So this morning, I'm tasked with a portion of Scripture in a book of the Bible that many people see their Bible reading plans die in, okay? In this book, there's a lot of death and animal sacrifice, and sometimes Bible plans end up going that way as well. We're actually this morning going to be in the book of Leviticus, specifically Leviticus chapter 16.

Now I want to preface it with this. I love what 2 Timothy 3:16 and 17 says. It says all Scripture is breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. And God's people said, amen.

As we're going through Leviticus 16, we are not going to go through an expositional way of verse 1 through 34. We'd be here until the Super Bowl starts. So we're definitely not doing that this morning. But really, my efforts this morning are to show you Jesus. To show you Jesus even here in Leviticus 16. How many of you know we need Jesus in our lives? We need Him for everything. I'm reminded on the road to Emmaus, Jesus talked to a couple of disciples, and He went through the Old Testament scriptures and pointed to Himself, and that's exactly what I endeavor to do this morning: to show you Jesus.

So this morning, why don't we stand and I'm going to read just the first six verses of Leviticus 16. Open your Bibles there to Leviticus 16.

"The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died, and the Lord said to Moses, 'Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. But in this way Aaron shall come into the Holy Place: with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put on the holy linen coat and have the linen undergarment on his body, and he shall tie the linen sash around his waist and wear the linen turban. These are the holy garments. He shall bathe his body in water and then put them on. And he shall take from the congregation of the people of Israel two male goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering. Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house.'"

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we come before You, God, in Your house with reverence for Your Word. But also with hearts that are open and grateful for the Word of God. God, I pray that You would speak through this passage and You would speak through Your servant this morning. God, I yield my words, I yield all my faculties this morning to You, Holy Spirit. Lord, we can do nothing apart from You, God, and we want to hear from You. We want Your Word more than anything, Lord. So I pray that Your Word would go forth in power this morning to Your people, to pierce the hearts of Your people. And even so, Lord, draw those who are not in Christ this morning, draw them to Jesus, Lord. May we see Jesus here in these short verses. In Jesus' name, and everybody said, amen.

Well, you may be seated this morning.

The Problem: A Holy God and a Sinful People

So how did we get here? Israel, the people of God, have just been constantly in sin, in rebellion toward God's covenant that He had given them. If you remember, Pastor Matt talked about a verse where they said that all the Lord has spoken, we will do, back in Exodus. So they're like, "Lord, we're going to do everything You said. We're going to follow everything You have spoken." And not too long after that, they're worshiping a golden idol at the foot of the mountain while Moses was speaking with God. There's idolatry, there's sin, and rebellion already seen in the beginning pages of Scripture and in God's people.

But how many of you know God's a God of mercy? Amen. And you can see His mercy even here. You can see His grace, His provision, even here. Despite God's people's rebellion, God wanted to dwell with His people. God wanted to have a tabernacle set up where He would dwell with His chosen people. And at the end of Exodus chapter 40, it ends off saying that God's glory filled this tabernacle that was built because God is going to dwell with His people.

And you might wonder, how can this be? Our God who is holy, amongst people who are sinful? I've already shown how sinful they are. Leviticus starts off and you see, even in the first few chapters, this sacrificial system is already set up. They provided multiple different offerings, such as the burnt offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering. I encourage you to go back and read these and study these in depth. But it spoke to the brokenness of man and really the holiness of God. In these chapters, we're also seeing that sin requires death. It requires substitution, and it requires blood.

Then as we progress closer to where we're going to be at this morning, we see this priesthood is ordained, and this priesthood was in charge of the tabernacle. There were laws of cleanliness and uncleanliness, and that brings us to what's known sometimes as the heart of the first five books of the Bible. The heart of the Torah: the Day of Atonement here in Leviticus 16.

Again, there's this tension: how can a holy God dwell with a sinful people? God is holy, man is sinful. Because of that, atonement is absolutely necessary. This wasn't just a problem for these Israelite people. This is a problem for all of mankind, for every single person. Atonement is the covering, removal, and cleansing of sin so that fellowship with God can be restored. That idea of covering sin is really seen here in Leviticus 16. But this idea that a price must be paid, blood must be shed, a life must be given in exchange for life—if God is going to dwell with His people, God provided in His grace this Day of Atonement. This day that was considered Israel's holiest day, this day of Sabbath.

Point One: Our God is Holy

When I started reading just this chapter alone, I could not get my mind away from the holiness of God. The songs we sang this morning testified of God's holiness. Our God is holy. There is nobody like our God. He is distinctly unique. He is in a category of His own. He is perfect in every single way. There is no fault in our God at all. There is no flaw in our God whatsoever.

Isaiah 6:3 says, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory." Revelation 4:8, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty." Our God is holy. And His holiness defines everything about Him. His love is holy. His mercy is holy. His wrath is holy. His justice is holy. Everything about God is holy because He is holy. It's His otherness. He literally stands above it all, perfect, all by Himself. 1 Samuel 2:2 says, "There is none holy like the Lord." And God's holiness demands separation from sin. So this makes atonement necessary when a holy God and a sinful people are to be together.

Point Two: We Are Sinful

Point number two, we are sinful. This is an objective fact, y'all. Every single person here, you don't even have to go past yesterday. You could even think about maybe this morning, maybe getting the kids ready this morning, to see your need for God, your need for forgiveness of your sin. We are infected by sin, and man from his very birth is infected by sin. We are sinners literally by nature. It's not just that we choose to do sin—we do—but we're sinners by nature and by choice.

I like what Psalm 51:5 says. This is what David said: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 5:12, "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." Every single one of us is born a sinner. Nobody is excluded from this.

And the depths of our sin—I don't know if we have enough time to talk about that this morning. But it affects everything. We are corrupted to the very core of who we are: our minds, our consciences, our hearts, our motives, our desires. Everything is touched by sin. Romans 3 talks about how none is righteous, no, not even one. We stand therefore guilty before a holy God, and our sin brings separation from God.

So what do we do with this sin problem? The greatest issue humanity has ever had? We can't fix this on our own. The sin that enslaves, the sin that dominates, the sin that corrupts—we need atonement. We need God to fix this problem. Has God provided hope? Spoiler alert: He has. And I love what the Old Testament does in these shadows and these types. It's all pointing toward someone. It's all pointing toward Jesus.

Point Three: Sir, We Wish to See Jesus

Point number three is, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." In John 12:21, these people came to Philip and asked him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." That's who we need more than anything in this life. As we go through Leviticus 16, have this in mind: we're going to see how Jesus is better in every single way.

In these first couple of verses, the tone is actually set by what happened six chapters ago when two of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, go into the Most Holy Place, just flippant, not how God prescribed. They did it however they wanted to do it. It's never a good idea to go against God's way. Ever. It's always best to go God's way when God says we do. Period. End of story. But we need His help in this every day. So they get struck down because of this.

In verse two, God speaks to Moses: "Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil." We can only approach God on His terms. We can only come at His invitation. There was an appointed time, an appointed way, and an appointed place.

Going into this Holy of Holies—just imagine what the tabernacle looks like. Inside this rectangular tent of meeting, the beginning part is the Holy Place. Then there's this big curtain that separates a back room, the Most Holy Place. It's where the Ark of the Covenant was laid. God's presence dwelt there on top of the mercy seat, the ornate lid on top of this rectangular box. On the mercy seat is where atoning blood was to be sprinkled. And God allowed only the high priest, one person, one time a year, to enter this place. That is restricted access.

But today, the access looks a little bit different. This access has been opened wide because of what Jesus did on the cross! What was once restricted has now been opened, and now as God's people, you have standing, unlimited access to God because of the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is nothing that we did; it's all because of what He did on the cross. Because of this, Hebrews 4:16 says, "Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

We can come confidently because of what Jesus has done. We are a needy people. And the depths of our need we can't even explain, but Christ has it all. I don't know what need you've come in here with today, but Christ is your answer. If you're bearing sin that feels like this unbearable weight, give it to Jesus today. If you need healing today, Christ is your answer. Do we live in such a way that we go in prayer to our God, believing with confidence that He will provide for our needs? I pray that we do.

Aaron’s Offering and Our Greater High Priest

If you're reading Leviticus 16, Aaron's offering is seen in verses 6 and 11 through 14. Notice something: this high priest would have to make atonement for his sins first. Why? Because everybody is a sinner. That didn't exclude somebody with the title of high priest. Before he could come and minister to the people, before he could even come and atone for the sins of Israel, he had to first deal with his own sin and the sin of his house.

This morning, where do you stand with God? Are you right with God today? Is there unrepentant sin that you have in your life this morning? Give it to Jesus. Deal with your sin, lay it at the feet of Jesus. This also gave me a picture for the husbands. You are priests in your home, put in position there by God as representative heads of your home. Are you harboring secret sin today? Or is there sin in your household that's running rampant? Go to God on behalf of your family and ask Him to take care of that sin. Psalm 139:23-24 says, "Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!"

We serve a greater High Priest than Aaron. Our High Priest, Jesus Christ, had no sin. He was the spotless, sinless Son of God. He didn't need to go and atone for His own sin, but He bore our sin upon Himself. Hebrews 4:14-15 says, "Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin." He is intimately acquainted with what you're going through.

Also, it says over twenty times, "Aaron" or "he shall," showing how only this one person would go in to do this work of atonement. He went in there alone. Similarly, Christ did it all on His own. No one helped Him. His work was perfect and sufficient once and for all time. Are you living this morning trying to earn your standing with God? Let me tell you right now, that is a fruitless endeavor. Stop it today and trust in Christ.

The Atoning Blood that Covers the Law

I want to point out something that happened when Aaron would go in. When he would sprinkle the atoning blood of that slain animal, he would sprinkle it on the Ark of the Covenant. What was inside that Ark? Inside was a representation of the sin of man. There was a jar of manna that represented Israel complaining against God. The tablets of the law were there, showing that the people of God were lawbreakers. And later on, there was this budding almond rod, which was a response to Israel's rebellion.

Picture this: God's presence is above this mercy seat, and underneath are these reminders of the rebellion of His people. "You broke my law. You complained about my manna. You resisted my authority." But this atoning blood would be sprinkled there. It would be this covering blood of another that would go between and cover the contents of what represented the sin of God's people.

In the same way, Jesus Christ has covered us in His blood. For 364 days out of the year, the law cries out, "You've broken my law! You've rejected my authority! Guilty!" But on the Day of Atonement, God saw the blood. Jesus offered us His perfect blood. Hebrews 9:12 says, "He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption." Have you been covered in the blood of Jesus this morning?

The Scapegoat and the Removal of Sin

Now we shift to the people's offering. We see this sin offering that was brought for them with two male goats. One would be sacrificed, and one was called the scapegoat—one literally escaping death that would be released out into the wilderness.

The first goat was slain for the sin of the people, making atonement for the Holy Place, the tent of meeting, and the altar. You see words like uncleanness, transgression, and sins, showing the depth of Israel's sinfulness. This should draw us to have more gratitude for what Christ has done for us. Don't become numb to the reality of the perfect sacrifice He offered for you.

Then the high priest would put his hands on the scapegoat. He would press down with pressure and confess all the iniquities, transgressions, and sins of the people onto the head of this animal. And then this goat was released into the wilderness. Charles Spurgeon talked about how they would let this goat wander, escorted out into the wilderness, until you could see it no more. The sin was gone. It is a beautiful picture of what Christ has done for us. I'm reminded of Psalm 103:12: "As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us." He remembers our sin no more.

Resting in the Finished Work of Christ

During all this, the people were to afflict themselves, to humble oneself and even fast. It was a time of confession. Warren Wiersbe put it like this: "On that day, God called His people to get serious about sin." But they were doing no work, because atonement was being made for them. Salvation is entirely a work of God. It is not ours. We have a tendency to try to contribute to the work of Christ. We have to strive to enter the rest of God, to rest in the finished work of Jesus.

Matthew 11:28-30 says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Are you resting fully in the finished work of Jesus Christ this morning? Charles Spurgeon said Christian believers should do three things as they appreciate this atonement: we should afflict our souls in humility and repentance, rest from our works of self-righteousness, and behold our High Priest in His glorious garments.

This Old Testament sacrificial system was repeated every single year. It was temporary. We know what it looks like when something is unfinished. But Jesus Christ provided a finished work, and He sat down because the work was complete. Hebrews 9:24 and 26 says, "For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly... for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."

Jesus is the better High Priest. Jesus is the better sacrifice. Jesus is the better scapegoat. Jesus has the better blood. These shadows were temporary, pointing to the eternal substance of what was accomplished in Jesus. Romans 8:1 says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

I plead with the unbeliever in this place today who does not know Jesus savingly—not just know about Him, but who doesn't know Christ as Lord and Savior. Turn to Jesus this morning. Forsake your sin, repent, and trust Him with all that you have. Jesus came from heaven to earth, offered this perfect sacrifice for our sin, died on the cross, and didn't stay dead. He rose on the third day in victory and power. He ascended to the right hand of the Father, and the work is finished.

I pray that we would take our sin seriously, that we would treasure the cross deeply, and that we would rest fully in Christ. Amen.

But Exodus 32, if you have your Bibles, we're in a year-long series where, as a church, we're reading through the Bible together. We were calling it the Year of the Bible. We produced a Bible plan where you read three chapters on the weekdays and then five chapters on Sunday. When we get to wherever we're at in that reading that week, I'm picking a passage that we read and preaching from that passage each week.

Last week, we finished the book of Exodus and moved into the book of Leviticus, the third book of the Bible. This coming week, we'll finish Leviticus and move into the fourth book, the book of Numbers. I wanted to let you know that with every new book that we enter into, I'm making some overview videos of each book of the Bible, sharing some information that I think would be beneficial to you as you're reading through. These QR codes that are on the screen—you can sign up to receive those videos either via email or the Telegram app, and we're also going to begin posting those on our YouTube channel as well. So, on Thursday, we'll be moving into the book of Numbers. I would encourage you, even if you haven't been reading along with us, maybe you didn't start the new year with us, you can still pick up one of the plans on the way out. You can read with your church family this week. Just jump in with us. Let's read the Word of God this year together. Amen.

I want to give you a little bit of background on the story and where we're at before we get into our text this morning. The book of Exodus begins with the children of Israel, the twelve tribes of this family, enslaved in the country of Egypt. Egypt had enslaved them, and they began to cry out to God for deliverance. So God raised up a deliverer, and his name was Moses. The first fifteen chapters tell of the deliverance of God for this family, the family of Israel, from the nation of Egypt. Egypt, in the Bible, is always typologically a representation of what we would call the world, or that domain that's dominated by Satan and darkness.

God delivers His people from Egypt. He leads them through that deliverance through the waters of the Red Sea, which represent for us the waters of baptism. Just as Israel could never go back to Egypt, so we who have been saved by the blood of Christ, who have been washed through the waters of baptism, there is no more going back to the world. In chapter 16, He feeds them with bread from heaven, which is a typological picture of Christ. In chapter 17, He gives them water from the rock; the rock itself also was a typological picture of Christ. Then in chapter 20—we looked at this last Sunday—was the Ten Commandments, God's law that He gave to His people to instruct them. Now that I've delivered you and saved you, and I'm leading you into this beautiful land of promise, here's how you live as my covenant people.

In chapter 24, Moses reads God's covenant aloud in the ears of all the children of Israel. In verse 7, I want to read this to you, it says:

He took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, "All that the Lord has spoken, we will do, and we will be obedient."

This is important that we see this. Moses reads the book of the covenant, reads the law of God, reads the Ten Commandments to them, and they say, "We will do this. We will be the Lord's people. We will follow Him, we will keep His commandments."

Later on in that chapter, God speaks to Moses and tells him to come back up on the mountain where God was speaking to him, and to wait there. While he waited there, He would give him tablets of stone that had the law and the commandment written on it, which He had written for their instructions. So God calls Moses back up onto the mountain. Moses went onto the mountain, and God gave him the instructions of the Ten Commandments written on stone, and He also gave him the blueprints to build what was known as the Tabernacle, the place where offerings and sacrifices would be made. It says in verse 18:

He entered the cloud and went up on the mountain, and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

This brings us to where I want to read here in chapter 32 this morning. So now we can all stand together as we read God's Word. We're going to look at this whole chapter, but I'm not going to read the whole chapter here at the beginning. We'll read the first six verses, and then we'll walk through the rest of the chapter, verse by verse, together.

