Heaven

The Eternal State

Review

1. When do believers go there? Immediately! (Philippians 1:23 | 2 Corinthians 5:8)


2. What’s so great about heaven? Everything! (Revelation 21:1-8)


1. Everything is New. (Rev 21:1-2,5)


2. Everything is in God's perfect Presence. (Rev 21:3,7)


3. Everything that Hurts is gone. (Rev 21:4)


4. Everything Satisfies. (Rev 21:6)




3. What's the Alternative? (Rev 21:8)



Matthew 25:46 | Luke 16:24



4. How do we Get there? (John 14:1-6)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  00:41-00:44

  This is our last week in Bible 101.

  00:45-00:48

  I'd like to remind you all of the messages are available on our website.

  00:50-00:58

  The title of today's message is "Bible 101 - Heaven." The eternal state we've gone through over these past 10 weeks.

  00:59-01:00

  God's Word.

  01:00-01:02

  What is the overview?

  01:02-01:03

  What's the story?

  01:05-01:14

  Today we're going to answer what goes beyond history recorded in this book.

  01:15-01:16

  We're talking about heaven.

  01:18-01:20

  Heaven is the place of our hope.

  01:21-01:24

  Jesus said that he goes to prepare a place for us.

  01:26-01:30

  And some people think of heaven as sort of like the finish line, but I've been thinking about that this week.

  01:31-01:34

  Dying and getting to heaven isn't really the finish line, is it?

  01:36-01:43

  Because we're only on the earth for a few years, but we are in heaven So it doesn't really seem like a finish line when you think about it that way.

  01:45-01:52

  But if we are going to be spending eternity in heaven, wouldn't you like to know what it's like?

  01:53-01:54

  I mean, think about it.

  01:54-01:57

  Imagine if I came to you and said, "Hey, you've been working hard.

  01:59-02:01

  You need some time off, so here's what I did.

  02:01-02:08

  I booked you a two-week vacation." The first question you would ask is, where is it?

  02:09-02:10

  And my answer is this.

  02:10-02:11

  I'm not going to tell you.

  02:12-02:13

  But trust me, you're going to like it.

  02:14-02:16

  Now, how many people would be comfortable with that?

  02:18-02:18

  One, OK.

  02:19-02:19

  Maybe two.

  02:20-02:22

  To say, I don't know where I'm going.

  02:22-02:23

  I don't know what it's like.

  02:23-02:24

  But OK.

  02:24-02:27

  Most of us, myself included, I would be very uncomfortable with that.

  02:28-02:29

  No, no, tell me what it's like.

  02:29-02:31

  You know, where is it?

  02:31-02:33

  And what are we going to be doing there?

  02:33-02:35

  And what kind of fun things are there?

  02:35-02:38

  I'm not a beach person. I'm not. I do not like the beach.

  02:38-02:40

  So if...

  02:40-02:43

  You know, I wouldn't be happy with that. If you like the beach, that's your thing, that's cool.

  02:43-02:44

  I'm just not a beach person, alright?

  02:46-02:50

  But wouldn't you want to know where you're going to be spending two weeks?

  02:51-02:53

  What's it going to be like there? Where is it?

  02:54-02:56

  We're staring down eternity.

  02:57-03:00

  A concept that we can barely wrap our brains around.

  03:01-03:11

  And the Bible says that we are going to be spending Wouldn't you want to know what that place is like?

  03:14-03:20

  Interestingly, there is a lot of confusion about this place.

  03:20-03:24

  And people say and believe the craziest things about heaven.

  03:26-03:29

  Cartoons and jokes haven't helped.

  03:30-03:32

  You know the classic cartoons, right?

  03:32-03:33

  How is heaven depicted?

  03:34-03:35

  You're wearing a robe and you're sitting in a chair.

  03:35-03:36

  You're sitting on a cloud and you're what?

  03:37-03:38

  You're playing the harp, right?

  03:40-03:49

  I remember one cartoon in particular, I think it was a Farsight cartoon, where there was a guy in his robe, sitting on a cloud, holding his harp, and he has a thought balloon that says, I wish I'd brought a magazine.

  03:50-03:58

  But that's somebody's idea of heaven, is you just kind of sit on a cloud for all of eternity.

  03:58-04:04

  And that sounds like that would get old pretty quick, but I don't think that that's biblically accurate.

  04:05-04:06

  You know, I don't know all the jokes.

  04:07-04:15

  I mean, how many jokes are there that, you know, you know, these three guys die and they go to heaven and how's the rest of the joke go?

  04:16-04:20

  They show up at the pearly gates and who's standing at the pearly gates?

  04:21-04:26

  St. Peter, and there's always some, you know, here's where the plot device comes in.

  04:26-04:34

  Peter's going to ask you some question concerning, you know, how you lived your life, or the means by which you expired.

  04:36-04:38

  And that's not biblically accurate either.

  04:40-04:41

  Aaron and I were talking about this this week.

  04:43-04:44

  What some people say about heaven.

  04:45-04:48

  Some people very foolishly say, I've heard this so many times.

  04:50-04:55

  You know, when I get to heaven, there's a few things I'm going to straighten out what the Lord is about.

  04:55-04:56

  Have you ever heard somebody say that?

  04:56-04:59

  I'm going to sit God down and I'm going to straighten some things out.

  04:59-05:00

  I'm gonna answer some questions for you.

  05:00-05:02

  How many people have heard somebody say that?

  05:02-05:03

  I've heard that a lot.

  05:03-05:11

  People are like, "I'm gonna, when I get to heaven, "I'm gonna talk to God, I'm gonna fight." I'm like, you are clueless is what you are.

  05:12-05:16

  When you stand before the awesome holiness of God, you will be on your face.

  05:16-05:18

  You're gonna tell him anything, all right?

  05:19-05:20

  So get that stupid idea out of your head.

  05:21-05:22

  You're gonna set God straight.

  05:24-05:25

  Hardly.

  05:26-05:31

  People say that in their arrogance, like, "What are you?" You're a handful of dirt in a little bit of water.

  05:34-05:34

  You are.

  05:36-05:37

  You're going to straighten God out.

  05:39-05:39

  Foolishness.

  05:40-05:40

  It's foolishness.

  05:42-05:43

  It is absolute foolishness.

  05:44-06:01

  Well, music hasn't helped me personally because my first, I guess my first real exposure to to the concept of heaven came from the popular music that I listened to growing up.

  06:01-06:09

  And quite frankly, when you put all these pieces together about what all these bands and artists and singers are saying about heaven, it confused me.

  06:11-06:15

  For example, Queen sang of heaven for everyone.

  06:17-06:19

  Like, well, that sounds great, how do I get there?

  06:20-06:21

  It's obvious how you get there, right?

  06:21-06:22

  Led Zeppelin told us.

  06:23-06:25

  There's a stairway to heaven.

  06:25-06:26

  Okay, you guys are catching on.

  06:26-06:27

  There's a stairway to heaven.

  06:28-06:37

  And then when you get up the stairway to heaven, Bob Dylan and eventually Guns N' Roses taught us, I guess how you enter, which is, well, how?

  06:39-06:41

  Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door, right?

  06:43-06:44

  So where is heaven?

  06:45-06:50

  Well, according to the banned warrants, heaven isn't too far away.

  06:52-06:56

  But Belinda Carlyle told us what?

  06:58-06:58

  Yeah.

  06:58-07:07

  ♪ Ooh, heaven is a place on earth ♪ Sorry, I am really sorry about that.

  07:08-07:09

  I was having a moment there.

  07:11-07:13

  Alice in Change, you remember that?

  07:13-07:15

  I loved Alice in Change back in the early 90s.

  07:15-07:18

  They said that heaven's beside you and hell's within.

  07:21-07:22

  You guys know how much we love Tom Petty.

  07:24-07:26

  First line in the song "The Waiting," right?

  07:28-07:32

  (SINGING) Oh, baby, don't it feel like heaven right now?

  07:34-07:48

  Well, Eric Clapton made us cry when he sang "Tears in Heaven." But "Heaven" was actually a pickup line for the band InXS when they sang "Heaven Sent." They said, that's what I call you.

  07:48-07:52

  ♪ Heaven sent, that's what I call you ♪ Anybody else know that song?

  07:52-07:53

  Just me?

  07:53-07:54

  All right, Matt, thank you.

  07:57-08:13

  Cheap Trick, one of my all-time favorite bands, asked, "Would you like to go to heaven tonight?" I thought about that and I said, "No, I wouldn't." Because Phil Collins said, "Something happened on the way to heaven." Well, what?

  08:14-08:18

  I'm not sure, but kiss, saying that heaven's on fire.

  08:19-08:34

  Okay, so I get all these things about heaven, and then you show up at church, and they say, "When you die, you're gonna go to heaven." And I'm like, "I don't even know what that means." Because there's so many crazy ideas.

  08:36-08:39

  Here's the biggest lie about heaven.

  08:40-08:42

  This is by far the biggest, top of the list, without a question.

  08:43-08:47

  The biggest lie about heaven is you go there by being a good person.

  08:49-08:52

  That lie pervades...

  08:52-09:01

  I did a funeral several months ago, and we were having eulogy time, which was before the sermon, interestingly.

  09:02-09:12

  But the one man stood up and he said, concerning big Duke who passed away, They said, "They say if you're good, you go to heaven.

  09:13-09:22

  And Duke was a good man, so I'm sure he's in heaven." I didn't correct him on the spot, but certainly corrected that idea through the sermon that came a few minutes later.

  09:22-09:57

  But his statement is one that if you grab Average Joe off the street or down at Ross Park Mall or whatever, I promise you, grab Average Joe and say, "What do you have to do to get to heaven?" Most of the time, you're going to hear an answer that says something like, "You've got to be a good person. And that is a lie. It is not going to get you there. Then you come to church and honestly many Christians aren't even sure what what the deal is with heaven. So we're going to clear the air today by getting the information from someone who lives there. So grab your Bible, grab your outline.

  09:58-10:04

  Number one, this is the first question. I get asked this all the time. Let's just Let's get this out of the way.

  10:04-10:06

  When do believers go to heaven?

  10:08-10:10

  And the answer is immediately.

  10:11-10:11

  Immediately!

  10:12-10:18

  There's no such thing as purgatory or limbo or soul sleep or anything like that, according to the Bible.

  10:19-10:35

  Philippians 1:23, the Apostle Paul says, "My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better." Paul says when the time of his death came, is going to be when he is with Christ.

  10:35-10:42

  He didn't say eventually or after soul sleep or purgatory or whatever.

  10:43-10:44

  Same thing, 2 Corinthians 5:8.

  10:45-10:51

  Paul says, "We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord." You see, there's two options once again.

  10:52-11:00

  You're either here on the earth in your body or you're at home with the Lord.

  11:00-11:03

  So when do believers go there? Immediately.

  11:04-11:06

  Second question, what's so great about heaven?

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  This is what I've been so excited to share with you.

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  What's so great about heaven? The answer is everything.

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  I want you to turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 21.

  11:20-11:22

  Revelation chapter 21, we talked about this last week.

  11:22-11:29

  In the book of Revelation, the apostle John was sort of transported through time.

  11:29-11:33

  and was shown how the end of the world is going to look.

  11:33-11:44

  We talked about the second coming of Jesus Christ, and at the end of John's writing in Revelation, and the end of God's book, the Bible, he describes what heaven is like.

  11:46-11:47

  Revelation chapter 21.

  11:49-11:50

  We're going to be looking at the first eight verses.

  11:52-11:54

  We're going to take just a few verses at a time here.

  11:54-11:56

  But what's so great about heaven? Everything.

  11:57-12:53

  down first of all everything is new what's so great about having everything like what well here's the first thing everything is new look at verses I wanted to and then jump down to verse 5 John says then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. To understand the day is coming that there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth. God is making, Jesus Christ is building right now, this very minute, Jesus Christ is preparing this place. And someday this heaven and earth are going to be burn up. God's going to create a brand new one. That's Look at verse 2.

  12:55-13:06

  John says, "And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven." This New Jerusalem is the place Jesus is preparing.

  13:06-13:10

  It's a city made of transparent gold.

  13:12-13:13

  Coming down out of heaven.

  13:14-13:17

  It's going to be the headquarters of everything.

  13:19-13:21

  Coming down out of heaven from God.

  13:21-13:22

  Look at this next phrase, I love this.

  13:23-13:31

  "Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." This is something I have a lot of experience in, doing weddings, done a ton of weddings.

  13:32-13:53

  And every wedding I've done, without exception, that bride has put so much time and effort and thoughts and energy and money into making herself look absolutely perfect for this day.

  13:55-14:06

  I have never done a wedding where the bride shows up wearing sweatpants and some like University of Kentucky hoodie and her hair's up in one of those pony knot things, like ready for the wedding.

  14:06-14:07

  No, no, no, no.

  14:08-14:12

  She's preparing for months for this event, right?

  14:13-14:23

  Everything from the top of her head to her feet, She is preparing everything because when she comes into the chapel, she wants to look perfect.

  14:24-14:31

  And this is the kind of image that John is using to describe how Jesus is preparing heaven for you.

  14:32-14:37

  Jesus isn't throwing some chicken coop together for us.

  14:38-14:46

  This thing, this place is going to be perfect in every single way.

  14:48-14:51

  Like a bride adoring for her husband.

  14:51-15:21

  Look down in verse 5, Jesus speaking up, it says verse 5, "And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." Also, he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." In heaven, everything is new.

  15:22-15:24

  We can sort of resonate with that already, can't we?

  15:25-15:27

  Because there's nothing like getting something new, right?

  15:29-15:31

  Right? Like getting a new car?

  15:32-15:37

  I mean, think about that. How excited were you when you got your new car?

  15:38-15:41

  Or getting a new computer? Ladies?

  15:42-15:45

  Getting a new dress? Or getting a new pair of shoes?

  15:45-15:49

  Or men? Getting a new tool or a new fishing rod?

  15:49-16:05

  Kids? Getting a new video game system or getting a new cell phone? There's nothing like getting something The Bible says in heaven, everything, everything is new.

  16:06-16:09

  That excitement isn't going to wear off.

  16:10-16:12

  See, time doesn't pass in heaven like it does in the earth.

  16:13-16:23

  It's not like you're going to be 10,000 years into heaven, like, "Yeah, this is getting kind of stale." No. 10,000 years into heaven, you're going to be like, "This is awesome! This is all new!

  16:24-16:28

  It was new yesterday, and it's new today." and what's on the docket for tomorrow?

  16:28-16:29

  Everything's gonna be new!

  16:30-16:31

  And it's going to be awesome!

  16:33-16:33

  Every day.

  16:34-16:35

  Everything new.

  16:37-16:38

  That's what's great about heaven.

  16:38-16:40

  What else? Oh, it gets better.

  16:42-16:44

  Write this down. Everything is in God's perfect presence.

  16:46-16:48

  Everything is in God's perfect presence.

  16:49-16:50

  Look at verse 3.

  16:50-16:56

  "Then I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God God is with man.

  16:57-16:58

  He will dwell with them.

  16:58-16:59

  And they will be His people.

  16:59-17:03

  And God Himself will be with them as their God.

  17:04-17:06

  Jump down to verse 7.

  17:07-17:09

  The one who conquers will have this heritage.

  17:10-17:11

  And I will be His God.

  17:12-17:14

  He will be my Son.

  17:17-17:19

  Everything is in God's perfect presence.

  17:20-17:44

  How many times on earth - let's be honest, church - God is far away. He's not. Can we be honest? Aren't there times in your walk, there's times in mine, aren't there times in your walk that you feel like God's far away? And what you need, like God I need your, I need your presence, I need to know that you're near and He is, but sometimes it just doesn't feel like it.

  17:47-17:57

  How many times in my own life, through church planning and kids with some some developmental issues as you know, some personal struggles that I've had.

  17:58-17:59

  I felt, God, where are You?

  18:01-18:06

  How many times have we wished that we felt near to God?

  18:06-18:10

  I was talking to a dear sister in our church this past week.

  18:12-18:16

  I wrote down what she said as she said it because it really just resonated.

  18:17-18:18

  How can I pray for you?

  18:18-18:57

  She said, "I want to know God deeper." in heaven those days are done because you are going to be in his perfect presence you're not going to be in heaven like man I just wished it I just wish I was closer to God you won't be able to get any closer to God that longing for that that nearness of God that you have now is going to be ancient history because you are going to experience that every moment of every The times we spend now on our face, praying to our Father who is in secret, as Jesus said.

  18:59-19:04

  This prayer is someday going to be a face-to-face conversation with our Heavenly Father.

  19:06-19:11

  We're never going to long for His presence. We're going to revel in His presence.

  19:12-19:16

  What's so great about heaven? Well, everything's new. Everything's in God's perfect presence.

  19:17-19:21

  Next, everything that hurts is gone.

  19:22-19:23

  Look at verse 4.

  19:25-19:30

  "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.

  19:33-19:45

  Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.

  19:47-19:48

  No more tears.

  19:50-19:51

  No more death.

  19:52-19:54

  No more goodbyes.

  19:54-19:55

  No more mourning.

  19:57-20:04

  No more oxygen tanks or wheelchairs or canes or oncology appointments.

  20:05-20:07

  No dentist appointments.

  20:08-20:09

  Amen?

  20:10-20:11

  But I like my dentist.

  20:12-20:14

  Yeah, you're not going to have dentist appointments in heaven.

  20:16-20:23

  But think, everything and anything that has or can hurt you is ancient history.

  20:26-20:36

  Never to experience another second of pain, whether it's physical pain, whether it's emotional pain, whether it's mental pain, nothing is going to be able to hurt you.

  20:37-20:40

  to any degree in heaven.

  20:42-20:50

  Because God says, "The former things have passed away." Everything is new.

  20:50-20:52

  Everything is in God's perfect presence.

  20:52-20:53

  Everything that hurts is gone.

  20:54-21:00

  And then in letter D, "Everything satisfies." Everything satisfies.

  21:00-21:01

  Look at verse 6.

  21:01-21:03

  "And he said to me, 'It is done.

  21:04-21:08

  I am the Alpha and the Omega.

  21:09-21:20

  From the beginning and the end, to the thirsty, I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment." Everything satisfies.

  21:21-21:22

  Notice he talks about water.

  21:24-21:25

  You study water in the Bible.

  21:25-21:29

  Water is a symbol of fulfillment in the Bible.

  21:29-21:33

  It's a symbol of spiritual fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

  21:35-21:37

  Remember Jesus and the woman at the well.

  21:38-21:39

  Jesus said, "I have water for you.

  21:40-21:47

  The water that I give, it'll be a spring of water that comes up from your heart." That's what Jesus was talking about.

  21:47-21:52

  The satisfaction that this woman was looking for is ultimately found in knowing Him.

  21:52-21:58

  And here in heaven, it's perfect satisfaction, always.

  22:01-22:04

  In hell, you are never fulfilled.

  22:06-22:11

  But in heaven, you are always fulfilled.

  22:12-22:39

  Again, there's not going to be anybody walking around heaven going, "Not bad." But maybe if we had some lattice work, or, you know, God, I was thinking over here, you know, this place would be so much better, God, if you thought about putting a pinball machine, there's not going to be any of this, it could be better if.

  22:40-22:45

  And I told you the story of when one time I came home and my younger son, Cade, was upset.

  22:47-22:51

  And Aaron said, "You gotta talk to Cade." What's going on, buddy?

  22:51-22:52

  Remember Cade?

  22:52-23:01

  He said, "I don't know if my action figures "are gonna be in heaven." And all of a sudden I panicked, 'cause I'm like, I better read the Bible because I'm not sure either.

  23:02-23:04

  And that was a big deal.

  23:07-23:15

  The question is, what it boils down to, is heaven going to have everything that I'm going to need to make me happy?

  23:16-23:19

  And the answer is, abundantly yes.

  23:21-23:22

  Abundantly yes.

  23:25-23:27

  You are going to lack nothing in heaven.

  23:29-23:29

  Nothing.

  23:31-23:34

  Think of your happiest day here on the earth.

  23:35-23:39

  Every day in heaven, you're going to be so far beyond that.

  23:40-23:41

  And what's so great about heaven?

  23:43-23:43

  Everything.

  23:45-23:46

  It's in the text.

  23:48-23:50

  And it would do us well to spend a couple minutes talking about this.

  23:50-23:52

  Number three on your outline.

  23:52-23:53

  What's the alternative?

  23:55-23:55

  What's the alternative?

  23:57-23:58

  Look at verse eight.

  24:00-24:20

  "As for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

  24:22-24:29

  You see, John has to include this because it would be real easy for people to be reading this and getting excited about a heaven that they'll never see.

  24:31-24:33

  Because here's the reality, folks, not everybody's going there.

  24:35-24:37

  Everyone is not going to heaven.

  24:38-24:43

  The alternative is a lake that burns with fire and sulfur.

  24:43-24:44

  And who goes there?

  24:44-24:48

  Well, he gives a list, and we can categorize under one heading.

  24:48-24:54

  Sinners. Those who have not received forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

  24:55-24:57

  Sin will keep you out of heaven.

  24:59-25:03

  This lake that burns with fire and salt, for we call it hell.

  25:04-25:07

  It's a conscious, eternal judgment from God.

  25:08-25:13

  In a place of misery and punishment, as described in the Bible as outer darkness.

  25:14-25:29

  I've had some knuckleheads, you know, sharing the gospel with them, and they're like, "Well, I don't care if I'm going to hell because all my buddies are going to be there." And I'm like, "Well, you're not going to see them, because it's a place of darkness." Let's dispel this notion that hell is a frat party.

  25:31-25:34

  Jesus said that hell is a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

  25:36-25:43

  It's a place where the residents are constantly in anguish, constantly crying out.

