back to indexBerean Community Church Sunday Service 8/16/2020
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Hello everyone at Beroean Community Church and online viewers. 00:34:02.000 |
My name is Joshua Chun. I've been a member at Beroean Community Church for two years. 00:34:07.000 |
I first attended in 2014 during my extended breaks from school. 00:34:22.000 |
So before receiving Christ, I knew God only as a merciful God. 00:34:27.000 |
I pictured him as an old grandfather ready to see me whenever I please with forgiveness in his hand. 00:34:33.000 |
Although this is true that God, although it is true that God does have mercy and forgiveness for me, 00:34:40.000 |
the single faceted view of God led me to abuse the love and grace that he has given me. 00:34:45.000 |
The Bible says that God is King and Lord, but my actions never reflected that truth. 00:34:51.000 |
Born and raised in the church, I learned what the gospel was at a young age. 00:34:56.000 |
Soon after, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior and was sprinkled baptized in middle school. 00:35:03.000 |
Reflecting back on my baptism and life after baptism, 00:35:08.000 |
I didn't truly understand the Lord part of my confession. 00:35:13.000 |
I still kept forging my own path, doing as I pleased, 00:35:18.000 |
and attached Jesus to my goals to keep them aligned with his will. 00:35:28.000 |
He is so much more than just the one I pray for to relieve my guilty conscience. 00:35:33.000 |
I always wanted a miraculous moment, a feeling of enlightenment, 00:35:39.000 |
an "aha" moment where all of a sudden I know God and I knew his will, but that wasn't the case. 00:35:46.000 |
Like many of you, it was just a gradual growth in the faith. 00:35:53.000 |
With the help of older brothers and the community around me, and of course the Holy Spirit, 00:35:58.000 |
God has revealed so much more than just his mercy. 00:36:02.000 |
The holiness of God, his sovereignty, and his lordship have changed my faith greatly. 00:36:08.000 |
About three to four years ago, I understood and accepted the kingship part, 00:36:14.000 |
and all the groundwork that had been laid in my life was solidified. 00:36:20.000 |
As it says in Philippians 1.6, "For I am confident of this very thing, 00:36:25.000 |
that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." 00:36:32.000 |
I'm still not perfect, far from it, but I have faith that God will lead me the entire way. 00:36:40.000 |
After receiving Christ, my view of God and also myself has been transformed. 00:36:46.000 |
The chasm between God and man is no longer great, but impossible. 00:36:52.000 |
A sinful man can only come before a thrice holy God by the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. 00:37:01.000 |
I have no means of my own to be washed clean of the filth we call sin. 00:37:06.000 |
Reading from Ephesians 1.13, "And you were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, 00:37:17.000 |
When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit." 00:37:23.000 |
It is such a big burden lifted off my shoulders, knowing that there is nothing that I could do to make it into heaven. 00:37:32.000 |
That it is an impossible feat, not attainable by anyone here, 00:37:41.000 |
but only by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. 00:37:46.000 |
By that grace, I stand here today a reborn man. 00:37:50.000 |
Or at least I will be after I get into the law. 00:37:59.000 |
But there is no place I'd rather be than in his courts. 00:38:06.000 |
To know him and do his bidding is the greatest gift of grace that we could receive. 00:38:17.000 |
Doctor, do you understand when you go into the water, you're united with Christ in his death? 00:38:34.000 |
And then when you're coming out, you are united with his resurrected life? 00:38:39.000 |
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 00:38:47.000 |
If you can turn your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 10. 00:39:04.000 |
We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 18, but I'm not going to read the whole thing because it's a little bit lengthy. 00:39:19.000 |
I'm just going to read the first seven verses before we jump in. 00:39:25.000 |
And again, I strongly encourage you, the text that we're going to be looking at each week is going to be posted up on Saturday. 00:39:33.000 |
So you can kind of guess what text I'm going to be on even before I put it on. 00:39:38.000 |
But if you just want to be sure, just highly encourage you to do that before you come on Sunday. 00:39:44.000 |
It'll help you to be able to follow along the text. 00:40:35.000 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your blessing. 00:40:37.000 |
