Senior Pastor Damein Schitter continues our fall Exodus series, preaching from Exodus 19 to set the stage for the next section of the book. He explores the relationship of law and grace, showing that love and obedience are not at odds with one another.
Senior Pastor Damein Schitter continues our fall Exodus series, preaching from Exodus 19 to set the stage for the next section of the book. He explores the relationship of law and grace, showing that love and obedience are not at odds with one another.
Alright. Today's scripture reading is taken from Exodus 19, 1 through 25. If you're able, please remain standing On the third new moon. After the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai. They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai and they encamped in the wilderness there, israel encamped before the mountain.
Gina:While Moses went up to God, the Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. 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. So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. All the people answered together and said All that the Lord has spoken, we will do. And Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud that the people may hear when I speak with you and may also believe you forever.
Gina:When Moses told the words of the people to the Lord, the Lord said to Moses Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people and you shall set limits for the people all around, saying Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot. Whether beast or man, he shall not live. When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain. So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people and they washed their garments. And he said to the people Be ready for the third day, do not go near a woman.
Gina:On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, moses spoke and God answered him in thunder.
Gina:The Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain, and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain. And Moses went up. And the Lord said to Moses Go down and warn the people lest they break through to the Lord to look, and many of them perish. Also, let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves lest the Lord break out against them. And Moses said to the Lord the people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for you yourself warned us, saying, set limits around the mountain and consecrate it. And the Lord said to him Go down and come up, bringing Aaron with you, but do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord lest he break out against them. So Moses went to the people and told them this is God's word.
Damein:Well, good morning. My name is Damein, I'm the senior pastor and I'm grateful to get to preach today. Continue on in our sermon series in Exodus. For those of you who don't know, or just a reminder, we actually started Exodus last fall and then we took a break, and now we're going to complete the second half of Exodus to this fall. Now, one of the things is that chapter 19 begins to give us the themes for the rest of the book, that of consecration, that of preparation, because ultimately, as we'll see in a moment, what they're preparing for is for God's presence to come and dwell with them, which requires a certain type of preparation. But today I'm going to focus on a small section toward the beginning, just a handful of verses of chapter 19, in order to prepare us for the next two weeks, and I'll say more about that in a moment.
Damein:But what we see at the beginning of chapter 19 actually is a dynamic that causes many of us fear and confusion. This dynamic that we're going to see today can even block or interrupt our experience of God's love for us in Christ. In over a decade and a half of pastoral ministry, this dynamic that we'll talk about this morning is by far the dynamic that brings the most people to have conversations with me. I've fielded more questions in pastoral counseling, whether it's individuals or marriage or family relationships, and they all somehow orbit this particular tension. There's heartache, there's rawness, there's angst at the center of this tension and this tension is the relationship between God's grace and our obedience. That theological category would be called sanctification, and the reality is is what I've learned, even in my own heart, is we often have a confused relationship to obedience. How do we reconcile God's grace and demand for our obedience? So some of the questions that we may ask in our own mind or that I've heard and remember these are, with earnestness and rawness, questions like why am I not further along than I thought I would be? Or why am I not changing like I wanted to or thought I would? Why do I still struggle with this? Why don't I believe that God really loves me? I mean really loves me. And then, closely related to that, how can God love me and be pleased with me if I keep sinning like this?
Damein:You see, on the one hand, people think that lawkeeping is the totality of their religion and others think that having a strong faith means that when we're really mature, we have no ongoing relationship to obedience and to law, because isn't that what faith is for? In other words, one perspective says God accepts you on the basis of what you do. The other perspective says God doesn't care what you do, because that's what love is. You see, obedience is either the central thing or it's something that we have to get beyond if we truly understand grace. These are the polarities, but the reality is the Bible's teaching on grace and obedience is much more nuanced than that, and because of that nuance, of course, there's no way that we can exhaust it this morning, but we will explore it together. And the reason I'm choosing to slow down and explore this tension today is because the next two weeks we'll be preaching on the Ten Commandments, and I'm sure that Ben next week will take up this same topic, because in reality, we all need to regularly hear this what's the relationship between God's grace and mercy and my obedience? So we only have two points today. The first point that we'll see is we rest in God's grace by faith. We rest in God's grace by faith.
