God of Imminence

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Josh Wood. I am a deacon here at Chisenhall Fellowship I'm very glad that you all can join us this morning If you would please turn with me to the book of Exodus We're gonna be continuing our sermon series and that lovely book I will be covering chapters 25 26 and 27 today's so if you want to go ahead and turn to Chapter 25, that's where we're gonna start off today And Drew in case you're wondering this is your Bible I did borrow it again. So thank you very much I I use New King James version, which if you're not familiar, it's kind of a little more old-school And so this is a little bit easier to understand. So that's why I he graciously offered to for me to use it so In order to get a little bit of an idea of what we're gonna be talking about today because we're gonna be talking about the construction of the tabernacle and God

Commanding the Israelites to build that and so I'd like to provide a little bit of an analogy for you that can maybe help you Understand of what we're gonna be discussing today Imagine you have and this is for you dog lovers. Imagine you have two different dog owners Both of them ask you to take care of their dogs while they're out of town One dog owner leaves you instructions to feed the dog and walk them twice a day The other owner gives you instructions of exactly what food to feed which dog when they need to go out where their bedding is Where how to contact their vet how to contact them in case of an emergency What medication to give their senior dogs they have an old dog who's crippled and needs medication And so they give you a long list of everything that you need to do Who would you naturally think cares about their dogs more? Well, obviously it would be the one who left you more instructions

It would be the one who left you more details And if you just had someone say just feed and walk my dogs that might imply that they might not care that much about their dogs or That they don't put that much effort into taking care of them themselves And this is exactly what we see when we read through these three chapters of Exodus today with the construction of the tabernacle God is Extremely specific with the Israelites of how they are to construct this tabernacle and there's and we'll read there's a reason for this There's a purpose. He doesn't just say build me a tent so I can be with you and great He is very very specific with how he Directs them to do that. So we're gonna be reading about that and we're gonna be starting in chapter 25 Verse 1 we're gonna read the first 9 now. I don't have any slides for you today, unfortunately So I will do my best to try to help you

Stay along and navigate as we go through Scripture But if you don't have a Bible there's one around you and some of the chairs or you have a Bible on your phone as Well, but we're gonna be in Scripture quite a bit today. So yeah, I would love for you to follow along so chapter 25 verse 1 The Lord said to Moses speak to the people of Israel that they take from me a contribution from every man whose heart moves him You shall receive the contribution for me and this is the contribution that you selfish that you shall receive from them gold silver and bronze Blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twine linen goats hair and ram skins goat skins Acacia wood oil for the lamp spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrance of incense onyx stones and stones for setting for the ephod and for the breast piece and Let them make me a sanctuary that I made well in their midst

Exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and all of its furniture furniture. So you shall make it So we see the key idea Really for all three of these chapters being laid out right there in verse 8 where God says let them make Let them make me a sanctuary so that I made well with them That was the purpose for all of this for all of this instruction is so that God could Dwell with his people we saw in the previous chapters God established his law with the Ten Commandments We saw him establish his covenant and now we're seeing him establish his actual very presence with the people of Israel And I'm sure you can wonder why would an omnipresent God who can be everywhere at once and contain himself to just one little space For the Israelites Well, I think the answer to that question is this is the same answer that we have to why God created all of us in

The first place and it's that and it's because he desires relationship. He desires for us to be close to him and know him and so When he brought the Israelites out of Egypt, he didn't want to just take them out of Egypt and abandon them He wanted to be their God and dwell with him. And so that's what we see here here happening So before we continue in the text, I do want to provide a brief definition of what a tabernacle actually is because we don't really hear about tabernacles that much nowadays, but The tabernacle was essentially a portable sanctuary built by Israel with precious things According to God's design. So first thing is that it was a portable sanctuary Remember the Israelites were still wandering around in the wilderness at this point So if they were going to build a sanctuary, which is a dwelling place for God to dwell with him Well, that thing was gonna have to be portable because they were gonna have to carry it around wherever they went wherever that Saint

