Baptism and Promise

Father, God, as we focus here, help us to be found in

Christ, to benefit for the sake of our souls and others in Jesus' name.

Amen. This week, Elana ma Strongelow It's a difficult name to pronounce,

wrote an amazing article online where she recounted the deep spiritual journey of Matthew

Perry, who had become famous in his long running TV sitcom Friends. How

many of you are aware of that long sitcom Friends. It's part of American

culture, It's iconic. I have never seen an episode of it, never

seen one episode, but I do interact with culture. I'm here borrowing from

her account of Matthew Perry's journey defying God to show how it happened to him.

The Friends, star of Matthew Perry, who died at the age of

fifty four a is Los Angeles home in October twenty eight, recalled in his

twenty twenty two memoir Friends, Lovers and Big Terrible Thing and When he encountered

the Presence of God. In his memoir, Parry talked about his addiction issues

and substance abuse in a close call with death when his colon burst due to

his opioid abuse. His life was at an end. He was struggling reaching

out to God. He had received fourteen rehabs stance, fifteen stomach surgeries,

and he was ready to leave this world in pain and agony, and in

his extremity, he was calling out to God. His drug abuse had brought

him to the point of death. As you know, many of you know,

I've lost a brother to opioids. It's awful. His dire need,

he cried out to God in a prayer that changed his life for the rest

of his life. He recorded his memoir the words of the prayer that changed

him. When God met him and God encountered him for real for the first

time forever, he prayed this simple prayer. He said, God, please

help me show me that you are here. That's not very long or complicated,

is it. He recalled praying that simple prayer when he was at the

bottom of his barrel, facing death because of his sins, his failures,

host of things. And after this prayer, he wrote in his memoir that

he encountered the presence of God for real, the presence of God which he

had never felt in his whole life before. In that simple prayer and plea.

It caused him to cry uncontrollably like a baby in the presence of his

daddy father, seeking help in the night of his need from God. He

felt the deep well of God's mercy in that prayer, the flood of God's

grace. In that prayer, God showed up. He recorded in his memoir,

he said, I started to cry. I mean I really started to

cry, that shoulder shaking, kind of uncontrollable weeping. I wasn't crying because

I was sad. I was crying because, for the first time in life,

I felt okay. I felt safe and then taken care of. He

continued as he wrote, decades of struggling with God and wrestling with life and

sadness, and all was being washed away like a river of pain, gone

into oblivion. It was the deep flood of God's grace that he felt in

the night of his struggle, the night of his need, and when in

his own words he encountered God, Perry wrote, I had been in the

presence of God. I was certain of it. Right there, God was

there, And this time, he said, I prayed for the right thing

help. God had shown me a sliver of what life could be. He

saved me that day and for all days, no matter what. He had

turned me into a secer not only of sobriety and truth, but also of

him. It was quite a testimony. He gave in his book. Last

year, Perry divulged that his first prayer to God was a shallow prayer,

not this one, the one way back, A shallow prayer that he wasn't

proud of at all. In a twenty twenty two interview with Diane Sawyer,

he revealed that while dealing with substance abuse, he had asked God to make

him famous, believing that fame would be the answer to all his problems.

He said, that was the first time I ever prayed, and I looked

back at that as a dumb prayer, kind of prayer like a really young

person would pray. Another interview last year with reporter Tom Power, Perry reflected

him that first prayer. He said, he prayed that was all about him,

and it wasn't about God at all, Not like that last prayer he

prayed when he was struggling to be saved. He said that prayer, that

first one, Please God, make me famous. You can do anything you

want to me, Just make me famous. He wasn't proud of that one.

Three weeks later he said, I got friends, and God did not

forge about the second fudge about the second part, or forget about the second

part. His memoir, released on November one, two two to two,

Parry began with this troubling salvo. Hi, he said, my name is

Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me

Maddie, and I should be dead. A little less than a year later,

Perry was found dead under the water and his hot tub in his home.

He had died, probably a cardiac arrest, and went right into the

waters of his hot dub. He was discovered by an employee at his Los

Angeles home. He died baptized into the water of his hot tub in his

own home. Of course, early reports speculated that the actor may have drowned

that day because of something like drug abuse. Others surmised that the French stars

might have taken something lethal. None of it panned out. After all,

giving the history of drug addiction, you'd expect that maybe he just slipped up

and he died and went down. But according to Matthew Perry, he had

been sober for two and a half years. Before his death all the way

up to that time, see that experience had stuck according to his confection.

The first toxicology tests showed that there was no fentonylar math in Parry's system when

he died. It backed up his claim that he becomes sober after decades of

substance abuse because of his encounter with God. Perry's official cause of death is

not known, but one thing is for sure based on his own testimony.

