You're listening to Mountain View Church Audio, Christ-centered teaching from the Wilderness City, Whitehorse, UConn. Here's this week's message. Welcome to Mountain View Church. Today is the second week of our four-week preaching series, The Story of the Gospel. Last week, we covered a lot of ground, and I will take a minute now to do a very short recap. So if you weren't here, today's message will make a little more sense regarding how it fits into the big picture. Essentially, my goal with this series is to take you through the story of God and his relationship and persevering love for us, his most honored earthly creation. Why do I call this most honored? It's not because we deserve honor.
But because of the honor which he has bestowed upon us, when he made all things, he created us and only us as an image of himself. We are a tiny glimpse or a reflection of who God is. This is not referring to our physical features or our abilities, but rather our position and the order of things as his representatives on earth. And our attributes are a fractional pointer to the attributes of God himself. If you picture God as a high king who rules all eternity, then we, in relation to him, seem like insignificant specks of dust that shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence as God. And this would be true in a sort of a sense, but he saw fit to make us significant. He gave us his world, this world, and a mission and dominion over all his earthly creation. He made us unique. He made us special. Last week, we covered his creation of us and everything around us. We saw how humanity began and God's instructions for us and how humanity fell and our separation from God.
We covered the nature of sin and our rebellion against the good king that was so generous to us. We saw how to this day humanity struggles against God and how by seeking to rule ourselves we end up serving darkness through our sin which leads only to destruction. We saw our hopelessness in our bondage to sin but we also saw the hope that God offers us through Jesus Christ in his divine rescue. Today we're going to fill in some big gaps between the fall and the salvation offered to us by Jesus. Today, we're going to look at how God chose for himself a nation to lift up out of the chaos that resulted from humanity's losing its close relationship with God, and how that nation chose to respond. Today, we're going to look at covenants, laws, sacrifice, and priests. And we'll learn a little bit about how we got from Eden to Christ.
Welcome to Mountain View Church. We're so glad you could join us for this preaching series called The Story of the Gospel. If you'd like to connect with us, we'd love to connect with you. So if you're watching online and you'd like to reach out to us with any thoughts or questions or prayer requests, click on the Connect tab at our website, mountainview.church, or text Connect to the number on your screen. For those listening on the radio or the podcast, that number is 867-322-8001.
On Sunday mornings in-house, we offer a full base camp program for our kids. But if you're watching online and you still want to access the teaching materials and activities at home, just go to our website, mountainview.church slash children, and you can find them there or text children to 867-322-8001. We also have a youth program for students running every Sunday evening in July. This Sunday is senior youth, and we alternate between junior and senior. So go again to our website to find out where you fit at mountainview.church slash youth or text youth to 867-322-8001. Last but not least, our young adults will be meeting this Sunday at Schwadka Lake Day Use Area at 1.30 for an afternoon of fun in the sun. That's this Sunday at 1.30. So if you're between the ages of 18 and 35, you're welcome to join in. Now it's time for this week's scripture reading.
Hi, I'm Dagmar. I'm reading from Genesis 15, 3 to 6. And Abram said, Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, This man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, Look toward heaven and number the stars, if you are able to number them. Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be. And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
Okay, I'm seeking today to cover about two-thirds of the Bible in under 30 minutes, and there are so many important and hugely significant moments and accounts found in the Old Testament that I simply just can't touch today. But I want to make one thing very clear. The Old Testament is not irrelevant to us. The Bible is first and foremost the story of God, not people. And the Old Testament not only shows us who He is, and His love, His patience, and His justice over and over again, but it reveals so much about His desire for relationship with us, and ultimately shows us that He is intended to rescue us all along.
When we left the Garden of Eden, all seemed lost, but God had a plan. He always has. Hundreds of years pass, and humanity survives and multiplies, but continues to desecrate the imager status God has given us. Long after the Garden, we're growing as a race, but we're still messing it up. Humans continue to rebel against God, and at some points became so wicked that God hit the reset button a few times, but he never abandoned us.
We can see him send a great flood in Genesis 6 through 8, but he spared Noah and his family. He gave them a new start and once again instructed humanity to grow and thrive. In Genesis 9, 1a, which just means the first part of verse 1, it says, and God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. We see again in Genesis 11, just a couple chapters later after the flood, that humanity does indeed multiply, but they rebel again and decide to ignore God's instruction to spread out and fill the earth. This is almost like how a small child stamps its foot and does the exact opposite thing of what they've been told to do. The people all gather together instead of spreading out and build a great tower in order to reach the heavens themselves. God again intervenes. This is not his instruction or his purpose for us, and he thwarts their plans, confuses their language, and turns them away from their folly. But he does not turn his back on creation. God has a plan. He is sovereign, and he sees how it's all going to come together. Remember our message from last week. He is God. We are his creatures.
