The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 2: Mt Sinai

Episode Date: March 17, 2019

The Law is the diagnosis that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Jesus is the cure.

Amen. Hey, if you got your Bibles, I hope you do, we're going to be in Exodus chapter 20, Exodus chapter 20. If you're new to Bible study, man, it's way towards the beginning. It's the second book of the Bible. And we are in week two of this series called Mountains. As we were just talking about stuff that God has done, we're kind of tracing the redemptive story of God through a bunch of mountains in the scriptures. And in our time together, we're going to be talking about Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments.

I was talking to my friend, Jady Greer this week, about this sermon, that I'm preaching on the Ten Commandments, and he said that every great revival started with a sermon on the Ten Commandments. I didn't know that. But I do think that we may be in a bit of a revival just in the past few weeks because through the Second Timothy series, there were something like 300 people have surrendered their life to Jesus. And last week, 58 people surrendered their life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And 10 of those people are some of our folks at Baker Correctional. Amen?

And I got another letter. I'm getting a bunch of letters, man. I'm going to read everyone, fellas. And so I got a letter and a guy said, I surrendered my life to Jesus, but how in the world could God accept somebody like me based on what I've done? And I would say to you, brother, God accepts you based on what his son, Jesus Christ, has done on your behalf, okay? There is no one too far from the hand of God to be saved. And that's not just true.

That's true from Bay Meadows to Baker and everywhere in between, all right? That every single one of us need a Savior. And that's what we're going to talk about as we look at the table. Ten Commandments, man. A lot of Christians like to fight about the Ten Commandments, and we want to hang it, you know, in courthouses all over the place, and maybe we should, I don't know, whatever. But when you ask Christians what they are, people don't know where they are. They think they're in a courthouse in Alabama. They're in Exodus chapter 20, all right? And very few people can name them. So I'm going to teach them to you, and then we're going to look at it, all right? But before we

just jump right into the Ten Commandments, the problem with doing that is if you don't know the context of what's going on, then you can just, like a lot of church people, you can just, jump into morality and not understand the metanarrative of God and why he was given the commandments to his people. And so we talked last week about Abraham and about Isaac. And so we were all the way back in the book of Genesis. Well, by the time you get to the end of the book of Genesis, you got this guy named Joseph with a technicalered dream coat. A little bit older than me, you'll know that guy. And he ends up, he's in jail for a while, and then he ends up, he's like the Prince of Egypt.

He's kind of the boss. and he's like the senior VP, and all of his family moves into Egypt, and everything seems to be going awesome. And then Genesis ends, and there's no break in the Bible between the end of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus, but in the life of the Israelites, there's about 440 years. And so we don't have any record of God doing anything for about 440 years. So how many of you have ever prayed to God and just wish he would hurry up? Are we talking about 440 years where God tells Abraham, I'm going to lead you into the promised land, but apparently the way to the promised land goes through slavery in the land of Egypt. And so when you open up the book of Exodus, you've got a pharaoh that is oppressive to God's people.

And then once again, I know we're calling this thing mountains, but how many of you know that God often does some of it? best work in the valleys of our life and not up on the mountains. You see, what Israel thought was imprisonment and punishment was actually preparation for them but become a nation that the Messiah would come from. And so they cry out to God. God hears their cry. Pharaoh is evil. He's killing all the boys two years and under.

Maybe you've heard this story before. And so the mother of Moses puts him in a basket, sends him down the river. And then somebody from Pharaoh's house picks him up. up and says, we'll raise him, and then they hire Moses' mom as the nanny. And so God's sovereign hand has Moses grow up in the Pharaoh's house, so that later in his life, when he shows back up, like he knows the code on the garage, how to get in, you know, that kind of stuff. He knows the customs of Pharaoh. He knows all of that. Well, the problem is, so he's there one day, and he sees one Egyptian beating up this Jewish guy, one of his kinsmen, and so he kills him. He kills him.

How many of you know that just because you've got to... a little tattered past, a little sin in your past, that does not disqualify you from being used mightily by God. Amen. Amen. That's why I praise God. It went to Facebook when I was in high school. Good gracious. None of you listened to me. And so, I mean, Moses kills a guy, and so he gets busted. And so he's on the run, man. He runs. And he's out working for his father-in-law, so you know, that's rough. And so he's working for his father-in-law, just tending sheep. For 40 years, he's out there running around, just minding his own business. And one day, he bumps into a burning bush. and he sees it and apparently bushes burn all the time out there that wasn't the big deal it was burning but it was not consumed

and so he goes to check it out and the bush says to him moses take off your shoes for your standing on holy ground to which if i'm moses i'm thinking like is holy did it just get holy i've been walking around here for 40 years have i missed this and he takes off his shoes and god speaks to him and says go to pharaoh by the way some of you in our time together when we showed that video about red line church, you heard the burning bush speak to you. Just like God sent Moses to Pharaoh, some of you were like, I believe God is calling us to California. All right? If God speaks to you that way, you should go.