Damein:Before I show you that in the text, let me just situate us in the Bible as a whole. If I were to say to you what is the core message of the Bible? What is the Bible about? I think the right answer would be it's about fellowship with God. That is the central teaching of the Bible, even at the beginning of the Bible, human beings in creation everything in fact are related to God. They find their meaning, they find their situatedness in the story on their relationship to God. So human beings, for example, as our theologian of residence and good friend, michael Allen writes in his book Sanctification, he says immediately upon creation, the human being is identified as related to God. We are made in the image of God, we are commissioned by God to exercise dominion and we are present with God. So, to say it again, human beings are defined holistically by the relationship to God. We're related to God as his image bearers, we're commissioned by God as his agents and we're present with God wholly. So here in Exodus, what we actually see is God is calling his people to himself, and the rest of this book actually is preparing them for God to be near them In a very real way. The rest of Exodus is preparing his people so that God can move into the neighborhood.
Damein:Now, if we zoom out and then we're gonna zoom back in. But if we zoom out for a moment, the burden of the entire Old Testament is God's presence with his people. Think about it the Psalms, the prophets, here in Exodus, what is the longing? The longing and burden is that God would be with his people. This is the ache of their heart, that he would be with them, that he would be in their midst. And of course we see in the New Testament Jesus shows up. And what is Jesus called Emanuel and what is Emanuel? But of course God with us. The Gospel writers say that not only is he God with us, he is now dwelt among us. And when he calls his disciples, he doesn't just call him merely to follow him, he calls them and he says come, be with me. So you see, there's a witness at the center of the Bible God's presence. God desires to dwell among his people. And if we go to the very end of the Bible, in Revelation 21, it says that the dwelling place of God is with man, god is coming back fully and wholly to dwell with his people. And so now we zoomed out, we're gonna come back to Exodus.
Damein:In Exodus, chapter three, you remember when God comes to Moses in the burning bush, among other things. When he comes to Moses in the burning bush, he gives him a mission. He says go now and I'm gonna have you bring my people out of Egypt. But where is he going to bring them to? In Exodus, chapter three, he says I'm gonna have you bring them to this mountain where I will meet with you. Chapter 19 is that mountain. God told Moses in chapter three to go rescue my people, bring them to this mountain, and now he's done just that.
Damein:Now let's look at the text then and come in to Exodus, chapter 19, as we've situated ourselves that the central theme of the Bible is God's fellowship or communion with his people. Chapter 19 of Exodus says there, israel, encamped before the mountain. While Moses went up to God, the Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. There it is in verse four, how I brought you to myself. Think about this image of carrying them on eagle's wings. It displays the utter graciousness of God's salvation. We see God's tender care. So the image of the metaphor is that God, like an eagle, swoops in and saves his people from destruction, from danger, puts them on his back and flies out on his own initiative where they've done nothing to earn it, nothing to protect themselves, nothing to save themselves. But rather we have this powerful yet gracious image of God like an eagle, flying in and rescuing his people. You see, this image tells us that God saves his people unilaterally and completely by grace. They haven't done anything.
