WEBVTT 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:08.960 Hello everyone, this is Pastor Benjamin. 00:00:08.960 --> 00:00:12.000 You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:15.439 At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer. 00:00:15.439 --> 00:00:20.239 For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com. 00:00:21.359 --> 00:00:22.320 Good morning. 00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:25.039 Please join me in reading the Prayer of Illumination. 00:00:25.039 --> 00:00:40.560 Holy Spirit, open our hearts to hear your word, and through your word, create in our hearts a home for your presence, that we might live for the glory of the Father and the kingdom of his beloved Son. 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:42.799 Through Jesus Christ, we pray. 00:00:42.799 --> 00:00:43.759 Amen. 00:00:43.759 --> 00:00:46.880 Our scripture today comes from Numbers. 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:56.640 These are the stages of the people of Israel when they went out of the land of Egypt by their companies under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. 00:00:56.640 --> 00:01:07.439 Moses wrote down their starting places stage by stage by command of the Lord, and these are the stages according to their starting places. 00:01:07.439 --> 00:01:27.439 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell, and I will do to you as I thought to do to them. 00:01:27.439 --> 00:01:43.359 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Command the people of Israel and say to them, When you enter the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall for your inherit for you for an inheritance, the land of Canaan as defined by its borders. 00:01:43.359 --> 00:01:48.319 You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell. 00:01:48.319 --> 00:01:52.079 For I, the Lord, dwell in the midst of the people of Israel. 00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:53.519 This is God's word. 00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:00.719 Well, good morning. 00:02:00.719 --> 00:02:01.519 Good morning. 00:02:01.519 --> 00:02:05.120 That's okay. 00:02:05.120 --> 00:02:07.040 Wasn't a big response. 00:02:07.040 --> 00:02:12.639 Well, my name is Jason, and I am one of the pastors here at New City. 00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:19.199 And as Ben already alluded to, we are ending our wandering through the book of Numbers. 00:02:19.199 --> 00:02:21.120 I got a laugh, Ben. 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:24.400 Ben didn't think I was going to get a laugh, but I did. 00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:27.039 So today we come to the end. 00:02:27.039 --> 00:02:34.960 And now your bulletin actually has a misprint because we did chapters 33, 34, and 35 for our scripture reading today. 00:02:34.960 --> 00:02:38.479 But Ben, he kind of left us back at chapter 27. 00:02:38.479 --> 00:02:49.599 So we were at a Mount of Erebim, and I'm supposed to take us to the end of Numbers, which is chapter 36, at the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho. 00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:57.520 So that's roughly 10 chapters, and we're not going to get to all of it today, but I think we're going to get to something really significant. 00:02:57.520 --> 00:03:05.840 For me, I think some of us are kind of excited about moving on from the wanderings in the book of Numbers. 00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:06.319 Right? 00:03:06.319 --> 00:03:13.680 As Ben just alluded, we're going to be beginning our Advent series here next week, and we get to talk about Christmas and the coming of Christ. 00:03:13.680 --> 00:03:17.280 And there's just so much goodness that happens in that holiday season. 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:23.520 Also, it means that we're moving from the Old Testament book here in the fall, and we're going to a New Testament book in the spring. 00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:25.599 So that's kind of exciting for some of us. 00:03:25.599 --> 00:03:34.159 But for me, honestly, the slowing down in the wilderness, it has been really, really good for my soul. 00:03:34.159 --> 00:03:41.840 And we've called the wilderness here at New City God's Discipleship School or God's formation school. 00:03:41.840 --> 00:03:44.560 He is forming us in the wilderness. 00:03:44.560 --> 00:03:52.080 This is a picture of our pilgrim journey into a particular people for a particular person. 00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:54.560 That's Jesus Himself. 