Exodus - Terms & Conditions - Exodus: 24

Welcome to the roots where it's all about Jesus. We're

so glad that you're joining us today to kind of

well speaking of incredible things, whether it be fruity pebble

rice Krispy treats. Also, maybe it's the technology we use.

We live in a kind of an interesting time nowadays.

We're with different technologies, apps, devices, advanced software, all all

these things kind of at our fingertips where we can

find really cool recipes or we can find cool information

or help for all sorts of stuff. But how many

of us know that when we go to search those

things out, we download a new app, we install a

new device. Usually before we get to do anything, a

little box drops down asking you to read something or

just scroll to the bottom and click agree really quickly. Right,

So it's a little a little box with a long

laundry list of terms and conditions, all of which if

you want to move forward and being able to use

the thing, you need to agree after saying that you

did in fact read them all. But how many of

us actually read those terms and conditions? Most of us,

you know, we just hear, like, all right, it's probably

pretty basic jargon or legal stuff. It's I'm probably safe

to skip this. I know. Even this morning I got

a text because apparently when I talk to my bros,

I'm like, did you see the figure skating? And then

when they text me, they're like, did you see the hockey?

And yeah, it's all right, it's we're learning stuff about

each other. It's cool. But he texted me and was like, hey,

did you see the hockey game? And so I pulled

it up really quickly, trying to find the score. And

every time I'd go to log into a website, it'd

be like, accept all these terms, accept all these things,

and I just kept backing out of them. I was like,

I don't even I don't need CNN having all my

information or whatever they get out of me saying except

so I backed out of that ended up finding it.

But really, the people who create those websites, the people

who create those things, expect that we agree to the

terms and conditions of use before we get to use

their product. And they have every right to do that.

It's theirs. They made it. They're the ones who created

the software, the website, the technology, so it's perfectly logical

that they get to set the terms of use. Kind

of an interesting thing to correlate that with as well.

It's like also when it comes to our own marriages.

Before we ever into a covenant marriage with another person,

we lay out terms and conditions for our marriage covenant.

What is this going to look like? We do so

in front of witnesses. We make vows that we're going

to love serve our spouse until death do us part,

and at the end of the ceremony we conclude it

by saying, I do marriage. Two people have agreed to

come together to covenant with one another. And when we

use technology that's not ours, we are expected to agree

to the terms of use. So what about when it

comes to your life? What about when it comes to

your own life. At the beginning of time, when God

created man and woman, he set the terms and conditions

for the life that he gave to us. And at

the beginning he told them that if man and woman

were to obey his voice, that they would live, but

if they disobeyed that it would surely mean their death.

Just like the software, it makes sense that God gets

to set the terms and conditions for life because he's

the one I created it. Not only does he get

to set the terms of use, but he's the one

who shows us how we're supposed to use it in

the first place. But unfortunately we know that mankind, well,

they agreed, but then broke or rejected those terms and conditions.

The world still operates in this disobedience. We can kind

of see that because a current model of our day

is that I will live my life on my own terms.

I'm living my life on my own terms. And honestly,

what has that got in us? A lot of death,

a lot of bad things. Abortion, gender confusion, we can

just sleep with whoever we want, Divorce, rampant selfishness, pride, rejection,

just kind of across the board of authority. Because I'm

going to set the terms for how my life is lived.

I'm going to decide and live by my own law,

my own governance. This is the original sin. Mankind sinned

against God, deciding that he knew better and that he

would live by his own terms. But all that brought

was death when God's terms had promised life if they

had obeyed. Mankind thought that he knew how to use

the software better. Mankind thought that he could use the

life he was given how he thought best fit. But really,

what that has left us with is it's kind of

the equivalent of us trying to unscrew electrical sockets with

peanut butter knives, like like, we're not using what it's

intended for. Were there are proper tools to use for

these things, but instead we go like I can figure this out,

and so we take that have to have their own

specific uses, and we use them in the wrong areas

we live without regard to the terms and conditions. We

live like we get to set them for ourselves. But

God and his graciousness did not leave man to face

all the penalties of this sin. He didn't leave us

alone without hope, but in fact he actually gave He

gives us hope and staid throughout time, God has come

to certain people to enter into relationship, to enter into

covenance that held promises of life and blessing if once

again the terms and conditions were met, if the people

would but agree and keep them And those people, the

men that God came to, were not in the place

of bargaining. They were not in the place of negotiating.

