Stiff Necked and Still Chosen // Exodus 34:8–17

But we're going to be in Exodus chapter 34 in our Bibles.

Exodus 34 · chapter mention

If you want to turn there, Exodus chapter 34.

Exodus 34 · chapter mention

And we're going to be covering verses 8 to 17 in our Bibles.

This is sermon number 87 through the book of Exodus.

If you're taking notes, the title of the sermon today is Stiffnecked and Still Chosen.

Stiffnecked and Still Chosen.

We've been working through a series I have titled Leaving the Darkness.

And we have watched Moses lead the people of Israel out of Egypt toward the Promised Land.

He's led them through the Red Sea, remember, out of slavery from under the hand of Pharaoh, into freedom under the lead of the Almighty.

And really out of darkness into light, out of worshiping other gods, into worshiping the true God.

And it has been a joy to work verse by verse, chapter by chapter, through the text.

Sermon number 87.

And when are you going to be done?

Soon, right?

The answer is soon.

No, but this we're going to cover verses 8 to 17 in our text today.

Heard of a story, I'm sure you've heard of this one actually many times before, but it's a great one.

One Sunday a pastor told his congregation that the church needed some extra money, and he asked people to prayerfully consider giving a little extra in the offering and to a sweetened deal.

He announced that whoever gave the most would get to pick out three hymns, three hymns for uh the worship.

And after the plates came back, the pastor glanced down and he saw that somebody had dropped a check in for a thousand dollars.

He was so excited, told the whole congregation about it, and asked the person to identify themselves so he could thank them personally.

Well, all the way in the back was this little old lady named Rosie, and she shyly raises her hand.

The pastor asked her to come forward.

Slowly she made her way up the aisle, and he told her how wonderful it was that she had given so much.

And then he said, Now, Rosie, go ahead and pick out your three hymns.

What would you like to hear?

Her eyes brightened.

She turned around and looked at the whole congregation and pointed and said, I'll take him and him and him.

No, that delivery was actually better than his first service.

So you guys, you got a little extra there, and this is good.

But that little old lady picked the best three, huh?

And that's how choosing works with us, I think, in the real world as well.

We pick the best available.

You know, coaches at tryouts pick the best players.

You know, kids do it on the blacktop at recess back in the day, remember?

And the last one picked never forgets it, right?

I'm the last one.

But we like to pick the best.

And in our story before us, we stand on a mountain with Moses, and he is asking God to choose a nation that just got caught red-handed with the golden calf.

A nation that took the jewelry off their own ears, melted it down, made a calf out of it, and they threw a party worshiping another God, while their God, who split the Red Sea, was up there on the mountain with Moses writing them the Ten Commandments.

And we've been looking at this story very closely over the last few weeks.

Uh but this is a surprising part in our text today.

Moses does not hide what the people did from God.

No spin, no highlight reel.

He just says it straight.

In the text before us, he walks up to God and says, Lord, please go with us.

These people are stiff-necked.

So that's his argument, that's his case for the defense.

He he just says it straight.

He's like, Look, the people are stiff-necked.

You have to go with us.

Uh he says the terrible part up front, and that is his actual reasoning for why they need God.

And this is a question I want you to think through in our message today.

Why would God choose to continue with a people like this?

And once he knows exactly who they are, why would he keep them?

And I think if you can answer that, you can answer the question maybe we are afraid of, uh, which is why would he choose me?

Why would he pick me?

And why would he keep me?

What is it about me that God wants to continue with me?

Um it's hidden in the text today that God keeps his covenant even to a stiff-necked people.

And uh, I think you'll be shocked to surprise the amount of grace that he pours on his people time and time again.

Exodus chapter 34, we're gonna read verses 8 to 17.

Exodus 34 · chapter mention

Can we stand for the reading of God's word?

We always stand for the reading of God's word here at Legacy to pay honor to him, remember whose word we're reading, not my words.

Truly belongs to him, his story, his ways, his commands.

And uh I'm the delivery boy for the day, the mail carrier, just delivering what God has said.

And so we stand for the reading to remember him and to remember his word and say thank you and to allow it to impact our hearts.

Take a look at verse eight in your text.

And Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship, and he said, If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go along in our midst, even though they are a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as your own inheritance.

And God said, Behold, I am going to cut a covenant before all your people, I will do wondrous deeds, which I have not been created in all the earth, nor among any of the nations, and all the people among whom you live will see the working of Yahweh.

For it is a fearful thing that I am going to do with you.

Be sure to keep what I am commanding you this day.

Behold, I am going to drive out the Amrite before you, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

Beware lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, lest it become a snare in your midst.

But rather you are to tear down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars and cut down their asheron.

For you shall not worship any other god, for Yahweh, whose name is jealous, is a jealous god, lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invite you to eat of his sacrifice, and you take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods, and cause your sons also to play the harlot with their gods, you shall make for yourself no molten gods.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your word today.

And we pray now, by the power of your Holy Spirit, that you would reveal its truth to us.

Please, God, that your grace again would overwhelm us, that we would be in awe of just how faithful and awesome you are, not because of what we have done, but because of how great you are.

So help us to see who you are once again in the scripture before us.

We ask it now in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You can be seated.

So, chapter 32, we're in chapter 34, but chapter 32 is really the bottom of the book of Exodus.

