Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You.
[00:00:05] Good morning.
[00:00:06] Good morning. Yay. You guys are in for a treat this morning, let me tell you. As Michelle said earlier, today's message is going to broach PG 13. And so I'm going to do my best to use maybe language that is crystal clear. And if you know, you know. And if you don't know, it should go for the most part. But, kids, ministry is alive and wild for any of you need to do that and take your kids out there. Pastor Dean begged me to preach this message, and I thought to myself, dean, I think you want this too much, so I'll take this one for you. That's a joke. If you don't know Pastor Dean, he'll be up here to do communion afterwards. But he did not beg. He just asked. No, I'm kidding. All right, in our lesser moments, what do people do when God says no to something that our heart really wants?
[00:01:03] We search for loopholes.
[00:01:07] Exceptions to the rule. Anybody else here? Am I the only one like okay, but what about all right, let's use a modern example here. The Bible teaches for Christians. The vocabulary is don't be unequally, yoked. So what that basically means is, hey, Christian, don't marry somebody of a different faith. Now, there's a lot more to it, but if we want to boil it down, that's it. Okay, so we Christians. We are professionals at finding loopholes in the rules. And so, okay, God, I get it. I hear it. Don't marry somebody of a different faith. All right, but what about dating them?
[00:01:47] No. Okay, but what if just hear me out. Lord, I know you're smart, but hear me out. I have something you might not have considered before. What if they're open to Christianity? No. Okay. All right, but there's this guy. He's really great, and we have the same morals. No. Okay, all right. She's really great. I mean, she brings the best out in me. No. Okay.
[00:02:17] I thought you wanted me to be happy.
[00:02:20] If you want me to be happy, this makes me happy. Nope. Not my ultimate concern for okay. Okay.
[00:02:28] Other Christians do it, and it worked out for some of them. So how about that? What? No. Okay, let's go back in time to ancient Israel. Yahweh gives a command to the Israelites old Covenant command? Still applies today, by the way. It's repeated in the New Testament, but here it is. Don't commit adultery. Clears mud.
[00:02:51] Believe it or not, they could find loopholes. Hence, there's actually a bunch of leviticus 18 is their attempt to find loopholes. Here's one. Okay. Don't commit adultery. Okay, what if hear me out. What if my wife's okay with it?
[00:03:06] No.
[00:03:10] Thank you.
[00:03:14] Okay, but when you say adultery in quotes, what if they're married but I'm not? No. Okay, what if what if we're trying to have a baby and we can't, and someone's willing? No. Okay. All right. Since it's legal, and I've got concubines and I own them and they're my property. It doesn't apply to them, right? No, it applies to them. No, no. Okay, here's another one. Yahweh commands no other gods besides me. Like, I'm it not them, just me. That's it.
[00:03:54] Okay, but what if again, Yahweh, hear me out. I mean, what if I'm worshipping a different god, but I'm thinking about you when I do it?
[00:04:05] No.
[00:04:08] What if I go and it looks like I'm worshiping, but I'm not worshiping, but I'm just making sure that I'm paying my dues to the regional gods so they don't get upset with me? You don't want them to be upset with me, right? Yeah, you can't do that either. Okay. What if I'm in a foreign territory and there's like a god, and since I represent you, I don't want them to be upset with you? Really? I'm just trying to make you look good. I'm trying to keep peace between you and Malik, right? Yeah, I'm not really concerned about peace with Malik. Okay. Not that this would ever happen.
[00:04:40] What if, hypothetically, the high priest, I don't know, makes like a golden calf and he's like, yeah, do this. What if the high priest tells us to do it? No. So there's like, no exceptions?
