Good morning. It's very good to see each and
everyone of you who is here. I'm very honored and very
thankful to be your speaker and I'm looking forward to spending
the day with you and to study God's word with you.
There's no better place than we can be than to be together on
the first day of the week as God has commanded us and to gather
together to worship him. And that is our goal this
morning. You know, when I was younger, I
really, always really was hoping that you could just open the
Bible and then it would say do this or don't do that and just
have a set of rules and, and then I could just do them and I
wouldn't have to worry about anything.
But as I grew older, I began to realize that there's poetry in
the Bible, there's a genealogies in the Bible.
There's all kinds of different things in the Bible.
Make it a little bit more complicated than just a, just a
rule book. And so I really struggled with,
well, how do I make sense of the Bible, and maybe this is
something you struggled with over your lifetime is how do I
make sense of the Bible? What parts of this apply to me?
What parts of this do I have to do?
And what parts of it am I just reading a story?
What's what is important for me to know from the Bible?
Our goal is not to answer all of those questions this morning.
As you see, this is a a series. This is lesson 1 or one lesson
from a series of making sense of the Bible.
And so we're not going to answer all the questions.
We're not going to cover all the topics.
And what I leave out, you say, oh, you forgot about.
I know this isn't all of it, but hopefully this is a foundation.
Hopefully this will be a place for you to be able to build off
of as you go through and study the Bible for yourself.
And so where will we start? Well, we want to start under the
idea of covenants, and the Bible we find teaches in covenants,
and a covenant is just an agreement you and I can have in
a covenant. But when we're talking about
specifically are the covenants that God makes with mankind.
A covenant is an agreement between God and his people, and
covenants often have blessings from God, but also consequences
if they do not do what God has asked.
And as often promises in with these covenants as well.
But almost always there's a core concept when there is a covenant
between God and man, and that is that there are commandments
within those covenants. Just an example in Deuteronomy
28 verses 1, verses 1 and 2. And then verse 15, it says, now
it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the
Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments
to which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set
you high above all nations of the earth.
And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you,
because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.
And verse 15 says, But if it shall come to pass, if you do
not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully
all His commandments and His statutes which I command you
today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake
you. So we see here that there is
reward and praise for obedience to the commands of God.
And also we see curses or punishment when we disobey the
commands of God. And this is how covenants work
between God and man, really, nothing more and nothing less.
We see many covenants between God and man.
Of course, you have Adam and Eve in the garden of God told them
that they could eat of all the trees there except for the one
tree they're not supposed to eat of.
There's a commandment. There was an agreement that and
they disobeyed that agreement. He says that they ate of that,
that they would surely die. That's exactly what happened.
Of course, we have another covenant that God made with
Noah. God told Noah to build an ark
and get on the ark, and everyone who would be on the ark would be
saved. And that's exactly what we see.
Noah and all of his family, everybody who was in the ark,
they were saved. All the people who were outside,
not so much. Another covenant that we have in
the Bible is God made one with Abraham.
God told Abraham that he remained faithful, that he would
bless him greatly, and he indeed did do that.
And of course, we have today what we would call the the old
Covenant, which is the law of Moses.
And then of course, many others throughout the Bible, the people
have followed. But then we see this, this basic
idea that a God has blessings, but he also demands obedience to
the commands or to the laws that you live under with that
covenant. And today, of course, we live
under the New Testament, the new covenant.
The next question is, is everything inside the Bible a
command? While all the Bible is inspired
and it is indeed the word of God, it is truth it teaches us,
but not every verse is a command.
You know both Testaments, both the old and new contain a mix of
a gods of both commands and narratives.
When he used the word narrative this morning and in the Old
Testament, you had the laws of God and then you also just have
the the history of the nation of Israel.
You also have Psalms and different things like that that
are not necessarily commands for you to obey.
There's also genealogies there as well in the New Testament of
Christ's teachings. But we also just have some
history about the beginning of the church.
Some of it is is relevant to us today and some of it is not or
not that's not relevant today, but some of it is something we
need to pay attention to, to replicate.
And some of it is just narrative.
