Follow the Promises: Blessings, Curses, Battlestar Galactica

Two mountains. One covenant. A people paused mid‑campaign to build an altar from uncut stones and hear the entire law read aloud. We step into Joshua 8 and Deuteronomy 27–28 to feel the weight of blessing and curse—and then follow that line straight to Galatians and Hebrews, where the pressure of perfection is answered by a perfect Savior. Instead of polishing our altars, we learn why God insisted on raw stone: access to Him is never dressed up by human effort. The law exposes what’s broken; it cannot mend the break. That’s why Christ became a curse for us, so the blessing promised to Abraham would reach us by faith.

We talk through the logic of the old covenant—do this and live, fail and die—and how it was designed to tutor us toward grace. The sacrifices of Israel formed identity and offered temporary relief, but the cross offers a once‑for‑all atonement that doesn’t depend on our precision. Ephesians says every spiritual blessing is already ours in Christ. Romans assures there is no condemnation for those who walk by the Spirit. Titus shows how grace doesn’t excuse sin; it teaches us to deny it. Obedience shifts from ladder‑climbing to identity‑living: we don’t perform to be loved; we act from being loved.

Along the way, we draw a surprising line from sci‑fi’s high‑stakes survival to the human ache for certainty—and why salvation cannot rest on flawless execution. If the altar is God’s work and the offering is Christ’s, then worship becomes simple again: just Jesus, the Lamb who takes away sin and settles anxious hearts. You’re not stuck between two futures anymore; you’re seated with Christ. Press play to rediscover the freedom of grace, the end of condemnation, and the joy of walking by the Spirit. If this encouraged you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Transcript

