The Book Of Acts | Will I Listen? (October 11th, 2020) - Mike Armstrong

All right, well, if you would grab your Bible now and uh turn it to Acts chapter seven.

We're back into our Acts series.

It's been about a month or so since we've been in that Acts chapter seven.

And as you're getting all of that flipped open there, uh take a moment here with me for just a second and think back to a time in your life when you did something wrong.

Okay, or you were in the wrong, and someone tried to maybe pull you aside and correct you, admonish you, or give you some guidance about that thing.

Okay, maybe for you you're thinking back to when you were a kid and you had those conversations with your parents, or or it was with a teacher, or maybe for you it's your manager at work, right?

Or or your spouse, they're always so gracious and telling us what's wrong, right?

Or or maybe for you it was a spiritual mentor, and they're like, what you're doing isn't right, and they're trying to guide you in that way.

Now, the key question uh to that is you're thinking about an example there is did you listen to them?

Did you did you take their counsel?

Did you take their advice?

Now, maybe in the instance that you're thinking about, uh you did.

Okay, but isn't it interesting how often you and I bristle at correction?

Okay, we don't like it instinctively, naturally.

And so so for you, maybe for you, you tend to you tend to try and defend yourself and state your case, or you just you argue with the person.

Or perhaps we're we're we're nice Canadians and we're a little bit more passive in our approach, and and instead of that outward abrasiveness, we more just we we kind of give off the impression that we're listening to the council, right?

And we and we nod along and we we kind of pretend that we're hearing and we're listening to them, uh, but we're really we're not.

Inside, we're we're just tuning them out.

Yeah, okay, keep saying your thing.

Uh we're not really listening, not at all.

Now, this whole not hearing and not listening thing, this has been going on between God and his people Israel uh for centuries.

In Acts chapter 7, the Lord uses Stephen uh to point out that they were still guilty of this.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

Okay, so we're gonna take a look at this interaction here between Stephen and between uh some religious leaders here and look at this, but at the same time, we're we're gonna assess ourselves here in this and and really assess whether or not we listen.

Do we listen when the Lord has to correct us, when we are in the wrong?

Right?

When you have gone against the Lord, um do you listen when he corrects you?

Do you do you hear him when there might be even the rebuke or or it's the correction in grace and and love as he tries to shape us?

Okay, so we're gonna come at it from that angle here this morning.

But before we jump in, I want to pray.

And so join me as we do that.

Lord, we come before you and and we know, Lord, that there have been times where each one of us this week has strayed from uh what you would desire for us.

Lord, and I pray that as we kind of think about these things and we look at a message today, it's really about listening to the Lord and and heeding your words.

God, I pray that we would do that.

Father, I pray that you would stir the soil of our hearts here this morning, Lord.

I pray that you would bring uh whatever it is that we need.

Maybe it's maybe it's the heavy hand of conviction, maybe it's just the the encouragement, maybe it's the the joy of what it means to submit ourselves to you and follow you, Lord.

I don't know every heart, but thankfully you do.

And so, God, as we uh look at this passage here today, I pray that uh that you would give us uh a great desire to be close to you, a great desire to follow you, to hear your words, to truly listen.

So, Lord, I pray that you would speak through your word uh here this morning to the glory of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, well, first thing this morning, uh, if you're following along in your notes, it's this will I listen to the Lord when I'm wrong, or will I reject his rule and dismiss the redemption that he offers me?

All right, so last time that we were in the book of Acts, again, it was probably about five weeks ago or so, uh, we were introduced to Stephen.

You remember him?

He was one of the Hellenists.

We talked about what a Hellenist is, it's a Greek-speaking Jew.

And so he was one of those seven guys who were appointed and commissioned uh to go and serve those widows that had been unintentionally uh neglected.

There was there was funds, there was care, there was there was food, there was provision that was going out, that was being distributed, but some were being neglected in this, and so Stephen was one of the guys who uh went and helped out in this.