That's the golden calf.

Uh, Aaron's brother, uh Aaron, Moses' brother, Aaron of all people, remember he collects the earrings.

Uh, he shapes this idol, this golden calf.

Moses is coming down the mountain, Mount Sinai, and when he sees the people dancing around the golden calf, worshiping another God, he takes the Ten Commandments and he smashes them on the ground in front of everybody.

He just can't believe it.

Uh, he was barely gone for a couple weeks, and he comes back, and the people are already worshiping another God.

Um, ever since this moment, Moses has basically been on his knees beseeching God.

Uh, he's prayed God wouldn't destroy them.

He's offered to be blotted out of the book in their place so that God doesn't kill them.

And in chapter 33, he asks the boldest thing any man has ever asked.

He says, God, show me your glory.

And God says, Yes.

And he hides Moses in the cleft of the rock, he covers him with his hand, and he passes by.

And as he passes by, uh, as we saw, God preaches a little mini-sermon of who he is to Moses.

He says, Yahweh, Yahweh God.

God declares his name to Moses, and then he says, Who is compassionate, who is gracious, who is slow to anger, for nick forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, keeping covenant to a thousand generations.

And Moses' perfect response is where our text picks up verse eight.

Moses bows low to the ground.

Point number one, if you're taking notes, Moses prays for a stiff-necked people.

This is verse eight and nine.

Moses made haste, it says, to bow low toward the earth and worship.

So again, the text says that he made haste.

Uh, he didn't take notes, he just put his face in the dirt.

And understand who this is a man who had already seen the burning bush.

Uh, he has walked through the Red Sea on dry ground.

He's seen manna fall from heaven, he's seen some amazing miracles.

He was not easily impressed when he saw Yahweh and he heard him speak.

It just says that he bowed low to the earth and he did it quickly, like fast.

And then from the ground he prays the same things he's already prayed.

Let the Lord go in our midst.

Please pardon our iniquity, take us as your inheritance.

So Moses gets low, and really it's the one of the best things that we could ever do is get low and seek the Lord.

Bowing again, we talked about this last week a little bit, but it's not a posture that we like to take on because we don't bow to any human beings, but it is a posture that Christians and people who love God should take on.

For something happens when we get low and bow to our Creator.

Um, Moses is praying these things to God again and again, but he's not being redundant.

He's praying inside the promises of God, which is the best thing we could ever do.

Uh, God has just said that he'd be present with them.

So Moses asks, please, Lord, give us your presence.

God had just said that he would forgive them.

So Moses asks, please, Lord, pardon our sin.

He takes what God has said about his character and believes these promises right back to God.

And this is what's beautiful.

It's it's it's needed.

The greatest prayers we can pray are what God has told us about himself.

Um, as you read through the word and you see promises or things that stick out to you or stories that move you, again, highlight them, really focus in on them, journal about them, and let them bleed into your prayers.

Let your prayers bleed scripture and the things of God, praying back to him what he has said about himself.

It's one of the most powerful things that we can do.

It aligns us uh with his will.

And that's exactly what Moses is doing.

Look at the middle of the verse here in verse 9, the title of the sermon.

Moses says, Let the Lord go along in our midst, even though they are a stiff-necked people.

Moses names the disqualification of the people out loud to God.

Remember what stiff necked is?

Remember, stiff-necked is not sleeping on the wrong side of the pillow for too long and waking up with a stiff neck.

That's not what this is.

Stiff necked is an ox that won't turn its neck under the yoke.

Um, a farmer's word for stubborn, it's his worst nightmare.

Remember?

Uh the farmer would take that giant wood uh yoke and place it upon two owks, and those ox would stay together, creating uh a very strong plow, and this wood would be attached to a this staff that goes down into the ground, this plow, and then they could dig up the ground.

Well, if you have a stiff-necked ox who won't put his head down into the yoke, that's an upset farmer.

For he's sitting there saying, Come on, get that neck down.

And if you have a stiff-necked ox, guess what?

You're not plowing the field today.

You're not getting a harvest, you're not getting the job done.

Nothing worse than dealing with a stubborn animal, right?

That won't listen to you.

Our cats right now are uh yeah, we have two cats.

Our cats right now are in the habit of uh when they want to come inside, they jump on the screen door and just hold on, climb up the screen door and create giant holes in my screen door.

But I'm not bitter.

No, I'm not bitter.

Oh, I'm so bitter.

And uh it's like it they're gonna destroy my screen door, and there's a few hundred bucks that I gotta replace on this thing.

So now we are in the process of trying to train them.

You must meow, and that is the only way that door is opening.

A stiff-necked cat.

Cats are stiff-necked now, aren't they?

Stubborn creatures.

Nevertheless, we are compared to stiff-necked oxen.

Isn't that wild?

We're a stiff-necked people.

God's like, come on, get in my will, get in my way, get in the plow, get in the yoke.

Let's go.

We want to plow the field, we want to harvest the ground, I want to bring forth fruit.

I'm gonna bring forth a harvest in the land that you're gonna be able to eat from.

If you would just put your head in the yoke and get moving forward, we can get this ground plowed, we can plant some seeds, and then you're you oxen are gonna be able to eat from it.

You get to you get to eat from the ground you tread upon.

Stiff-necked.

God calls, or Moses calls the people stiff-necked.