Damein:Now listen, grace is completely counter to what we expect and experience. Grace is actually alien to our current condition. You and I are wired to receive love based on our performance. It happens everywhere in our life, and one of the reasons that it's hard for us to accept love from anyone and when we do, normally we can only accept it in tiny doses is because of this dynamic. You and I are so aware of how we fall short. We're so aware of the parts of us that are unlovable that we wanna hide them, and the parts of us that actually are lovable, and the fact that God knows all of those parts of us that are even unlovable and yet still chooses to love us. There is something in us that recoils from that, but the call of God is not to recoil but to rest. It's not to recoil in that place, it's to rest into his grace when he says I see you, I know you and I love you. Anyway, in that moment you and I want to recoil, because when we're seen and we know that there's something off even from our own standards, we want to hide, we want to recoil. But God invites us to rest in his grace. Now, if that's true for us, of course this is true for Israel, because, like us, they'd been trained by generations of slavery that they were only worth what they could produce, and they were only worth what they could produce. That's it. How many bricks did you produce today? Direct correlation to your value and worth. But what God is doing is he's training them now to rest in his grace. That's what he'll continue to do, and he's training you and I to rest in his grace.
Damein:Now, when we first moved to Florida, we had small children. We still have small children, but we had two little girls and we were told, and we recognized, there's water everywhere in Florida, right, you've heard this. So then, of course, some type of swim lesson is required, and so, because of the type of people we are. We thought let's not do the safe and slow swim lessons, let's do that one where you actually take them, just chuck them in the water and say hope you can float. That's what we did. It's called ISR Check it out Infant Swimming Resource and in all seriousness, you're not sure. This is exactly what you do. You actually put them in the water and then over time you train them to float, even as little tiny babies. So I don't know, six months old, eight months old, we took some of our kids. I won't even do it because it's horrifying.
Damein:Leah is like, really strong. She can see the end, she sees the mission, she sees the vision. I just see the baby crying. I'm like I can't. I got to go right so. But here's the thing is, I see videos. I don't actually go, but I see videos and she curates the ones that are that are show the progress for me. So I see the first one and it's short and it stops right before the baby goes in the water. And then I see one a few weeks later where the baby starting to try to turn on their back. And then I see the one at the end where they pass the test and they zip their arms up in winter gear, take them out, flip them over.
Damein:And you it's amazing like you watch this baby pop right up to the top, look around and say there's no one to save me, and then they roll over and they float. It's on YouTube, check it out. So this is a real thing. But this is a thing that's amazing to me is that everything in that infant's body, everything in their body, says I should thrash, I have to fight, I have to fight, I have to strive, I have to save myself. But what's interesting is, as they're trained by this wise teacher, what they actually learn is, in order for me to survive, in order for me to breathe, in order for me to float, I actually have to rest, and there's nothing more calm than watching an infant, in this case, or a person float on water, because, in fact, the more they rest into the water to hold them up, the stronger and more balanced they are, and you see the water moving them wherever it will.
Damein:This is how grace is. You see, everything in us wants to recoil out of self-protection and safety. We think we're gonna sink, we think we're gonna die, but in fact, god invites us. No. Rest into me, rest into my weight. I will hold you up, I am your foundation and this is what God is doing. He's calling you and I. This morning, he was calling His people to rest into His grace, to rest into His mercy, trusting that who he is and what he's shown us to be is true, that we don't have to, in this case, strive for acceptance, but we rest and acceptance. And the more you and I strive to try to get and earn His acceptance, we sink. But rather, when we rest, we feel this, this buoying, this reality where he is holding us up.
Damein:We said this last week. I said, listen, there been 18 chapters of God saving His people, not a single commandment yet. But some of you, some of you. This morning, you felt your heart speed up about verse 5 and you thought I knew it. I knew the other shoe would drop. All this talk about grace and then verse 5 look with me 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. You said there it is, there it is. I knew it was too good to be true. There's the condition. Now, if you obey my voice, then you will be. And this is where we feel that tension.
Damein:How do we rest in grace and yet respond in obedience? How do we do this? Well, the order really matters. There's resting and then there's responding, and when we rest we can actually receive law as a gift. It's a profound gift to us, but only if it's in that order. If law comes before salvation, it's not a gift, but if it comes after, it's a profound gift. So first we saw that we must rest in God's grace by faith and we rest into it, even when it's counter to everything in us that says we need to earn, we need to strive, and we first have to learn that to rest in grace, to let it uphold us. And then my second and final point we respond to God's law by faith.
