Good morning again. We're glad that you're here with us today. Welcome to Smartland Campus. We love you guys. Glad you're connected there. Everyone that's connecting with us online, we're so happy to have that connection with you online as well.
As we continue our series today, we're going through the book of Exodus. This week, we're going to be in chapter 37. If you want to be opening up your Bibles or pull it up on your smartphone or tablets, Exodus chapter 37.
Back in the early days of the automobile, they were trying to work out how they would control the cars and the trucks. They were trying to control the trains at crossings where they had train crossings. It was the responsibility of the railroad company to make sure everything was safe for the automobiles that were now traveling across those tracks.
They came up with this plan to have a signalman that would go out to the intersection when the train was approaching. At night, the signalman would have a lantern that he would hold and swing, signifying to the cars that might be coming that a train was on the way.
Well, there was a terrible accident. He was in one of those railroad crossings, and a train smashed into a car, pushed it nearly 100 yards down the track there. And though nobody was killed, the driver of the car took the railroad company to court.
And at the trial, the crossing guard, the guy with the lantern, insisted that he had given the driver ample warning by waving the lantern back and forth for nearly a minute before the train came. He even stood and convincingly demonstrated how he had waved. He waved the lantern, and sure enough, the court believed his story, and the suit was dismissed.
Well, after the trial, the lawyer went up to the guy, and he said, "Congratulations, you did superbly under cross-examination." And the guy said, "Thanks, but he really had me worried for a little while there." And he said, "Well, what do you mean? How's that?" He said, "I was afraid he was going to ask me if the lantern was lit."
Those little details are important, aren't they? And part of what we're looking at today. Today in Exodus is, really, we're in that section of Exodus, like I mentioned last week. If you missed one of these, you can go back and catch them on our YouTube channel.
But last week, we talked about the fact that when we're looking at Exodus, these chapters we're in right now do a lot of repeating of stuff that's already been talked about. But it gives some different details, some different information.
But we talked about early on in this series how repetition is really good for us. When we repeat things, when we hear them over and over again, repetition can help it sink in more, right? And so Moses, in this book of Exodus, is repeating some of these things that he knew that people were going to need to hear more than once. They're going to need to hear it over and over again.
And sometimes when we go to church for a long time, we start thinking we've heard it all before. And maybe you have, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't still be listening, that you don't need to hear it again. That you don't need the repetition in your life of the word.
And so what we're looking at today is in chapter 37, and it's a repeating of some things that have already been said. Next week, we're going to look at chapters 38 and 39. And the week after that, believe it or not, since July, we've been in Exodus. The week after that, we will finish up with Exodus chapter 40, where we're completing this series.
So if you've got your Bibles, as I said, I want you right now, we're going to look at the first 16 verses of Exodus. Exodus chapter 37. But before I read these verses, I want you to remember where we are and where we've been for the last several months here, okay?
God is making his people a distinct people among all the nations. He's in this process of transforming them from being those slaves in Egypt that were controlled by their thinking the way they were in Egypt, and now transforming their minds and their processes.
God wants them to think like God wants them to think, to be the people God wants them to be, to live the life that God wants them to live. He's shaping them. He's creating a people that are going to reveal to the rest of the nations and the rest of the world his wisdom, his power, his might, and his beauty.
He wants these people to be those set-apart people. And remember, everything in Exodus is foreshadowing, right? It's looking ahead. And it's looking ahead to the time that he... He would have a people from all the nations who would represent him in this world, from all tribes, from all tongues, from all races, from all ethnicities, who would be called together to be his people and to be set-apart for him.
And he has freed us from our own slavery, our bondage to sin and death, and he's now making us that distinct people set-apart for him. See, that's the work God's doing today, in us, in our lives, in the church worldwide, is he's transforming us by his teaching and his encouragement and his discipline.
He's teaching us to be the people that the rest of the world can look at and get to know God through us, what God's really like, who God really is, because people out there have so many misconceptions about God or don't believe in a God at all. And we are the people. We are the people that are supposed to represent him well in the world.
So, we have to remember, that's God's big plan. Remember, God's got this plan. It's an amazing plan. It's for your good and my good, and it's for his glory. That's what his plan is all about. It's for our good.
So, we have to remember that. When we see God's plan, when we read things in there that are hard, we have to remember it's for our good that he put that in his plan. And he has a plan that will ultimately bring about a new world. It will bring about good for us, and it will certainly bring glory to his name.
So, he's working in our lives, and all of the working that he's doing is for our good and for his glory, just like it was for Israel when he was working with them through this time we read about in Exodus. He had a plan for them as a people, and it was for their good. And it was for them to bring glory to him. It was for his glory as well.
