Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] All right.
[00:00:17] The. The Book of Hebrews is a sermon.
[00:00:22] Okay, The Book of Hebrews is a sermon. It's a sermon preached by a pastor to what many scholars believe was a small house church.
[00:00:32] Not unlike us. We're not in a house. But he's not preaching to a mega church. He's preaching to a small number of Jesus followers. And his theme is really primarily one thing, and it's this. It's finish. Well, he hits on a few things. Number one, he hits on this reality that in all things Jesus is better.
[00:00:54] Do you believe that this morning?
[00:00:57] That in all things Jesus is better?
[00:01:01] Jesus is the better. Jesus is better than angels.
[00:01:05] Angels are amazing, by the way. We don't talk a lot about them, but they're ministering spirits, as he says, sent out to minister to those who belong to God.
[00:01:15] But he's better than angels.
[00:01:17] Jesus is better than Moses, whom we'll talk about in just a moment.
[00:01:22] Jesus is the better priest.
[00:01:25] Okay? That the Bible does not teach that you and I need an earthly priest, even a new American pope, to get to God, that Jesus is the better priest. He's the final priest. He's the ultimate high priest. He alone is the one mediator between God and man. So you can talk to God through faith in Jesus anytime, anywhere, any place, no matter what you're going through, because he's the. The better priest and Jesus is the better sacrifice.
[00:01:57] The Old Testament sacrifices of animals have been fulfilled and completed once for all in the person of Jesus.
[00:02:05] Jesus is better.
[00:02:08] And that's the foundational message of the Book of Hebrews. But not just that he really hits in the first 10 chapters on this reality that not only is Jesus better, but but that Jesus finished work, his perfect obedience to the law of God, his death on the cross for sin, his resurrection from the. From the grave and his ascension to heaven, his finished work. That's the gospel. That's the good news is not being worked out.
[00:02:36] It is good news. News is not something you contribute to something you receive.
[00:02:46] It's already happened that his finished work is totally sufficient for your salvation.
[00:02:55] So I have conversations often and I've dealt with this personally with Jesus loving people who see the fickleness of their own faith and their stumbling forward in obedience and think they're not saved.
[00:03:14] Maybe many of us struggle with this to a degree, but here's what the first 10 chapters. Here's what God, the Holy Spirit, through the author of Hebrews, really wants to communicate to us. In the first 10 chapters of the Book of Hebrews Is that your hope in those moments of doubt does not rest at all on you or on how strong or weak your faith is.
[00:03:39] But your hope and mine rest exclusively on the finished work of Jesus.
[00:03:46] That's why you can breathe a sigh of relief. That's why you can live in joy in a relationship with the Father and live courageously in the few moments that God's given us on this side of heaven.
[00:03:58] Because your hope is not dependent on you at all. It's dependent entirely on Jesus.
[00:04:04] That's the second part of his sermon and then the last part of his sermon, which is really where we're getting into now in the last. In the final few chapters of the Book of Hebrews, is that we're now to live for Jesus by the Spirit, come what may.
[00:04:24] Jesus is better.
[00:04:26] Jesus. Finished work is totally sufficient for your salvation and mine.
[00:04:31] And now, in light of what Jesus has done, we're to live for Jesus by the Spirit. That's what it means to be a Christian, by the way. To be a Christian isn't just about praying a prayer and then forgetting all about the person of Jesus as if he's a byproduct of the thing.
[00:04:48] But we do this. Don't we have a tendency to circumvent the very person that our faith is about?
[00:04:58] And so we're to live for Jesus by the Spirit until the end, come what may.
[00:05:05] Life, like, life can be really hard, can it not?
[00:05:11] I mean, I went to a funeral yesterday and. Young guy. And you just, you leave some of those situations just being like, man, I don't. I just don't get.
[00:05:24] Can just be really hard.
[00:05:26] And you need to know that it's going to be really hard.