[00:04:54] No. Anyone else here? Approach finding loopholes. Let me tell you this. When you see the Israelites and you see the kinds of laws that need to be written, you're going to be like, why did they need this level of specificity? Because our sinful impulses define a loophole so that we can do whatever we want, whenever we want. And what I appreciate about Old Testament law is that it really gets rid of the loopholes in two ways. Number one, it provides unusual clarity. You're going to see that. And then number two, what it does is it gives the Israelites what I would call make you think twice consequences. You guys ever do this with your children? Like, yeah, you can do that, but if you do it, here's what's going to happen. So you better think twice before you do it. And you'll see in Leviticus 20, there's pretty extensive consequences for violating any of these. So open your Bibles, leviticus, chapter 18. And what I want you to do as we get into this chapter is I want you to empathize with what it would be like to be an Israelite, to hear these laws, these rules, this whole kind of moral framework for the very first time. And so what you have to understand is that they're coming out of Egypt. Egypt framed and formed their kind of moral compass and code. And so what's happening is almost every single law given to the nation of Israel is going to feel upside down and backwards. It's going to go really against the grain of most of what they know about God worship, family, children, sexuality, good, evil, morals. Like all of these categories are about to be flipped in their head and they're going to come to a quick realization that what we thought was real good, true and right actually was devastating, immoral and leads to death. So the Israelites were formed in a culture where three specific things were very, very connected to worship in life, and that would be substances, sacrifices and sexuality. And so taking substances, hallucinogenic substances or drinking to the point of drunkenness was a very common, we'll say, method of worship in cult religions. And so one of the encouragements was take this drug, get into a hallucinogenic state, drink a lot of alcohol, whatever it is, to get you intoxicated that was very important as kind of this chapter unfolds, you're going to see why this was particularly needed. The other thing that they would do is they would require blood and sacrifices, whether it was to the goat demon Azazel or to Malik or to other territorial gods, which we know are just demons masquerading as gods. And then what you find is that very common in Canaanite ancient cult religions is group intimate sexual activity. And all of these three things would kind of converge and these were normal for the Israelites. Now, I want to say this. Egypt would participate in these things to a degree, but the land to which they are going are going to take this to levels that are unimaginable even for your brain. And so they're about to go to a land with zero restraint in any way. And what you're going to see is these laws are going to show you the level or the lack of restraint that the Canaanites had. Now, just to give you even, like a sneak peek into even what they had in Egypt, one of the most ridiculous verses in the Old Testament, exodus, chapter 32, verse six, the people are worshipping this golden calf. And here's what it describes in their worship. It says, the people sat down to eat and drink. Have you ever seen this? And they rose up to play.
[00:08:31] All right, well, I'm not going to say out loud what that is, but I think you can infer that this is a nice Hebrew way of the third category of some intimate things in groups that should not be happening. What was normal or semi normal in Egypt that was going to be taken to unimaginable levels when they went into Canaan. And so this lure of substances and sacrifice and group sexuality and the name of worship was going to draw the hearts of these people, I think, in a way that most of us, when we see it, will probably not understand. Because if you read this list of laws and your heart goes, right, good, that means you grew up in a culture that actually was formed by the laws that are about to be given. They didn't. They grew up in a permissive culture where everything was okay and they were about to go to a place where even in Egypt, there were some rules. They were about to go to a land where there were going to be no rules, but God is going to separate, to set apart a group of people. And they were going to be different. They were going to be disciplined, they were going to be OD. They were going to be, as a Hebrew Old Testament says, holy or set apart. Here's the problem. They don't know what holy is. If you know what holy is, it's because someone told you they don't know. And they have a notion of right and wrong, but it's really unformed, and God's got to clarify it and really help them see what is holy. So Leviticus, chapter 18, verse one, regulations on Sexual intimacy. Verse one.
[00:10:04] The Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan. That's the promised land to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. So here it is.
[00:10:28] You don't get to justify something as good, right, or appropriate because, well, that's what I grew up with.
[00:10:36] And you also don't get to justify something as good, right, and appropriate because, well, look, everyone around me is doing it.
[00:10:44] In fact, what we see here is that for the people of God, our standard of good, right, holy, and appropriate is not the past, it's not our present culture, but it really is the word of God. A couple of weeks back, my wife and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. We went to Iceland. If you go on our Facebook page, you can see amazing pictures, beautiful land, totally vast, unbelievable culture, and people are wonderful. But there is just one strange part of this culture that does not make sense to me. And so this is very common in Iceland and other Scandinavian countries. And so here's what would happen.
[00:11:18] Their dating and sexuality culture are inverted from ours. And so there's not a lot of people on this island. There are as many people in Iceland that live there as three Elgins. So take the total population of Elgin, times it by three, and that is the whole country. And about 80% to 90% live in one capital city. Everybody knows each other, like and so there's not like a ton of people where you're going to be able to, I don't know, go on a date and then never see them again. So if you go on a date, you're going to see them within the week, and there's only a handful of hangout spots. And so people you get to know people pretty quick. It's a small community. So here's how they handle dating culture. It is very normal, and I mean, normal. You meet somebody, you've never met them or you know them, and you just go home and hook up. That's it. You see them the next day, you never talk about it. It's no big deal. It's no big deal. That's just how they do it. But you know what? It is a big deal. The DTR. How many of you guys know what a DTR is?
