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  RESPONDING TO GOD ACCORDING TO HIS WORD
  by John Piper
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of understanding that
Bible stories exist not just for enjoyment but to lead us to know,
trust, and enjoy God. It delves into the cycle of failure and mercy in
the Old Testament, highlighting the need for a resolution to the tension
between God's righteousness and mercy. The solution is found in Jesus
Christ, who through His sacrifice, establishes a new covenant that
brings sinlessness and reconciles God's righteousness with His mercy.

Topics: "Understanding God's Mercy", "The New Covenant in Christ"
Scripture References: Ezekiel 36:26, Romans 3:25, 2 Timothy 2:13, 1 John 3:2, Psalm 103:10, Romans 3:20, Hebrews 10:14, 1 John 1:9

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the importance of understanding that Bible
stories exist not just for enjoyment but to lead us to know, trust, and
enjoy God. It delves into the cycle of failure and mercy in the Old
Testament, highlighting the need for a resolution to the tension between
God's righteousness and mercy. The solution is found in Jesus Christ,
who through His sacrifice, establishes a new covenant that brings
sinlessness and reconciles God's righteousness with His mercy.

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CONTENT
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One of the main points of Nehemiah 9 and 10, to which I invite you to
turn in your Bibles, I hope you will. One of the main points of these
two chapters, indeed, one of the main points of the whole Bible, is that
God does not exist for the sake of our enjoyment of Bible stories, but
Bible stories exist for the sake of our enjoyment of God. And the reason
I begin with that and say it that way is not only because it stands out
amazingly in chapter nine to be the case, but also because we live in a
day where there is enormous fascination with story, and narrative, and
tracing themes through the Bible, according to its story line, as we
say.

And I simply want to wave a flag that says there is a point to the
story, there's a point to the narrative, and the point is a person.
Bible stories are no more ends in themselves than the universe is an end
in itself, or history is an end in itself. There's a point to the
universe, there's a point to history.

The heavens are telling the glory of God. That's what the universe is
about, the glory of God. Heavens, the universe is telling that.

And history is what it is in order to show that God is who he is. That's
what history is for. God writes his story, he acts his story in order to
make known who he is.

So look at verse 10 in chapter nine. The Levites are praying, they're
the ones speaking through this whole chapter virtually, and they say to
God in verse 10, you performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, and
all his servants, and all the people of his land, for you knew that they
acted arrogantly against our fathers, and you made a name for yourself
as it is to this day. So what was God doing when he brought 10 plagues
upon Egypt, when he split the Red Sea, and when he delivered the people
of Israel from bondage? What was he doing when he acted this story that
would be told 10,000 times? What was he doing? And the answer is at the
end of verse 10, make sure you see it.

You were making a name for yourself. That was the point of the story.
And then notice these key words at the end of the verse, the very end.

You were making a name for yourself as it is to this day. What day?
Nehemiah's day, 400, give or take, BC. You were making a name for
yourself when? Exodus, 1400 BC.

You were making a name for yourself 1,000 years ago as it is to this
day. You were making a name for yourself so we'd know you 1,000 years
later. That's what you were doing.

So there's stories in the Bible, and they're all about God making a name
for himself so that he might be known and trusted and enjoyed. That's
what the stories are for. So what's the point of history? God is making
a name for himself that will last 1,000 years or two or three or four.

That's why I'm preaching this sermon. I want for my sermon to have the
same aim as the story has. And the story was to make a name for himself,
to make a name for himself so that 1,000 years later, 2,000, you might
know his name, know his character, know his way and trust him and enjoy
him.

That's what this sermon is for. And I know that in this room there are
many of you who know him and enjoy him deeply, and I rejoice. And I also
assume that there are many who know him marginally, who know about him,
who know some of his rules, who know some of the ways Christians do
things.

