Purge Evil for Pure Worship

This morning, we have a lot of texts to get through. So I'm thankful that Sam has already made our message very clear and focused. God is holy, so we must seek to be holy. This morning, let's begin by asking, how have you worshiped today? How have you already entered into worship today? Not if you have worshiped. I'm assuming you've already worshipped at some point today before you entered into this building. See, we're always worshipping. Key question is how are we worshipping and who are we worshipping? Did you praise God for the food you ate today? Did you praise God for the clothes you get to wear? Did you praise God for the roads and for your automobile that allowed you to get here? For the people who you get to gather with and sing? For the gospel that unites us? For the comfortable building we have and the new lights? There's so many things we could be praising God for. Yes, look up, there's new lights. There's so many things we could praise God for constantly. And it's just so easy to take them for granted because as our Romans passage taught us, we're too quick to grumble and not quick enough to give thanks. One of the ways we need to gather on Sunday and one of the ways we need to prepare ourselves for corporate worship is to pray. This is the most important thing you can do to prepare yourself for worship. Everything else we do is really powerless. Pray that God would correct us and convict us. Pray that God would build us up to a stronger faith. Prayer is essential to the Lord's day of worship. Did you pray this morning that you would encourage someone? That you would be a witness to a non-believer? That you'd be a warm greeting to a visitor? Did you pray expecting that God would speak today? something very important that happens right here, right now. We gather as a church to fulfill the law of Christ. Let's not take that for granted. The very law of Christ is being fulfilled right here, right now. Let me just walk through some of the commands of Christ that we're actually fulfilling right now as we're gathered. First of all, we've gathered. Christ commands His church to gather, to assemble. Christ commands His church to pray together, to sing together, to greet one another, participate in the Lord's Supper together, to serve one another, to hear the word read, to hear the word preached and taught, to disciple one another, to forgive one another, to confess sins to one another. We could go on and on, but we're fulfilling the law of Christ when we gather as the body of Christ. What we're doing is supposed to be holy. It's sacred. God's people are set apart for sacred duties. This is what we're studying this morning. This is what we're looking at. We're in Deuteronomy, so we're going to the law of Christ as proclaimed to the nation of Israel in the Old Covenant. You can turn to Deuteronomy 12. We've been in Deuteronomy. I'm going to be standing up and sitting down. Had a little knee operation. You'll see me moving less vertically, more horizontally. Deuteronomy 12, page 156 if you're using a pew Bible. And we're coming to a transition in the message of Moses. Deuteronomy is made up of a couple sermons, or three sermons. Chapters one through four, that was one sermon. It was preparing us for the main sermon, which we're in the middle of. Deuteronomy five began with the 10 commandments. And then Deuteronomy six, here O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Love him with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your might, with all your soul. And then he begins to show Israel the great love they've received so that they will love God. God loved you even though you weren't mighty. God loved you even though you were not righteous. God will bless you even though you are weak and sinful and rebellious. Love Him with all your heart. Genesis 11 was a great transitional, or Genesis 10 was a great transitional point. Fear the Lord. Circumcise your heart. Cast off your idols. Because here in Genesis 12, there's a key transition. These are the statutes and rules. He's preparing them for the last few chapters, last six chapters to get to the statutes and the rules. He had to first help them realize how weak they were, how unrighteous, how unfit they are for God's love, but yet how God has loved them. So that now when he gets to the commands They're ready to hear, ready to obey. We could really see this sermon of Moses and Deuteronomy from 5 to 29. It's what we might call a Puritan sermon. The first half is doctrine, the second half is practice. It's a sermon that has two parts, the right thinking, the right living, This is what Moses is presenting. The first half is the right theology, who you are, who God is, what he's done for you. The last half is now what we do. What we're going to see is that all of life is meant to worship him. He is worthy of worship. We're gonna be talking about subjects like how and what we eat, where we worship, how we think of the poor, how we celebrate, how we relate to one another. Every aspect of life is touched by God for those who have been redeemed by Him. Nothing is outside of worship. Simply said, all we do is worship. We're constantly worshiping. The question is, are we worshiping God His way or are we worshiping something else our way? Be holy, for God is holy. If you look at Deuteronomy 12, we're going to be flipping around a lot. So, Deuteronomy 12-16. You can see here that there's an emphasis on place. We're going to be looking at the sacred space of God. You see there's a lot about food. Verse 15, however, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns as much as you desire according to the blessing of the Lord your God that He has given you. Sacred