For our scripture reading, let's
open our Bibles together to Exodus chapter three. Exodus chapter three. We'll read
the first six verses. Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro
his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock
to the backside of the desert and came to the mountain of God,
even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared
unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. And he
looked and behold, the bush burned with fire and the bush was not
consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn
aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. And
when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto
him out of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he
said, here am I. And he said, draw not neither
put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am the God
of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon
God. Thank God for his word. Let's
bow together. Our father, we've gathered here
together tonight, gathered together with Thy people, gathered together
out of this world. And Father, we've come to worship
You. We've come to hear word from
Thee, to be refreshed with a drink from the fountain of life, to
be refreshed with the preaching of Christ from Your Word. And
Father, I beg of You that as we open Your Word, that Father,
You'd send Your Spirit upon us, that You would enable us to see
past the words on the page and to see Christ incarnate, to see
Christ the Savior. And Father, seeing Him, to run
to Him, to believe upon Him, to cling to Him, to find in Him
everything that You require of us, righteousness, holiness,
perfection, obedience. Father, let us run to Christ
and find salvation. in him. Father, draw us, we pray. Draw us to him. Don't leave us
to ourselves. But Father, through the preaching
of your word, draw us to Christ our Savior. Father, I plead that
you enable me in this hour to rightly divide the word of truth
and to do it with a heart of love for thee, a heart that stands
in awe of the gospel of your dear son and a heart that cares
for your people, that could preach the gospel of Christ with compassion
for sinners. And Father, that you be with
your people as we hear, that you'd enable us to hear, that
you enable us to hear with the ears of faith. And Father, what
we pray for ourselves, we pray for your people, wherever they
might be meeting together tonight, God bless for your great namesake.
Bless for the good of your people. Father, this dark, dark day in
which we live, would you be pleased to show us your glory? Reveal
your redemptive glory in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ
and draw your people to you. Give us a great revival in this
dark day, we pray. Father, we thank you for this
place. I thank you for this family of
believers that you've called together Father, pray that you'd
bless us, that you would lead, that you would guide, that you
would provide now and in the days ahead as you have in the
future. Cause us, Father, to love one
another, to be a help and encouragement to each other, and bless your
word as it goes forth from this place. Father, for the sick and
the afflicted of our number, we pray for them. We pray for
Andrea, as she's going through these treatments, we pray for
the Sparks family that needs you so much right now. We pray
for our brother Tom, that you'd undertake in his behalf that
upon all these cases that you'd heal the bodies of your people,
that especially you'd be pleased to comfort their hearts with
your presence. And Father, all these things we ask in that name
which is above every name, the name of Christ our Savior, amen. All right, Exodus chapter three.
I want to talk to you tonight about coming to Christ. You know,
it is vitally important that when we preach the gospel, that
we compel sinners to come to Christ. Peter did that. Remember at the end of his great
message there on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, verse 40, it says,
and with many other words did he testify and exhort saying,
save yourselves from this untoward generation. Everything Peter
said there is not recorded, but we do know he used many words
to exhort sinners to come to Christ, to come to Christ and
come away from the religion and the religious traditions of that
day. He used many words to exhort people to come to Christ. Paul,
he's preaching on Mars Hill in Acts 17, verse 30. told those
folks that the times of this ignorance God winked at but now
commandeth all men everywhere to repent. Almighty God commands
all men everywhere who don't care who they are where you find
them God has commanded us to repent and remember I tell you
this so often repentance is not just being sorry for our sin
you know that's just being sorry we got caught sorry there's consequences
for our sins Repentance is to turn to Christ from our idols.
Turn away from those idols. Turn away from those things,
all those false refuges that we used to trust in and turn
and trust Christ. That's the commandment of God.
It's not optional. It's not a suggestion. This is
the commandment of God. And since that's true, I try
every time I preach to compel sinners to come to Christ. It's
what Brother Henry used to say, closing with Christ. Preach for
a decision, he said. Pale sinners to close with Christ. And I hope you don't tune me
out because I say it so often like, you know, a broken record.
I hope you don't tune that out because there is nothing more
important to our souls. There's nothing more vital to
us than coming to Christ. That applies to all of us, no
matter who we are. That applies to the unbeliever.
There's someone here tonight that does not yet trust Christ
I'm telling you, on the authority of God's Word, you come to Christ.