Now at the end of chapter six, Stephen becomes the focus of a pretty heavy dispute.

It was a dispute between himself and some of the synagogue leaders in that area.

Remember, the scene was now not in Jerusalem, but but the surrounding region in one of the areas uh out there.

And and these synagogue leaders, they had been kind of getting into it with Stephen, and they weren't a fan of his.

The scriptures tell us that they couldn't handle his God-given wisdom.

Right?

Uh God was Christ was speaking through him.

They couldn't stomach, they couldn't deal with the spirit of God that was working through Stephen, and so they decided, you know what, we can't, we can't seem to win an argument, we can't seem to shut down what this guy is all about, and so uh, we're just gonna fight dirty.

Right?

Remember, that was the topic of that last message, and so what they do is they they twist his words, they accuse him of all kinds of things that weren't true.

They they accuse him of blasphemy, they instigate others to lie and to defame his character, they stir up the people of that area against him, ultimately physically grabbing hold of him, seizing him, and dragging him before uh the council, okay, where the high priest uh asks him a question.

You can see that in chapter 7, verse 1 now.

We're into it.

The high priest hears these accusations and just asks him the questions.

Are these things so?

Right?

Is this true?

Okay, so these Jews that were accusing him, I mean, they were clearly, they were clearly wrong here.

They were not handling themselves in a way that would honor the Lord whatsoever.

They were going against him, they were going against a man whom the Lord had appointed and had been using very powerfully to spread the gospel.

Stephen was a mighty uh missionary.

Okay, so what follows next, as we're gonna read the rest of this chapter here, is the Lord's rebuke of his people.

Okay, he's he's had enough of this, and he uses Stephen to show how what these men were doing to him is really what God's people had been doing for a long time.

It's just the latest example of how Israel had been responding to the Lord and to his prophets from the beginning.

Okay, just as they had done before, they were continuing to reject his rule over their lives and over their nation.

They were dismissing the amazing redemption that he was offering to them through Jesus Christ.

Okay, so take a look at verse two now as we're gonna read our way through this passage.

You might be looking at this, you're like, man, that's a lot of verses.

Uh yes, it is.

Okay, but we're gonna make our way through it pretty quickly.

We're gonna read now here verses two down to verse uh 38.

Okay, so uh, so buckle up, church.

Okay, here we go.

It says, Stephen said, so he answers the high priest, he says, brothers and fathers, hear me.

He's like, guys, guys, listen to what I'm saying.

Okay, that's that's that's a clear, clear direction here of where this whole passage is going.

He's urging them, hear me.

Okay, he says, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham.

Okay, so that's the first character that we're introduced to here as as as Stephen walks us through the history of Israel.

Okay, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran, and said to him, Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.

Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran.

And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.

Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's a foot's length, but promised, okay, that's a key word, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child.

And so you might be remembering back to Abram and Sarah.

Remember how they were very old, and they had not given birth, not have had any children.

They were in their 90s at that point, and yet here God promises that they are going to have a child, and through them their descendants will be blessed.

So you see this idea of a promise.

Now, verse six.

And God spoke to this effect, that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them 400 years.

Okay, pointing ahead to the slavery in Egypt.

Verse 7, but I will judge the nation that they serve, said God, and after, and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place, pointing ahead to Mount Sinai.

And he gave him the covenant of circumcision, which was which was an agreement that they had between each other, circumcision being a sign of the promise and the covenant that God made with Abram.

Okay, and so Abram became the father of Isaac.

Lo and behold, God comes through on his promise and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

Okay, and the patriarchs, verse nine, jealous of Joseph.

Okay, so who are the patriarchs?

Patriarchs are are Jacob's kids, right?

Including Joseph.

The patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt, but God was with him and rescued him out of all of his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.

Okay, so it starts with a promise made to Abraham.

Things start to look really bleak now through Joseph, but you see that God still has his hand on his people.

