Jim Styles - God's Wonderful Plan Of Redemption - Class 5 - Redemption Explained Through Rituals

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

1. 0:00

   Well, good morning again everyone. I’d like to thank all of you for your hospitality to Sue and I for over the last week or so and especially here, all the good food that that kitchen staff has provided for us while we’ve been here. It’s fun to get to know a lot of you and also the young people that are here in this area.

2. 0:16

   This is the first time Sue and I have ever come up this far in the Canada. Usually in Canada we may go up to BC and maybe on the mainland, and we spent a lot of time in Ontario in our younger years because we lived in Detroit for most of our life and we, a lot of our friends were Canadians.

3. 0:31

   In fact, when I was teaching school for years, a lot of the kids in my school thought I was Canadian because I would make a point in, in math or biology and say, hey, and they say hi, are you Canadian? That was, yeah, just the habits we pick up from our Canadian friends, right.

4. 0:48

   Well, over the weekend, we’ve looked yesterday and then this morning at Sunday school, again at God’s wonderful plan of redemption. And what a loving God that we have that he cared to redeem us. And when you go back and, and what we want to do this morning is have a look at, well, if you were in God’s shoes, how would you teach the redemptive plan to people that didn’t have overhead projectors and video projectors and they didn’t have books that were published with nice pictures. And you didn’t have a situation when you could write all this stuff down.

5. 1:16

   Everybody could just have a library at home and read it all. And there were no magazines being published, no e-mail and all that kind of stuff that we live on today. And we, we’re, so we’re so used to being able to do those things. We can come to a class and we don’t even have to take notes anymore because we can just go home. We can download the classes and listen to them again. And we can even download PowerPoints today from a lot of the websites today.

6. 1:40

   So we really, we have it made from that perspective. So from God’s perspective, how do you teach redemption when you don’t have a lot of written material, no recordings and all those kind of things? How would you do it? And so God attempted to teach redemption through ritual procedures that people would go through.

7. 2:01

   When you go back and look at the rituals of the law and, and so often when we look at the law and we look at Paul’s commentary on the law and we see how Paul would just say that by works of law, no flesh will be justified. And then you wonder, why did God do it in the first place? Why even bring about all this ritual behavior under the law? So when you go back to the very beginning in Genesis and you develop what God attempted to do. Now Adam and Eve had committed sin and God had to decide what do you do at that point?

8. 2:30

   Do we do we destroy them? They could die at that point. He could have if he wanted to and started over. But instead he attempts to redeem them. He tries to teach them how to get the way back to God. How do you find your way back to God after we’ve committed sin, after we’ve fallen from the position that he had put them into? And So what God tried to do then is cover them with coats of skin.

9. 2:54

   So a lot of us realized that, and he took animals. They may have actually seen animals killed before them, and he covered them with those coats of skin. We’re not really sure. It doesn’t go into all the detail, but he attempted to teach them that there was a mechanism that could provide an atonement for their sins.

10. 3:13

    So he tries to do that, probably through animals and animal sacrifice. And when you run then into the first case with their children in Genesis chapter 4, if you just look there in Genesis 4 for a minute, you can see how this came up right away with Cain and Abel. So when you’re reading about Cain and Abel, it’s nice to notice a few things that now we’ve got Adam and Eve, we’ve got Cain, we’ve got Abel. And now they in the process of time, in Genesis 4, at verse 3, in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. So he realizes that God wants offerings. So there have been rules established. God was telling them about how to worship him. If we want to find the way back, how do we get back to God? And so Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the first lings of his flock and they’re fat.

11. 4:08

    Oh, that’s interesting because, you know, why mention the fat if there weren’t rules given about how you do the sacrifices? So we’re not told in detail about how they did their offerings at this point, but we’re given some hints that God had made it pretty clear about how you’re supposed to do offerings. And So what God did at that time is that he tried to teach people, if you want to get back to him, if you want a covering for your sins, if you want an atonement that’s made, if you want to be part of the wonderful plan of redemption that he has for us, it’s going to come about through animal sacrifice. This was his teaching mechanism.

12. 4:47

    So he would probably tell them to pick an animal out of your flock and make sure that when you pick your animal, don’t pick one that’s like got unequal legs or it’s in any way blemished outward blemishes that you can see on it. But take one that is without blemish and take one that’s really going to be one of your better animals and bring that to God and offer that up with its fat.

