We try to present ourselves as clean to others. Even though we are unclean on the inside. We work at appearing clean to others while being unclean on the inside. Here's what Jesus says, Matthew. Twenty-three versus twenty-seven to twenty eight. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you, are you like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
This second feeble attempt at fixing their own problems really close to the first one that we just looked at, but with a subtle difference in the first attempt describing the Ferris's, they actually attempted some cleansing. They were at least trying to fix the problem. But it is didn't identify the source of the problem. They were trying to clean themselves, but they were just cleaning the outside and not the inside in the second attempt. There's no attempt to clean anything.
There's no attempt to try to fix anything. The focus is on the presentation, not dealing with the solution, the second feeble attempt to fix our problems. It's all about appearances. Says, Since I can't fix the inside, I'll appear clean on the outside to people while being spiritually unclean and dead on the inside. I'm not going to let anyone see this inside stuff. So here's what you can see. I'm going to put on a facade, a mask, an alternate reality that everyone I'll let everyone see that.
And if they see that, they're going to think that everything is good in here. That's what Jesus is using with an illustration of a whitewashed tomb that inside the whitewashed, dead men's bones and like the mat and the camel from a previous wall fountain versus 23 and 24 mats and camels, spiritually unclean things for the people of God to eat in the Old Testament. That body spiritually unclean. To touch this, there's this theme of a spiritual uncleanliness here.
And so Jesus died inside the tomb, a spiritual death, spiritual uncleanliness. But on the outside, what do you see? It's not a translucence coffin or tomb. So fake and his white, white, fresh white paint keep those tombs looking really nice and clean. Don't look up on the inside of them, though, but just look how nice they are on the outside. Just stay focused on what the outside looks like. And Jesus told the religious leaders that what that's what they were doing.
They were doing the same thing. They're just there is appearing clean to everyone that came in contact with them. Look how clean we are. Look washed we are. Look white. We are. But again, don't we do the same thing in our day and age today, in our culture today, we don't look far for examples. All of social media. Is this all of it? Our personal social media, Instagram, Facebook, people snap and now and tick tock and the whole thing.
I've done my own personal kind of unofficial, and I and I check off and I go on social media probably too much. But you know what I never see? I never see people posting for the world to see their marriages falling apart or them having breakdowns mentally because their kids are out of control or they're not sharing their failures at work or their despair or their regrets. Do you know what they're sharing just three times? Just the family portraits where everyone's smiling and you can see the little light of the teeth, you know, the Christmas postcard around the tree, everyone hugging in their sweaters and everyone having a good time or days at the beach or the highlights or the good stuff
One shot problem, though, is that when you pour your protein smoothie in a glass cup and you don't rinse it right away. You know what happens if you better add protein shakes? You know what happens in a matter of time. The protein residue it takes onto the side of the of the cup on the inside and it begins to reek is just as disgusting.
And we've had that happen from time to time in our house, not to name any names or who the culprit is in our house that does that. But I'll let you detectives up there and figure out who it was. It wasn't me. So but here's how this word that Jesus is speaking to the religious leaders. How I understand them firsthand is that if I took one of those cuts kicked on the inside with the dry rot and protein shake, how long would it take for me to clean it if I only clean the outside of the car?
How how much scrubbing would I have to do to, you know, with with bleach or S.O.S pads or the or the finest quality products that you could buy at the supermarket? And I'm just scrubbing and cleaning all the way around. All the way around on the inside and outside. All the way around and clean for hours. Days. What would happen when I present to you. It would still be filthy. It would still be filthy and he'd be able to look at it and because it's a glass cup, he'd be able to see through it and on the inside how disgusting it is.
It'd be an exercise in futility if in such a vain attempt to clean. But the solution is really quite simple, right? I take the cleaning agent and even just basic no name brand stuff works and I begin to clean the inside of the cup and as I scrub the inside of the carpet, it takes a couple of seconds and rinse under the top and dump it out. Then you look at it and then what do you see? Clean. It's clean, totally clean.
Here's the application for us. When you look at your life and you look at the problems on the outside, do you understand what the problems are on where they really are? The flow in from our heart on the inside is that you can try as hard as you want to live a moral life or to live a better life. You can work hard at stopping swearing. You could be more generous with your finances. You can try harder to change your outward circumstances, change your job, change, change your friends, change your hobbies, change.
Clean everything up on the outside. But those changes will not fix the source of your problems because those things do absolutely nothing to address the problem that's on the inside, the invisible spiritual stuff that's on the inside in your heart, all those things are the outside of the. Imagine for a moment that all your outside issues actually were resolved. You got the better job that paid better. All your kids, your kids begin to behave perfectly like little princes and princesses all the time.
That's amazing. Your medical report comes back all clear. You're healthy, all your relationships, you're reaching success and all your hobbies like it's just a utopia of their. Imagine that you can get that for a second. In this life, government was beginning to be this. Everything was good. That still wouldn't be enough to fix it. We think that if we just fix that all, I'd be OK. But you would still find a way to mess things up, even if all those your wildest dreams were made true, why?
Because the problem is not out there. The problem is in here inside of us, our hearts clean up. The outside of our life doesn't do the trick. We need the inside cleaned. That's what the scribes in the Pharisees attempted to do. They were just trying to clean the outside of their lives. The funny thing is we attempt the same things today, 2000 years later. So that's feeble attempt No. One year, feeble attempt number two.
What feels good in the moment isn't always the thing that's the good thing and the right thing in the short term or the long term. But we live in a culture where it's where it's promoted and celebrated. We just follow your heart, follow your heart. And what I'm trying to do for us right now is to identify the source of humanity's problems. And it all begins here. And so. That's point one, here's point to. The highlight, humanity's feeble attempts to fix our problems on our own, we have a heart problem inside of us, something broken, something spiritually unclean, producing these things from the inside of us.
That's what Jesus says. So how do we go about fixing it once we know that the problem has been made plain to us? Well, this is what we're going to come to our text, Matthew. Chapter 23, verses 25 to 28. Here's a little bit of context. This is in this scene. Jesus is at the tail end of his three to three and a half year public ministry. He's been going around from town to town all throughout Israel, teaching and preaching and displaying the power of the kingdom of heaven through signs and wonders and and miracles of all sorts.
And he's been doing that for about three and a half years. But now his public ministry is coming to an end. It's Wednesday now, two days before his crucifixion. He's in Jerusalem is at Passover. It's packed in chapter. Twenty three of Matthew's Gospel is is documenting a back and forth that Jesus has been having with the religious leaders of his day as they're trying to entrap them, as they're trying to discredit him, as they're trying to prove him as a fraud, as a phony, and ultimately they want to have him destroyed.
That's the tension. And that's the scene that we're that we're in right now with Jesus and Jesus. And Matthew, 23, is pronounced in a series of woes upon the religious leaders, judgment upon them for their refusal to believe in him. God has come in. The person of Jesus wrapped themselves up in flesh and come to people and they reject God. And now he is produce, pronouncing judgment upon them. To those in our voices here tonight and in both of them and both of these walls in these verses, Jesus highlights the religious leaders, feeble attempts at fixing their own problems.
And we need to pay close attention, special attention, because we're going to realize that we can do the exact same things that they were doing 2000 years later, halfway around the world, different culture, different time, different space. It's the same humanities problem is the same. Our problem is the same. So here's there's two feeble attempts here, a feeble attempt. No one at the religious leaders trying to fix their own problem. They try to clean up the outside part of their life without addressing the inside part of their life.
They worked really hard at trying to fix the outside without paying attention to the inside. Listen to what Jesus says in versus 25-26. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you, clean the outside of the cup and plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee first clean the inside of the cup and the plate that the outside also may be clean. I get this image of Jesus as you as I see it, I see the truth of it in my kitchen all the time, both myself and my daughter, Sydney, we both have protein shakes every once in a while that the using the blender put in the frozen fruit and the yogurt and the protein powder and all that kind of stuff.
It's great. You you blend it up and pour it into a glass cup and then you drink, you drink it and you're getting all the nutrients, all your muscle building power in. One shot problem, though, is that when you pour your protein smoothie in a glass cup and you don't rinse it right away. You know what happens if you better add protein shakes? You know what happens in a matter of time.
This defines a person. Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth starting to go down 17, do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth, passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, s*xual immorality, theft, false witness slander. These are what the file a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone to hear what Jesus is saying, evil thoughts, murder, adultery, s*xual morality, theft, false witness, slander.
These things are the major problems in our world today. These are the problems. And Jesus are saying they don't originate outside of us. They originate on the inside of us. Our heart is the problem. It produces our problems from the inside. You won't be hearing this, many might be asking the question, yeah, OK, but what if I'm just minding my own business and someone actually outside of me, outside of my heart actually does something immoral or wicked or evil towards me?
