Savior, We Are Thine // Exodus 32:25–35

In Exodus 32:25–35, Moses draws a line in the camp and calls Israel to choose the Lord. Pastor Josh Thompson explains the seriousness of Israel’s sin, Moses’ extraordinary offer to be blotted out for the people, and why Moses could not ultimately make atonement for them.

Only Jesus, the spotless Savior and true Mediator, could bear our guilt in our place. Because Christ paid the price of sin, we can belong wholly to Him and declare, “Savior, we are Thine.”

Series: Leaving the Darkness

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We're in Exodus chapter 32 in our Bibles. If you want to turn there, Exodus chapter 32. We'll cover verses 25 to 35. Title of the sermon today, if you're taking notes, is Savior We Are Thine. Savior We Are Thine. Comes from a hymn I had found and was really moved by a line in there. Sermon number 83 through the book of Exodus. We're working through a series that titled Leave in the Darkness, where we watch Moses bring the people out of darkness, out of slavery, out of from under the hand of Pharaoh, out from under the hand of the world, into marvelous light, into a relationship with God, into the promised land, really onto a journey walking with God. Heard of a story, maybe you heard of this one too. A brand new drill sergeant is calling the morning roll, and he starts taking role and he takes it seriously. Anderson here. Baker here. Cooper, silence. He says a lot. Cooper, nothing. Finally, a voice pipes up from the back row. Uh, Cooper's still asleep in the barracks, sir, but don't worry, I'll answer for him. The surgeon, the sergeant, marches over uh nose to nose, and he roars in his face. Soldier, nobody answers for another man in my formation. The kid says, with all due respect, sir, I've been answering, saying, Here for Cooper for three weeks now. How do you think he made it through graduation? You see. One man has been, no doubt, as we reflect on this picture, standing in the gap for a people the whole time. Uh God calling out our name, him standing in the gap for us. And this passage really reflects this. Moses tries to answer for the people, and God says it can't be him, but there is another who can do it. And this is the question I want to ask you this morning, based around this idea is that there is a book somewhere in the universe. It's not a metaphor, it's not a figure of speech, it's a real record kept by God Himself with real names written on real pages. And the Bible talks about it from Exodus all the way to Revelation. And here's the amazing part a name can be written in that book, and a name can be blotted out forever, blocked out forever, crossed off or erased, not allowed to be there. And we don't like to think about those things, uh, the fact that there might be a book, a naughty list, and a nice list. Uh, but we've um because we've made God, I think in our own minds, a bit small and soft to some degree, maybe as a nation, as a world, and we want to make sin small. We don't want to actually think about the fact that God might be writing down things. Uh we treat the whole thing like a spreadsheet, uh, and at the end of the day, most of us figure our good side will outweigh our bad side. Um, but that's not how the book actually works. Uh, the book doesn't average you, it doesn't grade on a curve. Um, your name is either in it, clean and secure, or it is not in it. And that's it at the end of the day. In Exodus 32, the people of God are about to find out that their sin has put their names on the list and on this line. Every one of them uh here, this uh has has a has a problem that they have to deal with, and it's their sin. This is really the question of the passage today. If a name had to be blotted out of that book to pay for what you have done or what I have done, whose name would that be? This is really the question behind the picture today. We're gonna read Exodus chapter 32, verses 25 to 35. Can we stand for the reading of God's word? We always stand for the reading of God's word to pay honor to him, to remember whose word we're reading, not my words. They truly belong to him. Exodus 32, take a look at verse 25. We actually have it up on the screen, I believe, here today. Yes, we do. You can read it there as well if you don't have it. Now Moses saw that the people were out of control, for Aaron had let them get out of control to be a desertion among their enemies. So Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Whoever is for Yahweh, come to me. All the sons of Levi gathered together to him, and he said to them, Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, every man among you put his sword upon his thigh, go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp, and kill every man his brother, every man his friend, every man his neighbor. So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses, about three thousand men of the people fell that day. And Moses said, Be ordained to Yahweh, for every man has been against his son and against his brother, in order that he may bestow a blessing upon you today. Now it happened on the next day that Moses said to the people, You yourselves have committed a great sin, but now I am going up to Yahweh. Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. Then Moses returned to Yahweh and said, Alas, this people has committed a great sin. They have made gods of gold for themselves, but now, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out from your book which you have written. And Yahweh said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book. But now guide the people where I told you. Behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, on the day when I punish, I will punish them for their sin. Then Yahweh smote the people because of what they did with the calf which Aaron had made. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word today. And though these are hard words or as a difficult story, we pray that you would open our eyes to understand this text, that we would you'd supernaturally open our hearts and our ears to hear from you, and that it would minister to us today. That we'd see the seriousness of sin, that we would see the greatness of your love, and it would move us by your grace to want to walk with you. Lord, to want to step over the line and say, I want to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back. Though none go with me, still I will follow. Lord, we pray that you would bless us as we study your word. We ask it by the power of your Holy Spirit in Jesus' name. Amen. You can be seated. Let me catch you up on the story if you're just joining us. Um, Moses has come down the mountain. He's seen the golden calf, and he heard singing and dancing. And um there's an orgy, there's something going on here. This crazy party has broke out around this golden calf, and Moses is beside himself. He can't believe it. Uh, in holy anger, he shatters the tablets, the Ten Commandments, he throws them down. Um, he grinds up the golden idol, the calf, into powder. Remember, he scatters it on some water and he made the people drink it. Made them drink their own sin, drink their own idol, uh, coming face to face with it. Remember, that's where healing takes place. Talked about it last week. He confronted his brother Aaron and he gave us that unforgettable excuse. Uh, Aaron says, I threw the gold in the fire and out came this calf. Uh, absolutely amazing. It has never happened in human history, but uh Aaron thought he could get away with it. And you think that would settle it. The idol's gone, the priest has been rebuked, and the movie's over, right? But look at verse 25. The camp is still out of control, the text says. The calf is destroyed, but anarchy isn't. And here is the thing hanging over the whole scene. The people have broken a blood covenant with God. They swore their lives on obedience, and they shattered it by worshiping this golden calf, another God. They swore their lives on obedience. Which means a price still has to be paid now because they broke the covenant. A name still has to be answered for. Somebody is going to be blotted out. Somebody's got to pay for this sin. Point number one, if you're taking notes, Savior, we are thine. Savior, we are thine. Verse 25, Moses looks over the camp and sees the people are out of control. It's said two times there in the verse. The word there means loosed, unrestrained, stripped down, wild. Their idolatry is spilled over into immorality, and this is the way that idolatry always acts. It always pushes us to be completely, unbelievably immoral. We start worshiping another God. Maybe we don't even realize we're worshiping it. And before you know it, the sight of the idol comes out of us, and we start to become deeply immoral. The deepest strategy wasn't just that they were sinning, it's that nobody was stopping them. Nobody's stopping the people. Aaron, the man responsible for their souls watching over them while Moses is up on the mountain, had let them run loose. No discipline, no accountability, no one willing to draw the line. And when there's no line, sin will spread. You see this with children. They're always testing to see where the line is. And they want a line. They really genuinely do. That disobedient, they're gauging where the line is. And if you don't give them one, they will go far. I mean, they'll go as far as they can. So Moses draws the line himself. Verse 26, Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Whoever is for Yahweh, come to me. So he draws a line in the sand. Whoever's for Yahweh, whoever is for the Lord, you come over here. Do you see what he's doing? He's forcing a decision. Up to this moment, everyone could melt into the crowd and hide anonymously, but now there is a man in the gate saying, If you belong to the Lord, come forward. Leave that camp of immorality, cross the line and stand with God. And it says that all the sons of Levi gathered to him. The sons of Levi. This is the beginning of the Levitical priesthood. Sons of Levi. They had come to God's side. They had to leave the camp of sin. You could not stand with Moses and stay in the middle of the party at the same time. Simply living among the people of God was not enough. Being in the neighborhood of holiness was not going to save their soul. They had to make a personal, public, feet-moving commitment decision to the living God. God wanted them to publicly declare their allegiance to Him in front of the people. And he drew a line and he said, if you're for Yahweh, get over here. And this first step towards God was a step towards the book of Almighty God. Before everyone, anyone ever spared, was spared or blotted out, a line gets drawn in the sand. Which side of that line are you on? Which side of the book are you on? The question is still there today, now, isn't it? Whoever is for the Lord, come to me. There is no way to answer it standing still. To come to Christ is to come out of the world. And Jesus said it very plainly. Matthew 12, 30, he said, Whoever is not with me is against me. That's a wild statement, if you think about it. You're either for me or against me. What? No, I want to be in the middle. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. If you're not for me, if you're not with me, then you stand against me. Not neutral, never neutral. If you have not decided for him, you have by your silence decided against him. Your name is on the wrong side. And this isn't a one-time altar call decision either. It's a decision you make every day for the rest of your life. Every thought, every step, every word, all of our lives, which direction are we headed? Whether you came forward at an altar call, whether you stood to receive Christ at some funeral, whether you were baptized and your public profession of faith was before the church, whether it was in your room by yourself, whether you're walking on the road by yourself, and you said, I have decided to follow Jesus for the rest of my life. No turning back, no turning back. He's the Lord and Savior of my life. God be merciful to me, a sinner. I can't do this without you. The stories are vast. If you look at you just look at the Bible and the way that people come to salvation, this is a crowd call per se that Moses is making. He's calling out to the crowd, and you will see a majority of them called the Levites will come forth and choose to follow after God. And that proclamation will come with a declaration in their action. They will start to live out their faith immediately. But we have to decide whose side we are on. The first application is simple. Come out and take your stand today and every day. Don't settle for living near the people of God. Don't mistake church attendance for surrender to God just because you come to church. You got to cross the line. You got to surrender to the Lord. You got to give him your life. Are you for him or against him? You say, Josh, of course, I'm for him. Um there's no way I'm going to be against him. I'm not doing that. You're for him? Yes, I'm for him. Good. You made that decision with your heart. Now make it that make that decision with your life. You could be in the secret of your own heart today, but it comes forth in unbelievable action, resurrection power, dead to alive. I was once running from God, now I'm running to God. Complete repentance, change of direction. That's all that it is. It's the moment that we choose to give our whole lives to God. Walk with the Lord. Get your name on the right side of the book, and do it again tomorrow and every single day for the rest of your life. I love that scene in Hook. Do you remember? Hook. What a great, what a great film. Remember the old man? He's the tootles, you know, and they'd be like, Hook. They think he's coughing or something. You know, hook. Sorry. I love that part. But I also love this part. It's where Rufio he draws the line in the dirt with the gold sword of Peter Pan. Shh, shhing! Right, the thing. And Rufio and Robin Williams are going back and forth trying to convince the kids which side of the line they should be on. The kids go over to Rufio's side and they come over to Robin Williams, to Peter Pan's side, and they're back and forth, back and forth. And of course they find their way to Peter Pan in the end. Really a great picture. John Dyer said a man may go to heaven without health, without wealth, but he can never go there without Christ. You can't get there without being on his team. You can't say I'm cool with Jesus. You can't say he's my homeboy. You can't say that that's not what he requires. He's not okay with you even saying he was a good teacher and a good prophet. He demands that we call him who he is, Lord and Savior of the earth. G.K. Chesterton said, There are two, only two classes of people in the world, those who have found God and those who are looking for him. Where are you? Joshua, the great general, said in Joshua 24, 15, choose this day for yourselves whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Elijah in 1 Kings chapter 18, verse 21, how long will you hesitate between two opinions, he said? If the Lord is your God, serve him. It doesn't mean we won't struggle. It doesn't mean we won't have doubts. It just means that the general direction of my life. Hey, I may fall a thousand times, but I'm making it to the top of that hill. I am going to follow the Lord with my whole life. And I don't know what it's going to look like, the ups and downs, the left and rights, but I'm not going any I am going to follow him. I'm handcuffed to him. Lord, drag me into heaven. Don't let me go. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going with you. I'm with him.

