214: Ted Sleeper - Exhortation: True Religion

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:13

   Welcome to good for selfie and talks. I’m Levi and I’m Chris and I’m Brian, thank you for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one taco week to help us get the Bible in our daily news feed. We post a new episode of the start of each week with a short intro. Hand to kind of set the stage for the talk. You’re about to listen to and now let’s talk more about this week’s talk.

2. 0:36

   This week’s talk is an excitation by brother Ted, sleeper from the San Francisco Peninsula, Ecclesia. That was given on September 25th 2022. He gave it on Zoom to, I think a And group of religious, which he mentions at the beginning. This is a really kind of kind of broad topic is a station titled titled, True Religion, and he starts in Josiah, which I believe was the reading ties in the Ezekiel reading and then kind of bronze it out to the, to the whole of scripture. It’s, it’s really, it’s really beautiful talk. He is, he’s very passionate and you’ll hear it. He’s kind of weaving in.

3. 1:29

   A lot of things that get down to the core of that, we can’t kind of litigate or totally structure, our faith or our focus, it has to come from our hearts and he repeats that message over and over. And I found it, very useful, very easy to listen to very accessible. So I’m very thankful to the sister, that suggested this talk, and I’m very happy to share it on the podcast now.

4. 1:55

   So again, this was a suggestion, please do keep sending in your Since we we were very thankful for them and so here is brother. Ted sleeper on True Religion, well, good morning, brothers and sisters and to all that are here. This morning there are 46 screens, that’s wonderful. There’s lots of us here from various Ecclesia as being able to come together. The reading that we had in Ezekiel and I was matching it a bit with the one from Jeremiah Was, it was size up. What was going on at this time?

5. 2:37

   This was the end. For what was left in the land of Judah, it was the end of the nation. The people had utterly corrupted themselves in the ways that God had sought to lead them. And so the end was about to arrive. What is astonishing about this? This is done in the time that began with Josiah and, of course, ends with his last son. Zachariah.

6. 3:15

   So it’s just sort of the, the father and his sons. It’s during this period of time that this end was reach. I just want to remind you for a moment about Josiah. This is The Godly Josiah that we’re talking about. GE is the And that came in after his father of Manasseh had brought all kinds of idolatry and horrific ways of worshipping false gods into the land. Among the people, Josiah is the one who literally went through the land.

7. 3:51

   He burned to ashes all of the various gods and images. He ground them to powder. He literally obliterated what manasa had? Got into the land and then not only that. But we read this in second crime, you don’t need to turn to this. Let me just read this one. Verse from second Chronicles chapter, 34 Verse 33. He says, thus Josiah removed all the Abominations from all the country that belong to the children of Israel. So not just in, Jude in the South, he swept through the whole land to cleanse it.

8. 4:29

   And they’d all who are listen carefully this, he made all who were present at Israel, diligently serve the Lord, their God, all his days, they did not depart from following the Lord God of their fathers. That was The Godly King Josiah and what he had done in the land. But in the days of Jeremiah, the prophet who is one of the sons of the good high priest hilkiah, that that helped to lead the people in the days of Josiah, and he was probably the grandson of huldah, the prophetess. So, this was a young man who had come through a very powerful and godly lineage.

9. 5:26

   It was in that days of Jeremiah that God revealed a very different outcome to Josiah’s reformation. And if you have, if you can just kind of open up to Jeremiah just for a second, we’ll pick this pick up some of those verses that we had read this morning that are reflected later on in Ezekiel and what he had to say in.

10. 5:55

    Verse verse 3 of Jeremiah 7. We read that Les says the Lord of hosts, the god of Israel amend, your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Do not trust in these lying words. The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are these. Keep some of these things that I’m emphasizing in your mind?

11. 6:21

    For, if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor. If you do not oppress, the stranger, the fatherless, the Widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place which is what they did. When they offered up their children to bail and burned them in the fire or walk after other gods to your hurt. Then I will cause you to dwell in this Place in the land that I gave to your father’s forever and ever behold. You trust in lying Words that cannot profit, will you steal murder?

