Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Good morningville, church. Good morning. Little quiet this morning. That's okay. My name is Michael Fueling. I'm the lead pastor here at the church. Before we jump into Leviticus, I want to give you an update because two weeks ago I shared with you a message that was sort of like a state of the union, if you will, kind of what God's been doing, where we're at, where we're going, some of the challenges that we have. If you are new, if you are interested in getting involved here, if you're curious kind of what's going on, I want to just strongly encourage you go back and watch or listen to that message. I think it'll be really helpful for you to be able to see kind of what's happening at the church. There are three big things that we kind of broached. One of them is preparing the church for kind of just dealing with what are we going to do with this facility and this property. We've outgrown almost every part of it. And so just trying to think through what that looks like. More coming on that in the upcoming weeks and months. And I can't wait to share with you what we've been working on as a staff and leadership team and looking at our dreams and plans for the future and then giving them to the Lord and putting them before you and saying what's going to happen? So more to come there. One of the realities that happens when a church grows is that giving lags growth. And so we brought some of our financial challenges to you guys as we've been growing and greater needs, and you guys have been amazing. Had a handful of people come up to me and just say, you know what, I'm newer here and I never really thought about it or I've been here for a while and I kind of just figured somebody else would do it. And just the commitment that a number of you have made as a response to that. So thank you for your generosity on that. We spent the most amount of time talking about some of the ministry needs here. And so I shared with you a whole bunch of needs. You can go to the Hub. You can see them all there. But one of the biggest transitions that we're going to be making is going from two services to three the last Sunday of October. And we need a whole lot more people to serve. So I put out the need we gave you guys the next step, and I want to just give you kind of an update on some of the response. So our cafe, which our beloved baristas, I mean, if they serve you and they don't charge you, amazing.
[00:02:12] They needed six more baristas, and they had nine people sign up to register, which is awesome. Now hear me, if you want to still be a barista and be trained on how to do all that. You can still do that. The more the merrier. But your response was just wonderful. The welcome team. We needed 25 more people. This is greeters. We actually had 17 sign up and because of the broad availability on a Sunday morning, it actually covered all of our current and October 29 needs for three services on Greeters. But hear me, we need more. So if you're not a curmudgeon, right, and you want to be somebody who welcomes people to Village Church and creates that space for them, we would just love for you to sign up. But thank you. We needed eight more security people. Here's the caps. With security, you have to be a member. And so we had six sign up, which is amazing. I mean, we're two weeks into this. And so if you have even just that temperament that understands security, that sees the world through that lens and you want to serve, we would love to have you sign up. There our hospitality team, the ones who bring all the food that you guys get to eat every single week, we have six teams and we have enough to fill up almost our 6th team. And so if you are interested in making food and bringing that, you can still go to the Hub sign up. And it's once every six weeks. You don't bring everything. Just so you know, you're not feeding everybody at Village Church, but you bring a specific thing once every six weeks. And then they also need more people in the kitchen. Every week they are serving, preparing, getting stuff ready to make this environment as hospitable as possible. And I think if you're a mom and a dad and you've got kids running around, they don't have to come to you and tell you that they're hangry all morning long, right? Amen. Production. Those are the people in the back. You don't really ever see them. And we had twelve people sign up for production, which is awesome. I know. Like yes. Amen. And let me tell you what's even more miraculous. Audio engineers with a little bit of experience or a lot of bit of experience are really hard to come by. And we were in need. We needed four. We had six people sign up on the audio engineering side. You are my new heroes. Thank you for willing to be jumping in, learning our system and these people quietly, early in the morning, during the week, prepare to serve all of us on Sunday morning. That was just awesome. Do you guys remember how many volunteers we need for Village Kids?
[00:04:46] Millions. Yes. I'm not even going to put a number that is like tangible and attainable. We need millions of people. I want to tell you a couple of things about Village Kids so that you can kind of get your head around this.
[00:04:59] Let it never be said that Village Church is not committed to bringing the gospel and discipleship to the next generation. Because if you took all of the people every single Monday night who serve at Wana and you reallocated that energy to just Sunday morning with all of our current Sunday morning volunteers in Kidsmen, we have so many humans who are devoted to the discipleship of our next generation. One of the things we've seen is that the benefit, the discipleship benefit of having kids in Awana and on Sunday Morning is so great that we want to make sure that we continue to invest in both. And so going to a third service on Sunday morning requires a whole lot more people. We've had a bunch of people sign up. We need more. We need more just to staff our current nine and eleven structure, let alone three. Let me just give you a little piece of information that blew my mind when I heard it this week. Last Sunday in the 09:00 A.m. Service we had 15 littles in the nursery and then at the eleven we had nine. That's a lot of little kids. And that means that you need more than just one or two people in that room holding babies and taking care of them. Amen. Now I've been told and instructed I'm ten years out from ever being able to preach a sermon series on Song of Solomon. So don't worry, that's not happening. That's funny to me, all right.