We thank you for the good things that you've given us, things that we are aware of, 00:40:42.000 |
things that you are doing behind the scenes that we are not aware of. 00:40:46.000 |
Help us, Lord, to open our eyes to see your glory. 00:40:49.000 |
May your word shine greater light to who you are. 00:40:52.000 |
We thank you and we love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 00:40:56.000 |
You know, despite the pandemic and things being shut down, 00:41:02.000 |
there's a lot of people who are getting married, especially at our church. 00:41:06.000 |
I think every year there's probably at least 10 to maybe even 17 weddings that are going on. 00:41:11.000 |
And I know there's actually quite a few couples right now preparing 00:41:15.000 |
and trying to figure out how to get this done in the pandemic. 00:41:19.000 |
And I think all the pastors are engaged in some sort of marriage counseling 00:41:25.000 |
as this is going on and trying to figure out how to do all of these things. 00:41:28.000 |
But I think one of the key things, at least for me, when I meet with the young couples, 00:41:35.000 |
I've learned throughout the years talking to various couples 00:41:39.000 |
that one of the major conflicts in marriage is usually communication. 00:41:44.000 |
And often people fight about how they're fighting rather than what they're fighting about. 00:41:49.000 |
You know, like how they said something or how they reacted to how somebody said something. 00:41:54.000 |
And so much of it is because we have a difficult time communicating and understanding each other. 00:41:59.000 |
Some of you are like me. I tend to be more direct. 00:42:03.000 |
If I have something to say, I'll just say it. 00:42:05.000 |
I'll say it and you don't need to read between the lines. 00:42:11.000 |
If I'm upset, I'll tell you I'm upset. If I'm sad, I'll tell you I'm sad. 00:42:14.000 |
I'm not going to leave it out there and hopefully you guess. 00:42:20.000 |
Some of you, yes means yes, it could mean maybe, maybe no. 00:42:24.000 |
And it's kind of thrown out there and communication is not as direct 00:42:28.000 |
because you tend to be more soft, compassionate, just a better person. 00:42:36.000 |
But whatever the case is, the way we communicate is different. 00:42:40.000 |
And so we kind of have to figure out what they mean by this and how they mean by that. 00:42:45.000 |
And I think there is a benefit in both ways to communicate. 00:42:50.000 |
When we think about the Old Testament, the Bible says that God spoke in shadows. 00:42:57.000 |
The tabernacle, it says in verse one, is a shadow and it's not the reality. 00:43:04.000 |
If you think about what he was communicating, 00:43:07.000 |
he was talking about his nature and the salvation of mankind. 00:43:13.000 |
Why didn't he just spell out, this is Jesus, this is atonement, 00:43:18.000 |
this is pointing to the fact that your sins aren't going to be forgiven until he comes, 00:43:23.000 |
he's going to come on this day, he's going to do this, this, and this. 00:43:25.000 |
The shadow basically causes us to look at that and do some work to figure out what does this mean? 00:43:36.000 |
So the question that we ask is why did he communicate that way? 00:43:41.000 |
I think in different cultures, just like I said, I'm the type of person that tends to be direct, 00:43:47.000 |
and then there's other people who kind of beat around the bush because they don't want to hurt your feelings, 00:43:51.000 |
and they'll say certain things hoping that you'll get it. 00:43:56.000 |
And I realize that the Western culture gravitates toward the New Testament because the New Testament is direct. 00:44:03.000 |
It'll tell you, I'm Apostle Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, 00:44:08.000 |
and I'm writing to you because these are my concerns, and these are five things that I want you to think about, 00:44:18.000 |
You come to the Old Testament, and you have some sacrifices, you have some incest, 00:44:22.000 |
you have some idol worship, and then the end. 00:44:28.000 |
And it's not crystal clear, and you kind of have to work to figure out what is the point here. 00:44:35.000 |
Years ago, I was at a pastors conference, Together for the Gospel, and there's probably over 3,000 pastors there, 00:44:41.000 |
and I remember one of the keynote speakers asked us, 00:44:44.000 |
"How many of you pastors are preaching through the Old Testament?" 00:44:48.000 |
And so out of 3,000, only about 10 of us stood up, 00:44:51.000 |
and I just happened to be one of those people who were standing, and I was very filled with pride. 00:44:59.000 |
