Great Failure, Greater Hope – The 10 Commandments

Late one evening two men sat alone together in a bar in downtown Detroit and one of them looked at the other one and said Are you are you from around here?

And the guy said yep grew up right here in Detroit And the other guy said well, that's amazing. He said I grew up right here in Detroit also He said what year did you graduate high school? He said I graduated 1993. He said that's pretty amazing I graduated from high school in 1993. What high school was it? He said I went to Luther High School He said well, I went to Luther High School. I graduated 1993 He said well, what part of the city did you live in? He said I lived over in the southeastern part of Detroit He said I lived in the southeastern part of Detroit. What street did you live on guy said I lived on Washington Avenue He said I lived on Washington Avenue in southeastern Detroit graduated 1993 from Luther High School What house did you live in on that street?

I lived in 2314 on Washington Avenue I lived in 2314 Washington Avenue Well just that moment the the phone rang and the bartender answered and it was his wife and he said yeah It's getting ready to close down not much going on. The only people here are the Johnson twins and they're drunk again so I Share that with you because you don't have to be drunk to know this weekend that you and I have a lot in common We literally this weekend have people here from all over the map as it relates to faith There are a lot of Christians this weekend whom for them. This is literally the biggest Sunday of the year These are the people who have on their light green Easter tuxedos or their pink Easter dresses with their matching bonnet They got the 9-inch study Bible under their arm It looks like a lunch box when they whipped in the parking lot this morning You could hear them blasting out the K love they got a bumper sticker that says something like be an organ donor You give your heart to Jesus when they smile they got this little little gleam in their teeth There are those people here there These are the kinds of people by the way who this morning did not give their kids a chocolate bunny they got them a chocolate cross with a little sash on it that says no bunny loves you like Jesus or Be happy in God or something to that effect I'm by the way personal pet peeve of mine if you did get your kids a chocolate bunny I hope that you got them the solid one. I always felt so ripped off when I got the hollow one I told my parents I feel like this is a metaphor of your love for me looks good on the outside a hollow on the inside So there are some of you like that that that this is the biggest Sunday of the year There are others of you for whom this is the only Sunday a year that you come to church We call you our CEOs our Christmas and Easter only friends So welcome back from Easter and Christmas last year good to see you again And then we have others for whom this is literally the first time you've ever stepped foot in a church You are the ones that are sweating a little bit right now because you're wondering what's going to happen Oh, why did all these people have their hands in the air? Were they waving at somebody?

Are they trying to give Jesus a high-five? What is going on? They look at you look at me right now and you think are you the snake guy?

Are you about to pull the snakes out? What's gonna go down here? So we have people literally all over the map this morning But we still have a lot in common even with that and that is that we all ask basic questions All of us whether we're religious or not.

We ask basic questions. Like is there a God and if so, what does he really want? What does he really want or what happens after we die?

Can we know what happens after we die and how do we get prepared for that? Does God consider me to be a good person people want to know that does God think of me as a good person? And and if not, what do I need to do to but to become a good person in his eyes the place We're going to look at in Scripture today answers those questions probably better than any other place in the Bible It's one of the most recognized passages in the Bible Exodus chapter 20 if you have a Bible or somebody around you has a Bible I'd love you to take out your take it out or Look on with your neighbor and and and and follow along with them It's the story when God gives to the people of Israel the Ten Commandments the Ten Commandments now as you're opening your Bible there I need you to do something for me real quick if you will That is when you came in this morning at all of our campuses You got something that looks like this and I want to do a little preparation here for the end of the message We go ahead and take care of it.

If you open it up. There's a little flap on the outside Now at the end of the message I'm going to ask some of you to turn this in and I will explain to you I'm more specifically then But I don't want to make it awkward for those of you that are gonna turn it in Having to rip it out because that makes a noise and you don't want people looking at you So we're just gonna have a little rip out party together right now We're all gonna rip it out together at the same time and then you can go ahead and fill out all of you the part Hey, I'll tell you when just be Um, so we're gonna do it on three here ready, okay, we'll rip it out together one two Three now you can rip it out. All right Everybody's got it You can fill out the appropriate portions there and then at the very end of the message I'll give you instructions about what to do and filling it out and turn it in if you don't come to church here We are taking a year to go through the whole story of the Bible And Exodus 20 is simply where we are in our progress if you're just joining us now I do not worry. You're not gonna feel left out this weekend this message stands on its own that said if you would like to Be able to get your mind around a big picture of what the Bible is teaching the whole story I would invite you to come back next week and you can just jump right in like you've been here the whole time Some of you say well Exodus 20. I was really hoping to hear about the resurrection today.

