Christ and the Covenant - Part 1 - David Asscherick

all right good evening everyone beautiful song amen great to be here at 3abn fall homecoming yeah doesn't feel very much like fall though it's quite warm out still but at least the flowers give it sort of an autumn feel kinda maybe I should have worn more autumn colors this evening great to be here I had somebody ask me it's so funny it gets a 3abn and if you're if you look any different than what people are accustomed to the first thing they want to ask you about is how you look they're like oh what happened to your here look same thing that's been happening all my life it's growing they're like that's interesting haha somebody said to me why are you growing your hair out and the answer is very simple you don't have to be a prophet to see my future I know where this is going and while there's still time I'm gonna grow it out of it I have seen my future and it looks suspiciously like Jim's did I say that Oh shame on me anyway 41 years old now does that make me old or young all right good I hope it makes me young I still feel young they say that you're only as old as you feel and I still feel like a teenager still act like one most of the time too my wife tells me but it's so awesome to be back here in urban West Frankfort how funny was that story with the gun shot outside John's you know the Danny Shelton is proof that the Lord Jesus has a sense of humor because if you were gonna start you know a mega global television ministry you would you would say okay who would i least trust with a live microphone and Danny would be like in the top five of those people I have heard him say things that I'm just like oh he's really saying that live he really just told people that he shot a gun outside of John Loma Kang's house anyway got god bless him and I praise the Lord for he and for Jim and for their ministry amen the fact that people like myself and Danny and Jim and the others that are used here the fact that God uses people like us is proof that Jesus must be coming soon because we're like down at the bottom the bottom of the barrel so a punk-rock skateboarder I'll take him okay a builder I'll take in whatever so great to be here I'm super looking forward to our time together and I hope you brought your Bibles yeah great because all summer actually what month is this is this September so since May of this year some a June July August September for the last five months almost six months I have been traveling around that's typically what I do in the spring and then the in the summer because we're on a school called a rise in the fall and so up through the last sort of May June July August September I've been preaching a series on the covenants on the what everyone on the covenants and that is exactly what I'm going to be talking about here I just can't be quiet about this I can't stop talking about it I'm so on fire for it and I can be a little long-winded when the covenants comes so when I found out that they they were giving me four or five opportunities to speak I thought all perfect I can say everything I need to say in five hours no problem so we're going to be talking about the covenants over our time together and I've had the privilege of sharing this as I've said all over the world I just returned oh not too long ago from the Quinn Quinn iya youth event that took place in South Africa there were thousands of young people there I then went up to a youth event division wide youth event in Serbia and I had a unique experience in my life and ministry I've been preaching out for about 16 years and that was a very unique experience because in two weeks or just over two weeks about two and a half weeks between those two events the Quinn quail youth event in South Africa and the division youth event in Serbia I preach to people from a hundred and twelve countries live live not just over the television which is awesome but people in the congregation listening from a hundred and twelve countries between just those two events that's more than half of the countries represented in that are in the world and I tell you that is a translational nightmare right can you imagine every night I would go back and visit with my translators and there was just a battery of translators and I thought God have mercy on these people because I was preaching night after night and I was thinking how do you translate David Eric into Swahili you know I just I would go back there Lord Jesus please give these men and women the gift of the Spirit please pour out the gift of tongues upon them the gift of interpretation or any other gift they need so that they can communicate the message but it was really awesome because as I was looking out they were proud over several thousand people there about four thousand and when I asked how many would understand English probably twelve to fourteen hundred hands would go up so that meant that you know the other 2500 ish people are just getting it through the little headphones and let me tell you that's a nervous a nerve-wracking thing to just be speaking and it's going into the translators and then out into those headphones and you're just hoping that somehow the Spirit is making connection but I can testify that God is still alive and his spirit still gives gifts because I was seeing people not only those who understand English as a first or second language but those who didn't understand a word of English we're getting the message and it just thrilled my soul as a representation and as a symbol that this message the biblical message is not a message for any one country any one group any one culture this is a worldwide