Ever Before Us

So, Deuteronomy 6, 8, and 9.

We're kind of wrapping up this Shema, this greatest commandment that uh the we have in all of Scripture.

So, what we saw is that this is really broken down into three parts.

You have this first part is here's who I am, God revealing himself as one God.

And in light of that, because I'm revealing myself to who you are, I'm now telling you how you should respond to me.

That's to love him with our entire being.

So to know God and to love him is the greatest command that he has ever given to us.

Now that that's a that's a huge statement, right?

Because if we ask, what is Christianity all about, we might get all kinds of different answers.

To provide clean water throughout the earth, right?

Or social justice and to be able to uh make sure that everyone has equal rights and opportunity, or maybe it's uh to make sure that the homeless are sheltered or that the poor are fed.

We might get all kinds of different responses, but the epitome of Christianity is to know God as he's revealed himself to be and to love him in response to that revelation.

Every other thing about our Christian life, our character, our works, every other aspect should flow from that pursuit.

To love God and to know him in response.

But then he starts breaking down in verses uh six through nine.

How do we do that well, though, as Christians?

How is that actually accomplished in our lives?

And we looked last week in six and seven, and we saw where God's word starts to be this central figure in that pursuit.

God's word is so crucial to our understanding of Him and our ability to fulfill that commandment.

And eight and nine, he doubles down, right?

He he talks about that it's not just to obey it, to have it on your heart to read it, but it's to be bound by it, to actually be bound by his word.

Now, when we look at eight and nine, and we're really when we look at the scriptures in general, we have to understand that there's two different ways that we can approach discerning the scriptures.

We can go by what's known as the letter of the law.

When we look at God's commands, what's the letter of the law?

That's what he actually says.

And then we have the spirit of the law.

These are two different approaches that we can take to understanding and discerning God's word.

Now, we have this propensity to believe that the letter of the law is actually a higher standard, and that that's something that legalism is kind of tethered to.

And that us in a New Testament church want to really understand more the spirit of the law.

But I would submit that the reason we do that is because we actually believe the spirit of the law has less strict standards and is easier for us to apply grace to when we don't meet it.

Right?

Well, the spirit, what God's really trying to say is this over here.

And so we use that as this ploy or we use this as this mechanism to be able to live non-obedient lives a lot of the time.

However, we have to understand that it's actually the spirit of the law that has higher standards than the letter of the law.

The letter of the law, when it's taken literally, often causes us to have an unemotional response to it and have a loophole focus on it.

How can I get past this?

This is what really God says.

So when we look at things like sexual purity, we'll look at how close can we get to that line without actually breaking the law when we have a letter of the law focus.

But the letter of the law actually has lower standards than the actual spirit of the law that God gives us.

So let's just look for an example at Jesus' clarification of sexual purity in Matthew 5.

He says, You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery.

So if we take that part right there, the letter of the law is don't have sexual intercourse with someone you're not married to, right?

We can just take that as letter of the law.

But the spirit of the law, but I say to you, Jesus, Jesus says, that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

You see, the spirit of the law actually raises the standard where the letter of the law, if we take it literally, often causes us to have an unemotional response.

We we kind of we don't we have absent affection for what the law is trying to actually do for us in our lives.

And then we have this loophole focus.

What can I do without actually breaking this?

What in my life could I do or partake in or act in without actually breaking this law itself?

Now, when we look at this passage, these scriptures eight and nine, you shall bind this to your hand, it shall be as a front lip between your eyes, it shall be written on your doorpost.

The Jewish people took this very literally.

They still take this very literally.

In fact, uh, do we have that picture, Jay?

We don't have that picture.

Okay, so I had this picture keyed up, but it was of the Jewish Tephalon.

If anybody understand uh seen this before, they have these two boxes, and in these boxes are handwritten scrolls uh of different aspects of Scripture.

There's a passage out of Deuteronomy that's usually in there, actually, two passages out of Deuteronomy that's uh usually in there, and then we'll find a passage out of Exodus in there as well.

These three scrolls are handwritten, placed in these boxes, and then they have these leather straps that go down their arm and they bound around their finger, and then they put one box right between their eyes here on their forehead, and they bind it with leather around their head.

They literally bind the law, the word, to themselves.

You see, this is a literal approach.

Now, I'm not trying to necessarily uh discredit that practice or to cast any type of doubt on the Jewish people's affections for God's word, who do practice that literal reality of fulfilling this command.

But what I want to say is that sometimes we take this same approach with God's commands of this literalness where we could bind the word of God to ourselves literally and physically all day without ever fostering affection for it.