So what what examples are we talking about, Aaron?
So something that is narrative is in Matthew 8, verse 23, it
says Jesus got into a boat. Does that mean I have to get
into a boat? Maybe you don't know how to
swim. You don't want to get into a
boat. You want to stay on dry land.
Is that something we have to replicate just because we read
it in the Bible? Well, not necessarily.
This is just part of the narrative.
This is just part of the story telling us what happened.
But here in Exodus 20, verse 15, I know this is the Old
Testament, but it says you should not steal.
Well, that sounds like a command.
That sounds like something you must obey.
And so throughout the Bible we have both of these things.
In the New Testament, you know, Paul is traveling on his
missionary journeys and he is going from different places.
And it says he came to this town and he stayed a certain amount
of time period and then went to the next place.
And then he traveled. And then sometimes he took a
boat, sometimes he walked. All of that is very interesting.
It's very good for us to read. That doesn't mean I have to
replicate how long Paul stayed at each place or if I have to
follow the same missionary journey that Paul did.
But at the same time, Paul wrote First Corinthians and Second
Corinthians where he's correcting a church and he says
you need to do these things and you need to not do these other
things. Well, those are things that we
need to pay attention to. And if we are doing the same
things that the Church of Corinthus and we, they were told
to stop, then we should stop. And if we're not doing the
things that Corinth was not doing and they were told to
start, then we need to start. And so we see how that works.
So the the next thing we need to really understand it before we
move on is that the Old Testament contained the law of
Moses and other covenants, but the whole Testament is not the
law of Moses. In the same way in the New
Testament we have the New Testament.
It contains the new covenant which we live under, but not
every verse. Like Jesus getting into a boat
is part of that covenant that I have to follow and replicate in
my daily life. So it contains the covenant, but
there are parts that are simply narrative.
So we know, as we said, there's a core of commands for every
covenant that God gives us. So how do we identify these
commands? Like I said when I was really
young, I wish it was just a thou shalt, thou shalt not thou
shalt. That's what people often think
about when they think of commands when God speaks to us.
But really, there's more to it than that.
It's a little bit more in depth than that.
When the Bible talks about commands, it's not just looking
for a rule list. Rather, they help us understand
what God expects us to do or not to do.
And that's really what we're looking for when we're reading
through the Bible. They've revealed to us what sin
is because sin is going against God's commands.
It's disobedience to God. So here are 4 clear ways that
God communicates His commands to us today.
Number one is direct statements #2 broad principles #3 indirect
instructions and #4 examples. And we're going to go into these
each in detail here in a moment. So with these four different
ways that God communicates His will to us, we have a broader
picture of how we are to live our lives and remain faithful to
God within the covenant of which we live.
Direct statements are super easy.
They're everyone's favorite. They're clear, explicit
instructions given by God and his messengers in the Old
Testament in Genesis 9, verse 4. But you shall not eat flesh with
its life, that is its blood. So he says don't eat the blood.
That's a nice, easy command for them in the New Testament, in
Acts 2, verse 38, repent and let everyone of you be baptized in
the name of Jesus Christ. That's a very clear, simple,
open command for us today. So these direct statements
clearly and unmistakably show us exactly what God expects of us.
These are the thou shalt the people love and and want to hold
on to. But these are not the only ways
in which God communicates his will to us.
And when he does so that it means that it's binding.
It is part of that covenant under which we have a we have
agreed to live under, we have agreed to make with the Creator
of the universe. The second category is broad
principles. These are general commands that
apply to many different situations, not just a specific
go do this or don't do this, but more general ideas of how we
live and act toward one another. In the Old Testament, he says
you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and
Deuteronomy 6 verse five. That means that when you go to
school, when you go to work, when you get home from work and
you're tired, you love God no matter what.
In the New Testament, in Galatians 6 verse 2, bear one
another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.
This is true no matter where we are or who we are, but it might
be different depending on the situation.
How I bear the burdens of Frankie may be very different
than how I have to bury the burdens of Terry.
They're very different because the relationships are different.
