SPEAKER_00: When you're opening your Bible speech to Exodus chapter 32.
SPEAKER_00: If you're new with us, we have been slowly walking through the Old Testament this year.
SPEAKER_00: In the first few months of the year, we looked in depth at the creation story and just how that set a foundation for some of the most important theologies, doctrines about who God is in the whole Bible, the first few chapters.
SPEAKER_00: The last few months we've been looking at what we've called the patriarchs.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking at Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and now we've been with Moses for a few weeks and uh getting on in a minute to Joseph and Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: We've been slowly looking through the story and looking at where is Jesus in the middle of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke chapter 24, when Jesus is walking on the road to Emmaus and he meets these disciples who are discouraged.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't realize that Jesus had risen from the dead yet, and he's talking and walking with them.
SPEAKER_00: And scripture tells us that he explains to them, beginning with Moses and the prophets, all the things in Scripture concerning himself.
SPEAKER_00: So we're on this journey this year of looking at Moses and the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And along the way, we find broken and fallen people and leaders who do crazy things good and crazy things bad, and we sit and judge like I do, and I'm like, well, I would do the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: And we are learning more about ourselves, and we're learning more about the nature and the character of God.
SPEAKER_00: As we're unpacking here today, Exodus chapter 32.
SPEAKER_00: I believe you're gonna find yourself in this story.
SPEAKER_00: And if we look carefully and we allow the story to read us, we're gonna see how often we make the same mistakes.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna look at the grace of the Lord that keeps drawing us into his presence.
SPEAKER_00: I feel it's a warning because we're in the season of summer.
SPEAKER_00: Summer kind of starts, and summer for many people begins this slow drift.
SPEAKER_00: The slow drift, not like, you know, I end up, you know, I start in the month of May and I write Pastor David an email saying, hey, I'm out.
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm mad at the church.
SPEAKER_00: No, that doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Um what happens is we drift, we get lazy, we we start dropping off the text chains, out of the life groups, we start dropping out of the community, we out of our disciplines, and we find ourselves just a few weeks, a few months later, disconnected and beginning to reimagine what Christianity could or should look like within our schedules, within our desires, within our designs.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like today's a warning because, like a ship that moves pretty slowly and getting to the dock, if it's coming in too fast and moving in the wrong direction, somebody has to yell and say, Stop, let's redirect, let's let's re-redire, get on the right path again.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to the beach in a few weeks, and my favorite vacation is in the beach.
SPEAKER_00: And it's so easy to think you get so comfortable with the ocean, and before you know it, you begin to drift.
SPEAKER_00: Begin to drift, and a current takes you out, and you find yourself suddenly unable to control yourself.
SPEAKER_00: It's time for a warning.
SPEAKER_00: I think scripture is giving us one today that if we should heed it, we should read that we come back on track with what the Lord is asking us to do.
SPEAKER_00: Are we ready and willing to do God's will, God's way, or are we gonna redesign it?
SPEAKER_00: Are we gonna keep redesigning it?
SPEAKER_00: My title for today, if you're a title writer down a rare, um technical term, is get your heads back, get your head back in the clouds.
SPEAKER_00: Get your head back in the clouds.
SPEAKER_00: In this portion of scripture, here in chapter 32 through 34, there's an image that keeps showing up, and it's this image of a cloud.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to hold on to this.
SPEAKER_00: We start when Moses is on the top of Mount Sinai in chapter 32, and he's meeting with God, and the glory of the cloud of the Lord is on the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: We look later on how Moses is back amongst the people and he goes out to the camp into the tent of meeting.
SPEAKER_00: And when he goes in to meet with the Lord, the cloud of the Lord rests on the tent of the meeting.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the presence of the Lord that we need to get our heads back into if we're gonna uh autocorrect, if we're gonna redirect our course here today.
SPEAKER_00: It's get your head back into the clouds.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully by now you're at chapter 32.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give you uh a little bit of an update of where we are in the story here.
SPEAKER_00: Moses has been on the top of Mount Sinai for 40 days.
SPEAKER_00: 40, only 40 days.