We could bind it literally and physically to our bodies while still trying to create some type of loophole focus of, well, do I do it in the morning?

Do I do it at night?

When is actual fulfillment of it?

It's so forth, so and then we start nitpicking and critiquing instead of absorbing and growing affection for the spirit of the law, that is actually a higher standard than the letter itself.

So seeking to understand the spirit of the law will not just raise the standard of obedience, but over time will actually cultivate three things.

And here's what I think they are.

Number one is a healthier distance from sin and death.

If we look at the spirit of the law over the letter of the law, it'll cultivate a healthier distance from sin and death.

And this kind of speaks out of some youth group experience, right?

How many of you guys ever was like a youth group leader or were in youth group and you were asking all those questions, like, what can I do with my girlfriend, but not really break what God's saying, right?

And so, what was the whole point of youth group?

Whole point of youth group is to find that line and just write it one-footed, like, you know, that's what you're trying to do.

The whole, well, I didn't really, well, I didn't necessarily.

Instead of looking at the spirit of the law, that if we looked at the spirit of the law, we'd look at the line and we'd want to get as far away from it as possible because we understand the actual intent of what God was trying to communicate to us.

That if you entrap yourself with these things, death is knocking at your door.

So, number two, we would build a stronger affection for its attent.

We would love God's protection of us.

We would love God's word that gives us life.

We would love God's fatherly care for his children.

When we look at not the letter, God's this taskmaster who puts all these laws and these commands on top of us through his word.

No, no, no, no.

We look at God as a father who loves us and he wouldn't share these things with us if he didn't care for us and want immense, unexplainable joy and peace that surpasses any circumstance that we could go through.

If he didn't want us flourishing in all of our life, God would have withheld such beauty from us.

And then thirdly, it would elicit a joy-filled response in obedience.

If we looked at the spirit of the law, not simply just at the letter, we would have such a joy-filled response in obedience to it.

Because obedience is life, obedience is flourishing.

Obedience is intimacy.

Now, as we go into this passage, we want to look at the spirit of the law over the letter.

We don't want to look at literally binding ourselves with the Lord.

If you do that, that's fine, right?

If you have like a valore jumpsuit of Psalm 119, that's fine.

If that's how you want to bind yourself, or maybe many of you have different pictures all over your home and frames that you bought at uh uh uh what is that place?

Oh man.

Hobby lobby.

You know it, girl.

And I've just got all kinds of verses on my home.

My doorposts are covered in the word, son.

You don't even understand, right?

Uh but let's look at the spirit of the law a little bit as we try to unpack this.

So the first thing that we need to see in verse eight, if we're to summarize this, is that personal obedience is primary in kingdom impact.

Personal obedience is primary in kingdom impact.

He says, bind this, what is this?

This command to know God and to love him in response with our entire being.

Bind this to your hand and put it as a frontlet between your eyes.

We have to understand that there can be no change to the other spheres of our lives without personal change first.

We have to take primary responsibility in seeing the word of God transform us.

You see, the reality is that for those of us who love reform theology, right, and we put a we put a lot of stake at God's sovereignty and his providence.

And when we look at our own salvation, we say that this was not any work of my own, but this was all the grace of God.

Those are true things, but we have to look at the purpose of our election was that we might be conformed to his image.

That was the purpose of our election, that we might be conformed, that we might walk in the good works of which he has laid out before us since the foundations of the earth.

So transformation must first be personal.

It's also an integral part of our vision and mission.

So we look at Sacred Mission Church, we say this as part of our vision and mission, that Sacred Mission Church exists because we believe that God is on mission by the power of his spirit to rescue and redeem his people, transforming us into the image of his son, so that, so that, so what's culture begins to take on the image of his kingdom.

That that reality that our personal transformation is dependent to produce kingdom transformation in our culture is an integral part of who we are.

We transform through obedient conformity before we see kingdom expansion anywhere else.

And this is a huge problem in our culture right now.

This is a huge problem in the evangelical church.

We want kingdom fruit without kingdom submission.

You see, when we look at the uh movements that are happening for civil rights or for equality inside of our society, we want to see the fruit of the kingdom.

We want to see that all men are actually loved and treated as equal, not some constitutional thing, but that the way God sees us as equal in value, dignity, and worth, and that we are loved and treated.

We want to see all of this happen throughout our city, throughout our state and nation.

However, we fail to see that for that to happen, kingdom submission must come first.

We'll never have kingdom expression without kingdom submission.

