back to index2020-8-16 The Purpose of the Shadow
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Alright, if you can turn your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 10. 00:00:21.240 |
We're going to be looking at verse 1 through 18, but I'm not going to read the whole thing 00:00:26.560 |
I'm just going to read the first seven verses before we jump in. 00:00:33.240 |
Again I strongly encourage you, the text that we're going to be looking at each week is 00:00:41.500 |
You can kind of guess what text I'm going to be on even before I put it on, but if you 00:00:46.000 |
just want to be sure, I highly encourage you to do that before you come on Sunday. 00:00:51.040 |
It'll help you to be able to follow along the text. 00:00:53.440 |
Okay, starting from verse 1, "For the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things 00:00:57.760 |
to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifice which they offer 00:01:02.960 |
continually year by year make perfect those who draw near. 00:01:06.800 |
Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered because the worshippers, having once 00:01:11.160 |
been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins. 00:01:14.920 |
But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year, for it is impossible 00:01:19.440 |
for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 00:01:22.120 |
Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, 'Sacrifice and offerings you have not 00:01:26.800 |
desired, but a body you have prepared for me. 00:01:30.080 |
In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure.' 00:01:34.640 |
Then I said, 'Behold, I have come in the scroll of the book it is written of me to do your 00:01:41.440 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your blessing. 00:01:45.000 |
We thank you for the good things that you've given us, things that we are aware of, things 00:01:49.520 |
that you are doing behind the scenes that we are not aware of. 00:01:53.640 |
Help us, Lord, to open our eyes to see your glory. 00:01:56.780 |
May your word shine greater light to who you are. 00:02:05.000 |
You know, despite the pandemic and things being shut down, you know, there's a lot of 00:02:10.120 |
people who are getting married, especially at our church. 00:02:13.400 |
You know, I think every year there's probably at least 10 to maybe even 17 weddings that 00:02:19.160 |
And I know there's actually quite a few couples right now preparing and trying to figure out 00:02:27.000 |
And you know, I think all the pastors are engaged in some sort of marriage counseling, 00:02:32.440 |
you know, as this is going on and trying to figure out how to do all of these things. 00:02:35.920 |
But I think one of the key things, at least for me, when I meet with the young couples 00:02:42.920 |
I've learned throughout the years talking to various couples that one of the major conflicts 00:02:51.480 |
And often people fight about how they're fighting rather than what they're fighting about. 00:02:57.040 |
You know, like how they said something or how they reacted to how somebody said something. 00:03:01.820 |
And so much of it is because we have a difficult time communicating and understanding each 00:03:10.320 |
If I have something to say, I'll just say it. 00:03:12.920 |
You know, I'll say it and then you don't need to read between the lines. 00:03:20.920 |
Like I'm not going to leave it out there and kind of hopefully you guess, right? 00:03:28.440 |
It could mean maybe, maybe no, you know, and it's kind of thrown out there and you kind 00:03:32.600 |
of communication is not as direct because you tend to be more soft, compassionate, just 00:03:43.120 |
But whatever the case is, the way we communicate is different. 00:03:46.840 |
And so we kind of have to figure out how, what they mean by this and how they mean by 00:03:52.640 |
And, and I think there is a benefit in both ways to communicate, right? 00:03:57.520 |
When we think about the Old Testament, the Bible says that God spoke in shadows. 00:04:04.320 |
The tabernacle, it says in verse one, is a shadow and it's not the reality. 00:04:11.160 |
If you think about what he was communicating, he was talking about his nature and the salvation 00:04:25.960 |
This is pointing to the fact that your sins aren't going to be forgiven until he comes. 00:04:32.680 |
The shadow basically causes us to look at that and, and do some work to figure out what 00:04:43.020 |
So the question that we ask is, why did he communicate that way? 00:04:48.320 |
I think in different cultures, just like I said, some, you know, I'm a type of person 00:04:54.000 |