unknown 17:52

Right?

SPEAKER_00 17:52

That's the thief on the cross. I know I can't get there on my own. But he said I can go. So I'm going to be there. Luke 10, verse 20. Rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven. The book of life. And that's worth rejoicing over. The fact that your name is written down in the Lamb's Book of Life. Francis Havergal, he took this very verse and turned it into a hymn the church has sung for a century and a half. Who is on the Lord's side? Who will serve the King? By thy grand redemption, by thy grace divine, we are on the Lord's side. Savior, we are thine. Savior, we are thine. By his grace, we belong to him. We give ourselves to thee. That's the line being drawn in the sand, and that's which side your name lands on. Not some of my friends are for him, not I'm somewhere in the middle, but feet over the line, Savior, we are thine. We belong to you. And that's really, in the end, that's that's all that this is about. In the end, that's what this whole thing is about. It's not whether or not you're a good kid or a bad kid. It's whether or not you're God's kid. We're all bad kids. Don't you get it? We all mess it up. It's funny, you're you know, it's like, are you the older brother, uh, good kid? He's a bad kid too. Did you know that? Or the younger brother, super bad kid. Everybody can see, terrible kid, he's a bad kid too. Well, why is the older brother a bad kid? He does everything right. It's because he thinks he's better than his younger brother. Pride. I'm the best, and you're bad. Oh, you're just as bad, don't you see it? It's amazing how the good works of ourselves can actually tarnish the heart. We become prideful and arrogant about how great we are, and then we think everybody else is less than us.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

The older brother.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

We're all in the same camp. We're all just good kid, bad kid. That's not what this is about. Are you God's kid? Do you belong to the Lord? Savior, we are thy.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