  25:45-25:49

  Jesus described it as a place where the worm dieth not.

  25:49-25:51

  Oh, you want the relief to come.

  25:53-25:54

  You want the relief to come, but it won't.

  25:57-27:00

  Every so often you get people that are trying - I don't know if they're trying to be edgy or get some 15 minutes of fame or whatever, but somebody always comes along with some radical new doctrine there's nothing new under the Sun but I saw a wave of this a few years ago with this idea that hell is a temporary place did you hear about that all these theologians they were like hell's just temporary you don't go there forever it's just temporary you're there and you suffer for a while and then you cease to exist I want you to hear me church I wish that was true. I wish that was true. But it's not. Because I want you to look at one verse in particular. We could spend the whole thing on this. But Matthew 25 verse 46. Do we have that verse? Matthew 25 verse 46. Jesus is talking about the separation. Some going to heaven, some going to hell. Jesus said, "These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

  27:00-27:04

  Jesus described hell as lasting as long as heaven.

  27:05-27:11

  I haven't heard of any trendy liberal theologian putting a new spin on heaven, saying that heaven's a temporary place.

  27:11-27:12

  I haven't heard that one.

  27:13-27:15

  You go to heaven for a while, then it ceases to exist.

  27:15-27:16

  Never heard that.

  27:17-27:24

  I want you to see that Jesus said hell lasts as long as heaven lasts, because it's the same word, eternal.

  27:27-27:32

  Here's another, since we're dispelling myths, sit up and listen to this.

  27:34-27:46

  I used to think, I used to think that people in hell were crying out in torment because they wanted to be in heaven.

  27:46-27:48

  How many other people have thought that at some point?

  27:49-27:53

  I thought that, I thought, they're in hell and they're like, I wanna be in heaven.

  27:54-28:06

  And they're crying out, this place is horrible and I made a horrible decision, and if I had it all to do over again, God, I would make a different decision, and I would be in Heaven right now, and I thought that's what made hell so bad.

  28:06-28:07

  They're like, wanting to be in Heaven.

  28:08-28:10

  That's what made hell so bad, is they want to be in Heaven so bad.

  28:12-28:13

  But that's not true.

  28:15-28:26

  After some years of studying God's Word, I'm not convinced at all the people in hell want to be in heaven.

  28:28-28:29

  What do you mean by that?

  28:29-28:35

  Well, like Luke chapter 16, Jesus tells of the rich man and Lazarus.

  28:37-28:46

  And the rich man went to hell, the place of suffering, and Lazarus went to heaven. He was beside Abraham.

  28:47-28:56

  But if you notice in that passage, the rich man asked for water, but he didn't ask for heaven.

  28:58-29:22

  Luke 16.24, "And he called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.'" CS Lewis said it this way, "The gates to hell are locked on the inside." I'm convinced that people in hell don't want to be in heaven.

  29:23-29:24

  Yes, it's a place of torments.

  29:27-29:31

  Yes, it's a suffering the likes of which we can't even compare it.

  29:33-29:37

  But here's the reality as I've spent a lot of time thinking about this.

  29:38-29:47

  People that don't love the things of God are going to be absolutely miserable in heaven.

  29:48-29:49

  I want you to think about that.

  29:51-29:54

  So you have a guy who spends his entire life on the earth.

  29:55-29:57

  He wants nothing to do with God's Word.

  29:58-30:02

  He wants nothing to do with any kind of communion with God, with prayer.

  30:02-30:04

  He wants nothing to do with God's people.

  30:05-30:07

  So it's nothing to do with worship.

  30:09-30:10

  And what happens in heaven?

  30:12-30:16

  God's truth, God's presence, God's people, worship.

  30:16-30:19

  Does that sound like the kind of place that this guy wants to spend eternity?

  30:20-30:26

  He's rejected this his whole life, and now all of a sudden, he's going to have this passion for God because he's dead?

  30:27-30:27

  No.

  30:29-30:30

  Such a person would be miserable.

  30:32-30:36

  So there's a real sense in which hell grace because God gives people what they want.

  30:38-30:41

  Jesus Christ warned about the horrors of hell more than anyone.

  30:43-30:50

  And it is a terrifying and absolutely unspeakable existence.

  30:51-30:58

  But it is one that you choose by choosing to live a life without God now.

  30:59-31:00

  Here's the bottom line.

  31:01-31:02

  This applies to you.

  31:03-31:04

  You don't want God now?

  31:06-31:07

  You're not going to want Him for eternity either.

  31:08-31:08

  Okay?

  31:10-31:12

  So hell should not be a surprise for you.

  31:14-31:15

  God's going to give you exactly what you want.

  31:16-31:17

  God free existence.

  31:18-31:19

  I don't want God meddling in my affairs.

  31:21-31:22

  Worship seems stupid.

  31:23-31:23

  Okay.

  31:25-31:26

  God will give you exactly what you want.

  31:28-31:30

  So you better check yourself if that's really what you want.

  31:32-31:33

  That's the alternative.

  31:34-31:37

  And finally, how do we get there?

  31:38-31:39

  I want you to turn back.

  31:39-31:40

  How do we get there? John 14.

  31:41-31:42

  Very familiar passage.

  31:43-31:43

  One of my favorites.

  31:45-31:47

  John 14 tells us how to get there.

  31:49-31:52

  Jesus said, John 14, "Let not your hearts be troubled.

  31:53-32:03

  Believe in God, believe also in Me." Look at this, "In My Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you I go to prepare a place for you.

  32:04-32:12

  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am, you may be also.

  32:14-32:16

  And look at this next statement, I love this.

  32:16-32:19

  Jesus says, and you know the way where I am going.

  32:20-32:31

  And I imagine at that point, some of the disciples were like, I don't, but if you give me the address, I'll put it in my Google Maps And we'll GPS this thing right now.

  32:33-32:35

  Thomas speaks of, he goes, "Lord, we do not know where you're going.

  32:35-32:41

  "How can we know the way?" This all sounds well and good that you're going to make a place for us, but how do we get there?

  32:42-32:48

  Jesus said in verse six, Jesus said to him, "I am the way, "and the truth and the light.

  32:49-32:55

  "No one comes to the Father except through me." How do we get there?

  32:55-33:05

  It's not through good works or being a nice person, or keeping a religious checklist of rules, is through Jesus Christ Himself.

  33:06-33:07

  He is the way.

  33:09-33:17

  You're like, wait a minute, if sinners don't go to heaven, as you pointed out from Revelation 21:8, if sinners don't go to heaven, then we're all doomed!

  33:18-33:19

  The truth is that's right.

  33:19-33:20

  We all deserve punishment.

  33:21-33:22

  We all deserve hell.

  33:24-33:32

  And the only way that we could go to heaven is if someone took that punishment on our behalf.

  33:34-33:43

  And that's exactly what Jesus Christ did on the cross, bearing the wrath of God for everyone who would believe in Him.

  33:45-33:51

  Like I said, once in a while you talk to a guy - whether it's arrogance or ignorance, I don't know.

  33:51-33:52

  Maybe both.

  33:53-33:59

  Most of the while you talk to the guy that says, "Well, I know I'm going to hell and I don't care." You better check yourself on that.

  34:01-34:03

  But here's a more frequent occurrence.

  34:04-34:07

  Almost everybody that I speak with is planning on going to heaven.

  34:08-34:09

  That's their plan.

  34:11-34:12

  The question is, are you going?

  34:14-34:20

  The thing that you are trusting to get you to heaven, is it going to get you there?

  34:21-34:24

  According to Jesus Christ, He is the only way.

  34:26-34:30

  Because He's the only one that can take your sin away.

  34:32-34:32

  How do we get there?

  34:34-34:34

  It's through Jesus.

  34:37-34:38

  Alright, so let's review.

  34:38-34:39

  Can we put our bookshelf up?

  34:41-34:41

  Let's review.

  34:41-34:43

  We spent the last 10 weeks talking about the Bible.

  34:44-34:45

  And here it is.

  34:46-34:50

  The Bible that's in your hand is actually a library.

  34:51-34:57

  And we've spent these last 10 weeks understanding these books on our shelf.

  34:59-35:00

  We started in Genesis.

  35:00-35:04

  We saw that God created, and man rebelled.

  35:06-35:13

  Sin came into the world, and things got so bad, like the video said, things got so bad, God says, "I'm going to blot them off the face of the earth." And He sent a flood.

  35:14-35:23

  After the flood, remember we talked Chapter 11, God says, "Spread out." Man says, "Nah, we're good. We'll settle here." God confused their languages.

  35:24-35:26

  That was at the Tower of Babel.

  35:28-35:31

  Then we saw in Genesis 12, God had this plan.

  35:32-35:35

  Through this one man, Abraham, He says, "You're going to have a special land.

  35:35-35:40

  You're going to have descendants, and you're going to have a blessing that's going to be for the whole earth." Ultimately, that's the nation of Israel.

  35:41-35:53

  The same nation that was enslaved by Egypt Moses let out through the books Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and through Moses, God gave the Old Testament law.

  35:53-35:54

  Do you remember the purpose of the law?

  35:55-35:57

  The purpose of the law was to teach us that we're sinners.

  35:58-36:03

  That none of us are good enough in God's eyes to be counted righteous on our own.

  36:03-36:06

  It was to show us our need for grace and ultimately our need for Jesus Christ.

  36:07-36:09

  So the rest of the Old Testament, we have books of history.

  36:10-36:13

  These books are history of the nation of Israel.

  36:14-36:16

  We talked about the books of poetry and wisdom.

  36:16-36:19

  These were written by Israel for Israel.

  36:20-36:23

  Then the major and minor prophets - those were the preachers of the day.

  36:25-36:28

  They got up and said to the nation, "You need to repent. You need to stop sinning.

  36:28-36:37

  You need to turn your hearts back to the Lord both before the exile and after the exile." Then we get to the New Testament.

  36:37-36:39

  The Gospels - those are the biographies of Jesus.

  36:40-36:43

  Here is the Christ - the One that was promised in the Old Testament.

  36:43-36:44

  What is He and what has He accomplished?

  36:46-36:46

  Acts.

  36:48-36:49

  Acts is the fulfillment of the promise.

  36:49-36:52

  Jesus said, "I will build My church." And He was going to use His people.

  36:52-36:54

  And that promise continues to this day.

  36:55-36:58

  But the book of Acts tells us how that all started.

  36:59-37:00

  Then the rest of the New Testament.

  37:00-37:01

  Paul's letters, general letters.

  37:02-37:08

  These are letters written to churches and to individuals that are basically commentaries on the person and work of Jesus Christ.

  37:09-37:37

  Because this is who Jesus is, because this is what He did, Revelation lays that out and ultimately tells us what the eternal state is going to be like, which we covered today.

  37:38-37:51

  So, until the day that we are going to be in the kingdom of God, until the day that we are going to be Until the day that you are in God's presence in heaven, there's only one way that you are going to know Him.

  37:53-37:54

  And it's this.

  37:56-37:56

  Read it.

  37:58-37:58

  Alright?

  38:00-38:00

  Let's pray.

  38:01-38:04

  Father in heaven, we thank you for your Word.

  38:07-38:19

  We spent the last 10 weeks just trying to boil it down and we can have a firm grip on what it's about, so that we would have confidence in reading.

  38:21-38:25

  God, we believe there's a transforming power that comes from Your Word.

  38:25-38:30

  Your Word actually tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.

  38:30-38:33

  That there's something supernatural that happens.

  38:35-38:44

  There's a transforming that takes place when we will open our hearts up Open our minds up and get into Your Word.

  38:45-38:47

  You change us.

  38:48-38:54

  Father, I pray that we're able to take these things that we've learned and become even better Bible students than we are now.

  38:54-38:58

  I know there are some people here, Father, that have Bibles that are tattered.

  38:59-39:03

  And we have people here that are just opening a Bible for the first time.

  39:03-39:08

  And whatever the case, I pray that as a result of this series, wherever we are.

  39:10-39:11

  We are now better Bible students.

  39:12-39:17

  We thank you for the way you've revealed yourself to us, Father, so clear, so clear.

  39:18-39:27

  Make us diligent, not just in knowing the words, but in knowing the God who wrote the words.

  39:28-39:29

  We pray in Jesus' name.

  39:31-39:31

  Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Revelation 21:1-8

1. Prior to this study, what was your idea of heaven? What have you learned? Why are there so many weird ideas about heaven?

2. Some people have said, "Heaven sounds boring." Agree or disagree? How would you respond to this statement?

3. C.S. Lewis said "The gates to hell are locked on the inside." What does that mean? Agree or disagree?

4. What are you looking forward to the most about heaven?

Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.

2nd Advent

The King is Coming!

Review

1. What's Next on God's calendar?


1. Revelation 2-3


2. Revelation 3:10


• The Return of Jesus Christ is Promised (Acts 1:11)


• The Return of Jesus Christ is Imminent (Luke 12:40 | 1 Thessalonians 5:2 | Revelation 16:15)


2. What happens when Jesus Returns? (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17)


1. Jesus will come with the saints in heaven. (1 Thes 4:14-15)


2. Jesus will gather His church. (1 Thes 4:16-17)

John 14:2-3 | Philippians 3:20-21

3. Jesus will judge the world. (Revelation 6-20)

View fullsize

3. What do we Do with the truth that Christ is returning? (Matthew 24:36-49)


1. Word to the Wise: Work and Watch! (Matt 24:46-47)


2. Word to the Wicked: Be Warned! (Matt 24:48-50)

Matthew 26:29 - I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  00:52-00:56

  But we are people that live from event to event.

  00:58-01:03

  And today we're going to be talking about the next big event on God's calendar.

  01:04-01:05

  Can we get our bookshelf up there please?

  01:07-01:17

  Just as a way of review, this library represents the Bible that you're holding in your hands.

  01:17-01:21

  Okay, so in the series we spent some time talking about the book as a whole.

  01:23-01:29

  And why I believe 105%, 110% that God wrote this book.

  01:30-01:32

  I am thoroughly convinced of that.

  01:33-01:37

  This could not have been put together by human beings.

  01:38-01:40

  Holy Spirit wrote this book through people.

  01:41-01:49

  So we spent some time talking about creation and how Adam and Eve, The first people that God created brought sin and death into the world.

  01:50-01:51

  That's in the book of Genesis.

  01:53-02:00

  Things got so bad, as we saw in the video, as we studied a few weeks ago, God blotted out everything with a flood.

  02:02-02:11

  And shortly after that flood, man decided that we were all going to get together, we were going to exalt ourselves and build this tower, this idolatrous tower.

  02:12-02:16

  God says, "Spread out, fill the earth." and mankind said, "No, we're good.

  02:16-02:24

  We're going to stay right here." And God says, "No, that's not going to work for me." And remember, he confused their languages and they spread out.

  02:25-02:27

  We spread out as a human race.

  02:27-02:29

  And then we saw Abraham.

  02:30-02:32

  This man called from a pagan culture.

  02:32-02:33

  God says, "I got big plans for you.

  02:34-02:36

  A whole nation is going to come from you.

  02:36-02:39

  A special chunk of land is going to be for you.

  02:40-02:45

  And there's going to be a blessing that's going to come through you It's going to be for the whole earth.

  02:47-02:55

  Then when we get to the book of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, these books mainly centered around Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt.

  02:55-02:58

  And through Moses, God gave the Old Testament law.

  02:58-03:04

  And remember, we saw the purpose of the law wasn't the rules that you keep to get saved.

  03:05-03:08

  The purpose of the law was to show us that none of us are good enough.

  03:09-03:12

  That we desperately need grace.

  03:13-03:14

  the purpose of the law.

  03:15-03:22

  And when you go through the rest of the Old Testament, the books of history, these are books about the history of Israel in the Old Testament.

  03:24-03:35

  Entering into the promised land and conquering the people that were there and the rise of the monarchy.

  03:36-03:41

  Books of poetry, these were also called books of poetry and wisdom.

  03:42-03:43

  Psalms in particular.

  03:43-03:44

  That was Israel's hymn book.

  03:45-03:48

  And these were written by Israel for Israel.

  03:50-03:51

  And then the major and minor prophets.

  03:52-03:53

  These were the preachers.

  03:53-03:58

  Some during the time that Israel was living in the land.

  03:59-04:04

  And some of these preachers came while Israel was returning to the land after exile.

  04:04-04:06

  But these were preachers telling Israel to repent.

  04:07-04:10

  And these preachers were also saying that the Messiah was coming.

  04:11-04:13

  We spent some time talking about that last week, didn't we?

  04:14-04:19

  So when you get to the New Testament, really, Jesus said all of this is about Him.

  04:20-04:30

  And when you get to the New Testament, the four Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - these are biographies about Jesus Christ written from four different perspectives.

  04:32-04:37

  The book of Acts - this is the story of how the church started.

  04:37-04:39

  Jesus promised that He would build His church.

  04:39-04:50

  And then the book of Acts, as we're going through here at Harvest Bible Chapel, where are we? Acts 18 I think is where we're at now when we get back to the series.

  04:51-04:55

  Acts talks about how Jesus' church is built and advancing.

  04:56-04:59

  And then we get to the rest of the New Testament.

  04:59-05:01

  There's letters to churches and to individuals.

  05:02-05:03

  These are from the Apostle Paul.

  05:03-05:05

  These were from some other authors.

  05:05-05:11

  But these letters were written again to churches, to pastors, to individuals.

  05:13-05:19

  And these letters are really all commentaries on what Jesus Christ did in the Gospels.

  05:20-05:23

  Who He is and what He did and what that means to us.

  05:24-05:26

  What does that mean to me as a person and in a family?

  05:26-05:28

  And what does that mean as a church?

  05:28-05:32

  These are just all commentaries on the life of Jesus.

  05:33-06:11

  And the book of Revelation is where we're going to be spending some time next week. In the book of Revelation, we read of the promise being ultimately fulfilled of the very thing that we're talking about today. So on your outline, number one, what's next on God's calendar? What's next on God's calendar? Well, the Lord has a day on His calendar, circled in red, that says, "I am the Lord, and I will be with you." And then The return of Jesus Christ.

  06:13-06:23

  The Bible says the next big event is that Jesus Christ, who lived about 2,000 years ago, He's coming back.

  06:25-06:36

  And the second time He arrives, it's going to be a lot different, and for a much different purpose than the first time that He came.

  06:37-06:39

  So when is Jesus coming back?

  06:39-06:44

  Well, we know that He's coming back before the Great Tribulation.

  06:45-06:46

  What's the Great Tribulation?

  06:46-06:54

  If you study the book of Revelation, Revelation talks about seven years of God's judgment on the earth.

  06:56-07:08

  I believe that Jesus will come and He will remove His church from the earth before the seven year period of tribulation.

  07:10-07:19

  Now I know when we talk about end times, the school of study here is called eschatology, that whole branch of theology, you know, talking about end times.

  07:20-07:21

  You can research this.

  07:21-07:22

  I know some of you have.

  07:22-07:27

  There are a lot of different timelines and graphs and flowcharts that say what's going to happen.

  07:28-07:44

  And I personally believe that Jesus is going to come and take His church out of the world before the seven-year tribulation, the events outlined in Revelation, and you're like, "Okay, well, you sound very serious about that.

  07:44-07:48

  I am serious about that. Thanks for noticing." How can I come up to that conclusion?

  07:50-07:51

  I'm going to give you two reasons.

  07:53-07:55

  And if you disagree with me, you are still my brother.

  07:57-07:58

  You're wrong, but you're still my brother.

  07:59-08:01

  Now, I promised myself I wouldn't say it.

  08:01-08:02

  That's a joke, okay?

  08:04-08:05

  There's different views. I get that.

  08:06-08:29

  different views. It's okay. I can only preach about what I believe, right? I believe that the rapture takes place before the tribulation. Why? Why? Well, when you read the book of Revelation - not now - but when you read the book of Revelation, in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, it's the church, the church, the church. Jesus has messages to all these churches.

  08:29-08:35

  The church, the church, the church, the church. Church in Laodicea, the church in Philadelphia, you know, church and Thyatira.

  08:36-08:50

  Jesus has these messages for the church, but did you know that after Revelation 3, when the events of the end times are laid out, the judgments are laid out, you don't see anything about the church in the book of Revelation.

  08:51-08:56

  You see a lot about the world, about sinful, lost, rebellious people, and you see a lot about Israel.

  08:57-09:02

  But there's not one mention, not one, not one passing mention, not a verse, not even the word church.

  09:04-09:07

  in the events outlined in Revelation.

  09:09-09:11

  So that tells me that the church isn't there.

  09:11-09:20

  Why would Jesus be making such a big deal of communicating these truths to the church in Revelation 2 and 3, and then not mention them at all?

  09:20-09:24

  Not mention the church at all during the events of Revelation?

  09:26-09:31

  Another reason I believe the rapture takes place before the tribulation because of Revelation 3.

  09:32-10:02

  In verse 10, Jesus said to the church in Philadelphia, "Because you have kept My word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell on the earth." You see, Jesus promised the church that He was going to keep the church, remove the church - literally is what that means - remove you to protect you.

  10:02-10:11

  I will keep you." And he says, "From the hour," meaning it's a specified time, the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world.

  10:12-10:14

  There has never been an hour of trial on the whole world.

  10:14-10:15

  It's never happened.

  10:16-10:18

  He's talking about something that's yet to come, obviously.

  10:20-10:33

  And I believe that his keeping from that hour of trial, I believe that's manifested through the rapture, that he's going to come, He's going to take His church out of the world.

  10:33-10:36

  We'll talk about that in more detail in just a moment.

  10:36-10:38

  So like I said, there's a lot of timelines.

  10:39-10:43

  A lot of interpretations of the timelines, a lot of schools of thought.

  10:45-10:48

  But there are two things that we can all agree on.