SPEAKER_00: He's on the top of the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: God is giving him the Ten Commandments, and with the finger of God writing on the stone tablets the Ten Commandments, and he's speaking to Moses, in a sense, giving him the blueprint of what the nation should how the nation should function and how God wants the nation to move forward.
SPEAKER_00: This is a new group of people, a couple million, who came out of Egypt and were in slavery for 430 years, and now God is putting his fence around them, his name on them, calling them out, saying, You are now my people.
SPEAKER_00: I'm about to lead you into Canaan, but here is your constitution, if we want to understand our language for today.
SPEAKER_00: This is how we're gonna govern ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: This is how I'm gonna lead you, and this is how you should look at how you do your life together.
SPEAKER_00: Moses is having a great time in the cloud on the mountain, 40 days.
SPEAKER_00: People down below are losing it.
SPEAKER_00: 40 days with no visible leader.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Aaron and Miriam are there, but they got their issues.
SPEAKER_00: So they don't see Moses, they don't see the word, no sign, just silence, and like us, they can't take it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read verse 1 from chapter 32.
SPEAKER_00: When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, Up! I like that, get up, make us gods who shall go before us.
SPEAKER_00: And for this Moses, I like how the the attitude changes.
SPEAKER_00: Moses who led us out of the out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's this Moses.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what's become of him.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does Aaron do?
SPEAKER_00: Aaron buckles under this pressure and he does what they want.
SPEAKER_00: He builds them a statue, and it's not a statue of Baal, it's not a foreign kind of deity.
SPEAKER_00: He builds a golden calf.
SPEAKER_00: Israel didn't invent this image as a god, godlike figure.
SPEAKER_00: Egypt inherited uh Israel inherited this.
SPEAKER_00: This was something they picked up in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: Where they lived in Goshen in Egypt, there were some of the images of cows and calves that would have been common to them, familiar to them.
SPEAKER_00: So they make it.
SPEAKER_00: But then listen what Aaron says in verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: When Aaron saw this thing that he had made, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The word Lord there in in Hebrew is Yahweh, the covenant name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow we will make a feast before Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this was new to me.
SPEAKER_00: I've read this portion 50 times in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And here I'm like, wait, I thought they were starting a whole new religion and doing this whole ball worship thing.
SPEAKER_00: What they were doing was trying to take a familiar image that they were used to.
SPEAKER_00: 400 years in Egypt makes you used to a way of doing things.
SPEAKER_00: And they want to now put this in front of God, Yahweh, the God of Israel, who just performed the ten miracles, the ten plagues in front of them, brought them through the Red Sea, and they want to offer this thing to Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: They're not going into atheism or into Baal worship.
SPEAKER_00: They're redesigning their faith.
SPEAKER_00: They're making it a little bit more comfortable, a little bit more familiar.
SPEAKER_00: They're doing God's will their way, not God's way.
SPEAKER_00: And it's so important for us here.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't abandon Yahweh, they tried to represent him with an image that they could control and carry.
SPEAKER_00: Moses comes down from the mountain and he sees what's going on there.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine those 40 days in the presence of God, speaking to him, talking to him, seeing his finger like carving out these stones with the laws of God?
SPEAKER_00: And he comes down, drops the tablets on the floor, and this crisis starts.
SPEAKER_00: Judgment, with intercession, unbelievable intercession, and this incredible covenant renewal, the grace of the Lord poured out yet again on us.
SPEAKER_00: So our question really today is are we willing to do God's will God's way?
SPEAKER_00: Or are we gonna keep redesigning our faith to fit something that's familiar and comfortable and suitable for our lives?
SPEAKER_00: That's the hard question for us today.
SPEAKER_00: My first point I want to unpack here is this that God's will is found in his presence.
SPEAKER_00: God's will is found in God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: Read from chapter 33, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: We'll read three verses here.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord said to Moses, Depart, go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, To your offspring I will give it.
SPEAKER_00: Sound good so far, right?
SPEAKER_00: So this whole calf thing happened, stone tablets are broken, Moses is kicked, and now the Lord says to them, Okay, guys, get up, go up from here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take you into the land that I promised your forefathers.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2, I will send, I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites and the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.
SPEAKER_00: Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up amongst you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.
SPEAKER_00: It slowed this down for just a second.