And then there's other people who kind of beat around the bush and cause they don't 00:04:58.000 |
And they'll say certain things, hoping that you'll get it, you know? 00:05:03.340 |
And I realized that the Western culture gravitates toward the New Testament because New Testament 00:05:10.000 |
It'll tell you, I'm Apostle Paul, you know, a bond servant of Jesus Christ. 00:05:15.400 |
And I'm writing to you because these are my concerns. 00:05:18.120 |
And these are five things that I want you to think about. 00:05:25.000 |
You come to the Old Testament and you have some sacrifices, you have some incest, you 00:05:29.480 |
have some idol worship, and then the end, you have some revivals and then the end. 00:05:37.120 |
And you kind of have to work to figure out what is the point here, right? 00:05:42.240 |
Years ago, I was at a pastor's conference together for the gospel. 00:05:45.280 |
And there's probably over 3,000 pastors there. 00:05:48.140 |
And I remember one of the keynote speakers asked us, how many of you pastors are preaching 00:05:55.100 |
And so out of 3,000, only about 10 of us stood up. 00:05:58.000 |
And I just happened to be one of those people who were standing. 00:06:07.200 |
But I was surprised that out of that many people, only a handful of us are preaching 00:06:13.280 |
So obviously, his encouragement was, we need to get to the Old Testament. 00:06:17.080 |
And the reason why we need to get to the Old Testament is because Old Testament prepares 00:06:22.920 |
And just like anything else, because we live in a culture where we gravitate toward clear 00:06:28.400 |
communication, we think that if it's not clear, we're just kind of like, OK, let the theologians 00:06:34.900 |
and the seminary people, like, let them deal with it. 00:06:37.280 |
And so most people on the Western side where you and I live are pretty vague about the 00:06:43.120 |
We kind of, we know the big stories about, you know, Noah, and we know about the flood, 00:06:47.960 |
and we know about Abraham and Moses and the 10 plagues. 00:06:51.080 |
But as soon as you go beyond that, that Sunday school lessons, very few people understand 00:06:59.600 |
But there's a reason why two thirds of the Bible are written in this format. 00:07:07.680 |
So what I want to look at today, this morning in Hebrews chapter 10, when he says, all these 00:07:14.660 |
things were given as a shadow of the good things to come. 00:07:21.840 |
Why did he establish and put so much teaching of the tabernacle? 00:07:29.100 |
Okay, so there's three things we want to look at in chapter 10. 00:07:32.140 |
Number one, God used a shadow to cause us to long for the reality. 00:07:40.580 |
We're talking about the tabernacle system and pretty much the old covenant. 00:07:44.660 |
He communicated through the shadow to cause us to long for the reality. 00:07:47.860 |
In Hebrews chapter 10 verse one, it says, or the law, since it has only a shadow of 00:07:52.540 |
the good things to come, and not the very form of the things. 00:07:55.900 |
In other words, if you're sitting somewhere and you see a big shadow, right, that's coming, 00:08:01.620 |
the first thing you want to do is to do what? 00:08:10.300 |
So he said that the tabernacle was established as a shadow pointing to the reality that is 00:08:17.460 |
In fact, the word gospel in the New Testament is called a mystery. 00:08:25.900 |
And the word musterion literally means this, and this is straight out of the Bible dictionary. 00:08:29.860 |
Musterion is that which is known to the muestes, the initiated, okay? 00:08:39.700 |
But basically what it means is the gospel, the mystery means revelation to those who 00:08:50.580 |
That's basically what the gospel means, mystery. 00:08:54.900 |
It is information that is given to those who are seeking. 00:09:03.740 |
When we look at the Beatitudes, and one of the Beatitudes is, "Blessed are those who 00:09:10.180 |
hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." 00:09:16.900 |
Those who are hungering and thirsting shall be satisfied. 00:09:20.900 |
Not those who are just religiously going through the motion, but those who are actively seeking. 00:09:26.500 |
So the first thing that he says is the purpose of the shadow is to cause in us a hungering 00:09:42.820 |
You know, sometimes I've been to a wedding, I've been to weddings where the appetizer 00:09:51.580 |
You're out there and man, this shrimp is awesome. 00:09:55.300 |
And then the next thing comes out, it's like, "Oh my gosh, that was better than the other 00:09:59.180 |
And then the next thing comes out, it's like, "Oh my gosh, this is so good." 00:10:03.020 |
And you, as you eat the appetizer, you can't help but thinking like, "If the appetizer 00:10:07.900 |