message because God loves all people amen and it was just a beautiful opportunity for me and over the course of these sort of four or five six months now that I've been preaching this particular set of sermons I've been pulling in new ideas and new truths and I cannot tell you just how on fire I am for for what I'm going to be talking about over the course of our camp meeting I hope it will be eeee as revelatory and it's revolutionary for you and your understanding of the gospel as it has been for me and I'm going to actually start with a bit of a provocative and risky illustration but before we get right into that illustration I want to just have a quick word of prayer I know we've already prayed but I want to pray again and just ask ask Jesus to come and be with us and the person of his spirit so let's pray together father in heaven we just want to thank you for the honor that is ours the honor to be your sons and daughters we come to you tonight and we're praying in Jesus name and we believe that as we come in his name that you hear us we think of that text there in the New Testament that says the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much and yet we lay no claim to righteousness no such claim but we come in the name of him who is altogether righteous and father we believe that you will hear us as if Jesus himself were praying and father tonight we're praying for a very specific thing I'm praying for a very specific thing and that is that you will send the Spirit of Truth as you promised to do as jesus promised the Spirit of Truth will come and guide you into all truth and over the course of our time here my time here Lord we're going to be talking about the covenants and my prayer is that the Spirit would come and lead us into truth for some old truth perhaps in a new way and for others perhaps new truth a whole new way of viewing the grand biblical theater the grand biblical perspective and so be with me tonight may I communicate clearly may ears be in tune may hearts be in tune and may your spirit be not only in these halls and in this room but may your spirit be within the walls of our hearts not just those that are here but those that are listening those that are tuning in may your spirit come and do something that a preacher a human could never do do something supernatural is our prayer in Jesus name let everyone say Amen all right let me start with an illustration that I've been using all summer and it's a little bit provocative and I hope you'll appreciate it it's it's going to require you to do a little bit of thinking and in fact actually a lot of thinking let me sort of set the table this way what we're going to try and do tonight if possible if we can only get the table set that'll be fine we'll still have plenty of time and the rest of our meetings to continue to unpack the covenants but our goal tonight if possible is to sort of walk through this illustration that I'm going to explain here in just a bit and then to begin on the covenant so if we can do those two things sort of move through this illustration and then begin on the covenants will be set if we only get to the illustration and I get off a little bit we spend time on that that'll be time well spent as well I have been a believer now for about seventeen years and it has been a journey and a joy to be come and to learn to grow into being a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ can you say amen to that I tell you it's it's a really awesome privilege not long after my conversion I had a gentleman come up to me he was a godly man he was a minister and he said to me David I can tell you have a lot of enthusiasm you have a lot of energy he said but never forget this he said the Christian walk is not a sprint it's a marathon now at the time I'd never run a marathon I have subsequently run a marathon as anyone here run a marathon I can assure you they're very long 26.2 miles long and he said don't don't ever forget that the Christian walk is not a sprint it's not over in a moment it's it's a marathon in other words you set yourself you pace yourself you don't have to have a diminishment of enthusiasm or of passion but you need to be thinking in terms of the big picture and in in terms of long term not just over the next month or year or even five years but but this is how I want to live the rest of my life can you say amen to that and I can tell you that as a believer now of about 1617 years I have grown in my understanding I have grown in my appreciation for for God and my understanding of his word and yet I have I've noticed that in Christendom at large and also within seventh-day Adventism which happens to be my own personal church there is a danger there is a one there is a danger and let me try and communicate this danger here with an illustration and this is the illustration the strain is what I call the table of truth okay the table of truth now typically I would have a table here which I don't which is fine you can just imagine it's not a difficult thing to imagine we're going to have a table here and on that table it's not just an ordinary table it's not a coffee table it's not a it's not a dinner table it's a table of truth okay and in that sense what it has on it are all of the things that you personally think are true now of course there are a great many things that you think are true about everything there are things you think are true about gardening and about driving and about the United States and about politics those are not the things we're talking about with regards to our table of truth here we're going to be talking about truths that are related to Scripture