Isn't that a problem that's outside of me and my heart? Yes and no. Let me try to address that. If someone does something wicked to you, what's the source of that problem? Their heart. Their heart is producing that wickedness that's been levied against you still, that has nothing to do with you yet, but here's where the more here's one of the stuff that happens against us and to us, where it becomes compounded and it becomes a real issue because we have we have unfortunate things happen to us all the time.
We have wicked things and unjust, unjust things happen to us all the time. Everyone does. But here's where it gets really messy, really bad, really fast. Not necessarily stop being that us. But what how do you respond to those things? How do you respond to those things when they happen against you, when someone does you wrong, big or small? Does your heart produce anger, vengeance, despair, violence, abuse, denial? Stuff happens to us, but our heart produces the response that we don't respond the way that we ought to to those things, and that compounds it and makes that experience far greater against you and for you than it would be if we had hearts that knew how to respond properly to things.
If left unchecked and undealt with our heart is what produces the things that keep us separated from God if we haven't come into a relationship with them yet, if this if this thing is not addressed, this this producer of this of the wicked and the evil and and the problems, if it's not left, if it's not addressed, we're we're in big trouble. So whatever you do, friends, brothers and sisters, whatever you do, whatever you do, don't follow your heart.
Don't follow your heart. If I had a quarter for every time I've heard people in person or on social media or whatever, say a kind of phrase similar to this man, I just got to follow my heart. I just got to do what feels right. And I and the amount of times I've type things and erased them or had to bite my tongue because if I had a quarter for every time, I'd be a rich, rich man. Our world lives this way.
It is it's this propaganda. It's it's promoted. Follow your heart. Do what makes you feel right. Do what you what you think is right. And what we've learned so far is we we cannot should not follow our heart because our hearts are the source of the problem. The Bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things. Who can know it? Our hearts trick us. They deceive us. They don't lead us down the right path.
So now you're sitting where you are watching this. Now, just imagine in front of you all the potential sources of the problems in your life. Think of them all, all in front of you. In this exercise, you have your spouse or your potentially or your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your singleness sometimes is a source of people's problems, they think, or your kids or your lack of kids. Maybe it's your boss or fellow employees.
Maybe it's your. Yeah, your co-workers, maybe your friends or the source of the problem right now. Maybe it's your enemies. Maybe it's in your finances over here or the economy. Maybe it's the the the government or the police out there. Maybe they're they're the problem. Maybe it's maybe it's your vices, you know, drugs or alcohol or sex or gambling or whatever, that maybe that's the source of your problem. Maybe it's your health, maybe it's covid, maybe it's the weather.
And I said a bunch of things, but fill in the gap of a substitute in there for yourself, whatever problems you might think exist. And they're all out there somewhere, OK? They're all out there. Now, let's use our problem detector for a second. They're all out here and we've got a problem detector with the pack here and the long stick to the plate. Right. And let's see if we can detect any problems. They're all I listed them all.
They're all in front. If this is going to. It's not it's not picking up anything. The problem, the sector is not recognizing problems when we're putting it to all these things that potentially we think would be the source of our problems. Doesn't pick up any kind of response, which is odd because we just put a whole bunch of things that are major problems in our lives. And so when we do that, maybe this problem detector is defective, but something happens, you're leaving it on OK, and then is on is powered on.
And you and you just you're going to put it down. But as you put it down, you're turning it. You're turning it. And the stick with the plate is coming. It's moving closer towards you. You're putting it down in an awkward way, but you're putting it down so that it's facing you. And as soon as the plate comes around from checking out all these things, it's coming close to you. What do you think happens when it comes right to I'll tell you what happens.
It goes like this. It goes beep, beep. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep and start. Smoking makes barking and then it explodes. As the plate is put directly over your hearts and as I put it, directly over my heart. The beats increased with frequency as we get closer to our hearts because.
Our hearts. Ah, the problem, our heart is the problem, not our physical heart, not not the organ in our chest cavity that that pumps blood all through our body. I'm not talking about the organ talking about this, our spiritual heart, the seats of your and mine, the seat of our emotion and our will, the our our invisible person who we are on the inside, the invisible part of you that drives your life. The visible part of me that drives my life.
Jesus made this really clear that this is the source of our problem. It's not what's on the outside of you that's the problem, Jesus says, but it's what is on the inside of you, that is, listen to what Jesus says in Matthew Chapter 15, verses 10 to 11, and also in verses 17 to 20. Let me read this for us. And he called the people to him and said to them, hear and understand it is not what goes into the mouth that defines a person, but what comes out of the mouth.
But my prayer is that you would be so impacted by what you hear that it will not only change your life that you'll understand it and then God will be able to use you to teach what you learn to actually have an impact to other people's lives as well. That's my hope. Our series that we're in, Matthew the Gospel of Matthew or in Chapter 23 are texts for our main text is going to be found in verses 25 to 28. So Matthew, 23-25-28
And I want to give you guys the it's a four point sermon tonight. I want to give you the four points up front and then we'll hit them one at a time. So to give you an overview of where we're going. Point number one, we're going to identify the source of humanity's problems. Small task. I know what we're going to do that to, in point one, identify the source of humanity's problems. Secondly, what we're going to do is we're going to highlight humanity's feeble attempts to fix our own problems.
We're going to highlight humanity's feeble attempts to fix our own problems. And is at this second point where we're going to spend most of our time looking at our text. We're going to connect our text in Matthew. 23 verses 25-28 right into the second point. And you're going to see that more clearly when we get there. The third point in this message, I'm going to give you the solution to humanity's problems. We're covering a lot of ground here tonight, as you can see.
And then our fourth point, we're going to troubleshoot what to do when the problem is still there in our life after we've received the solution to it being a troubleshooter, we recognize the problem, received the solution, but then realize that there's still some problems left. We're going to do some troubleshooting point for. So that's where we're going in this message. So let's let's dive in and identify the source of humanity's problems, the source of humanity's problems. If you're a Christian, if you're a brother or sister in Christ, watching this message right now, I want to take you back as we identify the source of our problems prior to you coming to know Jesus.
So this is pre Jesus, pre salvation for you. If you're if you're a friend and a guest watching the service with us and you, and you're not a Christian, you don't know Jesus. This is going to explain to you the source again, identify the source of your problems in your life. So for the Christian, this is Jesus. And if you're not a Christian, we're going to identify we're going to find out what's going on and what's wrong.
So we're going to do a little bit of an exercise to do this. You guys picture in your mind a metal detector, a metal detector. You see people who have the get rich mentality, right? They buy the trusty metal detector. They go to the beach and they put the little plate at the end of the stick near the ground. And they're trying to find hidden treasure. And they'll have a normal tone the metal detector and go eat.
And if there is no metal, but as soon as it starts to come to some metal, what does it do? Wraps up, right? Eat, eat, eat, eat, PBB. And then, you know, you found what you're looking for. That's a metal detector. Well, we're going to use here to identify the source of humanity's problems. We're going to use a problem detector. OK, a problem detector. Now to help us find the source of our problems.
Pastor BJ breaks down two of Jesus' "woes", levelled at the hypocritical religious leaders of His day and their feeble attempts to fix themselves through behavioral modification.
Some of the things that we learn in our schooling, you know, through from kindergarten all the way through grade 12, some of the stuff that we learn in that period of our lives proves to be really helpful in the later parts of our life and in our in adulthood. Really helpful stuff like reading. We learn to do that in school, basic writing skills, basic math beyond the educational stuff in the classroom. We even learn a lot of stuff in elementary school and high school, personal interpersonal dynamics, like learning how just to function in society and function in culture.
You learn that. You learn that in high school and school. And so we carry that stuff into our adult lives. And we continue to need to read, need to write that need to use basic things and in math, helpful stuff that we learn. There are some things, some not some helpful things that we learn. They don't seem to have any bearing on our lives immediately after we learn, for example, parallelograms, parallelograms, there's a great meme out that shows us the connection between learning parallelograms in geometry and math and having no bearing on our lives today.
If you're not sure what it means to be the first to welcome you to the year 2020. Great to have you with us. A meme, a meme, by definition, is a humorous image. It's a video or a piece of text that is copied off with, often with slight variations, and spread rapidly by Internet users means. I fancy myself as a meme connoisseur. But beside the point, here's this meme. I'll just explain it to you what it says.
