Mosaic Covenant

Well, good morning to everybody. So glad to see you this morning. Thank you for being adventurous enough to come out in what is some kind of not so great weather that's starting to clear up a little bit. I know we'll have a bunch of people joining us online as well. I've heard that it snows in Western New York, so that's just a little thing. I also heard that there was, somebody told me that there was a game today. I don't know anything about it. My understanding is they call it the stupid bowl. 'Cause if we're Bills fans, we could care less about this game today. It feels a little bit like, you know, a story that we've been caught up in for decades, right? And it feels like it kind of repeats, but I wanna remind us all that the story is not over. Sometimes when you're in the middle of a story, it can feel daunting, right? And I'm not talking about the Bills at this point. Just sometimes in our stories it can feel a little daunting because we're not sure exactly where we are in the story, right? We're kind of thinking to ourselves, man, this does not look good. We don't fully know what comes next. We don't know how it ends. I still think back to the movie version of the book called The Lord of the Rings, where Frodo, who is the protagonist in the book, and his friend Samwise Gamgee who is so loyal to him, they are in a particularly difficult and precarious place in their adventure. It looks like darkness is gonna win and evil forces are gonna win. And here's what Sam says to Frodo. He said, it's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. I think that's wise advice and a wise perspective that we can adopt when we are moving our way through the grand drama of God. As we've been taking it kind of week by week and looking at the great story of God, I think this is a really good perspective because it can be a little disorienting when we see everything begin so beautifully, God making everything so beautiful and good. And then we see the decimation that sin causes everything and what it's wreaked even in humanity. I mean, we see Cain killing his brother Abel. We see the judgment by flood in the time of Noah on a violent and immoral people. We see the quest to become more like God through the building of a Tower of Babel. And thankfully last week we got a little bit of a reprieve with some hope because we ran into Genesis 12 and a man named Abraham that God had chosen and God made an unconditional covenant with Abraham. He promised that Abraham through you, there's going to be a people that's gonna be as numerous as the stars of the sky, as the sand of the seashore. It's gonna be extraordinary thing. And I'm gonna make for myself a people, they're gonna be a great people and they're gonna be a blessing to the nations. And out of you, a seed would emerge, an offspring, a seed is going to come, and from that line is going to be the rescue for people. But even in the middle of that incredible hopefulness, God reminds Abraham of something that's going to happen that Abraham's not gonna be around to see. He says it in Genesis chapter 15, beginning in verse 13, it says this. Then the Lord said to Abraham, know for certain that for 400 years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and that they'll be enslaved and mistreated there, but I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. Now, this is heavy, right? He's saying this people that's gonna come from you, this great nation that's gonna come from you, Abraham, they're gonna experience 400 years of captivity and mistreatment, but God is going to deliver them. And God did exactly what God said he would do, from Abraham came Isaac and then from Isaac came Jacob, and then Jacob had a bunch of kids, right? You remember Joseph? Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, ended up through a series of prisons and all kinds of crazy adventures that he was on, ends up in Egypt and now becomes second in charge next to the Pharaoh of leading Egypt and helps. God uses him to supply what is needed when there's a famine. Gave Joseph the wisdom to sort away and put away grain and wheat and all the things that were needed so that not only Israel would survive, this people would survive. But God brought great blessing through Joseph. But then Joseph died and then a few generations later, Egypt doesn't remember Joseph. They used to love him, but now they don't remember him. They just know that this people called Israel keeps growing and growing and growing and they don't like it at all. So they decide to take them into captivity as slaves for 400 years, just like God said. But God raised up a man named Moses, and Moses was there to deliver the people, speak to Pharaoh on behalf of God, and he delivers them out of Egypt and they cross the Red Sea on dry ground, and they start making their trek toward the land that God had unconditionally promised to Abraham, and they are on their way. Now that I've put you back into the context of our story, here's what happens when they're on their way in Exodus chapter number 19. On the first day of the third month after the Israelites left Egypt, on that very day, they came to the desert of Sinai, and after they set out from Rephidim, they entered the desert of Sinai and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain. Then Moses went up to God and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, this is what you're to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you're to tell the people of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you'll be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites. So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the Lord had commanded him to speak and