related to God related to Christ related to the church so far so good so so on this table of truth over the 17 years that I've been a believer and those of you that have been believers 4 1 2 3 4 5 10 20 30 40 whatever it is years on top of that table of truth when we come across something whether in Scripture or someone has preached or we've read a book we will grab on to that we think may that's right that's true I believe that and then we'll take it and we'll set it figuratively metaphorically symbolically on the table of truth and that's an appropriate thing by the way everyone by way of my analogy here at least as far as my analogy goes everyone has a table of truth not just Christians but everyone Muslims and non-believers and Hindus in other words a basic set of beliefs that they have about the world about God if they believe in a God about whatever their religious book happens to be and as Christians in a seventh-day Adventist we have not all of us of course are 7th the evidence but those of us that are I'm one of them but just even Christians in general we have a table and on that table over time cumulatively we begin to put things onto that table and those are the things that we regard as true so far so good and for some of us particularly let's say we came in from outside like I came in from the outside I wasn't raised a believer others have maybe come in through another denomination or even another religion at times things have to come off the table of truth to make room for other things that are going on so far so good so you can just imagine that in your own personal experience you have a table of truth and these are things that you believe about God about the world about Christ about the church etc and what I would like to suggest here is that there is a danger and and I know this is a danger because I've experienced it in my own life and I've seen it with the privilege that I have of traveling all over the world and this is part of the danger the danger is that things just get cobbled just kind of serendipitously and and sometimes recklessly and and just sort of piled onto the table of truth without a clear distinction of where they sort of fits with regards to the most important truths or the most important truth and so we put things on there and that table of truth can have things as important as Jesus died for me is that a truth that Jesus is that is that an important truth and yet that can also be right up there with I need to be to church at 11 o'clock on Saturday morning or Sunday morning as the case may be and I need to wear a suit and tie now some of you will regard that is true I don't really regard that as true particularly this is the first time I've preached in a suit in two years and I'm doing it just because I wanted to try it just see what it felt like again then it feels just about exactly like preaching without a suit but but people have my I use that as an illustration here to say that when we start piling sort of religious things onto our table of truth whether we're reading a book or hearing a sermon or whatever it is we're not always perfectly systematic in our evaluation of where those truth should be in orientation and in relationship to others and so as Christians and as seventh-day Adventist we have a variety of things a vast penélope of things that we believe are true but they're just piled kind of onto the table with lots of other things that are true and and there should be a hierarchy of the most important things things that are important but not the most and then things that are frankly just your own personal preference now let me try and unpack this here the danger is that we would take and regard that whole table of truth as the message the message that God has called us to preach but I would like to suggest that the real message that God has called us to preach centers and orbits around some central truths plural and one central truth there are other things that are also around the periphery that are very important but many of these are personal convictions or or cultural persuasions things that we think are right but what ends up happening is we travel to another town to another country to another situation to another family and we can it doesn't have to happen but we can lose track and think that our calling now is to get them to accept this whole cobbled piled a massed table of truth when in reality it might have taken us 10 15 20 30 40 years to have accumulated those various things that we regard as true are you with me and so I'm going to suggest I'm going to suggest that there is a danger even for those of us that are Bible believing spirit-filled Christians that we could actually be supplanting the most important truths and the most important truth which we're going to get to with other things that are important but are not the most important thing and so here's my kind of wild and provocative suggestion I'm going to suggest and I know that this is not entirely possible I freely recognize that it's a thought experiment but in as much as it's possible I'm going to suggest radical though it be that we can you guess what it might be oh it's crazy it's just completely crazy especially for those of us that have been accumulating you know we've read books and we've read theological journals and we've listened to hours of 3abn and we've we've we've we know lots of things that are so what I'm going to suggest here is going to sound wild Atilla sound way it's going to sound crazy but I would like to suggest that there is a great good to be gained and a great evil to be avoided in doing this truth it's a personal exercise and