You will you will I promise In fact, this passage is going to explain to you why the resurrection is necessary It's not just important that you know that he rose you gotta understand why he rose for you to know what the significance is And so we're gonna do that in many ways today It'll feel like they say the way that Rembrandt painted his paintings. It was a lot of dark That's the way he started just so he could paint a few lines of light But the dark really made the light stand out and that's what we're gonna do So let's walk through this Exodus 19 is where we're gonna begin one chapter back from Exodus 20 on the giving of the Ten Commandments Began like this verse 10 and the Lord said to Moses tell the people to wash their garments to be ready for the third day And on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people You shall set limits for the people all around this mountain where God is going to descend and he's going to say take care Not to go up into the mountain or even touch the edge of it Whoever touches the mountains shall be put to death whether beast or man. He shall not live want you if you can to try to Imagine this scene on the morning of the third day There were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast mysterious trumpet blast Nobody knew where it came from It just kept getting louder and louder so that all the people in the camp trembled Then rose that Moses brought out the people out of the camp to meet God and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire The whole mountain looked like it was was ablaze the smoke of that mountain went up like the smoke of a furnace Can you imagine this the whole mountain trembled greatly and as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder? And louder Moses on the people's behalf called out to God and God answered him in Thunder Imagine you're there on the plane in front of that vow or in that valley before that mountain on that day You were terrified because literally the mountain is on fire. It is shaking There's a trumpet sound that is splitting your ears Your kids are terrified and you want to comfort them, but you can't because you feel terrified You're holding tightly to them because you know If one of them breaks loose and runs up toward that mountain or even one of your pets does that then they are going to Be killed the message that is given in Exodus 19 is clear God's majesty his holiness is an awesome and terrifying reality It is nothing to be trifled with and it is out of this scene in Exodus 19 that God gives the Ten Commandments Ten things God says Leviticus 18 5 if you do these if you do these you shall live before me But if you cross this line if you disobey these things you will die You say well that sounds harsh. I Understand that but at least consider this that is consistent with every other picture We see in the Bible of God's holiness in the book of Numbers We're gonna find the story of a man who collects sticks on the Sabbath contrary to the law that God had just given God had told them this is what I want you to do in the Sabbath and the man went out did something that we would Consider to be morally innocuous.

He picked up some sticks. How bad is that? So the congregation brings him before God and says what are we supposed to do with this man who violated the law and God? says stone him for One small infraction of the law in the Garden of Eden It was one bite from a forbidden fruit that brought condemnation on the entire human race You ever thought about that all the disease all the suffering all the pain all the natural disasters Hell itself came from one bite of a forbidden fruit in Genesis 19 there's a man named lot Who God tells he and his wife to flee a certain place and not to look back and she turns around and with one Glance looks back at the city. God has told her to get out of and she has turned into a pillar of salt She loses her life for one Wayward glance in 2nd Samuel we see a man named Uzzah who reaches out his hand to steady the Ark of the Covenant It was it was being pulled by a couple of oxen and one of the oxen tripped and the cart that the Ark was on Began to to stagger begin to sway and and he thought it was gonna fall So he just reached out and and touched it to steady it which was forbidden By God for them to touch that Ark and God struck that man dead for one touch. God struck him dead Now I know you hear that some of you say well, that's just Old Testament stuff God was mean and cranky in the Old Testament and then he comes back as Jesus like God 2.0 You know Jesus meek and mild he's all gentle in the New Testament We find the story of a man named a man and his wife named Ananias and Sapphira Who exaggerate the amount they put into an offering one Sunday? I mean they gave really generously but that is Exaggerated it because they want to look good in front of other people and the Holy Spirit struck them dead Which is never good for church growth, by the way people being struck dead in the middle of the offering They've been to a lot of church growth conferences. Nobody's ever brought this one up as the way to grow your church but God's holiness his purity is goodness is Absolute and perfect and those who would enter his presence cannot do so with any sin in their hearts The Prophet Habakkuk said it this way. God is of such purity that he cannot even look at evil Y'all we think that our sin is not that bad because we have a very human centered view of sin It doesn't seem that bad to us but you measure the wickedness of a deed in part at least by whom the deed is committed against if You get mad and you kick a wall in your house repeatedly, right? Well, that might be a sin of frustration You probably need to repair the wall, but it's not that bad of a thing But if you get mad and kick a dog repeatedly then you've done a genuinely bad deed If you kick the lady next to you in the grocery store line Then you're probably going to go to jail if you strut into Buckingham Palace and roundhouse the Queen of England It's gonna be worse than just going to jail the little guys with the fuzzy hats are gonna come in with sticks and beat you senseless Our sin becomes more wicked based on who the sin is against Our sin is infinitely wicked because it is against an infinitely righteous and glorious God So it is in light of that that I want you to read through these Ten Commandments Have you ever asked yourself how you measure up to these commandments?

