Glory in a Box
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Glory in a Box
Good Morning Saints of HBC. Please turn in your Bibles to 1 Samuel chapter 4. And while you're doing that, you can think about the title of today's sermon, "Glory in a Box". And I chose that in relation to the text today,as the box referring to the Ark. And how sometimes we talk about our faith in ways or talk about with others remark around the church. I don't think I hear it around here this often. Or maybe at all. Uh, when somebody might say, don't put God in a box and, you know, you question, what are they actually saying? What do they mean by that? Maybe it's just simply you're trying to encourage someone to have faith. You know that nothing is impossible with God. So don't put them in a box of your own imagination of what he can or can't do. And so we take that one, I think, just on face value, maybe beyond that. Uh, maybe if somebody is speaking more along the lines of a preconceived notion, someone might have, uh, challenging somebody's understanding of God's character or the way he acts, his actions. And somebody maybe with a more, less Biblical and a more imaginative theology just says, well, you can't put God in a box. You know, you can't limit him that way by saying he can or can't do this when maybe you're just trying to say, here's what the Word of God says. So either way, that phrase don't put God in a box is, um, it's around. And sometimes we have to just think about what we might be saying to someone else, or what somebody might be trying to say to us when you hear that. I don't think they're referring to the box we're going to talk about today in first Samuel four. Uh, the Ark of the Covenant, um, is all over this chapter. 12 times it's repeated. It's, if you want to call it the main subject matter, the Ark of the Covenant. And anytime I hear that...thanks to television and wasting much of my childhood in front of it, I can't help but think of Raiders of the Lost Ark and, um, even the way in which maybe your early views of the Ark of the Covenant were shaped, if not scarred, by that movie. Uh, only because of the way that Hollywood takes something and just turns it into, uh, well, whatever they did. Um, I thought, you know, maybe in order to really get into the Ark of the Covenant today, I would, you know, show some clips from the movie. Just kidding. Or I could have dressed like Indiana Jones and, uh, swung in here and, um, asked my wife maybe to dress up as the brunette in the movie. She would rather me get rolled over by that giant stone than do something so stupid. So I threw that idea out. But since we won't be getting into the movies today...we will exegete and exposit the living, active word of God. I hope that's okay for you. I know it might not be quite as entertaining, but we will look to see what God's Word has to teach us today on really a spellbinding chapter, when you get into it and it gets into you and what it teaches us about the most fascinating subject matter in the entire Bible...the glory of God...not any character. And in fact, the Ark narrative of the next four chapters...four, five, and six shows us that very fact. God needs no man with a plan in the next four chapters in this Ark narrative. He is just going to captivate us, the listener, with showing what he can do apart from any work of man for his own glory and Israel's good, and by extension our good as well. And so I'm going to get this started by just reading the first three verses of 1 Samuel four to set the context of the shift from chapter 3:19-21. It ended on a high note with the Word of God that was rare and him speaking to his people following suit. It was visions were infrequent and the Word of God was rare at this time in Israel's history. And yet the dawn has broken over the dark night for Israel, and a prophet of God has been raised up...Samuel. And that ends chapter three on a high note, because the Lord is appearing again at Shiloh, revealing himself to this young man, Samuel. How is he doing it? By the Word of the Lord. We finally arrived there and then now we'll start in chapter 4 and Samuel is just off the scene. The camera shifts. And he's nowhere to be found. And Israel is going to have to find their way in the dark yet again. Even though God has shown in this story I found my man. He's revealed the plan. I'm going to have to lead Israel back into the light, out of the darkness of their own sinfulness. And yet. The story will start with Israel not really interested in that. They want their own plans. They want to follow their own ideas. And we'll find the God who is so glorious and sovereign over all things that he allows it.
Follow the first three verses, we'll jump into today's text. "Thusthe word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out to meet the Philistines in battle, encamped beside Ebenezer. While the Philistines camped in Aphek, the Philistines drew up in battle array to meet Israel. When the battle spread, Israel was defeated before the Philistines, who killed about 4000 men on the battlefield. When the people came into the camp, the elders of Israel said, why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines?" Father, your word is truth. So sanctify us. By your truth we ask. Amen.