Because God's ways, God's ways that lead to life. They

are God God's ways always lead to life. He's made

that very clear, But these people, I mean, really, how

can we bargain when everything we tried to do our

own way breaks. Everything that we try fails us, everything

breaks things that were even more broken just because we

won't listen to the Lord. But these people that God

came to, they knew their place, they submitted to their creator,

and because of it, they entered back into relationship intended

for God and man. Now, as we're going to see

in our text, God isn't just going to come to

a single person to make a covenant or promise to

but actually, because of past past covenants made with individuals,

God is now going to come to an entire people

that he saved out of bondage and slavery and offered

to enter into covenant with these people, a covenant of

life and blessings if they agree to obey. But once again,

as we will see in our text, God is the

one who sets the terms for how they are to

come to him. God is the one who is going

to set the terms for how they are to come

to him, And we are going to learn that if

we give up our own ways and instead come to

God by His terms, that we can have confidence that

if we don't go by our own way, but if

we go by His ways, we can actually have confidence

to come and stand before him reconciled, have reconciled relationship

with our God, to be his people, and he would

be our God. And so we're going to find ourselves

in Exodus chapter twenty four. If you turn there with

me now, just the entire chapter of twenty four. If

you do not have a bible, we have some out

in the back. Please go grab one, take it for yourself,

keep it. We wanted to be reading through your bible.

We also just got a huge right in flux. We

just got like a huge delivery of new Bibles. So

please go take one. We're going to read this. Pray

that God would soften our hearts, help us receive his

word for today. Exodus chapter twenty four says, then he

said to Moses, come up to the Lord, you and

Aaron nay Abin, a bee who and seventy of the

elders of Israel, and worship from Afar. Moses alone shall

come near to the Lord, but the others shall not

come near, and the people shall not come up with him.

Moses came and told the people all the words of

the Lord and all the rules. And all the people

answered with one voice and said, all the words that

the Lord has spoken, we will do. And Moses wrote

down all the words of the Lord. He rose early

in the morning and built an altar at the foot

of the mountain and twelve pillars according to the twelve

tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the tribe

or of people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and

sacrificed piece offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses

took half of the blood and put it in basins,

and half of the blood he threw against the altar.

Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read

it in the hearing of the people, and they said,

all that the Lord has spoken, we will do, and

we will be obedient. And Moses took the blood and

threw it on the people and said, behold the blood

of the covenants that the Lord has made with you,

in accordance with all these words. Then Moses and Aaron

Nadab and a bee who and seventy of the elders

of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel.

There was under his feet, as it were, a pavement

of sapphire stone like the very heaven for clearness, and

he did not lay his hand on the chief men

of the people of Israel. They beheld God and ate

and drank. Then then the Lord said to Moses, come

up to me on the mountain and wait here or

wait there, that I may give you the tablets of

stone with the law and the commandment which I've written

for their instruction. So Moses rose with his assistant Tooshaua,

and Moses went up into the mountain of God, and

he said to the elders, wait here for us until

we return to you. And behold Aaron and her are

with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them.

Then Moses went up the mountain, and the cloud covered

the mountain. The glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai,

and the cloud covered it six days, And on the

seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst

of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of

the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top

of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.

Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain,

and Moses was on the mountain forty our mountain, forty

days and forty nights. This is God's word. Lord, we

lift up this time to you. We asked that as

we open your word, that you are opening our hear hearts.

You're opening our ears and our eyes to receive the

word that you have for us. Today. We just asked

that you would do the work that only you can do,

that you would change us, that you would bear fruit

in our life, that you would impact us with this word,

that we would leave here changed, that we'd leave here

looking like people who love you, who serve you, and

who know you, and have your presence dwelling among us. So, Lord,

we love you. Let me give this time over to

you in Jesus name. Everyone said Amen, so over and

over in our text again in our text. Today we're

going to see God give clear instructions for his people.

And if you've been with us over the last couple

of weeks, this has kind of been a reoccurring portion

of the Book of Exodus that God has delivered. He's

saved Israel from slavery in Egypt. He brings them out

by a mighty hand. He then leads and provides the

people through. He leads and provides for them through while

they go through the wilderness, while they're on the way

to the mountain, and when they get to the mountain.

The whole point of them going to this mountain was

for God, for them to worship God. We see as

soon as they get to the mountain, Moses kind of

starts getting his steps in because he goes up the mountain,

gets words from God, comes down and tells the people,

and kind of goes up and down, up and down.