SPEAKER_00: God is offering Israel their full inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: This these few verses are a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: He's offering them their full inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: The land, the land that they flowing with milk and honey.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have a land, they were slaves for 430 years.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna bring them into a good place, into Canaan.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna drive out, not just do they not not need to, oh, it's nice and cool over here.
SPEAKER_00: This is a good section here in the church.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Not just do they not need to joking, fight the armies, as happened in the book of Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: There was something over 30 fights and and wars that they had to do.
SPEAKER_00: Not just that, the angel says it will go before them and drive out all the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: Good deal, right?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't this sound amazing?
SPEAKER_00: But but your presence won't go with you.
SPEAKER_00: We gotta be honest with ourselves for a minute here.
SPEAKER_00: What would we say?
SPEAKER_00: What would we have done in that minute?
SPEAKER_00: The next verse gives me immediate hope for the people of Israel and should for us.
SPEAKER_00: When the people heard this, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: This disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments.
SPEAKER_00: They showed some remorse.
SPEAKER_00: And then Moses goes into the tent of meeting to go talk to the Lord some more about this.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord there would speak with Moses.
SPEAKER_00: Moses then has this interaction with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 15, he says the most incredible thing.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.
SPEAKER_00: If your presence does not go, who do not bring us up from here?
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he goes on to say, if your presence doesn't go with us, how will we be distinct from any of the other nations on the earth?
SPEAKER_00: It is your presence that marks us.
SPEAKER_00: It's your presence that makes us different from anybody else.
SPEAKER_00: It's your presence that has so marked them as a people and called them a name.
SPEAKER_00: He's understanding this is your presence doesn't go before us.
SPEAKER_00: Do not send us out from here.
SPEAKER_00: Really want us to think hard about this question.
SPEAKER_00: I think the question the text is asking us, not whether we believe in God, but it's whether we actually want him.
SPEAKER_00: Whether we actually want him, whether we actually live our lives in a way that without him, it's not right.
SPEAKER_00: Without him, something major is missing.
SPEAKER_00: Without him, I'm incomplete.
SPEAKER_00: Without him, I'm feeling like failure.
SPEAKER_00: Is that the way we live our lives?
SPEAKER_00: And let's bring this more home.
SPEAKER_00: If God were to offer you a guarantee, let's say this.
SPEAKER_00: If God was to offer you sitting down with you, hey bud, let's sit down.
SPEAKER_00: I got a deal to make with you.
SPEAKER_00: I will give you.
SPEAKER_00: Your family will stay healthy, your finances are secure, your your kids are thriving, your reputation is intact.
SPEAKER_00: But I won't be with you.
SPEAKER_00: You will not know or experience my presence at all.
SPEAKER_00: Not in your daily life, not disruptive, not demonic, just quiet and distant.
SPEAKER_00: Would you take it?
SPEAKER_00: I think most of us would have to sit with that question if we were to be honest with ourselves a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And here's why I say this.
SPEAKER_00: This is a warning to us.
SPEAKER_00: If I just summarize the whole book of Hosea, Hosea says that these people have been asking for God's blessing, God then blesses them, and then they turn to the blessing for their security, and they forget the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: If I just summarize the whole book in a couple sentences, I feel to some regard, God has so blessed America financially, reputation, it's the strongest economy in the world.
SPEAKER_00: It's not an opinion, it's just a statement.
SPEAKER_00: But for most of us Americans, we're so used to this level of blessing that we now look to the blessing for our security and our comfort.
SPEAKER_00: And we've forgotten the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: What is the thing you obsess about most?
SPEAKER_00: What is the thing you worry about most?
SPEAKER_00: What is the thing you pray about most?
SPEAKER_00: And if the Lord were to give you that, without his presence, would we take it?
SPEAKER_00: That's the question here.
SPEAKER_00: He was ready to give them their land, drive out everybody else, there you go.
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, they mourned.
SPEAKER_00: But I have to ask us the question.
SPEAKER_00: Because I know how I've structured my life, and it's easy now that certain big things have been checked out in my life, and you know, taking care of this and the future and the kids and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh now can I just coast?
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to live like that.
SPEAKER_00: We're in a blessed nation.
