New Covenant Heart, Part 6

We recognize that it is by God's grace. We recognize that it is by our faith towards God that we are approved. When we develop those of God's grace and also the aspect of our faith towards God that approves us towards God just as much as was Father Abraham's, then we are able to build upon it. Kind of like this. When we put the ox before the cart, things begin to move. I don't know how many of you ever try to do it the other way. Probably not literally, but oftentimes in our own lives, unfortunately, we have not got the batting order down. That's another analogy. Or put the ox in front of the cart. When we do that and when we understand that, our lives begin to change. And rather than to narrow the Bible, it expands the Bible. Rather than narrow our responsibility and obeying God and following God's ways out of the Bible, it actually expands them. It gives them new life. It gives them new meaning. It adds a bounce to your spiritual step. So with that spoken, we've already gone through the Seventh-Day Sabbath. And to use this terminology again, as we did at the Seventh-Day Sabbath, it's a term that I've often used for many years. I do not keep the Seventh-Day Sabbath to be saved. But because I am in that process of salvation granted by God, I do observe the Seventh-Day Sabbath. That is putting the ox before the cart on that spiritual road that God has designed for us. Now, we cover the Seventh-Day Sabbath through four messages. We're not going to do that today. We're going to go through another topic. So with that stated, we've got the foundation down, and we're going to move into that. The message today is simply this. Here's the title for you. It's going to be basically a Bible study, maybe a little preaching, a little getting into your mind and your heart along the way. The title of it is simply this, Food for Thought. Food for Thought. And I hope that you'll come to appreciate what we're going to be talking about. I'm sure that all of us at one time or another, when we've been at a family reunion or a gathering or maybe on a feast day, we're with a family that has small baby. The thought I have is maybe more when we're over at their home, and you look down and here's a little one-year-old or a little two-year-old, just big enough to get dangerous.

Because they're on the move and they're crawling and their eyes are seeing everything and they're beginning to do the eye to the hand. And whatever the eye sees, the hand reaches for and whatever the hand reaches for goes to one spot. And that is the mouse. And I'm sure all of us at one time have been amused or horrified, maybe entertained with a big grin on our face.

As a small baby, he grabs and gulps something that he or she should not have. It might have been cat food, might have been some sand, might have been a bottle of ketchup, and of course, you know, and I know that not everything gets into the mouth. It is all over them.

Well, as loving parents, we gradually teach our infant children the difference between impulse and intelligent decisions. As a little child, a little child has the eye, reaches, and therefore, whatever the eye sees, sensual, whatever it can touch, sensual, it must come into the mouth. But as parents, ultimately, hopefully by the time they're 21, we've got this one down right now, just teasing, but that we begin to guide them and to direct them to control their sensual impulses, to make some intelligent decisions as far as how to feed themselves.

We basically teach them that not everything that they come into contact with, everything that they can touch, taste, smell, or consume, necessarily should enter their life. That's very, very important. Why is that? Basically, what we are doing is we are teaching them decision-making, and also what we are doing, and I like to share this term. I might want to jot it down because it's really the platform of what we're going to be discussing today. We are creating an identity apart from the world around them. We are creating an identity. Now, ultimately, our children grow up, and I think most of us, with our parents, as our children will thus, appreciate the aspect of what we've done for them and that training. A relationship develops between the child and the parent, the adult child and the adult parent. We love them. It's basically gone simply beyond rules and training. There's a relationship that we've invested in, that has grown, and that has developed. That's a beautiful thing. But even as the relationship is paramount, nonetheless, the training and the rules are still in place. Now, we can smile a little bit about the cat food going to a little child's face, but, you know, God did the same with another group of children many, many years ago. And what God did is He took an infant people, and He offered them an opportunity to move from impulse to identity. He offered them a relationship. Join me, if you would, in Exodus 19. And let's notice other children called the Children of Israel.

And what is interesting is, when we don't read the entirety of the Bible, at times, friends, what happens is we simply get stuck on the rules. And we don't tie them to what God is trying to do then as well as now with us. Because so often people will open up the book of Exodus, and they'll go to Exodus 20, which we ought, because that's where the Decalogue and or the Ten Commandments are found.

But God is saying something up in front above the Ten Commandments, and we find that over in Exodus 19 and verse 5. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me, above all people, for all the earth is mine. And then notice, God is giving these people that were slaves, He's giving them a future.

And you shall be to me a kingdom, a priest, and a holy nation, and these are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.

What we find here is simply this.

God took a people that were not a people, an infant people, just born, just came out of the water of the Red Sea. And what God does is He firmly establishes what He wants to do with people. He wants to give us a relationship with none other than Him, and it's a covenant. It's a two-way thing happening here. It's not a contract.