Israel Between Blessing And Curse

Building The Altar On Mount Ebel

Uncut Stones And Undressed Worship

Sacrifice, Identity, And Peace Offerings

Reading The Law To All Israel

SPEAKER_01 0:27

All right, today's Bible study in our Follow the Promises study through Joshua is called Blessings, Curses, Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I do watch The Office. It's one of my favorite shows, and it's a quote from that, but I'm not even talking about that. Okay. So in 2005, there came along a reimagining of a sci-fi franchise called Battlestar Galactica. I had not seen this, but I did some research, and it's very interesting. Because in that sci-fi world, and we're getting to nerd level like 7.5 here. So hang out with me here in your let your nerd, inner nerd, just come out with me. In this series, humanity is running for its life. Okay. A society of robots is trying to kill all the humans, which it always is, right? As they do. And and so these all the humans are stranded between annihilation and survival. And every episode feels like they're standing between two mountains. Okay. One wrong calculation, one bad jump into light speed, and the fleet is gonna be finished. Everyone's gonna die. Okay, they live under this brutal equation of do this and live, fail and die. Is their only hope. They call it the FTL. Nerd, I told you. It has to work every time. It has to be perfect every time. And that is Israel in Joshua chapter 8. They walk into the promised land, and instead of charging ahead with swords to continue to clean out all the bad people that live there, God stops them, you know, cold in their tracks, and he says, Go to the mountains, build an altar, read the law, and I want you to stand between two mountains that represent blessings and curses. This is Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebel. And Israel stands there like kind of like a fleet hovering between two possible futures. One future that's blessed, and one future that's cursing overtaking them. There's no partial credit. It's like a fork in the road. It's two opposite directions. You can't have both of them. But here's the problem. Their jump drive is already malfunctioning. Then that means that they're already starting to fail. They're already starting to make these bad choices, they're already starting to live a life of sin. So what are we gonna do? What were they gonna do? Well, let's let's find out. So Joshua chapter 8, verse 30. Joshua built an altar to the Lord, God of Israel, in Mount Ebel, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses. Okay, so we just saw they came out, they crossed over the Jordan River, then they defeated Jericho by marching around it seven times, seven days, and then they go and try to attack AI, but they went in their self-sufficiency, so they got beat down, then they regrouped, repented, got a second chance, and went out and listened to the Lord this time and beat Ai. And that's where we're at right now. So back in Deuteronomy chapter 27, that was it seems like a long time ago, but it was actually just a few months before this, there was a uh the Lord told them when they came into the promised land that they were to come to these two mountains, and they were to build an altar, and they were to sacrifice to the Lord, and they were to read the entire law. In fact, he he said, You're not just gonna read the law, you're going to inscribe it on these whitewashed stones. So they're gonna they're gonna carve their Ten Commandments into these stones that they've whitewashed with lime, and so that they would stand out. And it was so that all the people knew this was their covenant relationship with God. This is why they're here. This is the whole reason, is so that you can represent these ideals, this this character of God through his commandments. So instead of rushing off to like grow the kingdom and take their promised land, God commands them to remember their relationship with Him. Isn't that important for us to remember too? Like, we we always want to rush off and like, oh, what am I gonna do for Jesus today? And Jesus is like, hang on, we haven't even hung out. We haven't even hung out. This is called covenant, this relationship that we have with God. It's a covenant is a relationship that has rules. Relationships shouldn't have rules. Well, I think every marriage requires faithfulness, doesn't it? You think so? Amen. If if you just had no rules, you have no relationship. Because a relationship involves commitment, a covenant defines what that commitment looks like. No commitment means no covenant, means no relationship. God says we are in a relationship, Israel, and this is what the rules of the relationship look like. They're under the old covenant of the law. I want to make that very clear. All that's written in the book of the law of Moses, they're they're the Ten Commandments, but 613 other commitments and commandments as well. So that's that's what's going on here. This defined their relationship, this law. And we're gonna learn a lot about this relationship as well as our relationship with God and how it's completely different than Israel's relationship, but we have to understand theirs to be able to understand ours because they go together, but they're completely different. Okay. So then he says, uh they're gonna make an altar of whole stones, which no man has wielded an iron tool. Do you see that in there? What does that mean? Isn't that kind of weird? Well, what was an altar? Altars is where their relationship was got with God was made real. You get married, you stand at the altar, right? So instead of slaughtering a lamb at weddings, maybe we should, but we don't. It defined the relationship. It it made it real because they had to sacrifice animals and pour out blood to cover their sinfulness before a completely holy and righteous God. That's that's why they had to have altars. It was good for them. They needed that cleansing. They need they came in with guilty consciences, knowing they had sinned, and so they needed, oh, I at least I can see this lamb is is killed and slain and slaughtered. Uh it's bad for them, but good for me. I can be forgiven because of this. And God, he loved them, he wanted a relationship with