food. Sacred food. We're looking at the sacred community. Look at verse 12, chapter 12, 29 through chapter 13. The importance of keeping evil out of the nation. The importance of man. This is what the sabbatical year is about. The sacredness of money. The tithing in chapter 14. and the sacredness of celebration, the Passover in chapter 16. Let's first pray, and then we will look at sacred space. Father, we praise you and we thank you that you are a good and holy God, that you've spoken. You've spoken a mighty word that declares us to be your people. You've stretched out your mighty right arm to redeem us for yourself. And now you speak to teach us who we are and what we are to do. Help us to know more of your holiness so that we can be more holy to you, to worship you, to praise you as you are worthy to be praised. Challenge us, Almighty God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Sacred space. Here we are to see that worship is to be done according to God's word. Destroy all the religious relics. We've heard this message before if you've been with us. Look at chapter 12. These are the statutes and the rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord is giving you. He swore to your fathers. Israel, the second generation, they're going into God's promised land. He's giving them these instructions. Now, these are the rules. Look at verse four. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. God directs our worship. That is in response to telling them, go in, tear down all the ashram pole, tear down all the religious relics that are in that land. You're going to a land that's inhabited that's been fully gardened and been prepared for you, but they have religious relics everywhere. They have religious relics everywhere. Tear them down. God is not to be worshiped that way. Look at verse eight. You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing what is ever right in his own eyes. God's not asking us to figure out how to worship him. God's not asking us to figure out the best way we can worship him. God's asking us to look, to read, to follow, to be faithful. Again, as we saw last week, worship is not creative, it's faithful. God's given us instruction. Look at chapter 12, verse 32. Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take away from it. God's Word is sufficient. We don't have to be creative. Everything we need, He has said. Everything we need for worship, it's clear. The Bible is correcting us. The Bible is pointing out sin. It's pointing us to repentance. It's telling us everything we need. We need to know we're sinners. We need to be directed. The beauty of this, friends, God's Word is sufficient. It's trustworthy. He's telling us everything we need to know, it's been said. Now, there's a formula that throughout Deuteronomy, it's actually mentioned 21 times. It's this, the place the Lord will choose to put His name. The place the Lord will choose to put His name. We see this focus on the place in chapter 12. Look with me, verse five. But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name. Verse 11. Then the place that the Lord your God will choose to make his name dwell there. Verses 13 and 14. Take care that you do not offer burnt offerings at any place that you see, but at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes. There you shall offer your burnt offerings and there you shall do all that I am commanding you. There's a special place. Now, these 12 tribes, they're all gonna have their own land. And the call here is to just not worship haphazardly. It's not just to worship however they will. It's to know that there's a special place to bring your sacrifices. It isn't up to just any individual and any family to worship however they want to. Worship was meant to be directed. There was supposed to be a place that they would all take their sacrifices. First, they're gonna take down all the places of pagan worship. Then they were to recognize God has set apart a place to gather as God's people to bring sacrifices. We can see throughout all of scripture, sacred space matters. It's a way of teaching us our relationship to God. It's a way of teaching us that we're near to him because of his grace or far from him because of our sin. Think about it. garden of Eden. That was sacred space. What was God doing with man? He was there with him. He was talking with him before man's sin. God was with Adam and Eve in the garden. It was a sacred space until we sinned. Then we were removed Think about Mount Sinai. This was sacred space. It was consumed by fire. God's presence came down and there was fear. There was trembling. God's people were told to stay back. Think about the tabernacle and the temple. God's presence was in one specific place that only one man once a year could go into. And then there was another smaller group of men that could go closer. Then there was another group of men that could go a little closer. But then most people were left far from the most sacred space. Now this is to teach us. There is a real reverence to have for God. Our sin is serious. And to approach a holy and righteous God with our unrighteousness is scary. Worship was confined, it was fearful, it was distant. The good news for us, brothers and sisters, is it's not the way for us. Not true today. Because we worship everywhere in spirit and truth. Because Christ, the perfect Lamb, has taken away our sins. We now have boldness to go into the presence of God. It's not a matter of gathering in a specific space at a certain time when God's going to come down. No, the Holy Spirit dwells within us so that we, we're not, we can't, we are worshiping all the time in the presence of God. Our life is being played out