Because they need Jesus like something fierce, that and sweet tea. All right. And so you could help. And so then he does, man. He goes. He goes before Pharaoh and he has this big showdown with him. And there's 10 plagues that God hits Pharaoh and the Egyptians with. and each one of those plagues were specifically against an Egyptian god that they worshipped.

And it's just God whipping each and every one of their little gods. And then you get to the 10th plague, the plague of the firstborn or the Passover. And God tells Moses to tell the people, go and get a perfect spotless lamb, shed the blood of the lamb, and put it on the doorpost of your house. Because an angel of death is coming through. And the firstborn of everyone that does not have the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of the house. of your house will be taken unto the Lord. But for anyone that's got the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of your house,

then this angel of death will pass over. And then essentially, all of this is pointing to Jesus. And then essentially he says, and everybody needs to sleep with your tennis shoes on, and you can only eat pita bread because you ain't got time for the bread to rise. Because the moment that happens, for a minute, Pharaoh's going to let you go. And so it does, and he does, and they take off, and then they get to the Red Sea.

and he's got an army barreling down behind him and he's got an impossible sea in front of him and then God splits the Red Sea and God's people go walking through onto the other side. And then the crazy thing is they're supposed to be on their way to the promised land. And instead of, if you open to the maps in your Bible, instead of taking a left out of Egypt and heading up to where the promised land is, the spirit of God in the form of a fire by night and a smoke by day, instead of taking a left, he takes a right, and he leads them further away from the promised land than where they were in Egypt.

That Sinai, Mount Sinai, is further away from the promise than where they started when they were in prison or in slavery. And this is where God's going to show up and meet them. once again how many of you know that oftentimes you put your faith in Jesus you expect things to get awesome they get terrible and it's in the terrible that God does his best work how good and gracious is our Lord that he would strip away everything that we want in our lives so that we would understand that all we really need is him that he everything that we need he gives us and if we don't have it

is because apparently he doesn't think we need it and so he leads them out into a place that from their experience they even thought it was worse than where they came from and then in Exodus chapter 19 the Bible says the Lord called Moses

out of the mountain saying thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel you yourselves have seen what I did to you the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings. In other words, Moses, what did you and the Israelites have to do with your own salvation? Nata. It wasn't like a prison escape.

It wasn't a revolt. You did nothing to earn this, but this was a gift from me to you. That I bore you on eagle's wings and I brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples. For all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. Do not get this order out of order. It is grace or salvation. God saves them, and because he saves them or he rescues them or he frees them by his grace, therefore we should obey, and in that obedience,

we will find a great blessing. And then the rest of chapter 19, God calls Moses up on this mountain. And he says, and I'm going to descend on this mountain like a hurricane, like a tempest, like a fire. I mean, it's, there's a cloud. There's lightning. It's super scary. It's so scary that the people are later going to say, Moses, can you get God to quit talking to us and you can talk to us, but we can't look at him.

He shrouds his glory in a cloud so that when people see him, they don't just burn up and die. He says, Moses, make sure nobody crosses this line right here. because the only one that can cross this line and come up this mountain is one that I consecrate that I make holy. And if anybody, your kids, your sons, your daughters, your dogs, whatever it is, if anybody crosses this line, then they will be stricken. They'll be dead immediately. And the Bible makes it very clear that the people are terrified. And then on this mountain, Mount Sinai, God gives to them, God gives to them the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are they are not just rules for living.

It is a covenant that God is making with His people. And the Ten Commandments, years ago we did a whole series on this. The Ten Commandments, the law of God is both a map and a mirror. It is the revelation of the Almighty God. Part of the reason that we need to study the Ten Commandments is because God reveals about himself, his character and nature, in the Ten Commandments. And you cannot rightly and fully know Jesus if you don't rightly and fully know the backdrop of the Old Testament out of which Jesus steps. And so it's a map to show us how we ought to rightly live.

I mean, if you just did the little mental exercise that Israel, which was a bunch of freed slaves, and a couple of months later, they are a nation of people. They have to not only know how to interact with God, but interact with one another. and if we would just obey these commandments, can you imagine how different our nation would be? Like, what if nobody told a lie? What if that's the only one that we obeyed? Right? It would change everything. What if we didn't covet? It would change everything. And so God calls them up and says, this is what it looks like to live in right relationship with me. It's going to give 10. There's actually 613. It keeps going. But we're just going to do the top 10.

But it's also a mirror. You see, it's a map and it's a mirror. It's a map to show us how to live, but the moment you start trying to figure out where you are on that map, you'll go, uh-oh, I'm lost. Because the Ten Commandments are not, they're not binoculars for me to look at all the wrong things you're doing. It is a mirror to hold up to reflect the sin that is in my heart.

I don't know if you notice, but like in your bathroom, usually where the mirror is, the sink is right under it. What God's going to do right at the end of God. giving the Ten Commandments, he gets an instruction on altars on what to do when you fail the Ten Commandments. And so, he says, in the giving of the Ten Commandments, by the way, a lot of times, man, evangelicals give the law a bad rap. The Bible does not give the law a bad rap. A prayer that I pray over my kids all the time. David in Psalm Chapter 1 says, Blessed of the man who does not walk in the way of the wicked or sit in the seat of the macker or stand in the way of the center. But his delight is in the law of the Lord.

