Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Deuteronomy 14
Pastor Tuuri, Reformation Covenant Church

Well, not your typical Advent sermon text or Christmas text. And yet, one that’s very interesting, isn’t it? I hope it’s interesting to you. We’ve talked about the Ten Commandments as really ten words. That’s the Hebrew term that’s used about them. It never calls them the Ten Commandments or refers to them as the Ten. They are commandments. They contain commandments, but they’re words to be meditated on as well.

We don’t want to lose on the one hand the command force of the ten words to us. This is still the way in which we should walk. This was never the establishment of life by keeping this law. This was the law given to a people who had been redeemed graciously by God. And many times we get that all mixed up in our thoughts. We’re not saved by lawkeeping, either ours or the Savior’s. The law is given to a saved people.

We’re in relationship with Christ through faith. And as people who have been redeemed and are marching toward the promised land, the text in front of us reminds us that in a particular time in history, these were the right way to live. And you know, as we look at this text, one of the first things we’re reminded of is the very personal nature of how God’s people have to live. The details of your diet are controlled by God.

Now, we have good reason for knowing that this side of the cross these distinctions are done away. But at that time, these distinctions were real and necessary. And to walk in the spirit was to not eat certain things and to be able to eat other things. So if you think about it, there’s nothing more fundamental or mundane as eating. It’s what we do all the time. And God places his stamp of ownership over it.

And if we see this in terms of the third commandment, then that causes us to meditate on things as well. There’s a relationship here to what it means to be the people of life, to be the people who carry God’s word, not emptily, but with fullness of a witness. And this would have to do with their witness as a lifegiving people and specifically as a priestly people as well. There’s some interesting things to meditate on this text.

We won’t take great time to do this, but you know, this is a text that just kind of says think about this, right? Consider this. Go, “Hm. Wonder what all that means.” Let me give you another interesting aspect to think about in reference to it. And that is it seems like there are two basic prohibitions. And the first prohibition is cutting yourself. This is specifically about what reminds us of the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal who cut themselves and called upon their god. And if you think of the life of Elijah and his servant Elisha, you know, a lot of these verses kind of come to mind. Food is a big deal in the stories of Elijah and Elisha. And as we said, this connection also to cutting is a big deal in the time of famine when the withdrawal of life from God and God’s provision of life miraculously or providentially food to Elijah and Elisha creating food for others.

There’s just you know some associations that we would make between this text and the Elijah narrative that would come naturally to mind as we think about the scriptures. And now Elijah happens in the context of the empire. And what I’ve tried to say is that these first three commandments kind of flow in terms of the history of God’s people in the original tribal period they were tempted to worship or to serve other gods or forces of nature and then in the kingdom period they were tempted to take the worship of God and blend that with idolatry—liturgical idolatry, worship idolatry through the northern kingdom particularly but then it also happens down in the south and then in the empire period this is when the great need is stressed to bear full witness of God because as you’re taken into captivity and you live in empire, you’re tempted not to bear full witness.

So each particular period of Old Testament history sort of connects up with the flow of these commandments. We can even think of it in terms of the flow of the opening books of the Bible. Genesis, God’s most powerful. Exodus, establishing worship and mediation. Leviticus is all about how to bear God’s name properly and then Numbers is about them moving into the promised land and conquering Sabbath day enthronement.

So there’s a sense in which the first four books of the Bible track these first four commandments which are basically a unity. So as we have correct relationship to the Father, to the Son, to the Holy Spirit we enter into Sabbath enthronement. Now they didn’t have correct relationship to Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the wilderness. So Numbers ends a little differently. And Deuteronomy has to retell the whole story.

But that’s the flow of how things work. You know, we move in terms of recognizing God as the great ruler over all rulers. We worship God through the mediation of the Son. And from that worship, we bear the name of the Spirit. As we move into the world, as we go forward to conquer the promised land, we do so as Spirit-empowered bearers of the name of God. We’re Christians. We’re little Christians, little Christs, anointed ones going into the world bearing his name on us.

You know, that third commandment doesn’t say don’t speak God’s name in vain. It doesn’t say that. It says don’t carry his name in vain. Nasa means to carry. And we went through this last, our last sermon on this text. So, there is this flow of the commandments that we don’t want to miss and which I were reminded of today. And as I said, when we sang, “Oh, come O come Emmanuel,” we have this flow of history.