But I was surprised that out of that many people, only a handful of us are preaching through the Old Testament. 00:45:06.000 |
So obviously his encouragement was, "We need to get to the Old Testament." 00:45:10.000 |
And the reason why we need to get to the Old Testament is because Old Testament prepares us for the New Testament. 00:45:15.000 |
And just like anything else, because we live in a culture where we gravitate toward clear communication, 00:45:22.000 |
we think that if it's not clear, we're just kind of like, "Okay, let the theologians and the seminary people, 00:45:30.000 |
And so most people on the Western side, where you and I live, are pretty vague about the Old Testament. 00:45:35.000 |
We know the big stories about Noah, and we know about the flood, and we know about Abraham and Moses and the 10 plagues, 00:45:43.000 |
but as soon as you go beyond that Sunday school lessons, very few people understand what's going on in the Old Testament. 00:45:51.000 |
But there's a reason why two-thirds of the Bible are written in this format. 00:46:00.000 |
So what I want to look at today, this morning, in Hebrews chapter 10, 00:46:04.000 |
when he says all these things were given as a shadow of the good things to come, 00:46:14.000 |
Why did he establish and put so much teaching of the tabernacle, and how does that affect us as Christians? 00:46:22.000 |
Okay, so there's three things we want to look at in chapter 10. 00:46:25.000 |
Number one, God used a shadow to cause us to long for the reality. 00:46:33.000 |
We're talking about the tabernacle system and pretty much the old covenant. 00:46:37.000 |
He communicated through the shadow to cause us to long for the reality. 00:46:41.000 |
In Hebrews chapter 10, verse 1, it says, "For the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come, 00:46:49.000 |
In other words, if you're sitting somewhere and you see a big shadow that's coming, 00:46:54.000 |
the first thing you want to do is to do what? 00:47:03.000 |
So he said that the tabernacle was established as a shadow pointing to the reality that is to come. 00:47:10.000 |
In fact, the word "gospel" in the New Testament is called a mystery. 00:47:18.000 |
And the word "mousterion" literally means this, and this is straight out of the Bible dictionary. 00:47:22.000 |
"Mousterion" is that which is known to the "mouestes," the initiated. 00:47:32.000 |
But basically what it means is, the gospel, the mystery means revelation to those who are seeking. 00:47:43.000 |
That's basically what the gospel means. Mystery. 00:47:47.000 |
It is information that is given to those who are seeking. 00:47:53.000 |
And that's exactly what Jesus says when we look at the Beatitudes. 00:48:00.000 |
And one of the Beatitudes is, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." 00:48:09.000 |
Those who are hungering and thirsting shall be satisfied. 00:48:13.000 |
Not those who are just religiously going through the motion, but those who are actively seeking. 00:48:19.000 |
So the first thing that he says is, the purpose of the shadow is to cause in us a hungering for the reality. 00:48:35.000 |
You know, sometimes I've been to a wedding, I've been to weddings where the appetizer is so good. 00:48:45.000 |
You're out there and, man, this shrimp is awesome. 00:48:48.000 |
And then the next thing comes out, it's like, oh my gosh, that was better than the other one. 00:48:52.000 |
And then the next thing comes out, it's like, oh my gosh, this is so good. 00:48:55.000 |
And as you eat the appetizer, you can't help but thinking, if the appetizer is this good, 00:49:02.000 |
I wonder how good the main course is going to be. 00:49:10.000 |
It's to prepare you, get your taste buds ready, get your stomach juices flowing, and to anticipate. 00:49:17.000 |
Now, if you get full with the appetite, you don't have any room for that. 00:49:25.000 |
I've been to weddings where the appetizer was better than the main meal, right? 00:49:29.000 |
But the purpose of the appetizer is to prepare you and to long for what is coming. 00:49:36.000 |
The shadow is kind of an appetizer to prepare us for the reality that was going to be found in Christ. 00:49:46.000 |
That's why it says in Matthew 7, 7 through 8, "Ask and it will be given to you. 00:49:50.000 |
Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. 00:49:53.000 |
For everyone who asks, receives. He who seeks, finds. 00:50:01.000 |
You know, as a pastor, one of the things that I really enjoy engaging in is people asking questions. 00:50:11.000 |
Now, there's a difference between asking questions and questioning. 00:50:17.000 |