So, everything we've looked at in Exodus, everything that it points to is the fact that it revolves around the presence and the power of God in our lives as his people. His presence and his power is what is going to distinguish us. It's going to set us apart as the people of God.
One of the things that makes us distinct is that presence and that power of God and how active that is working in our lives. And we see that play out in a lot of different ways. And one of the ways that it plays out, I hope you've been catching this as we've gone through this series, is we believe as God's people that we can embrace that some of the more significant things God is going to do and is doing in our lives and is going to accomplish in our lives, he's going to accomplish over a long period of time, and he's going to accomplish it in everyday faithfulness.
We like the big and the bright and the impressive. But when you read about God working in Exodus with a people he was transforming, it was not so much about the big things, that God was looking for the day-to-day faithfulness of his people.
You see, they had a lot of big moments, didn't they? They had the big moments when they were freed from slavery. They had the big moment with the parting of the sea. They had the big moment when the first manna came down from heaven, when they first had the water from the rock. There were a lot of big moments along the way, but we're talking about over a period of years there.
There were these big moments, but the big moments didn't define them as the set-apart people of God. It was how they lived day-to-day and the ordinary day-to-day stuff of life. You see, he wants us to be set-apart and distinct people for him, and we have to understand that God is at work in the everyday.
I don't know if this is a real word or not, somebody can check it for me, ordinariness. I don't think that's a word. We can make it a word. The ordinariness of every day, in a culture that wants it big and loud and fast with video and great music underneath the video and all kinds of AI-generated graphics, we want it to be huge.
And as a distinct people of God, we have to understand there might be some moments like that, but God is at work in the everyday ordinary stuff, and you'll miss it if you're just waiting on the big stuff all the time. You'll miss that transforming work that's happening in the day-to-day when we walk faithfully day-to-day with God.
I know it doesn't get the headlines. I know it doesn't call attention to us on the day-to-day. We don't get a lot of praise for the day-to-day ordinary stuff. We don't get a lot of praise for the day-to-day ordinary living out the life or recognition for it.
But friends, that's part of the transforming power at work that takes us to the big thing, the ultimate big thing that God wants for us, and that is that we are distinctly His people in this world that point people to Him.
So let's look at this passage in Exodus 37, beginning with verse 1. Exodus 37, beginning with verse 1. It's a repeating of some things we already looked at, but it is important for us to see why this is repeated, okay? Here we go.
Exodus 37, beginning with verse 1. Bezalel made the ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. He overlaid it with pure gold, both inside and out. He made a gold molding around it. He cast four gold rings for it and fastened them to its four feet, with two rings on one side and two rings on the other.
Then he made poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with gold, and he inserted the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry it. He made the atonement covering of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide.
Then he made two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. He made one cherub on one end, the second cherub on the other. At the two ends, he made them of one piece with the cover. The cherubim and their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim faced each other, looking toward the cover.
They made the table of acacia wood, two cubits long, a cubit wide, a cubit and a half high. They overlaid it with pure gold, made a gold molding around it.
Whoa. I'll just stop there for a minute. Some kind of alarm going on here. I think everything's okay. If you're online and you don't hear that, we got a little buzz going on there. I don't know exactly what it is, but I know we're okay.
Yeah. We're good. Here we go. Some of you probably glazed over when I read through all that, because it's just measurements, instructions, specific details about how God wanted everything to be made.
Now God could miraculously make this stuff. I mean, he's the creator. He made everything that exists. The stuff they were working with to make this stuff. The tabernacle, he made that stuff for them to use. So he could have just miraculously put up a tabernacle.
But remember what he's trying to do with the people? He's wanting to transform them into a distinct set-apart people for him. And we like to think that what sets us apart is these great big events. And God is saying, I want you to pay attention to these details.
And I'm giving you, because if you will obey me in these little specific things that I'm telling you to do, he went on to tell them about the lampstand and the altar of incense and the altar of burnt offering and the making of the bronze basin and the court and the materials for the tabernacle.
He gives them all these detailed instructions for all of that stuff. And you wonder, why is that even in Exodus? It's boring to read it, especially twice. It's in there twice. Why is it in there twice?
It's to teach us, remember everything is a foreshadowing. It's teaching us that the little everyday details that God tells us are important to life really are important. That we listen to them. That we honor God by paying attention to what he's calling us to do and be the people that he's calling us to be.
And we don't become those people by jumping from here all the way over to here without some steps in between. There has to be some daily obedience to the details to get us to where God wants us to be. To be the people that he wants us to be. To represent him well in this world and point people to him.