Beyond the fictional accounts of the Ark of the Covenant that we've been discussing earlier, uh, in recent days, oddly enough, of all weeks, the week I jump into a study on the Ark of the Covenant, uh, pops up on my feed that classified files from the CIA have been declassified. I can't make this up. This very week. Hits the headlines. Declassified CIA files reveal psychic quest for the Ark of the Covenant. And so I took the bait, um, 38 pages later and give you a summary of what I found. Uh, because some of you aren't interested, maybe in reading into this late into the night. Uh, the short of it was that in the 70s and 80s your tax dollars, not mine. I wasn't born, uh, at least I wasn't a taxpaying citizen yet. Um, went to, uh, the CIA testing whether psychics could locate things around the world like the Ark. Now, reading this report, one, justified DOGE in my mind. Two, gave me hope that if this doesn't ever work out for me, I will submit my resume to the CIA. A department of one called. Um. Can I tell you when an idea is really dumb? Nonetheless, the findings of the file alluded to descriptions of something resembling an Ark. Um, pictures were drawn from what these psychics were saying they saw, even with a Raiders of the Lost Ark-esque warning, that anyone attempting unauthorized access to the Ark would be destroyed by the protectors of the container by a force unknown to us. I report, you decide. I bring this all up just to ask the question is this what comes to mind when we think about the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord? I think today we're going to see that God has something far more glorious, far more weightywhen we talk about his glory. Um, so many things can rest light on us in life. The most tragic of all would be for the glory of God to rest lightly on you, because the word itself means heavy. It's a perfect word picture, isn't it? The sum of the attributes of God. You name them: love. Justice. Mercy. Compassion. Omnipotence. Omnipresence. Go down the line when you put all of those attributes together. That's heavy. And the word for that in the Bible is...that's God's glory. And sometimes God's people, religious people, get so far away from God, and he rests so lightly on them. That he...and this is what we'll see today. He risks his own reputation in order to teach his people a lesson so that they will finally see where his glory is truly found. That's the God with whom we deal. And even thinking about a line like that, God would risk his own reputation. Would lay on the line in the eyes of man...humiliation. Loss. Defeat. So that he could teach his people a lesson where his glory is actually at. And the places we lose sight of his glory, and we place in a box of our own imagination, shows us he'll stop at nothing to wake us up out of the illusion of our own pseudo religiosity. When we think we have this God...in our grasp. Able to co-opt him for our own purposes. No. He will show himself glorious, even in risking his reputation, so that we wake up.
So let's see this God glorifying efforts that he makes using no man of his choosing...Samuel. He's off the scene. We will talk about the glory of God concealed by the work of man in verses 1 to 11. When Israel, and by extension, we take matters into our own hands apart from following God's Word, we will fail. That comes right out of the gates because the end of chapter three and the beginning of chapter four, God has delivered a man that they could now go to hear a Word from him, and they just seem to pass glibly by. Because Samuel goes off the scene right after the word of Samuel has come to all Israel. And that word of Samuel was the Word of the Lord. Verse 21. In verse 19, the Lord was with him. And then this account in chapter four comes, and there's no mention of going to Samuel and saying, what should we do? You have the Word of God for us, clearly. What should we do, Samuel? And we don't hear from him for three chapters. So God will put his reputation and allow for his own humiliation and even the desecration of the ark being taken to show Israel just how far they've fallen. Verse one. The word comes to Samuel. He's off the scene. Now, Israel goes out and to meet the Philistines in battle and camps, besides Ebenezer, while the Philistines camped in Aphek. And, um, it's kind of an interesting wordplay... these two cities. It's one means Ebenezer...Stone of help. So anytime we sing here, I raise my Ebenezer. Now, you know what that means. In case you didn't know what it means. Come thou fount. Um. It's a stone of help. It's a it's a rock of reminder. And there's a city named after that. And that's where Israel is camped. Ironically enough, they think they're going to be helped, just not in the way they would design. But the irony is they're going up against the Philistines in Aphek. And that word meant fortress or stronghold. So this battle that Israel is about to go into puts them between what?...a rock and a hard place. The distance between these two places is about three miles. It doesn't describe, at least in this text, the reason that Israel and the Philistines are at war. We just know they have been pestering Israel in that Canaan area, for a decent amount of time since they got there. Aphek in particular has been home to the Philistines and Arameans, Israel's long standing enemies. Uh, if you turn back in your Bible to Judges 13:1, and we've gone back there quite a bit because the overlap between the time of judges and the time of Samuel, uh, is such that when Samson passes off the scene in Judges 16, he has judged it repeats Israel 20 years. That's only halfway through the time of the Philistines, of them being a nuisance to Israel for 40 years. Look at Judges 13:1. It says, now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. And that's the spiral of sin in the book of Judges. Israel does evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord gives them into the hands of their enemies. Uh, this is just the way Yahweh is going to play. They cry out to him for a deliverer, and he'll bring a judge, and they'll feign repentance, and they'll clean their act up for a little while, and then they fall right back into the same sin of trusting in man and following their own ways, and doing what is right in their own eyes. That's the summary statement at the end of the Book of Judges. So here we have Judges 13:1, the sons of Israel are doing evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years. And yet right there we have a man whose name is Manoah, and his wife was barren and had no children. So the angel of the Lord appears to her and says, I will give you a son. You shall call him a Nazarite to God, as in he set apart and listen to this in Judges 13:5, and he'll begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines. I'll raise him up temporarily. And we learn from the rest of Judges 13 to 16. It's repeated in verses 15:20 and 16:31 that Samson judged Israel 20 years in the day of the Philistines. Yet we know from 13:1 this was going to go on for 40 years. So sometime in the aftermath, fast forward back to where we're at in 4:1. Israel is fighting the Philistines sometime in a generation after Samson is dead. They have no one to lead. They have Eli as the high priest in Shiloh and his wicked sons. And we have seen so far in Samuel where that's getting them...like people, like priests. How are the people ever going to rise above their leadership if their priests are corrupt? If their examples. If those who are to be making atonement for their sin of all things are making a mockery of it, we learned in chapter two, didn't we? Taking the offerings that were meant to be used and given to Yahweh, and feeding their own faces with it. And it displeased the Lord. So now Israel goes out to battle. Verse two...and they get smoked. When the battle spread, Israel was defeated before the Philistines. They killed about 4000 of Israel's men on the battlefield. Uh, this is a bad start to a sad chapter because the theme of death lingers in the air. You think this loss is bad? Just stick around for a few more minutes and then not just collective loss of lives, uh, loss of individual lives. That is sad in this chapter. So what happens after this defeat on the battlefield? The people...what people? The people that were there come into the camp. They go back, you know, three miles distance. Uh, they go out to war. Israel gets destroyed, 4000 men die, and some of the people come back to the camp in Ebenezer...the stone of help. Where do they look for help? Well they go to the elders of Israel. Who are these men? We don't know. They're some form of leadership left over. They're not judges, they're not priests, they're not prophets. They're just. Well, they're the elders. They're supposed to be the spiritually wise men who should be giving wisdom. They should have the good ideas, shouldn't they? So what's going to happen here? Um, the people come back and they tell the elders what happened, and they say, why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? I've pondered this week whether or not that's a good theology like to give them credit where it's due. Um, because on one hand, they would have known from their own history of going into battles that the battle is the Lord's. The deliverance of the people of Israel from the time in Egypt all throughout this time. The battle is the Lord's. He's the one that will grant victory. That's what Deuteronomy essentially said. You trust in yourselves, you'll go down. If you do not obey the Lord your God, Deuteronomy 28:15, and observe to do all his commandments and his statutes, which I charge you today. These curses will come and overtake you. Cursed you'll be in the city and cursed you'll be in the country. Verse 25. Deuteronomy 28. The Lord shall cause you to be defeated before your enemies. Is that pretty clear? So good theology...did they know Deuteronomy 28:25? Or were they kids of Awana memorizing that verse? That would be an interesting verse to make your kid memorize. But they say, why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? They ask a good question. I don't know how long the pause was between the question and then this answer. Let us take to ourselves. They didn't say, you know, let's go to God. Let's repent. Maybe. Instead of saying we've sinned clearly, let's seek the face of God. They say we've lost. Let's force the hand of God. You see the difference between the two? There's a world of difference between seeking God in a time of crisis like this, a world of difference between seeking God to serve him and submit to him, whatever that may cost you, versus trying to catch God in some twisted Scripture conundrum. To try and control him. To try to take his Word and rather than take him at his word, take his Word and manipulate him with it. Where he becomes your servant. Rabbit's foot theology. Genie's lamp theology. Grandpa in the sky theology. God exists to serve me not in this moment. Where in this calamity, in this darkness, in this loss to the Philistines. Um, guys. Let's repent. They don't do that. They say, oh, you know. Hey, you remember that part in the Bible where if we just, um, take the Ark. Of course, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. That IT, not God, it the Ark may come among us and deliver us from the power of our enemies. That's it guys. We just gotta use the Ark. That's the ticket. We just need to bring the Ark with us. How could we have forgotten? Maybe because they hadn't been to Shiloh in a while and actually worshiped...rote religion. I mean, again, they would have had right theology to remember that that is, the Ark of the covenant was where God would meet with his priest. Turn to Exodus 25. Moses has given instructions in the book of Exodus. Terms