Numbers 25 | In the Wilderness

Listen to this week’s sermon, In the Wilderness preached by Rev. Benjamin Kandt from Numbers 25.

Episode Transcript

Rev. Benjamin Kandt (00:06):
Hello everyone.
This is Pastor Benjamin.
You're listening to SermonAudio from New City Orlando.
At New City, we long to see ourFather answer the Lord's
Prayer.
For more resources, visit ourwebsite at Newcity Orlando.com.

Rev. Justin Grimm (00:21):
I would like to invite you all now to join me
in this prayer of illumination.
Uh, would you stand, please?
Would you join me in recitingthis prayer together?
Holy Spirit, make us hungry foryour word, that it may satisfy
us, lead us, and bring us lifethrough Jesus Christ our Lord.

(00:46):
Amen.
The scripture reading thismorning comes from the book of
Numbers, chapter 25, verses 1through 13.
While Israel lived in Shetim,the people began to whore with
the daughters of Moab.
These invited the people to thesacrifices of their gods, and

(01:08):
the people ate and bowed down totheir gods.
So Israel yoked itself to Baalof Peor, and the anger of the
Lord was kindled against Israel.
And the Lord said to Moses,Take all the chiefs of the
people and hang them in the sunbefore the Lord, that the fierce
anger of the Lord may turn awayfrom Israel.

(01:28):
And Moses said to the judges ofIsrael, Each of you kill those
of his men who have yokedthemselves to the Baal of Peor.
And behold, one of the peopleof Israel came and brought a
Midianite woman to his family inthe sight of Moses, and in the
sight of the whole congregationof the people of Israel, while
they were weeping at theentrance in the tent of meeting.

(01:51):
When Phineas, the son ofEliezer, the son of Aaron the
priest, saw it, he rose and leftthe congregation, and took a
spear in his hand, and wentafter the man of Israel into the
chamber, and pierced both ofthem, the man of Israel and the
woman through her belly.
Thus the plague on the peopleof Israel was stopped.

(02:13):
Nevertheless, those who died bythe plague were twenty four
thousand.
And the Lord said to Moses,Phineas, the son of Eleazar, son
of Aaron the priest, has turnedback my wrath from the people
of Israel, and that he wasjealous with my jealousy among
them, so that I did not consumethe people of Israel in my

(02:35):
jealousy.
Therefore say, Behold, I giveto him my covenant of peace, and
it shall be to him and to hisdescendants after him the
covenant of a perpetualpriesthood, because he was
jealous for his God and madeatonement for the people of
Israel.
This is God's word.

(02:56):
Thanks be to God.

Rev. Benjamin Kandt (03:06):
Just for fun.
Last year I read the biographyof Keith Green called No
Compromise.
Anybody here know who KeithGreen is?
Okay.
Sermon illustration for 10people.
Here we go.
Keith Green, for those of youwho don't know, was a prophetic
pioneer of praise and worshipmusic.
A lot of the kind of songs thatyou hear us singing up here, we

(03:27):
can thank Keith Green for inmany ways originating that style
of worship.
Now, I love Keith Green for alot of reasons, but one is
because he is that kind of holdnothing back, all in, no
compromise kind of guy.
And I'm attracted to that kindof devotion in someone else.
Now, some of that'spersonality, some of that's Holy
Spirit.
I don't know which is which,but it's it's just part of who I

(03:50):
am.
And I think that's because Ihave this allergic reaction to
half-heartedness.
I really believe that ahalf-heart is a whole
compromise.
And I don't want that in mylife.
And so I read biographies ofpeople like Keith Green, because
this is what he would say whenhe would be playing a concert.
He would tell his audiences, Irepent if my music and my life

(04:11):
has not provoked you into agodly jealousy or to sell out
more completely to Jesus.
I love that.
I love worship leaders likethat.
And he he's this kind of personwho is the reason I read
biographies of people uh outsideof my generation because I
don't want my level of zeal tobe set at the standard of our

(04:33):
generation.
In fact, I want to look back inchurch history and I want to
measure my current present-tensezeal by the bright shining
lights over the last 2,000years, not the current cultural
moment.
And so I read biographies ofpeople like this for that
reason.
And yet I was surprised when Iread something in his biography.

