SPEAKER_00 0:00

We are finishing up a series today called The Gospel. We've been in this series for two months. And I'm just gonna say this from the front end. I have spoken longer every Sunday throughout this series than ever before. And I pray that I never will talk this long again on a regular basis. And if you want to clap, I'm okay with that. I don't mind. I understand. Yay! Someone actually audibly said yay. That's okay. I'm with you. Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew. I don't know if you do that as well. And so when we started this series, the idea was we're gonna go through the entire story of the Bible. We're gonna hit on all the major movements, all the major you know, swings, all the major plot points. We're gonna hit on that in eight weeks. Whole story of the Bible, thousands of years, eight weeks. We can do this. And uh we can, provided I have about an hour on a Sunday morning to talk. Um some of you look scared. I'm gonna do my best. That's all I can that's all I can do. Okay? That's all I can do. I'm gonna do my best. I say all that to say this. I believe what we've been talking about for the last two months is really important, and I appreciate all of you who've been here because we want to understand this story that we're part of. You know, it's so hard for us to play the role that God has asked us to play, to be part of the story that God is creating if we don't really understand the story that we're in. And that's the whole point of this series, by the way. The word gospel, it means it means good news. It's the message of Jesus. And really, it's the whole story that God has been telling from the very beginning of human history. It's a story that He's invited us into, He's asked us to play a part, but so often we don't get the story, and so we don't really know what to do. We want to eliminate that confusion. We want to, as much as possible, as much as humanly possible, we want to understand the story we're in. That's why we've been going through the whole story of the Bible, and it has been a lot, and it has been, for me at least, really, really good. For some of us, it's been a reminder, for some of us it's been new things, new ideas. But when we know the story, and when it clicks, we have a chance to say yes and to go forward with God aggressively, passionately. That's what we want to see happen. And what we've done to cover all this ground in such a short amount of time is we've broken the story of the Bible into eight chapters. They all begin with the letter C. We have creation. From creation, we went to a crash where everything sort of fell apart. From crash, we go to covenant. This this old agreement, this old relationship that man had with God that was very rules-based and ritual-based and all that. We talked about that several weeks ago. From covenant, we got to Christ. The word Christ means Messiah. Jesus was our promised Messiah, someone who could free us, do things that we couldn't do ourselves. From Christ, we went to the cross. We talked about what Jesus did there. From cross, we went to conquer. Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus conquered the grave, the cross did not conquer him, he conquered the cross. From conquer, we went to creation, but a new kind of creation. We become new creations, new people when we give our lives to Jesus. He begins to remake us, to make us new. We talked about that last week. Finally, today, we get to a new covenant. The word covenant is not a word we use in our day-to-day vernacular, but neither is the word vernacular. So, whatever. Um a covenant is more than a contract, it's like a sacred personal agreement between two people, between two parties. It's something much, much, much more personal and sacred than like a contract. And in our world, we might look at marriage as a covenant. That would be an example of what a covenant should be. It's it's a lifelong commitment. And the Bible is full of examples of God entering into covenant relationships with us. Where God says, Hey, look, if you will do this, I will do this. We see a covenant that God makes with Noah where he promises to never flood the world again. We see a covenant with a man named Abraham where God says, Look, I'm gonna adopt you and I'm gonna make you and your family my people, and I'm gonna bring blessing to the entire earth through your family. And Jesus came from that family. There's several covenants in the Bible between God and people, but there's really two that we tend to focus on. There's the covenant that we're in right now with Jesus, if we have given our lives to him, and there's this covenant that we often call the old covenant or the law. And it's a covenant that God gave to a man named Moses, and it defined the way that people interacted with God for a thousand plus years. And it's interesting because if you're familiar with the old covenant, it seems really harsh and really hard. It almost seems like God was in a really bad mood the day that he came up with that covenant. And that happens sometimes at my home. I don't know about you, but I'll just wake up and I'm not in the best mood, and my kids are making noise like they do all the time, but for some reason I'm like, that's it. From now on, it's gonna be quiet in here and clean, it's gonna be clean. Pick up your toys, stop talking. I've had enough. And it seems like maybe that's the mood God was in when he gave us the old covenant, because it's all these laws and these rules and these rituals, and it just seems like so much. And then we look at Jesus and he just seems so laid back and so chill. And his covenant is about love and forgiveness and mercy and all these beautiful things, and we're like, what happened? Is it a different God, or did God just wake up on the right side of his version of a king-sized bed or whatever? Like, what happened? And the reality is these two covenants, they're not they're not in stark contrast to one another like we think. They both serve a very important purpose. God very much wants us to live in this covenant that He's given us now through Jesus. We're gonna talk about that today. We're gonna look at what that is. But if we didn't have the old covenant, we wouldn't be ready for the new. The old covenant was meant to get us prepared, to help us realize how desperately we need the help that He gives. And so I could talk on and on and on, as you know, about all this, but throughout the course of this series, we've been looking at these videos by a group called the Bible Project. Have I told you guys about the Bible Project yet? Are you aware of these people? Good. I'm glad. So the Bible Project is a group of people who uh make these incredible videos and help people understand the Bible. That's why they exist. They exist to literally make the Bible relatable and understandable. They have a mobile app, they have all these videos, it's awesome. By the way, if you download the His Hands Church mobile app, we have a link in that app to all their stuff. It's great. A lot of our small groups use it as a teaching tool, it's just fantastic. And so I want to show you guys one more, one more Bible project video, and I commit to this being the last video I show you for a duration of at least three weeks. That's as long as I'm willing to commit. Okay? But this video really sums up what the old covenant was and how it leads into this new covenant, this new agreement between us and God that we're gonna look at today. So let's watch this and then we'll come back together.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

You're most likely familiar with the ten commandments in the Bible. Stuff we generally take as good advice: don't murder, don't steal, honor your parents. The list goes on.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

And those are just the first ten. They're actually a total of 613 commands, all given to ancient Israel, found in the first five books of the Bible, which in Hebrew are called the Torah.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Now the word Torah is usually translated in English as the law, because it has all of these laws in it. And as you read through them, you wonder, am I supposed to obey some of these, all of these? I mean, what's the purpose of the law?

