And you can turn in your Bibles to John 1, we're getting back into John 1. And last week we were in John 1, and it was a good time, so I decided let's just keep on going. And so it was a fun moment having Happy Monday open and on our house open this Wednesday. And there was kind of a soft launch on Wednesday for Happy Monday.
And one of my old friends and his wife came through, and I ran into them in the prayer room. And I loved what he said. He said, you know, and it's been a long time since I seen him. They said, we were coming to every day, back when it was growth, back when it was in the house.
And when we walked into the prayer room, it felt like the living room. And I just felt like that really gave language to what is so special about our community and what God has done here in the last six months, that he's somehow managed to make the living room of where we started in the house actually plopping right here. And I mean, the house group was back in Roseville, really close to here, and it was just maybe two minute drive to this property. But I think it's so special what God is doing in our community and what a joy that we get to not be at Elwood anymore.
Elwood was a blessing, but I'm so glad we're here, okay? So last week, John 1, we talked about how, you know, John the Baptist, he was part of this community called the Essenes. How many of you were here and you heard the message on the Essenes? All right.
Well, there's this, you can listen back if you weren't here, but basically what I was talking about is that John the Baptist, he's this prophet that God sent to prepare the way, to prepare people to meet Jesus, the coming king. And so John was part of this group of people called the Essenes that are these radical, devoted followers of God, and they were committed to two things. Committed to what is the path, what's the path, and how do I know the word that the word that actually shows me how to walk it out? And so they carried both of the reality of I know the path and I walk the path.
And that's what John the Baptist carried. He knew the path, he walked the path, and he brought the path or the way of following God to people. And we had this moment at the 530 and at the 230, but at the 530 it was so special at the altar as many evangelists were getting marked. And I thought it was a really powerful moment.
And so if you respond to the front, I want you to, if you haven't written it down or God did at the front, I want you to write it down. Because as you're faithful to steward the small things that God has done in your life, he just adds to it, okay? So John 1, we're picking up, I wanna jump in really quickly to verse 29, last week we left off at verse 28. And so we're gonna read John 1, 29, but before we do, okay?
So I wanna just, I wanna communicate that you are a Western reader of the Bible, and that's a problem. Because Jesus as he's speaking to the hearers that are there, as the scriptures are being written, what they're thinking about is a Eastern way, an Eastern culture, and we are part of a Western culture. Now Western culture is just tell me A plus B equals C, talk to me linear, I just wanna know exactly what you want me to do and exactly what you're saying, right? And so when I talk, most of the time I'm speaking to you on those terms, but Jesus was different.
In all the Jewish rabbis, they were very different. What they, they spoke in like webs, not in straight lines. They would hide treasures about God and see if you wanted to seek those hidden treasures out. They're going, I'm not gonna hand it to you.
I'm gonna say something that agitates you and see if you're hungry enough to discover the treasure that I want to lead you to, okay? And so as a rabbi, what they would do is they would say things that make you feel dissonant, because you're going, well that doesn't make any sense, and then it's to push you into curiosity. And if you actually allow yourself to not be a devotionalist, which means I read my devotions and then it didn't speak to my day. So I guess I'm gonna move on.
Or we read the Bible and we're like, how many of you have done this? You're reading the Bible and then you're like, I don't know what that means. Oh well, and you just keep on reading? How many of you have done that?
I've done that so many times, probably 100, maybe thousands of times, you're just like me. But that, what we're not realizing is the reason why we're bored reading the Bible is because all of those questions, all of those like, well, that didn't make sense, is actually doorways into glorious revelations that will blow our minds. So when we have that moment of going, I don't know what that means, or there's also the sphere of like, well I didn't like how that sounded. I'm just gonna ignore that move on.
Stop ignoring those moments and go, man, I wanna discover what he actually means. Does he really mean that? And if he does, I have to grapple with it, okay? But we, as Westerners, we gotta get out of straight line.
If it didn't speak to my day, I'm just gonna move on. No, it's actually worship when you read the Bible and then you get curious and you study. That's just as much worship as us singing and dancing before the Lord. It's a form of worship and God loves it.
When you're like, well, that doesn't make sense. The Lord's like, okay, yeah, here we go. And then you're like, okay, ah, I'm gonna go brush my teeth. No, you gotta like lean in.
Just get curious as a people. And sometimes you'll look at something and you'll go, there was no treasure there. That wasn't interesting. There was nothing there.
