SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Father, when we say that you're all to us, that is a big confession because what we're saying is a statement about your sufficiency.
SPEAKER_01: That uh it's not that Jesus is a band-aid that we just kind of put on the cancer of this life.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: You're it's a statement that you're sufficient.
SPEAKER_01: Regardless of what we got going on around us, what we have or don't have, uh, you're you're you're all to us.
SPEAKER_01: And so give us a deeper, fuller understanding of how sufficient you are from the Bible today.
SPEAKER_01: We're not here to get a feeling that we try to maintain at least till Tuesday.
SPEAKER_01: When we kind of understand your sufficiency, it reorients everything about our life around you.
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't make us Bible thumpers or religious zealots or the far right or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: It makes us the most liberated cat in the room at work tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what people want to be around.
SPEAKER_01: People don't have a stomach for religion, and neither do you, God.
SPEAKER_01: You're a God of relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And so speak to us about relationship today and what makes that possible.
SPEAKER_01: What's necessary and what's enough for relationship to be ours.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we're here today.
SPEAKER_01: Speak now, we ask.
SPEAKER_01: Your people are listening in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_01: If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it to Acts chapter, I mean, excuse me, Exodus chapter 24.
SPEAKER_01: Exodus chapter 24.
SPEAKER_01: If you're our guest today, let me say welcome.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're preaching through the book of Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna come to chapter 24.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what we do at Grand Parkway at this church.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll read a part of the Bible like this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna read eight verses, uh, and then I'll tell you what happens.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna describe what happens.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna make two points.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I'll make three points by way of introduction to kind of give you a framework to drop over the the passage we're gonna read.
SPEAKER_01: And then I just want to make two points, and then we're gonna get out of here.
SPEAKER_01: We'll come back and and and Clyde will kind of sing over us, give us some time to think about what we've heard, and then we'll get out of here, and you can go begin to wait for a table at Mom's brunch, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And I want to make a special welcome to all you that are here because you ask your mom, what do you want for Mother's Day?
SPEAKER_01: And she said, All I want is for you to go to church with me.
SPEAKER_01: Uh relax, okay?
SPEAKER_01: This will be painless, all right?
SPEAKER_01: If you've never gone to a church or if you're new to this whole thing, or if your first thought was, if I go to that church, the building's gonna fall down.
SPEAKER_01: Notice the building is not falling down.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, and I mean this part right, I mean everything I'm saying, but I really mean this.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a church and you're kind of like, I'm not really big on this, I want to be your pastor.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what I want you to think about.
SPEAKER_01: Do I want that Yahu is my pastor?
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: I don't yell at you, I don't scream at you.
SPEAKER_01: It means it's somebody that loves you, and every time you see me, you think, man, that guy's for me.
SPEAKER_01: He he thinks more of me than I think of myself sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: A guy called me about a month ago and he said, Hey, I'm kind of at a low point.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Okay.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Can we get coffee?
SPEAKER_01: Because I think I've forgotten the truth about who I really am.
SPEAKER_01: So we got coffee, and I just got to speak into his life and say, hey, this is true about who you are.
SPEAKER_01: About 35 minutes later, he said, That's all I needed.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta get back to work.
SPEAKER_01: I said, All right.
SPEAKER_01: So if you don't have a pastor, I want to be your pastor.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a church, this place would love to be your church.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: All right, here's what we're gonna read today.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna talk to you this morning about the framework of worship.
SPEAKER_01: The framework of worship, and I want to give you kind of three words to kind of, by way of introduction, let me just give them to you content, covenant, and character.
SPEAKER_01: Content, covenant, and character.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Under content, here's what you have here in in in Exodus chapter 24.
SPEAKER_01: It's the structure of a worship service.
SPEAKER_01: You ever come to church and you wonder why churches do what they do?
SPEAKER_01: They kind of sing, they read the Bible out loud, and then a guy, in this case me, gets up and talks.
SPEAKER_01: Uh here's where that comes from.
SPEAKER_01: It's Exodus 24.
SPEAKER_01: Because the structure of a worship service, this is the first one described in the Bible, and it kind of sets the pattern for biblical worship.
SPEAKER_01: You have this content, you have a call to worship, you have the reading of the word, a confession of faith, and then at the end they share this sacramental meal.
SPEAKER_01: And it's under the oversight of Israel's elders, and it's by this servant appointed to lead public worship.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, because what happens is in the past four chapters, chapters 20 to chapter 23, they've outlined the terms of the covenant.
SPEAKER_01: Think of it, covenant is kind of like a marriage relationship, okay?
SPEAKER_01: They outline the terms of the covenant.
SPEAKER_01: God says, I will be your God, and you'll be my people.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the terms by which this relationship will work, okay?
SPEAKER_01: That's the content.
SPEAKER_01: The second is covenant.
SPEAKER_01: I've used that word about three times already.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just give you a definition.
SPEAKER_01: It should come up on the screen for covenant.
SPEAKER_01: Covenant is a sacred relationship established by God in which God belongs to his people, and his people belong to him.
SPEAKER_01: It is a covenant.
