Next-Level Friendship | Road Up 7

Hey, what up?

It's Mark Carter.

I'm the pastor of Fierce Church.

Welcome to our podcast.

I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today.

I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you.

Enjoy the message.

Hey, let's play a little game.

Everybody, I'm going to say the first part of a legendary friendship.

I'm going to say the first part of a legendary friendship, and I want to see if you can shout back to me the other side of that legendary friendship.

So here's a chance.

The first one is Batman and Robin.

Okay, that's pretty good, let's keep going.

What about Frodo?

And?

Okay, yeah, that was good.

Okay, what about this one?

This is kind of old school.

What about Laverne and Shirley?

Yes, you guys are getting there.

Okay, this one's maybe a little bit harder.

What about SpongeBob and SpongeBob and Patrick?

No, it's not SpongeBob and SquarePants, it's SpongeBob and Patrick.

That's just his two names, man, spongebob and SquarePants, okay, okay, so let's keep going.

Mario and Luigi yes, absolutely.

And then what about Bert and Brady?

Yeah, you guys got it.

I want to give you one more that I believe is really important for today, and that is Jesus and you.

Jesus and you Legendary friendships.

We're going to talk about it, y'all.

Friendships are really important.

Friendships are more than just knowing circumstances about one another.

Friendships, really, if it's going to be close friends, they need to know more than one another's circumstances.

They need to maybe go through some challenging circumstances together, even if it's just great times.

They went through them together.

There's something that people are experiencing together, and it's causing the friendship to go deeper.

There's things that Jesus wants to experience with each and every one of us.

That causes the friendship to go deeper, but there's something that you might not know about Jesus, and that is God's love language is obedience.

God's love language is obedience, and he doesn't just want us to do obedience for him.

He wants us to do obedience with him, and as we go through that, that's us building memory with him, that's building a relationship with him as we move forward in obedience.

What we sometimes forget, though, is there's such a joy for those who've experienced that.

You know, there's such a joy when you're really feeling close and tight with Jesus.

If you haven't experienced it, man, stick around, because we're going to talk about it.

But if you've experienced that, something you might forget from time to time is that it's obedience that continues to stoke that fire and increase that sense of relationship.

And then, when we kind of forget about obedience, we're just kind of getting loose with it.

Some of that relational hotness, that tightness, begins to dissipate.

We're like, oh, why don't I feel close to God anymore?

Well, one of the reasons might be is because God's love language is obedience and he wants us to be close to him.

And so today we're going to learn a little bit more about how to do that.

We've been in this series it's our second series on Exodus.

We're kind of like in a middle chunk and in the first series we talked about how the Israelites were tracing their story, coming out of Egypt and trying to make it into this promised land, and we were talking about how that's kind of our story in another way, in a similar way, god delivers us out of an Egypt of sorts, out of our sin, out of our for some of us some great mistakes, places we were bound up.

He delivers us out of them and then he leads us away and he takes us through a desert time, a difficult time, a hard time, where he's teaching us to grow up.

And in that whole time he's teaching us his ways.

He's teaching about himself.

He's going through experiences with us, not just telling us things about himself.

He's taking us through them alongside of him, so that our friendship and our relationship grows.

Well, as the Israelites have come out now, you got to remember that they don't even know as much as you know about their God.

All they know, really okay, they know that this was their four centuries ago.

It was their great grandfather, abraham's God, and even he didn't know much about him.

He just knew that he was called God Almighty and that he seemed to be all-powerful.

He told Abraham hey, man, I want you to go and I'm going to bring you into a land that someday will be your very own.

I'm going to make you father of many nations, even though you can't even have one child.

I'm God Almighty, I promise I'm going to do it.

Well then they learned.

Centuries later, moses learned that God calls himself I am that I am, and he even learned that all the Israelites learned together.

This God is powerful.

Whatever else his deal is, he's powerful, like he's really.

He shows up, he turns the Nile into blood.

He does part the Red Sea, he's got some power.

We ain't never seen power like this before.

See the gods that they're used to dealing with my friends.

Honestly, they're just.

They're just demon gods.