And he's eighty years old. It's impressive. So then God

descends on the mountain in glory, in a cloud and

blazing fire. The people keep their distance because of God's

holiness and their unholiness. And then God speaks out of

the cloud the Ten Commandments to all the people say

that the people who would truly believe, and that the

people would truly believe and fear the Living God. And

the people were so terrified that the people tell Moses, hey,

can you just be our mediator? Can you just have

God talk to you and you relay the message to us. So,

as we saw last week, Moses went up into the cloud.

He gets a bunch more laws that he's supposed to

tell the people commandments for how the people are to live,

and he gets these promises of blessing for their agrievement

to live according to his words. But there's also this

warning not to depart from the covenant that they were

going to make with each other, to not follow the

way of the nations. So now in our text, Moses

is going to come down. He's going to basically repeat

twice all of the commands of the covenant to the people.

The people are going to agree afterwards, and then they're

going to kind of confirm or ratify this covenant with

one another in blood. And then afterwards kind of the

unthinkable happens where Moses and the representative leaders of Israel

go up the mountain, still at a distance, to worship God.

But not only do they just get to go up

and worship God, is that they see God, but they

see God and in fact that they aren't harmed, but

instead they see Him and get to eat and drink

in his presence. They get to commune with their God

right after this covenant is made with him. So in

all of our texts, I believe that we're going to

see this, We're gonna see that we come to God

on his terms. We come to God on his terms.

So look at this at the outset first two verses.

Then he said to Moses, come up to the Lord,

you and Aaron Nadab, and to be who and seventy

of the elders of Israel, and worship from Afar. Moses

alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others

shall not come near, and the people shall not come

up with him. So Moses is told, hey, you're gonna

go down. You're gonna get the leaders. You're gonna bring

them so far at a distance, and they're gonna come worship.

And that even after that, Moses is going to approach

even closer afterwards, to which we saw at the end

of our text, but that the rest of the people

are to still keep their distance. And this again is

pointing out how even though God had saved his people

at this time, this by no means meant that the

people were perfect. But as we've seen many times now,

they were far from it. But God is still being

gracious to them despite their faithlessness thus far. So Moses

gets these final instructions for the people. He goes down

and tells all the people what God had said as

the terms of the covenant. God comes to Israel with

the offer that he would be their god and that

they would be his people. And he defines exactly what

that looks like. That is that they are to live

unto him, They're not to live unto anyone else. So

Moses tells us to the people. People agree to it.

They hear it, and they agree to it. Now, it's

actually this whole portion of text is very interesting because

we're already taking Exodus at a really fast pace. We're

kind of blazing through Exodus. Now, if we were to

just sit and read Exodus in one sitting, we would

actually start to see some things that make a lot

more sense or that are just glaringly obvious. If we

were to sit down and read the entire book of

Exodus in a setting, you would see so much about

God's character, who he is, his faithfulness, his graciousness, his forgiveness,

his judgment, his power, his glory. There would be so

much that we learned about God just being able to

zoom out and read write through it. Then we'd also

notice very quickly the other character the other people that

we're seeing in this account, and that is the nation

of Israel, And if we were to just kind of

zoom out, we would see that over and over and

over again. We're gonna see an Israel who's stubborn, it's

quick to turn away, who's really eager to immediately agree

and then turn away. In Egypt, when they hear the

news of God's deliverance, they quickly rejoice, but as soon

as it's even kind of delayed, they're like, why should

we believe you, Moses, he hasn't even shown up, which

is fair, I mean even us as we're waiting for

Jesus to return, it's how quickly is it to be? Like?

Praise God, I'm saved? And then we have to go

through another week and we're like, am I sure he's coming?

When they get saved out of Egypt finally, over and

over again, this happened. God delivers them. Then the people

hit some kind of perceived issue and quickly turned to

complaining and whatnot, much like how he frees us from sin,

and then we get to the next sin. God's like,

I want you to work on this one now, and

we're like, this is going to be impossible. This is

I don't know how we're going to get through this

forgetting that he just brought us through one the last time.

So we're at a big moment because that pattern continues

to happen, and this is one of the biggest moments

in Exodus of this happening. The people are about to

agree to enter into covenant with God, to be faithful

to him alone, to serve no other so called gods.