[00:05:30] Because if you don't expect that and you expect the Christian life to be one of ease and not one of suffering, then you won't make it.
[00:05:41] But I say this all the time, like my desire, our desire as elders for the people of Redemption Hill and for us. And I need you to pray this for me. Like, I'm a young guy still, pretty much like. And so it's not like I'm up here in my 80s saying, hey, guys, I'm like in the fourth quarter of my life and I'm getting ready to go see Jesus. I have, I hope, a long way to go.
[00:06:05] And so we need to know that as Jesus promised us, in life, we'll face trials of many kinds, of not just a few, but many will experience loss, we'll experience betrayal, we'll experience illness, we'll experience the Death of a child.
[00:06:21] Some of us will experience all sorts of things. You'll face trials of many kinds.
[00:06:27] But unlike any other people group in the world, Christians can take heart because Jesus has overcome the world. He's defeated death. He's walked out on the other side. No other religious leader has done that.
[00:06:41] And so you and I in him can take heart in the midst of these things.
[00:06:46] We can finish well by his grace in the midst of these things. That's what the book of Hebrews is all about. As he's saying, hey, friends, brothers, sisters, loved ones, I love you dearly. Let's finish well by the power of the Spirit together, let's hold on to Jesus especially when it gets really dark, especially when you're in the valley.
[00:07:06] Hold onto Jesus.
[00:07:07] Let's hold on to Jesus in the plane when it just feels kind of stuck and mundane. Let's hold onto Jesus on the mountaintop when things are great and we have. It's more tempting on the mountaintop to become self sufficient, honestly.
[00:07:19] Let's hold on to Jesus until the end as Jesus is holding onto us.
[00:07:24] All right, that's what the whole book of Hebrews is about. And then by the time we get to chapter 11, we're nearing this moment in chapter 12. That's really a turning point where the author says, and I don't want to preach that sermon yet, but when the author says, you need to lay aside sin that clings so closely and you need to run with endurance, the race that's set before you. And then he says this, as you're running that race, be reminded, friends, that you have this great cloud of witnesses.
[00:07:56] I want you to think about that. That's what Hebrews 11 is. It's like I told you guys, the example last week of when I ran that seventh grade race. I'm not going to retell the story, but as I got up from falling on my face and just wanted to stop and weep and quit, it was my grandfather at the finish line that prompted me to finish.
[00:08:16] That's kind of like what Hebrews 11 is intended to be for you and I, this great cloud of witnesses, of complicated, imperfect, sinful, but redeemed men and women who have gone before us, who by the grace of God alone have finished well and we get to look at their example of faith.
[00:08:37] Faith, by the way, is trusting in God's benevolence toward you.
[00:08:43] That's what faith is.
[00:08:45] That's John Calvin who said that faith is trusting in God's benevolence, his goodness toward You.
[00:08:53] For those who are in Christ, we get to look at their example of faith, and we get to say, by God's grace, might we imitate their faith?
[00:09:02] Does this make sense?
[00:09:04] All right, so today we're to Moses and his parents.
[00:09:09] Anybody know the names of Moses parents?
[00:09:16] Wow. Drew.
[00:09:18] Yeah. Way to go. All right. That's awesome.
[00:09:21] Yeah, I didn't.
[00:09:23] So way to go. That's great.
[00:09:25] We're going to talk about Moses and his parents and specifically.
[00:09:30] Specifically how their faith expressed itself through fear and pleasure.
[00:09:34] Okay. These are often pleasure, specifically. We'll talk about it in just a moment. But pleasure is often like the antithesis of the Christian life in our minds. Like, we think pleasure is worldly. It's only something that worldly people want. And worldly. But here's the truth. You all want pleasure, as do I. All of us want it. It's insatiable.
[00:09:53] You can try really hard to get rid of it, but I don't think you're going to succeed in that.
[00:09:59] So what we need is not less pleasure. CS Lewis says your desires are actually too weak.