They don't even do very much, but you can tell a lot about them because what they require for religious worship is human sacrifice, child sacrifice, bowing down to little like chess piece gods, idols asking demons for advice that's what religious worship is for the surrounding nations and all the multiple gods they've got.

And so they're coming out of Egypt and they're coming into this desert land, as they're going to the promised land, and they don't know a ton about their God.

And so now God is going to teach them about himself.

He's taught them that he's a deliverer, he's taught them that he's very powerful, and now he's going to teach them a special lesson today, and that is I am holy, and because I'm holy, I make you holy.

And because I make you holy, I want you to behave.

I want you to behave the way that I tell you to behave, because my ways are actually infinitely wise and I know what's best for you.

And if you'll do this, you'll be able to know me more and more and more and more.

You think about it, yo.

He needs to be very certain that these people know okay, I didn't save you because you were already obedient.

In fact, I waited until I already saved you out of Egypt to then begin to teach you my ways and my laws and my commands and my guidelines.

I waited so that you would always know I did not save you because you were doing something right.

I only saved you because I love you.

And, guys, that's the same message to us today through Jesus Christ.

Jesus wants us to know no, you don't need to like start obeying to get better so you can come to Jesus.

You start not having the ability to obey at all and you come to Jesus and say, hey, I got nothing for you, I'm just asking for your forgiveness.

He says great, that's what I wanted.

I saved you long before you were born.

On the cross of Calvary.

I died in your place to pay for your sins, before you'd done anything right or wrong.

I did it to save you, knowing you would do wrong.

And now that you're saved, now that you're walking with me, I want to teach you my ways.

I want to teach you my commands, so you know what friendship with me is really supposed to be like.

I'm going to teach you my expectations, after I already deliver you.

For those of you who are probably most of us in this room, many who are watching online you were born as an American citizen and at some point, your parents or someone who's taking care of you began to teach you the ways of America.

Even if you came into the country later, someone began to teach you the ways of America.

Even if you came into the country later, someone began to teach you the ways of America.

Now, if you were born here, you didn't become an American.

When you started to obey all the laws, you just were an American, and then you lived out of that reality because you know what Americans obey laws.

So that's what you do.

That's what you do Now.

If you break a law, though, you don't become not an American, you're still an American.

Jesus says hey, man, you're not going to do this.

Perfect.

If you don't obey me, perfectly, you don't become not mine, you're still mine.

You belong to me.

You can't lose it, but I'm going to teach you how to do it better.

Somebody say better, so God's going to teach them.

All they've known is he's a God that saves them.

Now he's going to teach them how to be holy, how to be an impact for him.

Let's start in Exodus 19.

The Israelites they've traveled.

They're coming right up to Mount Sinai.

This is where Moses started with God.

This is where he promised he'd bring them back to.

He's about to give them.

God's about to give them his laws, his 10 commandments.

You guys know about this.

He's about to do that, but before that, he wants to prepare them.

So let's pick it up.

Verse one exactly two months after the Israelites left Egypt, they arrived in the wilderness of Sinai.

After breaking camp at Rephidim, they came to the wilderness of Sinai and set up camp at the base of Mount Sinai.

Then Moses climbed the mountain to appear before God.

The Lord called to him from the mountain and said give these instructions to the family of Jacob, announce it to the descendants of Israel.

Those are the same people.

You've seen what I did to the Egyptians.

You know how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.

He says let me remind you, I delivered you with great power and I gently brought you to myself all the way out here.

It was amazing.

Nothing like that had ever happened on planet Earth.

There's no God ever who was able to deliver an entire nation of slaves out of the hands of their masters and lead them away with great power, the way that God did, he says.

I want you to remember that as we go into these next steps, because there are next steps now.

Now I'm going to be revealing to you some other things.

I'm opening your mind to some other parts of the plan.

You've understood a little bit.

Now I'm going to show you some more.

Verse five Now.

If you obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among the peoples of the earth, for all the earth belongs to me.

There's something else he's teaching him about himself.

I'm not a local God, guys.

I'm not like one of these little chess piece gods that you've seen.

I'm God.

Everything is mine.

I just want you to know.

That's who you're dealing with, and what I call you to do is I call you to be this word called holy.

Holy means set apart for God's purposes, to know his ways and to know his plans.

