WEBVTT 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:04.879 So we are in week three of a of a pretty new series that we started a few weeks back. 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:06.480 That's why we're in week three. 00:00:06.559 --> 00:00:08.000 Uh it's called the Gospel. 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:09.279 It's called the Gospel. 00:00:09.439 --> 00:00:11.439 The word gospel means good news. 00:00:11.839 --> 00:00:16.239 And it really means the story of Jesus, the message that Jesus has for this world. 00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:21.039 And in reality, the entirety of the Bible, the whole scripture, is the good news. 00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:24.079 It's the story that God has been crafting. 00:00:24.399 --> 00:00:27.679 This amazing story of redemption and love. 00:00:28.399 --> 00:00:40.079 This incredible story of God doing everything in his power to reunite us with him so that we can live a life that matches the original purpose that he created us to live. 00:00:40.399 --> 00:00:42.479 It's a beautiful story, but it's a big one. 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:47.600 And it's definitely a complex story, and at times it is a confusing story. 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:49.520 Most great stories are. 00:00:50.320 --> 00:00:53.520 And to make it even more important, it's a story that we're part of. 00:00:54.159 --> 00:01:06.799 Every single one of us has been invited to play a very significant part in the story that God has been crafting throughout all of human history, but it's really hard for us to play our part in the story if we don't understand the story we're in. 00:01:07.599 --> 00:01:26.239 Sometimes we we come to a relationship with Jesus and we get excited and we're super excited about our faith and we want to grow, but we're a little bit confused because every time we open up the Bible, we we don't really know what's going on, or we read things, or even hear about things, or know about things that make us go, wait a minute, that doesn't seem like it matches with the message I was given. 00:01:26.319 --> 00:01:27.920 That doesn't seem like it lines up with Jesus. 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:31.439 I don't know why this happened, I don't know why God did this, I'm confused. 00:01:31.519 --> 00:01:34.480 It is hard to be aggressive when you're confused. 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:38.719 It's hard to grow and move forward if you feel like you're constantly playing catch up. 00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:44.159 But that's the situation we often find ourselves in because we're not coming into the story at the beginning, right? 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:46.959 We're not on season one, episode one. 00:01:47.359 --> 00:01:49.280 We're pretty deep in the story. 00:01:49.519 --> 00:01:51.439 And so we have a lot of catching up to do. 00:01:51.599 --> 00:01:53.439 We want to eliminate that confusion. 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:58.239 We want to understand the story that we're in so that we can play the part that God has asked us to play. 00:01:58.400 --> 00:01:59.599 That's why we're doing this series. 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:02.959 That's why we are exploring the entirety of the story. 00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:07.840 We're going through the entire story of the Bible in about eight weeks, which is pretty ambitious. 00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:12.560 But we want to make sure that we walk away from this, having had the Bible come to life for us. 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:14.960 So that we can at the very least say, I get it. 00:02:15.039 --> 00:02:19.840 I understand what God has done, I understand what God did, why he did it, what it led up to. 00:02:19.919 --> 00:02:22.960 I get what he's doing now, so I can be part of what he's doing now. 00:02:23.120 --> 00:02:27.039 Here's the way we're breaking this up, just to make it hopefully digestible in some way. 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:33.680 We started with creation a few weeks back, and from creation we went to crash, the moment everything fell apart. 00:02:33.919 --> 00:02:36.319 From crash, we moved to covenant. 00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:38.719 We'll talk a little bit about that today, what that means. 00:02:38.879 --> 00:02:45.360 Covenant takes us to Christ, Christ leads to the cross, cross leads to a conquering that happened. 00:02:45.439 --> 00:02:46.879 Uh, this is gonna be Easter Sunday. 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:55.840 I talked last week about how I couldn't think of a word that began with C that went with Easter, and this fourth grade girl named Kaelin walked up to me and said, conquer, duh, there it is. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:58.159 So we just went ahead and put that in. 00:02:58.560 --> 00:02:59.680 Caitlin's awesome. 00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:02.080 We're gonna try to hire her as soon as possible. 00:03:02.319 --> 00:03:10.639 So from conquer, we get to creation again, but it's a new creation, and then from creation we get to covenant again, but it's a new covenant. 00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:17.840 Today, where we're at in the story is the the covenant that defined what it meant to follow God for about a thousand years. 00:03:18.080 --> 00:03:24.879 Covenant's not a word that we use that often in our day-to-day vocabulary, but a covenant essentially is a sacred relational agreement. 