SPEAKER_00: We have to ask ourselves, do we need God every day?
SPEAKER_00: Can we survive without him every day?
SPEAKER_00: We curated so much comfort, stability, predictability.
SPEAKER_00: I believe we can go days or sometimes weeks without genuinely needing God.
SPEAKER_00: One of God's names is the comforter.
SPEAKER_00: Comforter, but we build lives that don't need him.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: We call that a success.
SPEAKER_00: Our culture calls that a success.
SPEAKER_00: You have enough of a home here and enough of a home at the beach.
SPEAKER_00: Whoa, you are successful.
SPEAKER_00: You have enough of this or enough of that, whoa, you have done well.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the mark of a quote-unquote Christian nation.
SPEAKER_00: How we celebrate these things.
SPEAKER_00: I believe God is trying to get our attention back.
SPEAKER_00: What is the most important thing in your life?
SPEAKER_00: What is the one thing you cannot do without?
SPEAKER_00: And we have to come to this question.
SPEAKER_00: Trying to figure out what is it for you?
SPEAKER_00: It's not me.
SPEAKER_00: I this cannot be me trying to condemn you.
SPEAKER_00: This is not condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: This is me looking at this scripture and asking myself, am I that different to these Israelites?
SPEAKER_00: And I want to ask us as a church, are we that different?
SPEAKER_00: And what are we going to do about it?
SPEAKER_00: There's a warning here for us.
SPEAKER_00: But there's also an invitation, and I'll get there in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: But here's a concrete, concrete diagnostic.
SPEAKER_00: When did you last pursue God when nothing was going wrong?
SPEAKER_00: Not in a crisis, not when you needed anything, just because you wanted his faith.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that answer might tell you more about your spiritual state than your church attendance.
SPEAKER_00: When last have we pursued him for him?
SPEAKER_00: I often talk about my kids, and I've I have two kids who live away from home now.
SPEAKER_00: I love hearing from them.
SPEAKER_00: But often the phone calls are, hey dad, I need money.
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
SPEAKER_00: Hey dad, I crashed my car.
SPEAKER_00: Hey dad, I crashed my hands.
SPEAKER_00: Hey dad, I need this.
SPEAKER_00: Hey dad.
SPEAKER_00: Fine, fine, fine, fine.
SPEAKER_00: Love all of that.
SPEAKER_00: Then every now and then I get a phone call.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, hey dad.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, what's up?
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean, what's up?
SPEAKER_00: Just wanted to say hi.
SPEAKER_00: I literally, no matter where I am, I put down my pen, I put down my everything, I sit back and I'm like, what's up, boy?
SPEAKER_00: What's up, girl?
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: Best phone call ever.
SPEAKER_00: Father doesn't mind you coming with your problems.
SPEAKER_00: But what about just coming to be?
SPEAKER_00: Just coming to hang.
SPEAKER_00: Just coming to be refreshed.
SPEAKER_00: Just coming to be reimagined because the world is trying to reimagine you all day long.
SPEAKER_00: Just coming to sit.
SPEAKER_00: Who am I?
SPEAKER_00: You want to know that question?
SPEAKER_00: Sit with your father and you begin to understand who you are.
SPEAKER_00: You begin to understand the heart that he's put inside you.
SPEAKER_00: You begin to understand the desires and the true deep desires he's put inside of you because you have been made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: But you've been made to be connected in, tethered in with him.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where we find who we truly are.
SPEAKER_00: Can we practice this for just a minute?
SPEAKER_00: It's where you are.
SPEAKER_00: How do you do that?
SPEAKER_00: Just for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Would you close your eyes?
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing spiritual about closing your eyes.
SPEAKER_00: For me, it's simply practical.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so distracted.
SPEAKER_00: So for a minute, just close your eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Become aware of the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: Just look around, would you?
SPEAKER_00: Would you all just look around?
SPEAKER_00: Put your hand up.
SPEAKER_00: Do you sense the presence of God?
SPEAKER_00: He's here, friends.
SPEAKER_00: He's here.
SPEAKER_00: That wasn't that complicated, was it?
SPEAKER_00: This is the father.
SPEAKER_00: This is the I'm a father.