You don't find any lawyers mentioned in Exodus 19. It's a covenant. It's a relationship. It will ultimately be sealed by blood in that sense. And He gives these people this. So we see a relationship. Now, He offers the relationship up front. Notice that first. The relationship precedes the rules of engagement. But where there is a relationship, there need to be guidelines. There need to be rules, as we have here. The Ten Commandments. But to develop that relationship, then He moves into Exodus 20.

But the relationship is right in there. And by doing this, why was God doing this? They were new people. They were new at this thing of being free. And what God didn't want the children of Israel to do, as they began to move into the nations of the Fertile Crescent, is to swallow up everything that they came upon. Because all of a sudden, it was going to be like a toy store. Here they are, out of the Nile, out of Egypt, out of Goshen.

No longer chains on them. They were going to be moving up to the Fertile Crescent, along the way of the sea. And here were going to be all sorts of kingdoms, and all the dainties, and all the delights of the Canaanite society. And God wanted to make sure that they came to recognize something, that not everything that glitters is necessarily gold. He didn't want them to, think of the concept, swallow everything that came along their way.

So, in Exodus 20, God gave commandments. Number one, He said, you shall have no other gods before Me. Number one, the first commandment was about setting a priority. God was to be our priority, our all. Number one, He then moved into the second commandment, which told ancient Israel the aspect that, not only is God limitless, and you can't put Him in a box, but He has no limit in reaching us. And that's how He wants to be worshipped. What is interesting then, is that we come to the third commandment.

Let's take a look at it here. It says, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. For the Lord will not hold Him guiltless, who takes His name in vain. God was giving them a name. He says, you're going to be My people. You're going to be the God people.

You're going to be the people that worship this, I AM. And I'm going to give you a name. What a beautiful thing to be given a name. When you haven't had a name and you've been in slavery for 250 years, and all of a sudden you're given a name, you're kind of like homeless. You're out there.

And God says, I'm going to give you a name. I think, unfortunately, sometimes we limit the third commandment simply to the aspect of not swearing and not coupling God's name to another word or using God's name without care. The overriding emphasis, friends, I want you to think about this. I want to jot it down and go back and consider it later. The third commandment is not just how we use our words. It's more about how we use our lives. The third commandment is really about covenant distinction. It's about covenant distinction. Remember the message I gave a couple days ago? I am holy, therefore you be holy. I am God. You are to be like me. You are going to be a godly people.

The third commandment really comes down to the aspect of covenant distinction. He did that and he provided this commandment to give them food for thought. For those of you who have never heard this concept, it's very important for us to understand that in our Anglo-Saxon culture world, where we take the word name, we normally think of a signature, a signature like John Hancock.

You know, shh, I'm done. That's my name. But in the Middle East sense and in the Hebrew sense, a name is what encompasses everything that an individual is about and what it represents. It's like all of a sudden dropping all your plastic, or like in your wallet, showing all your credit cards, or going through a rolodecks, showing everything that you are. That is saying, when you use my name and if you say you're going to follow me and you're going to take my name, remember what it is all about, all the titles, all the attributes, what my nature is about.

Because that is going to be your identity. That is where I would like to put this concept today, friends, dealing with a new covenant heart towards Christian responsibility. I believe that the biblical food laws, which are really in one book called the Bible, fall under this distinction of the Third Commandment. It is about the identity that God wants us to remember, who our God is, and who we are, that we are one, and that we walk together. Let's understand how this works.

Join me if you would in the book of Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy is a Greek word which basically means the Second Giving. Let's understand what was happening. Israel had now basically been 40 years in the wilderness. They had been going around in circles.

They had been basically a people on pilgrimage. Now they are about to cross river. They are about to go into become a stabilized nation. They were going to be set right in the midst of the Gentile kingdoms. So God had to prepare them. He took them back. Deuteronomy means the Second Giving. He rehearses the 40 years that preceded them. He rehearses the law that he gave at Sinai to cement them.

This was going to be a very, very big intersection in these children of Israel's life. Thus, he wanted to help them to remove themselves simply from impulse to identity, who they were, who he was, thus that they might make intelligent decisions. In Deuteronomy 5, we again see the relationship is rehearsed. God called all Israel, verse 1, and said to them, Hero Israel, the statutes and the judgments which I speak in your hearing today, that you may learn them and be careful to observe them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.

The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive. And the Lord talked to you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire. And Moses talks about how he stood between them. Then verse 6, notice, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Notice, out of the house of bondage. God's conversation with us always is about identifying who he is.

He starts with a relationship. And it is a relationship that is based upon intervention, rescue, with a follow-up of invitation to relationship, and not only staring in, but having an involvement with that. Again, let's understand something so we can understand how to study the Bible. God will always introduce himself up front.