  10:50-10:51

  These two things we can all agree on.

  10:51-10:54

  The first one is this, the return of Jesus Christ is promised.

  10:55-11:00

  No matter when you think, the rapture, tribulation, how all that timeline shakes out.

  11:01-11:05

  Something that we have to agree on is the return of Jesus Christ is promised.

  11:06-11:11

  Acts 1.11, we studied this about a year and a half ago now.

  11:11-11:16

  "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?" Remember, this is an angel speaking to the apostles.

  11:17-11:19

  "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?

  11:19-11:25

  This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

  11:26-11:27

  Remember that story?

  11:27-11:32

  You know, Jesus gives the final marching orders, you'll receive power, you'll be my witnesses.

  11:32-11:40

  And Jesus flies up and disappears into the clouds and the apostles are just like standing there.

  11:40-11:43

  Like any of us would be like, what in the world is going on?

  11:43-11:45

  He just flew away.

  11:45-11:49

  And then an angel shows up and, what are you guys looking at?

  11:50-11:53

  And he says, "He's coming back the same way." Meaning what?

  11:54-11:58

  Gloriously through the clouds, He's coming back.

  12:00-12:03

  The return of Jesus Christ, not only is it promised, it's also imminent.

  12:05-12:08

  Luke 12, 40, Jesus said, "You also must be ready.

  12:09-12:16

  "For the Son of Man is coming in an hour you do not expect." Nobody knows when that is, okay?

  12:16-12:17

  Nobody knows.

  12:18-12:26

  And there are these, I was going to say theologians, but that's not the right word.

  12:27-12:29

  There are these, we'll say preachers, that's a safe word.

  12:29-12:35

  There are these preachers that say, "Well, we know exactly when Jesus is coming." Remember Harold Camping?

  12:37-12:51

  They get their 15 minutes of fame because, "We have your ear, and this is exactly when Jesus is returning." What was the thing a few years ago about the Aztec calendar or something?

  12:51-12:55

  It only goes to 2012, so the world's going to end in 2012.

  12:56-12:57

  Do you remember the hysteria around that?

  12:58-13:02

  And Jesus said that nobody knows.

  13:03-13:16

  He said, "It's going to come in an hour you do not expect." In fact, 1 Thessalonians 5.2, Revelation 16.15, Jesus describes His second coming like a thief in the night.

  13:16-13:17

  You've heard that phrase before.

  13:18-13:18

  Like a thief in the night.

  13:21-13:23

  A thief doesn't announce His coming.

  13:24-13:28

  He just shows up when nobody's expecting Him.

  13:30-13:32

  The return of Jesus Christ is promised.

  13:32-13:33

  The return of Jesus Christ is imminent.

  13:34-13:35

  Number two on your outline.

  13:36-13:37

  Let's get into a little more detail.

  13:37-13:39

  What happens when Jesus returns?

  13:39-14:10

  So we have done that he's coming and we It could be any time do you realize that it could happen before our service is over today wouldn't that be awesome You're like, yeah, especially if it cuts the sermon short I'm kidding the service not going to be short. But when Jesus When Jesus returns what what's like what's like what's going to happen? I want you to turn to your Bibles the first Thessalonians chapter 4 1 Thessalonians 4.

  14:12-14:14

  We're just going to look at a few verses here.

  14:14-14:15

  I want you to jot some things down.

  14:15-14:19

  This is a whole school of study that we're trying to reduce into one sermon.

  14:19-14:21

  Our purpose is Bible 101, right?

  14:21-14:32

  We want to get a strong overview of what God's story is all about to equip us to study these things deeper.

  14:34-14:35

  What happens when Jesus returns?

  14:35-14:39

  1 Thessalonians 4 verses 14-17.

  14:39-14:52

  He says, "For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep." That's a euphemism for death.

  14:54-15:03

  "For this we declare to you by word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

  15:04-15:14

  For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.

  15:14-15:17

  And the dead in Christ will rise first.

  15:18-15:24

  Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

  15:25-15:28

  And so, we will always be with the Lord.

  15:29-15:31

  So what happens when Jesus returns?

  15:31-15:41

  Very quickly, three things here I want to point out in this passage, the verse is this, "Jesus will come with the saints in heaven." Did you see that?

  15:43-15:59

  Verse 14, "Through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep." When Jesus returns, He's going to be leading an army of believers who are in heaven right now.

  16:01-16:03

  That's the first thing that happens when Jesus returns.

  16:04-16:07

  Second thing we see, Jesus will gather His church.

  16:08-16:09

  Verses 16 and 17.

  16:12-16:19

  It says, "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command." That word "cry" in the Greek is actually a military word.

  16:19-16:20

  It's a military command.

  16:21-16:21

  Okay?

  16:21-16:26

  So when Jesus comes back, rather, He's going to cry out a military command.

  16:28-16:31

  "Hey guys, I'm back." Ten hut!

  16:34-16:35

  He's going to have everybody's attention.

  16:37-16:47

  Caught up. See that in verse 17? Caught up. Some people say, "Well, I don't believe in a rapture because the word rapture is not in the Bible." The word grandpa isn't in the Bible either, but the concept is certainly there, right?

  16:50-16:52

  Right? Okay, thank you.

  16:54-16:55

  Caught up. Rapture.

  16:57-17:00

  That's just a word that's been attached to this concept.

  17:00-17:03

  Verse 17, do you see the concept in your Bible?

  17:03-17:12

  "We who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds." That's what we call the rapture, the catching away of the church.

  17:14-17:22

  Jesus talked about this in John chapter 14 when He said, "In my Father's house are many rooms." If it were not so, would I have told you that I'd go to prepare a place for you?

  17:25-17:26

  Just stop there for a second.

  17:28-17:31

  Can we just take a moment to soak in the awesomeness that is that verse?

  17:32-17:34

  That right now, do you know what Jesus is doing right now?

  17:35-17:37

  He's doing a lot of things. He's interceding for us.

  17:39-17:42

  He's watching over His church. The Bible says that He's very active right now.

  17:43-17:45

  Do you know one of the things Jesus is doing right this second?

  17:46-17:47

  He says right here what He's doing.

  17:49-17:51

  He is preparing a place for you.

  17:52-17:54

  Wrap your brain around that.

  17:56-18:13

  That when you leave the earth, it's not going to be, "Well, your guest room isn't quite finished, you're going to have to give us some more time." Right now, the master carpenter is preparing a place for you in heaven right now.

  18:16-18:17

  What do you think that's like?

  18:20-18:31

  He goes on, he says, "If I go and prepare a place for you," look at this, "I will come again and will take you to myself." It's the rapture.

  18:32-18:33

  I'm going to come and get you.

  18:33-18:36

  In the last phrase, he says that where I am there, you may be also.

  18:38-18:43

  Jesus is going to return with the spirits of the people who have gone before us.

  18:45-18:55

  The Bible teaches that Jesus, at that time of his return, Jesus is going to resurrect their bodies into glorified bodies.

  18:55-19:03

  The saints who are coming with Him, their bodies are going to come out of the grave, and Jesus is going to give them glorified bodies.

  19:04-19:11

  And the living, upon Jesus' return, are going to be gathered, and immediately are going to receive glorified bodies.

  19:12-19:17

  1 Corinthians 15 verses 23 verses 51 through 52.

  19:19-19:26

  Someday, Jesus Christ is going to give you a brand new body.

  19:26-19:29

  How many people could use that right about now?

  19:30-19:32

  I totally could.

  19:33-19:36

  Think of that. A body that...

  19:36-19:37

  No more pain.

  19:38-19:39

  No more disease.

  19:40-19:42

  No allergies, no asthma, no cancer.

  19:44-19:47

  A perfect, indestructible body.

  19:50-19:51

  What's that like?

  19:51-20:10

  Philippians 3.20-21 says, "But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." Look at this last phrase, "Who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body." We are going to have a glorified body that's similar to the glorified body that Jesus Christ had when He rose from the dead.

  20:12-20:14

  If you read your Bible, what kinds of things did that body do?

  20:15-20:16

  Remember, He could walk through walls.

  20:18-20:19

  How about He ascended into heaven.

  20:21-20:24

  Do I think that you're going to be able to fly in your glorified body?

  20:24-20:25

  Yes, absolutely.

  20:26-20:28

  It is going to be awesome.

  20:29-20:41

  You're going to have this perfect, glorified, indestructible, ageless body you have for eternity.

  20:43-20:44

  That's what happens when Jesus returns.

  20:45-20:46

  He's going to bring the saints.

  20:47-20:49

  He's going to gather His church.

  20:51-20:53

  Letter C, thirdly, underneath point two.

  20:53-20:55

  What happens when Jesus returns?

  20:56-20:58

  It's not going to be good news for everybody.

  21:00-21:05

  Because the Bible teaches that Jesus will judge the world.

  21:08-21:10

  Revelation 6-20.

  21:12-21:18

  I alluded to this earlier, but Revelation 6-20 talks about a seven-year tribulation.

  21:19-21:21

  The Bible also calls that the day of the Lord.

  21:23-21:27

  It's a manifestation of the judgments of God.

  21:29-21:43

  If you read the book of Revelation, John describes this vision that he has, and I personally believe that John, John who wrote Revelation through the Holy Spirit, writing through him rather.

  21:43-21:46

  I believe that John was transported to the future.

  21:47-21:57

  I believe that John somehow, in God's indescribable ways, he let John watch this future event take place.

  21:59-22:01

  What John saw were judgments.

  22:01-22:02

  There are seven seal judgments.

  22:03-22:04

  There are seven trumpet judgments.

  22:05-22:06

  There are seven bowl judgments.

  22:07-22:11

  All of these judgments are manifestations of God's judgment.

  22:13-22:16

  Ecological disaster and demonic attacks.

  22:18-22:20

  That's in Revelation 6-18.

  22:20-22:25

  Revelation 19 says that Jesus Christ is going to return to slaughter His enemies.

  22:27-22:44

  You know, we used to sing that song, it had that one line in it, "He wears a robe that's dipped in blood." And when we would sing that, I would think, "Oh, that refers to His own blood of the crucifixion." And that doesn't mean that at all.

  22:46-22:54

  The whole concept of the robe dipped in blood that you see in Revelation 19 actually comes from a prophecy in the book of Isaiah.

  22:55-22:58

  And if you read that whole prophecy, that robe wasn't dipped in His own blood.

  22:59-23:02

  That robe was covered with the blood of His enemies.

  23:03-23:13

  The Bible says Jesus Christ is going to come back, and with a sharp sword from His mouth, He's going to cut down everyone that exalts themselves against Him.

  23:15-23:16

  Revelation 19.

  23:18-23:20

  Then you get to Revelation chapter 20.

  23:21-23:26

  You see that Jesus Christ is going to establish a thousand year reign on earth.

  23:28-23:38

  A literal thousand years Jesus Christ is going to personally be here and reign over this millennial kingdom with His people.

  23:40-23:42

  The final judgment comes after that.

  23:44-23:55

  After the millennial kingdom, the Bible says that all enemies, all enemies of God, including Satan are thrown into the lake of fire.

  23:57-23:59

  that takes us into the eternal state.

  24:01-24:02

  The Bible talks about a new Jerusalem.

  24:02-24:05

  That's the place that Jesus is preparing right now.

  24:06-24:09

  A new Jerusalem will descend down from heaven.

  24:09-24:11

  There's going to be a new heaven and a new earth.

  24:12-24:13

  That's the subject matter next week.

  24:13-24:15

  I'm not going to get into that now.

  24:16-24:19

  But I want you to see when Christ returns, He's going to come with His saints.

  24:19-24:24

  He's going to gather His church, giving us glorified bodies.

  24:24-24:34

  And also, according to the book of Revelation, according to John 5, according to so many verses in your Bible, He's going to come and He's going to judge the world.

  24:36-24:38

  So what's next on God's calendar?

  24:38-24:39

  The return of Christ.

  24:39-24:40

  What happens when Jesus returns?

  24:40-24:42

  We covered number three as we close.

  24:44-24:44

  What do we do?

  24:46-24:52

  What do we do with the truth that Christ is returning?

  24:55-24:57

  See, we have to do something with this.

  24:57-25:12

  I wouldn't expect you to walk in here and say, "Hey, by the way, guaranteed the Lord Himself is going to come back, and He's going to grab some people from the earth, and eventually He's going to slaughter those who rejected Him.

  25:13-25:18

  Have a nice day." What do we do with the truth that Christ is teaching?

  25:19-25:26

  And there are so many passages that answer that very question, but one in particular I want you to turn to, and you're going to see why I picked this one.

  25:26-25:28

  Turn to Matthew 24.

  25:30-25:31

  Matthew 24.

  25:32-25:33

  Are you there?

  25:35-25:36

  Matthew 24.

  25:36-25:39

  What do we do with the truth that Christ is returning?

  25:41-25:42

  Pick up in verse 36.

  25:42-25:45

  Jesus is talking about His return.

  25:46-25:57

  "Concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

  26:00-26:06

  For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

  26:08-26:17

  For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark.

  26:18-26:22

  And they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away.

  26:24-26:28

  So it will be the coming of the Son of Man.

  26:30-26:32

  We spent some time talking about Noah and the flood.

  26:34-26:42

  And you have to see there's a direct connection between that event and an event that is yet to come.

  26:44-26:47

  Jesus said His return is going to be just like Noah's day.

  26:47-26:49

  What was happening in Noah's day?

  26:49-26:50

  It was business as usual.

  26:50-26:59

  People were eating and drinking, people were getting married, and it was just life as usual, when all of a sudden, God gave the warning, right?

  26:59-26:59

  We talked about that.

  26:59-27:00

  Noah preached.

  27:01-27:05

  Like 120 years he preached, and only his family got on the ark.

  27:05-27:08

  The ark would have held every single person that would have chosen to believe.

  27:10-27:11

  They thought Noah was foolish.

  27:12-27:37

  building a boat in the middle of the land because God's going to judge the world really? You really think God's gonna judge the world? How stupid are you? You really think that? Noah was right. Jesus said regarding his second coming it's going to be just like that. If you believe that Jesus Christ is going to return as his word says, people are going to think you're stupid too.

  27:38-27:44

  Really? Really you're getting ready for the return of Jesus and people are They go about their lives, business as usual.

  27:46-27:50

  Remember we talked about this when we went through the story with Noah and the flood.

  27:52-27:56

  Think of the difference between being on the ark and being in the water.

  27:58-28:00

  It can be just like that when Christ returns.

  28:02-28:06

  Jump down to verse 44.

  28:08-28:11

  "Therefore you also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming in an hour.

  28:12-28:13

  "I do not expect." There it is again.

  28:14-28:15

  That was the point.

  28:17-28:17

  I'm coming.

  28:17-28:19

  You're not going to know when, but I'm coming.

  28:21-28:36

  Verse 45 says, "Who then is the faithful and wise servant whom his master has sent over his household to give them their food at the proper time?" In verse 45, here's the question.

  28:37-28:39

  Who here is faithful and wise?

  28:41-28:42

  Faithful and wise.

  28:44-28:46

  Jesus makes a contrast on your outline.

  28:48-28:50

  First of all, He gives a word to the wise.

  28:51-28:52

  A word to the wise.

  28:52-28:59

  He says, "Work and watch." Look at verses 46 and 47.

  29:01-29:05

  "Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.

  29:06-29:09

  Truly I say to you, He will set Him over all His possessions.

  29:12-29:17

  There are so many passages in your Bible where Jesus talks about the second coming.

  29:17-29:24

  He tells of this in parables and these word pictures.

  29:24-29:29

  Every single time Jesus was teaching about His second coming, He always had the same application.

  29:30-29:31

  Always the same application.

  29:33-29:34

  Be faithful.

  29:36-29:50

  and watch. Let me ask you, what would you want Jesus to be finding you doing upon His return? What do you want Jesus to be finding you doing when He returns?

  29:54-30:08

  Because here's the alternative, look at verses 48 through 50. He says, "But if that wicked servant says to himself, 'My master is delayed,' and begins to beat his fellow "Follow servants and eat some drinks with drunkards.

  30:10-30:19

  The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect Him, and at an hour he does not know." Here's verse 51.

  30:20-30:21

  Jesus is saying this, by the way.

  30:22-30:27

  "And will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites.

  30:28-30:34

  In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." There's a word to the wise.

  30:34-30:36

  and watch, but there's a word to the wicked.

  30:38-30:38

  He says be warned.

  30:39-30:40

  Be warned.

  30:41-30:54

  So if you're sitting here today, if you're listening to this on the podcast, and you haven't received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, by God's grace, I want to give you a warning.

  30:56-31:02

  Things are not going to be as they have been forever.

  31:04-31:07

  I have this idea that things are just going to keep going on, that history is a cycle.

  31:08-31:09

  And you know what?

  31:09-31:16

  In another 5,000 years, people are still going to be eating and drinking, marrying and be giving in marriage, and life is just going to go on.

  31:16-31:17

  Life is going to go on.

  31:20-31:20

  That isn't true.

  31:22-31:26

  The Bible says history isn't some cycle that keeps going on.

  31:26-31:31

  According to the Bible, human history is like a book.

  31:32-31:33

  It's like a movie.

  31:33-31:40

  was a beginning, and we are sort of in the middle of it now, but it is going to have an end.

  31:40-31:44

  There's going to come a day that this is all over.

  31:47-31:58

  And for the person that thinks Christ isn't coming back, mocking, ignoring in the context of this, just living in wickedness.

  32:00-32:30

  Too busy partying, too busy drinking, busy sleeping around because things are just always going to be the way they are. This is a warning for you. You better wake up because He is coming and that's why this message has such urgency. You see, I'm not motivated to be doing good because I want Jesus to catch me in a good moment.

  32:33-32:35

  How does that old joke go, you know, "Jesus is coming, look busy"?

  32:35-32:37

  Some people have that mentality, right?

  32:39-32:42

  The reason for the urgency is He could be coming today.

  32:44-32:45

  There's not much time.

  32:46-32:47

  It could be tomorrow.

  32:49-32:50

  The Word to the wise.

  32:51-32:52

  Let's be faithful.

  32:52-32:52

  Let's work.

  32:53-32:53

  Watch.

  32:56-32:56

  A word to the wicked.

  32:58-32:59

  Be warned.

  33:01-33:06

  The day will come, as we said, the robe dipped in blood, covered with the blood of His enemies.

  33:06-33:06

  That's coming.

  33:07-33:31

  In this passage, Jesus said, "That Master," that's Him, "will cut the wicked into pieces, put them with the hypocrites, and that place will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." associated with hell. Christ is returning. He's returning. Are you ready for that?

  33:33-33:47

  Are you ready for that? Every day that goes by, I am more and more ready for that. Every day that goes by, I find myself getting less and less attached for the things of the earth.

  33:49-33:58

  And more and more longing for the way things are going to be when Christ returns and makes all things new.

  34:01-34:03

  That's what we do with the truth that Christ is returning.

  34:04-34:07

  If our ushers would come forward, we're going to receive the Lord's Supper together.

  34:10-34:18

  When we receive the Lord's Supper, Did you know there is a past, a present, and a future aspect of the Lord's Supper?

  34:19-34:19

  Did you know that?

  34:20-34:21

  The past aspect.

  34:21-34:27

  Jesus said that we do this in remembrance of Him.

  34:27-34:29

  So the past aspect, we do look back.

  34:29-34:33

  When we take these elements, we think, "This is the body.

  34:33-34:35

  This represents the body of Jesus Christ.

  34:35-34:45

  This represents the blood of Jesus Christ." We look back, this is the price that was paid for my sin.

  34:47-34:49

  That's the past aspect of it.

  34:50-34:57

  There's a present aspect of it because the Bible says that when we do this as a church, we should examine ourselves.

  34:59-35:01

  I think most of us are familiar with that.

  35:01-35:03

  Yeah, we kind of look to the past, we kind of look to the present.

  35:04-35:09

  But did you know, concerning the Lord's Supper, there's a future aspect?

  35:11-35:37

  Matthew 26, verse 29, "When Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper," look at what He said, "I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day, when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." So yeah, we look back.

  35:39-35:46

  We look inwardly now, but today, as we receive the Lord's Supper, I want you to think of that day.

  35:48-35:55

  I want you to think of that day when Jesus Christ said, "I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17 and Matthew 24:36-49

1.  From this message, what new information did you learn about the return of Christ?

2. How often do you think about the return of Jesus Christ? How does knowing Christ will return affect you?

3. What aspects of Christ's return do you believe every Christian should agree upon? Why? What aspects do you think we don’t need to agree on? Why?

4. What Biblical evidence is there for the rapture to take place before the Tribulation? 

Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.

Christ

The Fulfillment of the Law.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

1. Who is Jesus?


1. Jesus is the Christ.


• Seed of woman that would crush Satan (Genesis 3:15)


• King and priest like Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:15 / Psalm 110:4 / Genesis 14:18-20)


• Prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15)


• Descendent of David on the throne forever (2 Samuel 7)


• Suffering servant (Isaiah 53)

John 5:39 - You search the Scriptures bc you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.

2. Jesus is God.

Review: John 1:1 | Zechariah 12:10 | Acts 20:28

2. What did Jesus do for me?

Review: Leviticus 16



3. What should I do about Jesus?


• Admit you are a sinner.


• Believe Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead for you.


• Confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.


• Daily follow Jesus Christ.

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  01:04-01:15

  So the story goes, there was this Indian tribe where some things were turning up missing.

  01:17-01:20

  And they went to the Indian chief and they said, "You've got to do something about this.

  01:20-01:24

  There are things that are being stolen.

  01:24-01:46

  Somebody in our tribe is stealing." So, the Indian chief said, "When we find out who is stealing, you're going to get five lashes from the whipmaster." Well, some time went on and some more stuff was stolen.