Coming to Christ is believing Him. You believe Him. You trust
your soul to Him. You come to Christ begging for
salvation because you believe that Christ is all it takes to
save you. You come to Christ begging for mercy because you
believe there's forgiveness of sin found in the blood of Christ.
This commandment is to unbelievers, And this commandment to come
to Christ is to believers too, did you know that? You're here
tonight, you trust Christ. I'm telling you, you come to
Christ. You come to Christ trusting Him. Isn't that what the Apostle
Peter said? To whom coming. Not to who we
came once, you know, 25 years ago, now we got this thing all
straightened out. To whom coming. Keep coming to Christ. Do you
believe Christ? Well, keep believing Him. Don't
quit now, keep believing Him. Come to Christ right now, just
like you did the very first time that you came to Christ. You
know, the first time any of us came to Christ, we came to Christ
because we needed Him. We saw our great need of Him.
We needed Him to be our everything. Come to Him now the same way,
because you need Him to be your everything. The first time you
came to Christ, you came Fully trusting Him. I mean, it was
such joy, such relief for your soul. Oh, you can just trust
Christ to be everything God requires of you. It was such joy, it was
such a relief, wasn't it? You were so excited. You had
such peace of your soul, peace of heart in trusting Christ.
Now you come to Christ the very same way right now. In full assurance
of faith. Trusting Him now just like you
did when you first came to Him. See, coming to Christ is not
a movement of the body. Coming to Christ, it's a movement
of our heart. It has to do with our affections
and our attitude. And our text tonight gives us
a very good instruction on how to come to Christ. How? What's
our attitude? The attitude of our heart about
God and the attitude of our heart about ourselves in coming to
Christ. And I want to give you five points
that I believe will be helpful to us in this matter of coming
to Christ. I've titled the message tonight,
Take Your Shoes Off. Take Your Shoes Off. Now, number
one, this thing of coming to Christ. You come to Christ because
He is the successful Savior of sins. You come to Christ because
you believe His sacrifice will save you. In this passage we
just read, Our brother Moses, remember, he'd been run out of
town on a rail. He'd been run out of town from Egypt. He ran
into these girls, you know, down there with some sheep, and he
watered them and took care of them. Their father, you know,
said, you know, bring him home. He ended up marrying one of them
girls, and here he is. He's keeping his father-in-law's
sheep. I mean, you know, he's kind of living on the kindness
of his father-in-law. And he's out there, Moses, just
out there minding his own business. It's been 40 years. He's forgot
all about being in Egypt. He's forgot all about that rat
race. Moses is just out there minding his own business, keeping
his father's sheep. And he leads them to a new place,
I guess, to graze on the backside of the desert. And while he's
there, he looked up on the mountain and he saw a bush that was on
fire. But the bush wasn't being consumed. And Moses said, now
that's interesting. That's a sight. I believe I'm
gonna go see what's going on here. Why isn't that bush being
consumed? And as he went to investigate
and got a little closer, the angel of the Lord appeared unto
him out of that burning bush. And that angel of the Lord is
the Lord Jesus Christ. The pre-incarnate appearance
of Christ. This is God himself. Down here, where is it in here? It says
that And when the Lord saw that he
turned aside to see, verse four, God called unto him out of the
midst of the bush. This is the son of God in the
midst of that bush. Now he's called God, but up here
earlier he's called the angel of the Lord. The angel of the
Lord is the Lord Jesus Christ. Angels are messengers. That's
what Christ is. He's the messenger of the covenant
of God's grace. He's the messenger that comes
and tells us how it is that God's gonna save sinners It's not in
all the ceremonies and the ritualism and the commandments of the law
that we find in the Old Testament. It's in Christ. It's in the Son
of God incarnate. And don't miss this because it's
so important. Christ our Savior appeared to
Moses in a thorn bush. The word bush he uses there means
a thorn bush, a prickly bush. It's almost wherever you put
your hand in there, cut you and poke you, it's a thorn bush,
very thorny. Now, thorns in scripture are
a picture of the curse of sin. Remember, thorns, they weren't
in God's first creation, were they? Not until after Adam fell. As a result of Adam's sin, God
said, thorns and thistles, earth will bring forth to you. Thorns
are the curse of sin in this earth. And Christ appeared to
Moses in that thorn bush. He's already showing Moses how
it is God's gonna save his people from their sin. God saves his
people by his son bearing the curse of sin for his people when
he was made sin for them. As Christ suffered and he died
on the cross, what was on his head? A crown of thorns. From a bush very similar to this
one probably, He showed He dying, bearing the curse of sin for
His people. And not only was the Savior in
the thorn bush, the bush was on fire. It was burning. And
that burning is a picture. Christ was made sin for His people.
