What Does It Mean to Tell God: I Do | Robby Gallaty

Today, I wanna talk about what do we do, or what does it mean when you and I respond to God with the words, I do. What does that mean when you say to God, I do? Now, I wanna start with a question that's gonna frame our time. When you think of salvation, or better yet, if I go on a street in Middle Tennessee with a mic, and I ask random people, what does it mean to be saved? I would assume, like you, some people would say, it's to go to heaven one day, amen? Like it's to secure a spot in the Lamb's Book of Life, so when the roll's called up yonder, I'm gonna be what? I'll be there. Or it's to make sure I'm on the right side of eternity. Today, I wanna show you that salvation has been a word that's been hijacked. Salvation doesn't just mean a destination we go to. In fact, that's a foreign concept to the Old Testament believers and the New Testament apostles. Salvation is not just a destination, it's a relationship with a person. Now, you've been taught like me wrongly, and I've been taught this, and you can raise your hand, and there's no shame today if you do, but I was taught years ago that God had a two-part system for salvation. Here's what I mean. The Jews were saved one way,

and the Christians were saved a different way. Watch this. The Jews in the Old Testament, man, they had it tough. They had to believe the law to be saved, but us Christians, aren't you glad, New Testament believers? We just have to put faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior. How many people have heard something like that? And it's really bizarre, because let's just back up. Number one, it's not biblical, but let's just back up and think philosophically. Why would God make the chosen people whom he loves, the apple of his eye, the nation of Israel, the least of these, whom God has said his heart and affection are, they're gonna have it harder. Y'all are gonna believe that old, dirty, nasty law, but us Christians in the New Testament, we just put our faith in Jesus, think about how foolish that sounds. It makes no sense, why? Do you and I wanna serve a God who changes his mind? That's not a God I wanna serve, and that's not the God of the New Testament. In fact, we serve a God that the Bible says is the same yesterday, today, and what? Forever. Here's the good news this morning. The same terms to the agreement are exactly the same in the Old Testament

as they are today, and I wanna show you the day that Israel was married to God. If you have a Bible, turn to Exodus 24. We're gonna see the wedding ceremony when the nation of Israel became the bride of God. Now, you read it this week, and we're still reading through the Old Testament. I had someone stop me this week, and they said, hey, I met a new person at the gym, and they said they're loving Long Hollow. They've only been a couple months, but the only complaint, they like the preaching, they like the worship, the only pushback is, when is the pastor gonna stop preaching from the Old Testament? This whole year, unfortunately, because that's all we're reading is the Old Testament, but I'm trying to connect to the new. If you came last year, she probably would've said, I don't know who this lady is, she would've said, when is he gonna get out of the New Testament, right? But anyway, we're gonna walk through the whole year, and then next year, we'll do both, but Exodus 24, verse one, if you're there, say word. Word. Say it like you mean it. Word. Amen, thank you. The word of the Lord.

Then God said to Moses, go up to the Lord, you, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and the 70 elders of Israel, and bow down in worship at a distance. Moses alone is to approach the Lord, but the others are not to approach, and the people are not to go up with him. Moses came and told the people all the commandments or commands of the Lord and all the ordinances. Then all the people responded with a single voice, and they said, what? We will do everything that the Lord has commanded. And Moses wrote down all of the words of the Lord. He rose early the next morning, set up an altar, and 12 pillars for the 12 tribes of Israel at the base of the mountain. Then he sent out young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. I wanna show you two parts of this covenantal agreement between God and his people. And here's the first one, the first part is this, right? Write this down if you're taking notes. There is an agreement of the covenant. The parties have to agree to the terms or the stipulations of the agreement. Now, covenants in the Old Testament were a big deal, not as much as they are today, although we're in covenants, but back then it was a big deal. And they had different ways to engage in covenants.

