Great Advantage, taken from Romans chapter three, verses one and two. That was not the plan for today. It was supposed to be Romans three, one to eight. But I just couldn't do it. When I read Romans three, one and two, I couldn't go further. So on Tuesday, I asked the staff this question. If someone were to ask you, what is the great advantage of being a Christian, How would you answer that? And we had a chance to discuss that and have a number of different answers. Whatever first answer comes to your mind, I want you to tuck that away right now, and we'll talk about it later. But it's a great question to ask. In Romans 3, verses 1 and 2, the Apostle Paul is going to talk about the great advantage of being a Jew. What's the great advantage of being a Jew? So there's a backstory to this. If you've been with us, the Apostle Paul's been building a case. He's been building a case to show that everyone is under sin. But in this part, last week we talked about the Jew and you could see them getting their chest all puffed up with, yeah, we're this and we're that. And then he takes a pen and just pricks that little balloon. and basically comes to the conclusion, God is impartial. He's gonna judge everyone, and if you claim to be a follower of the Lord, then you need to practice what you preach, and that's where we left it off last week. So you can hear this question. So, what's the benefit? What's the benefit of being a Jew if God's going to treat everybody the same? What's the benefit? And the answer comes in the focus of today. We're kind of setting aside the argument to just focus on what it says today. In Romans 3, verse 1, then what advantage has the Jew or what's the value of circumcision? Verse 2. Much in every way. The great advantage. Much in every way. The Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. Much in every way. This case that the Apostle Paul is building, we're going to set it aside until next week. We're just going to focus on this great advantage for today. Next week, I already have the title for you, The Verdict. You can put that aside, and we'll come back to that next week. But we're going to set that aside to focus on this. We have been entrusted, the Jews have been entrusted with the oracles of God. Oracles isn't a word we normally use, and it has in it the idea of God's laws. God's covenants and God's promises. And we're going to unpack that just a little bit, relatively quickly, that God's laws, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, are often referred to as the law of God. And within that, essentially, God gave Israel a new culture. If you know the background of Israel, they were slaves for 400 years. If you're slaves for 400 years, you're going to have a slave mentality. He gave them moral laws. you know, the Ten Commandments. He gave them ceremonial laws, how to approach him, how to celebrate. I mean, in some ways, our Thanksgiving comes out of the ceremonial law a bit. Judicial laws. He gave all of these things to Israel as they came out of Egypt after 400 years of slavery. I don't know if you know this, there's only ever been two successful slave revolts in history. Israel and Haiti. You get vastly different things happening when you have slaves who revolt and don't have a new culture. Vastly different results. If you study the history of Israel and the history of Haiti, you're going to come to vastly different results. Haiti is an ecological disaster. They stripped the land for hundreds of years, as the French predecessors had. And if you're into ecology, it's a great study. You took something that was a pearl of the Antilles and absolutely destroyed it, that it is so barren today because of it. It's an economic disaster, as we all know. It's an ethical disaster. Israel, on the other hand, when you study their history in the Old Testament, you see kind of the ups and downs of things. And we'll talk more about that. But it's interesting to think about. Another way to think about it, the United States was the first republic in the New World, and Haiti was the second one. What's the difference? Haiti dedicated themselves to voodoo. Sacrificed a pig. The United States tried to pattern over the judicial system found in the Old Testament. Haiti had a lot of natural resources when they started. Very interesting to think about the impact on us of having the benefit of our leaders, and I'm not promoting that we were a Christian nation, an evangelical nation. I'm not promoting that. But clearly, you go into any government building that's been around for a while, you're going to see things written on their walls in stone. It's something to really think about. It's something to think about what kind of impacts have we as a nation, we as people enjoyed because of the impact of the word of God on our culture. What kind of impact did Israel have on receiving the word of God that gave them, took them away, and they begin to live very differently from the Egyptian masters that they lived under because God gave them a culture. And he gave them covenants. A covenant is the means by which God develops a trust relationship with people. By the way, marriage is called a covenant, right? It's not a contract. It's the development of a trust relationship between a man and woman when you start married life together. It's not a contract. Contracts are for those people who don't trust each other. Covenants are for those who are developing a trust relationship. You know, the illustration, there's many covenants, but one of the illustrations is the Abrahamic covenant. It says, now the Lord said, Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land, I will show you. I will make you a great nation, I will bless you, make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I'll bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And that Abrahamic covenant has great implications, had great implications for Israel, has great implications for us as followers of Christ. God had many covenants that he gave. He also had promises. promises of God are the basis for true hope. Many people, they want hope, and people in our culture often are struggling to find hope, and they kind of more, I hope so, where the word of God is those things that are faithful and true, and you can build true hope. off of the promises of God, and I have two illustrations. One, in Genesis 3.15, doesn't sound so hopeful until you understand it. As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, God gives this promise. And he's talking about Satan here. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. That by itself, you go, well, if that's all I had, it would be hard for me to understand what's being promised here. It's like the first little ray of light when the sun's coming up in the morning. It's hard to understand the whole landscape off that one ray of light, but as the sun comes up, there's more and more light. This great promise is looking forward to the cross, where Christ would be bruised by Satan in the world system, but he would crush Satan and provide salvation, the very, very first promise God ever gives to us, that there would be a Redeemer. Another promise, and the Bible is filled with promises, I'm just highlighting two of them, the new covenant. I have a little more written here than what's in your notes, but the days are coming, declares the Lord, and he's saying this to Jeremiah. Jeremiah's the one who's going to tell them, okay, Israel is going to go into captivity, and all the people say, no, we're not, no, we're not, and they throw him in wells, and they do all kinds of things with him, and he's called the weeping prophet, but in the midst of that context, when things are looking so bad, God makes this promise. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant today broke, though, as their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, I'll be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. On the night that Jesus betrayed, he takes a cup. This is the new covenant in my blood. The promises of God continue when you look at these promises. They're not completely fulfilled yet. We still have to teach. Everybody doesn't know the Lord. This is still looking forward to some things that are going to happen, but the beginning of the new covenant has taken place, and the Spirit of God has written the laws of God on the hearts of all true followers of Christ. So the new covenant that was promised in Jeremiah's time is being fulfilled, and it is yet to be fulfilled. God has given to us promises. He's given us covenants. He's given his laws. Without these, people struggle to understand life at all. You know, the oracles of God answer the great questions of mankind. I don't know if any of you have had the privilege or whatever you might call it of studying Western philosophy. I took it as an independent study, had this book, 700 pages long, real fine print, really smart people. And when I got done with that 700-page book and took all the exams, I said, you know what? They can't answer any of life's real questions. They can't answer where we came from definitively. They can't answer why I'm here, or purpose. They can't answer how do we determine right from wrong. And they can't answer what happens after I die. All of the cultures of the world try to answer this in various ways. The philosophy book of the Bible in the Old Testament is the wisdom literature, the love of wisdom, particularly in Proverbs, it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I remember thinking about this and thinking, you know, Western philosophy's a little like trying to play soccer with no goal and no boundaries and no rules. We don't want boundaries, we don't want rules, we just want the freedom to think with no boundaries. The boundary is the fear of the Lord. Without the fear of the Lord, you will never get to the place of understanding where we came from, Why we're here? What purpose is there? And many in our society have chosen to commit suicide because they say, there's no purpose. Many in our society. How do we determine right from wrong? I won't get into that too much more. But destiny, what happens after we die? For many people, this is the one that they search and they search. And I talked about Western philosophy. You can also study Eastern philosophy. You can study Amerindian totem poles. You can study all of those kinds of things. Everybody's trying to answer these questions. How do you get a definitive answer? To me, the Word of God is the definitive answer. Well, the question I spent a good bit of time thinking about this week is, how did Israel respond to this great advantage, this great advantage of having the Word of God? How did they respond? And of course, if you've been with us over the last couple of years, from creation to Christ, there's many, many answers to that question, depending on what time period we're talking about, and whether it's national or individual response. But we boiled it down to three responses, and they all start with D. The first one is disobedience. From Malachi 3.7, from the days of your fathers, you've turned aside from my statutes and not kept them. Return to me and I'll return to you, says the Lord. Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament. After Malachi, there's not a word from the Lord until John the Baptist, a 400 time period. And Malachi can be defined as hearts of stone. Basically, what the people were saying is, it's a waste of time to serve the Lord. It's just not worth the bother. Disobedience, doubt, disdain. There's a lot of different words you could put in for what Israel did in the Old Testament at the end of the Old Testament with regard to the Word of God. But that's not the only response he had, thankfully. The next one is distress, and this is from Nehemiah 8-9, and it's Ezra. If you remember, last week we talked about Ezra. He dedicated himself to study the Word of God, to practice the Word of God, and then to teach the Word of God. And the children of Israel had been brought back from captivity, and Ezra and Nehemiah worked together on building the people and the walls, and the temple was being rebuilt. And Ezra reads the Word of God, and they stand up while he reads it for hours on end. That would be interesting. I had someone ask me last week how I'm able to stand up here and speak for this period of time. You give me a couple hours, we're good to go, man, let's go. We gotta do it in half an hour. But he had all morning, and he proclaimed the word of God, and there was people interpreting because they no longer understood the original languages. And here's what happened. Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, Amen, Amen, lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. And they read from the book, from the law of God clearly. It gave sense to the people who understood the reading. Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, this day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep, for all the people wept when they heard the words of God. At times, when the word of God has not been part of our lives, and we finally hear it, it brings great distress. I can remember that for myself. I was 25. I said to Chris one day, how did I miss this? How did I miss this? A lot of regrets. I've had some older people, and one after second service last week, just in tears. How did I miss this? What a great blessing it is. And maybe you're like that today. Maybe that's a distress for you. But Nehemiah tells him, in that context, don't weep. The joy of the Lord is your strength. And we'll get into that a little bit more. But there's a third response, all of them with these, from Psalm 119, verse 47. I find me delight in your commands which I love. I will lift my hands towards your commandments, which I love, and I'll meditate on your statutes. Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in all of the Bible, and it all talks about the Word of God and our relationship to the Word of God. Psalm 19, we read some of this morning. We'll read some more. We chose 19 instead of 119. We'd be here a long time if we went in 119. But I have this marked in my Bible, Psalm 119, verse 92. If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. I have a date beside it. I'm not going to tell you the date. Where do you run when you're afflicted? The psalmist talks about the law being his delight. There's a great problem with the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel had the word of God. At times, they disregarded it, disobeyed, disdained it. At other times, they were distressed by it. At times, at least individuals, if not all of them, delighted in it. But this is what Jesus said to the religious rulers of his day. You search the scriptures because you think that you have eternal life, and they bear witness about me. It's possible to read the Bible, to know the commands, to know the promises, to know all that, and miss the Savior. You can have a sin-focused way, a principle-focused way, a regulation-focused way, and miss the Savior. It's a great temptation to take the Word of God for granted here. This next picture shows my desk. There it is. We have access to lots of books. Resources, I remember a missionary saying to me one day, man, you guys have so many resources. Familiarity can breed contempt. We can take it for granted. Janet Morris shared this video with us. I'm going to ask you to watch it. It's just a couple minute video on people receiving the word of God in their language for the first time. So pay attention to this video. As I think about God's view of the Isanog people, I think he is just smiling. He loves those people. My name is Kelly Chestnut, and I get to provide leadership to our staff in their spiritual formation. And I also serve alongside my husband, who serves as president and CEO of Wycliffe. So my husband and I came with a team so that we could participate in celebrating the ISNAG full Bible dedication. It's just a joy to see this language community have the full counsel of God's Word in a language that they best understand. So while we were in Dibagat, a worship service actually set us up before the dedication, the night before we entered into a time of worship, and it was so much fun. And then the next day, we actually came together in a celebration service in which we got to see and meet people from many different villages across the Isnak community. And it was just pure joy to see children and men and women coming together to celebrate receiving God's word in their language. We heard stories of transformation in the community in which people who had been part of the church for years, there was one woman in fact that she was 63 or 64 and had just put her faith in Jesus for the first time two weeks before our arrival. And she got baptized the day of the celebration. It was such a neat experience to know that generations past had no word of God in their language, to having the New Testament at one point, to having that New Testament revised because language changes, and then to have an Old Testament included now, and then to see children. So these children are being raised as the next generation in which they've never known not having God's word in their language. When the Bibles were distributed after the celebration and the dedication, people stayed around for a long time so that they could get their turn waiting in line and receiving their word. Some were just clutching the Bible to their chests and others immediately sat down and started opening their Bibles and some were looking through it and others went straight to Old Testament passages. So seeing the response of the community, priceless. I think one of the things I'm gonna leave this time with is just the reminder of the value of God's Word. I already know it's valuable, but sometimes we can become overly familiar with something and we lose sight of the value. And every time I go to a dedication, it always reminds me of the precious treasure that we have in God's Word. Some people have paid very dearly so that we could have God's Word. If you go and read the story of William Tyndale, and he was strangled and then burned at the stake because of translating the Word of God into English, and we have much to thank William Tyndale for, even in the giving of the English language. You know, from there, there's many others. I mean, Wycliffe, that's what they do. Chet Bitterman, some of you might know that name, he gave his life in serving, actually had an impact on me, hearing his parents' testimony when I was on my way to coming to Christ and thinking, whatever those people