them, but they weren't holy in any way. So he had to forgive them over and over and over again. And he was willing to do that during this entire time of the law or the old testament. But these this altar had to be made of uncut stones. Why do you think that is? This already is signaling these uncut stones that access to God is never dressed up by human effort. You see, back in that day, everyone did altars. All the different cultures, the Canaanites, the parasites, the parasites, whatever you want to call them, all the different groups were had their altars. But what they all had in common is they made their altars super fancy. You had the Ferrari altars and the Lamborghini altars and whatever the Tesla altars. They glowed. They thought that the fancier altar was, the more God would be impressed. Oh, you're so fancy. I like you this altar. I'm impressed by you. But God's like, don't do that. Don't do that. I'm not in where this is not ever about you dressing up who you are. You need an altar because you're not good, not because you are. And I'm gonna listen to you and I'm gonna hear you and I'm gonna forgive you, not because you're impressing me, but because I love you. I love you. And I've made a way for us to be in a relationship through this covenant. So even under the law, people uh you know, approach to God pointed beyond human achievement. Okay, we you couldn't you didn't make this rock, you picked it up out of the ground. I made the rock. You can't even make a rock. You know, you don't add anything to this except your sin, which needs to be washed away. That's all that you're adding to this equation. It's amazing how we try to make everything we do fancy or impressive, you know. Like like I said, the pagans would carve their stones, you know, they would have smoke and lasers when their worship team came out. Not that that's bad. Necessarily but God wants, he insists that his worship be focused on one thing, the sacrifice. Just the sacrifice. The blood of the Lamb. That's where all the focus is supposed to be. And I love I love that when Nate leads worship, that's what I think about. Okay. That's what that's what as a church, I hope that's what our focus is. What just Jesus, very simply, just Jesus. Let nothing distract you. Let just look at the sacrifice. The look at the lamb that was slain and remember his blood. That's what the altar is all about, okay? So they offer uh so pointing ahead to the new new covenant when Jesus came, Jesus dying on the cross is a picture of a lamb being killed on an altar. So you can think of the cross as being like an altar. It was actually on a mountain called Mount Moriah. And if you go today and look at that mountain, it looks like a rock with just rocky stuff. It's just like rocks. And it no one's ever shaped it, no one's ever changed it. It's just like some rocks. And uh I I think they go together very good. It says, and they offered burnt offerings to the Lord, and they sacrificed peace offerings. So this is about forgiveness and worship, and those two things go together: forgiveness and worship. So they pause before conquering to drink deeply of their relationship with God. This is their their new national identity, their their whole personal identity and their entire national identity is we are a forgiven people and we are people who worship God. They they offer their lambs, right? They um if they had a flag, it would have been like a lamb being killed. Because that's like was kind of like their mascot, you could say. You know, slaughtering them was a symbol of death that their sins deserved. And by these sacrifices, they knew that they had been forgiven by God, at least temporarily, until they did it again. So they could celebrate their relationship with God with what's called peace offerings. What that means is I know that I'm at peace with you, God, so I'm gonna give you more of my life. I'm gonna give you more of my life. I'm not just gonna keep taking from you, I'm gonna offer more. So worship was their identity until they sin again. Right? And that's the problem with this whole system, is it only worked when they didn't sin. When they sinned, they had to start back over. So it's kind of like that guy pushing the the rock up the hill. What was his name? Yeah, him. 20 Greek points for you. All right. And there, in the presence of the children of Israel, he wrote the stone, uh wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written. Now I'm curious whether he wrote just the Ten Commandments, or he carved in these stones the entire Torah. Which is like, whoa. That's uh you would get really, really sore. Uh then all Israel with their elders and officers and judges stood on either side of the ark before the priests, the Levites who bore the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, the stranger as well as he who was born among them. Half of them were in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them were in front of Mount Ebel, and Mo as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded before uh that they should bless the people of Israel. So this is all of Israel, all the men, women, children, children, sojourners, they all stand between the mountain of blessing and the mountain of cursing. Okay, just get the picture in your mind. We're gonna pretend like we're there, we're them today. And afterward, he read all the words of the law, the blessings and the curses, according to all that is written in the book of the law. So he stands, he makes the entire congregation, all two and a half million of them, stand there while he reads the Torah, which would take anyone want to guess? 18 hours. 18 hours. If you listen to it on double speed, in your it'll take nine hours. But he wasn't, he was speaking old Hebrew, and I'm sure he was had to take a drink of water every now and then. So eighteen hours conservatively, he stood there and read the entire Torah to them. And everyone listened the entire time. This is a commitment to this relationship, right? That they were serious about this relationship. And then there was not a word of all that Moses had commanded them, which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women and the little ones, and the stranger was still living among them.