SPEAKER_01: I do weddings, and one of the things I try to help people understand is this is not because weddings have kind of gotten off the reservation.
SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of an old man.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just be the old guy, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Weddings have become a contest about who can be the most creative and post something on YouTube or Facebook.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and and and and it's your wedding ceremony, that's great.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but but but but if you want to understand covenant, a wedding was designed uh, and the purpose of a wedding service is to kind of communicate, hey, that this is a covenant.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been to a wedding like a long time ago?
SPEAKER_01: You'd come in the lobby and they would ask you, bride or groom?
SPEAKER_01: Remember that?
SPEAKER_01: What they were saying, and then they'd walk you in and seat you on one of the side.
SPEAKER_01: In a covenant, when people in the Bible they didn't make covenant, they cut covenant.
SPEAKER_01: They would take animals, cut them in half, and they'd separate the halves.
SPEAKER_01: And then the two people making the covenant would walk between the two halves of the animals, and what they were saying was, may what happen to these animals happen to us if we break this covenant.
SPEAKER_01: That's why a wedding ceremony, they say, bride or groom, you're not separating families, you're joining these families together.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why they come down the bride and groom, come down the center aisle.
SPEAKER_01: They're walking between the families to bring them together.
SPEAKER_01: But what they're making is a covenant with God.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why anytime I do a wedding ceremony, I say to the congregation, before we get started, do you accept your sacred responsibility to speak out if you see this man or woman acting in a violation of the covenant they're about to make?
SPEAKER_01: And everybody sobers up because the way the woman gets her husband to come to the wedding in the first place, to put on a suit and a tie, is to say there's gonna be a free bar at the reception.
SPEAKER_01: And so the man's sitting out there, and then I get up and kind of go, hey, sober up, we're about to get down to some life-changing baby-making business here, and they're like, oh, oh, boy, let me tie my tie for this.
SPEAKER_01: But that's what a covenant.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to understand, Exodus 24, God is saying to Israel, let's make this official.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna oath myself and a covenant with you, and that has a responsibility for me, but it also has a responsibility for you.
SPEAKER_01: Third word I want to give you is just character.
SPEAKER_01: Character.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things you'll see in the Bible today is that is that it's core.
SPEAKER_01: Worship is not about creativity, but about character.
SPEAKER_01: The ultimate question that's before us when we gather as the church is simply this: Who is God?
SPEAKER_01: What is he like?
SPEAKER_01: What does his character tell us about him?
SPEAKER_01: And how should we approach him?
SPEAKER_01: And on what basis do we approach him?
SPEAKER_01: So just kind of take those three little statements, the three little words: content, covenant, character, lay them down over the first eight verses of Exodus 24, which reads like this.
SPEAKER_01: And then he, God said to Moses, Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abuhu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar.
SPEAKER_01: Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.
SPEAKER_01: Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules, and all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words that the Lord has spoken, we will do.
SPEAKER_01: Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And he sent young men of the people of Israel who burnt who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he threw against the altar.
SPEAKER_01: And they took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, All that the Lord has spoken, we will do, and we will be obedient.
SPEAKER_01: Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you, in accordance with all these words.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you don't understand what's happening here, this sounds like an episode of Game of Thrones, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Not that I watch that because I'm a Christian and I have three channels at my house and rabbit ears.
SPEAKER_01: Me, me, me, me, me, me.
SPEAKER_01: But if you read something like that, it's kind of like, that's kind of graphic and gory.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: That's the framework of worship, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And go back to the very beginning.
SPEAKER_01: And he says in verse 1, and Moses, then God said to Moses, Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abahu, the 70 of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar.
SPEAKER_01: Now there's kind of an oxymoron.
SPEAKER_01: God says, Come up to the Lord and yet worship from afar.
SPEAKER_01: You were not created by God to worship God from afar.
SPEAKER_01: Because after he says, Come up to the Lord and worship from afar, verse 2 says, Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, there's 73 people God invited to come up to the Lord, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And and out of those 73, only Moses is allowed to come into God's presence.
SPEAKER_01: And the people, the masses, don't even think about it, God says.
SPEAKER_01: But God's making a statement here, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And here's the first point in the two-point sermon this morning on Mother's Day.
SPEAKER_01: And it's simply this Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Because when God says, come up to the Lord, now, my wife and I were on a walk a couple weeks ago, and she said, Well, what are you studying these days?
SPEAKER_01: What are you thinking about?
SPEAKER_01: What are you praying about?
SPEAKER_01: My wife, men, we should be better about this.
SPEAKER_01: My wife's always asking me what she can pray.
SPEAKER_01: She's always saying, basically, what are you thinking about?
SPEAKER_01: Because I want to pray in keeping with what you're thinking about.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, you know, we're in Exodus and Exodus 24.
SPEAKER_01: There's this come up to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It's this invitation.
SPEAKER_01: And God asked them to do something that they can't do.
SPEAKER_01: Because he says, Come up to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Then he says, But worship from afar.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you here today, let me just pause.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you here this morning, you understand the worship from afar.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's been a while since you've been to church.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you don't really enter church.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you had a bad experience.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you don't even believe in God.