They say that ninety two percent of Americans can't even name them all right and and you say well That's a tragedy. That's not the point is not having to memorize the point is how do these show what's going on in your heart? What do they reveal about your heart because this is we were supposed to obey all these things just instinctively We didn't need to be commanded to do these things.

They were supposed to be the natural response of who we are So that's the question. How do you measure up? Here's what I want you to do if you're taking notes I want you to make yourself two little columns Like a W column a win column and a loss column and I'm gonna walk you through these commandments Give you a short explanation of what they mean And then if you feel like you have consistently kept this commandment throughout your life And you give yourself a W and if you feel like you have it you give yourself a loss Unless just keep score. If you don't have something to take notes on just do it in your mind now I here we go number one commandment one. You shall have no other gods before me Can you say can you say I've never put anything before God in my life? Nothing's ever gotten the place of God He's always been preeminent in my thoughts in my affections and my actions in other words the thing that I've always gotten most Excited about in life are him and his word I've always gotten more excited about my relationship with him and I have a new romance or a new job or a new possession Would you say that is a win or a loss for you?

Have you consistently kept that one or not? I'm a just think me just really you know where I'm at That's a big ol L for me when I look at my life a lot of times I get more excited about a new TV show I've started to watch that I do about God and his word Here's number two. You shall have no carved images of me This commandment is about reshaping God according to your liking Believing wrong things about God because you would prefer God to be a different way Have you consistently and always refuse to do that? Believing fully everything that God's Word reveals about him without wishing that God were different or trying to change it Into what you want God to be Is that a yes or a no?

Is that a win or a loss? Here's number three commandment three. You shall not take my name in vain This has to do with more than just not saying GD It has to do with how highly we regard the name of God Can you say I've not only have I never used God's name as a swear word I've always held God's name in the highest respect.

I've always represented that name Well, never for example calling myself a follower of his yet not obeying him fully I've always fully and completely lived up to the name Christian That a win or a loss for you Here's commandment number four. Remember the Sabbath. This has to do with giving God fully what belongs to him in Scripture God tells us that there's a portion of what he gives to us that we are to automatically back Give back to him as it relates to time.

It's one day to a Sabbath day as it relates to money It's a first fruits or we usually say 10% of what God gave to us Can you say that you have consistently given to God all that was due to him? Specifically remembering to set apart one day weekly to worship him with others That a yes or a no Commandment five honor your parents honor your parents this has to do with how you relate to the authorities in your life Because see your parents are the first representation of the authority of God to you Scholars point out that the commandment to honor your parent father mother's to the fifth commandment Which means it comes right in the middle the first four commandments are about a relationship to God the last five Commandments about our relationship to other people this commandment about honoring your parents is the hinge commandment Because it bridges God and man because the first representation of the authority of God in our lives is our parents So the question is how did you relate to the authority of God the bigger question is how have you related to all the God? Appointed authorities in your life throughout your life Can you say I never disobeyed or dishonored my parents or any others in authority over me?

I consistently respected them and gave them honor and willing obedience I've done this with every God appointed authority in my life whether that's a government official my boss the local the peace Police those who write the traffic laws or whomever All right. What do you think? Yes or no? If your kid right now look at your parents and they're just going like this.

