The following is a lightly edited transcript and may contain errors.
Contents
God’s Self-Revelation
Why Hesed to Us?
Hesed Requires a Response
The Order of Love
Love the Neighbor in Your Midst
Closing Prayer
All right, let’s get into the word. We’re going to be in Exodus 34. Also wanted to remind you, speaking of REACH, if you have your baby bottle, I’ve had a decent number return, but I know there’s some more out there. So make sure you bring your baby bottle, fill it with change, or we would take dollar bills as well. But fill that up. You can bring it in and get that to me or Justus, and every little bit helps out. Exodus 34. Yeah, we should talk about the Foundations Conference. I probably would have seen it when I looked down, and I was like, thank you. We did want to thank a few people. We had an amazing Foundations Conference. I think it was one of the best ever. I had a great time. It was very, very, very good. I appreciate you all coming, attending, helping out. A lot of people made it happen, but I do want to give a shout-out to a few people that kind of oversaw some key areas. One was Andrea with the decorations. Woo! Logan and Mike in the sound booth overseeing things. Give it up for them. And I really appreciate it because different speakers bringing in PowerPoints and videos and some of it was last minute and I’m super grateful that they just kind of rolled with it and made it happen. So usually there’s technical glitches or something and they just do a great job of smoothing that all out. Also the Porches with the setup and the teardown, give it up for them, and then really I’d say the key person that really was like overseeing all the administration and the food and all that was Meg McNeil. So give it up for Meg. Is she, is she, okay. She’s with Ronia. Make sure you thank Meg then, or if she comes in, we’ll give her a shout-out at some point. All right. Exodus 34. We’re going to start in verse 1.
The Lord said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain.” So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:1–7)
Let’s pray. Father, we do thank you for the Foundations Conference and the different speakers. Pray you bless each one of them. Thank you for Pastor Joe. We pray your blessing upon him this morning as he’s delivering the word to his church. Bless First Baptist, St. Peter’s. We thank you, Lord, for the Dodges and them sharing Friday about marriage, and may we just receive that word. Thank you for our own, David McNeil and Andrea Sharon as well, and using their giftings to instruct us, to bless us, to be used by you. And Lord, we do pray for the churches in this area that they would remain faithful to you. They would preach the word, they would preach the word on it, they would proclaim it with all boldness, that you would give their leadership much wisdom in shepherding and instructing and proclaiming your word, Father. We thank you, Lord, that we can hear it now from you. So may your word go forth and do its work. And we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
God’s Self-Revelation
So I’ve been teaching on—this actually goes back to right after Thanksgiving because we hit a little break for Christmas. And then we had a couple of things going on. But I want to come back to this concept of the hesed love of God. And that particular word that we’ve been looking at is that Hebrew word hesed. And it’s what we see in Exodus here, is when he talks about in verse 6 that he’s abounding in steadfast love. That’s that word, that Hebrew word hesed, that God has this hesed love. And here is what is important. This verse, or verses Exodus 34:6 and 7, that is the refrain that you see throughout the Old Testament. This idea, if you’re reading your Bibles and you’re in the Old Testament, you’re going to come across this on a regular basis, that God is merciful and gracious. I mean, you’ll even see it verbatim at times. God, he does for Moses, and we have the actual, literal, very words. So it’s his self-revelation. God’s very nature is seen here. He shows mercy. He delays punishment. He forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. So he’s revealing himself, and by revealing himself he’s revealing who he is. He’s revealing his nature. So this word, this particular word that we’ve been looking at, hesed, a very strong Hebrew word, has a wide range of meanings. Some of them include loyal devotion, kindness, steadfast love, faithfulness, goodness, mercy, self-giving love. So it’s not used indiscriminately, just in general of love. Now the word is used only in cases where there’s some recognized tie between the two parties. And because it is a word that is invested with so much meaning, various translations translate the word differently. So if you, unless you’re using the ESV, you probably were seeing a different word. Why is that? Well, because it has so much packed into it that they’re trying to—William Tyndale used the term first in his translation of the Scriptures back in 1535. He came up with an English word on his own to describe what he thought best encapsulated the thought and idea behind hesed. The ESV normally uses steadfast love but sometimes you’ll see kindness. NASB is usually loving-kindness. NIV just uses love. The New King James uses mercy, but you’ll also see loving-kindness at times, and also great kindness. And then the King James is very similar to the New King James. You’ll see mercy, but you’ll also see loving-kindness, and you’ll see great kindness. It is this word that God uses in his description of himself to us, this word hesed.
Why Hesed to Us?