have, I don't have that. What's your relationship? to word of God, is it a precious possession to you? I'm not talking about what's your relationship to a particular copy of it, although that sometimes is part of it. I remember Howard Dial was in Guyana with us. He's who introduced us to self-confrontation. He dropped his Bible in that trench. If any of you've been to Guyana, just imagine that. He was heartbroken because he had all kinds of notes in it and all kinds of things like that. We don't worship the Bible. But it is through the Bible that God reveals himself to us. In creation, in conscience, they are revealers, but it's the scriptures that enable us to have a relationship with him. C.T. Studd, he was a missionary that actually helped to found our mission and some other missions. He served in Africa and I believe China for a while. He would get a new copy every year. because he didn't want anything old. He wanted to meet God fresh every year. How you choose to do things, I'm sad this one's falling apart. It's time for a new one, but how do you relate to the Word of God? Well, are you like Israel and you're disobedient? If you've been disobedient to the Word of God, there's just really one word for you, repent. Change your thinking, that's what repentance is, a change of thought. Jesus said in Luke 13, five, I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Your relationship to the Word of God is life and death. What is your relationship to the Word of God? When you see what the Word of God says, do you believe it? Do you obey it? Do you ignore it? It will have eternal consequences for you. So if your relationship with the Word of God is anything other than obedience and delight, Jesus has one word for you, repent. Change your thinking. And out of the change of your thinking, then change your words and your actions. Jesus said to people after some miracles and all of that in John chapter six, He told them to work the works of God. And they said, what must they be to do the works of God? Jesus gave them this answer. This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent. I'm the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. The Word of God is telling you that you relate to God through Jesus Christ, and the work He's looking for is for you to put all of your faith, all of your trust in Him that will result in change. Now, some of us this morning might have doubts. We're here with honest doubts. There are answers available to honest doubts. For me, the way I've dealt with doubts in my life, and I went through a period of real doubting when I was in language school, and I landed on this. The fulfilled prophecies of the Old Testament are my anchor point. If you're dealing with doubts today, there are answers if you're willing to look for them. If the doubts are just something that you have because you have a particular way of life you want to live and you know God's word won't allow you to live that way, those are not real, right, proper doubts. They're just straight up disobedience. Repent. If you're dealing with doubts, I wanna challenge you to get in and read the word of God, study the word of God, find things. We use this life issues booklet in journey groups. Very first thing it does is address the issue of is the Bible God's word and looks at fulfilled prophecies. If you have legitimate struggles, there's legitimate answers. Distress. I actually really am thankful for this, that I've encountered a number of people at Millennial Bible Church in distress, particularly older ones who, oh man, things could have been so different. Jesus' word in John 6.37, all that the Father gives to me will come to me. and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. And he'll tell you to forget the things that are behind and press forward to the mark of the calling of God in Christ Jesus. If you're here today and you're distressed over the things of the past, and you've come to Christ, the forgiveness is there for all of that. The consequences, they may continue. The thief on the cross, had no good works, never attended church, no religious sacrifices, no religious ceremonies, and yet Jesus said to him, I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise. For those who are distressed, there is assurance that if you come to Christ, he will never cast you aside and he'll wipe away every tear. Where do we hope that we are? We are Millersville Bible Church. So your relationship to the Word of God ought to be something that's a pretty important thing. And the ideal would be that your relationship to the Word of God is one of delight. I have many people to thank for helping me in this message. One of them is my wife. We were talking about these. What is the response to delight? Worship. Worship. If you truly delight in God, in his word, you will be a worshiper. You will be. An illustration is Mary. Probably familiar with the story, Mary and Martha, Lazarus, Jesus comes to their home. Martha gets thrown under the bus, that's not our point. But Mary sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. Jesus said about her, Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her. Mary chose to worship the Lord. She delighted in finding Christ and hearing his word. How about you? Is your life marked by disobedience? One word, repent. Is your life marked by a distress over the things you see in God's word and where your life is? One word, assurance. Come to him. He's never going to cast you aside. He's going to be with you. He's going to help you. Ideally, your relationship to the word of God is delight and the response in your life is worship. In closing, I want to read the last couple of verses of Psalm 19. Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. And this last verse is the benediction, it's the heart cry, should be the heart cry of us. Let the words of my mouth and the thoughts, the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Father, this is our heart cry. As we go from here, I pray in Jesus' name, amen. May the words of your mouth and the thoughts of your heart be acceptable in the Lord's sight, and may you see him as not only your redeemer, but also your rock. God bless you. You're dismissed.