It always begins with the relationship of revealing who he is and also what he has done for us. This is not just about ancient Israel, but for you and for me. His rescue, his intervention, and how he begins to involve us into what he is doing. And so we find that. It's interesting, as we move from Deuteronomy 5, that some of the commentaries basically say that the remainder, once the Decalogue is given, once again, the Ten Commandments are given in Deuteronomy 5, that the remainder of the book of Deuteronomy is basically a rehearsal or illustrations and or expansion of what we find in Deuteronomy 5 in different venues. Allow me to make a comment here.

Join me, if you would, in Deuteronomy 6 to show you a little bit of how this might work. Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one, and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart. You hear that echoing of the first commandment, of the priority, of the relationship. of the identity.

Another way is, as we go to Deuteronomy 14, many of us in the Church of God are familiar with that. We have the aspect of the Holy Days that are mentioned there. Standards are given. So we understand that. Notice Deuteronomy 14, though, because this is where I want to center. Notice what God says here in Deuteronomy 14.

You are the children of the LORD your God. Wow, that's breathtaking. You. You're mine. Notice what it says, And you shall not cut yourselves or shave the front of your head for the dead. As they were moving into Canaan and into a myriad of religious practices, God wanted to make sure that His people were not going to imitate others, but were going to imitate Him. So it's talking about, now some of you, if you have a crew cut and your front of your head is shaved, this is not what it is talking about at this point. This is dealing with religious matters and whatever was going on there. Notice verse 2, For you are a holy people to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you, to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the people who are on the face of the earth. You kind of hear that re-echo of what we read in Exodus 19. Why does God keep on... Let me ask you a question for a moment. Why does God keep on bringing this up? He could have just said it once in Exodus 19. Why does He do that? Can somebody help me out there?

Why does He say, You are my children? Why does He come back again and say, You are a special people? Al? Well, if He's repetitious about it, maybe we'll remember it. Okay. So you're saying that perchance we might forget it.

So if He wants us to remember it, He's knowing the human condition that we might forget it, right? Somewhere between this point and that point. And therefore, He has to continually... It was your torrent, so, but it is, that He has to continually come back and remind us how special we are to Him. And that He is ours and we are His, and that there is a relationship. So then, let me take you a little bit further.

With that spoken, what the relationship cemented in verse 2. Remember, the relationship in studying your Bible is always the springboard now to what follows. You shall not eat any detestable thing. Well, what's that mean? Well, then God tells us, these are the animals which you may eat. He has the shape of the goat, goes down, describes it here, goes through all of this, and then does basically a rolodex or an index of items which you can eat and which you cannot eat, which is not really where I want to go today.

You can read that by yourselves. I'm trying to give the background of this. But what we recognize here is simply this, that He is defining that I am holy, you are holy, therefore, because of that, with the relationship, with the intervention, with the rescue, with the identity in place, to help you remember this, you will do this. Join me now in 1 Peter 3. Very interesting. We covered this the other day.

We'll cover it again as we go to what is called the Imitato Dei, which is Latin for what we're going to discuss here in a moment. Very famous phraseology. 1 Peter 3. Let's pick up again the thought as we did the other day, but it's all right. 1 Peter 1, 13. Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, and be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, there's that expression, children.

Just like the children of Israel, God looks at us as children. He looks at us as still in development. As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lost, as in your ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, Be holy for I am holy. Interesting what's going on here.

God says here that with this relationship, it's not only just simply back in Sinai, it's not just simply back in Jordan, but the Apostle Peter brings us up to Christians, people of the New Covenant. Thirty, thirty-five years after Jesus Christ has died, he comes to this aspect of being holy. Why is that? Because it's so important to recognize that when you notice this phraseology up here in verse 14, as obedient children not conforming yourselves, not being influenced by external matters, matters outside that come our way.

Don't be impulsive. Don't be like that little kid that doesn't know better and grabs sand or grabs dog food or grabs this or grabs that. There was a time when you were ignorant, but now you have an identity. You can't go back to doing that. And it says here, notice, knowing that you were not redeemed, verse 18, with corruptible things like silver or gold, for your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with a precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. You know, it's kind of interesting here.

The whole thing is about conduct. Now, this is important. Let's understand again as we go to the world of antiquity. There were many men that taught philosophy and would speak a good word. Great preachers, great teachers, but their conduct was apart from what they spoke. What they preached, they did not practice. What they knew, they did not perform. The identity that they wanted others to picture them as was not really what they were in their daily walk. The Bible always puts that all together. That's where that phrase comes from. When one of your relatives gets you and says, you don't practice what you preach, or a pastor who doesn't practice what he preaches, because there's always that expectation that the conduct always will match the conversation that proceeded at.

That's the high level that we are at. When we bring this all together now, let's understand something. That is, that God has called us to be holy as he is holy. That's important that it is our conduct and not only the concepts that are before us. With that, then, God, starting back in Deuteronomy, and then this phrase is used in Peter again. Remember what it said in Deuteronomy, I am holy, you are holy. Therefore, you will abstain from these items to eat, but you may imbibe of these items.