They're going no That's a big ol L for you And I by the way kids that same on their list too. Okay number six you shall not kill You're like finally one in the W column and Jesus came along and he messed that up Because Jesus said that to hate somebody in your heart or to desire their harm is to commit murder in your heart So here's the question. Can you not only say I've never murdered anybody Can you say I've never had hateful thoughts or taken the slightest pleasure in seeing harm or misfortune? happen to another human being Some of you violated that five times in the last hour In fact, you're thinking right now.

You're fantasizing about somebody pummeling me. So I'll stop yelling at you Commandment seven you shall not commit adultery You so I think I'm good on this one too, because I'm not even married And Jesus messed that one up Because he said to think even lustful thoughts about somebody to whom you're not married is committing adultery in your heart Which is what God sees of course. Can you say I've never entertained thoughts about physical intimacy with someone to whom I'm not married That a yes or no About commandment eight you shall not steal Can you say I've never taken anything that I'm belong to me. I've never taken credit. I don't deserve I've never taken anything I've never fudged my numbers.

I Were coming up on April 15th So me I just changed a few numbers government waste all my money anyway Plus I didn't even vote for the people that are in office right now. I don't like them now I need this money more than they do and I'll do a better job with my money anyway So I'll just keep a little bit of it even though God has put them as an authority in my life You say who's it really hurting? Can you say I've always refused to enjoy anything that I just wasn't entitled to I'm not trying to be you know Not trying to make light of this but you remember Napster when that came out and remember how we were all like Hey, everybody's music is now for free and then somebody came along and they're like actually no, it's stealing. We're like no No, it's sharing.

See right there. It says file sharing and mom taught me that sharing is caring So it's a good deed that I'm trying to do here, but deep down we knew it wasn't free We wouldn't free we did it anyway Hadn't your life been filled with those kind of things of it's not is it right? It's just can I get away with it? Have you always given fully to others what they were entitled to never defrauding your employer? For example by using company time to check Facebook or watch YouTube or things like that Can you say I've always been completely truthful and fair in all of my dealings.

Is that yes or no? Commandment 9 you shall not lie Now she didn't even have to go over this one But can you say I've never lied never exaggerated ever slandered another person. I've never exaggerated the truth for my own benefit I've never covered over one of my mistakes. I've always told the truth in every situation regarding every person I've ever known study yes or no. I've heard people say well, I don't lie per se. I just sometimes struggle with telling the truth I'm not sure you don't lie. No, no, just struggle with telling the truth like right now, right, right? I'm not telling the truth right now I've told you before that when I lie, it most often follows a pattern. Here's why I struggle with telling the truth. I Want to exaggerate my accomplishments to make myself look more awesome than I am and I want to minimize my failures So that there's no reason that you have to disrespect or make fun of me So the reason that I lie is because I value other people's opinions more highly than I value God's opinion Which is not only a violation of the ninth commandment in the lie It's a violation of the first commandment and that I love your opinion more than God's So not only do I get an L in the lying column. I get a double whammy a double deduction in column number one It's like I break them all at the same time Commandment number ten you shall not covet. This is probably the worst one Can you say I've never been greedy for something that wasn't mine I've never been jealous of the abilities the looks the position or the possessions of others I've always been fully content in just what I have You know, I'm pretty sure the entire HGTV network is built on coveting It's like cribs for people with with tools and a little bit of disposable income That's how I I see that at least on MTV's cribs. I know I could never afford that. That's just not my world HGTV is here's all the things your house could be if your husband was a little bit more handy And if you just chosen more wisely in your marriage Can you say I've never resented other people's success never resented the house?

They lived in the opportunities they have their beauty their talents their possessions the way their body looks their popularity their husband their wife Whomever I've always rejoiced with others in their blessings be even being glad when they had it and I didn't That consistently yes or no Be honest with yourself. What are you? What's your score? I'm over 10 Folks if you get zero on the only exam in a class.