The Making of the Golden Calf

The Word of God says:

When the people saw that Moses was delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, "Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." So Aaron said to them, "Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me." So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord." And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

Father, we do thank you for your Word. Lord, as we spend time looking at it this morning, I pray, Lord Jesus, that you, by your Spirit, would speak to each heart that is here today. Help us to hear what you want us to hear today and to see what you want us to see so that we might go out from this place equipped and ready to live for you as salt and light in this fallen world. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

You may be seated.

The Danger of Impatience

First, I want to point out to you here in verse one the people's impatience. They were not content to wait on God or God's timetable. God was not moving fast enough for them. Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights. When they saw that Moses was delayed, they gathered themselves together, went to Aaron, and said, "We need other gods. We need idols."

They were impatient. They were not content to wait on the Lord, and they decided that they were going to force moving forward into the Promised Land. That's what they were looking for. They were in the wilderness; they had not gone into the land God had promised them. So they said, "Get up and make for us gods who will go before us. We don't know what's happened to Moses. He's taking a long time. We want to go in and possess the Promised Land. We're gonna need gods that can go before us, that will give us the victory, so you need to make them for us. We're tired of waiting. We're tired of waiting on the Lord. We're tired of waiting for His leader to tell us what to do. We're just going to take matters into our own hands."

Throughout church history, much catastrophe has come when men refuse to wait on the Lord, when they just take matters into their own hands, when they don't wait and seek first the Lord and get direction from Him, but instead just say, "We're just going to launch off into this on our own." Just as it was catastrophic for these people in this story, so it often is in our own lives when we don't first wait and say, "Lord, show me your will. Give me your direction. Let me be led by your Word and by your Spirit." They were impatient on waiting for God to move them and direct them.

Aaron’s Failure of Leadership

In verse two, we see that Aaron listened to them. Aaron was a priest. He was the high priest. He had a very important position in the life of the children of Israel. His job was to shepherd them, to guide them, to lead them, and instruct them in the ways of God. You'll recall that the first two commandments speak directly to this issue. Commandment number one was, "You shall have no other gods before me. I'm the only God; you will worship me alone." The second commandment was like it, that you are not to fashion any idols, any images that you would bow down and worship and pray to.

They had received God's law and His commandment. They had said, "We will do all that the Lord has spoken." Aaron knew this. Aaron had been entrusted to lead and to shepherd God's people in God's Word and God's ways. And here he fails to do that. He fails because the people gather together against him, and he does not have the moral fortitude. He doesn't have the conviction to be able to push back and to say, "No, God's Word says this; we will not do this." This is what God had called the priest to do. It was his job to teach them the Word of God, and by so doing, restrain evil and wickedness in their hearts.

We know from reading earlier in Exodus that Moses was not a very good speaker. Do you remember when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and God said, "Moses, I'm sending you to deliver my people"? Moses says, "How can I do this? I'm slow of speech." Maybe he stuttered. Maybe he had a hard time putting words together. Moses refuses. He says, "I will not do this because of how I speak." Finally, God says, "Look, I'll let your brother Aaron speak for you. I'll speak to you, Moses, and you tell Aaron what to say, and he can be your mouthpiece."

Aaron was a good speaker. He was someone who was confident in his ability to deliver a message. So often in the church today, we see good speakers who don't have moral fiber. We see men who can wow crowds with their oratory ability, yet they don't have the conviction to stand on the Word of God and say, "Thus says the Lord." Truly, a preacher has nothing of value to say if he is not opening up the Word of God. There are so many people today filling the pulpits of this country who are very good at turning phrases and making things sound good, but they lack the character to be able to push back on the sinful heart of man with the Word of God. That's what we see in Aaron here. The people gather together, they say, "Make idols for us," and he says, "I'm gonna need some gold. You got these gold earrings, pull them out and give me the gold, and I will make an idol for you."

The Generosity of Idolaters

I found it interesting this week as I was studying this passage that on this issue of them pulling out their earrings and giving it to Aaron, both Charles Spurgeon and John Calvin commented on this passage with a similar thought. Listen to what Spurgeon says about the people's willingness to part with their gold. He says this:

Idolaters spare no expense. There is many a worshiper of a god of wood or mud who gives more to that idol than professing Christians give to the cause of the one living and true God. It is sad that it should be so.

He's saying those who worship idols are all too willing to part with what's precious to them in the worship and service of their god, and yet so often, believers in the one true and living God find themselves to be so stingy in offering up what God has given them to advance His kingdom. Calvin says a similar thing, writing much earlier. His English is a little bit more complex, but I trust you'll be able to follow it. He says this:

The readiness in which this was done was amazing. And not by one person, or by a few, but the whole people, as if in a rivalry with each other. Now, if unbelievers are so prodigal in their absurdities, as to throw away, thus carelessly and rashly, whatever is precious to them, how shall their tenacity be excusable who are so stingy in providing for the service of God? Hence, let us learn to beware of foolishly squandering our possessions in unnecessary expenditure, and to be liberal where we ought, especially to be ready to spend ourselves and what we have when we know that our offerings are pleasing and acceptable to God.

What they're both saying is that their generosity towards their idolatry should convict you as a Christian if you are not generous in your offerings to the true and living God. Their readiness to say, "Oh, sure, you need our gold? Absolutely. Here it is." And yet, how often do we as Christians hold back in our offerings to the Lord? Both Calvin and Spurgeon say it should not be this way—that those who worship idols should be more generous than those who worship the true and living God.

The True Perversion of Idolatry

I also want to draw your attention here in verses 4 and 5. When they were worshiping their god, they said this: "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt." They formed this calf in the wilderness, and then they say, "This is who delivered us from Egypt. This is who set us free. This is who led us through the Red Sea on dry ground." It wasn't the true and living God; it was this idol, this golden calf. They ascribe to this idol the works of the true and living God, and they also ascribe to this idol the very name of God.

It says in verse 5 that Aaron said, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord." You'll notice that word "Lord" is in all caps. When you see the word "Lord" in all caps in your Bible, it's speaking of the covenant name of God, the name by which He told Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." He's breaking another commandment: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." He's ascribing it to this idol.

Were they having a feast to the Lord? No. They said they were, but they weren't. You can say you're worshiping Jesus and not be worshiping Jesus. If you refuse to worship Him the way He says He wants to be worshiped, you're not truly worshiping Him. If you refuse to follow His Word, if you refuse to set things in order in His house as He has prescribed, and then you gather together expressing rebellion, yet saying, "But we're here doing it for you, Jesus"—no, you're not. There are many churches doing all sorts of things that are absolutely contrary to the Word of God, and yet they say they're doing it in the name of Christ.

In verse six, it says that the people sat down to eat and drink—that is, they got drunk—and that they rose up to play. "Rose up to play" is Bible speech that conceals for little ears the true perversion of what was involved in this festival. It means all manner of drunkenness, lewdness, debauchery, and perversion. In verse 25, it will say that the people "broke loose." It means they were totally out of control. This was pagan idol worship. This is what is happening while Moses is on the mountain meeting with God, receiving instructions on how God wants to be worshiped in the Tabernacle.

Moses Intercedes for the People

As we move through this passage in verse 7, it says:

And the Lord said to Moses, "Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" And the Lord said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you."

God is angry at what they are doing, and He's justifiably angry. When you think of the great deliverance that He had worked for them just a few days earlier, how do these people thank Him? By worshiping a golden calf. God had not only delivered them, but He had spoken the Ten Commandments to them audibly. When God spoke the Ten Commandments, they were terrified. They said, "Moses, we don't want to hear from God anymore. You go on the mountain and talk to God for us. We can't stand to hear the voice of God for ourselves. It is too terrifying."

Yet here, there's no terror whatsoever. They're not afraid of this calf. This is always the point of idolatry: you can handle an idol, but you cannot handle the true and living God. You can form and fashion idols in any way that pleases you, but you cannot form and fashion the true and living God. He is holy. He is immutable. He is perfect and unchangeable.

It's been said many times throughout church history that the human heart is itself an idol factory. So often, instead of allowing God to conform us to His image, we form and fashion in our hearts a false picture of God in our image. A god that we want to serve, a god that we like. If the god you serve approves of everything you do, you are not serving the true and living God. The God we serve is holy, and humanity is sinful. If the god you serve never convicts you, never leads you in paths of righteousness, and never brings the precious conviction of the Holy Spirit, you are serving a golden calf that you have made in your own mind.

When we open God's Word, it is like a sword. It pierces our hearts. The Bible calls itself a mirror; it reveals the truth of who we are. But if you're in the Word and you feel no conviction of the Holy Spirit, and you begin to think, "I must be doing pretty well," you're either ignoring the voice of the Lord, or you're not serving Him altogether. The walk of the believer is one of constant repentance and constant humility before God.

God tells Moses, "Get out of the way. I'm going to wipe them out, and I will create a new nation from you." Moses intercedes, and he goes to God and implores the Lord not to do it, and God relents. Could God have wiped them out? Yes, and He would have been totally justified in doing it because of their sin. Not a human being can ever stand up and say, "God, you have been unjust to me." Moses intercedes, and God chooses not to go through with this judgment. If it was a test of Moses's character, Moses passed. He didn't say, "Moses, the father of many nations... I kind of like the sound of that."

We see that in verse 11:

But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, "O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, 'With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, 'I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.'" And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

Moses stands between the wrath of God and the children of Israel. In this, he is a picture of Christ, who even right now is interceding on our behalf. Notice how Moses makes his appeal on the basis of God's Word and God's name. He reminds God of His Word and His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When we pray, we should do the same. We should intercede on the basis of the promises of God. He also appeals to God's character: "Lord, if you do this, it will impugn your character in the eyes of the Egyptians." We too are to pray not on the basis of our character, but on the basis of God's character and Christ's standing for us. Jesus says, "When you pray, pray in my name."

Broken Covenant and Contaminated Waters

In verse 15, the story continues:

Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, "There is a noise of war in the camp." But he said, "It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear." And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.

What's funny here is that God is angry because He sees what they are doing. Moses, who hasn't yet seen it, implores God on their behalf. Then Moses comes down the mountain, sees what God sees, and shatters the tablets. He is now filled with the righteous anger that God was filled with.

The significance of Moses breaking the two tablets was to be an illustration to shock these idolaters. It was to show them that as these tablets of the covenant were broken, so they had broken covenant with their God through their sin and idolatry. Then he takes the calf, burns it, grinds it to powder, spreads it over the water, and makes all the worshipers drink this contaminated idol water.

Is Moses just a sicko guy that likes to punish people? No. This is also symbolic. Where were they getting their water from? They were getting their water from the rock, which the Apostle Paul tells us was Christ Himself. They were to drink of this water from Christ, and instead, they were worshiping an idol. Moses is essentially saying, "If you're not going to drink from the pure and living water of Christ, you're going to drink your own idol water."

What does this mean for us? It means we need to examine the source of our life. Are we drinking from the living water that Christ offers, or are we drinking at the contaminated toilet of what the world has to offer? What is feeding our souls? Are we feeding on Christ, or are we filling our souls with the garbage that the world is offering us? It's one or the other. If you're not drinking from the rivers of living water that are flowing from Christ daily, then you're consuming contaminated idol worship.

The Flimsy Excuses of Sin

In verse 21, as the story continues, Moses calls Aaron to account:

And Moses said to Aaron, "What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?" And Aaron said, "Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, 'Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.' So I said to them, 'Let any who have gold take it off.' So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf."

"What did they do to you, Aaron? How did they twist your arm?" Aaron's response is basically, "I don't know how this happened. They talked to me." This is how weak Aaron was—that he could not withstand idle chatter. "I threw it in a fire, and here comes this calf. It's like a miracle." These are just excuses. He blames the people.

Just as I read his excuse and all of you laughed, you know how flimsy of an excuse this is. It's a joke. And here's the point: we cannot blame others for our sin. Every sin that we commit is our own fault. Period. I cannot say, "Well, they said they would do this, therefore I did X, Y, Z." We are responsible for our own actions, our own words, our own thoughts, and our own desires. Aaron's excuses are a flimsy joke, and every excuse that we make blaming others or circumstances for our sin is just as flimsy.

The Bible tells us that all of us will one day stand before the Lord ourselves. We will have to give an account for our lives. Everything that we have belongs to Him, and we will stand before Christ and have to say, "This is what I did with what you gave me." If we think we're going to be able to make some flimsy excuse, it will be just as ridiculous as Aaron's excuse to Moses. We need to live every day in the reality that we will stand before Christ. Dr. Joe Boot preached an incredible message on this very reality—sinner and saint alike will stand before Christ. Sometimes Heather will tell the kids, "Just wait till your dad comes home." We need to live every day with the reality that Jesus is coming back. Jesus is coming home.

The Priestly Calling of Fathers

Husbands and fathers, our wives and children have been entrusted to us. The children of Israel had been entrusted to Aaron as a sacred trust in his priestly office, and so it is for you. Husbands and fathers, your family has been entrusted to you as a sacred trust from God. We will stand before God and give an account for how we loved our wives, how we served them, how we cared for their souls. Did we wash them with the water of the Word, as Ephesians 5 tells us to do? Were we sacrificial in our love? Did we lead them to Christ? Did we stand strong in the evil day, or were we weak? Were we pushovers? Were we led away by sin and debauchery?

Fathers, we will stand before Christ with how we shepherd the souls of our children. Are we teaching them the Word of God? Are we teaching them to love God above all else? Or are we passing off that responsibility to the television, to the iPad, to Disney, to Facebook, to their school? We will stand before God, and any excuse that we think we will have on that day will be burned up, just as Aaron's excuses were burned up in his face.

Moving on to verse 25:

And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies)...

Look at this: "for Aaron had let them break loose." What does that mean? It means Aaron could have restrained them. He had the authority to restrain them, but he didn't. Fathers in the home, you have the authority to restrain evil and wickedness. You have to exercise it with the power of God. I'm talking about not allowing your children to do things that you know will be harmful for them, that you know will lead them astray. When you know the right thing to do, do it. When you see their hearts being led astray in affections that are not oriented towards the Lord, bring them back to the Lord. Fathers, you and I, we are priests of our home. Aaron had let them break loose. Don't let your children break loose.

Drawing a Line in the Sand

Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, "Who is on the Lord's side? Come to me." And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. And he said to them, "Thus says the Lord God of Israel, 'Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.'" And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. And Moses said, "Today you have been ordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day."

Listen, we need to know there are only two sides. Moses says, "Who's on the Lord's side? Come with me." There's the Lord's side, and there's the devil's side. That's it. Whose side are you on? Are you being used as an instrument to advance the work of the Lord in the people in your life, or are you not?

Moses drew a line in the sand. He said, "If you're on the side of the Lord, come to me. If you don't come to me, you're saying you're on the side of the idol." When they refused to come, Moses sent the Levites to bring a natural, judicial judgment on the people who refused to worship the Lord. Just as there were in their day, there are natural consequences when we sin. When we break the law, we suffer the consequences. Just as there are certain crimes in our day that bear the death penalty, in Moses's day, blasphemy and idolatry bore the death penalty.

The Spiritual Consequences of Idolatry

But not only are there natural consequences, there are also eternal and spiritual consequences. The next section talks about this:

The next day Moses said to the people, "You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin." So Moses returned to the Lord and said, "Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written." But the Lord said to Moses, "Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them." Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.

Moses goes to God and intercedes for the people on behalf of the spiritual judgment. He offers himself up as a substitute: "Forgive them, and if you won't, blot me out of your book of life." The Lord says, "I will not blot you out, but I will blot out those who served the idol." Friends, if we are serving idols, we are not in the Lamb's Book of Life. This passage shows us that idolatry is a big deal to God.

Examining Our Own Hearts

Just as it was in their day, an idol in our day is anything we look to instead of God to satisfy our ultimate needs. If we are looking to someone or something else for our joy, our satisfaction, our peace, or our contentment, we are serving an idol of our own making. We've allowed something else to take our affections away from Christ.

Anything can become an idol. Even good things—our marriage, our spouse, our children—can become an idol when we put pleasing them above pleasing God. We know many people are pursuing money and wealth above all else. Others are pursuing fame and notoriety, offering themselves up on the altar of praise from others.

This message calls on us to allow the Lord to examine our hearts and ask: "God, is there anywhere in my heart that I've set up a shrine to a false god? Have I allowed something or someone else to have my ultimate allegiance?" Is marriage a good thing? Yes. Are children a blessing from the Lord? Yes. Is wealth a good thing? Yes, it's better to be wealthy than poor. None of these things are evil in and of themselves. But when we serve the creation instead of the Creator, we become idolaters.