00:03:54.560 --> 00:04:03.039 But if you never really slow down, if you never go stage by stage, you will miss what God is doing in that. 00:04:03.039 --> 00:04:10.000 You'll miss who we truly are as a people of God, and you will miss who God truly is. 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:21.600 So, like the Israelites, as we end our numbers series, I'm inviting us to continue to slow down, to look at the stage that God has guided us in. 00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:26.879 In our text that Josh had read this morning, there was this really interesting line. 00:04:26.879 --> 00:04:34.319 God warns us as we continue in this journey about the barbs in our eyes and the thorns in our flesh. 00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:42.639 These are the challenges that we face as we move from stage to stage where we are being pulled away from dependence and trust in God. 00:04:42.639 --> 00:04:51.920 And so we're gonna we're gonna see this this morning in this way that God is the one who guides us stage by stage toward the promised land. 00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:59.680 And that is our two points that God guides us stage by stage, point one, point two toward the promised land. 00:04:59.680 --> 00:05:07.360 If you have a Bible or device, because this is not in the bulletin, please look with me at chapter 33, verse one. 00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:19.920 These are the stages of the people of Israel, when they went out from the land of Egypt by their companies under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:23.120 The point is this that we are all in stages. 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:26.399 God works with his people in a developmental way. 00:05:26.399 --> 00:05:29.120 If you heard the sermon from last week, it was awesome. 00:05:29.120 --> 00:05:38.800 Ben preached, and he weaved in the psychosocial Eric Erickson developmental stage theory with Ronald Roehiser's discipleship stages. 00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:41.040 There was this interweaving that Ben did. 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:50.560 The points really stuck out to me is the struggle to get your life together, the struggle to give your life away, and the struggle to give your death away. 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:52.399 But there was a theme there for me. 00:05:52.399 --> 00:06:03.040 As I kind of sat in these chapters of Numbers and I looked at the book of Numbers, it was the fact that all of those stages are defined by struggle. 00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:09.199 No matter where you are on the journey, no matter which stage you're in, there is a struggle. 00:06:09.199 --> 00:06:12.079 That's just the definition of the wilderness. 00:06:12.079 --> 00:06:15.120 That's the pilgrim journey that we are on. 00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:19.839 That's the reality of the already but not quite yet kingdom of God. 00:06:19.839 --> 00:06:30.720 This might be coming from the guy who kind of sits with our people in their brokenness and fragmented wildernesses, but I actually don't think you guys can deny it. 00:06:30.720 --> 00:06:36.879 It's the stage four cancer diagnosis, way too early in life. 00:06:36.879 --> 00:06:41.920 It's the loss of a job, an uncertainty of the way forward. 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:46.800 It's another miscarriage and the shut door of infertility. 00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:51.120 It's the death of a dream or death of a loved one. 00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:56.160 It's broken relationships between husbands and wives, between parents and children. 00:06:56.160 --> 00:06:59.839 It's our hope being deferred once again. 00:06:59.839 --> 00:07:02.560 That's the wilderness that we are in. 00:07:02.560 --> 00:07:04.720 That's the struggle we experience. 00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:07.040 So life is hard. 00:07:07.040 --> 00:07:11.759 And God, but the beautiful thing is that God does not leave us alone there. 00:07:11.759 --> 00:07:15.759 He actually guides us stage by stage. 00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:18.560 And that is the hope that we have. 00:07:18.560 --> 00:07:30.879 Victor Frankel, who is a psychiatrist and a Holocaust survivor who survived the concentration camps of World War II, he has he did the work of his psychiatry. 00:07:30.879 --> 00:07:33.360 He looked at people within those camps. 