Do you really think you're gonna pass that class? Now remember the setup for this chapter across the border one time one sin and you die Do you see why Paul says we are dead in our sins? Obedience to these laws was supposed to come naturally to us Our hearts were supposed to love God so much that we naturally did all these things I don't need to be commanded to do the things that I love Now you never need to command me to eat a steak or take a nap or hug my kids or kiss my wife I do those things without commands because I love those things. We weren't supposed to need to be commanded to do any of this There was one man in Jesus's life who had the audacity to say to Jesus after Jesus walked through a list like this The man said oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah all these I've kept since my youth up He was what we call a Pharisee and here's why I said that Pharisees were professional do-gooders They build a career on doing good They developed this thing They called the hedge around the law the hedge around the law think of like out like a hedge That you would put around a hole that you don't want to fall into So they were so concerned with not disobeying the commandments that they made a bunch of other Commandments to keep them away from the commandments that God had given that was the hedge around the law If you grew up in a house with really strict rules, you can probably relate to this and in the world I grew up in cussing was so bad that you couldn't even say a word that sounded like a cuss word So we couldn't say darn it or golly or gee whiz or dadgummit, right? None of that. Sorry coach Roy You just couldn't say any of that stuff We couldn't go see g-rated movies at the theater because when we were at the theater We might be tempted to see an r-rated movie or maybe even worse Somebody else would see us at the theater wouldn't know we were going to the g-rated movie They would think we were going to the our movie then we would influence them to go see the r-rated movie They would see it then would be our fault I'm kid you not that was a line of reasoning that was used We could not make out with girls because it might lead to dancing. All right, we had all these rules This guy said not only not only did I keep all the rules I kept all the rules that kept me away from breaking the rules So Jesus looks at this guy. He says all right one thing that you like go So everything that you have and give it away to the poor and follow me Now y'all Jesus he the man couldn't do it.

He says he loved his possessions too much. Jesus's point was not hey There's one more bonus one. I forgot to tell you about Jesus's point was to turn it away from Actions that you took into a heart and how you felt about God He was trying to put the focus on what this guy's heart loved the most And he was saying that the essence of the commandments is that your heart loves and priorities God above everything Has that always been true in your life? You see you were created for God to have the first place in your heart.

Has that been true? These laws these ten laws don't change you obeying them don't change you. They just reveal how messed up your heart actually is God's not after you coercing your behavior and earning your way into heaven. God wants people who obey him because they love it He wants people whose hearts desire to obey them I've used this example and I apologize a little bit because it's a little bit of an earthy example But he gets the point across I've described it before like if somebody before the service started had an accident and just threw up right here in the middle of the floor my big steaming pile of vomit I I would never need to look at this congregation and say hey rule the summit churches You are not allowed to come down here and look up this vomit. I'm serious We take that really seriously here you come down here look up this moment. We will throw you out of here Nobody needs me to say that Right, it's disgusting.

I'm not if you're a dog if you're a dog I do need to make that rule Because you're like, oh, you know warm vomit half-digested hot dog. Mmm, you know me and the moment I'm not looking you're gonna be down here looking it up So I'm gonna have to put a couple big old guys with sticks beside You know to beat the dog when the dog tries to come lick it up God does not want spiritual dogs in heaven who only Obey God because they're afraid they're gonna get beat with a stick He wants people there who do righteousness because they love righteousness He wants people there who do loving things because love is what in their heart He wants us to obey not because we have to but because it's just the impulse of our heart God's holiness in these Ten Commandments reveals how sick we are Try the prophet Isaiah after seeing how sinful his heart was before God Uses this metaphor Isaiah 64 6 when Isaiah the prophets finally sees himself in the light of how God sees him Isaiah 64 6 he says all my righteous has all my good deeds. They're like a filthy rag Filthy rag the way it's written in Hebrew doesn't mean like a rag that you use to change the oil or clean something in your house It's a pretty disgusting term It means a rag that they would use to to wrap the the body of somebody who had an infectious skin disease like leprosy After the blood and the pus and the infectious disease the rotten skin had soaked through these rags They would take them off and burn them They were filthy rags and what Isaiah sees is is this is how I appear before the throne of God Even my righteousness is like this filthy rag that has been soaked through with the defilement of the sin of my heart You say well this isn't a very uplifting message You will never appreciate the true lifting power of the resurrection until you come face to face with what he has lifted you out of You see our usual response to this as we try to diminish the holiness of God We're like, oh, well, you know, nobody's perfect. I'm sure God grades on the curve Scripture never does that scripture says consistently cross this line one time and you will die Scripture points to a different solution. We're gonna see that solution given toward the end of the book of Numbers Israel specifically has broken one of the commandments it is commandment number 10 The you shall not covet commandment and Israel is coveting and it's shown by the way They're complaining about all the things they wish they had that other nations at God.