And it’s very important to see that we live in the times defined by the New Testament as times when Jesus has come to bring about the great restoration from exile to bring about the great resurrection, death and resurrection, and as a result create a people who are to carry his name into all the created order, transforming it. So, we’re in this kind of third commandment stage as it were and particularly in the context of the culture in which we live which are times of empire and lots of different people and lots of different perspectives out there it is incumbent upon us to be a people of life a people who have a fully empowered Spirit-empowered carrying of Christ’s name into everything that we do and Moses’ sermon is kind of a this portion of the sermon is a reminder that means everything That means you know what you do in terms of mourning a very private activity or public activity if you just want but still something in terms of that and then secondly in terms of the very details of life in terms of food.

So that’s interesting that those are the two big deals that are talked about and that’s it with either verse 21 or verse 22 depending on how you interpret the break of the passage. We move on to the fourth word stuff. So this is it two simple prohibitions and spelled out in some detail, but two simple prohibitions. And so they’re important for us to sort of recognize what’s going on. And there’s kind of a, you know, the food laws are described, if you noticed when we went through them, in terms of the triple-decker universe.

These are the kind of land things you can eat and which ones you can’t eat. And these are the things in the sea that you can eat and not eat. And this is the stuff in the heavens you can eat and not eat. And so there’s this comprehensive, you know, God’s relationship to not just, you know, other people, our relationship to the entire created order kind of comes front and center with this three-fold designation of these things.

And these things are said in the context of our designation of who we are. We’re holy to God. And that’s kind of the bookends of this threefold, three-decker view of what we can eat and can’t eat in terms of where these things live. So, it’s kind of a comprehensive relationship to all of life. No matter where we’re at or what it’s represented to us as being based upon who we are. We are those who are holy to the Lord.

We carry the Lord’s name in holiness and in life and that’s what we’re supposed to do. So the first word, the third word rather is about that and this text kind of reminds us of that basic idea that no matter what we’re doing, we’re to be people of life. That is the other thing that’s going on here, right? As we read through the text. Hopefully, you sort of recognize that death and life are sort of what’s going on. We’ll talk about that as we go through it.

But let’s look then first at the first section in this and as I said on your outlines, it’s got wearing or carrying the name means living in wholeness as model images of God. So, we’re to have integrity. It’s both sections are about our bodies, right? What we do to them on the exterior and what we put on them in terms of the interior. So the third word has to do with our bodies in which we’re to carry to be images of God who brings life to the world.

But there are two sections. So let’s talk about the first section a little bit. Wholeness itself as God’s image. And this next part of the outline comes directly from James B. Jordan’s book on covenant sequence in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Okay. But I think it’s good to see the structure that’s given here. First, who we are. So, first of all, we’re told, you are the children of the Lord your God. So, you’re identified.

This is who you are. You’re the children. You bear the name of the Father. You bear the image of the Father. This is who you are. And then there’s a stipulation. The stipulation is don’t deface God’s image for the sake of the dead. Because you’re a child, an image bearer of the Lord your God, you shall not cut yourselves nor shave the front of your head for the dead. So here again, it’s explicitly about mourning for the dead.

And we talked about this a little bit back when we were talking about tattoos before, but here explicitly the cuttings or the shaving of the forehead. And you know, you think, well, they must have been a lot hairier in their forehead. No, it really refers to this section of the head, not just the forehead, but up into the scalp as well. And they weren’t to cut that for the dead, shave it off, nor were they to cut themselves.

And so there’s an integrity of bodily image that is to be who what we are doing as carriers of the name of God. But notice the association with the dead. We are people of life and there are people of death and we’re not supposed to image or reflect death in who we are. And so if we cut ourselves, we’re living but life is flowing out of us. It’s like we’re little, you know, when you cut yourself for the dead, which was a common custom throughout history.

It’s a little bit of death. It’s taking upon yourself death in your mourning for the dead person. And God says, “Don’t do that. Don’t take upon yourself death. You’re a people of life. You don’t mourn like the way the world mourns because you know that life is what it’s all about. So you can’t have these little images of death in either shaving your head or in cutting yourself.” So, and then this is followed with the statement of the closure is that you are holy to Yahweh for you are a holy people to the Lord your God.

Now verse two, you know, there’s no verse break in the original text of course and so the idea here is that rounds off the section 2A. You’re a holy people to the Lord your God. So that’s the first prohibition. The second prohibition is introduced as well by a statement of who you are. The Lord has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all nations, above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

So again, there’s an identification of who we are first and foremost, and then there’s a designation of what we’re supposed to do, and then there’s the closure that we’re the people of God, holy to God. So, it’s the same thing. One last thing about before we move on from the cutting yourself or shaving your head, remember what’s going on when these laws are given. The Mosaic covenant establishes a distinction between the Jews and Gentiles.