00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:37.519 And so he continued to practice the vocation that God had given him. 00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:42.560 And he saw two types of people who endured all of that suffering in the concentration camps. 00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:49.519 There was those who could make meaning in the suffering, and those who could not make meaning of their suffering. 00:07:49.519 --> 00:07:54.000 And those who could make meaning of their suffering, they had hope. 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:58.639 They experienced life with greater joy, with greater help, with greater purpose. 00:07:58.639 --> 00:08:05.120 He concluded that hope in suffering is only found in meaning in that suffering. 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:10.319 And he called this the last of the human freedoms that no one can take away from you. 00:08:10.319 --> 00:08:13.120 We actually have meaning in the struggle. 00:08:13.120 --> 00:08:19.920 We have meaning in our suffering because God is the one who guides us stage by stage. 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:23.839 Yes, we are pilgrims, but God guides us. 00:08:23.839 --> 00:08:34.080 So a natural question comes to my mind, God, if you're guiding us and there's meaning in our suffering, why are you choosing to do this in a suffering and in the wilderness? 00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:43.360 Well, right there in our text, in verse 1 of chapter 33, it says, They went out of the land of Egypt. 00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:46.720 They were under the leadership and the authority of who? 00:08:46.720 --> 00:08:50.559 Pharaoh, the ruler and the rule of the world, right? 00:08:50.559 --> 00:08:57.679 And they were compromised, they being the people of God, and we are compromised by being under the rule of the world. 00:08:57.679 --> 00:09:01.679 Even Moses, right, doesn't enter into the promised land. 00:09:01.679 --> 00:09:05.200 They had biases and practices that were not of God. 00:09:05.200 --> 00:09:13.759 They had idols deep within their hearts that needed, that demanded God's formation school to get out of them. 00:09:13.759 --> 00:09:20.240 They needed liberation not just from a geography, but from their imaginations and from their hearts. 00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:24.480 We too need that liberation from the world, the flesh, and the devil. 00:09:24.480 --> 00:09:26.559 More on that in a minute. 00:09:26.559 --> 00:09:31.279 Look down with me at chapter 33 again, verse 2. 00:09:31.279 --> 00:09:39.279 Moses wrote down their starting places stage by stage by command of the Lord. 00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:42.159 So again, God is the one who is guiding them. 00:09:42.159 --> 00:09:46.000 And these are the stages according to their starting places. 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:48.720 Now, why do you think Moses wrote those down? 00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:51.840 I guess if it's a command of the Lord, you better listen, right? 00:09:51.840 --> 00:10:03.279 And this gives credence to the fact that here in our tradition, we believe in organic inspiration, that God works through human authors to create the living and active word. 00:10:03.279 --> 00:10:10.159 We believe that the word of God is so inspired by God that it can actually change who we are. 00:10:10.159 --> 00:10:13.519 It confronts us, it changes us, it conforms us. 00:10:13.519 --> 00:10:16.480 And that's why uh it actually it comforts us too. 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:18.159 So it's not all just the negative. 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:20.960 And this is why we actually pray and read scriptures. 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:24.480 This is why we have a daily practice of reading God's word. 00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:31.840 But also, with Moses writing this down, it gave me the idea that it gives credence to the fact that we are a people of stories. 00:10:31.840 --> 00:10:40.879 We have stories that go stage by stage, and we need to rehearse our personal stories with God. 00:10:40.879 --> 00:10:46.240 We actually need to write down our stories for ourselves, but also for our children. 00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:50.559 We need to find our stories in the grand story of God. 00:10:50.559 --> 00:10:55.039 And here at New City, real quickly, we talk about that in the four-chapter story. 