So in Jesus' day, Jesus would have grown up with the law, and he would have delighted in it. Upon it, he would meditate day and night. When's the last time you cuddled, like you cuddled with your Bible? And again, a few weeks ago, I told you what that means? Here's a similar feeling. It's that moment when you get addicted to a Netflix show, not during the tech fast. You don't. And you know you're already past your bedtime.

two episodes, but the countdown clock is going, and you look over at your roommate or your spouse, and be like, I think we can go one more. Jesus and the disciples and everybody that was raised with the Torah, that's how they thought about the law. How good is God that he would give us a map on how to we should live our lives? And so then, we should probably get to them. Verse 20, chapter 20, verse 1, and God spoke all these things saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Again, you see the

grace of God here. He has not given them the law yet. There is no way they could have obeyed even one commandment yet, and he has already saved them. He's already rescued them. He's already redeemed them. What does not happen is he does not show up in Egypt and say, I have heard your cry. Here's the ten commandments. I'll be back for a midterm. If you can pull off like a B plus, then I will come and redeem you. It's the opposite. Based on nothing. that they had done except for cry out to God for him to save him. He saves him, he redeems him, and he says, I am your God. And out of Egypt, I have saved you, out of the house of slavery.

You see, the law is not a prerequisite to knowing God, but it is the follow-through of what it looks like for those of us that do. Now, ten commandments. The first one is in verse three, you shall have no other gods before me. So here it goes. We're going back to kindergarten. Everybody hold up one finger. This is the First Commandment.

Come on. Play along. Even you got. Yeah, a tough guy with the mustache. There you go. Okay. Everybody. All right.

There's one God. Okay, all right. Got that? There's one God. That's where he starts. There's one God. And here's this. I'm going to add some commentary.

I think God implies this. And it ain't you. I was talking to a mama today. And she said, she said this to her children all the time. She says, this is the way I think you think this world goes. You think this is you and this is the world. That ain't how it goes. This is what God is saying to us.

there is one God and it ain't you. You see, I hope and pray every single one of you will have this kind of Copernicus moment where you realize we are not the center of the universe. Because there's a lot of people that will use God's name in vain. We'll get to that one on the third one. And what that means is really my comfort, me, I am the center of the universe, and God, I want to use you to get what I really want. And God goes, that's not how it works.

That there is one God and it ain't you. you shall have no other gods before me he says you shall verse four you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth you shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord dear God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children

to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. Number two, come on, play along everybody. I'm watching, okay? We'll be here all day. Cut out the idols. Got out, like scissors? Come on right here. Everybody.

Cut out the idols. That's it. That's what number two. Now an idol. Now, we don't really have these carved image kind of things. We're much too progressive for that. Instead of the image most often that we worship is the one in the mirror. We worship.

the image of us. You see, 1 John tells us that we should not love the world or anything in it, but all the world has to offer us is less to the eyes, less of the flesh, and the pride of life. The idols that we worship at are consumerism or comfort or our career. The idols that we worship at is greed over generosity. The idol that we worship in our own comfort is what our house looks like is infinitely more important than the ministry that we could be doing in it because it's a gift from God. the idol that we worship at is how many likes do I get on social media and the approval of our peers?

Like, you don't even really care about your career, you just care what everybody thinks about your career. So we would never bow down to a carved image. We just bow down to all of these things. And God says, cut it out. Next, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Number three, okay, got to be a little creative here. It looks like a W. Watch your mouth, okay? Watch your mouth. Don't use the Lord's name in vain.

That doesn't just mean, don't say bad words with God's name in it, though you shouldn't. But it means that you use the name of God to exploit others for your own benefit. It means that you don't take the name of God very seriously, that you don't take the title of Jesus' follower very seriously at all, that you are flippet with it. That's what it means to use God's name in vain. Or you try to use God as this eternal cosmic butler to go get you what you want when you want it. You figured out this little prayer in the Old Testament somewhere, or you figured out that if you ring the bell just right,

if you go to church, if you say your prayers, if you tithe, if you sponsor a compassion kid, and if you go to a disciple group this week, then somehow God owes you. And you're trying to train God like you would train a dog. Come on, come on. come on God I prayed I was nice I forgave I gave money

now you owe me and God would say don't do that you better watch your mouth don't use the Lord's name in vain verse 8 remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy six days you shall labor and on your and do all of your work

but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God own it you shall not work or do any you shall not do any work you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or your sojourner who is within your gates for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy so hold up four there's typically four Sundays in a month occasionally

we get a fifth one but there's four Sundays in a month honor the Sabbath and keep it holy You see, God created us to live in rhythm with him, that we should work really hard six days. This 40-hour work week, somebody made that up, okay? I don't know who it was. It wasn't God. You worked sun up and sundown six days. And then you trusted that you were going to rest in him and that God was going to fill in all the gaps. This was in an agricultural society where if they didn't work, they died and God said, you've got to trust me.