We belong to you.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Praise God. Point number two, if you're taking notes, consider the weight of our sin. So verses 27 to 29. You gotta brace yourself for this because what comes next, it's really one of the hardest scenes in the Old Testament in Exodus. And it teaches us something we desperately need to know about ourselves so we can understand the depths of atonement. The Levites come to Moses' side, and the very first thing God asks them to do is staggering. It's shocking. Verse 27, thus says Yahweh, put his sword upon his thigh. You Levites, put the sword upon your side and kill every man his brother, every man his friend, every man his neighbor, and they do it. Verse 28, about 3,000 men fell that day. Now, if I wanted to keep you here at Legacy, I would skip over this verse. This is not something you should go, right? Right? If you were it was time for you to teach this, would you um uh let's go verse 29? Verse 29, better. What's going on here? No, it's not saying directly that the Levites should go after their brother or their father or their son and just kill them. That's not what's being said. There's an accall to allegiance that there might be one among Amongst the 3,000, who is your family member? God asked the Levites who become the priests of God to do the unbelievable. Cut out the cancer from the camp, or you are all doomed. You must cut the cancer out of this camp, or this whole nation is going down. You allow these 3,000 leaders in your camp to keep leading you in that golden calf direction. This whole thing is going down. So you choose what you're going to do. You're going to serve God, you're going to serve that cow. And the way you will do it, Levites, you doctors, you spiritual doctors, cut out the cancer from the camp, or the whole nation is going to die. And God tells them. This was God's command. We've got to see this. Not Moses' idea, it was God saying it, not Moses. Verse 27 says it plainly, thus says Yahweh the Lord. This is not a leader losing control. This is the judgment of a holy God. Remember, God is president, God is their king, he decides, he sets the law. Are you sure? Only if God was president today, then everything would be. Are you sure? Who knows what cancer is sitting within our nation that he would cut out very quickly? He's the giver and taker of life. He can do whatever he wants. God is their president, God is their king. And remember, the people want a man to be their king. They start begging for it. We don't want God as our king anymore. We want somebody we can see. We want a man to lead us. Alright? He gave who did he give him Saul. He was handsome. He was taller than everyone else. He was great to look at. But his heart was for himself. He ended in pride and arrogance. It's really sad. Remember, God raised up a little ruddy boy named David. That no one would have chosen to be the great king of Israel. God is president, he decides he's their king, he set the law, and they broke it. What does a perfect king do if the people break his law? He has to execute judgment. That's being just, right? Israel had cut a blood covenant with the Lord, they stood at this mountain and swore on their lives all that Yahweh has spoken, we will do. Then they broke the very first commandment before the ink was even dry on the stone tablets. Under the terms of that covenant, their lives were forfeited. And if we struggle to feel the justice of it, it's only because we don't understand the weight of what it was to betray God who has saved us. They'd not under God just went above and beyond to save them from Pharaoh, to save them from those gods, to save them from slavery through the Red Sea, providing for them, taking care of them, making the way to the promised land, and they literally spit in his face and say, We want the gods of Egypt. They're not a lot of times we don't understand the weight of our sin. Even here there is mercy. Look at what God does. Look at the number. 3,000 fell. You say that's a lot of people, Josh. 3,000 people fell out of a nation of, you know, basically around 600,000 men fighting. That's only about one half of 1%. God kills 3,000 of 600,000 men. Notice he doesn't touch the women or the children. Only the men. Why the men? We talked about it last week. Brothers. We are leading the family. You're leading. You are the head. And the way that you lead, your family will go. And the way that men have led in this nation, in this city, in this town is the way that this culture is going. That's why we are here. I couldn't help it when I was reading through this text, studying, when I saw 3,000 jump out, I couldn't think about redemption. How many were saved the day of Pentecost? 3,000. 3,000 put to death here at the law. 3,000 saved the day the Holy Spirit shows up. Beautiful. These 3,000 were leading the charge and encouraging everyone in the wrong direction, and God would not have it. There was no repentance from these. And to be honest, I don't think they ever believed. Yes, they were a part of Israel, but they didn't know God. They saw him from a distance. They experienced some of his blessing. They walked through the Red Sea, but they never fully surrendered to him. That's why they were so willing to keep worshiping the other gods. They're still worshiping the same gods from Egypt. Being in the camp of Israel doesn't save you from your sin. Being in the camp doesn't make you God's people. You must make him Lord and Savior over your life. That'll preach. These people were in the camp of Israel and God off. He cut them out. Being in the camp does not save you. Making him Lord and Savior, believing at what he has said, saves you. Which is the covenant he made with Abraham from the beginning. He was counted righteousness. Why? Because he believed God at His Word. If you do not believe God at His Word, it doesn't matter what your blood is, doesn't matter what your tribe is, doesn't matter what church you go to, doesn't matter what family you raise in, if you do not believe him at his word, it doesn't mean anything. This is the currency of eternity. This is salvation. God cuts out 3,000 people in Israel. Verse 28 tells us that sin is not free. The calf came with a price tag, and the price was written in blood. 3,000 names blotted out of Israel in a single afternoon because of sin. Real sin against a holy God earns death. Now, praise God, he has not handed you a sword like the Levites, right? Every time a group of brothers here in the church sinned, what do we do? Go grab the sword.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Bad joke, I know. Bad joke.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