Sometimes people question because it's like, "I don't agree with you. 00:50:23.000 |
So they're not looking for answers. They're just challenging. 00:50:27.000 |
But there are times when people will ask, genuinely ask questions because they want to know. 00:50:32.000 |
"Oh, I'm curious. I heard this. I don't get this. I want to know." 00:50:38.000 |
People will say, "Oh, I don't want to bother you because you're so busy." 00:50:43.000 |
So when people are genuinely seeking, right, it's great to be able to engage and participate in that type of interaction. 00:50:54.000 |
You may ask, "Why does God even make us ask? Why does He just tell us? 00:50:59.000 |
Why does He make us seek? Why does He just show up? 00:51:03.000 |
Why does He ask us to knock? Why does He just keep the door open?" 00:51:08.000 |
See, the whole point of what He's doing is He provided everything that we need for our salvation. 00:51:16.000 |
But the only criteria, the only thing that He was asking of us is to seek Him. 00:51:21.000 |
He wasn't just standing out and saying, "Well, if you show up to church, I'm just going to pass it out. 00:51:25.000 |
If you show up to church and you're just raising a Christian home, I'm just going to pass it out." 00:51:35.000 |
Are you going to follow Christ or are you just going to go through the motion? 00:51:40.000 |
So the whole purpose of the tabernacle is to instill in us a hungering and thirsting for righteousness 00:51:47.000 |
so that when we see the shadow, we would continue to ask the question, "What is the reality?" 00:51:52.000 |
If the shadow is this good, what must the reality be like? 00:52:01.000 |
You know, in 1 Corinthians 13, 9 it says, "For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 00:52:05.000 |
but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with." 00:52:09.000 |
Even now, the whole purpose of the Old Testament was to stir them up for the coming of Christ. 00:52:15.000 |
Now that Christ has come and He departed, part of the purpose of our gathering 00:52:20.000 |
is to stir us up for anticipation for His second coming. 00:52:25.000 |
So in order for us to anticipate that our hope is not here, but ultimately over there. 00:52:32.000 |
That's why He says in 1 Corinthians 13, 12, "For now we see in a mirror dimly, 00:52:39.000 |
but then face to face, now I know in part, but then I will know fully, 00:52:47.000 |
You know, you and I are gathered together here, and I know it's hot, you know, 00:52:51.000 |
and it may be uncomfortable, but you're not here because you miss my face, right? 00:53:01.000 |
You're not here because I'm so riveting that you're hanging on every single word. 00:53:09.000 |
Every once in a while I'll hear my own sermon, and I can't stand my own voice. 00:53:16.000 |
The only reason why you and I are gathered together is because we've tasted the goodness of God. 00:53:20.000 |
I just happen to be a mouthpiece in which I'm pointing you to Christ. 00:53:24.000 |
But I don't have--I'm not gifted enough, talented enough, or articulated enough 00:53:28.000 |
to gather your attention in this hot sun for even a week. 00:53:35.000 |
You and I are here because we've tasted the goodness of God, and we want more. 00:53:40.000 |
But he says, "No matter what it is that you have experienced with God," he said, 00:53:46.000 |
It's dim, and all of this is to build anticipation. 00:53:49.000 |
If Jesus that I met, even the little bit that I've tasted, is this good, 00:53:54.000 |
what is it going to be like when we get to heaven?" 00:53:57.000 |
The shadow was given to us to point to the reality, 00:54:00.000 |
to cause us to hunger for the reality in Christ. 00:54:03.000 |
One of the questions that we commonly get is, 00:54:06.000 |
"If you go to heaven, what will you say to Jesus?" 00:54:12.000 |
I remember--I think it was last week when we were having the family feud 00:54:16.000 |
that the Wongs put together, and one of the questions that was asked is, 00:54:20.000 |
"What's a question that you would ask Jesus if you went to heaven?" 00:54:29.000 |
Not, "What am I going to ask?" Like, "How am I going to react?" 00:54:32.000 |
I remember when I was younger, when I first became a Christian, 00:54:36.000 |
because I was young in my teenage years, I was thinking, 00:54:39.000 |
"Oh, when I meet Jesus, I'm going to hold his hands, I'm going to hug him," 00:54:42.000 |
even though I wasn't a baby at that time because I see him as a father figure. 00:54:47.000 |
Now that I'm in my 50s, that doesn't seem appropriate. 00:55:00.000 |
My first question is, "What happened to Andrew? 00:55:03.000 |
Why did he invite everybody and then not a part of the inner three?" 00:55:07.000 |