  01:48-01:52

  The Indian chief, whose word was law, said, "Ten lashes.

  01:53-01:57

  And we find who stole 10 lashes from the whipmaster.

  01:59-02:03

  Well some more time went on and more things were stolen.

  02:05-02:05

  15!

  02:06-02:08

  15 lashes from the whipmaster!

  02:10-02:13

  And then shortly thereafter they found the thief.

  02:15-02:17

  It was the Indian chief's mother.

  02:19-02:21

  So what do you do in that situation?

  02:22-02:58

  you're the chief. When your word is law, and you have people following you because your word is law, but at the same time you can't bear the thoughts of your mother taking such a horrible beating. So as the story goes, the day came where they took the Indian chief's her hands around this hole and they stripped the clothes off of her back.

  03:01-03:08

  The whipmaster was ready to administer the beating when the Indian chief said stop.

  03:10-03:20

  And he went up behind his mother and put his arms around her so that his back was now exposed.

  03:21-03:36

  And he said, "You may not proceed in administering the punishment." And he stood there and he took all 15 for his mother, whom he loved.

  03:38-03:44

  See here was a man who couldn't violate his own law, but at the same time he wanted to be merciful.

  03:45-03:47

  And he found a way to make that happen.

  03:49-03:54

  And in a much greater sense, that's what we're here to celebrate today.

  03:56-04:03

  We have a holy and perfect God who cannot and will not violate His own law.

  04:06-04:12

  But at the same time is loving and merciful and gracious and wishes that none would perish.

  04:13-04:25

  So what would such a God do who gave us a law that we repeatedly broke and break, but He wants to be merciful.

  04:25-04:26

  He found a way.

  04:28-04:34

  The way was through the cross and the empty tomb of Jesus Christ.

  04:36-04:59

  We're going to continue Bible 101 today and the sermon title is "Christ, the Fulfillment of the law. And you're like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, that worked out well that you're going through this series and you're speaking about Jesus on Easter. That worked out pretty well." Amazing timing on that, isn't it? Because it would have been, let's be honest, it would have been awkward if it was Easter and we were talking about the Tower of Babel today.

  04:59-05:10

  That would have been really weird. We've been through this series looking at the Bible from from a fresh perspective with new eyes.

  05:11-05:14

  We've talked about the Bible being the Word of God.

  05:14-05:22

  We've seen creation where God created everything in six 24-hour days, and then man violated the one rule - you had one job!

  05:23-05:26

  And it was to not eat off of this particular tree.

  05:26-05:39

  Sin came into the world and things got so bad that God blotted out every living thing except those on the ark.

  05:40-05:50

  We did have a message on the Tower of Babel, and shortly after that time, we saw Abraham, through whom God created the nation of Israel.

  05:50-05:53

  And last week we talked about God's law.

  05:53-05:56

  That to the Israelites, God gave this law.

  05:56-05:57

  God says, "Here's my standard.

  05:58-06:08

  You must always do this, and you shall never do this." The violation of this law makes you a sinner.

  06:11-06:23

  So as we continue in this series, I want you to understand that yes, God made a covenant with Israel, but even in the Old Testament, God promised a new covenant was going to replace the old.

  06:25-06:34

  Jeremiah 31, verses 31-34 says, "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord." Look at this one.

  06:34-06:40

  I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

  06:40-06:47

  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.

  06:48-06:54

  My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.

  06:56-07:02

  For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.

  07:04-07:19

  "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts." See, previously the law was written on stone tablets by the finger of God.

  07:19-07:29

  And God says, "No, I'm going to write the law again, but this time I'm going to write it on their hearts." It's going to be something that's internal, not something that's external.

  07:31-07:34

  He goes on, "I will be their God and they shall be my people.

  07:34-07:50

  And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord.' For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,' declares the Lord." This is one of my most favorite verses in the whole Bible.

  07:50-07:52

  Part of the New Covenant, look what God promises.

  07:54-08:02

  "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

  08:03-08:05

  Can you wrap your brain around that?

  08:06-08:07

  I can't.

  08:10-08:17

  I think many of us have struggled with shame and regret, and we remember our sin a lot.

  08:17-08:18

  We stare at it.

  08:19-08:20

  We think about it.

  08:22-08:31

  When the Lord says, "I'm going to forget." I'm going to choose not to remember your sin.

  08:33-08:35

  How in the world could that happen?

  08:35-08:38

  Because I'm the worst.

  08:40-08:41

  And I've been the worst.

  08:44-08:58

  How could God take somebody like me who has done so many selfish and irresponsible and stupid things and say, "I'm going to make a way that I'm not even going to remember your sin.

  08:58-09:05

  This new covenant is in Jesus Christ." So this is Bible 101.

  09:07-09:11

  And I'm going to be, as I was preparing this message, here's the mindset.

  09:12-09:18

  What would I tell somebody about Jesus that doesn't know anything about Jesus?

  09:20-09:27

  He says, "I've heard the name, but I don't know anything about Him." Well, here it is.

  09:29-09:31

  Who is Jesus, number one? Who is Jesus?

  09:32-09:42

  This is a great question, because every Christmas and Easter, have you noticed this? It drives me insane.

  09:42-09:48

  I read a blog from another pastor that it bothers him too, and I'm like, "Hey, I feel like I'm in good company." But it drives me insane.

  09:49-09:51

  Every Christmas and Easter, it doesn't fail.

  09:51-10:05

  You can go to the supermarket or wherever they sell magazines, and Time Magazine or Newsweek Magazine or some magazine, some of you nod your heads because you know where I'm going with this, you've seen it, they always come out with some new spin on Jesus, right?

  10:06-10:20

  And the headline on the front of the magazine always says something like, "Who was the real Jesus? Who was the historical Jesus? Who was Jesus really?" And there'll be TV specials on like a National Geographic and the History Channel.

  10:20-10:28

  "Who is the real Jesus?" And of course nobody wants like the biblical version because that story's been told countless times over the past 2,000 years.

  10:29-10:34

  So we're going to roll out some controversial new take so that people will tune in.

  10:34-10:36

  Things like, "Well, Jesus was married.

  10:36-10:37

  Have you heard that one?

  10:37-10:37

  He was married.

  10:38-10:39

  Jesus had kids.

  10:39-10:41

  He didn't really resurrect.

  10:44-10:46

  he thought he was dead, but he actually wasn't.

  10:46-10:51

  He sort of snuck off with Mary Magdalene and got married and had all these kids.

  10:51-10:53

  And like, where do you guys come up with this stuff?

  10:54-10:55

  Well, there's some writings.

  10:55-11:11

  These people wrote in like the, you know, the 300s and hundreds of years after Jesus lived, some historian decided they were gonna write a biography about Jesus and included the stuff that apparently the people that lived with Jesus didn't know about.

  11:13-11:22

  Who is more qualified if somebody had a lot of extra time on their hands, they were going to write a biography about me, who is more qualified to write that biography?

  11:22-11:25

  Somebody sitting here or somebody that's going to live 300 years from now?

  11:27-11:27

  No-brainer, right?

  11:29-11:42

  But that's what happens, they find, you know, the gospel of Douglas or whatever, and all of a sudden, Here we found out some interesting things about Jesus that aren't true.

  11:45-11:53

  But it's Satan's oldest ploy. I mean, it gets on my nerves, but I'm not surprised, because we saw this when we went through the account and sin in Genesis chapter 3, right?

  11:53-11:54

  What's Satan's ploy?

  11:55-11:59

  You doubt the Word of God, right? Did God really say that?

  12:00-12:02

  That's what he did to Adam and Eve. Did God really say that?

  12:03-12:12

  And then you deny the Word of God. "No, no, no, no, God didn't." Remember Satan? "You won't die?" This is Oldest Ploy.

  12:12-12:13

  Who is Jesus?

  12:14-12:15

  Here's two things you need to know about Jesus.

  12:15-12:17

  Number one is Jesus is the Christ.

  12:18-12:19

  He is the Christ.

  12:20-12:24

  This might be news to some of you, but Christ is not Jesus' last name.

  12:24-12:27

  I've talked to people that were shocked to find that out.

  12:28-12:30

  The Christ is actually a title.

  12:31-12:41

  In the Old Testament, it's the Messiah, the anointed one, the one who was promised to Israel all through the Old Testament.

  12:41-12:48

  And I don't have time if I spent the next month to talk about all of these things.

  12:48-12:49

  I just want to give you a few.

  12:50-13:02

  The Messiah promised throughout the Old Testament, the first mention is in Genesis 3, verse 15, when God says the seed of the woman, Eve, would eventually crush Satan.

  13:03-13:06

  That's pointing to a Messiah who was to come.

  13:07-13:12

  The Bible says that the Messiah was going to be a king and priest like Melchizedek.

  13:13-13:16

  Melchizedek is an interesting character you meet in Genesis chapter 14.

  13:16-13:18

  He's mentioned in Psalm 110 verse 4.

  13:19-13:21

  And the Hebrew writer spends a lot of time talking about Melchizedek.

  13:22-13:24

  What's the significance? Well, here's the significance.

  13:24-13:29

  In the nation of Israel, if you were a Levite, you were a priest.

  13:29-13:30

  You met the qualifications.

  13:31-13:38

  But you can't be a Levite priest and a king at the same time under Mosaic law.

  13:38-13:39

  That could not happen.

  13:40-13:44

  You couldn't be a priest and a king simultaneously.

  13:45-13:48

  And the Bible says that the Messiah, He will be.

  13:48-13:57

  He's not only going to be the priest that intercedes on our behalf before God, but He is also going to be a king at the same time.

  13:58-14:04

  a priest like the Levites, but a priest and king like Melchizedek.

  14:05-14:09

  The Bible says in the Old Testament that the Messiah who was coming is going to be a prophet like Moses.

  14:10-14:17

  Moses promised that in Deuteronomy 18.15, "God is going to raise up from among you a prophet like me." Somebody far greater.

  14:19-14:27

  2 Samuel 7, the Messiah was going to be a descendant of David who was going to reign on the throne forever.

  14:29-14:33

  Isaiah 53 says that the Messiah was going to be the suffering servant.

  14:33-14:40

  He was going to come and suffer on behalf of His people because of their, because of our sin.

  14:42-14:45

  In fact, Jesus said all of the Old Testament is about Him.

  14:45-14:45

  Did you know that?

  14:46-14:55

  John 5.39, Jesus said, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them You have eternal life.

  14:56-14:59

  And it is they that bear witness about Me.

  15:01-15:13

  See, unlike the Indian chief story, you have to see that with all of these prophecies in the Old Testament, Jesus was not an afterthought.

  15:15-15:24

  You see, it wasn't like the earth was around for a few thousand years, and God was sitting around some conference table with His angels, He's like, "You know what, guys?

  15:26-15:29

  This whole Testament law thing, it's just not working.

  15:31-15:39

  In fact, they don't keep any of the commandments. Do you notice that?" The angels are like, "You're right. You're right. They don't." I mean, it's like a game to them.

  15:39-15:41

  How many of these can we break every day?

  15:42-15:43

  It's just not working. What should we do?

  15:43-15:47

  And then they bat around some ideas, and God's like, "Oh, I got this idea.

  15:48-15:52

  What if I came down there myself and I took care of it?" It wasn't an afterthought.

  15:53-15:54

  Nor was it a desperation move.

  15:55-15:58

  Where God was like, "Damage control?

  15:58-15:59

  What are we going to do?

  16:00-16:02

  Earth is really out of control here.

  16:02-16:08

  Maybe I'll just have to go down there and see if I can fix it." This was God's plan from the very beginning.

  16:09-16:18

  In fact, it was God's plan from before the beginning because the Bible says that Jesus Christ is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

  16:20-16:22

  Don't ask me to explain that.

  16:22-16:31

  But even before there were people created to sin, the plan of Jesus was already laid out by God.

  16:33-16:35

  Jesus is the Christ.

  16:35-16:39

  That's what we see in the Old Testament, was God had this.

  16:39-16:40

  He knew this.

  16:41-16:42

  He was prepared for this.

  16:43-16:46

  Second thing you need to know about Jesus, there's a lot of things.

  16:46-16:48

  I'm just trying to boil it down here for the sake of time.

  16:48-16:49

  Jesus is God.

  16:51-16:52

  Jesus is God.

  16:53-17:01

  In the New Testament, John 1, verse 1, it says, "In the beginning was the Word, "the Word was with God, and the Word was God." That sentence makes no human sense whatsoever.

  17:02-17:03

  I'll admit that.

  17:04-17:10

  If I said to you last night, "I was with my friend Nathaniel, "and I was my friend Nathaniel," you'd be like, "What are you talking about?

  17:12-17:18

  "It doesn't make any sense." It doesn't, because we're people that live in time and space.

  17:18-17:20

  We don't know an existence outside of time and space.

  17:21-17:24

  But the Bible says that in the beginning was the Word.

  17:24-17:27

  We find out He's talking about Jesus in just a few verses later.

  17:28-17:31

  The Word was with God. Jesus is with God.

  17:31-17:34

  But Jesus also at the same time is God.

  17:36-17:42

  Again, I don't have time to go through the New Testament to show you all of the verses in the New Testament that say Jesus is God.

  17:44-17:46

  But I do want to share a couple with you, interestingly.

  17:47-17:51

  I want to share a couple of verses with you that say that God is Jesus.

  17:52-17:53

  You know the Bible says that?

  17:54-17:54

  God is Jesus.

  17:55-17:57

  Zechariah 12, verse 10.

  17:57-17:58

  This is in the Old Testament.

  17:58-18:08

  It says, "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that when they look on Me..." Look at this.

  18:08-18:46

  "...on Him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child and weeps bitterly over Him weeps over a firstborn." Who does that sound like He's talking about? "They will look upon me whom they have pierced." Who does that sound like? Anybody? Go ahead, shout it out. Jesus, right? This is in the Old Testament there. This was before the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, but God was prophesying ahead of time. Notice in the passage, God didn't say, "They will look on my Messiah whom they have pierced." God says, "They will look on me whom they have pierced." God's saying that He He is going to be the Messiah personally.

  18:48-18:50

  Spoiler alert, write Quran Acts chapter 20.

  18:50-18:51

  We're going to get there.

  18:51-19:07

  Acts chapter 20, Paul says to the Ephesian elders, "Pay careful attention to yourselves and all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God." Look at this last phrase, "Which He obtained with His own blood." Who bought the church with His own blood?

  19:08-19:09

  Jesus did, right?

  19:12-19:12

  Right.

  19:13-19:28

  Notice in this verse, Paul very specifically says, "God bought the church with his own blood." So not only does the Bible say that Jesus, the Messiah, is God in the flesh, God himself says that he is the Messiah.

  19:31-19:38

  In fact, in the book of Hebrews 1, verse eight, I believe, God the Father refers to God the Son as God.

  19:38-19:39

  You're like, "Who's God's God?

  19:40-19:40

  God has a God.

  19:41-19:42

  God says his son is his God.

  19:45-19:47

  You're like, okay, pastor Jeff, stop right there.

  19:47-19:49

  You're gonna have to explain the Trinity and I can't.

  19:50-19:53

  You know, and I've heard some attempts at that.

  19:54-19:56

  You know, God is like a boom box.

  19:57-20:03

  I'm gonna explain this to younger people, but you know, boom box, where do I even start explaining this?

  20:04-20:09

  It was before we played our music on these little credit card size things.

  20:09-20:19

  We had these giant boxes, and they played the radio, and they would play cassette tapes, and they would play CDs.

  20:21-20:29

  And you're like, "Well, a boombox, it's three things, but it's one thing." That analogy breaks down a bit.

  20:30-20:41

  Some people say, "Well, God's like H2O, because H2O, It's like the same element. It can be ice, it can be water, it can be steam.

  20:42-20:46

  And that's true, but it's not those things at the exact same time.

  20:48-20:51

  But God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at the same time.

  20:51-20:54

  He's one God, but He has manifested Himself as three persons.

  20:56-20:56

  Here's what I know.

  20:58-21:03

  I know that Jesus is fully God and fully man at the same time.

  21:04-21:08

  In other words, Jesus is God's perfect man.

  21:10-21:13

  And Jesus is man's perfect God.

  21:14-21:15

  So what you need to know about Jesus.

  21:15-21:16

  Who is Jesus?

  21:17-21:20

  Jesus is the Christ and Jesus is God.

  21:22-21:25

  Here's the real thing I'm excited to share with you today is this.

  21:25-21:26

  What did Jesus do for me?

  21:27-21:28

  This is what you need to know.

  21:28-21:29

  What did Jesus do for me?

  21:30-21:40

  Jesus willingly subjected Himself to crucifixion, being nailed to a cross.

  21:42-21:45

  It was the Roman form of execution.

  21:46-21:50

  And then three days later, Jesus rose from the dead.

  21:51-21:52

  Why did He do that?

  21:54-21:57

  Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sin.

  21:57-21:59

  That should have been me on the cross.

  21:59-22:00

  That should have been me.

  22:01-22:02

  I was the one who messed up.

  22:03-22:04

  I was the one who rebelled.

  22:07-22:14

  But Jesus said, "No, I'll take your place." And understand, when Jesus was on the cross, He was bearing the wrath of God on my behalf.

  22:15-22:27

  Jesus was, in a sense, like that Indian chief with his arms around his mother, saying, "I'll take the blows so that she doesn't have to." That was Jesus on the cross.

  22:29-22:33

  But that's not the end of the story, because the Bible says in three days Jesus rose from the dead.

  22:34-22:46

  Not only did it validate who he was and what he said, but that was the means by which the eternal life that we forfeited in the Garden of Eden has been restored.

  22:47-22:51

  So understand, through Jesus Christ, eternal life isn't something you get someday.

  22:52-22:54

  Eternal life is something you possess now.

  22:55-22:57

  when you receive Him, and we'll talk about that in a moment.

  23:00-23:08

  The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was not some random event that God just kind of came along in rubber stamps.

  23:10-23:25

  But when you look at the message and you say, "Okay, well, there was a man who said he was God, and he died on a cross." The truth is, crucifixion wasn't really that unique.

  23:27-23:34

  Because somebody could argue and say, "Well, there have been lots of people that have been crucified under Roman rule.

  23:34-23:40

  What makes Jesus... what makes Him so different? What makes Him so special?

  23:42-24:01

  What makes His death so significant?" When you see the cross, the resurrection, it was the culmination and fulfillment of what was pictured and promised throughout the history of the Old Testament.

  24:03-24:19

  This might be a first for you, but I want you to look at the story of the crucifixion and resurrection And what I'm going to guess is the last book of the Bible you would have guessed.

  24:20-24:21

  We're going to be looking at this account today.

  24:23-24:27

  But you're going to see something that you're not going to be able to unsee.

  24:27-24:33

  And it is going to forever change the way you look at the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

  24:33-24:40

  You ready? Grab your Bible, and I want you to open up to the book of Leviticus, chapter 16.

  24:41-24:44

  This is absolutely mind-blowing to me.

  24:45-25:01

  But Leviticus, you're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I thought we were talking about Jesus and what He did." Well, in the Old Testament, as we talked about last week, God had this whole system set up on how to offer sacrifices, and none of it was arbitrary.

  25:02-25:08

  God wasn't like, "Just offer whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, with whoever you want." God was very specific.

  25:09-25:11

  Here is exactly how you do it.

  25:11-25:13

  Why was God so specific?

  25:14-25:21

  Because He was painting a picture that would ultimately be fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

  25:22-25:23

  Leviticus 16.

  25:23-25:29

  Also remember in the Old Testament, there was a building called the tabernacle.

  25:29-25:32

  That was the portable version of the temple.

  25:33-25:43

  In the temple there was this little room that was called the "Holy of Holies." And this room was behind a veil.

  25:45-25:47

  And in this room was the Ark of the Covenant.

  25:49-26:02

  And understand that nobody went in this room, because this was the room where the Lord resided, so to speak, where His glory dwelt.

  26:04-26:08

  So you didn't just walk in there, with one exception.

  26:10-26:26

  One time a year, the high priest, and only the high priest, would go into this room to offer a special sacrifice on behalf of the nation of Israel.

  26:29-26:32

  was one of the most important days, if not the most important day for the Israelites.

  26:33-26:35

  It was called the Day of Atonement.

  26:36-26:39

  And we're not going to read all this, but I want you to look at some of these verses with me.

  26:39-26:46

  First of all, verses 3 and 4 tells us that the high priest would have to make sacrifice for his own sin because he was a sinner.

  26:47-26:55

  But then the high priest would take off the elaborate robes that he wore, if you recall.

  26:56-27:03

  The high priest actually had these really lavish garments, including this breastplate that had stones for each of the tribes of Israel.

  27:04-27:07

  And for the Day of Atonement, though, he would have to take those off.

  27:07-27:11

  And he would have to just put on a plain linen robe.

  27:11-27:14

  It was a regular old thing.

  27:14-27:21

  He would actually look no different than any of the other priests, even though he was the high priest.

  27:22-27:24

  He's just dressed like a regular guy.

  27:26-27:27

  Look at verse 7.

  27:29-27:37

  It says, "Then he, the high priest, shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting." That's the tabernacle.

  27:37-27:44

  "And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats." Casting lots was like rolling dice.

  27:45-27:51

  It was something that the Lord used in Old Testament times all the way up until the coming of the Holy Spirit.

  27:51-27:52

  I talked about that earlier in Acts.

  27:54-28:00

  One lot for the Lord, and the other lot for Azazel.

  28:00-28:01

  You're like, well, who's that?

  28:02-28:11

  That was the name of a place in the wilderness, some scholars think, that was about 12 miles east of Jerusalem.

  28:11-28:14

  But the name of the place isn't what's important.

