Proverbs 6:16-19 (7 Things God Hates)

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Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon We pray that as we declare the

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Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

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Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you

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When we think about the word abomination We tend to have an outhouse kind of view.

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What do I mean by outhouse? Well in the early days of America before plumbing and before Some of those things you would have sort of this enclosed wooden closet that functioned as an outdoor bathroom

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Where you would go and you would take care of your business in those days It was gross or even unhealthy especially rude

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To do your business indoors So they would go to the outhouse. This is sort of the proto port -a -potty if you will and That's where you would go and do your business discreetly politely and cleanly

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Well in the same way we tend to look at sins like abominations like that It's for the it's for those who are out there not for those who are in here

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The concept of it is is that there are sins that exist in this world that are so morally repugnant to God That that they are on the level of moral sewage

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And that can't happen here in the house of God, right? It must be those who are outside of the house and Just to be fair.

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There are lots of abominations that are happening in our culture today If you're not familiar with this class of sins called abominations they are sins that are so grievous grotesque and venomous to the nature of God that they are a

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Sting a stench in his own nostrils. He abhors them and In that sense

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You may have heard that all sins are basically equal, but in the Bible they are not

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All sins will damn you and in that sense they are equal but not all sins carry the same level of consequence and even evil for instance

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Lust and a full -blown affair are different in the same way

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Murdering someone in your heart and actually picking up a weapon There's a difference there

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All sin leads to eternal Consequences damnation for those who are not in Christ.

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Yes, and amen But not all sins carry the same consequence on earth

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Abominations are those sins which are at the height of destroying humanity

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They are at the height of destroying life and most of them are connected to Genesis 1

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Which got the things that God called very good, which is male female marriage children family

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And in that sense Abominations in the Bible are societal vermin They're like rats that are gnawing their way through the floorboard of a society that will leave that society

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Pillaged and broken and there's many of these in the Bible. I'll go through just a couple of them

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There's sexual sins that are called abominations For instance homosexuality is called an abomination if anybody looks at you and says the

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Bible whispers about sexual sin No, it doesn't JD Greer if you know the reference

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No, it doesn't It calls it an abomination Bestiality abomination incest abomination.

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You can look at all the passages. I'm referencing here adultery abomination Cross -dressing is an abomination gender confusion abomination

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Just to name a few there's also Idolatrous abominations when you worship other gods that is an offense that is repugnant to the holiness of God when you carve out images

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When you offer incense to false gods when you worship demons when you offer your children on the altars of Molech And maybe you would say well that's not happening today.

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Yes, it is at every Planned Parenthood Which is dedicated straight up to that Canaanite disgusting demonic

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God Divination sorcery omens witchcraft necromancy are all called abominations

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Dishonest weights and measures are called abominations bribery corrupt judges condemning the righteous justifying the wicked all of these things are called

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Abominations and for those particular sins the wrath of God is being stored up against those who perpetrate them

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So that it is like a spring ready to Strike and yet There also is a class of abominations

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That are not just for those who are outside of this house There also is a list in the

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Bible of abominations That actually impact us

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Instead of us calling them out house sins. We should call them in -house sins because they happen within the community of Grace, they happen within the covenant community

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These are sins that you and I can commit and have committed that God calls abominations and in this sense

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We ought to pay very close attention to what this passage says Because if we are committing the most vile class of sins that the

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Bible lists so much So that God says he hates the person who perpetrates them at The very least it should evoke within us trepidation and reverence and A humility as we read the passages.

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We're gonna read today now. I'm not gonna lie to you If if you're a first -time visitor at a church like this, this is a hard message

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That the message is God hates those who do these things but the point that I love so much about what we're doing in Proverbs is

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We're letting the Bible tell us what we preach. We're not picking and choosing verses to tickle people's ears

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We're preaching the next verses that are up today, that's Proverbs 6 16 through 19 and It begins with the

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Lord hates The person who does these things so if you will turn with me to this passage as we look at it we study it we try to understand it because Again, this passage is not for the world.