00:10:55.039 --> 00:11:00.480 Creation, the way things uh had ought to be, the way that God created them, we're all good. 00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:13.360 The fall, this is the way that things are right now, and this is me describing a little bit the struggle, the way things can be, which is redemption, and the way things will be, where there will be no more tears, no more pain. 00:11:13.360 --> 00:11:17.840 And so, where is your particular story in that grand story? 00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:28.320 This actually reminds me that we need to be we need to practice the discipline of journaling, the discipline of being reflective about what God is doing in our lives. 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:32.799 And if you have your Bibles or your devices, again, this is not in the bulletin. 00:11:32.799 --> 00:11:36.240 I would encourage us, let's let's look at chapter 33. 00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:41.279 There's all these stages, all these places that are listed there. 00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:49.919 It's not an exhaustive list of actually all of their journey for those 40 years, but you know, 42 sounds like a significant number. 00:11:49.919 --> 00:11:52.399 God does that sometimes with the numbers in the Bible. 00:11:52.399 --> 00:11:58.960 It could be six stages of seven, and now they're about to enter the seven set of stages into the promised land of rest. 00:11:58.960 --> 00:12:12.240 But regardless of like the numbers there in terms of the number of stages that are represented, uh, you can, I I was helped by a commentator, you could break out the stages into three different categories. 00:12:12.240 --> 00:12:13.919 So look with me. 00:12:13.919 --> 00:12:20.080 So in uh the first category is the stages represent the Lord's faithfulness in our daily needs. 00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:29.919 If you look at chapter 33, verse 8 or 9, there is God working with the provision of water at Elam, or making the water, the bitter water sweet. 00:12:29.919 --> 00:12:36.080 So that's one whole category of stages that are represented here, the Lord's faithfulness. 00:12:36.080 --> 00:12:44.399 The second big category of stages is the Lord's forgiveness, or I'm gonna call it the Lord's forgetfulness. 00:12:44.399 --> 00:12:52.559 So if you read in the text in verse 8 or 9, they actually make uh comments about what happened, how the Lord provided. 00:12:52.559 --> 00:13:02.159 But then there are other stages in the second category of the Lord's forgetfulness, is where uh the Israelites rebelled, they grumbled, their sin was known. 00:13:02.159 --> 00:13:09.360 But it makes no mention of those specific things because it doesn't want to draw your attention to the fact that the Israelites sin. 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:15.440 It wants to draw your attention to God's forgetfulness, God's kindness, God's forgiveness. 00:13:15.440 --> 00:13:22.080 Hebrews 8 reminds us that God will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more. 00:13:22.080 --> 00:13:36.639 So we have a bunch of stages here about God's faithfulness, we have stages about God's forgetfulness or forgiveness, but the bulk of the stages that are listed here in chapter 33 of the 42 are just the Lord's ordinary means. 00:13:36.639 --> 00:13:39.120 We don't really know what happened in those stages. 00:13:39.120 --> 00:13:45.600 They're listed here, but it's it's in my mind, it's building out this theology of the ordinary. 00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:50.720 So as we go stage by stage, we need to be reminded of these three things. 00:13:50.720 --> 00:14:03.679 And we need to write our stories down in light of these things, of these three things: God's faithfulness, God's forgiveness and forgetfulness, and our call to the faithfulness and the mundane of life. 00:14:03.679 --> 00:14:10.320 So the question I have for you all is can you name the stages or milestones of your journey? 00:14:10.320 --> 00:14:13.440 Even before Jesus and after Jesus? 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:15.919 Where are you in that? 00:14:15.919 --> 00:14:22.960 Where have you seen God's faithfulness, his forgetfulness or forgiveness, and your call to the mundane life? 00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:30.399 Now, I've been thinking about this stage thing from stage to stage, obviously, because that's a bulk of chapter 33 this week. 00:14:30.399 --> 00:14:33.919 And my attention was drawn to 1 John chapter 2. 