12. 7:04

    Commit, adultery swear, falsely burn incense to Baal and walk. After other gods, whom you do not know. And then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name and say we are delivered to do all these Abominations. A nation’s and looking down at verse 17 and 18 and 19, he says, do not see what they do in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, the children gather wood in the father’s Kindle, the fire and the women need their dope. They Kate but the Queen of Heaven. And they pour out drink offerings to other gods that they may provoke me to anger.

13. 7:47

    Do they provoke me to anger Sizzle, or do they not provoked themselves to the shame of their own faces? I guess to sum it up in a very simple way. The reforms, the incredible reforms of Josiah. Didn’t last long after his death. And it ended up and what we were reading in Ezekiel 21.

14. 8:17

    The end had arrived the days of Zachariah and the Babylonians were coming in to sweep them. Alphabet out of the land. Now, in a very far more permanent way to leave the land desolate for 70 years. I want you just to think about that reform of Josiah. He did everything you would think was right? He got rid of all the bad stuff and he reinstituted they worship in the temple in Jerusalem.

15. 8:50

    That was the place that they were to come and yet for all of that Reformation of the external surface. The problem was, if Reformation doesn’t start from within it can never last. Even when the forms are put, right? And all the institutions are supposedly set up. that this don’t seem to to work in the way they’re supposed to, and that’s the problem with Reformation when Reformation addresses, the external forms and institutions, It’s it’s as if they’re focusing in the wrong place because the problem isn’t the institutions. The problem is It within the people, that’s where the defects were within the people.

16. 9:51

    So if you just go back to chapter 4 of Jeremiah verses 3 and 4, we read these verses thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem break up the fallow ground and do not so among Thorns, circumcise yourselves to the Lord and take away the foreskins of your hearts. You men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, So that was the problem real reformation and real religion begins in the heart. And when the heart is put, right? That’s when good and right Behavior will flow from that part into the world around you into into the Ecclesia, into the community here in the times of Jeremiah. And this is the time when things would been improved and become different.

17. 10:57

    And this is why the Reformation that God promised is people promise to carry out was going to be so dramatically different. I want you to turn with me to Jeremiah 31. I want you to look at this passage of scripture. This is where God’s Reformation is being proclaimed. So, in Jeremiah 31. Beginning at verse 31, We read this. Behold the days are coming, says the Lord. The days are coming when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel.

18. 11:43

    And with the house of Judah, not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt. We know that as the Mosaic Covenant, my Covenant, which they broke though. I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the Covenant that I will make. But I will make after those days, says the Lord, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. And I will be their God and they shall be my people and no more. Listen to this.

19. 12:35

    No more shall every man teaches her and every man, his brother saying know the Lord for they all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them. Says the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more.

20. 12:59

    You see what God is saying? And hit the New Covenant. Is what he is always wanted. In terms of a religion, he didn’t want the profession of lips from us. That’s not what he’d look for what he was looking for. Was a confession that flowed out of our heart of people who actually knew their, God didn’t just know things about their God. But here’s the problem.

21. 13:30

    How would all those? Embraced by this new covenant. come to know their God, so well, How is God going to take what he once wrote with his fingers? Remember on the stones and gave them to Moses in the first Covenant? How was God going to instead of writing it on Stone? Write it on their hearts. This is what we need to consider this morning, brothers and sisters.

22. 14:05

    This is the, the critical excitation. If you like that, we want to think about this morning, because we in Christ Jesus have been brought into this new covenant. And so how is it going to work out? What is it that first of all, God needs from us for this New Covenant that for what he has promised to actually happen? Well, it turns out there are two things that God needs for internal Reformation to take place inside of us. The first is found in Psalm 40 and you can listen to this or follow along in your Bibles.

23. 14:50

    It’s Psalm 40 verses 6. And it goes like this. Sacrifice and offering you did not desire. See those are externals. But he says my ears, you have opened burnt offering and sin offering you did not require but then I said behold I come in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I Delight to do your Will O my God and your law is within my heart.