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:30.560 It's an agreement between two people, between two parties, and it is viewed as sacred and it should be viewed as unbreakable. 00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:32.000 It's different than a contract. 00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:38.479 You know, a contract is an agreement, but a contract always has, you know, ways out of the contract. 00:03:39.199 --> 00:03:41.280 It's not a sacred thing. 00:03:42.159 --> 00:03:45.360 Marriage is an example in our world of a covenant, at least it should be. 00:03:45.599 --> 00:03:47.520 It's a sacred agreement between two people. 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:56.000 Both people make vows, both people make promises, both people have an obligation to one another, and there are things that each says that they will do for the other. 00:03:56.080 --> 00:03:59.599 It's a sacred agreement that should be viewed as as unbreakable as possible. 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:03.280 All throughout the Bible, God is making covenant promises with people. 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:10.080 God's initiating a relationship with us, and he almost always initiates those relationships with promises, promises of blessing. 00:04:10.479 --> 00:04:16.720 And so, for example, Noah received a covenant promise from God when God said, After the flood, I won't do this again, I won't flood the earth again. 00:04:16.879 --> 00:04:19.360 That way, every time it rained, we didn't have to freak out. 00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:23.600 You know, because can you imagine after the flood what it would have been like for Noah the next time it rained? 00:04:24.560 --> 00:04:25.439 Should I get back on the boat? 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:26.399 What should I do? 00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:30.319 And God's like, you need to understand that this isn't gonna happen again. 00:04:30.720 --> 00:04:31.839 It was a covenant promise. 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:34.480 Abraham was this man that God called. 00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:43.439 And he called this man who didn't have a family, he called him to leave everything he knew and to go to a place he didn't know, a place he didn't even know where he was going. 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:49.839 Because God said, I will give you a family, that family will grow into a mighty nation, and I will bless all of the earth through your family. 00:04:50.079 --> 00:04:53.839 That was a covenant promise that God made with Abraham. 00:04:54.079 --> 00:04:56.079 God gave Moses a covenant promise. 00:04:56.160 --> 00:05:01.759 He said, I will bless the nation of Israel, I will bless these people that you just let out of slavery in Egypt, I will bless them. 00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:05.839 And in response, I need you to follow this law that I'm going to give you. 00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:13.600 And it's that covenant that we're exploring today, because it's that covenant that really defined what it meant to follow God for a large chunk of human history. 00:05:13.839 --> 00:05:14.879 The covenant of Moses. 00:05:15.120 --> 00:05:17.839 This is often called the old covenant, it's often called the law. 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:19.439 That's what we're gonna explore today. 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:26.800 If you've read the Bible or maybe you're reading the Bible right now, this would be like Leviticus and Numbers, everyone's favorite books of the Bible, everyone's favorite scriptures. 00:05:27.040 --> 00:05:29.439 Anyone here would say Leviticus is my jam. 00:05:29.600 --> 00:05:32.079 I wake up, I love, I just wake up, I want to read Leviticus. 00:05:32.160 --> 00:05:34.720 Leviticus chapter 4 blows me away, right? 00:05:35.279 --> 00:05:40.720 No, this is that part of the Bible that you get to when you know, and maybe it's the beginning of a year, and you say, you know what, this year I'm gonna do it. 00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:42.160 I'm gonna read the whole Bible cover to cover. 00:05:42.240 --> 00:05:45.040 You start strong, you get to Leviticus, and you go, nope. 00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:48.399 Let's just skip ahead a little bit. 00:05:48.720 --> 00:05:52.720 This is actually one of the most confusing parts of the story. 00:05:53.439 --> 00:05:56.639 This is a part of the story that a lot of people get hung up on, get tripped up on. 00:05:56.720 --> 00:06:06.639 A lot of people lose a lot of enthusiasm and excitement, have a lot of questions when they get to this part of the story because often we look at this moment, this chapter, and we go, This doesn't seem like Jesus. 00:06:06.800 --> 00:06:16.879 Jesus seems so laid back, he seems so just loving and open, and then we read the law, and it just seems so harsh and difficult. 00:06:17.199 --> 00:06:23.439 It seems like there's this massive disconnect between Jesus and the law and the old covenant, but there's not. 00:06:24.079 --> 00:06:26.639 In fact, the two are very, very harmonious. 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:32.079 The Bible says that Jesus fulfilled the law, he fulfilled that covenant. 00:06:32.720 --> 00:06:39.839 So this is a confusing part of our story, but it's a very, very important part of the story, and if we're gonna understand the story we're in, we need to understand this chapter. 00:06:40.480 --> 00:06:41.360 We really, really do. 00:06:41.519 --> 00:06:44.079 So before we dive into the details, let's just back up for a second. 00:06:44.160 --> 00:06:46.079 Last week we talked about the cra the crash. 