Now, that's important. There is a difference between living as God commands and by tradition. Think about that for a moment. There is a powerful difference between living as God commands and guides us versus the traditions of man. We'll find that a little bit later. It goes to the heart of the issue. Allow me to put this. I believe, the way I express it, I have for about 30-35 years now, that in dealing with the biblical food laws, I think it's much more important to center on the heart than the tummy. Your heart will lead you to the tummy.

If you start with the tummy, you won't get to the heart. I'm watching your eyes to see if I'm making sense. Oftentimes, with biblical food laws, we start with, Oh, what's going in my stomach? That's all right. That's good. It's all right to do that. But if we only center on our tummy and our stomach, we are not at the heart of the issue. The heart of the issue is our identity and our relationship with God. And when we understand that, and He is sovereign in our life, then we will do as He says, and it will all flow.

There is a difference between human tradition and what God commands. At the heart of the issue says, number one, belief in God is a personal force. The reason why I abstain from certain foods in the Bible is that I believe in God as a personal force in my life. He has rescued me, He has intervened in my life, and He has given me an identity. Number two, just as with ancient Israel, with the Israel of God today, the church, He is a decider of my personal fate and my future. Number three, the heart of the issue is this. He is the ultimate judge of all of my actions, as to whether or not I will take His word at face value.

With those thoughts in mind, let's go back to the very beginning of the Bible. Just a few thoughts here. We're going to just thumb our way through the Bible for a few minutes and come to a conclusion. It's very interesting that when we go back to the very beginning, and that's what the book of Genesis means, Genesis, we realize that the relationship is established here in verse 26. Genesis 1, 26. Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. The very first thing God did is He made man in his likeness.

Why? So God, verse 27, created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him male and female. He created them, and God blessed them. God wanted to have a relationship. He wanted to bring this humanity into family with him. Now, it's very interesting, as we do discuss that, to recognize a few things here.

That is that the relationship, again, is interesting. The relationship is put up front ahead of the rules. God establishes the relationship in Genesis 1, 26, or 27. But now, with that in place, comes long Genesis 2. It's very interesting what God did in Genesis 2. He gave some do's, and He gave some don'ts.

He said, You can, and He says, Don't. He said, By the way, here's the tree of good and evil, and all... Here's the tree of life, and all the other trees that are around, and you can have at them. Which is interesting. Man could have partaken of the tree of life. That was a choice. It was open. There was no barbed wire around it. There was no trespassing sign. No alligators on a leash. It was a wide open dignity. Adam and Eve could have partaken of the fruit of the tree of life. But he said, Don't eat this. Don't go for the fruit of the tree of good and evil.

What is interesting in all of this is simply this. God lovingly was trying to establish an identity. He was dealing at the very beginning of human history with impulse. He was trying to teach humanity that not everything that glitters is gold.

And that God knew best. And to have faith. And to have trust in God. Which then is manifested in obedience. And isn't it very interesting that the very first item teaching tool that God used in the Bible was food.

Was fruit from the tree of life and or from the tree of good and evil. The first direct command dealt with food distinction. Let's go a little bit further into Genesis 4. We're just going to kind of slowly breeze through the Bible here. We come up to the story of Abel. And it's very interesting that we find that in Abel, interesting, who was a righteous man, Genesis 4. Just some associations here. Verse 2, then she bore again at this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of swine. So what your Bible says? Doesn't say that, does it? See, I got you to smile. Took me about 25 minutes in. Okay, no, that means you're staying along with me. That's good. No, he was a keeper of sheep. Genesis 7. Join me for a second here in Genesis 7. Again, interesting story as we go on to the Ark. You and I were joined with some animals. Genesis 7 and verse 1, and the Lord said, and they'll come into the Ark. You and all your household. Verse 2, you shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and a female, two each of animals that are unclean, and a male and a female. And it talks about the birds, etc., etc. What is very interesting, I want to share something with you, is that the understanding of clean versus unclean and distinction was known way ahead of Sinai. Now, the reason why this is here is that it understands something. And it's always good to understand this about the book of Genesis. The book of Genesis is basically a family scrapbook. Think of it that way. It's a family scrapbook. Here were a people that were not a people that were called out of Goshen. They've been slaves for 250 years, disenfranchised, didn't have it all together, didn't have all the history together. And that is why Moses, under God's inspiration, compiled the book of Genesis to give Israel a history, going back to the beginning of time. Can you imagine that? Maybe some of us in this room have been orphans or apart from family, and we didn't know about ourselves. We didn't know who our father was or our grandfather or our great-grandfather. You know, like the old phrase, who's your daddy? And this took them all the way back, Israel, beyond, and gave them a history, and also gave them an understanding of why they were doing what they were doing. That's the same that God does for us when we come into the church, when we come into the body of Christ. He gives us a history. We're not alone. So he gives us this history, and in here, interesting, way before Sinai, there's this distinction between the food groups. Genesis 9, after the Flood, very interesting. So God blessed verse 1, Noah and his sons and said, it will be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air.

