Nothing More, Nothing Less | Aaron Newman

Good morning. It's very good to see each and

everyone of you who is here. I'm very honored and very

thankful to be your speaker and I'm looking forward to spending

the day with you and to study God's word with you.

There's no better place than we can be than to be together on

the first day of the week as God has commanded us and to gather

together to worship him. And that is our goal this

morning. You know, when I was younger, I

really, always really was hoping that you could just open the

Bible and then it would say do this or don't do that and just

have a set of rules and, and then I could just do them and I

wouldn't have to worry about anything.

But as I grew older, I began to realize that there's poetry in

the Bible, there's a genealogies in the Bible.

There's all kinds of different things in the Bible.

Make it a little bit more complicated than just a, just a

rule book. And so I really struggled with,

well, how do I make sense of the Bible, and maybe this is

something you struggled with over your lifetime is how do I

make sense of the Bible? What parts of this apply to me?

What parts of this do I have to do?

And what parts of it am I just reading a story?

What's what is important for me to know from the Bible?

Our goal is not to answer all of those questions this morning.

As you see, this is a a series. This is lesson 1 or one lesson

from a series of making sense of the Bible.

And so we're not going to answer all the questions.

We're not going to cover all the topics.

And what I leave out, you say, oh, you forgot about.

I know this isn't all of it, but hopefully this is a foundation.

Hopefully this will be a place for you to be able to build off

of as you go through and study the Bible for yourself.

And so where will we start? Well, we want to start under the

idea of covenants, and the Bible we find teaches in covenants,

and a covenant is just an agreement you and I can have in

a covenant. But when we're talking about

specifically are the covenants that God makes with mankind.

A covenant is an agreement between God and his people, and

covenants often have blessings from God, but also consequences

if they do not do what God has asked.

And as often promises in with these covenants as well.

But almost always there's a core concept when there is a covenant

between God and man, and that is that there are commandments

within those covenants. Just an example in Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 28:1

28 verses 1, verses 1 and 2. And then verse 15, it says, now

it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the

Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments

to which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set

you high above all nations of the earth.

And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you,

because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.

And verse 15 says, But if it shall come to pass, if you do

not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully

all His commandments and His statutes which I command you

today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake

you. So we see here that there is

reward and praise for obedience to the commands of God.

And also we see curses or punishment when we disobey the

commands of God. And this is how covenants work

between God and man, really, nothing more and nothing less.

We see many covenants between God and man.

Of course, you have Adam and Eve in the garden of God told them

that they could eat of all the trees there except for the one

tree they're not supposed to eat of.

There's a commandment. There was an agreement that and

they disobeyed that agreement. He says that they ate of that,

that they would surely die. That's exactly what happened.

Of course, we have another covenant that God made with

Noah. God told Noah to build an ark

and get on the ark, and everyone who would be on the ark would be

saved. And that's exactly what we see.

Noah and all of his family, everybody who was in the ark,

they were saved. All the people who were outside,

not so much. Another covenant that we have in

the Bible is God made one with Abraham.

God told Abraham that he remained faithful, that he would

bless him greatly, and he indeed did do that.

And of course, we have today what we would call the the old

Covenant, which is the law of Moses.

And then of course, many others throughout the Bible, the people

have followed. But then we see this, this basic

idea that a God has blessings, but he also demands obedience to

the commands or to the laws that you live under with that

covenant. And today, of course, we live

under the New Testament, the new covenant.

The next question is, is everything inside the Bible a

command? While all the Bible is inspired

and it is indeed the word of God, it is truth it teaches us,

but not every verse is a command.

You know both Testaments, both the old and new contain a mix of

a gods of both commands and narratives.

When he used the word narrative this morning and in the Old

Testament, you had the laws of God and then you also just have

the the history of the nation of Israel.

You also have Psalms and different things like that that

are not necessarily commands for you to obey.

There's also genealogies there as well in the New Testament of

Christ's teachings. But we also just have some

history about the beginning of the church.

Some of it is is relevant to us today and some of it is not or

not that's not relevant today, but some of it is something we

need to pay attention to, to replicate.

And some of it is just narrative.

So what what examples are we talking about, Aaron?