and the the illustration the thought experiment looks something like this what did we just do we cleared the table now somebody that wants guys lost his mind he just told us to take all these truths off of the table yeah now we're not taking them off permanently who we're taking them off temporarily and intentionally so that for the purpose of not for taking them off forever but but sort of clearing the the slate so to speak the ancients would speak of what they called a tabula rasa you know what that means a clean slate it means the raised tablet where they would have a slate tablet or some you know igneous stone that they'd written on and then they would have another stone a harder so they would they would raise the tablet a bit like an etch-a-sketch it kind of shake that thing and you have a and my kids really into etch-a-sketches right now my youngest he just loves him and he it really bums him out that he can't you know keep the design so what he does is he makes these really intricate and beautiful extra sketch things and then he takes pictures of it they shakes it up makes another one brilliant idea really and so the ancients would speak of a tabula rasa a clean slate and I'm suggesting here that a clean slate will actually be in many of our bests interests because what it will enable us to do is actually for those of us who have grown and don't be insulted by this but some of us have such a familiarity such a such a uh what's the word I'm looking for here we are so associated we are so familiar with the truths that we've heard since we were a little kid that we regard them almost as blase beloved the things that we are advocating and saying and teaching and preaching are earth shattering tectonic lis huge mana monumentally large significant truths yeah we should never regard them with any sort of ambivalence or indifference or apathy or oh yeah that's nice no no no we need to reorient ourselves to just how beautiful and awesome the message of Scripture is and I think this exercise might help help some of us to do that well anyway back to the point as we clear the table of truth again we're not clearing everything off of it for the purpose of leaving it off but let me say this word truth stands nothing to fear from investigation or school me we good on that if there is anything that I believe that it's not true I would want to know as someone once famously said if Christianity is not true I would want to know but if it is true I'd want everybody else to know you hear the difference so so evaluating anything that I believe whether it's the divinity of Christ or the death of Christ or the sanctity of the Sabbath or the high priestly ministry of Jesus every single thing that I believe in I hold is dear and central and even fundamental I am fully willing to put that up for evaluation for discussion and for complete scrutiny and if it's true it will find its way back on to the table of but but maybe I allowed some of my own personal preferences and ideas maybe my own cultural leanings or idiosyncrasies to make their way onto the table of truth and I regarded them as sacred when in reality there were just my own personal preferences does that happen it happens in churches all over the world it happens in families all over the world so here's what I'm suggesting we are not going to be able obviously the time the time allotment makes it very clear we only have four or five sessions together there's going to be no way that we'll be able to completely sweep that table clean and then cumulatively over the next four or five hours put everything that's not going to happen but what I would like to do is suggest a methodology now that's a big long word what's the root word a methodology a method I would like to suggest a method and not just any old method in fact not even the a Sharik method I would like to suggest a biblical or a textual methodology as to how to begin to build our own truth table our own faith back up because some of us we just came into the truth I was that way I came into the truth and I was not mythic you know methodically or systematically going through and orienting things and putting him them into their right orientation no stuff was just oh really we don't eat cheese okay put that on this and oh Jesus he's a high priests and they haven't put that on there and oh I got to be to church at 11:00 put that on there and I just and before you know what I'm walking around with this big as it were you know people of truth and when I go to talk to my punk rock friends I'm like here this is the truth know what you are crazy you have lost your mind you're completely insane because I was trying to dump a bunch of stuff that had I had cobbled together all of which was important what did I say all of which was important but it lacked the symmetry and it lacked the the the textual centrality of who God is I should have handed them one truth so now this this is the thing this is what it's all about we together everyone okay so do you understand the basic illustration it's it's a little scary because any time you take something off the table you think oh did he just take the Sabbath off the table of course we're going to take the Sabbath off the table because if it's really what the Scripture teaches it'll make its way back on yeah so so we're going to start as it were over the course of our time here from basically Ground Zero we're going to try and rebuild the table of truth in a textual biblical systematic and methodical way and for the purpose for our purposes here I'm going to suggest that at the center at the very center of the first block the first truth that we said on