Now, Jesus, uh, or what we see in this command following here is that Moses instructs the people that you shall bind them as a sign in your hand.

And as I was thinking about kind of the imagery of this command, this aspect of how we would fulfill this well, the best thing you can think of really is your wedding ring, right?

Think about your wedding ring, this covenantal sign that you bind to your hand, to know that when you look at it, you know that this is you're in covenant relationship with someone.

You know that there's a person on the other side of that that you've promised to love in sickness and in health till death do his part, right?

This is a reality of an image of something, a command bound to you, a promise that's been made bound to you.

And there's a lot at stake, right?

There's a lot at stake when we take this off of our finger and we go out to a bar.

Well, what was your intentions?

What were you doing?

Why were you removing that symbol?

Why were you removing that covenantal promise from your body?

So that you could get away potentially without fulfilling it, so that you wouldn't have to be reminded of it as you pursued lesser loves.

This covenant that God wants us to bind, this command, he wants us to bind it to our hands.

Now, this is interesting because the original language in this was distinctly referring to a man's hand.

It wasn't in the female tense, it was in the masculine tense that is actually referring to a male hand.

If you see in very orthodox Jewish culture, it is only men who can adorn the Teflon.

The only ones who can put the boxes on their arms and on their uh foreheads are men.

Now, there is a movement, if you go and start Google searching this, right?

You'll there is a movement of women trying to step up and fill that space or be able to participate in those things, but Orthodox tradition dictates that this was for the men.

And this speaks to the reality that the Father bears the responsibility and leads the charge.

I mean, if there's going to be anybody who steps up in the morning and binds themselves with God's word, it has to be us.

It has to be us, that we have this affection for the commands of God, that we have this joy-filled response and obedience to these commands of God.

We have to bind it on ourselves first because we set the tone for our entire house.

Whatever we do, our family's gonna follow suit, right?

We we it whatever we pour ourselves out into, whatever affections that we demonstrate for things, our family's going to as well.

And so we have to be the first ones who bind ourselves with God's word.

Now, as we look at our hands, men, husbands, fathers, as we look at our hands, what do we see?

Take a moment.

Place your hands before you.

You see overwork?

Do you see anger and force?

Do you see control and power?

Do you see infidelity and lust?

Or when we place our hands before us, do we see hands that are committed to knowing God, loving Him, and teaching our family to do the same?

You see, our hands say a lot about us.

Every day we put our hand to the plow of something to see the fruit of something on the other side of it.

And so we as men need to be the first ones who step up to bind the word of God.

It says, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

The Bible speaks very clearly about the word's effects on the mind and transformation, right?

When when we look at how we are supposed to renew our mind, is by and through the word of which we renew our mind.

We're challenged to not be conform to this world.

Romans 12, 2 says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Our mind is the front line of war for transformation that produces obedience.

When we look at how we communicate the gospel, we see it in three spheres.

We see it head, heart, hands.

The gospel has to first penetrate our minds.

It has to start here.

If we don't comprehend, if we don't understand what the gospel is, what God's word is, it's not going to facilitate itself into a heart, a desire, something that is affections within us, right?

And then at that, it's never gonna come out of our hands and the way that we perform actions.

Think about this in every area of life.

Something grasps your mind, you can't stop thinking about it.

It has entered and lodged itself into your framework of thinking, and then all of a sudden it starts to become a desire of yours.

How you want it, you crave it, you long for it.

And then what are you gonna do?

Whatever it takes so that your hands can produce it.

This is how we work as human beings, and so the front line of warfare for obedience is our minds.

We have to think through what are we taking in?

What are we consuming in our media?

What are we reading, watching, listening to?

Because I can guarantee you that the word of God is at a dramatic negative loss to everything else that we're taking in throughout the day.

We are constantly filling our time and our space with noise, right?

We can't work.

How many of you are working from home and you've got to have music on all the time when you're working from home?

Anybody?

No?

Just me?

Yeah, some of us?

Okay, cool.

So yeah, you just have, I don't work from home, actually, I work from upstairs, but I still have music on all the time.

Because like silence is just icky.

Like, no one likes silence, right?

If you're now we're so conditioned to where, like, if we have any moment of silence, we pull out our phone and we try to distract ourselves from the silence.

We just don't like it.

We hate it.

And so we're constantly filling our minds with stuff.

The Bible also speaks though about our vision, and it's important to prosper in a godly life.

Proverbs 29:18 says that where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint.

Proverbs 29:18

But blessed is he who what?