That's what it means to be holy.

We don't have a lot sometimes these days that we think of as holy or really getting what this idea of holy is.

My wife and I love to go to Wildfire when we have a little bit of extra spending cash or somebody sends us a let us entertain you gift card.

One of the first places we're going is Wildfire, because the prime rib guys is just amazing.

I love it.

I can't not get it.

I always I'm like I better get something else, but I ended up getting it anyway.

There's a picture some of you getting hungry right now.

You see that, yeah, you'll notice, though as you look at that picture maybe it's on your screen there's a little bit of fat in there.

You see that Actually it's a lot of fat.

Often when we get the prime rib, there is some chunks of fat that is obviously there.

In fact, you're only eating, like it seems, like three-fourths of it, because a fourth of it is just fat.

They just give it to you.

Now, what I try to do when I'm sitting there wildfire with my beautiful bride and my piece of meat is I'm going to take my knife and cut away and separate.

Somebody say separate.

I'm going to take my knife and cut away and separate.

Somebody say separate.

I'm going to separate the fat because I don't want that.

I didn't come for the fat.

I came for the meat.

I'm going to separate the fat off to the side and really it's just going to get thrown away because I don't want it.

I don't need it.

I came for the meat.

Now God isn't going to eat us, but that's a lot the way holiness works.

He says, okay, I saved you, but I saved you not the sin nature part I want to get rid of.

That, holiness, is separation from our sin.

It's saying I want you to set yourself aside, set your sin aside.

We're just going to move this over here.

In fact, we're just going to throw it away.

The sin is useless to me.

It doesn't help anybody.

It hurts you.

I don't want it.

It's going to be scraped off into the trash bin of hell.

We're just going to get rid of it, because what I want is you and the more we cooperate with him, us kind of behaving or cooperating with his holiness is we're pushing that sin as far as it depends on us.

We can't entirely get rid of it, but we're pushing it away from ourselves and saying, let's, I don't want the fat around us, I just want it to be us.

Let's get rid of that.

Are we hearing this?

If you will now obey me and keep my covenant.

What is that covenant?

That's a special promise.

It's a deal between God and his people, and this is an expansion now that God is talking about.

See, the original covenant was made with Abraham.

He kept his covenant to Abraham to get these people here and to get them out of Egypt, and it's less a new covenant and more of just it's an elaboration on the previous covenant.

God is saying I did that part.

Now let me show you a little bit more about myself.

I'm going to give you deeper understanding of what my plan is in all of the earth.

It started with this little bit I revealed to you, and now I'm going to reveal to you a little bit more.

Theologians call it progressive revelation.

You might have heard this before.

That means God is revealing pieces of his personality and plan throughout the scriptures as we follow from Genesis to Revelation.

He doesn't reveal it all at once.

He's a great storyteller and he wants to reveal little bits of himself at a time.

In 1979, there was one of the greatest movies ever made that was released.

It was called the Empire Strikes Back, and during that movie we find out something that blows our minds, and that is that Darth Vader himself is Luke Skywalker's father.

Now in the Star Wars universe.

That was always true, but nobody knew it until 1979.

Okay, you wait a few years later and we find out that Luke and Leia are space twins.

It was always true.

But now we find out in Return of the Jedi, in kind of a similar way.

God says there's things that were always true about me that I'm slowly revealing to you pieces of the story, pieces of my plan, pieces of my personality.

I'm trying to get you to know it.

In fact, I'm going to keep right on revealing it to you, right until the disciples are staring into the face and the eyes of Jesus Christ.

See, jesus Christ is the final big picture of who God is.

He says you might be misinterpreting some of the stuff that you saw in the Old Testament.

Until you see the final picture, you don't understand the story.

Until you see Jesus, that's what you need.

That's why Paul said in Colossians 1.15, christ is the visible image of the invisible God.

He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation.

It's not until we see Jesus that we finally understand.

Oh, this is the fullness of the revelation.

This is what God was trying to tell us all about himself the whole time.

He saved the best for last.

There's Jesus, isn't he beautiful?

Now I understand better what God was after.

But what he's teaching the Israelites in this time is I don't just call you out of Egypt, I call you to myself.

