Charlie Loften: Hello, and welcome to the Grove Church podcast. I'm Charlie Loften, the lead pastor there, and we are so glad that you're joining us. Whether you are a member and you're just catching up on a sermon that you missed or you're someone who's brand new, we are really glad that you are joining us. And if you are new in some way, and I know that a lot of people will do that, we'll listen to sermons first before they visit. I want you to know that we would love to meet you at any point.
You can join us live in our services on Sunday, nine and 10:30 or our streaming service at 10:30. Either way, we would love to be able to get to know you. And regardless of why you are here listening to this sermon today, thank you so much for joining us.
Charlie Loften: Hey, good morning. If you're new, I'm Charlie. I'm the lead pastor here and really glad that you are worshiping with us today. And I don't know how many of you guys, when you were hearing Melanie give the announcements, were also looking at the slide, but there's a typo on the slide. We will be having zero services on July 2, And we will have one service on July 5.
I don't know. I mean, like, I don't think anybody was actually going to look at that slide and be like, oh, mean, normally we don't meet on Thursday, but all right, here we go. Anyways, next Sunday, just one service 10:30. Again, glad you're here. If you're new, I'd love to meet you in the back afterwards.
Charlie Loften: I a little gift we can give you.
Charlie Loften: We would just love to know that you were here. Any way that we can help you would be great. I feel like I need to update one of my favorite things, little stats. I don't know if stats is the right word. Things about me that I think I like, and you may think, okay, no.
But anyways, so there have been 13 theatrically released Star Wars movies over the course of history, right? And you may be thinking, oh, you're gonna say you've seen them all. I've seen them all. Sure, you've seen them all. But I ask you this, have you seen them all in the theater?
And you're like, well, yeah, yeah, they rereleased some of them. Are you old enough and dorky, geeky, nerdy enough to have seen all 13 movies in the theater during their first release? You got to be committed and old and weird, and I've got all three of those in me. So now there's 13, and I really love it. And it's hard for me to explain this to people who are significantly younger than me.
To be seven years old, and you go see the original Star Wars movie in the theater, I mean, there's never just there's nothing like it. There was just nothing like it. I mean, it was just, it was epic and amazing, and it was just a worldwide cultural phenomenon, and it was great. And you know, you're seven years old, what do you know about sequels or anything like that? You saw a great movie.
I mean, you hear that there may be maybe some other movie coming out, which like, oh, and maybe eventually you hear, actually they're making three. And you know, and there was the weird thing at the very beginning that it starts saying episode four, which was really, really like seven year olds really confused by this, but no, I had a great time. Three years later, I guess now I am nine, and Empire Strikes Back comes out. And you cannot spoil a forty six year old movie. Let's just write that down.
Just write it down, you can't spoil a 46 year old movie. Let me tell you what happens in this movie, right? You find out that the bad guy at least says he is the good guy's dad, which is, that's crazy. That was just crazy. It was crazy to hear it, and you're not sure if it's true.
And then the other good guy got him, Han Solo. They froze him in this metal thing and took him away to the bad guy, and then the movie just ends. 1980, I am almost nine years old, and I cannot believe that that just happened. And then the movie's just over. You're just done.
You're just done. And the next movie comes out in three years. How old? How long is that when you're nine? Three years.
No internet,
Charlie Loften: no rumors. I mean, and there's no rewatching this movie. Hey, pull it
Charlie Loften: up on your VCR. It's like, no, that's how old I am and how old that movie is. No, it was not available for such. And it was an incredibly long three years to just kind of be stuck in
Charlie Loften: what on earth is happening. And I think the thing
Charlie Loften: that I discovered then, which has been known for a really, really long time, when you
Charlie Loften: have three act plays, or you have
Charlie Loften: a trilogy, it is very often that
Charlie Loften: the middle one will end up being the best one,
Charlie Loften: and also at the same time, the most difficult one. Of just like, you're just kind of left suspended. It's kind of
Charlie Loften: like, how is this possibly going to get resolved? Now, we've been working our way through
Charlie Loften: the Old Testament, and we kind of did a couple of movies let's pray, guys. God, I just pray that I get some better sleep, have a good nap, and they can watch first service. Amen. Okay, anyways, that we did a couple of sermons, kind of from the prologue of the Bible, the story of Adam and Eve, story of Noah. We're kind of catching glimpses of just kind of these bigger themes that kind of go all throughout the Bible, and kind of the unfolding of the revelation of God that's going to be kind of culminating in who Jesus Christ is.