Damein:Some of us think that we rest in grace by faith, but we respond to God's law by our will. Well, the will matters, but it's not at the center. The Bible is very clear that we both rest in God's grace by faith and we respond to God's law by grace I'm sorry, by faith. So let's look at that. In order to do that, first we need to point out the obvious, okay, what the law is not. First we have to point out what the law is not. We've already said so many things. It's not given to save you. There's nothing you can do to save yourself. You know that right. There's nothing you can do to make God love you more if you are in Jesus Christ Nothing, okay. So it's not that it's not a way to get God to love us more, which I just said and it's also not a way to show our fitness or aptitude for the mercy and forgiveness of God.
Damein:I don't know if we consciously think this way, but so often it's easy to live the Christian life as though man like I really need to show God that he bet on the right horse here, like I need to show him that he did see potential in me, that I am growing, and the best way I can show him and make him proud that I'm growing is by how well I'm obeying. Listen, I think that's the most subtle one, that's the tricky one right there, as we can say well, I've been received by grace, but if I'm growing up in the faith, shouldn't I be growing in obedience to show him Right? Well, how does this work itself out? On this last one, jesus actually speaks to this thinking in Luke, chapter 17,. And he's helpful for us here. In Luke 17, jesus is talking to his disciples and he says will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, come at once and recline at table. Will he not rather say to him prepare supper for me and dress properly and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded. So you also, when you've done all that were commanded, say we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty. Okay, translation.
Damein:Two quick modern examples of, I think, what Jesus is saying. First, imagine, right after this, you go out to eat and you go to a place where you have a waiter or a waitress and let's say that they are just amazing. They blow your mind. It's the best service that you've had and as long as you can remember. And in fact, when they go away, you're just like man, isn't the server. Amazing, they're so good, right.
Damein:And then imagine, toward the second half of the meal, the server, the waiter or waitress, comes back and creates a new setting and you're like, oh, that's weird, there's nobody else coming. And then they go and get food and they bring an order back and they place it on the table. And now you're really confused. You're thinking, what are they doing? And then they sit down, pull up a chair and start eating. You would say, excuse me, what are you doing? Now what if their response was well, didn't I do a really great job? Didn't I crush it? Wasn't I doing an amazing job? And you would say, yeah, you were, but it was your job and so it doesn't mean that you sit. You're gonna sit down at my table Even if you did your job really well. As Jesus says, does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? Okay, one other one.
Damein:Imagine you hired a realtor and in a really tough market, they worked so hard. They found the house that you wanted and they negotiated hardcore and got you a fair price for that house, and you're so grateful for their service. This is exactly what you paid them for. They had a great reputation and you're just loving it. You're enjoying the view on your front porch I don't know, it probably wouldn't be in Orlando, but on your front porch, right? So you're just enjoying the view and then all of a sudden, another moving truck pulls up and opens up the back and starts unloading more stuff and you're like whoa, all my stuff is here. And then a car drives right up after that and it's your realtor and they say hey, since I did an amazing job, I thought you wouldn't mind if I just moved in. You would say you did your job. You don't get to live in my house. This is my house. You did your job right.
Damein:And so, listen, these are modern examples, and this is the point. Dutiful obedience does not give us the right to a treasured place in God's household, just like dutiful service and amazing realtor, when they execute that job, does not give them automatically the right to live in your house or, if you're a waiter or waitress, to sit with them. No, our efforts before God could never obligate him to love us ever. It's our duty as creatures to obey him. That's the whole point. But listen, god loves us because he wants to. God pursues us because he's completely committed to us. He says I am creating for you a place in my house, a place you could never earn. You are my treasured possession.
Damein:We'll say more about that in a minute. Why? Because I want to make you my treasured possession. Even if you perfectly obeyed, it, would never qualify you to the status of treasured possession. Doesn't the king own everything anyway? But his treasured possession was his special treasure, where he would take it, often into his room, into his quarters, even though we owned everything. He said this is my special possession, and the only way something becomes the king's special possession is if he wants it to be, and that's what he's done with us, his people, apart from anything that we've ever done.