(04:54):
His wife said this about him.
She said, What many peopledon't know was that Keith's zeal
often led to crushingdisappointment with his own
perceived failings.
He'd promised God that he wasgoing to pray for an hour or
read five chapters of the Biblebefore breakfast, and then when
he'd sleep in late, he'd bedevastated at having let God

(05:15):
down.
Now, I also know thisunderbelly to zeal.
I know what it's like to havethat zeal that is sincere, but
it ends up becomingself-condemning because it's
rooted in performance, not ingrace.
And so I was helped by KeithGreen's biography in a way I
didn't expect.
He said that, uh, his wife saidthat, like many zealous

(05:37):
Christians, Keith based hisrelationship with God on his own
performance.
If he didn't feel right withGod, then he believed he wasn't
right.
This self-centered viewsometimes blinded him to the
love of God.
And Keith once confided in afriend, he said, Sometimes I'm
not sure if God loves me.
So how are we to feel aboutzeal?

(05:57):
What are we supposed to thinkabout it?
Well, I want to look at ourtext this morning, Numbers
chapter 25.
So if you have a Bible or adevice or the worship God, go
ahead and get Numbers 25 out infront of you.
And this is my main point.
If God is jealous, let us bezealous to be found in Christ.
If God is jealous, let us bezealous to be found in Christ.

(06:20):
That's my main point, and alsothree subpoints.
So look with me at Numbers 25,verse 1.
The first point would be if Godis jealous, if God is jealous,
look at Numbers 25, verse 1 saysthis.
A romance because God describesGod's self as a husband

(07:06):
passionately pursuing his oftenunfaithful bride.
A battlefield because there isa war going on right here, right
now, for your affections.
Who are you going to give yourhighest allegiance to?
And so we read a passage likethis, and it's supposed to jolt
us like it does.
You see, scripture uses boldlyerotic images to describe the

(07:28):
passionate love relationshipbetween God and his people and
doesn't apologize for it.
So neither will we.
Now, the scripture callsidolatry using the language of
marital unfaithfulness.
Look at verse 1 again.
The people began to whore withthe daughters of Moab.
You see, you were made with anurge to merge because the

(07:50):
highest fulfillment of yourexistence is union with God.
It's union with God.
And so even your sexualdesires, even your desires for
union with your spouse, thoseare good, but they're mere
signport, they're signposts thatpoint to the reality.
Union between God and Hispeople.

(08:11):
That's what this text, that'swhat's the subterranean part of
this text that's trying to getat.
And so this is why idolatry andsexual immorality are often
bedfellows in scripture.
You see, because humans wereeat were made to either worship
the creator or we end upworshiping our procreative

(08:32):
faculties.
That's exactly what's happeninghere.
You see, Baal, the God they endup worshiping here, is the
Canaanite fertility god.
Israel's constantly tempted toworship the gods of their
surrounding neighbors.
Sixty-three times Baal istalked about in Scripture.
Look at verse 2 with me.
It says this the daughters ofMoab invited the people to the

(08:54):
sacrifices of their gods.
And the people ate and boweddown to their gods.
So Israel yoked himself to Baalof Peor.
You see, there's a strikingimage being used here, this
image of a yoke.
Many of us are not fromagrarian backgrounds.
This is what a yoke is.
It's like think of theMcDonald's arches like this.

(09:15):
But then one animal has its theyoke around its shoulders, and
the other animal has the yokearound its shoulders, but
they're bound together.
So you cannot go left and rightat the same time.
What does that mean?
It means that idolatry shapes,forms, directs your life.
To be yoked to Baal of Peormeans that where Baal goes,

(09:38):
Israel goes too.
This is key to what's beingtalked about here because a yoke
is actually kind of subtle.
It starts as a pattern ofhabit, it starts as a
relationship, a subtle idol thatbegins to shape you in real and
true ways.
And so here's the question todiagnose Are your commitments
drawing you closer to Jesus overtime?

(09:59):
If not, who are you yoked to?
What are you yoked by?
You can tell.
Because a yoke is meant todirect you over time.
Now, with that, Israel'sidolatry provoked the Lord's
jealousy.
Look at verse 3.
And the anger of the Lord waskindled against Israel.