SPEAKER_00: My kids call me and they're like, yo, dad, what's up?
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yo, let's talk.
SPEAKER_00: Your father is that for you.
SPEAKER_00: Just ask him.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I just need your presence.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I'm in a pickle.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I'm dry.
SPEAKER_00: I'm dry.
SPEAKER_00: I realize I've been living the last three weeks without you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I would like to know your presence today.
SPEAKER_00: Again.
SPEAKER_00: You're just asking.
SPEAKER_00: I closed my eyes, I've helped me with distraction.
SPEAKER_00: You absolutely have to put your phone away.
SPEAKER_00: Put your phone away, put your screens away, and just get into the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: Get your head back in the cloud.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where we're going to find God's will for our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: There's not a chance I'm finishing my message today.
SPEAKER_00: But let me just go a little bit further.
SPEAKER_00: Are you with me?
SPEAKER_00: You okay?
SPEAKER_00: My second point is this that God's will is found in his word.
SPEAKER_00: God's will is found in his word.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to know what God's will is, you have to be serious about looking for it, asking him, and finding it.
SPEAKER_00: It's there.
SPEAKER_00: It is a gold mine waiting to be mined for you, full of treasures for your daily life.
SPEAKER_00: In Exodus chapter 32, from verse 15 through 19, what essentially happens is Moses comes down from the mountain carrying the two stone tablets written by the finger of God, and he sees the calf and he sees the dancing, and he throws the tablets down and shatters them at the foot of the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: This is not an anger management problem.
SPEAKER_00: It is a custom.
SPEAKER_00: In ancient world, breaking these treaty tablets was, in a sense, a formal and legal act of dissolving a covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Moses is making a declaration.
SPEAKER_00: You have ended this.
SPEAKER_00: You have chosen another way.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe he's a little mad.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse chapter 34, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord says to Moses, cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.
SPEAKER_00: You notice there?
SPEAKER_00: Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, right?
SPEAKER_00: Same template, but I'm going to put the same words on them.
SPEAKER_00: The same words I'm going to go put them back on there.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, God doesn't move on from the tablets.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't move on from the broken promises.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't move on from where our failures are.
SPEAKER_00: He comes back to the same things.
SPEAKER_00: Let me write on there again.
SPEAKER_00: Same word.
SPEAKER_00: He's not going to lower the expectations.
SPEAKER_00: He's not going to lower the demands on us.
SPEAKER_00: He's not going to lower the cost that it costs you and I because it does cost us.
SPEAKER_00: But he presents us again with an invitation.
SPEAKER_00: Come back to my word.
SPEAKER_00: Come back to my word and I will show you.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the word does not change because you couldn't keep it.
SPEAKER_00: The word does not change.
SPEAKER_00: We are constantly trying to redefine our scriptures today to match our culture.
SPEAKER_00: The word does not change because you and I can no longer keep it up in the culture that we're living.
SPEAKER_00: The will of God is the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: And the will of God is a treasure to be found.
SPEAKER_00: The will of God is a constitution by which you and I can live happily together, can live in unity, can live in harmony when we follow the will of God, the way of God.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 6 of chapter 34, something extraordinarily happens.
SPEAKER_00: Moses asks to see God's face.
SPEAKER_00: God's response wasn't a vision, his response was a word.
SPEAKER_00: He spoke.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children and of the children's children to the third and fourth generation.
SPEAKER_00: This is called the formula of grace.
SPEAKER_00: It gets quoted more than any other scripture in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Moses quotes it back in the book of Numbers.
SPEAKER_00: David makes it personal in Psalm 103.
SPEAKER_00: Joel uses it to call Israel to repentance when he calls on the nature and the character of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jonah whines and he says, I knew you would be merciful and gracious.
SPEAKER_00: I knew you'd be slow to angry.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I didn't want to do it.
SPEAKER_00: He is whining a little bit, but using the same promise of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, God's self-revelation is verbal.
SPEAKER_00: His character is inscribed in the book that you and I have possession of.
SPEAKER_00: And I say that again, friends.
SPEAKER_00: God's will is not a feeling you and I wait for, it is a word that we receive.
SPEAKER_00: God's word is incredible.