Damein:So you might be thinking hey, aren't you talking about grace again? What about obedience? I thought we were talking about obedience. Listen. The question what is the role of law and obedience in our lives? We have to understand what I just said in order to understand what's next. In the covenant of grace, which is where we are, the way God relates to us is truly, purely only by grace. Jesus says I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. So then, what is our relationship to the law? The law is now a rule of life for Christians. It is a gift. It's not a measurement of our standing before God, but it is an instrument of God's fatherly care. He loves us and so he gave us his law after he saved us.
Damein:But here's a place that we can get tripped up right here. So I just want to say this here right here, we can subtly see God's grace as reparative, and what I mean by that is thinking that okay, so basically, we simply needed God to fix something that was broken in us, and now that his grace fixed it, we then are equipped to obey on our own. That's not at all what I'm saying. In fact, that would be a for. Well, I'm not even gonna tell you what it would be, but we've been talking about this in church history for a long time.
Damein:Okay For you? You might say what does that even mean? Well, that might feel like you saying to yourself, or experiencing either pride or shame around this thought God has set me free from sin, so now I can pursue righteousness. But you're focusing on your will and your effort, and grace was like the capital investment. Grace was like hey, here's my investment in you, to now have the capital to go make this thing work on your own. God is not in a business deal like that. Grace is the center, grace is the foundation, grace is the fuel. Our obedience must spring from, and be fueled by faith, trusting in God's grace. Now again, how do these things come together? How does it come together Faith, obedience, grace? Am I trying to smash something together that the Bible keeps apart? Well, no, twice in Romans, once in chapter one, once in chapter 16, so he bookends it.
Damein:Paul uses a phrase, the obedience of faith, but where's the word grace? Let me read this to you, chapter one Paul says that he's received grace and apostleship. There's grace. He's received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith. That's the ESV. I like the way the NIV translates it as well. The NIV translates it this way we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his namesake. I love that. So how do obedience, grace and faith come together? I'm gonna keep asking this.
Damein:Brian Chappell, in his book Holiness by Grace, has a great quote. He says this what ultimately keeps our motives biblically prioritized and holy before God is the profound conviction that obeying God will merit us nothing. When we understand that our works in themselves earn us no merit with God, then the only reason to do those works is love for him. Thus we learn to serve God, not for personal gain but for his glory, not for love of self but for the love of the Savior. You see, here's where they all come together. God has saved you and now he's inviting you to rest in his grace, to surrender to his will, the will that liberates us. And you know, when we surrender to his will, it means we have to self-consciously give up our own will. We have to say I believe you that flourishing is to do exactly what you've commanded of me, not because I can earn anything from you, but because I now receive it as a gift. You need nothing from me, you did everything already.
Damein:He's not holding out a carrot. He didn't do 99% or 95% or 90% and say here's the deal, the rest of the percentage it's up to you. You better get to work. You got all the details out on the table. You figure it out. Here's the calculus. You do it. No, no, no. He actually said I want a mutual relationship of love with you, and because I want that so bad, so badly, I'm not only gonna go and collect you to myself, but I'm actually gonna reveal my will to you so you know how we can enjoy one another. Isn't that amazing? It's an amazing gift. You see, that's where true transformation comes. It comes through personal encounter with the love of God for you.
Damein:And when I'm in seasons of my walk with Jesus, when I feel cold, when I feel numb, when he feels distant from me, when I wake up and I think this is duty, To pray is duty. Scripture before screens is duty. Three time prayer is duty. Fasting once a week, that's duty, and I do it begrudgingly. Part of me takes pride in you know what? At least you're resilient, at least you do it. And then I think to myself well, that's not good.