And why it's so significant in this moment is because

it's after about eight chapters of a bunch of measurements,

while Moses has been up on the mountain, we're gonna

see that the people have completely broken their covenant. They've

broken their side of the covenant that they had agree

to by worshiping an idol. Is they gotten patient? We

we see God once again the revealing of his character

to show mercy, redeem them, and still come and dwell

with his people. And the reason this is important is

because what we're seeing in our text is kind of

the equivalent of a record of the marriage ceremony, of

like a marriage ceremony between God and his people, them

being brought together. Because from up until this moment, it's

just been a lot of words. Yes, God has moved

in mighty ways saying, Hey, I'm gonna do these things.

I'm gonna do these things. I'm gonna do these things.

I'll be your god. I'll be your God. And the

people are like, yeah, that sounds great, that sounds fantastic.

And I don't know whether you are or whether you have.

But you know, when you're dating and you say lots

of stuff and you're going on dates and you're kind

of like, what are we? What are we exactly? You know,

And then then finally it comes time to let the

world know the nature of your relationship and you make

it Facebook official, right, But not only that, but then

it gets even more serious. You continue to go on

you've been dating a while, and you're like, we should

get married, and no longer is this just talks of like, well,

what's gonna what is gonna happen to us? You get engaged,

and once again those are still just words, this intention

to be married. But then finally you get to the

wedding ceremony and it's this confirmation of this covenant between

two people and here we see words from God and

the words of agreement from the people, and now we're

gonna get the ceremony where where it is it's ratified,

it's certified, it's confirmed. And what we're witnessing in this

text is almost something between like a worship service and

a wedding ceremony. And just like a worship services, God's

word is preached, and at that time, part of the

worship service is the offering of these sacrifices. And just

like people who get married and then they sign their

marriage license with witnesses, they get a marriage certificate as

a record of the event. It's all here in this moment,

witnesses of the event, a written record, the vows and agreements,

the blood of the covenant as a sign between the

two parties. Look at this verse three. Moses came and

told the people all the words of the Lord and

all the rules. And all the people answered with one

voice and said, all the words that the Lord has spoken,

we will do. And Moses wrote down all the words

of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and

built an altar at the foot of the mountain in

twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And

they sent young men of the people of Israel, who

offered offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord,

and Moses took half of the blood and put it

in a base in basins, and half of the blood

he threw against the altar. Then he took the book

of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of

the people, and they said, all that the Lord has spoken,

we will do, and we will be obedient. And Moses

took the blood and threw it on the people and said,

behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has

made with you, in accordance with all these words. So

twice the terms and conditions of the Covenant are read

before the people, first verbally, and the people say, yep,

we'll do that. They write them down and repeat them,

and they say, yet, we'll do that. We will do

everything and be obedient to God. Then Moses takes the

blood of sacrificed animals, part of which was thrown on

the altar, and after the people agree with the words

that Moses has spoken, he throws the rest of it

on the people. It's kind of a really intense scene

if you think about it. Put yourself in their shoes

just for a second. Moses is like, hey, you remember

this book, and you're like yeah, And then he reads

it again and then he throws a bunch of blood

on you as soon as you agree. Be kind of whack,

but you would remember it. You would remember it. Very

intense scene in this blood. There's a lot of there's

a lot of different opinions of kind of why animal

will sacrifice or why this ritual specifically, but likely there's

there's two things that are meant to be getting a

cross in this situation here. One is to signify the

judgment that would happen if they were to break the covenant,

and two is the means by which there could be

forgiveness if they do break the covenant. The whole book

of Leviticus is like, if you've done this, offer this.

If you've done this, offer this, If you've done this,

offer this. So it's this subsetitutionary sacrifice that they could

be forgiven if they sinned against God by offering a

sacrifice in place of themselves. That there is this covering

of blood that covers their sin. And how much is

this needed? Like we just said, they have this pattern

over and over and over again of being faithless. How

quickly are we prone to turn to other things and

just disobey? We're much like adam rejecting the terms and

conditions of life that God has given us, or how

much are we like the people here who are agreeing

to the terms and conditions, the conditions of their covenant

with God, but then will turn and break our side

of the commitment. Which is kind of interesting because if

we give the benefit of the doubt, going back to

our terms and conditions, illustration benefit of the doubt, the

people didn't tune out or skim when Moses was reading

to them. But the problem with that is that if

that's the case, there's actually more reason for them to

be in trouble when they break it, because they heard it,

clearly agreed to it twice, and they can't be like, well,

I didn't really listen. They said everything he said, We'll

do it. But the other possibility is maybe the proclivity

to skim the fine print of the terms and conditions

and agree because we just want to use God, because

I just want the blessings of what he offers. So

can I just fast track my way to getting those things? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, whatever,

I gotta do. Whatever he says, I'll just do those things.

