Big Idea: Don’t toss the law out. Take the law in.

I want to introduce you to someone you’ve never met before — or maybe you have.

His name is Marcion. He lived very early in the life of the church, from around 85 to 160. The reason that we remember Marcion today is because of what he believed. He believed and taught that the Hebrew Scriptures — the Old Testament — are incompatible with Christianity. He believed that the God of the Old Testament was a tribal deity of the Jews, and that he was legalistic and judgmental. On the other hand, he believed that the God of the New Testament is different altogether. He is a God of compassion and grace. And so he rejected the Hebrew Scriptures and tried to rid Christianity of all traces of Judaism. He ended up creating his own Bible with fewer and shorter books.

I said that you haven’t met Marcion, but there’s actually a good chance you’ve met someone like him. Although Marcion is long gone, I hear variations of his views all the time. Just recently a famous pastor suggested that we need to unhitch our faith from the Old Testament. He said:

[First century] Church leaders unhitched the church from the worldview, value system, and regulations of the Jewish scriptures…Peter, James, Paul elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their Jewish scriptures, and my friends, we must as well.

I get it. The Hebrew Scriptures present us with a lot of challenges: perplexing laws and very troubling stories. It’s easy for us to scratch our heads as we try to figure out how to make sense of it. I’ve heard people say that they just like to focus on Jesus, or even to suggest that God has evolved.

So what should we do? Is it okay to focus on this part of the Bible, the New Testament, and ignore the rest?

Don’t Toss the Law Out

The answer, according to Jesus, is a big fat no. You know those parts of the law that drive you crazy? You know the parts of the Hebrew Scriptures that you just don’t like? You know what I’m talking about — the laws that don’t pass muster, and the troubling incidents that leave us angry and puzzled.

According to Jesus, all of that matters. Listen to what Jesus says:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. (Matthew 5:17-18)

Jesus endorses all of it. The term “Law or the Prophets” refers to the entirety of the Hebrew Scriptures. The iota refers to the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet; the dot refers to the small stroke they would add to the letter. Jesus was saying that even the smallest part of the Law will continue throughout this life. Jesus endorses all of it.

I’ve heard people put down the Old Testament, and criticize the God of the Old Testament. I’ve heard people argue that the God of the New Testament is different from the God of the New Testament. God in the Old Testament is harsh and angry; God in the New Testament is loving and gracious. I’ve heard people say that they just throw all of it out and just focus on Jesus. Jesus says that all of these approaches miss the point. One rabbi says, “In all rabbinic literature I know of no more unequivocal, fiery acknowledgement of Israel’s holy scripture than this opening to the Instruction on the Mount” (Rabbi Pinchas Lapide). The whole Bible matters.

Why does it matter? Because there’s a permanence to its teaching. Jesus says that all of it will last until the Law is accomplished. That’s interesting: we think that some of it has already passed and become irrelevant. Jesus says this isn’t the case.

I heard a preacher speak last week. At the beginning of each sermon he would read the Scripture before he started to preach…

Big Idea: Reimagine your role in the world. Live a dual life — do your regular things, but in such a way that people see the difference that Jesus makes in your life.

One of the best parts about being a kid is imagination. Kids have unbelievable imagination. There’s no such thing as an ordinary day in the life of a child. From the outside, kids are doing ordinary things: getting up, eating breakfast, walking to school, watching TV, playing, having a bath, going to bed. But inside the mind of that child, they are astronauts, scientists, princesses, ballerinas, firefighters, cowboys, doctors, and more.

No wonder kids get so tired!

The passage we have before us invites us to do the same. You are going to leave this place and do ordinary things. You’re going to grab dinner tonight. You will go to bed. Tomorrow you will get up and go to school or work. But Jesus invites you to reimagine your role. You are going to be doing ordinary things, the same things as everyone around you, but with an extraordinary extra role that may not be obvious at first.

If you were with us last week, we looked at an invitation that Jesus offers us on how to live the good life. You’re invited by Jesus to live the good life — a life that’s found in treasuring him above all else. Jesus is very concerned with our happiness. He described a group of people who don’t look like the world’s picture of success, but who treasure and value him so much that they’re doing well no matter what. They’ve based their happiness on something that can never be taken away, and so their happiness is bigger than any problems that come their way. Jesus looks at these people and says — and I’m paraphrasing — “Good on them! They’ve really discovered how to live!”

