Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to Living Hope Church. We're glad that you chose to join us this morning for the first Sunday of the month. And on the first Sunday of the month, we at the end of the service, at the end of the sermon today, we'll take communion together. And so that's something that we look forward to on a monthly basis. Children ages three to five are welcome to go to children's church. That's an optional time for you as the parents for kids ages 3 to 5 to go and spend some time with some other some of the teachers there and have a lesson and be able to enjoy that time of growth there. The rest of us can be opening your Bibles to the book of Exodus is where we're going to be today, starting in chapter 19. So Exodus 19 is where you can start if you have a bulletin, hopefully you do.
[00:00:45] Inside you can see the things happening in the life of the church. So note those things at the beginning of each month. You will notice in your bulletin at the top there, at least in this bulletin, is the memory verse for this month. And so every month there'll be a new verse that we challenge and encourage you to memorize just a great verse for us. And then also in the foyer, there's cards like this that you can grab if you want to be able to put that on your steering wheel and your mirror in the bathroom, wherever in your life, you can take a picture of it, make it as the background on your phone, something like that.
[00:01:18] Just encourage you to do that. And as we dive into this, we're going to be in the second part of the book of Exodus. We've been going through a series started a few weeks ago, called Exploring the Old Testament, Discovering the Can you read the screen?
[00:01:33] The Savior. And so it's a series through the Old Testament. And as we walk through it together, we're going to start we started in Genesis and then we're going to work our way all the way through the 39 books and see not only what is here in front of us as we kind of survey this book, but also Jesus comes alive throughout the Old Testament. Jesus does not start in Matthew or in the Gospels. Jesus really is seen all throughout the Old Testament. So we're going to celebrate that as we dive into God's Word. So Exodus Part 2, you can go to the next slide. There is where is what we're looking at today. This is going to be the second part, obviously, of this book. We looked at part what was last week, part part one. We're just doing Two parts. The first part of Exodus was all of the things that happened with the nation of Israel before Mount Sinai. And we're gonna look at that in a little bit. Mount Sinai is kind of the pivotal point here. So last week we saw that the nation of Israel started known as the Hebrews even beforehand. Started as this small family, really. 70 people or so, came from the land of Canaan and, and came to Egypt because there was a famine, this is with Joseph. And then they were there for somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 years or so, 300 plus years in the nation of Egypt. And then the amount of people goes from about 70 people to about 2 million people. And the people are crying out to God saying, we would like to be free of this nation of Egypt. They are making us slaves. And so God raises up this person named Moses, and over the course of about 80 years from his birth until their freedom from Egypt is what we see there. And then last week we looked at the tail end of that as they crossed the Red Sea and they came into this place called the wilderness. Can you say the wilderness?
[00:03:27] That's where we're going to be today. That's where the people are, is this wilderness. And I'll show you some pictures of what this lovely place called the wilderness looks like in a little bit. So that's kind of where we were. And then today we're going to start in chapter 19. They've just shown up at a place called Mount Sinai and the whole rest of the book takes place there. So let's pray and then we will get into God's word this morning. So if you would bow your heads and pray with me, Lord Jesus, we're so grateful, even as we just sung the songs moments ago, of your mercy that we celebrate today.
[00:04:03] We rejoice in knowing that we here today are not sitting here in fear and trembling, as we'll see the people of Israel were some thousands of years ago. But we sit here in confidence before you knowing that because of your great mercy, because of the blood of Jesus, the work that you did on the cross, we can come before you with confidence this morning knowing that not only do you care about us and do you hear us, but you love us and that you want to be in relationship with us. And your spirit dwells in us for those here today who have trusted in you as their savior.
[00:04:38] So, Lord, thank you for your mercy. Thank you for your grace that you show us. And as we spend time in your word, I pray that you would help us to have a high view of you that you would show us and you would teach us from your word who we are as your people. In Jesus name. Amen.
[00:04:57] All right, so we're going to jump right in, starting in Exodus, chapter 19, going through chapter 40. Here's just a brief snapshot, it's on the screen of what we're looking at today, just in a couple sentences. So this really, in these two sentences really summarize these 20 plus chapters or so that we're going to look at. So it says this. Now the Israelites that we just talked about a moment ago are free from the bondage of what, of Egypt. God now shares his laws with this young nation.
[00:05:26] God also provides them with detailed instructions for building this thing called the Tabernacle. And the people build it according to God's design. And so that's what we're going to look at most of the time. If you're like many in the life of even Christianity, in the church and such, we will read through Genesis. We see lots of things in Genesis and then we get to Exodus and we're like, well, what happens in Exodus? We know the plagues happen, the Red Sea and the Ten Commandments, right? Those are like the three big things that we know happen in Exodus. The rest of it are like a lot of other words and rules. I'm like, I don't know what to do with this.
[00:06:03] There's laws and there's rules and then they're building something.
[00:06:06] Let's go over to Leviticus. Nevermind, let's go back to Exodus.
[00:06:11] And so today what I want to do is just kind of help us zoom out to understand what are the major things that happen in this book to give us an understanding of what this book is talking about. Now, as we have done before, we're going to do again, we're going to look at the author, the timeline and the location. You can see that on your outline. You could write that in if you'd like.