He found God in a prayer in the night of his need, and he

left this world baptized in his hot tub, looking for a better day when

God will answer his prayer. His body had been damaged because of the drug

abuse, but his heart wasn't at that time. It appears, and I

hope and it will open his eyes one day in the resurrection and he will

see Jesus and God the Father is coming with Christ and they will wrap their

arms around Michael Perry and everyone else who loves him, and they will be

friends. Friends. Matthew Perry played the part of friends. Matthew Perry found

God to be his friend. Parry discovered that God can be close to you,

and that God can be your friend, and that God can save you

when no one else who can, when no one else wants you, God

can be there for you. He found God to be his father. God.

His friend Paul shared this truth in Galatians three twenty six to twenty eight.

Just open your bibles and turn there talks about baptism in God's Promise Galatians

three twenty seven, twenty six, twenty eight. For in Christ Jesus you

are all What does it say? You're all sons of God through what faith?

Verse two. For as many of you have been baptized into Christ,

what does it say next have put on Christ. When a person is baptized,

they experience the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the arms of Christ around them.

Verse twenty eight. There is neither June nor Greek. There's neither slave

nor free. There's neither male nor female. Here it is for you are

all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are

Abraham seed heirs. According to the promise, it doesn't take much to ruin

your life. But it is also true that God can meet you in a

moment and your deepest need and save you. At the end of your life.

No one will go to the king of God because they are good.

No one will be saved because they can save themselves. Jesus said, blessed

are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the King of Heaven. Friends,

we don't get to the King because we're rich enough to buy him off.

We find the riches of the King's mercy and grace and character when we

are poor in spirit. We don't receive the kingdom because we deserve the kingdom.

We receive the kingdom because the King is kind and he gives the kingdom

to us. We don't earn our way to heaven because we are smart and

talented. Heaven finds us because we are crying in the night for a father

God we could and would never find on our own. Matthew Perry prayed the

simple prayer that's profound and it's life changing impact. He said, God,

please help me show me that you were here, and God did. God

came to him, and he comes to you and me when we like him.

Pray that simple kind of sincere prayer. God helped me in my own

experience. I became a Christian when I was fifteen by praying a prayer like

this. I remember walking across the bridge in Gaelax, Virginia. My home

in turmoil, my mother is schizophrenic, and a father that had lost his

mind in any other ways, stepfather and just a horrible thing. I wanted

to get out of my home environment, and I just felt how muddied and

sullied my youthful life was. And I remember just coming to bridge and staying

over and watching the murky water and not wanting to see my reflection that way,

and just looking up to Heaven and saying, if there's a God up

there, save me. I don't know how to save me. I didn't

even know if there was a God. But that prayer became the moment in

which I begin to be moved providentially to meet my father, eventually be surrendered

to Christ, and be baptized a year later. So prayers like this matter.

You don't have to be experts in theology. You just gotta say,

God, help me, dear heart. Baptism is the sign that we have

reached out to God and Jesus and that God shows up to be our father

and friend. By faith. God washes away our sins. By faith and

baptism, God forgives us. God heals our broken heart. God sets us

free. He is free. You may journey a thousand miles to find God,

but when you pray a prayer like Matthew Perry prayed, God shows up.

In fact, he finds you before you ever pray. To be baptized

into Jesus Christ is to sink into the deep and deeper well of God's goodness

and grace that washes away our sins, so you can rise to become someone

accepted news starting over again in Jesus. Baptism is the call of God,

the covenant seal of God in your life that He is there with you.

The promise is certain that you are a child of God and you will be

in His kingdom. Jesus said, preach the Gospel to all the world.

Those who are believed and are baptized will be saved. And those who don't

want to do that, he says, they'll be condemned by their own refusal

to be a member of the family. God doesn't twist arms. He loves

us into the kingdom, and he loved me. Paul says, for as

many of you were baptized in Christ, have put on Christ, dear heart,

put on Christ and never ever take him off again. How many of

you want to recommit your LIFs to Jesus. Put on Christ and never put

him up again. You know. And if you feel in your heart you

need to be baptized. You may not know everything, but you want to

follow these dear people, and baptism be a part of the King of God.

Raise your hand, just raise it high. I see it, I

see it, see it. And we're going to work with you, and

we're going to help you get there. Okay. And Lord saw that decision.

He knows you mean it. I'm so glad that I was baptized when

I was a younger man, a young boy. I don't think i'd be

alive today if I hadn't come to Christ, but I am. My life

changed in a year. And in that one year, I was in a

church. I was learning the Bible. I had answers, and Daniel in

Revelation, prophetic answers, king to know Jesus, read these great books like

Desire of Ages, Steps to Christ, and I shudder to think would have

happened if I had not prayed the simple prayer, God save me, if

there's a God up there, save me. Dear heart, put on Christ,

never take him off. Put on Christ and experience the reality of the

promise that you two and His grace and kindness, are a son and daughter

of God.