13. 5:10

    Because as the rules came about later on that all the fat belong to the Lord. God wants all that part of it. He’s looking for devotion. And you look at the animal and you realize, well, what was that animal supposed to teach them? You know, when he, when he brought about animal sacrifice, what was he trying to do? And So what we can do is we can look back at these cases under the law and we can try to figure out back here in Genesis, well, what was it all about?

14. 5:34

    Was he trying to teach us that when an animal died, that God was trying to tell you that you’re a Sinner, you deserve to die, and that’s why the animal was killed and this would provide your atonement. And that might be what somebody’s thinking here this morning. And it is true that sinners deserve to die, that the wages of sin is death. But when you roll your mind through all the New Testament writers and you say, well, where’s the New Testament writer that ever went back to animal sacrifice or to the sacrifice of Christ and said, well, that was teaching that sinners deserve to die.

15. 6:06

    You’re going to come up with a blank sheet of paper. It just isn’t there. And that’s a warning to us that when you go down that pathway, that’s really not what God was intending. He wasn’t trying to teach punishment through the animal sacrifice. He’s trying to show the way back. You know, this is what he’s trying to illustrate.

16. 6:25

    And then and what it matters is that if we, if we take that and we think that, well, he’s teaching us that we deserve to die. And so we kill an animal and now I can be forgiven of my sins. Then what happens is we go to Jesus Christ up on the cross and we think, well, that’s what he was showing us, that sinners deserve to die.

17. 6:42

    And he bore our punishment on the tree. And now God won’t punish us for our sins. And we just joined the teachings of the churches. And this is the problem that we have on the atonement. We very easily slide into the substitutionary views. And so it’s a warning to just be careful. So then you start figuring out, well, what were you supposed to learn from the animal sacrifices?

18. 7:05

    What do our New Testament writers say about animal sacrifice? And so it’s fun to look at things like the hem that we just sang hem one O 6. And you realize, well, when Jude said that, that now to him who is able to keep you from falling, well, in the Greek, the words that are used there, some of the modern versions actually pick up on this really well. And they realize that he was building on Old Testament animal sacrifice words.

19. 7:33

    That’s what he picks up. And some of the versions actually say, well, now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling. And This is why you wouldn’t pick an animal that had unequal legs like that, because they would stumble. And I didn’t want you picking something that stumbled and to present you without blemish.

20. 7:55

    Oh, that’s interesting. That’s right back to the language of the law. And So what God was doing with the animal sacrifices is saying, look at you pick out an animal that is perfect from the outward appearance, and you take that animal and identify with that animal because the animal represents Christ. That’s what it does, it represents Jesus Christ. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Just run your mind through the New Testament passages. This is what God was trying to teach. We have an animal you’re going to pick out. This animal is going to represent your Messiah. What he wanted us to do was lay our hands on that animal and identify with him and say I want a life like Messiah. He’s going to be out blemished, He’s going to be perfect and we’re going to hate sin like he does and then commit yourself to die the sin like he will.

21. 8:47

    And this is what God was trying to illustrate. But unfortunately, as as time went on, people just took it other ways, made it into ritualistic behaviors, and then they just figured, oh, it’s just kill an animal. He’s just showing me that I deserve to die. Walk away and no change. You don’t you just say keep telling God, I know I deserve to die and it sounds good on the surface. It sounds good that we admit that to God, that oh, I deserve to die, I’m a Sinner, I deserve to die. But it doesn’t change our behaviors. And what God is after is people who have changed that they just not deserve to die.

22. 9:20

    But you come out and you are you, Pat in your life, your life that you live after the resurrected Jesus Christ. He wants people who live to him, who conform their wills to his will. That’s what he’s after. That’s the hard part from God. It’s easy to get people to acknowledge that they deserve to die.

23. 9:40

    That’s not a problem. You go right through all of Christianity, and almost every Christian sitting in a church today is going to say, oh, I know sinners deserve to die. That’s the easy part. The tough part that God’s been after all along was to teach us what we have to do, How do we live so that we can be a member of his family forever?

24. 10:00

    And you can see that in this case, Cain resisted. Cain didn’t want to do this. This is why God says that he had no respect for Cain or his offering. Cain resisted the idea of joining Messiah and a death to sin and just figured I’ll bring some fruits. God just wants an offering. That’s what the pagans did, You know, just bring some food to God and think that the God would be appeased and happy because you gave them some of your stuff and they missed the point. This is not just about giving offerings to God. It’s about changing our lives and how we live and teaching us to be like Jesus Christ.

25. 10:34

    If you’re wondering about that, I think it’s fun to watch in Genesis chapter 4 that when God talks to Cain, when he resisted his offering and he says to Cain, in verse 6, the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?