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Well, that translation is kind of confusing because while the Torah has laws in it, the book itself is fundamentally a story about how God is creating new kinds of people who are fully able to love God and love others. And when Jesus taught about the Torah, he said that he was bringing that story to its fulfillment. So walk me through the story and how it's fulfilled. So the story begins with God creating humanity who rebels. And God chooses Abraham to bless all of the nations through his family, who end up in slavery down in Egypt, and so God rescues them. Then at Mount Sinai, God makes a covenant with Israel, like an agreement. And all of the laws that Moses gives to Israel are the terms of that agreement. They're like a constitution. And so some of the laws they're about rituals and customs that set Israel apart from the nations. Other laws are about social justice or morality, and by following these, Israel would show the other nations what God is like.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Okay, so the rest of the Torah is just the complete list of laws that Moses gives Israel?

SPEAKER_02 7:56

No, the rest of the Torah just continues the story. And the 613 commands are only a selection from that original constitution, and even these have been broken up and placed as strategic points within the story. Now pay attention, because you'll see a really clear pattern. Moses gives the first laws to Israel. Yeah, don't worship other gods, don't make idols. And then right after that, there's a story of Israel breaking those very laws. Yeah, they worship the golden calf. And so Moses gives some more laws, and then you get more stories of rebellion. Some more laws, rebellion again, some more laws, more rebellion, and you start to see the point. Right, no matter how many laws, they're just gonna continue to rebel. So at the conclusion of the Torah's story, Moses gives this final speech to Israel as they prepare to go into their new home, and he tells them, You guys, I know that you're not going to follow all of God's laws. You've proven to me that you're incapable. And Moses says, the problem is that their hearts are hard and that they're going to need new, transformed hearts if they're ever going to truly follow God's law. And he was right. I mean, the story goes on to recount Israel's total failure. They go into the land, they break all the laws. Right. Now, the next section of books in the Jewish tradition are the 15 books of the prophets, and they reflect back on the story. For example, Ezekiel, he said that if Israel was ever going to obey the law, God's Spirit would have to transform their hard hearts into soft hearts. And Jeremiah said that's when obedience to God's commands wouldn't feel like a duty, but they would be written deep in their hearts. And Isaiah, he promised a future leader, Israel's Messiah, who will lead all of the people in obedience to the law. Now in Jewish tradition, all of these books together are called the prophets, even the historical books, because they're continuing the story told from the perspective of the prophets.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Okay, so we have the law and the prophets, and they're telling one connected story about God's desire to bless the whole world through a people, Israel, who it turns out needs a new heart.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Yes, and Jesus saw himself as continuing that story. So he agreed with the law and the prophets when he taught that it's out of the human heart that come the most ugly parts of human nature. It's like the default setting of our hearts as opposed to God's law. But Jesus also said that he came to solve that problem, and in his words, to fulfill the law. So what does he mean there to fulfill the law? Well, first he said that the demand of all of the laws in the Torah could be fulfilled by what he called the great command that we are to love God and to love others. So that seems pretty easy. I mean, we all want to love. We think we want to love. But Jesus showed how love is far more demanding than we realize. So he quotes the law: do not murder. And he says, yes, not killing someone is a very loving thing to do. But then he also says that when you treat someone with disrespect, or when you nurse resentment against them, you're also violating God's moral ideal because you're not treating that person with love. And so Jesus said true love ought to extend even to our own enemies. So even though this command seems very simple, Jesus showed how our hearts are not currently equipped to fulfill even this basic command of God to love others.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

And that's kind of a doubter.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

But where Israel failed, Jesus brought this story to its fulfillment. As Israel's Messiah, he fully loved God and others, and he showed all of the nations what God is truly like. He did this through his acts of compassion and mercy, and ultimately by loving his enemies even unto death. And after his resurrection, he told his followers that he would send God's Spirit to transform their hearts so that they could follow him and fulfill the purpose of the law: to love God and to love their neighbor. So this fulfills the story of the law and the prophets. Or in the words of the Apostle Paul, the one who loves fulfills the law.