And that's okay. Most of the time I'll be like, huh, nothing. I'll do the research. There's no commentary on it.
It wasn't some profound revelation. But I'm just a faithful steward to approach the word and go, what the heck does that mean? And that is what I want. Listen, don't take my word for it.
When I say something up here, don't listen to me. You gotta check it out yourself. I mean, you can't listen to me if you want to. But you gotta check it out yourself, okay?
So don't take my word for it. And don't expect me to be your only meal for the week. Man, some of you are looking frail. Some of you are like, man, it was a good week last week.
And I got, you know, I had some mashed potatoes, but you can't live on some carbs on Sundays for the whole week. You can't live on some candy on Sundays and then be like, man, I just sugar crashed. And then I never recovered until the next Sunday. All right, so we gotta like read the Bible.
And then just if you see something, go after it, okay? So I'm gonna show you what I did here. Because I'm telling you that because I did that when I read this passage. And we'll see if there was any treasures that I found, all right?
John 1, verse 29. It says, the next day, John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, after me. So John is talking about Jesus saying, after me comes a man who ranks before me because he was before me.
I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel. And John bore witness, I saw the spirit descend from heaven like a dove and it remained on Jesus. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me, in other words, God the Father, he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, he on whom you see the spirit descend and remain. This is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit in not just water.
And I have seen and bore witness that this is the Son of God. The first thing that hits me, I don't know if this hits you, this seems wrong with this passage and that's when you know you're onto something. If something seems wrong, that's the doorway into revelation, okay? Maybe.
And the thing that seems wrong to me is, well, that doesn't make sense because I know about John the Baptist and John the Baptist is Jesus' cousin. So Elizabeth and Zechariah are related to Mary because Mary goes to Elizabeth's house when she's pregnant. She gets the news that she's pregnant and then Nazareth is all in an uproar because it's like, okay, so you're pregnant out of wedlock. And so she's experiencing shame.
She goes to Elizabeth's house. Elizabeth has John the Baptist in her womb. John the Baptist starts going crazy, like jumping up and down in her womb. And so then they have this special moment, right?
So they're family. But all of a sudden we're seeing now 30 plus years later, John's like, I don't know the guy. So what the heck? Do you know him or do you not know him, right?
So I started thinking about this. This is what you can do. You just start kind of trying to piece the story together. Well, John the Baptist, he's, or Jesus as he's born, then four years he spends in Egypt as a refugee, right?
Because Herod tries to kill all of the babies that are in Bethlehem. So then Joseph and Mary have this dream. They leave, they flee to Egypt. They're there for four years, okay?
So for the first four years of John the Baptist and Jesus life, he's out of the country. Then he comes back to Nazareth, but then I'm thinking, well, where did Zachariah and Elizabeth live? So I'm looking at it. It's like, are they neighbors?
They're probably not because mostly the emotions think that they lived in Hebron, which is about 80, 90 miles away. Okay, so these are the things I'll find that you can find. You can just search chat GPT. Where did Elizabeth and Zachariah live?
And it says 87 miles away. How far away is Nazareth from Hebron? Those are the things that I'm doing that you can do, all right? How do you think I know all this stuff?
You think I went to seminary? Don't tell anybody. So listen, so there's a, okay. So they're probably, they're not close.
They're not neighbors, but I'm going, okay, but maybe they saw they had some crossover at the festivals because there's the Pilchler Bridge festivals for like Passover and Yom Kippur. Maybe they're seeing each other during those times. But then I'm like, well, Zachariah is a priest. So he's probably busy during those times.
What the pricing is? You know, so I'm just thinking about it. But then I'm reminded of another story, or the story in the gospels and it says that John approaches Jesus right before Jesus gets baptized and says, bro, you should be baptizing me. I shouldn't be baptizing you.
So then they do know each other. Because John's like, you should baptize me. In other words, before Jesus, before this moment happens, they know each other. And John kind of has some type of sight line into hey, you're better than me in some capacity, right?
So that doesn't make sense. They knew each other. So now I go, well, what the heck is John's name? That he doesn't know Jesus.
You know what it reminds me of is like, if I knew Samma, where Samma? Samantha, Samantha Fisher, worship leader at every day. Let's say, yeah, she's just such a great worship leader. Let's say I didn't know that she played piano.