So I want to continue looking at the importance of this Hebrew word for us. One, let’s just ask the question, why so much hesed to us to begin with? Why so much hesed love to us? Does he owe it to us? No, no he doesn’t owe it. So think about the creational design. God created everything, the entire universe. He created it all, he created this world, and there is intention behind his creation. He’s not like, oh whoops, I accidentally created the world. He doesn’t, no. And unlike some heresies, it’s not like an emanation from him. Creation is separate. It’s an act that he does. But there’s an intentionality behind the creation. He doesn’t make mistakes. What does that mean? You’re not a mistake, right? That should be reassuring. He’s got you here for a purpose. He’s got you here for a reason. It’s not by accident. So there’s an intentionality, but there’s also purpose. I mean, you could create something with intention and maybe not have too much purpose for it, but not with the Lord. He has purpose in his creation. He has a purpose for his creation. So when you question, what am I doing here? There is an answer. The Lord has an answer. What’s the purpose? Mankind, we are the pinnacle of his creation. So there’s creational design, so God has intention behind it, he has purpose behind it, and behind that intention and purpose, then as part of that creation, he chooses one particular thing, or being in this case, us, and puts that really at the pinnacle. He creates man. And what do we see throughout Scriptures? Like God has a special purpose for man. He has a special purpose. Look at Psalm 139. I mean, look at the intricacy that God pays attention and has when it comes to us. Verse 13, Psalm 139:
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:13–16)
I mean that’s amazing. It’s amazing. Us, God’s creation, and here we get this descriptor of what God thinks and what God was doing when he created each and every single one of us. And you know what? I mean, God knows every—I mean, he’s omniscient, right? He knows everything. But we’re still figuring stuff about ourselves out. Like it seems like even the knowledgeable people and the scientists and the doctors, like their knowledge is like, it’s pretty limited. We’re still figuring things out about us, about our makeup. In fact, the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, it was awarded for the discovery of function for a type of junk DNA that produces microRNA, which is a crucial molecule involved in gene regulation. You’re like, well, what’s the big deal about that? Well, that so-called genetic junk that for years and years and decades and decades since they discovered it, they’re just like, oh, that’s just like leftover stuff in the DNA from evolution. Well, guess what the intelligent people were saying all along. No, it’s there for a reason. We know we haven’t discovered it yet and we haven’t figured it out, but we believe it’s there for a reason because we’ve been designed not by accident, but by intentionality and by purpose. So yeah, 2024, this doctor receives the Nobel Prize for figuring out what this supposed junk DNA, realizing that it’s not junk DNA. That’s pretty cool. So what’s going to happen over the next 10, 20, 50, 100 years? Like they’re going to continue to see what God already knows. I mean, right? We’re just like, Lord, show me, show me your creation, show me who you are, and then show us who we are. I mean, all we’re trying to do is figure out how the body works on different things, right? But God knows all those things. And we’re asking him, give us insight. Give us insight into these things.
Hesed Requires a Response
Exodus 20, start in verse 1: “And God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.’” Hey, we’re in the middle of the beginning of the Ten Commandments, right? We’re getting how they get given to them. Nineteen kind of leads up to it, and then here’s the first one. “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” You see that word there, verse 6, showing what? The steadfast love. It’s that hesed love. Even in the middle of the Ten Commandments we find it. He’s giving out the commandments. One, oh, let me tell you something that’s really important. It’s like, was all that written on those two tablets? But here’s my point. Look at what the verse says, as God gives hesed love, he requires, this is important, he requires a response. “Steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” As God gives hesed love, he’s looking for a response from us. I’m giving you hesed, and then what does he expect? He expects love and obedience. Why? Because it’s a covenant love. It’s a covenant love. And when you have a covenant, what do you have? You have two parties that come together and one party says, here’s what I’m going to do and the other party says here’s what I’m going to do. What do we get in the covenant with God? Because you know sometimes people say, oh you know God loves me, God loves me, God loves me, which is true. But many people sometimes, people that wouldn’t even claim to be Christians, they’re like, God loves me. They care nothing for his laws. They care nothing for him. You know, God loves me. He wouldn’t send me to hell. He loves me. Well, listen, if you want the covenant love of God, there are requirements for it. What’s the key one? You have to be a part of the covenant. Right? You have to be a part of the covenant. So we want the covenant blessings without the covenant requirements. You can’t have that. If it’s a covenant that God has, and that’s what he does, he covenants with his people, well, guess what? God is committing to do certain things. What’s the covenant he made? The church, I will send my Son. He will take your sins upon him. He will lay down his life. He will raise up and have victory over the grave. What are the requirements for us? We have to repent and we have to trust in the finished work of Jesus. That’s our part of the covenant. I mean, God’s always going to fulfill his part of the covenant every single time. You can look at every single covenant, he’s always been faithful. In fact, 2 Corinthians 1, all the promises, you can even say all the covenants of God are yes in Christ Jesus. He never ever ever ever ever ever lets us down. You might feel that, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t let us down. He is very faithful. So we have to make sure that if we want the covenant love of God that we’re a part of that covenant. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 7.
