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 and week three of our preaching series, The Story of the Gospel. In the first two weeks, I endeavored to cover a lot of material, basically three-quarters of what the Bible contains. And today, we will see why it was so important to cover so much backstory and history in order to fully understand and appreciate the good news of the gospel.
Many churches preach the gospel and many people share the gospel. However, often it is only partially shared. That is to say certain components are shared or focused on and others aren't. Any sharing of the true gospel is good, but if we only understand parts of it or if we only relate parts of it to people, we can find ourselves or them with an incomplete picture of who God is and who we are. We can fail to see that he is God and we are his creatures.
and we can fail to see his plan for us. What we're trying to do here is not just explain the goodness of God in his salvation of a sinner through the work and sacrifice of Jesus Christ in his crucifixion and resurrection, but also to explain the bigger picture surrounding that and leading up to it. Namely, God's creation of all good things, including humanity, and what his purpose for us is in that creation, like where we fit. Once we understand that, where we stand in relation to God, and what his purpose was for creating us, we can begin to grasp the seriousness of our humanity's rebellion against him way back in the Garden of Eden. and the fallout or consequences that resulted from that choice to oppose God and to try and put ourselves in the place of God. You might say, well, I didn't do that. I never made the choice to put myself in the place of God. But honestly, a close hard look at the way we live and the way we try and determine and decide for ourselves what is good or bad or right or wrong very quickly shows us that every one of us has a tendency to do this in some way.
The way we have at times, all of us, put ourselves, maybe our careers, our retirement plans, even our children, and our hopes and dreams first before God confirms this. We all like to play God in some way, whether we realize we're doing it or not. And not one of us truly completely puts God first in our lives and follows his direction for us perfectly. We are, in fact, incapable of this on our own, and we need his help to first open our eyes to the sinful state that we're in, and then to open the door to the path back to him. Welcome to Mountain View Church. We're so glad you could join us for this preaching series called The Story of the Gospel. We'd love to connect with you, so if you're watching online and would 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 at home and you want to access the teaching materials or activities, you can do that at 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 running for students every Sunday evening in July. This Sunday is junior youth, and we alternate between junior and senior. So to find out which group is a fit for you, go to our website, mountainview.church slash youth, or text youth to 867-322-8001. Now here's today's scripture reading.
Hello, my name is David Johnson. I'll be reading from Romans chapter 8, the first four verses. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Last week we looked at God's covenant with a man named Abraham and his promise to produce from Abraham a means of blessing for all people. We saw the establishment of the nation of Israel as God's chosen people. And we saw the beginning of God's keeping of that promise to Abraham in his relationship with the nation of Israel. And most of the Old Testament is a documentation of that relationship. In Exodus 19, one particular passage, in order to kind of take another look at that relationship, we can see the outline of God's covenant with Israel. God instructs Moses to share his terms with the people. So in Exodus 19 verses 5 and 6, we read, Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.
What an honor this is for Israel, to be God's chosen people and his representatives to all the nations. As we saw last week, priests represented God to people and people to God, and the nation of Israel was to be God's representatives to all the nations. Through the nation of Israel, it was actually possible for people from other nations to become a part of Israel as well, to become a part of his chosen people. God made a way for all the world to know who he was through various means in his workings with Israel and the amazing things he did for his chosen people. We saw the structures and systems that God put in place to help Israel stay on the correct path and maintain their side of the covenant that they had made with God to be his people. We learned a bit about his laws and the priesthood as well as his tabernacle or dwelling place among them. God had, again, made a way for his people to know him as he had in the Garden of Eden, which we had lost. But eventually, true to human form, Israel forsook this way, turned their backs on God, and were lost to wander further and further into sin and further and further away from the loving God who created them in the first place.
Israel chose themselves over God and they chose other false gods to put in the place of the one true God, Yahweh. Sounds a lot like the garden and the lead up to the flood and the Tower of Babel all over, over, over, over again, doesn't it? Rejection and disobedience of God leading to disaster for man. We as people sure seem to love us a rebellion. This propensity to sin and prioritization of the self has been costing us since Eden. There's only one way for this to be overcome in us, but God has a plan.