And as I call you to myself, we cut the fat and separate it so that we can be closer, we can have a purer, more enjoyable relationship.

Verse six really important.

He's going to reveal more of the plan right here.

And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.

This is the message he's telling Moses.

You must give to the people of Israel.

This holy nation.

It's a people that says we're going to honor God even if nobody else does.

We're going to be the people that represent to the whole world.

Kingdom of priests, our job is to what is a priest In their minds?

It's not just somebody who kind of walks around with a religious collar.

In their mind, a priest is a go-between.

It's somebody that goes between God and people.

It's someone who stands in the middle and God says you, you, you, people of God, you're to be my expression, you're the go-between between me and all the rest of the nations, but not so that you keep them away, but so that you can teach them what I'm like, because ultimately, my progressive revelation grand plan is to draw all the nations unto myself.

That's my plan.

Verse seven so Moses returned from the mountain, called together all the elders of the people and told them everything that the Lord had commanded them.

He just calls the elders man.

There's between one and three million people.

So he's like I'm just gonna tell you guys, go disseminate the information as best you can, everything that is coming.

But now we're gonna go into a section of the scripture where God's got to give us some cautionary stuff.

He's got to give us a heads up, and that is in this time, israelites.

It's going to make more sense later, but in this time one does not simply walk into the presence of God.

You just don't do it.

It's a fearful, in fact it is a dangerous thing to willy-nilly, flippantly walk into the presence of a holy God.

There's a warning here.

It's very real.

If you approach God uncovered, if you approach him uncovered by the forgiveness of Jesus, boy, you better do it right, you better watch out, because here's the thing that they don't necessarily understand yet we don't really understand Sin is allergic to God.

Understand.

Yet we don't really understand.

Sin is allergic to God.

Sin is allergic to God.

Sin self-destructs in the presence of God.

And because there's still sin in our members, as we would just flippantly approach God with no covering, we're just going to blow up.

Some of you saw the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

You remember that show and at the very end they open the ark.

Remember, and I almost said Han and Indy and Marion, he's like, close your eyes, don't look at it.

They're trying to respect the presence of God and everybody else's face starts melting.

That's because judgment is coming, because of the presence of God.

That's what happens.

In fact.

That happens in 2.

Samuel Uzzah reaches out to inappropriately grab the ark, not the way that God told him to do it Boom, and he just dies because it is dangerous to approach a holy God, not because he's mad at us, but because sin can't stand in his presence.

If you think about a very hot fire, think about a giant building size fire, if you whip a cup of water at that thing, the water's not even going to make it to the fire, it's going to, it's going to disappear on its way there.

That's what happens to us if we get too close to the glory of God, uncovered by the what?

The blood of Jesus.

If we get too close, uncovered by the blood of Jesus Verse nine.

So here he's going to warn them now.

Okay, then the Lord said to Moses I will come to you in a thick cloud, moses, so the people themselves can hear me when I speak to you.

Then they will always trust you.

God has this thing about people trusting Moses.

Moses is the mediator right now.

He's the go between between.

Just like the people are the go between between God and the nations, moses is the go between between God and the people.

He wants them to always trust Moses.

So he says I'm gonna do stuff for you.

That's cool.

That kind of sets you up as important to me while still trying to draw them near.

Verse 10,.

Then the Lord told Moses go down, prepare the people.

He's like I already went, but go again.

Go again and prepare the people for my arrival.

Consecrate them today and tomorrow and have them wash their clothing.

Be sure that they're ready on the third day.

On that day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai as the people watch.

Mark a boundary, Mark off a boundary, all around the mountain.

Warn the people Be careful, don't go on the mountain or even touch its boundaries.

Anyone who touches the mountain will certainly be put to death.

No hand may touch the person or animal that crosses the boundary.

Instead, stone them or shoot them with arrows.

They must be put to death because it's a big deal.

Baby, respect the presence.

Don't be modeling to other people that you can just disrespect God.

It's a bad idea.

However, when the ram's horn sounds a long blast, then the people may go up the mountain.

It's trippy that God.

It's actually three times that Moses returns to the people and tells them essentially the same thing.

Like hey, man, get ready.