There was a salt covenant. So you'd take salt, I would take salt, which was a trading commodity, and we would exchange salt. There was another way to have a covenant through blood. You would take a knife, cut your hand, I would cut my hand, we would mix the blood together, and we'd say, if you sin or I sin or break the covenant, we die the way this blood is. There was another way, believe it or not, called a shoe covenant. So I would take my Jordans and exchange it with my son, I'm gonna hurt myself, exchange it with my son, Rick, although they wouldn't fit, Rick, but that's a, and you're not getting me, but anyway, no, but you exchange, like you give me your shoe, I give you, that's a covenant. But God decided, watch this, of all the covenants, he could've chose any, to choose the covenant of marriage to give the picture of what it's like to be in relationship with God. Now, there are certain things that have to be there in order for a marriage covenant to exist. Now, in the Hebrew, if you're interested, you can look this up, the Hebrew word for marriage covenant is ketubah, K-E-T-U-B-A-H, ketubah, put it in the logo, I'm sure you can find it. But there are certain elements that have to be there. Number one, write this down, there has to be a bridegroom or a husband. Number two, there has to be a bride.

And the bride, according to tradition, has to ceremonially cleanse herself before engaging into the agreement or the marriage agreement. Then there has to be a mediator or a pastor, if you will, to marry the couple together. Then there has to be a covenant, terms of the agreement, that the two parties agree to. And when they both agree, you're gonna love this, they say these words when they come together as one, I do, now here's the thing, I gave you those five, let's look at the text and see if we can uncover the parts of the marriage ketubah. And what we're gonna see is they're all there. The first one is this, does the Bible portray God as the bridegroom? What do you think? All the time, in fact, I can give you many, but for time, I'll give you two of them. God is always called the bride of Israel. Isaiah 54, verse five, indeed, the Bible says, your husband is your what? Your maker, God. His name is Yahweh of hosts, and the Holy One of Israel is your redeemer, he is called the God of all earth. Jeremiah 3.14, return faithless people, declare us the Lord, for I am your what? Husband, that's God talking. I will choose you, one from a town, one from a clan, and bring you to Zion. So we have the bridegroom, same question as what?

We have to have a bride. And I told you, the bride, here's the indication. The bride has to prepare themselves or consecrate themselves to the Lord. Do we have that? Well, look at what it says in verse 10. Exodus 19, verse 10. Consecrate yourselves, this is a few chapters earlier. God says, consecrate yourselves today and tomorrow. You must wash your clothes and be prepared on the third day, for on the third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. Let me pull over for a moment, tell you something interesting. I recorded a video on this on our channel, but I'll share with you an interesting thing I learned. Do you know what day every Jewish wedding is on? Definitely in Jesus' day and before. Guess what day it's on? The third day. Did you know this? Now, the third day for them is Tuesday, because the first day is Sunday of the week. Third day is Tuesday. Why in the world would the Hebrew culture have a wedding on the third day? Well, according to Genesis, God says every day is good. The first day is good, second day is good, the other days are good.

But there's one day where God says it's doubly good. Did you know this? He says it's good twice. Guess what day it is? The third day. And look at this. God is saying to them, on the third day, you will what? Go up to Sinai, and he's giving the picture of a wedding. Now, here's the third question. Who's the mediator or the pastor to the wedding? Big Mo. Mo's the mediator. He's gonna connect or wed Israel to God. Moses is the go-between. Number four, do we have a wedding agreement that the two parties are going to connect and agree upon, and the answer is yes. Look at verses six and seven again. The wedding agreement is the Torah, the law of Moses, the Ten Commandments. Verse six, Moses took half the blood, and he set it in basins. The other half of the blood he splattered on the altar. He then took the covenant scroll and read it aloud. By the way, what's on the covenant scroll? The Ten Commandments, the law. This is the agreement, the Torah, and he read it aloud to the people, and then the last thing, here's the culmination, here's the apex, the culmination of it is