I want to know the human drama that happened with Andrew. 00:55:12.000 |
Pastor Peter Chung said that his question is, 00:55:19.000 |
You may all have different questions, but I think when we finally meet Christ, 00:55:32.000 |
If the small glimpse that we've tasted of the goodness of God is only dimly, 00:55:41.000 |
what is the reality going to be when we're actually face-to-face with him? 00:55:45.000 |
See, that's what the shadow was for, is to build anticipation 00:55:52.000 |
that no matter how tempting and no matter how great it may seem temporarily, 00:55:56.000 |
in light of the surpassing knowledge of knowing Jesus Christ, 00:56:04.000 |
The second purpose of the shadow is to cause us to long for true forgiveness. 00:56:11.000 |
Hebrews 10, 1-4, "By the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, 00:56:19.000 |
Otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, 00:56:21.000 |
because the worshippers, having once been cleansed, 00:56:23.000 |
would no longer have the consciousness of sins." 00:56:26.000 |
In other words, their repeated need for sacrifices pointed to the fact 00:56:33.000 |
If the sacrifices that they made took away their sins, 00:56:38.000 |
You see, the fact that they needed to do it over and over again 00:56:41.000 |
was to teach him that they needed true forgiveness. 00:56:45.000 |
Verse 3, "But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins, year by year, 00:56:51.000 |
for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." 00:56:56.000 |
The purpose of these sacrifices was not to take away sins, 00:57:06.000 |
When you make the sacrifices, you think, "Well, now I'm holy, now I'm clean, 00:57:12.000 |
But the author here is saying the purpose of these sacrifices, 00:57:15.000 |
and why it was done repeatedly over and over again, 00:57:18.000 |
is to remind them that no matter how much sacrifices you made, 00:57:35.000 |
they would put their hands symbolizing the sins of Israel going out to the wilderness 00:57:39.000 |
and the scapegoat being sacrificed for their sins. 00:57:44.000 |
and then next year they'd have to do it again. 00:57:50.000 |
that those sacrifices had no power to actually forgive them. 00:57:54.000 |
It's to remind them that the sins will still remain. 00:57:57.000 |
You know, I think the best way to understand the shadow, the tabernacle, 00:58:04.000 |
I've met some people who refuse to take Tylenol. 00:58:08.000 |
And the reasoning that they give is, "Well, Tylenol doesn't fix the problem. 00:58:18.000 |
"You know, I'm not going to take Tylenol because it harms my body, 00:58:24.000 |
Maybe you got a headache because of dehydration. 00:58:26.000 |
And so you take the pill to get rid of the headache, 00:58:32.000 |
So Tylenol can be harmful if you never deal with the problem. 00:58:37.000 |
If you don't drink water, if you take Tylenol 00:58:39.000 |
and you don't drink enough water to get rid of the reason behind the headache, 00:58:44.000 |
So some people--and I've met some doctors who don't believe in taking Tylenol, right? 00:58:52.000 |
We can function. It doesn't deal with the problem. 00:58:55.000 |
We have to drink the water. We have to deal with the problem. 00:58:57.000 |
But having the headache go away helps me to read, 00:59:01.000 |
helps me to study, helps me to function, without really curing the problem. 00:59:11.000 |
in order to be able to have a covenant relationship with this God 00:59:19.000 |
It took away the immediate symptom to be able to function with God, 00:59:24.000 |
but it constantly told them, "But the problem still remains 00:59:30.000 |
When Tylenol wears off, you have to do it again. 00:59:32.000 |
You have to take it again because you're still dehydrated." 00:59:36.000 |
See, he says that's the reason why he has this. 00:59:39.000 |
So anybody who relies on their good deeds and religiousness, 00:59:44.000 |
all they're doing is masking their sins with good works. 00:59:52.000 |
But eventually the real problem is going to surface over and over and over again. 01:00:03.000 |
"All these sacrifices were the reminders of sins year by year 01:00:07.000 |
to cause them to remember, 'You are in your sins.'" 01:00:13.000 |
"And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." 01:00:20.000 |
The whole reason why he caused us to remember our sins 01:00:37.000 |
who can actually deal with the actual problem of sins. 01:00:40.000 |
And when we give it to him, he says he will remember it no more. 01:00:47.000 |
He said that's why he communicated to us through the tabernacle 01:00:53.000 |
In Psalm 103.12, "As far as the east is from the west, 01:00:57.000 |