SPEAKER_01: But there's something in you that's kind of like, just in case this may or may not be true, I want to cover all my bases.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just say to you, relax, because you were not created by God to worship God from afar.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like if you've ever visited anybody in jail.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody ever visit anybody in jail?
SPEAKER_01: I visit people in jail.
SPEAKER_01: I visited I visited some of you in this room in jail.
SPEAKER_01: Put your hands up.
SPEAKER_01: We talk between the glass on the phone.
SPEAKER_01: This happens all the time.
SPEAKER_01: You see a woman there visiting her husband and they're on the phone, and then that the timer goes off, and the people are waiting, like, eh, you've been there seven minutes, you gotta go.
SPEAKER_01: And before they they put their hand up to the glass, and I've seen women lean up and kiss their husband with the big thick plexiglass in between them.
SPEAKER_01: That's not quite the way God intended it to be.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Can we just agree about that?
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine going home, making your husband stand outside the window and go, let's kiss?
SPEAKER_01: It's Mother's Day.
SPEAKER_01: And your kids kind of walk in like, what are y'all doing?
SPEAKER_01: Is this what we got to look forward to?
SPEAKER_01: No, thank you to marriage, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Because that's what happens.
SPEAKER_01: God says, Come up to me, and then he says, Worship from afar.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: My wife and I had different experiences with the whole come up because when I was a kid, me and my brothers, we lived on a 10-acre farm.
SPEAKER_01: We raised chickens.
SPEAKER_01: We had 11,000 chickens.
SPEAKER_01: My dad also worked at a power plant as a boilermaker.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what that was for the longest time.
SPEAKER_01: I knew my dad was a foreman.
SPEAKER_01: He was a boilermaker, and he didn't take no business, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And every day my dad got home, he'd pull in, he would go in.
SPEAKER_01: I had the stepmom from hell, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so she was a tattletale.
SPEAKER_01: Anything we did, she would tell our dad.
SPEAKER_01: And my dad was old school.
SPEAKER_01: I never got grounded.
SPEAKER_01: I never got put in time out.
SPEAKER_01: I never even got talked to.
SPEAKER_01: I got asked two questions.
SPEAKER_01: What'd you do?
SPEAKER_01: And then what'd I tell you to do?
SPEAKER_01: And then it was all like conky dong, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Uh so my dad would come home, get out of his blueford, pick up that black lunchbox, and just walk in there, and I could hear the theme music from the Wizard of Oz.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, oh.
SPEAKER_01: And they go in.
SPEAKER_01: We grew up in the contrary with white trash.
SPEAKER_01: We had a wooden screen door.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all remember screen doors?
SPEAKER_01: And then the clock would start in my head and my heart.
SPEAKER_01: About two minutes, my dad, without his hand, he would kick the door open with his boots and he'd go, Mitch, Mitchell, Neil, come here.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the way we approached our dad.
SPEAKER_01: If that piano was my dad, we'd get about this far away.
SPEAKER_01: We'd go, Yeah, dad.
SPEAKER_01: He'd go, come here.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, dad, come here.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, dad.
SPEAKER_01: Get over here.
SPEAKER_01: And when my dad said, get over here, what he was saying was, if you don't get over here, I'm gonna get over there.
SPEAKER_01: And so we would just go over there.
SPEAKER_01: And my dad was not abusive.
SPEAKER_01: Don't feel sorry for me.
SPEAKER_01: I was a little thug.
SPEAKER_01: I know some of y'all are like, oh, that's your dad should.
SPEAKER_01: We'd get over there.
SPEAKER_01: And my dad be talking, and my dad, I hated this.
SPEAKER_01: He would thump me in the nose.
SPEAKER_01: Don't thump me in the nose because I'm gonna fight you, okay?
SPEAKER_01: It takes me to a bad place.
SPEAKER_01: And it I'd be like, oh, oh, here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: I knew it was coming.
SPEAKER_01: I'd be right there and I'd be watching his hand, and for a nanosecond, I would blink and like the mamba.
SPEAKER_01: Wow! He would thump me.
SPEAKER_01: What'd you do today?
SPEAKER_01: And you had to tell him what you did today.
SPEAKER_01: And then after the thumping, you got another kind of thumping.
SPEAKER_01: Because my dad would just take his belt off and just my every once in a while, my dad would say this, I'm not making this up.
SPEAKER_01: Go give me something to whip you with.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: I go get a leaf off a tree.
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
SPEAKER_01: My idiot brother one day, my dad said, Go give me something to whip you with.
SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of like, Do you not have anything in the house stuff to whip us with?
SPEAKER_01: Because my dad would just look around and grab stuff.
SPEAKER_01: My idiot brother goes over, looks down.
SPEAKER_01: There's a piece of garden hose sticking out of the ground.
SPEAKER_01: He grabs it and just pulls, see, that's about that long, my dad.
SPEAKER_01: That'll do.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, that garden hose wraps around and hits you on the side of the thigh right there.
SPEAKER_01: So we had like little, little, this was so long ago.
