Ep 143 | Cover to Cover 22 | Pastor Ryan Clark | May 31, 2026

Hello, this is Pastor Ryan Clark.

You are listening to a message from St.

John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Today, I'd like to introduce to you to one of my favorite people in the world.

This is one of my best friends up here.

His name is Eric Leverenz.

We have been friends for a really long time.

So much friends that he and I are both godfathers to some of our children.

And we have gone on vacation together and have been friends for almost 30 years now.

Eric and his family live in Wisconsin.

Shortly after Katherine and I got married, our maid of honor, Heidi, started dating Eric, and we hit it off right away as best friends.

And like I said, we've been friends for almost 30 years now.

We've done a lot of nice things for each other, but one of the nicest things that Eric has ever done for me is shortly after I became a pastor, I started having some of these miraculous experiences in the ministry as we would pray for people.

And whenever I had one of those things, I would call Eric and I would share them with him.

But one time he told me, he said, "This is what I want you to do.

Every time that you see God do something miraculous, I want you to call me, and I'm gonna write it down for you in a file."

For the next several years, this is what we did.

Whenever I saw God do something amazing, I would call him and share with him the amazing things that God did, and he would write them down.

And a few years ago, when I decided that it was time to finally write a book about those kind of things, I called Eric and I said, "Hey, that file that you've been writing over the last several years, could you send that to me?" And he did, and he sent me a file that is...

This is the actual file.

It's several pages long of miracles that happened.

And the most amazing thing happened.

As I was going through those miracles, I found myself doing this, "Ah, I forgot about that one."

Or I was saying, "I remember it, but I don't remember all the details of it."

And it was just amazing as I went back and recalled all the incredible things that God had done over a number of years.

And I was so thankful that Eric had made a way for me to remember all the good things that God had done.

As we continue our Cover to Cover study, we have now entered the Book of Joshua, and we're going to see as we start the Book of Joshua that God's people are not a whole lot different than yours truly.

They too needed a reminder of even the most amazing things that God had ever done As we finish the book of Deuteronomy, in Deuteronomy 34 it says, "Now Joshua, son of Nun, was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him."

So for 40 years, Moses had been leading the people of God through the wilderness, but as they got close to the promised land, God said to Moses, "You're not gonna be the one that's gonna lead them across the Jordan River west into the promised land.

You're gonna pass away, Moses, but Joshua, your understudy, is going to be the one who's gonna lead them in there.

So I want you to lay your hands on him and pray over him, because when you do, the Holy Spirit that's on you is gonna go into him, and he's gonna go in with the same wisdom and power into the promised land, leading God's people."

In Joshua 3 it says, Early in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan River, where they encamped before crossing over.

And Joshua told the people, Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.

And oh boy, was he about ready to do amazing things.

So here on the map, coming from the east side there are the Israelites, over two million people, and they get there to the Jordan River.

Now at this time that they got to the Jordan River, it wasn't just a little stream.

It was overflowing its banks.

And so it was a barrier for them to get into the promised land In Joshua 3 it also says, "Tell the priests who carry the Ark of the Covenant, 'When you reach the edge of the Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river.'

And as soon as the priests who carry the Ark of the Lord of all the Earth, set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and will stand up in a heap."

This was going to be a crazy thing, and it required some faith.

So God said, "I want the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant to go first before the millions of people, and I want you to go to this quickly rushing river."

And as soon as they put their toes in the water, they had to put their toes in the water.

As soon as they did, the water was going to quit running As soon as the priests who carried the Ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing.

It piled up in a heap at a great distance away at a town called Adam.

Now, what makes this amazing is that Adam is 18 miles north of where they crossed.

And so God had to really go before them so that the timing would work out perfect, so that right when they put their foot in, the water would stop and start building up in a heap all the way up north at Adam.

The priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.

I love this picture up here of the priests carrying the Ark standing right there in the middle of the Jordan River that had been flowing wildly just a few moments before that, and all the people behind them crossing over from the east to the west into the promised land that they had been waiting for the last 40 years Wow.

That's crazy.

What an amazing thing God did.

They'd never forget that, right? They would never forget to tell their kids about that, right? Look at what it says in Joshua 4.

"When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, 'Choose 12 men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up 12 stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.'

So Joshua said to them, 'Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder to serve as a sign among you.

In the future when your children ask you, "What do these stones mean?" Tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.

When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.

These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.'"