[00:12:16] It is the define the relationship discussion. Very important. You're in a relationship and you're like, what is this? Are we together? Am I your girlfriend? Am I your boyfriend? Like what's happening? The DTR super important conversation to bring clarity to who we are. That is a big deal. Men are petrified to have the DTR conversation. They'll take you home. But it's interesting because when you do this, you've already spent the night together. That's already happened, right? That's not a big deal then, right? But this conversation is huge. And so it's interesting as a cultural super. High value for the family, very, very low value for sexuality. Outside of that context, it's just free. And it's also not an accident that this country, of all the countries in Europe, has the highest rate of chlamydia in the entire country. And so you can start to see, by the way, these kinds of behaviors have real life consequences.
[00:13:09] And so Christians, let's say I'm a single, and I move over to some Scandinavian country or Iceland, do I just get to take home whoever I want? Because that's just the way they do it here. No, it doesn't matter where you're at, what culture you live in, where you came from, or where you're going. Our patterns, our morals, our behavior, what is good, right and holy is not rooted in what they do, but what God says.
[00:13:31] And this is paramount. If you're going to follow Jesus, you are literally agreeing to say, I am going to not live by what the culture says is good, right and true, but I'm going to live under the authority of Jesus Christ and his word.
[00:13:45] We do not live by our heart culture. We not live by our present culture, and we don't live by our impulses, but by the word of God. Look at verse four.
[00:13:54] God says, you shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. But why? Here's his answer. I am the Lord, your god. Verse five. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules. If a person does them, he shall live by them. Why? His answer is always the same I am the Lord. Now, the following regulations in Leviticus chapter 18 are going to blow their minds. They are going to feel upside down.
[00:14:26] Everything that they thought was good is going to end up being actually not holy. And the first category of laws are incest laws. Now, let me say this one more time.
[00:14:37] When you hear these, if you think to yourself, that's disgusting good, because you grew up in a Judeo Christian culture formed by this set of laws that shaped millennia of people. Praise God. But imagine you never had that. Imagine you lived in a world where everything that we're about to read was fair game, and now you had to be instructed that it was wrong. Okay, here we go.
[00:15:09] Verse six gives us a principle to guide.
[00:15:13] None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. Why? I am the Lord. You can hear it. You just hear their loopholes. Okay, what if okay, I hear you. I get it. Duly noted. But what do you mean by quote unquote, close relative?
[00:15:40] Like you can't mean everyone, right? That's ridiculous. All right, what about my parents?
[00:15:51] Verse seven, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother. You shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. It is your father's nakedness how many ways do we have to say this? Backwards, forwards, so that if your brain is trying to find a loophole how to spend an intimate night with your mother or father, we're going to shut that down right now. Because it doesn't matter how you slice this thing. That is not okay. And I appreciate actually the way that this is organized. And it is written, the one's body is for the other, and that is it. Nobody else monogamous, male female marriage together. That's it. You guys. This is it. And right off the bat, there is a value for the family. Well, you're going to see, by the way, every single one of these laws to come are for the protection of marriage. Because if you have a strong marriage, you can have a strong family. If you have a strong family, you can have a strong community, you can have a strong nation. And this is what God wants. He is building the institution of the marriage and getting rid of every single possible threat to it. And so therefore, all of these laws okay, all right. Yahweh. I hear you, mom and dad. That makes sense. Got it. What about my siblings?
[00:17:02] Verse nine, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister.
[00:17:07] For clarity, your father's daughter. What if I don't know, what if it's my father's daughter but not my mother's daughter? Okay, fine. Or your mother's daughter. Okay, but what if hear me out. What if they didn't grow up in my house, whether brought up in the family or in another home? Man, party pooper. All right, what about grandkids, by the way? Go back to the story Soda of Gamora and read some of the stuff that happens there, and you'll start to understand why these things are being said. Verse ten, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your son's daughter or of your daughter's daughter, for their nakedness is your own nakedness. Let me remind you of something. God doesn't waste laws.
[00:17:51] There are not ridiculous laws. There are ridiculous people.
[00:17:56] Every law is given for a purpose. All right, verses eleven to 18, we're just going to read. Buckle up.
[00:18:04] You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife's daughter brought up in your father's family since she's your sister. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister. She is your father's relative. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister, for she's your mother's relative. Yeah, but what about this next one? You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's brother. That is, you shall not approach his wife. She's your aunt. Leave her alone. Or some of you say, aunt. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter in law. But we're not like blood.