[00:06:33] The author of this book is none other than Moses. He's the same individual who wrote the first five books of the Bible. The time frame that we're looking at here is somewhere around 1446 years before Jesus or BC. You could write that in if you'd like. And then I talked about earlier the location. Where is this happening?
[00:06:54] Mount Sinai.
[00:06:56] This is happening in an area called the Sinai Peninsula. Can you say that? The Sinai Peninsula. And what's interesting is we don't actually know, as far as I'm aware, where exactly this mountain is. There's A lot of mountains in this place called the Sinai Peninsula. And so this mountain is, though, very important, very, very transformative for this nation where God came and met his people and gave them these instructions. There's a couple pictures on the screen, I think. I think of where this is. Go to the next slides there. There's the timeline for us. So we've moved forward from Genesis. There's an arrow pointing towards where Exodus and Leviticus is. And move on to the next slide.
[00:07:37] There is some maps there. You can see Egypt in red. There's some lines there that kind of point the journey, the possible journey of the people of Exodus. I'm sorry, of as they exit Egypt. And then I zoom into a little bit further. Okay, I put some things on.
[00:07:53] There's the wilderness for you.
[00:07:56] That is there. One more, maybe.
[00:07:59] There you go. Doesn't that look pleasant?
[00:08:02] So what you want your garden in the backyard to look like when you imagine your vacation? This is what you think we should go see this? This is what they were wandering around through the wilderness. And there's this particular mountain, Mount Sinai. And that's where we start here in chapter 19. So if your Bibles are open, it says, at least in my Bible, it says israel at Mount Sinai. There's some key subjects that you want to write down here as we get into the outline. So the outline has the subjects, the structure and the Savior. Look at some of these subjects. You could write these people in, if you would like. God, obviously, the main character, the main actor in these chapters, he's the one that the people of Israel are meeting with. Then Moses, we've talked about him already, the one leading the people of Israel. They've already crossed the Red Sea.
[00:08:50] And we saw last week that the people got really upset because they were hungry and they were thirsty and they grumbled against this guy Moses saying, what are we here in the wilderness so that we could just die here instead of in Egypt? Aaron is the next individual. We're gonna learn a little bit more about him as well. He was Aaron's Moses older brother. When Moses was asking Pharaoh to let my people.
[00:09:15] Aaron was with Moses most of the time as the key spokesperson there on behalf of Moses. And then Joshua, he made an appearance last week, actually, when the people of Israel fought the Amalekites. He's going to make an appearance here. And this is really the first time in chapter 24, verse 13, that Joshua is noted as Moses assistant. Now, you know, perhaps after Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, what's the next Book Joshua. So Joshua, a key figure in this story and in the accounts to come and then obviously the Israelites as they're there before the mountain. So this structure, let's move to the structure portion. This is where we'll spend the bulk of our time. So if you have your Bibles, hopefully you're going to flip through these pages with me. There's four main sections that cover these chapters and it's a lot of chapters. But as we zoom out today we, we'll get clarity about what's happening and clarity is really what our hope is. We want to see what is God doing through these chapters. So particularly in chapters 19 through 24 you can write this in. They're receiving the law. They're receiving the law.
[00:10:25] And this happens at what's the mountain called?
[00:10:29] Mount Sinai. So the people arrive there and this sets the stage for what is to come. Look in your Bibles with me starting at verse four of chapter 19. This is really important for us to understand before we get into the rest of what happens because if we don't understand this, the rest can be really confusing. It says this in verse 4. Verse 5 is on the screen and following, but I'll start in verse four. It says, you yourselves have seen what I did. This is God speaking to the Egyptians. And how I bore you out on eagle's wings and brought you to my son.
[00:11:04] Look in your bibles. Looks like the words on the screen are pretty small there. Verse 5 goes on and says this.
[00:11:09] Now this is really important.
[00:11:11] Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all people. For all the earth is mine. And you shall be a kingdom of priests and, and a holy nation.
[00:11:32] So what's important there is this look in your Bibles, at least in my Bible there's the third word in, is really important now therefore, what's the next word in your Bibles? If. If. That word if is really important because here's what God is doing. He's saying, I wanna make a covenant with you. I wanna make if you will, a partnership or agreement with you. And then he says this. What's that two letter word? If. If you do what, what I'm gonna ask you to do, you will be. And here's what, look what he says. You will be my treasured possession among all peoples of the earth. And you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And that hinges on that two letter word. The two letter word is, is if. If you will do this Then you will do this. We make these kinds of agreements regularly in our lives. If you do this, then I will do this. And now here's what the people said to God. If you look in your Bibles to verse eight, look at all the people answered together and said, look what it says. All that the Lord has spoken, we will do. We will do. And then Moses, as the mediator between the people and God, Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord. Zia, can you maybe back that out and put it in PowerPoint instead of ProPresenter? Maybe that will help.