24. 15:30

    I Delight to do your. Will you get what that’s telling us what God needs is a willing heart? He doesn’t want to use coercion and force because that can have no place in the New Covenant. That’s what happened. Under the Mosaic Covenant was this external apparatus? That was trying to transform the people but what God wanted in the New Covenant is a willing desire.

25. 16:00

    Fire of obedience that is freely given not forced. And if you’d like for a moment to come to the New Testament and take a look in Hebrews chapter 10. Where this particular verse is picked up. We get this, we get this idea. Brought before us Hebrews chapter 10, I’m going to start back in verse 1, where he says for the law having a shadow. Of the good things to come, which is what the New Covenant is, and not the very image of the things can never with those same sacrifices, which they offer continually yeard by year. Make those who approach.

26. 16:45

    Perfect for then would they not have ceased to be offered? Why would you offer all of these external sacrifices for? If the worshipper once purged if that had happened would they would Not have had more consciousness of sins, but in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats.

27. 17:11

    These external things could take away sins and therefore when he came into the world verse 5, here’s the quotation and you know he’s referring to the Lord Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and offering you did not desire but a body you have prepared. For me, it burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, you had no pleasure. Then I said, behold I come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do your Will O God. Pre-release a saying sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offerings for sins.

28. 17:53

    You did not desire nor had pleasure in them which are offered according to the law. Then I said, behold I come to do your Will O God. And in that act, the first comment was being taken away and the New Covenant was being brought into Force Through the Lord Jesus Christ. Two at the very core of the New Covenant at the very Foundation of it. We have the one who is showing us exactly what God wanted and which is a willing heart and a willing desire to obey God in all things but that’s only half of what God needs to complete his Reformation within all of us. So Hebrews 11:6, you know, this wonderful famous passage, which you probably have memorized and we teach our young children to memorize but without faith, it is impossible to please God. For he who comes to God, must believe that he is, that he? That is he exists?

29. 19:12

    And that. Excuse me. I just lost my place and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So the second thing that is needed after a willing heart in a willing desire to obey God. And to do what is pleasing in God’s sight, is, we have to have faith, which is not a mysterious word, all it means is a willingness to trust God. With our very lives.

30. 19:49

    It may not be apparent. Why? Trusting God Is So vital to the Fulfillment of This Promise of the New Covenant nor how it can contribute to knowing god. But if you bear with me I’d like to Share with you what this is all about and make it as plain as I possibly can and of all things if you know you need to turn to this, when I want you to go back to The Vedic has all right.

31. 20:22

    Genesis Exodus Leviticus. So your third book of the, the five books of Moses that they’re sometimes called. Leviticus chapter 25. And there is one small verse found in Leviticus chapter 25 and verse 23. That amazingly. So obscure it is this obscure little corner in the in the law of Moses opens up before us.

32. 20:53

    The significance of the very things that we have just been asking about in terms of the New Covenant. So read this carefully with me, verse 23, Free the Land shall not be sold permanently and we send her. This is God’s land. This is the one he promised all of that. But listen to this.

33. 21:13

    The land shall not be sold permanently for the land is mine. Okay? For you. Are strangers and sojourners. With me. Did you hear what he just said?

34. 21:38

    Strangers and sojourners, I think all of us this morning understand what a stranger and Sojourner, some of us, I guess for brother James and the Philippines that was being like a stranger and a Sojourner for certain and it experiencing a foreign land. But we understand that what it means is a stranger and Sojourner, it’s a temporary way of life until one finally, acquires a permanent home.

35. 22:10

    But he says, you’re strangers and sojourners with me. What? God. A stranger and Sojourner. The implication of these words brothers and sisters are absolutely enormous. He is not too told, excuse me. I guess, put simply it’s this, God is telling us even way back then. That this present World in which they live through, in, which we are now. Living through this present world is not God’s world. He is a stranger and Sojourner in this world. No place of it in that sense?