It says this. I'm glad I learned about Parallelograms instead of how to do taxes. It's really come in handy this parallelogram season. And it's hilarious because we do taxes every year as adults and we don't learn about taxes in school, we learn about parallelograms in school and we learn them, they have almost pretty much zero impact in our lives what so ever. What's the point of me telling you this? Well, sometimes we learn less important things in our life that don't really impact our lives and sometimes we don't learn some of the most important things that will actually impact our lives.
We don't get exposed to learning those things in this message today. We're going to learn something that I wish every single person was taught in childhood, in their adolescent years, in their adult years. This is stuff that I wish that were taught not just on a one time experience, but refreshed and relearned and remember on and on and on again, because it's so vital, it's connection to how we live and understand our lives. Vital, vital. So here's the hope for this message.
The stuff that we're going to be looking at that I'm going to be showing you tonight. Can impact your life forever. You know, sometimes preachers can exaggerate. This is no exaggeration. The stuff that we're going to learn can impact your life now and forever. And here's the second part of my hope for this message, that it would not only just change your life, I believe that God will use this and can use what we're going to learn tonight to change your lives.
And so we ask right now that by your spirit, you would just shine a light on any area of our lives where we're not walking and living under your authority because we want to. Lord, we invite you, Jesus. And we ask you to speak.
And if we try and add anything. Oh, this is a nice salvation, let me just spruce it up with some of my good works. Gas is you just profaning the work of Jesus? Everything that's from the Lord is perfect as it is. Make a note of this, God's ways and God's word are perfect and cannot be improved. They're perfect and cannot be improved. I'm going to end with a verse spoken by the prophet Samuel in correction to Israel's first King Saul.
It's a verse every Christian should memorize. It is a verse 8 we should teach our children because it is crucial to the Christian life, it is crucial to understand the authority of God in our lives. Speaking rhetorically, Samuel asked Saul. Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed then the fat of Ram's. Samuel said, Saul, listen, even if you have good intentions.
Even if you have good intentions, the Lord delights in obedience. Because obedience says, Lord, I recognize who you are. I recognize your character and I recognize your power and I recognize that, well, my role is. Is to gratefully. Gladly and lovingly obey. Not to offer a revised plan for your consideration. The Bible says. Who has been the Lords councillor, the answer, all of us. But we're not we are not as counselor, we are not his advisers, we are children of a perfect father who is wise beyond our comprehension and good beyond our wildest imagination.
We love them, we surrender to him, we offer our whole lives to him gladly because he has loved us completely and it's our desire to live our lives in the footsteps of Jesus by saying, Father.
Not my will, but yours be done, yours be done. Every day, every moment, that's the goal, that's the goal for those who love the Lord, would you buy your head and close your eyes? Father, thank you for our time together in your word.
And Lord, we are overwhelmed, we are overwhelmed by your spirit and by your word with how good you are and as your word lays it out. With just the reality that you don't need our counsel or our opinion, Lord. You are a faithful friend that sticks closer than a brother, you hear every word, we pray, every word, we cry, every word. We speak to you, Lord, and you do speak with us through your spirit and through your word.
But, Lord, where you have spoken clearly. It cannot be improved upon. And so, Father, we asked that you would put in all of us a heart that has rightfully submitted to you as God in the truest sense of our lives.
Lord, now your authority reign over our lives, Lord, not because we've come to Mt. Sinai, and we're terrified, but because we've come to Mount Zion. We've been given access to the throne of God. We've already been forgiven. We've already been received. We've already been accepted. We've already been welcomed, Lord. And so our obedience does not come from a place of fearing your wrath, Lord, but it comes from a place of being overwhelmed by your kindness and your love.
God says, listen, all you're going to do, all you're going to do is profane it. Why in this case, because God wants them to understand he's looking at the heart, he's not looking at how tricked out their altar is, he's not looking at how great their works are.
He's looking at their hearts.
And if they got into building alters how they thought altars should be built, it would not take very long before they convinced themselves, as we would, that the key to pleasing God is building really great altars and temples.
I mean, could you imagine if you believe that you would just spend countless amounts of money on building the most elaborate structures you could all over Europe and play, I can't imagine what would happen if you believe that.
So I want to suggest to you that in our context, in our day, we face a similar battle of wills because we're all faced with the temptation to say, well, you know what, I here's our cop out.
You ready for this? This is going to hurt. Brace yourself. You know, I just believe that my relationship with God is it's just it's just so personal, you know?
And I don't mean just personal in the sense that that it's between me and Jesus, but I mean in the sense that, you know, what worshiping God looks like for me is personal between me and God. What living for God looks like. It's its personal for me.
It's personal for me. You know what? Scriptures need to be obeyed and which ones don't. That's that's really something personal. It's very special to me. I'm not comfortable talking about it.
And God says that's profane. That's profane. Because the truth is that if God has spoken in his word, if he's given clear revelation and instruction on how he wants us to do something, on how he wants to be worshipped and how he wants us to relate to each other and love each other and be the church, if God has spoken on a subject in his word, then the conversations over.
There's a period at the end. Not an ellipsis, not those three dots, because he's waiting for our input and any attempts to amend or revise what God has said, they're just profanity.
It's profanity, because when we do that, what we're really saying is there's a higher authority now, Lord, there's a greater wisdom that can be added to the conversation.
Mine, mine.
And when we do that, we're not really worshipping the Lord, are we? We're worshipping ourselves because we've elevated our desires and our opinions. Above the Lord's. So would you write this down when we worship God according to our opinions and desires instead of his word?
Our worship becomes profane. When we worship God according to our opinions and desires, instead of his word, our worship becomes profane. If we love, the Lord will express that love by doing our best to worship him, live for him, honor him as he desires to be worshiped, lived for and honored. If we love the Lord, will want to worship him in a way that blesses him and the way that we learn how to do that. Is by reading what he has said and revealed in his word.
By being a part of his church, by being around our brothers and sisters and saying, can you help me do that? Whoever we are, whatever your position is in the church with you being a Christian a short time or a long time, say I want to live in a way that blesses Jesus. Even if we have good intentions.
The point is that we cannot improve upon God's work, we cannot improve upon God's ways when it comes to our salvation, the work of Jesus on our behalf, his life, death and resurrection.
It's perfect. It's perfect. It cannot be improved in God's plan of salvation. It's his work and it's our faith. But what is Hebrews 12 to tell us about?
Our faith says Jesus is the originator and the perfecta of our faith. Why is our faith even acceptable, because it was crafted by Jesus. It was crafted by Jesus, not by us. Jesus did all the work and Jesus gave us the faith to believe in that finished work.
So just keep everything on the ground floor. Nobody needs to climb any steps. Let's just keep it all copacetic. But the main point of this text is that God gives specific instructions as to how he wants to be worshiped.
Later on in Exodus, God is going to give incredibly detailed instructions on the building of the Tabernacle, the special tent that would become a portable temple for the people of Israel. He'll give instructions about sacrifices and feasts and all kinds of things related to how he wanted his people to worship him. And it's so easy for us to say, well, you know, all those laws and regulations were done away with Jeff when Jesus fulfilled the law perfectly as a man.
And now there's just there's just freedom. Just freedom. And it's true that our performance, our works, has nothing to do with our salvation. But remember. God is still a consuming fire, he's still holy, he's still worthy. And we do not speak truthfully when we claim or act as though the New Testament is not loaded with practical instruction on how we are to live as the people of God, as the church. We mislead ourselves and one another when we act as though the New Testament is not full of counsel on how to live in a way that is pleasing to God and blesses God, the message of the New Testament is not do whatever you want.
It's not that, it's that God loves you, he's saved you. And if you understand that, then you belong to him now go and live as though you belong to Jesus. I'm just going to find my place with a dramatic pause for a minute right here, so just indulge me as I do that. Our whole lives are intended to be acts of worship. There's a way of living today that is pleasing to God and there's a way of living that is not there's a way of living that is worship to God and there's a way of living that is not as we talked about.
And we're speaking about Grace just a few minutes ago, if we've really encountered the grace of God, it will produce a deep love and affection for the Lord, which will naturally make us say, I want to live in a way that blesses him. And in this passage in Exodus, God says that any stones used to build an altar for him must be used as is.
Don't cut them, don't shape them, don't chisel them in any way. Now, why is that? Because God says if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. And I really want to understand us the big lesson that God is trying to teach the Israelites. It's not that God says, listen, I'm part of a union that's fully committed to using only natural products.
That's not what's going on here.
There's something big he's trying to teach them when it comes to what is right, when it comes to what is good, when it comes to what leads to life, when it comes to how we are to worship God, we are not invited into the discussion to offer our opinion.
It is not God and us sitting across the table offering 50 50 input, having a negotiation. Well, you know, Jeff, what do you think it means to live for me? Oh, I'm glad you asked. God, I've got some notes about what I think it should mean. That's not what happens in the Christian life. God says there's some things that I decide unilaterally.