And if somebody asks you, do you know him? Like a king and a savior and
a friend, you would stumble, you would choke on the words, knowing and
enjoying him. And I would like that to change. I would like this
conference and this message to be a means in the hands of the Holy
Spirit for you to know him and to enjoy him more after the conference
than you did before and for the rest of your life.

So Bible stories exist that we might know and trust and enjoy God for
who he really is. That's what the revelation of God in the stories is
for. Let's be more specific now if that's the big picture of where we're
going.

After the Feast of Booths, as Nancy talked about, there was a lot of joy
there, right? The joy of the Lord is your strength. Now it's time to
weep, strange. It got postponed, the weeping got postponed.

And now it's time to put sackcloth on and dust on and cry to God. What
are they crying about? Let's go to chapter nine, verse 36 and 37. Here's
the situation.

Behold, they're still talking to God. We are slaves this day in the land
that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts.
Behold, we are slaves.

And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because
of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they
please. And we are in great distress.

That was the situation that precipitated the fasting and the sackcloth
and the crying out to God in Nehemiah nine and the covenant that they
would renew in chapter 10. They sum it up in these words at the end of
verse 37. We are in great distress.

So I'm assuming in a room like this that you came here, many of you, in
conditions of your family or church or relationships or soul or body
which you would describe as saying in your most honest moments, I am in
great distress. And you're fitting the fun of Orlando in between the
small spaces between the sorrows of your life. That's what's happened.

So what I would plead with you to do is listen with all your might to
how these people dealt with God in their distress because it will have a
huge effect on how you do it as well. And if you're not in distress
here, you will be. There is no one who lives in this world with any
measure of love for people who is not brought into distress regularly.

So how do they seek help in their distress? Let's go to verse five,
chapter nine. Then the Levites, now those are the assistants of the
priests, Jeshua, Cadmiel, Bani, Ashabaniah, Sherabiah, Hodiah,
Shebaniah, and Pethahiah said, and from there, from that point, starting
with verse six to the end of verse 37, the Levites are praying. This
chapter is a prayer.

They're praying to the end of verse 37 and they're crying out to you, oh
God. The word you, in reference to God, occurs 30 times in these verses.
What did they do? What did they say? How did they deal with God in great
distress? And that's what we want to know.

How did they do that? Before we ask further, let's get more specific
about the distress because this will clarify your situation because
there's some of you right now who are perhaps arguing with yourself, if
not with me, what you're about to say is not going to apply to me
because you don't understand how I got where I am. So let's just see
whether that's true or not. Back to verse 37.

They're not just in distress. They are in a distress that they deserve
to be in because of their sin. And they are in a distress that God
Himself put them in.

So let's look at verse 37 to see that. The land, its rich yield that
we're supposed to inherit as a promise. This land goes to the kings whom
you set over us.

Slave masters. You put them over us, God, because of our sins. In other
words, the great distress that we are in, we deserve to be in, and not
only do we deserve to be in, it's judgment sent from you.

So now we get clarity for you on this. Some of you might be tempted to
say, the rest of you in here, you can call upon God in your distress,
but not me, because I sinned my way into the mess I'm in. And number
two, God put me here as a discipline or a punishment.

So the rest of you can go on about your merry way following this
preacher and learn how to call upon God in your distress because it just
came upon you. It didn't just come upon me. I brought it on me.

That's their situation. So if you're in that category, you dare not talk
like that. Don't talk to God like that.

Do not say to God, this text is not addressing my need because I sinned
my way into the mess I'm in and you brought it on me. That's irrelevant.
That's the point of this text.

These people are in a distress they deserve to be in. God put them in.
None of you may escape the good news of this text.

You have no right to tell God he can't give you good news. Oh, how many
people I have dealt with over the years who tried to tell God they are
beyond goodness. And I get upset with them because they are belittling
the cross, diminishing the blood, crying down the mercy, exalting
themselves in their self-pity.