(10:22):
And the Lord said to Moses,Take all the chiefs of the
people and hang them in the sunbefore the Lord, that the fierce
anger of the Lord may turn awayfrom Israel.
And Moses said to the judges ofIsrael, Each of you kill those
of his men who have yokedthemselves to Baal of Peor.
I don't know about you, when Iread this, I wince a little bit.

(10:43):
Maybe some of you do too.
I think sometimes it's likethis feels like it's too much.
It's just over the top.
What's the big deal?
But I wonder if that's actuallya symptom of our lack of zeal.
You see, we live in a culturalmoment that that could be
described as rampant radicalrelativism.

(11:04):
And so the fishbowl that weswim in has made lukewarm the
new norm.
Because we don't know anydifferent.
You see, I was in aconversation with a friend of
mine, he really is a friend ofmine, who's also lives in a gay
lifestyle, who also professes tofollow Jesus, something that no
Christian thought was evenpossible until like 50 years

(11:24):
ago.
Okay.
Scripture nor traditionbelieves that's even a
possibility, neither do I.
And so we have these funconversations at coffee shops.
And the conversation we had wasa few weeks ago, he said, You
see, the problem is that theBible's just full of so many
contradictions.
I said, Oh, oh, oh, here it is.
I just realized it.
The difference between you andme is that you trust yourself

(11:45):
and see the Bible is full ofcontradictions.
Whereas I trust the Bible andsee myself as full of
contradictions.
Some of you are like, You saidthat though?
I did, I said that.
I said that because we'refriends.
This is in the context ofrelationship.
He knows me, I know him, heknows where I stand, and yet we
can be friends and disagree witheach other meaningfully.

(12:06):
But here's the problem.
In a moment like ours, arelativistic age, convictions
present like pride.
But God made you to haveconvictions.
Augustine of Hippo said it likethis if you believe what you
like in the gospels and rejectwhat you don't like, it's not
the gospel you believe, butyourself.

(12:26):
You see, God made us to haveconvictions.
That's why we see in verse 5,Moses said to the judges of
Israel, Each of you kill thoseof his men who have yoked
themselves to Baal of Peor.
Now, this is important.
Notice the language.
Kill those of his men, the onescausing the problem, the ones

(12:47):
leading into idolatry, those arethe ones who deserve to be
judged because God is concernedfor the whole.
We've been so malformed byWestern culture.
We we think a people isbasically like a bag with a
bunch of marbles in it.
But but the biblicalanthropology views a people
almost more like subatomicparticles.
We have these covalent bondswhere you affect me.

(13:09):
Your compromise affects me.
My compromise affects you.
And so God deals like a goodsurgeon, he's willing to cut off
a limb in order to save thewhole body.
That's what's happening here inour text.
Now, this is important tonotice the difference between
where we are in redemptivehistory.
In the Old Testament, a crime,a sin that was worthy of capital

(13:33):
punishment in the NewTestament, in the church, is
worthy of excommunication.
So execution becomesexcommunication, all right?
We don't kill people for theirsins anymore.
It's really important.
But what do we notice here?
You see, in the Old Testament,the body was disciplined for
unrepentant idolatry.
In the New Testament, the soulis disciplined for unrepentant

(13:55):
idolatry.
You decide which one's worse.
You see, the reformers believethat a true church had three

things (14:02):
a commitment to the true gospel, uh, a ministration of
the true sacraments, and acommitment to church discipline.
You are not the church if youdon't discipline the church,
according to the reformers, andI believe according to
scripture.
And so one of the things I loveabout New City is that we have

(14:23):
always taken sin seriouslywithout taking ourselves
seriously.
It's a really hard needle tothread there.
And that's true of this church,and it's true of the kind of
church you want to be a part of,because I find myself pleading
with people, beckoning, urgingthem, saying, hey, please turn
back.
The direction you're going isleading to destruction.

(14:44):
There's a way that seems rightto man, but in its end it leads
to death.
And we urge and plead with whatGalatians 6.1 calls gentle
restoration.
A true church is gonna do that.
And so a question worth askingis: would my church attempt to
rescue me if I got entangled ingrievous sin?
Because that's what love does.

(15:05):
Now, not the sentimental,sappy, hallmark love that we're
gonna see a lot of movies aboutin the next season.
Not that kind of love.
Not a relativistic love, but arealistic love, the kind that we
see in verse 3.
Look at this.
It says, and the anger of theLord was kindled against Israel.
That metaphor is important.