SPEAKER_01: I went to school and they said, Hey Neil, what happened to your leg?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Oh, I got a whipping.
SPEAKER_01: And they all went, You probably deserved it.
SPEAKER_01: Where was CPS back then?
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I'm saying to you.
SPEAKER_01: The idea of some authority figure saying to me, Come here.
SPEAKER_01: When I read in Exodus 24, and the Bible says, and God said to Moses, Come up to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I just picture myself sneaking up on my dad.
SPEAKER_01: Because I kind of knew I was going to get thumped.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you came to church this morning the same way.
SPEAKER_01: You were praying to God that I was going to talk about seven steps to being a more better mother.
SPEAKER_01: Five ways to maximize motherhood in the new millennium.
SPEAKER_01: That's up the street.
SPEAKER_01: I can tell you how to get there.
SPEAKER_01: Once the smoke settles, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Don't make me meddle.
SPEAKER_01: You white people don't know that means, do you?
SPEAKER_01: What is meddling?
SPEAKER_01: See, Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: By this simple invitation.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: God is asking them to do something they can't do.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Come up to me, but worship from afar.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because they couldn't come running into God's presence.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I told you that one of the things that shapes what we do in public worship is, by the way, that's a baby.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all are all looking like, what is that?
SPEAKER_01: That's a baby.
SPEAKER_01: It happens.
SPEAKER_01: Remember when your baby would cry?
SPEAKER_01: Don't look over there.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all are like, if you don't want us to look, why draw attention to it?
SPEAKER_01: Because y'all are all doing this.
SPEAKER_01: Ma'am, when you get in there, just smoke them if you got them, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, these church people are all staring at you.
SPEAKER_01: I remember our baby would cry.
SPEAKER_01: My wife tried to put her hand over the baby's mouth.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, it looks like you're trying to offer our kid.
SPEAKER_01: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: When I had the kid and they would cry, I would hold them up.
SPEAKER_01: Who wants a baby?
SPEAKER_01: Who's thinking about starting a family?
SPEAKER_01: All the men would be like, I'm good.
SPEAKER_01: Never mind.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: When God says, see, Jesus is necessary, by the simple invitation of God saying, come up to me, he was pointing out the fact that he said, Hey, you all can't come, but Moses can come.
SPEAKER_01: Why could Moses come and not just the other 72 people couldn't come, but all the people of Israel couldn't come?
SPEAKER_01: Because Moses was a mediator.
SPEAKER_01: And see, he's pointing out already in the Old Testament, Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Because we, in and of our own accord, as we are by just by nature fallen sinners, we can't come to God.
SPEAKER_01: We can't get to God.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says in Isaiah 59, he says, God says, Hey, your sins have cut you off.
SPEAKER_01: They've separated you from God.
SPEAKER_01: And so Moses was a mediator, and then he went back and forth between God and man, and he reminds us that we need a mediator, someone to go to God on our behalf and do for us what we could never do for ourselves, which is why the Bible speaks of Jesus in these terms.
SPEAKER_01: In 1 Timothy chapter 2, verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: For there's one God, and there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
SPEAKER_01: For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle.
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling the truth.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not lying, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
SPEAKER_01: Now hear that again.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to know a lot of verses of the Bible to be able to build a case against the insufficient logic of your friends who kind of got God figured out.
SPEAKER_01: Like I have friends that are like, well, I'm a good person, or you know, I hadn't done that much bad.
SPEAKER_01: And so I just take verse five.
SPEAKER_01: There's one God and there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If there's one God and there's one mediator between God and me and the man Christ Jesus, people say, Well, I'm a good person.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a good person, why do you need a mediator between you and God?
SPEAKER_01: And they always say, Well, I don't need a mediator.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that's not true.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that we all by nature need a mediator.
SPEAKER_01: Why do you need a mediator?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, way back in Genesis chapter 3, when Adam and Eve sinned, God said, one of the consequences of sin, he said to Adam and to the serpent, I mean to Eve and the serpent, he says, I'll put enmity, I'll put adversity, I'll put ill will between your seed and the seed of the woman.
SPEAKER_01: So who's gonna fix what's between you and God by nature?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01: And I always say, well, the Bible says, for there's one God, and there's one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible also tells us that by Jesus giving himself, he believed that he was setting you free from something.
SPEAKER_01: Why else would the Bible use the word ransom?
SPEAKER_01: See, you don't have to know a whole lot of the Bible, but just a little bit of it.
SPEAKER_01: See, all through the Bible it kind of points out Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: So when when God says, come up to the Lord, he was just way back in Exodus 24, he was saying to you and I in 2016, Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: You need a mediator.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, you're gonna worship from afar.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna appreciate me.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, I've been a Christian 34 years, and Jesus is still necessary to as necessary to me today as he was the day I was converted.
SPEAKER_01: Ask yourself tonight before you go to bed, is Jesus still necessary in the way you do life?
SPEAKER_01: Is he necessary in the way you spend your money?
SPEAKER_01: Is he necessary in the way you think about marriage?