[00:12:48] Then we look a little bit further, and we see this. So God has said to Moses, moses, tell the people, I want to make them my nation, but. But they need to do something. That's that word, if. And so then people said, all right, yes, we wanna be God's nation, and we will do what God says. All right? So you with me there? There's that. Like, we're setting up this partnership. We're setting up this agreement, and God now is gonna show up at the top of this mountain and say, I'm gonna meet with you here. I'm gonna talk with you, Moses, here at the top of the mountain. Now, at the bottom of the mountain, that's where all the people are not even actually touching the mountain. If you look a little further in your Bibles, you. You're gonna see in chapter 19, verses 12 and 13, here's what God says. Let's say this is the mountain. All right? Here's this mountain.
[00:13:30] Here's what God said. Moses, I want you to make a barrier around the mountain so that nobody touches the mountain, because if someone touches it, either a person or an animal, they should be killed.
[00:13:42] So this is serious business for the people, for them to pay attention to what is going on on this mountain. Later on, we see that the mountain at the top, there's this cloud at times, there's this thunder. There's a devouring fire at times, it says. And so God says, this is incredibly important for you to pay attention to. I'm gonna meet with Moses here, and he's gonna go down the mountain, he's gonna talk with you. He's gonna come back up on top of the mountain, and he's gonna talk with me. This back and forth is gonna happen.
[00:14:13] So God sets the stage. I wanna be in partnership with you. I want to be in covenant with you.
[00:14:19] Do you wanna do that with me? And what was the people's response?
[00:14:23] Yes, all that you say, we are going to do it. Now we transition. God says, okay, you said you wanna be my people? That's great. Wonderful, right?
[00:14:34] So now I'm gonna give you some rules. And this is where you look at chapter 20. Look in your Bibles. Chapter 20 starts off with the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments, right? This is the reason God is giving them the rules. He says, hey, if you wanna be my people, that's great. I wanna be your God. I'm gonna make you a great nation. Do you wanna do that? They said, yes. God says, okay, I'm gonna give you rules now. I'm gonna give you rules to follow, laws to follow, so that you can demonstrate me around you and you can protect yourself. So here, the 10 Commandments is like the top 10 list, if you will. If you've seen like that, and you look at articles, here's the top 10, whatever it is. You're looking for a vacuum to buy. Here's the top 10 vacuums or whatever it is. Here's the top 10. This is incredibly important for you to pay attention to. And then after that, he lists off a bunch of rules, laws that kind of bring body or bring scope to what that's talked about. So look in your Bibles. Chapter 20, verses 1 through 21 is the Ten Commandments.
[00:15:35] And then we go on a little bit further.
[00:15:38] We see in chapters 20 through 23, there's details and there's rules for how to do this. So this is rules. Flipping your bibles to chapter 21, chapter 22, chapter 23, you find laws about slaves, about altars, about restitution, about social justice, about Sabbath, about festivals. There's hundreds, literally hundreds of laws that God puts before them.
[00:16:04] And then look at verse 24. So you've been flipping in your Bible. We started in 19, flip over to 24.
[00:16:11] Then Moses takes this. He writes down, look at verse four of chapter 24 with me. Look in your Bibles, there. It says this. Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. It's not on the screen here. And then verse seven, look what happens here.
[00:16:27] Then he took the book of the covenant. That is all of the laws he just wrote down. And he read it in the hearing of the people.
[00:16:35] And then what it says is this. And they said all that the Lord has spoken, we will do.
[00:16:42] We will be obedient.
[00:16:44] So then what happens is this. Moses took some blood from a sacrifice that he had just made and he threw it on the people. Doesn't that sound pleasant?
[00:16:54] You're like, glad you don't come to church today. And I'm like throwing blood.
[00:16:58] And then it says this. And behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. So, so here's what happens. God says, people, do you wanna be in covenant with me? Cause if you do, like, let me know, there's rules gonna be in place. They said, yes, God, we will do what you want. God says, okay, sounds good. He gives them how many commandments? At first, 10. And then he gives them probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 or so more rules or commands after that? Both positive things like, yes, you should do this and negatives. So please, positive and negative commands. And then Moses writes all of them down. He comes back before the people and says, all right, I'm gonna read it all. Wouldn't that take a while?
[00:17:38] Reads all of them. And what do the people say? We will.
[00:17:43] We'll do that. Yes, God, we are on the same page. Now, if you spend some time reading through these laws that God has, you might ask this question, why? Why are you giving them all of these?
[00:17:58] And there's two reasons. Maybe you want to write this down. There's at least two reasons that he gives them all of these. One's very practical and one's spiritual. The practical side is this. They're a brand new nation, and God is about to take them into a land called Canaan. And there's a bunch of other nations there of people who don't worship Yahweh, the one true God. And because of that, he says, I'm going to give you all of my rules that are going to keep you safe, that are going to protect you amongst all of the other people, both internally and amongst the ways that you eat food and externally against all of the other idolatrous nations that could be coming around you. So God gave them practically these laws to protect and preserve this nation so they wouldn't be destroyed. Secondly, the spiritual reason, all of these actually point us towards Jesus. Jesus is the one who met all of these laws. God gave the law to define sin and to demonstrate to the people, look, here's all of the rules. Are you gonna be able to keep all of them? What's the answer to that?