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This passage is for the community of faith Proverbs 6 verse starting with verse 16

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There are six things which the Lord hates Yes, seven which are an abomination to him haughty eyes a lying tongue and hands that shed innocent blood a heart that devises wicked plans feet that run rapidly to evil a

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False witness who utters lies and one who spreads strife among brothers

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Let's pray Lord help us today Like with all passages to come to the text with a humility to come to the text with an honesty that Lord we have not fulfilled this passage.

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In fact, we've broken it Time and time and time again and Lord let us get very honest with ourselves and Say that these abominations have caused the hatred of God to fall upon us and without a mediator we would be plunged into a

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Kind of judgment that is everlasting and unrelenting Lord help us to approach this passage with grave seriousness

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But also holy reverence and Lord at the end of it

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I pray that as we as we speak about the depths that this passage speaks about That Lord it would also demonstrate to us the glory of the gospel of Christ Because we're to the degree that we see what we are owed and we are owed the hatred of God and we are owed the everlasting fury of God May it also be that it strengthens our understanding of the grace of God Because what we are not owed is what we have received in Christ Lord if there's anyone here who who has professed

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Jesus with their lips, but their heart is far from him And they are not under The regeneration of the

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Spirit of God Lord, would you fall upon them today? In a violent way that would cause them to leave the foolishness of their sin and to run to Christ It's in Jesus name.

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We pray. Amen Now as we begin I want us to notice three things before we get started and that's

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Three things about this passage that are fairly obvious here. The first is that God does hate

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You might have known some of those very toothy People they smile like Joel Osteen on a

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Sunday morning, you know, God is love Almost kind of like a hippie type of way of saying it

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Yeah, God is love But God also hates and this passage says it

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Romans 9 says it Esau or Jacob. I've loved Esau hated He raised up Pharaoh for that purpose and it says he hated him the

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Lord has people that he hates The Bible says that so we have to understand that we have to accept that we have to reconcile that we have to understand that his

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Hatred in this passage is poured out not just on body parts because it is it's poured out on eyes and and mouths and feet

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And hands, but it's also poured out on the person It says that God hates the evildoer.

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Not just the evil that they do It says a false witness who utters lies he hates and one who spreads strife among the brothers.

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He hates he hates the person Not just the sin That's what the scriptures say

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Second we have to recognize that these are in -house sins These are not the ones that we sit comfortably inside of our sanctuary and say well, that's what the world does

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These sins happen inside the church right at the very beginning or right at the very end of this passage It says the one who stirs up strife among the brothers that word brothers is not just family members

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This is not just about a group of atheists who are getting together on Saturday for spaghetti lunch and two brothers get into a mild

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Little tiff that's not what this is talking about This is talking about brothers as an covenant family as in people who are bound together by the relationship that God has wrought through Christ but at the time of Solomon through the

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Mosaic Covenant This is not the Israelites approach to the

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Moabites This is this is how brother against brother is to treat each other

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And when you do these sins in the context of brotherhood They rise to the level of abomination

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Let me say it a different way When you lie normally

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It's not called an abomination scripture. It's called a sin But when you lie to a

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Christian You have now elevated that sin to the level of abomination when you sin against a brother is what the

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Lord is saying it goes from being a Normal run -of -the -mill sin, which will damn you to hell.

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We already know but it increases in Intensity to an abomination which it means that the consequence of it actually is greater

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Again, this is not about a group of third degree Masons meeting in the

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Masonic Lodge and doing their weird little handshake and saying You know brother This is about covenant loyalty and covenant relationships among the people of God These are covenant breaking sins that we're going to be talking about today and these are sins that threaten every single person in this room and Threaten this church and threaten the people of God and we have to be

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We have to be careful about how we approach. That's the second thing. These are in -house sins among brothers

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The third is that these sins are listed categorically and that's the way that we will follow and track through these sins the first category is the embodied sins