that table is this idea of the covenants and the covenant in singular okay now that we've got the illustration kind of nailed down let me just sort of share with you why this might be important a little bit more on this in Jesus own day the religious leaders and instructors of his day had become so accustomed to the text now watch this they had become so familiar with the text you couldn't teach them anything new they knew it in fact they knew it so well watch this they knew it so well that they knew that Jesus wasn't the Messiah you see how that works when you get to know something so well that you actually end up not knowing the way that it was originally written and originally intention something has gone wrong and frankly I'll just put the cards on the table here so to speak this is a different table by the way this isn't the table to truth we put the cards on my kitchen table many of us have missed the point we have missed the point Jesus did not call us to make people like ourselves he didn't say go make westerners of the world he didn't even say go make people members of your denomination he said go go preach me go preach my Commandments go preach go preach my person and my life my death my resurrection you go preach that yeah and some of us have got the cart well in front of the horse so with that sort of in mind in the days of Jesus the religious leaders of Jesus day had become so accustomed to scripture so familiar with scripture so aware of Scripture that they had actually got to the point I watch this subtle deception here they had gotten to the point where they thought that the text was the point they thought the scripture was the point and so Jesus shows up and he has to start saying really audacious things things like this hey fellows John 5:39 you search the Scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life you think the value is in the text itself he said but you missed the point because finish this with me because these are they that testify of me let me translate that for you you're reading the text you're reading the words of the story and you miss the story you miss the point I'm the point the story is about something or more precisely it's about someone and we as Christians and particularly my brothers and sisters as seventh-day Adventist Christians and others but but I feel really comfortable speaking to my seventh-day evidence brothers and sisters because I'm one of you the danger is that we could become so familiar with and so happy with and so safely ensconced in our doctrinal package yeah we might miss the point there's a point and the point just like the religious leaders in Jesus day the point was not the text the point was what the text was pointing to and the text was pointing to geez this and all of these beautiful doctrinal truths that we have whether you wanna put the Sabbath or the state of the Dead or the sanctuary or the soon said coming we put all of those things on there those things are they important yes or no but here's the point in and of themselves they're not the point they're about something in fact they're about someone and that someone is Jesus now I have a confession to make your I totally I've been preaching for like 15 16 years now I can tell you with with complete honesty and complete transparency and a little bit of shame but I think the Lord winks and times of our ignorance and immaturity that many of my earliest evangelistic sermons were basically geared around getting people to see that what I was saying was right and to convince them that they should believe the right thing to be with me so far now you might be sitting thinking well what do you want people to believe the wrong thing no of course not but but when I go back and I listen to some of my early presentations to be honest with you I find myself cringing not because of what I am saying but because of what I'm not saying there's a whole lot of truth in there and there's a whole lot of persuasion in there and there's a whole lot of doctrine in there and there's a whole lot of apologetics in there but there's not enough of the point are you with me as if God is saving smart people right as if that's the play as if God said David all of these people believe wrong things but you go to their town you teach them to believe right things and when they believe right things when they're smart enough educated enough and informed enough then I'll save them now I would have never never never said this and I didn't even believe it but looking back through my what did Paul say when I was a child I spoke as a and I thought as a looking back through my childish ways my immature ways was i sincere yes was i earnest yes was i passionate about jesus yes but my modality of communicating it was basically this this is what Saturday is the Sabbath and people say yeah you're right it is I see the textual argumentation and then I would say when you die you sleep the sleep of death and you'll await the resurrection you see that right there the dead know not anything well you're right that is what the text says and after they became persuaded about enough things what by the way one of those things was by the way Jesus died for your sins we're sort of in there with the other stuff and when people had come through a sufficient I wouldn't say indoctrination but when people had come through a sufficient amount of education about what was true we would baptize them and we'd say now you remember and it wasn't ever communicated this way but it was often the idea was now you know what's right and your job is to go find others who are believing wrong things and to help them believe what