the people all responded together, we will do everything the Lord has said. So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord. You see what God did here through Moses is that he entered into a covenant with the nation and the people of Israel, and as they enter into this covenant with Israel, as they enter into it with God, then Moses returns to Mount Sinai. He goes up to Mount Sinai to meet with God, where God gives him the 10 Commandments, the stone tablets. You remember that? And then he gets into specifics about the matters of the law that he's going to tell Moses for the nation of Israel. Now, he covered everything. I mean, there were laws about servants. There were laws about personal injury. There were laws about property, there were laws about social relationships. There were laws about justice and mercy. There were laws about Sabbath, there were laws about festivals, basically everything in the whole scope of life of Israel, God was giving them some laws associated with that. And so then what Moses does is he returns to the people and he enters into a formal covenant alongside the people of Israel with God. And here's where that stated, it's in Exodus 24. It says this. Then the Lord said to Moses, come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel, you are to worship at a distance, but Moses alone is to approach the Lord. The others must not come near and the people may not come up with him. When Moses went and told the people all the Lord's words and laws, they responded with one voice, everything the Lord has said, we will do. Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said. He got up early the next morning, built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up 12 stone pillars representing the 12 tribes of Israel. Then he sent young Israelite men and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood, put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar. Then he took the book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, we will do everything the Lord has said, we will obey. Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, this is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. And so after this covenant, and you remember, this is kind of like how they did ancient covenants, right? We learned that last week. Edwin was talking to us about the slaying of the animals and the blood that was there. And if you don't fulfill the covenant, you're to be like them, right? And so after this, Moses returns to the top of Mount Sinai to meet with God for 40 days and 40 nights. And while he's there, God gives him commands about the sacrificial system, how they're supposed to sacrifice, how they're supposed to make offerings. He gives him instructions about the building of the Ark of God where God's presence would be manifest. He gives him instructions about the building of the tabernacle. He talks to him about the role of the priest that would come from the line of Aaron. All of that is encompassed in this. So this covenant that God made with Israel, it was different than the covenant that God was involved with Abraham, the covenant that God made with Abraham was a unconditional covenant. In other words, God said, this is what I'm gonna do, Abraham and I am banking on, I'm putting my very character on the line because this covenant I'm making, I'm making it with you and I'm going to fulfill it. This wasn't dependent on Abraham. It was dependent upon God. God said, I'm gonna make you a great nation. You are going to have a great offspring. I'm gonna bless the nations. I'm gonna rescue the world through you. This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna give you a land. All of this, he promised to Abraham and said, I'm gonna do it. It was unconditional. This is different. Unlike the covenant with Abraham, this covenant, the mosaic covenant, we call it the mosaic covenant. Because Moses is the mediator of the covenant, not because it's just with Moses, it's with the whole nation of Israel, this covenant. But this covenant is conditional. In fact, it has a lot of scripture coverage, from Exodus 19, you know, you go Genesis, obviously we read through Genesis. Now you get to Exodus number 19, right? Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, from Exodus 19 to Deuteronomy. It's talking in some way or shape or form about this mosaic covenant, about the laws of God, about how Israel is to do what Israel is going to do. But to see its conditional nature, I'd pull you back to Exodus 19 where we just read a moment ago. You can see that it's conditional. Watch, just the grammar tells us. Now watch this word. What does that say? If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, what's this word? Then. Out of all the nations, you will be my treasured possession. You see, whenever you've got an if then kind of idea, you're seeing that this is conditioned, that this is a conditional covenant. In other words, this is a covenant that is predicated on the obedience of God's people, of Israel. And there are results of obedience and there's results of disobedience. As you can imagine. Later on in the law of Moses, God actually speaks to what happens when you obey and what happens when you disobey, right? There's blessing when you obey, there's curse when you don't. Here's what it says in Deuteronomy 28. If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord, your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God. But then a few verses later, it says, however, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I'm giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you. You see, for obedience, there's great blessing. And in Deuteronomy 28, I'm kind of