Bible says. And you'll stumble, and you'll fall, and you'll be broken.

Because no one can just do what God tells us to do. We all fall short of his glory, and every commandment is given to a people that breaks them.

We can't do this in our strength. So as we come to chapter 13, before we look at what we're specifically being told to do and not to do, we have to remember what the author of Hebrews has said so far.

Amen? The gospel has to come before the commandments. Grace has to come before practice.

We walk by faith, not in the flesh. So let's remember, first of all,

Hebrews 1. Jesus is greater than the prophets. He's better.

In the past, prophets spoke at various times and in various ways. But in these last days, God has spoken by his

Son. Jesus is better. Also in Hebrews 1, Jesus is better than angels.

Angels are winds and fires that worship at the throne of God. But Jesus is the

Son whom they worship. He's better than angels. He is seated at the right hand of the

Father, and angels worship him day and night. The fiery ones are worshiping

Jesus. Hebrews 2. Jesus is better than men.

Better than Adam. Jesus is the new Adam. Adam was made as the image representative of God on earth.

But he fell into sin. Jesus walked sinlessly as the new

Adam. He did what Adam couldn't and represented God perfectly while in the flesh and then laid down his life for Adam's sons and daughters.

You see, if Jesus had become an angel, he could have died for angels.

But he had to become a man to die for men and women. Jesus is the new

Adam. Chapters 3 and 4 of the book of Hebrews are a warning. The Israelites coming through the wilderness, that first generation, all died because they failed to enter

God's rest. They did not come by grace through faith to the Son of God. They, in their pride, walked in disobedience and refused the revelation they were given at that time.

Hebrews 5. Jesus is the high priest. A better high priest than Aaron. The true high priest.

Chapter 6 is another warning. And then we go to chapter 7 where we understand how it is that Jesus is a high priest.

He is the high priest after the order of Melchizedek promised in Psalm 110.

A different kind of priesthood, a better priesthood. The priests of this earth can never take away your sin.

Oh yeah, they can offer the blood of bulls and goats. But it never takes away sin. We needed a better priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Chapter 8, Jesus brings a better covenant. The covenant given at Sinai were laws and commandments, but nobody could keep them.

None of us here can keep them. Jesus brings a new covenant that's better. In chapter 9, we learn what that is.

It is a new covenant in His blood. He is the priest. And the priest, the mediator between God and man, stands in between a holy

God and sinful men, and the priest brings a sacrifice. But that sacrifice is not the blood of bulls and goats and animals.

That sacrifice is His own flesh and blood. The priest is the lamb.

He brings His own body and lays down on the cross, and as a sacrifice, dies the death that we deserve,

His blood washing us from our sins. He is the priest and the sacrifice.

In chapter 10, then, we get more practical in how we should walk in faith, hope, and love.

In chapter 11, we have the hall of faith, examples from the Old Testament of Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Daniel and Isaiah and all the prophets, how they walked by faith, not by sight.

And they are the cloud of witnesses that teach us that we can do the same. Chapter 12 is a chapter about discipline,

God's discipline by principle, but also the practice of discipline in the church. And the reason we should practice it is where we stand before God, not at Mount Sinai with the law and its commandments, but at Mount Zion and the heavenly

Jerusalem and the innumerable angels in festal assembly and the church of the firstborn, whose names are enrolled in heaven, and to God and to the saints of old and to Jesus and to the blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

This is where we are. And so you cannot come to the last chapter of Hebrews and just pick up here and get much out of what

I'm about to say. You must come through 12 chapters of beholding the glory of the

Son of God. There's none like Him. He's better. He's the true Son of God who accomplished redemption in His body on the cross.

Then, and only then, can you come to chapter 13. We are here at the last chapter.

We finally made it to the last chapter of the book of Hebrews. Book of Hebrews.

But to take these commands and do it, you have to have this relationship with Christ in your heart.

You've got to know Him as better. You have to have forsaken the world to take hold of Christ and the better city that He offers.

And from that position, He will help you to do these things. And so we come.