Basically, we have the new creation, as it were. The world of Adam is gone. There has been, again, a rescue, an intervention. Noah, in that sense, is a second Ab and that he has given dominion over the creation. Then notice verse 3, every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.

I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. That's interesting. Now, again, the relationship is solidified. I'm your God. You'll be my person. That's good. It's after a rescue. There's been an intervention. And then it says, basically, carte blanche. You can have anything that's on the menu. That's what it's saying. No, it's not saying that. Why is that?

Because it says here, notice, it says, I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. Now, let's understand something. God gives, but also He uses this definition as the green herbs. How would you like to go out there right now? Paul, what's the name of that canyon behind you? The one right behind you?

Panasquitas? Pardon? Ranch? I would say ranch. Panasquitas. How about this, folks? Let's all take our nice forks and spoons, and we'll all go down to Panasquitas Canyon over here, and we'll do a Boy Scout 5 to 10 mile trek, because it's about that long down to Solano Beach. And we will eat everything that is green and not ask questions.

Anything that's on the hillsides. Anything that's in the marsh. Are you ready to go? I would suggest there are some things there as the green herbs that aren't really good for human consumption, and as we say, there may be repercussions.

That's why God says, as the green herbs, to not be impulsive, to recognize that there are distinctions. And we come to understand later on that basically what happens with green herbs, you get a pretty quick fix. You kind of get it figured out real quickly. You get a reaction, especially if you have poison ivy a la carte.

Now, you can basically come very quickly to understanding what is good and not good when it comes to green herbs.

The rest of the biblical food laws as to what our Creator designed for us is a revelation. It is a revelation that you find in the Book of Leviticus and that you find in the book of Deuteronomy. That's very important to understand. Let's go to Genesis 18, having fun as we flip through the Bible here.

Genesis 18 and verse 6. Just interesting as we see righteous individuals, what they offer and what they don't offer. In this family story that is given for ancient Israel, in Genesis 18 and verse 6, this is where the individuals that come from God visit Abraham.

Notice verse 6. So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said quickly, quickly, make three measures of fine meal, net it, and make cakes.

And Abraham ran to the herd and took a tender and good calf to a young man, and he hastened to prepare it.

You notice he didn't want any of those baby back ribs with a sauce.

Said he went and got a calf.

What we are seeing here, in all seriousness, friends, because we can laugh a little bit as we go along, is something important to understand.

We see a pattern of not only rules that are being adhered to, but a relationship and an identity that the righteous follow God's instructions and the pattern down from the beginnings of Genesis.

Here's one thing I'd like to share with you. A very basic thought when people challenge you why you do what you do as New Covenant Christians, and yet with that heart having the Christian responsibilities that we talk about here.

You will never read one person of God eating anything in the Bible other than what God has prescribed.

You will never find one righteous individual from Genesis to Revelation eating anything other than what God has prescribed. Starting with our Master and our Savior. Interesting, isn't it?

Let's go a step further. Let's go back to Leviticus here.

In Leviticus now, again, we're just kind of going through. Here we find something that's interesting.

Again, an index is given, Leviticus 11.

Now, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, These are the animals which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth.

Therefore, then, we have this index which is given.

Now, I'm not going to go through all the different animals and all the different critters, but allow me to share something that comes out of Expositor's Bible Commentary, Volume 2, page 569, that describes this index.

It is given here between Verse 1 and Verse 6, as the Expositor's Commentary says, These were rules of thumb, rules of thumb, that God gave in His wisdom to a people who could not have known all of the provisions that were before Him.

Again, understanding the biblical food laws is a revelation, and actually far ahead of its time, scientifically.

Again, as the commentary brings out, it was a blueprint of a covenant relationship from a loving God.

Number 2, at an operational level, it was a manual from the Creator to the creation.

It was a manual from the Creator to the creation as to what to put in the creation.

Now, you and I, every 3,000 to 6,000 miles, sometimes people get around at around 15,000, but the car is not moving, we'll change our oil.

Could you imagine taking...

Okay, just checking on you. You're smiling down there.

Could you imagine, rather than taking a quart of oil and pouring it down into your engine, could you imagine taking a quart of sand?

Boy, this sounds kind of neat!

And pouring it down your engine.

Now, why don't you do that?

I'm going to ask you, why don't you do that?

Okay, well, you've got a lot of sand out where you live, don't you, in Del Mar?

Yeah, but it's not good for the system of the car.

In fact, it's just going to bring it down to a grinding halt. So God, in His mercy and in His love, as our loving Creator, knows best.

And you've got to go, all of us, normally, most of us, when we buy a car, we'll go to the dash... not the dashboard, but to the compartment and open up and find out what we're supposed to put in the car and how it is best to run.