I won't have it neither in this room nor in the counseling chamber.
Don't tell God that he can't give you good news because you've sinned
your way into your misery. And God himself brought you under his
discipline.

That's exactly their situation. So we're in this together and we want
desperately to know so how do you approach God now? How do you talk to
God in that situation? Because that's what they're doing and I want to
learn as best I can how they do it. So what do they do? It's astonishing
what they do.

They pray back to God the entire history of the Old Testament. This is
the longest, maybe the right word is, this is the fullest retelling of
the Old Testament in the Old Testament. So Jim Hamilton says in his new
commentary.

This is the fullest retelling of the Old Testament in a short space in
the Old Testament. And it's a prayer. So they're telling God what God
did for 1,000 years.

More than 1,000. That's a remarkable way to approach God in a deserved,
God-ordained distress. So verses six to 31, they're telling the story of
the Old Testament.

Why would they do that? Here's why. God does not exist so that we can
enjoy Bible stories. Bible stories exist so that we can enjoy God.

And they desperately, desperately need to know is our God the kind of
God in whom there's any possibility of enjoyment in our great distress,
well-deserved, given by God? Any hope at all that there's a God in
heaven that would give us hope that He could be enjoyed in this? That's
what they need to know. And they know where to find the answer in the
story. Because that's what the stories are for.

To reveal God. And they desperately need to know what kind of God do we
have? Is it over for us? Or is He the kind of God that perhaps there
might be some hope in a deserved, God-given distress? That's why they're
retelling the stories back to God. Let's walk through it.

Verses six to 15, the Levites celebrate the power of God, the
righteousness of God, and the covenant-keeping salvation of God. Verse
six, you are, all caps, the Lord. And you know what that refers to.

Yahweh, you are, that's His personal name. It's like you are James.
Well, it's not James, it's Yahweh.

You are Yahweh, and you know where the name came from. Exodus chapter
three, verse 14. Tell them I am sent you.

I am who I am. And the name Yahweh built on I am who I am, which means
every time you see big L-O-R-D, this is God saying, I am God, and I have
no competitors, and I depend on nobody and nothing. I had no beginning.

I will have no end. Deal with me, because that is reality. That's God.

Every time He says, you'll know I'm the Lord, so they begin, you are
Yahweh. It's a good place to begin. You are absolute God.

There's no negotiation going on here at all. You don't negotiate with
God. He is absolute reality.

We are defined. He is definer. We are dependent.

He is totally independent. Our being comes into being. His being has
always been, as inconceivable as that is, and how glorious.

So we just begin here. This is a place of reverence, and humility, and
lowliness. You begin, you're dealing with this God in your great
distress.

You are Yahweh, the great and only and absolute God. Verse 6 in the
middle. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their
hosts, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in
them, and you preserve them all.

So you made everything. You uphold everything. Therefore, the hosts, I
like the translation, armies, the armies of heaven, worship you.

You are exalted. Verse 5, exalted above all, all blessing and praise. So
that's where you begin.

In dealing with God, just lift Him up. Now remember, these are people
who are totally guilty, under distress, given by God. So you lift up
your soul in your guilt.

You lift up your soul in your distress. And you lift up your soul under
the mighty hand of God. And you say, you are God.

It's a great place to begin. It just occurs to me that you're all women,
and that I could quote here Hannah. I could quote here Mary.

So don't feel like, yeah, women don't talk like that. Oh yes, they do.
You may not, but you should.

Verse 7, this God made a covenant with Abram. Brum, not Braham, yet.
Called Abram, changed his name, promised him a land.

Verse 7 there. What land? Verse 36 again. Behold, we are slaves this day
in the land that you gave to our fathers.

This is the irony. You gave Him the land. You promised Him the land.

Here we sit in it and we're slaves. That's not what you meant, is it?
That's not what he meant. So here's the issue.