You see his grace, you see his love, you see his protection on them, you see that he is willing to come through and will come through on his promises.

Okay, now verse eleven.

It says Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan and great affliction, and our fathers, uh and our fathers could find no food.

But when Jacob heard that there was uh grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit.

And on the second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh.

And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all.

And Jacob went down into Egypt and he died, he and his fathers, and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abram had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

But as the time of the promise, remember the promise drew near that they would be given this land, remember, okay, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt.

So again, Stephen's going through this at a pretty good clip, the their history.

It says, until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph.

He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants so that they sh would not be kept alive.

At this time, Moses, okay, the next main character here, was born.

And he was beautiful in God's sight, and he was brought up for three months in his father's house.

And when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own.

And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and in his deeds.

Here's what happens next, verse 23.

When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.

And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian.

He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand.

But listen, they did not understand.

Okay, that's speaking.

Stephen is now speaking to what is currently happening in his situation.

He thought that they would understand, they did not.

But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?

Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?

At this retort, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

Now when forty years had passed, the an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in a flame of fire in a bush.

When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he draw drew near to look, there came the voice from the Lord, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and of Jacob.

And Moses trembled and did not dare to look.

Then the Lord said to him, Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.

And then listen to this, verse 34.

He says, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them, and now come, I will send you to Egypt.

And so again, you see there throughout the history of Israel, God has his eye on them.

God is protecting them, God cares, he hears their groaning, he's coming now to deliver them, to rescue them out of the hand of their captors, out of their uh out of slavery.

Verse 35 now, this Moses, whom they rejected, interesting, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge?

This man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

Stephen says, This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.

This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.

Now that's an interesting verse because it's a clear reference to Christ, to the coming Messiah, who, of course, would be Jewish.

He would be raised up among the brothers.

Now, verse 38, finally, it says, This is the one, back to Moses now, who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, he received living oracles or the law, right?

The Ten Commandments up on the mountain to give to us.

Okay, that's a long section there, but you see how how Stephen, hey, through the through the Spirit of God, is responding now to these very unfounded and salacious accusations against him by delving into Israel's history, or really he's giving them an overview to show them that what they're doing now is really what their fathers had done previously.

What their fathers had done in rejecting Moses as their ruler and redeemer sent by God, right, out of slavery.

That's what it tells us in verse 35.

Okay, these Jews now, in this in the situation with Stephen, had done when they rejected Christ.

They were rejecting him, their ultimate ruler and their ultimate redeemer.

Who, of course, in verse 37, uh Stephen had said that Moses would, Moses told them God would raise up from among them.

Okay, and just like how they had rejected God's man Moses, okay, they were now rejecting Stephen.

They were rejecting the apostles, they were rejecting anyone really who proclaimed the gospel of God's grace.

Right?

God's gracious and glorious rulership over them, the redemption that he offered them through Jesus Christ.

Okay, so listen, church, put yourself in Israel's shoes here this morning.

Okay, again, that's kind of the angle that we're coming at this from here today.

Right?

As we think about the times that we're wrong, right?

That we've sinned, as you kind of think about the various ways that you have maybe even done that this week, you've gone against the Lord.

Hey, will you will you hear him today?

Remember, that is what Stephen was pleading with his brothers and his fathers to do.

Hear what I'm saying.

Will you hear him?

Will you hear God's urge to accept his loving and and wise rule over your life?

Will you listen to the invitation to receive the redemption that he wants to extend to you today, the transformative work that he wants to do in your life?

Okay, or will you, just like how the Jews had gotten accustomed to doing, will you reject those things?

Will you reject the Lord?

Will you reject the message that the people that God has put in your life are urging you to accept as they try to steer you in the right direction?

See, what we we have to really do here is learn to understand and really embrace here that God's rule, okay, God's redemption is actually a sweet thing for us.

So hey, if for example, you don't know Jesus Christ as Lord, okay, when when God extends the offer of salvation, understand that He is He is offering you a remarkable gift.

