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Sometimes rules feel like a restriction from having fun, but what if they're actually designed for us to reach our ultimate purpose?
At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. We're glad you're here, and we hope you enjoy this message.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Hi, guys, and welcome to our new series. How many guys enjoyed last week's sermon? Anybody? Amen. Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I always get a little nervous when it's a new series, and this is my first time, as far as I know, ever teaching through the book of Exodus. And so I have a little bit of more anxiety than normal, but, super excited about what God's gonna do. And and today, I wanna talk about something that we don't think about often in our lives. I wanna I wanna talk about the benefit of rules. And and so we're really living out an experiment in our culture of how far can we go when there are no rules.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And the reality is we're not going very far. And so today, I wanna talk about why you and I still need rules, specifically, listen to me, God's rules. Why we need his rules for life. And I wanna point out something in Exodus chapter 3 verses 10 through 12 that maybe you've missed your entire life. Exodus chapter 3 verse 10 through 12, God says, come, I will send you to pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Now, let's stop there, right? Hey, we're gonna be free. We're gonna party. This is gonna be great. But I want you to understand, God is not calling you to total freedom.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He is calling you to a relationship with Him. And so many people when they're children right? What did you say? When I grow up, I'm gonna do whatever I want. I'm gonna eat well, you know, whatever I want.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I'm gonna eat chocolate bars every day, and some of you have done it. Amen? And how's that working out? Right? And you're just like, I'm gonna throw off all these things that my parents put on me because I wanna do what I wanna do.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I want you to know that it's a bad thing. It's a very, very bad thing. And we live in a world, parents, where kids are being told, Follow your heart. And that is a terrible piece of advice. So God is not calling you to freedom.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's what's wrong with our country. On one coast, we have the Statue of Liberty. Amen? Beautiful statue. You know what's missing in San Francisco?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The statue of responsibility. You can't have one without the other. You can't have total freedom or you will experience what we have, total chaos. So God says, I'm gonna send you to pharaoh so that my people will be let go. But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Total failure at this point. We're gonna get into this next week as we talk about how when you have God first, you're gonna become very best version of yourself. He says, who am I to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? This is the question that we all struggle with. Who am I to be responsible for someone else?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:To be responsible to some, you know, for for something else? This is why so many young people are struggling growing up today. You know, you feel like a child. How can I possibly raise a child? How can I be married?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:These things are very, very difficult. Who am I to bring the children out of Egypt? But God said, listen to this, I'll be with you. I'll be with you. And that's why the first commandment next weekend begins with, is God with you?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The first commandment is have no other gods. And He says, and this shall be a sign for you that I have sent you. Listen to this. God does not call the people of Israel out into just, you know, a weekend in Palm Springs, a weekend in Vegas. He says, But when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You see, here's the difference. Pharaoh forces labor. God, listen to me, invites service. Very, very different. Number 1, God's rules help me put my life in order.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Look at our world. Our world is out of order. We have so many people that never grow up, that never grow out, that never move out. Amen, parents? If you're sitting next to your 4 year 40 year old, I apologize.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But let me just say this. If you're a person, young or old, and this is you, I don't know what to do with my life. If this is you, if you have a friend, a family member, a boyfriend, an ex, amen, they still don't know what to do with their life. If I don't know what to do with my life, listen to this, start with God's rules. It's a great place to start.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It will help you organize your life. One of the reasons Jordan Peterson's book has been so famous, 12 Rules For Life, is our young men and young women don't have any rules for life. And he said, You can build your life around this. You can structure your life around this. And listen to me, Jordan Peterson's book, 12 Rules For Life, one of the greatest books I've ever read in my life, but it's not God's rules.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You see, there's something better than you or I or Jordan Peterson can come up with. You see, God came up with these principles. God came up with these truths. So I wanna challenge you today. Trust God's call on your life.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:God has a call on your life. Moses says, Who am I? No one without God. Who are you? No one without God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You see so many of us, we look at giftedness. I'm not as pretty as her. I'm not as thin as him. I'm not as fit as him. I'm not as smart as them.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Listen, God's not gonna change your gifting. Here's what He changes, your anointing. There's an anointing on your life with God. And it enhances, it builds, and it empowers your gifting. You see, you on your own, you're just your gifting.