[00:19:01] No, not at all. Jesus came and said, I have met all of them for you. Because without Paul says this, if the law were not in place, how would I know what sin is or not, right? If there's not rules, how am I know if I'm breaking the rules or not? So God put the law in place, and then all these people are going, but we keep failing. We keep failing, we keep failing. And God's like, yes, I know.
[00:19:24] Cause I want you to know that you need a savior. And you are not that savior. Jesus is that savior. So that's the first part. They're receiving the law. And the people said, yes, we're gonna do it. And so now we move to the second part. On the screen there, there is instructions for a building. Instructions for a building in chapters 2530 through 31.
[00:19:47] So now Moses, he has given the law. He's given these rules, these laws to the people. They said, yes, we want to do it. God says, all right, yes, good. Now I want to dwell, my presence to dwell with you on earth. Now, this is incredibly unique because this is not something that has happened up to this point other than the garden of.
[00:20:12] Remember, way back in Genesis, it says that God walked among Adam and Eve. He walked in the garden with them.
[00:20:19] And since sin happened, God then has separated his people from his presence. And so now here's what we have. We have God saying, hey, people, I want to be with you. Do you want to be with me? I want you to be like my special priest, that is, my people that are called my own. And the people said, yes, we're going to obey you. We. We want that. And God says this, because you agree to that, I'm going to give you instructions to build something that is gonna be my presence with you on earth. And that's what we see here, this. Instructions for a building. Look at chapter 25, verse 8 in your Bibles. Look what it says there. It says this. And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.
[00:21:04] So here's God saying, I want to dwell with these people.
[00:21:09] And then after that, if you look in your Bibles, at least in mine, the next heading is the Ark of the Covenant. Then after that, the table of bread. And he goes on and on, giving them instructions.
[00:21:19] Blueprints. Can you say blueprints? So maybe that. Point two there, that's really what we're getting. We're getting blueprints for the tabernacle. Now I put some pictures on the screen that I think might be helpful as I read through the. The next few chapters, verses, chapters 25 and following, you can kind of flip in your bibles from chapter 25 forwards, there is a picture of or a rendition of a picture of the tabernacle. There's many of them out there on the outside.
[00:21:45] And through the. Through the Bible, actually, chapter 25 starts on the inside of the tabernacle and kind of works its way to the outside.
[00:21:52] We'll go backwards. You can see on the outside, there's this outer court with.
[00:21:58] With the curtain all the way around there on the outside. And then inside, you see that fire there. And that's where the altar is, this bronze altar. And next to that is a bronze basin. We see this in chapter 30 and chapter 27, God gave him instructions for how to build the bronze altar, how to build this basin of water that you see a little bit closer to the tent called the. What's that called? The tabernacle. All the way around, you see some animals kind of inside there that they would have brought the animals in and they would have sacrificed this animal on this altar made of bronze. And then after that, they would have. The priest would have washed their hands. So you see that bronze basin there. And then God in chapter 26 gives them details on how to do the curtains on clasps, on frames, bars, veils, screens. He gives them incredible detail on how to build this. This is important for later.
[00:22:51] Then inside, if you go inside that tent there, it's about 30ft by 15ft, and go one slide forwards, there's just another kind of picture of what that could have looked like. There's an altar of incense in there. There's the golden lamp stand. There's a table for bread. And then you go one step further past that curtain that you see at the end of the screen there, and you have the ark of the covenant. And in the midst of all of this, we see that God says in chapter 31. So flip forward in your Bibles to chapter 31. Here's what the Lord said to Moses.
[00:23:25] Chapter 31, verse 1. See, I have called Bezaal and the son of Uri, son of Hur, the tribe of Judah. And verse 3 of chapter 31. Look in your Bibles. And I have filled him with the Holy Spirit and with the ability and intelligence and with knowledge of all craftsmanship, and goes on to say that he has given him the ability to work with gold and silver and bronze and cutting stones and carving wood. God said, this is so important to me that I'm gonna take a special measure of my spirit and give it to these individuals. We see two people named. And then it says at the end, and all the men ability that they may make all that I have commanded you. So there's these three major portions. There's this outer courtyard. Then there's the holy place. That's that tent that we saw earlier. And then there's the Holy of.
[00:24:18] That's that much smaller room where the Ark of the Covenant is. Now, these instructions, again, we may look at them and say they're incredibly detailed. Why are these here? We saw the laws earlier. You're like, God, there are so many laws. Why is all of that there? We saw it's to protect and to preserve the nation of Israel and to point them towards Jesus here. Why are they so detailed? I want to just offer two things, two options. One, some say if you read through the details of this, you see some shadowing or some metaphors or some pictures back to when was the first time that God dwelled with his people on Earth. We talked about that a second ago with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. When you read through the details of how the tabernacle was built, you see stones used, architecture used. You see the wood, the way they're designing wood that even reflects back to garden like imagery. All right, so there's the first thing. The second for why he's giving them such detail about the tabernacle is this. It's pointing to something greater. It's pointing to the person and work of Jesus. And we're gonna see that in a little bit.