Today we’re looking at what these people look like as they live regular lives in the world. Jesus calls us to reimagine our roles in the world. On top of the regular things — raising kids, going to work, relaxing on evenings — there’s something else going on in our lives. Jesus says: Reimagine your role in the world. You’re not just a worker, a professional, a parent, whatever. You’re something much more.

Salt and Light

So what are you? What’s your role in the world?

Two images: you are salt, and you are light. Okay, but what does this mean?

Salt

Salt is a fascinating image. In a world without refrigerators and freezers, salt was a preservative. It also gives taste to food. Sometimes food is so bland that it needs some salt to give it some flavor. A few years ago I attended a chef’s demo, and the chef admitted that despite the health concerns that he’s very liberal with his use of salt because things just taste better with a bit of salt.

So salt preserves and salt flavors. But there’s another use of salt that occurred to me recently as I’ve been reading the Bible. There’s a term that appears a few times in the Hebrew Scriptures: covenant of salt. For instance, Numbers 18:19 says:

All the holy contributions that the people of Israel present to the LORD I give to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. It is a covenant of salt forever before the LORD for you and for your offspring with you.

Covenant of salt. What does this mean? When two parties made a covenant or agreement with each other, they would often eat a meal together. They had a saying back then: “There is bread and salt between us,” meaning that the parties had shared a meal with each other. Salt was an important part of the sacrifices that the Hebrews offered God. “You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt” (Leviticus 2:13). Probably the biggest idea in the use of salt is permanence. God’s relationship with us is so sure, so established by c…

Big Idea: You’re invited by Jesus to live the good life — a life that’s found in treasuring him above all else.

We’ve all received invitations before. Imagine that you receive an invitation unlike any you’ve received before.

Your phone rings to tell you there’s a delivery. You buzz them in. A few minutes later, you open the door to the most important person you’ve ever met in your life. They hand you an invitation. It’s printed on the most expensive paper you’ve ever touched. As you open the invitation, you have to read it a couple of times, because you can’t comprehend it at first. If you accept this invitation, it will change the entire course of your life. It changes everything.

We don’t have to imagine this. Today you’re receiving an invitation from Jesus himself. Almost two thousand years ago, Jesus went up on a mountain, sat down, opened his mouth, and spoke. Everything in the setup is meant to heighten our anticipation for what’s coming — the deliberateness, the echoes of Moses. And he issues an invitation to a new way of life, a way that will change everything if we accept it.

Invitation to the Good Life

What’s the invitation? It’s to the good life. Jesus, the Son of God, invites us to the conditions that create a condition of flourishing and intense happiness. Jesus describes a way of being in the world that leads to happiness, both for us as individuals and for groups as well. He paints the picture for us, and invites us in.

When Jesus opens his mouth, he says, “Blessed are…” That word blessed is remarkably hard to translate, and it can even be harder to understand. Is Jesus giving us conditions — if you live this way, you will experience these results? Is he promising God’s blessing if we do certain things? Actually, no. What Jesus does here is to describe for us the best, most joyful way of being in the world. He dangles it before us like a keys to a new car or house. “This could be yours!” It’s meant to make us want what he describes.

It’s like pointing at a lush tree and saying, “Wow! That is a healthy tree! There’s a picture of what a tree looks like when it’s at its optimal state.”

Australians have a term, “Good on ya!” which means, “Wow! Congratulations on achieving something that’s both favorable and happy!” Or the Welsh have a saying, “White is their world,” which means that everything is good for that person. Jesus isn’t so much promising God’s blessing if we keep certain conditions. Instead, he’s describing a way to live in the world, and then saying, in effect, “Good on them! Wow. They’ve figured this life thing out. Because they’re living this way, they’ve discovered the conditions that will allow them to flourish. They’re living the good life.”

Don’t pass this by. God is very concerned about your happiness. Hear that again. God is very concerned with your happiness. No, I’m not a prosperity preacher. God is concerned that we flourish, and the sermon that Jesus tells us the conditions that will truly lead to our own flourishing, and to the flourishing of others.

What Is the Good Life?

So what is this good life?

I’ll tell you how I would fill in the blanks: lots of money, no debt, plenty of free time, meaningful relationships, great vacations, great food. That’s the good life! Sign me up.

John Calvin once observed that most people hold to the erroneous belief that the happy person is the one who is “free from annoyance, attains all his wishes, and leads a joyful and easy life.” Sign me up!