I didn't know that she worships. I didn't know that she's a worship leader at all. Unless Acadia and I have known Samma for a long time. But it's kind of like hidden.
We don't know that about her. And she hops on the keys and starts singing. And it's like, I know Samma, but then she hopped on the keys and it's like, wait, I didn't know her like that, right? Like now I know Samma.
And it like not like that's who she is. That's the only element. You know what I'm saying? But you're tracking, right?
So John the Baptist is looking at Jesus and he has this moment where he sees Jesus getting baptized and he's like, I knew him. I knew his character. I knew his revelation. I knew his wisdom, but I didn't know this, right?
And John in that moment, he's testifying. I didn't get it. And some of us are in that place where you're like, I know about Jesus. He's great.
He's amazing. Like, yeah, he's a good prophet or he has some good stuff to say. He's got some good wisdom. And today is your day where you're going to realize, well, I knew him, but I didn't know him like that, right?
And that's what John wants everyone in the crowd to catch on to. I didn't even know him and he's my cousin. He's totally other than get ready, get ready, all right? So then John begins to tell a story in this passage.
And he begins to share about the story of when Jesus gets baptized. And so a couple weeks earlier, Jesus is walking up to the banks of the Jordan. John is baptizing people. They're turning, they're kind of like changing the way they're thinking, they're repenting.
Jesus walks in the water. And Jewish baptism is different than Western baptism. Western baptism is like, you get baptized by another person. You get dunked, right?
Jewish baptism, you just dunk yourself, okay? And so John the Baptist is like witnessing this baptism, right? And Jesus dunks himself and is in prayer. And then John the Baptist, as an eyewitness, he's an eyewitness to this.
He sees God. It says, rend the heavens or like rips open the sky. Can you imagine that? The God that created everything, managing to just go, whoa, ripping open the sky.
And God the Father says to his son, who is God in the flesh, he says, this isn't many of you for this many times. This is my son who I love and who I delight in. So God just decides, I'm gonna rip open the sky just to articulate my love and delight over my son. And then John is sharing with us that he saw the Holy Spirit come and it was like flying down or something like a dove, okay?
This is another thing that you're studying the word that you can do. Whenever you see like imagery or a word or a phrase or something in a parable that Jesus is telling what you do, everybody, listen, this is really important. This is gonna be a key as you're reading the Bible. Whenever you see like a phrase like, okay, a dove, what you immediately think is, and this is how the rabbis would teach, they'd hide these treasures of the phrases that they're saying and they're trying to point you to the first time that that thing was spoken of in the Old Testament, okay?
So immediately as I'm a good Jewish young man trying to learn what my rabbi is saying, I'm hearing, I'm seeing God come down like a dove and I'm going, when is the first time that a dove is mentioned in the Bible? How many of you know, can you shout it out to me? Noah and the Ark, what happens Noah and the Ark? Noah and the Ark, there he is.
He's been really ready to get off the Ark. Can you imagine being without any animals and just your family for that long? No, I was good. There he is and he's going, okay, the waters have receded on the earth.
Is it time for us to get off the Ark? And he sends out a raven, I can't remember what happened to the raven, but the dove, he sends out and the dove comes back and the dove has an olive branch in its mouth. And what that dove represents in the story of Noah is that there is a new day in a new era that is coming, right? It's a new day, it's a new era and it's a new covenant and there's heaven and earth peace that's taking place.
And now God is done with judgment. God is done with wrath and he's actually gonna bring a reconnection between heaven and earth and it's gonna be God and man coming together again. So John the Baptist is meditating on that. He's going, you showed up like a dove?
There must be a new era coming. This must be a new day. And this is the one and he's going, hey, he's looking at the crowds and he's going, as Jesus walks up, he speaks to the crowds and he says, God told me a prophetic word, I don't know when it was, he didn't say when, but God told me a prophetic word, whoever has the spirit rest on them and stay, see the Old Testament had prophets that the spirit could come on them and then leave. But he's going, God told me that whoever I see has the spirit of God rest on them and stays, that that's the one that's gonna baptize you in the power of the Holy Spirit.
So he's, oh man, this is, get ready because this is gonna get, this is gonna get good, okay? All right, so here we are, Jesus gets baptized and then what happens? Where does Jesus go? He's out of there, he leaves, he goes into the wilderness and he gets tempted, right?
