Call to Obedience

One of my favorite Seinfeld moments is when he arrives to pick up his rental car. He has reserved a midsize, but they only have a compact. And so he explains to the lady, I don't think you understand what it means to take a reservation. First you have to receive the reservation, then you have to hold the reservation. She corrects him, no, I think I know what it means to take a reservation. No, I don't think you do, he says. You see, anybody can take a reservation. The key is to hold it, to keep it. Well, this is humorous because we've all had some reservation not kept. It really points out something very helpful. The important part of making a promise is keeping it. The important part of an oath is holding it. The important part of making a plan is showing up. This morning we're going to see that it's one thing to hear God and acknowledge His truth. It's another thing to listen and obey and keep His truth. One of the things I hope we're amazed at this morning is that God speaks and that we are called to properly respond. The emphasis is being on properly responding. If you're new with us, we're in the book of Deuteronomy. We've been here for a few weeks now. If you're using a Pew Bible, our passage this morning is on page 148. We're in Deuteronomy chapter 4, and to give a big picture of where we are and what we're doing, Deuteronomy really is made up of three different sermons preached by Moses to the people of Israel. Today, we're ending Sermon 1 in transition to Sermon 2 that we'll pick up next week. Sermon 1, chapters 1, 2, and 3 was all about what God had done. God had led Israel. God had commanded them, go and take the land. I've made you my promise. They failed to hit the land. So God said, you're going to walk around the desert for 40 years so that that generation dies. He then reminds them of the victories that the new generation has had. So most of our points from the last two sermons have been about God. He's faithful. He's a mighty warrior. He's able to save. The sermon goes from explanation, chapters 1 through 3, to now application. Notice Moses' sermon goes from exposition, 1 through 3, chapter 4, and now Israel listens. He's driving the point of the sermon to application. He's explaining what's happening at this point. Now he's saying, this is how you respond. The previous generation rebelled. This new generation is getting ready to go into the land. He's preparing them to be faithful. Chapter 4 moves into application and we're going to see four basic commands. Four truths. for expectations that I believe apply to us as disciples of Jesus Christ. Listen. Keep. Watch. Reflect. Listen. Keep. Watch. Reflect. And while these commands are actually sprinkled throughout this last chapter, this application of the Sermon for Moses, we're going to see that they line up fairly Progressive. They line up progressively. Chapter 4, verses 1-5, listen. 6-14, keep. Chapter 15-31, watch. Then 32-43, or 41 rather, ask how. Ask now. Reflect. Listen. Keep. Watch. Reflect. Now, be careful to make sure that the first half of the sermon was about what God had done. Now it's an application. You do this because of God. We listen because God speaks. We keep His words because God revealed His righteous law. We watch ourselves because we are prone to idolatry and God is jealous for our love. We reflect because there's no other God who has spoken like our God. There is no other God who has saved us. like our God. These are four marks of the disciple of Christ. Listen, keep, watch, and reflect. This section is worth memorizing, as all of Deuteronomy is, but if you're going to pick a section in Deuteronomy thus far to memorize, chapter 4. Let me read our passage in its entirety. Listen for these these declarations. Listen, keep, watch, reflect. And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you and do them, that you may live and go in and take possession of the land of the Lord that God of your fathers has given you. You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal for Ur, for the Lord your God destroyed from among many all the men who followed the Baal of Ur. But you who have fasted to the Lord your God are alive today. See, I have taught you the statutes and the rules as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them. and do them. For that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all the statutes, will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call upon Him? And what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today? Only take care and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children. How on the day when you stood before the Lord, your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, gather the people to me that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth. and they may teach their children so. And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form. There was only a voice. And He declared to you His covenant, which He wrote which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules that you might do them in the land that you are going over to possess. Therefore, watch yourselves very carefully, since you saw no form on that day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire. Beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves in the form of any figure like the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps from the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven. And when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the hosts of heaven, and you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, the things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the people under the whole of heaven. But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day. Furthermore, the Lord was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I should not cross the Jordan, that I should not enter the good land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. For I must die in this land. I must not go over the Jordan, but you shall go over and take possession of that good land. Take care lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you and make a carved image. the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. We need father children and children's children. And if grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth who witness against you today that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you were going over to Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you'll be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands that neither see nor hear nor eat Or smell. But from there you will seek the Lord. And your God will find you. And your God, and you will find Him. If you search after Him with all your heart, with all your soul, when you are in tribulation and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey His voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you. Or forget the covenant with your fathers that He swore to them. For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of. Did any people ever hear the voice of a God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? Or has any God ever intended to go and take a nation for Himself from the midst of another nation by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord is God. There is no other besides Him. Out of heaven, He let you hear His voice, and He might discipline you. And on the earth, He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words in the midst of the fire. And because He loved your fathers and chose your offspring after them, and brought you out of Egypt with His own presence, by His great power, driving out before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for inheritance. As it is this day, know, therefore, today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. There is no other. Therefore, you shall keep the statutes of His commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you. that you may prolong your days in the land of the Lord your God is giving you for all time. Will you pray with me? Father, we come hard of hearing because of a hard heart. Help us to hear you speak Father, we pray that Your Holy Spirit be moving among us to help us to see Your great love for us, to help us to see the privilege it is to know who You are and what You expect and how to live according to Your grace and how to be reconciled to You. We thank You, Father, for Your Son, Jesus Christ, for sending Him to save us. We thank You for the Holy Spirit. Lord, change hearts this morning. May we worship You more faithfully as we listen to You and keep Your Word and watch ourselves. Help us all to reflect upon how great You have been. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. The first thing we must do is listen. Now, O Israel, listen. God speaks. Now, I want to point out first, it's clear that Moses is saying, I commanded you these things, I have spoken on behalf of God. We're about to enter into, well we're in the Christmas season, we're about to celebrate Christmas, which is one of the most amazing miracles. God added to himself humanity. That's one of the most amazing acts of God. It is the most amazing truth of Christianity. God came down to save us. Something else that's worth your thinking about, your meditating, your reflecting upon, is the fact that God came down to save sinners, then He asked us to be those who share His good news. We not only receive His Word, we actually get to proclaim it. Moses is a mouthpiece of God. He is a sinful human being, but yet God has entrusted to him His words, His truths, Let's not take for granted that God uses sinners to proclaim His word of salvation. This is absolutely amazing. Even more so, we get to hear His truth. The whole section is founded upon the most basic truth that God speaks. Listen again to all the declarations. Listen to the statutes and the rules. You shall not add to the word that I commanded you. See, I have taught you the statutes of the Lord my God commanded me. Verse 10, how on the day that you stood before the Lord, the Lord said to me. Verse 12, then the Lord spoke to you. You heard the sound of words. Verse 13, He declared to you His covenant. Verse 14, the Lord commanded me at that time. Verse 15, therefore watch yourselves since you saw no form when the Lord spoke. Verse 21, furthermore the Lord was angry with me because of you and He swore that I should not cross the Jordan. Verse 33, did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking and live? Verse 36, Out of heaven He let you hear His voice. You heard His words. The living God is not a mute idol. He has spoken. He's revealed Himself. He's made Himself known. His Word reveals who He is, who we are. We're sinners. How to be reconciled to Him and how to live for Him. Notice that it says not to add to the Word or take away from it. It's complete. It's sufficient. It's clear. God's Word is trustworthy. When God speaks, we don't have to try to figure out some extra wisdom to add to it. When God speaks, we can trust His Word because it is perfectly sufficient and clear. There are two important things that God tells us. First, He declares to His people who they are. He makes a covenant with them. I will be your God, you'll be my people. I have called you out from all the peoples of the earth, of all the nations of the earth, to be my treasure possession, God says. He calls them out, He redeems them, and He makes them His own. He tells them, you're my people. Israel didn't make that decision. Israel actually tried to refuse that decision over and over again. But God said, you are my people. Then God said, and this is important, then God said, after He said, you are my people, He said this, this is how you will live. This is how you'll be my people. This is how my people live. This is what I expect to be. These are my righteous commandments. Here's the privilege of knowing who I am, who you are, and who you're supposed to be. When God speaks, we learn about Him. We don't have to make up things about God. His truth is sufficient to tell us everything we need to know. There's more than we could ever possibly apprehend about God from His Word. We know what He expects to let us know we're sinners. His law reveals to us we fail over and over and over again. That's why it's important that God reveals to us how to be reconciled to Him. How to repent of our sin. How to look to Christ and see He died on our behalf. I don't have the time to read it this morning, but there's a prayer that they found from Babylon in the 5th century. And it's pathetic and sad. Oh, to the unknown God, whoever you are, whatever I've done against you, be reconciled to me. Oh, to the unknown Goddess, wherever you are, wherever you are, oh, let me be reconciled to you. Over and over again, it's these generalizations that are pathetic. Not knowing who God is, not knowing what that God expects, not knowing what you've done wrong, not knowing how to be reconciled. God says, I am Yahweh. I am your God. This is what I expect. This is what you've done wrong. You can look to Jesus and be forgiven. Our God tells us everything we need to know. We praise God because we get to listen. Listening isn't hearing. There's a big difference. Hearing is when sound waves cause vibrations in your eardrum. Listening is focusing on the words of someone else with the intent of understanding what they're communicating. Listening requires intentionality. Listening requires humility. To say, I want to understand what's coming out of your mouth. Here's some obstacles to effectively listening to others. One, we can assume we already know what they're going to say. 2. We can be planning on what we're going to say next. 3. We can be evaluating what someone says before we understand it. 4. We can be daydreaming, thinking about what we really want to be thinking about, rather than what they're saying. 5. Premeditating a solution to their problems. 6. Invalidating that other person by being contentious and arguing. I lost track of my numbering system. Changing the subject when we do not feel comfortable. Being too quick to agree. And finally, just not being interested. Now those are helpful for you and your marriages, your children and raising them, your workplace. They're mostly helpful as we think about how we listen to God. We have to realize something that we are part of a culture that's constantly communicating. Think about our culture. We're constantly communicating. But here's the problem. Everyone's speaking and no one's listening. We're all speaking and not listening. We are bad listeners. Listening's hard because there's so many voices. So many distractions. Let me ask you this. How many times have you thought about what you're already going to do after the service while gathering to worship Jesus Christ? How many times have you checked your cell phone to see what somebody else said when God could be speaking? We're distracted. God could be saying something, but we think somebody else is more important. The first step isn't to say, I'm a bad listener. We need to attend to the most important speaker. Recognize God speaks. This is not chicken soup for your soul. This is the authoritative words for worship. This is a matter of life and death. Listen and live. Refuse and die. It's important. It's worthy of our utmost attention. Listen expectantly and humbly. When we go to the Word of God, we should expect to hear from God. Because He is a God who speaks. As we go to the Word, let us desire to have this be our declaration. Because, when we listen, it is good. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise and simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb wherever by them is your servant warned. In keeping them there is great reward." Go to the Word of God and expect to make that your prayer. That was from Psalm 19. So, go back to Deuteronomy. Let's look at our next command. Keep. Keep. We see it there, verse 6. Keep them and do them. This is obedience. And notice the progression. You have to listen before you can keep. It's a natural progression, because if you just hear, you're going to be like somebody who looks in a mirror and walks away and forgets what you look like. You're only going to be hearers. You're going to be doers. If you're listening with intent to worship, you hear and you obey because you know God. Listening leads to keeping. Humbly seeking to hear and to heed. Let's look at verses 6 through 8 again. Keep them, and it could be a way of translating this, could be keep them by doing them. We keep the Word of God we've heard by obeying. For that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." God has said, these are my people, you are my people of all peoples, but notice the missional plan of God. It's for all nations to know who He is. All the nations are supposed to come to Israel and say, look at these people. Look at how their God governs them. Their God is worthy of worship. This is what people should do when they come and see the church. They should know us by our love. They should know us by our worship. They should look and say, how close are these people to God? I want to be part of that. Now, as we look at this, I want to ask the question, because it's Moses is telling us what a great nation is. A great nation is one who follows the wisdom of God and the righteousness of God. A great nation is one who follows His statutes, who calls upon Him and He's near. How would you answer the question, what makes America a great nation? What makes America a great nation? You can answer it's laws, it's freedom, it's creative spirit, it's individualism, it's courage, I don't think we could answer, people would look and say, look how near God is. Look at the wisdom, look at the statutes, because as a nation, we're not following God. I want to actually focus on a more important nation. I want to focus on a nation that God considers more important than America, His holy nation, the church. The church is God's holy nation. And this is what you need to ask yourself. What makes a church great? If you're visiting this morning, what are you looking for in a church? What do you think will make a church great? If you're a member, what are you striving for at Jefferson Park Baptist Church as a member to make it great? It's first seed. The church is great when God is near. God is near when we are obeying His commandments and exalting Jesus Christ. The church is the people of God united under God to obey Him together. This requires us all to submit to His Word together. To come in, to deny ourselves, to follow Him. We must submit to God's Word together. There's all kinds of criticism that people could launch at any church at any time. The way you criticize the church shows what you really think the church is supposed to be. So think about the criticism of the church, that means that's what you think the church is supposed to be about. Here's some things you could say about the church. This should be a place where our primary goal is to simply get along. The church should be a place where our primary goal is to help others in need. The church should be a place where men and women are honored. The church should be a place where things always stay the same for the sake of nostalgia. No. The church is the body of Christ, the household of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit. The church is for worship. The church is where God's people gather together to hear Christ, to deny themselves, to follow Him, to unite together for the purpose of worship. Anything else makes it just another social gathering that's doing church-like things. We must seek to keep Christ's law. Christ says we must bear each other's burdens. We must participate in each other's lives. We must encourage and exhort and teach. We must warn, rebuke, correct, and challenge. Now, some of those things don't sound real loving. But the church is where discipleship takes place, and the key root of discipleship is discipline. Discipline is correction. In order to be the church, we're going to have to see that we're just a bunch of sinners striving to be more like Christ. We need to be corrected. Let's come back to verse 9. Only take care. Keep your soul diligently. lest you forget the things your eyes have seen." Now, notice he assumes they're already a forgetful people. We need constantly be reminded of God's goodness. That's why we regularly gather together. Keep your soul agility, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest you depart from them of all your hearts. Make them known to your children and your children's children. Now, I don't want to stay here too long, but I want to make the clear observation that the recipient of this is the nation of Israel. It's a significant fact. God is saying to Israel, the nation, to teach these things to your children and children. I love the fact that our parents take the responsibility to train their children seriously, but we have to see here, and this is even clear in Deuteronomy 6, it's not just the parents that are called to train the children, it's the nation. It's the whole community that comes around, the children, so that they're teaching the same truths. They're pouring the same God. They're modeling these truths. Notice here, when Israel forgets, they're going to lead the children into idolatry. What I fear is that sometimes when we forget, we speak to one another in an un-Christlike manner. We treat one another in a way that is not glorifying the Christ. God has gathered His people to speak. It's very clear. Here are the Ten Commandments. Here are the commandments, the statutes, the rules. Do them. Do them. God's laws are not burdensome. They're a privilege. Let's go to verse 15, our third main command. Be watchful. We listen. We obey. We're watchful. Look at verse 15. Watch yourselves very carefully. Watch yourselves very carefully. Now this is to the nation, and he's speaking that we're supposed to be watching, I'm supposed to watch myself and others. There's a plurality. Watch yourselves. Verse 16. Beware lest you act corruptly. by making a carved image. Again, the key warning God is giving them, the key sin is their idolatry. If we go back to verse 12, God's Word is what represents Him. God has spoken. You did not see a form when God spoke. He did not give you an idol to worship. He said, here's my law. It is what represents me. You heard His voice. Verse 15, you saw no form when the Lord spoke. Do not make an image. We can hear 1 John 5, 21, little children, keep yourselves from idols. Hear God's Word, keep His Word. Obey it and be watchful because our hearts are idol factories. We have to constantly be on guard because we are so prone to idolatry. Why doesn't God want an image? We see here Genesis 1 language. If you didn't hear it, go back to Genesis 1 later. The likenesses, the likenesses. God created likeness to procreate likeness. The heavens and the stars, they're called to govern all people. They're not to be worshiped. Our problem is that we want to worship the gifts of God rather than God. We want to worship the creation rather than the Creator. If we look at creation, we can see God's already left His image in this world. Every human being is made in the image of God. We were created to reflect His glory. We were created to order His creation for His glory, but we failed. God is reordering His creation. He doesn't want an idol to be worshipped. He wanted us to reflect His glory. As we look to the Word, we see that Jesus Christ is the Word became flesh. He did not leave an image to be worshipped. However, He did give us two symbols. His Word is sufficient, but I want us to remember there's two symbols Jesus Christ left behind, and they're not structures, they're not pictures, they're not images. They're actions. There's two symbols Christ left behind for us to remember what He has done. The first is baptism. Baptism is a symbol Christ ordained for us to constantly remember what He's done. It's a picture of dying with Christ. Dying to the old man, having our sins washed away so that when we are brought up from the waters we have new life. It's a beautiful picture of what it means to be born again. Second is the Lord's Supper. Second is the Lord's Supper, where we break the bread and we eat it. We drink the wine, the juice, the fruit of the vine, because His blood was poured out upon us, for us. We're washed. See, baptism is the first public testimony, I am a Christian. The Lord's Supper is what we do regularly to remember, I have been purchased by the precious blood of Christ. We can see that His Word is sufficient, but He's given us symbols. He's just not giving us an idol to worship. Actually, let's remember what He's done. God calls us to be careful from corrupting His worship. I said this a few weeks ago, but it's worth saying again because I want to make sure we get this. All the epistles of the New Testament, they're seeking to correct some worship problem. Every letter of the New Testament is writing to correct a problem in worship. We are still prone to idols. We are still prone to error. We must seek God's Word to have our worship purified. A specific problem is idolatry. Notice the hinge of this passage, though. Verse 20. Do not make an idol. Do not corrupt the worship of God. Verse 20. but the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace of Egypt." This is why we don't worship idols. God delivered us from that futile, foolish worship. He delivered us to know the Living God. Now, look at verse 21 and 22. This is the third time Moses has brought this up in this four-chapter sermon. Furthermore, the Lord is angry with me because of you. I don't get the cross to Jordan because of you. This is the third time he's brought it up. I think he's got an anger problem here with Israel because they won't let him in. But I think if we look at this, he's trying to use himself as an example the right way. I failed. Next generation, do not be like me. Next generation, heed the warning. I'm not going to get to enjoy the land because I did not trust God completely. Take care lest you forget. Take care lest you forget the covenant and do not obey me. This is the climax of the argument. This is the climax of the sermon. Take care. Do not make a carved image. Why? one of the most amazing declarations about God. He is a consuming fire. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. He's a consuming fire. This picture, I believe, goes back to when God would show that He accepted an offering and He would consume it with fire. Or, whenever they made an idol, He would come down and He would consume that with fire and judgment. We're going to focus on the attribute jealousy. Some people want to change this to impassioned because they don't like the word jealous because our culture usually thinks of jealous as a character flaw. You usually use this word in our culture as something as a character flaw. We think of someone who's really paranoid and insecure and always wondering what their significant other is thinking and doing because of their insecurity. That's not God. That's not how He is jealous. God is secure and perfect in love. He is jealous not because He's wondering what we're thinking and doing. He's jealous because He knows what we are thinking and doing. He knows we have hearts that long for idols. God is a jealous God because God is a loving God. God loves His people. He longs for them. It's a powerful picture. He desires them like a faithful husband who's coming with his wife and continues to love her. He loves her faithfully, always desiring her, continuing to receive her. This is the love of God. Loving and unfaithful bride. To really capture the power of God as a jealous God, we have to realize something that's very difficult and painful to think about. God is jealous because He perfectly loves a people who continue to love other gods. He is a faithful and loving husband and we are the whore. It's painful. It's difficult. It's not very sensitive. But that is how the Bible describes We will not understand the greatness of His love until we realize how loose we are with ours. We will not understand how faithful He is in His love in pursuing us until we realize how unfaithfully we are. We're playing the field for something better when God Almighty is saying, here is my love. We date every sin that flirts with us when the true God, the loving God, He says, I have sent my Son to die for you. This is how you know I love you. And I will not stop loving you. Look at verse 25 through 31. God recognizes you're going to go away. Your hearts are prone to idols. Your heart is an idol factory. I want you to focus on verse 31. When God sees that they're going to go after other gods, they're going to go serve gods of wood and stone, and this is ironic here, this is a tragic irony, verse 28, you're going to go serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands that don't see or hear, then you'll seek me, the true living God who speaks and sees. Verse 31, know you will find me because I am a merciful God, he says. This is the good news. We can repent because God is merciful. What verses 25 to 31 are telling us is this very simple thing. There's two choices. It's a warning. You can either trust God and what He says is good, or you can go try to figure it out and learn on your own by your own experience. You can either say, OK, God, what you said is right and good. I'm going to trust what you say. Or you can say, you know, I don't be that bad. Could that be that dangerous and that destructive? Would God really punish me? We can either trust God and live, which is wisdom, or we can foolishly find out for ourselves what happens when we worship idols. God is a God who keeps His covenant. Christians, this charge and challenge is for us. We've been called by God to obey Him, and yet we love so many other things as if they're God. This is a call to repentance. This is a call to say, God, speak to me. Let me know where my heart is. Bring my heart back in line with You. Show me what I need to repent