summarizing here, right? But in Deuteronomy 28, it talks about the blessing of the land being able to produce. It talks about food, it talks about protection. It talks about the shalom that you experience, the peace of God that you experience in the land, that there's great blessing in obeying the Lord. But then he talks about the curses that if you don't obey the Lord, if you disobey the Lord, then what's gonna be involved is that you're gonna be a scattered people. You're gonna be diseased, you're gonna be vulnerable, you're gonna be overtaken, you're gonna be oppressed. You're gonna live in poverty. This is all the things that he said would happen if they disobeyed. This is the covenant that God and Israel entered into. It was a conditional covenant predicated on the obedience of God's people. God said, if you do this, then this will occur. If you obey, blessing will result. If you disobey, curses will result. It was a conditional covenant with the nation of Israel. All right, this is a lot to cover. You guys are going, woo, man. So why is this covenant important to us? Is this just a history lesson for us today, Jerry? Absolutely not. We're gonna get to something in just a minute. Why is this covenant important? Let me offer you just a couple of things of why this is important, and then after that, I'm gonna tell you why it matters to us. All right? Why is the covenant important? First of all, because it was to preserve God's people. It was to preserve God's people. You see, what's interesting about this is when God puts this covenant together, he also gives instructions about a sacrificial system that he established that would be a symbolic way of showing that God atoned for their sins. Now, by atoned, I don't mean that those sins have been forgiven. The blood of bulls and goats cannot forgive sin, but the word atone has the idea of covering over. In other words, God established these laws and this system so that he could dwell with his people Israel and not consume the nation in his holiness. You realize that God is holy, right? You realize there are places in the scripture that I didn't get to when we're talking about Exodus 19, you heard him say, hey Moses, you come up. Nobody else come up. By the way, he told Israel, don't even touch the foot of the mountain. Why? Because the holy God is on that mountain. Don't even touch it because his holiness will consume you because you as a sinful person cannot stand in the presence of this. His holiness will consume you, God put some of this stuff together to be able to preserve them so that they would not be consumed in his holiness, much like God's covenant with Noah, we didn't get to that 'cause we said we weren't gonna cover every single thing in the entire Old Testament, or we'd be here until 2055 or whatever, right? But the covenant that he made with Noah after the great flood, he made this covenant to say, God said, I'm not gonna do this in the same way again, why? To preserve humanity. And now not just like he preserves humanity in the Noah covenant. Now with the mosaic covenant, he's working to preserve the people of God, Israel, because you know why he's doing that? Why is God preserving the people? Because he promised unconditionally that they would be a people, so they can't cease to exist because he promised that they would exist. That's what he said to Abraham. That was unconditional, right? So God's making good on his unconditional promise that there would be a people that came from Abraham called Israel that would be for God's purpose and for the blessing of the world. So it was to protect God's people. Secondly, though, the mosaic covenant was important because it was to form a holy people. This is what God's intent was, was to form a holy people. Look again, we looked at it earlier in Exodus chapter 19. I want you to see it again, verse number five, although the whole earth is mine, you'll be for me a kingdom of priests and a what? A holy nation. This is what God had promised Israel was going to be. You will be for me a holy nation when you obey my commandments. Now, what does this mean? It means that God set apart Israel for himself and his purposes in the world. That God wanted this people to accomplish his purposes. Therefore, they are a holy or a set apart nation. But understand this, God also wanted very specifically for the individuals that made up the nation to also be holy. Leviticus chapter 19 tells us this in verse number one and two, the Lord said to Moses, this is still within the mosaic covenant, okay? The Lord said to Moses, speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them, be holy because I the Lord your God am holy. You see, because God is holy, his expectation is that he would have a holy people. And this mosaic covenant that he gave was not really about how Israel was supposed to inhabit the land that God promised. It was about how they would live in the land that God had promised, the kind of people that they would be, that there would be a holy people that would be making up this land that they would inhabit. God is holy and wants his people to be holy, but why does God want his people to be holy? And that's the third reason this covenant is important. And it's this, because this covenant would form a witnessing people. It would form a witnessing people. You see, when we look back again at Exodus 19 that we just looked at a moment ago, God says, although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. This is important for us to remember because to be a kingdom of priests meant this. It meant that God intended for the people of the nation of Israel to mediate his presence wherever they were. This is what priests did. They mediated