In every area of life, we must do as Jesus taught us: seek first the kingdom of God and bring every area under the lordship of Christ. "God, I thank you for my marriage, but I'm not going to put Heather above you. You're number one." And guess what? When you do that, you'll be a better husband. "God, thank you for my children, but I'm not going to allow anything in their lives to become an idol that I pursue above your kingdom. God, thank you for the resources you've given me. Help me to be generous in my support of your work." The kingdom of God is the answer to idolatry, because Jesus helps us use those blessings to bring Him glory under His Word.

Closing Prayer

I invite you to stand with me this morning. This message was a little bit longer today; I blame it on the frog in my throat. I know this is a convicting message, but we need the conviction of the Holy Spirit in our lives. If you feel convicted today, that is the blessing of God. That's the Holy Spirit drawing you to Himself. Take what He's putting in your heart and give it to the Lord today.

Father, we thank you for your Word. It is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Lord, we want to offer all of our lives up to you. We don't want to hold anything back. God, if there is any area of our life that has become an idol, that isn't under your lordship and your reign, we confess today. We repent today. We thank you for the forgiveness of sins that we celebrated at your table this morning. We thank you that we are in covenant with you through the work of your Son, Jesus. We do thank you for the conviction of your Spirit; it is precious to us. Not only do you convict us of sin, but you give us the power by your Spirit to live a life of victory, to put sin to death in our lives. Help us to drink of the streams of living water this week, and not at the fountain that flows from the world, contaminated with desires that are not honoring to you. Thank you for the bread of life that comes down from your throne. Help us to live for your glory. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.

And God spoke all these words, saying, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

"You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's."

This is the word of God. Amen? You may be seated this morning.

The Context of the Ten Commandments

We're in this series right now, this year, called the Year of the Bible. At the beginning of the year, we produced a Bible reading plan for everyone, and we're encouraging everyone to read through God's Word together as a church. Each Sunday, what we're going to do is take a passage of scripture that we read the previous week and use that passage for our text in our sermon. This past week, we've been reading through the book of Exodus.

In the book of Exodus, we see that God's people, the children of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, found themselves enslaved to Egypt. God brought them out of Egypt, set them free, delivered them. But before they can move into the land that He had promised to give to Abraham, He had to enter into relationship with them, into covenant with them. Part of entering into that covenant, that relationship with His people at the foot of Mount Sinai, was to give God's people His law, to teach them how to live, to show them when they entered into this land that He promised to give them what it would look like to be His people.

This morning's sermon is going to be a sermon on God's law, on the Ten Commandments. There are some sermons that are milk sermons, and there are some sermons that are meat sermons. You'll be very happy to know that I brought you some meat today. At least two of you over here were. My assumption was that you were not going to brave the perilous journey that you had to go through to get here—fighting the elements, fighting this blizzard, this act of God, this torrential snowstorm to make it here at 2 p.m.—to hear some little sermonette that I would just send you on your way. That's not my assumption. My assumption is that you came here because you wanted some meat. So, we're going to have some meat.

Pastor Josh was joking with me before church and he said, "Man, I don't know what this post-church meal situation is going to be. It's not quite lunch. It's not quite dinner." I said, "Well, just wait and see how long I go, and we'll see if it's dinner time or not by the time service is over." He didn't laugh either, so you don't have to laugh. That's fine. It wasn't funny the first time I said it; I don't know why I thought it would be funny the second time.

The Two Tables of the Law

Let's put the Ten Commandments here on the screen, all ten of them. Let's look at them closely:

Number 1: No other gods before me.

Number 2: You shall not have any idols.

Number 3: Do not take the name of the Lord in vain.

Number 4: Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

Number 5: Honor your father and mother.

Number 6: Do not murder.

Number 7: Do not commit adultery.

Number 8: Do not steal.

Number 9: Do not bear false witness.

Number 10: Do not covet.

Aren't these just remarkably straightforward? There's really not a whole lot of ambiguity here. There's really not a whole lot of question, "Oh, I wonder what it means not to murder somebody." It's abundantly straightforward and clear and simple. We're actually told multiple times in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy that God wrote the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone with His very own finger. The original Ten Commandments on the two tablets were written by the finger of God. As we read the story, Moses is going to get angry with the people, and he's actually going to destroy the tablets, and God's going to make Moses carve another Ten Commandments onto tablets of stone. But the original Ten Commandments were carved with the very finger of God.

As we continue to read God's law in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, there are going to be more laws, more commandments than these ten. It's traditionally understood that there are 613 commandments in the law of God. But the important thing to understand is that all the rest of the commandments are simply teaching how to apply these Ten Commandments. So the other 603 are just application. "What does it look like to live these out in my daily life?" That's what the 613 commandments are.

The first five commandments are in relation to God. No other gods before me, no idols, don't take the Lord's name in vain, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy, and then to honor your father and mother. Some people put that in relation to neighbor. I put that in relation to God because God is the one who puts our father and mother in our life as an authority, and as we submit to the authority of our parents, in turn, we're submitting our lives to God. So the first five deal with our relationship to God. That's called the first table of the law. Then these second five—do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not covet—that's our relationship to our fellow man. That's the second table of the law.

Are Christians Obligated to Keep the Law?

Now, what I want to do for us this morning is I want to answer this question: Are Christians obligated to keep the Ten Commandments? Don't answer out loud. Just think about it. Are Christians—you and I, new covenant believers—required to obey God's law? This might sound like a trick question, but I'm not trying to trick you or trip you up at all. There are many Christians today who argue that the Ten Commandments were part of the old covenant, and we now, in Christ, are part of the new covenant; therefore, God's law does not apply to us, and we have no obligation to keep the Ten Commandments.

I'm going to lay my cards on the table up front for you. I'm not going to keep you in suspense the whole sermon wondering where it is that I'm going. I'm going to tell you up front: I believe that Christians, new covenant believers, are absolutely obligated to keep the Ten Commandments. Okay? Thank you very much. That affirms me so much, you have no idea. That's a joke, but anyway. Let me explain. The rest of this sermon is going to be the defense of that position. I'm going to defend for you from the word of God why we as Christians should keep the Ten Commandments and should obey God's law.

You might be asking, "Why does this matter?" Because what we believe about God's law and our obligation to it greatly affects and influences our view of what sin is. It influences how we view sin in our life, and it influences how we pursue holiness and righteousness. You might say, "Well, I already believe we should keep the Ten Commandments. So can I just go to Denny's or whatever?" Well, let me ask you, are you able to defend that position against Christians who say we shouldn't? Let me equip you a little bit this morning. I have four points for us this morning.

1. We Are Not Saved by Keeping the Law

The first one is by far the longest. So don't be freaking out when I'm still on the first point and you're like, "Oh my goodness, he was not joking about this being long." I believe we are obligated to keep the Ten Commandments, but not as a means of salvation. We are not saved by keeping the law. We are not saved by our good works. We are only saved by the grace of God. The Bible is so clear on this. Romans 3:20 says:

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

In Galatians 2:16, Paul puts it a different way:

Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

We are not saved by our law-keeping, by our rule-keeping. We are not saved by being good people. None of us are good people. We've all sinned and fallen short of God's glory. We've all broken the commandments. But that is not only true of us as new covenant believers; this truth is also accurate when talking about the believers in the Old Testament. The Old Testament Israelites were also not saved by keeping the law. How do I know that? Because none of them kept the law. Did one of the Israelites ever keep God's law perfectly? No, not even Moses. Remember, God got angry with Moses on several occasions because of his rebellion and disobedience. But were there believers in the Old Testament who were saved? Yes. So they were not saved by keeping the law. If anyone is ever saved, both Old and New Testament, hear this: they are saved by God's grace. We are saved by God's grace through faith in the new covenant, and so it was in the old covenant.

Think back for a moment to the story of Exodus. I want you to think back to where in the story the law was introduced. Did God have Moses take His law to them while they were in bondage in Egypt? Did Moses come and say, "Here's God's law. If you keep this and obey this, God will deliver you from Egypt"? Is that how the story goes? No. They were in bondage in Egypt, which is a type of the world. And God, through His own sovereign power, delivered them and set them free. Through His mighty outstretched arm, He delivers them from Egypt. He sets them free from slavery, which is a picture of sin and bondage. He does this through the Passover lamb—those whose house was covered in the blood, they were delivered from the judgment of God. And they were led through the Red Sea, a picture of water baptism, signifying that there was no going back to Egypt, no going back to the world.

Now, because they are God's people—they're God's people because He chose them, not because they chose God—then and only then, after they are saved, washed in the blood, taken through the waters of baptism, does God deliver to them His law to teach them: "This is how you live as my people that I have chosen." The law is not a means of becoming God's people. It's given because they were already God's people. And so it is with us. We do not choose God; God chooses us. God saves us. We are just as unable to save ourselves as the Israelites were unable to deliver themselves from Egypt. We need God to work a very powerful salvation on our behalf, which He has done through the blood of the Lamb, through Christ.

The question that the law is answering is this: How should God's people live? The law was never intended to be a means of works-based salvation, which is a common misunderstanding. People think God tried this works-based salvation thing in the Old Testament, it didn't go well, so He scrapped it and went to Plan B with Jesus and grace. That is not what happened. From the beginning, God knew His people would not be able to keep His law. That's why when He gave them the law, He also gave them the priesthood and the sacrificial system, a means by which they could have their sins atoned for. This sacrificial system was always temporary until the fullness of time when God would bring forth His Son, the perfect and final sacrifice.

There are common objections to the idea that Christians are obligated to keep God's law. Probably one of the biggest ones is that Jesus abolished the law. "Jesus did away with the law through his death and resurrection, there's no more law, now we're under grace." Matthew 5:17-19 addresses this. Listen to what Jesus says:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

It's funny to me that Jesus says, "I have not come to abolish the law, I've come to fulfill the law," and then many Christians say, "Well, what does that mean? It means he abolished it." Whatever fulfill means, it can't mean abolish. Until heaven and earth pass away, His laws will not pass away. Jesus says this in the Sermon on the Mount, and what He ends up doing in the rest of His sermon is taking God's law and applying it. He says, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart." He in no way relaxes the law; He shows that God's law is not just about outward actions, but inward thoughts and desires. He raises the standard.

What does Jesus say in the Great Commission in Matthew 28? "Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you." What does He say in Matthew 6:33? "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." How does a king reign? Through his word and his law. The law is still in effect for those of us who are part of the kingdom of God. Jesus didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it—meaning He came to bring it to its full and final purpose, so that these Ten Commandments aren't just on tablets of stone, but are to be written on our hearts as part of the new covenant.

2. God's Law Reveals Sin

Moving to number two: God's law reveals sin. We're not saved by keeping God's law; we're given God's law because we are saved. Part of the role of the law is that it reveals sin to us, that it might point us to Christ for salvation, but also so that we might know what sin is in order to live in holiness. Here's a really basic question: What is sin? If you had a five-year-old ask, "What is sin?", what do you tell them? Let me point you to 1 John 3:4:

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

What is sin? It is lawlessness. It is breaking God's commandments. Sin is setting aside the law of God to go our own way, to be a law unto ourselves. The law shows us our need for a Savior, and now that I am saved, am I free to live in sin? No. Because the law reveals sin, it also reveals what is righteous.

Another common objection is, "Well, Jesus taught us that the most important commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor. I'm only obligated to love, not to keep the law." To that, I say yes and amen. Loving God and loving neighbor is the best summary of the law. But wait a second—whose standard of love are we going to use? Many people who want to continue in sin will leave love undefined, or worse, they will redefine their sin as love. We live in a culture that has redefined sin and called it love. By what standard do we get our definition of love? The word of God does not allow us to redefine what love is. We must use God's standard, which is His law.

3. Love is the Fulfillment of God's Law

That leads us to our third point: Love is the fulfillment of God's law. What is love? Love is keeping the commandments. Look at Romans 13:8:

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

That's where a lot of people want to stop. They take our culture's view of love, which is this romantic ideal, and they think love is just ooey-gooey feelings. But when Jesus tells us to love our enemies, is He saying I need to stir up romantic, goose-bumpy feelings towards someone trying to kill me? No. Paul continues in verse 9:

For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Paul explicitly quotes the Ten Commandments. Love is not feelings by God's standard; love is action. Mothers, do you always feel like serving your family when your baby wakes up vomiting in the middle of the night? No. Love is a self-sacrificing commitment to another person's good. The commandments show us what that looks like. Do not steal, do not lie, do not murder. It is a predetermined course of action to put another person's well-being before our own. The law of God is like training wheels for our hearts.

As soon as you define love for God and neighbor this way, you will be accused of being a legalist. Hear this: Legalism is not seeking to please God by keeping His commandments. Legalism is one of two things: it is works-based righteousness (believing you can earn your righteousness), or it is calling something sin that God's law does not call sin (forcing others to live by personal convictions not stipulated in Scripture). I'm advocating that we keep God's commandments that are clearly stipulated in His word.

Another objection is, "We're not under the law, we're under grace." Yes and amen. We are absolutely under grace. But people follow that by saying, "Therefore, we're not obligated to keep the law." Look at Romans 6. Verse 1 says, "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!" Verse 11 says, "Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." Verse 14 says, "For sin will not have dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace." Verse 18 says, "Having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness."

Where do I find out what righteousness is? It's the law of God. What does it mean that I'm not under the law? It means I'm not under the penalty of judgment that the law demands for my sins. Jesus took my penalty on the cross. We have been brought from death to life, delivered from Egypt. Do we now turn back to living in the thing we were bound to? Grace is not freedom to live in sin; God's grace is freedom from sin.

4. We Cannot Keep God's Law in Our Own Strength

Finally, number four: We cannot keep God's law in our own strength. If you try, you will fail every time. This is part of what makes the new covenant better than the old covenant. We don't have to live in our own strength; we have the power of God inside of us. Romans 8:3-4 says:

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

When I live by the Spirit of God, I am able to live a righteous life. Yes, we should keep the Ten Commandments. We should seek to understand their deeper meaning. If Christ is our King, does He have expectations for His people? Of course He does. He expects that we would, through the power of His Spirit, put sin to death in our mortal bodies.

If this highlights anything, it should show us just how deep our need and dependence upon Christ is. Who among us can say we ever make it through one day without violating God's law? Oh, how we need Christ. We need His shed blood applied to our lives, and we need His imputed righteousness because even the best of our righteousness is filthy rags. He is now writing His law on our hearts, so that we have a desire to do what is right. Before He saved us, all the laws were imposed from outside pressure, but now we have this new desire to please Him. And when we fall and fail, the Holy Spirit draws us back to the Lord.

We should be like the psalmist in Psalm 1. Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree planted by streams of living water. May we meditate on God's law and seek to apply it daily, not in our own strength, but by the power of the Spirit. Yes, we need the grace of God, but let us never think we can use God's grace as a license for sin. May we keep His law and teach others to do likewise. Amen.

What we're doing is each week, I'm taking a passage from the previous week's reading and preaching through that passage for us this year. This morning, we find ourselves in Genesis 18. We're looking at verses 1 through 15 today. I invite you to stand with me as we read the Word of God together.

It says that the Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, "O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought and wash your feet, and rest yourself underneath the tree, while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that, you may pass on, since you have come to your servant."

So they said, "Do as you have said."

And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, "Quick, three seahs, that six gallons of fine flour. Knead it and make cakes." And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the young men who prepared it quickly. Then he took curds and milk, and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

They said to him, "Where is Sarah, your wife?"

And he said, "She is in the tent."

The Lord said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah, your wife, shall have a son."

And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I am worn out, and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure?"

The Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Shall I indeed bear a child now that I am old?' Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time, I will return to you about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son."

But Sarah denied it, saying, "I did not laugh," for she was afraid.

However, he said, "No, but you did laugh."

Father, we do thank you for your word. It is that precious lamp to our feet and light to our path. Lord, as we spend a few moments here, pulling away from the busyness of our life, the busyness of our day, pulling away from all of the things that we have going on that can so often seek to come in and to crowd out our thoughts of you. Lord, we're pulling away from all of that in this moment to come, to meet with you, to worship you, to be in your presence, to be with your people, to hear your word, speak to us today. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. You may be seated.