Keeps the law.

Keeps the law.

So where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint.

Where there is no word of God before the people, death surely follows.

That's another way that you can understand that passage.

What was the prophetic vision?

The prophetic vision was who is God, as he's revealed himself to be, and how has he communicated for us to live?

And there were seasons throughout the Jewish people's existence where the word of God was kept from them, the commands of God were kept from them.

We look at young King Josiah as he saw the, as he discovered the commands of God, the fervor and zeal that came up for him.

And what happened?

Wickedness started to be corrected because there was vision brought before the people once again, so that they could live obedient lives.

Where there is no word of God, surely death will follow.

And when we see this, this command, frontlets between your eyes, we actually see this isn't the only place that we see this charge or this command to actually take place.

There's three total instances in the Old Testament where we see God commanding his people to do this.

And I think it tells a story when we look at it a little bit closer.

So the first place we see it is in Exodus 13.

And it's their deliverance from Egypt.

So as God had delivered them with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm out of from under the oppressive rule of Pharaoh, he tells them, I've delivered you.

Mark down and write down this deliverance, this act of mercy and power, and never forget it.

Keep it as a frontlet between your eyes.

What is that for us?

That's our testimony.

When we were under the bondage of sin, when we were at the command and beckon of death, when we were enslaved in our rebellion, Christ, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, delivered us out of the depths of death by grace.

By grace, we have been delivered from our own Egypt.

It is the blood of the Lamb wiped on the doorposts, the frame of our hearts, that has caused and allowed death to pass over us, that we might walk out of our Egypt as free people.

The second place that we see this is in Deuteronomy 6.

And this is where we've been studying here in four through nine.

This is the command to know and to love him.

This is our conformity.

Our conformity to Christ.

To know him and to love him in response.

Like we talked about earlier, that this purpose of our salvation is that we might be conformed to the image of him.

So as we walk out sanctification, as we try to actually belabor ourselves in obedience to his commands, as we try to grow in affection for his word, conformity should follow.

But the third place we see this is in Deuteronomy 11.

And this talks about the blessing that comes from obedience.

The blessing that comes from obedience.

What is that?

That's our inheritance.

Freely given to us because of Christ's perfect obedience in our place.

We are inheritors of the riches and glories of Christ Jesus, who through the cross purchased for himself every spiritual blessing and then freely gives it to us as his people.

That's our inheritance.

And so if we look at this from our own perspective as a New Testament Christian, then we would see that the three things, our testimony, our conformity, and our inheritance should be bound and placed before us as frontlets between our eyes.

In summary of verse 9, we would see that our homes and our communities are to be distinguished by obedience.

Our homes and communities are to be distinguished by obedience.

So this is you should write them on your doorposts, you shall have them on your gates.

You see, our personal transformation should create public transformation.

First in our homes and then in our communities.

The word of God cannot be rightly believed personally without seeing it manifested publicly.

That's just not a reality for the Christian faith.

If we are going to be true Christians and we're going to have a right faith and understanding of ourselves and our identity in Christ, then it has to produce itself in impact of where we are, impact of our homes and impact of our communities.

If we're not seeing impact in our home and impact in our community of more conformity and obedience to who God is and how he's revealed himself to be, we need to really question the authenticity of our own faith.

Many of us make these claims of our faith, right?

And the Bible constantly comes back and says, if this is true, if what you're saying is true, then this is a fruit that should follow.

How can you say you love God but hate your brother?

You can't do that, right?

John helps us understand.

You can't say one thing and then do something else as if the thing you said was true.

No, the thing you said was a lie, if this is the pro uh the fruit that produces from it.

So if we are gonna say that we are Christians, that we believe in the transformation power of Christ's gospel and the Holy Spirit that now lives within us, then there should be kingdom impact in our homes and in our communities to follow.

If not, we believe in no gospel at all.

A pathetic savior who has no real power to change us or our circumstance.

Says you shall write them on the doorposts of your home.

This is this like place you reside, right?

We talked about in the first and six and seven, when you sit in your house.

You shall talk about these things when you sit in your house.

This is a talking about the structure of your home should be built around God's word.

The word of God should be a central structure in our home.

We talked a little bit about this last week, but what are we centering our homes around?

Your home is centered around something.

Your home is either centered around Ohio State Game Day, your home is centered around dad not being bothered when he comes home from work, your home is centered around something, right?

Something your home is centered around.

What is it?

We have to work and labor to see our home centered around the word of God.

In our rising, in our sitting in our house, in our laying down, the word of God has to be a central structure in our home.