And then last week, we kind of looked at the start of the Jewish faith and the Israelite people with the call of Abraham. And God said, I'm going to turn you into a great and mighty nation. You're going to be mine. I just need you to trust me and follow me and go to this place that you don't know about. And Abraham responds in faith and is the foundation of the Israelite people.
And then what happens is, you know, he has a son, Isaac, and God reaffirms the promise to Isaac, and Isaac has these two sons, Jacob and Esau, and God's going to continue the line through the younger son Jacob and reaffirms the promise to him, and Jacob has 12 sons, and really the the family is starting to increase. And through a really cool story that a lot of people might be familiar with, the story of Joseph being sold into slavery into Egypt, and ultimately through God's hand and Joseph's faithfulness, he rises to this position of power and able to save his family from this great famine. And he brings his family to Egypt, and they prosper there very,
Charlie Loften: very well. But they prosper to the point where they become a threat. And as
Charlie Loften: a threat, Egypt ultimately puts their entire nation in slavery. And really, this is kind of this season, that season is kind of the middle act. Like, we had this great promise, and we see this blessing, and then boom, this happens. And the crazy part about this story, and this is really the kind of thing, it's not today's topic, but there's a lot to learn about God, about time, and about the multiple purposes and the things that God's orchestrating all at once because this is a situation they found themselves in for four hundred years to the point to where nobody knew anybody who knew anybody
Charlie Loften: who did not know slavery.
Charlie Loften: And you begin to wonder and question, where is God? Who is God? What does he want from us? I thought we had this relationship. And it is out of that that kind of at least in this, you know, there's several different story blocks in the Bible.
In this particular story block, we we ultimately gonna see the the resolution in the third act with this guy named Moses, and he'll kind of finish the founding of the Israelite people. And Moses kind of raise, he raises Moses up to do this incredible thing. Hey, you're going be the one that I'm going to speak through, and I'm going to use to bring freedom to your people. And a story you probably are familiar with, they've been making movies about this off and on for decades. You know, he comes, he asks Pharaoh to let his people go, he won't, all these plagues come.
Pharaoh says yes, then relents, and Shaddam keeps going back and forth, back and forth, and finally, he lets the people go, but even still changes his mind one more time and chases them out, and then the Israelites are trapped at the Red Sea, the sea parts, they go through it, and then the Egyptian army is overwhelmed, taken out, and now they are free and headed to the land that God has chosen for them. And now on their journey there, they end up in a place called Mount
Charlie Loften: Sinai. This is
Charlie Loften: a mountain where we've already seen a little bit of a story here, where this is this is the same place where Moses encounters God the first time in a story about the burning bush, where God speaks to him and calls him to do this by speaking through this bush that is burning, but what is not consumed, and now they're now they're back. And he basically told Moses this, you're gonna come
Charlie Loften: back and the people are your people are gonna worship here on this mountain. And what we
Charlie Loften: have right here is probably from the Jewish perspective, one of the, if not the most significant theological events that happens in their history. And it is a very even as a as a Christian, like, is it is it is a significant turning point in us really fully understanding who
Charlie Loften: God is, and what does he want from us, and what does
Charlie Loften: it mean for me to be a follower or in a relationship with God? What what what does
Charlie Loften: that what does that even mean? And from their perspective, really, it's a reintroduction. Because
Charlie Loften: at this point, after four hundred years, the stories of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, they've they they're they're slowly working their way towards mythological, and God is reintroducing himself to him and showing this is the sort of relationship that I want with you. And we are gonna be in Exodus chapter 19. We're gonna make our way through most of it, but we're gonna break
Charlie Loften: it down into some smaller chunks. Exodus 19 starting verse one. On the first day
Charlie Loften: of the third month, after the Israelites left Egypt, on that very day, they came to the Desert Of Sinai. After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert Of Sinai, and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain. Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, this is what you're to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to
Charlie Loften: tell the people of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.