the presence of God. And so God wanted a holy people, but God wanted a people that testified to his glory, that mediated his glory wherever they were because God wanted the nations to know him. This was the point. Now, it becomes obvious when we read the story of Israel and it continues to unfold, that they didn't actually live holy like they were supposed to, right? We've read this story before, haven't we? They didn't fully live holy and they did not fulfill their role as witnesses to the one true God. Sometimes they were worshiping idols. I mean, you remember Moses came down from the mountain and they had a golden calf already built, like this went bad early and all the story of Israel is like this up and down and good king and then bad king, bad king, bad king, bad king, bad king, pretty good king, bad king, bad king, fair, pretty good, bad king. This is kind of how it went with Israel. Everything was up and down and the consequences that God told them would occur because of this mosaic covenant, because of this conditional covenant. If you obey, there will be blessing. If you do not, there will be cursing. You will face poverty, you will face oppression. And guess what happened to Israel? They were taken into captivity first by Assyria. And that at a later time, they were taken into captivity by Babylon. God was saying, this is what I told you would happen. And because they walked in disobedience, that's exactly what happened. And the difficulty is it looked like this whole scheme of God as were reading the story is just going off the rails. It's like, God, you chose a people for yourself for the blessing of the nations, but this people is supposed to be holy. It's supposed to witness to your glory and they are doing a really poor job of that. This thing is not going well. But thank God because of the unconditional covenant he made with Abraham that he preserved this people and through this people, a true Israelite was born in a backwater town called Bethlehem, and this Israelite named Jesus was the Messiah. He was everything that Israel had failed to be. He was perfectly holy and a perfect witness to the one true God. And though the law that God put in place in the mosaic covenant was long, 613 laws, and it was deep, Jesus fulfilled it in every way. In fact, when Jesus had come on the scene and begun his ministry and was preaching this sermon that was famous called The Sermon on the Mount, here's what Jesus said in Matthew five, verse number 17, do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to what? Fulfill them. Now that has a two-pronged meaning fulfill as in prophecy. The law was always pointing to a culmination and Jesus is there to demonstrate that he's that, but he also fulfilled it and that there is nothing that he broke, he perfectly in speech and indeed fulfilled the law. In fact, what's beautiful is when Paul, the apostle reflects on this, here's what he says in Romans chapter 10, Christ is the culmination of the law. Some of your translations say the end of the law that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes, Jesus is everything the law was looking towards. He fulfills it. But here's what you've gotta remember, where sometimes people get confused about the law and looking back at the Mosaic covenant is that the law was never for the eternal salvation of individuals. That was never the point of the law. It was never for eternal salvation. It was to point out the need for grace, that this was an exceptional need, that there's no way that people could do this on their own. There's no way that people could save themselves. There's no way that people could perfectly live up to this except for one. The Lord Jesus, the only one that could do it. But the law itself was actually given to us to be able to move us toward that understanding. Paul writes this in Galatians chapter number three. He says, so the law was our guardian until Christ came so that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we're no longer under a guardian. That word guardian can mean tutor or school master, something along that line. That's what the law was serving to do. But now that Jesus has come, we're not in need of that. So what are we in need of? Well, exactly what Paul said in Romans chapter eight. He said this, therefore, there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life, did you hear that phrase? The law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death, for what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh. God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us who do not live according to the flesh, but live according to the spirit. You see as believers in the one who fulfilled the law and was the completion of the law, by faith in him, we now live by a new law. And you know what that law is? The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which means that now in Christ we are accepted by God. In Christ, we are not trying to have to live up to the requirements of the law because Jesus has perfectly fulfilled that on our behalf and offered himself as a sin offering, the sinless one for the sinful one, so that by faith in him we can be reconciled to God. Not because we've done it, but because he's done it. This is the beautiful picture of the gospel that we can see. So here's the question. How do we respond to what this covenant teaches us? How do we right here in the now respond to what this covenant, what can we take from it that speaks to us right now? Let me give you, let me give you two truths that we can grab hold of. Here's the first, we can live holy lives because of God's grace. This is part of how we would apply this. We can live holy lives because of God's grace. I