Greater Than Moses - Hear Him! Adv 4 Ot Serm 2024
Series: Advent - Old Testament Sermons
December 22, 2024
Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
Rorate Coeli, The 4th Sunday In Advent 22-December-2024 Sermon Text: Deuteronomy 18:15-19 Sermon Theme: “Greater Than Moses - Hear Him!” I. Both Transmit Covenants - Jesus the Final One.(vs.15) II. Both Convey Revelations - Jesus The Highest. (Vs.16). III. Both Are Made Mediators - Jesus the Supreme One! (Vs.17-18) IV. Both Demand Faith - Jesus Most Of All! (Vs.19) by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
Episode Notes
Rorate Coeli, The 4th Sunday In Advent 22-December-2024
Sermon Text: Deuteronomy 18:15-19
Sermon Theme: “Greater Than Moses - Hear Him!” I. Both Transmit Covenants - Jesus the Final One.(vs.15) II. Both Convey Revelations - Jesus The Highest. (Vs.16). III. Both Are Made Mediators - Jesus the Supreme One! (Vs.17-18) IV. Both Demand Faith - Jesus Most Of All! (Vs.19) by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
I.N.R.I. Gen 3:19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return."
We need rain! We are dry, dusty, and dying. Sin’s only pays out in death. This is the reality of life in our fallen world. Adam rebelled and plunged all humanity into the dry dusty deathly desert of sin.
We are like fresh cut Christmas trees. No matter how carefully we trim their severed trunk and water them daily. No matter how many lights, bulbs, and garland we drape upon it to make it pretty. The reality is that it is dying. More and more needles fall. A trunk severed from its living root refuses to drink life sustaining water. By next Sunday many trees will be stripped bare of all decorations and lights. It’s lifeless carcass will be cast out of the house. It’s mess swept up and thrown in the trash. It’s doomed to destruction. It needs new life from above! It needs rain! We cannot save it from death.
Conceived and born in Adam’s rebellion we are cut off from the life giving Root of our Creator. No matter how many lights and trinkets adorn our life - we are dying, dusty, doomed to fire. The fallen king David felt the dustiness of his own hidden sin. He confesses, Psa 32:3-4 When I kept silent, my bones grew old Through my groaning all the day long. (4) For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Selah” David’s well camouflaged sin was devouring him with drought from the inside. The Law of God given through Moses was clear. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife!” “You shall not commit adultery!” “You shall not give false testimony!” “You shall not murder!” The Law didn’t empower David to avoid his sin. He knew it and rebelled against our Creator’s will. To be honest - we are all David’s - we know the Ten Commandments - God’s perfect will for our lives - we rebel against them or redefine them to paint our pet sin as more permissible, less deadly, than the sin of neighbors. Like lifeless Christmas trees gussied up on the outside, but dying within - we cannot heal the drought of sin. We need a Redeemer! A Re-Creator to make us new. We need life from above! Rain down on us. David teaches us, Psa 32:5 I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," And You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah David looks past Sinai to Calvary. Moses is great, but his promised Son and Lord is greater. Moses is the sin reveler. His Descendant Jesus is the Sin - Healer.
Rejoice in Him always! Preparing to celebrate Christmas look to the lowly stable in Bethlehem and see the One: “Greater Than Moses - Hear Him!” I. Both Transmit Covenants - Jesus the Final One.(vs.15) II. Both Convey Revelations - Jesus The Highest. (Vs.16). III. Both Are Made Mediators - Jesus the Supreme One! (Vs.17-18) IV. Both Demand Faith - Jesus Most Of All! (Vs.19) I. What gifts are you looking forward to giving your children this Christmas? Parents rejoice to see their children’s happiness as gifts are opened. Children rejoice in receiving. Growing into young adulthood we rejoice in giving. Years pass we finally mature into rejoicing in the greatest gift of togetherness. If you knew this would be the last Christmas with your children - what would you give them?
The Lord told Moses that he would soon die. What gift would he give the children of Israel? He was their spiritual father. Four decades he had led, taught, fed, rebuked, and prayed for them. He was now 120 years old - what gift would sustain them when he was gathered through death to his fathers? The Word of God. Deuteronomy - The second giving of the Law - a reader’s digest version of Genesis through Numbers - is his gift. He teaches the second generation of those freed from Egyptian slavery God’s covenant setting them apart from the world.
Moses points his children to the One greater. (Vs.15) Yahweh - the God of the Promised Seed given to Abraham. God the Holy Spirit teaches, Gal 3:16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one, "AND TO YOUR SEED," who is Christ.” Moses would confess what John preached, “Joh 1:29-30 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (30) This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.'” The Promise to Abraham of Jesus came 430 years before the Law was written on stone tablets with the finger of God and given to Moses.