00:06:46.639 --> 00:06:50.639 This moment when we basically said to God, nah, we're gonna do things our way. 00:06:51.759 --> 00:06:56.160 This is a really big moment because basically what happened when God made the world is he defined good and evil for us. 00:06:56.240 --> 00:06:58.000 He said, Look, here's what's good, here's what's not. 00:06:58.079 --> 00:06:59.120 It's very simple. 00:06:59.839 --> 00:07:01.680 Very, very simple guardrails. 00:07:02.480 --> 00:07:06.240 But we got tempted and we had a choice and we decided to choose our way, not God's way. 00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:11.519 What we basically said to God was, hey, we're gonna decide what's good and evil for ourselves. 00:07:12.160 --> 00:07:18.639 We are rejecting your definition of good and evil, and we are going to adopt our own definition of good and evil, and that's what we did. 00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:22.879 We walked away from God, we decided we're gonna do things on our own, and everything crashed. 00:07:23.199 --> 00:07:29.920 And all the problems we see in the world today, all the hurt, all the tragedy, all the heartbreak, it's all symptomatic of the crash. 00:07:31.439 --> 00:07:35.920 Because when you do that with God, when you walk away from him and do things on your own, it just creates this massive mess. 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:40.800 Number one, I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but we're not that good at defining good and evil for ourselves. 00:07:41.360 --> 00:07:46.800 I mean, you just look around at the world and see if you can find people that agree on the definition of what is good and what's not. 00:07:47.040 --> 00:07:51.759 When we're the ones making the definitions for good and evil, we tend to choose very convenient definitions. 00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:55.839 Definitions that allow us to do the wrong thing for the right reason, or so we think. 00:07:56.160 --> 00:08:00.160 So we're not very good at deciding what's right, what's wrong for ourselves. 00:08:00.319 --> 00:08:03.759 And to make it even more complicated, we walked away from God to do that. 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:04.959 God is good. 00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:06.160 Like he is good. 00:08:06.240 --> 00:08:10.879 Once a man came up to Jesus and called him good teacher, and Jesus said, Why do you call me good? 00:08:11.600 --> 00:08:13.279 Only God is good. 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:15.920 Only God is fully good. 00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:20.720 Jesus was making a statement there about who he really was, who he is. 00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:22.959 But he reminds us that God is fully good. 00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:28.879 And so if you walk away from God, who is good, so that you can figure out what's good, you see the problem there. 00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:30.319 It was a mess. 00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:34.480 It was a crash, and it created a disconnect between us and God. 00:08:34.879 --> 00:08:40.559 The disconnect was not between God's love for us and us, nothing can stand in the way of God's love. 00:08:40.879 --> 00:08:41.679 Nothing. 00:08:42.159 --> 00:08:46.240 I mean, history shows that, scripture shows that in every single chapter. 00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:50.240 It's God's love being unrelenting in his desire to know us. 00:08:50.399 --> 00:08:56.960 So it didn't create some disconnect between the way God feels about us, but it did create a disconnect between our ability to live in relationship with God. 00:08:57.120 --> 00:08:58.559 Because now we have a problem. 00:08:59.919 --> 00:09:08.639 We have a holiness problem because God is holy, he's different, he's set apart, he's something very unique, very, very powerful. 00:09:08.720 --> 00:09:09.679 He's holy. 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:11.360 And he created us to be holy. 00:09:11.440 --> 00:09:13.360 When he made us, he made us for a holy purpose. 00:09:13.519 --> 00:09:17.840 That purpose was to look like God, to be his image in this world. 00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:26.399 So he's holy, he made us to be holy, but when we walked away from a relationship with him, when we walked away from doing things the way he intended, we also walked away from our holiness. 00:09:26.480 --> 00:09:29.440 We sort of dropped our holiness on the floor as we walked away from him. 00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:32.320 And now there's this there's this problem, there's this gap. 00:09:32.639 --> 00:09:37.600 A holy God and people who have sacrificed their holiness. 00:09:37.679 --> 00:09:40.000 And it's it's a problem that has to be solved. 00:09:40.799 --> 00:09:44.799 If the holiness problem isn't solved, we can't live in a right relationship with God. 00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:55.039 And so that begins this amazing, amazing story of God putting things in place to bring us back, putting things in place to fix the holiness problem. 00:09:55.200 --> 00:10:01.440 And rather than me go into great detail and go through it all because it's a big story, I want to show you guys a video done by this group called the Bible Project. 00:10:01.519 --> 00:10:03.759 I don't know if you've heard about the Bible Project or not. 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:05.679 It's an amazing, amazing group. 00:10:05.759 --> 00:10:06.559 It's a nonprofit. 