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Where we're going to talk about how this affects the mouth or how it affects the eyes or how it affects the fingers or how

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It affects the feet or how it affects the heart That's the category that this passage works through just like last week in the worthless sins that we talked about it

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He lists them taxonomically through the body But he also as we've already mentioned at the end

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He takes the scattered body parts and puts them together and says upon this man or upon this woman

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The hatred of God is poured out for this sin so let's begin we're gonna begin with the anatomy of Abominations Solomon says this there are six things which the

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Lord hates Yes, seven which are an abomination to him and he begins with haughty eyes

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Now I think it's very important here because he says brother in the passage

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It's very important for us to see that these are not just the eyes of the world

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He's not talking about the dilated pupils of a perpetual addict He's not talking about the lustful eyes of the sexual deviant.

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He's not talking about the lying eyes of a politician He's talking about the way we use our eyes against each other

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In the day that Solomon wrote this passage this was written to the covenant people of God who were underneath the

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Mosaic economy who were who were sanctified by the shedding of the blood of bulls and goats and through the

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Ceremonialism that was a type and shadow which pointed to Jesus All of those who were circumcised and every family member under the headship of those who were circumcised were a part of the covenant community of God and in that sense

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It didn't matter if you were part of the tribe of Dan and the person that you despise was a part of the tribe of Naphtali You could not use your eyes

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To perpetrate evil against them because it was different than what you do to a

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Canaanite. It was an abomination Today this command doesn't doesn't

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Diminish in its scope I think actually it's increased because now with so much more clarity and With so much more because the blood of bulls and goats could not save now

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We are bought and paid for we are united together knit together We are in union with the same

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Christ that when we do damage to one another it has to be worse Than it was under the

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Mosaic economy you sin in an in a in a way That's abominable in the

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Mosaic economy when you when you harm your brother with your eyes but think about that you're sinning against the very blood of Christ when you sin against your brother or your sister in the

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Lord and I think Just to make this very granular we could apply this

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To even the theologically astute branch of Christianity called the

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Reformed where we use our eyes the same eyes of men and women who sing the

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Psalms who catechize their children who take weekly communion and walk through covenant renewal liturgy and Yet there are ways in which our eyes can become haughty prideful and That leads us to a question.

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How is that possible for us? We are reformed We believe in the five solas. We're Calvinistic.

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We we should be mature beyond that. Yeah Like Pharisees if ever we have looked down our nose upon another person and said thank

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God. I'm not like them We have committed an abomination if ever we have looked at another person and said

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Gosh, they don't know what penal substitutionary atonement is and they're they're in for a lap

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Syrian instead of super lap Syria Oh my goodness We've committed abominations.

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Do you see the danger that I'm pointing out here? We can be focused on the right things and even for a second we get our eyes off of God and we start putting them on to us and on our faithfulness and on our theological acumen and on our sanctification on our our our our our and then before we know it we are the ones who made the golden calf and Called it

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Yahweh God hates spiritual pride God hates

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When we use our eyes to make judgments about others

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To elevate ourselves in our significance. God hates it The second way that we use our eyes in sinful ways is in social

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Contempt that we that we pour out on others through our eyes when you scan the pews

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To take a secret inventory of folks when you look at the family who has the screaming toddler

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You say why can't they control their kids or when you look at the man in jeans and flip -flops and you say well

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He must not take worship seriously because he's not wearing a tie or when you look at someone who hasn't had the opportunities that you've had

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For theological education and you say gosh, they just they really need to grow what we're doing there is where is we're playing a kind of spiritual sizing up of other people and we're

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Elevating ourself and we're pushing others down and we're using our eyes and haughty ways against our brother and sister who was died for and bled for by the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and when we do that, we forget the widow the orphan and the weary and we forget that in our pomp that we also are beggars at the throne of grace and That Christ himself saved us in our neediness

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God hates this because it lacks grace God hates this because it assumes

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That we have some goodness about us that's worth bolstering