This plan consists of dispersing all the people that will become all the nations of the earth. And he chooses to adopt one people, one nation, to be his own, his own nation of imagers, of representatives. God chooses his man to begin this process in a pagan man named Abram. The connection with God that man has lost, God reestablishes with that one man. And he calls him out from his own life to the life that God has chosen for him. God still does this today, by the way. But for now, let's focus on Abram. God establishes trust and relationship with a very unlikely character.
Again, God still does this today, but again, let's focus on Abram. In Genesis 12, one through two, we see kind of the beginning of this relationship. It says, Time passes and Abram follows God's lead. But in that time, Abram and his wife begin to grow old. Then God reveals the extent of his plan for Abram and Sarai, which includes blessing them with a son who will carry on the family name.
God promises a child and lineage to a now old man, which seems unlikely in itself, but we also find out that Abram's wife is unable to conceive and is also quite old and past the time when childbearing would normally be possible. This is not a problem for God, however. It's almost like God says, excellent. A formerly pagan couple who did not know me at all, super old, childless, and unable to have kids, a most dubious choice indeed. This will be a most incredible way to show who I am, to show that I am the Lord, that I am Yahweh.
Abram, however, is not entirely convinced and he doesn't yet show the surety of God's providence. And a few chapters later, we read of his complaining to God about this supposed impossibility. In Genesis 15, three through six, we read, and Abram said, behold, you have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him. This man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars if you're able to number them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be.
And he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. The impossibility of the whole thing highlights God's sovereignty over creation. I should say the seeming impossibility. It highlights God's sovereignty and delivering on these promises brings glory to God's name. This is an example of the whole purpose of humanity's existence. We, in response to God's wonderful actions and love towards us, and God through those actions and love, bring glory to the name of God. Abram believes this entirely at this point.
God continues his relationship with Abram, which means exalted father, and even changes the name to Abraham, which means father of a multitude, pointing to what is to come. God keeps his promise and Abraham's wife, Sarah, indeed miraculously gives birth to a son, a son through which God will begin the lineage of Abraham, a son named Isaac, from which will come a nation of God's own people. Abraham gets the concept of he is our God and we are his creatures. Abraham loves God and is faithful and obedient. He shows that God is first in his life.
I would encourage you to read on your own time the story of Abraham and Isaac found in Genesis 22. We don't have time to cover it today, but it is the greatest example or proof text that Abraham has his priorities straight. He understands God is primary. He understands God decides. He understands that everything good that we are blessed with comes from God and is in fact God's. The end of that passage, Genesis 22, 18, I do want to read because it's God speaking again. It says, in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. That's going to come into play in the next few sermons.
Abraham's response to God is the correct one. And he trusts implicitly that God will keep his promise and Abraham's lineage thrives. God's covenants with Abraham lead us to the story of Israel. Hundreds of years pass and God has not forgotten his covenant. Abraham has long since passed from this earth, but God is just getting started. As God keeps his word and Abraham's descendants multiply, they become great in number. They are the descendants that God has promised and they will be God's own people. However, Israel, as they are known, is in bondage or slavery under the empire of Egypt.
But again, they're God's people. So God sends Moses to bring them out of Egypt to the land that he has promised them. They're delivered from bondage in Egypt and the pagan influences of Egypt. And God now sets about making them a holy nation. He sets apart for himself a people from all other people. To facilitate this relationship, he will set up a system of law, sacrifice, a priesthood, and a tabernacle. His direction comes via the law.
a means of cleansing and atonement via the shedding of animal blood through animal sacrifice, his representation to the people and the people's representation to him via the priesthood, and his presence and dwelling place with his people via the tabernacle. Now, we need to understand as Israel leaves Egypt after 400 years under the boot heel and whip of the Egyptians and their system of rule, the Israelites don't really have much of a sense of identity. They had no direction or law to bind them together and set them apart from the rest of the nations. God set about putting in place a system for his people. to give them identity and direction, as well as to bind them to himself. The law, the sacrificial system, the priests, and the tabernacle were ways for God to consolidate his people and draw them towards his identity for them as a nation of imagers, a sort of exclusive national conscience and culture for a nation of people serving the one true God, Yahweh. Seven weeks after they leave Egypt, they arrive at the mountain of God, Mount Sinai, and God delivers to them this law. Now God begins by speaking what we know as the Ten Commandments to the entire nation.