[00:25:31] So God clearly designs all of this and says, here's the rules. Here's what I want you to do. The blueprints. Can you say blueprints? Blueprints. So we've seen. The first section is God saying, I want to make a covenant with you. Do you want that? The people said, yes. Then God said, all right, here's all of the laws. Will you follow it? And the people said, yes. And then God said, great, Now I want to dwell with you. Here's the. What's the B word? The building or the blueprints for this tabernacle? And now Moses has all that written down. He's ready to go tell the people, hey, God has blueprints for you. He's ready to tell you what it is. This is Moses. He's been on the mountain for 40 days and 40, 40 nights. He's got it all ready. All right, you ready? People are going to say yes, right?
[00:26:17] Because that's what they said before. Now we get into chapter 32, and this is where things take a serious left turn, because the people are not all ready to say, yes, we're ready to worship God. We're ready for God's presence to be down with us. The third section you can see on your outline. And in the Bible, in chapter 32, we had the receiving of the law, instructions for building, but now they're going to break the. The covenant. And this is when everyone goes, man, come on, we're going so well.
[00:26:46] Chapter 32. There's three main concepts, main events that happen in chapters 32, 33, and 34.
[00:26:55] Chapter 32, we see that Moses is.
[00:27:00] He's ready. He has the blueprints, right? And then what happens is this.
[00:27:06] We see even that at the beginning of chapter 32, Moses, he's delayed. Can someone say delayed?
[00:27:13] Isn't it hard to wait on God sometimes, man? Couldn't he just. Couldn't God have just said, here's all the things, and not taken 40 days and 40 nights? Waiting on God can be really hard. And sometimes when we start waiting and waiting and waiting, we start to take things into our own hands, and things go poorly when that happens.
[00:27:32] Chapter 32 starts off and says this. The people realized that Moses was delayed.
[00:27:39] And so they said, we would like to take things into our own hands. And this is the other story that people often remember when we're considering Exodus, when the calf was made.
[00:27:49] So look in your Bibles there. We see here in verse one and two, it says this. The people gathered together to Aaron. Aaron is who Moses is.
[00:28:01] So he's like kind of by default, the next guy in charge. And he says, up. They said, up. Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what happened to him. Isn't that encouraging?
[00:28:16] He's up. They can literally look up the mountain and see the presence of God there. And they haven't heard from Moses. And they're thinking, we're waiting for too long. We're gonna take things into our own hands. And now they say, we want a God to worship. And they ask Aaron to make them a God. And so Aaron says, Verse 2. Look what it says. Take off your rings of gold that are on your ears, of your wives and your sons and your daughters, and bring them to me. And then here's what it says. Aaron took that. He melts down the gold and he makes a.
[00:28:45] He makes a calf. So we see in chapter 32, verses 1 through 24, there's this calf that is worshiped. And God knows this is going on. And God even tells Moses, if you look on in chapter 32, God says this to Moses, Moses, these people.
[00:29:05] God says, moses, there's the people. They're down there at the bottom of the mountain, and they have made another God Instead of me. Now let me alone for a while because I am so angry. Let me alone. Let my wrath burn. And I'm just gonna destroy them and start over with.
[00:29:23] And Moses says, God, please don't do that.
[00:29:29] Have you ever asked God for something?
[00:29:32] Moses says, please don't do that. Why?
[00:29:35] He gives him two reasons. He says, God, because if you do, people will say he speaks to God's promises and God's name. He says, God, you made a promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that you would bring about a great nation. So please don't do.
[00:29:51] And also people are gonna hear that you led these people out of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness and then destroyed them. So God, don't do that. And then it says in verse 14, look at your Bibles. Chapter 32, verse 14, it says this. Then God relents of the disaster that relents from destroying Israel.
[00:30:10] But just because God relents and shows mercy, doesn't mean the consequences are all gone, does it?
[00:30:16] Moses then comes down the mountain. He sees all the people. He's holding the stone tablets in his hand, these stone tablets with the commands of God, written by the finger of God, it says. And Moses gets really upset. He throws the tablets down on the ground and they what?
[00:30:31] And they break.
[00:30:33] Moses then goes down, similar to what Joshua will do later. He says, choose this day whom you will serve in slightly different language. And the people who come to Moses side, he says to them, and you chose the Lord today. These people chose their idol. You strap on your sword and run about the camp, one side to the other side, until I tell you to stop and kill those on the other side. Those people who said they were for the idol. And it says about 3,000 people died that day.
[00:31:01] Later on it says that God sent a plague to the people. That's the consequences that we see. And then something wonderful happens. Chapter 34, God says, I'm gonna hold to the covenant that I made, to the partnership that I promised. And God shows great mercy. Can someone say mercy? We sang about that earlier. God showed great mercy. And then chapter 34 is really like a take two. Moses goes back up the mountain. God rewrites the stones again. Moses rewrite.
[00:31:33] They spend 40 days and 40 nights back on the mountain again.
[00:31:38] And then when he comes down, finally we're ready for part four.