after the parties say, okay, we'll do it, they respond with the words. I, thank you, I do. Let's look at the text, verse seven. After they heard from the Lord, they responded, we, we'll underline it, we will do and obey what the Lord commanded. Now, great, they're married. Now they go live like they want, right? Then they go do what they want, right? Now they can go worship what they want, right? Wrong. Not only do you have an agreement with the covenant, write this down, there are expectations of the covenant. Once you enter into an agreement covenantally, there are expectations from both parties. What I'm about to show you is literally some, if you don't write down anything, this is something to write down because this is going to show you how God works through all of scripture, okay? Here's the model of the marriage covenant in the Old Testament and your salvation covenant in the New Testament. It's a threefold pattern, write it down. I'll put it on the back screen. Number one is redemption. God always starts by first redeeming his people from bondage. Now we know this because on Passover, what did God do? He set them free, he redeemed them.

Did Israel do anything to set themselves free? Nothing, they couldn't. But then once God set them free through redemption, he brought them to Mount Sinai where he gave the law through revelation. God says, here's the law, here are the terms to the agreement, this is it, if you wanna have a right relationship with me. And then the final part of it is redemption, revelation on Mount Sinai, and then the final part is when Moses comes down with the law, what do the people do? They say, we will what? Do, which is responsibility. Responsibility can be summed up into one word, write this down, the word obey. Let me just go over it again. Did the nation of Israel do anything to be set free from the bondage of the Egyptians? Could they have fought as bricklayers and moms and dads and kids against the greatest army assembled on, no, they couldn't have won, there's no way. If God doesn't save them, they're in bondage. So God always starts with salvation. Then God brings them to the point of revelation on Mount Sinai, this is the way to think it, frame it differently in your mind. The Torah, the word of God, the Ten Commandments is the agreement for the relationship. And then finally, God expects them to keep their end of the bargain through one word, loyalty,

here's a better word, or obedience, okay? Does that make sense? So the nation could only obey the command of God, people say, well, the Jews earned their salvation. They couldn't, they didn't even know what the law was. They had to be saved first through redemption on Passover. They couldn't obey the law because they didn't know the law. And here's my point on this, come in close if you get nothing else. Salvation then and today is always unconditional. But the intimacy they had with God the Father or the intimacy we have today through a relationship with God is contingent upon our obedience to obey God. See the difference? We don't lose our salvation by sinning. You may feel like you're not saved, but you don't lose your salvation by sinning. You just are out of fellowship or intimacy with the Father. Here's kind of a funny way to say it, but this is a neat way to say it. Write this down, I mean, redemption is a gift. Redemption is a gift. Responsibility is the thank you note. It's kind of a cute way to say it, but you get the point here. Redemption is a gift. Your obedience is you responding to what God has already done. And you know this, the same thing happened at the moment you accepted Christ, right?

I don't know about you, when God came looking for me, I was not going after him. Can I get an amen? Definitely not. God reached down into the depths of my despair and he lifted me up and set me on firm footing after that. Just same way God saved the people. Then God revealed to me the expectations through his word. These are the terms of the agreement. And oh, Robbie, what I demand, what I expect from you, you too, is obedience. Let me say it another way. Loyalty. Allegiance to me. I was thinking, what's the best way to describe this? I was thinking back to December 18th, 2004, I was standing on a stage similar to this in a smaller church. And I was more nervous on that, yeah, this is where I was. I was more nervous, I don't know who that young girl is, but anyway, I was more nervous than I've ever been. Some guys help me. How many guys, when they get married, you're pretty nervous? I don't know why, I was more, yeah. I don't know why I was wondering. All the eyes on me and the weight of the moment. Kenny's like, what were you nervous about? You had second thoughts? No, I didn't have second thoughts about that. I was just nervous, okay?