(15:26):
The Lord's anger is describedas a burning fire.
Why?
Because the fire of love andthe fire of anger both feel like
a burning.
This is the way Song of Songs 8says it.
One of my favorite verses inall the scriptures.
Love is strong as death.
Jealousy is fierce as thegrave.
Its flashes are flashes offire, the very flame of the

(15:51):
Lord.
Many waters cannot quench love,neither can floods drown it.
You see, God's wrath is not theopposite of his love, but an
expression of it.
What I mean is that true loveis committed to the good of the
beloved.
Therefore, when the beloved isthreatened or engaged in

(16:13):
self-destruction like sin, lovenecessarily takes the form of
wrath.
Wrath is what love looks likewhen it confronts the evil that
harms the beloved.
Because the opposite of love isnot wrath, it's indifference.
Let me just make that plainwith a few brief illustrations.
If you're caught in addiction,a good friend's gonna confront

(16:36):
you, insist on rehab, removeaccess to the addiction of
choice, and set up boundariesfor you.
They're willing to risk beingperceived as harsh because they
care about a redemptiveconfrontation.
A judge who's kind towardscriminals is necessarily cruel
towards victims.
To ignore, excuse, or minimizeharm is not kindness, it's

(16:58):
cruelty.
A spouse who feels nothing whentheir partner betrays them does
not love.
Real covenant love burns withjealousy, the desire for
faithful, exclusive intimacy.
You see, that's what we see ondisplay here.
God's wrath is his loverefusing to be passive in the

(17:19):
presence of evil.
God is not a relativist.
God is jealous for the good ofhis beloved.
And so, if God is jealous, letus be zealous.
Look with me at Numbers 25,verse 6.
It says this.
And behold, one of the peopleof Israel came and brought a
Midianite woman to his family inthe sight of Moses and in the

(17:39):
sight of the whole congregationof the people of Israel, while
they were weeping in theentrance of the tent of meeting.
When Phineas, the son ofEliezer, son of Aaron, the
priest, saw it, he rose and leftthe congregation, and took a
spear in his hand, and wentafter the man of Israel into the
chamber and pierced both ofthem, the man of Israel and the
woman through her belly.

(18:00):
Thus the plague on the peopleof Israel was stopped.
Nevertheless, those who died bythe plague were twenty-four
thousand.
Wow, okay, here we go.
So Phineas sees a manflagrantly defying covenant
fidelity.
That's what he witnesses.
And so he brings a spear andenters this tent and kills the

(18:24):
man and this woman in the act,if you will.
Text goes on in verse 10.
How does the Lord appraisethis?
He says, And the Lord said toMoses, Phineas, the son of
Eliezer, son of Aaron, thepriest, has turned back my wrath
from the people of Israel, inthat he was jealous with my
jealousy.
Underline that, if you would,in your Bible.
Jealous with my jealousy amongthem, so that I did not consume

(18:48):
the people of Israel in myjealousy.
You see, according to theLord's telling of the story,
Phinehas is the hero because hewas, quote, jealous with my
jealousy, verse 11.
Now that's the key.
And it's actually a good lifepurpose.
You want something to live for,you want to have an aim that's

(19:08):
worth spending all of yourefforts and energies reaching
towards, become a man or a womanafter God's own heart.
Be the kind of person who, nomatter what, you are gonna try
to think God's thoughts afterhim, feel God's feelings after
him, love God's loves after him,will God's will after him.
That's what it means to be aman or a woman after God's own
heart.
And it's a worthwhile aim forthe entirety of your existence.

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No regrets if you pursue that.
And so, like Phineas, I wantthe verdict over my life to be,
I want the Lord to say, Ben, youwere jealous with my jealousy.
I want that.
I don't know if I have it.
Let me tell you a story.
In 2011, I lived with somefriends in a neighborhood just
north of UCF.