00:10:06.639 --> 00:10:08.879 If you actually want to support them, I highly encourage it. 00:10:09.039 --> 00:10:17.519 It's a group of very talented and passionate Jesus followers who create content to help make the Bible something that's more easily understood. 00:10:17.840 --> 00:10:27.039 So that people, everyday people like us, can open up the Bible and get some things that maybe we we couldn't get because we don't have doctorates and we don't have years and years of study. 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:28.159 They do an amazing job. 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:31.120 In fact, on our mobile app, we have links to their their app. 00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:33.759 If you use apps to read, they have an amazing app. 00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:35.440 You can read the Bible every day through it. 00:10:35.519 --> 00:10:36.960 It gives you all sorts of extra details. 00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:37.759 It's so cool. 00:10:37.919 --> 00:10:41.200 We also have links on our mobile app to all of their stuff online. 00:10:41.360 --> 00:10:48.799 If you don't use a mobile app, go to the Bibleproject.com and that's where it is, or you can drive to California where they physically are and just talk to them. 00:10:48.960 --> 00:10:50.240 Those are your options, okay? 00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:53.519 So it's either the internet or a long drive. 00:10:53.679 --> 00:11:00.320 But but they create amazing stuff, and I want to show you this video that really encapsulates the holiness problem and how God went about solving it. 00:11:00.399 --> 00:11:02.480 So take a look at that, and then we'll come back. 00:11:03.360 --> 00:11:08.399 You've probably heard the word holy before, or at least sang it in a church song once or twice. 00:11:08.559 --> 00:11:12.879 And for most people, this idea is really just connected to being a morally good person. 00:11:13.039 --> 00:11:15.279 So God is holy because he's morally perfect. 00:11:15.519 --> 00:11:16.720 Yeah, that is part of it. 00:11:16.879 --> 00:11:21.039 But in the Bible, the idea of holiness is even bigger and more rich. 00:11:21.279 --> 00:11:26.240 What it's really describing is how God is the creative force behind the whole universe. 00:11:26.399 --> 00:11:31.679 He's the one and only being with the power to make a world full of such beauty and life. 00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:37.440 And so all these abilities they make God utterly unique, which is the meaning of the word holy. 00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:42.559 So a helpful way to think about God's holiness is by using the sun as a metaphor. 00:11:42.799 --> 00:11:49.679 The sun is unique, at least within our solar system, and it's really powerfulness, the source of all this beautiful life on our planet. 00:11:49.759 --> 00:11:52.480 And so you could say that the sun is holy. 00:11:52.639 --> 00:11:58.960 And you can actually take this metaphor even further, in that the whole area around the sun is also holy. 00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:03.279 Yeah, because the closer you get to the sun, the more intense it gets. 00:12:03.519 --> 00:12:04.240 Yeah, exactly. 00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:10.159 So that very power and goodness that generates all this life is also dangerous. 00:12:10.399 --> 00:12:14.000 I mean, the sun, if you get too close, will annihilate you. 00:12:14.159 --> 00:12:21.919 And in the same way, there's this paradox at the heart of God's own holiness, because if you're impure, his presence is dangerous to you. 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:25.039 And not because it's bad, but because it's so good. 00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:31.200 And so the first time we see this paradox of God's holiness, it's in the story of Moses and the burning bush. 00:12:31.360 --> 00:12:35.840 So God tells Moses to take off his sandals because he's standing on holy ground. 00:12:36.080 --> 00:12:40.639 And Moses covers his face in fear, and God says, Hey, don't come any closer. 00:12:40.799 --> 00:12:41.279 It's intense. 00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:51.120 It's actually that intensity of God's holiness that's explored even more in the stories about Israel's temple, which was the main place where God's holy presence was located. 00:12:51.360 --> 00:12:57.600 And at the center of the temple was this room called the most holy place, the hot spot of God's presence. 00:12:57.840 --> 00:13:07.440 And whether you're an Israelite living in the land around the temple, or a priest working right in the temple, you're in proximity to God's holy presence, which is dangerous. 00:13:07.840 --> 00:13:09.519 Yeah, this is a problem. 00:13:09.679 --> 00:13:11.039 So, how's it supposed to work? 00:13:11.279 --> 00:13:14.559 Well, in the Bible, the solution is that you need to become pure. 00:13:14.879 --> 00:13:16.559 So, like being morally pure. 00:13:16.799 --> 00:13:18.879 Yeah, and that's easy enough to understand. 00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:34.399 But the Bible spends a lot of time talking about another kind of purity, being ritually pure, which is a state where you separate yourself from anything related to death, like touching things like diseased skin or dead bodies or even certain bodily fluids. 00:13:34.559 --> 00:13:36.480 All these make you impure. 00:13:36.720 --> 00:13:40.080 And becoming ritually impure isn't necessarily sinful. 00:13:40.320 --> 00:13:44.559 What's wrong is waltzing into God's presence when you're in an impure state. 00:13:44.720 --> 00:13:52.960 And so that's why God gave the Israelites very clear instructions for knowing when they were impure, steps to become pure, so that they could go into the temple again. 