And think about this. Adam and Eve, they were created on the sixth day. So the first day of their life, they rested. From what? Have you ever been created? I don't think it makes you very tired. I don't know. You just kind of, oh, here we are.

Whoa, look at here. And so the way God has designed this thing is you don't rest from work. You rest for work. That you reconnect with him. You gather and make much of his name. name. I think Jesus frees us to define what that is that helps you be in rhythm with him to refuel, to reconnect, to recharge with him so that you could do all that he's called you to do to fulfill the Great Commission all week long next week. And if you'll notice here, the first four commandments

are about our relationship vertically with God. And commandments five through ten are about our horizontal relationships with one another. And so most rabbis and most theologians, would call this the Sabbath commandment. This is the hinge commandment. That if you don't get this one right, then you won't be full enough of your love of God that you would have the ability to love one another. So let me ask you, do you Sabbath?

I mean, it is still one of the commandments. It is a part of the rhythm of God that he has given us so that we could find our rest in him. It is also a reminder of the first commandment. There's only one God, and you ain't him. That you get tired and you have to stop and somehow God miraculously keeps you alive and let you do it again. I mean, do you Sabbath?

I mean, the only people I know that do it, Chick-fil-A, right? Let's be honest, it's aggravating. Is it not? How many times have you driven by and you're like, no line, sweet? Oh, Sabbath. You Christians, okay? And think about it. Can you imagine how crazy everybody thought they were when they said we were going to be closed on that day?

They're like, that'll never work. At a mall? Chick-Blaes used to only be at malls there, millennials. It was crazy. You had to go to the mall to get Chick-Blay. That's walking through the valley of the shadow of death to get you some Christian chicken. And yet, God blessed it. Okay.

It's the Hinge commandment. Fifth Commandment, do this? Yes, sir. Honor your father and mother. All right, there it is. Five. Honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God has given you. By the way, this is the first commandment with a promise.

Like my daddy used to say, he'd say, boy, the Bible says, I brought you in this world, and I'd take you out. I was like, I think it was the Cosby Show, but I know what you mean, okay? So the reality here is God always works in and through authority. No matter how good your parents are or terrible your parents are or were, God anointed your parents as the leader over you. And for some of you, it was to set for you an example of what God was like. And honest to goodness, for some of you, For some of you, the pain that you walk through in that was God's provision in your life to shape you and mold you into the human being you are right now.

Now here's something. The Bible says honor. There's a big difference between honor and respect. Respect is earned. Honor is given. So some of you're like, I can't honor my parents because they're not very honorable. Did you know Paul in the book of Roman says honor everyone? And the emperor of Rome would later murder Christians.

and he would tell us, yeah, we should honor him. Like, hold on, but he's not very respectable. I'm not saying you've got to respect him, because that's different. Respect is earned. But honor is a decision that we give to people. And I've looked in the fine print here, and there's no graduation date on this. As long as you've got them, you honor them. All right, number six, you shall not murder.

All right, so now we're like this. All right, turn one finger this way and go bang. Don't murder. So you can remember it. All right, this is the point. We usually get to this when you start feeling pretty good about it. Like, all right, finally. I nailed one.

All right, I have not murdered anybody. By the way, if you're grading yourself so far, how's everybody doing? If you're going to keep the Ten Commandments, says, have you ever had another God before you? Have you ever treated anything temporary as if it was eternal? Have you ever used the Lord's name in vain? Have you ever just worked 21 days in a row? because you thought it was all up to you?

Have you ever dishonored your parents? Yeah, you started looking at this, and you're like, I'm not doing very good. I mean, if you ask most people, their honest assessment of themselves, is they're like, I'm a good person. Are you? Compared to what? I mean, compared to the nightly news, yeah, you're awesome.

The problem is God doesn't grade on a curve. He graves on perfection. He says, be holy because I am holy. And you look at that, and you be like, holy, that's going to be rough, because I'm batting 0 for 5 so far. Okay? O for 5. I don't know if you're in college, when to college.

I don't know if you ever got to the place in your college career where you evaluated your grade and the amount of semester you had left. And you went, uh-oh. I think I need 173 on the next two tests to be able to pull out of C. So you get an eye. just tap out. Oh, today you could just be like, I'm offended. And you'd be like, oh, I'm so sorry.

And you could just leave. But, you know, we had to finish. It's fine. I'm not better at all. All right, so we're not even, so we're just, we're only one end to how we treat one another. And I'm over five. Anybody want to be like crushing it? Nail, anybody?

Anybody be like, seriously, not even hard. Let's get to the hard ones. Can we get to Leviticus, where he gets into detail? All right. well, so the best we can do from here on is like a 50%. That's a fail. But it's usually when we get to this one that people start being like, okay, finally, one, I have not murdered anybody.