unknown 15:31

Wow.

Blessings If You Obey; Curses If You Don’t

Why The Old Covenant Couldn’t Save

The Law As Tutor To Christ

Christ Becomes The Curse For Us

Every Spiritual Blessing In Christ

No Condemnation And Walking By The Spirit

Grace Heals What Law Diagnoses

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Actually, not 18 hours, 16 hours. I apologize. You can stone me later. 16 hours, I lied. So as they came into their new promised land, right, they were to obey all of the commandments in order to be blessed. See, their relationship with God was obey and live, fail and die. That's what the law is. Now I'm gonna read to you in Deuteronomy chapter 27, verse 1, this is where we're getting this from. He says, Now Moses, with the elders of Israel, commanded the people, saying, Keep all the commandments which I have commanded you today. The people need to be careful to keep all the commandments, not some of them, not most of them. In the New Testament, it says, if you break one of the commandments, you're guilty of breaking every commandment. This is an all-or-nothing thing. So who's guilty of murder? All of us. Who's guilty of adultery? All of us. Every single person is guilty of every single law. Because if you break one law, you're a lawbreaker. It doesn't matter which one we broke. So this is how God's economy works. Now, this isn't the good news of the gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ. We're gonna get to that in a minute, but we have to understand, we have to let we have to sit in this bathwater of law in order for it to really impact us so we understand why Jesus did what he did and why it's so incredible, amazing, life-changing that Jesus did what he did to give us a new covenant. That's not based on everything you do, but it's based on everything he has done. We'll get to that. I'm getting ahead of myself, I'm excited. So he was clear that Israel, he wants Israel to come into this land, and their assignment is to be a priestly nation. They he wants them to live in like a uh a self-governing way and obey his commands to which which are to love each other and serve each other, to live in truth and without envy and guile and hatred, which also will make their society work great. If you have a society where everyone loves each other, it all works fine. No matter how if you could have any kind of government structure you could have, you can have a communism, you could have democracy, you could have anything you want. If people loved each other and loved God, it's gonna work out just fine. And that's what he's saying here. This is this is what is important. So they have this little party, they have a blessing and curses ceremony. And so they Deuteronomy 27 and 28 sets up what was gonna happen here, and um so literal Israel literally stands between these two mountains uh where life under the law that they're about to enter into was do this and live and fail and be cursed. And God wants them to see this is your life now. You have these two choices. It spotlights this this whole story spotlights human need, like we need to be perfect, and God's holiness. God is demands perfection, God demands holiness. And everyone's included in this, even the leaders down to the little ones, even people who were just like tagging along because they thought this was probably the the the winners of the war, you know, the the the um transplants into their into their area. Okay. So this command was that they are to be holy. Well, how holy were they supposed to be? How many of the commands were they have to keep? The answer is they're supposed to be. The standard is as holy as God. That's the standard. See, that's the thing that nobody understands, not nobody, but it's hard to understand about the law. See, we grow up and people are like, you know what a great way to live is the Ten Commandments. Our grannies told us that, our grandpa's exemplified it. We were like, we know that's what the preacher said. The Ten Commandments is the way to live life. But the problem is we don't do them. We fail all the time. What are we supposed to do when that happens? Because I can't go to Jerusalem today and make a sacrifice. Can you? A, the temple's been destroyed, we can't even do it. B, there's not even any animals or priests that can do it. C, there's a better way. Okay. So let's read. I I'm I want to pretend we're gonna divide the okay. We're you guys over here, and then you guys over here. Do you guys want to be the blessing or cursing people? Wait, you get to pick? Yeah, you get to pick, okay? So just imagine one side, you guys are the cursed people. No, you guys are the blessed people. We're gonna we're gonna we're gonna read the part that they would have literally read this day. And I want you just to hear and just imagine what this would have been like for you to hear this. And I want you to sit in this bathwater of entering. My life is now a life under covenant, old covenant with God. And just what kind of feelings you have, what kind of thoughts you have. He says, cursed is Deuteronomy 27, 15. Cursed is the one who makes a carved or molded image, an abomination to the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret. I guess that was a big problem back then. Cursed is the one who treats his father and mother with contempt, and all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed is the one who moves his labor's landmark, and all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed is the one who makes the blind wander off the road. And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed is the one who perverts justice due the stranger, the fatherless and widow, and all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed is the one who lies with his father's wife because he has uncovered his father's bed. And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed is the one who lies with any kind of animal. All the people shall say, Amen to that. Cursed is the one who lies with his sister. There's a lot of lyings that are not allowed. Um Thou shalt not lie, was talking about this, right? Just kidding. And all the people say, Amen. Curse is the one who lies with his mother in law, and all the people should say, Amen, cursed is the one who attacks his neighbor secretly. And all the people shall say, Amen. Curse is the one who takes a bribe to slay. Innocent person, and all the people shall say amen. Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law by observing them, and all the people shall say amen. So these were just some of the some of the cursed things. Okay. But now you you go to the very next verse, and now we have the blessing side. You guys have a party over here. So look at what he says for the blessing side. And now it shall come to pass if, if, if, if, if, highlight that word, circle that word, if you. Those two words are the entire hinge that the old covenant swings upon. In the new covenant, it's different. The the if is different. It's if you believe. But here it's not. If you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments, which I commanded you today, that the Lord will set you high above the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the Lord your God. The voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall you be in the fruit of your body and the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall you be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses, in all to which you set your hand, and he will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. The Lord will establish you as a holy people to