So something that is narrative is in Matthew 8, verse 23, it

Matthew 8:23

says Jesus got into a boat. Does that mean I have to get

into a boat? Maybe you don't know how to

swim. You don't want to get into a

boat. You want to stay on dry land.

Is that something we have to replicate just because we read

it in the Bible? Well, not necessarily.

This is just part of the narrative.

This is just part of the story telling us what happened.

But here in Exodus 20, verse 15, I know this is the Old

Exodus 20:15

Testament, but it says you should not steal.

Well, that sounds like a command.

That sounds like something you must obey.

And so throughout the Bible we have both of these things.

In the New Testament, you know, Paul is traveling on his

missionary journeys and he is going from different places.

And it says he came to this town and he stayed a certain amount

of time period and then went to the next place.

And then he traveled. And then sometimes he took a

boat, sometimes he walked. All of that is very interesting.

It's very good for us to read. That doesn't mean I have to

replicate how long Paul stayed at each place or if I have to

follow the same missionary journey that Paul did.

But at the same time, Paul wrote First Corinthians and Second

Corinthians where he's correcting a church and he says

you need to do these things and you need to not do these other

things. Well, those are things that we

need to pay attention to. And if we are doing the same

things that the Church of Corinthus and we, they were told

to stop, then we should stop. And if we're not doing the

things that Corinth was not doing and they were told to

start, then we need to start. And so we see how that works.

So the the next thing we need to really understand it before we

move on is that the Old Testament contained the law of

Moses and other covenants, but the whole Testament is not the

law of Moses. In the same way in the New

Testament we have the New Testament.

It contains the new covenant which we live under, but not

every verse. Like Jesus getting into a boat

is part of that covenant that I have to follow and replicate in

my daily life. So it contains the covenant, but

there are parts that are simply narrative.

So we know, as we said, there's a core of commands for every

covenant that God gives us. So how do we identify these

commands? Like I said when I was really

young, I wish it was just a thou shalt, thou shalt not thou

shalt. That's what people often think

about when they think of commands when God speaks to us.

But really, there's more to it than that.

It's a little bit more in depth than that.

When the Bible talks about commands, it's not just looking

for a rule list. Rather, they help us understand

what God expects us to do or not to do.

And that's really what we're looking for when we're reading

through the Bible. They've revealed to us what sin

is because sin is going against God's commands.

It's disobedience to God. So here are 4 clear ways that

God communicates His commands to us today.

Number one is direct statements #2 broad principles #3 indirect

instructions and #4 examples. And we're going to go into these

each in detail here in a moment. So with these four different

ways that God communicates His will to us, we have a broader

picture of how we are to live our lives and remain faithful to

God within the covenant of which we live.

Direct statements are super easy.

They're everyone's favorite. They're clear, explicit

instructions given by God and his messengers in the Old

Testament in Genesis 9, verse 4. But you shall not eat flesh with

Genesis 9:4

its life, that is its blood. So he says don't eat the blood.

That's a nice, easy command for them in the New Testament, in

Acts 2, verse 38, repent and let everyone of you be baptized in

Acts 2:38

the name of Jesus Christ. That's a very clear, simple,

open command for us today. So these direct statements

clearly and unmistakably show us exactly what God expects of us.

These are the thou shalt the people love and and want to hold

on to. But these are not the only ways

in which God communicates his will to us.

And when he does so that it means that it's binding.

It is part of that covenant under which we have a we have

agreed to live under, we have agreed to make with the Creator

of the universe. The second category is broad

principles. These are general commands that

apply to many different situations, not just a specific

go do this or don't do this, but more general ideas of how we

live and act toward one another. In the Old Testament, he says

you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and

Deuteronomy 6 verse five. That means that when you go to

school, when you go to work, when you get home from work and

you're tired, you love God no matter what.

In the New Testament, in Galatians 6 verse 2, bear one

Galatians 6:2

another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.

This is true no matter where we are or who we are, but it might

be different depending on the situation.

How I bear the burdens of Frankie may be very different

than how I have to bury the burdens of Terry.

They're very different because the relationships are different.

Maybe there's something that Terry and I have in common that

Frankie and I don't have in common that we both struggle

with, but we're still supposed to be there.