Here is the first thing to watch out for. Lovelessness. It says in chapter 13, verse 1, let brotherly love continue.

Does anybody know the Greek word for brotherly love? Hint. There's a city by this name not far from here.

Very good. From the root phileo, the word in the Greek here in this verse is Philadelphia. Let Philadelphia continue.

Now I wouldn't take that from our context and go to the city and say this is what it looks like because it doesn't.

But it says let brotherly love continue. Notice that it's in a passive tense with this word let, which basically means that you continue in something that already is.

It's natural for me to love my brother because he was bought with the same blood that I was bought with.

We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God who is God over all, who is in all and through all of us who believe.

And so it's natural for me to love you and for you to love me. But it says let love continue because sometimes we don't.

And this is something that he referred to in chapter 12, the bitter root. Sometimes a bitter root will creep into the

Christian heart. A bitterness towards somebody in the fellowship. And that bitter root might be an offense.

It might be a difference of opinion. It may be something that's just stirred up strife. And a bitter root disturbs love.

It's a snare. It's something that keeps us from doing what

God would have us to do. How will they know that we're Christians? By our love.

The way we love one another. And yet sometimes the church gets entangled in squabbles and all kinds of lovelessness that we need to avoid.

That's the first one. You want to see the second one? This is where it gets interesting with the angels.

The second one is ordinariness. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

We live in Western culture, in American society, scientific method.

We don't think in the terms that the author is writing. That it could be that somebody sitting next to you right now is an angel.

But that's precisely what the author is saying. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.

That word there in the Greek, do you notice in verse 2 it says, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.

That entire phrase is one Greek word. Philozinias.

Which means love of stranger. In the first verse we're told

Philadelphia, you need to love the brother. In the second verse you also need to love the stranger.

So you know xenophobic. If somebody says you're so xenophobic, which would probably be a charge many people will level these days.

When they want to shame you they call you xenophobic. You're afraid of strangers. You're afraid of the alien or the immigrant.

But here Christians are called to show hospitality to strangers.

To love people because the person that you see walking down the street, sitting next to you today, is made in the image of God.

And there's nothing ordinary about them. Some of you say, amen,

I'm kind of strange. There's nothing ordinary in the sense that we would just grow accustomed and see past somebody.

One of our temptations in Western culture is to get so caught up in our routines, so caught up in the natural world as it flows.

We don't expect anything beyond the ordinary. In fact, when you look out at the natural world, the way it operates, you see that the law of God over nature governs everything, right?

The physical laws of the universe. They seem immutable. Everything goes on according to the scientific method, it appears.

And while that's true, and that we can worship God because of his providence over everything, we have to be careful not to fall into the mindset that only the ordinary will ever happen.

Because God is the one who's providentially running the world, yet there are times when he supernaturally invades and does something unordinary, inordinate.

For example, an angel at your door. An angel sitting next to you in church.

The ordinary course is that when this disease is prescribed and the doctors say there's nothing that we can do, our natural mindset would say, well, okay, that's the end.

But this text reminds us, no, God is still the God of the extraordinary. He can still heal in our day.

And we need to believe that the God who appeared to Abraham and Lot in Genesis 18 and 19 in the form of two angels who came to visit them can still show up today.

It's a snare to believe that only the ordinary ever happens.

A third snare to avoid. And I'll tell you, this is true confession here, this is my struggle right here, the third one.

To remember. It says in the third verse, remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated since you also are in the body.

Now, my kind of proclivity, the way

I live, is to always be looking ahead. I don't often stop and remember and think back.

I liken it to being a car in Kensington where the roads are so tight that oftentimes your rearview mirror just gets knocked off.

I'm like that. I'm a car that probably needs to go to the body shop because my rearview mirrors get knocked off.

I don't tend to look back. And according to this verse, that's a bad thing.

I need to remember. There are people that I ministered to for those 12 years in the inner city that I don't think about nearly often enough.