before God in the name of Christ, who's at the right hand of the Father, to worship Him. Now here, we're gathered. This is a special kind of worship. We call this building a sanctuary. That's kind of confusing. This room really is only a sanctuary when the saints gather in it. There's nothing more sacred about this room or this building any other day of the week than any building in Charlottesville. What sets this room apart is when the saints fill it with the praise of Christ. That's when it becomes a holy place, when God's people gather to do the holy things of Christ. Look again at chapter 12, verses two through five. You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree. You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their ashram with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. but you will seek the way He calls you to worship. What's present in worship matters. This is why a lot of churches, they seek to just have a simple meeting room, the most simple, basic room where there is no distraction so that all we focus upon is Christ. What we do matters. And let me encourage you in this. The most simple and basic practices are the most faithful ways you can worship. To pray. to wait, to listen. Worship isn't something that you do that's radical in your action. Worship is something that we wait for God to do radically to us. Don't think worship is some mystical, exciting thing that we've got to create. No, worship is sitting and waiting and listening for the Lord to speak. Again, we look to chapter 12, verse 8. We do not do what is right in our eyes. We're not seeking to be creative. We're seeking to be faithful. Let's look to chapter 12, verse 29. I will come back to chapter 12, 15. Don't worry. chapter 12, 29, sacred community. And this really is the high point of this particular section. He's talking about the place where they go to worship. He talks about the food they're going to eat. He talks about the importance of the sacredness of the community to purge the evil from their midst. He'll then go back to talk about the food they're going to eat and where they're going to eat it. And then the sabbatical year and the Passover, this is an essential part of what he's saying. So we're going to spend some time here. Again, he's already told them, do not be tempted to worship the gods of the land. Look at verse 29. When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them. after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, how did these nations serve their gods? That I also may do the same. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. For every abominable thing that the Lord hates, they have done for their gods, for they even burned their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods." Israel is called to remove every temptation. Every religious relic that could hinder their true worship, get rid of it. Abstain from every possible evil called to destroy them completely. Why? Look at verse 30, lest you be ensnared. Take care or you will be ensnared. This is important about sin. It has an enslaving power upon us. This is why we don't play with it. It is by definition enslaving. It entices us to great delight, but it's like a dungeon that destroys us. Avoid every appearance of evil. Keep yourself from idols because they will destroy you. This is something about us that we have to recognize in scripture. We were created to be mastered. I know that drives on our sensibilities about our freedoms and the way we think we're independent, but we were created to be mastered. We, by definition, are a people who are serving a master. God created us for Him to be our good and right master. In Genesis 2, He's the master. Adam, serve and keep the garden. Adam was meant to be serving, to be mastered by the Creator. This would be good for him. God loves us. God masters us as a loving Father who cares for us. But we chose a different master. We chose to be mastered by sin that seeks to destroy us. Jesus makes this very clear. When you choose sin, it becomes our master, John 8, 34. John 8, 34, when you choose sin, you're choosing to let it master you. You're never in control of sin. Hear that, young people. You are never in control of sin. When you choose it, it controls you. Hear that, older people. You are never in control of sin. It controls you. God intended us to be mastered by Him so He could love us. Some have been asking about how God could be just to destroy such people from this land as he's going to drive out all the inhabitants. But we see here an example of how wicked they are. They're committing child sacrifice. That's how wicked these people are. That is why God is driving them out. It's because of their sin. What we see in chapter 13, there are three circumstances. There's really one circumstance with three different instances. Look at chapter 13. You have a dreamer, verse one, if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams. You have a family member, in verse six, if a brother, the son of your mother, or your son of your daughter, or the wife that you embrace, or your friend. And you have the neighboring city, verse 12. If you hear in one of your cities which the Lord your God is giving you to dwell, There, that certain worthless fellows have come up. There's three different instances of the same thing. Look at the message of each one. First, verse two. If the prophet or the dreamer says, let us go after other gods. Look at verse six. If the brother, if your family member says, secretly enticing you, let us go and serve other gods. If you hear that in that city, that city is saying, those worthless fellows are saying, verse 13, let us go and serve other gods. The consequence of each