for how the people can come near to the Lord, dwell in his presence and the heart of this. It wasn't going to be just all the trappings around it the tent, the tabernacle and everything that God was going to say for them to make in the Holy of Holies, the central part of this place for worship where the high priest could only go. They were going to build a box. I'm not being a cheeky calling this glory in a box. The word ark in the Bible meant box 4 ft by 2.5ft. Um, something like that. And then verses 11 to 19, all kind of beauty around it. Because God deserves the best. It's to be precious and set apart. And so instructions for how to build this ark are in Exodus 25:10-22. But it's to be the symbol of God's presence. We read that in verse 22 where God says, there I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim. He never says I'm inside it...put me in a box. He just says, there, I will meet with you. The priest that's been set apart. This place that's been set apart. This weighty moment, not light moment of being in the presence of your creator. He says, there I will meet with you between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony. I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel. What's it about even being in the presence of God in this Holy of Holies at the Ark? It's about revelation from God. It's about his word to his people. What's changed hundreds of years later now in this situation? Are they wanting a word from the Lord? Did they ask God, what should we do here? What do you want us to do? What path should we take? No, they just say we just need the Ark. We just need the rabbit's foot. Because God says he'll be with us if we do it. He'll be with us. It's a means to an end. It's ministry pragmatism. They would have known the end of Exodus 40 after Moses did all of this. They're leaving something very important out about Exodus 40. It's a repeating line that you'll see time and time again in the last chapter of the Book of Exodus, when all of the building project has completed and the ark is to where it should be. It says this. Moses did just as the Lord had commanded. To a 'T'. He did everything God had commanded. The rules for the priests. The rules for the tabernacle. He spread the tent above the tabernacle and put the covering of the tent up on it, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. Verse 21 of Exodus 40. He brought the Ark into the tabernacle, and set up a veil for the screen, and screened off the ark of the testimony. Just as the Lord had commanded Moses, he lighted the lamps before the Lord. Just as the Lord had commanded Moses, he burned fragrant incense on it, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. So you, sensing a theme, this is the way God deals with his people to allow them into his presence. You will do it just as the way I command it or it won't be done. What won't be done? God's presence, revelation. Letting you know I'm with you. But when you do it the way God commands it. Moses, Exodus 40:33, he erected the court all around the tabernacle and the altar, and hung up the veil for the gateway of the court. Thus Moses finished the work. And now when you've done it exactly the way God says to do it, then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. But what did these fools rush into? They just wanted the furniture. There was something special in that ark. And so they say, let us take to ourselves. What a line of man centered theology. That's just as true today as it was then. Let's take for ourselves. Let's get our leaders together. We got the plan. Attendance is down in church. Empty seats all around. You know what? I'm going to go to the elders this week and say, hey, guys, I got the plan. I got some new methods. I know exactly what we could do to fix this. Without checking to see...are we keeping any of the commands that God has laid out for us? Are we opening his Word? Are we opening the Bible? Or are we just looking into a box? Which is it? So the people sent to Shiloh, and from there they carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of hosts, who sits above the cherubim. That's just such a good line of irony when you take it into your own hands. They carry the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of hosts, who sits above the cherubim. You think you carry any of the glory of God? You think you can handle that? Think again. And look who's along for the ride. Can you picture this scene? They recruit a Hophni and Phinehas. I'm sure Hophni and Phinehas had no better theology than these elders and these losers of the battle. None of them were checking their own obedience or disobedience. They were just rushing ahead. They just trusted in in this idea of an ark being protective for them. It was not about a relationship with God, seen in a heart of faith that led to serving and obeying him. It had become a rote religion of ritual, putting God in the box of if I just do these things, if I say the right words, if we take the Ark with us, God will show up, just like in the good old days. Because we know how God works. We remember we've seen it. They might have even remembered numbers 10:33 to 36, when it's mentioned that the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord went out in front of Moses. The cloud of the Lord was over them by day, and Moses led them in song and said. Numbers 10:35, Rise up, O Lord, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee before you. We even got songs to put to it. But you know what they missed is the heart of Moses there. Moses doesn't say, rise up, Oh ark. Da da da da. Da da da dun dun da dun da dun. Pop goes Yahweh. You think you can manipulate him. Because you think you know the way he works? So you put your trust in a ritual and wrote religion, and then you recruit the last people that should have been recruited for this holy endeavor of taking the Ark would