And it doesn’t say that you have to be a Jew to be saved. It says that the Jews are the priestly nation to the other nations. They have to wear particular things. They have to look particular ways as witnesses to the Gentiles. And so, you know, priests in the law couldn’t have physical impediments. You know, they couldn’t be blind or lame or whatever it is. They were to be pictures of integrity and the wholeness and livingness of who God’s representatives are.

So in the same way, while these are the people, they’re not the priests being spoken of. They’re the priestly nation and they have to have some degree of bodily integrity as well. So part of it is God establishing a priestly people for himself that are an image of the true high priest to come, the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, you know, priests, a priestly nation has to have particular food designations as well.

Again, who they are. They’re chosen and separated by Yahweh. So, we have the theme of adoption. We’re children. Now, we have the theme of election and being treasured by God, being the objects of his love. So, this is who we are. And as a result of who we are, you can’t just eat any old thing you want to eat in this particular period of time. You don’t eat detestable food or anything. anything that’s dead and then the closure is you’re holy to Yahweh again.

So, you know, notice here that God first of all identifies who they are. and then gives a couple of stipulations that we could meditate on these things. We’re not going to but in terms of land animals, there were two requirements. hooves that are split and chewing the cud. And why? Well, we don’t know why. The Bible doesn’t really tell us why. You can meditate upon it. Some people think that the hooves had to raise you up off the ground.

You had to have hooves of some sort because the ground is cursed. Maybe the splitting of the hooves is an indication that there’s a division that’s created that’s in place until the coming of Messiah. The Jew-Gentile division that the law established is really a picture of the division of humanity that starts in the fall. Adam and Eve are different, but they’re not divided until sin enters the picture.

And once sin enters the picture, now human relationships are fractured. And that fracture of relationships is being pictured. I mean, among other ways, the establishment of the bipolarity of Jews and Gentiles. Doesn’t mean that Gentiles couldn’t be God-fearers and saved. They could be, but there was a distinction. The hoof had to be split. because the world is split until Jesus comes. Who’s going to bring humanity back together?

We just sang about that wonderful truth in one of the songs we just sang that Jesus creates peace. Heaven and earth, Jew and Gentile, male and female. Male and female are still somewhat distinct, but the kind of division that had happened before and sinful rending of relationships is done away with by the coming of Messiah. So, you know, I don’t know, but that was one of the requirements is the split hoof and the chewed cud.

And now look at specifically if you would at verse 8 or the end of verse 7. So he says those that chew the cud but don’t have cloven hooves they are unclean for you. And then verse 8 also the swine is unclean for you. There’s nothing metaphysically wrong with pork flesh. There’s nothing metaphysically wrong with animals that didn’t divide the hoof or chew the cud. He says explicitly they’re unclean for you.

For you. Okay? And that’s very important. And also very importantly in verse 8 it says don’t eat their flesh or touch their dead carcasses. So somehow there’s an association with death. Just like the morning ritual is an association with death. Here the problem is association with death and what you eat. And you have to be disassociated from death because you’re a picture of life to the people that you’re going to be as a priestly nation too.

So again with the water animals, you got fish and scales, two more things. And again, we’re described in verse 10 that these things that don’t have fish and scales, tasty good things like shrimp, etc., which are perfectly fine to eat. It says these things, these shrimp at that time are unclean for you. They’re not unclean ultimately and eternally. They’re unclean for you. He says very explicitly, right?

And then in verse 21, you shall not eat anything that dies of itself. Okay, so again, this is kind of, you know, summing it up at the end. And the problem with these foods that he’s getting him to eat is they reflect death. Uncleanness is a reflection of the fall, as we’ll talk about in a couple of minutes. And the things that reflect death somehow in the context of eating things, you can’t have to do with And even a clean animal that dies of itself hasn’t been bled.

The blood hasn’t been removed from it. You can’t eat. So death is the problem here. And God’s people are to be a people of life in association with death is bad. So it says that in verse 21, you shall not eat anything that dies of itself. But look what the rest of what it says. You may give it to the alien who is within your gates that he may eat of it or you may sell it to the foreigner. Now, if the food is bad for you healthwise, right, people say this, well, shrimp are just unclean animals.