Wherever the Israelites went that sanctuary was supposed to follow them The second thing is that it was built by the Israelites God could have obviously Supernaturally built his own tabernacle and I'm sure it would have been glorious and probably even better than then how the Israelites designed It but he wanted them to be directly involved and participate in the construction of it And that's the same thing that he does with us He doesn't just work in our lives and just leave us alone He wants us to participate in our own sanctification in our own growth

Third thing is that it was made with precious things gold silver bronze fine linen a case wood All of these things are supposed to be somewhat of a earthly earthly reflection of a heavenly reality All of this beauty and this glory that we were supposed to get from this gold and this silver and this bronze Was supposed to reflect what we what was going on in heaven and what was actually taking place? And it's funny because you would probably think that the Israelites would have to do a bunch of hard work and going out to Find this gold and going out to find all this silver and all of this acacia wood But if you just remember a few chapters earlier, what did God have the Israelites do right before they left Egypt? Blunder the Egyptians and take their gold and their silver and their bronze So everything that God was asking them to use he had already provided for them

Which happens constantly throughout scripture and constantly in our own lives that anytime God asks us to do something He's usually prepared us for it. Even if we don't know it we are We are prepared to do what he's asking us to do And then the last thing and this is really what we're gonna focus more on today Is that it was according to God's design we see in verse 9 and then later in verse 40 that He tells them to build this exactly as the pattern I shown you on the mountain. He wants it to be Perfect down to the detail. He wants them to follow it exactly And this is because while God does desire to draw near to us while he does desire to dwell with us He still sets the terms of how that's gonna happen He's going to draw near but he's going to still set some boundaries of how he's going to draw near to us

And we saw and we continue seeing that as we read throughout throughout the chapter so we're gonna be picking back up and in verse 10 and I will admit this reading that I'm about to do is not the funnest not the most fun reading It can be a little Wavering and a little little boring But the reason that I do want to read these next twelve verses for you is so that you can get somewhat of a sense Of what the Israelites were having to go through themselves You can get somewhat of her the requirements that they had for yourself and kind of feel that that detail and that my unity So it says they shall make an arc of a case wood two cubits and a half shall be its length a Cubit and a half its breadth and a cubit and a half its height You shall overlay it with pure gold inside and outside shall you overlay it and you shall make it on a molding of gold around it

You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet Two rings on the one side of it and two rings on the other side of it You shall make poles of a case wood and overlay them with gold and you shall Put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark by them The pole shall remain in the rings of the ark They shall not be taken from it and you shall put the ark of the testimony that I shall give You shall put into the ark the testimony that I shall give you you shall make a mercy Of pure gold two cubits and a half shall be its length and a cubit and a half its breadth Sorry, I've been having allergies today. So Mouth is a little bit dry And you shall make them to cherubim of gold of Hammered work you shall make them on two ends of the mercy seat make one cherub on them on one end and one cherub on The other end of one piece with the mercy seat. So shall you make the cherubim on its two ends?

The cherubim shall spread out their wings above Overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings their faces to one another toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you There I will meet with you and from above the mercy seat from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel so First thing to point out is that God didn't wait around for the Israelites to build them a tabernacle The Israelites weren't like, oh, you know, what would be great We should build Yahweh a tabernacle because of everything that he just did for us We should build him a dwelling place place for him to rest with us I'm sure that was the last thing on their mind

So God initiated this process and commanding them to build it himself And the reason that he does this is is God commands things in our life and does things even without our permission For our benefit a lot like he says earlier in Exodus. I bore you on Eagles wings and brought you to myself Notice he doesn't just say I brought you out of Egypt He says I brought you to myself Anytime that God rescues us It's not so that we can go live our life and and be free and be saved and just go to heaven when we die He rescues us to himself so that once we are saved we can become more like him and grow in him

Second thing to point out is that the ark is the heart of the whole sanctuary If any of you have ever seen Indiana Jones, it's pretty good representation of what we're talking about here It is a gold plated chest that had the ark that had the testimony inside of it And then above it was the mercy seat and we read in verses 21 and 22 that this is the place that God said He would meet the Israelites out so you can essentially kind of think of this mercy seat this Ark of the Covenant as God's throne On earth, obviously, he still had his throne in heaven. That's where he reigns But when he was going to dwell with this people his people of Israel This was essentially where his throne was going to be and really that's what made the art so special It wasn't that it was made out of pure gold and had the testimony of God inside of it It was that God's presence was going to dwell there. That's what made the art so significant