SPEAKER_00: God's word is the revealed, known as the revealed will of God in these scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Here in this church, we have a very, very high view of the canon of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: These 66 books put together over, written over 1,500 years, written in three different languages by something like 30 different authors.
SPEAKER_00: This is the will of God that He watched over, that we will live and guide our lives by.
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, today the Lord continues to speak.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks through prophets, he speaks through nature, he speaks through angels, through dreams, through visions.
SPEAKER_00: None of it superseding the word of God, because this is the revealed will of God for our lives.
SPEAKER_00: But all of it coming alongside it, coming under it, helping us understand which page you and I need for today.
SPEAKER_00: Which instruction you and I need for today.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot in here, a lot of truth in here.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes you're wondering, I'm in so much pain and so much agony.
SPEAKER_00: Someone comes alongside and gives you a word.
SPEAKER_00: This is what God wants to remind you of today.
SPEAKER_00: It's all in here, it's it's it's supported in here, but you need the word of God spoken today, and that's why he gives us gifts in the church to encourage and build up one another.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that God wants to speak through you to somebody else in this church?
SPEAKER_00: God wants to speak through you to somebody else in your community and your neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00: All of us subject to the word of God, but all needed to speak into the lives of men and women in this city.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the challenge for you and I.
SPEAKER_00: Ohio, you guys are so nice.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't we?
SPEAKER_00: So nice.
SPEAKER_00: You're not necessarily gonna like someone tells you something you're like, nuh-uh, and you just have a fight with them.
SPEAKER_00: You just thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: You have a problem with somebody, let's start avoiding them.
SPEAKER_00: We're just polite indifference.
SPEAKER_00: I I spent our first years in America in Chicago and then Boston quite a lot.
SPEAKER_00: You know what somebody did to Boston people, but they're mad.
SPEAKER_00: They're mad all the time, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so they'll tell you, anybody here from the Northeast?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jesus loves you still, but like, don't be so angry.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the South, I mean, super sweet, right?
SPEAKER_00: Way too much sugar.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone from the South?
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know what if I can believe.
SPEAKER_00: You know, like no one can be that nice all the time.
SPEAKER_00: All right?
SPEAKER_00: But here we are in Ohio, the nicest people in America.
SPEAKER_00: We're polite.
SPEAKER_00: So you're not gonna look at the word and like, heck no, I'm gonna start a petition against this.
SPEAKER_00: No, you're just like, no, I mean, it's nice.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay, but I'll put it here.
SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll do my own thing.
SPEAKER_00: A little conflict avoidance here.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord loves you too.
SPEAKER_00: But what we do is we affirm scripture in principle, but we ignore it in practice.
SPEAKER_00: We open the Bible after we've already made the decision, looking for something in there to support what I've already decided.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, if the Bible only matters to you when it agrees with your plan, it's not functioning as a revelation.
SPEAKER_00: It's functioning as a mirror that only shows you what you want to see.
SPEAKER_00: That is making a calf, putting it in front of the altar, and thinking you're worshiping Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Can we get back to worshiping God the way God wants us to worship Him?
SPEAKER_00: Following God the way God wants us to follow Him.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, what we're doing is we're creating curated versions of God.
SPEAKER_00: And your God, my God, when it's curated, is not God at all.
SPEAKER_00: It is this little idol, this little pit here that makes us feel good when we need it.
SPEAKER_00: There's a warning for us, church.
SPEAKER_00: The word of God is still true today, it is still our guide today.
SPEAKER_00: But here in the summer, when we begin to drift, it's let's let's take this as a moment in time in our spiritual lives.
SPEAKER_00: Are we going to drift from what God has revealed to us in his word, or are we going to come back to it?
SPEAKER_00: What does his word reveal about your identity, friends?
SPEAKER_00: What does his word reveal about your value, your worth?
SPEAKER_00: When you're confessing all the time, I'm worth nothing, I don't mean anything to anybody, I am better off, the world is better off if I'm not in it.
SPEAKER_00: Are you taking your identity from who God says you are or from how you're feeling at the moment?
SPEAKER_00: If that's you, God made you in his image.