Right?

Because maybe there's somebody here, there's somebody watching online, and you don't know Christ, and for you, you're you're hearing this, you're you're realizing that the Lord wants you to turn and repent and to listen to His words and turn to Him, and yet for you there's like that battle going on.

And many of us will remember us being in that same boat back when we before, right before we first trusted Christ, where we hear that Christ offers us forgiveness, we we sense that conviction, and yet there's that inward battle that's taking place.

Where it's that pride where we I don't know if I want to give up my ways.

I I don't know.

I I have fear even that you know what what will it be like to become a Christian?

What will it be like to give my life to the Lord and and follow him?

What kind of things am I gonna have to give up that have become really comfortable to me?

Right?

And and for us, we we don't we don't want to hear him in that in that moment, and we think of his his rule as this oppressive thing where now I'm not gonna get to do all the things that I wanted to do.

But we have to understand is that his rule is truly freedom for us.

His rule is the best thing for us.

Right?

I mean, many of us think about back when you were kind of wrestling with the Lord before you gave your life to him, and then finally there was that moment where you were broken and you relented of your pride, and you stopped fighting against him and you accepted the the free gift of uh of salvation.

And you re and you realized in that moment, like this is amazing, like why why did I resist this for so long?

And so listen, if if you don't know the Lord as Savior, understand that he is offering you forgiveness, he is offering you to take away your sin, to to wipe it away, to to rescue you from the crash course that you have with an eternity in hell.

Well, you might be thinking, how?

Like how could he how could he do this?

Why would he do this?

Well, he does it because he loves you.

He created you and he created you to be in a relationship with him.

And that's the whole reason that he sent Christ to the cross, why he why he sent Christ to die.

Christ bore our punishment for us.

He took all that in himself so that you wouldn't have to be punished, so that you wouldn't have to be separated from God for all eternity.

What an amazing gift that if you would understand that and and just admit your pride and and how your sin has gone against God and receive this gift of salvation, you would be made new, you'd be forgiven, you'd be offered this new life where the Lord will begin to transform you and make you new and give you purpose.

Listen, if you are a believer here today, or you're watching, we kind of have to continue to remind ourselves of those kinds of things, don't we?

Remember that when the Lord corrects us, as even after we get saved, we're prone to kind of wandering.

Right?

We sing that song.

We're prone to kind of chasing after our own desires and following our own path.

We have to remember that when the Lord disciplines us, he's doing it because he loves us, he's doing it as a father does his son, because he wants his son to be in a better place.

And as he does that, because we're wandering into selfishness or or destructive behavior, really what he's doing is he's trying to get us to stop hurting ourselves.

Anytime we think that our way is best, it ultimately harms us.

And of course, it harms others as well.

We have to remind ourselves of the truth that his rule, his rulership, it's only oppressive to a proud heart.

His rule is freedom when we humble ourselves.

Being under his rule is joy and it's peace, it's life for those who know him.

The redemption that he offers you and I is the redemption, is the transformation that we've been seeking, we've been talking about for the last number of weeks.

That's what's truly best for us.

That's what's in our best interest.

That's what brings God glory, and that's of course why we exist.

So when we find ourselves in one of those positions, one of those circumstances where we're wrong and we've gone against the Lord, will we listen to him?

Will we accept his words?

Will we do that today?

Will we do that right now?

Or will you reject him?

Will you dismiss what he's trying to say to you today?

Hey, Israel here obviously they're providing us a blueprint of how not to respond.

Right?

That's how we're looking at this, that's how we're seeing it.

And next here, Stephen shows us that it just got worse and worse for them because they refused to accept and embrace their Lord.

They just continued to reject, they continued to dismiss.

Okay, so here's the second thing.

Will I listen to the Lord when I'm wrong?

Or will I pursue my own agenda and become blindly entrenched in it?

Okay, so Stephen here, he continues with this side-by-side comparison of Israel's past to Israel's present.

Okay, and again, of course, we know this.