[00:10:04] What you actually need is more of. You need more pleasure and more desire. Because that, as we'll find out in just a moment, is the antidote of the Christian life. It's more pleasure, not less pleasure.
[00:10:15] But we need reordered pleasure. But how their faith expresses itself in both fear, which is also not a bad thing in certain contexts. Fear and pleasure. Okay, so let's look at Moses parents first.
[00:10:31] Amram and Jock Bed are the names of Moses parents. We know this through Exodus, chapter six, verse 20. All right, flip with me to Exodus chapter one.
[00:10:40] So just as we've done every week, we've held our place in Hebrews chapter 11. And then we flipped all the way back to the beginning of the Bible. As we're walking through the Old Testament floor through these men and women listed as our great cloud of witnesses. So Exodus chapter one. I'm going to read verses eight through eleven, and then I'm going to read verses 13 to 17 and then verse 20 and verse 22 to give us just kind of an overview of what's happening in the life of God's people in the Old Testament.
[00:11:11] Moses parents, Amram and Jochbed. I'm not reading the Bible right now. I'm just giving you a Note. They get one verse by which their names are mentioned and 10 verses where they're not named, but by which we see their faith in God displayed through their fear of God. So they don't get a Lot of airtime in the Bible. But the Holy Spirit, through the author of Hebrews sees such in them that he decides to list them in this great hall of faith, as some call it in Hebrews, chapter 11.
[00:11:41] Really significant if you feel like your work is not seen.
[00:11:46] To keep in mind these dear, these dear people.
[00:11:50] Exodus chapter 1, verses 8 through 11.
[00:11:53] This is what Moses says.
[00:11:55] He says, now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.
[00:12:04] Come, let us deal shrewdly with them lest they multiply. And if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.
[00:12:14] Therefore they set taskmasters over them, that's over the people of Israel to afflict them with heavy burdens.
[00:12:20] They built for Pharaoh, store cities, Pithom and Ramses.
[00:12:24] So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in all kinds of work in the field.
[00:12:33] In all their work, they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. This is the context by which we find ourselves that God's people are being oppressed by the new king of Egypt. And so Moses goes on to say that they begin to cry out to God, because that's often what happens when you and I are in the fire of affliction.
[00:12:55] We go one of two ways. We either move away from Jesus or we move toward Jesus in desperation.
[00:13:00] So in this moment of the Israelites life, they move toward God. In the midst of affliction, they cry out to God and it says that God hears their cry. And then Moses uses this amazing two word phrase that I think is just spectacular, says, and God knew God. God knew them.
[00:13:20] He knew their affliction, he knew their suffering, he knew their depression, he knew he knew them.
[00:13:25] He made them, he called them, he loved them, he knew them.
[00:13:31] And so God eventually sends deliverance through this person, Moses, who we'll get to in just a moment. But look at what the rest of the text says.
[00:13:38] Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, I'm jumping down a little bit. One whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah.
[00:13:47] When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birth stool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.
[00:13:55] But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. So God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied and grew very strong. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live. It was a dark time for God's people.
[00:14:17] So Exodus 2:1 10 we get introduced to Moses parents, this is the world in which they live.
[00:14:25] If you have a son, kill him.
[00:14:30] Exodus 2:1 10 says, Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman.
[00:14:36] These are Moses parents.
[00:14:38] The woman conceived and bore a son. And when she saw that he was a fine child or that he was a beautiful child, she hid him for three months.
[00:14:45] When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch.
[00:14:52] She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the riverbank. And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him.
[00:14:59] Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river. While her young women walked beside the river.
[00:15:05] She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman. And she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying.
[00:15:13] She took pity on him and said, this is one of the Hebrew's children.
[00:15:16] Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, God. So the girl went and called the child's mother, And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.
[00:15:33] So the woman took the child and nursed him. And in verse 10, when the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses because she said, I drew him out of the water.