Charlie Loften: So there's several things throughout the the Old Testament that we refer to as covenants, but this is really the first one that I feel like that has real kind of covenant commitment to it, covenant level to it. Like up until this point, he made a promise to Noah, not gonna flood the earth again. Made a promise to Abraham, I'm gonna make you a great nation. But really, both of those are, they're not really covenants per se. It's not two people kind of entering into something, it is God kind of doing something for them.
I promise I'm going to do this for you. What we have here is the building of a covenant. And in order for us to really kind of understand, we're have to kind of dive into that word a little bit. It's a very significant word. It is used all throughout the Old Testament, is all throughout the New Testament to kind of describe what our relationship with God is like.
Our relationship with God is not He just says He's gonna do things, it's not just simply promises, and it's not just simply we obey Him, right? It's not this. There's this idea of covenant, and we'll just say it this way, we'll start here, that God is a covenant maker. This is what God does. He makes covenants.
He makes these kind of deep heart spiritual level packs with His people. And to understand this, if you've been to a wedding with a nondenominational pastor or someone like me, you have probably heard some version of this at some point where the pastor gets up and is like, and we're here today to bless this new family, and they're coming together, and they're making a commitment to each other. It's not just a it's not a contract.
Charlie Loften: It's not a contract. It's a covenant.
Charlie Loften: And you're like, okay. I heard this already. Read one Corinthians 13, about love, let's get it over with, let's get them kissing, let's get out of here. Right? I've this already, right?
But it's this idea, this is kind of this deeper idea. A contract is a business relationship. If you do this, I'll do this, and then we can renegotiate the terms, we can cancel the contract, but a covenant, it is a deeper, more relational thing. This is not two corporate entities come together, two business parties come together. This is
Charlie Loften: a heart spiritual deep commitment that God is making to his people, and he's asking them to make the same thing to him. It is far deeper and more relational than
Charlie Loften: what most people think of when they think of what it means to be a follower of God. In fact, I think most of us think of God as He is separate. He is up here. We're down here, and He has established a certain set of rules, and if you follow those rules, then at some point in this life or the next, He will grant you some manner of favor. And in fact, without really this is I don't feel like I'm disparaging this religion at all, That is in fact, I would say, the mainstream interpretation of the way Muslims view God.
There is a huge gap here, and this God, he's a little temperamental. He's distant and a little
Charlie Loften: bit angry sometimes. And he
Charlie Loften: sets out these rules. If you want to demonstrate to me your faithfulness to me, here are the rules, and really they're kind of these main five. And you need to follow these five, and if you do, and you do it well, at the end of your life based on my evaluation of you, and again, this is not disparaging, this just is, And on his particular mood that day, if I feel on that day you have done enough to satisfy me in the mood that I'm in, then I will grant you a certain amount of favor. And we think of a relationship with God in those
Charlie Loften: terms, very functional and very distant.
Charlie Loften: And I'm trying with a measure of ambiguity to appease a God that is not necessarily interested in me, or because of his position and his temperament, demand some allegiance from me.