[00:06:21] But literally someone's like you may not and I'm like, okay, it's fine, I won't touch it. But they need help. Now three, four Sundays ago, I can't remember the exact Sunday, there were over 180 kids from nursery through fourth grade. Guys, what an awesome privilege the Lord has given that we could bring the word of God in the gospel, partner with Moms and Dads and Grandmas and Grandpas have adults and older students pour into them and love them with the word of God in the gospel. This is so precious to the Lord. And so when the Lord puts something like this in front of us as a family, to steward, we step up. And you guys have been amazing. The analogy we gave is if your basement floods you don't get to say someone else will take care of it. Because when it's your home, you walk into the mess and you say, we're going to deal with this and so pray about it. Go to the hub. We need people jumping in and serving. Sound good?
[00:07:16] You are the quietest 11:00 ever. We're going to be fine. All right, open up your Bibles. Leviticus, chapter eleven. So in my family, guess who gets called to kill the spiders?
[00:07:30] This guy. Guess who gets called when there's a dead animal in our backyard because we live next to woods. This guy. When the mouse traps in the garage go off, guess who gets called? This guy. The visceral response of the women in my home when there is a mouse is off the chains. It's like a horror show. I mean, they will jump and they will scream. They will run like I will be sleeping. And if there is even the sound of a click, you know what I mean? It's like, get up now. We got to take care of this immediately. And I'm like, okay, it's interesting. Now, who's the person in your home when there's a big bug, not like a little one, they step on it.
[00:08:15] Raise your hand if you're a stepper, you're like, wow, you would be great assassins. Okay, I don't step on big bugs. I'm going to give you one reason. It's the crunch. I can't do it. The people who do that, and they're so cold and they're so calloused. They're like and then they move on. And I'm like that's vile. That's so disgusting. About a month and a half ago, I was at a funeral, and it was right before the service, and we were talking, and there were these little girls, and they were all in dresses, and there was a big wolf spider not here. At a different church, trust me. So I'm serious. Never here. And so the wolf spider is, like, crawling over them. I'm talking to somebody, and he looks at it, and I look at it, and he's not going to do anything. I'm not touching it. So I just took one for the team, and I think it's the first time that I can remember ever doing that, and I'm still thinking about it.
[00:09:09] Every person, every family, every culture, we have a list of rules, of things that are disgusting, things that we're willing to do, things we're not willing to do, things we're willing to touch, things we're not willing to touch, things we're willing to eat, some things that we're not willing willing to eat. And what God did, and I love this, he creates an entire list of foods that are to be eaten and an entire list of foods that aren't to be eaten. And then this is really interesting. He creates an entire list of animals that if they die, you cannot touch. You can't just eat them, but you can't even touch. Because if you do, you become what the Old Testament calls unclean. And what's interesting is that there's even really emotional words that God uses for these. The word is detestable. In fact, sometimes it's translated as an abomination. It's a deeply emotional word. And so here's what's happening. You have this first generation of Israelites, and they came from Egypt, and so they're probably used to eating whatever they want. It's not good for them. In fact, a lot of these foods are going to kill them as they go into a new land. They don't know what they're dealing with. And so what God does is he takes this first generation and he creates these laws that create culture. Now, here's what this means. When you grow up and your mom says, Ugh, don't touch that snake. What does that form in you? Disgust. Some cultures see a snake and they're not disgusted by it because what your parents find detestable or tell you not to touch actually forms you. The kinds of foods you eat, the way they talk about different things forms what you think is detestable and what is not detestable. It's interesting because I will step on an ant any day and not think twice, but if it's big enough to crunch, I can barely sleep. But that is part of the culture that I actually live in. So what God is doing is he is taking this first generation, having them train their children, so they're creating a generational conscience around food, dead animals. And we're going to see in this sermon series that what God is giving them is an incredible grace. And he's going to save many of their lives if they just listen to what he says. All right, we're in week two of our series called Clean. And here's what clean means. In the Old Testament, if something was clean, it meant if it was a thing or a person, that that thing was allowed access to the presence of God. If something was unclean or someone was unclean, access or proximity to the presence of God was limited. And so if you cared under the Old Covenant about having a relationship with God, you cared about being ceremonially clean. And if by chance you became unclean, intentionally or otherwise, scriptures give a very efficient pathway for you to become clean again so that you can have access to the presence of God. Now, the New Testament often uses the word clean or the metaphor or analogy of cleanliness to refer to sin and righteousness. But the Old Testament doesn't necessarily. There are some things that are unclean that are not sinful. And that was last week. We talked about a lot of that. But what I want you to understand is that for them to be clean was necessary so that they could have proximity to God. All right, leviticus, chapter eleven, verse 24. We're going to dig into what these laws meant for Old Covenant Israel. You're probably wondering, how are you going to apply carcass laws to Christians today? I am. And it's going to blow your mind.