SPEAKER_01: Is he necessary in the way you you think about children?
SPEAKER_01: Is he still necessary?
SPEAKER_01: Or is he being relegated like a yadro figurine to this place on the shelf where he's appreciated, but he's not necessary?
SPEAKER_01: He's kind of an icon.
SPEAKER_01: He's kind of a little statue over there.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, everyone look at Jesus and thank Jesus for the biscuits, but we got it, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So what the Bible says, and what I'm telling you today is you don't got it.
SPEAKER_01: That's horrible English, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: My wife's an English lit major.
SPEAKER_01: She's cringing in the lobby right now.
SPEAKER_01: So let me say it again.
SPEAKER_01: You don't got it.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't got it either.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Second thing the text tells us this morning is that Jesus is enough.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 4, the latter part of verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: After it says Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord, it says he rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, look at me, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't believe Jesus is necessary, you better get up early tomorrow and start figuring out a way to get right with God.
SPEAKER_01: You better start soon or you better work late.
SPEAKER_01: He says that Moses rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And he sent young men of the people of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Now stop right there for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: There's two kinds of offerings that are mentioned there: a burnt offering and a peace offering.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody in this room like barbecue?
SPEAKER_01: Can I see your hand?
SPEAKER_01: Yes?
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be glad you came to church today, okay?
SPEAKER_01: We'll get to that in just a minute.
SPEAKER_01: There's two kinds of offerings, see, uh, or sacrifices.
SPEAKER_01: The first one's a whole burnt offering.
SPEAKER_01: This is where they took a whole animal and they sacrificed it on the altar.
SPEAKER_01: And it was for atonement.
SPEAKER_01: It was to pay for people's sins.
SPEAKER_01: It was to say, hey God, we've screwed up, we realize that.
SPEAKER_01: And so we want to make things right with you.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things you need to notice in the Bible is they always started with God and they worked back to the people.
SPEAKER_01: They always said, let's let's make let's get right with God.
SPEAKER_01: And so they always talked about the sacrifice that they put on the altar.
SPEAKER_01: The altar represented the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: Before they had a tabernacle, like a tent they could meet in and have worship, or a temple, they had an altar.
SPEAKER_01: All through the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Early on, you see people, and he built an altar, and he built an altar, and he built an altar.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because they wanted to commemorate and remind themselves.
SPEAKER_01: And so there's two kinds of offerings mentioned a whole burnt offering, they sacrificed this entire animal.
SPEAKER_01: And then, secondly, there's what's called a peace offering.
SPEAKER_01: This represented peace with God.
SPEAKER_01: This whole animal was not sacrificed, they drank.
SPEAKER_01: Stay with me, okay?
SPEAKER_01: By the way, next week is Family Worship Sunday, which means uh only arc at the park up to age three.
SPEAKER_01: We have stuff for them next week.
SPEAKER_01: If your kids are age four or older, we want them to come to church with you, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Because, and we won't talk about stuff like blood and all this next week, okay?
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about something that's family friendly.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Like a radio station, safe for the entire family.
SPEAKER_01: But a peace offering, what they would do with a peace offering is they would drain the blood out of it, and then they would cook the meat until it was tender, and then they would eat it for supper.
SPEAKER_01: And they would take half the blood, they'd put it in these basins over here, and the other half they would pour on the altar to symbolize, hey, that we've made this sacrifice, and and we're also pouring out this peace offering.
SPEAKER_01: A peace offering for you and me is a reminder that even after you come to Christ, you're still gonna screw up.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Hello.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are like, Well, I don't know about that.
SPEAKER_01: Let me remind you, there, perfectionists, Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: I'm such a bad parent.
SPEAKER_01: I said this to my kid this week, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Or last week.
SPEAKER_01: She's 18, and I said, Hey, get in trouble before you graduate high school.
SPEAKER_01: You're about to graduate.
SPEAKER_01: Get into the office.
SPEAKER_01: Get kicked out of school.
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Because she's such a good kid.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes she has this illusion that I'm such a good kid that I can do all of this.
SPEAKER_01: Because you, if you'll notice what the people said there, don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 3, Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules, and all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words that the Lord has spoken, we will do.
SPEAKER_01: No, they won't.
SPEAKER_01: That's why they need peace offerings.
SPEAKER_01: Because once they've ratified the covenant and they've gotten to a covenant relationship with God, they still need Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is still necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Because, see, Jesus, he establishes the relationship and he maintains the relationship.
SPEAKER_01: It's like my friend Scott Byrne.
SPEAKER_01: He was in college.
SPEAKER_01: He he and his buddy.
SPEAKER_01: Remember when you first became a Christian?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you would just go off on a tangent about anything.
SPEAKER_01: My friend Scott heard a sermon on fasting, and he came up back to the dorm and announced to everybody, I'm going on a 40-day fast.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Keep me posted.
SPEAKER_01: Matt Mursky jumps up.
SPEAKER_01: Me too.
SPEAKER_01: And so they didn't want you to eat around them, so they're fasting for 40 days.
SPEAKER_01: About a day and a half in, Merskey hit the wall.