That phrase is the very reason God gave in chapter 33 for not going with them.

He's like, You are a stiff-necked people in the desert.

You won't change, you won't grow.

And Moses takes God's own objection and he turns it into his prayer.

He says, Please, God, I know they're stiff-necked.

And that's why you must go with us.

We need you to go with us.

What am I gonna do with these stiff-necked people?

You gotta help me.

And then he says, Pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us as your own inheritance.

Moses says, Notice the phrase our sin, not theirs.

Moses didn't dance around that calf, did he?

Was Moses down there dancing with the people?

No, not at all.

Moses was up on the mountain getting the Ten Commandments, but he doesn't blame the people.

The mediator plants himself in the middle of the guilt and the guilty, and he says the word we.

Moses says, we, our sin.

He doesn't just blame the people.

He acknowledges that he is responsible as the leader for the sin of this people.

Please, God, pardon our sin and take us as your inheritance.

Moses throws himself in the batch.

And this is a hard thing for us to do.

But can you imagine going to your dad and saying, Okay, dad, I'm ready for my inheritance?

And he says to you, it's these stiff-necked people.

Look at Moses literally says it.

He says, Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us, God, as your own inheritance.

My inheritance.

I'm ready for my inheritance.

And he says, It's these stiff-necked people.

Here you go.

This is your inheritance.

Aren't you happy?

What?

I was hoping for some big bucks.

A couple houses to sell.

What are we talking about here?

A stiff-necked people?

I'm not doing that.

But we know someone who had this conversation.

God the Father and the Son had this conversation.

God the Father, I'm going to gift this stiff-necked people to you.

What Moses is doing is not a prayer technique.

This is salvation.

We know there is a better mediator who did more than say our sin.

He actually took their sin on himself for his people.

And this is the kind of mediator we need: someone to keep God's law for us, for we are idolaters, rebels, liars, cheats, we are thieves.

And thus we could never be saved by our own obedience.

But everything Jesus did counts for everyone who trusts in him.

Did you know that?

Everything that Jesus did in perfection as he lived a perfect life on the earth, he gives all of that perfect life to anyone who believes on him.

And he also fills their account with righteousness.

That's why God looks at you and says, Wow, incredible.

You're like, I'm not that good.

But you've taken on what Jesus has done for you.

And he's also paid your debt.

He's paid off all the debt in your account so that you don't have to pay for it.

Moses prayed five times for the people.

But do you know how many times that Jesus has prayed for you?

Hebrews chapter 7, verse 25 says, Christ always lives to make intercession for you.

Hebrews 7:25

He has never stopped praying for you, praise God.

Because we need his prayers every single day now, don't we?

We hope that someone's praying for us.

And you can know that the Lord has been praying for you and is praying for you for all of eternity.

Praise God.

Remember how to worship before you ask things in prayer.

Remember to worship the Lord before you ask anything in prayer.

Moses, we see his example, he bows before he says a word to God.

He gets low and he worships him.

You know, most of us reverse that.

You know what I mean?

We we want to ask first and worship second.

We wonder why prayer sometimes can feel like a like a customer service call.

You know what I mean?

We call in, we press one, you know, we press nine, and we press four, trying to get, you know, to God, and then we hang up the phone.

But the truth is, is we should worship the Lord when we come into his presence, worship the Lord first, remember who he is.

Moses gives a great picture example of bowing low and remembering who he's before, and then he starts to ask.

Bless God for all that he's done.

But second, we should stop hiding the stiff necked.

Do you know that God knows that your neck is stiff?

We're not hiding anything from him, huh?

My neck isn't stiff, God.

No, I'm not a stiff-necked person, I'm not stubborn.

All right, it's the child trying to hide from their parent, right?

The feet are showing, they're hiding behind the curtains.

You can't see me, right?

I can see your feet.

You're right there.

Remember, Adam?

Where are you, Adam?

Did God not know where Adam was?

Scott, like, I don't know where he is.

Where is he?

No, he said, Adam, where are you?

And Adam was hiding, wasn't he?

We think it's funny that we think we can hide our stiff-neckedness from God.

It's better to just come clean before the Lord.

Oftentimes we think we have to clean up before we can come close to God, but it's not true.

Moses walks in leading with the worst fact about the people.

He just says it straight God, these people are stiff-necked and stubborn.

Please help us.

Again, it's it's it's not clean up, then you can come to God.

It's come to God and He will clean you up.

Never forget that.

We feel like we can't come close to the Lord because we feel dirty, we feel filthy, we feel like we we have sin on our hands.

But that's the whole point.

Uh, we got the cool opportunity.

One of our worship leaders, Shan, she did Les Miserab in uh in New York City at Radio City Hall.

We got the opportunity to go see it, and man, I love this play, I love this story.

First time I saw it was 15 years ago, and uh it was the 1990s film, and uh Les Mis, Le Miserab, right?

And um I didn't know anything about this story, but after I had watched it, I saw the Bible come to life.

I couldn't believe that the the Bible was sitting right there in front of me, Romans chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 uh in particular.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

And what really grabbed me, and I actually started using this illustration a long time ago, um, long before I ever saw the musical.

Um, I saw the movie, and then all of a sudden I was like, this is one of the greatest grace illustrations I've ever seen.

It's sitting right here in this story.