There's a little bit of details as he moves on, but essentially, get ready.

God keeps telling them the same thing, and that seems a little redundant until we consider the fact I don't know, dude, like God tells me the same thing all the time.

Like it's not that I don't know God's commands, you know what I'm saying, but he'll still sharpen me.

You should just go ahead and obey this.

Am I alone in the room?

Is there anybody else who's like God has told you a thousand times and he just keeps telling you patiently.

But what is he saying?

He's saying I don't want you to get hurt.

Sin hurts, sin hurts you.

Sin is always gonna blow up in your face.

I don't want you to get hurt.

So I'll just keep on telling you, I'll just keep on letting you know.

Hey, don't do it.

You did it again.

Okay, I forgive you, don't do it.

Don't do it again.

Don't think that because my judgment didn't fall right then that I'm down with it.

I'm just redorculously patient.

God doesn't usually say redorculously, but he says it today, verse 14.

So Moses went down to the people.

He consecrated them for worship and they washed their clothes and he told them get ready for on the third day and until then abstain from having sexual intercourse.

We'll walk through those in a second.

Verse 16,.

On the morning of the third day, thunder roared and lightning flashed and a dense cloud came down the mountain.

There was a long, loud blast to the ram's horn and all the people trembled.

Moses led them out from the camp to meet with God.

They stood at the foot of the mountain.

God's love language is obedience, and because God prioritizes holiness, we, like them, have to prioritize holiness.

Here's number one A function of holiness is to enjoy next level friendship with God A function of holiness.

Why should we be holy To enjoy a next level friendship with God?

A function of holiness?

Why should we be holy To enjoy a next level friendship with God?

What is he trying to do with these people?

He's trying to draw them near.

He wants them to know him and part of that is that word consecration.

That means I'm going to separate, and when we consecrate I'm separating myself from the patterns and the ways of people who don't care about God or the ways of God or the kingdom of God.

It's not that I'm alone all the time.

It just means I see some of the ways people behave around me and I'm saying I'm not going to behave in those ways, I'm not going to make those choices that God disagrees with, because I want to be consecrated unto him.

Drawing near to God without separating ourselves from sin guys it's like it's an oxymoron, doesn't totally make sense.

There's nothing where you draw near to God and you continue in sin, or at least continue liking it.

We can keep drawing near to God because of Christ, but there should always be a like.

But I don't like this.

Even when my like sinful old man likes it, part of me hates it.

I don't want that to happen.

And if you don't feel that yet, that's okay, but you will not want to ask for that today.

That's that new birth, that internal birth that makes us not want, makes us hate evil.

Why?

Because it's my behavior that communicates that I'm a friend of God.

It's not my lips, it's my behavior that communicates that I'm actually God's friend.

How many know that's true?

Well, let me just show you in God's word.

How about that?

John 14, 15,.

Jesus says if you love me, keep my commands.

He doesn't say talk about it.

He says if you love me, keep my commands.

He doesn't say talk about it.

He says if you love me, keep my commands.

The writer of Hebrews warns us in chapter 12, verse 14, make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy.

Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.

Uh-oh, I like the message.

Version of 1 John 2, 6.

John speaking says anyone who claims to be intimate with God ought to live.

The same.

Version of 1 John 2, 6.

John speaking says anyone who claims to be intimate with God ought to live the same kind of life Jesus lived, because God's love language is obedience.

That means there's a danger, my friends that we can fool ourselves because of maybe what we've seen, what we've seen modeled.

We can say, you know, dude, god's just going to forgive you anyway, so just do whatever you want to do.

You can do that.

And I don't really care about being God's friend, because friendship is proven by how we behave.

When I was in high school just going into high school I was a brand new freshman and you know what it's like when you're that age those of you who are older than that you remember you're kind of very concerned what people think.

Like you're just, you can't stop thinking what other people are thinking.

And I had this really good friend in grade school.

I mean, we were tight.

I was the guy.

Somebody messes with him.

I'm jumping in and we're going for it.

Man, we're going to brawl because you don't touch my friend, you don't talk to my friend that way.

But when I got into high school there was just some other what I thought were cool kids and I wanted to be around them and hang around them, and so I just began to be a little bit aloof from my other friend and as I was doing that, it wasn't what I wanted to say, but part of what I was saying is your friendship isn't really that important to me.