Maybe there's something that Terry and I have in common that
Frankie and I don't have in common that we both struggle
with, but we're still supposed to be there.
So this is a general command that I'm looking for
opportunities to help each and everyone of you, that you are
looking for opportunities to help me and each other.
And we're working together. So that's a general statement,
but it's still required by by God that we do this thing.
So these principles provide a broad standard is the way to
think about it, or guide to our daily choices and actions.
The third category are indirect instructions or commands, and
they are really through implied statements or promises from God.
And in the Old Testament example, we have Proverbs 28,
verse 13. He says whoever, whoever it is
who's not talking to you. He's not talking specifically to
me, but he's just saying general statements.
Whoever confesses and forsakes sin will have mercy.
Well, what does that imply? That implies that we must admit
and turn away from our sins. If I want to be part of that
whoever, then I'm going to take this action.
Also in Mark 16, verse 16, he who they who, she, who, whoever
it is, if they take this step, what happens?
He who believes is baptized will be saved.
So this implies the necessity of belief in baptism if you want to
be what saved. So this is just a general
statement that God says this is a truism and if you want to
participate in it, this is what you need to do to accomplish
that. So there's not a you must or
thou shalt hear at all. The last category we want to
talk about are examples. Now examples in Scripture become
binding when they describe believers obeying a command or
principle previously talked about or given by God.
And we have just one example from the New Testament here.
Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25 says that we're not to be forsaken or
the assembly of ourselves together.
And Acts 20 verse 7, we see that's exactly what they're
doing now. The first day of the week when
the disciples came together, they came together.
They obeyed the command to not forsake the assembling of
themselves together. Now an example alone without an
underlying command from God is never binding by itself.
And this goes back to the whole thing about Jesus stepping into
the boat. That's just narrative.
That's just a thing that's happened.
Unless the Bible says we all need to get on boats, then we
don't have then that's not a binding example of something we
have to do. Examples only carry authority
when they illustrate obedience to commands or principles
already given by God. In the Old Testament, God
primarily spoke through the 600 plus laws and then we just see
people carrying them out. And so we don't really see this
pattern very much in the Old Testament, but we really see a
lot in the New Testament because examples carry more authority.
And that is because as we were reading the actual actions and
teachings of the apostles as they lived out the commands that
God gave them, and the apostles themselves had divine authority
to establish church practices, Jesus gave them his authority.
In Matthew 28, verse 18 through 20 says, go into all the world
preaching the gospel. So when we read about them doing
that, we can see that as an example.
And also in John 14 verse 26, in John 16, verse 13, Jesus says,
I'm going to remind you of everything that I talked to you
about and I'm going to tell you things you're not ready for and
you need to tell people and spread the message.
That means as we see the apostles doing these things,
they create, they create binding examples for us, of course, as
long as they're tied back to these commands from God.
Because of this, we find a lot more examples of the New
Testament than we ever would in the Old Testament.
And again, Jesus getting into the boat is not a pattern for us
to follow that or that we have to follow.
It's not binding upon us. If you want to get into a boat,
you can do that. So this brings, excuse me.
So this brings us back to the heart of what a covenant is.
The four types of commands are the heart of what God expects in
His covenants. He says here in John 14 verse
15, If you love me, keep my commandments.
So each command in Scripture is either a direct instruction or
one of the the four commands that we have from God on what he
expects of us. If we are going to obey him, he
we show our love to God through obedience in the covenant
relationship with God. God says, I'm going to offer you
salvation. I'm going to offer you a new
life, a new opportunity to a new a new start.
And what do you what do I want in return?
Love me. And you do that by keeping my
commandments. These commandments not only
guide us then, but they also clearly define what sin is.
Because if by by inference we can see that if we love God and
we keep us commandments, then if we don't keep us commandments,
we don't love God, that means that's sin.
We're not showing our love to God.
So what is sin? Scripture teaches clearly that
sin is breaking God's commands. And 1st John 3 verse 4 says sin
is lawlessness, means it is something that was without the
law breaking the law. Someone who is an outlaw is a
law breaker. Paul goes on and explains in
Norman 7 verse seven, I would not have known sin except
through the law. And so when God gives his
covenant, he establishes the laws of the covenant, the rules
of the covenant, the commands of the covenant, and my goal, but
my job as someone who loves God is to obey them.