Uh it's not exactly flattering.

Okay, so take a look at verse 39 now as we read down uh into verse 50.

Okay, so it says this our fathers refused to obey him, talking about Moses, okay?

But thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt.

Okay, we'll come back to that.

Saying to Aaron now, verse 40, make for us gods who will go before us.

As for this Moses, who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

Remember that Moses was up on the mount, he's up on Mount Sinai, communing with God, getting the Ten Commandments, and it had been a while, and the people are like, ah, we don't really know where Moses has gone.

So I know how about we construct new gods that we literally make with our own hands.

Okay, it sounds kind of crazy, but that's really what any idolatry is.

Okay, take a look.

Here we see it in verse 41.

It says, And they made a calf in those days, okay, like a like a baby cow, you read that right, and offered a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands.

But God turned away, this is scary, and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets.

Did you bring me, bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

Says, You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your God Raphan, the images that you made to worship, and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.

Now their idolatry just kept getting worse and worse to the point where they actually, it says there in verse 43, they worshipped Moloch.

Moloch was the false god that they would actually sacrifice their children to to try and please.

The star of your God, Raphan.

We don't know a lot about Raphan, probably an Egyptian god.

Okay, now keep going here, verse 44.

Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, okay, where the Ark of the Covenant was, and where the Ten Commandments were housed, okay, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern that he had seen.

Our fathers in turn brought it in, this is into the promised land, with Joshua, when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers.

And so it was until the days of David, who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord?

Or what is the place of my rest?

Did not my hand make all these things?

Alright, so you see here that Israel, um, as they refuse to obey, okay, they refuse to obey or listen to Moses and the Lord, things just get darker and darker.

I mean, child sacrifices is not exactly a high watermark in your history of worship, okay?

It just gets worse and worse.

Where it says there that God eventually just gives them over to their own desires, their own agenda, their own plans.

Reminds me a lot of Romans chapter one, where God just gave them over to their own lusts and their desires.

That's exactly what happens when we continue to go into sin, whenever we pursue whatever avenues we think are going to be more satisfying to us and more conducive to our well-being than God.

That's exactly what's happening here in Israel.

Okay, so what ends up happening?

Well, obviously, their idolatry gets spiking out of control and they descend even further and further into these pursuits, where they become so entrenched that even when the Lord does work on their behalf, even when he does send prophets and he does start doing some of these things, they become so entrenched in what they were doing that this spiritual uh blindness uh takes place and uh they don't even recognize that the Lord is working.

Which is, of course, you fast forward now, exactly where they find themselves here with Stephen.

Right?

This deep spiritual blindness had shrouded them to the point where they missed out on Christ.

Okay, and they've they've they've just kind of invested in their own thing, their own agenda, their own kind of man-made religion in many ways, and which specifically was this like very ritualistic focus on the temple itself.

Like the temple is where God dwells with us.

Remember, that's what they were getting into an argument about with Stephen before he he goes into this whole history.

They're like, this is where God dwells, it's in the temple.

And so they admiss the fact that through Christ, through the Spirit of God, uh, God is now to dwell with or in mankind.

And so you see that they missed the entire point of what God was doing.

Okay, all of this is really the exact same model, the same exact process that happens to any one of us whenever we refuse to listen to the Lord and instead insist on our own way, our own agenda, here are our own pursuits.

See, when we give into the flesh or when we pursue idols, whatever our idols might be, we've talked a lot about those over the last week.

Okay, whenever we follow our own desires, in that moment, right, if we have the wherewithal to kind of realize what we're doing, we foolishly think, as believers, we think, well, this isn't that big of a deal.

Right?

This isn't that serious.

This is more just a kind of a one-time slip for me.

I'm more just dipping my toe into idolatry or into my own sinful agenda.

But but next time, don't worry, I'll make the right choice next time.

It's not gonna be that big of a deal.

Okay, without realizing that when we do this, there's a turning of our hearts that begins to happen.