So Indiana Jones was was looking for a whole bunch of nothing because the significance was in that God was part of that And then the third thing to point out is that everything surrounding God's presence is completely ordered I'm not gonna I'm not gonna read the the rest of the chapter But we can see in the rest of the chapter that God is making much of the same instructions about the bread and the lampstand and it's very very very detailed and The idea is not to get fixated on the little bitty tiny details and try to figure out Each a little bitty tiny symbol for every little bitty thing in the tabernacle There is symbolism for a lot of stuff in the tabernacle But the idea with that I'm trying to focus on right now Is that all of these details reveal the value of the tabernacle just like with our dog analogy earlier? We know that the the dog owner that gives you more instructions and gives you more details

Probably cares about their dogs more and so it's the same similar concept here God giving the Israelites all of these specific instructions was him trying to make a point that hey I care about this a lot And so I'm wanting you to put the same sort of care and detail that I have into this as well because This is where I'm gonna dwell with you guys. This is where I'm gonna live but that does raise attention because These are lights and us are sinful people and God is a holy God So how can a holy God dwell with sinful people? Well, we start to get a little bit of a glimpse of how that's tackled in chapter 26, which is where we're gonna be moving on Again, I'm not gonna read all of the chapter. I'm actually gonna skip over the first 29 verses Because it's much of the same giving instructions for exactly how the tabernacle should be structured and built It's it's a very good read if you if you want to read it on your own time

But for the sake of not bogging you down to it today, we're we're gonna go jump straight to verse 30 and read through 34 So Exodus 26 starting in verse 30 Then you shall erect the tabernacle According to the plan for it that you were shown on the mountain again We see God using that language And you shall make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine-shwine linen It shall be made with cherubim skillfully worked into it And you shall hang it on four pillars of Acacia overlaid with gold with hooks of gold on four bases of silver and you shall hang the veil from the claps and bring the Ark of the testimony in there within the veil and The veil shall separate for you the holy place from the Most Holy You shall put the mercy see on the Ark of the testimony in the Most Holy Place so We give the idea right there that this separation is happening in the veil. Yes. There's some things to point out. It's all beautiful

It's all gold. It's all silver. It's supposed to reflect God's glory But the more important thing I think that we're seeing is that God is pointing out that there's going to be a veil that separated the Israelites from his actual presence and Drew's gonna get a little bit more into this in the coming weeks and in the coming chapter So I'm not gonna touch too much on on what all of this look like but essentially that veil was

Separating the holy place where the priests would minister daily and then the Most Holy Place where the Ark was and where God's presence was And the high priest was one again Drew's gonna cover this later, but the high priest would once a year Enter into that Holy of Holies into where the Ark of the Covenant was God's presence and he would sprinkle blood On that Ark for the remission of his sins and for the remission of his people sins and Whenever you hear blood for the remission of sins I'm sure your ears perk up because we know that phrasing as well because that's exactly what Jesus did for us The same way that God provided for the Israelites was the same way that God provides through us and that is through blood of the for the remission of sins Because we see that in the Bible the wages of sin is death And so in order for sin to be paid for there had to be bloodshed

And so the key idea really of all of chapter 26 is that while God does desire to draw near to us He's still holy. He's going to draw near but he's still going to be separate from us And so that takes us in a chapter 27 where we move on from a little bit of the structure in the furniture of the Tabernacle and we get into a little bit more of an idea of what the people were going to be ordered to do We're still getting instructions for things being built and and whatnot But we start to get a little glimpse of of exactly what these priests were going to be administering and again Drew will cover that more But I'm gonna briefly touch on it today So we'll be in chapter 27. We're gonna read the first eight verses

You shall make the altar of a cache of wood five cubits long and five cubits broad The altar shall be square and its height shall be three cubits and you shall make horns for it on its four corners Its horn shall be of one piece with it and you shall overlay it with bronze You shall make pots for it to receive its ashes and shovels and basins and forts and fire pans You shall make all its utensils of bronze you shall also make it make for it a grafting a network of bronze and On the net you shall make four bronze rings at its four corners And you shall set it under the ledge of the altar so that the net extends halfway down the altar You shall make poles for the altar poles of a cache of wood and overlay them with bronze and the pole shall be put Through the rings so that the poles are on the two sides of the altar when it is carried You shall make them you shall make it hollow with boards as it has been shown to you on the mountain