We live in a world where that's harder and harder for people to swallow. Because we live in a world that is so full of the spectacular now. We are the most entertained people in the history of the world. We've got spectacular things to get our attention and entertain us.
Right here, right? You can pull up almost anything on this device or on your laptop or your tablet. All kinds of games and movies. And then if that's not enough, you've got the virtual reality things, right? You can get one of those and put that on. And you feel like you're actually in that world and you can be entertained that way.
And if that's not enough, you can go to Disney World every week and be entertained every day, all day long. We live to go to the next entertainment thing. Why do you think the entertainment industry keeps putting out new concerts, new movies, new events?
It's because we are a people that just want to be entertained all the time. It distracts us from the day-to-day. Because the day-to-day is really the hard part. Living out the life that God has called us to live day-to-day. That's really what that life is all about. Not the big splashy things.
The daily choices. The daily grind. The daily being kind to your neighbor. The daily forgiving the people that hurt you. The daily being good stewards of the resources that he puts in your possession. The daily being the witness to others by sharing the word. The daily time of prayer. The daily time of meditating on God's word.
The daily stuff. The details. Are really the power of transformation in our lives. The little day-to-day things. And I can tell you quickly, if you don't do the little detailed day-to-day things, transformation does not come or last very long in my life or yours. It does not.
If we want life to be different, we have to give our attention to the ordinary day-to-day things. The details that God gives us about life. I just want to share this again because I hear this. I've heard it again this week. And I know what they're trying to say. It's not a bad thing, but it's a false thing.
And they say it this way. It sounds so spiritual. Christianity is not a religion. It's a relationship. And that sounds good. And there's some truth to it because here's the thing. Christianity doesn't exist without the relationship. It does not.
But here's what a religion is. It's a set of teaching that you come under and follow. That's what a religion is. And Christianity is a religion because there's that teaching. There's that instruction that he wants you to come under.
But it's religion that's centered in and based upon the relationship you have with Jesus. You see, the motivation for coming under that teaching is the relationship that you have with Jesus. So you don't have to have just one or the other. Quit thinking that you do.
We have a culture right now that thinks if I just believe in Jesus and I know he loves me and I love him, I'm set without following the teaching of Jesus Christ. The teaching of his word. Without coming under his authority as Lord. You can't separate those two things. They're not separated in scripture. They're not separated in his word.
We should have both. We should follow the teachings because we have such a great relationship with our father through his son Jesus. We value his teachings. They are precious to us. And we choose to follow those teachings because of the relationship we have.
We know how much he loves us. We know he wants only what is good for us and that will bring him glory. We know that's his plan. That's why we surrender to the teachings.
So yes, Christianity is a religion, but it's different than any other religion in the world because it's based in a relationship with Jesus. And everything about it centers in that relationship. It's not just about following. You could follow the rules without the relationship. That's not what God wants.
He wants you to follow the teachings because of the relationship that you have with him through his son Jesus. So, there are three things here we're learning from Exodus. I read that section today on purpose. I could have done an exegetical study of Exodus 37. That's not what we're doing today.
What we're doing today is seeing why that's even there. Why he even repeated it again. Why was it there the first time and why does he take the time to give all these details one more time? It's because he's training and transforming his people to understand that the day-to-day obedience to the details about life that he gives us, that's what the relationship is all about.
That's what leads to the transformation in our lives that he wants us to have. So, I want to see three things here from Exodus that we can learn today. And I'm going to give you the outline right away. For some of you type A personalities, you can fill in the blanks. All of them right now. Here we go.
Three things that we see in the life of the Israelites that is foreshadowing what we need to be doing today. The first thing is we hear the Word. Then we believe the Word. That's number two. And then guess what? We obey the Word. Three things. We hear the Word. We believe the Word. And we obey the Word.
So now you can listen. You got your blanks filled in. Not everybody's type A personality, but for those that are, you're just trying to get the blanks filled in. I want you to really listen now. You got the blanks filled in. Okay?
All through the book of Exodus, we've been seeing these three things played out. God chose Moses to go deliver the Word to the people. Why? Because it has to start with what? Hearing the Word. We can't obey what we don't know. We can't know what we don't hear or see.
So it has to start with God providing a way for people to hear the Word. And there's some examples of that in Exodus. Let's go back to Exodus 24, verse 3. It says, "When Moses went and told the people all the Lord's words and laws," what was Moses doing? He was making sure that the Israelites heard the Word.
He wants them to hear it. He says, "They responded with one voice. Everything the Lord has said, we will do." So have they heard it? We know they've at least heard it, right? Jesus used this phrase over and over again. "He who has ears to hear, let them hear."