Those in harder circumstances. It says here, remember those who are in prison. Now, that doesn't refer to going to visit somebody who just robbed the bank or they just were selling drugs on the corner and you need to make sure you got to go visit them.

That's not really the context here, although it's great to do that. This refers to the Christian who's been preaching the gospel and the

Roman Empire has arrested them and thrown them in jail. And the

Christians would go and care for their own in prison. But what happens when your brother is thrown in prison for preaching the gospel?

Man, the church rallies to that, right? These missionaries in Haiti that were just abducted, we're all praying.

But what happens when one day turns into a month? And the

Christian in prison has been there now for a year or two years or three years.

The exhortation is to remember. Paul in Philippians 1 sets a great model of this.

He tells the Philippians, you are always in my heart. I constantly remember you in prayer.

And I will confess, I'm so forward thinking that I forget to pray for people that I love.

It's a snare for me. It's one of the hangups that I'm praying about. And I didn't realize it until I started studying this last week to prepare this sermon.

But you know, supernaturally, God has done something really weird this week. Almost every night,

I've had a dream. And in one dream, it was Rahim, Kareem, and Vernon. We were hanging out, playing basketball.

And I woke up and it was so vivid. Why did I just have that dream? And then it was Gabriel and Marielle. We used to be like a father and mother to them, my wife and I.

And then another time, it was James and Baba. And each time I would wake up saying, why did

I just have that dream? And I realized before preaching this morning that the

Lord is showing me how to apply this verse in my life. It's to remember.

I need to call, I need to find them. How are they? Are they suffering? I've forgotten.

Is that a snare that's grabbed you too? Fourth, adulterousness.

This is a snare that has trapped many men and women.

The Bible says, let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled.

For God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Ironically, it was

Ravi Zacharias that said, sin will take you farther than you wanna go, keep you longer than you wanna stay, and cost you more than you wanna pay.

The temptation to sexual sin. The Song of Solomon is a great book of the

Bible. There's 66 books in the Bible, and the Song of Solomon is written to celebrate a good gift of God.

It is not primarily a prophetic illustration of Christ in the church, although there could be some imagery there at some point in time.

The book Song of Songs is about sex in marriage, and how this is a good thing designed by God, according to his good purpose.

God designed marriage precisely the way it was in the Garden of Eden.

Adam and Eve. This was God's design, and the good gift of marriage for the purpose of bringing husband and wife together in deeper unity, and for procreation of children.

The good gift of marriage for pleasure for husband and wife together.

This is God's plan, but what does the devil do? He encourages people to take a good gift that God has made, and take it out of the boundaries that God has demarcated for it.

And so our text says, let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

Amen. So, when I was first just caught with this flame from heaven in 1999, it was this encounter with God at a mountaintop experience, a

Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp in North Carolina, where I encountered God in fresh new ways, and I just felt like I was walking on air.

When I came back and began to preach the gospel to friends and family and such, I just really felt like God had taken hold of my life, and from here on, it's gonna be nothing but victory from this day forward.

In fact, if the 1999 version of Jeff, he's 21 years old, were to picture me now in the pulpit, he would probably think that I would have sprouted some angel wings, and I would just be floating up here somewhere right now.

I would have a glow, an aura. Maybe you'd see like a halo over my head while I preach.

Little did I understand that entering the race and running and having that mountaintop experience was only the beginning of a trial, a run that's wrought with snares, and there'd be times that I would stumble as a young man and get caught.

Little did I know how difficult the race would really be. Brothers and sisters, there are snares, and if you think you're standing strong and that you can no longer fall, that is when you're most at risk.

But here's the good thing about our Lord. There is no snare that he cannot break, and in Christ, by the blood of the lamb and the word of the testimony, he sets us free, and we overcome the snares.

It's just that we have to keep coming back to Christ for his freedom and his deliverance.

D .L. Moody was a great evangelist, and he came to a city to preach the gospel, and the night before he got there, some young men who were on fire, they got together, and they prayed all night for the coming service, and as they came out of the building,

D .L. Moody was coming in, and so they met him, and they said, they said, Dr. Moody, we prayed all night for this service, and then one of them said,

Dr. Moody, can you see how we're glowing? D .L.