You shouldn’t eat them because they’re bad for your health. That’s the rest of these unclean stuff. So we’re going to continue to clean unclean distinction because they’re based on health. It can’t be based on health. God wasn’t trying to poison the aliens, the Gentiles who weren’t Jews who came to the land because of the great blessing that God had given to those people. What a weird deal that would be, right?

There’s no indication of that. the text, we only start thinking such strange things and we don’t look at the particular details of the text. These things aren’t eternally unclean. They’re unclean for you as the priestly nation. It’s okay for the nations you’re ministering to, the alien, the god-fearing Gentile who is moved to be in your context where great things and the word of God is so readily available.

He can eat pigs. You can’t. And the foreigner, you can sell it to the foreigner who’s going through. Why? Because you want to kill them? No. The whole point is this is a special dietary restriction on a priestly nation. And once the true priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, has come, the dietary restrictions are gone. God tells Peter very explicitly in the book of Acts, eat these unclean things. I don’t eat the unclean things, Peter says.

God says, what I’ve cleaned, don’t call unclean. God reveals very explicitly for us, as if we couldn’t read it already, that this bipolarity of priest non-priestly nation. This Jew-Gentile distinction, this permanent picture until Messiah came of the division of humanity. This was going to be done away with when Jesus comes and fulfills that covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, and does away with ceremonial observations of the priestly people.

He doesn’t do away with the Sabbath. I hear this. I heard this last night sitting around the fire. Well, things like the Sabbath and dietary laws and so forth are the same. No, the Sabbath predates Moses. Okay. What Moses adds to ceremonial observations are lunar festivals, yearly festivals, etc. Those things were special for the priestly nation. Those are the things that are gone with the coming of Christ. Dietary restrictions, etc.

These things are set up after the fall. The Sabbath is established before the fall. It transfers. It’s transformed. But you know, the reason why you’re here today is the fourth word. Do you know that? It says commemorate deliverance. In order to do that, you got to get together with God’s people on God’s day and commemorate deliverance. Do away at the fourth word. I think you lose just about any requirement you have where people have to go to worship at all unless you just want to assert the power and authority of the elders.

Strange basis. Well, anyway, getting back to the text. So, so the point is here is that this distinction is going to be done away with the coming of Christ. But for now, this is the distinction because you are a holy people to God. Now, we’re going to deal with the kid boiled in its mother’s milk in about a month or so when we start the fourth word sermons. Okay. Some people think it belongs with this third word.

Some people think it belongs with the next word. I’m kind of opinion next word. I’ll treat it that way. Although a good case can be made for this word. Why? Because the mother’s milk is life, right? And the kid is being boiled to death in its mother’s milk. It’s the same kind of deal if it belongs in this third section or third word section of the sermon. It’s the same basic idea that you’re talking about a mixing mixture of life and death.

And we’re to be a people of life. God is telling his people we’re alive. You know, God in Psalm 65 is it walks around the hills and things spring up to life. That’s the God we’re representing. So, we don’t do things that have connotations of death. We don’t eat things that are dead. God told his people, “You can’t do any of that. These things have associations with death somehow. You don’t cut yourself and let death, you know, turn your life into death, even for mourning.” No, you’re you’re imaging the God who walks around and things spring to life.

Now, we’re going to sing Joy to the World. And there’s a great expression in there that has great relevance for this text. We have been cleansed from the curse of death to be those who dispense life. And that’s really kind of what’s being pictured here in part, but that ultimately comes in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are connections between Deuteronomy 14 and the uncleanness laws in Leviticus 11 to 16. So on your outlines, I’ve attached a chart and I’ve you might know this already. Some of you kids that have gone to Leviticus Sunday school class know this, but it’s very instructive. You got all these cleanness laws in Leviticus 11-16. And Leviticus 11 is very much parallel to Deuteronomy 14. One could say, as I just did earlier, that Leviticus is third word time, right? The way that Exodus was second word time and Genesis was first word time, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Leviticus is all about a holy people who bear the name of the Lord. And the name of the remember in 19 the center of Leviticus 70 laws over and over and over again. I am the Lord. I am the Lord. I am the Lord. I am your God. I am your God. I am your God. I’m the Lord your God. I’m the Lord your God. Lord your God. The name of Yahweh just is peppered throughout the commandments. Why? because that’s the name that we bear as we live our lives out as reflections of who it is that is our Father.