one of these actions is death. If the prophet rises up and says, let us go serve other gods, put him to death. If a family member comes secretly enticing you, let us go and serve other gods, your hand shall be first to put them to death. If you hear of another city full of worthless fellows who are enticing everybody to go and serve other gods, put them to death. The overarching message we see is that God intends for his people to be a holy people and his worship is more important than our lives. His worship is more important than our lives, for we were created to worship Him. Let's look at these in order, because they each build on one another and teach us a little something else about worship. First, you have the dreamer, the false prophet, Let me read verses one through five. If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, let us go after other gods which you have not known and let us serve them, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But the prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because he has rebelled against the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. This is difficult. This is why chapter 1232 transitions us. Everything that I command you should be careful to do. Don't add to it. Don't take it away. We do not do what's right in our eyes. We do what's right according to God's word. So we see here that this seems harsh. If somebody comes and he has a dream and he gives you a sign, and that sign comes to pass, there's something tangible about it. There's something enticing about it. And then he says, let us go serve other gods. Put him to death, God says. First, why would God let this happen to test us? God wants pure worshipers. And it's something the community has to do together. It's something the nation of Israel, the tribes had to do together. Worship isn't something independent. That's something driving throughout this entire text. It's something we all do together. And if there's a person coming and he's got dreams and he's got signs, he's enticing people to worship another God. to do what's right in His eyes. God's testing leads to four actions in verse four, six actions in verse four. Walk after the Lord, fear Him, keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, cling to Him. When God tests us, it leads the faithful to trust His word more. When God's testing takes place, it leads us to cling to this word more faithfully. So I ask you, when tested, what do you run to? It has to be the word of God. Now it's interesting that the false teaching, it is accompanied by a sign or a wonder. Now, I wonder here if Moses is thinking, you know, when he came to Pharaoh the first time when he threw down his staff and it became a serpent and then the other guys did the same thing. I wonder if there's some confusion here. What if a false prophet comes and he's got a sign like this? Because these things happen. Moses' experience is happening. He says, God's word is more faithful than your experience. God's word is what tests. what you understand as a sign or a wonder. Paul says this in Galatians, even if an angel appears preaching a different gospel, do not trust it. Cling to the gospel you have heard and that has saved you. The consequence seems harsh. Put the false prophet to death. Purge the evil. That's what a false prophet is. Purge the evil, purge the false worship from your midst. Israel needed to be God's pure people, which meant pure worship meant they had to purify themselves. God's people had the responsibility of their own purity in worship. God's worship is more important than human life. God's glory is more important than us. The beauty of it is, friends, we were created to worship Him. That's why it's more important. God's redeeming us to worship Him. We must take His worship seriously. Let's look at this next section. It's a little more personal. If your brother, the son of your mother, or the son of your, or of your son, or of your daughter, or the wife you embrace, or a friend, if they come and secretly entice you, let us go and serve other gods. Gods you don't know. Some gods of other people who are around. Do not yield to them, verse 8. Do not pity them. Do not spare them. Do not conceal them. He's going through the normal things we would think. This is my beloved friend. My beloved child. My beloved spouse. I know they're speaking something that's untrue, but I'll conceal them. There's pity. No, worship is more important. Verse 9, you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him. Verse 10, you shall stone him and put him to death. Again, we see pure worship is what God is after. Notice why. because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You're to purge the evil from your midst because they're taking you away from the one true God who's redeemed you. The consequence of treason is death. If this seems harsh, Jesus says things that are fairly similar. Luke 14, 26, in order to follow me, you must hate your father and love me. You must choose me even over your own family. Matthew 19, some will have to leave their family, rejecting them in order to follow the Savior. Pure worship is more important than family. The covenant that God makes with his people is more important than that blood relationship we have with our family. So I ask you, what relationship will stand in your way to worship God wholeheartedly? What relationship will we be clinging to that will cause us to not follow Christ faithfully? Look at verse 11. And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you. God's not saying he's gonna make an example out of them. God's saying we have to teach people how dangerous sin is. When we put sin out of our midst, when we put to death those, it's