So this is a general command that I'm looking for

opportunities to help each and everyone of you, that you are

looking for opportunities to help me and each other.

And we're working together. So that's a general statement,

but it's still required by by God that we do this thing.

So these principles provide a broad standard is the way to

think about it, or guide to our daily choices and actions.

The third category are indirect instructions or commands, and

they are really through implied statements or promises from God.

And in the Old Testament example, we have Proverbs 28,

Proverbs 28:13

verse 13. He says whoever, whoever it is

who's not talking to you. He's not talking specifically to

me, but he's just saying general statements.

Whoever confesses and forsakes sin will have mercy.

Well, what does that imply? That implies that we must admit

and turn away from our sins. If I want to be part of that

whoever, then I'm going to take this action.

Also in Mark 16, verse 16, he who they who, she, who, whoever

Mark 16:16

it is, if they take this step, what happens?

He who believes is baptized will be saved.

So this implies the necessity of belief in baptism if you want to

be what saved. So this is just a general

statement that God says this is a truism and if you want to

participate in it, this is what you need to do to accomplish

that. So there's not a you must or

thou shalt hear at all. The last category we want to

talk about are examples. Now examples in Scripture become

binding when they describe believers obeying a command or

principle previously talked about or given by God.

And we have just one example from the New Testament here.

Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25 says that we're not to be forsaken or

Hebrews 10:25

the assembly of ourselves together.

And Acts 20 verse 7, we see that's exactly what they're

Acts 20:7

doing now. The first day of the week when

the disciples came together, they came together.

They obeyed the command to not forsake the assembling of

themselves together. Now an example alone without an

underlying command from God is never binding by itself.

And this goes back to the whole thing about Jesus stepping into

the boat. That's just narrative.

That's just a thing that's happened.

Unless the Bible says we all need to get on boats, then we

don't have then that's not a binding example of something we

have to do. Examples only carry authority

when they illustrate obedience to commands or principles

already given by God. In the Old Testament, God

primarily spoke through the 600 plus laws and then we just see

people carrying them out. And so we don't really see this

pattern very much in the Old Testament, but we really see a

lot in the New Testament because examples carry more authority.

And that is because as we were reading the actual actions and

teachings of the apostles as they lived out the commands that

God gave them, and the apostles themselves had divine authority

to establish church practices, Jesus gave them his authority.

In Matthew 28, verse 18 through 20 says, go into all the world

Matthew 28:18–20

preaching the gospel. So when we read about them doing

that, we can see that as an example.

And also in John 14 verse 26, in John 16, verse 13, Jesus says,

John 14:26 John 16:13

I'm going to remind you of everything that I talked to you

about and I'm going to tell you things you're not ready for and

you need to tell people and spread the message.

That means as we see the apostles doing these things,

they create, they create binding examples for us, of course, as

long as they're tied back to these commands from God.

Because of this, we find a lot more examples of the New

Testament than we ever would in the Old Testament.

And again, Jesus getting into the boat is not a pattern for us

to follow that or that we have to follow.

It's not binding upon us. If you want to get into a boat,

you can do that. So this brings, excuse me.

So this brings us back to the heart of what a covenant is.

The four types of commands are the heart of what God expects in

His covenants. He says here in John 14 verse

John 14:15

15, If you love me, keep my commandments.

So each command in Scripture is either a direct instruction or

one of the the four commands that we have from God on what he

expects of us. If we are going to obey him, he

we show our love to God through obedience in the covenant

relationship with God. God says, I'm going to offer you

salvation. I'm going to offer you a new

life, a new opportunity to a new a new start.

And what do you what do I want in return?

Love me. And you do that by keeping my

commandments. These commandments not only

guide us then, but they also clearly define what sin is.

Because if by by inference we can see that if we love God and

we keep us commandments, then if we don't keep us commandments,

we don't love God, that means that's sin.

We're not showing our love to God.

So what is sin? Scripture teaches clearly that

sin is breaking God's commands. And 1st John 3 verse 4 says sin

John 3:4

is lawlessness, means it is something that was without the

law breaking the law. Someone who is an outlaw is a

law breaker. Paul goes on and explains in

Norman 7 verse seven, I would not have known sin except

through the law. And so when God gives his

covenant, he establishes the laws of the covenant, the rules

of the covenant, the commands of the covenant, and my goal, but

my job as someone who loves God is to obey them.