The New Testament could not be plainer. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. 2 Corinthians 10 4. We do not advance the kingdom by force. In the Old Covenant, the line between holiness and sin was drawn by the edge of the sword. The new covenant is drawn by the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. Ephesians 6 17. And this stays the same. The seriousness. We live in a generation that has stopped believing sin costs anything. We've turned the wrath of God into some fairy tale and the cross into a decoration. We were in our necks. Until you feel the weight of the Levites that they felt in that day, you will never understand why the cross had to happen. The reason Jesus had to be blotted out is the same reason 3,000 men fell in the camp. Sin earns death. And it always has. And the only question is who's death? Who is sentenced to death? The application is this: we've got to take our sin as serious as God does and be ruthless with it. We've got to stop calling the calf, the golden calf, a mistake. Stop negotiating with it. Whatever it is that competes with God in your heart, put the sword to it because it's not harmless, it's deadly. Sin is deadly. Sin will make you sick. Sin puts us to death. Sin destroys relationships. Matthew 5.30, Jesus says your right hand caused you to sin what? Cut it off. We talked about it last week. He wasn't talking about surgery. He was talking about dealing with sin. Being willing to cut it off for your life. As it will destroy you. Sin makes you stupid. Stupid stuff. You got to feel the weight of it. Romans 6.23. The wages of sin is what? Death. That's right. Because you have sinned, you worked your way. You did a lot of works of sin. Okay, what's my paycheck? You did a lot of work in sin. What's my paycheck? Here it is. Look on the check. What's the amount? It says death. My payment is death. Okay, how am I going to work my way out of this? You can't. Praise God. The free gift of God, Romans 6.23, is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The free gift. He doesn't say you can repay me and get a different check. He says you can't pay me. But don't worry, the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. That is beyond. That is no other religion in the world. The Mormons, you better put that name tag on, get on your bicycle, get your tie on, and start knocking on doors. Yes. The Muslims, Islam, you better start praying five times a day. Yep, Jehovah's Witness says on Saturdays, you better start door knocking. Hare Krishna's, you better grab that tambourine and start dancing on the street, right? Reincarnation. The Buddha. You better start living out, or the next life is not going to be good to you. There is no free gift. This thing disrupts every religion on the planet. There is no doing. You're not going to work your way back to take care of this check of death. So God writes a brand new check for you. He just says, here's a trillion dollars, there's your ticket to heaven. Why? Because of what my son has done. He did all the work and he gives it to you as a free gift. Now that sounds too good to be true. Who in the world would do that? A loving God, a merciful, gracious, compassionate, awesome God. And when he gives me that, guess what? I can't wait to give him my whole life. I live for him not out of fear, but out of love. My motivation is love. Ezekiel 18, 4, the soul who sins will die. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 31. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. You must have Christ, or he has to deal justice. That's the price of the golden calf. Someone has to be blotted out of the book. When a man tried to brush off the seriousness of sin, a Selim of Canterbury, he answered him this way. He says, You have not yet considered how great the weight of your sin is. You can't brush it off. That's the whole problem. We have not yet considered how great it is. Most of the time we can't see how great the weight of our sin is until we hurt someone with it. It's not until we see the effects sin has on someone we love that we realize what we have done. And that's not fun. That's kind of the only way that we wake up. I mean, you can be sinning as a young person like crazy, and sometimes not until you're a little bit older. When you act sinful, you act treacherous, you do something terrible and you hurt somebody and you wound them deeply. You all of a sudden, it's like a mirror, like you feel it and you see it, and you're like, what have I done? You feel the weight of your own sin finally. But it's easy to push it off in this day. It's easy to numb it away. But you don't want to do that. It is far better you to just come before the Lord and say, I've sinned. Save me. Help me, forgive me.