Is this great, powerful, Creator, Sustainer, Covenant Maker God that's
been revealed so far in this prayer, is He the kind of God who could
rescue you, would rescue you from your well-deserved distress in which
He has put you? And you have broken the covenant so often, you wonder,
will He? So all we've seen so far is He's really big, really strong,
really great, and He made a covenant with Abraham. That's what we've
seen. And here's something they know crystal clear about this God.

This is an unimpeachable conviction that they have about God, namely
verse 8. He is righteous. You have kept your promise, literally. You
have made your word stand because you are righteous.

So underneath all of God's promise-keeping, word-establishing is
something about Him that makes that happen. And it's called
righteousness here. I think it's just about the most important word in
this chapter.

It occurs twice. You'll see it again. Because it's foundational.

It's under everything. What is it? What does it mean for God to be
righteous? It doesn't mean covenant faithfulness. Almost every scholar I
read today says that.

I don't buy that. It's why He's covenant faithful. It's underneath
covenant faithfulness.

It's the root of covenant-keeping. It isn't covenant-keeping. Covenant-
keeping is a fruit of righteousness, not equal to righteousness.

What is righteousness? Well, it's doing what's right. What's right for
God to do? He has no book. He wrote the book.

And He wrote the book out of His righteousness. He doesn't learn His
righteousness from His book. The book got what it is from His
righteousness.

Well, what is His righteousness then if there is no standard for Him to
conform to? What meaning does it have to call Him right in any of His
actions? That's a huge question. And there's an answer. If you are God
and there is no Supreme Court above you and no Constitution above you
and no ethics books above you and no parents above you and you are the
absolute, what's right is to act consistently with your infinite value.

In other words, all your acts, all your thoughts, all your feelings as
an infinite God is to act in such a way as to be consistent with the
beauty of your glory and the infinite value of your person. So to be
righteous for God is to always be doing things that accord with the
value of His name. Or another way to say it would be His unwavering
upholding of the worth of His name and His glory.

That's right. What could be more right than for God to value the
infinitely valuable? It would be wrong not to value infinitely the
infinitely valuable, namely God. So there is a standard for His
rightness and it is Himself, His infinite beauty and His infinite worth.

And so when He acts in righteousness, He acts to uphold His worth, His
beauty, His name, His glory. Paul says in 2 Timothy 2.13, He will never
deny Himself. Now here's the question.

If they know that, does that encourage it? Will that spell deliverance
for a guilty people or will it spell judgment? So the Levites press on
in their prayerful narrative. They're repraying the history of Israel.
In the deliverance from Egypt, which they come to now, and in the
wilderness wandering, the righteousness of God seems to spell triumph
and care.

He made a name for Himself. Verse 10, we've seen that? Verse 10, He made
a name for Himself. That is, He acted in absolute righteousness as He
did everything He did in Egypt.

He was upholding the worth of His name. If you ask, what are you doing
in splitting the sea? What are you doing in plague after plague after
plague after plague? He said, I'm making a name for myself because it's
right for God to make a name for Himself because His name is infinitely
valuable and God does what's infinitely valuable. All of His acts
conform to the infinite value of His character.

So He knew what He was doing. He was being right. He was being
righteous.

He was making a name for Himself. And so He led them through a divided
sea. Verse nine, no, that's verse 11.

The sea divided. Verse 12, He led them miraculously day and night with
the pillars of cloud and day and night, fire. Verse 13, He spoke with
them at Mount Sinai, gave them good rules and true laws and right
statutes.

See that in verse 13. Verse 15, He gave them bread from heaven and water
from the rock and He sent them onto the promised land. And so far, so
good.

It looks like the righteousness of God is moving Him to rescue His
people and they're not a very good people all through the wilderness
wandering, but He's being faithful to His word. So far, so good. But
verses 16 to 31 are bleak.

In one sense and bright with hope in another. And both are crucial for
these folks who are in a bleak situation to see. Six expressions in
verses 16 to 31, six expressions of the rebellion of Israel and six
expressions of God's response to that rebellion.