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Nothing like a little law to get your Sunday morning going, right? There we go. Okay. So that really did a great job of summing up so much of what we talked about over the last several weeks. And it is a lot. I mean, we're covering thousands of years of history, but it all brings us to this place, to this concept of a new covenant, a new agreement, a new way to engage with God that we've all been invited into. And I don't know if you caught it, but there was this phrase that he used in that video that's a phrase we're all very, very familiar with: the terms of an agreement. We live in this world that's always throwing terms at us and asking us if we agree to these terms. You can't move forward with something unless you agree to the terms. Your computer needs an update, and so you hit update, but before you can finish the update, there's like this 400-page document you're supposed to scroll through and read, and then it says, I agree, I accept these terms. By the way, does anyone actually read those? Like, would you raise your hand? Is any one person? Two people in the room, I think, at least one. Wow. Wow. I do not. I don't read any of that. In fact, some of them even give you the option to just say skip, right? Or it'll just say, Do you accept the terms? And you have to click another button just to read the terms. You're like, sure, I don't, I don't know what I'm agreeing to, but why not? Who has the time? And so we live in this world where we're always agreeing to things, and then we often find ourselves in situations where we're like, man, if I had known the terms of this agreement, I don't think I would have agreed. And we regret the agreements that we've made. We do this all the time. There's many different examples. One example I think that we'll all understand as soon as I say this is milk duds. Okay? Now, before I actually get into the specifics of this, I just need to know, does anyone here really like milk duds? Like you're like, hey, I'm passionate about milk duds. The first service had four people raise their hand. Not saying anything's wrong with you. Let me put it this way. If you're like, because some of you thought you were gonna get free milk duds, I can tell by the way you raised your hands. But like, if uh, I'm saying, like, if you've got your choice and you've got one candy left, like, there's only one candy you can have for the rest of your life, and you're like, I'm taking milk duds above all else. Is there anyone who would say that, like you like milk duds that much? Okay, these two people here. All right. We actually do have three boxes of free milk duds, and I'm sure the more people raise their hand than that. So, ushers, if you guys want to bring some milk duds, there were two raise your keep your hands raised, your milk duds fans. There's someone else over here. There you go. We only have three boxes, I'm not a wealthy man, so we'll do our best. The guy at Quick Trip looked at me real odd as I bought six boxes of milk duds last night. I just said it's forgot. It's forgot. Okay. You guys can go and eat your milk duds while we're talking. I'm not gonna be offended. I actually kind of prefer that because what I'm about to say may offend you. Milk duds are terrible. Oh no, no, no, hold on. They're called duds. Let's just start there. Where else, anywhere in the world, is that a good word for something? If you say something is a dud, that's like a serious put down. I grew up as a kid in Missouri, we had a lot of land, we used to shoot off fireworks, and anytime my parents bought a firework that didn't launch, they would go, it's a dud. It's a dud. I mean, it's like it's like when they were making some other candy, something went wrong at a factory, and the guy came to his manager and said, We got a real problem with all the chocolate. What's wrong? They're all duds. Every single one of them. They're duds. Should we throw them away? And then the other guy was like, nah, just go ahead and sell them, people will buy anything. Milk duds are terrible. And they're terrible not because they taste bad. I think milk duds taste great, they taste like chocolate. It's because eating one, they're chocolate and caramel. I heard someone correct me, okay, but chocolate's on the outside of it, so that's what we focus on. We focus on the outside here at his hands. That's our focus. Okay? So you put a milk dud in your mouth, and you don't realize until you've done this the commitment that you've made. Because the time it takes you to chew one milk dud and then to get whatever bit of that milk dud is left in your teeth, it's like 15 minutes per dud. And so I just know this from times where I've bought milk duds and I've put a few in my mouth because I don't have that much time, and then all of a sudden I'm like, oh no, this is gonna take so long. I think that's why movie theaters sell milk duds. Because if you put milk duds in your mouth, there's no chance you're gonna talk or or ruin the movie. I mean, it's just if there was a list of terms, this is what I'm saying, if there was a list of terms on a box of milk duds that said, warning, you are buying milk duds, please understand that by placing a milk dud in your mouth, you're committing to no less than 30 minutes of chewing, your jaw has a high likelihood of being sore. Are you sure do you accept these terms? You'd be like, I don't know. Because there's all this other chocolate, and I don't have to make that level of commitment. I just I just don't like milk duds. The beautiful thing is if you're eating the milk duds right now, you're not gonna say anything to me for like 25 minutes because you can't. You're committed, and so I can just say what I want. Let's move on. There's just all kinds of things in this world where we we enter into it and we don't really fully understand the commitment that we're making. And if someone had had walked us back before we made that decision and said, Hey, are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you accept these terms? We might say no. It's very important for us to understand the terms that we're agreeing to. And the same goes for God. It really does. Because there are terms that go along with entering into a relationship with God. I mean, you see that all throughout the Bible. God says, Hey, I want to be your God. I want to help you, I want to be with you, I want to support you, I want to bless you. And if that's what you want, here are my terms. And this relationship that we can have with God through Jesus, it comes with terms. And it's very important that we know our terms. The cool thing about God is He's very different than the world we live in. I mean, it says it so clearly in Isaiah 55, verses 8 through 9. My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. God is not like this world, and so where our world is constantly trying to sell us a bad deal and hiding the terms in fine print or on some 400-page document in legal speak that you're supposed to scroll through and understand, God is very upfront and honest about his terms. In fact, God is so upfront that he gave us the terms of this agreement, this relationship we can have with him through Jesus, centuries before he sent Jesus. And we looked at this a few weeks ago, but I want to look at it now specifically. Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah is a prophet, and he's living in the time that the old covenant, the law of Moses, was the dominant way that people were approaching God. That was what was dictating everyone's relationship with God. So Jeremiah lives in that, he lives under that covenant, and God speaks to him, and he says, This the day is coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and I brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I love them as a husband loves his wife, says the Lord. But this is the new covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after those days. I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, You should know the Lord, for everyone from least to greatest will know me already, says the Lord. And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins. Those are the terms. Pretty awesome. Sometimes, whenever you read it in one big chunk like that, you can kind of miss how powerful each individual aspect of it really is. It all just sort of goes in one ear and out of the other. But I want to look at that, I want to break it apart and understand a few things. Because if we can really grab a hold of what God is communicating to us through these terms, I mean, I think it would affect us so greatly, whether or not we've been following Jesus for years, or even if we're someone just contemplating that, to really understand what we've been offered, to understand the terms that God has offered to us, to engage with Him, it's powerful. It's powerful. And I don't know about you, but I need something powerful. Let's just take a second and remember to pray for the people still chewing their milk duds. They made a terrible decision. But we love them. Uh so number one, I just want to make this clear, this is kind of a small detail, but it says that this applies to Israel, to Judah, and so we might read this and go, well, how does this affect me? But Galatians chapter 3, verse 26, this is Paul, and he was one of the most passionate Jesus followers that ever lived, authored most of the New Testament. He said, You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slavery free, male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God's promise to Abraham belongs to you. So when we give our lives to Jesus, we become the children of God. The Bible says that he adopts us into his family. So it's not some beautiful metaphor that we're like his children. He says, No, you are my children. We become part of this family. So these promises that God is making to Jeremiah, they apply to us. They apply to all of us. And the terms are pretty simple. Number one, he says, this new covenant I will make with the people of Israel is like this. I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. This goes along with what we talked about last week, if you were here. And if you weren't, it's pretty simple and also the least simple thing ever. But God, when we enter into a relationship with Him and we put our faith in Jesus, He gives us His Spirit. He brings us to life by giving us His actual Spirit. He becomes part of us, He joins with us, and He empowers us to become the people that we were meant to be. He begins to remake us in His image, to make us the way we're supposed to be. And so when Jeremiah writes this, what God God is saying is, hey, look, I'm gonna do something in your heart that's gonna change you. And you're gonna be like someone who wakes up in the morning and desires what is good. You're gonna desire what is best. Because we don't naturally do that. To a certain degree, there are certain things that we only do naturally in our human nature because we know that if we if we were to do the opposite, there would be a consequence. It's like the speed limit. I drove behind someone on 575 actually going the speed limit the other day, and it made me so angry. Because we all know you go 15 miles over that speed limit. The number 55 is there so that you go 70. We know that. And to actually go 55 on 575 is dangerous. It's incredibly dangerous. So if that's you, speed it up. Come on. Trying to do. Every time I make a joke about that, I remember that we have several police officers that go to our church. And uh, you know, I'm just gonna say I drive a Toyota Scion, and please don't pull me over. But what I say. No, there's just certain things that we only do because we're trying to avoid, trying to avoid being punished. There's some consequence we we don't want, but if the consequence wasn't there, we'd we'd do it. I have three children, I see this every day. And there's certain behaviors and attitudes that my son Liam only has because he knows. He knows that if he if he doesn't do what I'm asking him to do, there will be a consequence. When I was a kid, it was getting spanked. My dad had this belt, and uh, probably had many belts, but it didn't really matter to me. I didn't really care about which belt it was, I just knew that if he was if he was you know past his limit and he reached for the belt, I would go like, I'm so sorry. And usually it was too late. I don't do the belt thing with with Liam. I have spanked him before. Spanking doesn't work with Liam. We spanked Liam when he was three years old one time, and you've probably heard the story if you've been here for a while, but Liam, I spanked him with my hand, and he turned around at three years old and said, That hurt. I'm like, Yes, that is this is the way this works. And uh and he said, God is angry with you for spanking me. And no, it gets better. And then he said, but I mean he's three, probably like three and a half, almost four, but still, he's like, God will heal me. And if you spank me again, he will heal me again. So I was like, let's test that theory right now. Okay. But it just, you know, I I know there's a lot of opinions about how to raise your kids. I think those of us who have children will just tell you we're trying to figure out anything that works. That's all we're trying to do. Just whatever works. Spanking didn't work for Liam, he just didn't register. He'd just turn and get mad and, you know, claim healing over the whole situation. And I'm like, I guess our church is too good at what we're doing to teach our children this, so we had to go to something else. Finally, though, finally, I have my version of my dad's belt. This happened recently. I bought my son this thing called a Nintendo Switch. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but it's a new video game thing. I bought it for my son. I play it with him for quality time. But I'm a grown man and I don't play with toys. So I bought it for my son. And what's so cool about this is A, he loves it. It's really cool. But I have this app on my phone. And this app can control the switch, and I can shut it down from my phone. And I can even set it like to not come on for another week. I can put limits on it by the day. I can say, hey, switch isn't coming on until Monday, and it doesn't matter what he does, he can go push the button, nothing. I can control it from my phone. So now my my phone being pulled out of my pocket, that's like my dad reaching for his belt. And Liam can be freaking out, and I can go, you know what? And I reach down and he goes, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's not get crazy, okay? Hold on. You know, he just no reason to involve the switch. Some of us had whole different kinds of switches growing up with our families, right? But it works. And he's an amazing kid, but he's a human being, like we all are, and there's just a certain behavior that he only engages in because he knows that if he doesn't, there's a there's a consequence on the way. It's fear-based. And what God is saying to us here in these terms, when he says, I will write my word, my instructions on your heart, what he's saying is, hey, look, it's not going to be this fear-based, consequence-based relationship. Yes, God does discipline us. Yes, we need that. But what God is saying is, look, no, I want to change your heart so that you actually desire to do what I desire for you. You actually desire to be the person that I created you to be. And so instead of having to live your life in fear of some rule or in fear of some consequence, you're going to become a person who wakes up in the morning and hungers and thirsts to live right and to love the way that God loves. He's going to change your nature so that you can walk around with this freedom because you actually want to be the person that he wants you to be. Those are part of his terms. It's beautiful. No more living in fear. He goes on to say this I will be their God, and you can personalize this. I will be your God, and you will be my people. That has always blown me away. There's this idea of ownership here. I reflect on it pretty often. It's funny because it reminds me of another verse that set of verses actually in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. And here, Paul's writing and he's writing to the Corinthians. Corinth was a city, by the way, that was extremely wild. It would have been like the Las Vegas of its day. And he's writing to them about sexual immorality. And in the midst of this conversation about trying to live life the right way in that regard, he says this really powerful thing. Number one, he says, run from sexual sin. No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and is given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. That phrase, God bought you for a high price. When I was a kid, I loved baseball cards. That was like my passion for a long time. And I got really obsessed with one baseball player, Ken Griffey Jr. And uh he was my baseball player, he was my favorite player, he was awesome, Seattle Mariners, he was great, and then he went to the Cincinnati Reds and was less great, but whatever. I like to think of him and his prime. And so I collected Ken Griffey Jr. baseball cards, and this was before eBay, and you could just like go online and get whatever you wanted. We had to like hunt for these cards. We would open packs, my dad would take me to card shops, my dad would take me to conventions, and we would go look for Ken Griffey Jr. cards. And over about a four-year period of time, I amassed a collection of over 450 unique Ken Griffey Jr. baseball cards. And back in the day, those were pretty valuable. I used to get this magazine called Beckett, Beckett Magazine, and I would open up Beckett and I could look at all the different cards that I had and I could find their value. And I would like to be this little fourth grade accountant, and I would be putting it down, and I had over $5,000 of Ken Griffey Jr. baseball cards, according to Beckett Magazine. And I would tell my dad about this. I'd be like, Dad, my cards are worth $5,000. My dad would say, they're actually not. Such a downer. But he was giving me real wisdom because he said, actually, son, your cards are worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them. Would anyone like to buy 464 unique Ken Griffey Jr. baseball cards? I'll have you know a few things. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame last year. There is sentimental value, so I'm gonna need, I'll go with $5,000 if anyone has that. Talk to me after we're done. You know, it's only it's only worth what someone's willing to pay. That's the reality of the world we live in. Nothing is actually worth what someone says it's worth, something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. So I look at this verse and I think about this concept that God bought us at a high price. That he paid for us with the blood and the life of his son. So how valuable does that make us? And God was willing to purchase a relationship with you, so to speak, by paying the highest price imaginable. Think about what that says about your worth. Because I know that we all come from different places and we all have different stories, but there have been many people in your life who have evaluated you, who have tried to tell you what you're worth. And I guarantee you that the majority of those people have estimated you a little low. Because God says that you're worth the price of his son. That's how how valuable you are. I mean, I think about my life, and I I actually think God could have gotten a much better deal had he really tried. I think I could have been one of those bargain-bin people. Because it's not like I have a lot to offer. I mean, honestly, I've I've messed up so royally in my life so many times. I talk. That's like the only thing I do well, is I talk. And some people here will be like, oh wow, I wish I could talk like you. You know what? Talk to my wife, because she would trade my ability to talk