We are all quickly happy to agree to the things

that promise us good but maybe we don't slow down

and consider the cost of our failure to comply. Most

of us just bet that the software company isn't really

going to care about me skimming and using their software

for my own purposes. But God does care about us.

God cares about us a lot. He made us for

his purposes, not our own. He has set the terms

and conditions for how we are to live our life,

and that is this has been put in church history

to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. But our problem

is still the same. How fast do we try to

obey God thinking maybe we can get it right with

our own definitions of obedience. We try to please God

or obey God on our own terms. Well, I know

he says that, but I like to think of it

like this. We try, through our hard work, our good deeds,

to make it right with God when we've broken our

covenant with him, or maybe we think God doesn't care

how we live. I'd say that's one of the biggest

It's ironic, Like I said, like a motto of our

day and age is that I'm gonna live life on

my own terms. And part of what that's predicated on

is if anyone has anything to say about my life,

I can just say, hey, only God can judge me.

But usually what we mean is if God agrees, Well,

God probably agrees with me. God probably agrees with my

way of thinking. I've set my terms, but I think

he's probably agreed with me, So I'm gonna let him

take care of me. Talking about the God of the Bible,

only judge God can judge me, that's terrifying. I'd much

rather be judged by my neighbor. He might still like

cut me some slack, because I'll cut him some slack.

God is, God's going to be very just. He is

going to judge me justly. He's not going to cut

any corners from me. Maybe you think God will not

care how we live our life, but once again, that

actually just shows our failure to have read the terms

and conditions. I've Years ago, I used to work at

this nonprofit construction and we had this really awesome coworker.

Loved him. We had so many fun conversations. He was

and just follow me. He was a Jewish atheist, pig farmer. Okay,

blew my mind too, and it was great because he

had all kinds of questions. He wasn't a Christian, but

he wanted to talk about it, and so he decided

that I was the person to ask the question in

front of everyone when he had one. One particular day,

he comes in and he's like, hey, in front of everyone, Hey,

where's the Bible say that homosexuality is wrong? I'm like,

we started early, like it's seven o'clock. We all just

soaked up, and we're already having these conversations. And the

best response that I could give us, so I just said,

read Romans one. Just read Romans one. So he pulls

up his phone. I don't even know what he's reading on,

but he pulls up Romans won and he starts reading there.

And as I'm watching him, he starts giggling and his

face goes red and he goes, Yep, that's pretty clear.

I was like, all I did, all we did, and

all we need to ever do is just show the

terms and conditions to show up. Hey, It's just this

is where it says that, which I think is a

fair a fair question for us to ask ourselves is

would we know where to point? Could I point in

the terms and conditions? Hey, it says right here, God

has shown that our price of our failure to obey

is our blood, is our life, it's death on our head.

But just as God sets the terms and conditions for

life and blessing, he also sets the penalties for our

failure to obey what we've agreed to or the things

that He's called us to. Scripture is clear what the

penalty of our sin is, and that is death. Look

at this Romans six twenty faces. For the wages of

sin is death, but the free gift of God is

eternal life. In Christ Jesus our Lord, all of us

deserve death. All of us have the price of blood

to pay because of our sin. And here's the deal.

That might sound really intense. Now I'm going to use

an illustration which might sound really bad. It's not on

my note, so buckle up. No, I was just processing

through this of like God made us for his purposes

for a reason, but we want to do things our

own way. Now, let me tell you if I bought

a TV, if I bought a TV to watch the

things that I wanted to watch, but my TV was like, no,

I like this channel, and I'm going to stay stuck

on these channels. I'm going to throw that TV away.

I bought it for a very specific purpose. And if

this TV's real and wants to just walk project its

own channels, what's my use for it. I'm going to

throw it away. I'm gonna take it to the dump

and say I'm gonna get a different TV. And it's

interesting because even Jesus, the person who talks the most

about Hell, when he talks about Hell and what it's like,

he describes it as Gehenna, which is literally an on

fire garbage dump, an on fire garbage dump for the

things that don't bear fruit would have their part. What's

our use if we don't operate the way that God

has intended us. It's a sobering thing. It's a harsh reality.