The story goes this there's this guy, Jean Valjean, he is a prisoner, and he he had sent he was sentenced to prison, he did his time.

And uh when he comes out, he's a convict, and nobody in town will take him in because he was a prisoner, he was in jail.

So when he comes in, the townspeople, everybody's like pushing him away, and there's only one place that will take him in for the night.

It's the priest in town.

And the priest says, Jean Valjean, you can come in, you can Stay at my place, and here's a bed for you, and I'm gonna make you a meal tonight.

And they sit down and they have the meal together, and Jean Valjean is sitting there, he doesn't have anything, and he looks and he sees that the silverware is pure silver.

And he looks at the table and he sees that the candlesticks on the table are pure silver.

That's big bucks.

And so what he does, he waits for the priest to go to sleep.

The priest says, There's a bed for you.

Hope you enjoyed the meal.

I'm going to bed.

And when the priest goes to sleep, he steals the candlesticks.

He puts them in his cloak.

And then he starts to run out the door, and the priest hears the commotion.

And when he sees the priest, he pushes him out of the way and he runs out the door.

He stole the candlesticks.

Well, the next morning, all of a sudden there's a bang at the priest's door, and it's the police.

They've caught Jean Valjean.

And Jean Valjean is standing there, and all of the town starts to come around.

See, there he is, Jean Valjean.

He stole the candlesticks from you.

You gave him a place to stay tonight and a place and a nice meal to eat, and he stole the candlesticks from you.

And the priest goes in front of the police and all the townspeople, he says, He didn't steal those from me.

I gave them to him.

Now let me go and get the rest.

And he goes and gets the rest of the candlesticks and he gives them to Jean Valjean in front of everyone.

And Jean Valjean is standing there, and the police go away, and the townspeople go away, and then the priest says this God has purchased your soul.

And the rest of the story is Jean Valjean trying to show people the grace that God had shown to him.

And the most beautiful part of the story is he even does it to this guy named Jovert at the end, who is the law chasing him and pursuing him and trying to condemn him.

And he shows grace to the law, and the law can't take it.

And Romans chapter 7, the law has to die.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

It's one of the most beautiful stories ever.

And the reason it always grips, the reason it always grips is because we stole the candlesticks.

And we keep stealing them.

And God keeps doing this display of grace to us over and over again.

And you just, I, it is one of the mysteries of the human being and the grace of God.

I don't get it.

I have tasted of God's grace hundreds of times.

But if I taste of it one more time, it's like the first time I've ever had the meal.

It just blows me away.

I can't believe it's still real.

It's new and it's fresh again.

It is the depths of the wonders of God.

And I want to tell you today: God is not waiting on a better version of you.

He's simply waiting on confession, honesty, brokenness.

When the grace has been shown, it's the moment.

It's like, you bought me, man, I belong to you.

I'm going to go in my way trying to figure this thing out.

It's saying all of our sin out loud and then asking God to be gracious, anyways.

Like we can't do that with people.

You know what I mean?

It's like, let me tell you all the bad things I've done to you.

Now be nice to me.

I'm going to tell you all the bad things I've done to you that you know about, and I'm going to tell you all the bad things that I've done to you that you don't know about.

Now be nice to me.

It doesn't work with human beings, man.

We want to off each other so fast.

But for some reason, the Almighty keeps returning to us.

He said, You didn't steal those.

I gave them to you.

Let me go and get more.

You can't do that.

You can't keep doing that to us.

But that's exactly what Moses is doing.

He's doing it with the people.

He says, Lord, they're stiff-necked, they're an absolute mess.

Please now go with us.

Deuteronomy 6, I'm sorry, Deuteronomy chapter 9, verse 6, Moses writes about why God is with these people.

Deuteronomy 9:6

He says, Know then that this is not because of your righteousness that Yahweh your God is giving you this good land to possess.

For you are a stiff-necked people.

It is because he is gracious, not because we're good.

Romans chapter 8, verse 34 says, Who is the one who condemns?

Romans 8:34

Christ Jesus is he who died, but rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

Romans 8 is telling us that the Lord Jesus is the only one who could have actually condemned us.

Let he who has sin in his life cast the first stone was said.

You know who has no sin in his life?

The Lord Jesus.

And he literally could pick up the stone and cast it at all of us, but he doesn't.

Instead, he offers us bread.

It's unbelievable, bread and manna from heaven.

He doesn't repay us according to our sins.

Instead, he says, I'm never going to stop praying for you.

Romans 8 34, he intercedes for us.

Everett Fox says, Moses is handed a dictator's dream, the chance to clone an entire nation for himself, and instead he stands and defends the people who have caused him nothing but grief.

Moses was shown grace, and so he shows grace to the people.

And we hope that happens for us over and over and over again.

Martin Lloyd Jones says prayer is beyond any question the highest activity of the human soul.

Prayer.

It's the highest level that we can get to, communing with the Almighty.

And that's what Moses is trying to do.

He's trying to get the people back into relationship with God.

Point number two, if you're taking notes, a stiff-necked people and a covenant-cutting God.

This is verses 10 and 11.

So in verse 10, God answers Moses, and watch how he doesn't say, Yes, I'll go.

He doesn't say yes, I'll pardon.

He doesn't say any of those things.

He says something bigger.

He says, I'm going to cut a covenant with you.

