· Web viewThe aim of the game is to make it back and touch home base without being seen by the person who is “It”. If you make it to home base without being seen you shout “forty-forty

Copyright © 2017 Territorial Mission Resources Department - Australia Southern Territory 1Written by Christopher Trodden B.A (Bib.Stud)

Sermon: Hide and SeekSermon Outline

Topic: Salvation

Main Point: Sin causes us to hide from God

Intended Response: We no longer need to hide from God if we look to Jesus for our salvation

Key Verse: Gen 3:8-9

IntroductionThis message explores the background of sin and deliverance. It would be best used before Palm Sunday as it sets up why Jesus died on the cross.

A. The original game of Hide and Seek God desires to be in relationship with humankind But sin has broken that relationship Sin causes feelings of guilt, separation and fear

Point One: Sin causes us to hide from God

B. Snakes in the wilderness Jesus refers to Numbers 21 we He talks about Easter As a result of sin, snakes began biting the people of Israel This was a spiritual illustration of sin’s deadly venom

Point Two: Just the people of Israel were healed from the venom by looking at the snake on the pole, when we look to Jesus on the cross He delivers us from our sins.

C. Healing at Easter Jesus died to remove sin Jesus has set us all free We have been called to lift up the name of Jesus

Point Three: At Easter, Jesus set us all free

Response Place your trust in Jesus for salvation Go out into the world and share the gospel with others

Teaching Illustrations and props:This sermon can be enhanced with the use of visual props such as a cross, a flag wrapped around a cross or fake snakes. You might also hand out Allen’s Lolly snakes as part of point one.

More resources for this sermon, including PowerPoint slides are available at www.sarmy.org.au


http://www.sarmy.org.au/

Sermon: Hide and SeekSermon Transcript

Introduction: Good morning everyone and welcome to church.

Main illustration: Can anyone where remember playing chasey when you were younger? How about Forty-forty? That’s a great game. It’s a highly evolved, highly sophisticated combination of Hide and Seek.

For those of us who can’t remember how to play Forty-forty the rules are simple:

First, you have to choose a home base: like a letterbox, lamp-post or a tree.

Someone is chosen to be “It” – they stand at home base, close their eyes and count aloud to forty, while everyone else runs and hides.

The aim of the game is to make it back and touch home base without being seen by the person who is “It”. If you make it to home base without being seen you shout “forty-forty home” – and you’re safe and you are not “It” in the next round.

But as you try and sneak back to home base “It” is on the hunt for you. It is pursuing you, tracking you, scouring all around trying to find where you hiding, trying to catch you out.

If the person who is “It” sees you, they will run back and touch home base and say “forty-forty I see you (insert name from church)” – and then you're caught.

You have to go to home base and stay there for the rest of the game as a prisoner.

But you have hope…there are other players out there, hiding, waiting for their chance to sprint home without being seen. If they can make it back and touch home base without being caught you can be set free and re-join the game. The person who makes it home shouts “forty-forty-all free!”

It’s a great game! I can remember playing it with my brother and friends one night out in the streets. The moon was out, the streetlights were on, it was thrilling: the hiding, the anticipation, the chase, the mad dash to home base, the pursuit, the triumph, the freedom!!! I’m out of breath just thinking about running.

Transition This idea of Hide and Seek sets up a good way for us to understand why Jesus died at Easter…

1. Hide and Seek

You see, God has always desired to be in relationship with humankind. To set the stage for this to happen, God created the perfect environment for human life to flourish: the Garden of Eden. It was a place for humankind to grow and get to know God, to learn His ways and understand what He is like.


God set some rules in this garden that needed to be followed. These boundaries would protect Adam and Eve and their amazing relationship with God and all of creation if they followed them. God didn’t try and hide these rules, in fact He plainly told Adam “If you eat of that tree, the tree of life, you will surely die” (Gen 2:17).

In a dramatic story in the Bible, we read how one day an intruder slithered into the Garden – a serpent – who deceived Adam and Eve into playing a game where he set the rules. But this was no game, this was treacherous ploy to destroy God’s perfect environment and relationship with humankind.

By tricking Adam and Eve into biting and eating the forbidden fruit, the serpent had successfully caused them to break God’s rules of protection and they were now subject to sin and death as God had warned. As a result we see the first ever record of Hide and Seek…

“The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Come out, come out wherever you are?” (Where are you?) (Genesis 3:8-9).

Adam and Eve’s sin caused them to want try and hide from God and sadly people have been hiding ever since. Why? Because sin separates us from God. Sin creates feelings of guilt, shame, unworthiness and fear. No one wants to feel like that so we run away from the feelings sin causes and we too try and hide from God.

Point 1: Sin causes us to hide from God.

Transition Because of their sin, Adam and Eve were sent out of the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:22-24). But it doesn’t stop there. Something else went out of the Garden that day. That something else is relentlessly pursuing all of us, trying to coil itself around our soul, trying to strangle our hope, dreams, our faith. That something is sin.

2. Snakes in the wilderness

There is another dramatic story found in Bible that builds upon the imagery of sin and serpents like in the story of Eden. It’s a strange story of sorts, but it helps us understand Easter better.

In fact, Jesus refers this story when He talks about the events of Easter. This story is found in Numbers 21:4-9 we read:

4 Then the people of Israel set out from Mount Hor, taking the road to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. But the people grew impatient with the long journey, 5 and they began to speak against God and Moses. “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here in the wilderness?” they complained. “There is nothing to eat here and nothing to drink. And we hate this horrible manna!”