for virtually any other skill that you can possibly imagine. I mean, I know myself and I know what I've done, and I know my life, and I know that in my estimation, there's no way I would say I'm worthy of the blood and the life of Jesus Christ. But God the Father looked at me and he said, That price seems right. And God the Father looked at you and he said, That's what you're worth to me. These are really good terms. Not only does it say that we belong to God, though, it says that he belongs to us, that we get to call him our God. That he's not just God, he's your God. He's not just Jesus, he's your Jesus. That he belongs to you, that you can actually claim an ownership of him, that you don't have to believe in some distant entity, some force in the universe, that he loves you enough that he tells you his name. And he loves you enough that he lived life as you so that you could relate to him and understand him and actually be able to say, no, no, he's mine. He belongs to me, he's given himself to me. We get to take God everywhere we go. Because he desires to make our hearts his home. He sees our lives as a suitable living space for himself. So he is our God. He's our Jesus, and we're his. And he was willing to give everything for us. What does that say about us? I mean, think about that. It goes on. More terms. They will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, You should know the Lord, for everyone from least to the greatest will know me already, says the Lord. This this part of the terms, the promise, hasn't been fulfilled completely yet. There will be a day, though, where every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. That will happen and that will be a beautiful day. When all of all the universe is literally united by love for Jesus. That's gonna be amazing. But even though we haven't seen that happen yet, there's still some really incredible things communicated here because it says, look, everyone from least to greatest will know the Lord. And so it's not gonna be this situation, this kingdom where one person's higher than someone else and is teaching this other person, and there's an order of importance based on whatever. It's not like that with God. We're all equally important in God's eyes. It's one of my favorite things about our church, by the way, is that we don't have titles. You can call me Pastor Justin if you want me not to like you, but I'm just teasing. That's a joke. If you sensed a little bit of, it's yeah, I got issues, but whatever. It's just that no one grows up and wants to be a pastor. I'm just being honest in this role. I thought I was gonna be in the major leagues. Didn't happen. Just saying. This wasn't a fallback plan. I'm just this is how it goes. But but Jesus actually said, let no one call you teacher, for we all have one teacher. Let no one call you father, for we all have one father. And religion gets involved, and this world loves to rank people differently based on whatever criteria the world has. And sometimes we let that seep into church, and so church becomes this thing, this entity where there's the person at the top, and then there's the other people, and then there's, you know, people in the middle, and it's not like that with God. I I learn more from the people here than I think I could teach. I mean, I'm I'm constantly being taught by you guys. I'm constantly having conversations with people where I realize, wow, they they understand something about God that I haven't even begun to fathom yet. I love that. Because that's a fulfillment of the terms. That it's not about least great. We're all equal in God's eyes. We're all a family, we're all united together. We all have something to offer, we all have something to give, we all have something to learn. It's completely opposite of the world we live in. It goes on. And this is maybe the most incredible part, Jeremiah 31, verse 34, or 35 rather, or 34b. I don't really know. I will forgive their wickedness and I will never again remember their sins. I will forgive their wickedness and I will never again remember their sins. Think about that for a second. On the front end, before we actually even engage with God, he says, look, if you accept me, if you agree to these terms and enter into a relationship with me, I want you to know I will forgive all of your failures, all of your shortcomings, all of your worst moments, but not only will I forgive, I will forget, I will literally forget your failures. I think we often think about God forgiving us, and that's nice and that's powerful, yes, but do we really let it sink in that not only does God forgive, but he actually forgets? When I was in my early days of marriage, Megan and I have been married 12 years next week. She's going out of town for anniversary. That doesn't say anything about our marriage. It just so happened to be that an opportunity came up, and you know, I don't know. But uh, I think I'm doing okay. But we've been married maybe a year, and uh, we were both still in college. We got married really young, and we came back from our apartment. We came to visit my parents and to stay with them for a weekend, and it was over the holidays, and I'll never forget this. I think I've told this story before, but we're hanging out with my little brother. It was pretty late at night, and my brother had just bought a DVD. And uh remember those things? And he bought a DVD, and he's watching his favorite movie, which was Anchorman. Okay? Don't act like you guys haven't seen it. There's a lot of Christians in the room, like, oh, I've mm-mm. No, sir. This is church, right? If you know what stay classy San Diego means, you've seen Anchorman, okay? So, and I was someone just cheered. So, it is not an appropriate movie, and I do not recommend that you go see it. I'm just letting you know, in all honesty, that I have seen it. There it is. So, my brother is watching Anchorman, and my mom's in bed, or so we think. My mom's pretty strict about media, she always was in our house. And my mom comes in and just jumps on a couch as we're watching this movie, and I had seen the movie before, and uh my brother looks at me, he's on one couch, I'm on the other, and he's got this look on his face, and he's just like begging me to help him, okay? He's probably 13 or 14 at this time, and I'm like, oh man, he's in trouble because I know what's about to