right things now is there anything wrong in this well there's something kind of wrongish in it not in what it is but in what it isn't beloved I just want to sort of open my heart here to you I have no regrets about any of my past preaching except not in what I did say but in what I didn't say I there should have been more of the point more of what okay so what that's what Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day you guys you loved the text you loved the Torah you loved all of the various minutia of the you know there's so well that you've made phylacteries you've bound them to your hands and you've you've put them on your foreheads you know the text of Scripture but there are me open your Bibles to second Corinthians chapter 3 you think I'm strong on this the Apostle Paul was so grieved by this basic idea that I'm communicating to you here that on one occasion in the book of Romans he says I could wish that I was a cursed from Christ for my brethren my kinsmen according to the flesh in other words I could wish I was cut off so that Israel could be saved because he saw that there was a fundamental blindness a fundamental one a fundamental blindness in the way that Israel was reading now watch this their own text 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 are we there everyone 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 pick it up in verse 14 Paul is just finished telling the story about how Moses went at the top of the mountain and he was there for forty days and he was in the very presence of God the immediate presence of God and he was up there for so long that his face began to glow so when he comes down from the mountain the Israelites who see his face aglow they say what remember the story they said what put a put a veil over your face because we can't bear to look at you've been in the immediate you know undiluted presence of God we we we can't look at that now Paul then takes this historical event and he makes a profound theological point we'll pick it up in verse 14 he says but their minds were blinded for until this day the same veil there's used in the illustration metaphorically symbolically but profoundly the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament he says because that veil is taken away in Christ now what he's done is a stroke of absolute poetic and theological and pastoral brilliance he's taken this story from Israel's own history of Moses going up the mountain and coming down with the with the incandescent face and the veil over it and he said that is just exactly what's happening in the synagogues today he says when Moses is read and of course Moses is the one who came down from the mountain and Moses wrote the Torah Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers Deuteronomy he says when when the Israelites come to Moses there's a veil and he said that veil is preventing them from seeing the point of their own and he says that veil will remain there until it's taken away you got to get that veil out of the way and then what does he say there at the end of verse 14 how is the veil taken away he says that veil is taken away in Christ look at verse 15 but even to this day he says when Moses is read a veil lies over their heart nevertheless when one turns to the Lord what happens to the veil it's taken away I love this verse 17 now the Lord is the spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty and there's all kinds of Liberty there and I'm not going to get into the various liberties that Paul is speaking about here but don't miss his point his point is is that of course he would know this you would know this any reader of Scripture would know this that most of Scripture is built around the story of Abraham and the descendants of Abraham the nation of Israel yes or no so far so good we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about that over the rest of our presentations and so Paul basically takes this story this this cornerstone essential foundational and fundamental story to Israel and he basically takes that story and he uses it as an illustration that they are reading their own book their own Hebrew Scriptures their own their own text and he says when they read their own book available over their face because you have to read the right book in the right way now let me just bring the text to you back back to your mind the one that we've already mentioned Jesus said to the to the religious leaders of his day you're searching the scriptures because in them you think you have you think that the text itself is the point but these are they that testify of that's Paul's point you read the Old Testament without a radical what the theologians would call Christo centricity well that's a multi syllabic word what does that mean Christo centricity what does it sound like a radical Christ centeredness he says you go back and you read your you read your own text without a radical riveting to the Messiah and you're going to read your own scriptures wrong we cannot look down our long noses at at first century Judaism and think man what a what a bunch of fools how could they miss it when many of us sraight in the own living room the the mental landscape of our lives we have tables of truth cobbled with all kinds of things and we ourselves have thought that's the point that's oh no no no no no no those things are important yes or no but there are some things as we dig through and come through all of these various things that we have accumulated over our time there are some things that are centrally in point important and those are the things that God has called us to preach the other things will