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You're just your intelligence. You're just your beauty. You're just your thoughts. But with God, there's an anointing, and there's something different there. So if you missed church last weekend, I want you to know that God has been calling you from the very first books in the Bible.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Last weekend, we looked at Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Right? We looked at the first five books of the Bibles and we looked at their names in Hebrew. They're very, very different. Remember, Genesis is Beresheet, in the beginning.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Exodus, right? Shemot. These are the names. In the beginning, these are the names. Leviticus, he called out.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Numbers of what? Of the wilderness, Bemidbar. Deuteronomy, Devarim, to His word. These are the names from the beginning He called out of the wilderness to His word. How is God going to organize your life and how is God gonna change your life?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Listen to me. It says it in the first five books. With His words. With His words. That's how He's gonna change your life.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:What should I do? What should I believe? What should I think? Start with God. Start with God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Start with his rules. Start with his principles. Start organizing your life around the 10 Commandments, and it will change your life. You see, the problem is you make a terrible boss and an even worse God. That's why you need Him.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So trust God's call in your life. God has something for me. This is why so many young people are discouraged, overwhelmed with life, and giving up because they don't know there's a call in our life. They look at social media, they look at the world and they say, what's special about me? What does social media say?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Nothing. What does the world say? Nothing. What does God say? Everything.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You're my child. And I've created you. I've called you by name. So where do you start? You trust God's call in your life and you start with His word.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You start with His word. And I want you to listen to the promise. When I was thinking about this yesterday and I and I was preparing this message for you, I was in tears, absolute tears, because I thought about my life. I thought about being a young man, struggling. And if you're in your twenties, I'm praying for you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's hard. Not knowing what to do, not knowing what I could do. And all I did is I took a step and I said, I'm gonna follow you, God. I'm gonna follow you, God. I'm gonna trust you, God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I'm gonna organize my life long term around your principles today. And who I am today is a result of building my life around the rules of God. I want you to hear what God told Moses. He said, this will be a sign for you. Not what happens today, but what happens when you and the people of God worship me on this mountain.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We're gonna talk about this next week. Listen to me. God is not gonna change your beginning, but he will change your ending if you trust him today. We can't go back. Oh, man.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Does anybody wish we could? Oh, I wish I could go back. You know, my son's like, I'm tired. I'm like, tired? Tired?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:This is as good as it gets. You were at the pinnacle of your human specimen as a man. Tired? Good God. Old people, why does God waste energy on the young?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Amen? Why? Why? You know, they sleep until noon. We had to get up at 4.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Our backs said so. Oh, get up. You've been resting too long. It hurts. So where do you start?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Where do you start? And I think this is where so many people fail. They don't know where to start. I wanna challenge you today, trust God's call in your life and serve God with whatever's in your hands. Moses says, I can't talk.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You got the wrong guy. I'm a mess. I get angry. I kill people. You know, if somebody shared that in an interview, we'd probably not hire them.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Amen? You know, why'd you kill that person again? Okay. You know, go apply somewhere else. But here's the thing.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Moses gives excuse after excuse after excuse. And listen to what the Lord says. Exodus 42. The Lord said to him, what is that in your hand? You know what the answer is?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Nothing. It's just it's just a staff. And God said throw it on the ground. Listen. And He did and his life changed.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:His life changed. Man. And here's the thing is, God transformed that staff into a snake, and it scared Moses to death, do you know what the Lord told Moses to do? Pick it up. What does that mean?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You see, the life that God has for you is scary. Scary. I mean, who in here would not pick up a snake, even if the Lord asked you to? I mean, come on. It's the symbol of evil.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But he does. And when he picks up what he threw down for God, his life is never the same. Some of you, the offering bucket goes by week in week out. I I don't have it. Serve God with what you got.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Put in whatever you have. Well, I don't know how to serve. I don't know how to do. Just go to the church at the end of service and say, where where do you need me? Start there.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Start there. Just start with whatever in your hands. And that's what God wants to do. Number 2, God's rules show me how to enjoy my life. Man, young people today are miserable today, and it drives me crazy.