00:13:53.200 --> 00:13:55.360 So that's what the book of Leviticus is about. 00:13:55.600 --> 00:13:55.919 Right. 00:13:56.159 --> 00:13:57.360 But it doesn't stop there. 00:13:57.519 --> 00:13:58.799 This idea keeps developing. 00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:03.600 So later in the scriptures, we find this really interesting story by a prophet named Isaiah. 00:14:03.679 --> 00:14:08.480 And he has this crazy vision where he's in the temple and he's right in God's presence. 00:14:08.639 --> 00:14:10.080 He's totally terrified. 00:14:10.320 --> 00:14:11.279 Yeah, he knows the rules. 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:15.039 He shouldn't even be in there, and he's worried about being destroyed. 00:14:15.279 --> 00:14:18.000 And then this crazy creature called Cetophine. 00:14:18.320 --> 00:14:20.080 Yeah, that is a crazy creature. 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:20.799 Totally. 00:14:21.039 --> 00:14:28.960 So it flies over with a hot coal, and then it sears Isaiah's lips with the coal and says something really weird. 00:14:29.200 --> 00:14:32.960 Your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for. 00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:36.399 So this burning coal somehow makes Isaiah pure. 00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:38.000 Yeah, it's remarkable. 00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:43.519 Because normally, if you touch something impure, it transfers its impurity to you. 00:14:43.679 --> 00:14:52.240 But now here's this new idea where you have this coal, this very holy and pure object, and it touches Isaiah, and it transfers its purity to him. 00:14:52.639 --> 00:14:56.559 Isaiah is not destroyed by God's holiness, he's transformed by it. 00:14:56.720 --> 00:14:58.720 I mean, the implications of this are just huge. 00:14:58.960 --> 00:15:02.559 But there's one more development, this time from another prophet, Ezekiel. 00:15:02.879 --> 00:15:08.480 And he has this vision where he's standing at the temple and he sees water trickling out from it. 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:21.360 And then that water turns into a stream, and then it grows into a deep river that starts flowing through the desert, leaving this trail of green trees behind it, and then it flows into the dead sea, making everything fresh and alive. 00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:30.639 So instead of becoming pure first and then going into the temple, here God's holiness comes out from the temple, making things pure and bringing them to life. 00:15:30.879 --> 00:15:32.000 What does it all mean? 00:15:32.399 --> 00:15:33.120 We don't know. 00:15:33.440 --> 00:15:35.919 Until we meet this man, Jesus. 00:15:36.080 --> 00:15:42.000 And he claims that he's fulfilling all of these ancient visions, but in surprising new ways. 00:15:42.240 --> 00:15:50.559 So Jesus, he went around touching people who are impure, people with skin diseases, a woman with chronic bleeding, or dead people. 00:15:50.799 --> 00:15:55.360 And when he touches them, their impurity should transfer over to Jesus. 00:15:55.600 --> 00:16:00.960 But instead, Jesus's purity transfers to them and actually heals their bodies. 00:16:01.279 --> 00:16:04.240 Jesus is like that holy coal in Isaiah's vision. 00:16:04.480 --> 00:16:05.039 Right. 00:16:05.279 --> 00:16:14.000 And Jesus claimed that he was the human embodiment of God's own holiness, and that he and his followers were now God's temple. 00:16:14.159 --> 00:16:20.480 So that through them God's holy presence would go out into the world and bring life and healing and hope. 00:16:20.639 --> 00:16:26.320 And so this is why Jesus described his followers as having streams of living water flowing out of them. 00:16:26.639 --> 00:16:29.519 So this is our part of the story where we find ourselves now. 00:16:29.679 --> 00:16:31.679 But where's this all headed? 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:37.200 So the last pages of the Bible end with a final vision about God's holiness. 00:16:37.440 --> 00:16:39.279 This time it's by a guy named John. 00:16:39.440 --> 00:16:43.519 And in his vision, we see the whole world made completely new. 00:16:43.759 --> 00:16:46.879 The entire earth has become God's temple. 00:16:47.039 --> 00:16:56.399 And Ezekiel's river is there, flowing out of God's presence, immersing all of creation, removing all impurity, and bringing everything back to life. 00:16:58.240 --> 00:16:59.759 Isn't that cool? 00:17:03.039 --> 00:17:10.720 I always uh I'm always thankful when there's people that have a gift for for making what is complicated understandable. 00:17:10.960 --> 00:17:11.759 Jesus was like that. 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:12.799 That's what Jesus did. 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:16.960 And so, like I said, the Bible project, they have videos that go along with every book of the Bible. 00:17:17.039 --> 00:17:20.000 It's really, really exciting and helpful if you want to dive into that. 00:17:20.079 --> 00:17:22.000 I highly, highly recommend it. 00:17:22.319 --> 00:17:27.839 So we we saw in that video that God has solved the holiness problem and he solved it through Jesus. 00:17:29.119 --> 00:17:34.640 God literally sent his son, came on our behalf, and he made us holy. 00:17:34.799 --> 00:17:50.400 The Bible says that when we give our lives to Jesus, when we commit our lives to him, then not only is our sin taken away, not only has it been dealt with on the cross that Jesus paid that price, but the Bible says that the holiness of Jesus, the righteousness of Jesus, transfers to us. 00:17:51.200 --> 00:17:58.160 So he takes our sin and he gives us his righteousness, and that means that when God looks at you, he sees the perfection of Jesus. 