Moody said, you know, when Moses actually was glowing after coming down from the mountain, he didn't know it.

It was a mild rebuke to this young man because this young man saw himself as so spiritual, he thought he was glowing, but D .L.

Moody warned him carefully and lovingly, when you think you're so strong, be careful that you do not fall.

Listen, those young men had a long run ahead of them, and all of you young people,

I'm talking especially to you, but older guys, to be honest, we're talking to everybody in this room, amen, and women as well.

This word is from almighty God. It is a warning that says, the sexually immoral and adulterous,

God will judge, and we've just been told that our God is a consuming fire.

This should strike terror into our hearts. We must walk in holiness.

Be careful here though, because no one is blameless, and there are none of us that are without sin.

If anybody says they're without sin, they're a liar and the truth is not in them. So what then does this refer to?

Well, it refers to, as 1 John, and also other places in Hebrews 10, refer to deliberate sinning or making a practice of sin.

It's an ongoing pattern and habit, and even an unrepentant attitude for sin.

So if somebody's identifying in their sexual sin, they're parading it, they're not repentant about it, and yet they're claiming to be a

Christian, they're a liar. But the

Christian who's making war against sin, according to the word of God has said, I'm gonna kill this sin before it kills me.

He might be struggling, he might trip and fall sometimes, but he's in the battle, he's in that struggle, he's overcoming by the blood of the

Lamb. And anytime he gets ensnared for a moment, he turns in repentance, genuine repentance, and Jesus delivers.

You see the difference here? It says God will judge the sexually immoral. It's better that we judge ourselves and turn to Christ for forgiveness than to fall under the wrath of a

God described as a consuming fire. Lastly, it says keep your life free from the love of money.

Good news, you don't have to worry about that because that's only the CEOs and the 1%.

They're the greedy ones, and all of us are good. So the world would have you believe, but in truth, keep your life free from the love of money is directed to us as Christians because it is a snare.

It doesn't say money is a snare. What's a snare? The love of money, also called the root of all kinds of evil in another place.

Now why ought we not love money? We have something better.

And truly, when we become covetous of the things of this earth, we desire, and our hearts begin to create ties to those things.

John Calvin said, our hearts are idol factories. It's not bad to want a house and to have a nice house even where it's well maintained.

But when your heart starts to love that house and you begin to live for the building up of your house,

Haggai chapter one, you spend all your time paneling your house while God's house remains in ruins, it becomes an idol.

John Calvin said, our hearts are idol factories. We make idols out of everything.

Our jobs, that motorcycle you want to get. What it is that you're living for.

It's either God or an idol. And this is the warning here. And really the issue is not so much the thing itself, it could be a good thing.

The problem is, you're valuing this thing more than Christ himself.

You're undervaluing Christ because here's the rationale at the end of verse five. For he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

So we can confidently say the Lord is my helper. If you have the one who left the splendor of heaven where he was worshiped and adored by angels.

He came and lived the life that we couldn't live perfectly obeying the law of God.

He died the death that we deserve. He rose from the dead. Ascended to the right hand of the father.

And as he promised, gave his spirit to those of us who believe in him. If you have him living inside of you, you have everything.

He is the all valuable one. He's the perfect.

And if we have him, how do we not have all things? Do you ever stop to consider your inheritance waiting in heaven for you imperishable, undefiled, described in Revelation 20, 21, 22,

I should say. Streets of gold, mansions prepared for us. But more than the things of heaven, we have

God there where we will be for, be before his throne, worshiping him, adoring him and living in his glorious presence.

The light of heaven is not the sun.

It's Christ himself. The lamb is the lamb. We have him for all eternity.

What compares to that in the things of this earth? Amen. To your amen.

The Lord is my helper. If we have him, we have everything. And so that wraps up this recounting of the snares.

All of these snares would be prone to take us captive. But the natural flow of the text here is that we have better things.