(19:52):
And when I was there, we with asmall neighborhood, about 50
houses, three streets, and wecovenanted together.
The roommates, uh, ourgirlfriends, some other friends,
we covenanted together to takespiritual responsibility for the
50 houses in our neighborhood.
We called it the Park RoadParish.
And so what that meant was wewould prayer walk often our

(20:14):
entire neighborhood and ask theLord, Lord, would you deliver
these people from darkness?
Bring them to your son Jesus.
We had an after-school programwhere we'd I'd come home from
work and I'd see uh a dozen kidsin my living room with my
roommate Danny reading the JesusStorybook Bible to them.
Um, my neighbor across thestreet ended up dying of cancer,
and I was holding her handwhile she died in her bed,

(20:35):
urging her to trust Jesus whilemy wife, then girlfriend, was in
the living room consoling herteenage daughters.
I cared.
I cared about my neighbors.
So one day when I was drivinghome, I pulled my truck over on
the side of the road in myneighborhood because I saw two
Mormons riding a bicycle.

(20:56):
Two bicycles.
I would have been impressed.
I wouldn't have been mad, Iwould have been impressed.
Two Mormons riding two bicyclesin my neighborhood.
And so I pulled my truck overand I get out and I say, Hey,
can I talk to you?
They're like, Oh yeah, wethat's what we're here for,
actually.
I was like, Oh, you don't knowwhat you're in for yet.

(21:16):
And so I spent about 30 minutestalking to them because that's
all that it took for them torealize I'm not the one.
I'm standing on business rightnow.
And so they talked to me aboutthe Mormon faith, and I'm I'm
like, this isn't happening.
And at some point in theconversation, it ended here,
usually they do, because I saidto them, hey, listen, I've taken
spiritual responsibility forthis neighborhood, and so what

(21:38):
that means is you're peddling afalse message that's leading
people to hell.
Do not come back.
Now, was that youthful zeal?
Maybe, but I fear full-grownlukewarmness.
I don't want that, I don't wantto look back on a day and age

(21:59):
when I burned for Jesus.
Man, you remember when I wassuper into Jesus?
I don't want that to be in mypast.
Far be it from me, because ifGod is jealous, I want to be
zealous for the things that Hecares about.
And so it's important todistinguish, though, from being
an intense jerk and godly zeal,all right?
That's important.

(22:20):
When I first came to knowJesus, I was in the intense jerk
side of things.
I remember one of my friends,Ed, who was an atheist, uh,
would let me practice on himsharing the gospel.
He's like, Oh, yeah, I mean,you talk to me if you want to.
I was like, great, Ed.
Captive audience.
And so I would talk to Ed aboutJesus and then he'd give me
feedback on how he thought itwent.
And he's like, dude, that wasactually really good.
It was super interesting atfirst, but then that point when

(22:43):
you looked at me and got reallyintense, you're like, You're
going to hell, dude.
He was like, I don't know whatto do with that.

And here's the thing (22:48):
Ed was like mostly right.
This is why.
Because I actually felt a fearbecause my responsibility was so
great for his salvation that Ifelt like it was all on me to
convert this dude.
And if I didn't do it right,and if he was resistant, I felt
anger because of his refusal totrust Jesus.

(23:08):
That was me being an intensejerk, frankly.
It was more about me and myfear, and I wasn't a
card-carrying Calvinist yet, sothis was zeal without knowledge.
And and that would have thatwould have helped me.
It would have helped me becauseI would have felt this sense of
like, Jesus, you got this,dude.
I don't, not me.
So what am I getting at?
What I'm trying to say is Iwant to be jealous with God's

(23:30):
jealousy for the people aroundme.
I want to be, I want to stepinto the shoes of Phineas.
I want to, I want to live likethis.
If Jesus is my model, I want tobe able to say, zeal for your
house consumes me.
But here's the problem.
Do you feel the tension aroundzeal?

(23:51):
Because simultaneously, on theone hand, zeal is a very
Christ-like emotion.
On the other hand, zealouspeople have done very
unchrist-like things in the nameof Christ.
And so what do we do with that?
I mean, par excellence is thezeal of Phineas becomes this uh
model for a lay movement ofJewish people called the

(24:13):
Pharisees.
You see, the most famousPharisee described himself like
this in Acts 22.
He says, I'm a Jew born inTarsus in Cilicia, but brought
up in this city, educated at thefeet of Gamaliel according to
the strict manner of the law ofour fathers, being zealous for
God, as all of you are this day,I persecuted this way to the

(24:35):
death, binding and deliveringprison to prison both men and
women.
Or how about this in Galatians1, Paul says it like this for
you have heard of my former lifein Judaism, how I persecuted
the church of God violently andtried to destroy it.
And I was advancing in Judaismbeyond many of my own age among
my people.
So extremely zealous was I forthe traditions of my fathers.