I'm ignoring you so I can be with these cool people, my friends.

When we just give ourselves to disobedience, when we know God says don't do that, we're saying, lord, I hear what you're saying, but right now your friendship is not very important to me.

What is important is that I'm able to do this with these guys.

Of course I regret that, but how much more should we regret every time we do that to Jesus?

Holiness is one of the reasons Jesus came into the world.

It's not like an add-on, it's not like an extra plug-in.

Listen to this 2 Corinthians 5.15,.

And he died for all that.

Those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him, who died for them and was raised again.

He died so that we would no longer live for ourselves.

One of the things that Moses told the Israelites was he died so that we would no longer live for ourselves.

One of the things that Moses told the Israelites was like hey, temporarily it wasn't permanent, not forever forever.

Temporarily abstain from sexual relations Within your marriage bed, even there, abstain from sex.

The purpose of that was focused.

We see this several times throughout the scriptures, probably like four times, when, as a form of a fast, people say hey, hey, man, don't even have sex, like I want you so focused on the Lord.

Like, curtail all your appetites and focus them on God for a period of time so you can demonstrate Lord, I don't want anything in the way of you and me.

Whatever I've got to cut off it's not normally fat, but I'm cutting this off temporarily so I can be tight and close with you.

I'm not saying what that is for you and it's definitely not sex if you're married.

Okay, if you're not married, it definitely is sex.

But whatever the spirit of God would lead you to to temporarily abstain from, I don't think you should do it, man, go for it, abstain from that thing.

Now, some of us, it's genuinely just sin, like you know what it is, you already know.

Take this as your confirmation.

Yeah, abstain from that, completely Get rid of that.

But for others, it might just be something that I can't explain why.

I don't know why God is he's asking me to think about this now and deal with this now.

For some of us, it might just be materialism.

It might be, instead of just always diving in, just even asking the question do I need that though I know I could get it Do I need it?

Or is that just filling something in my soul that I could protect for God to fill?

Maybe for others of us you're dealing with just busyness.

You know like, hey, man, you know me and God, we're a thing, but I got to get this stuff done, I got to get that project out.

I got to and I hear that you do got to.

And yet sometimes, my friends, god is calling us even to neglect some of our work priorities and he's saying come to me, come to me, I want us to work on us.

Abstain from that thing, even that good thing, abstain from it for a little while, because closeness together is important.

And they went and washed their clothes.

Some of it is just straight up cleanup.

God's just like I'm done with this.

Get rid of it.

This isn't appropriate anymore.

And sometimes that stuff like bitterness and unforgiveness God's like you've been harboring this unforgiveness.

Okay, just so you know like I'm not down with that.

I hear that you were hurt.

Now I need you to forgive.

I need you to like, process this, do whatever you gotta do, keep on forgiving and get out of this circle of death that you're in.

For others it might be.

We're feeling a little bit stuck and God is just saying why don't you ever ask me, like, why don't you ask me about your career direction?

Why don't you just keep doing whatever you want?

Why don't you just ask and say Lord, just in case you have something to say?

I just want to make it a pattern.

I don't just choose for myself everything.

You might not say anything, you're not going to send an angel to blow a trumpet in my face, but I just want to have the respect for my friend enough to say, hey, I just keep on jumping to things and maybe I should just wait patiently and ask, and the Lord would tell me because of my friend, or he'd open the door or he'd send somebody to say it.

Maybe there's even some friends that you love God love them, jesus loves them.

But the truth is they're having a more negative influence on you than you're having a positive influence on them, and Jesus is like hey, man, I love them and I'll take care of them.

But as for you, get away from that which hurts our friendship.

If they're sucking you into evil, then politely excuse yourself from those events and come unto me.

Is this helping anybody today?

From time to time I don't know what it is at the Carter House, we have a hard time with dishwashers.

I don't mean the humans that wash dishes, I mean the appliances that wash dishes.

It seems like we can't even have a dishwasher very long before something goes wrong.

Something begins like it's just not working right.