This is what you will remember if you ever read this, leisurely, you
will come away from this amazing rhythm of rebellion, response,
rebellion, response, rebellion, response, rebellion, response,
rebellion, response, rebellion, response, six times. Now, why is that?
If you were praying as a Jewish person in 400 BC, would you, out of all
the things you could deal with in your prayer to God, would you choose
to spend the vast majority of your time narrating your own sin and the
sins of your fathers? Why did they do that? Well, the answer's easy.
Look at verse 33, last phrase of verse 33.

We have acted wickedly. Not they, not the forefathers. We have acted
wickedly.

We brought this great distress upon ourselves. You are righteous to
bring this on us because we have acted wickedly. Why would you wanna
tell a story that's irrelevant to that? You wouldn't.

You desperately need to know how has he related to wickedness in the
past? That's your issue. That's why you tell the story the way you tell
it. So let's look at these six pairs because they are the heart of the
prayer.

So I'm gonna give you six pairs of rebellion and response. I was trying
to think what you might put in your margin because I frankly think this
little symbol ought to go in your margin, like maybe the R, put an R by
what I show you for rebellion and maybe put M for mercy when I show you
God's response because even though it's not always direct, it is always
mercy in this story. So here we go.

Pair number one, verses 16 and 17. Israel's rebellion, verse 16. They
and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did
not obey your commandments.

God's response, second half of verse 17, but you are a God ready to
forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast
love and did not forsake them. That's pair number one. Pair number two,
verses 18 to 25.

First, Israel's rebellion, verse 18. They had made for themselves a
golden calf and said, this is your God who brought you up out of the
land of Egypt. And they committed great blasphemies.

God's response, verse 19. Yet you in your great mercies did not forsake
them in the wilderness. And then the rest of verses 20 to 25, which I
won't read, but his sustaining grace through the wilderness.

Pair number three, verses 26 to 27. First, Israel's rebellion, verse 26.
They were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind
their back and killed your prophets who had warned them in order to turn
them back to you.

And they committed great blasphemies. And here's his response in verse
27. Therefore, you gave them no mercy.

You put them into the hand of their enemies who made them suffer. And in
the time of their suffering, they cried out to you and you heard them
from heaven. And according to your great mercies, you gave them saviors
who saved them from the hand of their enemies.

So it wasn't so simple that time. When they sinned, he punished them
with enemies. And then they cried out and he saved them from his own
punishment, which they deserved.

And you can see now why this is being rehearsed the way it's being
rehearsed. Pair number four, all of it in verse 28. First half of verse
28, the rebellion.

But after they had rest, they did evil again before you. God's response,
verse 28, second half of the verse. And you abandoned them to the hand
of their enemies so that they had dominion over them.

Yet, when they turned and cried to you, you heard from heaven many times
you delivered them according to your mercies. So again, judgment, cry,
mercy. Number five, verses 29, middle of the verse to verse 30.

First the rebellion, verse 29. They acted presumptuously and did not
obey your commandments but sinned against your rules. God's response,
verse 30, many years you bore with them and warned them by your spirit
through your prophets.

And finally, pair number six, verses 30 at the end, through 31, first
the rebellion, verse 30. They, yet they would not give ear. Response,
verse 30 at the end.

Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.
Nevertheless, in your great mercies, you did not make an end of them or
forsake them for you are a gracious and a merciful God. Now, how did the
Levites, the Israelites respond to the retelling of that history, that
story which exists so that you might enjoy God? How did they respond to
it? And the answer is they did two things.

They cried out again, just like they had cried out numerous times, they
cried out again in their distress, deserved by God, they cried out for
help and they reestablished the covenant and said we'll do better. Verse
32, here's the cry. Now therefore our God, the great, the mighty, the
awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love, please, I'm adding
that, please, I feel it, please let not all the hardship seem little to
you that has come upon us.