SPEAKER_01: So he figures out he can get in the cafeteria and go eat without Scott seeing him.
SPEAKER_01: About two days in, Scott hits the wall and he gives up the fast.
SPEAKER_01: He starts eating.
SPEAKER_01: So they're both secretly eating cookies in their dorm room and then eating in the cafeteria when the other one's not around.
SPEAKER_01: And finally they run into each other in the cafeteria.
SPEAKER_01: That was a high and holy moment, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: Because there's this, wait, whatever God says we're gonna do, we're gonna fast for 40.
SPEAKER_01: What are you doing here?
SPEAKER_01: Because God knew they meant what they said.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have meant what you said and went back on your word anyway?
SPEAKER_01: Wait, let me ask that question again.
SPEAKER_01: Is this mic on?
SPEAKER_01: Check, check one, two, one, two.
SPEAKER_01: How many have meant what you said but went back on your word anyway?
SPEAKER_01: Let me see your hand again.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's better.
SPEAKER_01: Because I thought this wasn't on.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, whoa, wait, wait, what's happening here?
SPEAKER_01: That's what happens here.
SPEAKER_01: And God knows that when they say it.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: But secondly, Jesus is enough.
SPEAKER_01: He makes provision for our sin in order for us to come to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He also makes provision for our shortcomings once we've already come to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Well, what why do you tell us that?
SPEAKER_01: Because you can only approach.
SPEAKER_01: See, see, here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: This is a reminder that the blood had to be shed, not only for him to get in relationship with God, but to stay in fellowship with God.
SPEAKER_01: This wasn't an assumed experience.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like, hey, you know, I'm good.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I said something a long time ago.
SPEAKER_01: You only approach God and experience peace with God on the basis of blood.
SPEAKER_01: The blood showed that the covenant was a matter of life and death.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, as the children of Israel progress, you can see in Deuteronomy chapter 27 and chapter 28, they get ready to go into the promised land, and God tells Moses, put some people on this mountain and Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, and you speak down, these people will remind them of the curses that will come on them if they break this covenant.
SPEAKER_01: These people will remind them of the blessings that will come on them if they keep the covenant.
SPEAKER_01: You should do that at a wedding, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: If you're looking for something that nobody does, you ought to have people at the wedding with a camera going around and say, hey, would you remind people of the blessing of staying married to the same person and also the curse of having an ex-wife?
SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't that be different?
SPEAKER_01: Instead of throwing rice and bird seed and all this other stuff?
SPEAKER_01: Hey, hey, these people just got married 10 minutes ago and now all their friends are getting drunk at the open bar.
SPEAKER_01: You got any words of advice for them?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, don't trifle with the covenant of marriage because God takes it seriously, because it reminds God and the world about his relationship with this bride of the church.
SPEAKER_01: So you just jumped into the deep end of the pool, my man.
SPEAKER_01: Enjoy yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Don't jerk with this.
SPEAKER_01: You feel how still it is in here?
SPEAKER_01: Y'all are kind of like, well, that first marriage, you know, I was in college, and yeah, well, you know, uh, tequila, it's a problem.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: I ain't making light of your first marriage if you're a divorce, your second marriage, your fourth marriage, your ninth marriage.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not making light of marriage.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: I'm making much of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He's enough.
SPEAKER_01: What do I mean when I say Jesus is enough?
SPEAKER_01: What I mean is, let me just read from the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: How about that?
SPEAKER_01: Because I've said if you've been to the church any length of time, you've heard me say that the New Testament fills full the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: The Old Testament doesn't make sense unless you read on.
SPEAKER_01: It's just not a bunch of different isolated stories.
SPEAKER_01: It's one big story.
SPEAKER_01: Now, now keep in mind, God says, Come up to me.
SPEAKER_01: Come up to me.
SPEAKER_01: My wife and I had different experiences with that, but come up to me.
SPEAKER_01: And they come up, and then God says, You can't come any further because you're sinful.
SPEAKER_01: Your sins have cut you off and separated you from me.
SPEAKER_01: But the mediator, Moses, can come up.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because Moses is pointing forward that Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Beloved, ask yourself, is Jesus still necessary to the way you do life today as a Christ follower?
SPEAKER_01: And secondly, Jesus is enough.
SPEAKER_01: You say, What do you mean Jesus is enough?
SPEAKER_01: When's a lifetime you sacrifice an animal's payment for your sin?
SPEAKER_01: Please tell me never.
SPEAKER_01: If the answer is not never, I need to see you after church.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what the Bible says in the book of Hebrews.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, the book of Hebrews is this comparison of the Old Testament sacrificial system to the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This is what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews chapter 9, starting in verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
SPEAKER_01: An eternal redemption.
SPEAKER_01: God redeemed you forever.
SPEAKER_01: For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, if this sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, how much more will this purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
SPEAKER_01: In other words, that Jesus is enough means that you don't have to live in fear of your past, of being found out.
SPEAKER_01: You have been found out.
SPEAKER_01: I have been found out, and if you're a Christian, you've been forgiven.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised internal, eternal inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: Since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
SPEAKER_01: For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.