The Honest Reality of Scripture

The title for this morning's sermon is Laughing at God. You know, one of the things that I love about the Bible is how real it is. I don't think there's a more honest book in the whole world. The Bible is brutally honest. It's honest about the characters that are in the Bible. These aren't fictitious people invented by the thoughts of men. My family has recently been watching The Lord of the Rings. Those are fictitious characters. Frodo, Gandalf, those aren't real people. I know they're portrayed in such a way that sometimes it can seem like it's real, but it's not. That's fictitious.

When we come to the Bible, when we come to Genesis, when we begin to read about Adam and Eve and Noah and Abraham and Sarah, these are real people. The Bible is very accurate in its depiction of these people, with both their strengths and their faults. Here in this passage, we see a picture of the life of Abraham and Sarah, these patriarchs of our faith. Now, no doubt Abraham and Sarah were both people of great faith. As we read this morning in our time of giving about God calling Abraham to leave his family, to leave his country, to leave those whom he loved behind, to walk with God not knowing where he was going but trusting in God as his sole source and supply. Abraham was a man of great faith, and Genesis presents those moments of great faith to us. They show us that he was a man of worship, that he built altars to the Lord, and he worshiped the Lord everywhere that he went. And that he had a continual, unwavering faith in the promises of God.

But the Bible's also very careful to not only show us the strengths of the people in the Word of God, but to also show us their faults and their weaknesses. They were not perfect people by any means. The Bible makes no attempts to hide their faults or to cover them from our eyes. We read about how, when there was a famine in the land, Abraham chose to go into Egypt—not to trust that God would supply his needs, but rather to look to Egypt, where they had resources. When he got there, he was afraid that they would kill him because his wife was beautiful. He thought, "My wife is so beautiful. When we go down to Egypt, they're going to see her. If they think she's my wife, they'll kill me so that they can have her for themselves." So instead of trusting that God would take care of him, he decided, "Let's just lie to them. Let's say that you are my sister."

While they were down in Egypt, they took for themselves a servant from Egypt, a woman named Hagar. When they leave Egypt, Hagar goes with them. When they decide it's taking God too long in fulfilling his promise to give them a child, Sarah comes up with the idea: "Why don't you father a child by this servant, Hagar?" So they take matters into their own hands, father a child with Hagar, and then after Hagar conceives and bears a son, Sarah treats Hagar very harshly. She becomes jealous of her. I think maybe she thought Abraham was the problem. She thought, "I'll get Abraham off my back. I'll show that he's the problem, it's not me." Then Hagar conceives, showing that Sarah was the one who could not bear children. She becomes very harsh and treats Hagar in a very not Christlike way at all. Let's just put it that way.

Their story presents both their faults and their victories. Both their moments of weakness and their moments of strength. In that, their story describes for all of us what it's like to walk with the Lord by faith. For all of us, walking with the Lord will have its ups and its downs. You will have days of great victory where we see the Lord work in our lives in a mighty and profound way, where we take a petition to the Lord, a need before the Lord, and we pray, and God answers our prayers. How many of you have experienced those days? Aren't you thankful for those days? Amen.

Then there are those other days where we take something to the Lord, we pray, we seek his face, and it seems as though he does not answer our prayer. Or he doesn't answer our prayer in the way that we would like for him to. Walking with the Lord has its ups and downs. It has its moments of victory and doubt, but it also has its moments of discouragement and impatience. But through it all, we see a God who is kind, merciful, gracious, and patient with those that he loves. Here we see him with Sarah being so tender and so patient. God, like a good father, pursuing, correcting, disciplining, forgiving, and blessing. We see examples of this throughout our text this morning. I have four headings, four points for us to draw our attention to this morning as we walk through the text together.

Abraham's Hospitality

The first is in the first eight verses, and that's Abraham's hospitality. The story begins as these three weary travelers are approaching Abraham's tent, his homestead where he was staying. It tells us in verse 1 that it was the Lord himself who appeared to Abraham. In verse 13, it says it was the Lord who spoke to Abraham. This is what we call in the Bible a theophany, an appearance of God, where the Lord himself would appear and reveal himself to someone.

There are several different examples of that throughout the Old Testament. Another one is in the burning bush when God appears to Moses. Another one is when God meets with Moses on Mount Sinai. Oftentimes these theophanies are called the Angel of the Lord. Another one is when he goes and he meets with a man named Gideon. Of course, we know that Jesus Christ himself is the perfect and final revelation of God in the flesh.

Now, what we do not know from the text is whether or not Abraham at first recognized this as the Lord. We don't know if Abraham saw these three travelers coming and immediately thought, "This is the Lord come to meet with me," or if he was simply showing hospitality to three weary travelers. We don't know. But what we do know is that in Hebrews, it tells us to not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unaware. When we show hospitality to others, and even strangers that we don't know, we could even be showing hospitality to angels. That's what the book of Hebrews tells us, and certainly, this is what happened here with Abraham.

But what I want you to see is that Abraham's hospitality—him going out of his way, pulling these travelers into his tent, into his world—ended up setting the table for him to receive a blessing. His hospitality made it possible for him to be blessed. This is often the way that God works in our lives. When we give and when we serve those who cannot pay us back, without expecting anything else in return, God so often returns that blessing back on us. The scripture says, "Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over." That's what the Word of God says. My grandma used to put it this way: "You cannot out-give God." So when we give, when we serve, when we bless others without expecting anything in return, God so often uses that as a vehicle, as an opportunity to bless his children.

I would encourage you this coming week, as you go about your life, your days, to be on the lookout for those that you might bless. Those you might show kindness and hospitality to without expecting anything in return. And also without looking up to heaven and winking at God. "Wink, wink. Hey, you see what I'm doing down here? Pretty good."

We also have our missions conference coming up, which is a great opportunity to serve those who have no way of repaying us, but who are going out to spread the gospel. Pastor Mark's going to come up here later, and during the announcements, he's going to ask you to serve during missions conference. Just remember this point when I'm talking about it. And it's so true. If you've ever served, if you've ever given, you know that God so often uses that as the vehicle to the greatest blessings in our lives. It is so true that when we self-sacrificially give, somehow, someway, in God's economy, he uses that to open doors of opportunity that would have never opened for us otherwise.

But we have to take the first step. We have to be the one that initiates in stepping out and serving. Abraham saw them passing by, Abraham went out to greet them. Abraham said, "Come to my house, stay with me. Let me serve you." And that set the table for him to receive a blessing.

God's Promise

The second thing I want to draw your attention to is God's promise in verses 9 and 10. Now, in the previous chapter, in chapter 17, God had come and met with Abraham and spoken with Abraham and made the exact same promise to Abraham. If you look at verse 15 of chapter 17, if you have your Bibles, you could just flip back there quickly. The exact same promise. God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations, kings of people shall come from her." Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, "Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?"

So here God comes to Abraham, just in the previous chapter, just before this event, and had spoken to Abraham, and had made this exact promise. He had said, "You've got to change your name from Abram to Abraham. You've got to change her name from Sarai to Sarah because I'm about to fulfill this promise that I made to you. You guys are about to start reproducing, this child that I promised is going to come, and you're going to be the father of nations. And Sarah's going to be the mother of nations. It's time to change your name."

So the question is, why does God come again just a few moments later, days later, weeks later? Because they're the same age, this isn't years later. This is just a short amount of time that passes. Why does God come again and deliver the exact same message? Well, this time, God is delivering this message not for Abraham, but for Sarah. The first time God had spoken just to Abraham, now God comes and meets him at his tent where he knows Sarah will be there and will hear the promise for herself. Sarah needed to hear the word herself.

It's just like us. If you are married, you know that as a spouse, your spouse knows that you love her. Your spouse knows that you love him. You all know that you love each other. But you also need to hear it. You need to say it. You know it, but you need to hear it again and again. Sarah needed to hear God's word personally. Why? Because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

We know that Sarah's faith in the promise had become weak. We know it had become weak because Sarah is the one who became weary waiting for God's promise and suggested that Abraham father a son by their servant, Hagar. That wasn't Abraham's idea. That was Sarah's idea. Sarah needed faith to believe in the promise of God. Therefore, Sarah needed to hear the word. She needed faith, therefore she needed to hear the word.

And so it is with us, who from time to time become weary in this life. From time to time become impatient waiting on the promises of God. We too need to hear the faith-building Word of God. We must never underestimate our need to hear God's word.

You know, as a pastor, one of the things that I will just open my heart and confess to you—some inner thoughts that I have—but one of the things that has baffled me the most from being a pastor is that when people in the congregation become weak, become discouraged in their faith, they often withdraw from God and from gathering with God's people. They often pull back from coming to worship, and coming to hear God's word, and coming to be with the people of God. When the fact is, when we are weak in our faith, when we are discouraged, when we are overcome by temptation and sin, that's the very medicine that we need: to be in the presence of God, to hear his word, to be with God's people. Because man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

The psalmist in Psalm 73 talks about this disorienting experience of living life in a fallen world. He talks about how he saw the wicked prospering. How he saw those who didn't serve God, who didn't follow God, who didn't love God, how it seemed as though they were advancing in life. They were being blessed, they were getting the promotions, they were going on the vacations. And here the psalmist is saying, "I'm serving God. I'm following God, and that's not what's happening in my life, and why is it happening to those who hate God?" He's talking about this disorienting experience of living life in this fallen and broken world.

But then there's a turning point in Psalm 73, verse 17, where he says, "My foot almost slipped." Basically, I almost fell into despair. He says, "Until I went into the sanctuary of God." He says, "I almost fell. I almost slipped. I almost began to doubt God, doubt his word, doubt his promises, doubt his goodness, doubt his covenant when I was experiencing life in this disorienting world. But then I went into the house of God." And he says, "There I discerned their end." He says there, when he went into the house of God, the realities of heaven, the realities of God, the realities of the truth were made manifest, were portrayed for him so clearly that he was able to see the brevity of this life and the great inheritance that we, as God's people, have in all eternity.

If the psalmist needed to be in the house of God because of the disorienting effects of the world on his soul, how much more do we in 2026 need to be in God's house? Need to hear his word? When we are constantly bombarded by the lies of the enemy. By the fallen philosophies of this wicked day. Constantly having the values of the world and the values of the flesh and sin portrayed for us as good and wholesome. How much more do we need to come into the presence of God, to step into his house with his people, to receive his word, to take the Lord's supper, to reaffirm our covenant with God? It's in the house of God when we enter behind the veil and enter into his presence, to behold the beauty of Christ, and to experience the comfort that comes from knowing we are loved by him, knowing we are his children, knowing that he is our protector, our fortress, our provider, our strong tower. This is where we are renewed. We are refreshed, and we are built in our faith.

Not only did Sarah need to hear the word, we need to hear the word. We can become weary waiting on the promises of God, waiting on the return of Christ. I mean, I thought Jesus was coming back in the '80s. Where is he? I mean, how many of us have prayed last year, "Come, Lord Jesus," and the world mocks us? They mock at us. They laugh at us. We can become weary waiting on the promises, waiting on the return of Christ. Waiting on the promise of the victory that we should have over sin. We can become weary in the daily battle of resisting sin and temptation. We can become weary waiting on the final judgment, when God's people will be vindicated, and when he returns, we will have perfect fellowship with Christ. Where now we look through a glass darkly, but when he returns, we'll see him face to face. We can want that so much, we can desire it so much, we can become so hopeful for that, and then the day in, the day out, the mundane, dealing with the cares of this life can cause us to become weary waiting on the promises. We need to hear the Word of God that builds faith in our hearts, that we would not give up. We would not grow faint. We should never underestimate our need to hear the word.

And not only should we not underestimate our need for the word, but we should also not underestimate others in our life, their need to hear the Word of God through us. Through you. We are all called, as followers of Jesus, to be salt and to be light. Oftentimes, we're prompted by the Holy Spirit to share the word, to share this verse, to encourage someone with the Word of God. And then Satan comes with this lie: "They already know that. They already know it. They've already heard it. You've already shared it a million times. Oh, they already know." But let me remind you, Sarah knew as well. Sarah knew they had been on this journey for 25 years, but she needed to be reminded of what she already knew. She needed to hear it again, because there is power in the Word of God. The Word of God is a mighty weapon that God uses to destroy Satan's strongholds.

Therefore, we need to always be ready to share it and to speak it with those around us. Jesus says that those who share the word are like a farmer who goes out and sows seed. The farmer who sows his seed, he doesn't know which seeds are going to grow and which ones are not. Think about a farmer who was trying to decide, "Well, should I plant this seed or that seed? Should I put it here in the ground, or there in the ground, and I'm going to look at every little piece of dirt, and I'm going to plant it here." How much fruit would that farmer have? No, but what does the farmer do? He goes out, he sticks his hand in the bag, and he just throws it out. He's just scattering it everywhere and anywhere he goes. That's what a farmer does.

And God is the one who prepares men's hearts. God is the one who prepares people's hearts. We don't know if people's hearts are open or they're not. But it's our job to take the seed of the Word of God and to throw it out. God's the one that makes it grow, but if we only plant one or two seeds and we think, "Well, I planted that seed six years ago. Well, it didn't grow. So maybe it's time to plant it again. Maybe it's time to sow it again." You think, "Well, I don't want to be a Bible thumper. I don't want to be known as a Bible thumper." Why not? Why not? If the world can be loud and proud as they are about their debauchery, why can't the church be as vocal about our Jesus? I mean come on. We don't have to be ugly about it. We don't have to be obnoxious. But we shouldn't shy away from what we hold and know to be true about Jesus. Those who are weak in faith need to hear the word, to be reminded of the gospel, to be reminded of God's good promises.

Also on this point, God's promise—and don't worry, this is the longest point, okay? On this point, God's promise, I want to show you verse 14. Let's look at verse 14. He says, "Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son." There was an appointed time for when God was going to fulfill his promise. And this time that had been appointed had been appointed before Abraham was ever born. Before God ever created the world. Before God had ever called Abraham. God knew it was going to be 25 years.

Now, God hadn't told Abraham that ahead of time. And it sure would have been easier for Abraham if God had told him at the beginning when he called Abraham, "Abraham, I'm going to bless you with a son in 25 years." That would have been easier for him. But Abraham was called to live by faith. By trusting in God. And if God had spelled everything out to Abraham ahead of time, he wouldn't have had to trust God. He wouldn't have had to lean into God. He wouldn't have had to walk with God, to hold fast to God. If God had told them that ahead of time, it would not have required faith.

You see, God is not just concerned about the outcomes of our life. He could snap his fingers and make anything happen at any moment. God is concerned about transforming us as he walks with us daily. And it's that daily walk of faith, daily trusting in God, daily holding on to the promises of God in faith when we don't see them being answered, that keeps us close to him. True or false? Wait till you hear what I'm about to say. We stay closer to God in times of hardship than we do in times of prosperity, true or false? It's true. I wish I prayed as hard when things were going well as when things were going bad. But I don't. It's when we have a need. It's when God has made a promise and we're waiting for it to be fulfilled, it's when we need something from God that we go to God. I wish we weren't that way, but that's the way that we are. And so God has a way of keeping us close to him, teaching us to trust him.

You and I, just like Abraham, are likewise called to live the same sort of lifestyle, a life of faith. The Bible says the just shall live by faith. What does faith look like? Faith looks like saying, "God, I don't know how you're going to work this out. But I'm trusting in you. God, I've been praying for this for 20 years and I still don't see an answer. But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop praying. That means I'm going to go pray again this year, 21 years. And I'm going to pray until I see the answer. And even if I never see the answer in this life, I'm still going to trust in you." That is faith. Trusting in God until our dying breath.

So what are you believing for? What are you trusting God for? Don't give up. God has an appointed time. God has an appointed time for our answer, for our miracle, for the promise to be fulfilled. It'd be nice if we could just flip our calendar ahead and say, "Oh, here's the appointed time." But let me tell you, just as sure as being able to do that, God has an appointed time for the answer to your prayer. And living by faith means living as if you know that that's already going to happen. Living as if you know the evidence of things not seen.

Sarah's Laugh

The third thing I want to draw your attention to this morning is Sarah's laugh. I see this in verses 11 and 12, Sarah's laugh. God reaffirms his promise to Abraham and Sarah. And what a beautiful promise that it was. Sarah can hardly believe it. She's there listening at the door of the tent, it tells us. I just see Sarah like Lucille Ball, you know. If you don't know who Lucille Ball is, well, you didn't grow up watching Nick at Nite, I guess. If you don't know what Nick at Nite is, that's even harder... But anyway, Sarah's there listening. Abraham's there meeting. She's there listening. "What are they going to say? What's this conversation about?" And she overhears this promise.