But there are no rules or laws or something like that.

Then I can't break that law if God had not spoken about it.

So we sin when we break God's commands.

And we do this in two ways. First of all, we do this by

doing things that God forbids. You can think of this as active

disobedience, like when Adam and Eve eight of the fruit, they

were not supposed to in Genesis 3 verse 6.

Genesis 3:6

Or maybe I luckily my oldest is only 7, but I foresee a time

when she may be able to old enough to drive and I say don't

drive the car and she drives the car.

That's active disobedience. She's choosing to disobey me.

Hopefully we'll never have that situation, but that happens all

the time. People have active disobedience

against God. The second way is failing to do

what God has commanded. James taught us in James 4 verse

James 4:17

17. It's just to him who knows to do

good and does not do it to him and his sin.

If you know there's something you should be doing and you

don't do it, then you're also sinning.

There's those general principles about loving God, loving your

neighbor. We're not doing those things

that we are also sitting. And breaking the command, the

covenant that we have with God. So what is sin?

Romans 4 verse 15 says where there is no law, there is no

Romans 4:15

transgression. Romans 5 verse 13 says sin is

Romans 5:13

not counted where there is no law.

Without God's explicit commands, we can have no true standard of

right or wrong, because it's not up to you and I to decide what

is right and wrong. It's up to God to set that

standard. You know, Jesus actually

condemned the Pharisees for adding their own rules on top of

what God had given them. In Matthew 15 verse 9, he says

Matthew 15:9

that they're hypocrites. Understanding that sin only

occurs when we break God's commands helps us avoid wrongly

judging others and creating unnecessary We're binding

unnecessary things upon others and ourselves, just like the

Pharisees did. We must never elevate our own

opinions or traditions to the level of God's law.

Only God's commands can define what sin is because sin is

breaking them. So let's look at some examples

to apply this very quickly this morning.

When God gives a command, he knows exactly what he expects.

At the same time, he excludes all other options.

For example, God commanded in the Old Testament priests to

offer in Exodus chapter 30, excuse me, in Exodus chapter 30,

Exodus 30 · chapter mention Exodus 30 · chapter mention

verses one through 8, to offer incense as worship to God.

And they dab and by who? They're very excited to be the

new priests for God. And what do they do?

They sin by offering incense in a way different than what God

commanded. And they actually sinned in two

different ways. First of all, they will use

censors instead of placing the incense of the altar of incense

like God commanded them back in Exodus 30.

And, and secondly, it says they offered strange fire, mean fire

from a source that God had not commanded.

The fire was profane or strange fire, as some translations put

it. Others call this common fire.

It was unholy fire. It was something other than what

God had asked them to offer. It was not until later in

Leviticus 16 that God talked about offering incense on a

censure, and that only happened one day a year, on the Day of

Atonement. And so God had told them how

that he wanted them to offer incense and they did something

different than what God had commanded them and so God

punished them. The Bible talks about that.

They took that fire and they offered it before God and the

fire came out and devoured them. They were burnt up because they

disobeyed God's clear commands. We can apply this to for us

today as well. And Ephesians 5 verse 19 says

Ephesians 5:19

speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual

songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.

Here the apostle Paul specifically identifies singing

music from the voice is what is being offered up.

And he also says making melody. And this word making melody

comes from the Greek word to, to pluck, to pluck something.

And by the time that the Bible was written, the only way that

you know, what was being plucked was by the context of what was

being talked about. So it could be that you have a,

a Carpenter string that you're plucking.

It could be that you have a a bowstring from a bow and arrow

that you're plucking. It could be that you have a

guitar string that you're plucking, or it could be a heart

string that you're plucking. And so he gives this command

about what kind of music we are to have.

We are singing with our voices and plucking our hearts,

plucking our heartstrings for God.

We sing from the heart. This is the only type of musical

worship that God talks about the New Testament, and therefore He

excludes instruments or any other kind of music throughout

the Bible. Every example of sin involves

breaking these commands that we talked about this morning.