00:14:33.919 --> 00:14:45.679 Now, the apostle he gives us kind of another overlay of stages that a Christian can go on on a Christian journey, the way that we are discipled or developed along the way. 00:14:45.679 --> 00:14:48.799 And you can overlay this actually in the whole book of Numbers. 00:14:48.799 --> 00:15:02.240 There's a first generation and second generation, but real quickly from 1 John chapter 2, John talks about little children, young men or women, and fathers and mothers. 00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:06.799 Little children, young adults, and fathers and mothers. 00:15:06.799 --> 00:15:09.600 Stott does a really good job of explaining this. 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:12.559 He says the little children are those who are newborn in Christ. 00:15:12.559 --> 00:15:17.840 Young men or women are more developed Christians, strong and victorious in spiritual warfare. 00:15:17.840 --> 00:15:23.440 Whereas fathers and mothers, they possess the depth and stability of ripe Christian experience. 00:15:23.440 --> 00:15:26.480 It's really an interesting passage in 1 John 2. 00:15:26.480 --> 00:15:28.159 So it's super simple. 00:15:28.159 --> 00:15:35.039 Where are you all in that framework of children, young adults, or spiritual fathers and mothers? 00:15:35.039 --> 00:15:39.919 The point is that God is working in a developmental way with us all. 00:15:39.919 --> 00:15:43.200 He is the one who's guiding us stage by stage. 00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:46.159 And the only way out is through. 00:15:46.159 --> 00:15:57.360 And the only way forward is by looking back, looking back at God's faithfulness, looking back at God's forgiveness and forgetfulness, and looking back so that we can actually embrace what lies ahead. 00:15:57.360 --> 00:16:01.120 God is the one who guides us stage by stage. 00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:04.559 Now I want to tell a story real quickly. 00:16:04.559 --> 00:16:07.679 This was some time ago when I had a little bit of means. 00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:12.559 I was a single guy, and uh I got I decided to have get LASIK surgery done. 00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:17.120 I don't know if you guys know the beauty of LASIK surgery, but it's amazing. 00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:19.840 They take blind people and they make them see. 00:16:19.840 --> 00:16:24.639 Uh and they do it with lasers, so it's like Star Wars in your eyes, you know. 00:16:24.639 --> 00:16:27.279 And I don't know how it works. 00:16:27.279 --> 00:16:29.279 I just paid my money and did it. 00:16:29.279 --> 00:16:38.799 And so I was in a kind of a stage in my life where I was doing some traveling and I didn't want to have like my contact and kind of stick it in my eye with all this bacteria and all this other stuff. 00:16:38.799 --> 00:16:40.639 So I had the surgery done. 00:16:40.639 --> 00:16:45.759 And in this in this time period, I uh I found myself, you know, traveling the world. 00:16:45.759 --> 00:17:03.440 I was in the South China Sea, and as one does in the South China Sea, I climbed a mountain on a small island, and here I was walking along, not really paying attention to the path that I was on, but I was talking to my buddy, and uh there's these big bamboo stalks along that path. 00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:08.640 And I don't know if you've seen bamboo, but there's segments and they have these little pokey things that like poke out. 00:17:08.640 --> 00:17:13.599 Uh and I ran right one into my eye and a barb broke off. 00:17:13.599 --> 00:17:17.839 And uh here I was on a remote island in the South China Sea. 00:17:17.839 --> 00:17:23.440 My vision was not really that great, and I was unable to find the next stage of my journey. 00:17:23.440 --> 00:17:31.359 It didn't really matter that I can see 2015 anymore, because the barb in my eye was going to lead me astray. 00:17:31.359 --> 00:17:39.440 Now, in the same way, that story connects to our passage here in Numbers, uh, chapter 33, verse 55 and 56. 00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:41.359 It's the end of the chapter. 00:17:41.359 --> 00:17:44.960 Look down with me as I read this. 00:17:44.960 --> 00:18:01.200 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your side, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. 