Verse 12, it says Sarah laughed to herself. She was old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with her, so she laughs. "After I'm worn out, and my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure?" Sarah can hardly believe it. She can't believe it. She laughs. She's focused on the natural. She's old, advanced. Worn out, she says. It's naturally impossible for her to conceive. So she laughed to herself in verse 12, she says, "After my Lord is old, shall I have pleasure?" Now, of course, here she's talking about the pleasure of holding a newborn child. She's talking about the pleasure of feeling that son in her womb kicking and there's life in there. That's the pleasure, of course, she's talking about. I don't know what you were thinking, but God help you if you were thinking anything else.

She's 90. But Sarah had given up on the promise. She had given up years ago when she brought Hagar to Abraham. And she had been living every day in the awful shadow of that mistake. It wasn't just her womb that was dead, it was her faith. She laughs. This idea seems absurd to her. Yet, in the book of Hebrews chapter 11, verse 11, it says that Sarah conceived Isaac by faith. Sarah conceived Isaac by faith. So how does she go from laughing? How did she go from unbelief? How does she go from sending Hagar, the servant to Abraham, to laughing at the promise, to conceiving by faith? Here's how: the word that was spoken worked in her spirit, and she again began to embrace the promises of God. The word worked in Sarah and produced faith.

God's Response

Of course, God calls her out on it, and we see that here in God's response. God comes to Sarah in verse 13 with a gentle rebuke, God's response. The Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Shall I indeed bear a child now that I am old?'" And so God's response is to come to Sarah with a gentle rebuke and a very important question. And the question that God asks is one that we need to ponder as well. Is anything too hard for the Lord? Is anything too hard for the Lord? Is anything too hard for God?

Well, is there? Seeing Abraham and Sarah's story should tell us that nothing is too hard for God. We serve the God who brings dead things back to life. Not just the barren womb of Sarah, but the very body of our Lord Jesus as he lay there dead, for our trespasses and sin, God raised him up on the third day. Jesus knows the way out of the grave. Death could not hold him. And just as nothing was too hard for God with Sarah, nothing will be too hard for God in our lives. God will not fail to be faithful to his word or his promises because God cannot fail. God cannot fail. Therefore, God will not fail.

In Romans chapter 4, verse 20, speaking of Abraham, it says, "No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised." Are you convinced? Are you fully convinced that nothing is too hard for God? I don't know what you're believing God for. I don't know what promise you're holding onto, but take it to the Lord in faith. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Maybe it's been five years, 10 years, 20 years. Maybe you thought that dream was dead, there was no more hope anymore. And yet you still feel that God had made a promise to you. Take it to the Lord in faith, and trust in him.

Don't let yourself grow weary in doing good. If we do not faint, we will reap, the Bible says. So do not give up on God. Do not give up on his word. Do not forsake standing on his promises. Nothing is too hard for him. Return to the Lord again and again. Return to his word daily, spend time in his word daily, and you will find that it will lift your spirit. It will give strength to your soul. And you will find that the God who came to Abraham's tent has also come to us in the person of Christ, and he is the God who brings dead things back to life. Amen.

Genesis chapter 4, we're going to look at verses 1 through 12, and then we're going to skip to the end of the chapter and look at verses 25 and 26. I invite you to stand with me as we read the word of God this morning. We stand when we read God's word like this because we want to make sure that it's set apart in our hearts. On the front of your Bible, it doesn't just say "Bible." It says "Holy Bible." The word holy means set apart. As we stand for the reading of God's word, it's just one way that we are acknowledging that these are not the words of men, but these are the words of God. Genesis chapter 4, starting in verse 1:

Now Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD." And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.

The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it."

Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said, "I do not know; am I mybrother's keeper?" And the LORD said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth."

And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, "God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him." To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD.

Let's pray.

Father, we do thank you for your word. Lord, I thank you for this new year and this effort that we are making in this year to be people of your word, to be people of the book, to have this year be marked off in our lives particularly as a year in which we read the Bible together as a church and a church family. Lord, I pray for your blessing to be upon us. Lord, your hand to guide us. Your Spirit to give us strength and encouragement. Lord, I pray not only this morning, but each time that we open your word this year, that you would give us eyes to see what you want us to see and ears to hear what you are speaking to us. Lord, we believe that this Bible, this word, is not the words of men, but as your word says, God-breathed, God-inspired. And Lord, as you have breathed out your word, that you would breathe on your word and breathe on our hearts and help us, God, to hear your voice so clearly as we spend time in your word. Lord, that we would live for you faithfully as salt and light in this world and that you would use us for your kingdom and your glory. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen.

You may be seated this morning.

Four Stories, One Consistent Pattern

In the first nine chapters of Genesis, which we have gone through in our Bible plan, there are really four distinct stories. The first one is in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the story of creation. The second story is the lens shifts from that big picture of creation and begins to focus in on humanity. The second story is the story of God creating our first parents, the first man and the first woman, Adam and Eve. And their story of how God instructed them, how God had a purpose for them, how God had a plan for them, how God had given them His word and instructions, but they chose not to obey God, and how they rebelled against God.

The third story is the story we just read, that first generation after Adam and Eve, the sons of Adam: Cain and Abel. It shows how sin did not stop with Adam, but that Adam and all of Adam's children are born into and under sin. Within the first generation, sin has so taken root in the heart of humanity that the first brothers, one of them rises up and kills the other.

The fourth story, in Genesis 6 through 9, is the story of Noah and Noah's generation, and how humanity had become so corrupt in Noah's generation that God ended up bringing judgment on his generation and sparing Noah and his family.

These are the four stories that we see in these nine chapters, but all four of these stories have a consistent thread that runs all the way through them. There's a consistent pattern that happens in all of these stories. Using the story of Cain and Abel, which is one that might not be as familiar to you as Adam and Eve and Noah, I want to use Cain and Abel to show you this pattern. This pattern of how God deals with mankind, how God works with humanity, how God interacts with man and woman as His image-bearers. Because this story, this pattern, is not just the pattern of the first four stories of the Bible. This pattern we see in these stories is the pattern that continues throughout the whole Bible. And it's not just the pattern of the Bible; it's the pattern of our lives as well. As we see these things about God and mankind in these stories, it will help us to see the story that God is writing in each one of our lives, and how we can yield ourselves to the work of God in our life, and walk in the purpose and the plan that God has for each one of us to fulfill the reason for which God has made us.

1. God Has a Plan and a Purpose

The first thing I want to show you this morning—I have four points of this pattern, this cycle that continues to repeat—the first is that God has a plan and a purpose. And God's plan and purpose is revealed by God to mankind. We see this with Cain and Abel. In this story, God's purpose for them that He had revealed to them was the right way to worship Him. God had showed them somehow—it doesn't say how—but God had spoken, shown them, revealed to them in one way or another the right way to worship, the right way to bring an offering to the Lord.

We know this because Abel brings an offering that is acceptable to God, that God receives. But Cain brings an offering that is unacceptable, that God rejects. And God speaks to Cain and says, "If you do well, your offering will be accepted." In other words, if you follow my plan and purpose, if you live out what I have showed you, it will be accepted. It will go well with you. So this plan and purpose in this story of Cain and Abel was for there to be right worship, for the children of man to worship God in the way that He had prescribed. That was God's plan and purpose.

If we look in the story of Adam and Eve, God's plan and purpose for them was that they would have dominion over the earth. We see that in Genesis 1:28, that they would reproduce and with their offspring fill the earth with the image-bearers of God to bring God glory. And then in Genesis chapter 2, God places Adam in the Garden of Eden, and it's Adam's job to work there. Before sin enters the world, before Adam and Eve fell into sin, we see that purpose and plan that God has for humanity: for Adam and Eve to work, and to cultivate the earth, and to have dominion, and to expand the knowledge of God and the glory of God into the whole earth.

In Noah's generation, we see that God continued to have a plan and a purpose, and it was specifically with marriage—how man and woman were to be married. We see that at the beginning of Genesis chapter 6.

God always has a plan and a purpose. God is the author of this story. God is the one who is even in creation entering in and imposing His will on creation, speaking it into existence, setting it in order, determining how it will function, how it will go. God has a plan and a purpose, and His plan and purpose is to reveal Himself and His glory to His creation.

And so it is for each one of us and for our lives. For you as an individual, God has a plan and a purpose for you. None of us is an accident. We know that we live in a day and age, in a culture, where most people are taught from the very earliest of age that there is no plan and purpose to the universe, that there is no rhyme and reason, that it's all random, it's all chaotic, it's just time and chance acting on matter. They are taught that there isn't a creator, that there isn't a God, that there isn't a plan and purpose in the events of our lives, that everything is random, everything is ultimately meaningless. That is the view that is taught in our schools and that most people today who are not Christians believe and ascribe to. A meaningless, purposeless existence.

But that's not the story of the Bible. The story of the Bible is: no, there is meaning and purpose to this life. Very smart people wonder today, why is everyone so depressed? Why is everyone so anxious? Why is everyone so overrun with all of these negative emotions? Well, when you tell people from the very earliest of age that your life has no meaning, your life has no purpose, what do you expect? If there's no meaning and purpose and rhyme or reason behind life and the universe, I might have a hard time getting out of bed too. What's the point? We have a whole generation, and even multiple generations now, having grown up under this delusion, having these existential crises of reality, living out their lives with no meaning and with no purpose.

But that's not the God of the Bible. God has a plan and a purpose, even for every individual. Not just at a cosmic level—sun, moon, stars hung in the sky—down to the individual level for every single person. The Psalmist David will say that God is the one who knits us together in our mother's womb, that He put us together the way that we are. He gave you your personality. He gave you the family you were born into. He made you look the way you look and think the way you think and laugh at the things you laugh at and just all of the interesting things that there is about all of us. God has a plan and a purpose in it. That's for us to bring Him glory with who He made us to be.

2. Man Ultimately Rebels Against God

The second thing that we see in all of these stories is that man ultimately rebels against God. We say, "Okay, God, here's your revealed will. Here's your plan, here's your purpose. You've given it to us. We know what it is, and we're going to do something else. We're going to go our own way. We're going to do our own thing. We're not going to submit ourselves to your plan and purpose, your will, your ways, as revealed in your word." This is the consistent pattern that we see in these four stories where God has a plan and a purpose, He reveals His plan and purpose, and man ultimately rebels against God.

In our story that we read this morning, Cain ends up bringing worship that is unacceptable to God. God had shown them, "This is how I want to be worshiped. These are the offerings that I will accept." And Cain decides, "I'm going to give God an offering that I want to bring Him. I know God has revealed this. I know God has spoken. I know God has shown us His way, but I'm going to do it my way."

It's not just Cain that thinks that. Adam and Eve did too. God had told them, "You can eat of any tree in the garden, but of this one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you must not eat of this tree." And so what do they do? They eat of the tree. They decide, "We're not going to obey God. We're not going to listen to God. We're not going to listen to the creator. We're going to listen to the snake. We're going to get our theology from the snake instead of listening to God."

In Noah's generation, in chapter 6, it tells us that they were perverting marriage. We don't know exactly what they were doing. It's a little bit veiled in the language, but it says that the sons of God were marrying the daughters of men. We don't know exactly what all that entails, and there's lots of debate about that. I'm not going to go into all of that this morning, but what we do know is that it displeased God. What we do know is that this was in rebellion against God's pattern for marriage, God's design for marriage.

Cain goes his own way. Adam goes his own way. Noah's generation goes his way. That has continued in humanity from the very beginning all the way down to us today, where we all now have sinned against God. Though we know God's word, we know His righteous decrees, we know His ways revealed on the pages of scripture, and not only the pages of scripture but even written in our consciences—the law of God as image-bearers of God—all of humanity has chosen not to follow God but to go our own way, to do it our way.

This attitude of rebellion against God is steeped deep in the heart of mankind. It's something we inherit. It's the sin nature we inherited from Adam. As you read through the Bible, you'll find the word iniquity. The word iniquity means a bent, a bent towards sin, that the heart of man is predisposed to sin, to rebellion against God. Not predisposed to serving God, following God, walking with God, but to going our own way. That's iniquity. This iniquity, this sin nature, has touched every single one of us. We're sinners by nature.

But in addition to that, we would also all have to confess that we are not only sinners by nature inheriting a sin nature from Adam, but that we are also sinners by choice. All of us in here have chosen sin. All of us in here have known what God's word says, known the law of God, known the Ten Commandments, and yet chosen to disobey God. Chosen to lie, chosen to steal, chosen to covet. Not a one of us in here can say that we are without sin, can say that we are perfect.

Jesus comes later and He doesn't diminish the law of God. He elevates the law of God so that none of us is without excuse. Jesus will say, "Well, you think you're pretty good because you haven't murdered or you haven't committed adultery." Jesus says, "If you have anger in your heart towards your brother, you've committed murder in your heart." Jesus will say, "If you've looked at somebody else with lustful intent, you've committed adultery in your heart." Though you may not have acted it out, the sin is still there inside of us. It's not only sins of the body, but sins of the heart and of the mind. We all have rebelled against God. We all have chosen to go our own way.

I've said it many times, and I think it's worth saying again: we've all chosen to follow our heart. We're taught that. Our culture says that's a good thing, follow your heart. But the Bible says that's a bad thing, because the heart of man is not good but is evil. If we follow our heart, we will not be led into a right relationship with God. We will be led into rebellion against God. Do not follow your heart. That's bad advice. If you have a shirt that says "follow your heart," you need to go home and give that to Goodwill or burn it or something. That's a bad idea. Really bad idea. In fact, it's a satanic idea. Now, if you have a shirt that says that, I'm not trying to condemn you or anything like that. I'm just trying to expose to you the pernicious nature of the culture that we live in that is constantly preaching to us a different message than the Word of God preaches to us. It leads us, this system of darkness in the world we live in, leads us naturally into rebellion against God. We just go with the flow, and we just look around and say, "Well, how are these people living? I guess I'm doing all right because I'm just living like them." We think we'll be okay, thinking somehow that when we get to heaven, God will just grade on a curve. That's not who God is. God is holy. For God to grade on a curve would be to compromise His holiness. He would cease to be God. That's not going to happen.

Because of our rebellion against God, we are in trouble. And in our rebellion against God, as Adam and Eve did, as Cain did, we try to hide our sin. Adam and Eve, when they sinned, they tried to cover themselves. They tried to cover their sin and their shame. They tried to sew together garments that would make them feel better for the sin, the weight of sin, the guilt that was on their shoulders. When Cain killed his brother, he didn't just leave him lying there. He went and buried him. Why? He was trying to cover his sin, to cover his tracks, to hide what he had done. Adam and Eve, likewise, were hiding from God.

Humanity continues to do this. When we sin, we try to hide from God. When we have sin in our life, oftentimes we don't want to come to church because we'll feel convicted. We don't want to be around other believers because we know what's right and we just want to hide it. We're like Adam and Eve thinking that we can sew fig leaves together to cover our sin, to hide behind a bush, and that God won't see us and won't know where we are. It's silly. We see Adam and Eve doing it, and we're like, "What are y'all doing? God has super x-ray vision. He can see everywhere. You think your little fig leaves are going to hide you from God? How dumb are you, Adam and Eve?" And then we sin and do the exact same thing. We don't sew fig leaves together, but we try to keep our sin in darkness. We hide it. It's the same pattern. We rebel against God.

3. God Pursues Mankind with Grace

Our third point here this morning is where the good news begins to enter in. Yes, God has a plan and a purpose. Yes, man has rebelled against that plan and purpose. But God in His grace and mercy pursues mankind. This is good news. God pursues man.

After the sacrifice is not accepted of Cain, it says his countenance fell. He was depressed. He was angry. In Genesis 4:6, God came to Cain and says, "Why are you angry? Why has your face fallen? If you do well, you will be accepted." Though God didn't receive Cain's offering, though God didn't receive Cain's sin, He still pursued Cain with His word, with His instruction, with His grace, and with His mercy.

We see the same with Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve sinned and God comes looking for them, calling out to them, "Adam, where are you?" It's not because He didn't know where Adam and Eve were. It's because He wanted Adam to know that he was lost. He wanted Adam to know that he had fallen from his place that God had placed him in of dominion.