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:My son will say, there's nothing to do. I'm like, There are more movies on your phone than existed in the world when I was a child. Do you understand that? There's nothing to do. You have a computer that you use to send text messages that is smarter than the astronauts had to go to the moon.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Nothing to do. Nothing to do. I mean, think about that. We used to go to movies and what are you showing? Now, it's the shirt showing everything that's ever been made.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Nothing to do. You know why people are bored? They don't have direction. They don't know what to do. They don't know what to do.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Exodus 5:1, after this presentation to Israel's leaders, Moses and Aaron went and spoke to Pharaoh. They said to him, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, 'Let my people go so that they may hold a festival in my honor in the wilderness.' I want you on your notes to look at that word festival. I don't know why church is so boring. I don't know why we think we gotta make it boring. Look, you may not like sandals, never boring.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I don't even know what's gonna come out. Amen? My wife is always like, why do you always say everything that's on your mind? And you know what I say? You have no idea the things I thought that didn't come out.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Now, if you speak Hebrew, forgive me, pronunciation in Hebrew is extraordinarily difficult. This word I've practiced and I've tried. The word festival in Hebrew is yacogoo. Okay? And that's the best I can do.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know, Don't make fun of me, yuckoo on you. Amen? You know what it means? Celebrate. Celebrate.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The Egyptians had kept the Jews in slavery. God says, I wanna give them a holiday and I want them to celebrate. Listen to this, not just to Me, but with Me. Oh my gosh, young people, young people, especially guys, why do you go to clubs? I know what you're gonna do.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You're not gonna ask anybody to dance. You're not gonna get anybody's number. You know what you're gonna do? You're gonna pick a corner and stare at your phone. That's what you're gonna do.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I was gonna be here and be cool, sending out the cool vibe. You know? And ladies, you know what you're gonna do? You're gonna dance in a circle in the middle of the room with all your friends like you don't care, but you do. Everybody knows it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's why you're there. Why are our parties so lame? That's why you drink. You don't wanna be there. You gotta be buzzed to get through the night, amen?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I don't like any of these people. So I'm gonna take it in a toxin called alcohol and show them. We don't have any idea how to have a good time, but God does. God invented celebrations. Matter of fact, you know when God calls His people, He says, You're gonna gather together with me a couple times a year and you're gonna celebrate.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You're gonna hold festivals and feasts, and you're gonna thank God. You're gonna thank God. You see, we need God's rules because they teach us how to play. I wanna challenge you to do something. Just go home and try to play a game and don't have any rules.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Seriously, guys, next time you're playing, pick up basketball with your friends, just grab the basketball and kick it. I'm inventing a new game. If you're playing soccer, scoop it up, run with your hands, just start tackling people. If you're playing baseball, just throw the ball at the hump, see what happens. Just making up rules as I go along.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Rules enable play. How do you know how to win if you don't know the rules? You wanna know why everybody's depressed? We don't know the rules. We don't know if we're playing right.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We don't know if we're playing wrong. We don't know if we're winning. We don't know if we're losing. That's why we're miserable. And the world says, make up your rules as you go along.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Try it. It's horrible. It's horrible. You need rules to guide you. Guys, when you get married, there are rules.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:They're not written down, but there are rules. Nobody tells you these rules, but you need to know them. That's why you're losing. You didn't know there were rules. I have 2 son in laws.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:They tend, young men, ladies, to forget birthdays. And I'm like, young Padawan, come to me. Let me teach you the ways of the force. You know? And my daughters are just like, dad, they're not like you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I go, I know because I suffered terribly under the wrath of your mother for years, and I learned. I got those gifts in advance, baby. That card is already handwritten and ready to be delivered. Man, I got cards for Tammy when she turns 80. I'm ready.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Ready. But there are rules. There are rules to relationships. There are rules to friends. This is why some of you guys don't have any friends.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You don't know the rules. Oh, I can't just say whatever I want. Well, you can, but you'll be alone. You ever met somebody? They just they just you know?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I mean, people tell me all the time, I don't like your outfit today. I don't like you. But Jesus says I have to love you. Listen to what Jesus said in John 10:10. This is out of the message translation.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Jesus is speaking. He said, I came so that they can have real and eternal life. Listen to these words. More and a better life than they ever dreamed of. What if your life today is a nightmare compared to the life that God has for you?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And you're like, what is it, Pastor Matt? Start following His rules. Some of you, you've been playing the game of life and you keep losing because you're playing the wrong rules. Now I love my wife, man, but she loves games. Like I love to play games.