  28:15-28:17

  You see, Azazel referred to the scapegoats.

  28:18-28:19

  There's two goats.

  28:19-28:31

  is going to be killed and one, the scapegoat, Azazel, is going to be released.

  28:33-28:41

  Verse 9, "And Aaron shall present the goat on which the law fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering." He was going to be killed.

  28:41-29:00

  Verse 10, "But the goat on which the law fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before for the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel." Alright? So there were two goats.

  29:00-29:09

  Again, one killed, and then the priest would lay hands on the other goat to symbolize putting Israel's sin on the animal.

  29:10-29:11

  It was a symbol.

  29:13-29:43

  And then that goat would be released, to be heard from again and it was a picture to the Israelites of sin being removed from the camp. Okay, you with me? Look at verse 15, jump down there with me. "Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat.

  29:44-29:47

  Okay, the bull, that's referring to the sacrifice he made for himself.

  29:47-29:49

  The mercy seat was the top of the Ark of the Covenant.

  29:51-30:02

  Thus he shall make atonement for the holy place because of the uncleanness of the people of Israel, because of their transgressions, all their sins.

  30:02-30:10

  And so he shall do for the tent of meeting, which dwells with them in the midst of their uncleanness.

  30:10-30:11

  He went down to verse 20.

  30:12-30:21

  "And when he has made an end of atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat.

  30:22-30:37

  And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over all the iniquities of the people of Israel and all their transgressions, all their sins, and he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness.

  30:38-30:48

  The goat shall bear all their iniquities and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness.

  30:50-31:00

  Continuing on, "Then Aaron shall come into the tent of beating," look at this, "and shall take off the linen garments that he put on when he went into the holy place, and shall leave them there.

  31:01-31:14

  He shall bathe his body in water in a holy place and put on his garments," those are the high priest robes, the breastplate, the stones, the whole nine.

  31:16-31:25

  And come out and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people and make atonement for himself and for the people.

  31:26-31:27

  Stop there.

  31:28-31:35

  Just to recap, the high priest takes off his elaborate robes and he dresses like a regular guy.

  31:35-31:39

  And then he offers a blood sacrifice behind the veil.

  31:42-31:44

  By the way, as the high priest, he's the only one that can do it.

  31:45-31:50

  And after he's done, he puts his ornate robes back on.

  31:52-31:54

  Does any of that sound familiar?

  31:56-31:58

  Because you see, God was painting this picture.

  31:59-32:01

  What did Jesus Christ do?

  32:03-32:09

  In the same way, The high priest took off those elaborate, glorious robes.

  32:10-32:12

  Jesus took off His glory.

  32:13-32:20

  He humbled Himself by taking off that glorious divinity that He shared with His Father.

  32:20-32:23

  And I'm not saying Jesus became less than God.

  32:24-32:25

  I'm not saying that at all.

  32:26-32:29

  But Jesus did fully become a regular human being.

  32:31-32:33

  What I mean by regular is this.

  32:33-32:35

  there was nothing about Jesus that made him stand out in a crowd.

  32:36-32:36

  Nothing.

  32:38-32:38

  How do you know that?

  32:39-32:52

  Because when Judas betrayed Jesus, he had to go kiss Jesus so that the guards would know which was the right guy, because Jesus looked just like all of the other Jewish men.

  32:54-32:58

  And the Bible says there's nothing about Jesus' appearance that would have drawn people to him.

  32:59-33:00

  He just looked like a regular guy.

  33:01-33:32

  So in that sense, holy God still, yes, but in that sense, Jesus took off the robes of the glory, become a regular flesh and blood man, then made a blood sacrifice, Then, took our sin away, and after resurrecting, what did Jesus do?

  33:34-33:38

  He went back to heaven, and he put his robes back on.

  33:39-33:44

  Jesus didn't just go behind the veil like the high priest did.

  33:44-33:50

  You recall, the Bible says that when Jesus died, that veil was torn.

  33:52-33:54

  He didn't just go behind it, He ripped it down.

  33:57-34:01

  Meaning that now you and I have full access to God.

  34:01-34:05

  God isn't behind the veil any longer because of Jesus Christ.

  34:05-34:07

  We can approach God.

  34:09-34:13

  So you see in this picture in Leviticus, Jesus is the High Priest.

  34:16-34:18

  And Jesus is the sacrifice.

  34:21-34:27

  Jesus is a Zazel. He's the scapegoat. He's the one who takes the sin away.

  34:29-34:33

  The one who stripped glory, became regular, put the glory back on.

  34:36-34:47

  And if that's not mind-blowing enough, these events, the crucifixion, the resurrection, happened during a very special holiday for the Israelites.

  34:48-34:49

  That was Passover.

  34:50-35:01

  It was funny, my wife Erin was telling me this morning, she said, "Yeah, I saw in the news that this news reporter was like totally fascinated, like, 'Wow, wasn't this interesting?

  35:01-35:09

  Christians have Easter and Jews have Passover, and it's like around the same time.'" Wow, does that happen every year?

  35:11-35:16

  But Jesus offered the sacrifice on Passover, and why was that significant?

  35:17-35:23

  Well, Passover was a holiday, a remembrance, where Israel celebrated the exodus out of Egypt.

  35:24-35:39

  And the Lord had the Israelites in Egypt cover their door frames in the blood of a spotless lamb, so that when the Lord came through the camp, if you were covered under the blood of a spotless lamb, you would be saved from death.

  35:39-35:40

  Does that sound familiar at all?

  35:41-35:48

  If you're covered under the blood of the lamb, the spotless Lamb, you will be saved from death.

  35:50-35:57

  So you see, Jesus' death and resurrection were really not like something out of left field.

  35:57-36:03

  It was something that was planned and pictured in the Old Testament, in the Passover and in the Day of Atonement.

  36:05-36:10

  God's holiness demanded bloodshed and death for sin.

  36:12-36:16

  God's love, let Jesus take our place.

  36:17-36:32

  That's why when I see the cross, I think of that cross very literally, graphically, I think of that cross like an intersection where God's holiness and His love intersect.

  36:33-36:37

  Because in Jesus, God's wrath was satisfied.

  36:39-36:43

  God's not mad at you for your sin anymore.

  36:44-36:47

  When you received Jesus Christ, His wrath was satisfied.

  36:47-36:49

  And also that intersection is love.

  36:51-36:58

  It was love that motivated God to take our place on the cross.

  36:59-37:02

  So as we close, here's the big question.

  37:03-37:05

  What should I do about Jesus?

  37:05-37:09

  We said, "What did Jesus do for me?" Here's a question, what should I do about Jesus?

  37:10-37:14

  The message of the cross, the message of the empty tomb, the message of He is alive.

  37:15-37:16

  This isn't just FYI.

  37:18-37:21

  You see, you don't come here like, "Jesus died and rose from the dead.

  37:24-37:27

  "Just thought you should know, enjoy your ham." Like what?

  37:27-37:34

  You have to do something with the message because according to Jesus, He's the only way of salvation.

  37:36-37:39

  Jesus said in John 14, 6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.

  37:39-37:43

  No one comes to the Father except through Me." Why is that?

  37:43-37:46

  Because no one else paid the penalty for your sin.

  37:47-37:48

  No one else can put life back in you.

  37:49-37:50

  No one can do that.

  37:51-37:55

  Not Joseph Smith, not Charles Taze Russell, not the Buddha, not Muhammad.

  37:55-38:03

  Nobody is able to do that except Jesus Christ, the God-man, the High Priest and the Sacrifice.

  38:03-38:04

  He's the only one.

  38:07-38:08

  You have to do something with it.

  38:08-38:09

  What should I do?

  38:12-38:14

  Here it is, A, B, C, D. Drop these down.

  38:14-38:15

  A, B, C, D.

  38:16-38:18

  Letter A, first of all, you've got to get to this place.

  38:19-38:19

  Admit you are a sinner.

  38:20-38:21

  You have to get there.

  38:21-38:22

  Admit you are a sinner.

  38:24-38:25

  That's what we talked about last week, isn't it?

  38:26-38:27

  That was the purpose of the law.

  38:27-38:28

  The law was to break us.

  38:29-38:36

  The law wasn't to give us a pep talk, where God's like, "You're not that bad." The law was to show us we are horrible people.

  38:38-38:40

  We are rebellious against the Holy God.

  38:41-38:43

  You have to start there.

  38:43-38:45

  You have to start there to say, "You know what?

  38:45-38:46

  "I really am.

  38:46-38:53

  "I am a self-centered, wicked person." Admit you are a sinner.

  38:53-38:59

  Let it be believed Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead for you.

  38:59-39:02

  You have to personalize the message, because God did.

  39:03-39:12

  This wasn't some event from some Jewish guy across the pond 2,000 years ago that's sort of detached historically and geographically from where we are.

  39:14-39:15

  He did that for me.

  39:16-39:19

  You have to say that, he did that for me.

  39:21-39:23

  Believe Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead for you.

  39:24-39:51

  letter C, confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. In other words, personally receive the gifts. You do that through prayer. I'm going to lead you in a prayer here in just a moment. One of the ways we respond to that is through baptism. Now baptism doesn't save you. Baptism is an outward demonstration of what God has done in here.

  39:54-40:04

  Baptism, just like Leviticus 16, the picture day of atonement of the ministry of the Messiah, baptism also is a picture.

  40:04-40:05

  You're saying, "I'm dead.

  40:07-40:12

  I'm dead." Coming up out of the water is like coming out of your liquid tomb.

  40:13-40:14

  You're saying, "I'm alive in Christ.

  40:16-40:21

  Jesus Christ has risen me from the dead." You do have to confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

  40:23-40:26

  In letter D, daily follow Jesus Christ.

  40:27-40:28

  There's not a list of rules.

  40:29-40:30

  Do this, don't do that.

  40:32-40:33

  It's about a love relationship.

  40:35-40:36

  You want to follow.

  40:36-40:42

  You want to humble yourself before this God who loved you so much.

  40:44-40:46

  Jesus didn't just die to be your Savior.

  40:48-41:00

  The song goes, "He lives to be my King." If you truly receive Him, truly receive Him, He will transform you and His Holy Spirit will come and reside in you.

  41:01-41:07

  And that is the law written on your heart that God promised.

  41:10-41:11

  I want you to bow your heads with me.

  41:13-41:14

  Bow your heads.

  41:16-41:24

  While you do, I just want to ask, Is there someone here today who maybe is understanding this for the first time?

  41:26-41:38

  Is there someone here today who heard and knew the message to some degree, but has never really taken the step to make it their own?

  41:41-41:48

  My question for you this morning is this, can you just walk away from so gracious a gift?

  41:49-41:56

  Can you ignore the love that God has demonstrated in His Son?

  41:59-42:01

  Or can today be a new day for you?

  42:03-42:04

  I am done with sin.

  42:06-42:08

  I am done trying to figure out life on my own.

  42:08-42:11

  I am done carrying guilt and regrets.

  42:13-42:13

  I'm done.

  42:15-42:22

  Jesus Christ died to take away my sin, so that God would remember my sin no more.

  42:22-42:25

  I'm done dealing with the shame of it.

  42:27-42:31

  If that's you, I'm going to lead you in a prayer.

  42:33-42:36

  A prayer that you need to personalize.

  42:38-42:42

  to accept Jesus Christ, which you never have before.

  42:42-42:46

  If you haven't done it, I would encourage you to pray something like this.

  42:48-43:01

  To pray, "Father, I realize that I'm a sinner, and I might have fooled other people, and I might fool myself sometimes, but I know deep down, I am seriously flawed.

  43:03-43:05

  Deep down, I am seriously self-centered.

  43:08-43:12

  Father, I believe the truth of your Word, that you love me.

  43:13-43:21

  And you sent your Son, Jesus Christ, you came here personally to die on that cross and to raise from the dead.

  43:22-43:25

  To forgive me of all the wrong things that I've done.

  43:25-43:27

  You put it all on Jesus.

  43:30-43:34

  And You've restored eternal life into me, Father.

  43:36-43:40

  And today, Father, I want to confess Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord.

  43:42-43:43

  I'm done playing games.

  43:44-43:55

  I'm done just thinking about it, or putting it off another week, or another month, or until I'm worn out with this particular sin, or whatever.

  43:56-44:00

  Today, I want to confess Christ as my Savior and Lord.

  44:01-44:20

  Father, I know that your Word says your Holy Spirit is going to empower me to follow you, to be the person that you've called me to be, to be the person that you want me to be in your Son, to conform me into the image of your Son.

  44:21-44:23

  You'll give me the power to do that.

  44:23-44:26

  And I want that to be a daily decision.

  44:28-44:30

  And I'm going to seek your face.

  44:32-44:38

  I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand, or to stand up or walk down front, anything like that.

  44:39-44:41

  'Cause here's the thing, this is between you and God.

  44:44-45:01

  And if you've prayed a prayer like that today, in your own words, that you've personalized this, And it was a genuine and true prayer from your heart that you are a born again child of God.

  45:04-45:11

  And Father, as I pray on behalf of this congregation here, there are many people here who know you.

  45:12-45:12

  And there are some who don't.

  45:15-45:16

  But I pray for all of us, Father.

  45:18-45:27

  When we take a fresh look at the significance of this event, some of us will spend hours preparing for a picnic.

  45:30-45:49

  When you spent thousands of years of history preparing the world through the nation of Israel for this event, the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, You've pictured it throughout Your Word.

  45:49-45:58

  You've prepared us through things like the Passover, through things like the Day of Atonement, all of the prophecies concerning the Messiah.

  45:59-46:05

  You've prepared us globally through the Israelites.

  46:07-46:11

  The event has come, and it has happened exactly as You said.

  46:12-46:42

  And I pray, Father, today, like those first century disciples. I pray that it continues in this church, in every other church in the Pittsburgh area, in every church in the Harvest Bible Fellowship. I pray that the impact is as fresh and world-shaking today as it was back then. By your power, Let it be.

  46:43-46:48

  In the glorious name of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Jeremiah 31:31-34

1. What does "Christ" mean? Why is this word associated with Jesus?

2. Read Jeremiah 31:31-34. What are the differences between the Old Covenant and the
   New Covenant?

3. List a few examples of Old Testament prophecies about Jesus. Why are the OT
   prophecies important?

4. Why was it necessary for Christ to suffer, die, and resurrect for my sins? Why didn't He
   just say, "I forgive you."?

Breakout Questions:

Have you understood Who Jesus is and what He calls us to? Have you been an active, growing follower of Jesus? Do you feel equipped to be able to tell someone else about Jesus?

Law

Revealing God's Standard and Man's Need

Review:

1. What is the Law?



Compilation of Decrees and Statutes given to Israel through Moses.



1. The Law made Israel Distinct.

Review: Psalm 147:19-20

2. The Law reflected Israel's God.


3. The Law was for Israel's Good.

Review: Deuteronomy 6:24

4. The Law provided Atonement for sin.


5. The Law propared the world for Christ.


2. What was the Purpose of the Law?

The purpose of the Law was to clearly Explain and Expose human Sinfulness, in order to create desperation for Mercy and Grace.

Review: Galatians 3:19, 22, 23 | Romans 7:7

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Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  01:04-01:22

  We're going to continue our series, "Bible 101." And I would suggest to you, as far as understanding the message of God's Word, this week's and next week's message are probably the two most important in the series.

  01:23-01:24

  So where have we been so far?

  01:26-01:29

  Well, we started off our series by talking about the Bible.

  01:29-01:31

  The Bible is the Word of God.

  01:32-01:33

  That is the book that God wrote.

  01:34-01:42

  And at Harvest Bible Chapel, we have four pillars, and our first pillar is proclaiming the authority of God's Word without apology.

  01:43-01:45

  That's why we stand and say this is what God said.

  01:45-01:47

  He's not apologizing for it.

  01:48-01:49

  And neither are we.

  01:49-01:52

  Our job is to just proclaim what God has already said.

  01:54-01:58

  We spent the following week talking about creation.

  02:00-02:06

  In six days, God created the heavens and the earth, including mankind.

  02:08-02:10

  Then we spent a week talking about sin.

  02:10-02:21

  How God gave one law to Adam and Eve and they broke that law and brought sin into the world and sin got so bad that God decided to flood the entire world.

  02:23-02:30

  And after Noah's family got off of the ark, We spent a week talking about the Tower of Babel.

  02:32-02:36

  How man tried to exalt himself and how God brought him down.

  02:37-02:39

  And confused their languages and spread them out.

  02:40-02:47

  And then last week we talked about Abraham, who would be the father of a nation of people.

  02:48-02:53

  A nation of people we know even today as the nation of Israel.

  02:53-03:07

  Now, if you recall last week, God told Abraham His people, the Israelites, were going to be delivered from a nation and brought into this promised land.

  03:08-03:23

  And Jacob's family - Jacob, eventually his name changed to Israel - when you get to the end of the book of Genesis, Jacob's family ended up in Egypt because of a severe famine.

  03:25-03:35

  When you get to the book of Exodus, you see the Israelites were living in Egypt and they were multiplying and many babies were being born and it got to the point that the Egyptians were like, "Wait a minute.

  03:37-03:45

  If war breaks out, these Israelites might join the enemy and they're living right here with us.

  03:45-03:50

  They might attack us." So the Egyptians decided to make the Israelites slaves.

  03:52-04:01

  And God used Moses, an Israelite who was born in Egypt, to deliver them from Egypt.

  04:01-04:02

  Can we put our bookshelf up?

  04:04-04:07

  You see, this sets the stage for the rest of the Old Testament.

  04:09-04:14

  You see, we spend a lot of time in the book of Genesis talking about creation and the flood.

  04:15-04:23

  Well, the story of the Lord using Moses to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt, that's found in the book of Exodus.

  04:24-04:42

  And through this wandering in the wilderness, we're going to talk a little bit about that today, the Lord, through Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, gave the Israelites the Old Testament law and Deuteronomy was a repeating of the law.

  04:43-04:51

  So this was Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt to the promised land, and then Joshua led them into the promised land.

  04:52-04:54

  And these books are called books of history.

  04:55-05:04

  And in these books, Israel gets into the land, drives out most but not all of the enemies that were living there, and God raises up judges.

  05:04-05:08

  They were these military leaders to lead the Israelites.

  05:08-05:13

  And these books here in the Old Testament basically talk about the history of Israel.

  05:13-05:19

  Israel decided they wanted to be like other nations and have a king, so God gave them King Saul.

  05:19-05:24

  He didn't work out so well, and God gave them King David, and he had his problems too.

  05:24-05:40

  And it went on down the line until you got to a generation after King Solomon that the The nation divided into northern Israel and southern Israel, which we know as Judah.

  05:42-05:54

  And God told Israel, "If you persist in sin, I'm going to judge you." And the way that God was going to judge them was He was going to send an enemy nation in to drive them out of this land.

  05:56-05:58

  Spoiler alert for those of you that haven't read it.

  06:00-06:01

  Israel persisted in sin.

  06:02-06:08

  In about 705 B.C., the Lord sent the Assyrians to conquer northern Israel.

  06:09-06:13

  Well, Judah - southern Israel - they lasted a little bit longer.

  06:14-06:16

  But even they persisted in sin.

  06:16-06:22

  And by 586 B.C., the Lord sent the Babylonians to conquer them.

  06:23-06:37

  So you see, there was a period of Israel's history where they were in the land, and then they were driven out of the land, And the whole time they were in the land, God was sending all these preachers, telling them you need to repent, stop sinning, knock it off.

  06:37-06:39

  And those preachers are the prophets.

  06:39-06:41

  We have major and minor prophets.

  06:42-06:44

  Major prophets, it just means their writings are bigger.

  06:44-06:50

  Okay, it's not like these guys are important and these guys were like all under the age of 18 or anything like that.

  06:50-06:52

  That's not what minor prophets means.

  06:52-06:54

  It just means their writings are shorter.

  06:54-06:59

  So these were preachers that the Lord had sent, saying you need to repent, you need to repent.

  06:59-06:59

  and they wouldn't.

  07:01-07:10

  So after the Lord drove them out of their land, eventually a new world power rose, and those were the Persians.

  07:10-07:15

  And they allowed the Israelites to go back in and start rebuilding their land.

  07:16-07:23

  And even at that, they persisted in some hard-heartedness and some procrastination and some sin.

  07:23-07:30

  And some of these prophets were actually preachers during that day, the Lord sent to get them back on track.

  07:33-07:48

  Now by the time you get to the New Testament, Israel is still in their land, brought back again from the rule of the Persians, but at this point the world power is Rome.

  07:50-08:01

  So as Israel was established and living in their land and God promised to judge if they disobeyed, the question is this, what guidelines did God use?

  08:01-08:07

  I mean, it wasn't just an arbitrary measure to determine whether or not they were allowed to stay.

  08:08-08:09

  What were the guidelines?

  08:10-08:22

  to Moses, during the exodus from Egypt, God gave the law, the Mosaic covenant.

  08:24-08:27

  Today we refer to this as the old covenant.

  08:27-08:30

  So if you're taking notes, I want you to jot some things down.

  08:31-08:33

  Number one, what is the law?

  08:35-08:36

  What is the law?

  08:37-08:38

  Now you have two points in your outline.

  08:38-08:40

  is the law and what is the purpose of the law?

  08:41-08:43

  You're like, well, aren't those the same thing?

  08:43-08:44

  And they're really not.

  08:44-08:46

  And I want to explain why we're taking this approach.

  08:47-08:47

  What is the law?

  08:48-08:51

  I want to talk about some of the features of the law.

  08:52-08:56

  And what is the intended purpose of the law?

  08:58-09:00

  We're going to be talking about the purposes.

  09:01-09:03

  And it's sort of like this.