26. 10:53

    This is what He’s reminding you. You can be a part of this Cain. If you do well, you’ll be accepted. And if you do not do well now a lot of our modern versions, if you’re carefully, I remember Ron Abel reading this out of the RSV one time. It was just like he just, he is so dramatic and how he presented it to us as young people.

27. 11:12

    And he said, if you don’t do well, Sin is crouching at the door. It’s like a lion over there and it’s just sitting there at the door. Sin lies at the door. And this is how he depicts it, that Sin is crouching there like an iron, like a lion. And it’s just waiting for the opportunity to spouse on you.

28. 11:29

    And that’s what it’s, that’s what it is. Sin wants to get you. And so he would tell Cain, he said, look it, it’s desire is for you. This is what the new King James has in here. But you should rule over it or you must master it as it is in the RSV. This is the fight that has to go on. And it’s right here in Genesis chapter 4, right from the very beginning, God lays it all out.

29. 11:53

    This is the first personification of the devil. Here it is right back in the beginning when we’re trying to teach our friends the truth. This is when it all started, right here in the very first incident after Adam and Eve sent. The next thing we read about is a person who was letting the devil win in their life.

30. 12:11

    And if you think that’s a bit far fetched, well, if you just read over in John and John’s letter in First John, John actually brings this up and shows us that this is the battle that we’ve been called to in first John chapter 3 when he’s dealing with the love of God, the love that’s supposed to make us respond to our our Lord Jesus Christ and to live a different kind of life. And all the way through this, the letter in John, the the new King James catches a bit of this, but the NESB is much better of putting in the word practice. And you’ll see it’s actually there in the Greek all along about those who practice sin versus those who practice righteousness.

31. 12:50

    It’s like, what are you practicing in your life? What are you doing? Are you practicing sin? Are you practicing righteousness? So he brings up the incident with Cain and Abel in Genesis or in first John chapter 3 at verse 19. And in this, the children of God and the children of the devil.

32. 13:08

    See that there it was right from the beginning. There was your devil back in Genesis chapter 4 because the desire was there. And if you don’t fight it, it’s going to beat you. You’ve got to master it, you’ve got to beat it. And it’s interesting to watch showing because it, and really, and back there in the Hebrew, it’s fun to notice that, you know, Adam had just been told and his wife had been told that Eve that your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you.

33. 13:38

    And now we have a case of how this is supposed to work for the man, that the man doesn’t just say, well, her desire is for me and I’m going to rule over her. But now we have a case of where the man, your desire is going to be for sin crouching at the door. And you’ve got to master that.

34. 13:57

    And that’s what he was actually telling us in this case. It isn’t just about ruling over our wives. It’s about ruling over sin in our life. This is what we’ve been called to. And it’s it’s just fun to watch. All those things are set up in Genesis 3 and 4. So he tells us here in first John 4, then, that the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. See that connection that’s there. This practicing of righteousness will inevitably transform into the way you love your brethren, how you treat people, and your family, and your ecclesia.

35. 14:41

    For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that you should love one another, not as Kane who was of that wicked one. Oh, you see, when that lion was crouching at the door and God warned him and said, look at Cain, If you do well, things are going to be good.

36. 14:58

    But if you don’t, there, there it is over there, that lion’s crouching at the door. Sin wants you. It’s desire is for you, and you’re going to have to master it. And Cain didn’t do it. And instead, what did he do instead? He was of that wicked one and he murdered his brother.

37. 15:13

    And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous. See, this is all about practicing righteousness. How does God win us over to his side to where we learn to practice righteousness? And the way you do that? The way he chose to illustrate it was by taking an animal out of the flock, one that’s without blemish, and lay your hands on that animal and identify with that your Messiah and put it to death.

38. 15:41

    Put to death what is earthly in you like Messiah will join with him in a death like his and practice righteousness. This is what God was after with animal sacrifices. So he tried, He tried to illustrate it with animal sacrifices for what thousands of years? Animal sacrifices were there from the beginning all the way up until Jesus Christ came. So for 4000 years people were offering animal sacrifices until the real work of the man who would come, who would really put sin to death, came and did it up there on the tree. So when you look at the animal sacrifices though, you have to be careful.

39. 16:19

    You don’t want to walk away from them thinking that God was teaching us that we just deserve to die and that you know, easily it can translate into a substitutionary view. Yearly you look at the New Testament writers, find out what they did with this. Now to Him who’s able to keep you from stumbling and present you without blemish before the presence of His glory with rejoicing, This is what our New Testament writers understood. And we it’s better really to start in the New Testament and work our way backwards.

