Salvation Bracelet and Bible Verses

One of the crafts we did during a recent Backyard Bible Club with our church was the well-known salvation bracelet.  These have been around for a while and are a great way to remind yourself of the Gospel as well as prepare yourself to share the Gospel.
I collected my own set of verses to go with the bracelet and to serve as a Gospel outline for those using this simple tool.  I don't know that my verses are better than anything else out there, but I wanted to include a few points that I couldn't find in other examples.
If you'd like to use this half-page format, you can download a pdf version here (RIGHT CLICK then "Save As").

The Children's Bible in Sound and Pictures

There is an image that has been burned in my brain ever since I was a boy.  The image came from this 2 record set, which of course, I still have proudly displayed in my office.

click any image to make 'em bigger

The Children's Bible in Sound and Pictures includes about 2 dozen of the more well known Bible stories from the Old and New Testament.  The illustrations are very well done, and though the stories were mostly paraphrased, they are surprisingly accurate.  

The only thing I remember from reading and listening to these records, over 30 years ago now, is from the story about Noah's ark and the flood, particularly, the bottom-center frame on the page above.  I've enlarged it below.  This image of the ark floating away in the stormy flood waters has stuck with me all these years, primarily because of the two people in the foreground of the picture, with their hands waving helplessly in the air as they are being consumed by a violent, wrath-filled, world-destroying flood. 

I probably knew that the perishing people were very bad, according to this story, but I didn't comprehend the fact that they were being punished by God for their exceeding sinfulness.  Moses describes it this way:

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
(Genesis 6:5-7 ESV, emphasis mine)

And so He did.  He blotted them out.  With a lot of water.  And it is illustrated in this frame.  And it is still etched in my mind.

I shared this very story and this very picture (I enlarged and printed it on a small poster) with the kids in our Backyard Bible Club this week, as we discussed the great flood.  I explained how even though everything was "good" after God created it in six days, it very quickly got bad.  In just the 3rd chapter of our Bible we have the Serpent entering the scene and successfully tempting Adam and Even into sin, immediately changing the whole world forever.  Chapter four gets even worse with the first murder - between brothers!  After a list of generations in chapter five, the stench of the fall grows even fouler, as described in the verses above.

This is why the flood was necessary.  God could no longer allow sin to run its course.

I didn't understand, back then, that I was one of those people in the frame, left outside of the ark to perish. In fact, knowing what the Bible teaches about sin, mankind, and my own evil heart and life before Christ, I'd speculate that those people aren't waving and crying for help.  I think they're shaking their fists and cursing Noah, his family, his boat, and his God. 

I didn't understand, back then, the great act of mercy that was shown to Noah and his family. I do now, because I have been shown grace and mercy from my Creator. This grace and mercy saves me from the punishment of my sin - the flood of God's wrath that awaits those who reject Him.
 
I am safely hidden in the greater Ark which is Christ.  I have taken refuge in Him, from Him.

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
(Psalm 2:12 ESV)

Diving Board, Patio Furniture or the Swimming Pool

Jim Shaddix, in his book, The Passion-Driven Sermon, explains three ways a preacher can use the text of Scripture for his sermon.  He likens it to taking a swim.

1.  The Diving Board

The preacher jumps off the text into the sermon, swims around for 20 to 45 minutes or so and never once returns to the diving board (the text).  A passage of scripture is read and is never mentioned again in the sermon.

2.  The Patio Furniture

The preacher swims around in the sermon but makes only casual and periodic visits to the patio furniture (the text).  Just as the patio furniture is there to compliment the pool, the preacher's text(s) are only there to compliment his sermon in a merely supportive role.

In reality, the text simply does not happen in these sermons.  The preacher announces and reads the text, assumes it to be authoritative because it comes from the Bible, and then proceeds to reduce it to a theme.... The real problem here is a lack of confidence in the sufficiency of the biblical text.  [The preacher] prostitutes the potent Word of God for the observations, conjectures, and experiences of man.

There now remains only one other method.  This is the right method.  This is the expositor's method:

3.  The Swimming Pool

The preacher jumps into the pool (the text) and swims around.  He stays long.  He gets wet.  He goes down deep.  He stays down.  He stays in the water.  "The text is actually the sermon."

Essentially, swimming in the text means 'exposing' the people to God's intended meaning of each text that has been covered up by language, time, culture, social setting, and many other factors.  That's the responsibility of the contemporary Christian communicator.  [His] primary responsibility is not to give the opinions, indirect implications, or extra-biblical principles but instead to expose the Holy Spirit's intended meaning in each passage of Scripture so that people's minds are exposed to supernatural truth and their lives are transformed into the image of Jesus Christ....

The most effective preaching pastors are those who dive into a passage of Scripture and then beckon their listeners to join them for a swim.