So I want you to understand. We're saying they heard it, but there's a difference in hearing it and really hearing it. Okay? It's like your children. When you ask them, or I hate to use this example, but wives, when you say to your husband, "Did you hear me?" We know what to say, husbands, don't we? "Yeah, I heard you."
And that's cool until she says, "Tell me what I said." And you have to really get creative. We heard the noise. We knew she was talking. But we may not have been totally listening, right? Especially if the ball game was on, right? Wives, be more selective when you want to try to tell us something, okay?
So it says, "Everything they said with one voice. Everything the Lord has said, we will do." Moses then wrote, remember this? Then he wrote down everything the Lord had said. Then he got up early the next morning. He built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel.
Then he sent young Israelite men. And they offered burnt offerings and sacrifices. Young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. Moses took half the blood and put it in bowls. The other half he splashed against the altar.
Then, listen to this. Then he took the book of the covenant and he did what? Read it to the people the very next morning. He just read it to them the day before. He just told them all the words of the Lord the day before. Now he writes it down. He offers these sacrifices in connection with it to give emphasis to it.
And then he reads it to them again the very next day. And they responded, "We will do everything the Lord has said. We will obey." God was making sure that through Moses the people could never say, "Well, God didn't tell us about that. God didn't say anything about that. God didn't mention that. God, if we had only known, right? We wouldn't have done this or we would have done that like he wanted us to."
But we didn't know. He's taking that away, right? And he's making sure they do know what his plan is for them. And there are a lot of details in it. There's a lot of the day-to-day ordinary stuff in there that God is telling them about.
And his law and his covenant that he's making with them. And he's saying, "I'm not ever going to be unfair to you. I'm going to make sure you hear it before I expect you to obey it." It would be unfair to expect us to just know what all we're supposed to do all the time.
So he doesn't leave us like that because he loves us. And he's got this plan, right? It's for our good. And it's for his glory. So he wants to make sure we know the plan. Because it will help us to know the plan and follow the plan.
And we can't follow it if we don't know it, if we haven't ever heard it. So he makes sure that they hear the plan. And here's the thing about hearing the plan. The Word of God is the plan. The Word of God, the Scripture reveals to us, is full of power.
It's God in the working of his Spirit. The Bible says that the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit of God. And so there's power in the Word. Which means there's power just in the act of hearing the Word. There's power there.
I love preaching at Lakeshore Christian Church. Teaching at this church. Because our leadership and our staff, we are a church committed to the Word. And we get to share it. And we get to do it boldly. And we get to do it with joy. And we get to do it with anticipation of knowing that God's power is at work through the Word.
And when you come on Sundays, we don't want you just to think, "Well that's what Pastor Randy said." We want you to know. We want to make sure we connect it. This is God's Word we're talking about here. There's power not because I said it or somebody else said it or some celebrity said it. The power is in the Word itself.
So the more we get away from that, the more we get away from the power and the presence of God. But the more we call ourselves back to that and spend time with that and hear that over and over again, the more there is that opportunity for God's power to start working in us. Through the Word.
We need to be a people of the Word. God is calling the Israelites to be a people of the Word. And that starts with making sure they would hear the Word. The Hebrew writer says in Hebrews 4:12, "The Word of God is alive and active. It's sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to the dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart."
There's power in the Word. But part of the working of the Word, listen to what he said in Hebrews. It's alive and active. Oh, that sounds good. Sharper than any double-edged sword. That sounds good. But here's the thing it does. It penetrates even to dividing soul, spirit, joints and marrow.
And it does this. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. And that's why a lot of us avoid the Word. Because the Word of God convicts and converts and transforms people's lives. In other words, it won't leave us like we were before we heard it. If we really listen to it. It will change us. It will transform us.
And part of how that works, it's a process, is it first exposes what needs to be changed. And friends, in the culture we live in today, this is the thing that the church gets the most kickback for. The most criticism for. Because we will be labeled haters if we actually expose that there might be something wrong in your life.
There might be some things that need to be changed and corrected. It's not all good all the time. Not in my life or yours. You see this transformation work of the Word is an ongoing process of exposing what needs to be corrected.
But He doesn't just expose it. Here's the difference. And people don't get this. Because they don't know how much God loves them. He doesn't expose these things in our lives to shame us in any way. In His love for us, He exposes it so that He can bring the correction and the healing that makes things better for us.
Right? His plan is for our what? Good. And for His? Glory. So when He exposes those things in our lives that aren't where they need to be, it's not ever to shame us or to condemn us. It's to get our attention so that we can be changed and transformed into the good stuff He wants for our lives.
It judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart because what God's most concerned about if we're going to be His people is the condition of our hearts. He wants our hearts to be right with Him. And it's the day-to-day ordinary reading the Word, meditating on the Word, praying the Word, singing the Word that begins to work into us.
And our hearts are changed and transformed by the power of God. So that's the first step is to hear the Word. We've got to make sure that the Word is actually being taught.
Now here's what I want you to do. The Bible says when you hear something that's claiming to be the Word, He says put it to the test. To make sure it's of God. Because there are people who say things that sound like the Word and teach things that sound like they could be good things maybe in the Word.
There's some things we use as if they were good things. But they're in the Word that aren't really there. Cleanliness is next to godliness. It's a good idea, but it's not a quote of Scripture. Now the concept is there, but that's not an actual quote of Scripture.
There's lots of stuff like that out there. So we have to make sure that when we hear these things that are claiming to be the Word, no matter who it's coming from, myself included, we always want you to be able to connect it to, to sing it for yourself. That is actually what God's Word says.
That's not just the opinion of this church or this pastor or some group out there. This is actually what God's Word says. Because that's where the power is. And the presence of God is. It's in the Word, the actual Word. Not just what we're saying and our opinion is of the Word.
So God wants us to be transformed. So we hear the Word. Make sure it is the Word that you're hearing. And the second step is we believe the Word, right? Believing scripturally, by the way, is more than just acknowledging the truth as being the truth.
I'll repeat it again. I say this a lot. But even the demons believe in the true God of the Bible. So just this idea of saying, "Well, yeah, I believe God." It's not exactly what He means when He tells us we need to hear and believe the Word.
Let's look at Exodus 32, verse 1. Remember? It says, "When the people saw that Moses was so long and coming down from the mountain when he went up there to get the tablets, right, from God, they gathered around Aaron and said, 'Come make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what's happened to him.'"
That quickly, they heard the Word. They said, "We're going to do everything it says because we believe what you're telling us, Moses." 40 days and 40 nights of Moses being on the mountain and already they're turning to another Word.
Already they're turning to another teaching. Already they're turning to another belief system. Already they're turning to another God to give their allegiance to another God, an idol that they make themselves to follow.
God is looking for people who believe in this way, a people whose hearts are fully surrendered to Him. Doesn't mean we're perfect, but our hearts are fully surrendered to Him. We're no longer going to make decisions based on us or our friends or our culture that we live in.
We're going to find out what God says about it and that's going to be the authority. Why? Because we believe God. We believe God's Word. I love a lot of the teachings of Francis Chan. A lot of you probably have listened to him or heard some of him or read some of his stuff.
He has this quote that I really like. He says, "Whenever I come across something in the Bible that I disagree with, I have to immediately assume that I'm wrong." That's what it means to really hear God and believe God.
See, when you believe God is God, you have to assume that if you disagree with Him, you're the one that's wrong, not God. That's the difference. If you really believe God, you have to know God's telling you the truth and that His plan is for your what? And for His? Glory.
Are you getting it? There you go. It's for your good and for His glory. When you believe that about God, then you'll believe His Word in this way where you are willing to do what He says.
Remember this just recently, we looked at Exodus 35 beginning with verse 4. He says, "Moses said to the whole Israelite community, 'This is what the Lord's commanded you. We just looked at this. From what you have, take an offering for the Lord. Everyone who's willing is to bring to the Lord an offering of gold and silver and bronze, blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, fine linen, goat hair, ramskins, dyed red, and other type of durable leather, acacia wood, olive oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil, and for the fragrant incense and onyx stones and other gems to be mounted on the ephod and breastplate.'"
If you were here last week, you know that their response was not just, "Okay, we believe what you told us, Moses." What did they do? They brought all that stuff. They brought more than what they needed to build the tabernacle with.
You see, hearing it is the first step. Believing it is the next step, because if you don't believe it, you're not going to do the third step. What's that third step? Obeying it. That's the third one. We obey the Word.
See, all the posturing in the world will never take the place of actually just doing what God says to do. All the presentation and all the putting on the act and the show will never replace just doing what God says to do.
We live in a country where we have, as Christians, been very blessed in this way. We've had the freedom to worship freely. We've had the freedom to have churches here in Nashville almost every corner. You can't hardly throw a rock without hitting one around here, right? If we don't like this one, there's 20 more in the neighborhood. We'll find us another one, right? We'll go over there.
We've been very blessed to have all of that, and we live in a culture where anybody can wear a cross around their neck. You don't have to really believe or be a follower of Jesus. It's a jewelry now. It's a tradition. It's a decoration. It's accepted by everybody, so you can have cross earrings and a cross necklace and tattoos, and that doesn't mean anything about your relationship with God in this culture.