He suffered as the sinner substitute. He suffered all of the wrath
of His Father against the sin of His people. And His suffering
in the fiery wrath of His Father put away all of the sin of all
of his people. Everyone for whom he died for
has no sin. Christ put it away. He's the
successful Savior. This is the only sacrifice. The
sacrifice of Christ that you see can do this. Here in a little
while, the Lord's gonna give Moses the law. He's gonna give
him all the sacrifices and all the things, you know, that Israel
would spend 4,000 years doing. And there's so many sacrifices.
I mean, a sacrifice for everything. And every time some man, some
son of Aaron offered an animal sacrifice as a burnt offering
to God, you know what happened? They cut that body, that animal
up, they put it on the fire and they burned it in the fire. until
the body was gone. I mean, there was some dregs
left over, whatever, and they took that outside the camp and
disposed of it because it was unclean. But the fire of that
sacrifice would only go out when the body of the animal was gone.
There's no more fuel left when the body's all burned up. In
those cases where the sons of Aaron offered a sacrifice, the
fire always consumed the sacrifice, didn't it? But here God's giving
us a picture, telling Moses this is how God's gonna save his people. Christ suffered. As he suffered
on the cross, the wrath of God fell upon him. That was not pretend. I mean, this was the real deal.
The wrath of the Father against the sin of his people. And it
burned, and it burned, and it burned. Christ suffered until
all that sin that was laid on him was gone. The fire of God's
wrath went out because there's no more sin left to fuel it.
And when the fire of God's wrath stopped, you know who was left?
Christ the Savior. The fire didn't consume him.
He consumed the fire. He paid the redemption price.
Now he gave up the ghost and died. To satisfy the law's last
demand, there's got to be death for sin. Now you think this is
the only time this ever happened to the sacrifice. The Lord Jesus
Christ, our savior was not consumed by the fire. No, he endured it. He was still there when the fire
went out. You know why? He's the successful
savior. His blood put away all the sin
of his people. And now that that sacrifice is
complete, God commands sinners. He commands you and me to come
to Christ, believing on him. You know, God called to Moses.
He called him, told him how he could come to him. God had to
call Moses, didn't he? That's the only way any of us
will ever come to Christ, is if God calls us. Now, you may
hear a lot of preachers giving you God's commandment. You believe
Christ. You come to Christ, you believe
him. And you hear him over and over and over again, and your
heart's unmoved. But when God calls you, to come
to Christ. When He speaks to your heart,
instead of a preacher speaking to your ears and God speaks to
your heart, you're gonna come running. You'll come running.
And if He's gonna do it, He's gonna do it through what we're
doing right now. The preaching of Christ. See, the Lord is pleased
to call His people to Christ the successful Savior by somebody
preaching the gospel of grace, by somebody preaching Christ
as He is the successful Savior. This is how Christ is revealed
to us today. It's by the preaching of the
gospel. Now the law says, don't come. The law says, don't come
to God's presence. Don't you come into the Holy
of Holies where the Shekinah glory of God is. God says, don't
you do that. When God was on top of that mountain,
Mount Sinai, he said, don't you touch it. Don't you come to this
mountain. Don't you even let your animals
touch it. Whoever does, they have to die. The law says, Don't
come. The gospel of grace says come. Come to God. Christ has made
the way wide open. If you come to God on the basis
of Christ's sacrifice for sin, Almighty God will accept you.