And he fasts water and food for 40 days. That's hard, that's impossible, okay? So Jesus doesn't drink for 40 days, but I need you to pause and think about what's happening in John the Baptist's heart and on the interior of him because he's been by faith believing, hey, I'm called to prepare the way for a coming king. Now all of a sudden, he's just by faith, baptizing people, preparing people for the coming Messiah that Israel has been praying for for thousands of years.
And now he's this weird guy dressed like Elijah with camel hair and eating honey and locus, weird guy. And right in that moment, Jesus walks into the water, he sees heaven break open, he sees God say this over him, a prophecy gets fulfilled right in front of his eyes and all of a sudden he realizes this is real, he starts going, it's not just a figurative, prepare the way of the Lord, it's actually a man, he's the king and he's coming and I gotta prepare everybody for him, but where did he go? Because he sees the sky split and he's going, oh my gosh, it's him and then he's like probably just trying to take it in and Jesus is gone, right? He's looking for him and Jesus doesn't show up for a month and a half.
I've been preparing the way for this guy and all of a sudden he just leaves and you just see John the Baptist for 40 days, can you imagine what the preaching started sounding like? It was like he was kind of a wild man, but then he took it like times a thousand and all of a sudden he's starting to get revelation pouring out on him about this coming king. He's going, this is the one from Genesis three, this is the one that's gonna be the serpent crusher, he's gonna stomp on the head of the serpent, this is the one that's gonna be that Psalm two king on the holy hill. This is the one that's gonna be like Genesis 22, the ram caught in the thicket when Abraham is about to sacrifice Isaac and there's provision in the suddenly of God in a moment.
This is the one that is gonna be like when Joshua's leading the people of Israel along the same river, the Jordan River and he leads them into a new day, the promised land, this is the one that's gonna bring all of Israel into the promises of God. This is the one from Michael Five and all the nations are gonna worship before him. This is the God of Isaiah 52 and Isaiah 53, Malachi three and Malachi four, John the Baptist is beginning to burn in the wilderness and everybody is coming out to see him. He is so on fire, he is so burning with revelation about this coming king that everybody just has to hear him talk about the kingdom that's about to be presented.
And so he's wondering when Jesus is gonna show up and can you imagine John the Baptist just every single day baptizing people and all these, thousands, thousands of people. They're taking trips from Jerusalem. They're trying to just get like here John the Baptist preach. And I just picture John the Baptist just talking to people but constantly scanning for 40 days.
Where is he? He's got his eyes on the lookout for the Son of Man. And then last week we talked about the first moment where after 40 days he sees Jesus. And he's actually right in the middle of a conversation with some religious leaders, the Pharisees.
Cause the Pharisees are like, hey, why are all these people coming out to you? They should be coming to us. What are you doing? Are you a prophet or are you the Messiah?
And John the Baptist, all he can say is I'm preparing the way for the other guy. I'm not the guy, there's another guy. And he says, I am not even worthy to be his slave. I'm not worthy to even come near him or come close to him and wash his feet.
That's what John is saying. And all of these people are like, but you're the guy. All the crowds are coming to you, man. He's like, no, I'm not the guy.
And as the Pharisees are asking these questions, he's kind of, you know when somebody's talking to you. And then as you're talking back to them, they kind of like look past you. Isn't that so rude? You know, it's like, are you looking at my ear?
And they're like kind of look past you. And John the Baptist is doing that the whole time the Pharisees are talking to him. And then all of a sudden he gets a sight line. There he is.
It's been 40 days. And there he is. John notices he's like 40 pounds lighter. Because he just fasted for 40 days, right?
He's got sunken in cheeks, but this is the king. John the Baptist sees him. And then he answers the Pharisees. And he looks back at where Jesus was.
He's gone. I went to 40 days to see him. And now he just disappeared. And John is, he's kind of like, OK, what do I do now?
John wakes up the next morning, still burning. He didn't die. He didn't get killed. He's still alive.
What John doesn't know is that he overcame all temptation, so that he can be the empathetic high priest. What John doesn't know is that he overcame what Adam and Eve cannot overcome. And he's going to pave the way into a new era and a new life, right? But John sees him again the next day.
And for 40 days, John has been meditating on who Jesus is and who this coming king will be. And he says this phrase. The first thing he sees Jesus walk up, and he announces to the whole crowd. He's not talking to Jesus.
He is now. He's going, I've been preaching for 40 days plus. And he says, hey, everyone, listen up. Look.