SPEAKER_00: God chose the time and the place for you to live in order that you would seek him.
SPEAKER_00: That is Acts chapter 17, verse 26.
SPEAKER_00: That is a word of the Lord from you.
SPEAKER_00: If you are feeling everybody else will be better off without you, that is a word from the liar.
SPEAKER_00: The word from the Lord is you are made in his image, beautifully and wonderfully made.
SPEAKER_00: There is purpose for you, there's meaning for you.
SPEAKER_00: As long as you live, there is a purpose and a plan of God for your life.
SPEAKER_00: Don't believe the liar.
SPEAKER_00: Don't believe the curated version of what we think our life should look like.
SPEAKER_00: What does the word demand of our obedience to the things we agree with in Scripture?
SPEAKER_00: And how about the things we don't agree with?
SPEAKER_00: What does his word ask of you, of your relationship purity, of your sexual purity?
SPEAKER_00: What does the word ask you?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know you love him or her.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know you, you know, you guys like get along, and you know, it's cheaper to live together.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
SPEAKER_00: I know all of that.
SPEAKER_00: What does the word of God say for you?
SPEAKER_00: His constitution, his ways are higher than your ways.
SPEAKER_00: He knows why it's better for you to follow his instructions versus your feelings and our culture, who isn't doing that well right now.
SPEAKER_00: Can we be honest?
SPEAKER_00: What is the word of God asking of you?
SPEAKER_00: Are we ready to find his will in his word, in his presence, in the cloud?
SPEAKER_00: What does his word say about you getting baptized?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why this has become such a difficult thing.
SPEAKER_00: Get baptized.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's the first step of obedience for a believer.
SPEAKER_00: Too often we think I'm not good enough yet.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not ready enough yet.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know enough of scripture yet.
SPEAKER_00: Too often we think my life is still in a mess.
SPEAKER_00: So therefore, I'm not ready to obey the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Nonsense.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not mad at anybody.
SPEAKER_00: I love you with all my heart.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, it's time for us to get back to what the word of God says.
SPEAKER_00: Not your buddy, not your group chat.
SPEAKER_00: What does the word of God say about how you're gonna conduct your marriage and your finances and your sexuality and your who you hook up with and who you drink with?
SPEAKER_00: What does the word of God say about his calling on your life?
SPEAKER_00: And the great need in this world that you are a solution to through the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when Moses realized the sin of the people in building the cough, he offers himself up.
SPEAKER_00: Will you look at verse 32 of chapter 32 for a second?
SPEAKER_00: He says, But now, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.
SPEAKER_00: In a sense, Moses is offering himself up as a substitute, but God refuses.
SPEAKER_00: Because Moses cannot bear the sin of the people.
SPEAKER_00: He is a mediator, but he's a limited one.
SPEAKER_00: He was an intercessor, but he's a limited one.
SPEAKER_00: This is the precise gap that Jesus fills.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the mediator who offers to be blotted out.
SPEAKER_00: He dies and he conquers.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one who now sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for you and I.
SPEAKER_00: Moses tried to, Moses was ineffective.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is successful.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is at the right hand of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Moses was an image, a forerunner of who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the prophet who leads us out of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the intercessor, the mediator who stands in the gap for you and I.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, what Moses could only kind of gesture towards, Jesus completed.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes it this way in 1 Timothy 2, verse 5, for there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the presence that Moses refused to travel without.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the word that does not shatter and it does not fade.
SPEAKER_00: At the cross, Jesus fulfills the paradox of chapter 34, verse 7, the one that says, God abounds in steadfast love and he will by no means clear the guilty.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus on the cross, those two things come together, and his perfect justice is executed, and his incredible mercy is extended to all who call upon the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to invite the worship team up.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, I do apologize.
SPEAKER_00: It is hot in this room.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna work on that, we're gonna fix it.
SPEAKER_00: Just a couple more minutes as we sit here.
SPEAKER_00: Can we just wrestle for a few minutes with what this means for you and I?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're sitting in this room and you've gone through the motions of Christianity, and maybe the drift that I've been describing is you.
SPEAKER_00: And you're singing the same songs, speaking the same language, still believe in God.
SPEAKER_00: But if you had to step back and look at your life and you look at the word of God, you're so far from that.