himself, just as he swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. Then all the people of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord swore to give your fathers to give you. And the Lord will open to you his good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the works of your hand, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow, and the Lord will make you head and not the tail. You shall be above only, not belief, beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and be careful to observe them. So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you to this day, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods, to serve them. But it shall come to pass if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, and be careful, carefully obey all his commandments and statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. And then it goes on and on and on. For homework, you need to go finish chapter 28 of Deuteronomy. It's really great. But the list is an incredible amount of curses that they would also experience if they don't obey. So you have blessings and you have curses. Do good and get good, do bad and get bad. It's not that hard to understand. We've been doing this since we were in diapers. That's just the way that the world works. And it makes sense, right? You get what you earn. You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit. That's what we told our kids, right? Of course it would work this way, because the whole world works. It's called justice. It's called justice. But that's not how grace works. God actually has abolished this way, the point of covenant. The old covenant has been abolished. Annulled, you could say. Why? Because not a single person could keep this. Back in Deuteronomy again, it's funny because uh later in that chapter, all the people of Israel are like, hey, everything you said, Moses, we're gonna do it. We're awesome. We're gonna keep all the commands. And Moses was like, No, you're not. He literally said, No, you're not. Not a single person could ever keep all the commands of God. This wasn't the relationship that God was looking for. He always wanted to be our God and for us to be his people. And this law obedience thing was actually getting in the way of the relationship that he wanted to have with his people. There's a new way called faith obedience. Our obedience isn't about keeping the law anymore, it's about faith. That's how the new covenant works. And I'm going to explain it here in just a minute. But I want to look how this chapter points us to the new covenant. First, it gives us all these rules and laws, right? And those expose our sin and lead us, kind of force us to Jesus, to faith in Jesus. In the New Testament, it says that the law was our tutor to drive us to Christ. So when you read all these laws and you stand between these two mountains, standing between the blessings and cursings was meant to drive us to grace. Isn't there a savior? Isn't there another way? Isn't because I I I'm scared I'm not gonna keep all this. I'm worried about it. In fact, I don't think I have already. In Galatians 3, 19, it says, What purpose then does the law serve? And this is for today. So now we're shifting our our focus, our perspective from what it was for them back 4,000 years ago to what it is today for us in South Padre Island in 2026. What purpose does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed, Jesus, should come to whom the promise was made, and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. So what purpose does the law serve, it says? It was added because of sins. People were already breaking the law, but he gave them the law so they knew which laws they were breaking. It didn't make them break the law, they were already breaking the law. They were already sinful. And then in verse 24 and 25 of Galatians 3, it says, Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by going to church all the time. Oh wait, it doesn't say that by trying super hard and being good people. It doesn't say that either. By faith. By faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. Can you be any more clear? So here's the really technical question. As Christians, are we under the law? The answer is no, we're not under the law. What does that mean? You can act however you want. That's always the question that follows. And the and that Paul says, that's the wrong question. The question is, can you sin? The question actually is, now that you've been made alive with Christ, you don't want to sin. You are a new creation, you have a new heart and a new spirit. And if you choose to go participate in sin because you can, you're going to be miserable because that's not who you are anymore. It's not your identity anymore. Your identity is in Christ. Christ literally lives inside you called the Holy Spirit. It's his Holy Spirit. So he's inside you. After faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. So Jesus literally becomes a curse for us so that we could receive this blessing. The blessings that we talked about by faith. The mountain of evil, the cursing side, it finds its resolution at the cross. Look in Galatians chapter 3 again, verse 13 and 14. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. That's why Jesus had to die on a cross. That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. You see, all those promises of blessing, they're all wrapped up in one word for you: the Spirit. All the blessings that you could ever get are yours in the Holy Spirit. You are accepted, you are loved, you are enough, you are healed, you are everything that you need because you have the Holy Spirit. And then it says there was an altar of these uncut stones that we read about, and that foreshadows for us salvation, all that we have was not crafted by human hands, and you don't have to impress anything. It was a once and for all sacrifice that Jesus made, not our works. In Hebrews 10, 10, it says, by that will we have been sanctified. Well, sorry, by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. For by that one offering, he's perfected forever those who are sanctified. It says that in verse 14. So once for all. Why? Because Jesus became the curse for us, and he is the blessing for us. He becomes everything for us so that he can be our all-in-all. That's what that means. So in Christ it says, every spiritual blessing is already ours, and there's no condemnation left for anybody. Look at Ephesians 1:3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. You don't have to earn them. And it also says he already has blessed them. They're already yours. All the blessings are in Christ. And we are in Christ when? How? By faith. When you put your confidence in, your hope in him, your trust in him, you are in him. Now, practically, when you make choices that you are going to trust in him, then you will practically see these blessings in your own life. So if you live your life like you don't know him, doing whatever you want to do and participating in whatever you want to participate in, you're not going to see the blessings that belong to you. Why would you do that? It's not your identity. And then in Colossians chapter, or sorry, in Romans 8:1, it says, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ who do not walk according to the flesh, but walk according to the Spirit. So again, if we walk according to the flesh or an identity that we don't even have anymore, that we are sinners, that's not who we are anymore. That flesh was crucified on the cross. So if we choose to walk in sin, you're not going