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Nothing to the throne we bring only our sin only our misery only our offense

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Did we even contribute as Jonathan Edwards says to our salvation? how dare we ever look at another person with the kind of piercing judgmentalism to say

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Look at them They need to they need to instead of turning it back around and saying if not for the grace of God So go

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I a third way that we sin with our eyes among the covenant community of God is through a kind of intellectual arrogance

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Congratulations if you've graduated to reading Van Til But don't look down on the man who still loves and enjoys

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John MacArthur. I did that for Pam. She's not here Paul's warning is that you better be careful with your theological

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Acumen because it puffs up He says in 1st Corinthians 8 1 knowledge puffs up, but loves love builds up And you better be careful because the more you study the more you're accountable for there's that there's a kind of Blissful ignorance when it comes to the scripture that you're not supposed to live in.

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I'm not I'm not encouraging you to do this but if you know less you were responsible for less and If you know more you're responsible for more and that should be a joy to the believer to run towards the scriptures that the

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Lord Would even deposit his truths inside of us. That should be a joy. We should want to know his word

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But it comes with consequences if we spurn it Grace alone is our boast not in our theological rank

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Because who are we? We're the broken. We're the weak. We're the fools Paul says that God chose the foolish things in this world to shame the wise so if you're saved you're a fool

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You're not special. You're not great. You're not anything and neither am I That's the point we boast in his glory and his goodness not in ours

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The Moment that we take our eyes off of him and on to us is when things get sour and we think well gosh

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They could be here too if they just worked harder if they read more if they carved out time, you know If you want to do it, you'll do it

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If you don't you won't and then we start making these little judgments these micro murders that we do with other people and we forget that we are also saved out of being totally and utterly depraved and Without hope apart from Christ the fourth way

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That we can use our eyes To perpetrate abominations within the household of God is by aesthetic superiority for instance the mom who comes in and the children are

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Maybe their hair is not combed that week Maybe they have mismatched clothes, but praise

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God. She's there How many mothers have felt the icy stare of someone

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Because their children didn't look a certain way. I've heard stories all my life God condemned that in his church

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God it says in the scriptures looks at the heart and not at the haircut Isaiah 53 to no stately form or majesty that we should look upon was upon him

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Jesus himself Was not according to this passage

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Much for his Jewish contemporaries to look at and they despised him because he didn't look like them

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First Samuel 16 7 man looks at the outward appearance But the Lord looks at the heart

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This was right after they chose the wicked King Saul because he was a head taller than all the rest and he had that glimmering smile

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Our eyes should reflect the glory of God our eyes should reflect the character of God Our eyes should reflect the love and the mercy and the kindness and the patience and the long -suffering of our

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God Not used in haughty self -righteous smug Judgmentalism and every sort of attitude and sin that flows from that The pride of our eyes is an abomination upon us

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Not just upon the world on the outside everyone here

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Has something where they've used their eyes in ways that are abominable We shouldn't be

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Defensive that's where hope and healing starts is by recognizing I've done it

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I've done it But that's just the first we have a few more to go through second one is a line

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Tongue Solomon says there's six things the Lord hates seven which are abomination him and the second thing that he mentions here is a lying

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Tongue not the perverted tongue of the drag queens who go into children's spaces and say awful things not

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The narcissistic professor in the college classroom who dares you to prove that God exists

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No, this is not just the tongue of the outsiders and the outhouse It's the tongue of how we use it in here the tongue that greets our brother with a smile and Yet mocks them behind their back

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The tongue that says I'm praying for you When you know full well, you're not and Let's not give ourself a whole lot of grace just yet grace will come

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But let's not give it a whole lot of grace yet. How many times have you said? I will pray for you because it was the

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Christian thing to say and You didn't write it down You didn't calendar it.

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You didn't plan it. You didn't remember it and you have a list of people who you've lied to and you've weaponized prayer to Pacify their hurt or to encourage them and you've never followed up I'm speaking for myself.