It talks about and on your gates, coming and going.

Right?

Walk by the way was in six and seven.

As you walk by the way, speak of these things.

The word of God must be a force of transformation in our community.

Gates is this passage from your residence into your community.

The word of God should actually inform and transform the communities that we live in.

If we are a people that are bound by the word of God, allowing ourselves to be transformed by this word in obedience to it, then it should impact our communities that we live in as well.

You see, the thrust of this morning, the main idea that we have is that God's word is to be ever before us, so that self, home, and community know God and love him in response.

God's word is to be ever before us, bound in our hand, as frontless between our eyes, written on our doorposts, written on our gates, ever before us, so that self, home, and community know God and love him in response.

We cannot seek to fulfill the greatest command God has given to us without the word being applied to the individual, the family, and the community.

We can't do it.

This is what I want us to walk away with.

The greatest effort that we can put forth as Christians is to know God and love Him in response.

And we can't, and what God is showing us in this passage, in the Shema, we can't do that if we don't love, cherish, and treasure his word.

You can try all you want.

But let me tell you something.

The gospel is real because human effort was never enough.

We can try to love God all we want, in our own strength, in our own effort, in our own workings and toils, but the gospel is real because it showed us we could never do it.

We needed someone who could do it for us.

You see, it is the word of God that binds us.

Like the command to have the word bound to us, it is literally the word that binds us.

If we look at Psalm 119, 11, I have stored up your word in my heart.

Why?

That I might not sin against you.

Why did he store up the word in his heart?

Why was he bound in purity and righteousness?

Because of the word, so that he might not sin against God, the psalmist declares.

It's the word that sets our path.

We cannot walk by the way without uh righteously without the word.

Psalm 119, continuing on in the same Psalm 105.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Praise God.

God's word is so important to us as Christians.

It has to be.

If we're ever going to truly make any effort and ground in knowing him and loving him in response with our entire being, in binding us and setting our path, we are able and equipped to live out the command of God to know him and love him in response.

But this is our story.

This is our story.

Many of us, we formally reject God's word.

We formally reject God's word.

Now, look, I understand many of you are here sitting in these seats and you're saying, well, no, we don't, we don't reject God's word.

We're Christians.

We're obviously at church this morning where everybody else might be live streaming from their PJs.

We're the real Christians who showed up, not afraid, right?

We don't formally reject God's word.

And we might think, obviously, an unbeliever is a person who rejects God's word, who says that whatever is in that Bible is not for me.

I'm going to believe something else.

And we can try to only understand that in that context.

However, I want to submit that some of us even call ourselves Christians, but reject the truth claims of the Bible.

We believe that we can shape and form Christianity into whatever we want it to be, because we believe that we ourselves are actually the authority of what truth is.

Rather than being servants and being subject to the truth claims of the Bible, we do not, as individuals, seek to reform the church or reform Christianity.

We actually seek to recreate it altogether.

It's staggering what you'll find.

So this is 2020.

They had stopped it a little bit early because of COVID, but this is fresh 2020 results.

Here's some statements that they asked people do you believe or agree with?

Number one, everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.

Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.

Of evangelicals polled, 46% believe that statement to be true.

That's almost 50% of evangelicals believe that statement to be true.

So, I mean you can argue, that's not that big of a deal.

Maybe, maybe so.

We kind of have our differing opinions, right?

If you're Arminian or Calvinistic, whatever it might be, all of us might be on the naughty list.

Some of us might have made Santa's good list this year.

But what about this one?

Gender identity is a matter of choice.

22% of Christians say they're Christians believe that that is true.

This one is a deal breaker.

Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.

30% of evangelicals believe that to be true.

You're not a Christian if you don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God, God Himself in the flesh.

That's one third.

We wonder why Christianity in America is in the state that it's in.

Maybe because one third of us or more just aren't even Christians.

And this one, staggering as well.

God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

42% of evangelicals say that that's a true statement.

That's 2020.

42% saying that, look, the only way that we can worship God according to the Bible is through Jesus.

That Jesus says that if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

If you love me, you love the Father.

No man can come to him except he go through me.

There is no worship in any other religion, in any other philosophical worldview that we could offer to God that would ever be accepted unless it's through Christ in Christ alone.

You see, we might say we're Christians, but I want to argue that the possibility resides many of us formally reject God's word, and in so doing, all we're showing is that we're not really Christians.

We just like the idea of not going to hell after we die.

Just in case hell's real.