So shall it be made again? God loves repeating himself to provide emphasis and it is the same thing we see there so The altar of sacrifice was essentially before the priest could enter into the holy place They had to provide a sacrifice on the altar and this is what this is for because like I just mentioned Only way to be able to enter God's presence is through their mission of sins and through bloodshed And so that is exactly what the priest had to do You can't just casually walk into the presence of God and expect everything to just be okay He is a holy God. We're a sinful people so that has to be dealt with before we can just approach God so we're gonna jump ahead to Verse 20 and we're just gonna read a couple a couple verses there to get a little bit of a little bit more of an idea of what the people were doing so Now to verse 20 here in chapter 27

You shall command the people of Israel that they bring to you pure Pure beaten olive oil for the light that a lamp may regularly be set up to burn in the light of meat in the tent of meeting Outside the veil that is before the testimony Aaron and his sons shall tend to it from evening to morning before the Lord It shall be a statute forever to be observed throughout their generations by the people of Israel So gandrew is gonna cover this more later But essentially the idea there was that God does want to draw near so that he can dwell with us But he also wants to provide that sanctuary in that tabernacle So that his people have a proper place to worship him and to minister to him He doesn't want them to just do this randomly and in different locations He wanted to provide an actual location in place where his people could come properly worship and minister for him

And then the last thing that I want to point out is Notice how the further we get away from the Ark of the Covenant and the holy of holies The less valuable the materials are the Ark of the Covenant was made of pure gold Everything in there was pure gold and then we get right outside of that right outside the veil into the holy place and things are Starting to be made of silver and then you exit exit the sanctuary You're still in the walls of the tabernacle and then now this altar out of it is made of bronze So you go from gold to silver to bronze and the idea there is that the closer you get to God The more fearful he becomes and the more glorious and beautiful he becomes and that's something that I experienced in my own life The more that I grow and learn to know about God and grow and grow in relationship with him The more I fear him but the more I also fall in love with him and find the beauty in him and that's kind of the

Imagery that we see here going on with the materials getting less and less valuable So the key idea for chapter 27 is that although God does draw near to us He sets the terms on how we are to worship him and he sets the terms on how we are to follow him So a recap of all of these three chapters because I know it was Very very fun and a lot to a lot to take up is that the holy God who desires to dwell with his people Provides a way to approach him despite their sin Now I was thinking about saying even through their sin But I thought you'd get the idea is that even despite us being sinful People and having nothing good to bring to God. He still provides a way for us to approach him And this leads me to my neck and sorry and that way for us to approach him is obviously through Jesus He imprided the way for the Israelites to approach him through the tabernacle in the old testament

New testament we see that the way that we can approach the father is through Jesus And so this leads me to my next point Is that Jesus fulfilled? Everything that we see in the old testament perfectly Perfectly everything that you see in the tabernacle. Jesus fulfilled perfectly Now I don't have time to get into exactly how he fulfilled every little bitty piece but if you want to take a Take a time yourself You can look up exactly how Jesus was the fulfillment of the tabernacle and how he fulfilled much of the old testament But in order to kind of flesh this out a little bit more we're going to be turning to the book of Hebrews

And we'll be in hebrews 9 and then also chapter 10 Now at this point in the sermon, I thought about just reading Hebrews 9 and 10 and just letting that preach for me because it is that good and it is that rich But we're going to kind of break it down and dissect it piece by piece So we'll be in hebrews 9 Starting in verse 1. Let me turn there as well All right, so hebrews 9 starting in verse 1

Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness This is exactly what we were just talking about with the tabernacle For a tent was prepared the first section in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the presence It is called the holy place behind The second behind the second curtain was a second section called the most holy place Having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold And which was a golden urn holding the manna and errand staff that was butted and the tablets of the covenant Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat Of these things we cannot now speak in detail These preparations having thus been made the priests go regularly into the first section