to experience these blessings that God has for you. You're going to feel condemned. You're going to feel, why do I feel guilty? Yes, you're going to feel guilty. But you're not guilty, but you're going to feel guilty. You're not condemned, but you're going to feel condemned. That's how it's why it's so important for us to walk in the Spirit. Walk with confidence in what Jesus says about you and has done for you. Eyes on him, eyes on the Holy Spirit. Nothing can condemn us to be cursed. Again, you're never going to experience these curses. Isn't that great? You know, it's amazing because the first, uh, if you go on in those curses, the first thing it says is gonna um curse you is you're gonna be confused. Confusion is gonna be your first curse if you keep going after where we stop there in Deuteronomy chapter 28. Uh the first one will be confusion. God says that's literally a curse that comes upon us when we're walking in in sin. And I just I hate it when we as as believers are confused about what's going on in our life because we don't we don't need to be. God has given us clarity and truth, and we can walk in that truth and we can know that truth. He loves you, you're forgiven, and there's no condemnation. Where's the confusion in that? There shouldn't be any. Okay, so what is our takeaway today from what we're learning about today? This whole scene shouts for us that the law is holy, the law is perfect, and it is good, but the law can only diagnose our problems, it can't heal our problems. It's like a doctor that says, Well, you're really, really, really sick. That'll be$500. You ever been to a doctor like that? They're they're bad. We don't like those doctors. We like a doctor who says, You're sick, and here's the prescription for your sickness. This will take care of it. We love that sort of confidence. Well, Jesus is like that. He he is a doctor that gives his own blood as your transfusion, his own life as your prescription for the sin problem that we have. But the law can't do that. It can't heal, it can't forgive, it only points out you're sick. So it can do that. So we as believers today, we're not standing between two mountains hoping that we just land on blessing this week. That's not supposed to be our lives. But if you were to ask most believers what does your life look like, we're like, well, it's up and down, up and down. Some days I do good, some days I do bad, but we don't have to live like that. We will struggle, but as we grow, we're gonna see that grace establishes our lives, it establishes our hearts, so we don't have this up and down life. We're not trying to get his blessings because Jesus has already blessed us, and we're not scared of his cursing because Jesus has already uh taken the curse for us. What does that all mean? Run to your daddy's arms. That's the relationship Jesus says. The spirit makes our spirit cry out, Abba Father. You see, when there's law involved, you have condemnation, you have worry, you have performance-based issues, you don't you're you're worried that your dad's gonna be disappointed in you. But when it's grace, there's no condemnation. You know that you're forgiven. And when you're struggling, or when you're hurting, or when you're lonely, or when you're sad, you run straight to your father's arms and say, I know you. I know you accept me. I know the blessings that I have in you are real. You are seated with Christ, fully blessed, fully forgiven, permanently united to him. It says in Ephesians 2, 6, he raised us up together with him and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ. That's the reality of who we are. We are united with him. And then Colossians 2, verse 13, you being dead in the trespasses and uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven all your trespasses, having wiped away the handwriting of requirement which was against us. That was the law, right? Which was contrary to us, it was always against you, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. God's way with you is grace. It's not this law way where he's constantly saying, You failed, you failed, you failed. He doesn't do that anymore. He says, You're accepted, you're accepted, you're accepted. Not because of what you did, but because of the faith. We don't have to fear the curses, we don't have to earn the blessings. Well, how does this work practically? Titus 2, 11 and 12 is key. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age. So should we as Christians should we behave in a godly, righteous way? Yes, absolutely. Is it vital and important that we do that? Yes, it is. Is there grace for when we fail? Yes. Is there grace to help us and teach us? Yes. You see, if you just give people law saying, don't drink, don't chew, and don't go with girls who do, have you heard that one before? My granny told me that. If we just give people those rules and say that's how you avoid blessing, we've taken them back to the two mountains. But if we say you are holy, you are righteous, you are godly because God lives in you and you're united to Him. That's the gospel. And that's how grace, it says grace teaches us how to do all this good stuff. It's grace. So when we come in, we do church, we don't go sin sniffing. Like, here's the sins you got. Oh, I saw you doing this, I saw you doing that. That is not the heart of any ministry, shouldn't be the heart of any ministry. But we call people to their identity. Who are you? What has Jesus said about you? We will preach it, we will proclaim it, we will stand up and say, This is what's holy and this is what's right. Because Jesus doesn't deny any of that, he fulfills it for us as we throw ourselves on him and say, I trust in you and I believe in you. My confidence is in your grace, not in my works. It's not the law that teaches you cannot, by the Ten Commandments, and as we're just wrapping up right here, as the Ten Commandments uh teach us, you think that they teach you how to be a good person? All the do you remember all the curses that we just read? No, we've forgotten half of them already. There's a bunch of lying with people stuff we're not supposed to do. We can't even do, we can't even comprehend all the laws, because the law doesn't actually teach us how to keep the law. It just says you're no good at it. But the new covenant of grace, on the other hand, actually transforms us, actually makes us new, righteous, and holy. So we're just gonna close reading this last, this last text here. Matthew chapter 5, verse 17, Jesus says, Do not think that I came to destroy the law of the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. And when they're fulfilled, they are fulfilled. That means they're done. I did not come to uh for assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle will by any means pass away from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Well, how do I get more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees? Only by faith. If we have faith, that righteousness is gifted to you. Have you ever felt the need for righteousness? That's the Holy Spirit's conviction in your life. The only thing to do is say, Jesus, give me your righteousness, and he will. The kingdom of heaven, that's how it works. In Battlestar Galactica, they kept jumping, hoping to survive. Israel kept obeying, trying to keep the law, hoping to be blessed. But Jesus didn't jump to escape anything, he jumped into the judgment that we deserve. And he, because he did, we don't live in between these two mountains anymore. You are not see standing between two mountains of blessing and cursing, you're seated in