is this good, I wonder how good the main course is going to be." 00:10:15.060 |
Appetizer is not meant to fill you up, it's to prepare you, get your, you know, get your 00:10:19.540 |
taste buds ready, get your stomach juices flowing, and to anticipate. 00:10:24.180 |
Now if you get full with the appetite, you don't have any room for that, but that was 00:10:31.740 |
I've been to weddings where the appetizer was better than the main meal, right? 00:10:36.040 |
But the purpose of the appetizer is to prepare you and to long for what is coming. 00:10:42.680 |
So the shadow is kind of an appetizer to prepare us for the reality that was going to be found 00:10:52.880 |
That's why it says in Matthew 7, 7 through 8, "Ask and it will be given to you, seek 00:10:56.940 |
and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. 00:11:02.480 |
He who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened." 00:11:08.400 |
You know, as a pastor, one of the things that I really like enjoy engaging in is people 00:11:18.600 |
Now there's a difference between asking questions and questioning. 00:11:24.440 |
Sometimes people question because it's like, "I don't agree with you. 00:11:34.740 |
But there are times when people will ask, genuinely ask questions because they want 00:11:45.000 |
People will say, "Oh, I don't want to bother you because you're so busy." 00:11:50.200 |
So when people are genuinely seeking, right, it's great to be able to engage and participate 00:12:16.280 |
See the whole point of what He's doing is He provided everything that we need for our 00:12:23.560 |
But the only criteria, the only thing that He was asking of us is to seek Him. 00:12:29.160 |
He wasn't just standing out and saying, "Well, if you show up to church, I'm just going to 00:12:33.160 |
If you show up to church and you're just raising a Christian home, I'm just going to pass it 00:12:43.280 |
Are you going to follow Christ or are you just going to go through the motion? 00:12:47.800 |
So the whole purpose of the tabernacle is to instill in us a hungering and thirsting 00:12:53.200 |
for righteousness so that when we see the shadow, we would continue to ask the question, 00:12:59.280 |
If the shadow is this good, what must the reality be like? 00:13:08.000 |
You know, in 1 Corinthians 13, 9 it says, "For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 00:13:12.480 |
but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with." 00:13:16.640 |
Even now, the whole purpose of the Old Testament was to stir them up for the coming of Christ. 00:13:22.800 |
Now that Christ has come and He departed, part of the purpose of our gathering is to 00:13:28.360 |
stir us up for anticipation for His second coming. 00:13:32.700 |
So in order for us to anticipate that our hope is not here, but ultimately over there. 00:13:40.160 |
That's why He says in 1 Corinthians 13, 12, "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then 00:13:46.820 |
face to face, now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been 00:13:54.280 |
You and I are gathered together here, and I know it's hot, and it may be uncomfortable, 00:14:01.320 |
but you're not here because you miss my face, most of you. 00:14:07.200 |
You're not here because I'm so riveting that you're hanging on every single word. 00:14:14.840 |
Every once in a while, I'll hear my own sermon, and I can't stand my own voice. 00:14:23.600 |
Only reason why you and I are gathered together is because we've tasted the goodness of God. 00:14:27.040 |
I just happen to be a mouthpiece in which I'm pointing you to Christ, but I don't have, 00:14:32.240 |
I'm not gifted enough, talented enough, articulated enough to gather your attention in this hot 00:14:42.500 |
You and I are here because we've tasted the goodness of God, and we want more. 00:14:47.260 |
But he said, "No matter what it is that you have experienced with God," he said, "it is 00:14:56.220 |
If Jesus that I met, even the little bit that I've tasted, is this good, what is it going 00:15:04.380 |
The shadow was given to us to point to the reality, to cause us to hunger for the reality 00:15:10.600 |
You know, one of the questions that we commonly get is, "If you go to heaven, what will you 00:15:19.440 |
And I remember, I think it was last week when we were having the family feud that the Wongs 00:15:24.240 |
put together, and one of the questions that was asked is, "What's a question that you 00:15:36.480 |
Not what am I going to ask, like how am I going to react? 00:15:39.760 |
I remember when I was younger, when I first became a Christian, because I was young, in 00:15:44.400 |
my teenage years, I was thinking, "Oh, when I meet Jesus, I'm going to hold his hands, 00:15:49.040 |