Just in case it's an actual reality after I die, I want to try to rub my little lucky rabbit's foot and make sure that I don't end up there.

But many of us too, many of us, we functionally reject God's word.

We functionally reject God's word.

So many of us might say, you I might read every theological statement off of that uh uh uh theology uh report, and you might say, Yep, believe that, believe that, believe that.

You got good doctrine, but you functionally reject God's word.

Here's how I know this.

If I asked many of you and you asked me myself, what book are you reading right now?

What book?

It's not gonna be James, Isaiah, Hezekiah.

I got there's no Hezekiah.

How many did I just get right there?

You don't even know your Bible good enough that you thought Hezekiah.

I'm just, I'm not trying to shame you, I'm joking.

But we wouldn't say that, right?

We would say, oh, I'm reading this book by this author.

I'm reading this, whatever, that new thing that just popped out of Crossway, or I'm reading whatever, whatever.

That's what we're gonna say we're reading, and we functionally will reject God's word because we're reading what other people have to say about God than what God has said himself.

I love this from uh Charles Spurgeon, a uh a pastor from the 1800s in London.

He said, visit many good books but live in the Bible.

We visit the Bible but live in many good books.

And there's a there there's enough to fill warehouses upon warehouses upon warehouses.

There is no shortage of good books written by men and women who love God, love his word, who are much more brilliant than we are.

But the reality is that we functionally reject God's word when all we're consuming is what other people have said about him rather than diving into his revealed word alone.

Or some of us we cling to a few meaningful verses rather than search to understand the whole counsel of God, right?

You've got those handful of like quick draw verses when something in your life happens that you bust out and make sure that you are uh protecting your thought process or your positivity, rather than search the whole counsel of God to say that sometimes it is your good that you suffer.

Sometimes it is your good that you face trials and tribulation, sometimes it is for your good.

In fact, if you love Jesus and you're in him and adopted through him to the Father, then every time you experience suffering, trials, or tribulations, it is for your good because he works all things for the good of those who love him.

We process our worldview through I feel and I think scenarios.

Well, I feel like X, Y, Z, or I think God would, whoa, that's a dangerous statement to make.

And it's so easy to make, right?

Like I'm just programmed to respond that way, and sometimes, well, I think God, well, what did God say though?

And many of us, the primary way we functionally reject God's word, we live most days without any assessment of spiritual growth.

We live most days without any assessment of spiritual growth.

See, the word of God is a mirror to us, it's something that exposes who we are, it shows us the ugliness of our sin, but it shows us the hope and power of Christ and his gospel.

Are we asking ourselves, how am I more obedient today?

How am I more Christ-like today?

How am I trusting and believing God at his word more today?

Are those spiritual growth assessments happening?

They're not going to be happening unless we're intentional about binding his word to us.

But this is our hope this morning.

That Jesus perfectly obeyed the command to love God through keeping his word ever before him.

Jesus perfectly obeyed the command to love God through keeping his word ever before him.

Jesus never lived one moment of his life outside of perfect obedience to the commands of God.

Never.

He never lived one moment of his life outside of perfect obedience to the commands of God.

His purpose was to ransom us.

But here's what happens often.

When we think about Christ's act of ransoming us, of purchasing us, what do we automatically go to?

The cross.

Right?

And we and we think about the cat of nine tails that that uh marred his back and striped him for us.

We think about the nails that were put into his hands and into his feet.

We think about the cross of which he bore himself for our sin.

We think about Galgotha, right?

We think about that.

But to ransom us, Christ had to have been perfectly obedient to every aspect of God's law and command.

It wasn't just the cross.

If Jesus would have gone up there a sinner himself, not in perfect obedience, then his sacrifice would have never accomplished anything.

He would have just been another sinner who got what he deserved.

God's wrath and judgment poured out on him.

You see, his purpose was to ransom us, not just through his sacrifice alone, but also by being able to exchange his obedience for our rebellion.

He lived a perfect life of obedience because he was bound by God's word.

And one of the clearest places that we'll see this is his temptation in the desert.

As he was being led out by the Holy Spirit, the Bible says, for 40 days on fasting and being tempted by the devil.

The three cases that we see, the devil tempting Jesus, Jesus fights back.

He is able to remain obedient because he binds himself with what?

God's word.

You say this devil, God's word says this.

Second temptation.

You say this devil, God's word says this.

Third temptation.

Not say we're gonna run the same plate, Jesus said.

It worked the first two times, it's gonna work the third, because he was bound by what?

Bound by God's word.

His perfect obedience came through that binding.