  09:04-09:08

  If I was going to try to sell you on a pencil, first of all, I would tell you the features.

  09:08-09:15

  I would say it's yellow, it's smooth, it's got an eraser on the end in case you make a mistake, and it smells great, at least I think so.

  09:16-09:20

  Those are some features about the pencil, but that's not the purpose.

  09:21-09:23

  The purpose is you use it to write things down.

  09:24-09:27

  And that's sort of the approach we want to take to looking at the law here.

  09:27-09:36

  I want to share with you some of the features of the law, and then we're going to look at God's purpose for giving the law.

  09:38-09:39

  Number one, what is the law?

  09:41-09:43

  To jot this down, I have some blanks for in the outline.

  09:44-09:57

  This is a very simple definition, but the law is the compilation of decrees and statutes given to Israel through Moses.

  09:58-09:59

  Okay, that's a very generic definition.

  10:00-10:01

  We're gonna explain it.

  10:02-10:06

  It's a compilation of decrees and statutes given to Israel through Moses.

  10:07-10:18

  Again, while the Israelites were leaving Egypt, and while they were in the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land, God gave these laws, these rules to Moses.

  10:18-10:22

  They're found in the first five books of the Bible called the Pentateuch.

  10:23-10:25

  The law is also called the Torah.

  10:27-10:30

  And the law was a bilateral covenant.

  10:31-10:48

  You know, last week we talked about a unilateral covenant where God said, "Abraham, I'm going to do these things, and you're just gonna watch." Now, Abraham was faithful, but the covenant that God made with Abraham wasn't based on Abraham being faithful, it was based on God keeping his word.

  10:48-10:49

  That's a unilateral covenant.

  10:50-10:56

  But the Mosaic Law, the law that we're going to be talking about today, that was more of a bilateral covenant, meaning this.

  10:57-11:00

  God promised Israel, "If you obey, I will bless you.

  11:02-11:05

  And if you disobey, I will bring judgment.

  11:05-11:07

  That was in the Mosaic law.

  11:08-11:14

  As I said, they persisted in disobeying and God brought judgment.

  11:16-11:17

  So here's some features.

  11:17-11:18

  I want you to jot down these features.

  11:19-11:19

  They're on your outline.

  11:20-11:22

  These are some features of the law.

  11:22-11:25

  Letter A, the law made Israel distinct.

  11:27-11:29

  The law made Israel distinct.

  11:29-11:30

  They weren't just rules.

  11:32-11:34

  These were laws of the covenant community.

  11:36-11:40

  And I want you to note that they were specifically and exclusively for the nation of Israel.

  11:43-11:49

  Psalm 147 says, "He declares His word to Jacob, His statutes and rules to Israel.

  11:50-11:52

  He has not dealt thus with any other nation.

  11:53-11:56

  They do not know His rules." Praise the Lord.

  11:57-12:07

  So one of the purposes of the law was God says, "Israel, I want you to look, act, think, smell differently than everybody else in the world.

  12:07-12:09

  I want you to be distinct.

  12:09-12:15

  And in order for you to be distinct, you're going to have to follow these rules.

  12:15-12:17

  The rest of the world doesn't live by these rules.

  12:17-12:23

  You're going to live by these rules and you're going to stand out." So the law made Israel distinct.

  12:23-12:50

  be, the law reflected Israel's God. The law reflected Israel's God. You see in the law we often think of a list of rules, "Do this, don't do this, don't do this, you must do this." And these rules weren't arbitrary. You know, God wasn't up in heaven going, "I I wonder what I can get them to do today.

  12:51-12:52

  Like, you know, taco Tuesday.

  12:53-12:55

  You can only have tacos on Tuesday.

  12:55-12:55

  What else?

  12:56-12:59

  And polka dots on Friday.

  12:59-13:01

  You can only wear polka dots on Friday.

  13:01-13:05

  And he didn't give just these arbitrary rules.

  13:07-13:10

  The law reflected some things about the character of God.

  13:11-13:14

  For example, the 10 commandments, we'll be talking about those in a couple of minutes.

  13:15-13:18

  It's the part of the law that most people are familiar with.

  13:19-13:20

  God says do not commit adultery.

  13:21-13:21

  Why would God say that?

  13:23-13:25

  Because God is a God of being faithful to His covenant.

  13:26-13:30

  And He says if you're going to look like Me, you're going to be faithful to your covenant too.

  13:30-13:32

  So you're going to be faithful to your wife.

  13:32-13:34

  That's why you don't commit adultery.

  13:35-13:38

  You see, that law reflected something about the heart of God.

  13:39-13:42

  Another example, you know, in the Ten Commandments?

  13:43-13:46

  You shall not bear false witness, You shall not lie.

  13:46-13:47

  Why would God say that?

  13:47-13:49

  Because God is a God of truth.

  13:50-13:51

  There's no falsehood in God.

  13:51-13:54

  And God says, "I don't lie, and my people shouldn't either.

  13:55-14:00

  "So don't lie." Covening, the 10th commandment, you shall not coven.

  14:00-14:05

  You know, covening is when you aren't satisfied with what the Lord provided you.

  14:06-14:09

  And instead, you're longing for something that the Lord has provided someone else.

  14:09-14:11

  God says, "You don't act that way." Why?

  14:11-14:14

  It's your people that trust in my perfect provision.

  14:15-14:15

  That's why.

  14:16-14:16

  Okay?

  14:16-14:17

  You trust me.

  14:18-14:19

  I'm a God who provides.

  14:19-14:22

  So the law reflected Israel's God.

  14:22-14:25

  Letter C, the law was for Israel's good.

  14:27-14:39

  Deuteronomy 6.24 says, "And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God." Look at this next phrase, "For our good always, that he might preserve us alive as we are this day.

  14:42-14:43

  The law was for Israel's good.

  14:45-14:49

  It was to protect them and to keep them safe and to bless them.

  14:50-14:56

  So like our kids have a bunk bed, and in the top bunk there's this big wooden rail that goes beside the mattress.

  14:56-15:00

  And at one point, Cade was like, I don't want that rail in.

  15:01-15:02

  And I said, well, you're keeping the rail in.

  15:02-15:04

  Well, why do I have to keep the rail in?

  15:04-15:05

  You know why, right?

  15:05-15:06

  You know why?

  15:06-15:07

  Why do I keep the rail in?

  15:07-15:15

  because if he rolls over, he could injure or kill himself falling off of the top bunk onto a hardwood floor.

  15:16-15:17

  I'm like, you're keeping the rail in.

  15:18-15:22

  He didn't like it, but it was for his own good, right?

  15:22-15:24

  And that was sort of the law in the Old Testament.

  15:24-15:25

  God says, I'm putting this here.

  15:26-15:30

  You might not like some of these things, but you're gonna have to trust me.

  15:30-15:31

  I'm doing this to protect you.

  15:33-15:36

  Letter D, the law provided atonement for sin.

  15:38-15:40

  This was another feature of the law.

  15:40-15:42

  The law provided atonement for sin.

  15:42-15:44

  That's especially throughout the book of Leviticus.

  15:46-15:54

  Leviticus prescribed how to kill and offer animals like sheep and goats for different kinds of sacrifices.

  15:54-15:55

  They were all different kinds.

  15:55-15:56

  You can read about them.

  15:56-16:01

  There was the peace offering, there was the sin offering, there was the guilt offering.

  16:02-16:10

  And these animals were killed and offered to God as atonement for sin.

  16:11-16:16

  Understand, they didn't forgive sin, they didn't take away sin, they atoned sin.

  16:16-16:18

  They basically covered sin over.

  16:18-16:19

  We talked about this before.

  16:19-16:22

  The Old Testament law, the sacrifices were like a credit card.

  16:23-16:27

  When you use a credit card at a store, you're technically not paying for that item.

  16:28-16:33

  You're just sort of covering the payment until real payment can be made.

  16:33-16:35

  That was the Old Testament sacrifices.

  16:35-16:36

  They were the credit card.

  16:37-16:41

  Just swipe it, payment's still going to have to be made, but you're covered for now, okay?

  16:42-16:45

  And it was a temporary covering.

  16:46-16:50

  That's why the Old Testament sacrifice constantly had to be repeated.

  16:52-16:57

  You know, day in, day out, the priests were offering sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice.

  16:59-17:01

  The law provided atonement for sin.

  17:03-17:05

  God was teaching how He deals with sin.

  17:05-17:21

  He says, "Sin must be punished, but I'm going to allow a substitutionary blood sacrifice that can be offered to God by a priest on the sinner's behalf.

  17:22-17:27

  Hold that thought because letter E, the law prepared the world for Christ.

  17:29-17:35

  You see all these sacrificial procedures were symbols, every one of them.

  17:35-17:36

  We're gonna talk more about this next week.

  17:36-17:38

  They were all symbols to get you ready for Christ.

  17:39-17:47

  The Old Testament law was sort of like ABCs And then Jesus is like the book, after you learn your alphabet, you learn to read.

  17:50-17:52

  The law was to teach them things.

  17:53-17:58

  God was taking mankind to school throughout human history.

  17:59-18:06

  And he was teaching things through Israel like this, look, you sin, but I'm going to allow a substitute to take your place.

  18:06-18:08

  It has to be a blood offering.

  18:08-18:11

  And by the way, it has to be a perfect lamb.

  18:12-18:28

  Okay, it wasn't like they could go out into their pen and say, "Well, this one's on like its last breath, "and it's got the mange, and it's got rabies, "and it's got heart failure, "and this sheep's gonna die any day now, "so I'm going to offer it to God." God says, "No, you don't do that.

  18:28-18:30

  "You get the best.

  18:30-18:36

  "You get the spotless lamb from your flock, "and you offer that to me, "but you couldn't even offer it yourself.

  18:36-18:54

  "You need to have a priest offer it to God on your behalf." how all of those things picture Jesus Christ, because Jesus is the Lamb, the spotless Lamb, but Jesus is also the priest that offers the sacrifice on your behalf.

  18:56-19:06

  So all of the Old Testament law, especially these sacrificial offerings, these procedures were pictures of Jesus Christ.

  19:06-19:12

  So that's the law, a compilation of decrees and statutes given to Israel through Moses.

  19:12-19:26

  And yes, there were some things dealing with morality and man to man interactions and dealing with crime and everything else, but there was also dealing with sin through the sacrificial system.

  19:28-19:33

  Like, well, that's very fascinating, Pastor Jeff, but number two, what was the purpose?

  19:35-19:36

  What was the purpose of the law?

  19:37-19:42

  I mean, we saw the features of the law, but what's the purpose?

  19:42-19:46

  And somebody here right now is saying, I know what the purpose of the law is.

  19:47-19:52

  We obey the law in order to get saved.

  19:54-19:59

  That is exactly not the purpose of the law.

  19:59-20:04

  You cannot be saved by keeping the law.

  20:05-20:06

  You can't.

  20:07-20:14

  You're like, "I'm pretty sure I can." And I say, "I'm pretty sure you can't." I'm going to give you a quick test.

  20:14-20:16

  Ten questions. Just write it down in the margin.

  20:17-20:27

  I'm going to go through the Ten Commandments very quickly. And if you're guilty, or if you've ever been guilty, at one point if you've ever been guilty of any of these commandments, just give yourself a little check mark.

  20:27-20:29

  Okay? You can put numbers one through ten if you want.

  20:31-20:35

  But I just want you to go through the Ten Commandments Let's score ourselves, see how we're doing.

  20:35-20:45

  The first commandment, God says, "You have no other gods." So, the question is, has God always been first and foremost in your mind?

  20:45-20:48

  That you've been in 100% worship mode all the time?

  20:49-20:51

  If not, then you have to give yourself a checkpoint there.

  20:53-21:07

  The second commandment goes with it, God says, "Don't make for yourself any idols." And we certainly don't make representations of pagan gods.

  21:07-21:09

  God says don't make for yourselves objects of worship.

  21:12-21:18

  So the second question is, have you ever had anything in your life, anything at all, that's taken a higher priority than God at any point?

  21:20-21:24

  Whether it was some recreational activity, some other person, whatever, something?

  21:27-21:33

  If at any point in your life something has been more important to you than God, then violated the second commandment.

  21:34-21:36

  The third commandment is do not use the Lord's name in vain.

  21:37-21:38

  Like, what does that mean?

  21:38-21:41

  It means we don't misrepresent God.

  21:42-21:44

  Or this is the way I explain it to our kids.

  21:44-21:51

  I say, the only time you use God's name is when you're talking to Him or when you're talking about Him, okay?

  21:52-22:02

  Some people think using the Lord's name in vain is saying GD or JC, and that's totally inappropriate and that totally falls under the category, But it's not exclusively that.

  22:03-22:05

  Using the Lord's name in vain is just misrepresenting God.

  22:06-22:11

  When you mention the Lord, you should be talking to Him or you should be talking about Him.

  22:11-22:14

  We don't throw His name around like it doesn't mean anything.

  22:14-22:23

  So if you've ever done that, if you've ever thrown God's name out there when you weren't talking to Him or about Him, then you give yourself a check mark.

  22:23-22:24

  How are we doing so far?

  22:25-22:26

  Anybody batting a thousand yet?

  22:27-22:28

  You're like, yeah, the wrong way.

  22:28-22:31

  The fourth commandment is remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

  22:31-22:36

  God says, "I work six days and rest one. You should do the same." Have you done that?

  22:37-22:47

  Have you taken one day of the week that you're like, "You know, I'm going to focus this day on worshiping the Lord, on enjoying my family and the blessings of God." Have you always done that?

  22:48-22:55

  Or are there weeks that you've worked seven days a week, and you haven't set time aside to worship, then you've broken the fourth commandment.

  22:56-22:57

  The fifth commandment is honor your father and mother.

  22:58-23:00

  Have you always honored your parents?

  23:00-23:01

  Every time?

  23:02-23:02

  Without question?

  23:04-23:06

  If not, then you violated the fifth commandment.

  23:06-23:13

  The sixth commandment is, "Do not murder." They're like, "Well, finally, Pastor Jeff, you got me because I have never killed anybody.

  23:13-23:16

  Not once ever." Well, hang on.

  23:17-23:23

  Jesus said, "If you've ever hated someone in your heart, it's the same as killing them.

  23:24-23:25

  You wish they were gone.

  23:25-23:28

  You wish they didn't exist." Jesus equated hatred with murder.

  23:29-23:32

  So by Jesus' definition, have you ever killed anyone?

  23:34-23:36

  The seventh commandment is do not commit adultery.

  23:37-23:39

  You see, Jesus expanded that one too.

  23:40-23:43

  You know, Pastor Jeff, I've never slept with any other person except my spouse.

  23:43-23:44

  Well, hang on.

  23:45-23:49

  Jesus said if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you've already committed adultery with her.

  23:50-23:54

  So by Jesus' definition, how many people have committed adultery?

  23:56-23:57

  The eighth commandment is do not steal.

  23:58-24:02

  Have you ever at one point, any time in your life, taken something that does not belong to you?

  24:03-24:04

  If so, you're a thief.

  24:06-24:09

  The ninth commandment, we already said, do not bear false witness, do not lie.

  24:09-24:10

  Have you ever told a lie?

  24:11-24:12

  I could have started with that one.

  24:12-24:15

  It disqualified you all from the beginning, right?

  24:16-24:17

  The 10th commandment is do not covet.

  24:19-24:22

  Again, have you always been satisfied with everything the Lord's given you?

  24:22-24:26

  You've never looked at something that somebody else said, "Man, I wish I had that.

  24:27-24:35

  "You know, I wish my wife was like his wife, "or I wish I lived in his neighborhood, "or I wish I had his job." Have you ever had a thought like that?

  24:36-24:38

  If you have, then you've coveted.

  24:40-24:42

  Okay, so how'd we do?

  24:44-24:46

  Any sinless people in attendance today?

  24:48-24:48

  Anyone?

  24:50-24:54

  Well, now you're understanding the purpose of the law.

  24:56-24:58

  You see, you have to keep the law 100%.

  24:58-25:04

  If that's your desire, if you're like, "You know, I'm going to believe in the Ten Commandments, I'm going to keep the Ten Commandments," you have to do it 100%.

  25:05-25:06

  Here's more bad news.

  25:08-25:11

  Let's pretend there's somebody here that only ever sinned one time.

  25:12-25:47

  You've lived your whole life perfectly, but one time back in 1987, you had a momentary lapse of judgment and you told this little white lie, but other than that, you've been perfect. Well, I got bad news for you. James 2.10 tells us that if we've broken the law at one point, we are accountable for all of it. Do you know that? It'd be like taking a hammer and chisel and saying, "I'm just going to take a little piece of glass out of here, just a little piece out of the middle, and when you hit that chisel, what's going to happen? You're going to shatter the whole thing." James says God's law is like that.

  25:48-25:55

  If you break it at one little point, you're guilty of all of it. Why? Because rejecting the law is rejecting the law giver, and you're accountable for all of it.

  25:57-26:08

  And I would suggest to you, if you walked into any courthouse with an honest judge, and you were found guilty of breaking every law in the books, you don't have much chance of getting off.

  26:11-26:11

  You're guilty.

  26:12-26:19

  Now you're standing before a holy and righteous God, and you're guilty, literally, of breaking every law that he's given.

  26:20-26:23

  by your own definition, by taking that test, you're guilty.

  26:26-26:29

  Jot this down, the purpose of the law, this is on your outline.

  26:30-26:39

  The purpose of the law was to clearly explain and expose human sinfulness.

  26:42-26:46

  The purpose of the law was to clearly explain and expose human sinfulness.

  26:48-26:53

  in order to create desperation for mercy and grace.

  26:56-27:00

  Please hear this because this gets so botched in churches today.

  27:02-27:14

  And there are a ton of Christians out there that are so confused because you think, well, yeah, Jesus and faith, but on the other hand, yeah, gotta keep the rules.

  27:16-27:17

  So I want you to hear this.

  27:17-27:18

  This is from God's word.

  27:18-27:20

  This is why we're doing Bible 101.

  27:20-27:22

  This is going to be news to some of you.

  27:23-27:29

  But the law is to show you that you are a sinner in need of grace.

  27:29-27:31

  That was the purpose of the law.

  27:31-27:33

  The law was to break you.

  27:35-27:40

  Okay, and somebody at this point is hearing this message and they're like, man, this church is a bummer.

  27:40-27:46

  Not only do they take two offerings, but I didn't get some feel good, Jesus loves me, kumbaya message.

  27:48-27:51

  Pastor Jeff made me feel like dirt and you should because you are.

  27:53-27:54

  And so am I.

  27:55-27:57

  And the law was supposed to do that.

  27:57-28:01

  You're like, "Nah, I don't really think that's why God gave us the law." Yeah, he told us that's why he gave us the law.

  28:01-28:02

  Look at these verses.

  28:04-28:07

  Galatians 3, we're gonna look at verses 19, 22, 23.

  28:08-28:09

  Why then the law?

  28:10-28:10

  Paul has a question.

  28:11-28:12

  This is from the New Testament.

  28:12-28:14

  He's giving Holy Spirit commentary.

  28:14-28:15

  Look at this question, why then the law?

  28:16-28:17

  Or why did God give the law?

  28:17-28:18

  Look at his answer.

  28:18-28:22

  It was added because of transgressions.

  28:24-28:26

  That's the fancy way of saying sin.

  28:28-28:29

  The law was added because of sin.

  28:30-28:39

  He goes on, but the scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Christ Jesus might be given to those who believe.

  28:40-28:49

  Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

  28:51-28:54

  Romans 7, Paul says, "What then shall we say?

  28:55-28:57

  "That the law is sin?

  28:58-29:14

  "By no means." He said, "Yet if it had not been for the law, "I would not have known sin, "For I would not have known what it was to covet, "if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet.'" Look at that last phrase.

  29:14-29:22

  He says, "For I would not have known what it is to covet, "if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet.'" This is the purpose of the law.

  29:24-29:25

  This is the purpose of the law.

  29:26-29:31

  A couple of weeks ago, Aaron and I stopped at the post office up in Cranberry.

  29:33-29:34

  How many people have been there?

  29:34-29:35

  been to the post office in Cranberry?

  29:36-29:37

  That one specifically, I've been to a post office.

  29:38-29:38

  No, that one.

  29:39-29:40

  How many people have been to that one?

  29:40-29:40

  Okay.

  29:41-29:48

  If you've noticed, there's a sign right outside the post office that says, keep off the grass.

  29:48-29:49

  How many people have seen that sign?

  29:50-29:51

  Keep off the grass.

  29:52-29:59

  I promise you, I had zero thoughts of frolicking on the lawn of the post office when I pulled up there.

  30:00-30:02

  But do you know what happened to me when I saw that sign?

  30:04-30:06

  Something wicked happened in my heart.

  30:07-30:10

  I wanted to just start rolling on the lawn of the post office.

  30:11-30:15

  Because just because the stupid sign said, don't get underground.

  30:15-30:18

  And the funny thing was, it wasn't even a nice lawn.

  30:18-30:22

  I mean, it was all patchy and splotchy and weedy and it was more dirt than grass.

  30:22-30:25

  And I keep off of our prize post office lawn here.

  30:26-30:29

  And Aaron was like, what are they trying to protect?

  30:30-30:31

  It doesn't look great.

  30:33-30:41

  I had no thoughts about jumping on that lawn, and I use that term loosely, I had no thoughts of jumping on that lawn until I saw that sign.

  30:43-30:46

  And that sign revealed to me what a rebellious jerk I am.

  30:48-30:49

  That's the law.

  30:50-30:55

  You see, something about that sign awakened the rebellion within me.

  30:55-30:57

  Now I should know better.

  30:57-31:00

  I should know that when I go places, I don't just tromp on their lawn.

  31:01-31:01

  I should know that.