You know, even though I wasn't a baby at that time, because I see him as a father figure. 00:15:54.000 |
Now that I'm in my 50s, that doesn't seem appropriate. 00:16:03.200 |
And I can't think of anything that I would say. 00:16:07.040 |
And my first question is, "What happened to Andrew? 00:16:10.440 |
Why did he invite everybody and then not a part of the inner three?" 00:16:14.320 |
And I want to know the human drama that happened with Andrew. 00:16:19.800 |
Pastor Peter Chung said that his question is, "Did Adam and Eve have a belly button?" 00:16:26.360 |
You may all have different questions, but I think when we finally meet Christ, we're 00:16:38.740 |
If this small glimpse that we've tasted of the goodness of God is only dimly, is only 00:16:45.460 |
a shadow, what is the reality going to be when we actually face to face with him? 00:16:51.300 |
See, that's what the shadow was for, is to build anticipation so that we would long for 00:16:56.060 |
his second coming, that we would not make this place our home. 00:16:59.340 |
That no matter how tempting and no matter how great it may seem temporarily, in light 00:17:03.460 |
of the surpassing knowledge of knowing Jesus Christ, that all of this becomes rubbish. 00:17:11.100 |
The second purpose of the shadow is to cause us to long for true forgiveness. 00:17:17.820 |
Hebrews chapter 10, 1-4, "By the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, 00:17:25.900 |
Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshippers, having once 00:17:29.820 |
been cleansed, would no longer have the consciousness of sins." 00:17:33.060 |
In other words, their repeated need for sacrifices pointed to the fact that their sin was constantly 00:17:39.900 |
If the sacrifices that they made took away their sins, they wouldn't have to have to 00:17:45.140 |
You see, the fact that they needed to do it over and over again was to teach him that 00:17:52.940 |
Verse 3, "But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year, for it is 00:17:58.580 |
impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." 00:18:03.620 |
The purpose of these sacrifices was not to take away sins, but to remind them of their 00:18:12.820 |
When you make the sacrifices, you think, "Well, now I'm holy, now I'm clean, now I have direct 00:18:19.460 |
But the author here is saying the purpose of these sacrifices and why it was done repeatedly 00:18:24.120 |
over and over again is to remind them that no matter how much sacrifices you made, your 00:18:36.820 |
Even the drama of the Day of Atonement, of all the sacrifices that they made, they would 00:18:42.100 |
put their hands symbolizing the sins of Israel going out to the wilderness and the scapegoat 00:18:49.180 |
They would go through all of that drama and then next year they'd have to do it again. 00:18:54.100 |
He says all of that to remind them that those sacrifices had no power to actually forgive 00:19:00.820 |
It's to remind them that the sins will still remain. 00:19:04.540 |
You know, I think the best way to understand the shadow, the tabernacle, is kind of like 00:19:11.500 |
You know, I've met some people who refuse to take Tylenol. 00:19:17.540 |
The reasoning that they give is, "Well, Tylenol doesn't fix the problem. 00:19:23.460 |
You get a bad headache and you say, "You know, I'm not going to take Tylenol because it harms 00:19:27.220 |
my body and it's not going to fix the problem." 00:19:31.020 |
Maybe you got a headache because of dehydration. 00:19:33.660 |
And so you take the pill to get rid of the headache, but it has nothing to do with dehydration. 00:19:38.900 |
So Tylenol can be harmful if you never deal with the problem. 00:19:44.540 |
If you don't drink water, if you take Tylenol and you don't drink enough water to get rid 00:19:47.760 |
of the reason behind the headache, then the Tylenol becomes a problem. 00:19:51.660 |
So some people, and I've met some doctors who don't believe in taking Tylenol, right? 00:20:05.020 |
But having the headache go away helps me to read, help me to study, help me to function 00:20:15.220 |
The tabernacle basically dealt with the sins in order to be able to have a covenant relationship 00:20:20.980 |
with this God without ever taking away the root problem. 00:20:26.780 |
It took away the immediate symptom to be able to function with God, but it constantly told 00:20:32.740 |
them, but the problem still remains because sacrifice has to be done again. 00:20:37.880 |
When Tylenol wears off, you have to do it again. 00:20:39.760 |
You have to take it again because you're still dehydrated. 00:20:46.700 |