You are not taking care of us We're not content with the way that you're leading us. We want this other stuff, too So God sent snakes among them called fiery serpents They were symbolic of death the curse that was brought on by sin and the people having been bitten by these snakes cry out to God And so God tells Moses to make an image of a bronze or to make an image of bronze of a serpent Looking like one of these fiery serpents and to put it on top of a pole and to put that pole on top of the Hill and he tells Moses to tell the people that if they will come to where that Serpent is mounted on the pole and they will look at it and believe that God will heal them God's response was not to downplay their disobedience His response was to in love provide a means by which they could be healed You only get a glint a dim glimpse of it in the bronze serpent because that was just a symbol of what God one day would do and What is perhaps the most well-known passage in the Bible? Jesus listen takes this metaphor and says this is how you understand me Jesus says John 3 14 just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness That's how I'm gonna be lifted up It's just like the people when they came and they they looked at this bronze serpent and they believed God healed them So the ones who believe in me are gonna have eternal life because God you see so loved the world He loved it so much that he gave not a bronze serpent He gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him. What's it mean to believe in Jesus? It doesn't mean that you believe that he existed it doesn't mean that you just come to church all the time Believing goes back to what they did when they looked at that bronze serpent You look at it and you believe this is what was given to you is your healing you believe that Jesus Took the curse of that snake. He was bit by it so that he could die in your place And if you believe that if you look to it, you would not perish but you add have eternal life Here's how Paul says the same thing Romans 10 9 and 10 He says if you would just confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord You'll confess with your mouth that Jesus was lifted up for you and then you'll believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead See then you'll be saved It's when you look at that empty tomb and you say that it was a tomb occupied by my sin and God Resurrected Jesus showing that he had paid the full penalty of my sin when you believe that that's when healing and forgiveness flows to you Again, our answer to the problem of our sinfulness is to downplay God's holiness, but scripture never does that God demands perfection The gospel is that he also supplies it But the gospel is that our sin was so bad that Jesus had to die to save us Y'all why do you think Jesus had to die?

Why do you think he died exactly? And a lot of people say when I asked that like well though he wanted to show us that he loved this How does him dying? How does that show us that he loves us?

I mean think about it if I go come to you and I'm like, I love you so much and you're like prove it I'm like watch and I go out and throw myself in the oncoming traffic in the middle of I-40 Does that prove that I love you? It might prove my insanity I mean just say why how does that show you that I love you it only Shows you that I love you if I'm doing something for you by putting myself in harm's way Jesus death for us was not just a statement of love it would only be love if he were doing something for us that we desperately needed to be done and He was he was dying in our place He was dying to give us the righteousness that we could not obtain in our own we say he wasn't just dying for us He was dying in place of us. He was becoming our curse of sin so that we could receive his gift of righteousness You will never understand or appreciate the resurrection until you see the grave that he lifted you out of Until you understand the price that he paid and why he paid it he went into your grave The cross was your fate his grave was your eternal destiny and Jesus took that penalty and entered your grave and shattered it Listen, the resurrection is not just about giving you a little religious pep in your step a few giddy thoughts about the afterlife Sometimes I thought people come in here on Easter and they want me to do this religious religious motivational talk that makes them feel good. I Want you to feel the flames of hell? Because only then can you understand how Jesus saved you You people want me to create this moment where they have, you know, chill bumps about the resurrection I want to create disciples and that begins with you understanding why Jesus saved you and starts with you understanding the grave that he pulled you out of I Was sinking deep in sin far from the peaceful shore very deeply stained within sinking to rise no more But the master of the sea heard might of sparing cry From the waters lifted me now safe. Am I love lifted me when nothing else could help love lifted me He saw that I couldn't do what I what I needed done. So he came and he did it for me The gospel is that I was so bad that Jesus had to die for my sin He was so loving that he was glad to die for my sin The gospel declares come you weary woken weak and wounded sick and sore Jesus ready stands to save you full of pity love and power.