[00:12:50] And so we'll do that at the end. All right, verse 24.
[00:12:54] By these you shall become unclean. And that is the list of animals, insects, fish, birds, et cetera, from verses one through 23. And then he's going to go back. Now, he already talked about what you cannot eat. Now he's going to talk about what do you do maybe with their dead carcasses and how do you navigate touching them. And this is going to be really important because if you want access to God, you need, as an Old Testament, Old Covenant Christian, you need to know with certainty and with clarity when you are clean and when you are unclean. Verse 24. Whoever touches their carcass shall be unclean not forever, until the evening. And whoever carries any part of their carcass shall wash his clothes and be unclean until even this is interesting. Look at verse 26. Every animal that parts the hoof, but is not cloven footed or does not chew the cud is unclean to you. And we talked about that last week. And so if you want more into that, you can do that or you can Google really quick. What does it mean to chew the cud? But everyone who touches shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening. They are unclean to you. So there's all these unclean animals. And what do you do when they're dead? What happens if you're in proximity to them? This is very helpful. It's very simple. The protocols are fine.
[00:14:16] When I was preparing this, I was imagining a person in my brain. And I've talked with this kind of person on multiple occasions. And here's what I call them. I call them the so why do you care person.
[00:14:30] Why does God care what I eat? Why does God care what I touch? Who cares if I want to go play with a dead animal? Why does God care? Get out of my business. Let me be me. You do you god. I'll do me. Why do you even care? Why are you so controlling? Do you guys ever heard this? Or met someone like this? And the why do you care phrase? It's code language. It's code language for leave me alone. I am my own god. I will do what I want. And when I need you, I'll call you. Well, God cares and give you a few reasons. But let's start with this.
[00:15:03] Because before science, unless God told you, you had no idea what living thing could harm or kill your body.
[00:15:13] And after science, unless God tells you, you have no idea what behaviors can harm or kill your soul.
[00:15:21] Everyone thinks they know better. Because here's the phrase that the scriptures use of people who ignore God. They say they did what was right in their own eyes. And this is human nature and all of our tendency without revelation from God, what's good? Whatever I want it to be, whatever I want it to be in this moment. And that can change from here to there and then to there. Because I become my own God, my own arbiter of truth, my own determiner of what is holy, good, right, clean and God's like. You have literally no idea what you're talking about. You didn't design all of creation. You don't have a PhD in every single scientific discipline. You're not infallible. You're not unlimited in knowledge. And so we actually need God to tell us things. And we also didn't design the human soul. We don't know how it works and how it's made. To thrive and suffer, we get some glimpses, but to know with clarity. We actually need the intervention, communication, teaching and training of God to tell us how our physical bodies and our spiritual bodies are supposed to work. I mean, just look at the world when you leave it to them and you leave it to us, what happens? Terrible things. And so what we need is intervention of God. God cares because he loves you. He cares because he knows what you don't even know that you don't know.
[00:16:39] He cares because he knows that sin in you will trick you to determining for yourself what is holy and clean and good and right.
[00:16:49] Let me give you a few reasons why God may restrict eating or touching certain carcasses, okay?
[00:16:59] There's a whole category of animals in our culture that are very tender to us. So I don't think you're going to be upset with me when I say this, but verse 27 identifies them as animals with paws.
[00:17:14] I'm not. Don't worry. It's going to be fine. It's fine. It's good, I promise. You and I are good. You and God are good. It's fine.