Identity Before Behavior

SPEAKER_00 44:57

But it couldn't fail me. And it's empty place. I treasure the fame I never been love. And you came alone. You put me back together. And every desire is now satisfied. Hearing your love. Oh there's nothing better than you, though there's nothing. Better than you, though there's nothing. Nothing is better than you. I'm not afraid. Show you my windows. Our figures and laws. Though you seen them all, are you still coming friend? Cause the God of the mountains the God of the valley. But there's not a place. Your mercy and grace won't find me again. Oh there's nothing. Better than you, or there's nothing. Better than you, though there's nothing. See that's nothing. Better than you, though there's nothing. Better than you, though there's nothing. Nothing is better than you. You turn morning to dancing. You give beauty for ashes. You turn team into glory. You're the only one who can Grips and God. You turn crap into God. You turn bolt into artists. You turn teams into house. You're the only one who can'thing. Better than you, though there's nothing. Better than you, though there's nothing. Better than you, nor there's nothing. Better than you, though there's nothing. Nothing is better than you.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

Father, we turn our eyes to you, we turn our hope to you. We rest upon the finished work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We accept Him into our heart. We believe that His life is our life, that His Spirit is our Spirit. And as we walk around in these fleshly bodies that are falling apart, we give you every breath. We give you our whole hearts and we turn to love one another in obedience to what you have who you have made us. Not what you've commanded us to do, but who you have made us to be. We are your love in human form. In Jesus' name we praise you. Amen. Bless you. We'll see you guys next week and Wednesday.