We have love. Don't let anything cut in on what we have in Christ.

So in closing, how do we make application to this? We're all running and we need to be reminded specifically of ways that we've been trapped.

Are you living your life according to the ordinary? Loveless.

Out of sightedness would be my struggle. Is that your struggle as well?

Are you looking at pornography? Are you ensnared by some temptation?

Is yours the love of money? Are you living for your job? Is that what you're really living for?

These are the snares that keep you from running well. But the victory is in Christ.

This is the victory that has overcome the world. Even our faith.

Faith in Christ is the victory. Meaning when you turn your eyes to Christ, you see something more valuable than anything this world has to offer.

You take hold of Him and you find yourself released from those things. He sets you free. You can't do this on your own.

These snares will be too strong for you. But when you look to Christ, the author and the perfecter of your faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the

Father. When you look to Christ, you're free. You try to do this in the flesh, you're bound.

So let us run to Jesus. That's what those who are being baptized are going to do.

Worship team, come up here. And I'll explain about what's about to happen. We're going to close in the song

Amazing Grace because that song has a line in it.

Through many toils and snares, dangerous toils and snares, I have already come.

It's His grace that has brought us through these things and will bring us home. Amen? We're going to close in that and then we're going to baptize three believers.

And each of them will come and just have an opportunity here at the microphone to share a testimony and then be baptized.

Baptism is a testimony. It is a witness that Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead.

How so? Well, when you lay someone down under the water, according to Romans 6, they are crucified with Christ and buried with Him in baptism.

And when the person comes up out of the water, they're raised with Him. So just as Christ was laid in the tomb, put in the ground, and rose on the third day, so each of us who believe in Him symbolize our own death burial and resurrection in Him by being baptized.

Does that make sense? We go underwater to die to self and to sin. And we come out raised to newness of life.

That's the symbolism. Now that happens spiritually in the heart and outwardly in water baptism.

That's what we're about to see. So it's a special privilege to see something like that.

So when they come out of that water, let's celebrate. Let's let them hear a shout of praise to our

God. So let's stand. I'm gonna close in prayer.

And then we're gonna sing, and we'll have three baptisms. So Father, thank You so much for Your Word. We thank

You for Your amazing grace that saves wretches like us. Lord, we're like Paul in Romans 7.

Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?

Thanks be to Christ through His death, burial, and resurrection.

We pray now for those who are about to be baptized that they would speak from their heart and that You would give them the words to say just like You promised to do.

We celebrate Your amazing grace in Jesus' name. Let's sing. Amazing grace

How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me

Once was lost

But now was found

But now I see T 'was grace

That taught my heart To care

T 'was grace That made me so pure The hour

I first believed My chains are gone

I've been set free My God, my

Savior He's ransomed me

His mercy reigns Amazing grace

T 'was grace

That brought me safe thus far

And grace will lead me My chains are gone

I've been set free My Savior He's ransomed me

His mercy reigns

Unending Amazing grace

How sweet the sound

We'll have no less days To sing

God's praise We're gonna sing

God's praise There'll be no less days

To sing God's praise Eileen, would you come first?

And then we'll have Jonathan and Ian. So you'll come give testimony right here. Bear with me because it's been a long time since I spoke in front of people.

So, yeah, here I am. The verse I had picked for this morning is

Isaiah 40, 31. Those who hope in the

Lord shall renew their strength. They shall soar on wings like eagles.

They shall run and not grow weary. They shall walk and not grow faint.

So, yeah, that kind of sums up my life up to this point and continuing on, right?

Looking forward to the Lord's return or my departure from this earth and our kingdom forever with Him.

So, as a child, my mother had been raised

Catholic and so I was born into the Catholic church. When I was five, she had found the charismatic movement within the

Catholic church and that actually took her out of the Catholic church and she became born again and found the

Lord. So she was instantly on fire and in love with the Lord and she passed that to me immediately.