[00:17:22] So god's like. No, you'll like this. Listen, don't eat them. And you're like, okay, good. I mean, maybe three of you in this room are like, I'd like to eat a dog. It's fine. I grew up doing that. That's normal. I grew up eating cats. I didn't horses wasn't me, right? But I want you to catch this. God's like, hey, they're carcasses. Stay away from them. And then the why do you care person. I hear them. Why do you care if somebody wants to eat a dog, let them eat a dog, right? And it's interesting is that as you start to biologically identify some of these unclean animals, you begin to realize why God's like, hey, listen, you don't know what you don't know. You don't know how they biologically work. You don't see them in the wild. Trust me on this. Don't eat dogs. Don't eat cats. Generally, things with paws don't eat them. And when they die, don't touch them. And if you do have to touch them, make sure you clean yourself really well. All right? There is this term. I had never heard of it before, but I've seen it called coprophagy. So coprophagy. Let me just tell you when I learned of this. I was in elementary school, and my dog my dog's name was Maggie because my mom grew up Catholic. She was Margaret Mary Fueling. So whenever Maggie would do something bad, we would shout or we would hear, margaret Mary Fueling. Well, Margaret Mary Fueling, she got that from me when she would go outside and eat all of her own feces. And then when those were gone, sometimes Margaret Mary Fueling, she would leave the yard and she would hunt down other feces. Now, I thought my dog had a demon. I thought something was broken. I don't know what's going on right now. I would never let that dog give me a kiss on the lips ever, because I watched what it did, and I thought to myself, something's broken in this animal. No, it's actually something that happens consistently with animals with paws. And there's a whole biological reason that they do this and the way their intestines are structured. But it's like every time you eat your own feces, what happens is you take these toxins into your blood, into your muscles, and then the toxic rate of these animals is significantly higher than clean animals. And God's like, you don't know all this. And somebody be like, Why? But I want to eat dog. And it's like, Trust me, you don't. It's not going to be great for you. Now, other animals, I debated telling this, so I'm going to do it. Safe space.
[00:19:37] As I said, we live on this woods behind us and a lot of rabbits. And so the rabbits give birth. We're used to seeing this. A couple of years ago, this mama rabbit was giving birth. And we call all the kids over. We're at the window. We're, like, check it out. She's giving birth. And then this mother rabbit does the unthinkable.
[00:19:59] We're looking and we're like, Is that happening? And then all of a sudden, I'm like, Kids, go away.
[00:20:06] She was eating every one of her babies.
[00:20:10] Let me tell you why I didn't know this. I'm like, there's a demon again. That's my default. Like, if an animal does something disgusting, I'm like, Something's not right.
[00:20:19] So apparently this is a thing that when the mother discerns that the baby's life is in jeopardy or they have an illness or disease, the mother will do that. A form of cannibalism in animals. But here's the deal. All those diseases she takes into her own body. So God's like, you know, the hair, don't eat it. Oh, I get it now. You hear all this feeling you have?
[00:20:42] This is what God is, forming disgust in the people. I tell the stories because this level of disgust is what God wants to form generationally in their emotional vocabulary towards these unclean animals. Because you came from a place where people engage this kind of stuff. You don't need to be told they don't know this stuff. And so other nations are eating these kinds of things. Now, in America, we live in a world with a excess calories. Could we all agree on that? There is never a shortage of food. But what do you do when you're hungry? What do you do when you live a life where you actually have to go hunt your food? What do you do? You can't just go to a fast food restaurant or go to a supermarket. You have to prepare and plan for all of it. And there's a dog or a mouse or something. And the people that you knew way back when, they all eat it. All the foreigners eat it. That's how they get sustenance. And God's like, I get it. Just trust me on this. Stay away. You will thank me later when you get into heaven, because they take these pathogens into their bodies, and the people and things that eat them become susceptible to them. Talk about camels. Camels are actually dead. Camels are one of the most dangerous animals you can be around because, like other large mammals, when they die, they begin to bloat. But the camel is a little bit more subtle about it. And so if you've ever seen those videos where whales explode and vultures, whatever, like the camel, one touch of a dead camel and it can explode on you. And so God's like, don't touch a dead camel. And then people are like, But I want to who's God to tell me what not to do? Fine. Go touch a dead camel. Have at it. Go do it. Let's look at verse 29. You're like, the emotions are made. I got it. Pastor Michael, thank you for this. If you are a young kid, you're never going to forget this message. All right, verse 29. These are unclean to you among the swarming things that swarm in the ground. The mole rat, the mouse, the great lizard of any kind, the gecko, the monitor lizard, the lizard, the sand lizard, and the chameleon. These are unclean to you among all the swarm. Whoever touches them when they are dead shall be unclean until the evening. And we know this amphibians have remarkable amounts of salmonella. The poison dart frog can kill you with just one touch the blue ring octopus. Their venom is released when it's touched, and it's a thousand times more potent than cyanide. And God's like, just don't just stay away.