It's also the same in Noah's generation. Though all of humanity had been corrupted, it says Noah found favor in the eyes of God. That word favor is the same word for grace. Grace is unmerited favor. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Though humanity has fallen, though humanity rebels against God, God pursues mankind with pure grace, pure mercy, pure love.

4. God Redeems Man

Attached to this pursuit of man, is number four: when God pursues man, God redeems man. There's the pursuit with love and grace and mercy, and then there is redemption. We see this in the story of Cain and Abel. After Cain had murdered his brother and disqualified himself, God gave a new son to Adam and his wife, Eve. A new son which would be godly, that would live for God, that would produce godly offspring. Even in this day and age of this third and fourth generation, it says that people began to call upon the name of the Lord. So while it looked dark and grim—these two sons, Cain and Abel; Abel, the righteous one who offered up an offering to God in faith, worshiped God rightly and was killed for it, persecuted for it by the one who was angry, by the one who wanted to go his own way and disqualified himself and suffered the judgment of God—God redeemed the situation by giving a new son to replace Abel.

It is the same in the story of Adam and Eve. When Adam and Eve sinned and fell into sin, God promises redemption. In Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, we have the first good news in the Bible, the first promise in the Bible: that there will be strife between the serpent and the woman, between the offspring of the serpent, those who live in rebellion against God, and her offspring. That He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel. This is what's known as the first gospel proclamation. In this, there is the promise of the redeemer, that there will be one who comes who will be wounded, but who will crush the head of the serpent. This promise of redemption. Even though they had sinned, even though they had rebelled, even though they had hidden themselves and blamed each other, God in His grace and mercy says, "There is coming a redeemer. This situation will be redeemed."

And so it is in Noah's generation. Though there was judgment that was brought upon the earth, God provided a way of salvation for Noah and his family. God preserved them in the ark. The ark, of course, is a picture of Christ. The Bible says that God shut them in, a picture of God sealing us with His Holy Spirit. God preserved them from the judgment that was coming, and so it is for those of us who are in Christ. We are safe in Christ. God has shut us in. God has sealed us with His Holy Spirit. He is keeping us for the day of the Lord, which for us will be a day of ultimate and total redemption.

This pattern plays out: God has a plan and a purpose, He creates each man and woman in His image to bring Him glory, but all of us rebel against that. All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And yet, God, who is rich in mercy, is pursuing us. He has pursued us in Christ, has sent His son, the offspring of the woman, the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ. Born of the virgin, lived without sin, died on the cross for sinners, shedding His own blood to cover our sin, and rising again to give us new life, to give us hope. As we sang this morning, ascended on high, ruling and reigning as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Our God reigns.

This is the story of the Bible. God pursuing sinners with redemption. It's the story of God and His love and His grace and His mercy. Now for us on the other side of the cross, God has pursued us in Christ. We just celebrated Christmas, that season of celebrating the birth of Christ, the birth of Emmanuel, God with us. The birth of the Word, which was made flesh and dwelt among us. Though we were sinful, God chose not to stand afar off, but to enter into our sin, to enter into our mess, to enter into our chaos, and to bring redemption.

This is the story of Genesis. This is the story of the Bible. This is the story of humanity, and this is our story as believers in Christ. God has pursued us in Christ. He has made a way for us to be saved, to be set free, to walk in relationship with Him. But so often mankind wants to hide. We want to hide from God. The temptation to hide from God is in some ways right, and in some ways wrong. It's a right temptation in that we recognize God is holy and we are sinful. It's right that we recognize that we stand condemned before a holy God. But the temptation to hide from God shows us that we might understand His nature, His holiness, but that we don't understand His character: His love, His grace, His mercy.

In all of these stories, God brings redemption, and so it is in our lives too. Yes, we need to understand God's holiness. Yes, we need to understand our sinful condition before a holy God. But we also need to understand God's character, revealed in His son Jesus, who died for sinners. Jesus didn't die for the righteous, but for the unrighteous. Jesus didn't die for the good. He died for the bad, to make us good, to make us holy, to redeem us.

Therefore, we have no need to hide from God. In 1 John, it says that perfect love casts out all fear, that fear has to do with punishment. But because Jesus took our punishment, we have no reason to be afraid of God anymore. We have no reason to hide from God. We have no reason to try and cover our sin on our own, either through our own good works or by keeping it in the darkness, because perfect love casts out fear. God in Christ has loved us perfectly, so that we can come to Christ. We can come to God without fear. We can come to God unafraid, confessing our sins to God, and receiving forgiveness and grace and mercy every single time.

In the book of Proverbs, verse 16 of Proverbs 24, there's this interesting verse. It says, "The righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity." If we're honest, to the natural mind, to those who don't know the gospel or understand the gospel, we would expect this to say the righteous man never falls. The righteous man never does anything wrong. The godly man never sins. But that's not what it says. It says the righteous man falls seven times. But what separates him from the wicked is that the righteous man continues to get up. He continues to take his sin to God. He doesn't ignore his sin, doesn't hide his sin, doesn't make excuses for his sin. What makes the man righteous is he takes his sin to God. He rises again.

It's God who lifts us up when we take our sin to Him. It's surprising. It's counterintuitive. We would think it would say the righteous man is perfect and never does anything wrong. No, the righteous is the man who is imperfect, yet takes his sin to God and receives from God grace and mercy and Christ's righteousness clothing us. It's not his own righteousness that we boast in, but it is the righteousness of Christ. So we need to not fall into this trap of trying to cover our own sin either through our own good works, or our own righteousness, or of going our own way, or of trying to hide our sin. We need to approach God through the sacrifice He has provided, through the means He has provided in His son. God has provided the perfect sacrifice, the perfect lamb, to cover our sin, to take away our sin, to forgive us of our sin. He's provided His son's perfect righteousness to clothe us, to empower us, to enable us.

But if we reject Christ, there is no other sacrifice that we can turn to for sin. There is no other way to be made righteous. There's no other way to be made right with God apart from Christ. Christ is how we approach God. Christ is all that we need. Christ and His work is all-sufficient.

No Condemnation in Christ

This reminds me of Romans chapter 8. If you have that, you could turn with me there quickly. Romans chapter 8. I'm not going to spend a lot of time here, but there's just something so powerful in this that I hope that you can grab a hold of here this morning. I know that we all sin, and when we sin, we feel like God is angry with us. We feel like we need to hide from God. But if we truly understand the gospel, we won't run from God. We will run to God. We won't hide our sin, we'll bring it into the light and walk in the light as He is in the light. We'll confess our sin and receive forgiveness. It's a shame to me so many times that we who have professed to believe the gospel still live like we're righteous by our own works.

Romans chapter 8, it's this incredible chapter. I won't take time to preach it or expound it or even read the whole thing, but I just want to remind you of these truths. Romans 8, verse 1: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Are you in Christ today? Have you put your faith and trust in Christ? There's no condemnation for you. There's only acceptance of you. Of course, not acceptance of your sin, but acceptance of you on the basis of the work of Christ. No condemnation. That means when we sin, we run to God, not from God. When we sin, we don't hide, but we bring it to the light. We confess our sin, and we receive grace and mercy.

If we're hiding from God, it just shows we don't understand who God is. We don't know God. We haven't received the gospel. God sent Jesus to a very dark place to die for sinners. And if God sent His son to die for sinners, how much more will He apply the work of His son to those whom He has called His sons and daughters? How much more will God apply His work of grace to His own children? Yet, for some reason, we think, "Okay, when I was a sinner, Jesus loved me and died for me. Now I'm a believer in Christ. I'm a child of God, part of His family. And if I fall into sin, now God doesn't love me anymore." If God loved you when you were a sinner, how much more will He love you now that you're in Christ and part of His family? It's a lie of the enemy to keep us from Christ, to keep us from the medicine that we need, to keep us from running to Jesus.

As this chapter continues in verse 31, it says: "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised."

Listen, if you are in Christ, you are a new creation. If you are in Christ, you are forgiven. If you are in Christ, there is mercy, there is grace. God is the one who has justified you. The devil wants to come and condemn us, but God has justified us. The devil wants to come and lie to us, but Jesus is the one who died for our sin. So we must stop putting faith in our own works, and we must fully accept the work of His grace, the work of the cross. Every single day for the believer is one in which we are relying upon grace, relying upon mercy, going before God, confessing our sins. Who was the one to accuse? God has already given the verdict. We are justified in Christ. Who will bring a charge, he says, against God's elect? And it goes on to say that Christ is at the right hand of God interceding for us. Do we not think that God will answer the prayers of His son, the prayers that His son is praying for you? Are we not confident that we will be kept by the power of God for the day of redemption?

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?" Verse 37: "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." For I am sure—and we need to all have this as our confession—I am sure, we are sure, "that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

This is the story. God has a plan and purpose. We've gone our own way, but Jesus has chased us down. And He is saving us, redeeming us, showing us the love of God, showing us the mercy of God, bringing order to our chaos and teaching us how to walk and have fellowship with God. It's not our own doing. It's not our own efforts. We're not saved by our efforts. We're not kept saved by our efforts. It is all by the grace and the mercy of Christ. And because of this, we can go to Him at any time.

I'm reminded of that very famous story where there was a woman caught in adultery, and she is brought before Jesus. She is guilty. Jesus asks the crowd, who is rabid, a question: "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone." And one by one, they go away until they are all gone. Jesus asks the woman this very powerful question: "Woman, where are your accusers?" Why would we let the devil condemn us and accuse us when Christ does not? When Christ died and rose again for us. "Woman, where are your accusers?" He says, "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."

If we have fallen into sin, if we stumble, if we're rebelling against God in His word, we must take our sin to Christ. You may feel like you've failed so many times. Will God still accept me? Listen, God didn't throw humanity away when Adam and Eve sinned. God didn't throw humanity away when Cain sinned. God did not throw humanity away in the generation of Noah. And God is not going to throw you away either. God will receive you for the sake of His son who died for you, who shed His blood for you. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

We don't always do this, and I have to confess to you that it's not always obvious what events happen that meet that threshold. It's a judgment call that we as leaders have to make. But as I spoke with our elders this week and asked for their guidance, they unanimously believed that I should address the events that unfolded in Utah and the assassination of a man named Charlie Kirk. In fact, I was scheduled this morning to be preaching in Fredericksburg. You may know that we have a campus there led by Pastor Mike Bell and his wife, Jennifer, and our elders are on a quarterly schedule to be in Fredericksburg to encourage that congregation. I was scheduled to be there, but we thought it would be best if we altered that schedule for this week.

Before we read our text this morning, we're going to be looking at several texts, and the texts are not on the screen this morning, so you're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way. You're gonna have to get your Bible out, or the new-fashioned way, get your iPhone out, and follow along.

A Missionary and a Martyr

Before we get into the text, I want to explain why I think that this topic is worth addressing. Some of you may be wondering why pause the regular schedule and address what happened. And that's a perfectly legitimate question. If you have that question, I want to try to answer it here just briefly. Charlie Kirk was known to many as a political activist. He was known to many as someone who engaged in the realm of politics, and commentary, and reported the news. If all you know about Charlie Kirk is from the news, you might seriously be wondering, why pause to talk about this political pundit?

The reason why is because not only did he engage in the realm of politics, Charlie Kirk was a devout believer in Jesus Christ. He was someone who was unashamedly a Christian, and unashamedly proclaimed the gospel of Jesus. He went to college campuses to debate with people who had other ideas and to engage with them, but all of his ideas that he was engaging with were biblical ideas, lifted straight out of the Bible. In fact, the boldness that he had typifies the boldness that we see in people who are filled with the Spirit of God. He went to these places that were very much against him, and he stood in the midst of crowds that often hated him, and he proclaimed to them the law of God and the gospel, the saving power of Christ.

Now you might not know that. If you just watch what the news says, you would not know that. But if you go online and type in his name, you will not watch very many videos of this man before you come across one where he is sharing about Jesus, about his death, his burial, and his resurrection, and the implications of that for everyone who would hear and listen. Charlie Kirk was someone who took the gospel to the public square and proclaimed it, and called people to repent of their sins and to trust in Christ. In the church, we call that an evangelist. And an evangelist that goes into hostile territory, we call that a missionary. And when someone is killed for their faith and their proclamation of the gospel, in the church, we call that a martyr.

So Charlie Kirk wasn't just a political commentator or a political activist. He was a Christian minister, not ordained by any church, but one who proclaimed the gospel in foreign places as a missionary and was killed for his faith as a martyr. Because one of our brothers was gunned down in our country, we're going to talk about what's going on. That's why we're going to talk about it here this morning.

The Moral Battle of Our Time

Again, if you watch the news, Charlie Kirk will be labeled as a provocateur. He'll be labeled as someone with extreme views. Let me tell you about some of Charlie Kirk's extreme views. He believed that God created the heavens and the earth, so they call him a science denier. He believed that marriage was between a man and a woman, so they label him as a homophobe. He believed there are only two genders, male and female, so they label him a transphobe. He believed that women should not have the right, so-called, to murder their unborn children in their own wombs, and because of that, they called him a misogynist, a woman hater. His extreme views were just vanilla Christianity. Just plain Jane, nothing nuts. Just what you read on the first page of Genesis. And he believed that Jesus died and rose again, that he is seated on a throne as King of kings and Lord of lords. He believed, taught, and preached that all must repent of their sin and turn to Christ.

These are the views that got Charlie Kirk labeled an extreme man. And if you're a Bible-believing Christian, guess what? You hold all those same views as well.

Now, as shocking as it was to watch this godly—not perfect, no, but godly, yes—man gunned down in front of his young wife and children, the images, the video, I don't know if you saw it, it's absolutely shocking. I don't know any other word to describe it. And as shocking as that was, something more shocking still happened. After the moments passed by, and it was pronounced that he did not survive the attack, we saw millions of people in our country—our friends, our family, our neighbors, our coworkers—celebrating, cheering, and applauding the assassination of this man. Millions of people in our city and across this nation said he got what he deserved, said that what happened to him was justified. It's not so shocking to me that there's some lone lunatic out there that would try and do something crazy. What has been absolutely unnerving and eye-opening for me is seeing just how many people thought that was the right thing.

That is a sobering reality. How could it be that millions of minds, millions of souls, watched what we saw this week and celebrated? It's because there is true evil in the world. There is true light and there is true darkness. There is true good, and there is true evil. I know our culture wants to say there's no such thing as right and wrong, no such thing as good and evil, it's all just shades of gray. Friends, this week, we saw there are no shades of gray. This is a black-and-white issue. There is a spiritual warfare, a spiritual battle taking place between light and darkness every single day for the souls of humanity. It has been eye-opening to see just how deep the darkness has gone, how it has captured the hearts of a generation. It is shocking.

Spiritual warfare is real, and it's not a political battle. The problem is that politics, so-called, has swallowed up morality. All of the issues that people say are now political, they're not political issues; they're moral issues. The reason this play is being run on the church—you being told as a Christian that you can't bring your religious views into politics—is because they want to swallow up morality and then advance their dark agenda. That's the bottom line.

Abortion is not a political issue; it's a moral issue. Children in the mother's womb are image-bearers of God. To take the life of the unborn is evil. God detests it. Same-sex marriage is not a political issue; it's a moral issue. Marriage is created by God. Sex is to be enjoyed between a husband and a wife in marriage, for a lifetime. Anything outside of that is a moral issue. The mutilation of confused children, robbing them of their reproduction because they're confused so we chop off their genitalia—that's not a political issue. That's a moral issue.

There is a culture of death that has metastasized into a political movement, but it's a spiritual movement. Millions of our friends, coworkers, and family have had their minds warped with a dark, demonic ideology of death. Murder children? Mutilate children so they can't reproduce? Same-sex attraction is a culture of death because you can't produce life. Now we see in other Western cultures that if you get old and feeble, they just euthanize you. It's a culture of death, and that culture comes straight from the pit of hell.

This is not an issue of left versus right. This is not Republican versus Democrat. Maybe it was that at some point, like in 1970, but we have to wake up. This is light versus darkness. This is good versus evil. This is right versus wrong. These issues animate a generation because they have been indoctrinated with the doctrine of demons. If we can't recognize that, God help us. Many people saw for the first time just how dark things are, not only in the assassination of Charlie Kirk but in the celebration and approval in the aftermath.

If millions of people think that Charlie Kirk should have died for what he believed, hear this: millions of people think you should die because of what you believe. Because they celebrated when he died, they would celebrate if you died. Because you believe the same things. This is not political. This is spiritual.