The Lord “your God”. He is a personal - The Father who in grace adopts the sinful children of Israel as His children in His Gift - Jesus. Joh 1:17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Moses, through whom God the Holy Spirit penned the first five books of the Holy Bible. Was entrusted to transmit God’s covenant of the Law - the Holy Ten Commandments are eternal - the will of our Creator for His creatures. The moral law has no expiration date. The ceremonial law of reconciliation through sacrifice that God might dwell among His sinful children served as a picture of Jesus - The Final Sacrifice - the Lamb of God Who alone takes away the sin of the world. The civil law given through Moses stood as the political law for Israel, until it ceased to be a nation ruled by God.
The Greater Covenant gifted us in Jesus isn’t written in stone, but in His sinless living flesh and blood. It is the new covenant in His flesh and blood - given and shed for you to wash away all your sin. The Law brings death by revealing our sin infested nature. The Gospel, Jesus’ covenant, brings life renewing us to be fully human in Jesus!
II. John the Baptist would soon be arrested, imprisoned, and beheaded for preaching God’s Word. King Herod didn’t want to repent of marrying his own brother’s wife. It was easier to kill the prophet than to turn back to God. John testifies that he is the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord! He fulfill’s Isaiah’s prophecy given seven centuries earlier. Moses also is the voice through whom the Lord God speaks to His enslaved children in Egypt. Moses’ voice wasn’t impressive - the revelation given through him was the very Word of our living God.
Moses preached to Pharaoh to free the children of Israel. The Lord God would bring His children to Mount Sinai to speak into their ears His Holy Ten Commandments. (Vs.16) It was fifty days after He blessed them with freedom the Lord God descended upon Mount Sinai in a dark cloud with smoke, fire, lightning, and thunder. Three days they sanctified themselves to stand before the living God. Then from the midst of the fire He spoke! The people feared the voice of their Creator speaking His Holy Law into their ears. They feared death. They didn’t want to hear God’s voice directly. They begged Moses to talk with God and bring His Word to them. They promised to obey all the Lord spoke.
From Moses’ obituary we read, Deu 34:10 But since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, Moses revelation was from knowing God face to face. Jesus is greater. Joh 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” In Jesus’ face we see the face of our Father - He is the very face of God. Apart from Jesus you cannot know God the Father or receive the Holy Spirit. Seeing Jesus you see the Father as the Holy Spirit reveals the very heart of God to comfort sinners with forgiveness. In Jesus the Lord makes His face shine upon you and is gracious to you. Moses’ revelation revealed God’s Holy Will. Jesus reveals God’s gracious forgiving Love - grace and truth.
III. “He sees you while your sleeping, he knows when your awake, he knows if you’ve been good or bad..” Christmas songs give divine characteristics to our imaginary creations. There is only One who is with you always! He knows! David sings, Psa 139:2-4 You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. (3) You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. (4) For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.”
The children of Israel demanded a mediator, someone to stand between them and God. Moses was their mediator (vs.17-18) Moses’ was a sinful man. His anger would prevent him from entering the promised land. We need a greater Mediator than Moses. The Spirit of Truth testifies, 1Ti 2:5-6 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, (6) who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,” Moses offered to die in the place of the rebellious children of Israel. He couldn’t a sinner cannot pay the debt of a sinner.
Jesus is the eternal Mediator. He is God - the eternally only begotten Son. He is Man - conceived without sin by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God preached by the angel Gabriel into the Virgin Mary’s ears. He without sin - became sin for me, for you, for every child born of Adam. He speaks the Father’s Word comforting us by the Spirit that His loving will is to bring us back to His family through the sacrifice of His Son! The Father’s Word is reconciling Love in the Truth made flesh - Jesus. Jesus, your crucified and risen Brother, intercedes for you before the Father’s throne with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. God the Holy Spirit keeps you in Jesus in this one true faith. Santa Claus theology doesn’t save - you can’t earn your way to heaven. Receive the gift of the greater Mediator - Jesus born FOR YOU!
IV. “Rejoice in the Lord always!” wrote the imprisoned preacher Paul facing death. He was apart from his congregation, but in Christ by the Holy Spirit they were together in the mystery of the Church.
The Lord speaks through Moses (vs.19) The Virgin Mary knew that the Male fetus growing in her womb was the Lord her Savior from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil. Three decades later on the mount of transfiguration Moses and Elijah would appear talking with Jesus about His upcoming exodus - crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection to save us. They knew. Hearing Jesus’ voice in baptismal forgiveness, echoing through Holy Scripture, confessed in the creed, preached from the pulpit, prayed, blessing bread and wine to gift us with His living body and blood placed upon our lips, blessing us His cross won - empty tomb certified peace - the rain has fallen - His righteousness is washed upon us. We are together again one family now invisible, but He is at hand. Here and now! Soon the Greater than Moses shall return visibly and free us to life eternal. Amen! Even so come Lord Jesus! Amen.