[00:23:01] The Black Plague many, many millions of people died in the 14th century. Do you know that the casualty rates could have been massively mitigated if they would have followed simple basic Jewish protocols? Here's how it worked. The bubonic plague transmitted primarily through fleas that infested black rats. And the typical transmission cycle involved fleas biting the rats, then biting humans, introducing the bacteria into the human bloodstream. It could also spread through respiratory droplets when an effective person coughed or sneezed. Between ignoring basic biblical knowledge on rats, hygiene, quarantine, body burial, and the basic sanitation processes laid out in Old Testament law for feces management, these guys were literally this was like a perfect storm.
[00:23:54] And what's interesting is that somebody might say, well, why do you even care? Let me tell you why. Because estimates are that anywhere, and this is in Europe, Asia and Africa, that the death toll was anywhere from 75 million people to 200 million people. Why does God care for moments like this? Because he loves humanity.
[00:24:16] So the interesting thing about the Black Death is that there were pockets of Jewish communities that practiced Kosher law, and their death rates were significantly lower. We listen to this during the outbreak in the 14th century, there were unfounded accusations and scapegoating of jewish communities. In some areas, some people falsely accused Jews of causing the plague through alleged poisonings or other means. These accusations led to go figure persecutions and violence against jewish communities in certain regions. They're like, well, they must be doing it because they're not getting as sick as we are. And it's like they knew something that nobody else knew. Verse 32 and anything on which any of them falls when they're dead shall be unclean, whether it's an article of wood or garment or skin or a sack, any article that is used for any purpose, it must be put into water. It shall be unclean until evening. Then it shall be clean, simple. You read this, you have a dead carcass. It touches something, falls into something. You look at the law, you go to a priest, he says, here's what you do. You may not understand the nature of pathogens and bacteria and all this other stuff and mold, but god does. He doesn't tell you all of those, but he tells you what to do so that you don't have to be susceptible to it.
[00:25:38] How far does this go? Look at verse 33.
[00:25:40] If any of them falls into an earthenware vessel, now, this is where we're at, like porous material, all that is in it shall be unclean and you shall break it. Now, if you're a kid and you watch your dad take a vessel and throw it out of the ground and break it, is that going to leave sort of like an indelible mark in your brain? You're like, okay, when I touch a dead thing that touches that thing, I'm done with this. Any food in it that could be eaten on which water comes shall be unclean, and all drink that could be drunk from such a vessel shall be unclean. Verse 35 says, everything on which any part of their carcasses fall shall be unclean, whether oven or stove, it shall be broken into pieces. They are unclean and shall remain unclean for you. Your stove, you worked hard on it's, about a six week process for a typical jewish stove and a typical jewish family, and you get this uncleanness on it and you have to take this thing, shatter it to pieces, get rid of it, and never use it again. You need to break it to the point that no one else looks at it and says, oh, we use stove. I'm going to go over and use that. And god's like, this is the rule. Is it an inconvenience? You better believe it. But wouldn't you rather be inconvenienced for a little while than be sick? Absolutely. Verse 36 nevertheless, a spring or cistern holding water shall be clean, but whoever touches a carcass in them shall be unclean. And if any part of their carcass falls upon any seed grain that is to be sown, it's clean. So if you're. Just going to plant the seed, go plant the seed, it's fine. But then he goes on to explain, if you're going to eat the seed and it's touched the carcass, that's unclean, don't do that. So if you had food fall on raw bacon, would you go eat that food?
[00:27:22] Someone says, yeah, maybe you're like it's bacon after all.
[00:27:27] Verse 39 if any animal which you may eat dies, whoever touches its carcass shall be unclean until evening. Whoever eats of its carcass shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening. And whoever carries the carcass shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening.