And that's what our Creator did here.

So let's understand something when it deals with the biblical food laws. The first and foremost element is identity.

It is identity between a holy God and a holy people, to establish our identity and to establish, to remove us from impulse to right decision-making.

But also, there are basic laws that help our bodies, and that's very important to understand. Again, let's go to... again, to firm this up, because what I'm trying to teach you here, as your pastor and as a Christian educator, is not only to hear a sermon today, but how to look for what in the Bible?

In other words, as I've often said, rules without a relationship are like a postcard without a stamp.

They're not going to go anywhere.

Rules without a relationship are like a postcard without a stamp.

It's only going to go so far, and there's going to be returned mail.

You see all of these rules that are mentioned here in verse 1 through 6, but come over to verse 44 again, establishing the relationship and the rule aura.

For I am the Lord your God, and you shall therefore consecrate yourselves.

That means set yourself apart. That means make yourself, in that sense, to be holy.

For I am holy, and neither shall you defile yourself with any creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

I am holy. I have set you apart. You are holy.

And thus because you are, and because I've invested in you, I've intervened in your life, I've given you a future.

Thus, in response. Not because it's going to save you.

But in response, do what I ask you to do.

Now, somebody took this kind of seriously. Join me over in the book of Daniel.

Book of Daniel, very interesting.

Here's the famous story of Daniel, as it says in the Old King James English, with the vittles. Not with the fittles, but the vittles. The food is shu.

And it's very interesting that here he is, as a young man, taken away from his home, and he is taken to a palace.

But it's very interesting. What do you do when you're trying to get people to come to your side?

You're going to try to break them. And they were trying to break Daniel, Michelle, Hananiah, and Azariah.

Otherwise known as Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. They gave him a different name. Interesting.

All of a sudden they were having to respond to a different name. That's to break the culture, isn't it?

To break the identity. Put on different clothes on them. Why do you put different clothes on people?

To break the culture. To break the identity.

Why was the advisors of Nebuchadnezzar doing this, the different food, again, to break the identity, to make them Babylonian more than they were of Jewish stock? Notice what it says in verse 8, But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.

Very interesting.

Do you remember what I said about 10 minutes ago? I said that the biblical food laws start with the heart.

Not with the tummy. It starts with your heart as to whether or not God is sovereign in your life and has called you, and you have a relationship, and you have covenant with Him.

It starts in the heart as much as Daniel. Daniel knew that the identity of the living, powerful, sovereign God, the one that had brought his people out of Egypt 1000 years before, was at stake, and he was not going to partake of whatever that food was.

Whether it was unclean and or whether it was common, which means that it might have been offered to idols, there's a lot of speculation on what was going on there.

What we do know and we thank God for is that Daniel, his servant, did know he was determined.

He was purposed, and his refusal did not start with his tummy. It started with his heart, which is very interesting.

Now, let's go to the New Testament. Got a few minutes here. Join me if you would for a moment, because there's a similar story over here in Acts 10.

Let's understand. Acts 10 is basically probably occurring 10 to 12 years after Jesus, the church is established to a degree.

We have this story developed about Peter and Cornelius and the food that was offered him. Acts 10, verse 9. Interesting story.

It says, the next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray about the sixth hour, and then he became very hungry and wanted to eat, but while they made ready, he fell into a trance and saw heaven open in an object like a green sheet, bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth.

In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild bees creeping things and birds of the air.

A voice came to him, rise Peter, kill and eat. But they noticed what Peter said.

Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean. Interesting.

Here is no longer just simply a Jewish fisherman on the shores of the Galilee, but now fully an apostle of Jesus Christ after the resurrection.

And still has not eaten anything unclean or common, meaning offered to idols or perhaps used in a different manner.

Very interesting. This is ten years again after Jesus was resurrected. You begin to ask yourself, did Peter miss something here?

No, it was still detestable. It was still detestable.

And it was very interesting that what we're going to find here in the story of Peter and Cornelius is that swine after the resurrection did not all of a sudden become...

How many of you saw the movie Babe? Anybody see the movie Babe? The little pig story? Come on! Some of you saw it with your grandchildren.

All that pork didn't all of a sudden just become like Babe. Cute and eatable. No, not at all.

Because God, a very basic principle of Scripture, and I'd like to share this with you, then you can kind of use it as a tool and go to work on it in your own Bible study.

God does not work against himself. God does not work against himself. The pork chops didn't all of a sudden become Babe because what we're going to find here is that this is not about a transformed diet, but a transformed way of understanding who God is dealing with, which is very important. Acts 15, 18. I don't want to go there. Verse 19. While Peter thought about the vision, the Spirit said, Behold, three men are seeking you. This vision came down three times, and then it's very interesting that at that same time, God never has an accident. There's no coincidence here. Three men, three Gentiles appear. Gentiles at that time were considered unclean by the Jewish people. So what we really come to begin to understand here is that this was not about a transformed diet, but a transformed understanding as to the dynamics and the expansion of God's intervention, rescue, transformation, and relationship with all mankind. It was no longer simply going to be simply about Israel. Verse 28. Notice what it says here.