Charlie Loften: And what God is proposing here is different than that,
Charlie Loften: but I think some of us are still stuck in a system that is more like what I described,
Charlie Loften: that there is a God who, yeah, there's always a distance. He is very different. He is very other. We'll talk about
Charlie Loften: this a little bit more. But he is coming down, at least at this point, here's our understanding. At least at this point, at least to kind
Charlie Loften: of meet us halfway. I am going
Charlie Loften: to bless you if you'll if you'll just if you'll meet me right here, and I'll make this promise
Charlie Loften: to you that it'll be us, me and you.
Charlie Loften: But a cup what does he
Charlie Loften: say he's gonna do? He says he's gonna turn them into a kingdom of priests. What does what does that mean? And I think it's important, as
Charlie Loften: I can think about a priest, there's really kind of two important functions that a priest plays. The first one is the priest has the ability to be the one to interact with God. Right? A priest has direct access to God. Other people don't, priests do.
And so if I want to tell something to God, if I want to give something to God, I have to go through this priest, and this priest who has direct access, he can talk to God. And what God is saying here is, I'm going to turn you into a kingdom of them. All of you will be priests. Now again, they're gonna create a system. It's a not quite fully all the way there yet.
It is not as fully experienced as it will be when Jesus Christ comes later. But we again, we are catching glimpses of what of what God is ultimately gonna reveal in Jesus. I want you to be a kingdom of priests. There's still gonna be a priestly system. There's still going to be limited functions that only the priests within the nation of priests can do.
There's still gonna be some limits there, but even the idea of you as a priest,
Charlie Loften: you have access to God. You do not need an intermediary. You can have access to God. You will
Charlie Loften: be a kingdom of priests, not a kingdom simply with priests, but
Charlie Loften: a kingdom of priests. Not only do you have direct access, but again, as a priest, you are you are you are meant to represent God to those that are not priests. It was their job as a
Charlie Loften: nation of priests to take the message of who this God is and spread it to the world. Again, we just get glimpses of it, hints of it, and the rest of the Old Testament is a
Charlie Loften: a record of their faithfulness to this covenant that God has made with them. But again, we catch glimpses here. This is what he is going to do even more fully through Jesus Christ. More fully through Jesus Christ, he is going to make you, he's gonna make us priests,
Charlie Loften: people who have direct access to God. I have to I I don't need some other person. It can just be me talking to God, and I have a responsibility to represent him to those who do not know him yet. And we do not want to be people who are stuck in a system that predates this, or a system that kind of can perpetuate something very different, this idea of this great distance that cannot be that God is not willing to come down and make covenants with us. There we do not have
Charlie Loften: to live like this anymore. And there are still systems out there that even still operate with this idea that you still need you still need a priest for something. And God, again, is is unfolding this idea. You will no longer need a priest. You will be the priest.
And so this is the covenant that he wants to make with
Charlie Loften: them, and he says he says all this to Moses. Hey, you're gonna tell them tell them they're gonna be my treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. But what is the response? Really, there should only be one response, and we see it here starting in verse seven. So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the Lord had commanded him to speak.
The people all responded together, we will do everything the Lord has said. So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, I'm going to come to you in a dense cloud so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you. Then Moses told the Lord what the people had said. And the Lord said to Moses, go to the people, consecrate them today and tomorrow.
Have them wash their clothes and be ready on the third day. Because on that day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, be careful that you do not approach the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain is to be
Charlie Loften: put to death. They are
Charlie Loften: to be stoned or shot with arrows, not a hand is to be laid on them. No person or animal shall be permitted to live. Only when the ram's horn sounds, a long blast may they approach the mountain.
Charlie Loften: After Moses had gone down the mountain to the people, he consecrated them, and they washed their clothes. Then he said to the people, prepare yourselves for the third day. Abstain from sexual relations. It's a really odd place to for me
Charlie Loften: to stop the passage, but that's where we're that's where we're gonna stop right there. Consecrate yourselves, wash your clothes, clean yourself up, abstain from certain things. This is what this is the response. This is what God wants them to do, and this is what the people decide that they're going to do. We are going to prepare ourselves in some way by making ourselves different, making ourselves our best version, our cleanest version.