[00:27:44] This past Friday I was making raw sausage and one of the greatest inventions that I'm aware of, the air fryer. If you don't know of these, you should. And so I love cooking sausage. So I had two rounds of sausage that were being cooked in the air fryer. And so one round was done and I pull it out and I put it on the plate and your hands are like greasy and it's great. Well, then to my left I take the raw sausage and I put it into the air fryer to get it ready. And I did what any sane human being would do. I licked all the grease from the sausage, but it was cooked. But then I mindlessly said, boop, we'll do it with this hand too. And then I stopped and I was like, I just was handling raw sausage and then I put that into my mouth and I was just like, what have I done? So I thought to myself, how appropriate. I'm literally handling carcass teaching on this and I'm going to wake up Sunday morning absolutely sick because I'm an idiot. And so praise God, even though my first line of defense against this stuff, my brain that failed my stomach acids, did its job and prevented me from getting sick, praise God, it's like he has backup mechanisms that he's built into the human body. I was very grateful I didn't get sick at all. But does that mean now that just because I didn't get sick once, I'm just going to go start eating raw meat? No, it's ridiculous. Verse 41 to 43, they're actually really important in the way they're worded. I want you to watch the emotion language kind of increase here.
[00:29:14] Every swarming thing that swarms on the ground, it's detestable. It shall not be eaten. Whatever goes on its belly, whatever goes on all fours, whatever has many feet and swarming things that swarm in the ground, you shall not eat, for they are detestable. Verse 43 you shall not make yourselves detestable with any swarming thing that swarms and you shall not defile yourselves with them and become unclean through them. Last week we talked about the vulture and the insane PH of its stomach. Stronger than battery acid, I imagine someone's like, yeah, but what if I just want to move a vulture. Okay, so this is nuts. Recent studies found that there are over 15,000 diseases and viruses solely found on the beak of a vulture.
[00:30:07] And God's like the vultures, just don't do it.
[00:30:11] Let me do me, God, and you do you. Okay, fine. Go play with a vulture. Go do it. You're fine. You're good.
[00:30:20] What God is doing is he's protecting an entire nation. He's creating generational emotional categories for what is good and right, for their health, for their safety, for their protection, because God loves them.
[00:30:34] And guys, I just stepped back from this and I'm like, our God is a genius who loves us, communicates with us, warns us, protects us. And one of the most dangerous persons is the one with a rebellious heart who somehow thinks that we know more than the God who created all of creation. And so this just reminds me as I teach on this, as I was studying this, I'm like, God, I know if I knew your reasons when you made all of these animals the way you made them and you saw how the fall impacted them. I know that if I knew what you knew I would have put every one of these laws in. I know there is a reason for all of this, and all of it is out of love for his people.
[00:31:18] I have one. So what consider kind of the carcass laws, especially holiness is not contagious, but sin and death are.
[00:31:30] There is this principle that God is teaching and infusing into the Jewish culture, and it's a very physical principle. But we also see for the Old Testament people that it also had spiritual implications as well. And by the time you get to the New Testament, you get to see this as well, that holiness is not contracted by contact.
[00:31:50] Like, I'm not going to get holy because I'm hanging out with a holy person. In fact, what we find in the economy of the spirit realm and also just morality and generally in humanity is that typically sin is contagious.
[00:32:05] Typically when you take a holy person, somebody trying to walk with God and you take a sinful person, at best, what the holy person can do is temporarily mitigate this person from being as bad as they can be. But chances are that the more that somebody who loves God and is trying to obey him hangs around with and immerses their life in unholy, unclean sinful things, the higher probability, by the way, is that you're going to be impacted by sin, not that they're going to be impacted by you. And so just as a simple analogy, if you are sick and you're with a healthy person, does the healthy person make the sick person better? No. In fact, what you find is that the healthy person is going to transmit the sickness. If you take feces and you put it into a pool or water, the water does not I know it's in here. We're talking about it's fine. The water doesn't all of a sudden clean it. No, it actually impacts the water. This is the nature of how life works. This is the nature of how the Old Testament carcass laws work, that when you touch a carcass, you don't make the carcass clean. It actually infects you. And so we pull back, we just see these really wonderful principles that death and sin spread. This is what they do. And that the only human who has ever existed that has been impervious to their effects is Jesus, the God man, sinless and flawless.
[00:33:20] He's the only one and the only force in this world that can reverse death and sin. And our soul is the power of God. That's it. You want to try to undo sin in your life without the power of God? Good luck. It's called behavior modification. It will almost always fail you and it will never transform the heart unless you have transformation that comes from the power of God.