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:She loves games. We went on Christmas break. She bought a new game to play every day over break. Like that's fun like 2 days in a row, then it's just annoying, amen? It's like, okay, look.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But she loves to play games. And so she got me hooked on this game called King Domino. I don't know if anybody's played this game, but it's a fantastic game. I love it because it's super quick. It's low level commitment.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Amen? You know? And so we love to play it. It takes about 10 minutes. It's it's a lot of fun, and we play it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so we went to Israel last summer with a big group from our church. And so we were telling everybody about this game, and we were playing it in front of a group of teenagers from our church. And they were all getting weird. They were getting quiet and they were watching Tammy and I play. And I could I could tell they were discussing something amongst themselves, you know.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I said, what's going on? What what's going on? And nobody wanted to say anything. And so finally, one of the boys, it was one of Matt Cash's sons. Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So, you know, Matt Cash is a worship leader and so he's trained his children to speak their minds. And so one of one of his sons says, you're playing the game wrong. And we 10 are like, what? He's like, no. You're you're you're not playing it right.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He goes, at all. And then he asked the most convicting question. He said, did you guys read the instructions? We didn't. We learned the game from someone else who also did not read the instructions.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And then he starts to show things and tell me, we're like, that makes so much sense. Oh my gosh. We've been playing the game wrong. Some of you have been playing the game of life wrong, and you're losing because you're like, god, I'm just gonna make up my own instructions. I don't need directions.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And God's like, Fine. Wander in the wilderness. You see, God's not gonna save you from yourself until you ask him. Number 3, God's rules provide me with restraint for my desires. You wanna know why the world believes you can just follow your desires?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Because they don't know God's rules. I wanna encourage you to do something I never thought I'd say. I want you to watch a Disney movie. And if you have kids, I want you to watch it with your kids. The movie is Pinocchio.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Now it's not the new movies that Disney makes now where you just follow your heart and you do whatever you want. It's the old movies, the good movies, where you were scared to death and you probably shouldn't have taken your children. You know? I mean, let's take our children to, you know, a movie where there's a whale, you know, talking crickets and everyone gets turned into an ass. Right.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's fantastic. Enjoy the popcorn. But listen to me. Listen to me, parents. Pinocchio does not want to listen to his conscience.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The cricket. He does not want to listen to his father and go to school. So what does he do? He follows the other boys at the encouragement, listen, of the coachman who drives all the boys where? To Pleasure Island, where he has turned into a donkey and becomes a what?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:A slave. You see, the Jews just weren't in physical slavery. They were in spiritual bondage. And we find as soon as they get away from pharaoh, they don't know how to get away from themselves. And they all become slaves.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I feel so bad for the people in our world who just believe everything their peers are encouraging them to do. Listen to me, dads, moms, sit down, especially with your boys, preferably before puberty. There's a better chance they'll listen. Watch the movie. Talk about it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Why? Because we all have desires that will make us slaves. All of us. All of us. I was watching a documentary of a young woman who's detransitioning.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:She transitioned from a woman to a man and now she's transitioning back to the way God made her. Now if you're a trans person, I love you. This is not judgment, this is a warning. She was weeping with tears. And here's what she said.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:She said, no one told me I would be a slave to the pharmaceutical company for the rest of my life. You see, because God makes boys and God makes girls, and the pharmaceutical companies can mask that, but you are their puppet now. And she began to weep. She began to cry. Because at the age of 22, she's now going through menopause at 22 because we live in a world that says follow your heart.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's not what God said. God did not say, Moses, follow your heart. Moses' heart led him to murder an Egyptian. God says, follow me, and I'm gonna change your heart. Man, I love this verse, Proverbs 2918, Where there is no prophetic vision, people cast off restraint.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The King James version says this, Where there is no vision, people perish. People perish. You see, what we've done in our society is we've cast off the prophetic vision. We've said there is no God. And it's unfortunate because right when the world's figured out there's no God, science is going, I think we got this wrong.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Do you understand what science is now defining the cosmos as? A divine intelligence, a consciousness. Yeah, oops, bummer, we blew it. You see, science is just catching up to God and we say, Believe science. No, no, no, believe in God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He said when people cast off restraint, when they don't have prophetic vision, they're lost, they're broken. And so this is why the King James version translates it, they perish because the next part of the sentence says, but blessed is he who keeps the law. Well, I don't I don't want rules, pastor. I want a relationship with God. The rules teach you how to have a relationship.