So anybody who relies on their good deeds and religiousness, all they're doing is masking 00:20:59.860 |
But eventually the real problem is going to surface over and over and over again. 00:21:08.340 |
Hebrews chapter 10.3 says, "All these sacrifices were the reminders of sins year by year to 00:21:14.580 |
cause them to remember, 'You are in your sins.'" 00:21:18.380 |
But then we get to verse 17 and he says, "And their sins and their lawless deeds, I will 00:21:27.300 |
The whole reason why he caused us to remember our sins is so that we may anticipate the 00:21:32.260 |
only one who can actually deal with our sins. 00:21:40.300 |
He's causing us to remember our sins so that we may run to the only one who can actually 00:21:47.820 |
And when we give it to him, he says he will remember it no more. 00:21:54.540 |
He said that's why he communicated to us through the tabernacle. 00:22:00.620 |
Psalm chapter 103 verse 12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed 00:22:07.580 |
And then in Isaiah chapter 43, 25, "I, even I am the one who wipes out the transgressions 00:22:12.420 |
of my own sake, and I will not remember your sins." 00:22:18.580 |
I wanted you to remember so that you will recognize that I will not remember when I 00:22:24.580 |
You know, Satan has a lot of different names. 00:22:29.020 |
But one of his key names that identifies how he works in our lives is an accuser. 00:22:41.400 |
So if you have anything that he can cause you to feel guilty and stray away from God, 00:22:48.440 |
In Jeremiah chapter 50 verse 20, this is what God says about the sins of Israel. 00:22:53.820 |
And I want you to remember, if you've ever read through the Old Testament, it's basically 00:23:01.340 |
How the curse of the law was being added upon them generation after generation after generation. 00:23:08.520 |
So by the time we end the Old Testament, Israel is in utter despair. 00:23:14.720 |
Almost every single king in Israel led Israel to sin. 00:23:19.260 |
But here was what it says, Jeremiah 50 verse 20 in the New Covenant. 00:23:22.120 |
He says, "In those days and at that time, declares the Lord, search will be made for 00:23:28.040 |
the iniquity of Israel, but there will be none." 00:23:35.120 |
He said, they're going to try to accuse Israel for their sins. 00:23:39.520 |
They're going to search for their sins, but there will be none. 00:23:41.880 |
And for the sins of Judah, but they will not be able to be found, for I will pardon those 00:23:50.960 |
They're going to look to accuse Israel, but not because they are righteous, not because 00:23:54.640 |
they got their act together and they're not going to sin anymore. 00:24:00.680 |
And because I will pardon them, they will look for reasons to accuse them. 00:24:06.320 |
They will search, actively search to find reasons to disqualify them, but they will 00:24:17.120 |
That was the whole purpose of the shadow, is to remind us of our sins so that we would 00:24:23.240 |
Third and finally, God used the shadow to cause us to long for true worship, for true 00:24:31.600 |
The text that we're looking at in verse 5 through 9 is almost verbatim a copy of Psalm 00:24:36.800 |
chapter 40, verse 6 through 8, where David is crying out to God, and this is what he 00:24:44.040 |
He says, sacrifice an offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for 00:24:53.040 |
Sacrifice an offering you have not desired, meaning God did not desire it, right? 00:25:05.160 |
He didn't say, worship of idols I did not desire. 00:25:10.760 |
We spent almost a year and a half studying the book of Leviticus about what God desired 00:25:16.920 |
And yet here in Psalm, David says, sacrifice an offering you have not desired. 00:25:24.800 |
Why did you go through all of that drama, tell them to sacrifice, and then when they 00:25:30.920 |
And then verse 6, in whole burnt offerings and sacrifice sin, you have not taken any 00:25:39.140 |
Not only did he not like it when they gave it, he said he found no pleasure. 00:25:43.360 |
Verse 7, then I said, behold, I have come in the scroll of the book it is written of 00:25:49.160 |
And after saying above, sacrifice an offering, then whole burnt offerings and sacrifice for 00:25:53.160 |
sin you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them, which are offered according 00:26:01.480 |
In case anybody was thinking that the burnt offerings, they didn't follow the rules. 00:26:07.300 |
You know, I told you to give, you know, goat offering, you gave a lamb. 00:26:10.640 |
I told you to give a bull, but you gave this. 00:26:18.140 |
Then why is he saying he finds no pleasure in them? 00:26:22.480 |
Why does he say there's no pleasure in all of that? 00:26:25.600 |