That's what the word behold means. Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That was his first phrase after 40 days of meditation. And we're talking about a wild man that knows the scriptures.
He has them all memorized. All the minor prophets. He has the Talmud. He has every part of the Old Testament memorized.
And he's been brewing. And that's what he comes up with. Behold the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. And you have to understand that for a Jewish year, John is saying something that kind of doesn't make sense.
You're going, well, what are you talking about? For sure it makes sense. He's the Lamb and he takes away our sins. We all know that we've sang songs about it for a long time.
There's no problem with what he said. But as a Jewish listener to what John just said, you're going, but that's not true. Because lambs don't, do you guys remember in Egypt, the Passover? Remember how Israel was in slavery for a really long time, 400 years.
And then God says, hey, I want you to sacrifice some lambs. And I want you to put the blood of the lambs on the door post, the wood door post. If you think about it, it's like the cross, the blood on the wood beam. He says, I want you to take the lambs blood, put it on the door post.
And that's actually going to be the key for you to get deliverance and freedom from slavery. It's actually going to be your salvation, your deliverance from oppression. So whenever we worship Jesus, the Lamb of God, we're worshiping the deliveror, the one that sets us free from slavery, right? The one that washes us clean, that brings atonement, because they're sin offerings for lambs.
But as a Jewish listener, you know, the lamb doesn't take away sin. That's the goat. You're like, well, what are you talking about? Well, there's the holiest day in all of the year on the Jewish calendar is called Yom Kippur.
Everybody say, Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is the holiest day because what the high priest does, this is the day that you maybe heard about, where the high priest can only go into the holiest of holy place, one time a year, and make a sacrifice on behalf of the people. So on Yom Kippur, what happens is the priest makes a sacrifice for himself to be washed from his sins with a bull, and then he brings two goats up. This is from Leviticus 16, if you want to learn more about it.
He brings up two goats, and one, they kind of like roll the dice on these goats. Goats like, not me, you know, right? They call it's called casting lots. So these goats are there, and these two goats, one is going to die, and one is going to certain survive.
And so the one goat is the sacrificed goat. So what the priest does is he lays his hands on the goat and applies the sins of all of the nation of Israel, and then that goat is sacrificed. His blood, that goat's blood, is brought into the holy of holy, and applied on the mercy seat. This other goat, though, is called the scapegoat.
And the scapegoat is where the priest lays his hands on that goat and applies all of the sins of the community, all of the sins of the people on that goat, and then hands that goat over to a person to send him on its way. And this person takes that goat out way past the city limits into the wilderness, and lets that goat go into the wilderness. And what that means is that it's like that goat is taking, put that scripture up again. That goat is taking away the sins of Israel.
Are you hearing me? So we're looking at John 1, verse 29. So we see that John the Baptist, he's killing two birds with one stone with this phrase. He's going, he is the Passover Lamb, and he's the scoped, the scapegoat of Yom Kippur.
He's not just deliverance from slavery, he's not just deliverance from the oppressors, he's not just deliverance from sin, but he's actually the key to you having all of your sins removed from you as far as the east is from the west. Why does this even matter? Let's turn to Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10, thank you Lord.
It's okay for us to get in the Bible a little bit. All right, now this is a rich passage, this chapter, wow. So the context of Hebrews 10 is it's a whole chapter about Yom Kippur, okay? Which is that Jewish festival where the high priest makes a sacrifice for all of the nation of Israel, all right?
And so now there's new commentary, now that the crosses happen, Jesus has died on the cross for our sins, now there's new commentary on how we approach Yom Kippur, okay? Let's look at Hebrews 10. For since the law, this is verse one, for since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year at Yom Kippur make perfect those who are trying to draw near. So people are trying to draw near God but they can never be made perfect because the sacrifices aren't from Yom Kippur, not making them perfect before God.
Verse two, otherwise if they were getting perfect from these sacrifices, they could be ended, they wouldn't have to be offered. Since the worshipers having been cleansed would no longer have any consciousness of sins. Verse three, but in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls to cleanse the high priest and goats to take away sins.
Verse five, consequently when Christ came into the world, He said, sacrifices and offerings, you have not desired but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings, you have no pleasure. And I said, behold, I've come to do your will as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. Verse eight, we're gonna read like a lot of this chapter, okay?
If you're tracking it, verse eight, say amen. All right. When He said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings, these are offered according to the law, then he added, behold, I have come to do the will of the Father. He does away with the first in order to establish the second and by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once and for all.