SPEAKER_01: For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not enforced as long as the one who made it is alive.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.
SPEAKER_01: For when for when every commandment of the law has been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there's no forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_01: Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites.
SPEAKER_01: But the heavenly things themselves, with better sacrifices than these, for Christ has entered, not into holy places, made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf, nor is it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own.
SPEAKER_01: For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_01: But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
SPEAKER_01: And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of the many, will appear a second time, and not to deal with sin.
SPEAKER_01: Hear that.
SPEAKER_01: And not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine what your relationship with Christ would be like if it were not centered around sin?
SPEAKER_01: What would you talk about?
SPEAKER_01: What would you, I mean, can you even fathom?
SPEAKER_01: What do you writer of Hebrews goes on to say in the very next chapter, chapter 10, verse 11, he's talking about how religious people perform religious duties to make themselves right with God, and how that doesn't measure up to what Jesus did one time.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus is necessary and Jesus is enough, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says this, and every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
SPEAKER_01: But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.
SPEAKER_01: For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
SPEAKER_01: And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us for after saying, This is the covenant that I will make with them.
SPEAKER_01: After those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds.
SPEAKER_01: And then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.
SPEAKER_01: Now, hear that part right there.
SPEAKER_01: God says, I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.
SPEAKER_01: You need to start thinking about how to relate to God without thinking about your sin and lawless deeds.
SPEAKER_01: That's an amen from the baby.
SPEAKER_01: You need to start, let me say it again.
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: You need to start thinking about how to relate to God without relating to God through your sins and lawless deeds.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he remembers them no more.
SPEAKER_01: Because here's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: Stay with me.
SPEAKER_01: We're just about done.
SPEAKER_01: You still with me?
SPEAKER_01: Because to relate to God through the lens of your sins and lawless deeds is to worship from afar.
SPEAKER_01: It's to kind of wave, it's to pick up the phone and go, hey God, it's me.
SPEAKER_01: Remember me?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I took prescription drugs again.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't need them.
SPEAKER_01: And I just took them because I like the buzz.
SPEAKER_01: Just want to tell you.
SPEAKER_01: Do you think you're informing him?
SPEAKER_01: You think he doesn't know?
SPEAKER_01: You're the person at the jail talking on the phone, kind of your hand on the glass.
SPEAKER_01: And he's just back there kind of going, I care about you.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you all the things I've done that makes you caring about me a bad idea.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are afraid of being cared about by an all-knowing, forgiving God.
SPEAKER_01: So when the Bible says things like, I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more, he says in verse 18, where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I'm trying to say.
SPEAKER_01: For a lot of people in the American church, their whole Christian life is about trying to make an offering for sin.
SPEAKER_01: Trying to pay God back for somehow, you know, this beloved, I just say overall that Jesus is enough.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, I told you my wife and I had different experiences with the whole come here?
SPEAKER_01: Remember that in the very beginning?
SPEAKER_01: We were on the walk, and she said, Yeah, that wasn't my experience.
SPEAKER_01: I said, I hated that first.
SPEAKER_01: What was your experience?
SPEAKER_01: She goes, Oh, it was on Christmas morning.
SPEAKER_01: Uh everybody would come to our house, my grandparents and everybody.
SPEAKER_01: And my dad and mom would cook a big breakfast, and there was a little room in our house, and it's kind of like this, and had its sliding glass door.
SPEAKER_01: My dad would hang a sheet over it, and you couldn't see in there and you couldn't go in there.
SPEAKER_01: And they'd get up and have breakfast, and she goes, I'd just be dying.
SPEAKER_01: Just be like, come on.
SPEAKER_01: And they would take so long to eat.
SPEAKER_01: Then they after they'd sit around and drink coffee, and I was like, What are you people doing drinking coffee?
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: There's stuff in there.
SPEAKER_01: And she goes, and then without any big fanfare and thing, my dad would slip away, and my dad would say, Girls, come here.
SPEAKER_01: And he had pulled back that sliding door, and in that room was a Christmas tree, and all of our Christmas presents, the things that we wanted, and some things that we needed, and some things that our dad just wanted us to have.
SPEAKER_01: And she says, So when I hear come here, I have a different experience.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember walking along thinking, I think you had a better experience.
SPEAKER_01: And so in Exodus 24, when God says, Come here, he knows it's impossible on our own merit.
SPEAKER_01: He knows that we're stuck out here worshiping from afar, picking up the phone, kind of going, It's me again, Margaret.
SPEAKER_01: He knows.
SPEAKER_01: But he also knows we weren't created for that.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's Jesus, that makes Jesus necessary.
SPEAKER_01: But also, Jesus is enough.
SPEAKER_01: You say, I don't know what you mean.
SPEAKER_01: This is where we left off in Hebrews 10, and we'll be done this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, brothers, because there is forgiveness of sins, and God says, I'll remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, because God is not a God who for who forgets, but but who chooses not to remember.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that is opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near.
SPEAKER_01: Let us come up, come on, draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
SPEAKER_01: Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised his faithful.