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. (Deuteronomy 7:6–10)
So when God gives us his hesed love, he looks to us to see how we will respond. Notice again, back in verse 9, what does he do? He keeps covenant and steadfast love. Notice how those words are linked there right together. He keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who what? Love him and keep his commandments. So as he gives us hesed, he wants us to respond. We see the same thing in the book of Daniel. Turn there. This is Daniel’s prayer. In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans—in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.” Hey, you’ve kept your end of the bargain, but we haven’t. Like, how does he describe them? We’ve acted wickedly, we’ve rebelled, we’ve turned aside from your commandments and rules. And so he’s praying and interceding for the people and be like, Lord, forgive us. Like bring us back, we’re here. We’re in the exile because of this very thing, because of our disobedience, because we’ve acted wrong, because we’ve acted immorally. So there are conditions that make sense. God fulfills his conditions, remains faithful. It’s important when talking to people about the love of God. Listen, it’s good to tell people about obedience and belief going hand in hand. In fact, the New Testament even has it in different places. Look at 2 Thessalonians, just briefly. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. We’ll start in verse 4.
Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (2 Thessalonians 1:4–8)
You see there in verse 8 how knowing God and obeying the gospel are linked. That’s who the Lord is going to inflict vengeance on. Not just those who don’t know, but it’s linked together. And most commentators see that really as one group. They don’t know and they’re not obeying. Why aren’t they obeying? Because they don’t know him. If they know him, what would they be doing? They’d be obeying. And listen, brothers and sisters, it’s good to tell people this. It’s good to let people know there’s a cost to discipleship. It’s good to let people know that there’s not a thing of just, oh, I can just sort of believe and I got fire insurance and I’m going to get into heaven. No, if you’re going to covenant with the God of the universe who created you, you need to understand the terms and the conditions. And he has terms and conditions. And it’s really a complete surrender of your life to him. It’s everything. He owns you. You’re a slave, as 1 Corinthians calls you. You’re a slave. You’re going to be a slave to sin, or you’re going to be a slave to righteousness. You’re going to be a slave to the devil, or you’re going to be a slave to Christ. But you will be one of them. It’s good to tell people this. Recently on social media, a woman was commenting that a family member of hers was going to a church, where one woman was complaining about Trump shutting down the reproductive rights website. You know, he did that. I don’t know if you knew that or not, but day one, Roe v. Wade was overturned, the very next day President Biden set up a website for abortion and information and access and help. Day one of Trump’s presidency, he shut it down. This lady was complaining about that, as well as complaining that Trump had recognized that there were only two genders. She couldn’t believe these pro-life actions Trump had taken [audio unclear]
The Order of Love
Well, I’ve said this before. It might be sound doctrinal teaching from the pulpit, but sometimes it’s what the pulpit doesn’t say that speaks volumes. You can have truth coming from the pulpit, but if you don’t have the whole counsel of God, they’re not going to get the whole counsel of God. You can have truth. You can have the gospel message coming forth. But if you’re not hitting on hot-button topics like marriage, like abortion, then guess what? People in the pews, at home, it’s going to be ignorance. But they’re going to think that’s okay. They’re going to think it’s acceptable. They’re going to think, oh, I believe biblical things. No, they need to be shown from the word. So when we’re talking marriage or gender identity, and it’s in babies, those are too important for us not to talk about. And it does a great disservice to believers who come to hear, I mean, they’re coming to hear the word, they’re in the church, they’re involved, they’re members of the church. But it does a great disservice to them if they come to hear the word and they don’t hear what the word says on these topics. For whatever reason, the pastor’s fear, cowardice, or more concerned about numbers. In the book, The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis, he talks about this concept of the order of love. The order of love. Augustine in his City of God also talks about this virtue of a rightly ordered love. It’s really basic Christian ethics. It’s the idea of the right ordering of our loves. Hesed love is an ordered love. This idea is that I love my kids more than I love your kids. Is that wrong? It’s not wrong. Hopefully, you love your kids more than you love my kids. If you’re going to try to argue differently, then please start contributing to my kids’ college fund. Not too many people—I have enough trouble contributing to my own college fund, okay? You probably do too, my kids’ college fund. And I love my family more than I love your family. Is that okay? I love my wife more than I love your wives. That kind of makes it obvious that we should have ordered loves, right? There’d be something wrong if I was like, no, I love all women the same. That sounds weird, because it is weird. And I love my church even if I wasn’t a pastor. Just as a member, I love my church more than I love another church. It’s ordered loves that we have. And I love my neighbors more than your neighbors. So if my neighbor is having a problem, you know, if my neighbor is having a problem, I’m going to help them. People have a problem sometimes understanding this because what they hear is God is love, God is love, God is love over and over. That is true. It’s a powerful statement. But they think his love is the same to all regardless of who they are. God loves his children differently. That just makes sense. It might take you a second to wrap your mind around it, but it’s the same thing as our loving your own children more than loving other children. God loves his own children in a greater degree. Does he still love all? Yes. Is it an infinite love? Yes. But there’s a difference of the love that he has for his children. Here’s what Herman Bavinck, great theologian, said, to show love toward some people are much closer to us than others. [audio unclear] And we’re going to help out. We’re going to get involved.