So here's the question Have you ever done this personally? Have you ever looked in faith and experienced his forgiveness and his healing? One of the most famous preachers of Christian history was a man named Charles Spurgeon It was a very educated man one of the most eloquent men that's ever occupied a Christian pulpit He pastored in London in the 19th century. He's been called the prince of preachers My favorite thing from his life is his own recounting of his conversion. It came from one of his sermons He says this and I quote he says I sometimes think that I might have been in darkness and despair until even now Had it not been for the goodness of God and sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning When I was trying to find my way to a certain place of worship There was a respectable church in town and he was spiritually seeking and so he wanted to go to the place where all the educated people were where they dressed in really nice clothes so we Could hear an educated message because he was super smart He said but because of the snowstorm I when I could go no further So I turned down the side street and came to a little primitive Methodist Chapel First Church and only church I could find open in that chapel. There might have been a dozen maybe 15 people I'd heard of the primitive Methodist how they sang so loudly that they made people's heads ache Some of you felt like that in here this morning, didn't you? But that didn't matter to me I wanted to know how I might be saved and if they could tell me that I didn't care how much they made my headache The minister did not even come that morning. He was snowed in I suppose So at last a very thin looking man a shoemaker or a tailor or something of that sort went up into the pulpit to preach Now it is well that preachers should be instructed and learned men, but this man was really stupid And just goes ahead and says it He was obliged to sit closely to his text in the Bible for the simple reason that he had little else that he could think of to say The text that morning was as they have 49 22 look unto me and be ye saved all you ends all ye ends of the earth He did not even pronounce the words rightly He could scarcely read but that did not matter there was I thought a glimpse of hope for me in that text The preacher began thus my dear friends. This is a very simple text indeed It just says look now looking don't take a great deal of scale. It ain't lifting your foot or your finger It's just look Well a man needn't go to college to learn to look you might be the biggest fool and yet you can still look a man Needn't be rich to be able to look anybody can look even a child can look but then the text says look unto me I said he in this broad SX accent. That's probably the equivalent of a North Carolina Eastern, North Carolina twang He said many of you are looking to yourselves, but it ain't no use looking there You'll never find any comfort in yourselves look to Christ the text says look unto me Then the good man followed up his text in this way look unto me. I am sweating great drops of blood look unto me I'm hanging on the cross look unto me. I'm dead, and I'm buried look unto me I rise again look unto me. I ascend to heaven look unto me I'm sitting at the father's right hand old poor sinner look unto me look unto me When he had gone to about that length and managed to spin out ten minutes or so The poor chap was at the end of his tether. He could think of nothing else to say Then he fixed his eyes at me in the back under the balcony And he must have known that I was a visitor So fixing his eyes firmly on me as if he knew everything that was going on in my heart. He said Young man, you look very miserable Well, I knew that I did but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance However, it was a good blow and it struck right home He continued and you will always be miserable miserable in life and miserable in death If you don't obey my text, but if you obey now at this moment, you will be saved Then lifting up his hands.

He shouted as only a primitive Methodist could do young man Look to Jesus Christ. Look look look you had nothing to do but to look and live And at once I saw it. I Saw the way of salvation.

I know not what else he said that morning. I didn't hear anything after that I was so consumed with that one thought just like Moses lifted up the serpent The people only looked and were healed. So it was with me. I'd been waiting to do 50 things But when I heard that word look what a charming word it seemed to me Oh, I looked I looked and I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away There and then the cloud was gone The darkness had rolled away and in that moment I saw the Sun and I could have risen in that moment and sung with the most Enthusiastic of them of the precious blood of Christ and the simple faith which looks alone to him Oh that somebody had just told me that before trust Christ and you shall be saved That it was no doubt all in God's timing and now I can say ever since by faith I saw that stream thy flowing wound supply redeeming. Love has been my theme and shall be till I die Here's a question Has that happened to you?