But there are no rules or laws or something like that.
Then I can't break that law if God had not spoken about it.
So we sin when we break God's commands.
And we do this in two ways. First of all, we do this by
doing things that God forbids. You can think of this as active
disobedience, like when Adam and Eve eight of the fruit, they
were not supposed to in Genesis 3 verse 6.
Or maybe I luckily my oldest is only 7, but I foresee a time
when she may be able to old enough to drive and I say don't
drive the car and she drives the car.
That's active disobedience. She's choosing to disobey me.
Hopefully we'll never have that situation, but that happens all
the time. People have active disobedience
against God. The second way is failing to do
what God has commanded. James taught us in James 4 verse
17. It's just to him who knows to do
good and does not do it to him and his sin.
If you know there's something you should be doing and you
don't do it, then you're also sinning.
There's those general principles about loving God, loving your
neighbor. We're not doing those things
that we are also sitting. And breaking the command, the
covenant that we have with God. So what is sin?
Romans 4 verse 15 says where there is no law, there is no
transgression. Romans 5 verse 13 says sin is
not counted where there is no law.
Without God's explicit commands, we can have no true standard of
right or wrong, because it's not up to you and I to decide what
is right and wrong. It's up to God to set that
standard. You know, Jesus actually
condemned the Pharisees for adding their own rules on top of
what God had given them. In Matthew 15 verse 9, he says
that they're hypocrites. Understanding that sin only
occurs when we break God's commands helps us avoid wrongly
judging others and creating unnecessary We're binding
unnecessary things upon others and ourselves, just like the
Pharisees did. We must never elevate our own
opinions or traditions to the level of God's law.
Only God's commands can define what sin is because sin is
breaking them. So let's look at some examples
to apply this very quickly this morning.
When God gives a command, he knows exactly what he expects.
At the same time, he excludes all other options.
For example, God commanded in the Old Testament priests to
offer in Exodus chapter 30, excuse me, in Exodus chapter 30,
verses one through 8, to offer incense as worship to God.
And they dab and by who? They're very excited to be the
new priests for God. And what do they do?
They sin by offering incense in a way different than what God
commanded. And they actually sinned in two
different ways. First of all, they will use
censors instead of placing the incense of the altar of incense
like God commanded them back in Exodus 30.
And, and secondly, it says they offered strange fire, mean fire
from a source that God had not commanded.
The fire was profane or strange fire, as some translations put
it. Others call this common fire.
It was unholy fire. It was something other than what
God had asked them to offer. It was not until later in
Leviticus 16 that God talked about offering incense on a
censure, and that only happened one day a year, on the Day of
Atonement. And so God had told them how
that he wanted them to offer incense and they did something
different than what God had commanded them and so God
punished them. The Bible talks about that.
They took that fire and they offered it before God and the
fire came out and devoured them. They were burnt up because they
disobeyed God's clear commands. We can apply this to for us
today as well. And Ephesians 5 verse 19 says
speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
Here the apostle Paul specifically identifies singing
music from the voice is what is being offered up.
And he also says making melody. And this word making melody
comes from the Greek word to, to pluck, to pluck something.
And by the time that the Bible was written, the only way that
you know, what was being plucked was by the context of what was
being talked about. So it could be that you have a,
a Carpenter string that you're plucking.
It could be that you have a a bowstring from a bow and arrow
that you're plucking. It could be that you have a
guitar string that you're plucking, or it could be a heart
string that you're plucking. And so he gives this command
about what kind of music we are to have.
We are singing with our voices and plucking our hearts,
plucking our heartstrings for God.
We sing from the heart. This is the only type of musical
worship that God talks about the New Testament, and therefore He
excludes instruments or any other kind of music throughout
the Bible. Every example of sin involves
breaking these commands that we talked about this morning.