realize when we talk about the idea of the law, we usually say it this way, law versus grace. That's almost always how we refer to it, if we have the word law and the word grace in the same sentence, it's almost always law versus grace. And when it comes to eternal salvation, we should have it that way. That's exactly what that should be. We cannot be saved by the works of the law. We are only saved by the grace that comes through Jesus Christ. That's the only way that we can be saved. But what we should remember, friends is that the law that God gave Israel was a grace that he gave to them. The law was a grace that he gave to them. It wasn't a bad deal that Israel got. Sometimes we look back on this and we're like, man, Israel got a bad deal. They had this law and they had to live according to this law and that was a bad deal. No, no, no, no, no, no. This was a grace to them because God revealed his heart to them. God revealed the kind of God he was and the kind of people he wants. This was a grace to them. Now, some of you're saying, Jerry, I've gotta disagree with you and here's why. You and me are not saying this, I'm making this up, but I'm gonna pretend. Jerry, here's why I might disagree with you, because John's gospel actually tells us that the law came through Moses, but grace came through Jesus Christ. That's exactly right. Thank you for bringing it up because we pulled that out of its context and failed to see that that is actually teaching us that the first grace was the law that God gave to Israel and the greater grace was Jesus given to us. he law came through Moses, but grace came through Jesus Christ. That's exactly right. Thank you for bringing it up because we pull that out of its context and fail to see that that is actually teaching us that the first grace was the law that God gave to Israel and the greater grace was Jesus given to us. I'll show you, it's exactly what it says. Here's what it says in John one, out of his fullness, we have all received, watch this, grace in place of grace already given for the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. When you read it in its context, what you remember and what you see is this, grace replaced grace already given. What was the grace already given? The law through Moses that revealed God's heart and his holiness and what is the greater grace, Jesus Christ, the revelation of God in bodily form, a new and richer grace in Jesus replaced the previous grace in the law. And now in Jesus we can live lives of holiness, empowered by the spirit of God so that we can show the world the glory of God. The New Testament tells us that by the way, Peter uses this same language to help us understand, here's what he says in one Peter chapter one. Therefore with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed that his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance, but just as he who called you is holy. So be holy in all you do, for it is written be holy because I am holy. That's Leviticus 19, that's the mosaic covenant. And Peter is repeating those very words from the mosaic covenant. Peter's saying, look, you should be a holy people like Israel was a holy people because of the grace that's been given you in Christ Jesus. And then Peter says, and by the way, there's more grace on the way, Jesus is coming again. He's not only come once to rid us of our sin problem and take upon himself the wrath of God against sin so that we could be reconciled to God, but he's actually gonna show back up. So our response in light of that should be lives of holiness, that show off God's great worth and great holiness, so we can live holy lives because of God's grace. That's one way we apply what we're learning today. Sometimes we get in our way on this, don't we? If we're being honest. We just get in our own way on this. We generally, I think when I talk to the people of Jesus, I believe that most of the people of Jesus actually want the world to know Jesus. I do. I believe that you want the world to know Jesus. What's the problem then, there's multiple problems. But let me express one because the people of Jesus look so little like him 'cause we don't walk in holiness. We don't walk as people who've been separated from sin and separated to God for his purposes. And we wonder why the world isn't interested in this Jesus. Who changes lives, but our lives look just like everybody else's. We make the same choices that everybody else seems to make. We don't walk in the power of God's spirit and see the holiness that comes as a result of that. We cast ourselves on the sea of the world and let the waves just take us wherever they want to take us all while giving Jesus maybe a little bit of lip service. See, for too many, our lives are just not holy. Our speech isn't holy. Some of you are going, man, I don't cuss. Hey, congrats on hitting the lowest possible bar of holy speech that you don't cuss. That's good, by the way. Good. But what about gossip? What about slander? What about the way that we dehumanize people or demonize people? What about those things, right? Sometimes our speech is just not holy. Our motives aren't holy. We know how to dress it up on the outside, but sometimes we just, we've got an impure heart when it comes to certain scenarios. And we might tell them we're happy for them, but really we're not happy for them at all because we deserve that and they don't. Sometimes our behavior isn't holy, even though sometimes we can fake it with our behavior. Other times we can't fake it with our behavior. And our behavior just is not holy. What we do, how we act, how we comport ourselves in the world, it's just not holy. What we allow to get into our houses through