Every year at Easter, churches everywhere around the world spend the week reflecting on and celebrating God's plan to overcome all that keeps us from him. That plan was for he himself to do what we are incapable of doing. The part of the Trinity that is God, the Son, became a man, the man Jesus Christ. And remember the structures and systems that God gave Israel as part of what is known as the Old Covenant? The covenant that humanity broke and could not keep? Today, we're going to look at some of the amazing ways in which this God-man, Jesus of Nazareth, who was God in the flesh, so he was both fully God and fully man at the same time,
fulfilled our part of the covenant on our behalf. First, we're going to look at how he handled the laws. The short explanation is he kept them all. Remember the Ten Commandments from last week? Let's look at a couple of examples to see how Christ fulfilled these. The first and primary commandment that was given was, do not have any other gods before me. Jesus showed us how to put God first. Remember, he came as a man.
and he did nothing outside of his father's will. He constantly sought to bring glory to his father, and he submitted to his father's will entirely, showing us how to do that, showing us what that looks like to put God first. In Philippians 2.8, Paul explains this. He says, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Second commandment was don't bow to idols.
Jesus shows us what resistance to the temptation to do this looks like. Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert. And the greatest of these temptations, the last one, Satan would bring what he thought nobody could resist. He would give Jesus everything he had to give. If only Jesus would bow to him, but Jesus would not bow. In Matthew 4, 8 through 10, we read, again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.
See, an idol is something that we put in front of God or before God. Satan offered Jesus everything. He offered Jesus things that would tempt any person. But Jesus refused to make that an idol before God. Let's look at one more. The commandment, do not commit adultery. Jesus showed us how to stay away from that whole world. He never dishonored a woman by making her an object.
In fact, in Matthew 5, 27 through 28, we hear Jesus say, you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Now, this would apply the other way around as well to women looking at men with lustful intent. But Jesus showed us in his dealings throughout his ministry how to honor a member of the opposite sex. In fact, he helped and took care of women who were in a vulnerable position or that others may have seen as targets of opportunity to be taken advantage of. Jesus showed us what it looks like to honor and fulfill the law.
Now, we don't have time to look at each of the commandments and see how Jesus did things right, but I want to draw your attention to one very important point in a very important verse. Matthew 5, 17, Jesus says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Jesus came to fulfill the law. He is the man that we were intended to be who would follow the law completely, perfectly, and deserved a relationship with God and was worthy of a place in heaven as we could never be on our own.
Because he is also God, he could forgive sins. In every sin we commit, he is the primarily offended party. He can forgive a sin that I've committed against you. Because in committing a sin against you, I am first and foremost sinning against him and his creation. All sin is an affront to God. And all of our sin, the Christian sin, is atoned for by Christ. Furthermore, we are covered by or included in him, in his righteousness.
Through him, in him, we too can be presented perfect and blameless and resurrected before the father and adopted to citizenship in the kingdom of God. We can be presented as one who has followed the law perfectly because we are in Christ. Romans chapter eight, verses one through four says, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do.
By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. In keeping the law, he maintained his purity. And that purity was what made him able to be the perfect sacrifice to be made on our behalf. So we look at how he fulfilled the law. Now let's look at how he was the perfect sacrifice. Remember, under the law, Israel had to make regular sacrifices of animals, God's creatures, shedding their blood to atone for human sin and impurity.
The sacrifices needed to be the best of what people had to offer without blemish, and yet they could only ever be a temporary measure. The blood of the innocent and pure was shed to cover the guilt and impurity of the sinner again and again and again. This seemed like a never-ending cycle as a person would continually sin and a constant atonement needed to be made year after year. In some sins, more grievous in nature, such as idolatry or murder, there was no atoning for them. No covering of those sins could be had, and they simply meant a judgment of expulsion or death.
But what if one atonement could be made for all sin? What if one sacrifice could cover the impurities of all people? What if the innocence humanity had in the garden could somehow be restored, allowing us to once again be permitted to enjoy God's presence in a sustaining relationship with him? We don't need to ask what if, because it's already been done. Not only did Jesus fulfill the law, but in doing so, he became the only possible pure and unblemished sacrifice. Christ was sufficient to be the final sacrifice.
There's a passage in Hebrews that we'll read to better understand how Christ in his sacrifice did what the law and the sacrificial system could only partially do. The old covenant law and sacrificial system was insufficient for all sin for all time. They could not make a person perpetually clean and they could not remove all sin. What the law and the sacrificial system began, Jesus finished. So the passage I want to read is Hebrews 10 verses 1 through 18. 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, make perfect to those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, speaking to the Father, Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. 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, because I have come to do your will. 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 Christ once and for all.
And every priest stands daily in his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us. For after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord, I will put the laws on their hearts and write them on their minds.
Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. In the Holman Concise Bible Commentary, Thomas Lee says it this way. The author explained the permanence of Christ's sacrifice. The repetition of the sacrifices offered by the Jews on their day of atonement in Leviticus 16 could never make the worshipers perfect. Their sacrifices served as an annual reminder of the sins of the people. What God truly wanted was not merely the offering of an unthinking animal, but a conscious volitional choice to follow him.