00:17:58.880 --> 00:17:59.519 It's awesome. 00:17:59.599 --> 00:18:00.160 It's amazing. 00:18:00.319 --> 00:18:02.640 Jesus solved the holiness problem. 00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:04.960 And we we're fortunate enough to live with hindsight. 00:18:05.039 --> 00:18:09.279 We're living on the other side of Jesus, so we can look back and we can say, wow, look what Jesus did. 00:18:09.599 --> 00:18:10.799 I mean, it makes sense to me. 00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:14.240 I I can look at the world and say, this isn't how it should be. 00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:18.400 I think pretty much all of humanity can look at the world and say, something seems off. 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:21.920 We're not the way we should be, we're not as we ought to be. 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:27.279 And I can I can think about how I could try to solve the problem, but it's a problem that's a little bit too big for me to solve. 00:18:27.359 --> 00:18:30.400 And if you know me well, you know that I'm not the guy who's gonna fix my own car. 00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:32.640 I'm not the guy that's gonna fix my own toilet, okay? 00:18:32.799 --> 00:18:36.160 I'm I'm just I'm the guy that's gonna break the toilet trying to fix the toilet. 00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:37.119 That's what I do. 00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:40.240 And so anytime something in my home is broken, I call an expert. 00:18:40.319 --> 00:18:44.400 I'm like, I need someone who knows what they're doing to fix this because I can't do it myself. 00:18:44.559 --> 00:18:51.680 And clearly we can look at the story and we can look at the world and say it is so broken that maybe we're not the ones with the expertise to fix it. 00:18:51.920 --> 00:18:56.960 And so it makes sense to me that the one who made it would come to fix what he made. 00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:03.519 But but if that's the case, sometimes I wonder why God didn't just send Jesus right away. 00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:06.240 I'm a big fan of efficiency. 00:19:06.319 --> 00:19:08.559 I want to be efficient, I want to get stuff done. 00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:10.079 I want to get stuff done fast. 00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:16.640 Sometimes I want to get stuff done too fast, and I forget that doing things fast isn't always the best way to go about it, but I just want to get stuff done. 00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:19.200 I want it to be efficient, I don't want it to take forever. 00:19:19.359 --> 00:19:20.559 That's the problem with God. 00:19:20.720 --> 00:19:21.599 He has forever. 00:19:21.759 --> 00:19:23.200 We don't feel like we do. 00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:26.799 And so sometimes God's pace is a little bit frustrating, right? 00:19:27.039 --> 00:19:35.279 We need him to move faster, do things faster because we feel like time is of the essence, and God seems to be pretty relaxed in his approach time-wise. 00:19:36.319 --> 00:19:47.599 And in my my evaluation of efficiency, I just don't look at the way God goes about solving the holiness problem as very efficient because, yeah, Jesus is awesome, and he came and he solved it, but what about all those years leading up to Jesus? 00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:54.720 When that holiness problem still existed, when Jesus had not solved it yet, why didn't he just send Jesus right away? 00:19:54.799 --> 00:20:04.720 Because what he does first is he creates a covenant with Moses and the people of Israel, and he says, hey, here's a laundry list of rules and rituals and obligations, follow these. 00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:07.759 This is how we're gonna deal with the holiness problem right now. 00:20:07.839 --> 00:20:12.240 And it's those laws that are in existence for over a thousand years. 00:20:12.559 --> 00:20:15.680 The time from Moses to Jesus, it's approximately a thousand years. 00:20:15.759 --> 00:20:30.240 So for a thousand years, people are striving, they are they are breaking their backs, trying to meet all the demands of the law, trying to fulfill their end of this covenant that God created, because in their minds, that's what it's gonna take to solve the holiness problem. 00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:32.480 But then we learn that that doesn't even do it. 00:20:33.200 --> 00:20:37.119 That the old covenant, the law, it was it was never intended to be permanent. 00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:38.000 It was it was temporary. 00:20:38.079 --> 00:20:40.880 In fact, we read that in Galatians chapter 3, verse 23. 00:20:41.119 --> 00:20:46.559 Before the way of faith in Christ was available to us, we were placed under guard by the law. 00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:52.000 We were kept in protective custody, so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed. 00:20:52.319 --> 00:20:57.759 So from the beginning, Paul is saying that the law, the old covenant, was meant to be temporary. 00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:02.160 A thousand years doesn't feel too temporary to me. 00:21:02.640 --> 00:21:10.000 A thousand years and hundreds and hundreds of rules and obligations and rituals, that seems a little bit intense for a placeholder. 00:21:10.400 --> 00:21:13.759 But then we learn that the law was not only temporary, it was ineffective. 00:21:13.839 --> 00:21:14.960 It didn't even work. 00:21:15.440 --> 00:21:22.079 Galatians 2 16 says, Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. 