Scripture never labels something as sinful unless it violates a

specific command that God has already given or one of those

four types that we talked about. This is such a critical truth

for us to understand. When God commands something, He

excludes everything else that He did not command.

Human traditions or my opinions or your opinions can never carry

the same authority as God's commands.

We also want to note the absence of a command from God does not

give us the right to create requirements like the Pharisees

did, where God had not spoken. And so our goal, our prayer this

morning is to encourage each of us to carefully follow.

Follow only what God commands, nothing more and nothing less.

This morning, this is the foundation, I think, of a

foundation for understanding how to make sense of the Bible.

As I said, there's things we could talk about outside of the

realm that we covered, but this is a good beginning place, a

good foundation so that when you're reading through the

Bible, So what part of this applies to me?

How do I make sense of it? How do I know what I'm supposed

to be doing? How do I find the right church?

How do I know they're doing what they're supposed to be doing?

We can follow this the simple plans, the simple idea that

throughout Scripture God only requires obedience to commands

given in the law of a covenant. So we need to find out, learn a

little bit more about covenants and that's it's other a whole

another series, part of the series.

We need to figure out what God wants from us and then do it

because we love him. That's our goal as Christians.

God has made a promise to each and every one of us on this

planet that if we will be faithful, if we will learn to

love Him and to obey Him, to show our love to Him, that he

will save our souls. He's already done all that was

necessary to do that. He sent Jesus, who was God and

also man, to come and live a a perfect sinful life, sinless

life. Wow, perfect sinless life to die

upon that cruel cross for you and for me to pay the penalty

for our sins. And if we're going to accept

that and accept the covenant that God offers us and enter

into that covenant, that relationship with God, then he

offers us a new life, a new opportunity, our sins to be

washed clean and eternal life with Him.

How wonderful that is, how beautiful that is.

Romans chapter 10 verse 17 says faith comes by hearing and

Romans 10:17

hearing by the word of God. This doesn't mean that this idea

of faith is so such an interesting idea.

This doesn't mean that I just kind of believe that Jesus kind

of existed, but I get to know him.

I get to know what the Bible says about him.

Hebrews 11 verse 6 says, but without faith is impossible to

Hebrews 11:6

please him. For he who comes to God must

believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who

diligently seek Him. There are many people who kind

of like the idea of Jesus, but he says He's a rewarder of those

who diligently seek Him this morning.

The purpose of this lesson is to teach us how to begin to

diligently seek Him. How do I seek Him?

How do I understand Him? How do I apply what He wants for

me? In Acts 17 verse 30, it says

Acts 17:30

truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands

all men everywhere to repent. That's what God expects us, and

repentance is not that. We have to be perfect today, but

it means I'm not going to try to live in my life for my think so

so the way that I've wanted to. Then my mindset and I'm going to

shift and turn and follow after Jesus and use his mindset and

look at my life through the eyes of God and I'm willing to to try

it his way not and realizing how many mistakes I have made.

And then of course, we need to confess in Matthew 10 verse 32,

Matthew 10:32

Jesus said whoever confesses you before man, I will confess

before my father who is in heaven and I absolutely love

this passage. The idea is that you're standing

before God on the day of judgment, which I am sure is

going to be a terrible, scary thing for everybody no matter

what. And Jesus can be right by your

side saying that's OK, This is my brother, this is my sister.

I'm vouching for you because you vouched for me while we were

here on earth. How wonderful that would be, how

comforting that will be to know that Jesus will be there with

you. In Acts chapter 2, verse 38, the

Acts 2:38

first gospel servant that was ever preached, Peter told these

men here that they had killed the Messiah that they've been

waiting generations for. And they said, men and brothers,

what shall we do? He says repent and let everyone

of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Jesus Christ for the

remission of your sins. Maybe you've taken these steps,

but you've not been living your life the way that you ought to.

You've been struggling. Life is not an easy an easy game

to win. Life is difficult.

In Revelation 2, verse 10, we are told be faithful unto death

Revelation 2:10

and I will give you a crown of life.

That's all he asked of us. Enter into that covered

relationship and be faithful and God promises you a crown of

life. How wonderful that is.

What a an amazing covenant that you get to have with the Creator

of the universe. If we can help you in either

case, we ask you, please come while we stand and sing the song

of invitation.