Because here's my trump card card, I'm God, I'm God, I got to know I'm God, that's why I can do this. And God says when you try and add your opinion. All you do is profane, whatever we're talking about. That's all that happens if Israel said, you know what, though, Lord, I think some nicely decorated stones, maybe just in the corners would really beautify this altar. We can get, you know, this sort of wilderness chic thing going on.
And our performance is not part of the equation. Throw the equation for salvation on the board. You're not going to find our works anywhere on there. Secondly, we've been given the Holy Spirit, which actually gives us the power to obey God, it gives us the ability to hear from God and be led by him should we so choose moment to moment.
You and I experienced the character and the power of God at the cross. His outstretched arms, the nails in his hands and feet, the wound in his side, the stripes on his back, tell me everything I need to know about the character of my God, tells me everything I need to know about how he feels about me.
And when you combine that revelation of God's love for you. With the freedom of understanding that nothing is based on your performance. And the power of the Holy Spirit in your life. That's Grace, that's Grace, because it makes you want to live in such a way that Jesus is blessed because you love him. You love them. What real Grace does is produce a love for Jesus, the one who saves you. That's what Grace does, it doesn't make you say, oh, how can I hurt him some more?
How can I take advantage of this? It makes you say, Lord, Lord, thank you. And if the grace of God does not make you want to live for God. And please hear me on this, I'm not saying live from perfectly, I'm saying if the grace of God does not make you want to live for God, then let me be real honest. I don't think you've encountered the grace of God. I don't think you've come face to face with the Lord's love for you, because when you do.
You can't help but love them, you can't help it. Real grace is not a license to sin, it's the means by which were actually able to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
Let's jump back in to Exodus 28, verse 22, it says, then the Lord said to Moses, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, you have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make anything to be with me. Gods of silver or gods of gold. You shall not make for yourselves an altar of earth. You shall make for me and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings in your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen.
In every place where I record my name or just wherever I cause my name to be remembered, I will come to you and I will bless you.
And if you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone. For if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it.
Nor shall you go up by steps to my altar that your nakedness may not be exposed on it. So let me explain that last verse, because I don't want to end the message with it. And then we'll go back and talk about the rest of that section of scripture.
You see, God didn't want he didn't want any altars that were elevated, that had steps leading up to it. And I suspect there are two main reasons for this. The first reason is mentioned in verse 26
Twenty six, people didn't really wear underwear at this time. Men wore robes, put two and two together. Ain't nobody want to see that.
You see, when you show up to worship God, you shouldn't have to learn that much about your pastor. Right.
All right.
Secondly, if you study ancient Near Eastern cultures, or you just read the Old Testament, you're going to figure out really quick that all the other pagan religions in the area, this is a challenge to talk about with kids in the room, all the other pagan religions in the area at that time, Inc, let's just say physical rituals into their culture, worship, or more likely, it's just wicked people who want to do wicked things.
And they're like, yeah, I just had a revelation from Ball that when we have religious ceremonies, we should be doing this.
Everyone's like, cool, that sounds great. And so what God is saying, he's saying, I just want you guys to stay as far away from that as possible in your worship of me.
He is just as glorious and powerful and overwhelming as ever. The bible says the Lord does not change. He's not a man. He does not change. And the writer of Hebrews in the New Testament under the New Covenant tells us that present tense, our God is a consuming fire.
What changed is not who God is. What changed is who our mediator is. Our brother Paul tells us in First Timothy, two five, there's one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. And you know what our mediator did for us, do you know how he bridged the gap between God's glory? And sinful humanity, let's say, God's glory and sinful humanity, he didn't say God, would you? Take it down a notch.
He raised us up. That's how we bridge the gap, Paul tells us this about the Lord in Romans eight. These are all in your outline.
Speaking of men and woman believers, he says, whom he for knew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he Jesus might be the first born among many brethren. I won't get into it, but it's one of my my favorite things to talk about in the world. Underline that word, brethren, because if you're not aware of this, what it's literally saying is the idea is that when Jesus was raised from the dead, that he would be the firstborn of many brethren.
It's describing us when we're raised up by the Lord as the brothers and sisters of Jesus.
That's what it's talking about. It's a scandalous as it sounds.
Moreover, whom he predestined DC also called whom he called the sea also justified and whom he justified.
DC also what he glorified, he glorified. What then, shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
And our brother John tells us, beloved now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when he is revealed. Wrap your mind around this, we shall be like him. We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Yes, Jesus lowered himself and came to the earth as a man, but he didn't lower himself so that he could stay low with us and spend eternity down here.
He lowered himself so that he could reach us and elevate us with him to join him in glory. That's what he did.
He didn't solve the gap between us and God by bringing God down and staying there. He said, I'm going to come down and get you and raise you up with me.
Look at Hebrews 12 28 again, it talks about how we've received it, says Grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
And I want to ask you to meditate on this some more this week, maybe talk about it in your groups, because there's a heresy sweeping through the church and no heresy sweeping through the church is new, by the way.
It's been going around since the church was born and they pretty much all took place in the first century and they cycled through over and over again.
But this heresy wrongly teaches that the purpose of God's grace is to allow us to do whatever we want. Sin however we want, live however we want, because, hey, Jesus is taking care of our sins. It's a moral credit card with no limit. Jesus pays it off no matter what we throw on there. But what does this first tell us? Hebrews 12, 2008 that God's grace empowers us to do it says serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
At Mount Sinai, the people saw God's glory and they were given the law.
But inevitably, inevitably, they couldn't live up to it, just like we can't.
And inevitably they failed over and over and over again. But we're under the new covenant. We've been covered by the blood of Jesus.
We've been given the Holy Spirit. That means two massive things have taken place.
Firstly, under the new covenant, nothing is based on our performance. Our righteousness comes from Jesus in our sin has been paid for by Jesus.
And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and trembling. If you're wondering where Moses said that, it's a whole different discussion.
I don't want to get into today. But if you're that interested in it, come ask me about it after the service and I'll tell you so.
The writer of Hebrews describes the reaction we've been talking about of God's people to the revelation of God's glory physically manifesting on Mt. Sinai.
But the right of Hebrews says this to the believer, to you and I, he says. But that's not your situation. That's not your reality. You haven't come to Mt. Sinai. He says this in verses to see if I can get through this. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven to God, the judge of all, to the spirits of Just man made perfect.
The writer says you haven't come to Mt. Sinai. Now, you've been given access all the way to the throne of God in heaven. And how is that possible? How is that possible? Well, it's because the writer tells us that we've also been given access for 24, underline this to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.
You see, Moses was the mediator of the old covenant known as the law. Through Moses, God gave man the list of laws that lay out what a man or woman would need to do, how a man or woman would need to live in order to meet God's standard and gain access to heaven through being a good person.
The bad news is that the standard of the law is perfection. It is unattainable for any mortal man or woman, we're doomed under the law, we're doomed. But the good news is that after Moses came a better mediator, a mediator of a new covenant, and in the new covenant, the deal is not perfect, and you'll be welcomed in. That's not good news in the New Covenant, the deal is Jesus has been perfect for you. So come in.
Come on in. And not only that, but Jesus are greater than Moses also died in our place as our Passover lamb so that all the sins that we've committed. Every sin we will commit has been paid for.
You see, under the old covenant, there had to be sacrifices, the blood of animals and those sacrifices didn't actually pay for any since they simply pointed ahead to the only blood that could pay for since the blood of Jesus. So make a note of this, Jesus are greater than Moses is our mediator. He's our mediator. And as the Lord would design it, Moses actually prophesied about Jesus in Deuteronomy 18, it's on your outlines.
And he said to the people of Israel, the Lord, your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren, is speaking about Jesus, even though he didn't know it. Probably. Now skip down to verse 28 and Hebrews 12, it says. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
And then underline Verse 8 29. Notice the tense. It's present tense, for our God is a consuming fire. I want to correct one of the most common misperceptions in the church, there's this perception that, man, aren't you glad that we get New Testament God, the nice kind God and not Old Testament cranky kill everybody?
God, there's this perception in the church. There's this perception that that God changed like around the time Jesus came, like God went to a life coaching seminar and changed his outlook on the human race and became a softer, gentler version.
Here's the reality. We do not have access to God because God diminished. Or reduced his glory in some way. We do not have access to God because he turned down his glory so that we could be around him. OK, I'll turn it down a little bit so I can be around you sinners.
This is the deal. They recognize they need a mediator, Verse 20. And Moses said to the people, well, do not fear, for God has come to test you. And that is fear may be before you so that you may not sin.