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You see, every single one of us has passions that will destroy us. Your passion for security, oh, I just gotta make enough money. I gotta provide for my family. Your passion for security will cause you to overwork. The Sabbath calls you to stop.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Why did God have to tell you to stop? Because you can't do that on your own. One more deal, one more dollar, one more day. You see, this is the great lie in our culture. Everybody wants to go from a 5 day work week to a 4 day work week to a 3 day work week.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Listen to me. Your work is not a problem. It's that you never stop and rest and connect with God. That's the problem. Our society never stops.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:How many of you are more tired after you had a day off? That was fun. I wanna go back to work so I can rest. How about this? Your desire to be liked will lead you to lie.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You see, I gotta I gotta get more followers. I gotta get more likes. So So I gotta be something I'm not. Even though I'm a Christian, I'm gonna be fake on my social media presentation. Thou shall not lie.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Your need for physical intimacy will lead you to lust. Don't commit adultery. Don't. Listen to me, parents. I got some bad news for you, especially if you're raising boys.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Are you ready for it? This is scary. If you're raising boys, a young man in his early twenties has the same level of impulse control as a 10 year old girl. That's fun. I was talking to a friend of mine who's a coach for college, and I told him that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And he was like, yeah, it makes me wanna quit. I said, I know. I know. Like, if you're a coach and, yeah, they're in college, you should know better. They're 10 year old girls.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But listen to me. We're losing men because we aren't raising them. Ladies, you're doing great. You're doing too well. Stop.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Let us catch up. Judges 21/25, in those days, there was no king. Does America have a king? Nope. And what do we have?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:350,000,000 kings and queens. And what happens when that happens? Then everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Do you know that's the last verse in the book of Judges? Some of you, you read through the book of Judges, you're like, oh my gosh.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I can't believe this happened. God agrees with you. He can't either. He can't either. There's a story in the book of Judges where a a Levite priest cuts up his concubine, not his wife, his concubine into pieces and mails her to all the tribes of Israel as a statement of how bad things have gotten.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Look at our country. Look what's happened to those beautiful girls and that boy in Idaho. Cut up for what? Because we've run from god. You see, you say we don't need god's law, but god's the one who said, thou shalt not kill.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Thou shalt not kill. You see, a lion does not feel guilty when it eats the lamb because a lion is not god's son, is not god's daughter, but you are and he's called us to be different. Here's why you need God's rules. God's rules teach me how to connect with him. So many people say, no, no, no, no.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I'm under love, not law. I follow Jesus, not the old testament. Listen what Jesus said. This is out of the message. Mark chapter 12, verse 29.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Jesus said, the first and more most important commandment is this. They were asked, what is the most important commandment? There are 613 commandments in the Jewish law. What's number 1? Jesus says this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The first in importance is this. Love the Lord your God, or the Lord your God is 1. So love the Lord your God with all your passion, with all your prayer, with all your intelligence, and with all your energy. Now, I know it's a little different than the translation you're used to, but I want you to hear it translated into modern understanding. And here's the second, love others as well as you love yourself.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He says there is no other commandments that rank with these. But I want you to listen to me. The 2 commandments that Jesus gave do not make the 10 irrelevant. They show us their intent. It's not love over law or law over love.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's both. It's both. Some of you say, well, we have an open marriage. No, no, no. You don't have a marriage.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:There's no such thing as an open marriage. Marriage by definition is closed. It's us 2. And you need to understand this. God is not looking for a relationship where you date other people.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He is looking for a covenantal marriage with you. And he's saying, here's how we're gonna relate to each other, and here's how you love me. Oh, love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. How do you do that? Well, you have one God and no others.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Ladies, how many wanna be married to a man that has another wife? You wanna share him with another woman? God doesn't wanna share you with anyone else. Number 1, you shall have no other gods but by me. That's how you love him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You make him number 1. And if he's number 2, he's not any of those things. Next, you don't worship things no matter how awesome they are. God's a good God, so he's created a lotta awesome stuff, but it's not God. And we all we all these stupid people running around.