And the whole time I'm standing there, the weight of the moment, and then those doors open up. Guys, you remember? And there I see this angel that dropped from heaven, right? And right down to me, this angel. They get, no, but seriously. Watch this, this is a funny story. You see this guy in the bottom left? That's Jeremy Brown, our security. With hair, who knew, Jeremy, no. And behind him is David Platt, which is funny. The guy to my right is my dad, who looks like Rigg or something. But anyway, I was there. Let me get back to it. I was standing there, and I looked, and Candy walked down, and I was nervous. And the only thing I knew to do was to not lock my legs, right? I knew I'd pass out. So the whole time, man, I'm doing like the limbo. You know, I'm just going back and forth, and I'm just, you know, I'm just going around, trying to keep the legs from locking. And I went down, took the arm of Candy from her father, and I walked back on stage, and I'm over here, and she's over here, and Brother Don was standing there, and he's about to officiate the marriage. And after we stood there, Brother Don asked a question. Do you, Robby, take this woman to be your wife?

Do you, Candy, take this hunk of a man? I mean, this, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, this scoundrel right here, the best you got, no, you take this guy. And then after, we said those things, watch this. Then we say, you remember this, and you did this, to have and to hold, to protect her from harm and sickness and in health till death do us part. And at the end of that, if I agreed like you, what do I say, and what does she say? I do, and what I'm saying there is, I am agreeing to the terms of the covenant, right? It was a covenant between us, but watch this. It's a covenant between God. Let's say the moment after I got married, I just agreed to it, I'm like, all right, babe, this was fun, but I gotta go. And I walk out the door, and I get in my car with another woman, not my wife, and I, not gonna fly, kid, it's hypothetical, babe. Would that break the terms of the agreement? Of course. If after getting married, a week later, Candy realizes I just spent a bunch of money in our bank account and didn't tell her or lied about it, would that affect the agreement? Of course it would. If I start DMing or sending texts to past girlfriends on Facebook, which by the way, you should never be texting an ex-girlfriend or boyfriend

if you're married for any reason in the world, amen? Ever, ever, ever. But she just wants to know, no, who cares? Your marriage is too important. So if I'm DMing these girls, would that break the covenant agreement? Of course it would. If I start looking at porn as I'm married, would that be a problem? Of course it would. Here's what I'm saying. These are serious offenses to the marital agreement. Come in real close. Well, why in the world do you treat your relationship with God the same way? See, every time you and I prostitute our minds to false gods in this world, we cheat on God, every time. Every time we lie, we steal, we take advantage of people. Every time we break the agreement, it's in a sense we break the heart of God, a covenant we made with God. Every time you get high or you get drunk with your friends or go out with the girls on Broadway or look at porn, it cheapens the relationship and marriage covenant you have with God. And here's the problem that's the issue today. It doesn't even bother some of you one bit. You respect your spouse who you've married more than God who made you, and it's become normal for you.

You don't care anymore. You just kind of go through the normal, mundane routine of life, and sin doesn't sting anymore. Friends, get this. The law, the requirements that God made is not God's way to see if you're in the house or not, or you could stay in the house. God gave us the law as a way to show us how close we are to his heart. That's what the law is. You don't stop cheating on your spouse because you're scared of getting a divorce. You stop cheating on your spouse when you finally realize how much you've hurt the person you love. You grieve the heart of the person you love, and I know what you're thinking. Well, Pastor Rice, this is like legalism. It's not like you're giving me a bunch of rules and regulations to follow. Actually, there's a big difference. I'll tell you the difference. Write this down. Legalism says I must obey God in order to be saved. That's what legalism says. I'm gonna do these things to earn something from God. Grace says I must obey God. because I'm already saved, I am saved. I'm not trying to earn some, why would I not serve this God who has given me so much?