Okay, now I want you to look at verse 11. Oh my goodness. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. Remember what John the Baptist said?
This is behold the lamb who takes away the sins of the world. Verse 12, but when Christ had offered for all time, not just in the past, in the BC, not just in the first century, but for all time, in the 1900s and then the 21st century, he offered for all time, where am I? Where I just, okay, here, verse 12, a single sacrifice for sins. And he sat down and finished the work and he sat down at the right hand of God.
So there's no priestly work left. Verse 13, now he's waiting from that time until the enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. Oh, that's cool. For by a single offering.
He has, if you haven't engaged, did you just start following right now? It's okay, I know it's long, but we're just gonna reengage right now. Look up at the screen if you don't have your Bible in front of you. For by a single offering, he is perfected for all time.
Those are who are being sanctified. The Holy Spirit bears witness, just like John the Baptist. This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days. I'm gonna put the law on their hearts.
I'm gonna write them on their minds and look at this passage in verse 17. I'm gonna remember their sins no more and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of these, there's no longer any offering of sin, no scapegoat, no goat, no lamb. There's no more need for another offering because there's forgiveness through this one offering.
Verse 19, therefore, brother, since we have confidence. Confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new, remember that new era, the dove with a branch, the dove rests on Jesus, the new era. It's the new and living way that Jesus opened up for us through the curtain, through his flesh, into the holy of holy, that four inch curtain, it gets torn when he dies, since we have a great priest over the house of God, now let us. So this is like a therefore, hey, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith that our hearts are sprinkled clean from an evil conscious and our bodies wash with pure water.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised his faithful. I'm just gonna add this in for extra credit. Let us consider how to stir up one another in love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another in all the more as you see the day, drawing near. Okay, I know that that was a lot, but I'm just gonna bring it home here.
If you were missing it, you're like, man, I just got lost. That's okay. These are the truths that we just read. Verse 11, Jesus is the scapegoat that takes away your sins.
He removes your sins from you and takes them away so that you are not your sin. He perfects you in verse 14, it says, he perfects you. In other words, spiritually, when you get your life to Jesus, he makes you perfect. You become the righteousness of God in Jesus.
Yeah, you're not perfect in the soul. You're getting sanctified in the soul. You're in process, but in the spirit, you get perfected before God. Verse 17, he remembers your sins no more.
Oh my goodness. Verse 19, now because he remembers your sins no more, he's removed them from you and he's perfected you. Now you have confidence. Now you're like, wow, I can be confident.
And then verse 22, it says, now you can draw near to God with full assurance, full confidence. And now you don't have to have an evil conscience. That's always sin focused. I remember when I was in college and I prayed a lot.
I was like the prayer guy and I would read my Bible an hour and a half every day. This is, I know this is awesome. I'm so self-righteous. It was like weird, it was bad.
But I would read my Bible an hour and a half every day and I would pray an hour and a half every day when I was in college at Northwestern. And with all the prayer, with all the reading of the word, I still wasn't sure how God felt about me. You can spend decades in church. Many of you have grown up in church.
I don't care how old you are. I don't care if you got 50 years in church under your belt and you're still kind of like, well, I made a mistake. I think I'm gonna take a break from God for a couple days. I think I'm gonna take a break from God for a couple months because man, I feel guilty.
He's probably thinking about that mistake that I made and I don't know what our standing is. And I remember I was living like a holy life and then I was just kind of like, I don't know what you think about me. Do you see my mistakes? Do you see my sin when I come to you and pray?
And the Lord is making it so clear. Whoops, he's making it so obvious and so clear. He's going, it's not by your works. It's not by anything that you do.
It's fully by the blood. It's the blood of the Lamb that sets you free. But the thing that you need to know is that you can feel, you can go like, yeah, I've been set free from sin, but then not experience it and then screw up and then operate and anger, operate and lack of patience, not operate in the fruits of the spirit, fall into some type of whatever sin is your vice and still not know what to do in that moment. Because the moment in that moment you kind of go like, okay, I need to repent, I probably need to feel bad.
And now where do I go with this? And what I want to call us into is this, you need to know the simple gospel of he's the goat. He is the goat. Somebody say amen to that, yeah.
He is the goat, he's the goat. He's the goat. That's great. Yeah, that's great.