so far has he removed our transmissions from us." 01:01:02.000 |
"I, even I, am the one who wipes out the transgressions of my own sake, 01:01:11.000 |
I wanted you to remember so that you will recognize 01:01:18.000 |
You know, Satan has a lot of different names. 01:01:21.000 |
But one of his key names that identifies how he works in our lives 01:01:34.000 |
So if you have anything that he can cause you to feel guilty 01:01:37.000 |
and stray away from God, he said that's his duty. 01:01:41.000 |
In Jeremiah 50.20, this is what God says about the sins of Israel. 01:01:48.000 |
if you've ever read through the Old Testament, 01:01:54.000 |
How the curse of the law was being added upon them 01:01:59.000 |
generation after generation after generation. 01:02:06.000 |
Almost every single king in Israel led Israel to sin. 01:02:11.000 |
But here was what it says, Jeremiah 50.20 in the New Covenant. 01:02:15.000 |
It says, "In those days and at that time, declares the Lord, 01:02:19.000 |
search will be made for the iniquity of Israel, 01:02:27.000 |
He said, they're going to try to accuse Israel for their sins. 01:02:32.000 |
They're going to search for their sins, but there will be none. 01:02:34.000 |
And for the sins of Judah, but they will not be able to be found. 01:02:38.000 |
For I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant. 01:02:44.000 |
They're going to look to accuse Israel, but not because they are righteous. 01:02:59.000 |
They will search, actively search, to find reasons to disqualify them. 01:03:04.000 |
But they will not find it, he says, because I will pardon them. 01:03:11.000 |
It's to remind us of our sins, so that we would run to the one who will not remember. 01:03:16.000 |
Third and finally, God used the shadow to cause us to long for true worship. 01:03:24.000 |
The text that we're looking at in verse 5 through 9 is almost verbatim, 01:03:29.000 |
a copy of Psalm chapter 40, verse 6 through 8. 01:03:32.000 |
Where David is crying out to God, and this is what he says. 01:03:37.000 |
He says, "Sacrifice an offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me." 01:03:45.000 |
Sacrifice an offering you have not desired, meaning God did not desire it. 01:03:58.000 |
He didn't say, "Worship of idols I did not desire." 01:04:03.000 |
We spent almost a year and a half studying the book of Leviticus about what God desired of these sacrifices. 01:04:09.000 |
And yet here in Psalm, David says, "Sacrifice an offering you have not desired." 01:04:17.000 |
Why did you go through all of that drama, tell them to sacrifice, and then when they gave sacrifices, God said, "I don't want it." 01:04:23.000 |
And then verse 6, "In whole burnt offerings and sacrifice sin you have not taken any pleasure." 01:04:31.000 |
Not only did he not like it when they gave it, he said he found no pleasure. 01:04:36.000 |
Verse 7, "Then I said, 'Behold, I have come in the scroll of the book it is written of me to do your will, O God.' 01:04:41.000 |
And after saying above, 'Sacrifice an offering, then whole burnt offerings, and sacrifice for sin you have not desired, 01:04:48.000 |
nor have you taken pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law.'" 01:04:53.000 |
In case anybody was thinking that the burnt offerings, they didn't follow the rules. 01:05:00.000 |
I told you to give a goat offering, you gave a lamb. 01:05:03.000 |
I told you to give a bull, but you gave this. 01:05:10.000 |
Then why is he saying he finds no pleasure in them? 01:05:14.000 |
Why does he say there's no pleasure in all of that? 01:05:17.000 |
In fact, one of the harshest rebukes toward the nation of Israel is written in the book of Amos and Isaiah. 01:05:30.000 |
In Amos chapter 5, 21-23, listen carefully to the rebuke of Israel. 01:05:44.000 |
And yet God says, "I hate, I reject your festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies." 01:05:52.000 |
"Even though you offer up to me burnt offerings." 01:06:01.000 |
I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. 01:06:17.000 |
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps." 01:06:22.000 |
And you can dissect all of this and say, "Well, they're just following your instruction. 01:06:25.000 |
We're assembling because you told us to assemble. 01:06:29.000 |
We're sacrificing because you told us to sacrifice." 01:06:37.000 |
"When you come to appear before me, who required of you this trampling of my courts?" 01:06:43.000 |
We just automatically assume because we're gathered, he must be pleased. 01:06:54.000 |
I mean, we're pretty soft Christians here in the United States, but this is hard business. 01:07:03.000 |