6 So the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and many were bitten and died. 7 Then the people came to Moses and cried out, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take away the snakes.” So Moses prayed for the people.

8 Then the Lord told him, “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it!” 9 So Moses made a snake out of bronze and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed!

So in this story, Israel is wandering in the desert. They are tired, they are hungry, they are thirsty and they start complaining about God. As a result of their verbal attack against God, a plague of snakes appears with venom so deadly it would kill whoever was bitten. Again, we see the penalty for sinning against God, for breaking the rules: death.

Can you imagine that scene for a moment? Imagine waking up to snakes in your bed, coiling around your legs and slithering up your arms. Could you imagine the moans and screams that would have pierced the night sky as people convulsed and writhed in agony from being bitten by snakes? Or the terror you would have seen during the day as bodies lay lifeless, face down in the ground, and people running in every direction trying to hide from the snakes to avoid being bitten.

The serpents in the wilderness were sent to communicate a powerful truth: death comes to all who sin against God. Remember, snakes are the symbol for sin and evil. The symbol of evil that came to Adam and Eve in the garden, a serpent, that brought about their spiritual death now was again present in the wilderness, chasing and biting anyone that moved.

But Israel a hope!

In an immediate act of grace and love, God provided a way for people to be healed from the snake's bite. He told them to make a bronze snake, lift it high on a pole (which is the Hebrew word for cross) and in faith look at it for their healing. Those who looked at the snake on the pole were cured from the venom in their veins and lived, those who didn’t – died by the snake’s bite.

Jesus refers to this story because it reveals our spiritual condition. We have all been poisoned by the deadly venom of sin – if we don’t get spiritualty healed we too will perish. When Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). He was referring to the spiritual healing from sin that can take place as we put our trust in Christ – the saviour lifted high on a cross at Easter time.


Point 2: Just the people of Israel were healed from the venom by looking at the snake on the pole, when we look to Jesus on the cross He delivers us from our sins.

Transition So Jesus died on a cross at Easter time to heal us from spiritual death. He also died so we would stop trying to hide away from God due to our sin…

3. Healing at Easter

Remember how you can only be set free in the game of Forty-forty if someone makes it back to home base?

At Easter time, God did something to end the game of Hide and Seek forever. He sent Jesus, the only one who could make it back to home base and set us all free.

That moment He was lifted high on the cross like that snake in the wilderness, Jesus “cried out in a loud voice – it is finished” (Jn 19:30). It was at that moment when Jesus reached home base to set us all free.

No longer do we need to play the game of Hide and Seek with God. Jesus has removed our sins and as a result has removed the power of guilt, shame and fear that are coiled around it.

We can now stand before God forgiven and free. No longer do we need to fear that venomous bite of evil, for Jesus came to “set the prisoners free” (Lk 4:18). Game over – the winner is Jesus!

Point 3: At Easter, Jesus made it back to home base and set us all free.

Call to Action These stories are full of challenge for us to take hold of and live out:

First: death, that deadly venom from the bite of sin, comes to us all. It is indiscriminate of age, race, gender, background and pursues us from the moment we enter this world. No matter how fast we run, or how well we hide we cannot avoid that poisonous bite of sin. As we prepare for Easter this season, I invite you to look to Christ and put your trust in Him for your salvation. Only He can save you from spiritual death.

Secondly: just as Israel was surrounded by snakes in the wilderness, so to is our world. The snake’s bite is evident all around us: from the oppressive systems that create poverty, to political corruption, selfishness, greed and crime - the venom of sin runs throughout the veins of the entire human race.

Everything has been bitten by sin and its venom is slowly destroying our world: people living in poverty, people denied justice, people being exploited and being brought to ruin. Our world needs healing. Our world needs Jesus. Our world needs us to go out and lift high the name of Jesus so all may be healed and delivered from sin.


When we lift up Christ, He will draw out the poisonous venom of evil and death and bring healing and life (Jn 12:32). But we need to raise the name of Jesus high for all people to see. Now that we have received the antidote to sin’s venomous bite, we must share it with others.

Friends, we are called to go into this world with the power of the gospel. Jesus has made it home, we have been set free. It is time for us to spread the hope of Christ this Easter. To share the antidote for the serpent’s bite. To bring justice, to bring freedom, to bring hope and healing in the name of Jesus.

Closing Prayer

Father God, we thank you that we no longer need to hide but we can stand openly before you in Christ’s love. Thank you for sending us Christ the Healer.

We pray this day, that you would enliven our hearts with hope and send us out into the world this Easter to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

That all who have been bitten by sin would experience salvation and healing in Christ. Empower us by your Holy Spirit to crush the snakes of poverty, of corruption, of injustice, and let us show your kingdom here and now, that all may be blessed this day.

In the name of Jesus we ask – Amen.


Sermon: Hide and SeekSermon Scriptures

Gen 2:17But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.

Gen 3:8-9They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.

Gen 3:22-24Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 3therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

Num 21:4-9Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. The people spoke against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.”

The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.

Lk 4:18The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free

Luke 9:23Then he said to them all: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

Jn 12:32And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.


Documents

· Web viewThe aim of the game is to make it back and touch home base without being seen by the person who is “It”. If you make it to home base without being seen you shout “forty-forty