You're saying God would just throw me away. I'm saying

we'd have judgment on our heads, and God would be

completely just in doing that. But just like God has

set the condition and terms for how we're to be judged,

He's also set the terms and conditions of how he

can be saved. Just like He made a covenant with

the people of Israel and sealed it with blood, God

made a new covenant, a covenant with even better promises

a covenant where when we sin, we don't have to

sacrifice animals which really can't take away or take away

our sin, but merely are meant to point us to

the one who would be offered on our behalf, who

can take away our sins perfectly, the only person who

never sinned, who actually kept God's first covenant perfectly, and

because of that, all the blessings and promises in life

can be found in only him. He is God's perfect

mediator who goes between God and man, one greater than Moses,

but who, like Moses, came down to teach us God's word,

but instead offering an animal to cover sinful man, would

offer himself in our place, so that instead of the

blod blod guilt being upon us, we would have his

righteous and holy blood cover us. And that is the

God man, Jesus Christ, the one in whose blood is

the blood of the new covenant, blood that was spilled

on our behalf is the only means of us having

true forgiveness from God, of whom we sinned against. And

the night before Jesus would actually go and offer himself

on the cross for our sins. This is what he

tells his disciples, using the same language that Moses uses

in our text says, and he took the cup, and

when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying,

drink of it, all of you, for this is my

blood of the covenant, which is poured out from many

for the forgiveness of sins. And Luke's account says it

like this, and likewise the cup that he had eaten,

or after they had eaten, said, this cup that has

poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

So this is the new covenant that God would make

with anyone who put their faith in the finished work

in person of Jesus, that of living the life we

could not live, dying in the places or place of

our sins, and then rising three days later showing his

victory over sin and death. Because Jesus himself had read

and fulfilled the terms and conditions on our behalf, that

all of us fall short of the standard revealed in

the lawns. So Jesus came to die and redeem us,

provide a sacrifice once and for all on our behalf

to save us from the penalty of our law breaking.

And Hebrews goes really into depth you could read several

chapters on it, so I just grabbed a hefty chunk.

Chapter nine, studying in verse sixteen, says, for if the

blood of goats and bowls, and the sprinkling of defiled

persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the

purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood

of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without

blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to

serve the living God. Therefore, he is the mediator of

a new covenant, so that those who are called may

receive the promise eternal inheritance since the death has occurred,

that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the First Covenant.

For where a will is involved, a death of the

one who made it must be established. For a will

takes effect only at death, since it is not in

force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore,

not even the First Covenant was inaugurated without blood. For

when every commandment of the law had been declared by

Moses to all the people, he took the blood of

calves and goats, and with water and scarlet wool and

hiss up and sprinkled both the book itself and all

the people, saying, this is the blood of the covenant

that God commanded for you. And in the same way

he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all

the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law, almost

everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood,

there is no forgiveness of sins. So it's because of

Jesus's blood that we have forgiveness of sins once and

for all. No more animal sacrifices, no more pigeons, no

more silver plates. It's all taking care of in Christ.

And that's because the New Covenant in his blood covers

us perfectly. That everyone under the old Covenant, they still

ended up sinning. They still needed the issue of their

sin dealt with once and for all. And Jesus was

the answer for that. Jesus was the answer for them,

and he's the answer for us. Look at this Romans three.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart

from the law, although the law and the prophets bear

witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in

Jesus Christ for all who believe, For there is no distinction,

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory

of God and are justified by His grace as a

gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to

be received by faith. This was the show God's righteousness

because in divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

So God has shown grace, and even today has been

still showing you grace that if you are not in Christ,

the Lord has been gracious in patience towards you. But

today he's revealing. He's calling to you to remember the

good news or hear the good news for the first

time of the new Covenant in the blood of Christ,

that is Ephesian one seven says, in him we have

redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according

to the riches of His grace. And what's so amazing

about this covenant is that, unlike the First Covenant, which

was primarily for Israel at the time on the mountain,

this is for anyone who would believe. Look at this,

Ephesians to us, as therefore, remember that at one time

you gentiles, which is just all anyone who's not of

Jewish descent, you gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision,

by what is called the circumcision, which is made in

the flesh by hands. Remember that you were at that

time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel,

and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope

and without the God in the world. But now in

Christ Jesus, you who once were far off, have been

brought near by what the blood of Christ. It is

only because of the blood of Jesus that we have

now been brought near to God. And this is amazing

because this whole Texas is even has that shadow. It's

still a shadow that's pointing us to Christ, this greater

reality of the New Covenant and the blood of Christ

that will bring us near to God. Because even in

our text here, once the covenant is made and they're

covet in the blood, what happens The leaders and representatives

of God or of isze Israel are taken up into

presence of God's presence. The people are covered in the

covenant blood, and the leaders and representatives are now taken

up into God's presence. We're not only are they to worship,

but they are actually going to get to see God

and have fellowship with Him there and his presence. Look

at this verse nine of Exodus twenty four. Then Moses

and Aaron Nadamen to be who and seventy of the

elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God

of Israel. There was under his feet, as it were,

a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.

And he did not lay his hand on the chief

men of the people of Israel. They beheld God and

ate and drank. Now did you catch that incredible note.

There's a lot of incredible notes here, but one of

them is that he did not lay his hand on

the chief men of the people of Israel. It says

that even though they saw God and were in his presence,

God did not strike them down. God has shown that

if you come by his terms, that you can truly

be accepted and safe in His presence. You can have

true confident access those who are covered in the blood

of the Covenant, that they can have peace and confidence

to come into the presence of God and have fellowship

with Him instead of any type of fear of judgment

and here it's still only a shadow, because there is

still kind of that remnant. But we know in Christ

that that is completely removed. We can draw near with

confidence because of Christ's blood. Now, by God's own terms

and conditions, those who come through the blood of the

Covenant can now have communion with Him. And this is

still just preparing because they're going to build the tabernacle

after this, where God will then be able to come

down in his presence and dwell among the entire camp.

But God is the one who is setting the standard

for how that is to come about. We come to

God on his terms. There is no other way that

we could stand before our creator, whom we have sinned against.

There's no other way than the way that He's made

through the blood of Jesus. So I want you to

hear the good news to anyone who's far off, for

anyone who's yet to put their faith in Jesus or

has been turning away to other things. It is in

Christ alone, through Christ alone, that we can be made

right with God. So you need to turn to him,

turn from yourself determination and turn to Him and submit

to his ways. God's terms and conditions are clear. Anyone

who puts their faith in Jesus can have their sins

covered and come into right relationship with their Maker. So

what do we do with a text like this? For

those of us who have put our faith in Jesus,

I need the worship tune to come up. Please? What

are we to do with a text like this? First?

I think we need to examine ourselves, because each of

us has the tendency, even with the provision of Christ,

to try to come before God on our own turns.

We forget the good news, and when we do sit

instead of remembering our forgiveness in Christ, we try to

work our way back into right standing with God. But

doesn't work like that, And we know that because the

terms and conditions are clear. That leads to the second

thing that we need to remember. Have we skimmed the

terms and conditions? Do we know what it looks like

to live as Christians? Do you know what God calls

you to do? To live like? Not to be saved?

But because you've been saved. You didn't just give you

like a little little parking pass and say hey, now

go do what you want. It's not like that. He

saved you to himself to be his people. And he

hasn't left you in the dark. He's told you in

his word, letter after letter, to church after church, with

problem after problem, to bring clarity on what it looks like,

so that there isn't there isn't any wondering, and where

there is wondering, there's grace and there's wisdom in his spirit.

To trust that in dwells each and every one of us,

so that His presence is always with us. Have you

agreed to follow Jesus because of the good news you've

heard in him for forgiveness, But maybe you just use

that as an excuse to keep on sending. We can't

skim the terms and conditions of God's word, because not

only do we have forgiveness in Christ, but we have

a brand new life that He's called us to live

out to be his people. God doesn't just want to

be an add on when he says I'm going to

be your God and you're going to be my people.

He's not saying, Hey, I'll just be your God and

I'll kind of float around watch what you do and

kind of cheer you on. He doesn't say that we

need to come to God by his terms and live

for him by his terms not our own. Many of

us are willing to agree to the blood, but we

want to buck all the obedience. Part of this new life,

this new covenant isn't just about grace that covers our sin,

but it's a covenant where we have been set free

from sin to live as free people under the One

True God, so we can glorify Him and people who've

been saved by Him, who long to serve Him, and

people who get to actually see God, a people with

whom God's presence actually dwells among. So this week, let's

just make it real practical. Open your bibles, read a Gospel,

read a New Testament letter, and then do what it says.