[00:31:44] So we see here that God gave them a law. He gave them blueprints. They messed up. God showed mercy and says, I'm still going to hold to my covenant. And we see that following this last part verse, chapters 35 through 40 is the tail end of this. When they already have the blueprints for this place called the what the tabernacle, go to that next picture. Here's that picture again. God says, I've already given you the blueprints for it and now I want you to start building it. And so that's exactly what they did. If you read through chapters 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, literally all it is is the people going, looking at the blueprints that we already looked at earlier and saying, and now we're gonna do it. And now we're gonna do it. And now we're gonna do it. They're just building exactly what God told them to build. And then chapter 40, hey, look at that, we're already at the last chapter of the book.
[00:32:34] Chapter 40 tells us something important. So flip to chapter 40 if you're not there already. Chapter 40 tells us something. In verses 16 and 17, this Moses did, that is he followed the blueprints according to all that the Lord had commanded them. So he did. Then in the first month of the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was erected. Then the verse 34 there also on the screen. Then the cloud that is the presence of God covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. This is a sign that they did it right. Isn't that a good ending to the story?
[00:33:15] Right? We agreed we were gonna do it God's way. We said we still wanted to follow his laws. Then we totally messed up. Then God showed us his mercy and then we did it God's way. And God said, look, I'm gonna show up, I'm gonna show up. He didn't punish them and say, nope, nevermind, you messed up. I don't wanna be with you anymore. He says, my mercy will persist. My mercy will persist. And in the midst of all of this, we see a picture of Jesus in at least three ways. Look in your Bibles with me.
[00:33:46] We see. If you wanna kind of flip back and forth, it's on the screen the first place we see the Savior. You could write this in. Jesus is our ultimate sacrifice.
[00:33:55] If you're familiar with these books in the Old Testament, you know that there is many times that people are sacrificing, they're offering animals because they want to be right with God, they want to experience God's forgiveness, they want to maintain a good relationship with God, but they know there's a problem similar to like the song that we sing, Lord, I know my heart is prone to wander Lord, I feel it like I know that my heart is pulling me away And. And I keep sinning over and over and over again. And so they have to keep sacrificing and sacrificing and sacrificing and sacrificing. And then even when they do that, they aren't even sure if they can approach God with confidence.
[00:34:37] Even the high priest, that's like the top priest there, after all these other sacrifices have been made once a year, he's able. On Yom Kippur, he's able to go into the holy of that small room. It's called the holy of Holies. And even then, he doesn't approach and enter in past the veil with confidence. He goes in with fear and trembling, hoping he dotted all his I's, crossed all his T's, because if he didn't, he's dropping dead. That's literally the kind of. That's what he's feeling as he walks into the presence of God. There is no confidence there. And then Jesus shows up on the scene, friends, and says, I am the ultimate sacrifice for the priests there. They could sacrifice and hope. They're doing all the things right. But when Jesus showed up, he's what we would call the last sacrifice needed.
[00:35:26] And it's because of him. On the screen, Hebrews speaks about this. It says this. Hebrews 10, 19, 23, it says this.
[00:35:34] Therefore, brothers, that is all of y' all listening, especially those who are familiar with the way of sacrificing since or because we have confidence to enter confidence, right? Did the high priest have confidence?
[00:35:48] No, but because we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of who?
[00:35:54] Jesus. By the blood of the Lamb, by a new and living way through the curtain. That's that picture, right? The high priest would have entered past this curtain going into the holy place. He would not have had confidence. But because of Jesus, you and I can have confidence to approach God. Sprinkled clean with full assurance of faith, with hope, without wavering. Jesus is the ultimate or the best and the last sacrifice needed for us to be able to approach God. Without Jesus, we're not covered in his blood unless there is appropriate fear and trembling. Remember, this was the mountain that we talked about earlier. The people looked at the mountain, they heard what was going on on the mountain, and they were terrified.
[00:36:38] It even says. And this leads on to the second one that we're gonna look at. Even says that Moses at times had fear.
[00:36:44] Notice this Jesus is our mediator. Hebrews again speaking about this Now, Hebrews chapter 12 draws this picture. You can look at that passage if you'd like. Draws this picture and says this. Here's this mountain of God, here's the people of Israel. And a mediator is someone who goes between the two. So Moses is this mediator. And it says even that Moses at time was fearful.
[00:37:08] God on earth, people on earth. And here's what Hebrews 12 tells us.
[00:37:14] Jesus brings about people, not just the nation of Israel, but all people everywhere and faces God who is in heaven, holy, high and lifted up.
[00:37:24] Jesus does this. He says Moses, he could barely be a confident mediator between Israel and God on a mountain. Jesus, though, as has great confidence as the mediator between all of humanity and God who is in heaven. Does that make sense? He is so much better than the mediator that Moses was on earth. Jesus is Moses mediated between a couple million people. Jesus has the power to mediate for all of creation. Those who come before him as seek him as Savior and Lord. We also see one last thing, three things here. I said earlier. Jesus is not only the ultimate sacrifice, he's not only the mediator of for us, between us and God. He also is, as we saw earlier, the blueprints of the tabernacle. It says in Hebrews 8 that this is a copy or a shadow of heavenly things. Verse 6 says this. It's on the screen, I think as well. But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry much more excellent than the Old as the covenant. He mediates is better. We just talked about that. This is much bigger or much better. That is Jesus as the mediator between all of humanity and God who is in heaven versus Moses, the mediator between broken Israelites and God on this mountain. Also we see in John 1:24 it says this, the Word. Who is the word in John 1, Jesus. The word became flesh. And it says it dwelt. That word dwelt is the same as tabernacled. Does that word sound familiar?