00:18:01.200 --> 00:18:08.640 So God is actually calling us to remove and drive out the inhabitants of the land. 00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:14.799 He's calling the Israelites, right, as they enter the promised land, but he's also calling us, this text is for us. 00:18:14.799 --> 00:18:24.000 If we do not drive out the temptations and hindrances that call us to compromise, they will be like those things that are like barbs in our eye. 00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:32.720 We won't be able to see, we will be led astray, and the sin that so easily entangles Hebrews 12, it will get us. 00:18:32.720 --> 00:18:36.960 There are besetting sins, little areas of compromise. 00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:42.160 Maybe saying a quick word about a coworker who's not around so that you get ahead and they go behind. 00:18:42.160 --> 00:18:45.119 Maybe that's parenting with anger and control. 00:18:45.119 --> 00:18:52.079 Maybe that's consuming digitally and physically all the stuff that you should not do. 00:18:52.079 --> 00:19:04.559 And what God is saying here to the Israelites, and what God is saying to you, beloved, is that if you do not deal with these things, they shall be trouble to us in the land in which we dwell. 00:19:04.559 --> 00:19:07.279 God wants us holy. 00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:10.319 That means all of you and holy. 00:19:10.319 --> 00:19:13.440 He wants to he wants you to be set apart. 00:19:13.440 --> 00:19:17.680 And he does not, he does not want you to be led astray. 00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:23.039 And here at New City, so you might be thinking, like, how am I gonna find these barbs and thorns? 00:19:23.039 --> 00:19:25.039 Uh, we do that in community. 00:19:25.039 --> 00:19:28.160 We talk about community as a space where you're known and loved. 00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:30.240 Community, but also in circles. 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:44.799 And so I invite you to be known and loved, be connected to people, that they can help you, be connected to young adults, be connected to spiritual fathers and mothers, where they are able to say, like, hey man, there's a barb right there, and you need to deal with that. 00:19:44.799 --> 00:19:49.680 Or there's a thorn in your side, and you're kind of walking with the limp there, and you need to deal with that. 00:19:49.680 --> 00:19:57.359 So wherever you find yourself in this struggle on the journey, know that God is the one that guides us stage by stage. 00:19:57.359 --> 00:20:00.160 Now, this leads me to my second point. 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:02.720 God guides us stage by stage, where? 00:20:02.720 --> 00:20:04.960 Toward the promised land. 00:20:04.960 --> 00:20:06.160 Turn with me now. 00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:10.319 This is in your bulletin, chapter 34, verses 1 and 2. 00:20:10.319 --> 00:20:28.000 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Command the people of Israel and say to them, When you enter the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall to you for inheritance, the land of Canaan as defined by its borders. 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:32.400 So as I said, we look back so that we can embrace what lies ahead. 00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:38.240 And what lies ahead is the promised inheritance, the promised land, God Himself. 00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:43.279 Again, here in these short verses, we're taught that the Lord spoke. 00:20:43.279 --> 00:20:51.839 So God is the one who guides, God is the one who provides, God is the one, but also who derides our sin in our lives. 00:20:51.839 --> 00:20:59.279 And so he's forming us, he's working with us, he's developmentally asking us to go through these stages to change us. 00:20:59.279 --> 00:21:04.559 But God is not walking, he's not asking us to walk through the wilderness aimlessly, right? 00:21:04.559 --> 00:21:07.759 He knows what lies ahead. 00:21:07.759 --> 00:21:13.119 He knows that what lies ahead is so great, is so good. 00:21:13.119 --> 00:21:20.240 So God goes ahead and defines the borders and the boundaries of our inheritance. 00:21:20.240 --> 00:21:28.160 And I love how precise, if you read the whole of chapter 34 this afternoon, his his precision is so precise. 00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:30.799 He he his precision, I think, is kindness. 00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:32.480 His precision is love. 00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:38.240 Now, Katie and I, when we uh were in 2018, we had fortunate enough experience to buy a house. 