[00:15:48] So while we know very little about these dear people, Moses parents whose names I struggle to pronounce, we know that out of a fear of God, they not only helped preserve Moses life, but we can make an educated and I think rightly ordered assumption that they taught their son God's character and promises by the time they had handed him over to Pharaoh's daughter, Charles Spurgeon says this.
[00:16:20] Never could it be possible for any man to estimate what he owes to a godly mother.
[00:16:29] Mothers, those who are not yet mothers. And I'll talk specifically to the women, not assuming, but wanting to communicate as well, that the job of the man is vital in the home and in the Church.
[00:16:47] So we'll talk more about in the months to come. But I want to speak specifically to our women for just a moment because as one conservative scholar noted, it was probably Moses mother who invested the most time into discipling her son into the character of God and the promises of God. The law of God had not come into play yet because that was going to come through Moses.
[00:17:11] So what did she have to teach Moses but the good, gracious, wonderful promise keeping character of God that your labor is not in vain, not a second of what you do that's both seen and unseen is without meaning and purpose.
[00:17:34] To be a mother is one of the most dignified roles and responsibilities there is.
[00:17:42] It can feel unappreciated, it can feel all of these kinds of things.
[00:17:48] Society may say otherwise, but who cares what the world says, really?
[00:17:54] Like we want to be those kinds of people who just care so deeply about what the world has to say.
[00:18:03] Women who are not biological mothers, but women who invest into the children of Redemption Hill.
[00:18:09] This is not meaningless work.
[00:18:13] This is God ordained. It's God blessed necessary work in discipling the next generation of men and women.
[00:18:23] I hope you burn on the inside for all of our kids getting saved.
[00:18:30] I hope you just want that so badly that you're willing to do anything that you can do and the role that God gives you to play in discipling the kids of Redemption Hill Church for those who are mothers to discipling your children and knowing that there are few things in life more dignified than that role.
[00:18:56] Proverbs 14:26 says, in the fear of the Lord, one has strong confidence and his children will have a refuge.
[00:19:06] That's a beautiful proverb.
[00:19:09] Think about where does true confidence come from?
[00:19:14] The fear of the Lord.
[00:19:17] Because when you and I fear the Lord, we'll fear nothing else.
[00:19:23] When you and I fear the Lord, we'll no longer fear not getting the affirmation that our flesh craves.
[00:19:31] When you and I fear the Lord, we won't fear as much.
[00:19:36] Walking across the street and sharing the gospel with our neighbor and what they might say and are they going to think I'm weird and am I going to say the right thing?
[00:19:42] I mean, if you could put yourself in the position of Isaiah the prophet when he got that glimpse into heaven. Or John in the book of Revelation when he saw Jesus glorified. Or Stephen as he's being stoned. And God, I mean God's so gracious. God gives him a glimpse into Jesus and into the throne room of heaven as he's dying in order to foster his confidence and his joy in his darkest hour. Like if you can put yourself in the position of these men, women in the Old Testament and in the New. If you can put yourself in the position. Do you think that they were worried about all of the things that often plague you and I throughout our day?
[00:20:25] When we fear the Lord, we'll fear nothing else.
[00:20:30] The fear of the Lord gives one strong confidence. And for those who are parents and for those who aren't, but invest into our children, it will give our children a refuge.
[00:20:44] Because you and I can't parent wisely. When we need our kids, when we need their approval, when we fear their future, when we fear, oh God and gosh, guilty.
[00:20:59] But when we fear the Lord, it provides a refuge.
[00:21:06] Moses, mom and dad, by the grace of God, feared God.
[00:21:13] And in their fear of God, they invested into their son who we see in verse 27 of Hebrews chapter 11.
[00:21:20] And I'm going to kind of go out of order here. Go verse 27, then I'm going to go back, then I'm going to go forward. Okay?
[00:21:25] Verse 27 says by faith, he that being Moses left Egypt not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.
[00:21:40] So Moses, father and mother, by the grace of God, feared God.