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Mother Nature's really mad. Mother Nature is not a mother. She's not. God has created creation. He is not in the creation, he exists outside of it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And by the way, if you read the Bible, mother nature's been dangerous since the beginning. Genesis 1:2, the world was wild. And so the Holy Spirit began to carve out a place for us to be here in this nutty place. You see, if you have law without love, you become cruel. Look at Christianity for about a 1000 years.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I don't care if you're Catholic or reformed. We were evil. Evil. That's what happened to the Catholic church. That's what happened to the Reformed church.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We became more about law than we were about love. Now what we've done is we say, woah, we gotta learn that lesson. We gotta throw all the rules out. No, no, no, no, because now what we have is love with no rules. You see, when you have law without love, you become cruel.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Listen to me. But if you have love with no rules, you'll go insane. You'll go insane. Be married to someone you can't count on, you can't trust. You don't know whether they're coming or going.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You don't know if you're number 1 or number 10. Try a relationship like this. Somebody like, I did, pastor. Well, don't do it again. Try God because you can count on him.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Romans 128 says this, And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind. You wanna know why the world is going nuts? Because we're going ourselves without God. And then they did what? To do those things which are not proper.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Not proper. You see, the rules of God instruct us how he wants to be loved. I wanna be number 1. I don't want you worshiping stuff and I don't want you to be fake. Don't go around using my name.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And by the way, one day a week, would you devote to me? Could you do that? You see, God wants to be loved as the only God. God doesn't wanna share you with idols. God does not want his name to be misused.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And God just wants a day. And some of you can't even do that, just a day. Anybody ever notice, though, the 10 Commandments only 4 have to do with God and 6 have to do with people? Anybody ever noticed that? You wanna know why?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You see, God's rules tell me how to deal with people. You know why that is? God's easy. God is easy to please and people are hard to love. Amen?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:People are hard to love. 2 Thessalonians 3:1-two. When I first became a pastor and I was struggling with some really difficult people in our church, an older pastor pulled me aside and he shared this verse with me out of the King James version. And I like it best in the King James because I think it speaks to, some of your cold hard hearts. 2nd Thessalonians chapter 3 verses 1 through 2.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Finally, brethren, pray for us. Pray for me. Listen to what Paul says in the King James, that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men. For not all men have faith. You know he's talking about the church?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He's not talking about people outside the church. He's talking about people inside. This is how the message translates it. 2 Thessalonians 3:1 through 2, the message: And pray that we'll be rescued from these scoundrels who are trying to do a sin. I'm finding out that not all believers are believers.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Isn't God's word good? Yeah. People are tough. People are difficult. Do you know why the first commandment towards others is honor your father and mother?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:They're not always easy to honor, are they? Except, of course, my mom and dad. They go here. What's the next verse? Thou shall not kill.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Some of you are thinking about that today. Don't lie. Don't covet. You see, it's really, really difficult to deal with people. The law isn't just a restraint for me, it restrains society.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:No matter how much I don't like you, I don't kill you. We honor our seniors, our our our mothers, and our fathers. We don't put them in homes. We don't lock them away. Right?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We care for them. We we've lost that. We don't lie to one another, but we speak the truth in love. That's what we do. We're losing this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We we don't get caught up in coveting how somebody else looks or what somebody else has, but we stay grateful and focused for what God's given us. You wanna be miserable? Compare yourself to everybody else for the rest of your life. It's a recipe for disaster. That's why God said, quit looking at everybody else.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Look at me. Look at me, God said. Because your true reflection is not found on Instagram. It's found in Jesus. Number 6, God's rules reveal my need for a savior.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Here's why you need these rules. You really need to try to work at them. You really need to strive to do them. Because God's law does not save us. It exposes us.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Oh, wow. That's what it does. That's what it does. This week, I woke up. Tammy and I were having a discussion.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It was something like I need to be a better husband. I don't really remember. But one of the things that my wife is really, focused on is tone. And then you can imagine with my personality, words just kinda fly out there sometimes, and they don't always come out with the right tone. And so I woke up in the morning, and I was like, today, lord, I'm gonna watch every single word I say.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:My memory verse for the year is, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, my lord, my rock, and my redeemer. And it's not helping at all. It's not that the verse isn't powerful. It's not that the verse isn't inspired. It's not that the verse isn't God's word.