00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:34.319 So if the law was meant to be temporary and if it wasn't even gonna solve the holiness problem to begin with, why on earth would God give people a thousand years of rules and obligations and rituals? 00:21:34.480 --> 00:21:35.200 Why would he do that? 00:21:35.279 --> 00:21:38.720 Is this God playing a really non-funny practical joke on people? 00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:42.480 Like maybe we just don't get his sense of humor, and he's like, ha ha, gotcha. 00:21:42.880 --> 00:21:43.920 Hysterical, right? 00:21:44.160 --> 00:21:45.519 We're like, not at all. 00:21:45.839 --> 00:21:46.880 Not funny. 00:21:47.119 --> 00:21:52.720 Is this God being cruel, or is it God showing us what real inefficiency actually looks like? 00:21:53.279 --> 00:22:02.720 I mean, if Jesus is the answer, if he's the only one that can fix it, why on earth would God give us a Thousand plus years of law. 00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:10.000 And what I want to suggest is that the law actually had this incredible purpose. 00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:12.799 The law was much more than a placeholder. 00:22:12.960 --> 00:22:14.400 It was much more than a rough draft. 00:22:14.480 --> 00:22:18.559 The law had this purpose intended by God and it served its purpose beautifully. 00:22:18.640 --> 00:22:23.920 Sometimes we look at the law from our perspective and we go, man, that just, oh, I why would God have people do that? 00:22:24.079 --> 00:22:24.799 What in the world? 00:22:24.880 --> 00:22:26.000 I mean, it's it's a lot. 00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:29.119 If you've ever read, if you've ever read Leviticus, it's a lot. 00:22:29.359 --> 00:22:33.359 You remember when Apple first made the iPhone and their marketing was there's an app for that? 00:22:33.759 --> 00:22:36.400 Leviticus is basically like, there's a law for that. 00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:43.200 You can think of any situation in the world, and there's a law, or at least a principle in a law, that will tell you how to address that situation. 00:22:43.839 --> 00:22:44.400 It is a lot. 00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:51.200 There are laws about relationships, there are laws about food, what you can't eat, what you can't eat, there are laws about how to prepare food. 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:55.440 Some of those laws were only for Israel for a specific period of time. 00:22:55.519 --> 00:22:59.759 They were meant for a time and place, because sometimes in different seasons of life you have to have different rules. 00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:01.119 That's just reality. 00:23:01.359 --> 00:23:03.759 Like in school, you have to raise your hand every time you talk. 00:23:03.839 --> 00:23:05.440 In a marriage, that'd be weird. 00:23:05.680 --> 00:23:08.160 Some of you might opt for that if you're married to someone who talks a lot. 00:23:08.240 --> 00:23:13.119 Hey, just raise your hand and I will call on you when I'm ready to call on you, right? 00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:18.400 But but sometimes rules are meant for a time and for a place. 00:23:18.559 --> 00:23:21.200 A lot of the rules that God gave Israel were like that. 00:23:21.599 --> 00:23:28.160 Some of the rules in the law, some of these laws, they're things that God apparently values, but we have no idea why. 00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:30.799 Like we would look at God and go, why do you care about that? 00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:32.960 If I were you, I wouldn't care about that at all. 00:23:33.119 --> 00:23:39.440 And all I can say on those laws is that we have relationships with people all the time that care about things that we don't care about. 00:23:39.599 --> 00:23:41.119 And that shouldn't be a deal breaker. 00:23:41.279 --> 00:23:46.559 Like my wife cares very, very greatly about our sheets on our bed. 00:23:46.880 --> 00:23:48.720 Like she has a very specific thing. 00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:54.480 We have to have a sheet tucked in at the bottom, and then two layers of blankets every single night. 00:23:55.039 --> 00:23:58.240 And before I was married, I did not, I didn't use a sheet. 00:23:58.319 --> 00:23:59.759 That's just extra laundry. 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:00.640 You know? 00:24:01.279 --> 00:24:02.240 I didn't do that. 00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:07.839 I had I had the the fitted sheet on my my bed that I never washed. 00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:08.960 It just didn't occur to me. 00:24:09.119 --> 00:24:10.160 I'm just gonna be honest. 00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:14.160 It's not that I was looking at it going, Oh, I don't want to wash this. 00:24:14.400 --> 00:24:20.400 We literally got married, and Megan helped me move out of the place that I was living in, and we pulled that sheet off, and she said, This looks kind of gross. 00:24:20.480 --> 00:24:21.599 When's the last time you washed it? 00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:24.000 And I went, I never have. 00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:27.599 I just, this is the first time I've ever thought to. 00:24:27.759 --> 00:24:28.400 So there. 00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:35.759 So I just I just had a fitted sheet, and then I had a blanket, and I would just sort of wrap up in that blanket like a burrito, but then like kick my foot out. 00:24:35.839 --> 00:24:37.279 That's that's how I prefer to sleep. 