Love the Neighbor in Your Midst
But this love that we’re talking about, this love is tough to do, because listen, it’s easy to show someone that’s like on the edge and removed and far away, then when they’re right here in our midst, it’s hard to love the people that you can reach out and touch. So you have something like the North Carolina hurricane victims, like, you know, a lot of people, they just send 20 bucks and then, oh, you know, my conscience is appeased and my job is done. And I mean, people gave, that’s good. I’m not saying they shouldn’t give. But think, even if you just think about that for a moment, like, do those people give when there’s a disaster in another country? Maybe some of them, but probably not. And I’d even suggest to you that that’s still the ordered love. They’re like, hey, those people, I mean, they’re just like three states over. Maybe they’re just a couple counties over. I want to help them out. There’s nothing wrong with that. Think about it this way. Who lives in your house? Are you going to just open the doors for anyone to live with you? If so, just let me know, because I might have a couple candidates for you, all right? And who do you spend most of your money on? Like your family. Who do you feed, clothe, shelter every day? Is it wrong to do that? No, of course not. Who’s in your will? The closer the relation. That’s understandable. That’s actually biblical. But these answers that you’ve given in your mind, they show that you understand there’s an order to love. And sometimes it’s easy to love the stranger over there, way over there. Why? Because my involvement is minimal. Just give me the text number and I’ll send $15. It’s much harder when it’s someone that God brings into your midst and they’re going to be a big old mess. Every situation I’ve dealt with, I’m always like, this seems like it’s going to be really easy to deal with, but I’m like, I know better now. It’s going to be a huge mess. It’s going to be challenges. Things are going to get involved in helping love people truly. Yeah, it’s messy. And so sometimes people have a feigned love or a faux love or a fake love. And it’s easy to love people that are thousands and tens of thousands of miles away, because you never really have to interact with them. You don’t have to do that. It’s a lot more challenging when they’re right next door to you. But those are the people we’re called to love. We’re called to love them. We still do have a responsibility to our neighbor. But I have a greater responsibility to our next-door neighbor than to our neighbor in, say, Rhode Island. Here’s what I want to say. Let’s make sure that that’s what we’re doing. Yes, it should definitely start in our family with our spouse. Don’t use the order of love as an excuse to not have it extend past that. Or as an excuse not to have to love the neighbor on the left and the right. I know. So yes, there’s a lot of people and a lot of challenging situations who are the ones we’re supposed to help. As the Lord gives opportunity, sometimes we go out and we seek for them. That’s great, but sometimes the Lord just brings them to us. It brings them right to us. That’s our neighbor. That’s who we want. Listen, if we always talk about, I want to be like Jesus, I want to be like Jesus, I want to be like Jesus, why do you want to be like Jesus? You want to be like Jesus, then have this hesed love. You have this hesed love, this idea of a faithfulness and a kindness and the grace and a mercy to your love, then you’re going to be more and more like Christ. Then you’re going to walk the path that’s very narrow, the path that leads to life. Then you’re going to have that fruit of the Spirit coming up in your life and flowing out. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. But you will have that. And you will become more and more like Christ. Something as simple, what seems to be simple, one Hebrew word, one little Hebrew word, hesed, but very powerful if we ourselves can take that and ingrain it into our own lives. Let’s pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank you that you do pour out your hesed love on us, and it is filled with the blood of Jesus that covers our sins, wipes them away, that you are a faithful God who walks in covenant with his people. Lord, help us display that hesed aspect of our relationship with you, that you do have a faithful love for us, that you do covenant with us, that you designed us with intention and purpose, the pinnacle of your creation. Have your way with us, Father, for your glory.