(24:59):
Or finally, Philippians 3, Paulpresents his flesh resume like
this.
He says, I was circumcised onthe eighth day of the people of
Israel, of the tribe ofBenjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews,
as to the law of Pharisee, as tozeal, a persecutor of the
church.
You notice in all three ofthose times when Paul's telling
his testimony, he connects hiszeal with his violent resistance

(25:23):
to Christianity.
They're linked in Paul's mind.
You see, because Paul sawhimself in the Phineas tradition
of zealous, covenantally loyalJewish warriors.
That's what it meant to be aPharisee.
And so they believed if theycould be pure enough, then they
could usher in God's kingdom.

(25:44):
That's why he was, it wasnothing for him to kill
Christians.
You see, like Phineas, Paul wastrying to be loyal to Israel's
God.
To Paul, Christians wereidolaters, they were worshiping
a man named Jesus of Nazareth.
No go in monotheistic Judaism.
And so not only were they doingthat, they were fraternizing

(26:04):
with pagans, they were eatingwith Gentiles, they must be
killed, Phineas style.
That's what Paul thought.
And so they believed that theywere anticipating a messianic
figure who would come and woulddestroy Israel's idolaters from
within and deliver them fromIsrael's enemies from without.
They were waiting for thatMessiah to come.

(26:26):
And all of the people who werenot as serious about Judaism as
they were, they looked down onand judged and thought, this
messianic figure is gonna set itup, set it right.
One of my favorite things isthat the Bible, there's no more
trenchant critic of the dangersof religious zeal than the
Bible.

(26:46):
The Bible's constantly warningus because something happened to
Paul.
Something happened to thiszealous Pharisee in the style of
Phineas.
He met the true Jesus.
You know the story in Acts 9 onthe road to Damascus, he meets
the man Jesus who is raised fromthe dead.

(27:07):
And so what does Paul do?
He goes to seminary for threeyears in the wilderness to
rethink his entire view of Jesusin light of uh the entire view
of scripture in light of Jesus.
And when he did that, he res heredirected his zeal to be found
in Christ.
That's the third point, andwhere we're gonna land the
plane.
If God is jealous, let us bezealous to be found in Christ.

(27:30):
Now you see behind mePhilippians 3.
Paul, after his flesh resume,as I called it, goes on to
describe this.
He says, But whatever gained Ihad, I counted as loss for the
surpassing, for the sake ofChrist.
Indeed, I counted everything aslost because of the surpassing
worth of knowing Christ Jesus myLord.
For his sake I have sufferedthe loss of all things and count

(27:53):
them as rubbish, in order thatI may gain Christ and be found
in him, not having arighteousness of my own that
comes from the law, but thatwhich comes through faith in
Christ, the righteousness fromGod that depends on faith, that
I may know him and the power ofhis resurrection and may share
his sufferings, becoming likehim in his death, that by any

(28:13):
means possible I may attain theresurrection from the dead.
Not that I've already obtainedthis or I'm already perfect, but
I, here's the zealous language,press on to make it my own
because Christ Jesus has made mehis own.
Brothers, I do not considerthat I have made it my own, but
one thing I do, forgetting whatlies behind, I strain forward to

(28:33):
what lies ahead.
I press on toward the goal forthe prize of the upward call of
God in Christ Jesus.
I love this dig at the end.
Let those of us who are maturethink this way, and if anything
you think otherwise, God's gonnashow you you're wrong and I'm
right.
Only let us hold true to whatwe have attained.
Now, why do I read that lengthypassage?
Because I want you to see thatPaul didn't get, he didn't go

(28:55):
soft on the total demand of Godover all of life.
God doesn't rewire apersonality, he redirects it.
Paul was a zealous man, and yetwhen Paul saw the cross of
Christ, the fire of his zeal wasignited to burn in a different
way.
You see, because rather thancoming like a Phineas-like

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Messiah to spear sinners, Jesushanging on the cross was speared
by and for sinners.
You see, rather than Jesuscoming to pierce evildoers,
Jesus himself was pierced forevildoers.
So what Paul saw was that onthe cross we can we can see the
fierce jealousy of God todestroy our sin.