And then Jesus, Matthew 521 to 22 in the sermon on the mount says, You've heard it said that thou shalt not murder. But I say to you, if you've ever hated your brother in your heart, or even said to him, you fool, do you've committed murder in your heart? Well, uh-oh. Anybody guilty of that one? I told you about the time of the time. Me and Gretchen were in some, like, robust fellowship in the truck.

And you should never do this, never, ever, ever. And I got mad, and I hit the steering wheel. What do you? And that thing stuck on. Just stuck, honking the horn. And she just laughs. My horn was just going, murder! That's all I was saying.

And then we get off on Kernan and people, I'm pulling up behind people. And they're like, what are you? I'm like, you get out. Murder. J.P. was in a flag football game that I coached weeks ago. And there were two refs. There's this young kid. He's probably 19 or 20 years old.

He's at UNF. And J.P. is the quarterback. And he drives back. It's flag football. You're not supposed to touch each other. And he throws the ball. And this kid just runs all into him. I'm like, hey, where's the pass interference?

I'm screaming. And the ref goes, I wasn't watching. As loud as I can. I said, you have one. job just like that he's 19 years old he was like from the other sidelines hey pastor joby okay so I murdered he and her I murdered her too murder overseas not doing good you had one job verse 14 put these put them up you know little rabbit ears over here hey you shall not commit adultery that's how that goes

okay if your kids are here please explain that later all right you shall not What are they doing? Now, Jesus raises the bar on this one also. In Matthew 527, he says you've heard it said that thou shalt not commit adultery, but if you have ever lusted after a woman in your heart, he's saying those aren't just pictures. It's a pathway. It'll kill you.

It'll kill your marriage. He's saying that according to God, sex is only for married people. And according to God, marriage is one man, one woman, one lifestyle, one lifetime. Now listen, the Supreme Court can't redefine marriage because they never defined it to begin with. God defined it. And in number five and number seven, again, God is assembling a people. This is how we're going to live together.

And as God is assembling these people, the integrity of marriage and the integrity of family are fundamental to being the people of God. and so he says you shall not commit adultery the next one number eight okay it's very important to hold your pinky down like this in some countries if you get caught stealing they'll cut off your pinky thou shalt not steal okay now i know in our culture we're like no no no it's not stealing it's called file sharing we're just sharing and my mom says sharing's for caring okay god cause it stealing god cause it stealing if you take things that are not yours that is stealing now hold them back up like this again with the thou shalt not now and then you got to pop this pinky up and move ha ha I was lying I have a pinky all right see they cut it off for stealing ha ha I was lying thou shalt not lie okay

verse 16 you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor um listen man you're a liar you're a liar I've had people legitimately get offended about that come to me and say I'm not a liar I just struggle telling the truth it's not your only struggle okay That is not your only struggle. Okay, how about this? This week, how many of you said, I have read the terms and conditions? Click. You're a liar.

And it's not just silly stuff like this, man. The academic cheating scandal has come out this week. Now, here's the thing. Here's us, man. Here's us. We hear these. We'd be like, who would pay $500,000 to have someone cheat on a test for their child so that they could get into the school of the school.

their choice. The people that could afford it? Part of the reason we're offended is because we can't afford that. How about like $25 and a Taco Bell run? Will you then? Maybe? No? I would highly encourage us to use it as a map and a mirror, not binoculars, to look at everybody else. And then the last one, ten, if you hold it up ten fingers and then you reach out,

thou shalt not covet. Okay? He gives a little more commentary. He says, you shall not covet your neighbor's house. You should not cover it your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbors. Now, again, you may say, well, I don't covet if you've ever watched HGTV, you're a sinner. Now here's the thing. Most of you don't covet the house. You covet a husband that was more handy than the one you picked. That's what you're really coveting.

I wish we had disposable income and that guy that could do stuff. All right. So there they are. So as you grade yourself, I want you to look through this. Just basic morality. On Mount Sinai, Moses, I'm giving you these Ten Commandments. Take them to the people. Verse 18, now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking,

the people were afraid. And they trembled and they stood far off. Why? Because they just heard the Ten Commandments and they all went, uh-oh. If that's the covenant, so the way you would make a covenant is you would usually take a lamb or an ox or a goat or something, and you would cut a covenant. Literally, you would cut a covenant. You would cut the animal in half. And the two people making the covenant would walk in between the two halves of the animal, and then you'd like shake hands on that covenant. And the implication is if you don't keep your part of the covenant, this is going to be you. That's how they made covenants. And God said, we're about to make a covenant. it. Everybody get out your pencils and everybody's jotting these down and be like, uh-oh, this ain't good. I don't think I'm going to do very good on this one because so far I'm old for 10 and so they're afraid and they trembled and they stood far off. And Moses said,

and they said to Moses, you speak to us and we will listen, but don't let God speak to us lest we die. And Moses said to the people, don't fear. For God has come to test you that the fear of him may be before you that you may not sin and the people stood far off while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. You see, here's what they know. They know that they could not obey these. If you're honest, if you just do a quick, honest self-evaluation, you'll look at this and say, and if you're dishonest, you break one of them in your evaluation of yourself. So then you go, well, what do we do? Because if this is God's standard to be in right relationship with him, What do we do?