not murder, it's putting to death righteously because they're leading people away from God. When we do this, God is saying, we're protecting people from sin. We're helping people to see not to follow that sin. This is difficult. Look at how this translates, because the application isn't going to, let's take some stones out the sidewalk, don't worry. We're going to translate this over the New Testament, because it translates very quickly and easily, actually. But I wanted to show you, this is demanding of God's people to gather, to make sure that when we come together for worship, it's pure worship. We're responsible for this. A quick application is this. We're presently asking for elder recommendations. When you're praying and thinking about who would be an elder, think about who is pursuing God's pure worship among his people. Someone who's willing to have the difficult conversation, someone who's not compelled just to make people happy, but who's willing to say, I am accountable to God for these people. I am going to teach. and lead in a way that's going to lead them to God, regardless of what it costs. Third, the last section. The worthless fellows, they go out into a city, they lead a rebellion, let us go and serve other gods. The neighboring city, they seem to be going astray. Their worshipers, gods, make an inquiry, seek diligently. And if you find that it's true, destroy them completely. Destroy them completely. Look at verse 15. You shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction. All who were in it, and its cattle and the edge of the sword, you shall gather all its spoil in the midst of its open square and burn the city with all its spoil of fire as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again. None of the devoted things shall stick to your hand that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you as a sword of your fathers. If you obey the voice of the Lord your God, keep all his commandments that I'm commanding you today and do what is right in the sight of the Lord your God. Now notice, none of the devoted things shall stick to your hand that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion. If we let sin go unchecked among other brothers and sisters, God is saying there's a judgment against us. We're gonna go back to Genesis four. Yes, we are our brother's keepers. We have a responsibility towards one another. The consequence of us letting sin go uncorrected is that God's judgment against us. There's a mutual accountability. Now, this passage has an immediate application to us if we turn to page 954, if you're using a pew Bible, or 1 Corinthians 5. It's always very helpful when a New Testament author quotes the Old Testament so we can know exactly how it can be applied. Look at verse 13 of chapter five of 1 Corinthians. God judges those outside, purge the evil person from among you. Paul in 1 Corinthians five is quoting Deuteronomy 12. 1 Corinthians five is a passage that really focuses on the importance of the local church, the sacred community. It is not calling for physical death for those who are leading others astray. What it calls for is to cast out, to remove from the church those who are false teachers and those who are making a false profession of faith. Look at verse two. Let me just back up to verse one. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans for a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. Be removed from among you. The church isn't called to put people to death because we're not a nation like Israel. What the church is supposed to do is recognize that those who have been born again, they're part of the church, they're members of the church. And when the church sees that someone is either living a lifestyle opposed to the gospel or proclaiming a message that is opposed to God's word, they put them out. They remove them from the church. This is difficult. This isn't an easy topic to talk about. It doesn't feel friendly, but we're not about being friendly. We're about being a pure body seeking to worship God according to His Word. We have to see the danger. When someone is practicing sin and we do not confront it or correct it, we're condoning it. When we hear a false message and we're not correcting it, we're condoning it. We are meant to be a people responsible for another, helping one another, protect each other from false worship. So we have to see in the Deuteronomy passage and throughout the New Testament, the most dangerous things that attack the church come from within. Go through the New Testament epistles. They're all about getting rid of problems from within the church. Some of them are legalistic problems. People who are trying to add to the gospel. Some of them are licentious problems. Those who are saying, we have the freedom to do whatever we want to do. No, God has given us his clear word. The church is called to put out, to remove the false teacher. This isn't putting him to death. It isn't taking away his salvation. What the church is doing when they make that declaration, they're removing the assurance of salvation that they once gave that person. This is something very important we need to realize. When we're gathering, we're doing one of the most important things we can do for another. We're assuring each other of our salvation. When we take the Lord's Supper together, we're discerning the body, we're doing self-examination, we're thinking, as I'm taking the Lord's Supper together, we are affirming one another's salvation. This is not something that should be done lightly. The Lord's Supper isn't something we do individually. We too individualize Christianity. It's something that we do as a body. We have to realize that one of