Sorry, she passed. So, yeah. I was hoping

I wasn't going to get up here and be all emotional. Yeah, so I was about five when

I dedicated my life to the Lord for the first time, I guess we could say. And she was a very faithful woman and raised me to love the

Lord, taught me the Bible, and just was a wonderful example.

As a teenager, unfortunately, I made a lot of mistakes, made some bad choices, and kind of left the

Lord in the background. He was always there and I was always kind of looking back to make sure he was still there, but still off and doing my thing and, you know, making a lot of bad choices, but he protected me.

His hand was over me the whole time and in so many instances I could think of how much danger

I probably had put myself in and how badly things could have gone in my life and possibly lost my life, but the

Lord protected me every single step of the way as I sinned against him.

In my early 20s, I think, is when the Lord really started to just intervene in my life and all those things that had a stronghold on me and those sins that I was committing, he just started taking the desire away for me to do those things and just kind of plucked each thing out of my life one by one till all

I wanted was him. And so at that point, I just, you know, started pursuing him and just trying to stay focused on the

Lord and move forward with my life and allow his forgiveness in me so that I didn't walk in guilt and let that hinder my relationship with him.

Really, I have to be honest, though, I don't think that until, I don't know, maybe the past seven or eight years that I really have gone all in with the

Lord and just truly surrendered my life as I should have a long time before.

I had started listening to a lot of different pastors because as an adult,

I had gone back to the Catholic Church myself for about 20 years now and it kind of hindered my growth in a way and even though I was loving the

Lord and trying to serve him and grow closer to him, there was a little bit of a wall there in terms of the

Catholic Church and I very much desired to move on, but it was just a place of comfort in some ways and friendships and things had been formed there, so I discovered some pastors on Hope FM and started listening to the

Word in a different way than what I had been hearing it for a very long time and I just started having a love for the

Bible that I never had before and just learning it in ways that I never had before and fast forward,

COVID happened last year, church shut down, couldn't go to the Catholic Church anymore, for all those months

I had been out of it, all the different ministries I had been in, all the ties I had there that were kind of holding me got cut and when it was time to return to church,

I just had decided it wasn't happening, so yeah, one of the churches that I had been listening to was named

Cornerstone and I had looked up to see if there was a Cornerstone in our area because that one's in Virginia and had found

Cornerstone here in Mount Laurel and kind of had them on my radar and then Jill Deegan, we happened to be having a conversation and she told me she came here and invited me to join them sometime and that was before COVID, so that was always kind of in my mind and we actually had attempted to go to a different church the first morning we came here, but we were late and we were embarrassed, so I checked and seen that this was a half hour later and I said, let's go try

Cornerstone and here we are. That was a year ago. It was last

October and what an amazing, what an amazing blessing. You all know, he is an amazing pastor and leader and man of God and this church, for my children also, for myself, has been such a wonderful blessing and the people here, you're all so amazing and loving and yeah, so here

I am. Hope I didn't bore you with my story. I was gonna keep it short. Don't know what happened there, but.

That was great. Come on. Do you believe that Jesus is the

Christ, the son of the living God, who died on a cross and rose from the dead?

And have you personally repented of your sin and taken Jesus to be your

Lord and Savior? On the basis of your profession of faith, I now baptize you in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I went to church and prayed.

I did not understand, but I was a part of my family. I tried to be good and obey my mom and dad.

I think I was a good kid. I know I was not bad. I did get in trouble sometimes.

When I was in trouble, I would get punished. I would say I was sorry to the person

I hurt, just not to God. I know now that God saw me as a sinner because I was a sinner.

I was dead. I needed to ask God, but I had not done that yet.

One evening, when I was about 10 years old, my mom asked me if I thought

I was saved. I understood what she meant, but I realized that I had not done that yet.

I said I was not sure, Mom, explained that being saved meant following Jesus, trusting

His word. Mom encouraged me to pray. My prayer included, I want Jesus to come into my heart, and I asked for forgiveness for my sins.

Since that time, I was to follow God. I have the Holy Spirit telling me about God.