Point One: Persecution is Not Unexpected

I have three points for us this morning. I want to talk to you about persecution. What we saw on Wednesday was a young man, 31 years of age, who just minutes before he was gunned down, proclaimed the gospel to that crowd. I posted a video of it last night; literally his last words were that Christ is King, He is the Lord of lords, and that you need to repent of your sin and believe in Him. Persecuted for his faith. The only reason he was gunned down, and we have not yet been, is because he was more effective and more bold than we were. That's why he was taken out, because he was swaying the hearts and minds of young people across this nation.

The first point is that persecution is not unexpected. Let's look at Matthew chapter 5, verses 10 through 12.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

We should not be surprised when we, as Christians, are persecuted for the truth. Jesus said it would happen. Jesus said it's coming. You can expect it, and guess what? You are blessed when it happens. When it does, you are laying up for yourself treasure, not on earth, but treasure in heaven. The prophets before us were persecuted, and so also will those who boldly take a stand for the gospel. When evil rears its head, darkness will try to extinguish the light. There will be persecution, and we should not be surprised by it.

Turn with me to John chapter 15. Jesus gives this instruction to his disciples the night before His crucifixion, when He instituted communion, which we partook of this morning. In John 15, verse 18, Jesus says:

"If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."

We have to, as Christians, stop caring about what the people who hate us think about us. Why do we let what they might think stop us from speaking what we know to be the truth? They hate us because they hate Christ. Jesus says in verse 20:

"Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me."

Verse 23:

"Whoever hates me hates my Father also."

This is a God-hating ideology. It is anti-God, anti-family, anti-life, anti-Christ, and it's centered in a hatred for God.

Verse 25:

"But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: 'They hated me without a cause.'"

Verse 26:

"But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning."

When we come to Christ and are filled with the Spirit of God, that Spirit isn't just given to us so we can have Holy Ghost goosebumps during worship—which are nice, but that's not the purpose. You have been filled with the Spirit of God to give you power, to give you boldness, to be a witness for Christ.

Continuing in chapter 16, verse 1:

"I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away."

Why would they fall away? Because great persecution was coming.

"They will put you out of the synagogues."

That's being rejected from society; you're not going to be part of the in-crowd.

"Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God."

The person who did this atrocious act thought they were doing the right thing, because we have a whole generation trained that what is evil is good, and what is good is evil. There is a generation filled with passion, believing they are virtuous when in fact they are evil. Only the Word of God and the law of God can expose what is true and what is false.

Jesus warned us about this. This shouldn't be shocking. The reason it's so shocking for us is that for 200-plus years, our nation has run on a certain set of assumptions that everybody just took for granted, and those assumptions were from the Bible. Our nation was founded with the morality of Scripture at its core. There were shared values that you shouldn't gun down innocent people, that murder, theft, adultery, fornication, and homosexuality were wrong. As we have gone further away from those foundations, multiple generations have grown up untethered from that morality, free to do whatever their evil heart devises.

Where is the common sense? Common sense was the common values we shared from the Bible. Without the Word of God as bedrock, we have no more common sense. It turns out it wasn't common; it was divine revelation from God. Our culture is off the rails, speeding headlong over the cliff. The only thing that will stop us from the abyss is if God's people wake up and boldly proclaim the law of God and the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. And when we do that, there's going to be persecution. We must count the cost.

In John 16, verse 33, Jesus said:

"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."

Where can we find true and lasting peace? It's only in Christ. This world is passing away. Everything you see with your eyes is temporary. This life is a vapor. In the world, we will have tribulation. But we should take heart and have our souls anchored to the fact that Christ has overcome the world.

Point Two: Persecution is Not New

Persecution for the church is also not new. It's throughout church history, from its very inception. Flip over a few pages to the book of Acts.

In Acts chapter 4 and 5, Peter and John are arrested, thrown into jail, and eventually beaten. What evil deed did they do? They saw a man begging who could not walk. Peter and John said, "We don't have any money, but in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk." This 40-year-old man, whose health was restored, went leaping through the temple, praising God. A crowd gathered, much like the crowd gathered around Charlie Kirk as he was sharing the gospel. The apostles told the crowd it was by the power of Jesus' name. The authorities arrested them, saying, "You cannot preach in this name."

How did they respond? Acts chapter 5, verse 29, a verse that should be emblazoned on the heart of every Christian:

"But Peter and the apostles answered, 'We must obey God rather than men.'"

Look at verse 40:

"And when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus."

The apostles eventually suffered martyrdom. Peter was crucified upside down. Andrew was crucified on an X-shaped cross. James was beheaded. Philip was crucified. Bartholomew was flayed and beheaded. Matthew was stabbed. Thomas was speared. James, the son of Alphaeus, was thrown from the temple and beaten. Thaddeus was killed with arrows. Simon the Zealot was sawn in two. Matthias was stoned and beheaded.

In Acts chapter 7, we see the first Christian martyr wasn't even an apostle; it was a deacon named Stephen. He was so filled with the Spirit and Word of God that they couldn't contend with the wisdom with which he spoke. Because they couldn't beat him in an argument, they stoned him to death in rage.

The apostle Paul, who was there when Stephen was martyred, later endured immense persecution himself. In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 25, he details his beatings, stonings, and shipwrecks.

This persecution we are enduring as Christians in this country is not new. During the first 300 years of the church under Roman persecution, many ordinary, everyday Christians faced lions in the Colosseum and were torn to pieces to the cheers of roaring crowds. That same dark demonic spirit that cheered the martyrdom of Christians in Rome has taken root in the hearts and minds of many young people today.

I want to tell you about one ordinary Christian, an 18-year-old Scottish girl named Margaret Wilson. She died on May 11, 1685. She was part of the Scottish Covenanters, people who had the radical idea that Christ was the King of the church, not the King of England. She and an older woman named Margaret McLachlan were sentenced to death because they refused to swear an oath renouncing the Lordship of Christ. They tied them to stakes in the ocean at low tide. They put the older lady out front so Margaret Wilson would have to watch her friend drown, while crowds jeered at her to recant. But this 18-year-old girl said, "I will not deny my Lord. I will go and meet Him face to face. I will close my eyes in this life, and I will open them in glory."

Point Three: Persecution is Not the End

This leads us to our third point: persecution is not the end. I mean this in two ways.

First, we have the hope of the resurrection. When we die, we are ushered into the presence of our Savior. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. When we close our eyes in this life, we open them to hear the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Death has been defeated by Jesus when He walked out of the grave, and He promises resurrection life to all who believe. There is a day coming when Christ will return, the graves will be opened, and we will rise with new, resurrected bodies.

Second, persecution is not the end because of the advancement of the gospel. I believe that many people had their eyes opened this last Wednesday. Many who were afraid to be bold for Christ woke up on Thursday saying, "I will be bold for Jesus. I am not going to deny my Lord any longer." I believe a generation is rising up who will advance the gospel with their lives.

The church father Tertullian coined the phrase: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." When a martyrdom takes place, boldness arises. The Bible says the gates of hell cannot prevail against the church. There is no power in hell that can stop the advancement of the gospel because Jesus died, rose again, and put His Spirit inside of you. He is seated on His throne, putting every enemy under His feet, and the very last enemy to be defeated is death.

We are His body, the army of God, but our weapons are not earthly. Paul tells us the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to obey Christ. This is why Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation." The world wants to shame us into silence, but if we speak up, there is power in the gospel to change lives and turn enemies into apostles.

If the church remains silent and refuses to shine the light, we only invite further darkness. There is a remnant in this nation, but if we hide our light, where is this going? In the 1950s, Jim Elliot and his friends went to preach to the Auca Indians in the jungle. They were warned they would be killed, but they said, "Who will tell them if we don't?" They were speared down, leaving their wives widows. Before his death, Jim Elliot wrote in his diary: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

When the news of their deaths went out, his wife Elisabeth Elliot and others stayed to witness to the very men who killed their husbands. The tribe repented and came to faith in Jesus. That's the power of the gospel. And because of their witness, hundreds of thousands of new missionaries dedicated their lives to preaching the gospel. I believe God is going to raise up an army of young men and women who will be absolutely unashamed to proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

An Invitation to Trust in Christ

I'm going to close today with an opportunity, a call for you to trust in Christ. I think there may be some among us today who do not know where they stand with God. If you were to pass from this life into the next, you don't know whether you would be received into the presence of the Lord. There is an afterlife, and we will live forever in one of two places: in heaven with Jesus, or in hell, tormented for our sins.

Jesus came and died, shedding His blood so our sins could be forgiven. We've all sinned and broken God's law. Jesus suffered the punishment we deserve so we could receive the righteousness He earned through His perfect life. On the day we stand before God, we will either be clothed in the righteousness of Christ—received by faith—or in our own righteousness, which is filthy rags.

If you came in here today trusting in your own self and your own good works to get you into heaven, friend, that is not going to be enough. We must be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Save yourself from this wicked generation. Confess your sins to God. He is merciful, loving, and gracious. He laid His life down to give you salvation as a free gift. Give your life to Jesus.

We're starting this morning by reading from Ephesians chapter 5, these verses on the family that God inspired and gave to the apostle Paul. And I invite you to stand with me as we read them this morning. I'll be starting here in verse 22, and we'll work our way through chapter 6, verse 4. We are not going to have time to teach on every single one of these verses this morning, but this is the sort of the bullseye. This is where we all want to be as we endeavor to live our lives to bring God glory in our families.

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 5:22–6:4

So starting here in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 22, it says:

"Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 'Honor your father and mother' (this is the first commandment with a promise), 'that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.' Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord."

This is the word of God. Amen.

Opening Prayer

"So, Father, we do thank you for your word. We pray that you would use it, and the other Scriptures we're going to look at today, Lord, to press your truths into our hearts. Lord, even as we read in our passage this morning that you, Christ, are the head and we are your body, and Lord, that you are sanctifying us as your bride and that you are washing us with your word.

Lord Jesus, we pray that you would wash our minds today, wash our hearts today, wash our desires today with the pure water of your word, that it would wash over us today and make our thoughts clean. Help our thoughts, our desires, our will to align with your thoughts and purposes and will for each one of our lives, that we would go out from this place as your body, to bring you glory in the world, that we would live as lights to bring glory and honor to our Father, who is in heaven. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen."

The State of the Modern Family

You may be seated this morning. As I mentioned, we are taking a break from Matthew's gospel to focus on the family this summer. So we'll be in this series through June, July, and even into August, looking at God's plan for the family, for marriage, sexuality, raising children, et cetera. And we also have our family camp coming up in August, which we're very much anticipating and looking forward to.

Now, God's desire is for those of us who are married, those of us who have children, those of us who are part of families—which we're all part of a family—God desires for all of those to be strong. He wants your marriage to be strong, your parenting to be strong. And in this passage in Ephesians 5, God speaks through the apostle Paul to outline his design for the family. This is a picture of what a strong and healthy family looks like. This is where we all, who are believers in Christ, want to end up in our families. This should be the goal that we are shooting for, the target that we are aiming for.

However, if we took a pulse at the state of families in our community, in our culture, in our nation today, I think what we would find is that most families do not look like Ephesians chapter 5. Amen. Many families today are struggling, even on the verge of collapse. And this is because the whole concept of family has been under attack in our culture for multiple generations. So that today in 2025, 40% of the children born in our nation will be born out of wedlock. They will not be born into a marriage. They will be born to a single mother. 40% of all children.

If you look at individual demographics, that number begins to soar. As you look at different communities, if you look at the Hispanic population, that number increases to over 50%. If you look at the African American population, that number goes even higher to 70% of children born into a fatherless home. Fatherlessness in our country, in our culture, in our community, is an epidemic. And even many times, if the father is there physically, he is absent spiritually. And many, if not most, of the social ills that plague our nation, they would be solved simply by having a godly father in the home. That would take care of most of the problems in our country.

Now, this situation that we see today wasn't always this way. It wasn't always that 40% of children were born to unwed mothers. There used to be an idea that children were born into a marriage, that there was a certain order to things—that first came a marriage, then came sexual union, then the result of that was children. But in many people's minds today, those are all unrelated things. Those are all unrelated ideas and concepts.

The Historical Erosion of the Family

So how did we get here? How did we get to this point where we are today, where we're on the pathway to having most kids in this country growing up without a dad in the home? How did we get here?

Well, it hasn't happened overnight. It's been a steady erosion. We could look back to the 1960s. We could look back to the sexual revolution that promoted promiscuity, that delayed marriage, that made cohabitation without marriage the norm, and that separated the concept of sex from the idea of a covenant union in marriage. It brought a division between those two ideas.

In 1969, California was the first state to enact no-fault divorce. Before that, somebody had to be at fault for a marriage to separate. The blame had to go somewhere. What this allowed was for couples to divorce for any reason without providing fault, shifting marriage from a covenant union to a simple contract administered by the state. I mentioned California was the first state to enact that. I think many of you would be shocked to hear that it was Ronald Reagan who was the governor who signed that into law. Some people today think Ronald Reagan could walk on water. No, he had some issues, too. This began these seedbeds of this erosion of the family.

Of course, we know in 1973, Roe v. Wade, this great Supreme Court—great not because it was good, great because it was infamous, great in its wickedness and sin—whereby abortion was legalized in the 50 states. Where states who had laws against abortion and protecting the unborn, the Supreme Court ruled that those laws were unconstitutional, and that mothers could, on demand, take the life of their children all the way up until birth. Now, praise God that that was overturned just a few years ago. But the battle rages on. Instead of one battle nationwide, we have 50 battles statewide. In some states, it's still legal to terminate a child, murder a child in their mother's womb all the way up until birth.

Moving on into the '70s and '80s, we had the feminist movement, which vilified male headship in the home, which promoted for young women the idea of pursuing a career instead of pursuing motherhood, and encouraged women to be more like men. Frankly, that was the whole idea of the feminist movement. It's so absurd, but when you look at it, what it was really saying was, "Women, you should be more like men, and that'll make you happy." As it turns out, it doesn't make women happy to be more masculine. In fact, the depression rates and the number now of women in our country that are on antidepressant medication, because they've bought into all of these lies, has absolutely skyrocketed and soared.

In the 1990s and the 2000s, we saw the rise of pornography. When the internet came online and broadband, pornography went from being this thing that you had to kind of go to a weird place to get, and you were worried that people would see you there, or you could go to a hotel and watch it on pay-per-view. It went from that to now access to anybody, anywhere, at any time, immediately, to the most debauched behavior known to mankind. This proliferation of pornography and porn consumption that happened through the '90s into the 2000s, where now most children will not make it to their teen years without first being exposed to hardcore pornography, shaping the way children view sexuality and marriage.

Through the 2000s, marriage rates declined as fornication and hookup culture became normalized. There was no longer a stigma or shame attached to the number of sexual partners a person had. It was almost a badge of honor. And also in the 2000s and the '90s, it shifted the role of education, where now it became the government's job to educate children on sex and sexuality, and it no longer was a job that belonged to the parents. And our school systems began promoting all manner of what the Bible calls perversion to young children under the guise of education.

In 2015, we saw the Supreme Court decision of Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states, which legally redefined what a family was, removing the male and female requirement. And fast forward to where we are today in 2025, where we have a whole month of the year dedicated to celebrating lesbianism, gayness, bisexuality, transgenderism, and plus, whatever that is. And we know what it is, it's pedophilia. That's what plus stands for. And so all of these things must not be tolerated—which is what we were first told—they must be embraced, and now celebrated. If you don't do that, you're backwards, you're a bigot, you're a hater, you're a phobe, you have some sort of irrational fear. You're a homophobe, transphobe, et cetera, et cetera.

To the point where we who gather here this morning, who have been called out from the world by Christ, we are so inundated in this milieu of sexual chaos and confusion. It's to the point now today where many Christians, we stumble upon Ephesians chapter 5, and we read God's inspired instructions on the family and family relationships, and it sounds so foreign and alien to us. We read these things and we think, "What is this, some textbook from 1940? Where did you discover this crazy idea that a wife should submit to her husband? Where did that come from? That husbands should sacrificially love their wives and children, that children should obey their parents?" These ideas even to God's people, even to the church, sound so foreign to us because we constantly live under a different set of ideas and philosophies in our world and culture today. We read it and we say, "Does God really expect these things today? God, it's 2025."