So that verb isn't, it's not decoration, this cut a covenant.

In the ancient world, you didn't sign a covenant.

You didn't docusign.

You know what I mean?

That's not what you did.

What you did is you cut animals in half.

You're like, you want to do a covenant?

Yeah.

Okay, covenant between me and you, our families.

Are you ready?

Yeah, let's do it.

Where do I sign?

Right here.

Grab the knife.

Let's cut four or five animals in half.

Put their bodies on each side.

Let the blood run, and we are going to walk through the center of these animals.

We're cutting a blood covenant.

Animals were killed and split, and the parties walked between the pieces.

May this happen to me.

If I break my word, I will be cut and split in two.

Covenant was written in blood.

Now catch the timing.

Moses just said, these people are stiff-necked, and God's response to them, to that confession, is not to lower the terms, so change the terms first and say, uh, we're going to write up a new contract, because you guys messed up the first one.

So let's do the Ten Commandments, but we're going to do 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and we're going to put a couple buts and ands in there in case you guys mess this thing up.

He didn't do that.

He writes the exact same thing.

And God says, let's deepen the covenant.

Let's cut the animals.

And I will make a covenant with you.

I will keep it with you.

God is binding himself tighter to these people.

Is that wild or what?

And notice the audience: all the people among who you live will see the working of Yahweh.

He says the nations around you, your enemies, are going to see what Yahweh is about to do in this covenant partnership with you.

The nations, six enemy peoples named in verse 11.

And when it's over, everybody watching will know who Yahweh is.

And here's what we can't miss.

The first tablets were shattered.

Remember?

Man broke that covenant.

So God says, Bring me new tablets, bring me new stone.

I'll write the exact same covenant again.

And understand the covenant never rested on these tablets.

It didn't rest on the first one or the second one.

It rested on the promise of God.

His promise, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

And when he says never, never means never.

Now, humans leave us, huh?

And so it is very hard for us to process this.

You mean God is never, ever, ever, ever going to leave me, no matter what I do.

That's right.

That is his covenant to his people.

I will never leave you, and I will never forsake you.

That's wild, huh?

Do you know why God chose this people?

Moses answers it in Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 7.

Deuteronomy 7:7

7-7.

The Lord did not set his love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of these peoples, for you were the fewest and the smallest, Israel.

You were the fewest, the smallest, and the least of all the nations.

There was nothing great about you, actually.

Oh wow, thanks God.

Why'd you pick me as your bride?

Tell me all the good things.

Well, you were the ugliest of them all, actually.

There was nothing great about you.

That's why I picked you.

And the end of that verse, verse 8, I chose you, but because the Lord loved you, he chose you.

That's not an explanation.

That's like circular reasoning.

I love you because I love you.

I loved you because I love you because I am going to love you.

And you can't explain this, but the only way I can explain it is through my kids.

I love them because I love them because I love them.

I don't know why.

I can't articulate it perfectly.

It's like it's in the DNA, you know, it's like in the, you know, things, like, no, it's a weird thing because they haven't really done anything for you, especially like six months to two years.

I mean, they've done nothing, you know?

And so, but why would you give your very life for them?

Why would you give everything for them?

There's something about a parent's love for their children that is unbelievable.

There is no way to even begin to describe what it is.

When you feel it, when you sense it, it's it's a magical thing.

I love you because I love you because I love you, and I'm always gonna love you because I love you because I love you no matter what.

It doesn't matter what you do, son.

I'm always going to, it doesn't matter what you do, I will, I will pursue you forever.

There are human parents who say and declare these things over their children.

How much more does our heavenly father say this?

He's the perfect one.

And when he says it, and he cuts a covenant, he means it.

Paul Zoll said this grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return.

Grace is love that has nothing to do with you.

It has everything to do and only to do with the lover.

Grace is one-way love.

It's when someone loves you so greatly, you can never repay them back.

It's when someone gives to you so greatly you could never repay them.

You don't even know what to do.

And that's the best.

That is what God has done, almost crippling us by his love.

And church, the covenant you stand in this morning was cut in better blood.

Did you know that?

Not in the blood of animals.

Jesus said in Luke 22, verse 20, this cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

Luke 22:20

New covenant in my blood.

Jesus says, I am the Lamb split in two, and I am the one who the Father walked through and made covenant with you.

Unbelievable, huh?

Ezekiel said it bluntly for a stiff-necked people.

Ezekiel talking to the stiff-necked nation, he says this for God, Ezekiel 36, 26.

I will remove your heart of stone, and I will give you a heart of flesh, you stiff-necked people.

That's the cure for a stiff neck.

Isn't that amazing?

I need a massage.

No, you need a new heart.

You don't need a tighter yoke.

You don't need more whips on the back.

You need a new heart.

And we can't give ourselves new hearts, huh?

We try.

I try.

I try to do heart surgery on myself.

I'm gonna rip the chest open and rip out that heart of stone.

You're getting a heart of flesh today, no turning back.

It doesn't work.

I need God to do that in me.

There's no other way around it.

The great David, he sang this.

King David, he sang it, he prayed it in Psalm 51.

This is he's a mature believer, and he's done great wrong, and he says, Create in me a clean heart, oh God, renew a right spirit within me.

Create in me a clean and a new heart, oh God, please.