Scripture never labels something as sinful unless it violates a
specific command that God has already given or one of those
four types that we talked about. This is such a critical truth
for us to understand. When God commands something, He
excludes everything else that He did not command.
Human traditions or my opinions or your opinions can never carry
the same authority as God's commands.
We also want to note the absence of a command from God does not
give us the right to create requirements like the Pharisees
did, where God had not spoken. And so our goal, our prayer this
morning is to encourage each of us to carefully follow.
Follow only what God commands, nothing more and nothing less.
This morning, this is the foundation, I think, of a
foundation for understanding how to make sense of the Bible.
As I said, there's things we could talk about outside of the
realm that we covered, but this is a good beginning place, a
good foundation so that when you're reading through the
Bible, So what part of this applies to me?
How do I make sense of it? How do I know what I'm supposed
to be doing? How do I find the right church?
How do I know they're doing what they're supposed to be doing?
We can follow this the simple plans, the simple idea that
throughout Scripture God only requires obedience to commands
given in the law of a covenant. So we need to find out, learn a
little bit more about covenants and that's it's other a whole
another series, part of the series.
We need to figure out what God wants from us and then do it
because we love him. That's our goal as Christians.
God has made a promise to each and every one of us on this
planet that if we will be faithful, if we will learn to
love Him and to obey Him, to show our love to Him, that he
will save our souls. He's already done all that was
necessary to do that. He sent Jesus, who was God and
also man, to come and live a a perfect sinful life, sinless
life. Wow, perfect sinless life to die
upon that cruel cross for you and for me to pay the penalty
for our sins. And if we're going to accept
that and accept the covenant that God offers us and enter
into that covenant, that relationship with God, then he
offers us a new life, a new opportunity, our sins to be
washed clean and eternal life with Him.
How wonderful that is, how beautiful that is.
Romans chapter 10 verse 17 says faith comes by hearing and
hearing by the word of God. This doesn't mean that this idea
of faith is so such an interesting idea.
This doesn't mean that I just kind of believe that Jesus kind
of existed, but I get to know him.
I get to know what the Bible says about him.
Hebrews 11 verse 6 says, but without faith is impossible to
please him. For he who comes to God must
believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who
diligently seek Him. There are many people who kind
of like the idea of Jesus, but he says He's a rewarder of those
who diligently seek Him this morning.
The purpose of this lesson is to teach us how to begin to
diligently seek Him. How do I seek Him?
How do I understand Him? How do I apply what He wants for
me? In Acts 17 verse 30, it says
truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands
all men everywhere to repent. That's what God expects us, and
repentance is not that. We have to be perfect today, but
it means I'm not going to try to live in my life for my think so
so the way that I've wanted to. Then my mindset and I'm going to
shift and turn and follow after Jesus and use his mindset and
look at my life through the eyes of God and I'm willing to to try
it his way not and realizing how many mistakes I have made.
And then of course, we need to confess in Matthew 10 verse 32,
Jesus said whoever confesses you before man, I will confess
before my father who is in heaven and I absolutely love
this passage. The idea is that you're standing
before God on the day of judgment, which I am sure is
going to be a terrible, scary thing for everybody no matter
what. And Jesus can be right by your
side saying that's OK, This is my brother, this is my sister.
I'm vouching for you because you vouched for me while we were
here on earth. How wonderful that would be, how
comforting that will be to know that Jesus will be there with
you. In Acts chapter 2, verse 38, the
first gospel servant that was ever preached, Peter told these
men here that they had killed the Messiah that they've been
waiting generations for. And they said, men and brothers,
what shall we do? He says repent and let everyone
of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Jesus Christ for the
remission of your sins. Maybe you've taken these steps,
but you've not been living your life the way that you ought to.
You've been struggling. Life is not an easy an easy game
to win. Life is difficult.
In Revelation 2, verse 10, we are told be faithful unto death
and I will give you a crown of life.
That's all he asked of us. Enter into that covered
relationship and be faithful and God promises you a crown of
life. How wonderful that is.
What a an amazing covenant that you get to have with the Creator
of the universe. If we can help you in either
case, we ask you, please come while we stand and sing the song
of invitation.