The Root Cause: The Redefinition of Man

I shared with you some of the erosions, some of the big cultural events that happened that led us to this point, but there is an idea that I actually want to spend some time addressing this morning, which was much further upstream from the sexual revolution and the redefinition of sexuality and marriage. There's an idea that is further upstream that has led to this chaos and confusion and the collapse of the family. And it was the redefinition of man. The redefinition of man.

You see, before marriage and family could be redefined, what first had to be redefined was mankind. It was humanity. And this happened in the 1930s when Charles Darwin introduced his theory of evolution. He eventually published in 1859 his Origin of Species, which formally presented his theory of evolution. And this idea of evolution, coupled with the Big Bang theory, these ideas have radically restructured and redefined what it means to be human. The nature of humanity.

And this redefinition of humanity is what made the sexual revolution possible. Because we come here and we read wives should submit to their husbands, and we can't even define what a wife is because we don't even know what a human being is. We read that husbands should serve and sacrifice, and we don't even know what that means because we don't even know what a husband is, because we don't even know what a man is. Children obeying their parents—how could we have children obeying their parents if we can't even define what a child is?

These things that are so fundamental and so basic, to the point where the most recent Supreme Court justice, when she was being questioned before Congress on whether or not she was fit to serve in that office, was asked the question, "What is a woman? Can you define what a woman is?" And she replied, "I'm sorry, I cannot." When pressed on the issues, she said, "I cannot provide a definition for what a woman is because I am not a biologist." And this person was confirmed, and now sits on the highest court of our land, issuing rules that affect all of our lives. How in the world can you make a decision about anything if you can't decide something so basic as what is a woman? Now, of course, she knows what a woman is. We all know what a woman is. We all know what a man is. But there has been a steady undercurrent of this erosion in thought where it's not politically correct now to say these things.

But as I said, before marriage could be redefined, man first had to be redefined. And so if we're ever going to recover God's design for marriage and family, we must first start with God's definition of what man is, what mankind is.

Created in the Image of God

And so for that, we turn to Genesis chapter one. I invite you to turn with me there this morning, Genesis chapter one. If you don't know where that is, it's page one of your Bible. Just open your Bible and go all the way to the left. When you get to the cover, go back one page. Genesis chapter one.

These first three chapters of Genesis are so foundational to our lives as human beings. I would encourage you, implore you, to read and reread and study and restudy these opening three chapters of Genesis. I would encourage you to do it to the point where you pretty much have them memorized, because they are so foundational to living life in this world.

But I'm going to look at an excerpt here from Genesis one, just a handful of verses here. Look here at the first verse. This is the beginning of God's revelation to mankind. It says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." It goes on to tell the story of God creating the heavens and the earth, and this creation of heavens and earth culminates, climaxes with the crown jewel of God's creation, mankind.

In verse 26, it says, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'"

We began our service this morning with a reading from Psalm 8. Psalm 8 has in it this question: "What is man?" What is man, the psalmist reflects, that you, God, who created the heavens and the earth, you, God, whose majesty is above the heavens, you, God, who is infinite, who is without beginning and without end, what is man that you are mindful of him? And my argument to you this morning is that for you to be able to understand what marriage is, for you to be able to understand what family is, what raising children is, you first have to start with this question: What is man? Who are we?

The Bible tells us on the very first page that man is an image bearer of God. Bearing his image, no other creature, no other part of creation bears the image and likeness of God.

The Creator-Creature Distinction vs. Evolutionary Materialism

But before we can talk about what it means to image God, we first need to stop and think about this idea that God says, "Let us make man in our image." We need to think about this concept of being made. In Genesis, there's this distinction in this creation account. There's this separation, this division between the Creator, God, and his creation. This separation, this distinction: we are not the creators. We are part of God's creation. We live in the world that God made. This world operates according to the laws that God put in place. This place that we live is not our world. It is God's world.

The psalmist reflects and says, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." Everything belongs to God. Even you. In the book of James, it tells us that every good thing comes from God, comes down from him. And God's word shows us that humanity is created, is formed, is fashioned uniquely by God. We are creatures. We are not the creators. There is a distinction, there is a separation between God who is eternally self-existent, no beginning and no end, who spoke the worlds into existence. In the beginning, God, he was there before time began, created the heavens and the earth. All the universe, all creation comes from him, and the separation between him, the Creator, and his creation.

Now, this again is in sharp contrast to Darwin and his theory of evolution, and what later developed as the origin of the universe, the Big Bang theory. These ideas say there is no God. There is no creator. This idea that there was nothing, and then nothing spontaneously exploded into everything. This idea that over billions and billions and billions of years, this nothing that exploded began to change, to form, to mutate, to evolve, until where we are here today. This idea that everything comes from nothing.

There is no spiritual world. There is only the material world. What we can see, taste, touch, hear, and smell. All there is is time and chance acting on matter. There's no purpose behind the universe. Therefore, there's no meaning behind the universe. There's no thought behind anything. That even our own thoughts here today, these ideas tell us, are nothing more than chemical reactions in our brain. Our brains are just fizzing like a can of soda that was opened, and our thoughts are just brain fizz. Everything is an illusion, all meaning is an illusion. Love is an illusion.

The Fine-Tuning of the Universe

Now this is a certain absurdity to all of this. Because I believe that every human being who's created in the image of God instinctively and intuitively knows that everything that was designed has a designer. We intuitively know that. Everything that is made had a maker. Everything that was created had a creator.

One of my children this week asked me to purchase for them for their birthday this year a Rolex watch. I had the same reaction. So they got on my phone, they Googled Rolex watches, they picked the one they wanted out. You know, it's a beautiful device. Incredibly crafted. The meticulous design, the precision, is world-class, world-renowned. And it's only the fool who would find a Rolex watch on the side of the road and think that somehow, time and chance acting on matter produced this masterpiece of a timepiece, that, "Oh, I guess maybe there was a tornado here that blew through, and maybe it hit a gold factory, and a sprocket factory, and a glass factory, and it threw it all together over time." It's absurd.

And yet, every single one of our organs in our body is infinitely more complex than a Rolex watch. Infinitely more complex. So why is it that we would look at something as elementary as a Rolex watch and think the idea that it ended up there without a designer, without a craftsman, without someone making it, is absolutely absurd, but then we come to looking at humanity, the crown jewel of God's creation, and we say, "Total accident. Total happenstance. Must have just gone that way."

The idea that nothing exploded, and time and chance, acting on matter, produced our planet, and just happened to produce it in such a way that the conditions were right for life to exist, but they can't even tell us how life began to exist. There's no idea about that. It was like there was some goop there that maybe some special lightning hit. And that goop turned into monkeys, and now here we are today, 2025. It's what people call "from the goo, through the zoo, to you." That's how we got here. Time and chance acting on matter.

I would encourage you to take some time and go study how finely tuned our universe is. It will blow your mind. Let me give you just a few of the conditions that have to be right for life to exist in our universe. And these are so finely tuned down to the most infinitesimal number that if they were to go one way or the other, there would be no reality. There would be no existence, there would be no universe, there would be no life.

The first is the constant of gravity. The gravitational constant. This determines the strength of gravity. It is so finely tuned that if it were weaker by one in 10 to the 36th power, by one degree, stars could not form. If it were stronger by one degree, stars would burn too hot and too fast. If there are no stars, there are no planets, there is no life. This number, one in 10 to the 36th degree, is like stretching a ruler—say you could take a ruler and stretch it across the known universe. That'd be a really long ruler. It would be billions and billions of light-years. And it would be like hitting the right mark on that ruler within the width of a single human hair. And if it varied by one hair all the way across the entire universe, one way or the other, life cannot exist. That's just gravity.

We have also the cosmological constant. That's the density of empty space, which controls the expansion rate of the universe, how fast the universe is expanding. This is so finely tuned that if it was off by one part in 10 to the 120th power—that's a 10 with 120 zeros after it—the universe would expand too quickly and galaxies would not be able to form.

I could go on and on and on. The strength of nuclear force, that's the power that holds protons and neutrons together in the nucleus of atoms. If it were 2% stronger, there would only be hydrogen in the universe. If it were 2% weaker, there would be no atoms that could be held together. There would be no chemistry, there would be no biology, there would be no life. There's also the ratio of electrons to protons in the universe finely tuned, and the initial conditions of our universe. Now, the probability that all of these conditions would just happen to be the way that they are, without a designer, without an intelligence, without a superhuman mind behind it all, the number is so staggeringly large, that number is larger than the number of atoms in the universe.

And we have people being taught today in our schools that your ancient ancestors used to be fish. And it's never explained, "Well, how did fish learn how to swim underwater? How do they develop that ability?" "Well, it evolved over time. They learned to breathe over time. They developed gills and over billions and billions and billions of years, the ability to breathe underwater." I don't know about you, but if I didn't know how to swim, I'd have about two minutes to learn how to breathe underwater before I was dead. If you can't breathe underwater, you don't have billions of years to figure it out.

These ideas are insane. But they've been accepted and adopted because it's a way to get out from living under God's rule and authority in his world and in his universe. And the Bible tells us that mankind, without Christ, without being born again, regenerated by the Spirit of God, that mankind is dead in his trespasses and sin, is blinded by his own rebellion against God. So that humanity will embrace insanity in an unconverted condition to live in that state of rebellion against his creator.

Our universe does not bear the marks of a cosmic accident. But rather something that was intelligently designed. Existence itself, the fact that we exist, the fact that anything exists, existence itself is proof that there is an eternal God outside of time and space. Because if there was no God outside of time and space, time and space could have never begun. There had to be an eternal God, self-existent, no beginning, no end, for anything to begin, for anything to exist at all. It requires the existence of Almighty God. Take away God, you take away everything.

What It Means to Be an Image Bearer

Now, we are made by God. We are part of his creation, but we are not like the lower part of creation. We are not like trees. We are not like the sand, we are not like animals and apes. We are distinct, though we're part of God's creation. We're distinct from creation, as we bear his image. What does that mean?

It means that we are equal, different persons. We are persons. We are distinct from one another. We think, we choose, we feel, just as God is a person. God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So too are we persons, individuals who think, who choose, who feel, who reason.

Human beings are not machines. Again, the materialist says we are nothing but biological machines. We're nothing but really good-looking meat. No. We are not machines. We are not animals led and dominated by our baser instincts. We are moral agents, endowed by our creator with a sense of what is right and a sense of what is wrong. We have a conscience. It is hardwired into us, and we judge ourselves and others by that standard of right and wrong. God holds us responsible for our actions of good and evil because we are moral agents. We are responsible for our lives. Our lives, our actions, our thoughts, our words have moral consequences.

If a tiger came in here and mauled someone to death, we wouldn't condemn that tiger for sinning. In fact, what we would do is we would prosecute the person who was so negligent with their pet tiger across the street that let them in here. The owner of that tiger would be morally responsible. Because humanity is a moral agent, and animals are not. They're just led by their baser instincts. But when we adopt the idea that humanity is no different than the rest of creation, then it brings in the possibility that we can just be led by our flesh. We can be led by our desires. We're nothing more than animals, so just do whatever feels good, do whatever comes naturally. But in fact, we are not animals. We are image bearers. We're able to think, we're able to reason, we're able to make choices, decisions that we are responsible for. We have feelings that are tied to all of that. We have the conscience, with God writing on our hearts good and evil, making us responsible before God for our actions.

Not only that, but we have higher intelligence. Humanity is capable of great feats of learning, discovery, of memory, recalling things, of logic, of reason, of producing arts and works of art, of music, of great cinematic feats that lift the soul and lift the spirit. We have the capacity for love. The capacity for love. No other creature has the capacity for love that humanity does, because we are persons made in the image of God. And we are taught to love first and foremost the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and strength. And finally, to be created in the image of God means that we are immortal souls. We have an eternal destiny. We will live on forever in one of two places. We will never cease to exist, but will exist for all eternity.

And so God created mankind in his image and likeness, giving us dominion over the earth to use our lives, to use the substance that he gave us to glorify and exalt him, to extend his glory over the creation and into all of the earth. We were not made to live for our own glory. But we were made to glorify, to reflect God's nature, God's character, God's attributes, who he is to the world.

Now, it says here that we were made male and female. There's sexuality there. This distinction between male and female, to be fruitful and multiply, again sexuality comes into play. We'll deal with that more next week of using our sexuality to glorify God. But where I want us to think just for a few more minutes today is that we have to recognize this: that so much of the messages, the words, the thoughts that's brought to us through conversations at work, through music, through media, through movies, through social media, through the news—we consume so much of it, if not most of it, if not 99% of it, is coming from a worldview with the assumptions that are radically different than what God's word says. It's coming with it baked in the assumptions of the redefinition of man. The assumptions of a godless view of the world.

So that we get now to the place where we see the family today eroded in our culture, and it becomes the result of people who are living in rebellion against God and their creator. And we have to recognize it as that. We have to see it as that. We have to see God's design. We have to see that we are not animals, that we are his image bearers, that we are made to give him glory, that our lives don't belong to us. They belong to him. He is our Lord, he's our Savior, he's our King, he's our God. We glorify him by bringing ourselves under his authority and word, or we live in rebellion against him and invite chaos and confusion into our world.

Christ's Restorative Work in the Family

Now in this Ephesians passage, it says that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. And it gives us this beautiful picture of Jesus who sacrificed himself for his people to redeem us as his bride. And that he is working right now to purify us. He is washing us, it says, with his word. So that when he returns, he may present us, his church, to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that we would be holy and without blemish.

That's what God is doing in our lives now today. If you belong to Jesus, this is what he's doing in your life. He's washing you. He's cleansing you. He's making you clean. Cleansing you of what? Of all of the lies of the deceit, of the philosophies of this world that keep us bound. He's setting us free with the truth to produce in us the true image of God again, that was marred because of the fall, that is being renewed and restored because of the gospel, because of Jesus.

So Paul will say in Galatians 4, he says, "My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you." This is what Christ is doing. He is forming himself in us. His nature, his character, his image again. Where we were marred by sin and Satan and death and evil, we are now being in Christ renewed. The image of God restored, Christ being formed in us, which is a conflict with the way our world thinks.

Romans 8:29 says that those whom God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. This is what God is doing in our lives. He's transforming us. He's renewing us. He's making us look more like Jesus. And the more we look like Jesus, the less and less we're going to look like the culture. The less and less we're going to look like the world. The less and less we're going to fit in. And in fact, the more and more we will be salt and we will be light, standing out.

You see, the gospel, what Jesus is doing is not just about saving our souls for heaven, which I'm glad that he did. But it's about Christ being formed in us. It's about being conformed to his image. It's a total redefinition of reality. Where I am no longer number one. He is number one. He is the Creator. I am his creature made in his image for his glory. Whereas before, I pursued my own passions, I pursued my own lust, I did what I thought would make me happy, but now in Christ, I pursue his will, his purpose. And yes, even when it comes to marriage, his word and what it teaches.

This means that now in Christ, every thought must be taken captive. Every philosophy must be evaluated and re-evaluated. Every emotion, every feeling, every desire that I have must be submitted to Jesus Christ. And this is not just a one-time thing where you walk the aisle and get baptized or say a prayer. This is an ongoing daily battle. This is a moment by moment, minute by minute, second by second, taking every thought captive, making it obey Christ.

The gospel is not only about going to heaven one day when we die, the gospel is about how we live on earth. And that by living the kingdom way on earth, we would see his kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This starts in our homes. It starts with us as individuals. It starts with us as married couples, a husband and a wife. It starts with us as parents. It starts with us as children being obedient to our parents. Living under the authority of God's word is how we seek first his kingdom. That his kingdom would come, and his will would be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

The collapse of the family in our culture, it is the result of a deeper rebellion against God's design for humanity itself. And if we are going to recover strong families in our day, we must begin by recovering this biblical definition of what it means to be human. God is my creator. I was made in his image for his glory.

And this starts and ends and continues at the very foot of the cross, which was God's plan to reconcile the world to himself. The cross shows us the lengths that God was willing to go to purchase us back from death and destruction, to bring us out of the chaos that our world lives in because of sin. And it's as we look to Jesus, as we look to the cross, as we look to his love and his great sacrifice, we see how much he loves us. And so as we begin to think about moving forward, putting some of these practices into place with regards to our sexuality, with regards husbands, and wives, and children, we need to never forget God gave us his word because of how much he loves us. Even if we can't see how this might work in our families, we trust him because he loves us. And he shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, he died for us.