Performing their ritual duties but into the second only the high priest goes And but once a year and not without taking blood which he offers for himself And for the testimony of sin and for the unintentional sins of the people By this the holy spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet open As long as the first section is still standing which is symbolic for the present age According to this arrangement gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot be perfect That cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper but deal only with food and drink and various washings regulations for the body imposed until the time of regulation And so we see this is exactly what we just talked about in exodus This is exactly what the author of hebrews is going over And we get kind of a glimpse towards the end of what I just read that that tabernacle that we were that we're talking about in

Exodus Was not supposed to be the final order the final order was yet to come And we see that final order whenever we continue reading here in hebrews. So picking back up in verse 11 Here's the final order But when christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come Then through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands that is not of this creation He entered once for all into the holy places not by means of the blood of goats and calves But by means of his own blood Thus securing an eternal redemption For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a hyphre Sanctify for the purification of the flesh How much more will the blood of christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to god? Purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living god therefore He is the mediator of a new covenant so that those who are called

May receive a promised eternal inheritance Since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant So we see obviously that jesus is that final perfect order God didn't want to leave the tabernacle as the final piece for his dwelling He wanted to send his son to complete that final order And that's why I said earlier that jesus is the fulfillment of much of what we see in the old testament Jesus is the perfect priest who is able to intercede and minister us to the father daily He's the perfect king who rolls over us and reigns over our lives every day He's the perfect prophet who's able to speak the whole truth and counsel of god He's the perfect sacrifice who's able to once and for all take away all of our sins forever And he's also the perfect tabernacle And that's why he says to the pharisees That in three days, I will destroy the temple and in three days, I will build it back up

He wasn't talking about the physical temple in jerusalem He was talking about his own body because his own body was the temple He was saying that in three days i'm gonna die and then i'm going to come back to life And that is going to be the proof that you guys have And so jesus was the perfect fulfillment of a lot of what we see in that old testament and that's why I think Reading the old testament is so important because we can see jesus all throughout the old testament Not every single verse is talking about jesus But the idea and the entire intention of the old testament from genesis or from genesis all the way To uh to malachi is that it is waiting for this person. It is waiting for the messiah Even right at the beginning of genesis in the first few chapters. We have a promise of a messiah So the perfect and final order even before the tabernacle was made was already prophesied to come and we see that fulfilled in jesus

So we're gonna continue here in hebrews 9, but we're gonna jump ahead a little bit and we're gonna be starting in verses chapter in verses 23 And we're gonna see a little bit of how this tabernacle was a foreshadow of what was to come So hebrews 9 23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rights But the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these For christ has entered not into the holy places made with hands which are copies of the true things But into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of god on our behalf Nor what nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not of his own For then he would not have for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world But as it is He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin and sacrifice

Of himself or by the sacrifice of himself So we see that jesus didn't just die solely for the forgiveness of our sins. Yes, that's a big deal We need our sins forgiven. But like I said earlier he saved us and redeemed us for himself Everything is about christ. Everything is about god Even him saving us and being loving and sacrificial. It's still about him He still gets all the glory in the end God doesn't do anything that doesn't glorify his own name. And so god in saving us glorifies himself

So we'll be done in chapter nine now. We're going to be jumping into hebrews 10. We're going to skip the first nine verses It's very rich. If you have not read the book of hebrews, please go read the book of hebrews It makes a lot of sense, especially after you read the old testament, but we're going to be uh, resuming here in hebrews 10 verse 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of jesus christ once for all And every priest stands daily at his service offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins But when christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins He sat down at the right hand of god Waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet

For by a single offering he is perfected for all time those who are being sanctified And the holy spirit also bears witness to this Saying this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days declares the lord I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds Then he adds I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds. No more Where there is forgiveness of these there's no longer any offering of sin

so Jesus wants to be in communion with us just as god wanted to be in communion with the with the israelites in the old testament And he provides a way through that through his bloodshed on the cross Except this time god doesn't just set the terms The terms and conditions and on tablets and he doesn't just set the terms For the people to follow in any instructions instead. He set those very terms inside of our heart He sets his will and his law inside of our heart so that we may meditate on it So that we may meditate on it and know it