In fact, one of the harshest rebuked toward the nation of Israel is written in book of 00:26:32.640 |
Amos and Isaiah, and their sin was superficial worship. 00:26:38.200 |
In Amos chapter 5, 21 to 23, listen carefully to the rebuke of Israel. 00:26:51.360 |
And yet God says, I hate, I reject your festival, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. 00:26:59.640 |
Even though you offer up to me burnt offerings, God commanded the burnt offerings and your 00:27:04.240 |
grain offerings, God commanded the grain offerings. 00:27:08.160 |
I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. 00:27:11.840 |
Take away from me the noise of your songs, the worship songs that you are singing, the 00:27:25.080 |
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. 00:27:29.960 |
And you can dissect all of this and saying, well, they're just following your instruction. 00:27:33.000 |
We're assembling because you told us to assemble. 00:27:36.960 |
We're sacrificing because you told us to sacrifice. 00:27:41.040 |
Again, it's in Isaiah chapter 1, 12 through 14. 00:27:44.520 |
When you come to appear before me, who required of you this trampling of my courts? 00:27:50.600 |
We just automatically assume because we're gathered, he must be pleased. 00:28:01.040 |
I mean, we're pretty soft Christians here in the United States, but this is hard business, 00:28:10.760 |
We just automatically assume if I showed up, God is worship. 00:28:14.200 |
But he said, who required of you this trampling of my court? 00:28:30.400 |
New moon and Sabbath, the calling of the assemblies. 00:28:32.720 |
I cannot endure iniquities in solemn assembly. 00:28:35.640 |
I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feast. 00:28:44.680 |
Every little thing that he mentions in this text are things that he commanded the nation 00:28:56.160 |
Because God didn't ask for sacrifices because he was a connoisseur of dead meat. 00:29:02.560 |
God didn't tell them to assembles because he liked his people coming and he wants to 00:29:14.880 |
All of this was a shadow to point to the reality that we can only find in Christ. 00:29:19.400 |
And what the Jews did was they gathered together and was going through the motion and checking 00:29:23.480 |
off the list and thinking that that made them righteous before God. 00:29:27.920 |
And God says, your superficial worship to me is a burden. 00:29:34.440 |
It does nothing other than blind us to think that we're righteous. 00:29:39.620 |
Our sacrifices, our giving, our leadership, our singing, all of that in God's eyes become 00:29:47.260 |
a burden because it fools us to think that we are more righteous than we really are. 00:29:54.400 |
Sometimes those people who've been raised in the church in good Christian homes are 00:30:01.580 |
Those who have positions in the church as leaders in the church are the first ones to 00:30:06.120 |
be blinded because we automatically assume that our title, our position, our work somehow 00:30:15.560 |
But what God desires more than anything else is true worship. 00:30:19.640 |
What he wanted was worship, not the assembly, not the sacrifice, but worship. 00:30:25.760 |
Hosea 6, 6, for I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice and in the knowledge of God 00:30:38.640 |
We always say God pursued us, but when was the last time you were hungering and thirsting 00:30:42.720 |
for God and you wanted him and you wanted to know what he had to say and you went to 00:30:47.840 |
the scriptures because you wanted to hear from him, not because you were accountable 00:30:51.200 |
to the small group that you were at, not because you're a small group leader, not because of 00:30:55.080 |
the title, not because there's a test coming up, but because you wanted to know God. 00:31:01.480 |
Because you wanted to worship him in spirit and in truth. 00:31:03.960 |
He says the whole purpose of the tabernacle was to instill in us a hungering and thirsting 00:31:08.960 |
that we may come to him to give him true worship. 00:31:12.480 |
And that's why in Hebrews chapter 10, 15 to 16, the new covenant is described this way. 00:31:19.360 |
And the Holy Spirit also testified to us for after saying, this is the covenant that I 00:31:23.560 |
will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws upon their heart 00:31:35.440 |
What is God doing in our hearts that we express through our mouth is what God desires. 00:31:40.400 |
That's why when he encountered the Samaritan woman and say, well, you Jews worship on that 00:31:44.040 |
mountain, but we say with that mountain and Jesus stops are right there. 00:31:49.080 |
They worship and they may have the truth and you may think you have the spirit, but what 00:31:53.920 |