Sermon Text: Deuteronomy 18:15-19
Sermon Theme: “Greater Than Moses - Hear Him!” I. Both Transmit Covenants - Jesus the Final One.(vs.15) II. Both Convey Revelations - Jesus The Highest. (Vs.16). III. Both Are Made Mediators - Jesus the Supreme One! (Vs.17-18) IV. Both Demand Faith - Jesus Most Of All! (Vs.19) by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
I.N.R.I. Gen 3:19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return."
We need rain! We are dry, dusty, and dying. Sin’s only pays out in death. This is the reality of life in our fallen world. Adam rebelled and plunged all humanity into the dry dusty deathly desert of sin.
We are like fresh cut Christmas trees. No matter how carefully we trim their severed trunk and water them daily. No matter how many lights, bulbs, and garland we drape upon it to make it pretty. The reality is that it is dying. More and more needles fall. A trunk severed from its living root refuses to drink life sustaining water. By next Sunday many trees will be stripped bare of all decorations and lights. It’s lifeless carcass will be cast out of the house. It’s mess swept up and thrown in the trash. It’s doomed to destruction. It needs new life from above! It needs rain! We cannot save it from death.
Conceived and born in Adam’s rebellion we are cut off from the life giving Root of our Creator. No matter how many lights and trinkets adorn our life - we are dying, dusty, doomed to fire. The fallen king David felt the dustiness of his own hidden sin. He confesses, Psa 32:3-4 When I kept silent, my bones grew old Through my groaning all the day long. (4) For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Selah” David’s well camouflaged sin was devouring him with drought from the inside. The Law of God given through Moses was clear. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife!” “You shall not commit adultery!” “You shall not give false testimony!” “You shall not murder!” The Law didn’t empower David to avoid his sin. He knew it and rebelled against our Creator’s will. To be honest - we are all David’s - we know the Ten Commandments - God’s perfect will for our lives - we rebel against them or redefine them to paint our pet sin as more permissible, less deadly, than the sin of neighbors. Like lifeless Christmas trees gussied up on the outside, but dying within - we cannot heal the drought of sin. We need a Redeemer! A Re-Creator to make us new. We need life from above! Rain down on us. David teaches us, Psa 32:5 I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," And You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah David looks past Sinai to Calvary. Moses is great, but his promised Son and Lord is greater. Moses is the sin reveler. His Descendant Jesus is the Sin - Healer.
Rejoice in Him always! Preparing to celebrate Christmas look to the lowly stable in Bethlehem and see the One: “Greater Than Moses - Hear Him!” I. Both Transmit Covenants - Jesus the Final One.(vs.15) II. Both Convey Revelations - Jesus The Highest. (Vs.16). III. Both Are Made Mediators - Jesus the Supreme One! (Vs.17-18) IV. Both Demand Faith - Jesus Most Of All! (Vs.19) I. What gifts are you looking forward to giving your children this Christmas? Parents rejoice to see their children’s happiness as gifts are opened. Children rejoice in receiving. Growing into young adulthood we rejoice in giving. Years pass we finally mature into rejoicing in the greatest gift of togetherness. If you knew this would be the last Christmas with your children - what would you give them?
The Lord told Moses that he would soon die. What gift would he give the children of Israel? He was their spiritual father. Four decades he had led, taught, fed, rebuked, and prayed for them. He was now 120 years old - what gift would sustain them when he was gathered through death to his fathers? The Word of God. Deuteronomy - The second giving of the Law - a reader’s digest version of Genesis through Numbers - is his gift. He teaches the second generation of those freed from Egyptian slavery God’s covenant setting them apart from the world.
Moses points his children to the One greater. (Vs.15) Yahweh - the God of the Promised Seed given to Abraham. God the Holy Spirit teaches, Gal 3:16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one, "AND TO YOUR SEED," who is Christ.” Moses would confess what John preached, “Joh 1:29-30 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (30) This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.'” The Promise to Abraham of Jesus came 430 years before the Law was written on stone tablets with the finger of God and given to Moses.