What’s confusing is that this is not the life that Jesus describes. Jesus turns to a group of people and says, “Good on them! They’re really flourishing. They’ve figured life out!” And then he describes a list of nine qualities that seem pretty negative to us. The good life, according to Jesus, belongs to those who are po…

Big Idea: Go to the hard places with brokenness, boldness, and love.

Eight years ago I began to develop a deep passion for church planting in the city of Toronto. I’d always loved Toronto since I came out of the subway stop at Runnymede station almost 30 years ago now. But for the first time I began to see the importance of church planting in Toronto. I began to pray like never before that God would raise up church planters to plant churches all over Toronto, especially in the communities that lack any gospel presence.

At the time I was pastor of an established church. I knew one thing: God would not send me to plant a church. I was too old and probably not cut out to be a church planter. But truth be told: I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk myself like that. I didn’t want the financial inconvenience, the upheaval, and especially the potential of failure.

So you understand the position I was in. I understood God’s heart for the City of Toronto. I knew that it was bustling with new growth even as churches were in retreat. I was aware of communities in which there were no churches to show and tell the gospel. I was convinced that God cared about these people, and I wanted someone to go. But I was convinced that I shouldn’t go. I would much rather have left that to someone else.

It’s for this reason that I want to look at the book of Jonah with you today. The reason is because there’s a bit of a disconnect for a lot of us. We understand God’s heart for people, but we don’t want to go.

I’m convinced that I’m a lot like Jonah, and you are too. Jonah is a kind of a missionary manual. One preacher said, “To know Jonah is to love him. And the reason we love him is because he is so much like us” (Lloyd John Ogilvie).

I want to look with you today at the disconnect between knowing about God’s heart, knowing God’s gospel, but being resistant to serve the city.

Setting the Scene

Let me cut right to the chase.

Jonah teaches us two things that we really need to understand. The first is this:

We serve a God who loves the hard places and the hard people.

God says to Jonah in chapter 1:

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. (Jonah 1:2)

You need to understand a little bit about Nineveh to understand how shocking this would have been.

Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire. Assyria was Israel’s worst enemy at that time. It was a city known for its violence, immorality, and idolatry. They were a militaristic society known for violence and cruelty in warfare.

When they would conquer another city, they would skin alive a lot of the men women and children, and spread out their skins over the city walls. Then they would bury these skinned people while they were still alive up to their heads in the sand, and pull their tongues out and drive a stake through their tongue into the ground, so they would just languish in pain and dying of thirst. They would rape the women and kill them; they even boasted about raping and killing little girls. One account describes how they would capture the soldiers and impale some of them alive outside of the city gates. They would behead all these people and make a mountain of heads outside the city so they could say, “This is what happens to those who dare oppose the Assyrians.”

One writer observes, “It’s safe to say that no people in the span of biblical history had a worse reputation for brutality and arrogance than the Assyrians” (Tullian Tchividjian).

In other words, you wouldn’t want to go there. You wouldn’t care about them. But God did.

God sent Jonah to preach there. We learn the message in Jonah 3:4: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Although the message seems harsh, the reason God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh is because he is…

Big Idea: What we need most in life is to know God’s name.

I’ve saved the best for last.

This is the tenth and final week that we’re looking at the book of Exodus. We’ve seen so much: God’s determination to rescue his people and to live with them. We’ve also seen how messed up God’s people are. These are the twin themes of the book: God is determined to have his people, and his people are determined to mess it up.

Last week we came to the greatest crisis in the book of Exodus. The greatest crisis is not that Israel was in slavery in Egypt. The greatest crisis is that God’s people are determined to be unfaithful to God. They’ve just committed the most staggering act of unfaithfulness. God is meeting with Moses to outline how he is going to live among his people, and while God meets with Moses, Israel is building a golden calf and committing idolatry.

Friends, the message of Christianity is not that we need to measure up so that God can accept us. The message of Christianity is that God will have his people, even when we seem determined to mess things up. This is great news for those of us who know that we’re not unlike the Israelites. We seem to have a spectacular ability to sin against the very God who has treated us so graciously.

But as I said, we’re getting to the really good part today. Israel has just performed the greatest bellyflop in history. If you were here last week, we saw that Moses mediates for the people. It’s a picture of Jesus’ mediation for us. Right now, Jesus is praying for those who trust him. Right now, Jesus is pleading on our behalf. It’s our greatest hope.

But the question remains: how are things going to proceed? How can a holy God live with such a sinful people?

Three Concessions

In Exodus 33, Moses manages to negotiate two concessions from God.

Concession one: God will stay with Moses. “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest,” he promises to Moses (Exodus 33:14).