So Moses says the purpose of God's display here is not to destroy you, it's to help you understand who God really is so that you will take him and his word seriously.
So that you'll understand this is not one of the gods of Egypt, we're talking about this God is real, and you know why that's a good thing.
Do you know why having a fear of the Lord is a blessing seven times in the Bible? Fear of the Lord is directly linked to wisdom in Joe, Psalms, Proverbs and Isaiah, a fear of the Lord is directly linked to wisdom, real wisdom, the kind of wisdom that helps you make decisions that lead to a fulfilling and a meaningful life.
That kind of wisdom only comes from God. And the way to walk in it is to live according to the word and ways of God. And when you have a right fear of God, it makes you take his words seriously and it makes you let the word of God actually guide your life.
And you find yourself enjoying the flavor and the goodness of God in your life in incredible ways. But the converse is also true. When you don't have a fear of the Lord, you will not take his words seriously, you will not take sin seriously. And let me tell you one thing you can always count on. Sin leads to death, always death in relationships, your mental health, your self-esteem, you name it. Sin destroys life in every area of life.
And so this is why Moses says this isn't the fear that leads to death. This is the kind of fear that leads to life that helps you live wisely. This is why when we find ourselves not experiencing life. In an area of our life, we need to ask ourselves difficult questions like am I displaying a right fear of the Lord in this area of my life?
What do I mean by that? What I mean is, am I taking what God's word says about this area of my life seriously? Or am I saying, no God needed, we got one right here, I'll call the shots. You see, God's not even the manager of that area of our lives, but we want to complain to him like he's the manager. Can I talk to a manager, please, about my love life? Because it's trash right now.
God's like, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not the manager of your love life. A fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the wisdom that leads to life, Verse 21.
So the people stood a far off, but Moses drew near the thickness, the thick darkness where God was.
Remember the picture we talked about? Moses is a picture of who? Jesus, not a trick question. You're like, Jesus, Jesus, yes, yes, you can say with confidence it's not going to change between 10 minutes ago and now. And what do we see here, Moses, who's a picture of Jesus, we see Moses being the only one in this instance.
Who approaches the presence of God, we see Moses acting as the mediator between God and people who hold on to that thought.
Moses is a picture of Jesus, but Jesus is our greater than Moses, the writer of Hebrews, I believe. Paul, I'll fight with you.
Bible students later explain to us why this is the case in Hebrews 12 as he lays out why our situation is different to the Israelis who were gathered around Mount Sinai back in Exodus.
This is a New Testament counterpart passage. I put it on your outlines or you can turn them in.
Your Bibles will begin in Hebrews 12- 18. We read this speaking to us as believers, for you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire and the blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words so that those who heard it begged that the words should not be spoken to them anymore, for they could not endure what was commanded. And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.
The Decalogue has just been received by Moses. And now we pick up our study. And I taught through some of these verse is several months ago. But there's a few additional things I want to share with you about them today. So let's jump in. Exodus, chapter 20, verse 18. It says now all the people witness the thunder rings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking. This is what they're seeing as they look at Mount Sinai and the physical presence of God.
The Shekinah glory of God rests on this mountain. And for those of you who have studied the Book of Revelation, you may notice that these are similar elements to John's description of Jesus in Revelation.
Chapter one, we keep reading and it says, And when the people saw it, they trembled and they stood a far off. Then they said to Moses, You speak with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die. Moses has been up the mountain with God, and while he was up there, the people were terrified by what their senses were experiencing as they saw God's power physically manifest. And I can tell you this, their reaction entirely appropriate, entirely appropriate, because we're talking about the almighty God pulling back the curtain for just a minute and letting his people get just a glimpse of his actual glory.
It was, in a word, overwhelming, overwhelming. And the people's fear came from their immediate understanding, immediate. No need to develop a theology here, an immediate recognition that God is not like us. He is not like us. He is other he in a millisecond, they understand he's not our buddy.
He's not our pal. He's not a cosmic vending machine. It's not a little idle that we've carved with our own hands. He is something else entirely in Israel's immediate reaction is. If we get too close to him, we're going to die if we're going to die. We don't know much, but we know that because he's not like us, there's sin in me.
And if God can't be in the presence of sin, I need to get very, very far away from God.
I wonder if they began to think about all the times they'd complain to Moses about God since they came out of Egypt. I wonder if they thought about all their questioning of him, all their accusations. I wish we could be back in Egypt. God's not going to take care of us. God's not powerful enough to act. I wonder if they thought about all the times they implied he actually wasn't good. It would be like trash talking, somebody who's incredibly big and strong and there without you realizing it.
They've walked up behind you while you've continued to talk trash about them.
And you turn around and they're just right there. And this is what's happening to them.
They're like they're like, yo, do you... Do you think God remembers all that stuff we said, you know, I don't know. Yeah. And they're like, well, I wasn't complaining. I mean, you were complaining. I, I thought everything was fine.
I had faith the whole time. The whole time. I'm speaking into the microphone the whole time, Lord.
So write this down. Israel recognized that they could not interact with God directly. They needed a mediator. They needed a mediator. That's their conclusion. And unsurprisingly, they looked to Moses because Moses had been in the presence of God and somehow had lived. They were like, we can't talk to God. You talk to him, pass on the message and we'll stay far away from God and live.
Our deliverer is, of course, Jesus Christ. That's right. Now, once they're out of Egypt, the next section, the next part of the story begins to unfold.
When you become a follower of Jesus, you're your focus, your heart, your destination, your treasure is no longer in this world.
It's in heaven because that's where Jesus is.
And the call to follow Jesus is also the call to move your citizenship from earth to heaven. And so God has to get his people out of Egypt, which he does. But the next part of the story deals with the even bigger challenge of getting Egypt out of his people.
Which is a whole different deal, and like us, they've got to learn what it means to be the people of God, they've got to learn a new way to be human because God's ways are nothing like the ways of the world. And so God takes a two pronged approach to this challenge.
Firstly, God's people need to know and understand who their God is. They need to see his character and they need to see his power.
Just as we can only really develop real faith if we understand that there is a God who loves us, cares about us, and not only wants to help us, but is able to help us.
We need to understand his character and we need to understand his power that he has the power to back up his character.
Secondly, God's people need to know what it means to live as God's people. Practically, you're the people of God. Now, that's that's great.
Is there is there a book?
Is there a book, God's People for Dummies? Something like that we could read.
The answer's going to be, yes, there is. But they need to know what does it look like to be the people of God in everyday life? What does it look like in worship, in work, in marriage, in family? Well, shortly after letting them go, Pharaoh has a change of heart and he gives chase and the Israelites find themselves trapped against mountains and water with nowhere to go.
To make a long story short, is the recurring theme here. God moves in a miraculous way. The waters part Israel walks through on dry land. Egypt gives chase, God closes the waters in on Pharaoh and his army, and they drown all of them, all of them.
And so God was teaching Israel about his character that he cares about them and he cares about their safety. But he was also teaching them about his power. He can do whatever he wants and he can be powerful enough to act on their behalf.
And that's what the Lord wants to do in your life as well.
He wants you to experience and encounter his character and his power, because when you do, it will change everything about the way you trust him.
The Israelites go on to see more of these demonstrations of God's character and power as God miraculously provides water and food for the whole nation while they're in the wilderness, and he gives them a miraculous military victory over the Amalekites.
But God's people still needed the second part of that two pronged approach.
They needed practical instruction on what it meant to live as God's people on an everyday basis.
So God led his people to Mt. Sinai, the Mount of God, and there the very presence of God came down upon the mountain in an overwhelming way. God called up Moses and gave him the Ten Commandments, ten timeless moral laws written by the finger of God himself on two tablets of stone laws that form the foundation of how we are to interact with God and with each other. Laws that, like God, are our perfect, perfect.
And that's where we find ourselves in Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, if you take one thing away from this message to make yourself feel smarter, call the Ten Commandments the Decalogue, OK?
This new pharaoh was very pro-Egypt. He was a nationalist who didn't like the wealth and prosperity that he saw in the hands of the Hebrews in his land. So he enslaved them and the Israelite people lived as slaves for generations. Through another miraculous set of circumstances, a Hebrew boy ends up being adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh, and he's raised as an Egyptian prince.
His name is Moses. And Moses is special because God chose him to be the deliverer of Israel. God chose Moses to represent him before Pharaoh and bring about the liberation of his people from slavery.
But before that can happen, God had to prepare Moses.
He had to go through training. He had to get ready for the task. And so Moses goes through his own journey that is full of setbacks and failures and disappointments and even outright rebellion against God.
But Moses finally makes it, so there's hope for you and I. And the day finally comes when God says, OK, we're ready.