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There's a list. That's pretty long Solomon even repeats the weightiness of this phrase in chapter 12 verse 22 lying lips are an abomination to the

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Lord So what counts as lying well yet deceit slander gossip, yeah all of those but it also

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Lying is when you over promise and under deliver Lying is when you say something you don't follow up with it lying is when you exaggerate something for effect

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Lying is a form of untruth. However couched in our own justifications that it's that leaps from our lips

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Here's the way we do it When we say all is forgiven and yet we harbor bitterness and frustration

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Here's the way we do it when someone is telling us about something that's going on in their life, and we're not mentally or emotionally with them and We're giving them a kind of faux

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Personal emotional response to help them in the moment, but we're thinking about I need to go

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I have things to do I'm running late when leaders say

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That your question I've seen this in churches that your question is actually disunity

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When we tolerate wickedness in the church because someone's a big giver When we disguise defeat a struggle

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I know I've been this man and I've met many men who've been this man who says I'm struggling with sin and they're not

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They're not struggling with the sin They they are actually at peace with the sin and they want to give you the understanding that they're fighting so that they don't out their self and gain the accountability that they actually need in order to Be free of the sin.

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I'm just really struggling. Well, actually tell me where how when

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What does that look like? That's lying That's lying when we look at a brother and we say

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I'm struggling with this But you know pray for me and you're really not struggling. That's a lie God calls that an abomination not just because it's alive, but because you lied to a

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Christian you lied to a brother God doesn't offer exception clauses in this passage for little lies

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It doesn't say, you know, there's some lies like the little white ones it's not that big of a deal

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God doesn't say that we're uncomfortable with how far this actually goes in our application we're uncomfortable with the fact that the lie that I told to save face or the lie that I told to Protect someone or the lie that I told for whatever reason is not an abomination against God You can make those self justifications if you want the scripture just doesn't give you license

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God hates it He says I hate The lying that is on your lips all forms of manipulative speech half -truths emotional manipulation

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Calculated silence, you know that kind where you don't admit anything You just stay quiet and you hope that it kind of passes over God hates all of this.

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He hates polite cowardice that is dressed up in a kind of diplomacy He hates scripture twisting and victimhood where we're always the perpetual victim

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God hates every form of lie. He hates the flattery. He hates this lies of omission

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He hates the lies in committee meetings. He hates the lies in casual text He hates the lies that come out of our mouths and in that sense

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We have now a second Abomination that hits really close to home that everyone in this room

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Can say yeah, I've done that Number three hands that shed innocent blood.

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That's the third Solomon says there's six things the Lord hates Yes, seven, which are an abomination haughty eyes a lion tongue and hands that shed innocent blood now

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God is narrowing the focus on to our hands and Again, this is not just the crooked senator who's getting rich off insider.

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Excuse me trading He's looking into the sanctuary he's looking at the ones who raise their hands in worship the ones who

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Reach for the communion bread the ones who write checks and put them in the offering the ones who participate in Worship and then leave here and use their hands for darkness

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For the man who raises his hands in the benediction and then uses his hands to touch his girlfriend.

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You are abominating For the man who uses his hands to gain an unfair advantage you're abominating and The question you need to ask yourself is not

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Sort of this court of public opinion Because in the court of public opinion or if in the secular courts even they try cases all the time where hands are used in murder and They're not going to try you

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For that thing that you sent or that message that you emailed or for that anonymous

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Twitter account where you go wild with They're not going to try you for murder with that But the question is not what the secular courts will try you for the question is what does

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God say if the court of heaven were? Convened today with the everlasting judge of the universe

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Acquit you for the way you've used your hands. That's the better question Have you used your hands to abandon your family?

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Have you used your hands to text gossip instead of honoring the person? Have you used your tech your hands to click on?

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websites That you shouldn't be on and promote the exploitation of human life

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Have you used your hands to strike or intimidate someone who is weaker than you? Have you used your hands to slander someone out of bitterness?