Church, the way that we apply this is we have to stop rebuilding your assurance in God out of your performance.

Just know that you are going to fail this week.

No, I'm not.

You just failed.

You just lied.

You are going to fail this week.

And when you do, don't go hunting for evidence in yourself.

Don't, don't, don't try to work your way back.

I gotta now now I gotta I gotta get in the scriptures and I gotta pray and I gotta I gotta worship twice as hard this week, you know, and I'm gonna earn my position back to God.

You can't do that.

Remember?

You can't walk up to the cross and offer Jesus five more bucks.

You didn't pay enough for me and my sin.

Here's a good old fiver.

I got five on it, right?

I'm throwing a 20 down this week.

I was terrible this.

I'm throwing a hundred down.

Jesus is like, what are you doing?

I paid an infinite amount for you, and I don't need any more money.

I don't need payment in your works.

What I want you to do is just realize that I paid all of it for you, and if you want to work, just do it for my glory.

Just do it because you love me, not because you feel like you got to pay me something back.

Because you can't.

God has given us so much up front that we gladly surrender our lives back.

We're not trying to make little payments to Him with our little works.

We're in response just coming to the Lord and saying, I love you, Lord.

I want to give you my life.

Go back to the covenant God made with you.

We broke the tablets again.

We broke the covenant, he never will.

He keeps his covenant to a thousand generations, praise God.

And then, church, let his commitment set the level of your commitment to him.

Look at the level of commitment God has to his people because God is committed to us, we can stay committed to loving one another.

Because God has forgiven us, we can forgive each other.

Because God has been gracious to us and given us what we don't deserve, we can love each other when we don't deserve it.

That is our motive.

That's our motivation.

That's the only way I can do it, honestly.

People are gonna hurt you.

Did you know that?

I wish it wasn't so.

I didn't really did think when I was younger that like this this thing, like, it does get better, but it I thought it was going to get easier.

Because, you know, it's like as you get older, then you you get more responsibility and more opportunity and more resources, and like things start to unlock and open up for you.

You know, it's that the you know remember you're 15 and a half, you get your permit, you know, and then you finally get your license, you drive off away from your parents for the first time, you're like, I am free.

And that feels so good.

Thus, more freedom and more must be way better on the other side.

You know what I found is that you just become more aware of sin, and you become more aware of people hurting and hating each other, and you become more aware of death and pain and suffering and all the, and it's just like, wow, there's just so much going on.

And so I need more of God's grace in my life.

I need more of his love, more of his mercy to move me to not grow hard to all these things, and jaded and upset, cold.

I don't want to become that way.

I need him to overflow me.

I need a new heart to break this stiff neck.

A contract is an agreement between two parties, each one protecting himself, right?

A covenant is different than a contract.

A covenant is a pledge in which one party gives himself away.

And that's the difference between a prenup and a wedding.

And God has never once offered mankind a prenup.

Isn't that amazing?

He invites us to the wedding.

And he says, I'm all in no matter what.

And everybody, everybody in the crowd is like, you're all in with this people?

These stiff-necked people.

You're gonna put everything on the table.

No prena.

That's not wise.

I've contemplated this a lot.

I I don't believe God, I don't know.

I mean, maybe he'll reveal it in eternity, but I don't know if God will get the return on his investment.

He has poured out everything into us, and what do I give back to him?

He gets what 2% return on me every year, he could do better in the SP.

It's unbelievable how far he has gone to uphold the covenant.

Psalm 96, 3, declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among the peoples.

This is what God says he's going to do through this covenant.

All your enemies around are gonna know who I am, the great love and grace and forgiveness that I pour on them.

Martin Lloyd Jones says, Do you think that you deserve forgiveness?

If you do, you are not a Christian.

You do not understand grace.

We do not deserve any of it.

The fact that he is being kind and gracious and compassionate, we have done great wrong against him, and he is saying, I'm gonna forgive everything, and you should be in awe.

And then he says, Now I'm gonna bless you, and you should be in awe.

Tullian Tavichin said, Children will run from the law, and they will also run from grace.

But the one who runs from the law will never come back.

But the ones who try and run from grace always come back.

Grace draws its own back home.

So good.

Setting up a grace contract from the very beginning is the best thing you could ever do in any relationship in your life.

A grace contract.

If you set up a long contract, they will break it and they'll run from you.

If you set up a grace contract, when they experience your forgiveness, your love, and your grace in their life, they won't know what to do long term but come back home.

And that is a it's wild intuition there because even if you take advantage of the grace of God, which I have, he will find you and he will get you.

I watch Christians time and time again take advantage of the grace of God, and even that, you take it, he's gonna forgive me, he's gonna forgive me, he's gonna forgive me, he's gonna forgive me, and he does.

And then your life, the bottom falls out, and then he shows up and says, I'm still here.

And you can't help but bend the knee because you can't believe he's still standing there after you've taken advantage of his grace.

You can't outrun him.

His grace stretches so far beyond human beings, it's unbelievable.

I do believe that's a part of heaven, is just watching the glimpse of.

The great glimpse of the grace of God unfold before us, exploring it, enjoying it, watching it happen, the sunsets of grace forever.

Can't wait.

One surefire way to know you're starting to grasp this message of grace is when you're finally able to admit that you're not the good guy, and that you can never be apart from the grace of God.

Paul, remember, he starts off one way.