40. 16:49

    And you wonder like, well, how will people are supposed to know this? The job of the priests under God’s national covenant of the law, their responsibility was to teach the people. It’s the job like of the presiding brother for us in our memorial services. When we come time to the memorial service, it’s every presiding brother’s job. They’re our responsibility to remind everyone, why are we here?

41. 17:13

    What is this memorial all about? This is what God wanted with his priesthood. It was their job to keep knowledge. And when they let the community down, the whole community would falter at that point. And so God would try to bring about priests that would teach the people again. So that’s what they were supposed to do. But as time went on, what happened in the community and in the world at large, this animal sacrifice just became like a Pagan thing, and it became really abused. And so God looks across the world and decides, all right, there’s hardly anybody at this point that’s worth saving. And he looks over there and ur the Chaldees and there’s Abraham.

42. 17:51

    And he brings Abraham and he talks to him and her and says, look, I’ll take you from there and bring you into the promised land. He went up through heroin. His dad died. He comes into the land. And Abraham, he knew he could work with him because Abraham would believe God and God could then impute righteousness to Abraham. Abraham didn’t have this philosophy of thinking, well, I’m righteous because I just kill an animal and I walk away. An animal took my place.

43. 18:16

    It was my substitute. Oh no, He understood by faith that God would impute righteousness to him when he was practicing righteousness, that that was his basic framework of his life. So then God takes this man who he accounts righteous and he’s trying to like, how do you how do you then illustrate to Abraham’s family?

44. 18:37

    We don’t want to let them lapse into just a substitutionary view of animal sacrifice. How do we teach them that this is really something that is in you and in me. This is this is something that’s in our bodies. It’s to this physical principle that we looked at yesterday that’s got a moral impact on our life of turning us away from God. And we have to fight this.

45. 18:59

    We have to practice righteousness. How do you get them to understand that so that they won’t end up thinking that the animal sacrifices are just outside? That’s, you know me, I deserve to die and that’s it. What are we going to do? How do we teach them? This is about a moral, A moral thing in our life, about practicing righteousness.

46. 19:18

    So what he does with Abraham is after counting Abraham righteous and taking his family and God promising him that he would send the promises to Abraham and his family and what he would give him the land. In Genesis 17, he gives him circumcision, the sign of the covenant. And now you can imagine the discussion amongst the angels in heaven. How are we going to get his family to realize this is something that’s in them that that has to actually be worked on?

47. 19:48

    So what do you do? You take a part of their body that is so connected with immorality and say, Abraham, if you and your family are going to make it and you’re going to be part of my family, you have to understand from the beginning, when a baby is born, 8 days into it, there’s something in this baby that’s already working against me.

48. 20:11

    And So what I want you all to do is commit as a family and as a community that you will work to cut this off, that you will put this away, put to death what is earthly in you, as our New Testament writers would say. And they introduce circumcision to try to counter the problem that would be developing in the community of thinking, well, this is just like Pagan sacrifice. And so now we’re going to have something. It’s in me, the problems actually part of me from birth, and I’m going to have to commit to cutting this off. It would have been an interesting discussion because, you know, amongst the angels, you can imagine how they would look at that concept and realize, well, not only can we show them that, but we can also teach through circumcision that what about all you girls?

49. 20:58

    You can’t be circumcised. So what is that all about? So we can illustrate the idea then that really none of the men are really going to be fully circumcised. This is something, again, where you identify with Messiah just like you do with the animal sacrifice. Circumcision was an identification with Christ. This is why Paul would say that about the true circumcision, that only Christ was really circumcised.

50. 21:28

    He’s the only one who really put sin to death and who put it up there on the tree and killed it. He’s the only one who really cut off the devil. And So what the men were really doing is acknowledging that look at this is what we’re going to try to do, practice righteousness, put sin to death, but we’re identifying with Messiah.

51. 21:48

    And all of the girls were saved in their husbands and the men that they were connected with their fathers and teaching the community that really none of us were really righteous, that the only hope of anybody in this family is that we are found in Messiah, in him not having a righteousness of our own, but one which is based on faith. So that was the attempt with circumcision. But inevitably, I mean, look at what happens with rituals. The Jews took circumcision and they turned it in instead into something where look at how good we are. We’re circumcised.