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The problem is my heart. The day after we talked about it, the day I'm memorizing it first. Jesus Christ is my savior. The spirit is in my soul. And we're talking about tone because no matter how hard I try, I'm a sinner.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Galatians 324 says this, So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Anybody that's serious about the law is gonna become serious about grace. It's why Martin Luther, the great Catholic priest who started Lutherism said, It's by grace alone. I can't do it. And I believe him.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I've read some of the stuff he wrote. You think I got a tongue problem? Read that guy. Jeez. I mean, he would go on cussing tirades.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Sorry if you're a Lutheran, but it's true. I'm just working on tone, man. But listen, the Apostle Paul, a devoted follower of the law, a Jew amongst Jews, dedicated to the law, transformed by Christ, spirit filled, leader of the church, author of 13 books in the New Testament. This is how he ended his life and one of the last letters he wrote to a young pastor named Timothy. This is a trustworthy saying and everyone should accept it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I am the worst of them all. You see, the closer you get to God, the closer you're gonna get to the reality of your sin. Now here's the good news. God is a better lover than you are a sinner. You see, that's why we need the law and the love.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You see, the law guides us but you know what it shows us? We can't do it. And so what do we need? We need our Father's love And he does love you, so he sent his Son to die for you on the cross so that he could save you. He said, but God had mercy on me.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You see, the church forgot mercy for almost a 1000 years. We got dark, we got ugly, we got nasty, we killed each other. We killed each other. Oh, you want to be baptized by immersion? I'll drown you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's crazy. You know some of us in Europe, if we believe what we believe today about Christianity as Sandals Church, we would have all died. Do you know that? We would we would have died at the hand of other Christians because of what we believe today. Our tradition is Anabaptist because we believe that you should be baptized when you believe, not when you're a baby.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And we were killed for that, hunted for that. What happened? The church forgot mercy. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of what? His great patience, even with the worst sinners.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You wanna see an exercise in patience? Just follow me with the life of Moses. That dude almost gets killed by God on every Tuesday. Then others will realize that they too can believe in him and receive eternal life. We should not be self righteous, but God's love should be self evident in us.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:These laws, these rules are simply here to help organize your life and remind you of where you fall short. That's their purpose. And let me just say this, they're not for everyone else. God did not give these laws to the world. He gave these laws, listen, to his people, To his people.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:What we need to do as a church is stop expecting our neighbors, our friends, and our family members who do not know Jesus to live this way. He hasn't called them to live this way. He's called us. And we enter into a covenant with him where we say, Lord, we will follow you. We will live like this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We have been called by name out of the wilderness to follow Jesus. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, in the mighty powerful name of Jesus, let us as a church organize in this next few weeks our lives around these ten rules that are so needed today. God, let us learn these old rules so that we can learn to live the new life you've called us to live in Christ. Convict us where we need to be convicted.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Lord, inspire us where we need to be inspired. And Lord, let us find mercy where we need mercy. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Amen. Thank you so much for taking time to watch this content. It is my prayer and and really my mission in life to help you further your relationship with God, building an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ and ultimately yourself, and I pray with other people around you. If this content is doing that, I wanna invite you to move from being someone who watches content to someone who becomes a partner with us in developing this content. And the primary way you can do that from where you are is to donate today.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You can go to donate dot s c. And here's you know, if you're like me, I wonder where does my money go? Well, here's the one thing I want you to know about us. We're not just an online platform. We actually have 14 physical campuses that are all across California that meet in in just a myriad of different socioeconomic cities.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And in some of these cities, there's somebody that's struggling. Single moms, kids that can't afford to go to camp, kids that can't have an opportunity to get a backpack or something like that for school, and your money helps us to meet those needs right where they are. So what I would encourage you to do today is just pray about and say, God, what do you want me to do? And whatever God says, that's what I would encourage you to do. Because the Bible says God loves a hilarious giver, somebody who wants to give, somebody who's encouraged to give, and that's my prayer for you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so I just wanna thank you for praying. And for those who pray and feel led by God to give, I wanna thank you for giving because here's the thing. If there are no givers, there's no Sandals Church ministry. We we can't do ministry without the generosity of the people who are blessed by this ministry. So I just wanna say thank you so much, and God bless everybody who's furthering their authentic relationship with Jesus.