And the Israelites could put on the robes and all the stuff that God says you're supposed to do without really obeying the way God wants them to obey. They brought all that stuff, but what we're going to see through all of the first five books of the Bible is that they kept going through this cycle of saying they believed and doing some of the stuff that God said to do, and then they stopped.
It's not usually stopping all of a sudden. It's usually a gradual falling away from the things of God. And the gradual falling away, you can almost always trace it back when we have enough details to look at. Whether it's the Israelites or us, the gradual falling away usually involves getting away from these steps of hearing the Word, believing the Word, and obeying the Word.
We stop attending church very regularly, the services, the assembly of the church, where the Word's going to be proclaimed. So we're not really hearing it as much. We stop doing the daily reading of the Word. Lives get busy, don't they? Aren't you busy? How many of you are busy? Raise your hand. Online? I bet a lot of you are busy. Busy people.
We could fill our schedules so quickly, so easily with so many things. After all, we want to be entertained too, right? So we've got to work that in. So we just fill our lives with all this stuff. And usually, if it gets crowded, one of the easiest things to push out is time and the Word.
Right? That's easy to let go. It's easy to let it slide today. And if you let it slide today, it gets easier tomorrow. If you do it two or three days in a row, it gets really easy to not get back to it again for a long, long time.
It's true with our prayer lives. It's true with working on our relationships, right? The husband and wife relationship is true with anything. You let things slide long enough, then that's now the norm for you. It used to be the norm that you were in the Word. Now the norm is you're not in the Word anymore.
And you're not attending services with others who are in the Word. You're not involved in the ongoing work or the ministry of the church anymore. You can't fit it in your schedule anymore. You've replaced it with other things.
And when you're not hearing it, remember Moses made sure they not only heard it, but he wrote it down for them so they could still, it could be read. And then he read it to them again the next day.
When it's not being repeated regularly into your mind and into your heart, Satan puts other things there in its place. Other thoughts. Other belief systems. Other interests. Because he wants to fill that space quickly with other things so you don't go back to the Word.
Because Satan knows there's power in the Word. He knows it can transform your life. He knows that it's the sword of the Spirit. It's the tool and the weapon that the Spirit uses to transform us.
So if he could, he doesn't have to get us to deny Christ, by the way. He just has to get us to stop spending time in the Word. Because then the slow drift away from God begins by not being people of the Word.
When you're not people of the Word, you can start believing the lies of the world. That's why there are churches all over America today that aren't teaching the truth of the Word of God. They wear the name church, they wear the name Christian, but God's Word is not actually being proclaimed in truth in those places.
Because it gets replaced with, well, the culture says this and practices this. And we want them to like us. And we want to fit in. And we don't want any trouble. And we certainly don't want to be called haters. So we'll conform to what makes the world happy with us.
This is a hard statement, but it's a true statement, and it's a scriptural statement. You can't be friends with the world and friends with God at the same time. You can't. You see, a distinct people makes the choice. You're either distinctly of the world or you're distinctly of God. That's the choice.
Either you're saying, "I'm going to be distinct by following God's Word," or "I'm going to distinguish myself by not following God's Word." And all the saying that we're still Christians and all the posturing like we are Christians, does it change the reality of the distinguishing mark we've made by making that choice?
Now, God's love for us means He has a plan that's good for us, so He wants us to choose His way. That's why even when Israel would drift away from Him, here's what you have to know about God and His love and His faithfulness. God made a covenant, and here's what God does with His covenants. He never forsakes His covenant promises. Ever.
He keeps His part of the covenant. Always. And that's why even when they slipped away, even when they rebelled, if they would again turn and hear and believe and come back to the Word, God would welcome them back. Isn't that amazing?
I mean, they would turn their back on God, they would bring embarrassment to His name, they would bring ridicule to the idea that they were God's people by their actions and their words, but if they would truly repent and turn back, God's grace would be enough for them. It's amazing.
You see that cycle over and over again. So maybe you're here today and you realize, I've allowed myself to get away from God's Word. I've drifted. I'm off somewhere I don't need to be. Here's the thing you can know about God's faithfulness. God will keep His covenant He made with you through Jesus, and the blood of Jesus is still there for you if you come back to it today.
And it's more than enough, no matter where you've been or what you've done. I love what it says in Exodus 34. Remember, even after all of their rebellion, the Lord said, "I'm making a covenant with you before all your people. I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among, you will see how awesome is the work that I, the Lord, will do for you. Obey what I've..." He puts that in there. That's still part of the covenant.