52. 22:22

    And what about all you Gentiles? Oh, you’re a bunch of Barbarians. And they turn into something that God never intended to where they thought they were the special people. So then as the community had come out of Egypt, they had spent all those years in Egypt, but exposed to all of those wicked practices of the Egyptian. God brings his community out of Egypt. And they were circumcised before they could eat the Passover. It’s always fun to look at.

53. 22:45

    Where do you think that would have happened? Probably during the three days when there was darkness in the land, Because then Joshua takes him in the land later on, 40 years later. And they were circumcised the second time, so there had to be a first. But he brings them into the land. Then he’s bringing them up into the land at least.

54. 23:02

    And Moses is bringing the people up. And they’re on the other side of the Jordan. And remember what happened right at the end, A new generation, 40 years has gone by. The old generation had died off. The new young people, the younger people had come along. You aren’t the ones who made the mistake of refusing to go into the land. And here they are coming up through, you know, down in the South or Eden.

55. 23:23

    They’re coming up along the side. They’re down there and they’re complaining just like their parents did about, oh, why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness? And so in Numbers 21, God sent serpents and they bit them. You were bit. Now we realize, oh, wow, this isn’t just something that’s in our flesh that has to be cut off.

56. 23:47

    This is a poison that’s killing me. And so now they’re trying to like further develop the concept about the fact that we have a problem. We’ve got this snake bite in US. You’ve got this venom that’s going through your bloodstream. And instead of bringing life like blood, this is now killing us. It’s going to bring about death. And So what does God tell Moses?

57. 24:09

    Well, they’ll make make a serpent out of bronze. Now, he could have said to him, take a dead snake and put it up on the pole. He didn’t do that. He said, make a bronze snake, one that looks like the snakes, but this one doesn’t have the venom. This one has never given in to sin.

58. 24:27

    And put that up on the pole. And everybody that looks up at that and realizes that, wow, I’ve got this poison in me. But if I look at that in faith, and I really want to do that, I want this old man to die. I want this snake bite to be dead up there on the pole. I want these serpents to be gone and dead up there. And you then look back and meditate on it and think about what is he teaching us about Messiah? Those people Is is he says they’re in Numbers 21. And anyone who looks up, anyone in this community, this isn’t just Jews, This is everyone who looks up is saved. This is like John when Jesus quotes this in John chapter 3 and he says to Nicodemus and he brings up this incident. Ever wonder like why does he bring this up about the the Son of man being like the serpent in the wilderness? He’s trying to get Nicodemus to get out of his shell of thinking only Jews can be saved.

59. 25:18

    And he said, didn’t you read that carefully there in Numbers 21? Didn’t you notice that it said everyone, anyone, You don’t have to be a Jew for this. This is offered to anyone who looks up in faith if they, if they will respond to faith in Jesus Christ. And so that’s what happened then with the serpent on the pole.

60. 25:37

    The goal was that they would look up there and commit to join Messiah and the death to sin. Acknowledge that I’ve got the problem in me. I’ve been bitten by this snake. I’ve got this venom in me that’s killing me and I want to find a way to get rid of it. I want, I don’t want that life.

61. 25:53

    And God was trying to win people over. So then in the New Testament, you know, there’s others you can look at. But in the New Testament, John Baptist comes along and what does he do? He preaches a baptism of repentance, which we know that the apostle Paul picks up on in Romans chapter 6 and gives us a great exposition of what baptism is supposed to mean.

62. 26:13

    When we’re baptized into Jesus Christ, this baptism of repentance, we go down into the water, we bury the old man in the water, and we tell everybody, I’ve got a problem. I’ve got this devil in me. I’ve got this old man, and he wants to do my will, not God’s. And what I want to do is commit to telling everybody the angels in heaven, God and Jesus Christ.

63. 26:37

    I’m going to join with Christ the way he was saved. I want to be like him. And I want to put this old man down there in the water and leave him there, bury him under the water and walk out a new person, someone who lives like Jesus Christ, resurrected from the dead, who doesn’t even have that anymore. It isn’t just that we walk out and live like Jesus before his death.

64. 27:00

    Paul says we walk out in a new life patterned after the resurrected Christ. Well, we don’t have this devil in us anymore. This is what we’re aiming for. This is how you practice righteousness. And this is what it’s supposed to do. So when we go through that in baptism, then it’s we’re we’re changing masters. We’re saying I’m no longer going to serve self. I’m not going to, I’m going to serve sin. And it’s fun how Paul does that.