Concession two: God will go with the people. Moses says, “Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” And God replies, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name” (Exodus 33:16-17).

Have you ever pulled off a negotiation that went so well that you almost feel like you’ve robbed the other person? That’s what’s going on here. God gives Moses more than he could possibly expect. Despite how drastically Israel failed, God says the he’s going to continue to stay with Moses. He promises that he will continue to go with the people despite their sin.

But Moses doesn’t leave it there. Despite getting these amazing concessions from God, Moses goes for broke and asks for a third concession from God. Moses says, “Please show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18).

God’s glory is his weightiness. It’s his splendor and radiance. Moses has received everything he could ask for, but he wants to see God’s glory. The reason why: not for Moses’ personal benefit, but because he wants some demonstration of God’s promises for what lies ahead. He needs some assurance from God if he’s going to be able to lead these difficult people through the wilderness into the promised land.

Amazingly, God grants the request, with one change.

But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” (Exodus 33:20-23)

Be careful what you ask for! You want to see God’s glory? You wouldn’t be able to survive seein…

Big Idea: Under stress, we return to “gods” we used to trust. Our only hope is our mediator.

I couldn’t understand it. He was a man that I respected, and he had been greatly used by God. It’s why I was shocked when I heard what he had done. In an unguarded moment, he had tarnished his reputation and brought dishonor to God. He unravelled years of faithfulness, lost his reputation, and paid the consequences in his personal life.

Who am I talking about? I wish I were just talking about one person! I still remember the first time it happened, but it’s happened many times since then. I used to think that it was bad people who had affairs, embezzled money, or abused alcohol and drugs. I know better now. We’re all capable of falling flat on our faces. And today’s passage is going to help us understand why and what we can do about it.

Let’s look today at the passage we just read, because it’s going to give us an insight into our makeup. It’s going to not only tell us about a danger that all of us face, but it’s also going to show us what we can do about it.

Let’s begin by looking at when we’re in danger.

What would cause someone to fall flat on their faces? What would cause someone to compromise everything that they stood for and lose their reputation?

In Exodus 32, we read:

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

This is so fascinating. If you understand what happens here, you’ll begin to understand why we’re so prone to go astray.

The nation of Israel has seen God move. God has taken them from being a nation under slavery to a free nation on the way to a land that God had promised them. God had told them that they would be his treasured possession, and that he would live among them. This was amazing. He had provided for them miraculously in the desert. They had seen God move with their eyes, and had heard his voice with their ears. They’d just heard God make a covenant with them.

However, they had a problem.

We read in verse 1 that Moses was delayed in coming down from the mountain. Big deal, right? It actually was a big deal. From their perspective, Moses had been gone much longer than they’d expected. They were people with families. They were standing in the middle of the desert with no homes and no jobs. God had given them manna and quail, but that’s only as good as it lasts. At any moment, as far as they knew, that could end, and they would be stuck in the middle of the desert with nothing.

They felt exposed, vulnerable, and scared. And Moses was their only connection with God, and who knew if he was even still alive or if he would ever come back?

And so their solution was, “Make us gods who will go before us.”

This is not just a picture of the ancient Israelites. This is a picture for us too. The apostle Paul wrote to a church in Corinth and said:

Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” (1 Corinthians 10:6-7)

Paul says that we face the same danger that they did. We could make idols. At first glance, that seems crazy. I don’t think anyone here has an idol in their house. We’re not about to create a golden calf or anything like that. What does Paul mean that we face the same danger that Israel did back then?

Let me make a prediction. You are going to go through times in your life in which you feel exposed, vulnerable, and scared. Did I say that’s a prediction? I think I should call it a guarantee. This is the ordin…

Big Idea: What does God want from you? He wants to live with you. And he’s humbled himself to do so.

A lot of people say the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, is boring. I don’t buy it.

We’re looking at the second book of the Hebrew Scriptures, and it’s anything but boring. You’ve got bad guys and you’ve got underdogs who need help. You’ve got murder, miracles, plagues, and the dramatic rescue of an entire nation. And then you’ve got God showing up and speaking audibly to an entire nation to tell them how to live.

I have a lot of words to describe the book of Exodus so far, and boring isn’t one of them.