"Obey what I've commanded you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites." He's saying, "If you'll come back to my Word, being obedient to my Word, I have always been here, I've never gone anywhere, and I'm still going to do what I told you I was going to do. You're still going to have the benefits of this covenant if you just come back under the Word."
Be a people of the Word. That's where the promises are in connection to the Word, the teachings of the Word. We want the promises without the teaching of the Word so many times. We want God's love, we want God's protection, we want God's blessing without coming under the Word, without obeying the teaching, putting it into practice in our lives.
But the blessings come with the Word and the obedience to the Word. Hearing the Word, believing the Word, and obeying the Word, that's where the blessings are. Remember the plan is for our good? Well, how do we get to the good? By following the plan. That's how you get to the good.
You follow the plan that God has for you because it's a good plan. It's for your good and it's for His glory. You follow that plan. That's where the blessings are. The blessings aren't outside the plan. They're in the plan. The blessings don't come from disobedience to the plan. They come from obedience to the plan. That's where the blessings are.
God wants you to have those blessings. That's why in the New Testament, under the New Covenant, James, the Lord's brother, says it this way in James 1, beginning of verse 21, "Therefore get rid of all moral filth." Our culture is full of moral filth all around us every day. The sad thing is many people who claim to the name of Christ for their lives have welcomed it into their lives too.
But God's Word says what? "Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent." Even back then it was prevalent. "And humbly accept what? The Word. Accept the Word planted in you which can do what for you?" Wow. Isn't that what you want? Isn't that what you want? That's what God wants for you.
Right? But then he adds this. "Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves." If you listen to it without doing it, what are you doing to yourself? You're deceiving yourself. Okay? "Do what it says." Whoa, that's pretty plain, isn't it?
You know in the original language what that means? Do what it says. It's not complicated. I'd love to impress you with some deep theological discussion, but it's not that deep. Doesn't mean it's easy, but it's not deep.
You hear the Word, then you believe the Word, you do what? You do what it says. Right? That's the way it works. Anyone who listens to the Word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in the mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
Right? You look in the mirror, you saw that you had a smudge on your face and you walked away and did nothing about it. Well, the reason the mirror works is because it exposes that which needs to be taken care of. So if you're going to get the use of the mirror, you wipe the smudge off your face when you see it in the mirror.
Well, that's what the Word of God is for us. Right? So he says, "Whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they've heard but doing it, they will be, what's that word? Blessed." That's where the blessings are and what they do.
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves and their religion is worthless. Friends, a good evidence of where you're at in your heart with God is what comes out of your mouth.
And have you bought into the culture of vulgarity and immorality and what's coming out of your mouth? Are you distinguished and set apart in what's coming out of your mouth?
I want to close with this because everything in Exodus is pointing ahead. Hearing the Word, believing the Word, obeying the Word that's still God's plan and always has been. And here's what that connects to today. Listen to me, church.
The real work of the church is in your neighborhood, at your workplace, in the domains in which you operate. We define this assembly on Sunday morning as the church, don't we? And it is part of it. But the real transforming work of the church starts here but it's never completed here when we assemble together.
You see, this is the hearing of the Word. And hopefully, this is the believing of the Word time. But none of those two things by themselves accomplish what God's trying to accomplish here. You can sit here week after week and hear the Word and nod your head and say, "Great sermon. I really believe what you're talking about. It's great."
The real distinguishing mark of those who belong to God is not that we heard it today and not that we said we believed it today. But what? We did what? We obeyed it tomorrow. We obeyed it when we got outside this building, into the workplace, into the school, into the community, into the neighborhood.
We lived differently because of our belief and what God tells us in His Word. I love Acts chapter 2 as we see the beginning of the early church. It says Peter was finishing up his sermon. He said, "Therefore let all Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah."
It says when the people heard this, what did they hear? They heard the Word, right? When the people heard this, they said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" So they didn't just hear it. They believed it because now they're asking, "Well, what do we need to do about it now?"
Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. You'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the promises for you and your children, for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call."
Who would that include? Us. With many other words, he warned them and he pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." Those who accepted his message, they heard it, and now we know for sure they believe it by this next thing.
Those who accepted his message, to accept it means to take it in and act on it, were baptized and 3,000 were added to their number that day. But you kind of put verse 42 with it to know that they really not only heard it, but they truly believed it because they obeyed it.
Listen to this next verse, verse 42. "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching," that's the Word, "studying the Word, reading the Word, spending time in the Word, and to the fellowship," that's the living life together as followers of Jesus, the lifestyle that he's called us to, "the breaking of bread," that's the coming around the Lord's table regularly, they didn't neglect that, "and prayer."