By the end of his life, he's like, I'm the chief of all sinners, and by the grace of God I go there.

I there's no way I'm making it without him.

I know exactly who I am.

And that that is the message of grace.

That's when we start to grasp it as we realize who we are.

Point number three, and finally, a chosen people and a jealous God.

A jealous God, the word jealous is in the text.

Uh look at verse 12.

Beware lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest it become a snare in your midst.

So he says, Be careful to build relationship with the enemies in your land who worship other gods, lest it become a snare.

What is a snare?

A snare is a little bird trap.

Um, it's like a little piece of wire, a little piece of string that you that you hang in uh a bush or hang in a tree.

And when the bird comes along and gets into it, any part of its body gets pulled into this thing and it immediately gets stuck, and then it can't get out.

And so you can trap the bird.

That's a small, hidden, harmless-looking thing, um, right up until it isn't.

And uh he's saying that building a relationship with the enemies around that don't worship God is dangerous.

It's like a trick, a snare, it's a trap.

And then uh you remember the Trojan horse, right?

Um remember after a fruitless uh 10-year siege, the Greeks uh built an enormous wooden horse, and they they hid men inside this wooden horse, and then they they send it into the city and then pretend to sail away.

And the Trojans opened the gates, like, oh, look at a gift, a giant horse.

And they pulled it through their own gates as to have this victory trophy that the Greeks left behind.

And of course, there were thousands of men inside that horse, and in the middle of the night, they broke out of that horse and took over the city.

Uh that night the men crept out, they took over the city, and Troy fell.

Uh, nobody breached those walls, they were open from the inside out, and God is trying to warn that this is what happens to our own lives.

Verse 13 gives this assignment that there is nothing gentle about the verbs that he points out and how to deal with this.

He says, tear down their altars, shatter their pillars, cut down the ashram.

Uh, not avoid the shrines, but demolish them.

Because a standing altar is a standing invitation to go and worship another God.

And God's like, You gotta just wipe these things out.

Don't leave any foothold.

Um, verse 14 gives the reason for you shall not worship any other God, for Yahweh, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God.

So you get the word jealous two times about Yahweh.

If we put God's attributes uh, you know, to vote in the congregation, like we're like legacy, please vote on the top ten attributes that you love about God.

Uh, jealousy would not be one of them.

He is a jealous God, and it is one of his attributes.

Um, the reason um we don't get it is because our trouble is we only know the sinful kind of jealousy, you know, the suspicious, resentful kind.

The older sense of the word is one uh used of fierce uh protecting, fiercely protective over a people.

Um and God, he's not insecure, he is just fiercely protective over his people, over his bride.

These are my people, I don't want them worshiping any other gods.

Now, why doesn't he want us worshiping other gods?

Because it makes us sick.

It makes our mind fall, it makes our heart fall, it makes us depressed and destructive.

And so uh he is protective of his claim on you, and he is jealous for me, right?

He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.

That's all that's a 20-year-ago song.

We used to sing in the college ministry, still wraps the earth sometimes.

But he is protective over me.

He is jealous for my affection and my attention because he knows it's the best thing for me.

Then verse 15 to 17 show exactly how a chosen people ends up back at the calf.

It's chilling and it's gradual.

Um, first, what the text points out, there's some kind of treaty between the non-believing nation.

Then there's like a dinner invitation.

Why don't you come on over?

Then you eat of the sacrifice of their gods.

Then your sons marry their daughters.

And finally, verse 14, they start worshiping molten gods.

He says, No worshiping molten gods.

And so you got to understand, church, that it is the Trojan horse from within.

It sneaks into the heart and gradually starts to break us open and tear down the walls from within.

Nobody wakes up and decides to commit spiritual adultery and leave the God that they love.

We are prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love, but nobody just wakes up and says, I'm leaving God today.

Everybody wakes up and decides to be neighborly first and friendly with small sin.

It's gradual.

And then we wake up one day and we say, How in the world did I get here?

And I've said it before, but that picture illustration of it's like if you had a hundred rooms that you're gonna paint, hundred rooms straight in the line, you're gonna paint them.

And the first room, you take a white bucket of paint and you paint it white.

The second room, you put one drop of green in there.

And the third bucket, you put two drops of green, and then the the the four you put three drops of green, and down the line you just keep putting more and more and more drops of green.

You paint those rooms according to the buckets, and as you walk through the rooms, you start in this white room, before you know it, it's very gradual, it's very subtle.

By the time you're in the hundredth room, you're in a completely green room, but you can't feel the change.

It is very subtle.

A bird does not make a nest in your hair overnight.

Now, in my case, he does.

Only takes a couple twigs, you know.

No, but uh, it's true that nothing happens quickly, it is always very subtle.

You gotta be careful, you have to watch closely, and God is warning his people to watch closely.

What does this mean for us?

It means that being chosen by God and being his people, having a covenant with him is not a license to compromise in sin.

It is the reason we don't sin because we are his people and we belong to him.

1 Peter 2 9.

Do you remember?

1 Peter chapter 2, verse 9.

1 Peter 2:9

But you, church, are a chosen race.

You are a royal priesthood, you are a holy nation, you are a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

You belong to him, and because you belong to him, it is your job to get away from the darkness and to run into his marvelous light.

A.