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That's what we see in thecross.
And so what that means is thatGod is not tepid toward your
transgressions.
They matter.
The cross of Christ does notoffer an excuse, it offers
forgiveness.
Those are two very differentthings.
And so when we see the cross,we recognize that it is this is
what it took for God to recuse.

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Recognize, we have to recognizethis is what it took for God to
rescue me from my compromise.
You see, God is far fromindifferent toward your
affections.
James 4 says it like this Doyou not know that God yearns
jealously for the spirit thatHe's put within you?
We see that when we look at thecross.

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And so what it does is that itignites our zeal to repent.
That's what Paul says in 2Corinthians 7.
You see, some of you here,Jesus would look at you and he
would say, in the words ofRevelation 2, you have lost your
first love.
Repent.
Come back home.
Look at the cross.

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See how unrelativistic God istowards your sin.
He is willing to destroy hisown son to destroy your own sin.
Hate your sin.
But do not hate yourself.
Because you look again at thecross and we see that God has a
fierce and jealous love to makeus his own.

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You see, in the cross we seethat not only is God willing to
destroy our sin, he's willing tobe pierced for our sin.
So some of you in here, likeKeith Green, you've been making
religious vows to do this and todo that, and either you do them
and you become an insufferableperson to be around, or you fail
at them and you spiral intodespair.

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You see, the cross says thatGod loves you where you are as
you are, and that that love foryou actually changes you over
time.
And so, if God would welcomeme, even me, into his covenant
people, then it redirects ourzeal to take up a towel, not a
sword, towards our neighbors.

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Augustine of Hippo said it likethis: those who are lost in
their passions are less lostthan those who have lost their
passions.
What does that mean?
It means that the worst thingis half-hearted Christianity.
Because you feel enough to feelguilty, but not enough to feel
free.
Like, let me just be straightwith you.

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Either go all in with Jesus orfind another hobby.
It's not worth it.
Because the only way that wecan function at our fullest is
if we are on fire burning forsomething worthwhile.
And I'm telling you, JesusChrist is worthwhile.
You see, the reality is thatwithout abandonment to God, our

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hearts end up sinking intorestlessness and boredom and
frustration, and you betterbelieve those things all come
out sideways.
If you have nothing to die for,you will live for nothing.
Jesus gives himself to you.
You see, it is worth being, ifGod is jealous for you, then
it's worth being zealous to befound in Christ.

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He gives all of himself to you.
He's giving himself to youright now.
He has himself to you on offer.
Will you take him?
One of the questions I'm goingto invite you to ask in a moment
is, Lord, what is it thathinders love?
What is it that hinders youfrom being my all-consuming
passion?
Because you see, Jesus on thecross purchased a church full of

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people ablaze with affectionfor him.
If this really is a romance inthe midst of the battlefield,
then the Father would not insulthis beloved son by giving him a
bride that is bored, passive,and compromising.
Because nothing less than yourfull affections will do.
Nothing less than your totalallegiance and devotion to him

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will do.
Christianity without zeal isnot a threat to the devil.

John Wesley said it like this: light yourself on fire with (33:40):
undefined
passion for Jesus, and peoplewill come from miles to watch
you burn.
I want that for a new city.
I want us to be a people whoburn with a zeal for the love of
Christ.
That actually shapes us.
One person has said, it is menand women on fire who change the

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course of history.
Nothing less.
And so, true Christianitysparks a flame in the human
spirit.
It ignites in us a fervency.
This matters.
It matters for the trends ofhistory that we become a people,
not like a Laodicean age likewe live in right now, but a

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people who burn with a zeal forthe true and living God.
Let me close with some wordsfrom one of Keith Green's songs.
Oh Lord, please light the firethat once burned bright and
clean.
Replace the lamp of my firstlove that burns with holy fear.
Lord Jesus, we ask these thingsnow.
Would you give us, restore tous our first love?

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A felt affection for you thatburns away everything that
hinders love, Jesus.
Spirit of God, this is yourwork.
You are described as the fireof God throughout Scripture.
Would you come, fire of God?
Not in judgment, but come topurify.
Purify New City from our littleidolatries, our seemingly

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inconspicuous compromises.
You see them.
We want to see them too, and wewant to repent.
We want to be zealous to turnback to you with our whole
hearts.
For your beautiful name wepray.
Amen.