And that's why Paul, when he's preaching in Ephesians 2, he says, you've been saved by grace, you remember this? Grace through faith in Jesus Christ. It's not of your own selves, it's not of works, so that no one can boast. He's saying you can't do anything to be saved. What is he saying? He's saying although God initiated salvation by grace, it doesn't stop there. A lot of people read 2 and 8 and 9 and stop there, but there's another verse, verse 10, which connects our obedience in response to God. Verse 10 shows us that grace isn't a license to sin, it's liberation to serve. For we are, look what he says, for we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good. Now this is a mind bender, for good works, which God created before the world began for you to walk in the future, tomorrow. That's what it says, and here's what it means. The law isn't a ladder you climb to reach God. The law was given by God as a fence to protect the marriage covenant. I don't want you to leave today with a word from me that you write down. I wanna try to frame a picture in your mind that you think about when you leave. Now I want you to picture with me for a moment. Imagine a couple in your mind at one time was,

they were in love. They were passionate about each other, talked and they listened to each other. They talked and they listened and they went on vacation and they just loved each other's company. But along the way, for whatever reason, they just kind of got sideways. They drifted apart, maybe not intentionally, maybe subtly, and then at the moment they realized they were drifting apart, and some of you are like, man, that's us right now, watch this. Then all of a sudden you realize, man, we need to come back together. We're gonna try to reconcile. What has to happen for that couple that slowly faded apart, what has to happen for them to come back together? I'll tell you what doesn't have to happen. It's not a bunch of acting or not a bunch of promise. I'm a promise to do the promise, it's not that. It's not grandstanding, it's not earning your way back. If I do this, this, and this. The first step coming close to reconciliation with a person you've drifted far from is honesty. Honesty. Honesty is the first step to reconciliation with anyone, including God. Oh, by the way, do you know the person you're most dishonest to on a daily basis? You know the person you lie to the most?

It's you. This thing's not that bad. What are you talking? I only look at points, I only lie when I have. That's what we do. And what God's looking for, look at this. God's saying, I just want you to be honest. He wants you to say something like this. God, I haven't been who I promised to be. And I just wanna come home. I just wanna come home. Friends, the covenant we have with God was never based on our performance. It was always based on God's promise and the finished work of his son Jesus on the cross. Aren't you glad when you screw up and mess up and sin against God and run from God? When we come back, God doesn't say, oh, you screwed up, you messed up. Let me tear the marriage certificate up and stuff. He doesn't do that, aren't you glad? Here's what he does, just the opposite. He stands at the door waiting for you to open. And what he does is just wait. In Revelation 3, 20, Jesus said, I am here standing at the door, and I am what? I am knocking at the door. Now, a lot of pastors have preached this wrong, including me, for years, and to put it in context, this is not, by the way, an evangelistic passage

where Jesus is trying to get in to the closed door of unbelieving hearts. That is not the passage. Look at the context. Jesus is standing at the closed door that is locked to the church of Jesus Christ that the bride has put him out of. That's what the door is. It is the church, it's a Christian-like church that is a Christian-like yourself that who at one time was serving God now says, God, you're out. And some of you are there, right? Like you are living, look at me, as though God doesn't exist or reside in the heart or the home of your heart. God doesn't live with you. Or you come to church and, man, you sing songs. You might even raise a hand in worship. You might even attend a life group. You probably come to church. You could lead a D group, you could serve in one of our teams here, but coming close. But in the quietness of your week when you leave, in the decisions no one else sees, in the places you navigate online, or the conversations that you have with people at the office, you have handed your loyalty over to someone and something else. And here's what breaks the heart of God, look at me.

You have stopped being bothered by that. Doesn't affect you anymore. You've lost the joy of your salvation. And some of you are like, I don't even know how I got here. It's kind of a slow fate. This is what spiritual drift looks like. It's when sin is normalized in the Christian life and you don't feel it anymore, you don't care anymore. And I don't know if I'm talking to all of us, but I know I'm talking to some people. And I would say to you, God wants you to come home. I told you about our wedding day. When I was standing there on the platform and those doors opened, I was obviously overwhelmed. And it was an unbelievable moment. Obviously, you remember your wedding day. What I didn't tell you is after we left, after the ceremony was over, we had eaten with our family and then we drove to New Orleans. We were gonna stay at a hotel and go on our honeymoon. Yeah, here we are. And I remember going home that day after we left the reception. And for the first time, we're in the car, just remember this, and this is no longer my girlfriend and I was no longer her boyfriend. This was not just two people who were in love with one another. We were husband and wife. The Bible says the two had become one flesh.