You know the dishes aren't totally clean, something has gone wrong inside there and invariably we end up having to call the dishwasher repairman and he has to come out and has to tell us what's going on.

I don't know what's going on.

I look at him like I don't know, dude, unless there's like you know, obviously like a drawer off or like there's a cat stuck in the middle or something like that.

I don't.

I don't know what's wrong.

But there dishwasher man comes and he says I know that normally you're supposed to be able to wash your own dishes.

But let me help, let me point out what needs to be changed.

Maybe it's just a little wheel that needs screwed back on, maybe it's something else, something mechanical on the insides.

But let me advise, let me help you get rid of that which is obstructing your cleaning of your life.

And, my friends, here's what you don't want to do.

You don't want to do all your house cleaning of your soul without Jesus.

You don't want to just have ideas.

You want to say Jesus, you are the cosmic dishwasher repairman.

My evil messes with me so much that I don't even know always what's wrong with me, like I don't know what's going on in there.

Jesus, would you come and just point out what do you want to work on?

Yeah, I could come up with 10 things that probably need to improve, but what is on your agenda today?

What's going to get this thing spinning faster and better and producing cleaner stuff?

Come on somebody.

God's love language is obedience.

So number one a function of holiness is to enjoy next level friendship with God.

Number two function of holiness is to display Jesus' light to the world.

There's a reason he said kingdom of priests because the reason God is teaching them his ways is so the other nations of the world can see the wisdom of God's ways.

So the other nations of the world can see the wisdom of God's ways and be drawn like a little bug to a light, drawn to the light that comes through the wisdom of God, but that comes through the people of God See the light.

We got to understand the light is Jesus.

It's not us.

We are the light of the world, but the real light is in us, shining out of us as we obey and cooperate with God's ways of holiness.

Then he shows people.

This is what I'm like, and for many it's that very difference that is attractive.

God is doing something in their heart.

That's like wow, that's just different.

I like that.

But it works the other way too.

Lack of holiness does harm.

It hurts Some of you.

You've heard about this.

It feels like it's happening a lot lately, but just a couple of weeks ago there was another pastor in the news, robert Morris.

Some of you know about this.

I'm not trying to rub anything in his face.

I'm neither dismissing anything or trying to like hammer him.

I'm just using it as an example of when someone does great harm, like he did.

He was sexually inappropriate with a 12-year-old girl years ago.

Now it's come out and this dude's like had major influence on the body of Christ and that's gone.

But it's not only gone, it's not just neutralized.

There's damage that comes in the wake of that.

All the people that feel betrayed, all the people that feel tricked, all the people that feel like, wow, I trusted this, supposed to be man of God, and he was keeping this from everybody.

Yeah, it does damage, it hurts.

Now I say that not to like.

Let's all be mad about that this afternoon.

It's rather to say I know that you're not maybe at that level of influence, but that doesn't mean your life does not influence other people and things.

There's still people watching.

There's still people looking at you and be like what is a Christian?

Let's see, let's watch.

What do they think Jesus cares about?

I'm going to learn from them and they're watching.

Think Jesus cares about.

I'm going to learn from them and they're watching.

At the same time, holiness communicates great things to the rest of the world, even if they don't quite recognize the name of Christ.

It's my behavior that communicates that I'm a representative of God.

It's not my words.

It's my behavior that communicates that I'm a representative of God.

Many of you know about Nelson Mandela.

Okay, he opposed segregation and was then jailed for it for 27 years.

After he was released, he committed to forgiveness and reconciliation.

He became the first black president of South Africa.

And because of his commitment to forgiveness and reconciliation he became the first black president of South Africa and because of his commitment to forgiveness, his commitment to reconciliation, he was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

Now, he wasn't necessarily chanting the name of Christ, but the world took notice of wow, that's just man, the character it takes to do that, to survive that and then forgive that and then work to bring people together.

That's just otherworldly.

And it was applauded and it was received because of it was.

What was it?

It was a light.

It was light that said walk this way, this is the right way, walk this way and that's what our lives should do and could do.

And so maybe for you, dude, it's I'm going to keep serving just because people are watching, not necessarily because I want to.

I'm going to be a positive impact on my work environment because they're also doggone negative.

I want them to see something else.

Or I'm going to be the person who.