the greatest assurances we have is that we take the Lord's Supper together. And when you remove somebody from membership, you're saying, no longer take the Lord's Supper. Now we hope they still actually come and hear the word preached and hear the word taught so the word would change them. But that Lord's Supper that we have before us, it's a time of examination that we take somberly and seriously to celebrate because it's serious. You see, when the church removes you, the church is saying, we no longer have responsibility for you. We no longer can affirm your salvation. If we take the Lord's Supper less seriously and just give it to anybody, we could be assuring somebody's salvation who's going to hell. That's what we're afraid of. If we handed the Lord's Supper to anybody without any concern, as Paul would warn us not to do, you're saying, I'm assuring your salvation while they're going to hell. That's why it's serious. Here's something that we don't like to talk about. The church is supposed to be judgmental. Look at what Paul says. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexual immoral people. Not at all meaning the sexual moral of the world or the greedy of the swindlers or the adulterers since you would need to go out of the world. But now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual morality. For what have I to do with judgment outsiders? If it is not those inside the church whom you are to judge. It's verse 12. The church is supposed to be judgmental. Now that's uncomfortable. The judgmentalness is to say, are we believing? Are we living according to what God's Word says? The church is supposed to be watchful for the right belief and right practice. Friends, what I want you to see is that church isn't something we casually go to. It's something we must be invested in as a body being built up to the glory of Christ because it's about His worship. We're supposed to be watching over one another. Because here's something that's true that everybody acknowledges. There's a real problem in the church. It's full of hypocrites. That's a real problem in the church. It's full of a bunch of sinners. It's true, true of this church. This is why God's word gives us these instructions. To correct one another, to help one another. If we see sin and don't say something, we're excusing that sin. We're condoning that sin. What I want us to see is that the purity of worship is about us being a pure body seeking Christ according to his pure word. We fail to obey for two reasons. One, we fail because we see the danger of sin. We see that it, we don't see it as dangerous as it really is. We don't see it as destructive. We don't see, as Paul teaches, that a little leaven, it seeps in and it starts to eat away at that mortar between the bricks. You see, we're supposed to be bricks relying upon one another, being built up to the holy temple. And we let sin come in, that mortar, it starts eroding away. Our unity are being built up into the unity of Christ. It is attacked by sin, and not just public sin. Our private sin, the things that we know nobody else but God knows, it eats away at that mortar. Because if we're living in sin and then we come here to worship, we're not going to be proactively seeking others. Our sin affects the unity and the purity of Christ and His body. So one reason we refuse to obey the removal of sinners, of those who are practicing sin, is that we don't see the dangers. And second, we lose light of our calling. We're here to worship. We're not just here to come and smile and sing some songs. We should do that. We're not just here to be friendly. We're here to do the most serious business. We're about the most serious business in all the world. We're proclaiming the name of Christ together. A sinner's redeemed. It's not something we do as individuals. As we started out, we fulfilled the law of Christ. You cannot fulfill the law of Christ as an individual because you cannot bear each other's burdens, as Paul says. We have to realize this is the same thing we see in Deuteronomy. The body is responsible for its own purity. The body is responsible for its own purity. Purge the evil from among you. If we think about the Lord's Supper, Jude calls those who are false prophets and false professors, they're blemishes on your love feast. This is the love feast he's referring to, the Lord's Supper. If we do not think about the sin that's in the body, we do not seek to correct it and seek reconciliation, it's a blemish on our worship. Why is this so important? Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 5. Read with me verse 6. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are leavened. Hear this. Why is it so important? For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Why should we take this so seriously? Christ purchased us with his precious blood to be his pure bride. We must purify ourselves. Folks, this is hard. It's uncomfortable, but it's God's word. The church must be made up of believers who are committed to Christ. It must be made up of believers who are committed to submit to Christ together. Submit to His Word together. Submit to one another. If someone refuses to submit to Christ, His Word and His body, they're not part of Christ. We need to be a body that's constantly being reminded, reminding one another, Christ and His Word direct us. We speak of the removal. It's very sad when that actually happens. It's also meant to be a warning to teach us how serious sin is, how dangerous sin is. But this isn't the way it's supposed to be. So let me make an analogy. If a marriage gets to the point where they have to go to marriage counseling, it's because that marriage did not have the regular practices to