The Lord “your God”. He is a personal - The Father who in grace adopts the sinful children of Israel as His children in His Gift - Jesus. Joh 1:17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Moses, through whom God the Holy Spirit penned the first five books of the Holy Bible. Was entrusted to transmit God’s covenant of the Law - the Holy Ten Commandments are eternal - the will of our Creator for His creatures. The moral law has no expiration date. The ceremonial law of reconciliation through sacrifice that God might dwell among His sinful children served as a picture of Jesus - The Final Sacrifice - the Lamb of God Who alone takes away the sin of the world. The civil law given through Moses stood as the political law for Israel, until it ceased to be a nation ruled by God.
The Greater Covenant gifted us in Jesus isn’t written in stone, but in His sinless living flesh and blood. It is the new covenant in His flesh and blood - given and shed for you to wash away all your sin. The Law brings death by revealing our sin infested nature. The Gospel, Jesus’ covenant, brings life renewing us to be fully human in Jesus!
II. John the Baptist would soon be arrested, imprisoned, and beheaded for preaching God’s Word. King Herod didn’t want to repent of marrying his own brother’s wife. It was easier to kill the prophet than to turn back to God. John testifies that he is the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord! He fulfill’s Isaiah’s prophecy given seven centuries earlier. Moses also is the voice through whom the Lord God speaks to His enslaved children in Egypt. Moses’ voice wasn’t impressive - the revelation given through him was the very Word of our living God.
Moses preached to Pharaoh to free the children of Israel. The Lord God would bring His children to Mount Sinai to speak into their ears His Holy Ten Commandments. (Vs.16) It was fifty days after He blessed them with freedom the Lord God descended upon Mount Sinai in a dark cloud with smoke, fire, lightning, and thunder. Three days they sanctified themselves to stand before the living God. Then from the midst of the fire He spoke! The people feared the voice of their Creator speaking His Holy Law into their ears. They feared death. They didn’t want to hear God’s voice directly. They begged Moses to talk with God and bring His Word to them. They promised to obey all the Lord spoke.
From Moses’ obituary we read, Deu 34:10 But since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, Moses revelation was from knowing God face to face. Jesus is greater. Joh 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” In Jesus’ face we see the face of our Father - He is the very face of God. Apart from Jesus you cannot know God the Father or receive the Holy Spirit. Seeing Jesus you see the Father as the Holy Spirit reveals the very heart of God to comfort sinners with forgiveness. In Jesus the Lord makes His face shine upon you and is gracious to you. Moses’ revelation revealed God’s Holy Will. Jesus reveals God’s gracious forgiving Love - grace and truth.
III. “He sees you while your sleeping, he knows when your awake, he knows if you’ve been good or bad..” Christmas songs give divine characteristics to our imaginary creations. There is only One who is with you always! He knows! David sings, Psa 139:2-4 You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. (3) You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. (4) For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.”
The children of Israel demanded a mediator, someone to stand between them and God. Moses was their mediator (vs.17-18) Moses’ was a sinful man. His anger would prevent him from entering the promised land. We need a greater Mediator than Moses. The Spirit of Truth testifies, 1Ti 2:5-6 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, (6) who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,” Moses offered to die in the place of the rebellious children of Israel. He couldn’t a sinner cannot pay the debt of a sinner.
Jesus is the eternal Mediator. He is God - the eternally only begotten Son. He is Man - conceived without sin by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God preached by the angel Gabriel into the Virgin Mary’s ears. He without sin - became sin for me, for you, for every child born of Adam. He speaks the Father’s Word comforting us by the Spirit that His loving will is to bring us back to His family through the sacrifice of His Son! The Father’s Word is reconciling Love in the Truth made flesh - Jesus. Jesus, your crucified and risen Brother, intercedes for you before the Father’s throne with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. God the Holy Spirit keeps you in Jesus in this one true faith. Santa Claus theology doesn’t save - you can’t earn your way to heaven. Receive the gift of the greater Mediator - Jesus born FOR YOU!
IV. “Rejoice in the Lord always!” wrote the imprisoned preacher Paul facing death. He was apart from his congregation, but in Christ by the Holy Spirit they were together in the mystery of the Church.
The Lord speaks through Moses (vs.19) The Virgin Mary knew that the Male fetus growing in her womb was the Lord her Savior from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil. Three decades later on the mount of transfiguration Moses and Elijah would appear talking with Jesus about His upcoming exodus - crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection to save us. They knew. Hearing Jesus’ voice in baptismal forgiveness, echoing through Holy Scripture, confessed in the creed, preached from the pulpit, prayed, blessing bread and wine to gift us with His living body and blood placed upon our lips, blessing us His cross won - empty tomb certified peace - the rain has fallen - His righteousness is washed upon us. We are together again one family now invisible, but He is at hand. Here and now! Soon the Greater than Moses shall return visibly and free us to life eternal. Amen! Even so come Lord Jesus! Amen.
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