  31:03-31:06

  But see, it wasn't really clearly defined for me until I saw the sign.

  31:08-31:20

  It's like, oh, to the very fact that I have this heart desire to do something just because I'm told not to do it, really says a lot about me, doesn't it?

  31:21-31:22

  I mean, we've all done it.

  31:24-31:30

  You're walking by the bench, through the park, you're walking by the bench, there's a sign that says, "Don't touch wet paint." What do you do?

  31:31-31:32

  We touch it.

  31:33-32:06

  We touch it. Why? Because there was a sign telling us not to do it. That's the law. God says, "I'm going to show you how sinful you are." See, Paul said, "Without the law I would have had these feelings of coveting, but I wouldn't have known exactly what that was." God defined it. He said, "You know why you want stuff that belongs to other people? It's because you're a sinner." The law shows us our predisposition to iniquity and that makes us feel guilty, that makes us feel trapped.

  32:06-32:26

  He says it twice, we saw it in the passage in Galatians 3, he used the word "imprisoned." The law is to imprison us, but even that is part of God's grace. See, God's not out to make you feel bad for the sake of feeling bad. This is God's intention for the law.

  32:28-32:44

  The guilt, the shame, the fear of judgment is supposed to make us desperate for mercy and grace and drive us to Christ who gives it.

  32:46-32:54

  As we come down the home stretch, church, the danger that we face in our day is trying to combine law and grace.

  32:55-32:57

  And the two are mutually exclusive, by the way.

  32:58-33:13

  Grace says, "Jesus did it all." Law says, "There's still a part that I have to do in order to earn my salvation." You can't combine the two, but there's something in us that wants to try to combine the two.

  33:15-33:30

  Because right now, I promise you, right now, there is somebody sitting here thinking, or somebody's listening to this podcast, Right now, somebody's thinking that living the victorious Christian life means keeping the Ten Commandments.

  33:33-33:45

  Right now, somebody's thinking, "God's going to be happy with me because I try to keep the commandments." And then when you fall, when you sin, and you will, you think God is mad at you.

  33:46-33:47

  Some people live their whole life that way.

  33:48-33:49

  "I had a great morning.

  33:49-33:50

  God's happy with me.

  33:52-33:58

  I had a bad thought, I didn't treat my wife in the right way, now God's mad at me.

  34:00-34:10

  If this is you, you not only misunderstand the purpose of the law, but you defeat yourself by misapplying it.

  34:12-34:13

  Like, so wait a minute, there's no law?

  34:13-34:15

  So what are you saying Pastor Jeff?

  34:15-34:21

  Are you saying it's okay to steal and to lie and to lust just because we're forgiven?

  34:22-34:23

  It sounds like what Pastor Jeff's saying to me.

  34:24-34:26

  He's saying it's okay to sin because we're forgiven.

  34:27-34:28

  I heard one person say this way.

  34:29-34:33

  One person said, "Well, if Jesus paid for my sins, "I'm gonna get his money's worth.

  34:35-34:40

  "And I'm gonna sin as much as I want." So it's okay to sin because we're forgiven, right?

  34:40-34:42

  The answer is absolutely not.

  34:43-34:46

  You absolutely should not be doing any of these things or any sin.

  34:48-34:55

  But in Christ, listen church, in Christ, you are differently motivated.

  34:57-35:07

  Not externally, because of a law that's written on a stone tablet in Christ, you're motivated internally.

  35:09-35:10

  This is part of the new covenant.

  35:10-35:16

  You know, even during the days of the old covenant, we'll talk about this next week, God promised that he was going to bring a new covenant.

  35:17-35:18

  And he said, here's the primary feature.

  35:18-35:36

  The law is not gonna be written on a tablet of stone, law is going to be written on your heart. Primary feature, Christ doesn't just save you, he changes you. He changes your identity and he changes your appetites.

  35:39-35:49

  See the problem is you have somebody that knows enough about the Bible to be dangerous but hasn't actually received Jesus Christ, they're not actually born again and they're trying to live the Christian life in their own flesh.

  35:50-35:55

  Question is, have you really received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

  35:55-35:59

  And if you have, God will change your appetite.

  35:59-36:02

  You know, your appetite for food will change. Did you know that?

  36:02-36:06

  I know it's true for me because I've been...

  36:07-36:15

  I go on diet crazes, and I go on not caring what I stuff in my face phases, honestly.

  36:16-36:18

  You know what's interesting about that?

  36:18-36:26

  But when I'm going through one of those phases where I just eat whatever I want, I eat donut sandwiches with Pop-Tarts as the bread.

  36:26-36:27

  You ever had one of those?

  36:28-36:28

  Delicious.

  36:30-36:35

  Chase it down with an extra large Coca-Cola.

  36:36-36:39

  Consume your caloric intake for the next three months in one bite.

  36:41-36:46

  But when I'm eating that stuff and I'm offered a salad,

  36:47-36:48

  (grunts)

  36:49-36:53

  rabbit food, salad's what, that's what food eats, right?

  36:53-36:57

  And I don't have an appetite for that stuff.

  36:59-37:03

  You know, something that's funny is once in a while I'll get in this health kick because I realize I'm not 20 anymore.

  37:04-37:10

  And, you know, I can't eat like Garfield anymore and still maintain this fabulous figure that I have.

  37:12-37:13

  You were so not supposed to laugh.

  37:15-37:17

  I am so ashamed of myself now.

  37:18-37:21

  And I'll get on these crates, I do eat the salads.

  37:21-37:25

  And Aaron will make the most wonderful, healthy, she'll make salmon.

  37:25-37:26

  And I'm like, you know, eating it.

  37:27-37:30

  And I start to enjoy it after a while.

  37:32-37:42

  And then after a while, when I'm off of the garbage and I'm eating the good stuff, You're out somewhere and you have a Pepsi and the Pepsi tastes like garbage.

  37:42-37:44

  You're like, what am I drinking, battery acid?

  37:44-37:45

  What is this stuff?

  37:45-37:46

  It's nasty.

  37:47-37:55

  Like, how did I love this so much before and now it tastes so gross?

  37:56-37:57

  Because your appetites will change.

  37:58-38:05

  And that's one of the amazing things when you come to Jesus Christ, when you receive him by faith, he changes your appetites.

  38:06-38:12

  See, I used to crave sin, and I'd want to avoid the things of God.

  38:13-38:16

  I used to have this appetite for sin.

  38:16-38:19

  What's going to make me happy and gratify my flesh?

  38:19-38:25

  And I remember before I came to Christ, somebody would, I remember people specifically had tried to witness to me, or to tell me about Jesus.

  38:26-38:27

  I stayed far from those people.

  38:27-38:28

  I didn't want to hear it.

  38:28-38:29

  Why?

  38:29-38:31

  Because I have an appetite for sin.

  38:31-38:34

  I don't want to hear this Bible, Jesus stuff.

  38:36-38:38

  Something weird happened to me in 1995.

  38:39-38:46

  When I came to Christ, all of a sudden, I found myself wanting to be near the people that talk about Jesus.

  38:46-38:49

  And I started having an appetite for these things.

  38:49-38:51

  Yet now I wanna read the Bible.

  38:51-38:54

  Now I wanna study and understand God's word.

  38:56-38:59

  And sin has become like that occasional glass of Pepsi.

  39:00-39:01

  Yeah, it still happens.

  39:02-39:03

  It still happens.

  39:03-39:04

  I still struggle with sin.

  39:04-39:05

  Don't look so shocked.

  39:06-39:10

  Some of you are like, "Yeah, I still struggle with sin.

  39:11-39:13

  I'll tell you something that's different now.

  39:14-39:15

  I don't crave it.

  39:16-39:18

  And it tastes like garbage.

  39:19-39:20

  This isn't who I am.

  39:21-39:22

  Why did I do that?

  39:23-39:28

  So gross." Christ changes your appetites.

  39:29-39:33

  And as a child of God, I don't want to sin anymore.

  39:33-39:33

  I don't want to.

  39:35-39:37

  Because God has forgiven me.

  39:38-39:39

  God has changed me.

  39:41-39:45

  And now I want to honor Him and obey Him out of love.

  39:47-39:57

  And even when I do sin, I am no more out of His family than my own kids are kicked to the curb because they disobey me.

  39:59-40:06

  Believe me, there are times as a parent, I have been tempted to put my kids on eBay.

  40:08-40:09

  Starting bid a nickel.

  40:11-40:12

  Make an offer.

  40:13-40:13

  I have been tempted.

  40:16-40:19

  And I say that jokingly, but that will never happen.

  40:20-40:26

  There's not a force on this earth that's going to stop my kids from being my kids.

  40:28-40:29

  That's why sometimes Kate will be mad at me.

  40:29-40:31

  She's like, fine, I'm going to quit the family.

  40:32-40:32

  I'm like, you can't.

  40:33-40:37

  My blood runs through your veins and it will until the day you die.

  40:38-40:40

  And we did a whole parenting series, get it online.

  40:40-40:43

  We have all kinds of nuggets of wisdom just like that one.

  40:45-40:49

  But the point is, nothing is going to stop him from being my child.

  40:50-40:51

  You parents, you know that.

  40:52-40:54

  Nothing is ever going to change that.

  40:54-40:58

  Your kid is going to be your kid for the rest of your life.

  40:59-41:07

  Even if he or she messes up or rebels or whatever, nothing changes that, and so it isn't God's family.

  41:08-41:11

  It doesn't matter how badly I mess up.

  41:13-41:16

  God loves me, because I'm his kid.

  41:18-41:19

  And when I sin, what do I do?

  41:19-41:20

  I confess it to God.

  41:21-41:24

  Confess just literally means to say the same, to say the same.

  41:25-41:26

  Confession means you agree with God.

  41:27-41:29

  I confess my sin, I say, "God, you know what?

  41:29-41:31

  "I did this today, and that was wrong.

  41:32-41:34

  I know it was wrong, and God, I'm confessing that to you.

  41:35-41:37

  I confess sin to God.

  41:39-41:40

  I turn from it.

  41:40-41:40

  That's repentance.

  41:43-41:45

  I thank God for the forgiveness He's already given.

  41:46-41:48

  Jesus died once for my sin.

  41:48-41:50

  He's not going to die again for my sin.

  41:50-41:56

  I thank God for the forgiveness He's already given in Christ, and I ask God for strength in the future to avoid that sin.

  41:58-42:03

  So, when we leave here today, you have a choice.

  42:05-42:07

  You have a choice. You can try to live by the law.

  42:09-42:09

  You can try.

  42:11-42:13

  And you can fail repeatedly.

  42:15-42:17

  And you can stand guilty before God.

  42:21-42:24

  Or, you can recognize your guilt.

  42:26-42:33

  You can accept the fact that you were never, and can never be good enough to be right with God.

  42:35-42:40

  And you can receive Jesus Christ as your Savior and as your Lord.

  42:41-42:46

  The whole purpose of God's law was to bring you to Jesus.

  42:48-42:49

  That was the purpose.

  42:50-43:23

  The purpose was never to embrace the law the sense of, "Well, I'm going to keep this and God's going to be happy." That was never the design. The question is, "How does faith in Jesus Christ save me from my sin, save me from the law?" Well, next week, the most important Bible 101 lesson as we examine the star of the book, Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday.

  43:24-43:38

  It's my prayer that with this background of everything that we've studied leading up to this, that you're going to understand the cross and the resurrection in a much deeper way this Easter, perhaps than ever before.

  43:39-43:39

  Let's pray.

  43:41-43:45

  Father in heaven, we thank you for your law.

  43:47-43:50

  Even the psalmist in the Old Testament says, I love your law.

  43:52-43:54

  We love your law, Father, because it reveals who You are.

  43:56-43:59

  And it certainly teaches us some things about ourselves.

  44:01-44:16

  So Father, I want to pray specifically today for my brothers and sisters who have maybe been struggling with the law, thinking that I want to obey the Ten Commandments so God's happy with me, but I keep failing and I'm miserable.

  44:18-44:20

  You haven't called us to that lifestyle, Father.

  44:20-44:21

  You have called us to freedom.

  44:23-44:31

  You've sent Your Son who lived the perfect life, who fulfilled the law with His life, with His death, with His resurrection.

  44:33-44:39

  You've imputed that righteousness, that obedience, that perfection.

  44:39-44:41

  You've imputed that onto our accounts.

  44:43-44:45

  This is why we celebrate Your Son.

  44:47-44:49

  Father, show us what it means to be rightly motivated.

  44:51-44:54

  Show us what it means, Father, to have an appetite for righteousness.

  44:55-44:59

  The hunger and thirst for righteousness, as Your Word says.

  45:01-45:04

  Show us what it means, Father, to live in grace.

  45:06-45:14

  We thank You, Father, for loving us enough to tell us the truth, We are lost and we are hopeless.

  45:15-45:16

  We are imprisoned.

  45:17-45:24

  But for loving us enough to get us out of that prison, through Your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

  45:25-45:26

  Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read and review the 10 Commandments

1. How does God's Law reveal His character? What about His character does the Law reveal?

2. If God already made a covenant with Abraham, why did He make one with Moses/Israel?

3. What is the purpose of the Old Testament Law?

4. How would you respond to someone who says, "You have to obey the 10 Commandments if you want to be saved."?

Breakout Questions:

Pray for HBC and other Gospel-centered churches going into Easter weekend. 

Abraham

The Birth of a Nation

Genesis 12-25

1. Who is Abraham?



2. What is a Covenant ?



3. What is the Covenant God made with Abraham?



Review: Genesis 12:1-3 | Genesis 13:14-16

1. Land


2. Descendants


3. Blessing

Review: Genesis 15:12-21

4. What do we Learn from Abraham?

Review: Romans 4:3 --> Genesis 15:6

Review: Matthew 26:28 | John 3:36

View fullsize

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  01:04-01:10

  Grab your Bibles. We are going to continue in our series called Bible 101.

  01:11-01:13

  You're just joining us.

  01:14-01:17

  We've been spending these past few weeks, and we'll continue until two weeks after Easter.

  01:18-01:20

  And this is an overview of the Bible.

  01:21-01:23

  And all of these messages are available on our website.

  01:25-01:30

  But here's the goal. In ten weeks, you will be so familiar with God's Word.

  01:30-01:40

  I know for many people, it's an intimidating thing to look at this book and there's so many other books and all these names and places we've never heard of.

  01:40-01:42

  How does it all go together?

  01:42-01:54

  Well, that's the goal over these 10 weeks, is to get a strong overview of how the Word of God is put together and what the general theme of God's Word is all about.

  01:55-02:00

  And then you'll be equipped to go and confidently read God's Word for yourself.

  02:00-02:09

  So, so far we've spent some time talking about the Bible, why we believe the Bible is true, why we believe it was written by God Himself.

  02:10-02:12

  We spent a week talking about creation.

  02:13-02:14

  That's where it all started.

  02:14-02:16

  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

  02:18-02:22

  Then things went south pretty quickly as sin entered the world.

  02:24-02:45

  Then we saw in Genesis chapter 6, the sin got so bad that God said, "I'm going to blot out every living thing on the earth except for one man and his wife and his sons and their wives." And that was Noah. And God flooded the entire earth because of sin.

  02:48-02:54

  But people were still sinners even after the flood because last week we were in Genesis chapter 11.

  02:55-03:06

  You recall that the people united, and even though God said, "Spread out, fill the earth," that time the people said, "No, we're going to stay here.

  03:06-03:11

  We're going to establish our own kingdom." And the Lord confused their languages and spread them out.

  03:13-03:19

  They're like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, you said that we're going to be covering the whole Bible, but I'm going to be honest with you, we haven't made it very far.

  03:19-03:25

  I mean, what week is this, like five or six or whatever, and we've only made it to like Genesis chapter 11.

  03:26-03:33

  Actually, we've gone quite a distance already because today we're talking about Abraham.

  03:34-03:41

  Did you know from creation to Abraham, that's a period of about 2,000 years.

  03:44-03:45

  So we're on a pretty good pace.

  03:46-03:57

  So there's 2,000 years from creation to Abraham And there's about 2,000 years from Abraham to the birth of Jesus Christ.

  03:59-04:08

  And what you see in your Bible is for the first 2,000 years, everything we've covered to this point, God was dealing with the human race as a whole.

  04:10-04:25

  But the second 2,000 years, starting with Abraham, where we're looking today, God deals primarily with the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or the nation of Israel.

  04:26-04:39

  See, the first 2,000 years it was a global perspective, and now, starting in Genesis 12, where we're going to pick up today, the Bible really zeroes in on one family.

  04:41-04:42

  That's the nation of Israel.

  04:44-04:54

  And if we can get our bookshelf up here, everything that follows in your Bible has to do with the nation of Israel.

  04:54-04:56

  Understand that this is a Jewish religion.

  04:58-05:04

  But the first five books, that's the law that God gave to the nation of Israel.

  05:05-05:09

  Then the books of history, the history of what?

  05:09-05:10

  The history of Israel.

  05:12-05:18

  Books of poetry, these were by Israel and for Israel.

  05:18-05:20

  The prophets, the major and the minor prophets.

  05:23-05:28

  These were Jewish prophets that God sent to give a message to Israel.

  05:30-05:33

  Then you get to the Gospels, focal point of the Gospels.

  05:34-05:39

  Jesus Christ, who according to his human lineage was Jewish.

  05:40-05:41

  The Acts of the Apostles.

  05:42-05:49

  Again, God sending the message out to Israel first, and ultimately to the Gentiles.

  05:50-05:57

  Paul's letters, commentaries - general letters, commentaries on the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

  05:57-05:58

  What does death and resurrection mean?

  05:59-06:00

  All the way up to the book of Revelation.

  06:02-06:06

  Revelation talking about the end of the world, what's coming when Christ returns.

  06:08-06:14

  One of the key characters in the book of Revelation is the nation of Israel.

  06:14-06:25

  So the point is, today we're going to be introducing Abraham and talking about him and understand that everything that follows in the Bible circles around the Jewish people.

  06:27-06:31

  So first of all, if you have your outline, who is Abraham?

  06:31-06:33

  Let's answer that question. Who is Abraham?

  06:35-06:38

  Remember we saw the flood, right?

  06:38-06:51

  Noah, his wife, his three sons, their wives, Noah's sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth. Shem, one of Noah's sons was actually the father of the Semitic race.

  06:52-06:55

  And Abraham was a descendant of Shem.

  06:57-07:01

  And he was called out of a pagan culture by God.

  07:01-07:03

  That's in Genesis chapter 12.

  07:05-07:06

  We'll look at that in a second.

  07:07-07:10

  But Abraham's story...

  07:10-07:18

  If you were to sum up his life, and there are several chapters in your Bible about the life of Abraham, his life is one of tested faith.

  07:20-07:25

  In Genesis chapter 12 we see it's Abraham's obedience that's tested.

  07:25-07:29

  In Genesis 13, Abraham's values are tested.

  07:31-07:33

  In Genesis 14, his loyalty is tested.

  07:36-07:45

  Abraham even experienced the greatest test that I would suggest any man would be subjected to when you get to Genesis chapter 22.

  07:47-07:51

  God tells Abraham to take his son and offer him as a sacrifice.

  07:54-07:59

  Of course, God intervenes and stops him while Abraham is in the act of doing it.

  08:01-08:02

  That's a whole other sermon.

  08:03-08:06

  But here's the most important thing you need to know about Abraham.

  08:06-08:09

  The most important thing about Abraham is this.

  08:10-08:13

  God made a covenant with Abraham.

  08:14-08:15

  That's the most important thing about Abraham.

  08:16-08:18

  God made a covenant with him.

  08:18-08:19

  You're like, "Well, hang on.

  08:19-08:21

  What is a covenant?" That's a great question.

  08:21-08:22

  That's number two in your outline.

  08:22-08:23

  What is a covenant?

  08:23-08:25

  In general, covenant is an agreement.

  08:26-08:26

  Right?

  08:26-08:29

  Like we say, the marriage covenant.

  08:30-08:31

  What does that mean?

  08:31-08:35

  It means two people have agreed to be husband and wife.

  08:36-08:37

  It's agreement.

  08:37-08:39

  That's the general sense.

  08:39-08:47

  But when you get to the Bible, and you see the word covenant, regarding the Lord specifically, here's a better definition.

  08:49-08:57

  A covenant is God's commitment to keep certain promises to His people on certain terms.

  08:58-09:02

  God's commitment to keep certain promises to His people on certain terms.

  09:03-09:04

  That's what a covenant is.

  09:06-09:17

  Interestingly, the Hebrew word for covenant is the word "cut." And I think you're going to see why here in a second.

  09:20-09:23

  probably where we get the expression we're going to cut a deal.

  09:25-09:32

  So what is the covenant that God made with Abraham? If this is so important, what is the covenant? This is, again, this is Bible 101.

  09:34-09:37

  Every student of God's Word needs to know this because this is so important.

  09:38-09:42

  What's the covenant God made with Abraham? We find it given in Scripture, it's repeated.

  09:43-09:46

  We're going to look at a couple passages here. First of all, look at Genesis chapter 12.

  09:47-10:02

  First three verses says, "Now the Lord said to Abram," that was his name before God changed it, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

  10:03-10:14

  I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.

  10:16-10:18

  I will bless those who bless you.

  10:20-10:23

  And him who dishonors you, I will curse.

  10:24-10:30

  And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

  10:30-10:32

  Keep that scripture up there for a second.

  10:32-10:33

  There's something I want you to see.

  10:34-10:38

  Last week, remember the people that were building the Tower of Babel?

  10:38-10:41

  Their goal was to make a great name for themselves?

  10:43-10:44

  Can't miss the contrast here.