media, through internet, sometimes just not holy, and we're filling our minds and we're filling our hearts and we're filling the minds and hearts of our kids with things that aren't holy. You know why we're doing it? Because we've forgotten how holy God is. Be holy because I am holy. If the people of Israel couldn't even touch the mountain that God had revealed himself on, we forget this is the same God, same God, he is holy. Just forgetting how holy he is is enough for us to call us to repentance. God wants us holy, but he doesn't leave us alone to do that. You're saying, well man, I've just gotta, oh, I've gotta holy myself up. No, no, no, no. God has said I wanna help you in that. He's not leaving you alone to figure this out for yourselves. He works in us by His spirit to shape us into the image of his son. But listen carefully to me, it won't happen unless you show up for the work. You can't be holy and not cultivate God's presence. You can't do it daily, weekly with the people of Jesus. If you think you're gonna be holy somehow, but you're gonna leave out the presence of God in this, you don't have a chance at becoming holy because it's him that will change us into his own likeness. If you'll practice his presence, his presence will change your practice. I wish I'd made that statement up myself. It's from somebody that I don't even remember who it's from. If you'll practice his presence, his presence will change your practice. His worth and his return and his goodness and his glory is enough to remind us that we need to be in his presence daily. We need to be in his presence weekly with the people of Jesus. Because that's our only shot at being a holy people. And you know what God wants from his church, from his people, the people that he has set apart for himself now that whether Jew or Gentile, anyone who puts their faith in Messiah Jesus, that becomes a part of this new nation that we call the church, do you know what he wants from us? He wants us to be a holy people, a distinct people. A people that when other people see us, they go, that's a different people. And I don't mean different as in weird, I mean different as in the world does this and they do this. They think with eternity in mind, they think about their stuff and their possessions and their money differently than the rest of the world does. They don't hoard, they're generous. They give, they realize that they're storing up for themselves treasures in heaven, not on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves can break in and steal. They're different people man. They are a kingdom people. So we should live lives that are holy because of God's grace. But let me show you a second truth here. We respond to this teaching by living as witnesses because of God's heart. We can live as witnesses because of God's heart. You know when Israel came into the promised land, they were surrounded on every side by pagan nations. You do realize that, right? Surrounded by pagans, those who followed false gods, those who did not follow the one true God, Yahweh. But God wanted his people to be a light to the nations. And he wants that of us too. He's always wanted that friends. In Genesis, he made humans in his image to represent him. This is what he's always wanted, witnesses to who he is. And even though sin marred that and made mistakes about it, even when we get to Abraham and he trusts God by faith, and it was credited to him as what? Righteousness. Holiness. Why? Because he walked by faith. He trusted in God. And this is what God wanted for his people that came from Abraham. He wanted a kingdom of priests that would mediate the presence of God. But Israel failed over and over and over again. So you know what God did? God would raise up prophets to remind them of who they were supposed to be, who they were supposed to be. We don't have time for it. But if I went back into Isaiah chapter 43, God would say this, you are my witnesses. You are my witnesses. He repeats it a number of times through the prophet, you are my witnesses. You are my witnesses, that I am God and there is no other, you are my witnesses. So isn't it unique that by the time we get to Jesus, who has died in our place to satisfy the justice of God so that our sins could be forgiven, not just covered, but literally forgiven and washed away into a sea of forgetfulness and stretches 'em out as far as the east is from the west. And by the way, those don't meet, right? This is a beautiful truth. But do you know what Jesus says when he is going to ascend, he's after his resurrection, he's gonna ascend to his father. Do you know what he says? Here's what he says in Acts chapter one, verse eight, you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my what? Witnesses. There was something before this with the people of Israel and there's something for us now. He wants us to be a witnessing people. So let me ask you to do two things. You're gonna have to respond to this. I'm gonna ask you two challenges that I want you to take today and I want you to respond to it. Two challenges. The Bible is not just meant for us to hear and walk out. It's meant to live it. This book is not just an information book. This is a book that we open to live. Here's what I want you to do. First thing, ask God for his heart. To live as witnesses, we need to ask God for his heart. I'm gonna explain this. Most times when we come to the Lord, we tell him what's on our heart. Listen carefully. That's beautiful. That's good. Keep doing it. Your Father loves to hear from his kids and we're told in the scripture to even pour out our heart before the Lord. So we come to him and we tell him what's on our heart. Now, lemme just give you a quick little