Well, God gives us a precursor in Exodus chapter 20, and the next thing he does is describe how you make sacrifices on an altar to cover over your sin when you break this. You see, again, the Ten Commandments, the Ten Commandments are really, they're just the diagnosis. We find out in Galatians chapter 3, we find out in the book of Hebrews, we find out in the book of Romans, that the reason God gave us, the law is so that we would be aware of what wretched black-hearted centers you and I are. I mean, the only way that you know that you're speeding is if there is a speed limit. If it just said, drive carefully, then you would get on the road, and if I were to ask you, are you driving careful? Some of you, you go to 46 miles an hour, on 95, and you're always in front of me when I'm trying to get somewhere, okay? And you'd be like, this feels very careful.

Some of you will go 145 miles an hour And you would be like this feels safe Okay, so this is not God is like we're not just leaving this up to what you feel like That this is my standard and again if we look at this We're in trouble We're in trouble so there is God this perfect holy mighty God in the form of a storm and clouds and lightning on top of this mountain and he says this is what it looks like to be my people. You were my people and I am your God and this is what it looks like. And they look at the standard and say, there's no way. There's no way. If we step one foot on this

mountain, we are toast. But the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that Jesus came down that mountain. That the terrifying fire on top of the mountain became flesh. He became a man and he lived a perfect life. He fulfilled every one of these laws that we may know God. not as fire on the mountain cosmic judge, but that we might know him as Heavenly Father. This is what Romans chapter 3 is all about. If you'll jump over to Romans chapter 3, Martin Luther says that this paragraph that we're going to look at in Romans

chapter 3, that it is the most important paragraph ever written. And I agree. Pick it up in verse 20. So in other words, so what do we do? What do we do with the law? I mean, if that is God's standard, and again, all we did was the top 10, man. There's 613 laws that keep going.

What do we do with the law as New Testament believers? Paul says this in Romans chapter 3, verse 20, for by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight or in God's side. That word justified is a legal term. The best way to remember it, the way I grew up remembering was this. It's because of what Christ has done for us, it's just if I'd never sinned. So listen to this. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in God's sight. In other words, none of you are good enough, none of us are good enough to stand before the Almighty God.

And he says, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin. You see, really the law is like an x-ray. Reagan Capri, my daughter, a couple years ago, man, she was at one of these little concussion cubes, you know, the little trampoline places that are just built by insurance companies, I think. And she comes running up to me, and she's, dude, she's tough, man, she's tough. She's the toughest Martin at the house. She is. She don't cry. She cries about, like, animal movies and stuff, but, like pain, she's tough.

And she comes up to me holding her arm. She's like, Dad, I heard it pop. So we get in the car. and we go to the hospital and they do an x-ray of it. I still have the x-ray. I hate that x-ray because you can clearly see her elbow is broken. Like right at the growth plate broken. Now, the x-ray has zero power to do anything to heal or fix her.

All the x-ray can do is point out that there's a problem. That is what the law is in our life. That is what the Ten Commandments is in her life. It does not matter how much. I cannot unbreak her arm. I could wrap that x-ray around her arm. I could take 10,000 more pictures of it. We could put it in every different direction and take a whole bunch more pictures of it.

And it would not heal her arm. This is what he is saying, that through the law comes knowledge of sin. When you would hold up like the Israelites at the bottom of the mountain, when they saw or heard the Ten Commandments and they saw themselves in the mirror and they went, uh-oh, there's no way we can pull this off. Verse 21, but now the righteousness of God. In the Bible, and especially in the book of Romans, when the Bible uses the word righteousness, it doesn't mean right activity.

It means right identity or right standing with God. So if God laid out this law that none of us can fulfill, how in the world could we be right with God? Here's how. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. In other words, you and I need what the reformers call. an alien righteousness. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. What he's saying, Paul is saying, to the church in Rome, is everything in this Old Testament

that we've been studying lately? It all points to one thing. It all points to the person and work of Jesus. That the lamb that was slain in the Passover was just pointing to Jesus. That when Noah gets on the ark and it saves him, that Jesus is the greater ark. that the whole temple system, the whole sacrificial system, that it all pointed to the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the entire world, that God gave you all of that old covenant and Old Testament so that you could recognize the manifestation of the righteousness of God when he showed up. Verse 22.

He says the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. for all who believe. We talked about this last week. This word faith is pastuo. This word believe is pastuo. It means to trust your whole life into. It's the picture of me or you as a little boy or girl on the end of the diving board and your dad's saying, come on and jump.

That's what it is. That righteousness with God is when we don't trust in our own good behavior and our own commandment keeping, but we trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ, the righteousness of God through faith, in Jesus Christ for all who believe. This means that no matter how good you think you are, then you need to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sin.

And no matter how bad you think you've been, then you are a part of the all whose Jesus, life, death, and resurrection makes you righteous before God if you will just believe or trust in him. And he says, for there is no distinction. There's no distinction. Verse 23, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Every single one of us by nature and nurture are not misdakers that we are sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God. This is an archery term.