[00:21:45] That fear of God was passed down to Moses. It's really important to catch because it's repeated over and over and over and over again in Hebrews chapter 11. The phrase by faith, okay, because our kids, just because they're born into a Christian home doesn't make them Christians.
[00:22:04] Like at some point, by the grace of God, the Holy Spirit intersects with a person's life, with a sinner's life and grants them the gift of repentance and faith.
[00:22:13] And that's what makes a person a Christian. Not being born in a Christian home.
[00:22:17] So we know this by faith. Moses, it was Moses faith given to him by grace, not his parents faith. But nonetheless we see that they taught, they discipled, they passed down this idea, this concept of the fear of the Lord to Moses. And it was, it was by not being afraid of the anger of king, of the king, but being more fearful of God that Moses endured and left Egypt after being called by God, Moses has an encounter with God in the burning bush. Many of you know this, some of you don't. Moses has an experience and encounter with God by which God himself appears to him in a burning bush. God speaks to Moses. Moses hears God's voice. God calls him to this amazing task that's beyond anything that he could do on his own. And Moses is like, I can't even talk right.
[00:23:08] Like, which I just. I love that about Moses. You have to assume that he had some insecurities, like he stuttered.
[00:23:14] And God's like, no, I'm going to use you. I'm going to manifest my power and my glory through you.
[00:23:21] So God calls Moses to this task and it says that because of Moses, because Moses wasn't afraid of the anger of the king, but instead had a reordered fear.
[00:23:34] He left Egypt and led the people by the grace of God and by the presence of God out of Egypt.
[00:23:41] And he.
[00:23:42] He endured. It was the fear of God that led Moses parents to civil disobedience. And it was the fear of God that led Moses to lead God's people out of Egypt, even in the face of potential death. So what is the fear of God? Like? What, what does this mean?
[00:23:57] Because here's the, here's the theological problem, maybe if we frame it that way, is one John 4 says, Perfect love casts out fear.
[00:24:08] So if perfect love casts out fear, then why are there so many places in the Bible that talk about the fear of God being a good thing?
[00:24:17] Because it's talking.
[00:24:18] Here's the reality. There is a bad fear and there is a good fear.
[00:24:22] Perfect love that casts out fear, according to 1 John chapter 4, is fear that has to do with punishment.
[00:24:29] Living your life in fear of the punishment of God, even though if you're a Christian, you've already been delivered from the punishment of God because of what Jesus did for you on the cross. And so that's a lack of trust in the goodness of God.
[00:24:46] But all of us in a variety of ways, have misplaced fears. There are things in life that we simply fear more than we fear who God is.
[00:24:57] And so what is the fear of the Lord according to the Bible? Here's my crack at a definition of it. The fear of the Lord is trembling toward God because of his holiness and grace.
[00:25:07] It's being in awe of who he is. It's seeing him with eyes of faith in all of who the Bible says He is. It's seeing him as bigger than you.
[00:25:17] It's seeing him as stronger than you, as being in control, as having all authority in heaven and on earth, as being holy and pure and without sin. So, so clean and so pure that apart from the blood of Christ, you and I couldn't stand to look at him.
[00:25:36] That's.
[00:25:37] That's the fear of the Lord that drives out lesser fears.
[00:25:45] So let's look at verse 24 to 26. Because it wasn't just the fear of God that that led Moses to leave Egypt with the people of God. It wasn't just the fear of God that led Moses parents to spare Moses life rather than following the king's edict. Look at verses 24 to 26.
[00:26:07] It says, by faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
[00:26:19] He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.
[00:26:30] So what might lead a person to choose what the author of Hebrews calls the reproach of Christ?
[00:26:39] What might lead a person to choose a life of suffering with Jesus over the pleasures of sin?
[00:26:48] So I just want to talk about a few things and I'm going to try to go off my notes just because I have a lot of ideas and I didn't write them all down. Okay? But they're coming to me now. Okay? Number one, this is really important, so I really want to encourage you to listen.
