Revival: Realized!
The Power of Imagination
Matthew – 22:15-22

† In Jesus Name †

May the grace of God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ revive and renew you, as it did on the day you were baptized! And may you see what God has image’ined you to be!

The Hot Sauce Experiment

I am not sure who tried the experiment first, but it was all the rage in high school, a long, long time ago. ( Maybe before Danny was born?)

You took a penny… and old penny you could not determine which side had Lincoln’s image, and which was the  and put it in Del Taco hot sauce, and a day later… it was shinier than brand new!  (Results of current test if possible)

The reason I bring this up, is that God has a vivid imagination…..

And He does an even better job that Del Taco in creating us to be that image… not matter how we have been aged by sin, and the brokenness of this world. He imagines us clean, revived, and an image of us that we might not even recognize, were we to see our lives the way He does!

And we get to see that imagination at work today, as Noelle is baptized!

The Image corrupted….

As the Pharisees and followers of Herod plot to trick Jesus, they thought they had him. One, the conservative religious folks, with the a-religious secular leaders of the day. They had the question that would trap him, one answer would lead him to be condemned by one, the only other answer they thought of would lead him to be condemned by the other.

They had him! 

And he flipped the question around, and if they heard the answer, they would realize they were both caught….

Give to God what belongs to God.

Give what to God what is made in His image!

Did you know we were made in God’s image? 

All of us.

From the youngest of us, to the oldest.  Does not matter if we are retired, work, or go to school. Doesn’t matter the color of our skin, or how many tattoos or scars are on our Body. Nothing matters, for what God will reveal us to be is in His image.

Doesn’t even matter how much that image has been obscured by sin. Idolators, those who use Jesus name like a cuss word, those who don’t take time for God, those who dishonor their parents, those who murder, have been unfaithful to their spouse, or unfaithful to who they will be are cleansed. Those who cheat and steal, those who gossip, and those who are jealous and try to get what others are given, all of them…

Forgiven, cleansed, Revived and made alive in Christ!

God is far more effective than hot sauce!

Give to God…what is made in His image.

One of the things that I realized as I read through this, this time, is that Jesus is speaking to the leaders – and He is telling them to give to Him all they are responsible for, who were made in the image.

In this case, this is what Danny and Christy, and this church is doing today, as we baptize Noelle! We are testifying that Noelle is made in the image of Jesus, that God created her, and in His imagination, she would be His perfect child. Nate and Nicky – you are as well! Christy – you were once baptized here, and Danny.

Each one of you – each one here who believe and is baptized will be in heaven, every single sin forgiven, because Jesus died on the cross to restore the image we were created in… who God, with all His glorious imagination, created us to be…

His children.

May Noelle, and every one of us remember that… every day when we think of our baptism, and look in the mirror, and realize we are God’s kids!

AMEN!

Now lets get to the good part!

The Baptism of Noelle