come cumulatively over time and frankly some of them are just personal preferences we might talk a little bit about that if we get time but there is a central truth and here it is the central truth in my humble evaluation is that God is totally awesome that's my own little translation there basically the message of Scripture the message of Jesus and the message of the church always has been or always should have been in the case of the church look at God he is so awesome he is so lovely he is so amazing and look at how all of these doctrinal packages paint a picture and point to him who is altogether lovely look at how awesome he is look at how beautiful he is look at how amazing he is John would summarize it in three simple words three unis syllable you know syllabic words he would say God is love and so everything else you want to take the Sabbath fine put it on the table put the Sabbath on the table amen you want to put the sanctuary put it on the table you want to put the state of the Dead put it on the table anything that's textually true put it on the table but be sure that as that thing goes on the table it's not going on the table simply for information sake but it becomes a lens heywhat everyone it becomes a lens just like scripture itself by the way we call scripture the revelation of God what's the root word there the revealing the removal of the veil be sure that those doctrines those things that you believe those truths that you have cobbled onto the table of truth cumulatively over the experience of your your walk with Jesus be sure that those things each of them that it is crystal clear in your mind now the great truth of the universe is not merely that Saturday is the Sabbath God is not just saving people who can read a calendar that the great central truth is not that Uncle Edie and aunt Edna are not in heaven that's true but these doctrinal packages this this this doctrinal lens is something through which we view the goodness and beauty and loveliness and awesomeness of God Wow look at how good God looks through the Sabbath truth look at how good God looks through the truth of the life death and resurrection of Jesus look at how good God looks through the sanctuary well and now what's happened is now not only are we preaching the truth we're preaching him who is the truth too many too many too many too many even of my own sermons but too many sermons that you hear are built around getting people to believe the right thing in the right way to have all of their textual ducks lined up so that at the end of the day you know what's true you can argue it's true you can believe what's true and by the way this is a part of our own as seventh-day Evans for those of you that are seventh-day Evans this is a part of our DNA because we had we had historically felt I'm not going to spend any time developing this except for just about 30 seconds we had historically felt on the defensive because we were preaching things that much of Christendom did not believe and so we felt under compulsion a necessary compulsion to ride into town the early Advent preachers and to challenge the ministers of the local congregations to a debate about what day is the Sabbath to a debate about what happens when you die to a debate about they're not you can eat pigs or shellfish to a debate about what Jesus is doing right now and and you had better believe it we were going to set those pork eating Sunday keepers right and largely we did you know what Jesus didn't come because it's not just about right doctrine in fact let me say it this way it's far more important to be righteous than to be right oh I tell you that's a lesson hard learned for those of us that are stubborn know-it-alls yes or no in fact check this out when you grind into a town and you show up and you preach an argumentative discourse right the kinds of people that you win without preaching tend to be stubborn oh it alls oh that's right Saturday is the Sabbath and then those people you know stubborn know-it-alls and generally obnoxious that might be describing some of you maybe many of you now you're gonna let your whole town your whole neighborhood your whole family know the truth but you've only let them know about the glasses you've only let them know about the lens but the glasses and the lens these things are not decorative they serve a purpose and the purpose is to put them on Oh and to look at God through new eyes look at how beautiful Jesus is when you put the Sabbath glasses on man he wants to spend time with me he created me for intimacy he created me for relationship he himself is fundamentally relational he created a sanctuary in time not just for me but for all humanity the Sabbath was made for men God is wow what a beautiful picture that begins to emerge and is Saturday the right day yes or not yeah yeah yeah yeah but that's and you'll want to say what I mean by this that's almost beside the point is that important of course it's important but that's not the point it's a little bit like this if people said what's the truth about marriage and I ask you what's the truth about marriage and if I said well the truth about marriage is that Violeta is my wife that is true actually she is my wife but that's hardly the truth about marriage that just means I got the right girl okay now what to what end to what end marriage to what end a relationship to what end Violeta what's the point well the point is love the point is commitment the point is forgiveness the point is relationality the point is growing together there's a whole bunch of truths that fall under the rubric of the beauty of marriage yes or no and it is important