news bulletin. He does already know. He's God. He already knows what's on our heart. But it's good that we come to 'em. It's like when our children come and tell us stuff we already know. We're just glad they're coming to us and talking to us about these things, right? It's a blessing. The Lord loves that. Listen to me. But the next step of maturity as we grow in our relationship with Christ is not just coming to him and telling him what's on our heart, but it's coming to him and asking him what's on his. You see, when we start to ask God what's on his heart, here's what I know from the revelation of his spirit in scripture. His heart is for the redemption of people. This is the story we see from Genesis to Revelation. God's heart is for the redemption of people. And when his heart becomes our heart, we will embrace the burden of the lostness that is all around us. Moses embraced it, by the way. You know Moses comes down and they're golden calfing, craziness, right? We'll do all that God said, we're gonna worship this cow that we made. Right? Super plan, right? It's ridiculous. And Aaron was even a part like it was a mess, right? Do you know what Moses says to God? If you'd be willing to forgive them, block my name out of your book. What? What kind of heart is that? It's God's heart. Moses was willing to die if he could in their place. Now, God didn't do it because God knew Moses couldn't do it. Only the one that Moses prefigured, Jesus, could do that. But that was a representation of God's heart. When Paul is writing in Romans chapter nine, and he said, I could wish myself a cursed for the sake of my people. He was saying that word's anathema in the Greek language, he was talking about, I'd be willing to be damned on behalf of my people. He was representing God's heart. You say, wait a minute, how's he representing God's heart? Because Jesus was damned in our place. Jesus took on our curse. He became sin for us so that we could become in him the righteousness of God. This is the very heart of God. So when we ask God for his heart, he gives us his heart, for our friends, for our family, for our neighbors, for our coworkers, for fellow students that we go to school with, that we own the burden of lostness for the people that are around us. But lemme give you a second piece that I wanna ask you to act on. Not only ask God for his heart, but ask God for people. Ask God for people. Tom Rainer who does research, he's shown us that it takes 85 church attenders to reach one unbeliever. You think that's how God's drawn it up? It takes 85 on average to reach one. Why? Because Jesus people aren't living out lives of holiness and they're not showing and sharing the good news of the gospel with anybody around them. That's why. What if we did by the power of God's spirit, what if we started asking God for people that he would put us in play with, that we could show them the love of Jesus, that share with them the good news of Christ? What if we did that? You're like, man, that's easy for you to say, like you're a professional talker. You get paid to do this. It's like what you do. It's too intimidating. I'm a regular old person. There's no way. Okay, let's take it out of the realm of I'm a regular old person and I'm not just a pastor guy. Let's take me back into college where I had just come to faith in Jesus Christ. Now, in my junior year at the University of Georgia, I'm basically ignorance on fire. I don't know a whole lot. I know that Jesus changed my life. I'm excited about that and that's awesome. And I wanna tell other people about Jesus. And I did. Within 48 hours of coming to faith in Christ that summer, I led two people, two of my friends to Christ within 48 hours, one of whom is a pastor in Jasper, Georgia right now. Leading hundreds and hundreds of people to Jesus by God's grace. You don't have to know everything in the world. But I got back to college after getting saved. I got back to college at the University of Georgia and I realized that from a few years ago, I'd had some relationships in my life that weren't so great. Okay? Friends, dating relationships, whatever. And I was just an arrogant jerk, I was lost. That's what lost people do. They act lost and I did that. Then there was, God brought to mind a young lady that we kinda went on a couple dates. We didn't really date for a long time, but I was just not a nice guy. I was just awful. And God brought her to mind. And I began to pray and I was like, God, would you gimme the opportunity to be able to kind of talk to her and share with her that my life's been transformed, that I'm different and all of that? And he just brought her to mind. And I started asking God for her. I used her name. I was like, Lord, would you do this? This was like the beginning of the year, my junior year. Nothing all year long. You know, keep in mind young people, just quick, you know, reminder, no text messaging, no smart phones. You know, we rode in horse and buggies like it's all that, right? I couldn't stalk 'em on social media. There was none of those things that could happen, right? So it's 30,000 students and she was a year older than me and 30,000 students, you just don't know where on campus who you're gonna run into, whatever. Hadn't seen her at all the entire year, last day of the year, last day of the year, we are in final exams. On the last day of the year. I am sitting on the third step of the library, which is about as close as I got to getting into the library when I was studying. And as I'm sitting there on the library steps, who comes walking up? She does. I see her, she sees me. We're looking at each other. She's like, hey. And I was like, hey. She said, what are you doing? I was