We're gonna distinguish ourselves. We're not to in three days is not an ordinary day, it's a special day. And we've been talking about this in summer seminar. I don't know if you've been to one or both of them yet. We've another one tomorrow.
I've been talking about this idea of holiness. And this is what God says. He says, I want you to be, you're going to be a holy nation for me. What does that mean? Well, we'll just start with this, right?
That holiness is the appropriate response to God. This is the appropriate response. This is what they choose to do and how they choose to do it. Now this word holiness over time has really come to mean, in the way that we use it, some sort of moral perfection. A holy person is someone who has a moral character that is better or different than someone else's.
Right? That is how we use it, and words evolve and change over time, which is fine. And that is, catches still a glimpse of what it means, but at its base level, what this word means is to be set apart, to be special, to
Charlie Loften: be set apart for something very different. Like you're going
Charlie Loften: to be a holy nation to me means amongst all the nations, I'm gonna put you over here, and I because I
Charlie Loften: have a special role and purpose for you. Now some of
Charlie Loften: you may do this where you have like a like a special birthday plate. When it's your birthday, you get to have dinner on the special birthday plate. We heard of people doing this. It sounded like a really cool idea. We tried to integrate it into us.
We already have so many traditions and weird quirks. It didn't quite connect. We couldn't quite get in on that one, but it's a really cool idea. Like, you've got this plate, and it just kind of sits there, and it is not used at all until very one special day. It is
Charlie Loften: a set apart plate. Or maybe you have fine China that one day, maybe, maybe,
Charlie Loften: you'll use for on a special occasion, but really it just sits there being special, not you special, just kind of sits there and it's real nice to have. Like to me, I'm I guess, not holy, like to me, I'll use a plastic plate every time. Like to me, the ceramic, the normal day wear ceramic plates, oh, I don't know, I don't know that I'm ever special enough. Just give me a plastic plate. Right?
I'm just a plastic guy. Right? You think about
Charlie Loften: it, you got different sorts of plates, right? Paper plate, plastic plate, ceramic plate, fine china, right? You've got these levels and they kind
Charlie Loften: of have different degrees of
Charlie Loften: specialness, special purpose. Last example. If you've been around here for long enough,
Charlie Loften: you know that I have a tradition that I invented all by myself, that if the Razorbacks do something really great during the week, I will wear a pair of red pants the following Sunday. Right? I just do it. I have never worn these red pants for any other reason than that, except here on a Sunday when the Razorbacks have done something good.
Charlie Loften: So in its most literal sense, those pants are holy.
Charlie Loften: They have a very special purpose to them. They are for this special occasion.
Charlie Loften: And what God is saying is, this is who I want you to be. You are holy to me. Again,
Charlie Loften: from a moral perspective, God is the one who is the most holy, the most separate, and he wants you to be holy too in that sense, to be morally different, to be morally better. But deeper than that, he is also calling for you to be set apart. You have been called to be special, to a unique role, to be a kingdom of priests is what he's telling the Jewish people, And
Charlie Loften: it's just going to unfold and become even deeper and greater when Jesus Christ comes.
Charlie Loften: And he says that we will be his ambassadors, again, set apart from him to be here, to live different, to be different for a special purpose. This is the relationship that God is inviting the Israelites into. And this is what we will now even more fully experience through what Jesus Christ has already done. You know, again, he doesn't say, okay, well, don't don't don't okay, in three days, make sure you don't lie, you don't steal.
Charlie Loften: He doesn't say like, prepare yourself. Prepare yourself. Set yourself apart. Put on your best clothes. Be your cleanest.