Now that's a sacrifice, that's a successful savior. If you find
me a sinner, I can tell you somebody who'd want to come to him. You
won't be able to keep him away. We come to Christ because he's a
successful Savior. But then before Moses drew nigh
to that burning bush where the Lord was, where his presence
was, the Lord told Moses something significant. He told Moses, you
take off your shoes in my presence. You're on holy ground. Don't
you come wearing your shoes. You take them off. Now believe
it or not, Moses taking off his shoes is a picture of the attitude
that a sinner has, the attitude of our heart when we come to
Christ. Don't come to Christ until you
take your shoes off. Don't come to Christ until you're
barefoot. Until you're barefoot. I almost
titled this message Barefoot with Christ. It's the only way
you can come to him now is barefoot. Now, Frank, what on earth does
that mean? What does that picture? Well, it pictures the attitude
of the believer's heart. Our attitude about ourselves
and our attitude about God when we come to Him for mercy and
grace and forgiveness. So my first point, remember,
is this. Now, you come to Christ because He's the successful Savior
of sinners. My second point is come to Christ
in reverence toward God. Reverence. You're taking off
your shoes. It could be like a man tipping
his cap to a lady. It's a sign of respect, isn't
it? You know, in some areas of our country, and I guess areas
of the world, any guest coming into a home will just automatically
take their shoes off. You know, if it's an area where
there's a lot of bad weather, where there's snow and rain and
mud and things, maybe it's really, really dusty or something. People
will take off their shoes when they go into their friend's house
so they don't track mud and dirt and stuff all over their friend's
house. That's just nice, isn't it? Just consider it. It's a
sign of respect. You know who else took their
shoes off before they came into a building? The priests. Before the priests came into
the tabernacle to do the various jobs that they had to do there,
you know what they did? Right before they went into the
tabernacle, they washed their hands, and they washed their
feet in that brazen laver. Now, scripture never talks about
any footwear for the priests. So this is what we assume, that
when they washed their feet, they went into the tabernacle
barefoot. They didn't wear their sandals,
they were barefoot, and they would go in to light the candlestick,
and they'd go in to put incense on the altar, or they'd go in
to put the showbread on the table. They did all that barefoot. I
mean, that's just kind of what we assume because scripture doesn't
talk about wearing any shoes, but it is also Jewish tradition.
That's what they say the priest always did. They went in the
tabernacle barefoot. Now, I don't know. Maybe that's not true because
it's not actually in scripture, but it sure is a good sign, a
good show of respect from the priest. They are not going to
wash their feet. and then put their dirty sandals
on. Those sandals that they made, how they cobbled them together,
you know. I'm not going to wash my feet and then put my dirty
sandals on and track my dirt all through the house of God.
I'm coming barefoot. It's reverence and respect. Well,
in the same way, the only way you and I can expect to come
to God and be accepted is in reverence. Reverence and respect
toward God. And the best way I can think
of to show reverence to the Lord is to come to Him pleading His
Son alone. That's the best way I can think
of to show respect to God. I'm not trusting any of my sinful
works. I'm coming barefoot. I'm not
bringing any of my own filthy works with me. I'm not bringing
with me those things that I've cobbled together trying to make
it easier for me to walk and protect my feet and so forth.
I'm coming barefoot. Trusting Christ alone without
me adding one thing to him And I don't care who you are if you
come with reverence for Christ like that trusting him alone
The father will accept you He'll accept you Moses showed reverence
toward the Lord didn't he? At the end of verse 6 it says
that Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God That's
respect. I'm not gonna look upon God.
I only come to him in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
respect. All right, number three, come
to Christ in shame in ourselves. You know, the old Jews, to be
barefoot, to them, to be barefoot in public, you know, that was
a sign of shame. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 25. Deuteronomy chapter
25. My grandmother, my mother's mother
was a lot this way. She felt like, you know, if you're
out in the country somewhere, you know, you go around barefoot.
But boy, you're in civilization now. You're wearing shoes. I
mean, shoes in the house. I mean, you wear shoes from the
time you get out of bed in the morning to the time you get back
in bed at night. You wear shoes, you know. I never did wear shoes,
and there's some song she used to sing about, put your shoes
on Lucy, don't you know you're in the city. I mean, she just
felt like, oh, this is so shameful, you know, to be going around
barefoot, like you're some hillbilly or something. I am. But the Jews
thought the same thing. They had Deuteronomy 25, verse
five. If brethren dwell together and
one of them die and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not
marry without unto a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go
in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the
duty of a husband's brother unto her. And it shall be that the
firstborn, which she beareth, shall succeed in the name of
his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel. And if the man like not to take
his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the
gate unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother refuseth
to take up unto his brother a name in Israel. He will not perform
the duty of my husband's brother. Then the elders of his city shall
call him and speak unto him. And if he stand to it, if he
said, yep, that's what I said. And he say, I like not to take
her. Then shall his brother's wife
come unto him in the presence of the elders and loose his shoe
from off his foot and spit in his face. And shall answer and
say, so shall it be done unto that man that will not build
up his brother's house. And his name shall be called
in Israel the house of him that hath his shoe loosed. That man
would have to walk around without that shoe, and forever he would
be remembered as a fellow that walked around without his shoe.