I can't say I didn't think about that when I was serving Pripy. He is the goat, okay, but he is the scapegoat that takes away your sins so that when you come to God in prayer, you don't have to be second guessing how we're doing. But the good news of the gospel is that you screw up and you go right into, man, I'm so glad I get to be confident that I get to come into the presence of God with full assurance of faith that Jesus was a scapegoat. He took that away from me and that's not who I was anyways.
I don't know what that was because I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I'm set apart, I'm holy. What was that? Man, I joyfully repent because that's not me.
I'm gonna turn, oh man, Lord, what was that? He's like, I don't know, that was weird. Because you're a new creation, why were you doing that? And you're like, I don't know.
Lord, what's the root system there? He's like, well, because you're feeling lonely and that's why you did that. You need to feel connected to me and to people. It's like, whoa, okay.
I think I'm gonna be connected to people. Man, I'm so glad somebody could help me because I had full assurance that I could come right to God. See, Adam and Eve, what were Adam and Eve doing? They were hiding because they didn't have a scapegoat for them.
But we got a scapegoat, it's different than Adam and Eve. You don't have to be hiding when you fall into sin. Do you know what you get to do? You get to turn and go, here I am.
Here I am Lord, have all of me. I have full assurance. I know that you wash me by the blood. I know that you sent me free from sin.
And I know that you removed my sin as far as the east is from the west. And now I can come with full confidence and I come before you. And here I am. This is the good news of the gospel.
And you're going, man, but I gotta get it together. And the Lord's going, stop that. You don't have to get it together before you come to the Lord. He did all the heavy lifting.
You don't have to be like, I gotta clean myself up. I gotta get things in order. I gotta do this, this, and this, and this, and then. Then I'll come to God.
He's like, even if you think you got it all together, it's still like dirty rags anyways. I did all the hard work so that we could be close. Because that's the thing that we really need. We need nearness.
We need to be close to God. I mean, like you were designed. Your DNA was made for God. Like every atom in Nucleus in your body was formed and fashioned by God.
And deep inside of you is this egg. It's called eternity. And eternity is longing within you to know Him, to be close to Him. Even as I'm talking, the reality is, you know that you wanna be close to Him.
You know that you've always wanted it. But then there's the accuser of the brethren. The accuser is going, you can't be close to Him. He's mad, sat, and angry, and frustrated.
He's kinda dejected when you come before Him because He's thinking about all the crap that you did. Do you know what He's doing? He's going, come here. He's going, come on.
It's just like when my kids, when they make a mistake and they got hurt, when they made the mistake, do you know what I do? I don't go, well, of course you got hurt because you were doing this and this. Our father is a good father. Do you know what he does?
He bends down, he goes, oh, are you okay? Come here. We can talk about that later. We can talk about your sin later.
I want you and you are not your sin. I've done all the heavy lifting, so you don't have to be primarily sin-focused in our relationship. You're mostly thinking about your sin and I wanna mostly talk about us. And I wanna reveal me so you know me because that's the thing that's gonna set you free is when you get close to me.
And then all the things you're concerned about and you're like, what I keep on struggling with this? And the Lord's like, okay, you're mostly thinking about sin again. Don't you know that your Christian life isn't about sin? Don't you know that following Jesus isn't about behavior management?
Don't you know that Jesus didn't come and Jesus didn't come as the sacrificial lamb and dying across just so you'd be like getting it right? Have it together, manage your behavior? No, the Lord today at the 530, it was different at the 230, but today is like deliverance day and it's freedom day and it's joyful turning day. There's like a big hug at the 230, but man, the 530, all you guys need is you need a spanking the pants into the assurance of what Jesus did for you.
You need to know that when you screw up, you need to know who to go to and you need to go to him and just inter-write and go, man, thank you. Thank you, that's not who I am. Thank you guys to be close to you. And then what does Hebrews say?
This is the bonus that we got to get leaving today. Hebrews 10, 24, we got to stir one another up to love and good works. Don't stop meeting together because some people are getting isolated and lonely. You got to stop that, stop going into isolation because you need to encourage.
You can't just go to God and then be alone. You got to have other people around you that are going after God. That's why I'm so excited about our Connect Groups. You got to get in a Connect Group, even if it's not on the website, just get in a group.
Go after God with people. Invite people to your house, stop waiting for somebody to lead something and you just do it. If you're like, well, I don't know if it's going to work in a Connect Group, that's fine. Join the Connect Group and then invite your friends over and read the Bible and pray and talk to God.