The idea is the bull's eye on the target is the holiness, the perfection, the justice of God. And every single one of us have missed the mark. It would be like if you were in an archery competition and you had to get three bullseyes to go on to round two. and the first one, the arrow fell short. Didn't even hit the target. Just hit the ground. And you were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, let me go again. Let me go again.

And the next one bull's eye, the next one bull's eye. Do you get to move on? No, because you got it did all three to move on. So you have missed the mark. Even if from that day forward, for the rest of your life, you could pull it off, what are you going to do about the one that missed the mark? For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift.

gift. That it's not earned. It's not by doing the two commandments, but it's a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. How many of you remember the theological masterpiece of the 90s, dumb and dumber, when Lloyd Christmas sells their van for a moped. And the other guy walks up and says, just when I thought you couldn't be any dumber. You pull a stunt like this and totally redeem yourself. So when Jesus goes to the cross, he totally redeems us. It's like when you use a coupon, every time you redeem a coupon, that's what we call it, right? You go to Publix. You go to your mailbox, you get a coupon, free ham, you go to Publix, you get your ham, you put it up there, $23. No, I don't think so. I have a coupon. We literally call it. You

redeem your coupon. And what does it cost you? Nothing. You receive it free as a gift. it costs the manufacturer full price. Now it costs the pig, everything, but he's the real hero in the story. Now, if you get saved at Publix, you're welcome, all right? Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, verse 25, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

Propitiation means a payment that satisfies. You see, when Jesus was on the cross, the Bible says that for multiple hours the sky goes black and Jesus cries out my God my God why have you forsaken me because in that moment he is the propitiation the payment that satisfies the justice and the holiness of God you see the reason that we don't have to be afraid like the Israelites were afraid of the fire on the mountain and the lightning and the storm

is because God dumped that out on the head of his son on the cross and Jesus fully paid the price for all of our sin, for all of our sin. He is the payment that satisfies. I say this all the time because you need to hear this like crazy. A.W. Tozer says the most important thing about you is what you think about when you think about God. And most of you think God is kind of just frustrated with you because you're frustrating. Because we just went through it, man. You're a liar and a cheat and a murderer.

I mean, come on, man. You're kind of hard to live with. Let's be honest. A little frustrating as a child. me too i know i'm the worst in the room and so as i evaluate me and my own shortcomings i get this image of god being like come on dude can you just get it together for a week and i'm like i know i'll try harder but that's not the gospel the gospel is that jesus is the propitiation for our sin the payment that satisfies fully satisfies the wrath of god fully satisfies the righteousness of god fully satisfies the

justice of god therefore if you are in christ then his righteousness has been counted or imputed to you so that when God sees you, he sees his son, Jesus Christ. And if Jesus Christ is the payment that satisfies, this means it is impossible for him to be dissatisfied in you. This is the gospel. So even when we fail, we can run to God, we don't have to run from him. And all sin must be paid for. Forgiveness alone is not enough.

I've had some people ask, how come God just doesn't forgive? Because all sin must be paid for. All sin must be paid for. And when we forgive somebody, it is implied in that forgiveness that we will make the payment. Like if you borrowed my truck and then you wrecked it and you brought it to me and I said, don't worry about it, I forgive you. What's it? Don't get that through your mind.

That ain't happening, okay? I won't see you. Can't do it. But whatever. You see, what is implied here is I will pay to get it repaired. And what God is saying is when I forgive you, you, I will make the payment. And I've had people ask me too, well, why did Jesus have to die? I don't understand. Well, you see, it's not just, it's not just, sin is not just determined by

what you do, but it's also because of who you do it against. I mean, think about this. If you get, if you go home tonight, you get mad, you kick the wall. You probably shouldn't do that. If you go home and you kick the dog, that's worse. If you go home and kick your wife, you go to jail. You go home to kick a cat. No problem. You go kick the Pope? You go into prison for a long time. You get it?

You get the present? They'll tase you. They'll shoot you. When we sin against an everlasting almighty God, it is an eternal punishment against him, against us, because of our sin. And so he says, God puts for Jesus as a propitiation by his blood,

to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because of his divine forbearance. He had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. In other words, because of God's justice, all sin must be paid for. All sin. That for God to just say, I don't worry about it, would make God unjust.

And God himself would be a hypocrite and unholy and imperfect. But because of God's mercy, payment was delayed. This is how Moses gets saved. This is how Abraham gets saved. This is how David gets saved. That the wages of sin is death, and yet because of God's mercy, because of his divine forbearance, he has passed over former sins until the Lamb comes to be slain on the cross for the forgiveness of all sin.