[00:27:01] Okay? Number one. Sin is pleasurable.
[00:27:08] It's pleasurable.
[00:27:10] That's why it's enticing.
[00:27:13] If sin were boring and felt terrible while we were doing, wouldn't be enticing.
[00:27:21] Okay? So it's like, Like I heard one pastor say this. Jesus wasn't offered, like mud by Satan to eat.
[00:27:31] Satan was like, here, like, enjoy this bowl of mud. He'd be like, I'm good. Really, like, that's the best you got? This bowl of mud?
[00:27:39] That's not what he was enticed with. He was enticed with power.
[00:27:46] Okay? He was enticed with comfort.
[00:27:53] Lust is enticing.
[00:27:58] It feels good for a moment.
[00:28:02] Getting the last word in in the middle of an argument with your spouse feels good.
[00:28:08] It feels intoxicating almost. You have the power, not them.
[00:28:17] Sin is pleasurable.
[00:28:22] So what in the world would lead a person to say no to the pleasures of sin? That can feel really good to say no to the pleasures of sin and yes to a life of suffering.
[00:28:38] Because, friends, the call to follow Jesus is a call to suffer.
[00:28:45] It's nothing short of that. It is what it is. You don't have to be in vocational ministry to experience that.
[00:28:54] It's a call to suffer.
[00:28:57] Christ left heaven to suffer.
[00:29:03] Suffering marked his life on this side of the resurrection.
[00:29:09] And so being a Christian, by and large, is sharing in his Sufferings. Why would anybody choose that?
[00:29:19] Over living, however many years you get here, just following your pleasures.
[00:29:27] Have sex with whoever you want to have sex with.
[00:29:30] Chase as much money as you want, be you. Don't let anybody tell you anything different than that.
[00:29:37] Why would anybody choose that?
[00:29:41] Well, the author of Hebrews gives us this again. Like, I mean, gosh, I hope you love the Bible again, because the Bible is eternally rich.
[00:29:51] Here's what he says.
[00:29:53] He says, sin is pleasurable, but its pleasures are fleeting.
[00:29:59] Isn't that profoundly deep and true?
[00:30:02] You don't have to be a Christian in the room to agree with that statement.
[00:30:07] The word fleeting means seasonal.
[00:30:13] There's a time that it feels really good and satisfying, but that satisfaction lasts for a moment.
[00:30:25] And then you are flooded with remorse and emptiness and sadness and discouragement and death.
[00:30:41] Spiritual soul death.
[00:30:47] It's enticing because it feels good, but its pleasure is fleeting.
[00:30:57] It is as James, the brother of Jesus, tells us in chapter four, verse 14 of his letter.
[00:31:04] Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life for? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
[00:31:19] If you've ever seen your breath on a cold day, that's what James is talking about.
[00:31:27] It's. It vanishes. You see it and then you don't see it anymore.
[00:31:32] That's what the pleasures of sin are like.
[00:31:35] You feel heightened.
[00:31:38] Okay, Your endorphins are going and your blood is racing and you feel a sense of immediate satisfaction. And then it's gone.
[00:31:54] Moses not only feared God, he delighted in him.
[00:32:04] The antidote to fighting sin in our life. For those who belong to Jesus, the antidote to fighting sin is more pleasure, not less.
[00:32:21] The world says, release your desires in whatever way you can.
[00:32:30] Religion says, repress your desires, don't feel them.
[00:32:36] The Gospel redirects our desires.
[00:32:41] And because of the grace of God in Jesus, because of how beautiful he is, how delightful he is, how satisfying a relationship with him is, that pleasure in him dwarfs this fleeting pleasure in sin.
[00:33:03] That's what leads a person to choose suffering with him over the fleeting pleasures of sin.
[00:33:11] Because he's better.
[00:33:15] Jesus is better.
[00:33:17] If you're a Christian in the room, can you not attest to this?
[00:33:21] Has he ever let you down ever?