Then He said to them, You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any pork chop common or unclean. No. It says, I should not say that any man, individual, is common or unclean. It was an object lesson. The vision was an ought lesson just as much as what we do in response to God's grace as a shadow of our faith towards God by obedience. We understand the object lesson that He is holy. Therefore, we ought to be holy. But did Paul know something that Peter didn't? Join me over in 1 Timothy 4. Maybe Paul got it right after all. Now it's St. Paul Smith, St. Paul of Tarsus, 1 Timothy 4. Now the Spirit expresses that in latter times some will depart from the faith giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. Doctrine of demons. This sounds like pretty spooky stuff. Forbidding to marry, and notice, and commanding to abstain from foods. Uh oh, it sounds like Weber. Saturday afternoon here in San Diego, telling the congregation, you ought not eat certain things that are mentioned in the Bible. Where is this going? Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods. Notice what God created. Huh, that's it. Which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. That's it. So all we have to do is basically say we know the truth. That's good if you say it. We know the truth, and ask a blessing. Go ahead and ask a blessing, and when you do that, that's why we say grace. Everything is okay. No, no, no, no. Let's understand the key to the Bible. Always read the next verse. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving. Now, let's notice verse 5. For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. What's a key phrase in here that we want to look at in this stretch of Scripture? Can somebody help me, please? Above? Right. Food that is set apart. Sanctified is just a fancy Greek word that just means set apart. That God does, as we talked about, He sets apart things, doesn't He? Sets apart the Sabbath. Sets apart ground being holy. Sets apart things to do, and also not to do. It says that it's not enough to ask a blessing on food, that the food must be set apart by the word of God, which we've been going through so far. Very interesting. No, Peter understood that. Peter understood that. Let's go to Mark 7. Oftentimes people turn to Mark 7 as what we call a proof text. And, friends, we've got to be very careful that, in turn, may make a comment that we, as well, don't proof text. It's very human to do so. There is... You know that word I used? Impulse. There is an impulse to proof text and just run with one verse or one scripture, like a halfback with a football, going through a field of all the rest of the verses that say differently. You don't want to do that. What we've tried to do today as we go through this discussion of the biblical food laws is to give you a systematic way from Genesis forward. Not just here, not just there, but a systematic way of developing towards why we do what we do. This is very important because it goes back to the story of Jesus Christ, verse 17. And when he had entered a house away from the crowd, his disciples asked him concerning the parable.

So he said unto them, Are you thus, without understanding also, do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot know him? Because it does not enter his heart but his stomach and is eliminated. And then this phraseology after the comma says, Thus purifying all foods.

If some of you have the NIV, it says, which is actually a biased translation, declaring all foods clean. Which, if you read this, just in this section, you might think so other than to recognize that this is not what the discussion is about. Show me back up in verse 5. The discussion is not about what clean food is versus unclean food. That's why you've always got to go to the beginning of the discussion.

Find the story. Verse 5. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? This whole discussion was not about food, per se. It was about the Jewish tradition of washing hands as prescribed by tradition and by man. Notice what it says in verse 6. And the answer is said to them, Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, and in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.

This was not a discussion on clean or unclean food and going through the index that's found in Deuteronomy or in the book of Leviticus. This was dealing with legalists and traditionalist church folk that had taken their eye off the ball and made a whole religion of do's and don'ts that were not even biblically oriented. And now we're fussing and moving and pushing others to do what they did because, well, after all, it's been done for 400 years. But the problem with this, friend, are you with me?

The problem with this? You won't find anything in the Old Testament about washing hands for the common person with food. Now you'll find that the priests wash, but not the common person. This was a tradition of man. Notice what it says then. The whole context of what Christ is saying is this. Verse 20, He said, What comes out of a man that defiles a man? What He's basically saying is this other thing that if you don't do that, the body can take care of itself.

God, the Creator, made an elimination process that it's not going to get stuck in the body. It's going to be okay. But Christ takes it to a further point because it does not... He says, What comes out of a man that is what defiles a man? For from within, out of the heart of men, proceeds evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murderers, thefts, covenants, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.

All these evil things come from within and defile a man. Let's get the point here. What's happening here is basically Jesus, in His wisdom, just gave the label with all of the ingredients of human nature of what can come out of an individual that acts by impulse, that acts in the moment, that does not have their identity established, but is just simply like one more creature on earth that moves by instinct. And He's saying, I don't want my disciples to be that way. Now, why is this important for you and me to understand? I'm going to wrap it up at about three more pages, but we'll just wrap it up here.