We’re children of Yahweh. So Leviticus the whole thing really is primarily focused on the third word but this particular section Leviticus 11-16 deals with cleanness and uncleanness and that on the chart uncleanness doesn’t mean that something is bad intrinsically but somehow the things that are unclean show the results of the fall. God has established these things to indicate to us to be pictures of the results of the fall.

And cleanness indicates the removal of the signs of the results of the fall. So Leviticus 11:16 says, “Well, things can get unclean. And when they get unclean, here’s how you cleanse them.” And there are things like, you know, marital sexuality. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing sinful about that. It creates uncleanness. But an uncleanness that can be taken care of through cleansing rituals that make you ceremonially clean the way you were ceremonially unclean.

You’re not unclean, you know, in any other sense except somehow it requires ceremonial purification. Well, if you look carefully at Leviticus chapters 11-16, you’ll see that this chart shows that what’s going on in Leviticus 11-16 is it’s tracking the fall of Adam and Eve and the garden and what happens as a result of that fall. Leviticus 11 opens up with what kind of animals you can eat or when animals crawl across the pot or something, what kind of cleanness or uncleanness is going on there.

Just like Deuteronomy 14, most of it’s about clean and unclean animals. Well, in the creation account, the fall story begins with the serpent, the dust eater, is the first effect of the sin of Adam and Eve. After the fall. that’s what goes on is that is as God after Adam needs sin, the first curse begin God begins by talking to the serpent. On his belly he’ll crawl. He’ll be a dust eater. Unclean dust, right?

Dirt is what you’re going to eat. That’s the first judgment that happens after the fall. The first evidence of the fall is an unclean animal. Okay? Nothing intrinsic physically or metaphysically wrong with the serpent. He pictures the fall because God now takes whatever that thing was and makes him into a dirt crawler and eater of dust. So what happens in Leviticus 11? It starts with animals. It starts with animals that some are called clean and some are called unclean.

And they make they make conditions of cleanness or uncleanness. But God’s going to remove those things, right? The effects of the fall. What’s the second thing that happens, well, Eve is going to have a painful childbirth. The judgment of God placed on Eve has to do with having kids. Having kids is a great thing, but somehow it manifests the fall. And what happens in Leviticus 12? If you have a child, it says you’re ceremonially unclean.

40 days for a boy child, 80 days for a girl child. There’s these ceremonial uncleannesses. It tracks the judgment now going from the creature, the animal to Eve. And this is what you do to become clean after childbirth. You wait this amount of time, you bring an offering, etc. Well, the next thing that happens is God’s judgment on Adam by the sweat of your brow. Your vocation is addressed now, right? Your children are addressed.

First, your relationship to the world is addressed or the serpent or animals. Then your child, your family is addressed, then your vocation is affected by the fall. And so, the third thing that happens in Genesis after the fall is that man’s sweat on his brow is an indication of the results of the curse upon him. Now again, there’s nothing wrong with sweat. It’s an indication. It’s a picture of the results of sin in the world.

And what happens in Leviticus 13:14? Unclean skin. The skin was on his head. Leprosy is on the head and other portions of the body. And so leprosy, skin condition is related to the skin condition of Adam after the fall. And so vocation is addressed here. Then what happens? Well, God pronounces those judgments and then he clothes Adam and Eve and the leprous stuff in Leviticus 13 and 14 then goes on to talk about leprosy on clothes and what you got to do with clothes to get rid of when they become leprous.

So what we wear, you know, has an indication of the fall. And sometimes you can look at people how they dress and you can see sin at work. You know, the dress is not sinful but it reflects an attitude of the person and so clothing is addressed both in God clothing Adam and Eve but then clothing reflects unclean clothing is clothing that’s leprous and then Adam and Eve are actually kicked out of the garden you got to move away now and the next thing that happens in Leviticus is that if you’ve got a house that gets leprosy on it sometimes it’s got to be torn down you got to go find another house you get evicted and so it’s the same movement See, it’s tracking the results of sin upon the world.

Even in good things, houses are good, clothes are good, vocation is good, you know, but they’re reflecting the results of the fall. And then after they’re kicked out, then Adam and Eve make love with to each other. And again, that’s a good thing. And then what’s the last section of uncleanness in Leviticus 15 is if you may have physical relations with your wife, it creates a ritual state of uncleanness.

It doesn’t mean things are wrong or that it was bad to do. It just means that your even your in your most pleasurable intensely companionship moments are still tainted by the effects of sin. And so they the manifestation of that is in Leviticus chapter 15. And then the day of atonement comes in Leviticus 16. And the point is that all the uncleanness that occurs to God’s people over the year. While there’s ritual stuff that can go on in the meantime, they’re definitively rolled away when the day of atonement comes.

What’s happening in all this? The picture is that Jesus will come. He’ll produce the final day of atonement and all the uncleanness of the world will be rolled back. And Jesus does that. He comes, he makes atonement for sins once for all 2,000 years ago. And as a result of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to put into effect the Abrahamic covenant. God’s people can do what they were always supposed to do.

Take care of the world. Bring it to beauty and fruition in maturation. The curse is rolled back. Now, by the time this happens, the world is manifesting curse in a lot of ways because men have sinned for 4,000 years unfaithfully. Even the priestly nation has been unfaithful. So, there’s a lot of sin out there. And our job is to roll it back. Jesus has come to definitively cleanse the world. There’s no more unclean food.

That’s what God tells Stephen quite Peter quite explicitly. All the unclean laws that we just referred to, they’re all done away with because the day of atonement, we’re not waiting for it still like they were year after year after year waiting for the one day of atonement when the blood of Jesus Christ would definitively cleanse the world. That’s happened. And now all those laws, all those ways of man manifesting what it means to carry God’s name are done away with.

In the Old Testament, death flowed out. If you touched a dead body, you became unclean, right? If you touched, you know, a leprous person, you became unclean. If you touched a sick person, that kind of stuff. The idea was sin spreads throughout all the world. Spreads all over. And with the coming of Jesus Christ, what happens? A woman, a bleeding woman touches the hem of his garment, does he become unclean? No.

She becomes clean. She becomes well. Life flows out of Jesus the way death flowed out from Adam into contact with death. Now at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, he comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. The curse flowed to our relationship to the created world. and our food. The curse flowed into our relationship, into our having children and families. The curse flowed into our vocation and what we did.

The curse flowed into how we would clothe ourselves. The curse flowed into the sort of house, even into our houses. Evidences of the curse were seen because the curse is flowing into everything. Even in the wonderful act of procreation that God has definitely commanded that this is what we’re supposed to do. do to populate the earth and bring it to beauty and maturation. Even there sin flowed into it. Death flowed into it.

Now Jesus Christ has come and all those things the flow is now reversed in all these things. Now as we bring as we bring Jesus to the world the flow is reversed again. You see Jesus life flows out of him. You Christian life flows out of you. the You. The third word is a word that compels you to take the name of Jesus Christ to bear it with fullness of power in the Holy Spirit and to be a lifegiving influence in the context of an unclean, not unclean, a sinful world where the curse is gone.

God wants you to push back the curse as you move forth from this place. And you know, you don’t have to set up a strategy, a per chart, you know, a strategic map to how go about doing this. What you got to do is as simple as living out a full-blown witness of Jesus Christ. Whether it’s in the context of your romantic relationships, your clothing, your vocation, your family, your communities as a result of the family.

You see, as you live the fully empowered, Holy Spirit-filled witness of Jesus Christ, as you bear the name of Christian fully, not with emptiness, then God says that what’s going to happen is you’re going to be the people of life that bring life. to this world because Jesus has come. The advent of Jesus Christ was to roll back the curse as far as the curse is found. Now his blessings flow. You’re his blessings.

Well, Jesus came. Jesus came and brought about the great culmination of all these things. But it doesn’t end there because just as Jesus came, his advent, his advent to the world around us is accomplished in large part through you. The spirit of Christ manifests itself in the context of the world in ever increasing numbers of advents of Jesus through Christians. The advent of Christ through Christians.

You’re the advent of Christ to the world. And that advent of who you are is meant to be part of the simple mechanism that God yet powerful worldchanging powerful message that God carries with you as your life is transformed as you bear full witness to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in your life.

N.T. Wright at our Thanksgiving celebration. I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I gave thanks for N.T. Wright at Thanksgiving. You know how you go around the table, everybody says what you’re thankful for this last year. I’m thankful for N.T. Wright and I’m glad I had already mention I was already going to do this today and mention him specifically in his book Justification that we just finished up in Sunday school class and how thankful I am for it. And I’m glad to do it today. particularly because I was talking to a young man last night who said that his pastor I don’t remember OPC PCA one of those two recently in a sermon talked about N.T. Wright and said that he was a heretic.

It’s ridiculous. It’s more than ridiculous. It’s astonishing. It’s incredibly troubling to me. And he Wright in his exposition of the book of Romans in his book on Justification and it’s a very short form kind of thing. He’s going in a summary form. through various epistles of Paul to talk about justification, but he had this quote and it’s on your outline here. Salvation is not just a gift to us.