He was admitting his shame. I should take care of her, I
should provide for her, I should raise up a name for my brother,
but I won't do it. And he had to bear his shame,
and the way he bore his shame, he had to walk around with just
one shoe off. Look over at the Book of Ruth.
This is what happened. in the book of Ruth. You remember
the story here, Ruth 4. Ruth and Naomi had come back
to Israel, and they found out that there was a kinsman, Boaz. Oh my, he was a specimen. I mean,
big, tall, handsome fella, rich fella. And Ruth was head over
heels in love with him. Just one look's all it took.
But there was a kinsman closer. The closest kinsman had the right
to redeem. And there was a kinsman more
closely related to Limelech than Boaz. And he had the right of
first refusal. In verse one, look at there at
the end where it says, Boaz called and ho such a one, turn aside
and sit down here. What I read is they knew this
man's name, but since he wouldn't redeem Ruth and Naomi, They wouldn't
put his name here. They just call him Old Such-a-One.
Old Such-a-One. He's already starting to show
you how he's bearing his shame here. But look here at verse
three. Boaz is determined he wants to redeem Naomi and Ruth,
but there's this near kinsman. So he said unto the kinsman,
Naomi that has come again out of the country of Moab, selleth
a parcel of land, which was our brother Lemonlex. And I thought
to advertise thee, saying, buy it before the inhabitants and
before the elders of my people. If that will redeem it, redeem
it. But if that will not redeem it, then tell me that I may know,
for there's none to redeem it beside thee, and I am after thee.
And he said, oh, such a one said, I'll redeem it. Oh, such a one
thought, this sounds like a good deal. I can get this land for
a steal, you know, I can pay less than what it's worth, I'll
redeem it. Well, then said Boaz, what day thou buyest the field
of the hand of Naomi? Thou must bide also of Ruth,
the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of
the dead upon his inheritance. And the kinsman said, I cannot
redeem it for myself, lest I mar my own inheritance. Redeem thou
my right to thyself, for I cannot redeem it. And he could, he just
wouldn't, would he? He wouldn't redeem it. Now this
was the manner in former time in Israel concerning redeeming
and concerning changing, for to confirm all things, A man
plucked off his shoe and gave it to his neighbor. And this
was a testimony in Israel. Therefore, the kinsman said unto
Boaz, buy it for thee. So he drew off his shoe. And
he drew off his shoe and you know, he had to walk home with
one shoe on, one shoe off, you know. But Jewish tradition says,
Ruth did exactly what they say in the book of Deuteronomy. She
took his shoe, and she spit in his face, and then they say,
she beat him with his own shoe. Now that's being publicly shamed,
isn't it? The man could have done it, he didn't. And he had
to bear that shame. He could not do what God's law
required him to do, and he had to bear the shame in front of
everybody. All right. Here's the instruction to you
and me. Take off your shoes before you come to Christ. Come to Christ
admitting all your shame. Don't try to preserve any of
your dignity. That's impossible for this flesh
to do, isn't it? But don't try to preserve any of your dignity.
Don't try to hide any of your sin. Come to Christ in all of
your shameful failure, all of your shameful loss, all of your
inability to keep God's law, all of your refusal to do it.
You cannot keep it and you will not keep it. Come to God admitting
that. Come admitting your shame. You
have fallen short of everything that God requires of you. Come
to Christ admitting the shame of your sin. I mean, shame is,
sin is not just breaking the rules. There's a shame involved
in this. It's shameful how we do not even
desire to keep God's law. But you know, if you come to
Christ in your shame, you'll be accepted. More than that,
if you come to Christ in your shame, you know what Christ will
do for you? He'll make it so that you've
got nothing to be ashamed of. Because He'll take all of your
sin away. He bore the sin and shame of His people. He bore
it away from His people. And all that's left for them
is righteousness. He'll make it so you've got nothing
to be ashamed of. But now you have to take your
shoes off and admit your shame when we come, won't we? Alright, here's the fourth thing.
come to Christ naked. And it was so shameful to those
old Jews to be barefoot in public, they'd say, well, I may as well
be naked. That's how shameful they viewed this thing of being
barefoot. I may as well be naked, you know. A couple months ago,
I had to have my wedding ring resized. I just never take my
wedding ring off, But it got real tight. I had to have it
resized. Well, they had that thing. I'm telling you, I felt
naked without my wedding ring on, you know, just felt so weird.