00:24:37.359 --> 00:24:39.680 And then I got married, and Megan's like, sheet, blanket, blanket. 00:24:39.839 --> 00:24:43.039 Do not do not even attempt to alter this. 00:24:43.200 --> 00:24:46.480 And sometimes I'll get in bed and I'll sort of scoot the sheet over because I don't want to be under the sheet. 00:24:46.559 --> 00:24:46.880 I don't like it. 00:24:46.960 --> 00:24:48.000 It's I don't like the way it feels. 00:24:48.079 --> 00:24:49.519 I don't, ah, I just don't like the sheet. 00:24:49.599 --> 00:24:52.240 And then Megan will reach her foot over and go, You're not under the sheet. 00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:53.680 Get under the sheet. 00:24:54.319 --> 00:24:59.920 And I'm like, and in the summertime when it gets hot, we don't shave a blanket off. 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:01.359 We still go two blankets and a sheet. 00:25:01.519 --> 00:25:11.519 I'm sweating and I'm hot, and I have no idea in my mind why Megan cares so much about our sheet and our two blankets, but she does. 00:25:11.839 --> 00:25:19.759 And I I want to have a great relationship with her, and I want things to happen near those blankets, and so I'm willing, okay? 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:21.200 I am willing. 00:25:21.839 --> 00:25:24.400 If that's what it takes, so be it. 00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:25.200 So be it. 00:25:25.279 --> 00:25:26.319 That's all I'm saying. 00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:34.960 My point is I made a joke about that in the first service, and I felt really awkward, and I was like, probably won't do that in the second. 00:25:35.039 --> 00:25:36.640 Went ahead and did, semi-regret it. 00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:37.279 But whatever. 00:25:37.519 --> 00:25:47.039 Um but but the thing is, I have a relationship with all kinds of people who don't value what I value, and there's things that they care about, and I don't understand why. 00:25:47.200 --> 00:25:51.680 There's things that I care about and they don't understand why, but that's relationships. 00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:59.279 And a lot of, to be honest, human rebellion against God comes from us telling God what he should value based on our opinion. 00:25:59.519 --> 00:26:04.160 A lot of human rebellion simply boils down to people saying, God, you shouldn't care about that. 00:26:04.319 --> 00:26:10.240 You should care about what I think you should care about, and then we forget the fact that we don't get to dictate to God what he cares about. 00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:12.160 That's not how it works. 00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:14.079 Some of the laws are things like that. 00:26:14.240 --> 00:26:18.240 Some of the law, in fact, the majority of the law, it's just basic good human behavior. 00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:20.640 It's just the way people should treat one another. 00:26:20.720 --> 00:26:28.640 If you actually look at the law when it arrived in history and compare it to the laws of other nations and cultures at that time, I mean it was revolutionary. 00:26:28.960 --> 00:26:35.519 Trust me, if you had been living in those days, if you could choose one set of laws to live under, you would have chosen the laws of Israel. 00:26:35.839 --> 00:26:41.839 Because those laws would have protected you from oppression, those laws would have protected you from even the oppression of a ruler in your life. 00:26:41.920 --> 00:26:44.400 There were there was no other no other concept like that in the world. 00:26:44.559 --> 00:26:49.440 The law was revolutionary in terms of the way it taught people to treat one another, but it's a lot. 00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:52.880 No matter how you dissect it or categorize it, it is a lot. 00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:57.680 And it was basically God saying, Hey, you said you want to know good and evil. 00:26:58.160 --> 00:27:01.599 You said you want to know the rules, here you go. 00:27:01.839 --> 00:27:07.759 And we were like, this book is bigger than the rules we would have written down. 00:27:08.880 --> 00:27:10.319 It was a burden. 00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:14.400 It was a burden, but it served a great purpose. 00:27:15.279 --> 00:27:17.279 And the purpose was not to make us holy. 00:27:17.440 --> 00:27:18.799 That's what we thought it was. 00:27:20.079 --> 00:27:21.839 But here was the actual purpose of the law. 00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:29.759 The purpose of the law, the purpose of the old covenant was not to solve the holiness problem, it was to expose the holiness problem. 00:27:30.720 --> 00:27:36.799 The purpose of the law was not to fix us, it was to prove to us that we actually need fixing. 00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:43.279 Because there's this thing that God understands about human nature that takes us a long time to admit, and it's simply this, and we're gonna put this on the screens. 00:27:43.440 --> 00:27:50.240 If we cannot accept our situation, we will not accept the solution to our situation, right? 00:27:50.559 --> 00:27:54.720 If we cannot accept our situation, we won't accept the solution to our situation. 00:27:54.880 --> 00:27:56.000 That's how we are as people. 00:27:56.079 --> 00:27:58.319 That's why we hate asking for help. 00:27:58.720 --> 00:28:01.119 Does anyone here love to ask for help? 00:28:01.839 --> 00:28:03.839 Like, like maybe you even ask for preemptive help. 00:28:03.920 --> 00:28:07.519 You're like, hey, I'm not sure if this is gonna be a problem or not, but it might be. 00:28:07.599 --> 00:28:11.519