65. 27:23

    He he, he actually talks about as being sin. He doesn’t even use the word devil or anything else that we can misunderstand. He just says the master is sin. And we leave that way of life down there. And now we’ve transferred our allegiance to God, and now we are slaves of Jesus Christ, and now we practice righteousness.

66. 27:42

    And you can see in Christ’s baptism, no wonder God opened the heavens and said, this is my beloved son, listen to him. Because finally somebody was willing to really do it. And then we come to the bread and the wine, brothers and sisters. And you look at the bread and the wine, and you can see how God is now trying to take these ritual procedures and develop them for us because the natural tendency for all of us is to turn them into rituals.

67. 28:09

    Then we lose their meaning. We could do that so easily with our own baptism even today. We could be baptized 30 years ago. They could be baptized 2 years ago. And it can already happen that we just figured, well, I was baptized into Christ. I now have changed my allegiance and now I’m in God’s family.

68. 28:28

    And now, like Paul would say, does that mean that now we can send that grace may abound? Is this supposed to affect your life? Or is it just a case of where you’ve been baptized into the right church? And now God will save me and he can’t save other people because I joined the right church. And that isn’t it at all.

69. 28:45

    He’s trying to change how we live so that we live like children. We live like his children. And so we come to the emblems this morning with the bread and the wine and you look at, well, what is he doing now? He’s taken something where he says, look at this is a new kind of life that you’re going to live.

70. 29:02

    You can now have the advantages that we have in Christ Jesus, the freedoms for which he’s brought into our life. But when we take the bread and we drink the wine now, this isn’t anything like external anymore. This is something you cut off like circumcision and then just throw it away. This isn’t that kind of thing.

71. 29:20

    It’s not even like a serpent on the pole up there and the venoms out there. Now he says, I want you to take Christ’s life, the bread and the wine, they represent Messiah, the life that he lived. He gave his day, his life every day and doing God’s will, not his own. And in his, in the wine, the blood, this life that was cut off because every day he was giving his life and service to us and to his Father. And now God says what would be really good is if you take this into your body physically, it becomes a part of us. The molecules that are in the bread and the wine, they actually become part of your body. And he’s hoping that that life of Jesus Christ of practicing righteousness will come into our minds, into our spiritual minds as he tries to develop us in the mind of the Spirit. And This is why you’d find New Testament writers talking that way about this example that Christ has set for us and why the bread and the wine means that. That’s why Paul in First Corinthians 11 would get so upset that people that came together and just used it as a party time to have a meal.

72. 30:24

    And some ate and some didn’t have any food. Some people got drunk and totally misunderstood the idea. And he says, let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and and take of the wine. Because this is supposed to be a serious thing where we acknowledge that we’ve made mistakes, that we are appealing to God for forgiveness of sins based on his righteousness and our commitment, that we made it baptism.

73. 30:49

    So we make it baptism, a covenant with God. And then week by week we remember the covenant, the covenant, the promise that we made. And what God is looking for is faithfulness. He highly values faithfulness all the way through. The Jews failed in faithfulness. And he constantly gives us opportunities in our families with a husband and a wife to practice faithfulness because this is the relationship we’ve been called to and we committed to it at baptism.

74. 31:20

    And now this morning, we have an opportunity to remember that we promise to be faithful to our God, to do His will and not our own. And that’s what he’s brought us to this morning. So Christ has laid down his life for us, as he says in, in, in John, in second, John 3 and 16, with the intention that we will now lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters and our families.

75. 31:43

    So as we take the emblems this morning, brothers and sisters, let’s remember the promise that we made at baptism, the promise that we made the covenant that we would join with Christ and a death like his and fight sin and come out of the water saved by his life because we’re committed to live like him, the resurrected Christ. And let’s examine ourselves and acknowledge the fact that there’s no way we could ever deserve the grace that has been given to us and the privilege that we have of being in Christ Jesus.

76. 32:12

    Out of 7 billion people on this planet, look at how few God is saving right now. I think things will change when Christ comes back, but right now very few. And we have the privilege of being a part of that community. Thank God for his wonderful plan of redemption this morning. The love that he has for us as a, as a loving father, that he really does love us and he wants us to be part of his family.

77. 32:35

    And I think it’s appropriate to thank Jesus Christ. Thank Jesus Christ for what He did for us, for what He went through for us, and certainly he needed salvation himself, but his motive of going through it all was for us. He loves his family, his brother and sister. He can’t wait to have the family born in a day when he returns.

78. 32:57

    And May God grant us the mercy this morning and the courage to continue our journey to life and his family, not just now today, but life and his family forever.