Let's go talk to Pharaoh.
Now, in the least surprising reaction of all time, Pharaoh's not interested in voluntarily giving up the massive and free labor force that is powering his booming economy. He tells Moses and God basically to get lost. And this sets up a back and forth where God steps in to show his power through the famous plagues of Egypt, delivering supernatural and devastating judgements on the people, land and animals of Egypt.
But still, Pharaoh refuses to let them go until.
Until the final and most horrific plague, the death of the firstborn son in every household in Egypt, including Pharaoh's, the Israeli homes and families are spared because they follow special instructions given by God to paint their doorposts with the blood of a lamb because the lamb's death would be accepted by God in place of their sons.
And this event will go on to be celebrated by the feast known as Passover, because it marked the night when God passed over the homes of Israel during that final plague.
And all of that, to give an incredibly brief summary, pointed to Jesus, the lamb of God who died in our place to save us from death. And after this final judgment, Pharaoh's will is broken and he decides to let the Israelites go. And so they set off.
They leave Egypt in one day, an entire nation comes out of the nation of Egypt and is freed from slavery.
And the thing you need to understand about Exodus is that it is not the story of Moses. It is not the story of Israel. It is the story of how God works in our lives, brings us to the place of freedom, and makes us into his own people. God is the star of the Book of Exodus.
Egypt is a picture of the world. Pharaoh is a picture of Satan. Slavery is a picture of our spiritual bondage to sin the bondage we're all born into. That puts us under a death sentence. And Moses is a picture of Jesus. And in this whole first section of Exodus, we read the story of how God sets his people free. It's the story of how God sets us free from our slavery to sin and death by sending a deliverer.
As we rejoin our study on the Book of Exodus, Pastor Jeff reminds us of what's happened up to this point. We then finish out chapter 20 by looking at Jesus as our Mediator and the importance of worshiping God as He desires to be worshiped.
Discussion Questions:...Read Exodus 20:18-26
1. What is a mediator? Why did Israel appoint Moses as their mediator? Who is Moses pointing towards? And in what way? (Deut. 18:15a)
2. Read Hebrews 12:18-29. Compare and contrast verses 18-21 with verses 22-24. How is Jesus a greater mediator than Moses?
3. Discuss the idea that Jesus “bridges the gap by raising us up”. How does this reality impact you?
4. You might hear people say that they like the God of the New Testament better than the God of the Old Testament. Why do you think people might say this? Do you think God’s character changed from the Old Testament to the New? Explain.
5. Read Hebrews 12:28-29 again. What do these verses teach us about who God is? What is the fundamental motivation for our worship? How do these verses describe what that worship is to look like?
6. How would you define fear of the Lord? Can you think of verses in the Bible that teach us about it? What is a “right” fear of the Lord? What does this look like in your own life? Is it ever possible to have an unhealthy fear of the Lord? Explain.
7. God’s grace covers all our sin, but does His grace give us license to sin? Why or why not? What if you yourself, or someone else says, “I want to obey Jesus in my own “personal” way”, but this “personal” way involves disobedience to God’s Word? What does God’s Word teach us about this?
8. What is one area of obedience that God is transforming in this current season of your life? Can you recognize God’s grace and a healthy fear of the Lord at work in specific ways?
Well, when "God Rock" and "New Hope" began holding church services together, God Rock was in the middle of studying the Gospel of Matthew while New Hope was in the middle of going through the Book of Exodus. And what BJ and I decided to do was just go back and forth, sharing the teaching load until we get through. Both studies will go through a chunk of Matthew, a chunk of exodus until we get through both books, at which point we'll start a new Bible study together.
And we've been through the Olivet Discourse in Matthew. And now we're jumping back into the Book of Exodus. We're in Chapter 20 and something massive has just taken place. God has given his people the Ten Commandments. But before we continue with our study, I need to bring you up to speed, because a lot has happened, especially if you haven't been with us for the first part of our journey through Exodus.
The Book of Exodus is simply a continuation of the Book of Genesis.
It's a fact that doesn't help you at all if you haven't read the Book of Genesis. Genesis ends with the death of Joseph, an incredible man of God, one of only two men in scripture who are not God incarnate, of whom the Bible records no sin. Joseph was an incredible man of God who rose to become prime minister of Egypt through some incredible events.
And Exodus opens by telling us that several generations after the death of Joseph, a pharaoh arose who did not know or did not care about what Joseph and his family, the Hebrews, had done for the nation of Egypt.
But how often, Lord, if we're honest or are we willing to give it all your powers made perfect in our weakness and it's connected to our single minded obedience to you, Lord. So work that in the hearts of your people. We're going to mess up. We're going to do it imperfectly. We're going to go back to old comforts and old ways at times. But Your Grace continually leads us to repentance. It always calls us back and leads us further and further in our journey of faith than we've ever been before.
And do that for us, God, not just individually in this in this room, but collectively as a family. Let us love one another as the family of God, as the family. Let us be equipped and purposeful in finding ways to reach outside of our church to bless the world. Give us what we need, which you have, give us a heart bent towards that God and a joy associated with that, and work it for your ultimate glory, King Jesus and for your people's deepest joy and satisfaction in this life and in the one to come in Jesus name we pray.
And what Frank Francis became so stirred and convicted by God that what they were doing in the giant church with all these millions of dollars spent on the church and all this money that was coming in, this is like I read the Bible and I can't just keep I can't have this all for me. I got to give it all the way. All that's from God. He's giving it to me. I've got to give it. There are people who are dying who need basic needs met.
We've got to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ. We've got to give it give it away. And so we started doing that. He left the mega church and went to plant churches in in the inner city of San Francisco. And from there, he's left now to go overseas, overseas to Asia, where he's left everything to go there. He doesn't take any money from his books. He gives it all the way. Not only that, but he gives it all the way all over the world.
He said some well-meaning friends and family come to him and say, Francis, like, I get the whole giving thing, you know, like, that's so good. But like, if you give it all away, what are you going to have for yourself?
What about you and your wife and your kids like. His response was great. He says, well, yeah, that's important. My God wants me to serve and supply my needs, the needs of my wife and my kids, that's big. But here's the thing I've known. If I give everything away, God's been perfectly faithful to me to provide for every single one of my needs up until this point.
And if I keep giving away, I have no reason to believe that he's going to stop providing for every single one of my needs.
The more I give, the more he shows himself to be faithful to me to meet those needs. So I don't see that happening. He says.
He says like, OK, well, I'll give that to you.
What if all this money comes and God gives me even millions of dollars? I give it all the way to the poor, my brothers and sisters all around the world.
I give it to them and some, for some reason, God forgot about me and he forgot to provide for my needs. And me and my wife starved to death.
Can you imagine what that would be like to enter into the kingdom of glory? Giving everything you have to your last breath. And you open up your eyes on the other side of eternity and you see Jesus. How do you get here, Francis? This is not true because like your early but it was implied I gave it all the way.
I gave it all the way for you. Jesus, do you think there's can be one ounce of regret in Francis Chan's life in a trillion years from now if he gave everything up, even his life for the sake of Jesus and the mission in the gospel?
I can assure you, zero ounces of regrets and only pleasures forever more.
May God give us a heart that's a fraction of the generosity of our brother, Francis, you bite your head and pray with me. Father, thank you for Matthew 25. Thank you for your whole entire scripture. Laura, thank you for this. Your word, does it blesses? It teaches. It encourages, but it convicts and it calls. And it exposes our hearts. It opens up our hearts, Barrie. It's a double edged sword. Your words says in the book of Hebrews, right down to the inner thoughts of our hearts.
And I pray, Lord, I pray that with this exposing word and this encouraging word, I hope tonight that your people will be motivated to say to not go into despair and say, I can't live like that. I don't do this. I won't do this. The opposite, Lord Holy Spirit, work a great spirit and power conviction in our heart to refresh us and to revive us to the place where we say, Lord, we want to give it all for you.
We want to utilize wisdom and sense and counsel and do it according to your word. But we want to live totally abandoned for you, God, and for your purposes.
We want to see your kingdom come. We talk about all the time. We want to see your power in our lives.
And he said, of course, please share this. A few months ago, God Rock Church began a fund project, a project that we are giving to as a church where our members are giving to this project above and beyond the regular tithes and offerings. So you were called to give to the local church, but this is sacrificial giving above and beyond what any of us normally give. We're raising money for something called the Petro's Network. So the Petro's network is an incredible organization. They train and equip local indigenous pastors in parts of Africa and Southeast Asia to go into unreached villages who have never heard the gospel before and plant churches there.