But then here's the good news. But because of his grace, he makes the payment. He is the just and the justifier that at the cross of Jesus Christ, the love of God and the justice of God intersect in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I mean, literally, like when you look at the cross, you can think about it this way, that that vertical beam is like God's justice being poured out on the sin of all humanity. And it pours out on the head of Jesus. and the horizontal beam that Jesus's arms are nailed to are the vertical love that he has for his people that God's justice and God's love meet in the gospel

because God is just so sin must be paid for God is merciful therefore the payment was delayed and God is gracious therefore he makes the payment And then if you keep going to the last verse in Romans chapter 3, it ends this way. So do we then overthrow the law by this faith? In other words, because we put our faith in Jesus, does this mean that the law does not apply to us anymore? And Paul says, by no means, on the contrary, we uphold the law. In other words, it's not if we obey, then we are accepted.

It's because of what Christ has done on our behalf. we are fully accepted into the family of God. Therefore, our response is to obey. You see, here's the point. The law is the diagnosis that we are all sinners in need of a Savior. And Jesus is the cure. Again, the law, the Ten Commandments is the diagnosis. It is the x-ray.

It is the MRI. It is this scan of your soul to say something is broken. And it needs to be fixed. And when Jesus came to die in our place, he came as the cure. You see, when Jesus pushed up on his nail-pish feet, the last thing he says of these words, it is finished. Teletestai. To tell us die.

In first century banks, they would find loans that had been paid off in full. And on those loans would be stamped the word to tell us. Telestai. It is finished. That means that the payment has been made, so it is not up to you to pay it any more. You see, the gospel sets us free from license. It sets us free from legalism. So let me ask you, have you ever put your faith in Jesus? Or have you thought you've got to straighten your life out according to the Ten Commandments to be okay before God? Let me just tell you, okay? We're three quarters away through the the semester and currently you're rocking a zero average. There's not enough time left in the semester

for you to pull the thing off. There's not enough time left, even if from this day forward, you can nail it, A plus at life for the rest of your life, all right? Now, if you think that, you're really prideful. Have you ever trusted Jesus? You see, you know the academic scandal thing that we all oohed at just a minute ago? One of the things that they would do is that people would pay for a proctor to come in and take test with the kid. And when the kid would take the test, and when the kid would take the test, the proctor that's supposed to be overseeing the test, would change the answers to the right answers. Now, that's really bad, and those people should get in trouble first year for the justice of God. That on the spiritual theological test of the Ten Commandments,

that's what Jesus does. You see, you don't need a second chance at life. You don't need to turn over a new leaf. You see, if my daughter, to take a little bit of, you know, if my daughter, to a calculus exam. Okay? She's nine years old. How do you think she would do? She wouldn't do good for two reasons. One, she's a Martin. And she's nine. And so if she took the exam and she failed it miserably, and I said, baby, because of my mercy and because of my grace, I'm going to give you another chance at the exam. Guess what? She would just fail again. You see, God is not the God of second chances. I know what people mean when they say that and they mean well. It's just theoretically inaccurate. God is the God of a new life.

You don't need to turn over a new leaf. You need a new life. That God sent his only begotten son, Jesus, to sit in that final exam with you and said, hey, I took the test for you. And this isn't like college admission. This is heaven in mission. But I check with my dad.

He's super cool with this. You can take my grades. And here, I'll take your F. Sweet it did at the cross. So have you ever tried? trusted him for your salvation and not your good works. Have you ever trusted that when Jesus says it is finished that he was talking to you? And again, from Bay Meadows to Baker and everybody in between, no matter who you are or what you've done, have you ever trusted Jesus as the

propitiation for your sin? I'd like to give you that opportunity to do so right now. If you would bow your head, close your eyes. And if you're ready to admit for the very first time that it's not about how good or bad that you've been or how hard you've tried. It is not about your intentions, but you are ready to admit it. Uh-oh, there's a problem, and the problem is me. I just can't pull this thing off. I'm 0 for 10 on the exam, and I'm not just a mistakeer. I don't need just another chance. I need a new life. And today, for the very first time, that it is a reality at the soul level for you that when Jesus died on the cross and said, it is finished and was resurrected on the third day, that somehow that counted for you.

And then for the first time in your life, in this moment, you want to confess him as Lord. That you want to say, Father, here I am, forgive my sin, receive me as your very own son or daughter. I trust Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. If that's you, would you just tell him? Just in your heart, would you just tell him right now? There's no magic words. You don't have to repeat after me. you just confess that Jesus is your Lord.

You believe that God raised him from the dead. The Bible says that you will be saved. Now, if you prayed that prayer at all of our locations, we'd just raise your hand. Would you put your hand high in there and say, Father, Father, I am. I surrender my life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, God,

we love you more than anything. We thank you, we thank you for your law. We thank you for the Ten Commandments and all of your law as a map as to how we ought to live. And God, we thank you even more for the diet. that would drive us to you, to an understanding that we need you. God, I thank you for every single man, every single woman, every single student, that in this moment is surrendering their life to you, that they are being made righteous by what Christ

has done on the cross. And God, we pray that as you empower us with the Holy Spirit, that we would walk in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that fundamentally, God, we would do what the Ten Commandments command, God, that we would love you and that we would love our neighbors as ourselves. We pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen.