Guard Your Steps Toward God

To obey is better than sacrifice.

Some of us are blessed to know a song by Keith Green of that title. The rest of you, I hope, will be blessed later today. The last words of that song. As God's speaking to us,

I want hearts of fire, not your prayers of ice. And I'm coming quickly to give back to you according to what you have done.

Guard your steps. As worshipers who now exchange the glory of God For anything that is not God, we're so prone to worship anything. We need to hear this very important charge. We must worship the right God the right way. We must worship the right God the right way. Guard your steps. It's not casual. It's not however we want to come. No, it's how God invites us. So guard there how you approach God, guard how you come to God, be watchful, be mindful that he is a holy God who invites us. Well, here the house of God, this is almost certainly referring to Solomon's temple, where God had established this is the holy space. This is the space that God said, man can come and meet with me near. Well, kinda. One guy could come really close once a year and everyone else had different layers of distance. You see, one of the concepts we have to appreciate in the Old Testament is holy space. The garden, Genesis 2, that was holy space. God put man in his garden, God would come and walk and talk with him. We lost that. And then, according to his grace, he took us out of that garden because we no longer could be that close to him because of our sin. And he provided tabernacle and temple to provide a place where we could come and know God. But in the Old Testament, worship is marked by fear and distance. Mount Sinai is the definitive kind of worship experience that helps us see what it's like in the Old Testament. And it's about fear and distance. What a significant difference we have in the New Testament, where we have Malzahar draw near with great rejoicing. We get to now draw near in great rejoicing, unlike our Old Testament saints of old, because Christ has actually come down from heaven, come to be like us, come to die for us, come to wash us, to open up that way back, so we can draw near. A question to ponder today. What would the judgment be if Israel were to draw near at Mount Sinai instead of stay back? It'd be judgment. What is God going to, how is God going to treat us if today when the command is draw near and we want to try to keep God at a distance? The command is draw near. Hebrews builds this up. If you want to look at the text later, it's constantly drawn near. Enter boldly. In the Old Testament, holy space is emphasized so that there was a clear understanding God is holy and we are not. In the New Testament, holy space is emphasized, but now it's Christ is to be proclaimed everywhere. Everywhere we go, everywhere Christ is worshiped, everywhere we go and proclaim him, all space now has a certain sense of holiness. Worship, that's our topic. Guard your steps when you go to the house of God, when you go to praise, when you go to worship. It's what we're created for. We're designed as worshipers. We are always worshiping someone or something. Is it the right God the right way? It's important for us to think about this because how many of you have a neighbor that you would just go down the street and open the door and walk in? Just casually, you're gonna help yourself into the house without invitation. Maybe you have a neighbor that's that friendly and welcoming and you get to know so well, but do we just walk in anybody's house, a neighbor, someone who's equal with us? Even if you get in the house, do you just help yourself to the fridge and make a sandwich? Do you go take a nap in the master bedroom? No, you have a certain respect for the person and you're entering into their place and you wanna enter in their way. How would we treat God with less reverence and respect? Now we might immediately think, why is God gonna give us so much restriction? Why is he gonna give us instruction? Why can't God just accept what we do? I think we want to think about it a different way. How kind, how generous God is to tell us we can come back into his presence. How kind he is to give us clarity on how to come back into his presence. And even more so as we look at the gospel later, that he's made the way himself, but still gives us instructions that we can come back in his way. It isn't a guessing game. What kind of worship would please God? No, he's told us. Christian, God gives us an amazing and gracious invitation. That's too often taken for granted. What an invitation to come into his presence, to come as we are, as sinners, to receive his instruction, to receive his grace, to receive change. The reality is you don't have to go to the temple. You can worship God anywhere all the time. We think about guard your steps on the way to the temple. Well, let's just take the commands to walk from Ephesians. Ephesians 4.1, that's the great transition in Ephesians. After he's told you all about the great calling, what does he say? Walk worthy of the calling. Guard your steps. Consider he who has called you and how worthy he is. And he also says, walk not as Gentiles who do not know God, but walk as those who've received who God is. He also says in Ephesians 5.1, walk in love, imitating Christ. Ephesians 5.15, walk carefully. and wisdom. We're supposed to be actively worshiping. He's given such clear instructions. Christian, we're no longer walking to the house of God, we're walking as children of God. We should always be walking knowing we're now children of God. Our worship is in the holy presence of God. How much more should we take seriously the call to guard our steps. Each day, all day, today, tomorrow, every day that Christ is worthy is the day we should be guarding our steps and how we worship him. Now there's also a special call to unite together. That's what we're doing now. We should be thinking about how we are guarding our steps as we're living our lives, but we're also coming together. We're uniting together right now in a corporate worship. That's how we grow together as Christians. When you come to worship, what is your posture? What are your expectations? Last night, there was a concert in our city, and I'm pretty certain everyone who went went with expectations, and they were probably really happy and joyful they went. They went with an expectation, they were probably entertained. Did you come expecting something? Did you come expectantly and eager to hope that you would hear a word from God? Let me just encourage you with a prayer to always pray on Sunday. Lord, provide a sermon better than the one that's been prepared. That's my prayer every day, every Sunday. I invite you to make that your prayer, that the Lord provide a sermon better than the one that's been prepared. We come to worship. The way we design our worship is meant to be hospitable and high church, loving and liturgical. There's a call to worship because we want to make sure we first hear from God the invitation. We then seek to just be under the word of God. We read it, we sing it, we pray it, we practice it, we proclaim it, we hear it. And the service ends with a benediction so that you would go out ready to believe and obey and be guarded according to the word of God. Do we come eager and ready? Here's some suggestions on how you could come prepared. Read the passage beforehand. Come ready to engage with the text. We're here to be a people of the book. Come and be ready to engage with the book being proclaimed. We'll be in Ephesians 5 next week. Listen to the songs we sent on the email beforehand. Be ready to sing with one another. Take our songbooks home. Sing as families, with friends, with roommates. Pray to God to speak. Pray that God would provide a word even better than the one prepared. Come early, ready to greet one another. Welcome someone new. Have your heart settled. to hear, guard your steps. Next point is prayer. After this very clear grand declaration, guard your steps when you go to the house of the Lord, that's praise in general, but now we're gonna think about prayer here.

To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know what they're doing evil. Do not be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few, for a dream comes with much busyness and the fool's voice with many words.

The preacher gives a principle and then two commands. The principle is to draw near, to listen is better than to make sacrifice of fools. Then the two commands, do not be rash with your mouth, let your words be few. Well, let's first think about that principle. Listening is better than foolish sacrifice. That, by definition, makes listening wise. Someone who comes to God first to listen is wise in contrast to the fool who sacrifices. Listening, again, means we receive instruction. Listening means we seek to know God. Listening is one of the most important and essential spiritual disciplines. We listen because God has spoken. Our God speaks. He's not mute so we have to have a guessing game as to who he is and what kind of worship he wants. Our God speaks and he speaks words of grace. We're seeking to listen and it's impossible to really listen if we're only talking. Christian, the only posture we can have towards the word of God is to be under it. Lord willing, we could be mastered by this book as we seek to know it, but it's always being under it. Just hear from the Old Testament, one of the key commands.

Hear, O Israel. The Lord your God, the Lord is one.

That's Deuteronomy 6.4. James tells us to be slow to speak, quick to listen. Jesus himself came to be the word of God incarnate. He has given himself so that he is the way, the truth, the life. How good it is to listen. It is better to go to God to listen than to make the sacrifice of fools. There are commands. The principle is we should go to listen Because if we go just trying to do whatever we think needs to be done, or say what we think needs to be said, we don't know what we're doing. So we have commands. Do not be rash with your mouth. Don't let your heart be hasty before God. That's classic Hebrew parallelism. We see him saying the same thing in a way that's heightening. Your mouth is rash. Your heart might be hasty to utter a word. And then that rationale. Oh, if you're looking for a memory phrase this morning, there's no better phrase in this text. God is in heaven. You are on earth. God is in heaven. You are on earth. He's the creator of the creatures. He is God. We're not. That's why we listen more than we speak. That's why we listen before we speak. That's why we listen so we know how to speak. He is in heaven. We are on earth. Know your place and position. Know who you are and who you're going to see. Again, if you think about your neighbor, okay, let's just pretend you might have a neighbor that you could go into their house and just walk in. Would you ever order what you want for dinner? I'm here, would you make me some dinner? I'm going to sit in your chair, would you turn this TV show on? It's my favorite one. Would you take your socks off and throw on the floor? At his house, her house? No, it's rude. Why would we come into God's house and just start demanding? As if we're not on earth and he's not in heaven. As if he's not the holy God that we need to listen to first. And this is where it gets so confusing sometimes. It's amazing that that holy God wash the disciples' feet. The way he humbled himself to come down to us, to serve us, to welcome us back to him, to show us what he expects of us, we too easily get confused and can start to forget. No, this is the holy, glorious, awesome God who's worthy of our worship. Because he's been so kind to us, A command, do not be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart utter a hasty word, because God is in heaven and we are on earth. The second commandment is a similar idea. Let your words be few, just like the first commandment. Be slow to speak. What should we say? What are we to do with this invitation? When we come, we should seek to listen with reverence. Christian, I want to introduce you to something that's important about prayer that's oftentimes forgotten, and that Jesus invites us to make our requests known to him. That is an important part of what prayer is, but prayer is also the way that God makes his requests clear to our hearts and minds. Prayer is a way in which we get to come to God and let our requests Our thoughts, our desires get more aligned with His. If prayer is only you seeking to change God's mind so that He might do a better job ruling the world, you're not doing it right. What an invitation to come and make our request known to Him in the name of Jesus. The beauty of prayer is it's an opportunity to commune with God so that our thoughts, desires would actually be aligned with His, that we might be changed. We should seek to listen. And this isn't, let's sit and meditate and just receive whatever might come. No, we've been given prayers. This is how God, He's so good in wanting to communicate with us. Not only does He tell us the perfect words so we know who He is and what He expects of us, He then gives us words to speak back. All right, everyone in a dating relationship would love to have that, right? If I just knew what you were wanting me to say, if I just knew what to say in the right way, that would fall on your ears, right? How kind it is to God to give us words to say back. Jesus models a prayer for us. He gives us the high priestly prayer. Paul gives us numerous prayers or his epistles that we could be praying, knowing it's the will of God. In the largest book of the Bible, 150 prayers, all kinds of different occasions, so that we know how to come to God in different problems, in different situations, knowing how to listen to how he wants us to talk to him. Here's one example. One of his prayers, Psalm 13.

How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever?

God invites us to pray that. How kind. If we felt that, how kind He is to let us pray to Him that way. We could listen to Him first and know how we can come to Him.

How long, oh Lord, will you forget me forever?

The psalm ends with this.

I will trust you. and I will sing of your love forever.

What happened between the first and the last is a psalmist got to come and pour out his heart before God and God changed the psalmist. How good it is that we can come and pray to listen to God. Verse three is a pithy statement,

for a dream comes with much business and a fool's voice with many words.

That seems to be in contrast to somebody who's coming to hear God. If I come to God with my dreams, my ambitions, my desires, I'm gonna be very busy, I'm gonna use a lot of words, I'm gonna try to convince God, but if I come wanting to know what His will is, my words will be few. I'll guard my steps. The last section, verse four.

When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools.

We're looking at promises, and these aren't promises from God. These are instructions to God about the promises we make. When you vow, when you make a commitment to God, when you make promises, and there's lots of instructions about promises in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 27.30 is a whole covenant framework where God tells us exactly what he expects of us. And we have the great call, choose this day whom you will serve. Today, God gives us his promise. He's promised himself. His salvation, His Son, His Spirit. He's promised to be with us and for us. And we enter that covenant making vows, making promises. The preacher tells us, when you vow a vow to God, when you make your promise to God, do not delay. Do not put it off. Why? Because God has no pleasure in fools. To delay keeping a promise is foolish. Pay what you vow, pay what you promise. It's foolish to delay obedience. We teach our kids this, right? Obey fully, obey quickly, obey happily. Children of God, he doesn't expect less. Verse five, there's a better.

It is better that you should not vow than you should vow and not pay.

If you make a promise, don't delay it. But now there's a fear of judgment, there's a end of the matter, fear the Lord, obey his commandments, he will judge all. It's better that you do not vow at all than not to pay. And then notice verse six,

let not your mouth lead you into sin. And then I say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?

The idea of that messenger would be somebody who comes and asks about the promise you made and if you've kept it. It was a mistake. I didn't understand what I was saying. It was a mistake that I made the vow. I have an excuse. That's why I'm not paying it. Let not your mouth lead you to sin. you can speak your way into sin. And then notice verse seven.

For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity.

That's very similar to what we just saw in verse three. Dreams, much, words many. This ending of both, this parallel ending. When we're just all about what we want and our desires. We say much. We do much, but it's all vanity. Notice the last declaration. But God. If you're gonna underline your Bible, those two words are always worth underlining. But God. He is the one you must fear. Notice one, it's exclusive. Notice must, it's not optional. As we make promises, it's God alone we must fear. So what are we going to do with this? What are we going to make of these promises? And should we make promises? And what kind of promises should we make? And what does it mean to pay them? Let me get this out of the way. I've broken promises. You've broken promises. We're all lying liars. We're all promise breakers. Our hearts are full of deceit, and therefore what comes out of them is gonna be deceptive. We lie to ourselves. We cannot keep our promises, not perfectly. This is why we come first and confess our sins. We come first to the holy God and confess, I have not been faithful. I have not kept my word. I have no excuse, I just put myself down before you, the God of mercy. Lord, we talk too much and we listen too little. We've broken our promises and we come before you, God, to confess. Here's an important principle for today. God is in heaven, we're on earth. We are not able to keep our word God is not able to break his. We are not able to keep our word. God is not able to break his word. He has promised himself, he cannot deny himself. He is powerful to keep his word. He must, and he has. God's made promises to us in his covenant. Grace abounds to us who have lied. God's grace comes down to us as covenant breakers to forgive us, to heal us. How? Well, Jesus came to walk among us as the Word of God, the true one, who lived the perfect life in every way that we refuse to live, and he was our substitute. When he died on the cross, he paid the penalty for all those broken promises. He provides the forgiveness. He's the King we read about earlier in Psalm 24. He is perfect. He alone can go to the holy place because of his righteousness, and he alone can invite us in because his death paid our penalty. He's the King of glory who leads us into God's glorious presence. If you had a question, that's what we wanna talk to you about after the service. How can you know God again? The first thing is to be forgiven of your sin. And the only one who can forgive your sin is Jesus who died for you. Do not leave here without talking to somebody about that. Let's keep thinking about promises a little bit. Promises are necessary for any real relationship. Promises are the foundation for a relationship with God. He makes promises to us. He expects us to promise in return. It's foundation for any marriage, parent, child, church members, friends. Oftentimes the most important promises are unspoken, but it's very obvious what's expected in a relationship that if somebody starts acting differently or behaving against the understood expectations, that relationship is broken. I believe these commands are here for us in four to six because it's too easy to make a promise and it's too hard to keep a promise. It's too easy for us to make a promise, and it's too hard for us to keep it. Let's just walk through some promises that we make. Just yesterday, we were at the YMCA for a volleyball game, and the players all had to pledge together to play a game.

Win or lose, I pledge before God to do my best to be a team player, to respect my teammates, opponents, and officials, and to improve myself in spirit, mind, and body.

Even for a game, those who are participating had to have an understanding of what was expected, because that's healthy. If you've ever been to the naturalization ceremony on 4th of July at Monticello, I highly encourage you to go. Because part of that is they make the new citizens give an oath, and here's just parts of it.

I hereby declare on oath that I absolutely and entirely renounce and adjure all allegiances and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen, that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, so help me God.

See, underlying that is that citizenship is a responsibility towards one another. There has to be an expectation, and the expectations are best built on clear promises. The place we oftentimes think, the first place I thought of where promises are made like this is a marriage. A bride and groom, they come together on that day, and there's an order of service, and the clear building up of the service is whenever they hear a charge from God, and then they make vows to another and to God. Just curious, raise your hand if you're married. Raise your hand if you, keep your hand raised if you, keep it up, keep it up. Raise your hand if you're married. Raise your hand if you've made promises. Keep it raised if you've kept every promise perfectly. All right, no liars today, that's great. Raise your hand again if you're married. Raise your hand if you had any idea what you were actually promising on that day. I'm doing some pre-marital work, I just wanted you to testify to those I'm meeting with, thank you. That was extremely helpful. Husbands and wives have clear instructions in scripture. Be patient with one another. to love, to care for.

Husbands, live with your wife in an understanding way. Honor her.

That's from 1 Peter 3. That is a command that by taking her as your wife, you promise to keep if you're a Christian. Honor her. Live with her in an understanding way. Do you wanna know what's at stake? Lest your prayers be hindered, is what Peter says. It's as if God is saying, if you don't take care of my daughter, I'm gonna quit listening to you as a son. There's only a few verses more terrifying than that one. Men, husbands. The more important the relationship, Marriage being given to us by God, ordained by God, your spouse being given to you by God. It has to be built on promises. Citizenship has to be built on promises. Even a game is built on promises. Disciples of Jesus Christ, you are the bride of Christ. You've been given a great commission. Ben just recited it. By taking on the name of Christ, we have declared we will observe all that he's commanded. Jesus himself said,

if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Let's just go with the most basic three. Deny yourself, carry your cross, follow him. Ephesians four, we will not speak falsehood, but only that truth which is good for building up. Baptism, so many things are happening there. We are hearing the testimony. We just heard the testimony of Lincoln. We've been able to affirm this is the same gospel, the same Savior, amen. He receives the baptism from us. But at the same time, he's declaring to the world, I'm no longer part of you, and he's declaring to Christ, I will follow you. It's a commitment to walk worthy of that calling. At Jefferson Park, we take church membership seriously. We have a class. We have you meet before the church. We want them to hear your testimony so they get to know you. We have a covenant because we think the most important relationships need clear promises. The more important, the more clear. One of those promises is

we will speak the truth in love. Be slow to take offense. and be eager to seek swift and lasting reconciliation.

We need to remember reconciliation has two ingredients, confession of sin and forgiveness of sin. Forgiveness is one of the most, if not the most significant promise we receive from God. Forgiveness is a promise. When we believe in Jesus, God says, I will never punish you. for your sin. He's able to keep that promise. When we believe in Jesus, he says, I'm going to remove your sin from you as far as the east is from the west. The penalty. We still have the presence of sin, we still have to fight sin, but the penalty. Jesus has paid it all. He's the once for all sacrifice. He's promised he will forgive us. We're given the commission.

Forgive as God in Christ has forgiven us.

We need to really understand what forgiveness is here for God. He promises to forgive us. He promises never to judge us again for our sin, but he has to be a just God. He can't just say, well, I'll just pretend that sin didn't exist. No, he's just. It must be paid for. That's what Jesus does on the cross. He comes to die, to take on the full penalty. See, forgiveness means we absorb the wrong. We absorb the penalty. Jesus, as the perfect sacrifice, he took the penalty upon himself. He died for us. When we say we forgive somebody, that doesn't mean we're locking that away and gonna try to make them pay a different time in a different way. The forgiveness means we absorb that pain and we do not seek to make them experience it. The more we understand the forgiveness of what God gives us and that Christ died once for all, so we will never face that penalty. We might face consequences, but we will not face that penalty. When we forgive, it's a promise. I'm not gonna try to make you pay for that. Those are some of the promises God expects of us. As we think about the promises, let your yes be yes, your no be no. Do not swear by heaven or on earth, let your word be true. This morning we get to hear about the gracious invitation God gives us, come and worship me. We've considered just a few of the instructions, and New Testament instructions are so encouraging. Enter boldly. There's only one way to enter boldly, in the name of Jesus Christ. Enter boldly into the presence of God, who has kept every promise. Enter boldly, knowing he forgives us for breaking our promises. Enter boldly, seeking the grace that we might be changed. to follow him more faithfully. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you this morning that we can hear your call to worship, that you are the God who is in heaven, who created us to know you, who gave us clear instruction Don't eat of one tree. And even after we refused you, you came towards us and promised you would fix the corruption we've brought upon your good creation. We thank you we can now see Jesus as that fulfillment of that promise. The one who came to die for us, the one who rose again for us, The one who washes us, cleanses us, forgives us, restores us. Lord, we pray we would know how to approach you and know you. Lord, we pray we would desire obedience so that we could see you as you are. Purify us so that we might know you. Help us, Lord, to hear the invitation come into your presence. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.