Does that happen to you? Do I remember when it happened to me in my first year of college when I finally understood that he died for me? I I Known that he died for the world I I could tell you that but but but it was in I suddenly saw that it was for me that he died. I Wanted to know how you could know for sure that you would go to heaven and then it it just finally made sense It was in the middle of Romans chapter 4 and it finally made sense that what he had done He'd done for me in love that he bore my sin and took my curse Then when he got out of the grave it was for the release of the penalty from my sin It was like the world dropped off my shoulders and love lifted me you Feel trapped by sin this morning. Look and live Are you fearful about what's gonna happen to you in your life? Look and live are you frustrated at how much you try and fail and try and fail look and live Because I can promise you that if Jesus went into the grave to deliver you from sin He's going to give you whatever power is necessary to be able to live the way that he wants you to live and to soar Victoriously as he wants you to soar the choice is yours. Nobody's stopping you You can look whenever you want whenever you want look to Jesus. He took every ounce of punishment for you. Look at the tomb It's empty look and believe and be healed the bloody cross and the empty tomb are the greatest news in all the world This morning the cross is bloody.

The tomb is empty. The throne is occupied so you can look and you can live Listen, you need to look because you're dying You may not feel it But like the people of Israel bitten by those vipers every one of us the most healthy among us those with the greatest Potential for money or success. We're dying under the curse of sin You don't need a moral improvement. You don't need a religious booster shot. You don't need a fresh start You need to be born again That's why I can't get away from the word saved I'll be honest with you. I don't like the word saved I don't like to use it because I feel like I it sounds kind of redneck to me And I get this image of this pudgy preacher in a suit that doesn't fit who's you know screaming in like six syllables the word Say I'm like I still want to be that guy.

I don't want to be that guy, but I can't come up with a better word You don't need to be improved. You don't need to be tweaked You don't need to be enhanced come to Jesus and get enhanced. That's not what you need You need to be saved Because you were under the curse of death your heart is Wicked And the gospel is not that you're not really that wicked and God's really not that holy the gospel is that God demands perfection But God is so loving that he supplied it to you. It's a gift if you'll look and live Have you ever done that? What he offers is to wash away your sin and start the process of new life in you and you this morning can look Just like Charles Spurgeon did 200 years ago you can look and you can live I want you to bow your heads all of our campuses bow your heads with me Have you ever looked have you ever looked Right now I want you to see Jesus on the cross in your mind Do you see that he did this for you when just dying for the sin of the world He was dying for your lies For Your rebellion for your dishonesty For your impurity He was wounded for your transgressions bruised for your iniquities He was raised from the dead To shatter the power of the grave for you There's a fountain filled with blood And drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stain those who look shall live You see him. Do you see him?

Can you look? Can you look and believe it's a look by the way of repentance? Because it acknowledges that Jesus is the Lord And in humility, it says yes You're the Lord. I'm not I've sinned against you and I I I receive the salvation that you're offering say it to him in your own words.

I receive it right now. I receive salvation I Trust you as Savior I receive you as my Lord With your heads bowed and your eyes closed at all of our campuses, let me ask you something I'm not trying to trick you or anything But if you pray that prayer just now for the first time Or maybe even the first time that you really understood it And you were trusting Christ as your Savior this morning At all of our campuses, could you just do be a very simple thing? Would you just raise your hand?

I'm not doing this because I want to trick you. I just want to you to acknowledge it between you and God So just right now at all campuses Just lift your hand. Yeah, I see you. I See you Put your hand up.

Hold it up. Just a minute Father I pray for every hand that is raised those I can see and those I cannot Because I know that this moment was appointed for them to look and live God and I commit them to you. I thank you God for the empty tomb. I thank you God in Jesus name Amen look up here at me if you would with all campuses You know that thing I had you tear out I want everybody to pull it out.

I don't want anybody to feel self-conscious. Let's everybody take it out If you pray to receive Christ I want you to indicate that right here first first thing I just want you to check that in a minute when the offering goes by you're gonna drop it in Right underneath that is a little place that says I'd like to investigate being baptized as a profession of my faith Baptism is the first act of obedience a lot of times. We'll do it on Easter But this year we decided to do it the next two weeks after this And we just want to give you a chance to get prepared for that We're not gonna try to hound you we're not putting you on a mailing list You can never get off of it's just we want to be able to put into your hands the resources to be able to make This decision meaningful for you to get baptized if you never have been and then for you to take the steps and become in A full-fledged follower of Jesus Christ. So you take a minute I'm gonna leave you here at all your campuses to fill this out and then our worship teams will come and they'll lead us As a response to the gospel