May 25, 2011 Great Promises 3

Peter replied: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

Good Salvation Wednesday Morning, my dear brothers and sisters. Just want to tell you right up front this morning, I love you and pray that you will have a great Salvation Wednesday. A great Salvation day would be if you are not saved, till the end of the day, you would come to Christ, and if you are saved, you would guide or help guide someone to Jesus to be saved. I want you to just take a minute and think about this, if you are saved, we know Jesus did that for you, but who helped you? Someone had to plant the seed. Think about it, pray about it, and if you can, if you can, get in touch with those who helped you come to Christ and thank them. Give the honor and glory to God, but thank His workers for their help.

Moving on, please pray for all who are unsaved and that God uses you to help bring in the lost. Pray for Kathleen and Ron, for Pastors Tony and Charles, and please pray for my wife Dolores.

Great Promises 3: Acts 2:38 - Peter replied: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." 39 The PROMISE is for you and your children and for all who are far off for all whom the Lord our God will call. (NIV)

Brothers and sisters, let me ask you this question this morning. How many of you in your life have made promises that you did not keep? Maybe something happened along the way that caused you to have to break a promise. Let's say you have made a promise to pay for something, like a car or your credit card, and then due to no fault of your own, something changed your life. Maybe an accident or injury of some type, or maybe your job went bye bye. And it might not have been your job but that of your spouse. So in life we have maybe had to break promises, or did we? Maybe we could go to those people who we said we would pay and talk to them, explain it, and while you might still not be able to pay them, at least you are trying to work something out.

But what about those little promises, like you have promised your kids you would be at their game and you never get there. Or men, you promised to take your wife out to dinner and a show and it never happens. You know I could go on and on talking about this and spend a day talking about some that I have broken over the years. (Like if you let me adopt this one dog it will be the last one.) (We adopt senior dogs with handicaps.) The best way in the world not to make a promise is to not make it if you think there is any way in the world you are not going to be able to keep it. And we should never swear on our Bible or on the Name of Jesus that we are going to do something. Our yes should mean yes and our no should mean no. Anyway, we need to try our best to be promise keepers all of our life.

My mamma made some promises to me, and I don't remember her ever breaking any of them. Not even when she would say quietly to me, when I was acting up in a store, and she would say, "wait till I get you home." Yep, did not make a difference how bad I was she took me home, and let me tell you that there were times I wish she would have broken that promise if you get what I mean.

Let's take a look at our scripture for today. Peter replied: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

Peter, you remember Peter, he was reinstated by Jesus after denying Him. Yes he denied Jesus and was reinstated, and if over the years you have walked away from Jesus this is one place in the Bible it should me, you are welcome back home to Jesus. The other is also the story of the lost son. So here Peter is telling us that if we repent and are baptized we will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You remember God sent down the Holy Spirit upon Jesus in the form of a dove when John baptized Jesus. While Jesus did not sin, He still showed us the example of repenting and being baptized. And if we do just that, we have a promise of the Holy Sprit, also known as the comforter.

The second part of our Scripture is this. The PROMISE is for you and your children and for all who are far off for all whom the Lord our God will call. It was for those Peter was talking to and their children and all whom are far off, and God is telling me we are those who were far off. Jesus knew us before we were in the womb of our mothers and He died for us also. And as each person repents and comes to Jesus, the promise of the Holy Spirit will fall upon you. AND SOMEONE SAID AMEN.

Now as we look ahead to the rest of the week, there is one promise I would like you to talk over with God, and that is talk to Him about promises that you might want to make before you make them. Run things past our Lord in prayer before doing them, and then listen for an answer. Also talk to God about promises that you made and messed up on and ask Him how you can work them out to His satisfaction.

Also be thinking about this. Has God ever made a promise He did not keep, and has God ever made a promise where He made a promise and then also put in place a reminder to Himself that He should remember it? Did God need to remind Himself? Think about these, let me know what you are thinking...

Dear Lord, our Dear Father in Heaven. Thanks for the blessings You send to us, all of them and thanks for the blessings of the Holy Spirit and thanks for opening all of those blessings to everyone... Please look at our prayer list and act on them according to Your will for us. And Lord, I pray today for the unsaved and for all who are saved to be working for You... In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Now go forth and share your blessings and love on others and on Jesus... Love ya, Pastor Dan.