God is looking for people who will worship him in spirit and in truth. 00:31:59.520 |
It is not enough that you and I learned the Bible week after week. 00:32:04.200 |
In fact, we can easily be fooled because the word is getting into you that that's enough. 00:32:15.260 |
And all that will do is to give you false confidence that somehow you're more righteous 00:32:22.240 |
If the spirit of God is not moving you to worship, if the word of God is not causing 00:32:26.360 |
you to be broken over your sins and broken over the sins of the, of the world, and it 00:32:30.520 |
doesn't cause us to reach out with the gospel and all it has done is added information after 00:32:39.940 |
What God desires is in spirit and in truth to worship him. 00:32:46.120 |
So now we come to the new covenant in Romans chapter one, chapter 12, one, didn't he say 00:32:51.920 |
in view of the mercy of God to present your body as a living sacrifice. 00:32:57.880 |
You know, let me, let me wrap this all up with this. 00:33:02.480 |
In the Old Testament, all the sacrifices fall into two categories, the mandatory offering 00:33:10.320 |
You cannot get to the presence of God unless there's a burnt offering or whole offering 00:33:16.600 |
Those offerings had to be made in order to have a relationship with God. 00:33:22.800 |
It was when God blessed you or just out of the abundance of your heart, you just wanted 00:33:27.720 |
And so it was not mandatory, but you voluntarily brought things to God and you worshiped. 00:33:34.200 |
In the new covenant, the mandatory offering is complete in Christ. 00:33:40.520 |
So when Jesus was dying on the cross, it says it is finished. 00:33:43.880 |
He's saying that the mandatory offering, what is mandated for us to come to God has been 00:33:51.220 |
So when he requires of us a living sacrifice, he's talking about a free will offering for 00:33:56.840 |
us to give to him from our hearts voluntarily. 00:34:01.680 |
So what we do, we volunteer to him because he's done so much for us out of thankfulness, 00:34:09.900 |
We come to church, not because it's mandated, because I want to express to my God what he 00:34:17.160 |
I cannot begin to understand why he puts up with sinners. 00:34:23.720 |
And if there's any mystery that I just cannot figure out is why does he love us? 00:34:35.600 |
I mean, I've said this many times, but I don't have any compassion for cockroaches. 00:34:52.080 |
You know, and it's not because it brings disease. 00:34:57.840 |
I think about our relationship with God and how we so easily get distracted. 00:35:04.640 |
How easily we complain because we didn't get what we wanted. 00:35:11.720 |
You know, everything else in this world seems so exciting, but God sometimes is bored. 00:35:30.440 |
These people burning Bibles and questioning me. 00:35:37.840 |
I know he promised that he would never crush us again with the flood, but he's God. 00:35:42.760 |
Once we're gone, who's going to question him? 00:35:58.560 |
I don't know about you, but I understand hell. 00:36:26.280 |
Why does he give his only begotten son for our sins? 00:36:32.560 |
And I'm not sure if I get to heaven, that is going to be answered. 00:36:39.360 |
But the glimpse of what I have seen in him, there's nothing. 00:36:47.980 |
I pray with all my heart that as Christians living in this fallen world with all the distractions, 00:36:59.240 |
with all the things that make us uncomfortable, that we would never lose the fact, lose the 00:37:05.880 |
mystery of what it is that you and I sing every single Sunday. 00:37:13.360 |
The mystery of the cross, I cannot understand. 00:37:16.920 |
I pray that that mystery would cause us to persevere, endure, to be bold in sharing the 00:37:22.300 |
gospel and be the light that God called us to be. 00:37:30.400 |
Father, we just want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts. 00:37:45.120 |
Even now, Lord God, as we come to worship you, you know the burdens that we carry. 00:37:49.620 |
You know the distractions and the temptations, bitterness, Lord, we harbor in our hearts. 00:38:00.080 |
Help us, Lord God, to fix our eyes upon Christ, what he has done, what he has endured, the 00:38:06.640 |
grace that he's given us, that we may have this life and have this life abundantly. 00:38:12.000 |
That everything that we do may be a reflection of that grace you've shown us. 00:38:17.040 |
I pray, Father, that through the shadow, that you would cause us to hunger and thirst for 00:38:24.000 |
As we remember our sins, that we would remember, Father God, that only you can forgive us and 00:38:34.620 |
That it would cause us to worship you genuinely in spirit and in truth.