I see that there's these kids around my neighborhood.

I'm going to start paying them to rake my lawn, not because I need them to, but because I want a chance to maybe talk to them, maybe mentor them a little bit.

I'm going to be the one in my organization that I'm just not going to cut corners.

People cut corners.

I'm not going to cut corners because I want people to know the excellence of my God.

I know the teenagers around me.

They're trying not to cave, but they are caving to the pressures of sex and drugs and all the things that the enemy wants to sow now to disqualify them later.

And maybe, if you're a teen, you're saying I'm just going to resist, I'm just going to be someone for thinking about people of the future and how my witness is going to matter.

Holiness, guys, are we seeing how important this is?

It produces next level friendship with God.

It retains the light within us to keep us a light for the world.

But here's maybe the best news this isn't something you need to go get today, because Jesus has already consecrated you and called you friend if you are in Christ.

Do we know this?

See, jesus is the only one.

Jesus is the true Israelite.

Jesus is the one who fulfilled the purposes of the father, the Israelites.

If we go and look at the old Testament, they ultimately didn't do it Like they couldn't do the things that God was asking them to do.

They just qualified themselves more of the time than not.

They weren't a nation of priests to all nations.

It wasn't until Jesus, the true son, the true son of God, appeared.

He fulfilled all those promises.

He fulfilled the law, but he also fulfilled all the purposes of God.

And finally, there was a call to the nations come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden.

Hebrews 12 speaks about this very text that we've been studying today.

It's in the New Testament, though, and it's looking back, and this is what it says about it, speaking to Christians like you if you're a Christian, you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire, to darkness and gloom and storm, to a trumpet blast, or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word would be spoken to them, because they couldn't not bear to hear what was commanded.

If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.

The sight was so terrifying that Moses said I'm trembling with fear, but you've come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem.

You've come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, which is Jesus Christ, whose names are written in heaven.

You've come to God, the judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.

And here it is.

That'd be scary right up until this verse.

To Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Jesus' blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

You remember the blood of Abel?

The blood of Abel.

He was murdered by his brother, cain, and so his blood spilled into the ground and soaked into the earth, and his blood cries out murderer, murderer.

But you know, I've got blood on my hands too, and you've got blood on your hands too, and the blood on our hands cries out things like adulterer, hater, racist, tyrant, betrayer.

But Jesus' blood cries out something higher and better.

It cries out forgive them, forgive them, father.

They know not what they do.

Blood for blood, life for life.

Here's my blood, father.

Take my blood instead, and my blood will cover the blood on their hands and say, father, forgive them, because they know not what they do.

See, the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is the work of Christ.

Christ is the one who makes it so dude.

We don't have to work for 20 hours to go into a place called the Holy of Holies.

We can walk right into the presence of God filled with confidence and joy assured.

Walk right into the presence of God filled with confidence and joy, assured of his glad welcome.

This God loves me and accepts me, and I don't have to stand back a distance from a mountain.

I can come right up into his embrace Because of Jesus Christ.

His resurrection should lead to a choice, a choice for you and for me to live holy, to cut the fat to the degree that we're aware of it, trusting that he is going to make us perfect along the way and we'll be perfect with him forever in heaven.

But until then, in heaven, you know you don't have the choice anymore.

Right now you have the choice to worship him with obedience, at work, at home, online, in your everyday life.

God be praised.

We're not working for his favor, we're working from it.

Let's bow our heads.

Father, thank you so much for your mercy.

Thank you, jesus, that your blood, oh, my gosh, your blood, it's your blood that takes away the cry of the blood on our hands.

God, we wanna ask for your help.

We thank you that we live now where we have the help of the Holy Spirit.

We ask in Jesus' name for every area in everyone's life watching, listening.

Later on here in the auditorium, put your finger on the places that you want to cleanse, that you want us to be done with, that you want us to abstain from, even if only for a little while.

Put your finger on it, lord, and then help us so that we can be passionate, legendary best friends with you.

In Jesus' name, amen us and being his witness in our generation.

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Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it.

Don't give up.

Hang on to Jesus.

He won't let go of you.

Jesus loves you so much and we love you.

I hope someday we get to meet in person.