build up a love and a trust. See, marriages aren't dissolved in a moment. A marriage takes time to grow, and a marriage is usually dissolved by a gradual process, neglecting the proper attention and time to finally, there's an eruption. See, marriage needs, your marriages, they need the regular time and attention so that it doesn't get to the point where things are blowing up. In the same way, someone doesn't just fall into serious sin. Someone doesn't just one day decide, I'm going to commit adultery. Someone doesn't just decide one day, I'm going to be a thief. No, it's something that gradually, gradually takes place. This is why proactive discipleship is important. This is why we emphasize, gather regularly, be part of discipleship so that you do not fall into these kinds of serious sins that are patterns. You don't just become a drunk. No, it takes time. Little decisions, little decisions make one a drunkard, make one immoral, make one an idolater, make one a reviler, make one a swindler. But if we focus on those, the regular discipleship, we will avoid corrective discipline. So if the idea of corrective discipline bothers you, be more proactive in regular discipleship among the church. If you hate the idea of removing somebody from church, be more active in church discipleship. That's the only way you can avoid it. That's the main thing you can do to avoid it. So three things. Commit to be here for worship. You braved the storm, you're here for worship. I'm preaching to the choir. Commit to being here on Wednesday night. It's a very important time for our body as we gather to pray together and to meditate on God's word together. And thirdly, commit to some discipleship. Talk to Pastor Sam. How can I be involved in a home group, a discipleship group, meeting with others regularly? What we do together matters. Let us commit to being a pure body together. Let us go back, that was the main emphasis. Let me go back and highlight here the sacredness of food as lunchtime is nearing. Something a little more comfortable. Somebody may have put a life verse here this morning. Here, however, you may slaughter and eat meat with any of your talents as much as you desire according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you. When the Lord your God enlarges your territories with this promise you and you shall say, I will eat meat because you crave meat. You may eat meat wherever you desire. Isn't that a blessing? You can eat meat however and wherever you desire. What we see here is that God is calling us to recognize all of life is sacred. This is what chapter 12, 15 through 28 and chapter 14 are emphasizing. Look at chapter 14 very quickly. Verses 1 and 2, "'You are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead, for you're a people holy to the Lord, for you're a God and the Lord has chosen you to be a people of His treasure possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.'" He's emphasizing what God has done for you. He's made you His holy nation, His holy people. Look at verse 21. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. He is holy. He's calling you to be holy. Now, one of the key teachings that takes place in these verses is that you are not to eat the blood. One of the key things that we're going to see is not just that it's the place where you make the sacrifices, but anytime you're eating the meat, anytime you take life to consume the meat, do not eat the blood. Look at chapter 12, verse 23. Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is life, and that you shall not eat the life with its flesh. Food is a gift from God. It's given to us to sustain us. But we're not supposed to eat the blood because it represents the sacredness of that life. Now we're, well some of us, most of us are too far removed from the way food is processed to really appreciate this. We're supposed to recognize that when something dies, usually in a town, you know when somebody's killing an animal. You see it. The blood is poured out and that's reminding you this life is now dying so that I can live. There's a sacredness to that life so that I can now consume it. God is reminding us with this that life, all of life, is sacred because he's given it to us. And if we're going to kill something to eat it, we need to remind ourselves so that we can praise God. With our food processing, I think we lose that. That idea of food and life being taken so that we can live. More so, I'm not, when you look at Acts 15, this is the New Testament. This is Jerusalem Council. All the apostles and elders are gathered and they make this declaration. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements. Abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood. There's a lot of the New Testament we will see that it doesn't continue. We don't continue to put false prophets to death. I believe we should continue to observe this practice. To not eat the blood and the meat so that we remind ourselves that which has died, it was God's life for us. Now something that's not applicable anymore is the idea of clean and unclean animals. You can go to Acts 10 to see this, and one of the most beautiful things we can see in Acts 10 is that this was an object lesson to remind us not just that we can eat any kind of animal, but that God's plan is for all peoples to be saved. Not just the Jew, but the Gentile. As we think about food, let me leave you with these last remarks. First Corinthians 10, so wherever you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. There's two different kinds of gluttony. One is the one that consumes a lot of food. The other one is what C.S. Lewis calls the glutton of delicacy. There's two different kinds of gluttony that