In other words, look with pity upon us. You've done it so many times.
Look with pity upon us.

And then verse 38, because of all this, we make a firm covenant in
writing. In chapter 10, which I'm not gonna deal with except to sum it
up like this, is that covenant. It has two parts.

The first part, we enter, this is verse 29, we enter into a curse and an
oath to walk in God's law. So we've blown it over and over and over and
over again and you've been merciful time and again. Now we enter into a
curse and an oath to walk in your law.

We're reenacting, reestablishing the covenant. And then verse 32, we
also take on ourselves the obligation to give yearly a third of the
shekel for the service of the house of God. And then every verse from
there to the end of the chapter contains the term house of God or house
of the Lord.

So I'm summing it up like this. Chapter 10, it's a long list of names of
who signed the covenant. And then a statement that the covenant consists
in, we're gonna do better now with law keeping and we're committed to
the house of God.

We're gonna upkeep this house and we're gonna be faithful in it, do all
the appropriate sacrifices. That's the covenant, chapter 10. And then at
the end of nine, the cry, have mercy upon us, oh God.

So what's the lesson for us in our distress, our deserved God-sent
distresses? Should we do this? Retell the story of a God who has time
without number, it seems like, had mercy on a rebellious people, take
heart, cry for relief in our present deserved God-sent distress and
resolve to do better. Gonna be at the house of God, gonna keep the law
of God, call down an earth, a curse and an oath upon yourself if you
don't. There are two problems with that way of getting a lesson.

From this chapter, these two chapters. One problem is the odds are not
very good after a thousand years of failure. They must have felt this.

I feel so sad, right? Don't you just feel sad for them? They just told a
story that says it's not gonna work. I'm sure Don will have more to say
about that. It's not gonna work.

It's sad, it's a sad book. The Old Testament's a sad book. It's not
gonna work.

I mean, you just told a story of a thousand years. Failure, do better,
mercy. Failure, mercy, failure, mercy.

And now you're just gonna... Number seven, not gonna work. That's the
first problem with it is it just feels so hopeless. I mean, you might
think, yeah, but he's merciful.

But I mean, come on. Another thousand years of down, up, down, up, down,
up, down, up. That's redemptive history.

That's the consummation. That's what we have to look forward to. I'm not
interested.

I just, it's just gotta get better. I just, I'm so sick of sin in me and
in the world. If that's all it is, is we just keep this going.

Let's keep this going. Then I'll say, well, no thanks. Here's the second
problem.

Verse 33, here's the second time the word righteousness is used. So
important. Verse 33, chapter nine.

Yet you, in spite of all this stuff, because of all this stuff, you have
been righteous in all that has come upon us. Hardship has come upon us
and distress and slavery in our own land has come upon us and you are
right. This is right.

It's right. It's right that we'd be in this mess. Right.

You're righteous to bring us here. You have upheld your glory by dealing
with us this way. And that's right.

You are vindicating your righteousness in punishing us this way. We have
no complaints against your holiness or purity. You have done us no
wrong.

You are right. Now take a deep breath when you say that because they did
say that and ask of its implications for their future. Maybe you think,
I would think, maybe God is now going to say to you after 1,000 years,
I'm done being your patsy.

I will not be mocked like this again. Your fickle claims to allegiance.
I am slow to anger.

Oh, 1,000 years slow, but 1,000 years slow is a good demonstration. I am
done with you. I have passed over your trampling of my glory time
without number and my mercy is over.

That will happen to people. That's what hell means. I'm not making this
up.

God does this. His patient runs out. That's the meaning of hell.

My righteousness is vindicated now in your judgment. I'm finished. So if
that came into my heart as the prayer finished from the Levites, what
would I say? Oh, he's been merciful for 1,000 years.

Surely, surely he'll keep on going, right? Well, maybe. He doesn't have
to. He's right in your judgment and he'd be right to leave you in your
judgment.