And so with the Jordan River completely dried up, a representative from each of the 12 tribes went out into the middle of the Jordan, found the biggest rocks that they could find, put them up on their shoulders, and carried them over into the Promised Land and set them up in a heap.

Why? Because it was to be a memorial, a remembrance for people, not only the people at the time, but also their children's children, their children's children forever.

It was to be a memorial to them so that they would never forget the amazing things that God had done What can you remember from your life? Can you remember the things that God has done for you? Because I guarantee you there's not a person here in this room today that God hasn't done miracles in your life.

Do you remember them? Chances are you're a lot like me You pray for something, you're in a rough spot.

You say, "God, I really need you to come through for me."

And then in a day, in a week, all of a sudden it resolves itself and you go, "Phew, that was close."

And then you move on with your life.

And sometimes we never put two and two together that the reason it resolved was because you prayed, God heard you, and changed your situation.

If you're like me, you probably have forgotten more than you remember.

I would challenge you to do what Eric did for me.

Today, go find a notebook, a piece of paper.

Write at the top of it, "God's amazing things that I've witnessed."

And then every time that God does something amazing in your life or in the life of someone that you know, write that down.

Remember the things that God has done.

You will never regret that because as soon as you go through the next big issue in your life and you start to get worried and anxious again, you can go back to that list and say, "Oh, that's right, God is faithful.

He has helped me in the past, and since He hasn't changed, He's gonna do it for me again."

And that got me thinking about this.

How many of you remember the day of your baptism? Raise your hand.

I see two hands.

Andrew, do you remember? He's probably not gonna remember either today.

Most of us, except for the two hands that were up, I think most of us were baptized when we were little tiny babies.

I was baptized when I was just a few weeks old.

And so it was almost like I wasn't there.

I don't remember anything about it.

But I should remember it because that was an amazing day, that God did some absolutely incredible things in my life.

And that was the day that God did some incredible things in your life as well.

There's only a couple of people here that were baptized as adults.

That means all the rest of us probably don't remember anything about that day.

Why is it important to remember your baptism? In order to answer that question, let's go back to the Book of Joshua.

It says in Joshua 4, "He said to the Israelites, 'In the future, when your descendants ask their parents, "What do these stones mean?" Tell them, "Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground."'"

Then listen to this.

"'The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had previously done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over.'"

As you were reading through your readings for this week, I'm sure that when you got to this passage, you went, "Oh, I've heard this before."

God did this before to his people all the way back in the Book of Exodus when they crossed over the Red Sea and God made the waters stop so that they could cross over on dry ground.

Think about it.

So there were two times that people had to go through water.

In the first one, the crossing of the Red Sea, God brought His people out of something.

He brought them out of horrible slave labor in Egypt.

That was the end forever of their slavery.

But when they crossed over 40 years later, crossed the Jordan River, they weren't coming out of something, they were going into something.

God brought His people into their amazing inheritance and destiny So when they left Egypt, these people for many years had been slaves.

They'd been slaves.

As they walked out of Egypt, as they crossed that Red Sea, they didn't know what it was like yet to be free people.

But 40 years later, as they crossed over, they weren't a bunch of slaves.

When they crossed the Jordan River, they were now an army with the Lord their God standing at the front of their army, supplying all the wisdom, all the power that they needed to take all of the promised land for themselves.

From a bunch of slaves to now an army of the Lord.

They came out of something, but they went into something as well.

And you know what? That's what the Bible says about your and my baptism as well.

Look at what it says in Romans 6, "We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life."

We were brought out of something and into something.

We were brought out of death and we were brought into a brand new life.

What does that look like? It looks like this: The Bible says that when we are laid down in the font in baptism, there's a death that takes place, a death of the old life.

It's a death of a life of meaninglessness, and there are hordes of people in this world today whose lives are just meaningless.

They don't find any meaning in it.

It's just the ho-hum drum of each day that goes by wondering, what is this all about? That life for you died at the waters of baptism.

What else died? Your slavery to sin.

What does that mean? Before you were baptized, you were in slavery to a even harsher slave labor than the Israelites in Egypt.

You had Satan as your slave driver.

Every time that he wanted you to do something, all he had to do was whisper in your ear that, "Ooh, you wanna do this.

It's gonna be good for you."

And then you went and did it, and guess what? It didn't go well because Satan only tells you things that are gonna steal, kill, and destroy your life.

And over again, that's what he wanted to do in your life.

That life died in the waters of baptism.

And that kind of life, just listening to Satan, is a life of self-destruction.

And then at the end of it all, it ends in eternal punishment The good news is, at the waters of your baptism, that whole old life died.