Remember, we read that in verse 39.

Where what's happening is we we've kind of justified it as this innocent thing whenever we sin, but really it's it's a refusal to listen to the Lord.

It's a refusal to obey Him, just like Israel had had done with Moses, which very easily leads you and I into these prolonged periods of living in disobedience.

Where we're living for ourselves.

And that always brings some kind of dark and heavy uh consequence.

I don't know if you remember that phrase that I've shared a few times with you, it's a phrase that my pastor had had uh once shared with me or shared with me many times, and we'll get this on the screen for you.

He says this he says, Sin will take you further than you want to go, it'll keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you're willing to pay.

Every once in a while that phrase comes to mind for me, and it's it's one of those like kind of shaking moments where you realize that what I'm doing right now in in in however like however I'm acting and in whatever way I'm disobeying the Lord, it's it's not innocent.

It's it's not a simple thing that I can easily control and and back my way out of whenever.

There are serious consequences here.

And so, hey, does this describe the the trajectory of your decision making these days?

Where you're wrong and and deep down, you know it.

Okay, but you just keep kind of sliding down this slippery slope of your own agenda instead of listening to the Lord and and following His.

Or perhaps for you, it's it's gone on for so long now, and you're so deep into it, you're in over your head, and it's to the point where you've just become blindly entrenched, and and and you're kind of like these Jews here, as we're gonna see next, where even as I'm saying this and and you're reading this this morning, you're you're chafing inside.

And you're like, man, what this guy's saying is ridiculous.

And and this is this is a joke.

I I don't need to listen to this.

And maybe for you it's gone on and it's gone so far now that you're you're kind of actively resisting God's corrections to you today, and and you're even working overtly against him and against his plans.

And it's that kind of obstinence that we that we see here, we sense here in this final thing.

Will I listen to the Lord when I'm wrong?

Or will I resist his rebukes and allow my stubbornness to prevail?

So now, Stephen, he he turns his attention here from Israel's history as he's been going through it to their current display of rebellion.

And this is just, I mean, a scathing indictment, no, no way around that.

But remember, this isn't just Stephen and Stephen's defense of himself.

This is the Lord speaking through Stephen.

Take a look at verse 51 now to 53.

Look at what he says.

He says, You stiff-necked people.

Okay, that's the stubbornness right there.

He's like, how long, how many times do you have to learn this lesson?

You're you're obstinate.

Your neck is stiff, you refuse to bow.

It's a symbol of what's going on in your heart.

He says, uncircumcised in your heart and in your ears.

You're so you're so focused on the outward act of circumcision, but you don't realize it's really about what's going on in your heart.

You're uncircumcised in your heart.

Your ears, you're not, you're not listening here.

You don't hear the Lord.

You you always resist the Holy Spirit.

I mean, that's heavy.

You always resist the Holy Spirit.

As your fathers did, so do you.

Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?

Right?

That's a shot right there, an appropriate one.

Okay, well, and they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one, Jesus Christ, whom you have now betrayed and murdered.

You who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.

Okay, suffice it to say, these are some, these are some heavy truth bombs here.

They're just detonating, right?

They're going off left, right, and center.

But it's definitely an appropriate time for those to be dropped.

And as we'll see next week, sadly, it all falls on deaf ears.

They refuse.

We're not gonna hear this.

We're not gonna, we're not gonna allow our hearts to be softened, we're not gonna open up our ears, we're not gonna, we're not gonna humble ourselves.

Okay, but hear me on this church.

It does not need to be this way for you.

It doesn't.

Whether you've just started as a young person starting to explore your your independence and realizing that, wow, what my what my mom and dad said, what I've grown up with in the church, I don't, I don't have to follow that.

In fact, the world, it's it's pretty tantalizing.

And and I think I'm gonna explore that a little bit.

I'm gonna try that out.