[00:18:34] She's your son's wife. You shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife. It is your brother's nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter. And you shall not take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter to uncover her nakedness their relatives. And I love the moral clarity. It's depravity.
[00:18:55] Okay, what if I have a wife and I want to marry your sister so I can pit them against each other?
[00:19:03] Verse 18, you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister. Dang it. Oh, uncovering her nakedness while her sister's still alive.
[00:19:12] Every law is given because someone has the impulse to do these things.
[00:19:17] I read this chapter and I'm like, what is happening? And this is why culture is so important.
[00:19:24] All right, verses 29 to 23, they're going to identify really five behaviors that are fairly deviant, and they're going to get called out really specific.
[00:19:35] Verse 19, and this is going to feel a little bit out of the blue, but I think once you see it in its context, you're going to go, I get it. Verse 19 says, you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness. Okay, Pastor Dean, incredible job with this whole discharge sermon. Thank you for that.
[00:19:52] You'll notice if you are paying attention and if you're reading this for the very first time, here's what should go through your brain. Okay? You talked about this earlier in the book and you didn't forbid this. It just said it made us unclean, as do a whole bunch of other things. And so there's a process to get clean. But here, this is like pretty strong language. Something has shifted from this whole idea of menstruation and sexuality. Okay. Verse 19 is not regulating marriage, but it's regulating adultery. I want you to watch this because the next verse is connected to this, and I'm going to read it for you and then show you what this means.
[00:20:32] Verse 20, you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor's wife and so make yourself unclean with her. All right. Translation what if I'm intimate with my neighbor's wife when she's menstruating? Because the chances of pregnancy are almost zero.
[00:20:53] No, I don't know how to find all the loopholes. God is apparently anticipating everything. Here's another way of saying it. If it doesn't hurt anybody and my wife never finds out and there's almost no possibility of a baby, then who cares?
[00:21:09] Not everybody who's married in this room says, I would care. I care. I care. This is important.
[00:21:16] Verses 21 to 23, they're going to address the possibility of legal loopholes due to religious exemptions.
[00:21:23] Verse 21, you shall not give any of your children to offer them to Malik and so profane the name of your God. Why? I am the Lord.
[00:21:37] We talk about Malik a lot because you can't teach on the Old Testament, particularly Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, without this demon God coming up. But this was the God that it was created and it looked like an animal and it had its arms outstretched and there was a big furnace in its belly and you would light it up so its arms would glow red. And then you would take your living child, put it on it and burn it alive as a sacrifice to Malik. This is how it happened. It's disgusting. Now, you might be asking yourself, why is a child sacrifice regulation in a chapter on sexual regulations? Because he was also a god of fertility. And so how do you and this is the question that people need to ask. How do mothers get to a point where they are willing to do these kinds of things? You make them drunk, you give them hallucinogenic drugs, you numb them with sexuality and you put them into a stupor and then you tell them, if you don't do this, all your other kids are going to die. You can see the demonic trap and then an entire generation's conscience is numbed to the point where they're like, that's just the way it is.
[00:22:45] Verse 22 brings us to the second possible religious exemption. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. And you can hear the thought process. Okay, but what if the intimacy, what if it's not heterosexual, but it's homosexual? And if it doesn't hurt anybody, and by the way, y'all, it's for a good cause. Like we're trying to make these guys happy so they don't get upset with you and my family and my friends, right? Is that cool?
[00:23:09] No. He actually brings unbelievable moral clarity. He says at the end of verse 22, it is an abomination.
[00:23:18] There is not a single Christ follower I have ever met that does not have the same challenge.
[00:23:25] Every one of us have powerful impulses, desires and proclivities that the Bible says no. And to follow Jesus is no less, it is more. But it is no less than saying I am a sinner and I have proclivities to all sorts of wickedness and sin. It feels right. It is my nature. It is in me. But I am choosing to follow Christ and I'm choosing to say no to my inclinations. Anybody else have a desire to sin this week?
[00:23:56] This morning?
[00:23:58] Anybody else have an impulse or a desire to do something that you're like, I know won't make God happy? That is normal. That is the flesh. That is the life we have to deal with. But following Christ is to say, yeah, we all have impulses and desires, but I let the word of God tell me what is good, true, right and holy. And if the word of God requires me to say no to an impulse, I say this is my personal act of worship as a follower of Christ.
[00:24:22] And every one of us, probably every day of our life, have to look at our own impulses, desires and proclivities and say it does not consistent with the word of God. Verse 23 brings us to the third possible religious exemption bestiality you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it. Neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it. And again, the moral clarity is so refreshing, it is perversion.