We just automatically assume if I showed up, God is worship. 01:07:07.000 |
But he said, "Who required of you this trampling of my court?" 01:07:23.000 |
New moon and Sabbath are the calling of the assemblies. 01:07:25.000 |
I cannot endure iniquities in solemn assembly. 01:07:28.000 |
I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feast. 01:07:37.000 |
Every little thing that he mentions in this text are things that he commanded the nation of Israel, 01:07:48.000 |
Because God didn't ask for sacrifices because he was a connoisseur of dead meat. 01:07:55.000 |
God didn't tell them to assemble because he liked his people coming and he wants to hear good music. 01:08:08.000 |
All of this was a shadow to point to the reality that we can only find in Christ. 01:08:12.000 |
And what the Jews did was they gathered together and was going through the motion and checking off the list 01:08:17.000 |
and thinking that that made them righteous before God. 01:08:21.000 |
And God says, "Your superficial worship to me is a burden." 01:08:27.000 |
It does nothing other than blind us to think that we're righteous. 01:08:32.000 |
Our sacrifices, our giving, our leadership, our singing, all of that in God's eyes become a burden 01:08:41.000 |
because it fools us to think that we are more righteous than we really are. 01:08:47.000 |
Sometimes those people who've been raised in the church in good Christian homes are the first ones to be blinded. 01:08:54.000 |
Those who have positions in the church as leaders in the church are the first ones to be blinded 01:09:00.000 |
because we automatically assume that our title, our position, our work somehow makes us more righteous before God. 01:09:08.000 |
But what God desires more than anything else is true worship. 01:09:12.000 |
What he wanted was worship, not the assembly, not the sacrifice, but worship. 01:09:19.000 |
Hosea 6, 6, "For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offering." 01:09:31.000 |
We always say God pursued us, but when was the last time you were hungering and thirsting for God 01:09:36.000 |
and you wanted Him and you wanted to know what He had to say 01:09:40.000 |
and you went to the scriptures because you wanted to hear from Him, 01:09:43.000 |
not because you were accountable to the small group that you were at, 01:09:46.000 |
not because you're a small group leader, not because of the title, 01:09:49.000 |
not because there's a test coming up, but because you wanted to know God. 01:09:54.000 |
Because you wanted to worship Him in spirit and in truth. 01:09:57.000 |
He says the whole purpose of the tabernacle was to instill in us a hungering and thirsting 01:10:02.000 |
that we may come to Him to give Him true worship. 01:10:05.000 |
And that's why in Hebrews 10, 15-16, the new covenant is described this way. 01:10:12.000 |
And the Holy Spirit also testified to us for after saying, 01:10:15.000 |
"This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord. 01:10:19.000 |
I will put my laws upon their heart and on their mind I will write them." 01:10:27.000 |
It is what is God doing in our hearts that we express through our mouth is what God desires. 01:10:33.000 |
That's why when He encountered the Samaritan woman and say, 01:10:36.000 |
"Well, you Jews worship on that mountain," but we say, "With that mountain," 01:10:42.000 |
They worship and they may have the truth and you may think you have the spirit, 01:10:46.000 |
but what God is looking for are people who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. 01:10:52.000 |
It is not enough that you and I learn the Bible week after week. 01:10:57.000 |
In fact, we can easily be fooled because the Word is getting into you that that's enough. 01:11:08.000 |
And all that will do is to give you false confidence that somehow you're more righteous than other people 01:11:15.000 |
if the Spirit of God is not moving you to worship, 01:11:18.000 |
if the Word of God is not causing you to be broken over your sins 01:11:23.000 |
and it doesn't cause us to reach out with the gospel, 01:11:27.000 |
and all it has done is added information after information after information. 01:11:32.000 |
What God desires is in spirit and in truth to worship Him. 01:11:42.000 |
In Romans chapter 1, chapter 12, didn't he say, 01:11:45.000 |
"In view of the mercy of God to present your body as a living sacrifice." 01:11:55.000 |
In the Old Testament, all the sacrifices fall into two categories, 01:11:59.000 |
the mandatory offering and the freewill offering. 01:12:03.000 |
You cannot get to the presence of God unless there's a burnt offering or whole offering or sin offering or guilt offering. 01:12:09.000 |