unknown 34:56

R.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

C. Sproull said, every sin is an act of cosmic treason, a futile attempt to dethrone God and his sovereignty. Galatians chapter 6, verse 7, God is not mocked, for whatever man sows that he will reap. The camp considered their sin that day. 3,000 were put in the grave. Once you feel the weight, you're ready to understand what Moses does next. Point number three, if you're taking notes, he says, Blot me out instead. Blot me out instead. Verses 30 to 35. So the next day, verse 30, Moses gathers the people and speaks words that must have hung like a lead balloon over their heads. You yourselves have committed a great sin. No excuses, no out came this calf, just the truth. And then Moses says, But now I am going up to Yahweh. Perhaps, what a word. Perhaps I can make atonement for your sins. I'm gonna go meet with God for you, and perhaps I can make atonement for your sins. Here's the uh the here's the uncertainty. Moses doesn't even know if it can be done, but up the mountain he climbs anyways, and there he prays a prayer no one has ever prayed before. Verse 32, but now, God, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please, God, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out from your book which you have written. Unbelievable. Moses is offering himself, he says, Lord, if a name has to be blotted out of your book to pay for this, let it be my name. If somebody has to be lost so these people can be saved, take me instead. Remember, God had already offered to wipe Israel and off the face of the earth. Remember a couple chapters back, and start over with Moses as the father of a brand new nation. Moses could have had it all. Instead, he says, No, Lord, blot me out, but save my people. Moses is reaching deeply, truly, for the deepest truth in the universe. Moses is grasping towards the atonement of Christ. He's realizing that sin requires a substitute, that one might be blotted out so that many could be saved, that the mediator himself might step into the gap and take the blow. This is the most Christ-like thing Moses ever did. He was a good shepherd. And a good shepherd lays his life down for his sheep. This is one of the most Christ things we can do for people. Did you know that? This is one of the most Christ-like things you could ever do for somebody. Are you ready? Blot me out. Blot me out in the situation. Blot me out in the argument. Blot me out in the credits. Blot my name out in the reward. Blot my name out in this fight. I'm sorry. Blot me out in this disagreement. You don't need to hear what I have to say. Oftentimes it's blot them out, huh? Blot them out. Blot them out.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Write me in. Blot them out, write me in. My name. Make my name great. Make me great. Blot them out.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

But they did wrong. So my name should be great, and theirs should be bad. Moses didn't do wrong, did he? Not in this situation. And he's taking it for the people. This is the most Jesus thing Moses ever did. But that's not the heart of our God and King. He would say, not blot me out. Instead, he would say, Let them go free. And church, this is the grace by which we have been saved, and the grace by which we must live. Blot me out. If you did this for your marriage, if you did this for your kids, if you did this for your friends, if you did this for people in the church, this would transform our culture very quickly.

unknown 39:39

Blot me out.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Oftentimes it's the opposite. Write me in. Make me great. Not them.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

The gospel is backwards. The kingdom is upside down. It's completely different from the way that we think. Do you remember? Paul wrote, For my people, my Jewish brothers and sisters, I would be willing to be forever cursed and cut off from Christ if that would save them. Would you ever declare, I'll go to hell and be cut off from Christ, so that this group of people can go to heaven? Said no one ever, except Moses and Paul. That's the heart of God. And Jesus, hello. The king who actually did it. But watch verse 33. God turns Moses down. Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book. He gently but firmly says, No, Moses, it cannot be you. Why? The passage doesn't say, but the rest of the Bible does. Moses could not be blotted out for Israel because Moses had his own name to answer for. This was a man with a temper so hot that he once killed a man and he buried him in the sand. Remember? To be blotted out in someone else's place, the substitute has to be spotless. And Moses had blood on his hands. He came closer than any man before him. He had the right idea, but he was the wrong man. His own name was already blotted out, smudged. He can't do it. He can't be the one to step in. And that's the longing that runs through the whole Old Testament. Page after page, we keep looking for someone whose name is clean enough to be crossed out in our place, prophet after prophet, priest after priest. They all come close. They all fall short because every last one of them has a calf of his own in his own heart and a mark on his own name. We all want an escapegoat. We all want someone we can blame. We all want someone to be blotted out for us. We need someone to pay for our sin who will make the payment for my sin so I can go free. We want to blame everybody else for it. Jesus says, You can blame me. I'll take your blame.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