[00:38:56] Tabernacled among us, tented among us, showed up for a time to show us God in the flesh.
[00:39:04] The tabernacle made by God's design and to be done skillfully and perfectly wasn't just because God cared about pretty things, but because it was a foreshadowing of his perfect Son coming to do the work we find in the tabernacle. Listen to this. Namely, to be a sacrifice for sin, to cleanse people of unrighteousness, to be the light of the world, to be the bread from heaven to be the sweet aroma to the Father, to be the one who could solve the distance between man and God. And lastly to be the very presence of God demonstrating holiness and mercy. That's what Jesus did.
[00:39:45] That's what Jesus did. And so now with all of that said, we're gonna look right back at the tabernacle in just a minute. Moment. Let's just spend a couple minutes and unpack. What is this telling us? What do we do with this? What does this teach us about God?
[00:40:00] It teaches us many things, but I put just an option for us on the screen if you. You don't need to. But if you look Back to chapter 34, God says this when he's renewing his covenant with the people of Israel. He says some characteristics about himself. It's on the screen as well.
[00:40:18] Here's what God says in chapter 34, verses 6 and 7. It gives us some clarity about the character of God. What do we learn about God, particularly in those verses? Look what it says. It's on the screen here as well. It says this. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord. The Lord, a God who is merciful. Can you say merciful? Merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast. What?
[00:40:44] Love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions of sin. What do we learn about God? We see that God, he is merciful, he is slow to anger, he is abounding in love. These just clearly tell us the character of God. And not just that. Verse seven goes on and says this. But who will by no means clear the guilty. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, of the children's children to the third and fourth generation. What is this telling us there? Very short. And it's this sin has consequences and it doesn't just affect you. How many of you know that to be true?
[00:41:20] When you intentionally walk away from the Lord, the consequences that you reap from that don't always just affect you. It might affect your wife or your husband.
[00:41:29] It might affect your kids, your neighbors, your co workers.
[00:41:34] When we choose to do things our own way, it doesn't just affect us. It can affect other people in our life as well. What do we learn about humanity, about life? Go to the next one. God's laws and or boundaries are healthy and good.
[00:41:52] God does not give humanity rules to chain us, but to allow us to experience freedom, to allow us to experience joy. When humanity disobeys God's Laws, it can be dangerous and will cause pain to ourselves and also to others. So when we look through God's Word and we see things, we're like, I don't like that. That doesn't fix my life. It's not. The Bible needs to change to fit our lives. Our lives need to change to fit God's word if we want to experience the true joy and freedom that God desires for us.
[00:42:25] And lastly, what does it say about me? And I put this in the first person.
[00:42:29] Maybe you want to put something else here. Maybe this resonates with you. I must regularly pray and ask God to help me have a high view of him.
[00:42:39] If I keep my eyes turned upward, sin will be far from me. If one of my greatest struggles is maintaining a high and holy view of God, it is when I make God's ways and thoughts like my ways and thoughts that sin seems small and excusable.
[00:42:59] But if we perhaps even, like the Israelites, could have kept their eyes turned upwards at the holiness and the power of God at the top of the mount, they wouldn't have turned their eyes down and said, let's make gods for ourselves.
[00:43:12] But it was when they took their eyes off of the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and they looked down and said, I want to do things my way, that they strayed. Friends, for us as Christians, we have to be aware that our goal in life as followers of Jesus is to follow Jesus, not just run away from sin. Because sometimes we get so caught up with trying to avoid all of these little sins that we're not following Jesus. Are you with me? We get so caught up with like, I don't wanna do that, and I don't wanna do that. And I messed up there, and I messed up there, and I messed up there. And we get so bogged down with fear and shame and guilt. And Jesus is like, I'm over here.
[00:43:49] I'm right here. Run after me. Because the byproduct of running towards Jesus is what's gonna happen to sin. It gets further and further and further away.
[00:43:58] And so for followers of Jesus, maybe hone in on that. I want to look towards Jesus as the author and perfecter, finisher of my faith. He's the one that I want to emulate, Right? Jesus spent time with the Father regularly. He was looking upwards, not backwards.
[00:44:14] And too often we look backwards. We find ourselves in bondage.
[00:44:19] As we look to Jesus, we find that we can experience incredible.
[00:44:25] I'm gonna pray right now. We're gonna Transition and consider more of this freedom that we have in Jesus. We're gonna have a time of communion, enjoying the freedom that we have in Christ. So I'm gonna pray right now. Some of the ushers are gonna get ready and then we're gonna consider this a little bit more. If you would pray with me, Lord Jesus, thank you so much that we can come before you with confidence, not with fear and trembling like the people did 4,000 years ago, uncertain of their plight before you. We know because of the work of Jesus that we can approach you with boldness.