It is a gift through us. Now, one of those little funny sayings and okay, great. But do you know how true that is? And do you know how much of Christianity doesn’t realize the importance of that statement? Getting saved is just about health and fire insurance, right? Or eternal insurance. We get saved so we don’t have to go to hell and that’s it. And then we just, you know, kind of do what we’re going to do and it’s by faith alone.

So we don’t want to do a lot of works because we don’t want to be legalistic and we don’t want to do all that sort of stuff. But remember the development that we sang about in Come O come Emmanuel. Remember the flow of history that we talked about from Leviticus 11-16 and by implication then Deuteronomy 14. Remember that God has established world. And then he’s put in that world agents of his, imagebearers of him to transform that world, to bring it to maturation, beauty, and wonder to bring his spirit to that world in a way that beautifies it and causes it to go from glory to glory.

That’s what God did. And man messed it up by sinning. And now man, you know, was a guy that just messed everything up everywhere. Some more than others. But God is faithful. Man is unfaithful. Let every man be a liar and God be true. God is faithful to his covenant. And he promised Abraham that nations would come forth from him and that he would inherit the land or the larger emphasis in the New Testament, the world.

And those people that came forth from his single seed, the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ’s family would transform the face of the earth, right? We would take a howling wilderness of a land devastated by the sinfulness of men and we would bring it to beauty and maturation. The way that water flows out of the temple to bring refreshing life to the world. The way that rain brings forth fruit refreshing to the desert planet and everything blossoms and grows.

The Lord Jesus Christ has come and he brings lifegiving power and authority now to the world. He does the final day of atonement. He rolls back the curse as far as it’s found and he brings in a people not just to get saved so they don’t have to they can avoid the fires of hell. He creates a people who are saved so that they can save the world so that they can bring the implications of salvation and what they do small things of life change the whole thing so they can bring those implications of life to the world and be an everflowing stream of life to the created order.

That’s what the advent of Jesus accomplished. That’s what your advent does in the context of the world. Kids, I got you this coloring picture. You’re going to get presents, but the most important thing is remembering, yeah, salvation’s a present to you, but it’s a it’s a it’s a present through you to the world. You’re supposed to minister gifts to your parents, to brothers and sisters, to friends, to your community.

That’s what we’re called to do. Salvation isn’t just a present under the tree. Yeah, it’s that absolutely every bit of that. that but salvation is a present through us so that the face of the earth will blossom and bloom. This is the front of David Chilton’s book Paradise Restored and it’s a picture of this removal flowing away from howling wilderness back into a garden again and the pillar fronts the order of worship.

Same kind of thing there. That’s what God has done in Romans. In Romans chapter 8, turn there. Romans 8: I think verse 18, Paul says, “For I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. The created order waits for the revealing for the manifestation of the lifegiving sons of God.

Jesus is the Son of God. And we’re little sons of God who bring his blessing to the created order. This doesn’t refer to often the final judgment. It does that. Of course, the world will be transformed ultimately through the second coming of Christ. But this is talking about the revelation of you. As you leave this place transformed, God got a little bit more glory, filled with a little more life that you can flow that life into the world so that you can bear a full witness of Jesus Christ in what you do and say, the revealing of the sons of God’s happens and the creation which has been groaning expecting it delights in it.

“The creation was subjected to futility not willingly but because of him who subjected it in hope. Because the creation shall all the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For now we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.”

Paul says that the world is waiting. The world waited for 4,000 years subject to futility. And Jesus Christ came. And now he says the world is waiting for the continuing ongoing revelation of the glorious sons of liberty that will bring healing and blessing to the planet once more. Life will flow out of these people empowered by the spirit of God. Remember that God in the Psalms who walks around and things spring to life.

That’s the spirit of God moving in the context of the created order. That’s who you are. You’re filled with the Holy Spirit of God. And that spirit of God is one who ministers life. No, we don’t have to worry about what we’re eating anymore. But we had better worry about whether or not we’re being really those who are associated with the life of Jesus Christ or are partaking of actions that are sinful actions that really are ministries of death.

You know, Paul says in Romans 6, you’ve been united with Christ. You’ve come out through the waters of baptism the way that Israel has come through the Red Sea. You’ve been redeemed. But that’s not the end of the story. You get to Mount Sinai and now you got some obligations on you to live forward as redeemed people. And when you live not as redeemed people in relationship to the law of the spirit of God, which takes the ten commandments and applies them to our situation.