Well, that's what the Jews were saying. I just feel naked, you
know, being barefoot in front of folks. Well, when the Lord
told Moses, you take your shoes off. Here's what he's telling
him. You come to me naked. See, we're going to come to Christ
and be accepted. We have to be naked. We can't be trying to
clothe part of ourselves, you know, and cover some of our modesty
with our rags of righteousness and have Christ cover the rest.
No, we've got to come naked. We can't expect to come to the
Holy God, the King of Kings, in His holiness, dressed in our
rags of righteousness, the rags that are defiled with our sin,
and expect to be accepted. Of course not. We've got to come
naked so that Christ will clothe us. He's not going to clothe
us until we're completely naked. Now remember, coming to Christ
is believing on Christ. Come to Him, trusting Him to
do all of the saving for you. Now it's obvious I'm not trusting
Christ alone if I'm trying to help Him save me. If I'm trying
to help Christ cover my nakedness, I'm not trusting Him alone, am
I? Can you imagine how insulting that is to the son of God? To
say your perfect robe of righteousness, that's not enough. Let me contribute
some of my rags. And then you have your robe of
righteousness, you know, cover the rest of it. I've got some simple works here
of my religion. I've got some of my morality.
I know it's not perfect, but now boy, it better, most of the
sons of Adam, Let me contribute that, you know, to my righteousness
and you can fill in the rest. That's insulting God Almighty,
because not trusting His Son to be enough to save me by Himself. Now God's not going to accept
that, is He? But, if I come to Christ, pleading nothing but
Christ alone, God will cover my shame. He'll cover my nakedness. in the perfect robe of Christ.
You know, my sin, my sin nature, those rags of righteousness,
those rags of righteousness are not just pasted on. Those rags
of righteousness are not something that just hangs over me loosely,
but doesn't really cover me. Those rags of righteousness,
that's sin through and through. And we know that, don't we? Well, Christ's righteousness
is the same thing. Christ's righteousness is not
a pasted-on righteousness. Christ's righteousness is not
a robe that is used to cover my sin and my shame and my defilement. It's all still there. I'm just
trying to cover it with this robe. God sees through that. Being clothed in the righteousness
of Christ means that God has made me righteous through and
through. When Christ was made sin for
me, He put my sin away. and He made me the righteousness
of God in Him. And if I come to Christ pleading
nothing, I've got nothing to contribute to this thing, I'm
naked. If you come that way, Almighty
God will save you. As long as you come pleading
nothing but Christ. All right, here's the fifth thing.
Come to Christ because you're at home with Him. Remember the
Lord told Moses, Moses take off your shoes, you're on holy ground. Now how can a sinner ever expect
to stand on holy ground? How can a sinner ever come straight
to the throne of God? I mean, Moses is so afraid, he
hid his face, he wouldn't even look at God. How can a sinner
ever come straight to the throne of God and not be struck down?
It's by the sacrifice of Christ for his family. Look at John
chapter 20. They were talking about the family
being home together. Who did Christ suffer and die
for? The family of God, His elect. John chapter 20. This is after our Lord had arisen. He appeared to Mary. John 20
verse 16. And Jesus saith unto her, Mary.
And she turned herself and saith unto him, Rabboni, which is to
say master. She must have fallen and just
been clutching at his feet. And Jesus saith unto her, touch
me not. What he means is don't cling
to me. You don't have to cling to me. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not yet ascended to my father.
But you go tell my brethren and you say unto them, I ascend unto
my father and your father, unto my God and your God. Our savior
suffered and died for his family. And that's who he sent a message
to after he was resurrected from the dead. The Savior calls his
disciples brethren. Brothers are part of the same
family. He says we have the same father, my father and your father,
my God and your God. He's talking to his family and
he's telling them the good news of his resurrection. He's telling
them my resurrection is the evidence, my death Put away all of the
sin of my family. My one sacrifice for sin that
was made for my people made them holy. Made them righteous. Now you come home. Take your
shoes off and you stay a while. This is for the family. Remember where Moses was when
the Lord told him this when he first appeared to him on this
mountain, this burning bush? Moses called it the mountain
of God. Later on, we find out that's Mount Sinai. That's where
he was. Where, a few years later, God's gonna give the law to Moses
on top of this very mountain, Sinai. Sinai is always a picture
of the law. You know, one time, the Lord
said, don't you touch this mountain. Now, don't you come up here.