But I get it. We looked last week at the law, and one of the complaints that people have about the law is that it’s so boring. If you were here last week I said that the law is rooted in God’s authority and character, and points to true freedom in all of life. I would argue that God’s law is anything but boring. The law is God’s instruction on how to live a life of freedom. You want to know how to love God and love your neighbor so that society functions well? The law shows us how. The law shows how much God cares for the details of our lives. It shows God’s concern for every area of life, including social justice and even the care of animals. Even the law, which some people find boring, shows how much God cares about how we live.

We’re looking at another section today that some people find boring. It’s a set of instructions on building the Tabernacle, found in Exodus 25 to 31, followed by the actual building of the Tabernacle, found in Exodus 35-41. In other words, we’re covering 14 chapters of the book of Exodus today. I hope you didn’t make dinner plans!

To some people, reading about construction plans and the building of the Tabernacle is about as exciting as reading architectural drawings. But it’s actually quite exciting, because this part of Exodus gets at the heart of not just the book of Exodus but the whole Bible.

Here’s what we learn. Two things.

First, We Learn What God Wants With Us.

What does God want with us? It’s one of the most important questions we’ll ever answer.

According to one author (Skye Jethani), most of us get the answer wrong. We completely misunderstand what God wants from us. He says that most of us have one of four postures before God, and none of them quite get at the relationship that God wants with us.

Life from God — Wanting God’s blessings and gifts, but not God himself; using God to get our desires; focuses on consuming. This is worshiping God for what he can give us — if we obey him, we hope he’ll give us the good life. We have a relationship with God because we want him to bless us.

Life over God — Abandoning God in favor of proven formulas and controllable outcomes; the implementation of useful principles; focuses on managing. This is thinking that we can get some control over God by how we live. We think we need a relationship with God, but let’s face it: we just have to dig down deep and make sure that we create the kind of life we want for ourselves, because nobody’s going to do it for us.

Life for God — Focusing on accomplishing great things for God; a task to accomplish; focuses on serving. This sounds better. We think that we will lay down our lives sacrificially and do something for God that really matters. We want a relationship with God so that we can do something for him.

Life under God — Relating to God according to cause and effects — we obey and God blesses; a set of rules and rituals to follow; focuses on sin. We want a relationship with God because when we obey him, he will give us what we need.

I want you to take a moment and think about which one of these characterizes your relationship with God. Are you here today because you want something from God? Are you here today…

Big Idea: God’s law is rooted in God’s authority and character, and points his people to true freedom in all of life.

If you visit someone’s house, and they have a pet, there’s a simple test you can perform to determine what kind of pet they have. Wait by the front door until the pet comes by, and then hold the door wide open to see what the pet does.

I’ve learned that there are two kinds of animals:

One will look at the open door and shrug, so to speak. It’s as if they’re thinking, “Why would I want to escape? I’ve got it pretty good in here.”

The other will run for its life. It won’t know exactly why it’s running, but run it will.

In other words, pets have two ideas of freedom. One is to stay and to enjoy all the benefits they’ve been given. The other wants to run as far away as possible and live life in its own terms.

It’s much the same with us.

We’re in a series on the ancient book of Exodus. For over 400 years, God’s people, Israel, have lived as slaves. But God has acted. He’s set them free now from slavery. For the first time in centuries, they are no longer slaves. They get to live as free people for the first time in their lives. The only question is: What does freedom look like? How do you begin to live as a free person when you have no experience?

It’s a question that all of us must face. We live in a world of almost unlimited options. We can live almost anywhere we’d like. The choices before us are endless. But the problem before us is real: How do we make the best possible choices out of all the ones that are offered before us? What are the best choices we can make that will maximize our freedom and lead to the best results in our lives?

That’s what we’re going to answer today. Israel is in the wilderness. They’re out of Egypt, but before they can move to the land that God had promised them, God wants to meet with them. And so he’s summoned them to himself for a meeting. It’s a meeting that lasts the better part of a year. In this meeting, God makes a new covenant with them. In this meeting the entire nation hears God’s voice for themselves. God instructs them what it means to live as free people.

And so today we’re going to look at this extraordinary meeting and ask what we can learn about it from ourselves. And we’re going to learn three lessons.

God’s Law Is Rooted in God’s Authority and Character

I want to set the scene for you as we look at this passage. God set up the meeting that takes place in this passage. In chapter 19:3-6, we read:

The Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

God was taking the initiative to show his people how they should live. And then God told them to prepare themselves and be ready. He told them to be ready for that third day when God would appear to them. He warned them that on the third day they could not touch the mountain where he would appear, or they would die. On the third day, we read that there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain, and a loud trumpet blast, and that the people trembled.

Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. The Lord came down…