[00:24:56] Okay, Yahweh, you were asking me to do the impossible.
[00:25:00] Why would you ever ask me to subject my family, my husband, my wife and my children to be tormented and tortured by real demons and real territorial gods with real power? If I don't give them what they want, they will take it out on me. And yahweh is like, I got you. Stay within the camp. You are protected. Molok Azazel, they have no power in the camp. Stay with me and my people and we will protect you.
[00:25:33] Leviticus 1824 to 30 I appreciate just the reiteration of the principles. Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things. For by all these the nations I am driving out before you, they have become unclean. And the land became unclean so that I punished its iniquity. And the land, they were so vile to one another into the land that the land vomited out its inhabitants.
[00:26:01] But you, you shall keep my statutes and my rules. And do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you. For the people of the land who were before you did all these abominations so that the land became unclean, lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For everyone who does any of these abominations, the person who does them shall be cut off from among their people.
[00:26:27] So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never make yourselves unclean by them. I am the Lord, your god.
[00:26:43] I think one of the greatest evidences of divine origin of these Old Testament laws is that no human would come up with laws like this on their own and they never had. This is the first time this kind of moral code is being brought into the legal conscience of humanity.
[00:27:00] And so why would we change? Why would we subject ourselves to an entirely new moral code when the current morality I'll be honest, it feels good. The current morality works. The current morality is easy and it's familiar.
[00:27:17] And there's something different though, something fundamentally different.
[00:27:22] They understood that Yahweh was not like the territorial gods, that he was the god of gods, that he was powerful and he was calling them to be different and set apart. And a people not of death, but a people of life, a people of sacrifice, a people of love, a people of family, a strong nation protected by their god and freed from the demon religions that sought to destroy them. Anybody stressed, by the way, on the one hand I'm like, really? I got to preach on this. Another hand I'm like, don't you also appreciate that there's nothing God won't talk about? There is nothing that goes into the mind of a person that God's like, didn't see that coming.
[00:28:05] And he's so gracious to look at us and say, if I didn't tell you, you would never know. And so out of love for you and humanity, we're just going to bring clarity to all the loopholes you're going to find in your heart and your mind. And we're going to bring crystal clarity so that you might live and flourish to the glory of God.
[00:28:23] Two. So whats?
[00:28:25] The first one is this recognize the power of our cultural moment over your own mind.
[00:28:32] I would love to say that I am unaffected by this culture. I am not. I've been born in it. I live it, I breathe it. It is in my soul.
[00:28:41] And so I have to understand that I can be blind to things that are right in front of my face, which is why I need the word of God to consistently be forming my mind, because culture is always forming me. And I need the word of God to bring clarity to me so that when I forget or find a loophole or my heart just wants something, so I'm going to justify it. I need the word of God to tell me what is true. Our cultural moment, it's trending in a strange direction. And here's some of the just the concepts, some of the mantras of our culture moment.
[00:29:14] If I feel it, it is true.
[00:29:19] If I want it, I deserve it.
[00:29:24] If I desire it, it is good.
[00:29:29] If you look at those statements and you think to yourself, that's ridiculous. Good for you. Would you ever raise your children like this? Even like pagan parents, secular, anything would not raise their children like this, by and large.
[00:29:43] But as we grow up, these begin to be the way. We form our lives in this culture as adults. These are the standards by which we say, I want it, I deserve it, I feel it, I am inclined toward it. Who are you to tell me that the impulse of my mind, my heart, my desires is bad, judgmental, jerk? But the Word of God, it forms us. We're not formed by the culture, and we don't get to make the Word of God say things that we want it to say. And so maybe here's some better ways to think through this.
[00:30:11] Feeling does not equal fact.
[00:30:15] We don't deserve everything we want, and desire does not equal permission.
[00:30:23] So we do as the people of God. We live under the authority of the Word of God, not the authority of our current culture, because the current culture, it doesn't love you.
[00:30:32] It is not seeking for your flourishing. It is typically looking for control, and for somebody in control of it to get more wealthy at the expense of your life.
[00:30:41] So at number two, if you came to Jesus later in life, this is my Word of the week. Buckle up.
[00:30:51] The dismantling process is long and slow, and my encouragement to you is to welcome it.
[00:30:58] When somebody comes to Christ later in life, you have a really beautiful but unique challenge.
[00:31:04] You have lived an entire life with a moral framework, thankfully formed by the Judeo Christian ethic, for sure, but there is an entire framework, and then there has been a life you have lived, and there are things that you think are good, right, holy, true, fine, acceptable, et cetera. But then what happens is you live decade after decade after decade with culture being your God, informing your ideas of truth.
