Well, good morning and welcome. This is Pastor Doug here at First Congregational Church, Woodstock, and God bless you today as we look to Him in faith, who is Jesus Christ, our Lord, and our only confidence in this life. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thank you. Thank you for all that you've done. Lord, you, you are the Holy One. You are the one who has come and done everything exactly as you were supposed to. You've obeyed the law, you've kept all the commandments. You've not once sinned or put yourself first before others, but you have in every way lived selflessly, sacrificed yourself for a sinful people to make us holy. And so we pray, Lord, that you would help us to better understand what that means and to live in that reality. For it's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen. Well, this morning we're going to be looking at two passages, one in the Old Testament and then one in the New. And in the Old Testament, or Hebrew scriptures, we're looking at Exodus. That's the second book in the Bible. And we're looking at chapter three in Exodus. Hear now God's word. He says, Now Moses was pastoring the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Now the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush, and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up. When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses, and he said, Here I am. Then God said, do not come near here. Remove your sandals from your feet for the place in which you are standing is holy ground. He said also, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Then Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God. We're looking at this passage particularly in light of what we saw on Sunday in Stephen giving his defense. Stephen, of course, was one of the first deacons, and he was accused of blaspheming, speaking against God and against his prophet Moses. and against the law of God and against the temple. And so in explaining, no, no, I'm not speaking against any of those things. Rather, I'm speaking of Christ, who is the completion of all of those things. Jesus was the Messiah to whom the law and the temple and Moses himself spoke and prophesied that there would be one who would come and deliver us as his people from our sin. And so in the priest's view of things in the time of Stephen and the very same priest who had accused Jesus and ultimately had him crucified, they misunderstood the law, they misunderstood the things of God in his word and in the temple. And they were saying, this temple, this is the holy place, right? God has given it to us and has made it holy, and so we are responsible for keeping it holy. And they stressed their efforts as the guardians, as the keeper of the holy place of God. And so Stephen, as we've been seeing in Acts chapter seven, is explaining, guys, you've got it all backwards. It's not as if the temple is somehow this holy place that if we get close enough to it, if we take care of it well enough, if we do the rituals prescribed in it, that that will make us holy. In fact, that very temple, the very law that you're clinging to as a way to make you holy was given to show how unholy and wicked we are and our desperate need for a Messiah. Because none of the sacrifices given day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year could ever make us holy. They were there pointing forward to the sacrifice that needed to be made once and for all by Christ on the cross so that we could not just get our sin covered over for a little bit, but actually be made holy, washed clean, thoroughly, to be without spot or wrinkle or blemish. And so Stephen points back to this time that those priests would very much know and think that they understood, but he makes the point of how the holiness of the place on Mount Horeb was not because it was in Jerusalem, not because it was the place where the temple was built, but rather was made holy by the presence of the holy God himself. And that this holy God was calling Moses into communion with him to transform him and then send him as his instrument out to Egypt to redeem his people, all of which, again, was pointing to Jesus. So let's look at Romans chapter eight and see how that talks about this whole, the same idea of holiness and how we come to that. In chapter 8 of Romans, starting in verse 1, therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Now, anytime we see a therefore in the scripture or other places for that matter, it's summarizing, right? It's saying based on what we just said. And so we've seen in Romans chapter 6 and 7 this conflict between the the wicked, sinful flesh into which we're all born, and the things of God, the things of God's Holy Spirit, the perfect obedience that we're called to and how we're united to Christ, and in that find our holiness. So he says, therefore, because of what Christ has done, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. This is one of the verses that we often will use in the Sunday morning worship service as a proclamation of our forgiveness, the reminder that we have been forgiven in Christ and his work, not based on how much we've done. for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. And what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, right? So do you catch what's going on? The priests are clinging to the law and saying, if we just do these