like, nothing, finals. I literally had the ball on the goal line, step over the goal line, you moron. And I was about to turn around and throw the ball backwards. I was petrified. She asked me, what am I doing? And I'm like, nothing. And in my mind I'm thinking, just keep walking. She can just keep walking by. Go to the library and study. You need to get good grades. And then she says, what's up with your shirt? I'm like, what? And I look down at my shirt and on my shirt is a massive face of Jesus. And underneath it says Won by One, W-O-N by O-N-E. Won by One. And I've got a picture of Jesus. It's not his real picture, right? Just in case you're wondering, but a picture of Jesus on my shirt. And she's like, what's up with your shirt? And it's like, I looked at my shirt and I looked at God and went, okay. It's literally like God was going. You remember all of that? You remember asking me, here you go. So I got to tell her about Jesus. Tell her that he changed my life. Tell her I'm sorry for who I was. And I'm not that person anymore. Now I'm not gonna tell you that she and everybody that was there in the quad all fell on their faces and worshiped the Lord in that moment. Right? My job is not the salvation of people. My job is to be a faithful witness to what God wants me to do. But here's what I wanna remind you of. If you'll ask him, watch what he'll do. You know why you don't have? 'Cause you don't ask. If we'll ask him, watch what he'll do. Here's what I want you to do. Listen to me. Listen to me. I want you to take the challenge that I've given to myself and I've just made it a simple one. Five in 25. God, would you place five people on my heart that I will show and share the good news of Jesus with in this year 25? Some of you're going, that's not enough, man. It needs to be like 50. Knock yourself out. If you're every week getting after it that way, please do. Do not look at this as a lid on your life at all. But for most people who don't do this at all, I wanna call you to a different spot. Five for 25, would you ask God for his heart? And would you ask God for people? And would you do it now? Here's what I want you to do. We're gonna take a moment. Just take some time to pray. And here's what I wanna ask of you. If you would be open to it, if you wanna take some time to pray and say, Lord, I know that I haven't had your heart as you've wanted me to. Maybe you need to pray about the holiness God wants from your life and some issues surrounding that. Maybe you wanna pray about people that you want to ask God to bring to your mind and your heart, whatever. Moses built an altar and the people came to it and they said, we'll do what you said. Now they didn't do it so great and we're not trying to reinvent what Israel was, but we could just look at this front area as our spiritual altar, so to speak. And if you wanted to just slip out of your seat and come and just get before the Lord and kneel and pray and ask God for his heart and ask God for people, why don't you do that? It'd be a great opportunity for you to be able to do that. Maybe you'll just, if you'll make sure that people can get out or whatever if they want to. If you wanted to just stay in your seat, that's fine. If you wanted to kneel at your seat, that's fine too. Whatever it is, however the Lord would lead, that's great. We've got a few men and women that are gonna be upfront here. I know Pastor Doug's here and we got some others that are coming down. If you want to take a moment and pray with somebody, maybe you need to know Jesus, take one of 'em by the hand and say, I need to surrender my life to Jesus. I need to know his forgiveness. They'd love to pray with you about that. Maybe you want one of them to pray with you about God giving you strength and power to be able to share your faith. They'll pray with you about that. But if you wanna just pray by yourself, that's fine too. You can come and kneel somewhere down here. That's fine. Whatever the Lord leads in that regard, I want you just to do. So let's take a moment now to just pray together. You move as God leads you to move, pray as God leads you to pray in these moments. And I'll conclude us in just a few. And when I finish praying, we'll be dismissed. But I'm gonna ask you that as we're dismissed. If you do so quietly just respecting the people that may want to stay and pray even in their seat, or maybe here at the altar, maybe you're praying now and you wanna take one of these prayer partners and just ask them to pray with you about something, that's fine too. And that you'd quietly make your way out. If you need Jesus, man, please take somebody by the hand and tell 'em you need Jesus. Father, I pray that as a people, we would be a people who are holy. Because you're holy, and that we would grow by the power of your spirit as we remain in your presence, as we get into your presence and you shape us by your spirit, through your word, and conform us into the image of your son, would you make us a people that reflect the beauty of who you are and that we would become a people who share the beauty of who you are with people that are around us, friends, family members, work associates, fellow students, whoever it might be, God, would you place names of people, faces of people on our minds? And may we ask you for them that you give us opportunity to be a witness in their lives and that you, by your spirit, would do your good work 'cause you want us to be that kind of people, people that live lives that are holy because of your grace and a people that are witnesses because of your heart to see the redemption of people. So God help us to be that people. We pray and we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.