When we don’t do that, we’re engaging in things that minister death. Still, God has called us to minister life. When you know you do things that are wrong, stealing or, you know, bad morality in your life, a violation of the Lord’s day for that matter. What you’re doing is you’re bringing death to the world again. You’re denying who Jesus Christ has called you to be. You’re living hypocritically. And that’s what God hates most is to claim to be a Christian and yet not engage in the kind of lifegiving, spirit empowered life that’s commanded for us in the third word.

In the third word, the third commandment, God says we have been those who have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. it so that we can bring life to the world. Let me just read a few quotes from N.T. Wright in his last section of the book dealing with Romans. I think these are so good. He says that God is drawing the narrative of the Christian Exodus to its triumphant conclusion with the whole creation sharing the freedom of God’s children based on the text that we just read.

So see the whole narrative of 6,000 years has been brought now to completion. 4,000 and then Christ and then now what Jesus has done the last 2,000 years. Wright says that salvation is from death itself and all that leads to it and shares the and shares its destructive character. tribulation in Romans 8, tribulation, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, weaponry, and all the powers that use these things to oppress humans and deface God’s world.

Salvation is from those things. Yes, it’s eternal life with God in heaven or in a restored world, but it’s life now in the context of combating these things that the world uses to deface God’s image in the world. Salvation does not right said mean dying and going to heaven as many Western Christians has supposed for so long. It means dying and living in the created order. Salvation is not from creation.

Salvation is for the created world. You see, you’re the stewards of it. You’re the imagebearers. You’re the caretakers of this world. You’re the ones to exercise dominion and bring it to glory and maturation. And Jesus Christ has come to roll back the effects of the curse and to make his blessings flow as far as that curse was found. Wright said that humans were made to take care of God’s wonderful world.

And it’s not too strong to say that the reason God saves humans is not simply that he loves them for themselves, but that he loves them for what they truly are, his procreators. his stewards, his vice regents over creation. Wright says the very center of God’s plan and purpose is that God will renew the whole creation through God’s people. Now, it doesn’t happen without effort. We have obligations to walk in this manner.

Last quote says, “It is those who are in Christ who have died and been raised with him and have received his spirit. These are in fact those who do the law in the extended sense he In 22 25-29 justification in chapter 2 25-29 are those who are justified are those who do the law that’s us who’ve been given the power of the spirit to do the law in that sense they were we are those who show that what the law requires is written on their hearts in 2:15 you know the true Jew is one who shows the law’s requirements written out its heart and does it’s not talking about general grace it’s talking about redeemed Gentiles you and I who know that our responsibility is to minister life to the created order.

We’re those ones who have the law written upon our hearts and act in obedience to it. It is those, he says, who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality in 2:7-11. It’s within this context and only within this context that we finally discover how Paul puts together the to us tricky jigsaw of Christian moral obedience within the celebration of the assurance of final salvation. You know, it’s interesting.

Romans 8 is a great chapter of assurance. There’s therefore now no condemnation to those who believe in Jesus Christ, right? End of story. No, it’s not the end of the story. Romans 8:1 actually doesn’t end that way, does it? How does it end? Look at it in your Bibles. Look at Romans 8:1. There’s no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, and that union is through faith. Of course, but look at who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit.

Assurance is based to see our assurance in Romans 8 is not to bring us back to faith and union with Christ. It’s that union with Christ has called us to be a lifegiving force in the context of the world empowered by the Holy Spirit. And it is those deeds that we do in life that are the source of our assurance because that’s the evidence of the spirit working in our hearts. If a Christian comes to me. I believe in Jesus.

I’ve done this. I’ve done that. I’ve this horrible thing. I don’t know. I just don’t have assurance. I can talk till I’m blue in the face about faith, but they don’t know what faith is. They have to be talked to in terms of what they do in life. That’s the source of assurance in Romans 8. Because that’s the purpose of our salvation. That’s the purpose of faith in Jesus Christ is to bring us in union with him and to be empowered by his spirit that we then can make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.

That’s what we’re to do. We’re to live out lives of full witness of the truth of the Christ whose name we bear as Christians. And when we do that, we become great vehicles and influence for life in the context of the world. And when we don’t do that, when we operate in the context of the flesh, the old man, in other words, then we are ministers of death. Paul says he has called us to be ministers of life.

That’s why Jesus’s advent came that you might then be an advent of Christ in this world this week. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the high calling we have…