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Have you used your hands to refuse to tithe to the Lord because your budget won't allow it?

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Have you used your hands in inappropriate ways that would betray someone else's purity if you have?

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Then you sit on the same row spiritually speaking with Dahmer and And others

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That's number three number four We're all we're all guilty That's number three

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Number four a heart that devises wicked plans Again, there's six things which the

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Lord hates. Yes seven, which are an abomination He hates these things and and the one that he is now centering his attack on is a heart that devises wicked plans and In this

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God exposes all of us if you haven't thought that you're already exposed you're exposed here

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He is pulling out the the spiritual Electrocardiogram and he's showing us the state of our own soul and our hearts and they are odious and they are wicked

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Jeremiah says that the heart is deceitful above all things who can even know it. It is desperately sick

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Our hearts are the kind that constantly devise wicked plans John says that if you say you have no sin, then you're a liar and the truth of God is not in you

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Because even faithful hearts are sinful hearts There today even we have devised some sort of wicked scheme

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We've hidden our struggles from others out of fear We've stewed in bitterness and we've had those kind of daydreaming fantasies where we imagine the person that's heard us trips and falls

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And like bust their lip or whatever fantasies you dream up We've used our hearts to prioritize the wrong things

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We've used our hearts to deprioritize the right things We've used our hearts to manipulate a conversation so that someone would compliment us and notice us and say how good we are

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We've used our hearts to withhold forgiveness so that we could gain a power So we gain power in the situation so that we could have a greater power dynamic

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We've used our hearts to subtly sow doubt in someone else about someone else We've used our hearts to get upset at someone for what they said or what they did

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We've used our hearts to engineer that moment alone with that person We shouldn't be alone with because it gave you some kind of thrill.

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We've used our hearts to work overtime hours because the responsibility of being at home and being a worker in the home is

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Repulsive to us. We've used our hearts to look spiritually engaged engaged in worship when our minds are a million miles away

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This is a daily struggle that all of us do that. God hates for instance,

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I Think the reason God hates this is because it's so antithetical to who he made us to be

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When our hearts are stingy he hates it because he made us to be generous When our hearts are cranky it he hates it because he made us to be pleasant

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When our hearts are grumbly He hates it because he made our hearts to be optimistic

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When our hearts are argumentative he hates it because he made us to be patient When our hearts are prideful, he hates it because he made us to be humble when our hearts are fearful

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He hates it because he made us to be hopeful and we could go on and on and on with every sin

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Sin starts from a sick heart. It originates from a spoiled seat of affections.

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We sin because we are sinners. Let me say that a different way. We lie because we're liars.

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We steal because we're thieves. We sin because we're sinners. We like to play this game where we say, well,

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I lied, but it doesn't make me a liar. What does that make you? I sin, but it doesn't mean

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I'm a sinner. Oh, really? And that leads us to the final body part, which is the feet that run to evil.

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Because after the heart is soiled, the feet are not far to follow. Solomon ends this section this way, saying, there are six things which the

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Lord hates, he has seven which are an abomination to him, haughty eyes, lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, and feet that run rapidly to evil.

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Now the Lord is looking at our legs, not the legs of serial killers, ours. Not the legs of swindlers who are in some calling center in Bangladesh, us.

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Men and women who have came here today to receive the call to worship. Men and women who very soon will stand up and walk up to the table of our

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Lord to take communion. And men and women who will walk out of here on a divine commission.

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When our feet follow our sinful heart, we run towards wickedness even in the house of God.

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And in that sense, every sin we commit is quorum deo, which means before the face of God.

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And there's so many ways that believers are doing this. Just spend an hour on X and watch the way that Christians eat each other alive.

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And I don't know what they think it is. Well, I don't know what they think they're accomplishing.

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Or maybe it's running with a disposition towards bitterness in your home where you're being catty, cranky, callous, nagging, because he just doesn't get it.

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So instead of being kind, you run to offendedness, you run to frustration, you run to blame shifting, you run to coloring everything through your lens.