come in this movie, and I know mom. And uh, what's funny about my mom is that if it's a movie she really likes, she'll just say, it's not the best movie, okay? It's got some language and some stuff, but it's really funny if you can look past it. But if it's a movie you like, that does not apply. So anyway, he's looking at me and he's like, help me. And he can't say anything, because mom's right there, and I'm I'm trying to think, how can I do? You know, I'm an older brother. Uh man, he's gonna get in a lot of trouble. And I said, Well, I'm gonna go to bed. And I just got up and I walked upstairs, and Megan came with me, and he came up about 10 minutes later, furious and angry, and he's like, Thanks a lot. She is so mad. This one part came in the movie, and she told me I have to throw the movie away, and oh my gosh, why did you leave? And I'm like, I don't know, man. I just it seemed like it'd be funny. And uh, because I'm a big brother, that's I have an older brother, he did it to me. And and then my wife did something unbelievable. And I need you to know, I love my wife. It's Mother's Day, she's an incredible mom. But sometimes the people in your lives will do things that just rank them up, that makes them more beautiful. And my amazing, gorgeous, godly wife decided to mess with my little brother. And it was amazing. It was incredible. And she says, Aaron, calm down. It's probably not that bad. Tell you what I'll do. I'll go downstairs and I'll just feel it out. I'll see how she's doing, I'll see how mad she is, I'll come up and I'll report to you. And he's like, Oh, thank you, please, because I can't even imagine going back down there. So she goes downstairs, she comes up like five minutes later, and Aaron goes, like, how is she? And Megan just says, It's bad. She's like, she's just re-watching the same part of the movie over and over again and just shaking her head. And my brother was like, Oh no, like, I, what am I gonna do? And this is not what happened. My mom had totally moved on, she was watching something else completely, but my beautiful, amazing wife just got my brother so well, and as an older brother, I was like, I love you so much. Much more. We're a good team. The idea of my mom re-watching and replaying that part of the movie over and over again, my brother just couldn't even handle it. And it's funny because I think that religion tells us that God is replaying our worst moments over and over again in his mind. And that he looks at us and he's just like constantly going. You remember that one time? And if God's not the one doing it, we are.

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I mean, how many times do we relive our biggest failures and find ourselves going to God and saying, I'm sorry, over and over again because we're overcome with guilt. But we have to understand that is not how God is. Because the terms of this agreement, the terms of this covenant, is that he will forgive our wickedness and he will never ever remember our sin. If you go to God under the covenant of Jesus, you've entered into a relationship with Jesus. If you go to God and you say, God, forgive me. I'm so sorry for what I did five years ago. I'm so sorry for the mistake that I made. I'm so, so sorry. God would look at you and he would say, I don't know what you're talking about. It's covered, it's done, it's finished. He doesn't even remember it. He has placed it out of his mind. So you have freedom. You're not defined by your failures, you're not defined by your mistakes. Your worst moment is not what defines you. So you don't have to replay it in your mind anymore either. Because God's not doing that. He will forgive and he will forget. And these are his terms. And he asks us, do you accept? Agree? He says, Look, I'll be your God. You'll be mine. I'm willing to give anything for you. And I'm gonna start to change your heart. I'm gonna write my words, my desires on your heart. You're gonna become a new person who actually desires what is right versus someone that has to just fight to do what is right because you're afraid of what will happen if you don't. He says, I'm gonna get rid of this hierarchy. You're not gonna have to rank yourself among your peers, you're not gonna have to figure out where you stand. You're gonna know that with me, you stand on equal ground with everyone ever. In fact, the Bible says that when we give our lives to him, we become co-heirs with Jesus. We have an inheritance that we share with Jesus, we are co-heirs. So he actually elevates us to the same level as Jesus. That's incredible. That doesn't make any sense. And he forgives and he forgets, and these are his terms, and he says, Look, if you want to know me, this is what I'm willing to do, and all I want is you. Do you accept the terms? Praise God. I know, I know in this room right now there are many of us who have. We have said yes to the terms. We've accepted Jesus. And for us, maybe this whole series has been like a big review. And I'm okay with that. I I needed this review personally. And if you're here today and you've already given your life to Jesus, I would just say a few things to you as we close. Number one, live in this new covenant. Don't let yourself slip back into the old. It is so easy as a Jesus follower to let ourselves go backwards. And to start trying to live in that old covenant, to start trying to live based on performance, to start trying to earn what we've been given. We don't have to do that. You don't have to do that. Please don't do that. God has accomplished something for you. So enjoy it. It is a gift. It's a gift, and you cannot ruin it. So accept it and breathe and rest and let Him be your God. Number two, if you've already given your life to Jesus, man. Do you know someone that hasn't? Do you love someone who hasn't? Because see, we live in this world where so many people, so many people we know and love, they don't know Jesus. They may think they know Jesus. They may have been introduced to a Jesus, but not the real Jesus. They may have been introduced to some stained glass version of Jesus that's on some mountaintop telling us to come up and meet him, not the Jesus who left the mountaintop to come down into our mess, to get his hands dirty, and to live with us and to love us where we are. We have this whole community of people who need to know the love of Jesus. That's why our mission as a church is to love people to Jesus. Not to just tell people about Jesus, but to love people to Jesus. Do you know one person who doesn't know him? Who needs him? Paul said this in Romans chapter 10. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? This is why the scriptures say how beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news, the gospel. There's that word, good news. See, we've been given a mission by God. And that is to be the messengers, to be the bringers of good news. To love people in such a way that they see something in us that's different, and then to tell them what it is about us that makes us different. Every Sunday, when we finish our last song, we do hands in the pile. That's where we stick our hands out, we get over our fear of germs, and we count down, and on three we yell Jesus. And we do that for a few reasons. Number one, we like to have fun here. We take God really seriously, we do not take ourselves that seriously. I do not have the ability to take myself seriously, and if uh you live with me, you wouldn't either. So it's okay. But it's to remind ourselves that, yeah, we're on this team, but it's also to remind ourselves that we have a mission to accomplish. When we leave here on a Sunday, we have a mission. We are going to encounter people that don't know Jesus. You might be someone here today who's never decided where you stand with Jesus. And I'm so glad that you're here, but I want you to understand on the front end that those of us who have, we believe that we have a mission. And it's to love people, to love them in such a way that they experience, they just get a taste of God's love. We've got to do that. We've got to be bringers, we've got to be people who bring Jesus to the world we're part of. So we have to live on mission. We're the messengers of the gospel, of the good news. Those of us who are here that maybe haven't given our lives to Jesus, maybe we believe, maybe we we understand a lot, but maybe there's never been a moment where we've said, I am his, I'm I agree to the terms, I accept, I belong to him, I want him. If you've never done that before, please, please do it today. There is no reason to walk out of these doors without a life-changing relationship with Jesus. I mean, look at the terms, look at what he's offering you. Has anyone ever offered you that kind of relationship? Has anyone ever told you on the front end, hey, no matter what you do, you ever get a job and they say on the first day, hey, by the way, I'm never gonna fire you. So just, you know, do your best. No, not at all. You will never find someone who loves you like Jesus. You will never find someone who accepts you like Jesus. You will never find someone who forgives like Jesus. You will never find passion for life and love and peace and joy like you get with Jesus. Just accept the terms. They're so good. They're so good. And I'll say this and we will pray and wrap up. You know, giving your life to Jesus is a very personal thing. And sometimes I think we have this tendency in church, and I've been guilty of this many times, where we try to turn personal things into a process. And, you know, at His hands, we don't we don't have like an altar call moment where we make you raise your hand and come forward or anything like that. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not how we do things. But but we still want to give you the opportunity to make that decision in a personal, meaningful way. And so what I'd simply like to say is this if you would like to give your life to Jesus today, if you're sitting here and you're like, man, I need this. I'm watching what happened in the people's lives who got baptized, and I'm seeing something real that I don't have. I I feel a hunger for more in my life, and I believe that it's Jesus. I need this, I need this. If that's you, then I would love to just talk with you and pray with you. I would love to. And we have this amazing room in the back, the prayer room. It's on the back left corner of the room from where you're sitting, and it's it's nice and it's quiet and it's private. And I would just love to meet you there in three minutes and pray with you. And be part of that personal moment in your life and be able to help you in whatever way I can because I love you. Okay, this series is now done. All right, we're finished. It's good. We've talked a lot. And I keep saying I'm gonna talk less each week, and it just stops. I don't know. But the good news is next week Ken Kington's gonna be with us sharing, which is fun. It's been a while since we've had Ken here. And uh, and we're gonna have an amazing summer together. I can't wait. I love you guys very, very much, and I'm so grateful as we as we talk about all this stuff, as we've gone through this whole process of the gospel. I'm so grateful that I get to share my story with you. I'm so grateful that God's given me this group of people to live life alongside and to be able to share in this mission with, because you guys are amazing. You're incredible. Let's pray, let's worship, and let's go home. Jesus, we love you. You're incredible, Lord. Here we are, we've we've covered this huge story. We've gone through all these crazy details and all this stuff that I guess we probably should have taken even more time to cover because there's just so much there. But God, all of this has been for one reason. We just want to know you better. We want to understand you more because we want to grow. We want to move forward in our faith. We want to be people who are living on mission. We want to be people who are doing what you've called us to do, what you've asked us to do. We want to be people whose lives are defined by your love and your mercy and your grace. We want everything that you have for us, God. And we want to be a light to the people around us. We want to be your love to this community. We want to be able to love people the way you do so that they can share in what we have. And Lord, we ask that in your name, Jesus. We ask that you would fill us with your love so that we can love others. As we worship you, God, we just want you to know what we think about you. We think you're amazing. We think you're wonderful. And we think you're worthy of everything. And we give ourselves to you, Lord, and we give it every day. It's in your name we pray, Jesus. Amen.