have been Hophni and Phinehas. They're the wicked sons of Eli sitting around Shiloh. And the people come and say, um, you know, it's in the middle of one of their, um, annual barbecue and brothel fundraisers and, uh, they're stumbling around in their own stupidity, but they're told, you know what?... The Ark needs signed out. Where can I get it? Where's the sign out sheet? And Hophni and Phinehas say, no, we'll go along for the ride. So that's where it ends with the people of Israel...the religious ones. The ones who know. Um. Compare that to this next section 5 to 9. And, uh, the actions and attitudes of those pagan Philistines with those pious Israelites. Verse five, as the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the Lord resounded. Mhm. You know, it reminds me that religious people can make a whole lot of noise with very little true worship. It's not hard to whip a religious crowd into a frenzy. Find a formula to fill a room. I watch the trends. Fire all my disciple making staff. Hire really, really, really...like, Christian or not, talented musicians. The best I could find. Fill the stage with them. Blow this place out. It's what the people want. It fills a room. And then there's me. I think I become a little more casual and cool. I'd start watching popular comedians. I'd dress like Nate Bargatze. And I'd pay him to write me some good jokes...megachurch. I bet in six months megachurch, you would all disappear. Because that's not what you want. But the room would be full and we'd make a lot of noise. Do it man's way. Because all you have to do is see where the crowd is and then work backwards from it. Right? Don't question whether or not it's for man's glory or God's glory and the reasons behind it. Just shortcut to pragmatism, just like Israel did. Hey, I remember how we used to win these wars. We just took the Ark out in front of us, and we said something like, arise, O Lord. Boom! Victory is ours. I'll never forget when I heard R.C. Sproul say this about worship. "The most successful worship service ever recorded in the Bible is found in the Old Testament. It broke all attendance records, and the singing was so full of gusto that it was heard miles away on a mountain. One of the men who heard the celebration thought war had broken out, but when he took time to investigate, he discovered it was not a war. Instead, it was a worship service, one with a golden calf. Nothing attracts greater crowds than practices of idolatry." Because we love to exalt ourselves. It's been that way since Babel. Let's build a building that would stretch all the way to the heavens. What do we need God for? So here you have a wartime worship service with spiritually dull Israel singing on their way to their own slaughter. Back to the scene of those nasty Philistines. When they heard the noise of the shout, they said, what does the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews mean? Contrast their response with Israel's. The religious Israelites asked, what should we do? That was their line. Why has the Lord defeated us today? What should we do? The irreligious Philistines ask, what does it all mean? Which one was actually taking time? Sober minded, trying to figure out where is God in this? Not what should man do in this? Notice their response of pronouncing curse on themselves. Verse 7, they were afraid there was reverence. There is no reverence in Israel's response. It's gone because there's no glory. And when there's no weightiness and glory, there will be no reverence. Friends just come up with a new idea. All right. Charge the hill. Let's go. Of course, with religious trappings. Let's grab the Ark. The Philistines say, woe to us that's pronouncing a curse on themselves. Question I ask is who should have been pronouncing a curse on themselves? Israel should have. They should have recognized we have gone astray. This one's on us. The reason we just lost 4000 men isn't because God isn't powerful enough. It's because of our own sinfulness, our own rebellion. And repeated in verse 8 with the Philistines, woe to us! Who shall deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? Again they're doing what Israel didn't do. They recount the glories of God's victories. Aren't these the gods who smote the Egyptians with all kind of plagues? They knew about Israel's history. What does God remind Israel back in Deuteronomy? Don't forget my deliverance of you. Remember when I saved you and brought you out of Egypt? Who's doing the remembering here?...the Philistines. Who's just doing the let's rise up and bring this lucky charm along the religious. So now the Philistines, though they might be respectful, I wouldn't even call them reverent, but respectful of this God that can win wars. They knew enough to fear him, but not enough to serve him. They're lost, so they do, verse 9 says, they drum up some courage and, um, say, listen, if we don't fight and win, we'll become slaves to these people. So, Verse 10, the Philistines fought and Israel was defeated, and every man fled to his tent. And the slaughter was very great, for there fell of Israel 30,000 foot soldiers, absolute annihilation. If we thought losing 4000 men in battle was bad back in verse 3, without the ark, you bring the Ark and you lose 30,000. Ark or no Ark, no presence of God, no power...delivered into the hands of their enemies. Just like Deuteronomy 28:25 said, the Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, but you will flee seven ways before them. And you, Israel, will be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. I will risk my own reputation and humiliation and losing this war. So when they see you lose, that would terrify the kingdoms of the earth, that this mighty God who delivered them once didn't do it this time. Why? Because you disobeyed. Because you never repented. You didn't turn back. You didn't recognize how far you've strayed.