Damein:Because then, when I do it, when it feels distant and cold, when God feels distant and cold, I feel my self-righteousness growing. I feel my self-righteousness growing and I look at all of you people and I say they can't hack it like I can. They stubbed their toe and they're like I can't fast for two years. I need the nutrition to heal. I mean all sorts of weird thoughts, but no, when I know that God, deeply, has already provided everything, all security in this relationship. I never have to doubt if he's going to look at me with a side eye. I never have to doubt if he's gonna remove his promises from me. They're always there.
Damein:And what he wants is fellowship with me. What he wants is communion with me. What he offers is abundant life, but he knows, and we know, that when we're living a life against God's will, there's no abundance there. We try to claim abundance but not pursue obedience. It just doesn't work anywhere in our life. Why would it work here, in a real relationship with God Almighty? This is where faith and obedience have to come together.
Damein:Those who have faith obey, but not all who obey have faith. You see, we can obey God for the wrong reasons. What God desires from us is the submission of our heart and will, not simply the compliance of our behavior. He wants the submission of our heart and will to him, not just the compliance of our behavior. And that takes faith. It takes faith to believe that giving up control is the best thing you can do. That takes faith. That's the first commandment.
Damein:By the way, a little bit of the second commandment, it takes faith to say life cannot be found in covetousness. And you might think well, I wouldn't wanna covet. Oh, it fuels you. It fuels you. Why do you want that promotion? Because you covet. Why do you want that new house? Because you covet. Why do you want that new relationship? Because you covet. Why do you want the new boat? Because you covet. Why do you want the new car? Because you covet.
Damein:Now, not always I went into a rap song, no nuance, right, this is part of the genre, but the reality is is that covetousness drives us so profoundly? But it takes faith to say I don't need covetousness to fuel me, I don't need covetousness to give me energy and hope and drive. No, I can rest in the love and grace of God and then all of my life can be driven by a response of what he has done for me. So, in conclusion, when we understand this relationship between law and love, between grace, maybe, and grit, between abiding and agency, between dependence and discipline, what we'll see, and what we see here is God promises that when you respond to me in love, after I've already saved you, I'm gonna do two things. The first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make you my treasured possession. Look with me here, verse five, second half you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine. Listen, I already spoke this, so I won't say much here, but don't get too tripped up. You might think so. I'm not his treasured possession until I obey. Listen, don't get too tripped up here.
Damein:What God is doing is he's inviting us to obey him so that we can have a relationship of mutual delight. Listen to his language. It's delighting language. You're my treasured possession. Is not all the earth mine? God says? Of course it is, but I have this treasure and I have this mutual delight with one another. So how do you and I know that we're delighting in God? How do you know that? How do you experience delight in Him? Well, a big part of it is that you see His commands and His law not as burden but as blessing. And even though we fall short even then we fall short we long to conform to His will. We long to live into obedience because we want this mutual relationship with Him. Listen, when we're in a love relationship, we are eager to live in a way to share mutual delight with that person.
Damein:I remember when Leah and I were just kind of I mean, I guess we were dating. I think we were. We were on a date, that's for sure, and on this date I knew that I was like all in, but I was trying to play it cool because she probably wasn't yet all in. But there was a sense in which I had this interesting like peace, and now, looking back, I can just say it was God's providence where I felt so secure in this relationship that this was going to become now, 17 years later, marriage and kids and all of that. I don't know why it sounds creepy If you're single and a guy says that to you, just be like, okay, got it. But I didn't say that to her, I just thought that. I just thought that and felt it. I felt really secure. So there's this reality in which anytime she revealed a little bit of what she delighted in, oh, I was like oh, I love that and I would treasure it up and I would think it's not burden now to bring that about. It's a gift that she told me what she delights in so we can have this mutual delight together. So this is a true story.