[00:33:28] And don't think about it from a physical standpoint, because it's too easy for us in our flesh and from our perspective on this side of heaven to say, well, this happened and this happened and this happened and this happened and this happened.
[00:33:44] Has he ever done bad for your soul?
[00:33:49] Has he ever wronged your soul? Has he ever harmed your soul?
[00:33:54] Or has he through every single thing that he's providentially put in your life, refined your soul?
[00:34:02] He is the good shepherd. There is no one better than him.
[00:34:06] There is nothing better than Him.
[00:34:09] We say this all the time, and gosh, I want to mean it. Sometimes I struggle with it, but I mean it like, I would rather us be so enthralled with the person. It doesn't really matter how big Redemption Hill gets or doesn't get. I just want us to be a people infatuated with Jesus that just see him as so lovely and so wonderful and so good and so gracious that we would say the fleeting pleasures of sin over that.
[00:34:43] No, I choose the sufferings of Christ over if that's what he has for me.
[00:34:49] I choose to stick with Jesus even though I'm walking through this suffering rather than diverting back to the fleeting pleasures of sin that can't satisfy my soul. Are you kidding me?
[00:35:03] I used to love Taco Bell when I was in college. I loved it. And a few months ago, for some crazy, insane reason, I decided to go.
[00:35:16] And I'm in the drive through and I'm getting ready to put my order in, and there's a car behind me and a car in front of me. And all of a sudden I felt like I was claustrophobic. Like, I was like, I have to get out of here.
[00:35:28] What am I doing? It's 3 o' clock on a Tuesday. This is not good. This is not healthy. And so I found a way to get out. Like, I actually maneuvered my way out from the car. I was like, I got to get out of here. Okay. Like, that's a really bad illustration of, like.
[00:35:44] I would love for all of us to remind one another that that's what sin is.
[00:35:53] That by we should pray that the spirit, as John Piper would say, would give us new taste buds that savored Christ more and hated sin more, that we could really experience how fleeting the pleasures of sin are, how gross it makes us feel, how detestable it is to God and how sweet Jesus is that we'd say, come what may, I want him.
[00:36:26] So the antidote to fighting sin is not less pleasure, it's more. It's just redirected pleasure by the power of the spirit in Jesus.
[00:36:34] Final note, and then I'll pray.
[00:36:36] Verse 28 says, by faith, he that being Moses kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn Might not touch them.
[00:36:50] Moses.
[00:36:51] Why did Moses and why did Moses parents fear the Lord and delight in the Lord? Why did Moses fear the Lord and delight in the Lord? Here's the reason. Because they were recipients of grace.
[00:37:04] They're recipients of grace.
[00:37:06] This is what grace does in our life.
[00:37:10] Grace produces fear in the Lord. Fear of the Lord. Grace produces delight in the Lord. You're never going to grow in your delight of Jesus and your pleasure of Jesus by white knuckling it.
[00:37:23] You and I are going to grow in our delight in Jesus by being reminded and washed again of the reality of what he's already accomplished for us in the cross.
[00:37:34] Moses kept the Passover.
[00:37:38] He didn't. This is something given to him by God. God gave Moses instructions for the Passover. Moses led the people in those instructions.
[00:37:48] Here's what the Passover was. God says, tell all the congregation of Israel that on the 10th day of the month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's house.
[00:37:56] A lamb for a household. Your lamb shall be without blemish. A male, a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. And you shall keep it until the 14th day of the month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roast it on the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They shall eat it in this manner. You shall eat it with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night. And I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And on the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. The blood shall be assigned for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And no plague will befall you to destroy you. When I strike the land and of Egypt, God is going to go through. And he's going to kill the firstborn of every home except for the homes that have the blood of the lamb over the doorpost.