And to think that if we think that Jesus is some guy who just had a cushion life, easy life, that doesn't understand the things that we go through, the temptations that we face, the hardships that we face, if we think that, then we have Hebrews 4.15 that tells us we don't have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.

We have a Savior in Jesus who overcame our rebellion through obedience.

And so we, in honor and in gratitude, and in a desire to be like him, seek to obey the commands of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Praise God.

Praise God.

Look at what Jesus did for us.

Look what he accomplished for us.

Don't you want to be like your big brother?

Christ, the firstborn from the dead, the elder brother of us all, the one who, because of his righteousness, make many more righteous men after him.

It is not Christ-like to continue in sin.

It is anti-Christ.

Christ-likeness is fundamentally rooted in obedience to God's commands.

Being transformed, not under the weight of a taskmaster, but under the weight of a good father who shepherds us and loves us and wants us to have everything we've never even thought we ever desired.

So, how do we live this out?

Three ways that I see.

Number one, God's word must change me.

God's word must change me.

Guys, we have to start.

God's reading the Bible, you're gonna hear us say that probably every Sunday.

Because we need it.

We need God's word.

We don't need some new hot topic of the culture.

We don't need some TED talk on how to live a better life.

We don't need uh good vibes sent our way.

We don't need uh positive thoughts from some fortune cookie philosophy.

What we need is God's word to change us.

God's word has to be life to us.

But many of us don't think that.

Many of us have a great different understanding of what is life to us.

And you know how I know that?

When you feel weak, when you feel tired, when you feel like you can't go on anymore, think to yourself right now, what's the number one thing you gonna you go for?

Maybe it's that Netflix season, maybe it's the social media scroll, maybe it's something that even your closest friends and relatives don't know about.

But is it the word?

Is God's word really life to you, or is God's word something that you feel like you have to do, but you don't really get anything out of it?

And what's the point anyway?

God's word must change us.

Jesus is the word.

And conformity to his image is our goal and aspiration.

We can't conform to that without knowing him through his word.

That'd be like trying to be like me, but not knowing me as a person.

You have no personal relationship, right?

Everybody ever remember the commercials, I want to be like Mike?

Yeah, I want to be like Mike.

Nobody?

Okay.

Um, there was this whole plan of uh uh marketing to kids who wanted to be like Michael Jordan when they grew up.

You know how many kids hit a basketball court thinking that they're the next Jordan?

You know how many of them never are?

Never going to be, right?

But if they did, here's where they would have no shot at all.

If they didn't study how Jordan played, if they didn't look at his discipline and practice, if they didn't look at the way that he uh led a team and not just tried to be a champion himself, if they didn't look at the way that he developed himself as a player, they'd never have a shot to being like him.

And many of us say that we want to be like Jesus, but yet we're trying to become something.

We fabricate in our own mind and imagination rather than obedient submission to who he's actually revealed himself to be.

We're not being like Christ, we're being like a weak, anemic version that we created in our own imagination.

Number two, God's word must change my home.

God's word must change my home.

Many of us can look at our homes and say they're not what we want them to be.

Number one, that's okay.

We're on a process of sanctification.

We're not uh starting here and then reaching perfection tomorrow.

We're in a process of sanctification.

I can tell you right now, my wife and I have conversations constantly where we're not where we want to be.

Our home isn't how we want it to be.

Our children aren't how we want them to be in every aspect and regard.

It's a process, and there's grace and there's mercy.

But do you know if we want if our homes aren't like how we want them to be, what's the first thing we need to do?

Inform them and shape them by the word of God.

That's what we have to do.

You want to see a home that flourishes, you want to see a marriage that flourishes, you want to see a child, a parent relationship flourish, you want to see life flourish in your home, center the structure of it around the word of God.

The word of God must change my home.

Not your issues with control, not not your uh uh systems that you put in place, not your disciplinary action that you uh proposed at the family meeting, not any more money or work in the bank account if you were stripped of everything tomorrow.

If your home was taken from you, if your bank accounts were empty, if your health was stripped of you, if everything was taken, but you loved God and you had his word at the center of your home, you'd have life.

You'd have life.

Every striving effort that we can make as people, as fathers and husbands, pales in comparison to leading them to know God and to love him in response.

Lastly, God's word must change my community.

God's word must change my community.

You want to see change in your community?

It's not through voting, it's not through choosing a political party, it's not through overturning an election, it's not through any of these things that we put primary importance on.

Do those things help in some ways?

Sure.

I'm not gonna deny that.

They help in finite, temporary ways.