things right, if we just do them well enough, if we do everything that we can, if we try our hardest, That's going to make us acceptable to God. And God's saying no. The law could never do that. The law was weak because of the flesh, because of our sinfulness. And it was always there to point to the law giver, but also to the one he would send to keep the law on our behalf. so that the requirement, verse four, of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but now according to the spirit. You see, what the priests were missing was is that we don't need better obedience to the law to become acceptable to God, because we can never get there. What we need is a supernatural work of God to cleanse us first so that then we can walk according to the law in newness of life. And he explains that in verse five, for those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the spirit, the things of the spirit. It's total different realities, right? Walking in the flesh versus walking in the spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the spirit is life and peace, because the mindset on the flesh is hostile towards God. For it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so." That's the great irony, right? The priests there in the temple accusing Stephen were the ones who were saying, we're supposed to do this and this is what we're going to accomplish. And God's word tells us, no, you're not even able to do so. All that you can do is further sin apart from the grace of God and the presence of his Holy Spirit. And then he says, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You keep trying to do something that's absolutely, utterly impossible. I remember in high school, one of my best friends, still one of my best friends in the world, Tony Papadakis would come over to our house often. I remember one time in particular that he came to our home and we had been out playing and getting into stuff and we were filthy. And we came in the door and I took my shoes off at the door and then came in and Tony didn't. Tony forgot to take his shoes off. And so as we went on up to the kitchen and then up to my room, he tracked mud all over the house. And I thought my mom was gonna kill him. She scolded him so much. Well, he was close enough as a friend to be like family. And so she got him a scrub brush and a bucket and said, okay, get to work on the carpet. Well, do you understand that our sinfulness, our rebellion against God, our unwillingness and inability to do what's right in ourselves has muddied God's house? And we might try with the scrub brush in the bucket to wash the filth off. Or we might even go and rent one of those steam cleaners and get the carpet really, really clean. But to think that we can do that well enough to be holy and righteous in God's sight shows that we don't really understand the depth of our sin. or the holiness of God. No bucket, no scrub brush is ever going to be able to cleanse us from our sin, not even close. But the blood of Christ, shed for us, washes us entirely. And so if you have trusted Christ, if you've put your faith in Him, cried out to Him, Lord have mercy, I can't save myself, but you tell me in your word that you're able to save me and have saved me. If that's your faith and confidence, then you've been washed, you've been cleaned. You don't have to keep trying to clean yourself, but rather now in the righteousness of Christ, we are to walk by faith to trust him. If you've never done that, express your faith in Christ, then do you understand no matter of scrubbing will ever get you clean? You'll keep trying like the hamster running on that wheel to catch up, to get ahead, and it never works. Are you yet at the point of being able to say, Lord, forgive me? I can't save myself. I need you to save me. If you've never done that before, you can do that right now. Simply by praying, talking to God, confessing, right? All confession is agreeing with God. You're right. I agree. You've said it in your word that no one is righteous. No, not even one. and that the wages of sin are death, that I deserve your full wrath, but by your grace, you've poured that wrath on Jesus. And he's taken the punishment that I deserve and given me the righteousness that he's earned through his perfect obedience. Lord, I trust you to apply that to me and for you to give me life and lead me in your ways. That's really what we're all about here at First Congregational Church of Woodstock. And we do it imperfectly and with all kinds of trouble and problems and heartaches along the way. But we invite you to come along this journey with us, to admit your need for Christ and to follow him by faith. That's what I'm gonna be praying for you, and hope that you'll be praying for me as well. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for your goodness and grace to us. Thank you that you have done for us what we could not do, what the law was incapable of doing, and that is cleansing us from our sin and rebellion against you. We praise you and thank you. We ask that you would now, in this newness of life, enable us to trust you, and to obey you, to do the things that you've called us to do, not in trying to make up for what we've done wrong, but because you have loved us and we delight in you. And so we want to be like you, Jesus. We pray in your name. Amen. May the Lord bless you today, friend. Thanks so much.