I'm I'm gonna see what that's like, whether, whether that's kind of of you and and and and you're you're closing your ears and your heart to to the Lord, or you maybe for you, it's not this new thing, it's something that's been going on for a long time.

You've been resisting his rebukes for far too long.

You've been allowing your stubbornness to prevail maybe for years.

Whether you're just kind of exploring this or it's been going on for a long time, listen, you can repent.

Right?

That is God's gracious plea to you today.

You can choose to hear him truthfully, truly, right now.

You don't have to wait, you can listen to the warnings, you can get you can get right with him.

As Hebrews 3, verse 15 says, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, which interestingly is pointing right back to that episode we just read about the golden calf.

Hebrews 3:15

Listen, allow the reality that you cannot win if you set yourself against the Lord.

Okay, allow that reality to reverberate through your soul this morning.

You know, if it's if it's sexual immorality that you're starting to chase after or you're stuck in, or if it's substance abuse or or any of the endless array of seemingly innocent ways that we try to self-govern ourselves and our lives here, heed the rebuke before it's too late.

Get saved if that's the step that you need to take.

Surrender yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Lordship, receive the gift of salvation.

Or if you believe that you are saved, get back on track here today.

Get back to living in line with him, with his will for you, with the truth of the gospel.

And as heavy as the rebuke might be for you right now, and it might even feel physically, just know that the stubbornness of your heart is what brought that on.

And realize that it's that it's ultimately this amazing act of God's grace to put you through that experience of conviction and and brokenness about that.

Right?

It's an act of love.

Right?

He knows that that being near him is the best thing for you.

So he is willing to, you know, whatever your hand is holding on to, he's willing to break your fingers open.

Even if it feels kind of violent, he's working in your heart right now.

That is actually God's grace because he knows that you're hurting yourself ultimately when you continue to harden your heart towards him.

So listen, take the hand of the Lord as he's reaching down to you today through his word, as really what he's doing is he's rescuing you from yourself.

Right?

See the opportunity here that God's placed in front of you today to get right with him and to begin walking in newness of life.

What an amazing thing.

As God's grace, as God's Spirit floods over you and begins to have his way in you, it's an amazing thing.

I love I love how Peter puts it in Acts chapter 3, verse 20.

Acts 3:20

We read this a while ago, but he says this repent, therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, which is awesome, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.

How great is that?

Again, you might be in that place where it's like conviction and it's heaviness, and you're having that battle right now.

Understand it's a time of refreshing that the Lord wants to usher into your life.

From being near Him, His presence.

Some of you know exactly what that's like.

You're like, man, that's awesome.

That's what I want.

That's what I'm praying for my loved ones.

That is what I'm praying for my church.

Listen, that's what I'm praying for you.

I've been praying that for you all week.

I want to pray that for you right now.

I'm gonna invite Derek and the team back up here, and as they lead us in a response, and this is an opportunity for you to even just think about where your where your life is at with the Lord.

What is the Lord saying to you today?

What does he want you to listen to?

Will you listen?

Will you surrender yourself to him?

Let's pray.

God, I pray that as we know that this is a rather heavy word, Lord, and a heavy passage as we look at an entire nation that had gone astray.

Or an entire nation that had refused to listen for so long, and we see the problems that it caused for them, and the problems that they ended up causing for so many other people, Lord.

I pray that that would not be true of our church.

Lord, I pray that you would continue to move and have your way in the hearts of your people here today or watching at home.

God, I pray that as we want to follow you and we we want to be transformed and and we want to bring glory to Jesus Christ, Lord, I pray that you would give us that perspective that repentance is all part of that.

And Lord, I pray that you would help us to see very quickly that that it's times of refreshing from your presence.

That's what you want to usher us into.

And so, God, I pray that your church would hear today.

I pray that your church would listen today.

God, we know that in our in our own strength we we can't do this, Lord.

We we make a mess, and so we need your grace, we need your love, Lord.

I pray that we would see this as an act of love.

Lord, do work in our hearts.

God, we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.