They were in communication and contact with their Father regularly. You see, they were changed from one lifestyle to another lifestyle. From one way of doing life in the world to another way of doing life in the world.
That's the transforming power of the Word of God when you hear it, when you believe it, and when you obey it. Let's pray together.
Father, we thank you. We thank you that you have given us your Word. And you've given us the example from the Israelites all the way through your Word that your plan is amazing. It's truly for the good of your people and it's for your glory.
And it's revealed through your Word. May we be the people of the Word that you're wanting to have in the world today. May we be those people devoted to your Word in such a way that we're listening and we're hearing and we're believing.
And Father, help us to be people obeying your Word. Not because it's about following the rules, but because we know how much you love us and we love you. And that love drives us to know that if we follow your Word that you're planned. And it's for our good. And it's for your glory.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Maybe you're here today and you're ready to take that step of obedience and response to God's call. As we stand and sing, we invite you to come right up front while we're singing.
Amen. Everybody have a seat, please. We have some decisions we want to share with you and also some prayer needs. Come right on up here if you would. Tell everybody your name.
Sarah. Sarah comes today to pray with us. We're going to ask you to publicly profess faith in Jesus Christ and to be baptized into Christ to start a new walk of life with Him. Sarah, we're so thankful that God's led you to take this step.
I'm going to ask you to repeat after me a profession of your faith. I believe that Jesus is the Christ. He's the Son of the living God. And I accept Him as my personal Lord and Savior. God bless you, Sarah. Thank you.
If you would go right over there, Tracy will take you back, help you get ready for it. All right? Good. Come on up, brother. Tell everybody your name.
Ardell comes today to recommit his life to the Lord and to make Lakeshore his church home, his church family. Ardell, we know you come today as a believer who's recommitting to that faith in Christ.
I'm going to ask you for our benefit to repeat after me a profession of your faith. I believe that Jesus is the Christ. He's the Son of the Living God. And He's my personal Lord and Savior. God bless you.
Let's pray for Ardell right now. Father, we thank You for this man who comes today in a recommitment of his life to You. We pray Your blessings on him.
Father, I pray that more than ever he senses Your presence for him, Your power that's available for him, Your provision that's always there for him. May he trust in You as he recommits himself to walking in the way You've called him to walk.
Father, give him the strength he needs to fight those battles we all face every day. And to honor You in that process. It's our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.
God bless you, brother. Thank you. We have some prayer requests too. Autumn, come on up. Autumn is a member here, has been for a while. Come behind the mic there. Tell everybody what you want us to be praying for.
It's your mom, right? Yeah. And like any good daughter, she's concerned about her mom. She wants us to be lifting her up in prayer, and some distance from her too, which makes it harder, I know, not being there with her.
So let's continue to pray for that. Tammy, come on up too. Tammy also had prayer requests for her son Tommy. Just if you would share that.
Yeah. Yeah. Healing for his back. Thank you. Yeah. Like a mom's heart, right? For your child. Let's lift these needs up in prayer today.
Father, we just thank you that we can boldly approach your throne of grace on behalf of these requests. I know there are many others within the church family. Father, we lift them up to you knowing that we have access to your grace and your power, your mercy and your love through your son Jesus.
We thank you that we can come on their behalf and know that you hear us and you answer our prayers. We pray for your will to be done on earth in these situations and all of our lives as it is in heaven. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, Hugh is going to come and lead us in a time of communion around the Lord's table.
It is based upon your profession of faith that you do accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior that I now baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of your sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We love celebrating these decisions here at Lakeshore. Amen. We love that you're here with us today. If this is your first time, please be sure to stop by the information counter if you haven't already done so.
We've got a gift bag we'd love to give you as a first-time guest. It's got a little more information about the church. If you'd like to continue worshiping through the giving of offerings, we have an offering box in the back of the auditorium mounted on a post there and one in the hallway as you exit.
You can drop your offerings in the top slot there. You can also give online. Just go to lakeshorechristian.com and click on the give tab. It'll take you to that page and you can scan the QR code in your bulletins as well. It'll take you to that page.
You can mail in your offerings to the church office also if you'd like to give that way. Either way, it's an act of worship and a way to support the work and the ministry of the church.
We're going to have Jeremy come up. He's going to close us out by sharing a few announcements and you know the preacher wants to go in a little long, so let's keep it as brief as we can. All right. We got workers in the back that are just waiting on us to get done. All right. Thank you, Jeremy. All right. Love you, brother. Thank you.
on Oct 06, 2024