He can raise up from stones children to Abraham if he needs to keep his
Abrahamic covenant. Doesn't need you. This is not encouraging either,
right? The pattern is discouraging and the fact that the tension between
God's mercy and righteousness that exists in the Old Testament right up
to the end is disorienting.

It's imbalancing. It throws you off. Which is gonna hold sway here? And
that is the way the Old Testament ends, isn't it? With those two
problems unresolved.

God, here's why they are two problems. God at the end of the Old
Testament has not yet acted to make an end of sin. He has not yet acted
to do anything decisive so that his people could say, we are done or we
know we will be done with sinning.

That's not yet done yet. And he hasn't acted in such a way as to make
plain that his righteousness is vindicated in mercy, not against mercy.
Those two things haven't been done at the end of the Old Testament.

And if they're not done, we are in one horrible, endless cycle of
failure. Forever. Unless God says, I'm done, which he does say
eventually, except for Christ.

So let's ask, did the Messiah finish the story in a way that those two
problems are solved? And that's exactly why he came. The story needed an
end. We all know this, you've been hearing it.

The story of the Old Testament is horrible if it ends with Malachi.
Fail, fail, fail, fail. And they knew in their heart of hearts, the
blood of bulls and goats does not take away sin.

Oh, they knew. When they said we're gonna be faithful to the house of
God, they knew in their heart of hearts what goes on there in the
tabernacle is not the solution. Something's gotta happen.

Something's gotta give, and the prophetic word has been plain. What has
to happen? We need a savior. We need a redeemer.

We need the end of the story, or there's just no hope. Righteousness
will mean our destruction, and the cycle will go on forever in failure.
So very briefly, Jesus came to solve those two problems.

Number one, this is so familiar. Here we are at the Last Supper. He
lifts up the cup like this, right? And he says, this cup is the new
covenant in my blood.

What did he mean? Well, the new covenant goes like this. This is Ezekiel
36. I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you,
and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my
statutes.

That's the new covenant. Not an external law from the outside pressing
you toward obedience, but an internal spirit from the inside working
obedience, sealing you for the day of redemption and guaranteeing that
he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day
of Christ. What a new world we live in.

Therefore, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that one day I will never
sin again. I want that almost more than I want anything. And the thing I
want more is to see him.

When you see him, you will be like him for you will see him as he is. So
I know that has to come first. That's what I want to come first.

I want to behold my savior, and I want that billions to burn everything
out of this rotten soul, which has gone up and down and up and down and
up and down, endless apologies and endless failures. It's coming. The
day where we will sin no more is coming.

And now we know that we know why he bought it. This cup, my blood is the
new covenant. I bought your sinlessness.

I bought the hope that now as you receive Christ, the Holy Spirit comes
in, seals you for the day of redemption so that you can fight sin and
know that at the end of the fight, triumph and never sin again forever.
So that problem is solved. He bought it with his new covenant blood
shedding.

What about the other problem? Oh, this is perhaps as close as you can
get to the heart of the Bible. David Wells' new book, God in the
Whirlwind about the holy love of God. Just so right, so good.

So here's the second problem. You got mercy over and over again in the
Old Testament. You got, you are righteous in our punishment.

How's it gonna work? What's gonna hold sway in the long run? Will it run
out? Will the mercy run out and the righteousness be vindicated in hell
or in my being thrown out into outer darkness? And the Old Testament
doesn't solve that problem. The Old Testament does not provide a basis
for righteousness in mercy. But oh, Jesus does.

And it is the, I think, most important paragraph in the Bible. Namely,
Romans chapter three, verses 20 to 27. I'll just read verse 25.

Listen to how incredibly suited God's way in Christ is for that problem.
Romans 3, 25. God put Christ forward as a propitiation, that means a
removal of God's wrath, a propitiation by His blood to be received by
faith.

And here it comes. This, this putting Him forward on the cross, this was
to show God's righteousness because He, in His divine forbearance,
passed over former sins. Oh, yes, He did.

Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, many of them narrated in
Nehemiah nine. Failure, mercy, failure, mercy, failure, mercy, failure,
mercy, failure, mercy, failure, mercy. And every time He passed over
that adulterous, idolatrous, stiff-necked, blind, hard-hearted
sinfulness, which trampled His glory in the dirt, He looked unrighteous.

And Paul knew it. I'll read it again. This cross was to show God's
righteousness.

Why did it need showing this horrible way, this infinitely horrible way?
Why did it need such a demonstration? Because in His divine forbearance,
He had passed over former sins and thus looked like He didn't esteem His
name, which is unrighteous, but He did. Oh, He did. Every moment of
mercy was blood-bought in the Old Testament by Jesus Christ.

Every time God said to a murderous adulterer like David, the Lord has
taken away your sin. I'm sure Uriah's mother and Bathsheba's father
wanted to scream their lungs out at the injustice of such a statement.
You will just forgive his sin.

It's my daughter he raped, my son he killed, and you're just gonna say
your sin has been taken away? You are a wicked king and God a wicked
judge. Unless a thousand years later, God would slay the most valuable
being in the universe, to show how much He hates sin and loves the glory
that was trampled by David. If He might do that, if He might send His
Son to bear all the wrath that should have gone there, then in the mercy
to David, there was righteousness.

Now here you are, in your distress, deserved. God sent. And you look at
the pattern of failure, mercy, failure, mercy, and you cross your
fingers and you say, well, hope the pattern continues for me.

Not encouraging. Or you look at the righteousness of God. All of this
has come upon you and God is righteous in your judgment.

And you say, well, since He's righteous and since He's merciful, maybe
in my case, the punitive righteousness will hold sway and I'm gone. At
the end of Nehemiah and at the end of the Old Testament, I don't have
much for you, but I do now. Because now I can say on the authority of
God's word and the basis of Jesus' death and resurrection, that that
cycle has been broken.

And even though in this life we still stumble, we have new resources in
the risen Christ to fight our sin. And at my age, sinlessness is very
close and sweet to think about. Oh, that day when free from sin.

And you never again in all your life need to fret that there is a
contradiction between God's righteousness and His mercy. Because He has
vindicated His righteousness in the passing over of all your sins as you
are in Christ. And Satan may whisper to you, God can't let that go.

God cannot let that go that way you belittled Him for the last 30 years
by ignoring Him so. He can't let that go. He would look like he doesn't
value his own glory.

And now you know exactly what to say back to Satan. Oh, he values his
glory because he sent his son to bear the penalty of what I deserved in
defaming His glory so that now as I cling to this Jesus, He has
vindicated in His righteousness by showing me mercy because the cross
bought the mercy and vindicated the righteousness. There is no tension
anymore like there was then between the righteousness of God and the
mercy of God.

So I close by inviting you to receive the Lord in this conference who's
coming to all of you. He's coming. He's coming in your distress, your
deserved distress.

He's coming to you in your God sent misery. You may not say back to Him,
you can't come to me this way because I deserve to be where I am. And
you sent it so you can't come in merciful righteousness to me to end the
cycle of misery in my life and give me a hope of endless sinlessness.

You may not say that because God Almighty has shown the failures and
then the Redeemer and He invites you, let me come, let me come to you.
So Father, I pray that no woman or any man listening would resist your
sweet mercy. That none would throw up their own guilt as though that
were relevant at a moment like this.

None would throw up 30, 40, 50 years of Israelite failure. None would
throw back in your face that your righteousness could never, ever get
near to them in their unholiness, that none of that would be brought
because Christ so fully broke the cycle of failure and so fully
vindicated your righteousness so that mercy could flow and He could be
both just and the justifier of her who simply has faith in Him. In His
name I pray, amen.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/M6EnxqZJ-bk.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/john-piper/responding-to-god-according-to-his-word/
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