But God's word will change our community.

If we are a people that love and cherish God's word, if we are people that live out God's word, if we are people that invite others to live that way with us, if we are preachers of the gospel, you have to understand this.

Every single one of us in this room is a minister.

I'm not the only minister in this room.

Pastor Jordan isn't the only minister in this room, wherever he's at in the room, I think he's back here.

But um, we're not the ministers.

We're not we're we I might be a I might be a professional Christian, like I get paid to do this, but the reality is the Bible calls all of us to be ministers of the gospel of reconciliation.

Because you have been saved, you have been made a priest.

And because you are a priest, you now have a responsibility to be a minister, a minister of what?

Of reconciliation with the message of the gospel ever in your mouth.

It's when we go forth proclaiming God's word, living in obedience to it, and that the world around us sees the way that our lives are distinguished by obedience to God's word.

Their jealousy will spark in their heart, they'll desire to be a part of it, or we will see such hatred and rebellion that they even take our own life for the sake of the gospel.

Glory to God, either way.

Whether this rebel's heart is overcome and conquered through the gospel, or it's more hardened and infuriated, leading to my own loss.

God gets glory, my joy is filled, and we start to see culture change.

You know how many lives were turned around witnessing people's blood being poured out because they were proclaiming the gospel?

John Piper, a pastor and author, uh, he says that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

Even in our own loss, Christ's kingdom expands.

If we want to see real change in our community, we have to bring and be bound by God's word.

God's word must change me, God's word must change my home, God's word must change my community.

This is my last thought.

If you haven't guessed it yet, the most important thing we can do, man, is lead our families and knowing God and loving Him response.

That's it.

I I don't care what you do for a living, I don't care how much money you make, I don't care what you own in your possession, I don't care how cool you think you are or what you did as a sports person in high school.

I don't care.

Right?

Some of us try to ride that wave way too long.

That wave was so strong, took the hair off my head.

That doesn't matter.

That doesn't matter.

The thing that matters is to raise our children, to love our wife, to lead our homes, and knowing God through his word and cultivating a love for him in response to that.

That's it.

So when we put our hand to the plow, when we think about what we want to see change in our life, number one, change has to be start with me.

I have to be a disciple, I have to have this on my heart, I have to be one who follows hard after Jesus.

And then number two, I have to lead my family to do the same.

What does this gonna look like in your home?

Because this is the reality.

Sacred mission's not gonna be a place where we have passive men, where we have men who commit the same sins that their fathers did and that their father's fathers did.

We're not gonna have men who sit in apathy, who who don't take up the reins and see change take place in their own personal lives in their homes.

We're not gonna see men who are bound to sin and keep falling under the own attack of the devil that they have 10,000 times over again.

We're not gonna have men who don't have their hands dirty in the gospel soil of seeing the kingdom expand throughout this city.

We're not gonna have men who sit by passively and zone out to TV, zone out to sports, zone out to your job, zone out to whatever else when your wife and children are begging to be led by you.

We're gonna have men who are pastors, we're gonna have men who lead, we're gonna have men who fall on their sword first and lead the charge in battle.

That's what we're gonna have.

And here's the beauty of that.

Every single one of us in this room, as men are at different stages of that right now.

Some of you haven't started yet, some of you are seasoned veterans.

The beauty of community is that we're not gonna shame any one of us here.

We're going to come around one another.

And this is the beauty of what we see in Moses as he was trying to charge, lead the charge of the Jewish people's victory in battle.

When his arms became too weak to hold the staff up anymore, he had other men come up under him and hold his arms up so that the victory could be seen and had by his people.

That's what we're gonna be men who do.

Men who come alongside.

When you feel beat up because you're going to, when you feel like your kids don't respect you because you'll feel that way, when you feel like your wife doesn't really love you or give you the attention that you want, that's going to happen.

When you feel like work doesn't appreciate your effort, that's gonna happen.

When you feel tired and worn out and like you can't trudge on any longer, you're gonna have brothers in this room that pick you up and carry you across the line to see you put your feet back on the ground and keep leading your family.

Men?

Can I get an amen?

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

We need community.

We need one another.

We have too many men fighting in isolation, and you're standing in the middle of a battlefield all alone, not knowing what to do, just taking the barrage of every arrow the enemy can stand at you.

You've got brothers with shields, you've got brothers that can take arrows to the right, to the left, in front, and behind you.

Gather yourself in community.

Stop fighting alone.

Let iron sharpen iron and let us be the men who God has called us to be.

Let's pray.