And here's what I mean. Our relationship was different. And this is what, look at me, this is what God is offering to you today. Not a new set of rules that you can white knuckle in order to get through life and kind of hang on. God is not offering another trip to the altar where you just come down here and cry before God in remorse only to walk back and go home to the same patterns you lived last Monday. It's not what God wants. Here's what God's saying, look at me. He wants intimacy back. He wants to walk with you again. He wants to walk like he walked with Adam in the cool of the garden. Abraham, when he said, hey, leave Ur and go to the promised land. The Israelites, when they were walking in the wilderness for 40 years, the same way he walked with Jesus. Jesus did with his apostles when he talked with them and he listened with them and he taught them and he called them by name. Here's the question I want us all to think about today, whether you're 16 or 65 or anywhere in between. When was the last time, look at me, and only you can answer this. When was the last time you were honest with God with where you are right now?

When was the last time you were honest with God? Not the cleaned up version, oh, I'm a pastor's kid or I go to church or my dad's a, no, no, no, not that. Oh, I sing in the worship team or I'm a, no, no. Not the cleaned up version you present on Sunday. The real version, not the synthetic substitute you show off to people in town. The person who every week reaches for something or someone other than God. And I'm here to tell you, God doesn't break his covenant with us, thank God, amen? God doesn't say I'm leaving and I'm gonna go find another bride, no, God doesn't say that. The bridegroom never leaves us, he simply just stands here and he waits right here, right now, in this moment and he's waiting by knocking on the door of your own heart. He just said, hey, will you open the door? Will you let me come back in? Friends, if that's you today, I wanna give you an opportunity, I've never done this before in a service, I was thinking, but I wanna do it today and I'm speaking to the Christian in here who would profess to be a believer. And what I'm gonna give you an opportunity to do in just a moment as we pray, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to recommit your vows back to God. Because some of you have gotten off track and some of you need a course correction

and some of you don't know how you even got here. Not because God's keeping score of a record of your wrong, but because you need this moment more than you think. Your soul needs to cry out to the Lord and say something like this, God, I wanna come back home. God, would you restore to me the joy of my salvation? God, I need you more now than ever before. Maybe that's what you need to say. So I wanna pray for you. Would you join me just in a posture of prayer? I'm gonna ask you to stand to your feet. as we do this, and I'm gonna ask you to come and I'm gonna pray over us. And after I pray, maybe as I'm praying, some of you may feel the need to come, you're just gonna come and spend time with the Lord and just be in the presence of God and recommit yourself to the Lord. Maybe you lost your way, maybe you've succumbed to an addiction or an idol or adultery or immorality or pride or anger or porn or whatever it is and you're saying, God, I don't know how to get back here, I've lost my way, and I'm gonna pray. As soon as I finish praying, I'm gonna ask you to come as the Lord leads you. Father, we pray right now. And the only name we know how, and that's the strong and powerful name of Jesus Christ, and I'm praying specifically right now for those who feel like they have sinned too much

or maybe they're too far gone. Pastor, you don't know the things I've done. You don't know how far I've strayed. No, I don't, but God, you do. And I would say right now, God, for that person, they would just come and just, God, you would restore to them the joy of their salvation. You would take away the guilt and the shame and the pain. You gotta remember a guy in my discipleship group this week was just really lamenting over the fact that he hates when people try to hold him to a higher standard when he commits himself back to you because he feels like people are gonna cut him at the knees or hold it against him when he messes up, and I had to tell him, God, it reminded me, thank God you don't hold a record of our wrongs. You nailed every wrong of our past to the cross, and you don't hold our past against us. And God, if you don't hold our past, how do we hold it against ourselves? So God, not only do we ask for you to forgive us, God, would you help us forgive ourselves? I'm asking that for somebody right now. Would you help them forgive themselves for the wrong they've done? God, help us recommit our vow, our commitment back to you. We ask it in Jesus' name. And everyone said.