[00:44:58] We know that we can experience joy and freedom in our lives because of your spirit inside of us, changing us to be more like you.
[00:45:09] Lord, I pray that guilt and shame would not be the things that burden us today, but our heart and our minds would carry freedom, carry joy, would surrender to you whatever burdens we may be holding and experience the renewed joy that you continue to give us as we take a moment here right now and consider the cross of Jesus Christ.
[00:45:35] Pray that you would keep our eyes open to the severity of sin and to the power of, of your grace above all. In Jesus name, amen.
[00:45:46] We're gonna transition here. Some of the ushers are getting ready right now and getting some of the elements ready. If you.
[00:45:53] I've said this a while ago, but if you need a gluten free wafer, there's a cracker, a little wafer and the juice that are in the cups. If you need a gluten free wafer, if that's something that's important to you or necessary for you, ask one of the ushers who are passing the trays there and they can give you one as per your request. If you don't, that is just fine. I put this picture back on the screen because I want us to just pay attention to this for one more moment before we partake in communion together. And it's the picture of the tabernacle. I want this to just point to the work of Jesus as we remember 4,000 years after this was first built, what Jesus has done. The outer court, the entry point for worship.
[00:46:33] We find this large bronze altar symbolizing judgment on sin through substitutionary sacrifice.
[00:46:42] Animals died here to atone, temporarily pointing to Jesus Christ, the once and for all sacrifice. We see a bronze basin there. Priests would go there to wash their hands, symbolizing cleansing from defilement. It foreshadows spiritual washing through the blood of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit inside of us.
[00:47:03] As it's not on the screen, but as we enter into the holy place there, that tent there in the center, we find that there's a lampstand light showing that Jesus is the light of the world.
[00:47:18] We also find this table with bread on it. Jesus said, I am the bread of life.
[00:47:25] We also see this altar of incense daily, sweet smelling incense rising up to God. This shows us, Hebrews 7 speaks about this, that Christ intercedes for us as a priest, as the high priest on our behalf.
[00:47:40] And then there's the separation between the holy place and the holy of Holies. And it's separated by this massive curtain. When did that curtain tear in half? When Jesus did what died.
[00:47:52] When Jesus died, that veil was torn showing signifying open access to God because of what Jesus had done.
[00:48:01] And then as we look at the one item there in the holy of Holies, we have the ark of the covenant. And inside of it we have the law of God. And the top of the ark, you know what it's called? It's called the mercy seat.
[00:48:16] Showing that God's mercy covers us. We can't keep the law by ourselves. The mercy of God covers us, friends. Isn't that good news?
[00:48:26] And so as we take part in communion today, we celebrate that Jesus mercy covers us.
[00:48:33] It's not to say the law is pointless and God doesn't care about sin because he does. The cross tells us that he cares about sin. And also Jesus says, my mercy is more, my mercy is more. I'm going to take these elements here. We're going to pass them with ushers. And as we do, I want to encourage you to do three things. One, ask yourself, is there any part of my life that I need to lay before the Lord that I'm not in agreement with God on confession. I need to agree with God about the things in my life.
[00:49:00] The second thing, we want to consider or remember Jesus death on the cross on our behalf. And lastly, celebrate that you and I don't need to sit in shame or fear any longer. So think about that confession, considering and celebrating.
[00:49:36] In your hands you're holding a little cup with grape juice in it. And the other cup has a little wafer in it. I didn't say this earlier, if you've never trusted in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, I would encourage you do that right now.
[00:49:49] That's what this is for. If you have never done that, you could just put these little cups, if you've already taken them in the little cup holders on the back of the seat in front of you. This is for people who have trusted in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. And we do this because we've been commanded to do this.
[00:50:03] It reminds us, because we are forgetful people, that it is because of Jesus and his blood shed on our behalf, that we can have confidence when we approach him, that we can know without a shadow of a doubt that. That our sins have been forgiven. So if you've never trusted in Jesus, put this down somewhere or right now, trust in him. Because when we take this together, you're declaring, God has forgiven me. Here's what First Corinthians 11 said. This is Paul speaking, and he's writing, giving instruction to the church to say, take this.
[00:50:35] He says, for I received from the Lord, this is a command, what I delivered to you. Now he's kind of mediating, if you will. He's telling the church, this is what you should do.
[00:50:44] The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it. And he said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
[00:50:55] In the same way he took the cup after supper, saying, this is the new covenant or partnership agreement in my blood, not in the blood of animals. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death.
[00:51:13] Until he comes, let's eat together.
[00:51:18] And it's because of the blood of Jesus that we're able to have forgiveness. Let's drink together.
[00:51:25] Lord Jesus, thank you so much for the work that you did on our behalf so that we can approach the Father with confidence, knowing we are forgiven. You call us no longer servants, but friends. You bring us into your family and call us sons and daughters of the King.
[00:51:42] And today we rejoice in that. Thank you for your love, for your goodness, for your goodness.
[00:51:50] As we take time right now to again lift our voices in praise of your faithfulness and your goodness. Lord, I pray that you would continue to move in our hearts and teach us, show us what it looks like to live in a free and full relationship with you. In Jesus name, Amen.