And again, he draws us near but it is on his terms So we've just spent the entire time talking about how you can't just casually walk into god's presence And how there has to be order in the way that is done So when we get to hebrews chapter 10 verse 19 something incredibly extraordinary happens. So let's read therefore brothers Since we have confidence to enter the holy places By the blood of jesus by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is Through his flesh and since we have a great priest over the house of god Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith With our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works

Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some But encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near so Like I just said we spent the entire time talking about how you can't just walk into god's presence And then hebrews chapter hebrews 10 19 comes along and says you can now walk into god's presence And that is something that I think we need to Find absolutely amazing the israelites Could never could not even dream of something like this happening being able to just walk approach god at any time And make any request to him Was wild. I mean they they were thinking you had to do sacrifice You had to have bloodshed you had to do all these things because god made it clear that there's order to approaching him so So, what does all of this mean for us? Well one it means that we've been given new instructions We still have order just because christ did all of the work on our behalf doesn't mean that we're just free to do what we want

We still have order so the old order was and the old instructions was that of a tabernacle and sacrifices The new instructions for us is how we respond to what jesus has done is how we respond to jesus fulfilling that sacrifice in that tabernacle And we see these these instructions for us being laid out here in this chapter in hebrews So i'm going to break it down and i'm going to give you three That we can kind of take home with us and that we can use to help us Help us remember and help us draw near to god and that's the first one is that we are to draw near to god The way has been opened to us. It's wide open the door is wide open But we still have a choice to walk through that door We still have a choice to go to god just because he's opened the way for us Doesn't mean that he's going to just drag us in through that way. He wants us to come to him

He wants us to be drawn near to him on my wrong page I was made fun of for uh for writing all of my sermons So I guess I guess this is what I get that I get I get mixed up a little bit with my own my own writing so a way that we can draw near to god is Pray when you even when you don't feel like it Even when times are tough and you don't feel like going to god Pray anyways, I promise you God knows your heart. So just be honest with him. Even if even if your prayer is god I don't really feel like talking to you right now so Please just bear with me and listen to me He respects that he wants you to be honest with him He doesn't want you to come with a mask and act like and everything is fine and dandy He wants you to be upfront and honest with them. So even when you don't feel like it pray Another thing that you can do is even when life is hectic and you don't have much time

Open his word Do you make time every day to eat food and to drink water? Of course Well, it should be the same thing his word is our spiritual food So if we just go on without eating his spiritual food Then our our spirit starts to become perch and our spirit starts to become hungry and we start to get weak So it is very very important that even when life is hectic We open his word and we have our we have our soul nourished and our spirit nourished Another thing we can do is confess sin to one another bible says know the truth and it will set you free Well, I think this is much of the same thing whenever we don't confess sin to one another and we just continue living in that We are living in a lot We are living in straight lies by not confessing our sin God wants us yes to confess our sins to him. Obviously, he's the only one that can actually forgive us of our sin

But he also wants us to confess our sin to one another Because we have each other here for a reason and we're going to get more to that in a second But confessing sin is a very good way to Just kind of get things off your chest and put them out in the open Because just like the bible says when sin has light revealed on it It cowers away and it screams and freaks out So put that sin out into the light confess it to somebody speak about it be open about it

Another thing is worship him in tough times and go to the book of job and get a perfect example of this After every after job had pretty much everything taken away from him. He had his kids His kids were were killed. He had all of his wealth taken away. His health was taken away from him I mean he had pretty much everything you can think of stripped away from him. And what was his response? God giveth and god taketh away blessed be the lord He was saying that in any circumstance i'm going to be content with what I have Obviously job was still human. He still questioned god and that's why we get those awesome chapters at the end of job of god confronting him, but It's still the same as that job was content in every circumstance just as paul instructures to be content in every circumstance So that's the first thing we can do is draw near to god Second thing is hold fast

Hebrews 4 14 says let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised this faithful Notice it doesn't say let us hold fast our confession Because we have strong faith It says because he is faithful or not to look at our own faith Our own faith is shallow and weak we're to look at the faith of jesus and the promises that he made Because he is who were to put our hope and trust in Everything I have in and of myself is nothing i've seen what I can do and what I can do is It's not very good. I'm tired of what I can do I want to put my trust and hope into someone who I know can actually do something and and and help me in my life