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And the scriptures say you're running into sin. You're not running into righteousness. And in running into sin and sinning against a blood -bought believer, you're practicing abominations.

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Brothers, if you run to excessive work because you don't know how to lead, or if you sit down in passivity on the couch and you think masculinity is a combination of how many beers you can drink and how loud you can fart, well, you're an abominating, you're abominating.

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If you're running into your phone for an escape when things get hard and you're spending countless hours watching one -minute videos at a time, escaping life, you're running into something that the

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Lord would not have you do and your feet are running into evil. If you're running from accountability in the church, if you hear something in a sermon and you say,

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I can't do this anymore, I'm leaving, and you're running from it because your heart's been exposed, you're running into evil.

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You're not stumbling, you're not struggling, you're sprinting. And God says that he hates it.

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Now there's two final examples now that all of us are implicated all these five times.

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Now there's two more and this is whole body hatred. It says that those people who are a false witness and who utter lies and the one who spread strife among the brothers,

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God hates that person. That the entirety of their person has come under the hatred of God.

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This is so serious. I've often thought to myself, why is there so much division in the church for this verse alone?

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Why is there so much division? Why is there so many people? Why is there so many church splits? Because of this verse,

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God hates the one who stirs up division in the community of God. You may have strong opinions, but don't cause disunity because God hates it.

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He hates it. A murder destroys one person and a family, an adultery destroys a couple families and a few different people.

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Disunity destroys the community of God. It brings churches down.

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And you ask yourself, why does God hate these two sins so ferociously? Why does he not just hate the sin, but he hates the person who is a liar, a false witness, and one who brings division in the community?

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Because in that, you look the most like Satan. That's why he hates it.

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Because Satan was a liar from the very beginning. And in the very first act that we see of him, he's splitting up a marriage.

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Satan is the original liar and the original instigator and infiltrator and causer of disunity.

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And when we participate in these sins, when we bear false witness against our brother and sister, or when we make our opinion

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God and we rip a church apart and cause factions and divisions, we are acting like Satan and not like Christ.

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And because of that, we must repent. We must be tenderhearted.

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We must be humble and say that my opinion on this doesn't matter.

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What God says matters. And if we would repent, we will be a church that lasts 100, 200, 300 years.

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But if we don't, if we let these things simmer inside our hearts, if the thing that someone said becomes the stumbling block in your head, then at some point we will fall victim to what countless other churches have, and there will be church splits, and there will be hurt, and there will be someone in this room sitting on a pastor's couch one day after 20 years of being gone from the church, and they will say,

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I hate the church because of what happened at the Shepherd's Church. That would be the destiny of this church if we don't have tender hearts and if we don't repent.

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And if we look at the world and say, look at them, look at how sinful they are. And we look at the lesbitarian churches and we say, oh, look at how sinful they are.

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And if we look at the rainbow flag -waving Methodist churches and if we look at all the outhouse sins and we say, look at them, and we never examine our own hearts, that will be our fate as well.

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Because Paul says that judgment begins at the household of God. We're first. Judgment begins here.

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There's nothing at all righteous about us looking at the world and saying, at least we're not like them.

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If you remember in the parable, Jesus says that the one who said that walked away condemned, the

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Pharisee. The one who was humble, the one who beat his breast, the one who said,

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God have mercy on me for I'm a sinner is the one who went away justified. Let us never remember

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Shepherd's Church or let us never forget that we have not arrived anywhere where we can have self -righteousness, smugness, and pride.

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We have not graduated to that. We must be humble all our days.

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We must be tender -hearted all our days. We must call the sin in our house sin and we must deal with it graciously, lovingly, deliberately, and joyfully.

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Because the Lord is telling us here that these things are abominations to him. And when we think about our covenant with God, we should be humble.

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When we think about our covenant with the Lord, we should be quite humble because covenants are between two parties, right?

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Between you and another person. Your covenant with God is between you and Christ. Well, let's just ask ourself the question to level set everyone in the room.