When I read the Bible, the Holy Spirit helps me understand. Now He encourages me to read the

Bible, to pray, and to trust in Him. Now when I am having a bad day,

I can pray, and He helps me to not focus on me and to think about others.

My life verse is also Isaiah 40, 31. KJV But they that wait upon the

Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary.

They shall walk and not faint. Amen. One, do you believe that Jesus is the

Christ who died on the cross and rose from the dead? Yes. And secondly, have you repented and put your faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ? Yes. All right. On the basis of your professional faith, I now baptize you in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We have

Ian. Ian, what's your last name? Fournier. Fournier. Ian Fournier. All right.

We need somebody else to come up here and give a testimony or something. We're going to wait for him to change real quick. I'm going to lay my hope

Yeah. So both of them chose Isaiah 40, 31. So you guys better look that up later and keep that one.

Yeah. Now, if Ian did the same thing, that's when it's getting crazy. Should we just stare at him and make him feel awkward when he comes back?

I think he just wanted to make an entrance. Yeah! Ian's always the showman.

All right. We look forward to hearing your testimony, brother. All right. Oh. All right, all right, all right.

So, much like many of you, my reception of faith was not of my own desire or my own will.

You know, I didn't, there was no definitive moment where I said, or definitive period in which leading up to my conversion that I was like, yeah, you know what?

I want to get converted. I want to believe this. It was, it was miraculous and spontaneous. I started my life in the church as a young boy, going up until I was around eight years old.

We stopped going because of some scandals going on in our church, sadly, but because I was so young,

I didn't really have a grasp of the gospel or what church was really about, you know? To me, church was just, you know, a fun time to get together with people you know, with the community, and watch some

VeggieTales. So, when my family stopped going to church, it didn't really have much of an effect on me.

I lived my life like any, you know, little boy would. But leading up to around middle school, beginning of high school, my friend

Joseph, who's here with us today, in the front row right there, he was, he had his own conversion experience, and he began talking to me about Jesus and the gospel and the good news and how important it was and the goodness of God.

And I was like, at first I was like, whatever, you know, it's cool, it was interesting to hear, but I was never very interested in believing it.

But after digging into me for a very long time and some things going on in my life, one day he played a,

I remember we were playing video games together, and we were talking on Xbox, and he played a sermon in the mic, and I sat through 40 minutes of it listening to it, and by the end of it,

I felt an unbelievable amount of conviction. And that was my spontaneous moment.

That was when I realized, I'm gonna give my life to Christ, I'm gonna live the way

I know I ought to be living. So once I was on Regenerate, and here

I am now, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, standing now to testify that God is good and His divine providence,

He made a way for me to hear the gospel, which I had neither considered nor wanted to ever embrace.

And by hearing, I was presented the power of the word, Christ incarnate, the only way, truth, and life in this world.

And in hearing, I was convicted of the truth in a way so pressing to my heart that I could do nothing else but hearken to the call of mercy presented by our

Lord. If I had sought any other way or tried to run, I would be lying to myself all my life, and I would never find true joy or hope of any kind.

My spiritual death was apparent at my moment of conversion. I had to seek

Christ for eternal life, or I would surely be condemned for my sin that was so obvious to me at that moment.

My verse of choice was Job 13, 15. Though He slay me,

I will hope in Him, yet I will argue my ways to His face. Thank you.

It's a little chilly. I didn't turn on the hot tub till like this morning, and I'm quite good there yet.

Yes, yes, like that. Okay. I have two questions for you, Ian, which you've already answered, but let's do it again.

Ian, do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Christ, who died on the cross and rose from the dead on the third day?

Yes. And secondly, have you personally trusted Him for the forgiveness of your sin and for eternal life?

Yes. All right. On the basis of your profession of faith, I now baptize you in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All right.

Let's close in a word of prayer, and then we're dismissed. So, Father God, thank you so much for what you're doing in the salvation of sinners like us.

None of us deserve it, but you, good God, you have given your one and only Son for the salvation of sinners like us.

We thank you for this indescribable gift. We give you all the praise and all the glory for salvation.