Just to understand something here. We can learn a principle. Do you want to learn a principle today? That's when you're supposed to not, if you want to learn a principle. If this hour has been worthwhile, it's simply this.

The Jews were caught in a tradition. Washing their hands, washing their hands. Whatever special way it was, maybe you've studied that. I don't have that down, but it must have been fastidious. Kind of like going into surgery, you know, like Dr. Kildare. Get those hands washed. Now, we don't do that in the body of Christ. But here's the point. We can become so fastidious by looking at ingredients. On a can, or on a meat package, or this or that. And well, we should do. But if we are only looking at those ingredients, and we are not continually focusing on separating the clean from the unclean in our own hearts, then just go ahead and eat pork.

You might as well go have some shrimp with some good sauce. Because it will avail you nothing. The reason why God, from the beginning, established the food laws is first and foremost identity. Number two, because he loves us, and he knows what makes the human body work best. But it was also to allow us to not move by impulse. By just doing things just like that youngster who doesn't know better and goes for the sand, goes for the cat food, goes for the ketchup bottle, lands on the head, not in the mouth.

We've been called as Christians under the New Covenant with an identity, not to just simply be stimulated by the sensual. But what I strive to do, and I hope you do as well, is that when I consider what goes on my plate, and sometimes when I do my best, something will come on the plate. That God is not prescribed to be on my plate, I'll say, oh, no thank you.

And I have to stand up like a Daniel. I have to do this or that. Or I have to say, when I am separating that which is on my plate, it is an exercise. It is an exercise to allow me as well to separate that which is in my mind, and that which is in my heart, to make sure the ingredients that are labeled on me by my actions represent God. And not what Jesus just mentioned about these other church folk of long ago.

What I am internally must be expressed externally. God gives us a label. This is a pretty tough label that Jesus mentioned in Mark 7. God gives us a label in Philippians 4. He says, whatsoever things are lovely, just, pure. You know that one? Of a good report? So, if we are thinking that somehow we are saving ourselves by avoiding lobster or avoiding eating pig, that doesn't save us. That doesn't save us. That is only telling us that we are taking God at His word and we are obeying Him as our sovereign. We need to understand that.

As it says in the book of Romans, the kingdom of God is not food or drink. So, if we make a religion out of that pure and simple, but don't understand the reason why God gave us this understanding, we are, of all people, kind of sad.

Thinking that that's going to save us because we don't do that. We are in God's hands. I've recognized that over the years I'm a child of the church, grew up in the church. I've been a child of the church since I was 12 years old. And there are people that never smoked, never ate ham, never ate a shrimp. We're very obedient in that way, but you know what? They've died.

Food does not save you. Now, should they have done what they did? Absolutely. Absolutely. They obeyed the laws of God, both out of the Old Testament and the New Testament. They obeyed the laws of God, and we show God our faith by our obedience.

But that didn't save them. They still await the resurrection. Only God's grace, only God's resurrection is going to save them. What I'm trying to share is, and if you want to make a study out of this, I really encourage you, frankly, to go to our own booklet out of the United Church of God about clean and unclean food.

Because as you read through that as well, you will find that the predication is basically on identity. And that aspect, I am holy, therefore you holy, and our relationship with God. When you do that, things begin to happen in your life.

It doesn't make you want to do less in keeping the biblical food laws. You want to do it more because you understand the object lesson that's there. That it's about identity, that it's about a relationship, it's about sorting what's on your plate. Let me ask you a question. Sometimes what happens is we get more concerned about what's on our food plate than our life plate.

We think of everything that's going on in our food plate, and we're also very, very careful what goes down our gullet. But we don't think half about what comes out of our mouth or what goes into our heart by the external matters that are coming our way. I have a question for you. May I ask you? Would it not be better as a New Covenant Christian to have them both come together?

To be as concerned about what's in your heart and what comes out of your mouth as much as your plate? Do they not actually work together to serve one another just as much as it did Daniel, back, and Babylon? As it did Peter, to recognize where God is going rather than where His people were? It's kind of exciting when you think about it. I hope that you will think about it.

To kind of understand again, in conclusion, why we're going through these things, we've discussed the Sabbath, the seventh day. We've discussed the biblical food laws. We will discuss tithing when I come back from the general conference. Let's understand something. Each of these, whether it's observing the seventh day Sabbath, biblical food laws, or tithing, are a worship before God on a daily basis.

To show that God is number one. Why is that? Because each of these, I call them the three T's, because they deal with our time, they deal with our tummy, and they deal with our treasure. Isn't that interesting?

Sabbath deals with time. Food deals with tummy. Tithing deals with treasure. That we are willing to surrender our time and our tummy and our treasure to God. And to recognize that our Father above knows best. And that we can't do it up and by ourselves down here below. That is why, rather than of simply the law, each of these, the seventh day Sabbath, the biblical food laws, and tithing are tools of grace.