36. 23:09

    Is he belongs to him? It belongs now to man. And what we see going on in the world today is not the outworking of God’s desires. It’s the outworking of man’s desires. So, the implications of those words that we just read are enormous, but there’s one more little tiny word embedded in that what yours even more surprising because God says, you are strangers and sojourners?

37. 23:46

    With me. You get the point. What I had read back in Hebrews 11, let me just pull that up again and Hebrews 11 and verses 8 through 10. We’re told that Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would afterward receive as an inheritance and he went out, not knowing where he was going by faith. He sojourned in the land of promise as in a foreign country. Tree dwelling in tents with Isaac. And Jacob, The Heirs with him of the same promise. Or he waited.

38. 24:32

    For the city which has foundations whose Builder and maker is God. Do you see the point of that word with me? God is not kind of above or outside of our experience. He has not told us in some detached way, will give up your citizenship as we do is christadelphians? When were baptized me?

39. 25:07

    We give up our ownership if you like, or any claim that we might have on this, this present age, this present world. And now we go out and we live as strangers and sojourners to until the king. God is set upon the Earth.

40. 25:24

    That’s not what God Said. Rather what God has done is he has invited us. To sojourn with him, he said to Abraham come, come with me. so, That is the same invitation that we have received like Abraham. We have been invited to join the Living God, the god of Heaven and Earth in his sojourning.

41. 26:06

    Until he establishes the promised new heavens and new earth, which wherein dwells righteousness. As we’re told, This is the point of a well-known passage back in Micah 6:8. So please turn to it because I want this. See this before your eyes as well. Hosea, Excuse Me, Not O. See a Micah chapter 8. There it is.

42. 26:39

    Got it. Mike said Mike, excuse me, chapter 6. There is no chapter 8, Micah 6:8. Here’s this famous verse that again. I think we know well he has shown you o man what is good and what does the Lord require of you? But to do justly that is to live righteous lives following for us after the Lord Jesus Christ to do justly to love mercy and we had a beginning class on Mercy in our Ecclesia couple weeks back in Sunday school but it Early has to do with a strong desire to reach out, and salvation and forgiveness, to our brothers and sisters hell of mercy. And finally, to walk humbly with our God, or as the literal translation would suggest who humble ourselves To walk with God.

43. 27:47

    I want you to think about that to Humble ourselves to walk with God. Remember we said this is what the what God has invited us to do. And the New Covenant is to become a stranger and Sojourner with him in this earth. You know, you’ve all done this and let’s say with James with the big group that he accompanied down to the Philippines, you know, when you’re with a big group or is he said, with the brother, though is in his room, you get to know people.

44. 28:20

    When your journey with them. You get to you, get to you, get to see how they respond to different circumstances that you may encounter together. You see how that other person acts and in certain ways you become familiar with their ways. And so James, I guess at some level God, hey, you’re listening to the music and it’s I’m not the music that the talks that the brother was listening to But even more than that.

45. 28:54

    You are sharing together. Think about this, you are sharing together in a common set of experiences a common life together when you are together with another person. Think about that brothers and sisters. In sojourning and being invited into what we have in Christ Jesus, we have been invited to sojourn with God. That means we are sharing in his life.

46. 29:36

    And he is sharing in our lives. This is a v extraordinary message, and you can just listen to this passage, if you like from Isaiah 63, and it’s in verses 89. If you want to write this down, he says, surely they are my people children, who will not lie, and so he became their savior. And then he goes on to say and this is going, is loving, kindness towards his people in all. They are affliction.

47. 30:15

    He was afflicted. In other words and all that they experienced when they went through their Wilderness wandering, they came into their land and all their afflictions. God says he was afflicted and the angel of his presence, saved them in his love and his in his pity. He redeemed them, he bore them and carry them all the days of old to see what kind of relationship that is describing in sharing that Plum and life. Together two things are happening first but common bond is being forged a relationship is being built. Why do you think God called Abraham his friend? Friend of God.