SPEAKER_01: And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near.
SPEAKER_01: When I started off this morning, I said, hey, if you don't have a pastor, I'd like to be your pastor.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a church, this place would like to be your church.
SPEAKER_01: Here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible says right there, hey, don't neglect the habit of coming together as some are in the matter of doing.
SPEAKER_01: I know that you think I can talk to God in a deer stand just as good as I can in a church, but sometimes this isn't just about talking to God.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes this is having somebody explain what the Bible says and what it means for you so that you get your your understanding increases so your enjoyment can increase.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: Because he says right there, when he says, hey, hey, let us draw near with full with a pure heart and with full assurance.
SPEAKER_01: What do you wish you had more you were more sure about today?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that, let's just let that be our one takeaway from this morning.
SPEAKER_01: What I wish I was more sure about?
SPEAKER_01: What I wish I just had full assurance.
SPEAKER_01: That was just, it's confidence the day is long.
SPEAKER_01: Are you sure that God doesn't remember your sins and lawless deeds anymore?
SPEAKER_01: And that I can relate to God without sin being part of the dialogue or the equation.
SPEAKER_01: I can just relate to Him as the God who opens up the sliding glass door and says, Come on, girls.
SPEAKER_01: Because there's some presence under that tree with your name on them.
SPEAKER_01: And Christ died for you to have them.
SPEAKER_01: Presence like assurance.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Let us hold fast and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.
SPEAKER_01: Here's why I want to be your pastor.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a pastor, if you've got a pastor, stick with them.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to stir you up to love and good works.
SPEAKER_01: Lady came up to me this morning and she said, Hey, I heard you're trying to find a car for a lady.
SPEAKER_01: I sure am.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, I got a car, I'll just give to them.
SPEAKER_01: I'll just gift it to the church and you can give it to them.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you want to be a church like that?
SPEAKER_01: Don't you want to be eating somewhere and put them and go, hey, don't you go to that crazy church that gives cars away?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: That name was a little long to get on the science.
SPEAKER_01: We just called it Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
SPEAKER_01: But God so blessed us that sometimes we look around, we got a little extra, and we try to help other people.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Because here's the thing: if you don't have a pastor and you don't have a faith community, you don't have anybody stirring you up to love and good deeds, because that's what you were created by God for.
SPEAKER_01: Not to stand at a distance and kind of go, hey God, I put a five in the offering box.
SPEAKER_01: Remember me.
SPEAKER_01: God is like, hey, if you think that's all I want, take your five back.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to come up to me.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to be content to worship from afar.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to draw near with a pure heart and full assurance.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to not neglect to meet together as is the habit of some, but I want you to encourage one another all the more as you see the day drawing near.
SPEAKER_01: Beloved, I want to say to you this morning, Jesus is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is enough.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a guest today, we like to just uh we like to teach the Bible and then take a minute and just think about what this means with our life wrapped around it.
SPEAKER_01: So take just a minute and ask yourself, hey, what I wish I had more assurance towards?
SPEAKER_01: What I wish I had more certainty about.
SPEAKER_01: Because the Bible's told us this morning that, by the way, though the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus, once I accept that by faith, I'm right with God.
SPEAKER_01: I've been made perfect forever, and I'm being made holy.
SPEAKER_01: Two big words it's my positional righteousness and my progressive righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: I'm progressively becoming who the Bible says I am.
SPEAKER_01: And God made provision not just for my sin, not just a sin offering, but a peace offering so I could stay in fellowship with Him.
SPEAKER_01: So I couldn't live like when I wouldn't live under the illusion that when I sin, God's mad and I blew it and I don't have a chance.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the loudmouth that shot my mouth off in the cafeteria and said, I'm gonna fast for 40 days, and I didn't even last a day and a half.
SPEAKER_01: God, there's peace offering.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just think about that.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is necessary, and Jesus is enough.
SPEAKER_01: God, all through the Bible, you use the word come.
SPEAKER_01: You said, Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden.
SPEAKER_01: You said in John 7, if any man thirst, let him come to me and drink.
SPEAKER_01: One day you looked out over the city of Jerusalem and you lamented and you said, Oh, I've wished I could gather you under my wings like a mother hen gathers her chicks.
SPEAKER_01: And so you're the God that says, Come, and when your people don't come, you feel that.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, I pray for everyone in this room today that they would walk out of here in just a minute, realize that God wants a relationship with me.
SPEAKER_01: God's called me to himself, not to church or religion or rules, but but to him, to a relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And that's we can't get there on our own.
SPEAKER_01: We need a mediator, and so Jesus is necessary, but also he's enough.
SPEAKER_01: What Jesus did on the cross and who he is is enough.
SPEAKER_01: And so we rest in that today.
SPEAKER_01: And we rest in gratitude and say thank you in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_01: When your father says come, he issues that invitation with a very clear idea what he has in mind.
SPEAKER_01: It's better than you can imagine.
SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor mind has conceived what God has in store for those who love him.
SPEAKER_01: Come and see.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you.
SPEAKER_01: You're dismissed.