of. If you're thinking about how other people need to hear this, you're not listening. This is the most basic truth. God saves sinners. If you're not a sinner, God doesn't save you. God's saving sinners. If you don't actually acknowledge and recognize your sin, you shouldn't think yourself saved. You must see your sin, and repent of it, and long to be more in the presence of God because of repentance. Church, it's a call to be watchful. Not just for ourselves, but for one another. A few commands to be watchful in the New Testament, and I'm reading these only because they're all connected to prayer. Ephesians 6.18, praying at all times of the spirit, with all prayer and supplication, to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all saints. We have to keep ourselves watchful, praying at all times of the spirit. Mark 14.38, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Luke 21, but stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape from all these things. Watchful, be watchful at all times, praying. 1 Peter 4, 7, to that end, the end of all things is at hand, therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayer. Be watchful for the end is at hand. Continue, said fastly in prayer, Paul tells the Colossians. being watchful in it with Thanksgiving. There are numerous commands for the church to be watchful. We're watchful because we recognize we're sinners. If you're not a Christian, I do want you to hear the gospel this morning. And the gospel begins with a very difficult truth. We are all sinners. And God is a just God. He will judge every sin. But here's the good news. Jesus is God's Son who has come down to die for us so that those sins that we have committed can be washed. They can be forgiven. We have not lived in obedience to God. Jesus lived in obedience to God. He died for us. He paid the penalty. If we believe in Jesus, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you can sing that gospel song we sung earlier. Holy God and love became. We have to recognize He became sin for us, so that we will not die, but live. Finally, let's reflect. Ask now. Ask now. We are to listen. We are to keep. We are to be watchful. We need time to reflect. We need time to meditate. It's busy. How often do you ask yourself these questions? Has God ever spoken to such a people? Has God ever saved such a people like this? Do we take time to truly reflect upon the goodness of God? Now, this is a well-packed conclusion. I want you to see. Ask now. Reflect. Look at verse 33 and 34 and 35. Has anyone ever heard the voice of God and lived? Has any God ever attempted to redeem a people? That's 34 and 35. Look at the conclusion. He did this so that you will know He is God. There is no other. Notice the parallel in 36, 37, and 39. Out of heaven He lets you hear His voice. Because He loved your fathers, He took you out of the land of Egypt for His own inheritance. Verse 39. Know their 35 and 39 are the two applications, the same application, the same message. God has spoken. You have received the Word of God. God has stretched out His mighty right hand. You have been delivered by God. Therefore, know that He alone is God. There is no other. The way concludes, you shall keep. you shall keep His statutes and His commandments." It's a very simple message. Look at what God has done. There is no other God. Consider the things God has done. There is no other God. Therefore, keep His words. Be obedient. It's so simple. But why are we so disobedient? It's frustrating, personally. It's frustrating that this is so clear and so simple. The problem? We take what God has done for granted. We didn't honor God or give thanks to God. We lack gratitude. Instead of outlooking and saying, God, how great is it that you have sent your Son to become like us in a way, yet without sin, so that he would die for us in our place, We ask, what have you done for me lately? What more could He say? What more could He do? He alone is God. He's worthy of worship. God's spoken. Are we listening? To listen means we understand and we seek to memorize. We seek to remember. We praise God because He keeps us. And He calls us to keep ourselves in His love. We praise God because He loves us and He's jealous for us, even while we continue to love other gods. We praise God for salvation. Three things we can reflect upon. It's Christmas. Take time to reflect upon the Incarnation. It's busy. It's unnecessarily busy this time of year. take time to think about what it means for the infinite Almighty Creator to take upon Himself a finite creation. To take upon Himself the form of man. To humble Himself and lower Himself. Not just to become a baby in a manger. To be treated like a thief on the cross. Consider this time of year. What has He done? What has He done for you this year? How has He carried you? How has He loved you? How has He corrected you? How has He changed you? How many blessings has God gone unthanked for? Then, as a church, what has He done in and through our body? He's a faithful head to our church, Jesus Christ. Are we thanking Him for the work He is doing? Are we praising Him that His name if obeyed and followed, can make the nations come and say, this is a great people. This is a great place because God has worked here. Let's make that our prayer. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you and we praise you that you are a good and holy and gracious God. We thank you that you've spoken. We thank you that you keep us even though we do not keep your word. Lord, help us to be watchful of one another, to warn one another, to love one another, to rebuke one another, to truly, actively disciple one another for the purpose of gathering together for your worship to be more like Christ. Lord, help us to reflect. Help us to rejoice in our gathering and our fellowship. Help us to reflect now as we look ahead to baptism. Help us to reflect properly on the death You died for us, and the new life You've given to us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.