00:21:38.240 --> 00:21:41.680 And so when you buy a house with a mortgage, you got to get it surveyed, right? 00:21:41.680 --> 00:21:47.440 And so a surveyor comes out and he marks he marks the lots of the line with these big stakes. 00:21:47.440 --> 00:21:48.640 And it was wonderful. 00:21:48.640 --> 00:21:53.279 You know, we signed our name to a big thing, and and then we had this house, us and the bank. 00:21:53.279 --> 00:21:58.640 And uh, and so it took me a year or more, though, to remove the stakes out of the ground. 00:21:58.640 --> 00:22:04.400 And part of it was you might think, well, geez, did Jason have a feud already with one of his neighbors about the fence location? 00:22:04.400 --> 00:22:05.839 No, that wasn't it. 00:22:05.839 --> 00:22:11.440 But it was a reminder to me of the beautiful inheritance that God had given Katie and I. 00:22:11.440 --> 00:22:21.359 So in the same way, he's defining the boundaries and the borders for the Israelites about who they what the inheritance is ahead. 00:22:21.359 --> 00:22:24.160 Turn with me to chapter 35, verse 34. 00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:25.599 Again, it's in your bulletin. 00:22:25.599 --> 00:22:34.880 You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I, the Lord, dwell in the midst of the people of Israel. 00:22:34.880 --> 00:22:43.200 So, what is the great inheritance that God so aptly defines its borders? 00:22:43.200 --> 00:22:46.240 It's that we get to dwell with him. 00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:57.440 This is how the story began in Genesis, Adam and Eve dwelling with their creator, and then it hits a blip there in Genesis 3. 00:22:57.440 --> 00:23:01.839 But this is how the story of the Bible comes back to us dwelling with God. 00:23:01.839 --> 00:23:05.119 And this is the story that we unfold in Numbers. 00:23:05.119 --> 00:23:09.200 That God wants to be in the midst of his people. 00:23:09.200 --> 00:23:13.599 But you saw the warnings, right? 00:23:13.599 --> 00:23:21.519 You saw the barb and the thorn, and you see the beginning of chapter 35, verse 34, that we have a problem. 00:23:21.519 --> 00:23:23.839 The Israelites had a problem. 00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:25.440 We are defiled. 00:23:25.440 --> 00:23:28.799 We still have Egypt inside of us. 00:23:28.799 --> 00:23:33.200 This is why God warns them, you shall not defile the land. 00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:38.000 And this builds off the warning, as I said in chapter 33, about the barbs and the thorns. 00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:40.880 Now back to the house that Katie and I bought. 00:23:40.880 --> 00:23:42.960 When we bought it, it was wonderful. 00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:45.200 We figured out which trees were ours. 00:23:45.200 --> 00:23:50.319 And there were certain trees in our house that were really close to our uh the structure itself. 00:23:50.319 --> 00:23:55.680 But I left them, you know, because I'm like, that provides shade for the for the house and it provides shade for the patio. 00:23:55.680 --> 00:23:58.720 But these were like volunteer trees, they weren't really great trees. 00:23:58.720 --> 00:24:03.680 And one of them was so close to the house that it started causing damage to the house. 00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:12.480 And uh this reminds me of an old saying, and this gets back to the barb and the thorn and uh God calling us not to be defiling in the land. 00:24:12.480 --> 00:24:16.160 But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. 00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:23.359 So I wasn't there when this little volunteer tree actually first came out of the ground, but if I was, you could have just picked it up out of the ground. 00:24:23.359 --> 00:24:31.279 But then over time, over 10, 15 years or wherever it's taken that tree to grow, it's gonna take like heavy equipment, maybe a chainsaw. 00:24:31.279 --> 00:24:36.880 I may have to ask a friend or two to come over to help me take down this little volunteer tree. 00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:40.640 And so I strongly encourage us. 00:24:40.640 --> 00:24:46.319 The barbs and thorns, they will be like those trees that grow up and become bigger issues for us to deal with. 00:24:46.319 --> 00:24:49.039 An ounce of prevention is worth a pound and cure. 00:24:49.039 --> 00:24:54.319 So pull the weeds, do the work, drive out what so easily entangles. 