48. 31:11

    Friendship is not a one-sided relationship as much as Abraham had come through his sojournings to depend upon his God. Even. So had God. Come to depend upon his friend Abraham.

49. 31:33

    And second we need to fully realize. That our life’s experiences with we walk with God are not the subject of chance. Of. Oops, something happened. God is Meandering haphazardly around? This is God’s Journey, he doesn’t wander around haphazardly and he we are with him on this journey. It means God’s path that he is taking, and we are walking along with him is deliberate.

50. 32:20

    And it is purposeful. The writer in Hebrews 12 speaks of God’s discipline and training the Apostle Paul and speaking to the brethren in Ephesus, he speaks about much tribulation that is much pressure through which we must pass to enter into the kingdom of God. Perhaps, the most revealing passage of all in light of, this is something that we find in Hebrews chapter 5, and I would like you to turn there.

51. 32:54

    As we begin to draw our thoughts together about why we are all together this morning and Hebrews chapter 5, we read this and verse seven and eight. Speaking of the Lord, Jesus, who in the days of his flesh. When he had offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears. To him who was able to save him. From death and was heard because of his Godly fear, though he was a son, she had he learned obedience. By the things, which he suffered, he learned, obedience, and the word is the idea is to learn by use and practice. Some has translated to acquire the habit of obedience, Jesus acquired, the habit of obeying his father by the things that he went through.

52. 34:09

    In other words, God was writing on the heart. This son. Those precious qualities that he desired through the things that his son was experiencing and these experiences that Jesus went through arose because Jesus was willing to trust his father and to go wherever his father. Let him That’s what’s amazing. And so brothers and sisters, what can we learn? From all of this, I don’t even know how to convey. The utter Wonder of our God in the New Covenant. Can you see that if indeed, this was God’s Journey, that Jesus joined, if he was a Sojourner with his father, then the sorrow and the pain that he experienced. Whilst also being have been experienced by his father, they were on the same Journey.

53. 35:29

    So don’t be discouraged, my brethren. Don’t be discouraged if you go through fiery and difficult. If we encountered fiery and difficult trials in our lives. If we need our hands strengthened because they’ve grow weak in our knees. Need needs strengthening because they’ve grown feeble. If we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of our God, God will exalt Us in due time.

54. 36:05

    I want to close brothers and sisters by having. All of us, look at Galatians chapter 5. Because this is Preston. Incredible passage Galatians chapter 5 in verse 22 and 23. Listen to what he says. But the fruit of the spirit is love joy. Peace. Long suffering. Kindness goodness faithfulness, gentleness self-control against anything like this. There is no law that is needed.

55. 36:52

    Think about all of those behaviors and then concentrate on one word in verse 22. But the Fruit of the Spirit. This is the beauty of this rather than sisters. The fruit is the outcome of a process and this is the outcome of God’s process in our lives. To think that this is what God is seeking. To accomplish in each one of us.

56. 37:38

    By our journey with him. This is the result of life that is fit. For eternity. And so may this be according to God’s grace the blessing that we each get to experience. Thank you for listening to the good christadelphians talks podcast. We hope this talk helped you in your walk. If you would like to hear more, please subscribe for new episodes and leave a review and apple podcast or whatever service you are using to help more people find the show when they search for it. If you enjoyed this Secular talk, please share it with someone who you think might enjoy it as well for show notes on the talk.

57. 38:35

    You just listened to visit our show page at anchor dot f, m / G, CT, or check the show notes section of your podcast player. Please share your thoughts on the talk from this week on our Facebook or Instagram Pages where we are at good christadelphians, talks on Twitter where we are at GCT underscore podcast or leave a comment on our YouTube channel where these talks are posted as well.

58. 38:58

    If, you know of a great talk, we want to know about it. To send a suggestion to our e-mail at good Christian talks at gmail.com or message us on any of our social media accounts. Thank you for listening. God bless and talk to you next week.