for me to be with the right woman the one that I actually married amen to that brothers right and sisters okay but but to say that the truth about the Sabbath is that Saturday is the Sabbath that is a part of it and it's an important part yes or no I wouldn't want to diminish that but that's not the whole truth the truth of all of these things and of the text itself as we put each of them on the table we ask ourself a question and here it is we've done a good job we've gotten through the illustration when we put this first block on the table of truth this first fundamental truth on the table of truth I'm suggesting my my methodology here and I think it's a textual methodology I think it's defensible is that God is love let me try and paint that picture for you briefly when Ellen White sat down to write her comprehensive exposition of Scripture her pastoral exposition of Scripture otherwise known as the conflict of the ages series five volumes you might know them patriarchs and prophets prophets and kings desire of Ages actually apostles followed by the great Conover see the book that I read 1718 years ago that brought me to Jesus okay so the purpose of those books is to set out a pastoral exposition of the whole panorama of Scripture it begins in creation and it ends and recreation can he say hey man it begins here and it ends here so when she sits down with her dexterous hand her ready mind her able her able pen she sits down to write how do you begin how do you begin a comprehensive full scope treatment of the whole passage the whole message of Scripture I'll tell you exactly how you begin it's exactly how she began she sat down and she said oh I know how this is going to start this starts with three words and does anyone know what the first sentence of patriarchs and prophets is she wrote God is love right and then you go through 3,500 plus pages and you just fast-forward you come down to the end and it's the great controversy and sin and sinners are no more the whole thing is winding up and and the victory has been won Jesus is accomplished and we've been through the experience of Israel and through the experience of the church and through the experience of the dark ages and we're right down into the time in which we're living but we're even past that where we're past the Millennium we're down to the very end which is really the beginning by the way we're down to the very end how do you close this book how do you close five volumes and exhaustive comprehensive exposition pastoral X exposition of Scripture how do well there's only one way to close it how do you close that I heard somebody say how do you close it you sit down and you write these words say it with me god is love and between those two ends those two bookends those two parameters exists the whole a story of Scripture so I'm suggesting that the first thing the first thing that we put on the table is this central truth about who God is John said he that does not love does not know God for say it with me God is love first John chapter 4 verse 8 let me paraphrase that for you he goes so far as to say if you're not a loving person you couldn't possibly know what God is about because God is love for John for Paul for Jesus and for Ellen White the whole message of Scripture is not a series of didactic truths okay check you believe the right thing check check check check check check check check we're not taking an SAT test here it's not a fill in the blank and be sure to fill in the whole dot no the whole point is about God and who he is and how awesome he is and how beautifully is in that grandiosity that glory that grandeur and beauty can be summarized in three simple syllables the three grandest syllables that have ever been written and if they are true they are and I believe they are every reason to believe they are they are the greatest good news now listen to this not just the greatest good news in the universe but the greatest good news conceivable you cannot think of better news than that try it sometime just go sit under an oak tree in some warm sunny afternoon and try to think of something that could be better than that God is love you can't come up with it if that is true and I have every reason to believe it is if it is true it is the grandest and most glorious and most and most announcing and an urgent truth that could ever be imagined or proclaimed the universe is friendly the universe is congenial God is love and Jesus said yea yea yea that's what this book is about and Paul said that's what this book is about and Ellen White sat down to write this whole thing she said let me tell you what this book is about from beginning to end the whole thing is about the central truth of who and what God is and what we're going to discover over the next four times that with sessions that we have together is that central dish to this first normative non-negotiable building block is this great truth of the Covenant that God is love is a statement about his nature about his character and it is a grand coven ental statement that God in his very nature is relational and covenant Allah and we're going to unpack that over the rest of our time together you

Channel: Lordsanjo

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Keywords: Jesus, Christ, God, Christians, Bible, gospel, languages, translate English, Church, message, truth, marathon, growing, seventh day Adventist, table of truth, love, scripture, important, religion, doctrine, Israel, Sabbath, point, relationship, marriage, belief, faith, trust, sin

Id: imkssCkzHFQ

Length: 47min 48sec (2868 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 10 2013