[00:33:48] And the first time that this power is ever enacted in your life is the moment that you trust in Christ, our salvation. It is a miraculous reversal. And I want to show you this. It's in two corinthians 416. He says, we don't lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away. Amen.
[00:34:09] Our inner self, the one that is experiencing the power of God right now, it is being renewed day by day for the entire world.
[00:34:21] Death has come to their bodies and to their souls, and without intervention, their end is hell.
[00:34:30] But every person who trusts in Jesus Christ, the body, it continues to fade. But the inner person is being renewed day by day more and more into the image of Jesus until we're dead or Jesus comes back.
[00:34:49] This chapter, actually, it concludes with a great command, verse 44. For I am the Lord your God.
[00:34:56] Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves.
[00:35:08] You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. To be holy means to set apart in obedience to God's word here.
[00:35:19] And for Christians, we are not under the old covenant. Amen. Those laws are set aside. They are done. They are being replaced with a new covenant. And your salvation is similar in analogy to like a marriage. So when you're married to somebody, you're married. There we go, we've got it. And if you and your husband or your wife are having a really, really hard day, week, month, year or decade, you're still married. The relationship is legally still there. But you can also have a really, really hard time being in a relationship with somebody where the relationship is secure. And what we find is that with Christians, the moment you trust in Christ, you're married forever. Nothing can undo this. It is for eternity. You weren't saved by being good. You can't get unsaved by being bad. But here's the deal. Your personal holiness can massively impact the quality of your relationship with God.
[00:36:09] If you want proximity in relationship to God, you will care about your personal holiness. And even right now, my guess is that there might be one big thing on your brain that maybe the Holy Spirit is prompting and saying, I know this thing, it's not going to make me lose my salvation, because that's secure. But I do know that this one thing is unclean in my life. I know that I'm touching it and I shouldn't. It's dead and it infects me. And in fact, I want it out of my life. And if the Holy Spirit is prompting you and you know the thing, do not quench the Holy Spirit, but do whatever you can to take that next step to getting it out of your life. Because what God wants with you is not just your salvation, he wants a relationship with you. And there are things that the Bible teaches that, you know what, you can do these things and they can even inhibit your prayers. Like, here's an interesting one. Peter tells us that husbands, if you treat your wives poorly, it hinders your prayer life with God. And you're like, Whoa, that's strong. Yes. Your personal holiness impacts your day to day relationship with God. And thankfully, we have the blood of Christ that forgives us from all of our uncleanness. Amen. We have the Holy Spirit, the power of God, resident inside of each and every one of us who've trusted in Christ, who wants to help you take that next step to get rid of the thing or the things that are standing between you and a flourishing dynamic relationship with God. You might be here and you're not a Christian. And if you want a relationship with God in proximity to God, the very first step for every non Christian is the same. And it is. You have to personally trust in Jesus Christ. And here's what happens when you trust in Christ, you are set apart, you are made holy. In that moment, your sins are forgiven and access, proximity to God is given.
[00:38:05] And this is the absolute one and only first step that you have to take. You can try all the behavior modification, but when you trust in Christ now, you're actually given forgiveness. You are cleansed, you have access, you have the Holy Spirit. In that very moment that you trust in Christ, who is your power.
[00:38:25] You want to try overcoming sin in your heart without the power of the Holy Spirit, good luck. But with the power of the Holy Spirit, god is committed to coming alongside of you and transforming you and I more and more into the image of Jesus. As the people of Jesus, we are committed to getting rid of proximity to carcasses, I mean, sin things that make us unclean and so vilchurch. I want to take this moment. I want to pray for you. And I want to pray. The Holy Spirit encourages you convicts you, exposes stuff inside of you that you need to repent of, and maybe you're here, and the Holy Spirit just wants to encourage you and say you've been doing an incredible job of eradicating sin from your life. Let's pray together. Father, would you by your spirit for each person listening, would you convict us if we need it, encourage us if we need it, remind us of the blood of Christ? If we have forgotten that and have heaped shame on ourselves for something that you want us to overcome by your power, and if there is anyone in this room who is yet to personally trust in Christ, would you show them that anybody can be saved through faith in Jesus? Jesus, I thank you that it's not by being good enough and holy enough, because we could never attain it if that was the case. So we love you, we give you all the glory, and we want to be individuals and a church who are holy, who bring you glory and have a flourishing relationship with you. We pray all this and ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