And once they planted churches in those villages, they go to the next one. They keep planting them. They are, they train and equip men to do this. They're doing this work right now in Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda and Southeast Asia. Right now, as we speak, they have men ready to give their lives for the sake of the gospel. And the only thing that they need before they go is to raise enough support to cover just the absolute necessities their families will have when they're gone.
Things that we're talking about tonight, food, clothing, water, basic shelter. Some of you know the answer to this, I'm not going to pull you to see if you guys want to answer this question or guess I'm going to tell you how much it costs to provide basic necessities for a man and his entire family for three years so that he can go, go and not worry about those things at home. Go and preach the gospel for three years to supply everything a family needs.
For all three years, forty four hundred dollars Canadian. Three years. And by the end of that time, they planted churches and they're fully sustainable by then. They don't they don't want to keep having the money forever. They just want to get started. We can do that. We can help meet practical needs in our brothers lives who are ready and willing to give their life for the sake of the gospel, unless you want to go to Uganda.
The ticket alone is probably forty four hundred roundtrip. Today, we've collected and we started a couple of months ago. We've collected about twenty five hundred dollars or a little over halfway there.
If you want to give to this cause, just write plainly on your giving envelopes. Petro's network and all of those funds will go directly to the cause of meeting tangible needs in the lives of our brothers in Christ doing this work. Now, again, do this above and beyond a sacrificially above and beyond your regular giving to your local church. But. But give. Once we hit our goal, we'll begin raising more money to send more men out into the harvest.
We're not trying to aim for one. We're going to do this until Jesus calls us home. This might sound this is a lot of there's a lot of talk about like man intense, like the oil and giving everything and just like dying and getting killed, like they get so crazy.
Right. It's crazy. It'd be crazy if it was crazy anyway, but it's in the Bible.
So we got to deal with this kind of stuff.
But I want to share, I want to end with this Zechariah story from one of my really influential pastor in my life. I never met him before, but I watched a lot of the stuff.
Francis Chan, Francis Chan is but was a pastor of a megachurch, a mega church in California in Simi Valley. Thousands upon thousands of people came to the church with Francis Chan, spoke and pastored. He also wrote many bestselling books and I don't know a lot about but writing books. I know this, that if you write bestsellers, you make bank like big time.
You need to prioritize the time that you spend in these groups to prioritize this time in your life. You need to prioritize it over and above, almost almost anything else, because how else can you love your brothers and sisters if you don't spend a significant amount of time with them?
How else can you know if real needs arise? Unless you spend enough time together to recognize those needs or to even build up enough relationship with these people where they feel safe enough to tell you their needs and ask for help?
So I want to implore you all all go to the sign up for these groups, if you haven't already and if you are a part of these groups, go to them, but go to these group nights with a new kind of focus, go with the mindset to love.
Not primarily to be loved. Talking with Kyla between services and this is incredible math, if we all went into home group together or midweek group or men's group, a women's group, and every single person went with the sole intent that they're trying to get love, then everyone who is going in trying to get love. And no one's given love. But get this, if you're in a group of 10 people and every single one says, I'm going there to love people not that don't have my first and last name, I'm going to love them instead.
Now, imagine that you're doing that. But nine other people are going to be focused on loving you, that's a better deal, isn't it? You go in trying to get your week expressions of love for yourself or going into a family where everyone else is concerned about loving you.
By the way, which Jesus says this is the way the world's going to know that you're my disciples, but the love that you have for one another. This is it. You don't get, you get to enjoy it. But it's an evangelistic powerhouse for the world to see that we're different than people who don't have the spirit of Christ in them.
So. Go with this new mindset, this will help you go when you're tired and busy in the week because you're not going primarily for yourself, you're going for your brothers and sisters.
All right, then you have another question, what if all the practical needs are met in our local church, then what? Do we just kick up our feet and wait for Jesus to call us home or come back?
No, no, no, no, no, we go on to the next circle. It's also on your outline. It's the third in the largest circle. This is the universal church. This is your brothers and sisters outside your local church, both locally and abroad.
So we can't help every single Christian in the world outside of our local church who needs help. We can't. It's impossible. But you know what we can do? We can help at least one of them. And by God's grace, we can help even more than that. The question is, do we have a heart to do so? I'm going to tell you something that we're doing here right now at Godschalk to try to love like this, I asked Jeff if I could share this project tonight with those who belong to New Hope and our guests.
Jesus saw the nakedness of our guilt and shame because of our sin, we were covered by them both, but he provided robes of righteous righteousness for every single one of us to wear that cover us totally and make us acceptable to stand before the king because of what Jesus gives us, were now white as snow.
Jesus not only visits us in our sickness, which is nice to do, he took our sickness for us. By his stripes were healt. Jesus not only visit us while we were imprisoned by our own sin and in complete bondage to it with no hope of escape, he came and liberated us from our captivity to sin. He opened the door and swung it wide and made us free.
For whom the sun sets free will be free indeed. So Jesus has fed us satisfied our thirst brought us into his family, clothed our nakedness, healed our wounds and set us free.
And you know how he made all that possible for you and me, he used up all the talents that were given to him when he went to the cross, and it cost him everything in order to provide what he's freely given to us.
And when this kind of love comes into a person's heart, they now have everything they need to love people the way God's calling us to love them and when they have what they need in a way that they can never be taken from them, they will love this way.
Now, they can lay down the things in this world to love other people. The way that Jesus has first loved them is the only way it works.
So. Let's get practical for a moment here, the family talk, family time, family discussion. How can we give ourselves to loving Jesus this way in our life today by loving our brothers and sisters in Christ, how can we do it? What does it look like? Who I want to help you analyze your life using some circles.
I put on your outline there, the diagram, the concentric circles. Let's take a look at these one of the time. The first ones, the smallest one. And it's you. The first circle is you. You answer this question. Do you have the oil? Does the Holy Spirit live inside of you? Have you repented and trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins? If yes, amazing.
If not, you need to receive Christ today. But if you have the oil, if you have the spirit, if you have Christ, then you know and understand that your master has entrusted you with talents. Everything that you have in your life has been given to you for you to put in use for the sake of Jesus. So if you have these two things, if you have these two things, the oil and the talents, then you are ready to love like you were saved to love.
Well, who do I show this love to that we're talking about tonight?
There are literally millions of Christians around the world today, that seems kind of impossible for us to love all of them. That's a great question, brings us to our second circle, your local church, your local church is the primary sphere, the primary sphere, not the only one, the primary sphere where you are to show this kind of love.
You don't have to wonder who to love.
You don't have to guess and pray and ask. Jesus has already given you those people is those who make up your church. Are there any of the needs we've seen addressed here tonight, present in the lives of your brothers or sisters in your church, in God rock church and your hope church or if you're investing in your local church?
Is anyone hungry, thirsty, homeless, naked, sick or in prison for the gospel among you if there is.
Go meet those needs. Collectively, as a body of believers, love one another this way. But how am I supposed to know what needs to exist? Another great question. This is the timely, timely space for me to plug midweek groups, home groups, men's groups, women's groups for New Hope Church there, the men's and women's groups going on starting in October. And for a God rock, our home groups are on right now. Here's what you need to do.
This is the exact opposite, by the way, of what Peter did when he denied knowing Jesus three times.
If you remember the story of Jesus being questioned by the Pharisees and the religious leaders and Peter was following behind them, watching from a distance.
And then if you remember three people in the video, three individuals came three separate times and asked Peter if he was with Jesus or knew Jesus. And Peter denied knowing Jesus three times.
Why? I believe it's because he was scared, he was scared that they were going to do the same thing to him as they were doing right at that moment to Jesus.
And he wept bitterly. But Christians are called to do the opposite of what Peter did when it comes to loving and identifying with our brothers and Christian brothers and sisters in Christ, Peter didn't throw his lot in with Jesus. We're supposed to throw our lot in with our brothers and sisters.
To love and to serve them, whatever it may cost us until we're called home or until Christ comes back. Now, rhetorical question, does this kind of expression of love towards other people sound impossible to anyone? Well, let me put you at ease. It is like I'm talking about an impossible way to live life, not natural, super natural way to live.
So then we have to ask the question of how if this is a possible way to to live sacrificially for the sake of another person, how is this kind of love made possible for us to do and to experience?
Well, the answer is this. This impossible kind of love is only made possible because of Jesus, there is only one way this kind of love is possible that we have the oil of the Holy Spirit inside of us. It's the only way this kind of love works, this kind of love is a supernatural kind of love only if God's love has been poured into our hearts.
So it has to come down from heaven first. God loves us first, and he loves us. And he pauses love into our heart. And he changes everything on the inside. And now with his presence in us is him living his life in us and through us as we lay down our lives to love our brothers and sisters. The way that Christ first loved us.