[00:31:27] You have a lot of ideas that probably need to be dismantled. And so the person who's older in life, who comes to Christ, has a lot of dismantling to do.
[00:31:36] And that can be a slow, frustrating, arduous process. But I'm telling you guys, it is worth it. In fact, one of the challenges of people coming to Christ later in life. I want to draw this out for you so you can see this, is that the older you get, the longer you've been alive, it is harder for you to come to Christ. Because to come to faith in Christ is an admission that from the moment I have been born until this moment on the most important questions of life. I was wrong.
[00:32:13] Could you imagine being 80 years old and calling your four or five children, who are all adults with kids, and you've got great grandkids running amok, and you have to call your kids and say, I made an error and it was terrible. And I need to tell you what I learned about what is true and what is real about this world. There is a God and he loves you. And I didn't know it until I was 80 years old.
[00:32:41] We are petrified of looking dumb. Anybody else here would like to look stupid? Anyone? I don't.
[00:32:47] And so when we are in positions where we have to admit that we have been wrong about something we took hard stances on for a long period of time, it takes an incredible amount of humility. But if the God of the Bible is right, I don't care how old you are, if there is eternity and there is one way to salvation and that is through faith in Jesus Christ, I will say that I was wrong for the first 30, 40, 50, 70, 80, 90 years of my life. If it means I can spend an eternity with my God forgiven and redeemed. Amen. And so this is what holds. Most people will actually back from coming to Christ. One is going to be they don't want to give up their sin. Two is because they don't want to be wrong to go have to go back to even when you're 15 years old or twelve years old to go back and say I missed this, I was wrong. But the benefits of being reconciled forever to the one and only God far outweighs the temporary of pain, of swallowing your pride and saying I messed up and what I love, what I love. The good news for everyone here is that forgiveness and reconciliation with God, it is for anybody who tells God I am sorry and believes in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. And so maybe you are here. Maybe you thought I'm a good person, good people go to heaven. Maybe you thought I grew up going to church. That did it. Maybe you thought my grandma was a Christian and she prayed for me, I'm good.
[00:34:13] None of that matters when it comes to eternity. Because what the word of God also teaches is not just clarity on morality, but clarity on how specifically to be reconciled to God. And it is only ever through one way. It is for the person who says, god, I'm sorry, and I believe that Jesus died for my sins and was raised again from the dead. And any person who tells God they're sorry and believes in Jesus Christ's death and resurrection for them and their place, god says forgiveness is yours. And so maybe you came here today and you have rooted your confidence in salvation on maybe a good work or something somebody else did, or maybe even your presence here at church. And no one has ever, ever told you before in your entire life, none of that will ever, ever impact your eternity or your ability to get into heaven. It is only ever through the blood of Christ. One of the things I love about the book of Leviticus, the whole book of Leviticus, jesus hadn't even been born yet when this is written. It is one big arrow pointing to the Son of God who came to pay the price for our sins and reconcile us back to God. And so if you have never, ever personally trusted in Christ, I want to encourage you. You can do that now. You can do that today. And if that is a decision that you are ready to make, I would encourage you tell the person you came with, if you don't know who they are, maybe you came alone. Find one of us up front. We just love to pray with you, encourage you and help you take a next step with the Lord. Guys, we made it through Leviticus 18. This actually is the hardest chapter in the book of Leviticus, but you've been absolutely amazing. I want to pray for us and we're going to celebrate communion together. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for dealing with hard subjects. Thank you for not mincing words. Thank you for bringing clarity, and not just to morality, but Lord, also, thank you for communicating to us the only way of eternal life and forgiveness, and it's through faith in Christ. Thank you for not making us have to earn our salvation. What a frustrating idea to never wonder if your good works outweigh your bad works. Thank you for giving us the confidence that we need, not because we were good enough, but because you said, anybody who trusts in Christ can have eternal life. And, Lord, if there's something in our hearts that is just not right with you, even as we walk through Leviticus 18, maybe we're not struggling with something specifically in this text, but maybe your Holy Spirit brought something to mind where we know our life looks more like the culture and less like the word of God. Remind us of the forgiveness of the blood of Christ. Encourage us and empower us to take a next step so that we might be people who live according to the word of God for the glory of God and receive the life that comes with that. So we love you, we thank you, and we remember and celebrate what you've done for us. In Jesus name, amenville. Church amen.
[00:37:51] Amen.