Last but not least, the Ark of God was taken, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died. So it's not just a collective view of the destruction of these people. It's the promise God kept going back to chapter three and chapter two, delivered by the man of God to Eli, and then Samuel to Eli, that your sons will die on the same day, and your line, Eli, will come to an end. What do we find in the midst of this wreckage in the aftermath? What I said from the start, from a human viewpoint, God will allow this defeat to take place in order to teach Israel a lesson and all of us. Don't ever put me in a box of your own man madereligious making. My glory cannot fit in such a silly place. Isaiah 66:1, thus says the Lord, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where then is a house you could build for me? And where is a place that I may rest? Now God, in acting this way towards his children, may give us the sense that he is now no longer for them, when he made a promise to be with them. Deuteronomy 7:6, you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession. Out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. What's that teaching them? You exist for me. I don't exist for you. When we turn to pragmatism, man centered ministry, trusting in our own ways, we've flipped it around on our glorious God and said, you exist to serve me. He says, no Israel or you, child of God, bought by the blood of the Son, adopted into the family of God. You exist to serve me. Don't ever lose sight of that or you'll lose sight of my glory, my weight. I'll rest light on you. For you're a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession. Out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love on you nor choose you, because you were more in number than any of them. You were the fewest of all the peoples. But because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers, he brought you out of Egypt. He redeemed you from the house of slavery. Know therefore that the Lord your God, he is God, the faithful one, who keeps his covenant and loving kindness to a thousand generations to those who love him. It's about the heart, friends, and keep his commandments. It's then about our service to him, not his service to us. Love is included in that. And the tone doesn't change in the New Testament. When we talk about the great love of God for us, that he sent His Son to die for us, that doesn't then exclude in the next breath out of our mouth that we're to obey him. 1 John 5, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of him. Okay, it's about faith. It's about first and foremost, recognizing God demonstrated his love for us in this, that while we're sinners, Christ died for us. That's how we get in. That's the good news of the gospel. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. It's by faith, friends. It's not by works. But by this we know that we love the children of God. When we love God. Sound like Deuteronomy 7 right there?...and keep his commandments. How do we know where's the fruit? We love him, and out of love we obey him. And listen to this. This is the love of God that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. So as we draw this time to a close, think about that. You say you're a Christian and that you want to do all that you do to the glory of God, the weight of God, the heaviness of God. On one hand, you would then realize his glory is so great, his commands. They weigh on me and that's a good thing. They weigh on my conscience. They remind me what I am, who I am, whose I am, what I'm to live for. That's a good weight because it's not one that crushes you. When you realize somebody else was crushed for you. Who was it? It was his Son who was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. By his stripes we were healed. You could only say that the glory and weight of a holy God who says, live this way. Choose righteousness, that you're not crushed by those commands. When you first have seen that his Son was crushed for you. That's the gospel. That's why Jesus could then say, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Isn't that somewhat of a paradox? That the weightiness and glory of God that calls us to obey every single command that he comes up with. Then says, But I've placed your command keeping and your law breaking on my Son, and I broke him for your behalf.
So if you're not in Christ today, Christ was broken and buried and rose again on your behalf. And you either believe that with everything in you or you don't. And then the freedom we find in Jesus Christ, the glory of God and the gospel is then we can say, because he's done that for me, I love him and I keep his commandments and as weighty as this book seems to be. If you feel it's weighty, you don't understand it's glory. It's not burdensome. It's freeing, because then you're living exactly the way God has designed you to live for his glory, not your own. So if you don't know Jesus Christ today, call on him.
If you know him today, remind yourself. It may not be easy to obey always. Fights against our flesh, the indwelling sin in us. But oh, is it worth it because he alone is worthy.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your Word this morning. We thank you for its goodness and kindness to us, your children. We thank you for the way it frees us to be exactly the children of God you have called us to be, who don't grouse and complain under your commands, but because you took the weight that we couldn't take. You bore the cross. You nailed our sins to it. That we are free now to obey, and that we, in following Jesus, are transformed from glory to glory in his likeness. And that's the rest of our days. So help us today, encourage us and strengthen us by the work of your Word and Spirit. Amen.