Each commandment addresses a very specific sin, often that people are prone to, and from which, if Israel are to be God's own people, they shall abstain. The Crossway ESV Study Bible Intro to Exodus says this well. They said that way better than I could have. God uses the law as a basis for a covenant with Israel. He is the authority, and they are the party in agreement. They are the subordinate party. After delivering the Ten Commandments, which we don't have time to read today, but I suggest you read them in Exodus 20, after delivering those to all of the people, God carries on to give Moses a full comprehensive set of laws for the nation to adhere to. This was a good thing. It covered God's expectations. It covered safety and security for God's people. It covered all things pertinent to the maintenance of the purity of God's turf.
Within the law, God also establishes the governance of the priesthood who would represent the people to God. And he establishes the parameters of his tabernacle or dwelling place. The priesthood is a means for Israel, which is made up of sinful people, just like you and I are sinful people, to access a pure and holy God through an anointed high priest and a family of priests. The priest was a way for God to connect with fallen men. This is not to be confused with today's priests of the various religious systems out there. These guys were the originals.
The anointed priest was an intercessor, one designated to make sacrifices to God on a sinner's behalf and to cleanse with the blood of the sacrifice the impurity of fallen man before a holy and pure God. This was all set up by God. Now, just a few details about the priests, which will, again, keep these in your head because these are going to come into play next week. Priests were of the tribe of Levi. They began their ministry at 30 years old. They were consecrated in a ritual of cleansing and washing by another priest of Levi, and they were thereby anointed, and they served and answered to God alone.
The tabernacle, which would later become the temple, the tabernacle was kind of like a foreshadowing of the temple, the tabernacle moved with the people, the temple was in Jerusalem, is the place where God allows his presence to dwell, God with man. It's kind of like a glimpse of what we had in the garden, except because of man's constant sin and resulting impurity, they cannot all come near or be near God. All must go through the appointed and anointed priest. God knows people will continue to struggle with sin and therefore be impure, so he sets up a sacrificial system by which they can be cleansed. and that will represent temporary atonement for sin. It doesn't take care of it forever. It is a temporary measure. A few important notes regarding the law and the sacrificial system. There are 613 laws given to Israel. Seems like a lot. But these include moral laws, laws around the purity and the cleanliness required to be in the presence of a holy God and his dwelling place, and laws dealing with rituals and customs unique to Israel. The law is a good thing. Now, remember, humanity is broken and sinful due to the fall in Genesis 3. We are not fit for a relationship with God.
let alone to be in his presence. We are not innocent and pure. The whole system is a temporary way of constantly cleansing and atoning for the constant uncleanliness and failure of the people. God establishes his covenant with Israel, his promised bond with them, and he tells them, do not stray from this. You will not be perfect, but there's a system set up for navigating that. Most importantly, keep me as your God. Follow me and all will be well with you.
He establishes his laws and systems, his government, if you will, for Israel as a way of governing themselves, in a way befitting followers of Yahweh. He establishes a priesthood to act as a liaison and intercessor between a holy God and fallen man. And he establishes his tabernacle, later the temple, as his place among them. This works for a while, but human nature tends towards sin and the self and away from God. And Israel has a habit of straying. Israel goes through a series of leaders called judges and then a long list of kings, some of whom are great leaders, though none are perfect.
The people continue over and over again to rebel against God, to reject his leadership, and to chase other idols, to practice idolatry by putting these other supposed gods in the place of God, the one true God, in their lives. These tendencies apply to us as well, because the rebellious nature of those ancient people is alive and kicking in us. Our gods, or idols, may look different, but we seek to worship them just the same, instead of the one true God. Sadly, Israel continues to fail and draws further and further away from God. And eventually, as a result of their choices to rebel and to seek other gods, Israel ceases to be a nation at all. They are wiped from the map. And the people that remain of this once great nation are humbled and exiled, taken captive to another nation. It all seems rather hopeless at this point. However, God is not finished or defeated. And he spares a remnant for his divine purpose. Remember, God has a plan. He is God and we are not.
Throughout Israel's history and into Israel's destruction and exile, God has sent a series of prophets, messengers, to help guide Israel, to warn them of impending doom when they're rebelling, but also to point ahead to a bright future when all seems to be lost. We saw God promise Abraham that through him would come a blessing by which all nations would be blessed. In that, we saw a promise of hope. God keeps his promises. Throughout the prophets of the Old Testament, we continually see glimpses of that hope. We see them, the prophets themselves, straining to see the clear picture. But only God knows the whole plan. They just see parts of it.