SPEAKER_00: If you're feeling a pull, that pull is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He is pulling you closer.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe for some of you sitting in this room, this is all brand new to you.
SPEAKER_00: You know there's a God, you know there's something, and you you're trying to figure it all out.
SPEAKER_00: You're you're here to try answer some of those questions.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: But let me tell you, you're not here by mistake.
SPEAKER_00: He knows you.
SPEAKER_00: He knows your future and he knows your past.
SPEAKER_00: And he's so glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: He actually brought you here.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe for some of us we've walked away from God a while back.
SPEAKER_00: You used to know this, you used to believe this.
SPEAKER_00: But maybe hurt, maybe isolation, maybe just years took you so far away from following him.
SPEAKER_00: But you're back.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to speak to all of us today.
SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 34 shows us the tablets got broken, but God said, Let's cut new ones, let's start again.
SPEAKER_00: There's a restart here for you today.
SPEAKER_00: There's a restart for you.
SPEAKER_00: Would you mind closing your eyes, everybody?
SPEAKER_00: For a moment.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know which one of these three things have spoken to you specifically.
SPEAKER_00: But I know the presence of God is here.
SPEAKER_00: I know God is here through the person of the Holy Spirit, and He wants to hear you.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to talk to you, and He's drawing you closer.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're sitting here today and you've never given your life to Jesus, I'd like to lead you in a prayer that essentially the Bible tells us that whoever believes in their heart that Jesus is the Lord and confesses it with their mouth, they will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a little bit more to it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just believing that Jesus exists, it's not just believing that there is a God.
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you, Satan himself knows that.
SPEAKER_00: What that word means, whoever believes in his heart that Jesus is Lord, it's who here has confessed that they want to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If you're ready to give your life to him, let him take the wheel, let him lead the direction, let him be your protector, your guide, your comforter.
SPEAKER_00: If you're ready for that, I want to lead you through a prayer this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not my words, it's your words, it's you being honest with the Lord that makes the difference.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible says if you believe in your heart that he is Lord and you confess it with your mouth, you are saved.
SPEAKER_00: And forever you can have an assurance that your name is written in his book, and should the end of your days on earth come, you have eternity in his presence.
SPEAKER_00: But even more so, you have you have his presence today.
SPEAKER_00: So, with every eye still closed, if that's you, I'd like to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Could you show me by raising your hand who would like to receive Jesus today?
SPEAKER_00: Who would like to surrender to him?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, ma'am.
SPEAKER_00: Keep your hand up for just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, young lady.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone, the eyes are still closed.
SPEAKER_00: I got a few leaders over here.
SPEAKER_00: Just they want to talk to you as well.
SPEAKER_00: And is there anybody else?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pray in just one more minute, but this is the single biggest decision you can make.
SPEAKER_00: If you feel, man, maybe as a kid you followed God, but there's no reality to this anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I want to include you in this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to come back to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: See, there's someone in the balcony as well.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody else?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pray this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: If you are ready to pray this with all your heart, would you just pray this with me?
SPEAKER_00: Say, dear Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God, and I want to give you my life.
SPEAKER_00: I surrender my will to your will.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, will you forgive me of my sins?
SPEAKER_00: And I thank you for your forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I want to follow you all the days of my life.
SPEAKER_00: Will you help me, Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for receiving me.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for a new life and a new heart.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name I pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you prayed that for the first time, we celebrate with you.
SPEAKER_00: Can we all just give them a huge, huge celebration?
SPEAKER_00: Church, can we stand together?
SPEAKER_00: Just because my sermon's done doesn't mean God is done.
SPEAKER_00: I believe He is still ministering to many of you.
SPEAKER_00: We have a ministry team that's gonna stand up front here.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna be praying with you if you gave your life to Jesus or if you're still thinking about it.
SPEAKER_00: Come and talk to somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Come and pray with them.
SPEAKER_00: If you feel there's a physical need you have, a healing, a heaviness in your heart, if there's anything you need prayer for, this team would love to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take this last few minutes, let's worship together.
SPEAKER_00: And just put our head back in the cloud.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get back in his presence and honor him before we leave here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Let's worship.