So that's the second thing is to hold fast Third thing is to love one another a couple years ago. I was in life group with Daniel Oster and I asked him If you had to in simple terms Explain to somebody what it means to take up your cross daily What would you say and he thought about it for a second and he responded and said? living for others And I thought that that was a great response. I thought that was I thought that was perfect because if you think about it If i'm being drawn to god and you're being drawn to god, then we're also being drawn to each other. So We're supposed to walk this life With each other and lean on each other. Jesus is guiding us He's the leader but we're supposed to hold hands and walk together with you with with each other And what that made in a way that you can examine yourself and see if you are actually walking in communion with other believers is

Can ask yourself who am I praying for? Do I pray for someone on a regular basis and and am I concerned about their salvation if they're an unbeliever? Or am I am I concerned about their walk if they are a believer? Do I pray for someone constantly? Another thing is do I check on anyone? Is there anyone in my life that that I check on or is there anyone? That checks on me in my life. I mean, these are things that we need we're not supposed to walk through this life alone When you read all throughout the book of acts the apostles and the disciples did everything together I mean you very very very rarely see someone acting completely alone in the book of acts They're usually doing things together and ministering together. So it's important that we do the same Another couple questions to ask is does anyone know you well enough to detect if you're drifting from your faith?

Because we all at times can steer a little bit away from our faith And that's just life. That's how things happen That's how life happens But it's important that we have people in our life that can detect when that's happening and that can help us steer us back on the right track And another one is do you like we just talked about do you have anyone that you confess your sins to? It's important to confess our sins to god But it's also important to confess them to one another and i'm not talking about talking about some catholic idea of going and confessing your sins To a priest i'm talking about just with one another it can be with your spouse It can be with your brother. It can be with your friend. It can be with your pastor It can be with a deacon here It can be with whoever that you feel comfortable with and whoever you think is going to be able to

To talk to you about your sin. Well with you Confess that sin to them Because god didn't just give us Uh didn't just give us a church full of people so that we can come and just worship Individually, he gave us a church full of people so we can be together and worship together And so the last thing that I want to leave you with Is a little image that we get in the book of revelation And exodus god says let them make me a sanctuary that I made dwell in their midst And then later in the gospel of john we see and the word became flesh and dwelt among us So that same god who dwelled with the israelites in the tabernacle Was the same god who became a man and dwelt among us in the actual flesh And then we fast forward to revelation, which is our future which is our hope and we get the end of the story

Behold the dwelling place of god is with man He will dwell with him and they will be his people Because you see the the plan from the very beginning Even before the tabernacle even before the creation of the world was for us to be with god That was the plan and it that plan didn't change throughout all of history Despite our sin despite everything that happened. The plan was the plan He dwelt with the israelites in the tabernacle He dwelt with the disciples in the flesh And he will he dwells with us through his spirit inside of us And then ultimately and finally when we are in paradise with him We will dwell fully in his presence completely away from the presence of sin completely away from the penalty of sin and the punishment of sin And completely and the glory and the beauty and presence of the father and the son and the spirit

So when life does or so when you do feel distant draw near When life is hectic hold fast to the hope that is given you in christ And when you feel weak lean on one another who christ has given us because until we Bully dwell with god in paradise His holy spirit and us each other in his church Is what we have to lean on so we must take advantage of that and do it every single week and every single day Let's pray Father we know that you are on your throne and we know that from there you desire for us to be drawn to you You have made a way for that to happen. You did it for the israelites You did it whenever you died on the cross for us And we know that you just desire for us to be drawn to you and for us to enter into that way And so we pray lord that as we go throughout this week You allow us to be bold and allow us to to confess our sin to one another And to reach out to each other and to lean on you and open your word up

And go to you in prayer and ultimately just realize that we have a way To you we have direct access to you now. We can take our requests directly to you father And so we pray that that just resonates in our mind and that you allow us to To fully embrace that and fully come to know you father. That's your new righteous name that we pray jesus. Amen