You have to stir one another up because listen, do you know that the enemy is just working on overtime? He's just like lying to people all the time in this room. The enemy is lying to people. He's deceiving people.
He's bringing accusation against your brothers and sisters. You need each other. You can't do it alone. You need him to be connected to him and you need brothers and sisters.
I want to respond, let's all stand. Worship team, you guys can come to the front. We're going to worship for a little bit. I really feel like as I was meditating on John, the Lord highlighted this phrase, Jesus was coming toward John.
Jesus is like walking to him. And I really felt like today that Jesus has actually been walking towards many of you in the room. Many of you, he's been walking towards you and he's walking towards you not with an angry face, not because he's mad, not because he's disappointed with you, but he's actually walking towards you as the lamb that takes away your sins so that you can be close to God the Father. He wants to be close to you.
He wants you to not be isolated. He wants you to be near him. And as we're going into worship, I just feel this invitation for God to take you out of the shadow of accusation because it's felt like there's hurdles and mountains in front of you before you and God. And you need to know Jesus has completely obliterated those and all those hurdles and mountains are just lies for the enemy.
And Jesus is wanting, he's coming after you. He's walking towards you and he's going, it doesn't have to be sad. You don't have to be, you know, like it doesn't have to be a ball of tears, even though you can be, he's going, this gets to be a joyful turning. Turn to me, I want you to start walking in victory over all of the things that the enemy has used against you.
I want to turn you so that you can just have confidence and assurance that you can be close to me. And as I've been speaking this, there's been so many that you have been getting accusation from the enemy that's hindering your relationship before God. Wherever you're at with God, if you're like, man, I don't feel close at all the God or I feel close, but I still have these voices like hitting me, making me feel shame, making me feel guilt, making me feel condemned before God. And this is good news for you today.
And I just want to invite you that there's an opportunity for you to book a stake in the ground and go, that's lies and not true. And this is the truth. This is what Jesus did for me. And I'm going to take what he did for me over the pride of saying, well, I need a second guess.
I don't know what he thinks about me. He loves me, he loves me not. We're not going to be in that zone. We're diving deep into, ah, he loves me.
That's the good news. And so I just see a joyful moment at the altar time. I just see a joyful moment of turning where you go, man, I've been kept at a distance, but I want close to God now. And if that's you, you're going, I want, I've been kind of at a distance, kind of second guessing, but I want to come and I want to be close to him.
I just want to encourage you to just come right to the front and respond. Just come out of your seat, come out of your row, and I want you to respond to the Lord. And it's this joyful expression of, here I am. You can have all of me.
Here I am. I just want to be close. I want to be near. I want to have full assurance.
I want to have full confidence. I'm going to break off this accusation. You can just come all the way to the altar. You can spread out at the front.
Thank you, Lord. You can stand or kneel whatever feels like it communicates you receiving from the Lord, your identity. Thank you, Lord. And as people are responding even in the aisles, you can get like a little room so that you can, people can come and minister to you and pray for you.
Get some elbow room. But I want us to pray together, and we're going to worship for a little bit. Okay, so Lord, thank you that you're the lamb. We thank you that you're the scapegoat of Yom Kippur, and you've taken away our sins.
You've taken away our sins and you've perfected each one of us that you remember our sins no more, that you've removed them as far as the east is from the west, that we have confidence to enter into the holy place, that we can draw near and full assurance, and have no more evil consciences. Lord, we remind ourselves that we are our faith and our relationship with you is not based on our performance, is not based on what we can do or what we can't do and how good we can be, but it's based on what the lamb did for us. And so Lord, we kick accusation and the enemy that's been lying to us in the teeth with the truth that you spoke and we say, hey, all of the accusers, behold, with the lamb of God who's taken away my sin. Where are my accusers now?
And I just want you, if you're responding, and that's something that you've felt from the enemy, that you've been experiencing accusation, I just want you to verbalize that, speak that out, behold the lamb who's taken away my sins. Where are my accusers now? You can say that in your own words to the Lord. Lord, here we are, we love you.
Here we are, we worship you. Here we are, we thank you for your good news of the gospel that set us free in Jesus' name. Thank you Lord, let's just worship together. If you're a teak-in in the room, you can come and minister at the altars and pray for people that are responding to Lord.