You blame me. And I will make payment for you. And I will let you go free. This is the greatest message in the universe. There is no greater story.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

He made him no sin. He made him who knew no sin to be sinned, that we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5, 21. Moses said, blot me out. God said no. Jesus said, blot me out, and God said, Yes. You alone can do this for this people. Son, do you want to do it? Yes, and yes, again for my people. Amazing love, how can it be that you, my king, would die for me? Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson state, and he's washed me white as snow. Here's the application. It's the whole gospel in a sentence. Someone has already been blotted out in your place. His name is Jesus. He's done it for you. Come to him. You don't have to wonder, perhaps I can make atonement like Moses. Perhaps I can make atonement for me. I'm going to help a hundred more old ladies across the street. I'm going to make this right. You can't do it. Only Christ can do it through you for you, and he has already done it. John Calvin said, Our sins were transferred to him, and that his righteousness might be transferred to us. A blessed exchange. Hear the gospel. 1 Timothy 2, verse 5, there is one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Romans 5 8, but God demonstrated his love for us, and that while we were still Sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. Revelation chapter 21, verse 27. Come into the city of God, those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Charlotte Elliot sang this, just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed from me. Back to where we began. If a name had been had to be blotted out of God's book to pay for sin, whose name would that be? Here's the best news you'll ever hear. The name has already been blotted out. It wasn't yours, it was his. It was on a hillside of Jerusalem, one man in all of history, spotless, the true and better Moses, the good shepherd, the spotless lamb. He stepped in, and instead of saying, Perhaps I can atone for them, Father, he said, I will atone for them, Father. It's finished. He was cut off and out of the land of the living, stricken for our transgression of my people, he said, Isaiah 53, 8, so that your name could be written in the book of life and never be crossed out. Praise God. But church has no neutral ground and never was. On one side of the line is the camp, your sin, your excuses, your calf, your name guilty to be blotted out. On the other side stands the Savior, nail-scarred hands, holding open the book of life, with your name written by his own blood. Francis Havergal again, who is on the Lord's side? Who will serve the King? By thy grand redemption, by thy grace divine, we are on the Lord's side. Savior, we are thine. We're on the Lord's side. For me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Praise God for the work that He's done. You know, the Christian walk is really just saying that to Jesus every single day, over and over and over again. Will there be days that it looks like you're not on his side? Yeah. And so you want to run back to that other side as fast as you can. And just keep doing that one day at a time. And you'll make your way into eternity. Amen. I want to pray for us that we'd be in awe of God's grace again, and we'd be stirred to love him and serve him with all that we have. Lord, we thank you for your grace and your mercy in our lives. And we stand back in awe that, wow, we really do in this society. We we want other people's names to be blotted out. We are not good with our name being blotted out. We want to be remembered. We want to be great. We want our name to be known. And Lord, we ask that you would forgive us of our sins, you would make us more like Jesus, that we'd be more sacrificial, that we would show grace to the people around us, that we would give them what they don't deserve, undeserved favor, the blessing of God, choosing to celebrate and bless those around us because of your gospel work. We see our sin. We see that we are dead in our trespasses, that we cannot raise ourselves from the dead. We thank you, Jesus, for the work of the cross, your death, burial, and resurrection. Thank you for taking our sin. Thank you for raising us to life. And now we chant again, we say again, we declare again, we choose to follow you with all of our hearts, with all of our lives, with all of our being. We make you Lord and Savior over our lives. We turn away from sin. We turn away from the gods of this world. We turn to you with all of our lives. And we ask now, God, that you would supernaturally bring forth fruit to which no man can measure in our own lives, in this church. It would change the culture around us. Lord, no, 3,000 men would not be struck down amongst us. But Lord, we would be the men to stand in the gap and say, We're going to follow you all the days of our lives. For me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We draw the line in the sand today. We do it for your glory. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.