  10:45-11:17

  tried to make a great name for themselves and God said no it's not going to work and he confused your language and spread them out but then God turns to Abraham he says I will bless you and make your name great. If you're going to try to make yourself great it's not going to happen but when you seek the Lord and you allow the Lord to have his way in your life he will make you great okay so you have a choice there you want to be great yeah we all want to be great There's two ways you can go about it, your way or God's way.

  11:19-11:21

  Your way won't work, God's way always works.

  11:22-11:39

  So Genesis chapter 13 again, the covenant, "The Lord said to Abram after Lot," that's his nephew, had separated from him, "The Lord says to Abram, 'Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are northward and southward and eastward and westward.

  11:41-11:44

  All the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.

  11:45-11:56

  I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted." Okay, so jot these down in your outline.

  11:56-11:59

  The covenant that God made with Abraham was about three things.

  11:59-12:02

  There are three things God said, "Abraham, you're going to...

  12:02-12:05

  This is the covenant I'm making with you, man." The first one, letter A, is land.

  12:07-12:09

  And what land is that?

  12:09-12:10

  That is the nation of Israel.

  12:11-12:17

  That is that chunk of land in the Middle East, and it belongs to the Jews forever.

  12:19-12:25

  And I know people are fighting over it, and they will continue to.

  12:26-12:30

  There are claims being staked on who this land belongs to.

  12:33-12:40

  belongs to Israel because God gave it to Abraham clearly in his word.

  12:42-12:53

  This land was ultimately claimed when Moses, we're going to talk about him next week, Moses led Israel out of Egypt where the Israelites were slaves.

  12:53-13:03

  Moses led them out of Egypt and Joshua ended up leading them in to Canaan as it was called before Israel took control.

  13:05-13:07

  And yet people are still fighting over it today.

  13:07-13:09

  So that was the first promise that God made Abraham.

  13:09-13:14

  There's a chunk of land that I'm giving to you.

  13:15-13:17

  And I think that explains when you look at...

  13:18-13:20

  We've already seen the degree of human sinfulness.

  13:22-13:28

  But isn't it interesting that there's a New Jersey-sized chunk of land in the Middle East that everybody's fighting over and has been forever?

  13:29-13:31

  Like, why is everybody fighting over that little piece of land?

  13:33-13:35

  They're fighting over it because God gave it to the Israelites.

  13:35-13:36

  That's why they're fighting over it.

  13:38-13:40

  That's the first part of the promise.

  13:40-13:42

  The second one we saw, descendants.

  13:44-13:55

  God said, "Your descendants are going to be like the stars in the sky or the sand on the seashore." There's a problem with that though.

  13:55-14:03

  So Abraham at the time, God gave him the promise, was 75 and childless.

  14:04-14:06

  Everybody say that's a problem.

  14:08-14:09

  Okay, it gets worse though.

  14:10-14:14

  His wife, Sarah, was old and childless.

  14:14-14:15

  Everybody say that's a problem.

  14:17-14:31

  Okay, so Abraham was like, "Well, God promised that He was going to bless me through descendants." So one of the customs they had back then was they would take one of their servants, one of their maidservants, and have children through that.

  14:31-14:34

  So they had a maidservant named Hagar.

  14:36-14:39

  And Abraham and Sarah thought, "Well, maybe if we just have...

  14:40-14:51

  Maybe Abraham, if you have a child through Hagar, that's what God meant." Well, Abraham and Hagar did have a child, and that child's name was Ishmael.

  14:52-14:55

  He became the father of the Arab nation.

  14:57-15:09

  God said, "No, I meant Abraham, you and Sarah are going to have a child." In an old age, Sarah ultimately gave birth to Isaac, who was the father of Jacob.

  15:09-15:31

  And Jacob, his name changed to Israel, which Israel literally means "wrestles with God." So Jacob, Israel, had 12 sons and those sons ended up becoming the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel and that's where we get the nation of Israel.

  15:32-15:37

  So that's the land, that's the descendants, but something else you saw in this covenant was blessing.

  15:39-15:40

  What is a blessing?

  15:40-15:42

  I mean, that's one of those words we use a lot.

  15:43-15:44

  Like, what does that even mean?

  15:44-15:51

  Like somebody sneezes, we're like, "Bless you," and, you know, "I want to do this with your blessing and to say the blessing before we eat.

  15:51-15:52

  What does that mean?

  15:53-16:04

  Well, in the Old Testament, a blessing was a spoken word that places lasting benefits on a person or on a group.

  16:06-16:09

  That's why you see in the Old Testament, for example, people would look for a blessing from their father.

  16:10-16:19

  Like, "Father, speak a word over me to give me lasting benefit." That's what a blessing was.

  16:21-16:26

  What is the blessing that was going to be associated with Israel?

  16:28-16:31

  Israel was to be a light to the world.

  16:31-16:36

  Israel was meant to lead nations of the earth to the living God.

  16:38-16:43

  And this blessing is ultimately fulfilled through Jesus Christ.

  16:45-17:02

  Understand, when God promised Abraham a blessing that would be for the whole world, that was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus, because according to Jesus' human lineage, Jesus was God in human flesh, but Jesus, you could say more specifically, was God in Jewish flesh.

  17:04-17:05

  That's the blessing.

  17:06-17:10

  I want you to turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 15.

  17:12-17:17

  To see this covenant, how this...

  17:17-17:33

  You see, God didn't tell Abraham, "Let's go down to the local notary and draft this up, and we'll get it notarized." God didn't say, "We're going to go to court and make this official." I want you to see how God sort of sealed the deal in making this official with Abraham.

  17:34-17:37

  Genesis chapter 15, we're going to pick up in verse 12.

  17:39-17:43

  And it says, "As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram.

  17:46-17:49

  Behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.

  17:50-18:32

  Then the Lord said to Abram, 'Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. He's talking about the Israelites being in Egypt. See, he says, "But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You shall be buried in a good old age and they shall come back here in In the fourth generation, the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.

  18:33-18:35

  Here's how the covenant was made. Look at verse 17.

  18:35-18:51

  It says, "When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces." What pieces?

  18:51-18:58

  earlier in Genesis 15 told Abraham, "Take animals and cut them in half." Like, what's that all about?

  18:58-19:11

  They would, in those days, I know it seems like a weird custom to us, but they would cut animals in half and put the halves opposite each other and sort of make a path of animals divided.

  19:13-19:19

  And when they were speaking their terms of the covenant, they would walk between those halves of the animal.

  19:21-19:31

  you were saying, "If I don't keep my end of it, I should be cut in half like one of these animals." But it was a very serious thing to enter into a covenant in this way.

  19:32-19:46

  But notice it says, "The Lord appeared, He manifested Himself as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch." As that manifestation, the Bible says, "The Lord passed between these pieces," verse 18.

  19:47-20:15

  On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, the river of Egypt, the great river, the river Euphrates, to the land of the Kenites, the Kenozites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Gergesites, and the Jebusites.

  20:17-20:28

  Let's see, usually when a covenant was made and the animal halves were divided, you had the little path, usually the two parties entering the covenant would take turns.

  20:28-20:32

  Like I would walk through and I would state, here's my part of the covenant.

  20:33-20:37

  I promise that I'm going to do this and I promise that I'm going to do that.

  20:37-20:41

  And then the next person entering the covenant, He'd do the same thing.

  20:41-20:50

  He'd walk through, "Okay, well now I'm going to promise to do this and I promise to do that." But both sides would walk through, and that was called a bilateral covenant.

  20:52-20:56

  But this passage is so significant because you see, only God passed through.

  20:57-20:58

  Did you see that?

  20:59-21:01

  God didn't say, "Abraham, here's what I'm going to do.

  21:01-21:06

  Now, I want you to walk through the pieces and tell me how you're going to keep your end." That didn't happen.

  21:07-21:10

  This is called a unilateral covenant.

  21:11-21:19

  God was saying, "Abraham, here is what I'm going to do." And the covenant did not depend upon Abraham.

  21:20-21:23

  Abraham was faithful, yeah, he had a few bumps in the road.

  21:23-21:24

  You can read about that.

  21:24-21:25

  He wasn't perfect, just like me.

  21:25-21:26

  I'm not perfect.

  21:27-21:28

  And newsflash, and neither are you.

  21:29-21:29

  Sorry, that hurt your feelings.

  21:30-21:32

  Abraham was just like us.

  21:32-21:36

  Yeah, he had some problems.

  21:37-21:42

  When you look at the overall scope of his life, he was faithful.

  21:42-21:43

  We're going to talk about that in a second.

  21:46-21:48

  But the covenant wasn't based on Abraham being faithful.

  21:49-21:53

  See, God wasn't up in heaven going, "Oh, I hope Abraham does his part of this.

  21:54-21:58

  I mean, I'm going to keep my part, but I sure hope he keeps his part." It was a unilateral covenant.

  21:58-22:00

  God was basically saying, "Abraham, you're a witness.

  22:01-22:02

  I want you to watch.

  22:02-22:10

  This is what I'm going to do through you." God's going to keep His Word no matter what.

  22:11-22:17

  The covenant, again, wasn't based on Abraham keeping His Word, it was based on God keeping His.

  22:18-22:23

  If I can just insert here quickly, I know a lot of times people struggle with the idea of salvation.

  22:23-22:25

  How do I know that I'm saved and how can I be sure?

  22:27-22:29

  The surety of your salvation is Jesus Christ.

  22:29-22:30

  We're going to talk about that in a second.

  22:31-22:34

  The surety of your salvation is based on God keeping His Word.

  22:35-22:39

  Understand, your salvation isn't based on you keeping your word.

  22:40-22:48

  Because you would lose your salvation about 30 times a day before you get out of bed, and who knows how many times after that.

  22:49-22:50

  You can't do it.

  22:51-22:57

  See the covenant that God made with you, as we'll talk about in a second, it's based on Him keeping His word.

  22:59-23:09

  So that's why I can stand before you and say, "I have the assurance that I'm going to heaven." And somebody might say, "Well, that's awfully arrogant of you, Pastor Jeff." No, it's not.

  23:09-23:10

  I'm a loser.

  23:11-23:13

  I'm a failure by nature.

  23:15-23:21

  But my surety of going to heaven is because of God keeping His Word, not me keeping mine.

  23:22-23:23

  That's the same with Abraham.

  23:25-23:32

  God says, "Abraham, here's how this is going to go down." That was the covenant that God made with him, a unilateral covenant.

  23:33-23:35

  It was one-sided and it was for three things.

  23:36-23:37

  Every Bible student needs to know this.

  23:37-23:40

  Land, descendants, and a blessing.

  23:42-23:44

  And finally for today, what do we learn from Abraham?

  23:46-23:47

  What do we learn from Abraham?

  23:47-23:55

  Well your Bible tells us that Abraham is the poster child for faith.

  23:55-24:02

  Your Bible might not use the expression "poster child." However, he is the poster child for faith.

  24:02-24:04

  the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans in the New Testament.

  24:05-24:11

  Romans is the most comprehensive and exhaustive book in the Bible that talks about the nature of salvation.

  24:12-24:12

  Okay?

  24:12-24:58

  And when Paul, in this absolutely mind-blowingly incredible writing, inspired by the Holy Spirit, obviously, but as Paul was describing salvation and what it means to be saved, In Romans 4, verse 3, he quotes Genesis 15, verse 6, which simply says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." Or it was, your Bible might say, "reckoned to him," or "credited to him." You see, by nature, we talk all about sin.

  24:58-25:01

  we are born sinners, we are not righteous.

  25:01-25:06

  No matter how many righteous things that we try to do, those things don't make us righteous.

  25:07-25:09

  We are sinners who occasionally do the right thing.

  25:11-25:13

  We don't have righteousness on our account.

  25:16-25:17

  See, God has to put it on our account.

  25:19-25:39

  It would be like if you were renting an apartment and you were behind $500 in the rent, and you didn't have it in your bank account, but I went to the bank with you and I put $500 on your bank account, and you used that to pay the bill, pay your rent.

  25:41-25:51

  Now, you didn't earn it and you didn't put it there, but it was there, and you had it, and you possessed it, because somebody else put it there.

  25:52-25:53

  And that's how it is with righteousness.

  25:53-25:58

  in Jesus Christ we are pronounced righteous.

  26:00-26:01

  Like, well I'm not a righteous person.

  26:01-26:03

  No, by nature you're not.

  26:03-26:05

  He puts that on your account.

  26:05-26:15

  Jesus takes you to the spiritual bank, so to speak, and your righteousness says zero, and Jesus says I'm going to put my righteousness on his account.

  26:16-26:17

  And you're like, well how does that happen?

  26:19-26:48

  tells us Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham wasn't saved because he was great and he was great. One of the greatest people in history. That's not why he was saved. Abraham wasn't saved because he was moral. He was sometimes and he blew it sometimes. He wasn't saved because he was moral. Abraham wasn't saved because Because he had huge accomplishments. He did.

  26:51-26:53

  That wasn't what saved him.

  26:54-26:58

  What saved Abraham was simply he believed God.

  27:00-27:07

  Salvation has only ever been by grace through faith.

  27:07-27:09

  You see, you could say that grace is God's part.

  27:10-27:10

  What is grace?

  27:11-27:15

  Grace is God giving to you what He requires from you.

  27:16-27:28

  grace. God says you have to be righteous as we said you're not righteous. God says I'm going to give you righteousness. I require that from you so I'm going to give it to you. Holiness I require that from you so I'm going to give it to you.

  27:29-27:51

  That's what grace is. Everything that we need God has supplied for us on our behalf. That's grace. So how do I get this grace? How do I receive it? You God. But to just boil it down in simplest terms you can say faith is our part.

  27:52-28:26

  Faith isn't a work, faith is believing in the work that God's done. Much like the word blessing, the word faith is one of those words we throw around a lot that maybe don't know exactly what it means. My favorite definition is one James MacDonald used, I'm going to share it with you. He says that faith is believing God's and acting upon it, no matter how I feel, because God promises a good result.

  28:27-28:28

  I'll say that again.

  28:29-28:41

  Faith is believing God's Word, and acting upon it, no matter how I feel, because God promises a good result.

  28:42-28:43

  That's faith.

  28:45-28:55

  And I want you to understand church, that when we talk about faith, it's not about how much faith you have.

  28:57-28:58

  It's about who your faith is in.

  28:59-29:11

  Because as a pastor I hear people say to me, "Oh I just don't have a lot of faith, and oh if I could just have some more faith, I don't have a lot of faith." You don't have to have a lot of faith.

  29:13-29:15

  Jesus said you need faith like a what?

  29:15-29:15

  What did he say?

  29:16-29:16

  Faith like a mountain?

  29:17-29:18

  No, faith like an ocean?

  29:18-29:19

  What did he say?

  29:20-29:21

  A mustard seed, right?

  29:21-29:24

  Jesus said you just need a little bit of faith.

  29:24-29:24

  Why?

  29:25-29:26

  Because it's not about how much faith you have.

  29:28-29:30

  It's about who your faith is in.

  29:30-29:31

  Now it's true.

  29:31-29:35

  Over time and experience in your walk with Lord, your faith will grow.

  29:35-29:36

  That's absolutely true.

  29:37-29:51

  I can say that I have more faith now than I did certainly 20 years ago, 21 years ago, however 22 years since I came to Christ, I have more faith today than I did even last month.

  29:52-29:52

  Honestly.

  29:53-29:54

  My faith is growing.

  29:55-29:58

  But it's not about how much faith you have.

  29:59-30:00

  It's about who your faith is in.

  30:01-30:04

  I like to share this little story I heard one time to help illustrate that.

  30:06-30:08

  You know, the story goes there's a little boy who liked to ice skate.

  30:09-30:10

  Are the ice skaters here?

  30:12-30:13

  Like, OK, a couple of you?

  30:14-30:16

  All right, I've ice skated like four times in my life.

  30:16-30:17

  I'm terrible at it.

  30:17-30:18

  OK, but there's a little boy.

  30:18-30:19

  He liked to ice skate.

  30:22-30:26

  And it was getting late in the fall, and the pond had just frozen over.

  30:27-30:29

  He's like, all right, I'm going to go ice skate.

  30:29-30:31

  He put his ice skates on, and he ran down to the pond.

  30:32-30:37

  And he jumped on, but it had just frozen over, so the ice wasn't very thick.

  30:37-30:40

  And he jumped on the ice, and the ice cracked, and he fell through.

  30:41-31:20

  fortunately is that was nearby dragged him out of the water about a week later weather got really cold and the on froze again but this time it rose rose and uh... because that's a state you want to go ice skating the pond is really frozen solid the kid this time he didn't run down and jump on the ice he walked down and he put his skates on, and as you can imagine, he very gingerly stepped out onto the ice, and it was quite a while before he was sure that it was going to hold him.

  31:22-31:26

  Now you see in those two accounts, in the first account, the kid's faith was very strong.

  31:27-31:29

  What he had his faith in was very weak.

  31:31-31:34

  It didn't matter how much faith he had, that wasn't going to hold him.

  31:36-31:40

  And in the second story, his faith was very weak.

  31:41-31:46

  But what he was putting his faith in was very strong, and it was able to hold him.

  31:48-31:49

  And so it goes for you.

  31:51-31:54

  You can have very strong faith in something that is not going to save you.

  31:54-32:03

  There are cults, coast to coast, that have people with a lot of faith in these false gods.

  32:05-32:06

  They're not strong enough to say.

  32:08-32:10

  It's not about how much faith you have.

  32:11-32:13

  It's about who your faith is in.

  32:13-32:22

  And you can be sitting here today and you're like, "Oh, Pastor John, I'm just sort of at the beginning of my journey and I don't have very much faith." Who is your faith in? That's what matters.

  32:24-32:36

  And as I close, I want to remind you that as we talk about the greatness of Abraham, because God made a covenant with him, I want to close by reminding you that God made a covenant with you too.

  32:37-32:37

  Did you know that?

  32:39-32:44

  The Bible says that we live under the New Covenant.

  32:44-32:49

  You see, your Bible says Old Testament and New Testament.

  32:49-32:52

  It's divided into those two sections.

  32:53-32:58

  But another way of saying that is Old Covenant and New Covenant.

  33:00-33:05

  We're not having the Lord's Supper today, but we do often.

  33:06-33:17

  And every time we have the Lord's Supper together, what we are doing is we are remembering and celebrating together the New Covenant.

  33:17-34:27

  We're remembering the words of Jesus Christ when He said in Matthew 26, verse 28, This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. You say, well, what are the terms of this covenant? I mean, we saw what God had promised Abraham and we saw how Abraham responded in faith. What are the terms for me in this new covenant? Well, that's all wrapped up in John chapter 3, verse 36. Here's the terms of God's covenant with you. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.

  34:29-34:47

  Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. That's the covenant that God's made with you through the blood of Jesus Christ.

  34:49-34:55

  The question is like, "Abraham, do you believe God?" Do you believe God?

  34:56-34:59

  When God says, "If you believe in my Son, you'll be saved," do you believe that?

  35:00-35:03

  If you reject my Son, the wrath of God remains on you.

  35:03-35:04

  Do you believe that?

  35:05-35:17

  Because you see, like Abraham, if you do, if you believe God, if you take God at His and allow your life to reflect that you've actually taken God at His word.

  35:19-35:22

  He will credit that to you as righteousness.

  35:24-35:24

  Let's pray.

  35:25-35:30

  Father in heaven, we thank you for the glorious truths of your word.

  35:31-35:37

  We thank you, Father, that you have entered into a covenant with us.

  35:38-35:39

  We don't deserve it, God.

  35:40-35:49

  And it would be an audacious thing for us to think that we deserve you making some kind of an agreement with us.

  35:50-35:53

  But by grace, Father, you have reached out to us.

  35:54-35:56

  By grace, Father, you have pursued us.

  35:56-36:02

  By grace, Father, you have entered a covenant with us.

  36:05-36:07

  A covenant based on the blood of your Son.

  36:09-36:11

  for the forgiveness of our sins.

  36:13-36:23

  Father, today I just pray for my brothers and sisters here, for our friends that are going to be listening to this through the podcast and the website.

  36:24-36:25

  I pray for them too.

  36:26-36:28

  Father, we would find ourselves like Abraham.

  36:30-36:31

  This is what you said.

  36:33-36:34

  I believe it.

  36:35-36:39

  I'm going to live my life like I believe this is true.

  36:42-36:50

  You promised to credit the very righteousness of God onto our accounts.

  36:52-36:56

  Father, today I pray that we are like Abraham.

  36:59-37:02

  He followed you not knowing where you were going to take him.

  37:03-37:09

  He took steps of faith, not having any idea what was around the corner.

  37:11-37:15

  Father, we certainly experience this in our individual lives.

  37:16-37:18

  We experience this in our family.

  37:18-37:23

  Father, right now I pray for this church because we're experiencing this as a church right now.

  37:24-37:26

  You've called us to take a step of faith.

  37:28-37:31

  We don't know exactly how the next three years are going to look.

  37:34-37:37

  But you've made it very clear that this is the step that you want this church to take.

  37:39-37:40

  Father, we're taking it.

  37:42-37:46

  Not because we have all the resources in our hand right now.

  37:48-37:51

  Not because it's some kind of a surefire deal.

  37:52-37:56

  We're taking this step because we trust you.

  37:58-38:03

  We know that you're not going to lead us somewhere unless you're going with us.

  38:06-38:10

  You're going to use us to reach people for Jesus Christ.

  38:13-38:15

  Give us Abraham-like faith today, Father.

  38:17-38:20

  We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Review Genesis 12-25

1. Why is Abraham such an important Old Testament character? What three promises did God make to him?

2. How were people saved in the Old Testament times, before Jesus came?

3. Define "faith". How did Abraham display faith? How does your life display you have faith

4. How would you respond to a struggling Christian saying, "I have faith, I just don't have a lot of faith."?

Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.