Charlie Loften: Again, there is some moral imagery there. Abstain from things that you would do on normal days. Make yourself your best version, because you are going to be set apart, and I need to make sure that you fully understand
Charlie Loften: this role that you have, and it is important for us as well. God has called us. He has
Charlie Loften: set us apart for a purpose, and there's a way that he wants us to live. There's a way that he wants us to think so that we
Charlie Loften: know and we live like people who have been called with special purpose. And what happens on that third day? Verse 16. In the
Charlie Loften: morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning with a thick thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in
Charlie Loften: the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of
Charlie Loften: the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and
Charlie Loften: the voice of God answered him. We talked about this. Right? Like, we're down here, and God is way up here, and there's this huge gap. And so many of us live
Charlie Loften: like this gap is insurmountable, or that somehow if we follow a certain number of rules, we can work our way back. But what happens here? God comes down. Fire and smoke and earthquakes and all sorts of scary things for someone this holy to come down
Charlie Loften: here. And what does he say to him? He don't even don't even don't even put your foot on the mountain at all. Again, it's we're partially there.
Charlie Loften: Not full access yet. A law system and a priest system that still puts limits on them to show them that sin is bigger and more significant than what you think, and a system of laws and a system of priests designed to help them understand that my need for forgiveness and redemption is greater than I can accomplish just by following laws. I can I can never get here? I can't even meet him halfway. God is the one that comes down, And the relationship that Moses has with God is described this way in Exodus 33 verse 11.
The Lord would speak to Moses face to face as one speaks to a friend. Now, literally face to face, God doesn't have a face, he doesn't have a body. You know, in fact, when Moses asked to see him, he God was like, you can't. You can't. Your your eyes, your brain, you couldn't handle it.
You would what that what you could see would kill you. And so face to face is an image here. Again, it's a metaphor, same way it is for us. Like a friend, like a friend. He talked to Moses like a friend.
And we'll end with this. God desires a personal relationship with you. He wants a personal relationship with you. Maybe we've we've lived long enough two thousand years post Jesus death and resurrection that we've probably heard plenty of pastors talk about this. Where it's lost its newness, it's lost its novelty.
But Moses talked to God like a friend, Like someone who came all the way down here to connect with Moses heart to heart, life to life. Not an all powerful deity that needs to be appeased but like a friend. There is a gap. God wants you to be holy but he's holy at a level that you we can't even see. We can't even comprehend.
And he's inviting us into a covenant. He said, I'm going do this and then and then and I need you to do this. But it's still even important for us to understand that even in all of that, that he did, he did the work. He came down. He bridged the gap.
We cannot bridge the gap. God bridges the gap. Because he wants to be your friend like we talked about last week because he wants to be your adopted father. He wants you to be his son. He wants you to be his daughter.
He wants real relationship with you. And I think far too many of us are settling for ordinary religion. Distant God must be appeased, follow his rules, hope for the best. But we see glimpses here of what is going to be fully seen in Jesus. A God who is up here, who is set apart, who is also experiencing the distance between us and him, who comes down so that we can have life and hope and relationship with him forever.
Let me pray. God, I do pray. I pray that we just won't settle. We won't settle for religious practice. We won't settle for a distant God.
But God, that we would would see and understand and experience what life with your son is like, what you offered a glimpse of in Sinai. God, you give to us every day through the work that your son, Jesus Christ, has already done. He came down. He covered the gap. He did the work.
He brought the relationship. And, God, I pray that we will respond to your son in faith, accepting the work that he did for our forgiveness, for our redemption, and the God that we would live a holy life more than a moral life, but a moral life and a set apart life. A life that is different, that is distinct, that is for special purpose that you have called us to. So God, I pray that we will respond in faith and by responding to your call to holiness, to be in a living relationship with you. And as always, we're so thankful for your son who makes it possible, and it's in his name we pray,
Charlie Loften: their lives. And we're we're do we're in our sermon podcast or just another issues of dealing with culture or theology, those kinds of things, you can check out our cultivate podcast. It's on the same feed. However, you found this particular podcast. So again, this is Charlie, the lead pastor at The Grove, and thank you so much for joining us.