Damein:We were on a double date. Our other two friends those poor people, they didn't even know each other and Leah and I were just locked on in conversation and they were completely silent for two hours. The only thing we could hear was them chewing and then listening to us talk. We were in it and, as Leah, she got into this rhythm where she just sang all these things she really loved. And so I always have a pen in my pocket and I took it out. She didn't know. I told her this later. She didn't know, and without breaking eye contact. I had a pen and I was taking notes under the table on my hand Like oh, I love rock climbing, this is my favorite restaurant, this is my favorite food, these are my favorite flowers, and I just delighted in the next time we would go on a date to say how can we mutually delight in these things together?
Damein:And you know, it sounds like, oh, you were just doing that because you wanted to marry her. Well, that would be true, but I still do the same things, don't you when you're in a love relationship? Don't you love when your husband or wife reveals the things that they delight in? And sure, they change over time, so you're always learning. You've never figured it out, but is it burdened to you? No, it's gift that they would give you what delights them and that to be in mutual relationship, that you would pursue that, and so this is what God means, I think, by you will be my treasured possession.
Damein:Last thing, he makes us a kingdom of priests and this is amazing, it's right here in verse six. 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. Kingdom of priests. Listen, god is preparing us to play the role he's had for us since he called Abraham to be a holy nation for the sake of all the nations. You and I want to know what is the way, what is the way? What's my purpose? What does it mean to really live into faithfulness? It's to be distinct, it's to be holy and ultimately, it's not over time to become holy. It's that God has made us holy and now we live into who we are. This is the way, this is the call. Peter says this in 1 Peter 2,. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession. You hear that treasured possession, language that you may proclaim the excellencies of him, who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. How will you and I proclaim his excellencies if we don't know them, if we don't really experience them, if we don't rest in them.
Damein:I want to end with this illustration when I was in I've shared this illustration a couple of times from different angles, but when I, in between the summer, I graduated from college and got married, I worked in this factory because it was, as I've said before, the most money that I could make. And here's the thing it was kind of dangerous because it was a plastics factory, so it was really hot and there was melting plastic everywhere. Machines would break down all the time because it was open. We were 24 hours and so things break right. I don't know if that fixed them, but what that meant was the shift that I worked from 3pm to 11pm. Things were always broken and there was no onboarding process.
Damein:I literally showed up one day and some dude was like that's where you put your lunch. This is when you go on break. Go talk to Jim. He's at station three. I'm like how do I know where station three is? And he literally didn't answer me. He just walked away. So I was like all right, so I go out and it's loud, I'm trying to find station three.
Damein:But here's the point. So the first three weeks where I was assigned, that machine was broken every night that I went in. And so what I did was it's like, well, nobody's going to fire me, clearly nobody even knows I'm here. But I did get a paycheck so someone knew I was there. But here's the thing. So what I would do around was how do I spend my time? What do I do? What does it mean to be employed here? So I would try to go find a broom and sweep for eight hours, and then finally they fixed the machine and the rest of the summer was only kind of like hell. The rest of it, I'm serious, it was bad. So I swept. But here's my point is there's a part of me even as a college student, they would have thought so I could show up for eight hours and just walk around and just get paid. That would be amazing. It wasn't amazing.
Damein:You see you, and I think that we would flourish without a law, that we would flourish if we could just do whatever we wanted. That's not how we're wired, that's not how we're made. It is a gift that God would say I've saved you for a purpose and now I'm going to shape you into the thing I've already made you, and here's my good and gracious law. This is how you flourish, this is where you find abundant life. This is the good life. Listen, the call is to become who you are, not to earn who you might become.
Damein:The relationship between grace, obedience and faith is to rest in his grace and to obey, to become who you already are in Jesus. Let's pray, father, we're grateful for this truth, this dynamic. I pray for my friends here that anything that I said that was helpful, that you would, holy Spirit, press it into their heart you know exactly what they need and anything that I said that wasn't helpful, would you strike it? Would you strike it from our memories? Because we want to know your goodness, we want to rest in your grace and from that place, we want to respond in obedience. We want to hear what you've said, we want to meditate on what you've done and we want to respond in obedience. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.