Tozer said, God will save a man, but it will, but it will not save him and his idols.

Grace will save a man, but it will not save him and his idol.

It's important for us, church, just as Moses did, to just name it honestly.

I believe the deeper and more specific we can confess sin is the degree to which we will be healed.

And so it's okay to be so specific about your sin.

We shouldn't say things like, oh yeah, we made, you know, we made that cow over there the other day.

Sorry about that.

No, it's better to say we have built a God that we worshiped, that we partied in the name of, and we took the very gold rings that God gave us from Egypt and used them to build another God.

What have we done?

Lord, forgive us to be specific.

You know, most of us try to manage our idols.

We keep the altar standing and promise just not to go visit it too much.

But Yahweh would say, just tear it down, delete it, end it, confess it, get somebody on the phone this week, make it right.

You gotta remember that the car, the gasoline car is made to run on gasoline.

To put dirt in that tank will cause it never to run.

And you were made to run on God, trying to run on anything else and any other God, you will spend years wondering why life isn't working.

The answer is simple: stop putting dirt in your gas tank and allow your life to run on a relationship with Yahweh, not other gods on the earth.

It is that simple.

That is the covenant he's making and trying to tell them, don't worship the other gods, worship me.

And things will go a lot better.

Finally, church, guard the front door of your home.

God is telling them very clearly to guard the front door of their home.

Verse 16 is about the next generation.

Your kids aren't listening to your perfect theology, they're watching your affections.

We get to be the right example and lead them into the Lord so they marry someone who walks with God.

Not someone perfect, someone who understands the forgiveness and grace of God.

One of the things I'm learning that is a huge leverage in my children's life that I didn't realize is after they get in trouble and they're sad and they're crying or whatever it is, and they just feel ashamed and they feel guilty and they feel overwhelmed and is that they've let dad down, is I get looked them in the face and say, I did all of these things too.

I'm just like you.

I've messed it all up.

Dad still messes it up to this day.

I do wrong and I need God to forgive me.

I'm not doing it right either.

It's okay, you're gonna be okay.

They need to know.

The standard is perfection, but you have to always remember you can never reach it apart from Christ.

It is not by anything that you can do.

No one is gonna boast about themselves.

And you have to remember it.

Again, what the next generation needs is an example of a church of them watching our affections closely, the way that we love God, the way that we love and forgive and show grace to people.

That's where the magic is.

It's not standing up here and saying, I'm perfect, be like me.

That's not it.

It is looking at the grace of God being poured on a people for thousands of generations and saying, I want to worship that God, I want to walk with him, I want to know him, promising my kids, the same God who has forgiven me and shown grace to me is going to show to you for the rest of your life, okay?

And I'm gonna show that to you in real time.

We have to try and display that in our marriages, in our families, and our friendships, and our businesses, and whatever it is that we're leading and overseeing and running.

We try to display that to the world around us, amen?

That the nations may worship Yahweh.

D.

L.

Moody said, Satan does not care what we worship, just as long as it's not God.

Jeremiah 31, 3.

God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness.

1 John 4.19, we love.

You know why we love?

Do you know why we even like to love, why we like Valentine's Day?

Because He first loved us.

The only reason we human beings even know what love is, this abstract thing that if aliens look down on it and try to figure out what we were doing, what are they doing down there?

That doesn't look very evolutionary.

We love, we are drawn deeply to one another, to give ourselves to one another because God has deeply given himself to us.

In closing, remember God loves you because he loves you.

And even if we fail, which you will, maybe today, for sure this week, guess what he's gonna do?

He's gonna destroy you.

No, he's not gonna do that.

He's going to love you, forgive you, and pour grace upon you again and again and again until he breaks the stone around your heart and gets you to start loving in the way that he loves us.

J.I.

Packer, there's tremendous relief in knowing that God's love to me based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me.

Everything that God is doing for me and loving me in is based on the prior knowledge of all the bad that I have done.

God knows we're stiff-necked people and he wants to love you anyways.

Isn't that amazing?

So you don't need to go to the Lord and say, I'm not stiff-necked.

It might as well just say it up front.

I am a stubborn man.

I am a stubborn woman.

God help me.

I cannot do this apart from you.

God demonstrated his own love for us, and that while we were what?

Still sinners.

Christ died for the ungodly.

That's how God demonstrated his love.

When you were sinning, he was dying for you.

Saying that he loves you.

You stole the candlesticks.

Me too.

And he let us go free.

And he keeps blessing us with more candlesticks in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your love for us again today.

And we got closets full of candlesticks.

We cannot even believe.

A garage full of candlestick, storage bins full of candlesticks.

Why do you keep doing that?

Because of your great love for us.

Now, God, would you transform our hearts and minds to love like you love, to be gracious like you are gracious?

Would you help us to love stiff-necked people?

Teach us to love stubborn people.

And God, would you send somebody to love someone so stubborn like me?

We thank you for your grace.

We thank you for your mercy.

And we ask, God, that you would strengthen us in such a way that your love, your peace, and your rest would pour into the next generation.

That we would be a church and a people who fear you and with all of our lives want to walk in this covenant with you forever and ever.

Bless your church.

We surrender our lives to you once again.

God, we make you Lord and Savior over our lives.

We submit to you.

We bow to you as Moses bowed.

We do it in Jesus' name.

Amen.