Those offerings had to be made in order to have a relationship with God. 01:12:16.000 |
It was when God blessed you or just out of the abundance of your heart, 01:12:21.000 |
And so it was not mandatory, but you voluntarily brought things to God and you worshiped. 01:12:27.000 |
In the new covenant, the mandatory offering is complete in Christ. 01:12:33.000 |
So when Jesus was dying on the cross, it says, "It is finished." 01:12:37.000 |
He's saying that the mandatory offering, what is mandated for us to come to God, has been done. 01:12:44.000 |
So when he requires of us a living sacrifice, he's talking about a freewill offering 01:12:49.000 |
for us to give to him from our hearts voluntarily. 01:12:54.000 |
So what we do, we volunteer to him because he's done so much for us. 01:12:59.000 |
Out of thankfulness, out of act of worship, we give to him. 01:13:05.000 |
because I want to express to my God what he has done for me. 01:13:10.000 |
I cannot begin to understand why he puts up with sinners. 01:13:16.000 |
And if there's any mystery that I just cannot figure out is, why does he love us? 01:13:28.000 |
I mean, I've said this many times, but I don't have any compassion for cockroaches. 01:13:45.000 |
And it's not because it brings disease. I just don't want it. 01:13:50.000 |
I think about our relationship with God and how we so easily get distracted, 01:13:57.000 |
how easily we complain because we didn't get what we wanted, 01:14:04.000 |
Everything else in this world seems so exciting, but God sometimes is bored. 01:14:18.000 |
Why doesn't the earth just explode? Enough of this. 01:14:22.000 |
These people burning Bibles and questioning me. 01:14:30.000 |
I know he promised that he would never crush us again with the flood, but he's God. 01:14:35.000 |
Once we're gone, who's going to question him? 01:14:53.000 |
I don't know about you, but I understand hell. 01:14:56.000 |
I mean, you can understand. I think you and I do understand hell. 01:15:01.000 |
Why an almighty God would create hell. I get it. 01:15:18.000 |
Why does he give his only begotten son for our sins? 01:15:25.000 |
And I'm not sure if I get to heaven that is going to be answered. 01:15:32.000 |
But the glimpse of what I have seen in him, there's nothing. 01:15:44.000 |
That as Christians living in this fallen world, 01:15:52.000 |
with all the things that make us uncomfortable, 01:15:58.000 |
lose the mystery of what it is that you and I sing every single Sunday. 01:16:06.000 |
The mystery of the cross, I cannot understand. 01:16:09.000 |
I pray that that mystery would cause us to persevere, endure, 01:16:14.000 |
to be bold in sharing the gospel, and be the light that God called us to be. 01:16:27.000 |
Father, we just want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts. 01:16:37.000 |
Even now, Lord God, as we come to worship you, 01:16:42.000 |
You know the distractions and the temptations, bitterness, Lord, 01:16:45.000 |
we harbor in our hearts, the anger that we refuse to let go of. 01:16:52.000 |
Help us, Lord God, to fix our eyes upon Christ, 01:16:56.000 |
what he has done, what he has endured, the grace that he's given us, 01:17:00.000 |
that we may have this life and have this life abundantly. 01:17:04.000 |
That everything that we do may be a reflection of that grace you've shown us. 01:17:12.000 |
that you would cause us to hunger and thirst for the reality. 01:17:16.000 |
As we remember our sins, that we would remember, Father God, 01:17:21.000 |
that only you can forgive us and cast away our sins. 01:17:27.000 |
That it would cause us to worship you genuinely in spirit and in truth. 01:17:38.000 |
Okay, can we all stand together again for a closing praise? 01:21:48.000 |
Heavenly Father, I pray for your blessing upon our church, 01:21:51.000 |
those who are at home and those who are here, 01:21:54.000 |
that you continue to unite our hearts together as one, 01:22:02.000 |
that we would lean on one another as we depend upon you. 01:22:07.000 |
whether in eating or drinking, may it be done for your glory. 01:22:15.000 |
eternal love of God the Father, rest, restore, sanctify, 01:22:18.000 |
and strengthen your church for the sake of your name. 01:23:43.000 |
All right, as we exit, if we can ask you guys from the back 01:23:46.000 |
to go out that way first, and then there are plenty of shades 01:23:49.000 |
on the front of the building, so you guys can kind of go over there 01:23:53.000 |
And for those of you who are in this middle section, 01:23:55.000 |
if you guys can help us just pick up the chairs 01:23:57.000 |
and then just put it up on the shelves before you leave.