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This week, who was unfaithful to that covenant? You or Jesus? And that's where all of us are at.

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That we failed to obey, not him. And because of that, because of that honesty, we can actually have hope.

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Because if you lie to yourself and you pretend like you've got it all together, you actually have no confidence, no assurance, and no hope.

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But if you'll be honest with yourself and say, here I am, Lord. I've broken the covenant again and again and again this week.

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Then you can look beyond yourself to the Savior who actually has mercy that renews every morning.

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How gracious is God? If you treated your bank like we treat God, you would not have a loan.

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If you treated your car payment like we do our God and the covenant we have with him, you wouldn't have a car.

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Men would come and they would impound it. Because if you don't follow the terms of the covenant, your stuff gets taken, your credit gets ruined.

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And yet how gracious is God that every week we have failed in our covenant and every week we come and every week

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God is merciful. You deserve, the point of this passage is, in all seven of them, you deserve the hatred of God.

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You deserve the most fiery wrath of our Lord. Go listen to Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the

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Hands of an Angry God. I'll give you a hint. It's not Jonathan Edwards actually preaching it because they didn't have audio back then.

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But go listen to it. And listen to the analogies that Edwards says, that you're like a spider hanging over a fire and the little tiny thread is getting ready to burst and you are gonna fall headlong into the flames, if not for the grace of God.

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We are deserving of the wrath of God, the hatred of God, the anger of God, the eternal fires that God could pour out on us in hell.

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And yet God in his grace has saved you and I from all of these things.

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He didn't save us because we're righteous. He didn't save us because we're good. He didn't save us because we're impressive. He didn't save us because we went to seminary or we read our

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Bible and we've completed it 15, 20, 30 times who cares? He didn't save you for you.

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He didn't save you for your performance. He didn't save you for your merit. He didn't save you for anything other than the glory of Christ.

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He saved you because he's good and because he's gonna make his name known among the nations. People should look at us and say, my

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God is good because look at how he saved him. Look at how he saved that wretch.

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He must be very good and very kind if he saved a wretch like me.

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We are called every week into his presence for his glory because he's kind.

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We confess our sins every single week when we should be standing behind the eternal firing squad that leads us straight to hell.

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But we confess our sins in safety because he's good. And we're consecrated every single week because he's good.

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He lets us sing his word. He lets us pray. He lets us read.

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He lets us announce our faith together through creeds and catechisms. He allows us to do that because he's giving us grace.

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And when we come to the table and the Lord feeds our faces, the same faces that spurned him, the same faces that yawned at him, the same faces that abominated against our brothers, and when he feeds our faces with his grace, it is supposed to transform us not into people who are smug, self -righteous, and better than others, but people who say, how good is our

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God? And brothers and sisters, when we come to the table in just a moment, we are coming to the epicenter of the goodness of God.

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We are coming to the loci of the goodness of God. So leave your self -righteousness on your seats.

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Leave your smugness at your feet. And stand with me after I pray, of course, and let us sing our praises to a

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God who should have hated us, but because of Jesus Christ, the hatred was poured out on him.

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And now, because of Jesus Christ, we're loved like Jesus is. That's the good news of the gospel.

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You did everything to make God hate you, but because of Christ, he loves you. Let's pray.

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Lord God, we thank you for this passage that you tell us that you hate.

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Because Lord, we actually get a taste of how deep and how wide and how beautiful and how glorious and how sweet love is in juxtaposition against how deep and wide our depravity is and what, in fact, it deserves.

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The stars always shine brightest against the darkest sky. Lord, we have seen the darkness.

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We've seen that in seven ways we have abominated against each other. In seven ways we have provoked the fury of God.

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In seven ways we've signed our own death certificate. And yet, in one way, one truth, one life, you came and you saved us and you poured out your love on us out of sheer, unfathomable grace.

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Lord, let that grace hit us like a semi -truck and let us stand and let us sing with joy in our hearts and gratitude.