That is what Jesus gave when he came to do God's will. Jesus' choice to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sin earned for Christians acceptance in God's sight. The constant offering of Levitical sacrifices testified that sin still remained. The once and for all death of Christ forever took away all sins. When these sins are removed, no further need for sacrifice remains. With the remaining time we have, I want to talk a bit about how Jesus moved things from the old priesthood and the old covenant and transitioned them forward to become the anointed high priest of the new covenant.
The son not only became a man, but he became our high priest. Remember the old covenants priests where man's representative and intercessor to God was the priest? The priest is a role that Jesus Christ would fill as well. He would be our high priest, anointed by God to represent us and intercede for us. We call him Jesus Christ, but Christ is not his last name. What does the word Christ mean? It means anointed one. This anointed one would spend three years ministering to the people, teaching them, healing them, loving them, and leading them to believe in him.
and to believe that he was indeed the savior that they needed to bring them back into covenant relationship with God. He would then go and die on a cross to pay the sin debt that each person owes that keeps them separated from God. He acted on behalf of sinners. He died, was buried, and on the third day rose again, breaking the chains that our sin binds us to death with. In his resurrection, he defeated death itself. Death could not hold him. And after revealing his resurrection to his followers, he ascended to heaven to take his rightful place at the right hand of the Father and is there now interceding for us as our high priest. Not only is he interceding for us, but he set the Holy Spirit, the third person of our triune God to dwell in the Christian, sealing us as his own, comforting us and leading us on the narrow road that leads to our place with Christ in glory.
In Hebrews 4, 14 through 16, it says, Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Through our belief in him, we can, in confidence, draw near to the throne of grace. Jesus opened the door for us through his sacrifice, his resurrection. He fulfilled the law that we could not. He sacrificed himself on our behalf, and he intercedes for us as our representative to God, and he invites us into his home to dwell with him. Hebrews 9.15 says, therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised internal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
Jesus dies the death that was ours to die so that we may participate in that death through him, that we might receive the life that is only his to give, and we participate in the resurrection again through him. By his grace and our faith in this, the old is made new. A Christian is born again, and it is a miracle every time. In 2 Corinthians 5.17, Paul says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come.
I'm reading a book right now called Providence by an author, pastor named John Piper. And there's a quote I pulled from there that I think I want to end up with today. John Piper says, what has now become clear in the enactment of the new covenant in his blood is that the humble, willing, obedient suffering of Christ for sinners is the apex of God's grace. The place where grace is most beautifully on display. So grace is the consummate expression of God's glory and Christ in his suffering is the consummate expression of grace.
This beautiful grace is extended to us, to Christians who believe in the name of Jesus. His new covenant is our covenant. He is our anointed one. He is our God. And in him, we have hope. Let's pray. Father, thank you for today. Thank you for the opportunity to preach this, just the amazing work that Jesus did. There's so many layers, Lord. There's so much to it. I pray you would help us again and again, dive into this, putting ourselves in the story, in your story, and just ever appreciating more what you've done.
appreciating the depth that Christ accomplished in his sacrifice and his resurrection and inclusion of us in him. Lord, I'm truly grateful to be a part of this. Truly grateful to be able to call myself a Christian, a child of God. And I pray that each one of us reflects on that and really thinks about what that means, what the implications are. Lord, thank you for loving us. Thank you for doing everything for us, Jesus. Please help us continue to understand further and appreciate what you've done and then be willing and even excited to share this with others.
I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Hello, folks. I wanted to give you one more update about an exciting event that is happening at Mountain View on September 20th. See, Hear, Love will be hosting their You Belong Women's Conference at our location from 7pm to 9.30pm. Tickets are only $20 and are available on Eventbrite. If you're in-house, I will be at the welcome desk and I can give you all the pertinent details. This promises to be an evening of connection, inspiration, panel discussions, giveaways, music, and lots of fun. Events like this don't come around too often, and it is a blessing for us to host this at Mountain View. Hopefully, it will be a blessing to you as well.
Next week, we'll conclude our story of the gospel series together by looking at how to put all these pieces together and how to share the gospel with ourselves and with others. We'll look at what we as the church of God's own redeemed are to do to honor God and to bring glory to his name while growing and moving forward in faith together towards home. As we do at Mountain View, we have a discussion question that I'd like you to talk about with somebody that's around you. Just helps you think deeper on what we've talked about today. Question is, what do you think are some of the main points to cover when sharing the gospel? What do you think needs to be included in that?
And then the prayer request that I would have for everyone, if we could all pray this sometime throughout the week, that God would grow in each of us a desire to spend more time in his scriptures each day in order to better know and understand him. Thank you for tuning in. 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.