Now, I'll let Moses come up here when I call him, but other than
that, don't you come up here. Don't you come touch this mountain.
If you do, you're going to die. And it made the people so full
of fear. Mount Sinai filled them with fear because of the presence
of God, the smoke and the lightning and the storm, the tempest, the
wrath of God on that mountain. They were so full of fear. They
said, Moses, we don't even want to go up there and talk to God.
You go talk to God for us. Come back and tell us what he
said. We don't want anything to do with this mountain. That's
the law. Oh, if we ever see what the law
says, we don't want anything to do with the law. All the law
can do is demand our condemnation. But you don't have to fear the
law if Christ obeyed it for you. You can say with David, you don't
have to be afraid of the law anymore. You can say, I love
thy law. Oh, I love God's law. I'm comfortable
around the law of God because in Christ, I obeyed it. See,
that's why I'm comfortable around it. The law's not angry with
me anymore because Christ made me holy. He made me righteous. He obeyed it for me. So take
your shoes off and be comfortable. Be reverent, but be comfortable.
You know, I just don't think a person can be any more comfortable
than when they're at home with the family that they love. I
just don't think you can be more comfortable than that. And we've
all, you know, we've all experienced that. It's just comfortable,
isn't it? Will you imagine being that comfortable in the presence
of the Son of God? And believers have that comfort.
They have that enjoyment because of the sacrifice of Christ. His
sacrifice made it so that His people belong. They belong in
that house. He adopted them into His family.
He birthed them into His family. They belong there. When I was
a boy living in Danville, there was a trio there, and they sung
a song that had this line in it. I'm not worthy to be here,
but thank God I belong. I belong because Christ made
me worthy. And you know, whenever I'm at
home, I never wear shoes. I mean, never. I might wear socks
in the wintertime, but I never wear shoes. It's just so much
comfortable. I guess I'm like a toddler. As
soon as I get home, I'm taking off my shoes. I just don't wear
them. Well, this week, here I am, coming
out of my study. I'm in my bare feet. And Jan's
been in the kitchen. She's been cleaning the cabinets,
and she wants to, you know, the way we've had the dishes for
all these years, so I know right where everything's at. That's
not good enough anymore. We've got to rearrange things,
you know. And while she's cleaning and rearranging things, you know,
she's taking all the plates and the glasses out, setting them
on the counter. She knocked the glass off the counter. I heard
it, man. I mean, it shattered into 10
million pieces. And first thing she said, don't
you come in this kitchen until you put your shoes on. It wouldn't
be comfortable for you. It's not safe for you in here.
There's all this broken glass, you know. Don't you come in here
until you put your shoes on. In God's house, God will never
tell you, don't you come in this room until you put your shoes
on. He'll never say, don't come in the throne room, don't come
in the living room, don't come in the drawing room until you
put your shoes on. There's never any broken glass
to worry about. There's nothing there, nothing
that will harm you. So take your shoes off. There's
never any reason to fear condemnation. because Christ already was condemned
for me. See, it all goes back to my first point, the successful
Savior. Now you trust Him and you come
to Him. You come to Him in confidence
that His blood is all it takes to cleanse you from your sin.
You come to Him in confidence. You're a child of God. You think,
I'm not worthy, but I don't know about that. This man received
the sinners. and eat it with them. Now come
take your shoes off and stay a while. All right, I hope that'll
be a blessing to you. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for this time you've given us together to read and study your
word. Father, I pray that you use it
for your glory, for the comfort and the edification, the strengthening
of the hearts of your people. that you'd cause us to see more
of our Lord Jesus Christ and trust him more fully, to love
him more completely, to find all of our joy, peace, and hope
in him. Father, we ask this for the glory
of your son. If you'd cause sinful men and
women like we are to rest in your son, to be clothed in the
righteousness of your son, to be washed from our sin in your
son, surely we'd see He gets all the glory for it. Father,
for the glory of your son, would you bless us through the preaching
of your word tonight. Father, it's in Christ's name,
for his sake we pray, amen. All right, Sean.