00:24:54.319 --> 00:24:58.480 Don't ignore the thorns in your side or the barb in your eye. 00:24:58.480 --> 00:25:06.640 Jesus tells us the way is narrow and the road is hard, but the road of the struggle that God is guiding us in is to the promised land. 00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:08.960 It is to himself. 00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:15.200 Hebrews 12 reminds us, I keep quoting this, about sin that so easily entangles us. 00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:23.119 How do we throw off every weight and sin which so which clings so closely and run with perseverance, stage by stage? 00:25:23.119 --> 00:25:33.200 Hebrews 12, 2 says, by looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross. 00:25:33.200 --> 00:25:39.039 So you know that the story does not end well for the Israelites. 00:25:39.039 --> 00:25:44.720 They fail to deal with the barbs and the thorns, they become defiled in the land. 00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:54.480 And these are little areas of compromise that led to actually the destruction of their kingdom and the expulsion, uh, exile of God's people. 00:25:54.480 --> 00:25:58.559 And that's what these little areas of compromise will do to us too. 00:25:58.559 --> 00:26:02.319 And the reality is that we're unable to do the work ourselves. 00:26:02.319 --> 00:26:04.240 So we need a savior. 00:26:04.240 --> 00:26:11.119 And this is ultimately, since this is a series completion, this is ultimately what numbers is pointing us to. 00:26:11.119 --> 00:26:15.839 We need someone outside of ourselves to actually save us. 00:26:15.839 --> 00:26:22.319 The Lord wants to dwell in the midst of his people, but we are unable to drive out the inhabitants. 00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:25.039 We have barbs in our eyes and thorns in our sides. 00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:26.400 We are defiled. 00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:33.759 But Jesus is the one who comes and drives the money changers in the temple and drives out all his and our enemies. 00:26:33.759 --> 00:26:40.400 Jesus is the one who takes on the crown of thorns, so we no longer have a thorn in our side. 00:26:40.400 --> 00:26:45.279 Jesus is the one who says, Come to me, follow me. 00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:48.240 He has gone before us, stage by stage. 00:26:48.240 --> 00:26:52.240 He knows, Hebrews again says, for, he knows our weaknesses. 00:26:52.240 --> 00:26:59.839 God dwells with his people through our union to that perfect priest, to that sacrificial lamb. 00:26:59.839 --> 00:27:06.160 And that means that the promised inheritance is Jesus Himself. 00:27:06.160 --> 00:27:14.480 King David, who had rights over all the land, this is later in the story from Numbers, he had rights over all the land. 00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:20.960 But he says this in Psalm 16 The Lord is my chosen portion in my cup, and you hold my lot. 00:27:20.960 --> 00:27:23.599 The lions have fallen for me in pleasant places. 00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:26.319 Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. 00:27:26.319 --> 00:27:30.240 So King David, who had all of the land, he's choosing what? 00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:32.960 The Lord as his chosen portion. 00:27:32.960 --> 00:27:37.200 That is our beautiful inheritance, is Jesus Himself. 00:27:37.200 --> 00:27:45.599 So union to Jesus, not our performance, not our ability to pull the weeds, actually secures our place in God's promised land. 00:27:45.599 --> 00:27:51.200 So numbers is not about how we get to God, but how God gets to us. 00:27:51.200 --> 00:28:01.119 Jesus guides us stage by stage, and there is grace in every step of the way toward the promised land of communion with Him. 00:28:01.119 --> 00:28:03.039 Let us pray. 00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:28.240 Father, we are grateful for your love for us in this, that you sent your son stage by stage, from the incarnation to his ministry, to his act of obedience, to his passive obedience on the cross, to ransom a people to be your inheritance. 00:28:28.240 --> 00:28:32.160 Jesus, you are the faithful promised one. 00:28:32.160 --> 00:28:42.400 You are our inheritance, and you are the one who has brought us to dwell with God, to dwell in his midst and spirit. 00:28:42.400 --> 00:28:43.759 You dwell with your people. 00:28:43.759 --> 00:28:51.920 Fill us up, help us throw off all that which entangles, help us to see those barbs and those thorns and move toward us in love. 00:28:51.920 --> 00:28:53.680 We give you the glory. 00:28:53.680 --> 00:28:54.319 Amen.