Say like, read it and don't just be like these

are words, I'm scrolling past the thing to hit agree

and say I did it for the day. Read it

and go like, hey, this says do something. Am I

doing that? And then do it? And this is not

to be saved. You put your faith in Christ. You

are saved, but there is a new way of life

He's called you to and he has made it clear

in his word. Read your Bible, open it and if

Jesus tells you to do something, if Paul, speaking on

Jesus's behalf, tells you to do something. If James tells

you to do something, if Peter tells you to do something,

you do it. We live as they have instructed us

and taught us, speaking as God themselves, and they aren't God,

but that they have the spirit of God moving through them.

Jesus is God, and he tells us so clearly all

the things that we are to do. We go yeah, yeah, yeah.

The ceremon on the mount, yeah yeah, yeah. Another parable

I like that one. But then we don't do anything

with it, we don't live it out. And we've got

to thank God that his terms in conditions first infom

us are Christ, that He's done everything on our behalf.

And now now we get to have the freedom to

live this out. And so we need to refuse to

come to God by any other means. Like Jesus he

made it so easy for us. Trust in him. Don't

trust in anything else that will fail. You. Refuse to

serve God on any other account than by the instructions

that He's given you. Already many times in the Old

Testament people started to serve God on their own terms,

doing what they thought was right. In their own eyes,

doing things that they even thought like, oh, God would

be happy if I do these things, but they made

them up, they missed it. They serve God according to

their own terms rather than God's. And worse, what's worse

is so many of us not do we We don't

come to God and say, hey, here's some extra terms

I made to follow you. Not only do we do that,

but we have this bad habit of saying, God, you

have to meet my terms. God, I have terms and

conditions that I want you to meet from me before

we can move forward. As if we're God. We're not.

We're not God and get it so backwards. But the

only way that we could truly be sure that we're

good with God, because when we try our own ways,

we're so insecure and self conscious. Am I right? Am I?

Not right? Am I right? But we go by his way,

we can know that we are good. The only way

we can be sure that we are good with God

is by knowing the terms and conditions that He is

laid out. That way, no one can lead us astray,

not our culture, not the world, not even our own

good ideas. So a big question I want to ask

for us today is are we going to live by

God's terms or are we going to die by our own?

Are we going to live by God's terms? Or are

we going to die by our own? And on a

practical note, have we been treating our Bible like the

turns and conditions on our computer? Scroll into the end,

hit and agree that was that for the day. I

don't even know what I disagreed to. How we treat

the stuff on our computer? I don't know. Hope it

doesn't come back. But God doesn't just tell us how

we can be saved by Christ, but he also tells

us how to live as Christ. He's called us to

walk as Christ, to live as His people, because not

only is there much instruction for us, but there are

many warnings also of what to look out for, and

we need to be like the Israelites in our text today,

who have heard God's word and are submitted to it.

The difference is that when we fall short still the

life that we are to live, we now have this

covering of Christ blood that allows us to continue on

living for God with fear of punishment for our sin,

because we have the forgiveness in Christ, so we can

repent of our sin and serve Him. And then this

New Covenant we're given, these new hearts that want to

do that. We aren't meant just to be a forgiven people,

but people who live before the face of God. We

aren't supposed to be just a forgiven people, but people

who are focused on God and his ways, to be

his salt and light, to glorify Him. That we live

for God on his terms, not our own. Then this

is the great promise of the New Covenant. One of

the many prophecies of this New Covenant, Jeremiah thirty one says, Behold,

the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will

make a new covenant with the House of Israel and

the House of Judah, not like the covenant that I

made with their fathers on the day when I took

them by the hand to bring them out of the

land of Egypt, by covenant that they broke, though I

was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the

covenant that will make with the House of as your

After those days, declares the Lord, I will put my

law within them, and I will write it on their hearts,

and I will be their God, and they shall be

my people, and no longer shall each one teach his

neighbor and each his brother, saying, know the Lord, because

they shall all know me. From the least of them

to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive

their iniquity and will remember their sin. No more. God

has set the terms and conditions for how we are

to come into his presence, and that by Jesus and

his blood as God's covenant. People don't turn to other

ways of living for God. Stop pretending to be God

in your own life, living by your own terms, and

come to Him by His terms. Amen, would you please

Stan