But you just didn't come out of something, you went into something as well.

You went into the resurrection of a new life, it says in Romans 6.

What is this new life? It's no longer meaningless.

It is full of meaning and purpose.

Why? Because you're now in God's family, and you now have God's Holy Spirit, just like Andrew received God's Holy Spirit today.

And being in God's family, your sins are washed away.

God isn't counting those sins against you, and now His Holy Spirit is just leading you into deeper and deeper faith, and leading you to do the things that God wants you to do.

And so now it's not just Satan yelling in your ear, you also have a still small voice whispering to you, "This is what God has for you to do."

It's not only gonna be good for you, it's gonna be good for this world.

And that gives your life meaning and purpose.

And finally, at the end of it all, it's not eternal damnation and punishment.

Instead, we go into eternal life.

Hello, new life.

At the waters of baptism, you got a brand new life, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, He's going to lead you, if you're open to it, if you're available to it, He's gonna lead you to do amazing things in this world before you get home to heaven.

Things like you see up here.

You're gonna have the opportunity, divine appointments, to speak into people's lives, to lead them into a relationship with Jesus, to lead them into a closer relationship with Him.

You're gonna have the opportunity to be there for each other, to pray over one another, and by the power of the Holy Spirit that you got at your baptism, God can transform people's lives as you pray for them.

You're gonna have divine appointments to make this world a better place.

Because if you're open to it, God's going to put you into these divine situations where you're going to be able to bless this world physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, financially.

You're going to be a light to this world.

That's awesome.

You just haven't been brought out of something, you've been brought into something through the waters of your baptism.

That's pretty important that we remember that, and there are some ways that you could remember it.

Maybe you take a snapshot.

Do you still take snapshots? Probably not with your phone, but you take a picture when the baptism is done, and maybe you frame it.

Or maybe you put a bunch of pictures from your baptismal day of your children or your grandchildren or your nieces or nephews, you put it into a book and every year around that time you get it out and you look through it and you say, "This is the day that God claimed you as His very own."

Little Andrew today got a sheet that looks like this, that they can frame and put up there on their wall, and every day they can say, "That's when God made you His very own in baptism."

But you know what? There's another way that we can remember our baptism, and we're gonna do that here today.

In the back of the church over there on that side, there's another baptismal font, and every Sunday, I see people come in through that that doorway there, and they'll dip their finger in the water, and they'll make the sign of the cross on their forehead.

What are they doing? They're remembering their baptism.

And so we're gonna do that here today, and I'm so excited to do this weekend because I've wanted to do this for, literally for years.

In fact, a couple of weeks ago, Paul and I were sitting in my office talking, and we were talking about, oh, wouldn't it be neat when God opens the door to do that? And I said, "Yeah, but since we're in this two-year study, it's probably going to be another couple of years at least."

This week, on Tuesday and Wednesday, I was still trying to figure out what God wanted me to preach on, and I was praying and praying, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the Holy Spirit said, "This is your week."

Ah! I was so excited about it, and then come to find out we've got two baptisms, one at 8:00 and one at 10:30 as well, and it, so it all worked out perfectly.

So what we're gonna do here today before I invite you forward to come and receive the sign of the cross on your forehead, I've got a couple of questions and answers that we're going to do as a way of remembering and rededicating ourselves to that new life that God has for us through our baptism.

I ask you, do you believe in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Yes, I believe in God.

Do you believe that God saved you at your baptism from sin, death, and everlasting condemnation? Yes, I believe He saved me.

Do you believe God filled you with His Holy Spirit at your baptism, and He has a new life and purpose for you? Yes, I believe God has equipped me by His Spirit for a new life of service.

Having been given this new life, do you renounce your old life of sin and selfishness? I here today renounce again my old life of sin.

And do you rededicate yourself today to follow God's Holy Spirit in the new life of serving God and man? II rededicate myself to following God in a life of service.

Jed and I are going to be standing on either side here.

We're not going to have the, this is gonna be a pretty a pretty quick thing.

I just would invite you to come up, and if you're on this side Jed will make the sign of the cross on your forehead.

If you're on this side, I'll do that.And

we just invite you to come forward and remember your baptism.

You are made new in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

You are made new in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You are made new in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You are made new in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You've been listening to a sermon from St.

John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.

If you would like more information about St.

John's and any of our ministries to our community and beyond, you can go to our website, www.

stjohnsbuffalo.

org.

Thank you and God bless you.