we need to be careful of. One is consuming as much as we possibly can, more than we should. The other one is saying, it's not that I want a lot. I just want it to be just the right way. It's not that I eat a lot of food. It's just I want it just the way I like it. Just a bite, but only the finest. We have to realize that food is meant to be enjoyed because of God and be given thanks to God and glorified. It needs to be glorified by the way we consume it. We'll come back to sacred money, but we do have to look at the sacred celebration. Look to chapter 16. The Passover. The Passover is given further instructions in Leviticus 23 and Numbers 28. It's interesting, in those passages they give much more detail as to what should happen to make sure the Passover takes place properly. In Deuteronomy 16, Moses is again emphasizing the place and with whom. So in Egypt, the first time the Passover takes place, every family had to decide, am I going to kill the firstborn lamb? Am I going to put His blood over my mantle so that God's judgment passes over me? Every family had to choose to do this. To escape the judgment of God. Now we see in verses two and five and six, the emphasis of the Passover is that it's a national celebration. It's something that the entire nation gathers together in a certain place named by God, not in our homes as if individuals, but as a nation Israel is supposed to be called to observe this. Verse two, and you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God from the flock of your herd at the place the Lord will choose. Verses five and six, you may not offer the Passover sacrifice with any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, but at the place the Lord your God will choose. They're supposed to come together because it's part of their national identity. It's a reminder of who they are. It's not just reminding them of the freedom they have from Egypt and slavery. No, it reminds them that God claimed them as His people. It reminds them that God rescued them with His mighty right hand. It reminds them that God declared them to be His holy nation, His treasured possession. It reminds them that sin requires death. That God will bring a judgment for all sinners who do not trust in His promise. Now we do not celebrate the Passover as Christians. It's not part of our national identity. We celebrate something better. Jesus Christ has come to be the fulfillment of what the Passover pointed to. God, in the Passover, he passed over the sins of Israel. The judgment of God went over them as he saw the blood. The blood testified, this is a house committed to the things of God. So God passed over them. When Jesus came, He's like the lamb that was slain to put the blood over the mantle. Only when His blood is on us, it's not just that God passes over our sin, He washes it away. See, we are all sinners. We were all destined for the judgment of God, and that was the only destiny we had. We deserve God's judgment. That's why Jesus came. He was sinless so that when He died, all our sins are counted to Him. That's how He washes us. His blood is spilled so that our sins will no longer be counted against us, but we are washed of our sins. He is the Lamb of God who takes them away. That's why we don't celebrate the Passover. Our sins are being passed over. Our sins have been taken away because Christ took them upon himself. We're a purchased people called to celebrate with reverence. He said the Passover pointed to the perfect Christ, the perfect slant, it pointed to a better celebration. So as we begin to transition to celebrate the Lord's Supper, Let me remind you of what it tells us. First, we celebrate what was accomplished for us. Christ purchased us with His precious blood. He died so that we would be forgiven. That's why it's somber. That's why we take it seriously. Secondly, we celebrate together. Go back to Deuteronomy 13. Think about 1 Corinthians 5. Those are difficult teachings, but it tells us the body and our unity. It's important for worship. We must be building up one another. We don't just casually take this as individuals as it's being handed out. We're taking it together as a church to proclaim Christ. Finally, it points us to what's still to come. Because this is only a sample. This is only a reminder of what Christ has done and what He still will do because one day there will be a marriage feast of the Lamb. He will come back and we will dine with the King. Revelation 19.9, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. The King will come. Those who believe in Him Those who trust Him with their sins, they will forever dine with God in fellowship in that sacred space in His immediate presence once again. And those who reject Him will forever be judged in their sin. If you don't know Christ, Please not leave without talking to me or some other member of this church or someone else in this church. Ask them, how do I know Christ? How can I be forgiven? How do I go to heaven to be with Christ forever? Instead of under his judgment forever. Church, we're called to worship. We're called to worship the King of Kings, the one who purchased us. the one who unites us. Will you pray with me? Father, we praise you that you are a good God, a God who speaks, a God who saves, a God who doesn't just tell us what is comfortable, but teaches us your whole truth. Give us the humility to submit to your truth. Give us the courage and the grace to practice your truth. Help us to see the power of the gospel to make us new people, a new people together. Help us to think about how we're going to be united for your glory. May this church be built up according to your grace and for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.