And in his timing, this plan will come to pass. What those people need, what we need, what any people need, is someone perfect to cover our imperfections. Humanity needs a perfect person to fulfill the law on our behalf, a perfect priest to intercede to God on our behalf, and a perfect sacrifice to once and for all atone for sin on our behalf. They needed it, and so do we. What people need is a Savior and a new covenant. What people need is Jesus.
There is a passage in the book of John. We're going to jump ahead to the New Testament just to close things out today. And I think in this passage in which Jesus is assuring his disciples that he is who they need, that he is their savior, I think it's a good way for us to close out. In John 14, 6, Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. People need a way back to God. We were separated from him way back in the garden and we need a way home. We need truth to cling to amid all the hopelessness and lies that rule this broken world.
We need a truth beyond ourselves, beyond what we can come up with. We need rescue from spiritual death that we are stuck in on our own and cannot escape. We need life. In Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life, we find all that we need. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for today. Thank you for the chance again to preach a message of hope.
to show your relationship with rebellious creatures like us throughout this whole history. And Lord, we know that it's leading to something. And we're grateful now that we have the whole Bible. We have the whole history to look at. It's a blessing, Lord. I'm super grateful to be able to look through and see all these evidences of your love, all these evidences of your persevering love, of your patience, of your justice, and your kindness. Lord, I pray that in our hearts, we can see what the law brings to us. Even today, we can see that it shows us our imperfections, that it shows us our need for a savior.
that it shows us our need for Jesus. Lord, I pray that you would work in everybody's heart who's seeing this and that you would help us prepare to receive next week a little more about Christ. I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Just a quick special update. I have a special announcement to share regarding our next opportunity for baptism. We will be filling the tank and doing baptisms on our final day of this series, The Story of the Gospel, which lands on Sunday, July 28th. If you want to take the next step in your faith journey and share what has already happened in your heart by publicly declaring yourself a follower of Jesus through the ordinance of baptism, we can make that happen.
You can choose between the 9.30 or 11 a.m. gatherings, and Pastor Byron will also be offering this during our 3 p.m. Tagalog gathering as well. Just email me at erin at mountainview.church if you have any questions or for more details. Thank you.
Good morning, Mountain View. My name is Haley, and I'm the ministry leader for young adults. The young adults ministry, the heart behind it is to just have a place where we can connect, we can encourage one another, build some friendships, grow in our faith, and just have fun. So we have one event per month, and the event for July is actually happening today. So we're going to go to Schwatka Lake this afternoon and spend the afternoon hanging out in community at the lake, and I would love to see you there. We're going to meet at 1.30 at the Day Use area at Schwatka Lake. You don't need to bring anything, but feel free to bring...
your paddleboard or a game or a snack, whatever you want, bring a friend to and we'll see you there. Okay, this last two weeks has been a lot of information and it's been heavy. This heaviness has been intentional. In order to truly appreciate the gospel, we have to understand our need for it. In order to truly appreciate the good news that Jesus brings, we have to understand our need for him. We must examine sin and how it condemns us, what it takes from us. We must understand the law and how it shows us, well, who God is.
but also in our ability to keep it, just like the Israelites, it shows us who we are. We must understand the hopelessness of the situation we are in and our absolute inability and even our natural lack of desire to leave that behind. To know the greatness of God, we must understand our own desperate need of him. It seems bleak, however, through the darkness comes the light. We are not without hope because we are not alone. We have a God who loves us beyond measure and who longs for us. We have a God who made our way out of this mess of our own doing and made our way home to him.
and our way to become who we were always meant to be. Next week, we get to know our Savior, and we will better understand grace, and we will see how Jesus is everything we couldn't be for our sake. We will begin to see the revelation of God's grand rescue plan. Until then, as you know, we have our discussion question of the week, which we would love for you to discuss with somebody around you. These are important things to think about, and this question is one that I think we can all find something to relate in. What similarities do you see between Israel's idolatry and that of contemporary society?
And then our prayer request for the week would just be that we would all better understand the significance of the law in pointing us each towards our need for a savior. Thank you for tuning in and God bless you. If you prayed to receive Jesus today or would like to connect with our church community, visit mountainview.church and click the connect link. If this podcast and radio ministry has been a blessing to you, please consider partnering with us or making a tax-deductible donation at mountainview.church. Thanks for listening to Mountain View Church Audio. Join us next week for more Christ-centered teaching from the Wilderness City of Whitehorse UConn.