He loves us, we love out. But if this isn't here, don't expect anyone to love like this because this is only because Jesus is in us.
I don't know if you realize this, that not only does Jesus love us first, but he loves us first in the same kind of ways that he expects us to love other believers the same way that he's describing love in verses thirty one to forty six, only infinitely better the way that he loves us.
How is Jesus loved us like this. Like the way he's calling us to love one another in this text. Let me give you all six of them.
Jesus is the bread of life and he gave himself up for us in order to satisfy all of our spiritual hunger. Jesus gives us living water, the kind of water he told the woman at the well and John for that would never leave us thirsty again. The water of the Holy Spirit satisfies our deepest spiritual thirst.
And Jesus gives us that.
Jesus made a seat at the table with him and his family.
For us, we were spiritual orphans. We were outsiders. We were enemies of his, wandering around outside the family of God. But Jesus brought us in. He brought us into his family. Jesus brought us into his home.
Three, welcomed the Christian stranger into your home to stay four, clothed the naked Christian five, visit the sick Christian and six, visit the imprisoned Christian. For those of you out there who love lists. This is as simple and as straightforward as it gets six ways to love your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Now, the list is a simple one, but by no means is it an easy one.
Because there's a cost to loving people like this, and we should expect there to be a cost if our definition of love is correct, that love gives sacrificially of itself for the benefit of the object of its affection.
So there is a what I'll call a normal cost associated with loving other believers, like the way that Jesus is imploring us to love your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, in the ways that Jesus is laid out for us.
It's going to cost you money, time and energy to do it. It costs money to provide food, water and clothing for someone else. And if you choose to do that, that's money that you could have spent on yourself, but instead you're spending it on another person for their benefit.
But it's more than money, it also takes time and energy when you think about what it would take to show hospitality to a brother or sister by bringing them into your home if they have no place to go or to go visit those who are sick or in prison. Tax time and energy you could be using to fulfill your own personal bucket list or pour into fulfilling your own comforts in this life, but in this case, you're using what you've been given for someone else's benefit.
That's the normal cost associated with loving like this, but then there's something I want to call the tribulation cost that's associated with loving people like this because remember the scene that we're in right now, the scene that Jesus is talking about here comes at the end of the tribulation when he comes back.
The one we know as Antichrist has been ferociously persecuting Jews and believers in Christ for the three and a half years leading up to Christ's return, God's people have been running, hiding, starving, and dying during this time of war, the name of Jesus.
Christians will be in prison during this time. But not because of prison ministries, where Christians go in to preach the gospel to inmates so that they might be saved, during this time, Christians will be put into prison simply for being Christians.
It's going to cost more. It's going to cost way more than just time, energy, and money to love God's people in this time. It may cost you your social status. It may cost you your freedom. It may cost you even your very life. I want you to think of what it cost people to help Jews during the Holocaust. Cost. It's going to be the same, be similar in the time of the tribulation. So, they love God's people in the way we're talking about here tonight, you will need to throw in your lot with them and suffer with them because you identify with them.
Can I suggest to you what you should do if that ever happens to me? Take care of my family. Take care of the practical needs. If I got out of prison 10 years later and you met me and you told me how you loved me and were praying for me and were waiting with anticipation for my release, those would be really nice words to hear.
But if when I got home and found that my family got kicked out of our house because they couldn't afford the payments anymore and they were homeless for a bit and then they died of starvation. What do you think your words of love and affection would mean to me?
They would mean absolutely nothing, because if you loved me, you would take care of my family.
And I think that's one important way that we need to understand the connection between loving Jesus and loving his family.
We love him by loving his family.
That's one way. But here's another way to look at the connection to see the Bible describes a real. Mystical union that exists between Jesus and his people, there is a mysterious reality surrounding our position in Christ right now.
That's true of every single Christian around the world.
Jesus is in us. And we are in him. The Bible says that Christians are in crisis is your next in on your outline. The Bible says that Christians are in Christ first. Peter five, verse 14 says peace to all of you who are in Christ and Philippians. One one says to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Phillipi.
And Romans eight one says there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, I don't have it on your outline, but if you look up Ephesians chapter one, you're going to see In verses three and four and six and seven and 11 and 13 in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, over and over and over. The Bible says that Christians are in Jesus Christ. But the next fill in on your own mind is this.
The Bible also says that Christ is in Christians, that Christ is in Christians. Caution's one twenty seven.
To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory and Romans, eight, 10 to 11 says. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit.
Who dwells in you?
The Bible also says that Christ is in Christians, so according to the Bible, in some very real, some very mysterious way, there is a oneness that we share with Jesus, him in us and us in him.
So when you see a fellow believer, you are in a very real way looking at Christ himself. This is very important, none of us is Jesus, only Jesus is Jesus, but Jesus chooses to identify with his people in such an intimate way that when you do something to one of us, he says it's the same thing as doing it directly to him.
I wonder, wonder with me. If we treated our fellow Christians any different. If we saw Jesus when we looked at them. That will be a great question that you want this week. So. What does showing love to a brother or sister in Christ look like? Well, in our text, Jesus gives us six practical ways to show love to him by showing it to his people. One, give food to the hungry Christian to give water to the thirsty Christian.
Two women have been charged after leaving three young children unsupervised in a parking lot for hours while they went to a casino in Pickering on Monday, say police.
According to Durham Regional Police Service (DRPS), the children, ages 10, 9, and 2, were located by casino security on the evening of April 8. Staff found the children playing on the roadway near Church Street around 7:45 p.m., police said.
Officers arrived at the scene a short time later after receiving a call for a check for well being, Const. Nicholas Gluckstein, of DRPS, said on Tuesday.
Police said that security footage showed that they had been left alone in a vehicle in the parking lot of Pickering Casino Resort, near Church Street South and Highway 401, for more than four hours.
Gluckstein said that the eldest child told police that he had been left alone by their mother so she could go to the casino.
Hi mimi, that list is long so I am sure you have body parts that are needed and can save the lives of others. I found out that older people can now also donate blood. Good to see you again. ..........
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What Makes Jesus Unique? No one else made the claims that He did, He is alive...............
We try to present ourselves as clean to others. Even though we are unclean on the inside. We work at appearing clean to others while being unclean on the inside. Here's what Jesus says, Matthew. Twenty-three versus twenty-seven to twenty eight.Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you, are you like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
This second feeble attempt at fixing their own problems really close to the first one that we just looked at, but with a subtle difference in the first attempt describing the Ferris's, they actually attempted some cleansing. They were at least trying to fix the problem. But it is didn't identify the source of the problem. They were trying to clean themselves, but they were just cleaning the outside and not the inside in the second attempt. There's no attempt to clean anything.
There's no attempt to try to fix anything. The focus is on the presentation, not dealing with the solution, the second feeble attempt to fix our problems. It's all about appearances. Says, Since I can't fix the inside, I'll appear clean on the outside to people while being spiritually unclean and dead on the inside. I'm not going to let anyone see this inside stuff. So here's what you can see. I'm going to put on a facade, a mask, an alternate reality that everyone I'll let everyone see that.
And if they see that, they're going to think that everything is good in here. That's what Jesus is using with an illustration of a whitewashed tomb that inside the whitewashed, dead men's bones and like the mat and the camel from a previous wall fountain versus 23 and 24 mats and camels, spiritually unclean things for the people of God to eat in the Old Testament. That body spiritually unclean. To touch this, there's this theme of a spiritual uncleanliness here.
And so Jesus died inside the tomb, a spiritual death, spiritual uncleanliness. But on the outside, what do you see? It's not a translucence coffin or tomb. So fake and his white, white, fresh white paint keep those tombs looking really nice and clean. Don't look up on the inside of them, though, but just look how nice they are on the outside. Just stay focused on what the outside looks like. And Jesus told the religious leaders that what that's what they were doing.
They were doing the same thing. They're just there is appearing clean to everyone that came in contact with them. Look how clean we are. Look washed we are. Look white. We are. But again, don't we do the same thing in our day and age today, in our culture today, we don't look far for examples. All of social media. Is this all of it? Our personal social media, Instagram, Facebook, people snap and now and tick tock and the whole thing.
I've done my own personal kind of unofficial, and I and I check off and I go on social media probably too much. But you know what I never see? I never see people posting for the world to see their marriages falling apart or them having breakdowns mentally because their kids are out of control or they're not sharing their failures at work or their despair or their regrets. Do you know what they're sharing just three times? Just the family portraits where everyone's smiling and you can see the little light of the teeth, you know, the Christmas postcard around the tree, everyone hugging in their sweaters and everyone having a good time or days at the beach or the highlights or the good stuff