[00:39:01] And when he comes to the home of the one who has the. The. The blood of the lamb over the doorpost, his angel is going to pass over that house. That house is going to be covered in grace because that house is covered in The Blood of the Lamb Luke 22, verses 7 and 8. Thousands of years later, listen to what the Lord Jesus tells his disciples as he does something absolutely earth shattering. Before them then came the day of unleavened bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John saying, go and prepare the Passover for us that we may eat it. They're still observing this Passover. And when the hour came, Jesus reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, I have earned earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he said, take this and divide it among yourselves, for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them. Saying this, Jesus changes the liturgy for the first time.
[00:40:14] He takes the bread and he breaks it. He takes the cup and he presents it for them. And he says this, this is my body which is given for you.
[00:40:25] Do this in remembrance of me.
[00:40:27] And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
[00:40:37] Jesus says, I am the Passover. Now, if you want to cultivate a delight in God, a pleasure in being His Son or His daughter, if you want to cultivate a healthy fear of the Lord, you need look no further than Christ.
[00:41:01] And what Christ has accomplished on your behalf to make you that as we behold Jesus, the Passover lamb, the final Passover lamb, the one who, because of his shed blood on the cross will guard you, will be your refuge on the day of wrath. When it comes, God's wrath, as he's eradicating the world of evil and sin and suffering, will pass over those who are in Christ. The Passover Lamb.
[00:41:41] I want to give you one final quote, and then I promise I'm going to sit down, I'm going to pray, and then I'm going to sit down and we're going to take communion. But I think this is an important quote, okay? In John 6, Jesus says, I am the living bread.
[00:41:55] He says, unless you eat of me, lest you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you have no life in you.
[00:42:03] Many people turned away from him.
[00:42:06] Many in the first century accused Christians of being cannibalistic because they held to this teaching.
[00:42:16] For Jesus feasting on his flesh and drinking of his blood is to believe in him.
[00:42:24] It's to receive him.
[00:42:28] CS Lewis says this in one of his Narnia books.
[00:42:36] You should read him.
[00:42:37] Amazing, profound series tells of this interaction that a little girl named Jill has with Aslan the lion, who represents Jesus.
[00:42:46] Jill's thirsty.
[00:42:48] She wants a drink.
[00:42:50] And there's only one stream purview.
[00:42:54] The problem is that in order to access that stream, she has to cross the lion.
[00:43:00] And so she sees the lion sitting there and she's terrified of him.
[00:43:05] But she's so thirsty.
[00:43:08] And so she approaches the lion and this is the interaction.
[00:43:13] The lion says, if you're thirsty, you may drink.
[00:43:22] Okay. For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken.
[00:43:28] Then the voice said again, if you're thirsty, come and drink.
[00:43:34] It was deeper, wilder and stronger.
[00:43:39] A sort of heavy, golden voice.
[00:43:42] Are you thirsty? Said the lion.
[00:43:45] I'm dying of thirst, said Jill.
[00:43:48] Then drink, said the lion.
[00:43:52] May I?
[00:43:54] Could I?
[00:43:55] Would you mind going away while I do?
[00:43:58] Said Jill.
[00:44:00] The lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl.
[00:44:06] The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
[00:44:12] Do you eat girls? She asked fearfully.
[00:44:17] I have swallowed up girls and boys, women, men, kings and emperors, cities and realms, said the lion.
[00:44:29] It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry.
[00:44:37] It just said it.
[00:44:40] I daren't come and drink, said Jill.
[00:44:43] Then you will die of thirst, said the lion.
[00:44:47] Oh dear, said Jill, coming another step nearer. I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.
[00:44:55] There is no other stream, said the lion.
[00:45:00] Will you feast on Jesus?
[00:45:04] Will you drink of him?
[00:45:08] Aren't you thirsty?
[00:45:10] I am.
[00:45:14] Will the fleeting pleasures of sin be the thing that you turn to, to quench your thirst?
[00:45:20] Or will you thirst upon the lion?
[00:45:23] There is no other stream.
[00:45:26] So let's feast on Jesus today.
[00:45:29] Let's pray.
[00:45:54] Sam Sa.
