Alright, if you can turn your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 10. We're going to be looking at verse 1 through 18, but I'm not going to read the whole thing because it's a little bit lengthy. I'm just going to read the first seven verses before we jump in. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 1 through 7.

Again I strongly encourage you, the text that we're going to be looking at each week is going to be posted up on Saturday. You can kind of guess what text I'm going to be on even before I put it on, but if you just want to be sure, I highly encourage you to do that before you come on Sunday.

It'll help you to be able to follow along the text. Okay, starting from verse 1, "For the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifice which they offer continually year by year make perfect those who draw near.

Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered because the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, 'Sacrifice and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure.' Then I said, 'Behold, I have come in the scroll of the book it is written of me to do your will, O God.'" Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your blessing. We thank you for the good things that you've given us, things that we are aware of, things that you are doing behind the scenes that we are not aware of. Help us, Lord, to open our eyes to see your glory. May your word shine greater light to who you are.

We thank you and we love you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You know, despite the pandemic and things being shut down, you know, there's a lot of people who are getting married, especially at our church. You know, I think every year there's probably at least 10 to maybe even 17 weddings that are going on.

And I know there's actually quite a few couples right now preparing and trying to figure out how to get this done in the pandemic. And you know, I think all the pastors are engaged in some sort of marriage counseling, you know, as this is going on and trying to figure out how to do all of these things.

But I think one of the key things, at least for me, when I meet with the young couples is about communication. I've learned throughout the years talking to various couples that one of the major conflicts in marriage is usually communication. And often people fight about how they're fighting rather than what they're fighting about.

You know, like how they said something or how they reacted to how somebody said something. And so much of it is because we have a difficult time communicating and understanding each other, right? Some of you are like me. I tend to be more direct. If I have something to say, I'll just say it.

You know, I'll say it and then you don't need to read between the lines. There's nothing in between the lines. If I'm upset, I'll tell you I'm upset. If I'm sad, I'll tell you I'm sad. Like I'm not going to leave it out there and kind of hopefully you guess, right?

But some of you don't communicate like that. Some of you, yes means yes. It could mean maybe, maybe no, you know, and it's kind of thrown out there and you kind of communication is not as direct because you tend to be more soft, compassionate, just a better person, you know.

But whatever the case is, the way we communicate is different. And so we kind of have to figure out how, what they mean by this and how they mean by that. And, and I think there is a benefit in both ways to communicate, right? When we think about the Old Testament, the Bible says that God spoke in shadows.

The tabernacle, it says in verse one, is a shadow and it's not the reality. It's about the good things to come. If you think about what he was communicating, he was talking about his nature and the salvation of mankind. Why didn't he make it clear? Why didn't he just spell out, this is Jesus.

This is atonement. This is pointing to the fact that your sins aren't going to be forgiven until he comes. He's going to come on this day. He's going to do this, this, and this. The shadow basically causes us to look at that and, and do some work to figure out what is, what does this mean?

Right? Because it wasn't the reality. So the question that we ask is, why did he communicate that way? I think in different cultures, just like I said, some, you know, I'm a type of person that needs, that is tends to be direct. And then there's other people who kind of beat around the bush and cause they don't want to hurt your feelings.

And they'll say certain things, hoping that you'll get it, you know? And it's like that in cultures too. And I realized that the Western culture gravitates toward the New Testament because New Testament is direct. It'll tell you, I'm Apostle Paul, you know, a bond servant of Jesus Christ. And I'm writing to you because these are my concerns.

And these are five things that I want you to think about. And here's my conclusion. Goodbye. Right? And that's how the epistles are written. You come to the Old Testament and you have some sacrifices, you have some incest, you have some idol worship, and then the end, you have some revivals and then the end.

And it's not crystal clear. And you kind of have to work to figure out what is the point here, right? Years ago, I was at a pastor's conference together for the gospel. And there's probably over 3,000 pastors there. And I remember one of the keynote speakers asked us, how many of you pastors are preaching through the Old Testament?

And so out of 3,000, only about 10 of us stood up. And I just happened to be one of those people who were standing. And I was very filled with pride. That's right. Right? Right? But I was surprised that out of that many people, only a handful of us are preaching through the Old Testament.

So obviously, his encouragement was, we need to get to the Old Testament. And the reason why we need to get to the Old Testament is because Old Testament prepares us for the New Testament. And just like anything else, because we live in a culture where we gravitate toward clear communication, we think that if it's not clear, we're just kind of like, OK, let the theologians and the seminary people, like, let them deal with it.

And so most people on the Western side where you and I live are pretty vague about the Old Testament. We kind of, we know the big stories about, you know, Noah, and we know about the flood, and we know about Abraham and Moses and the 10 plagues. But as soon as you go beyond that, that Sunday school lessons, very few people understand what's going on in the Old Testament.

But there's a reason why two thirds of the Bible are written in this format. It was to prepare for the coming of Christ. So what I want to look at today, this morning in Hebrews chapter 10, when he says, all these things were given as a shadow of the good things to come.

Why did he communicate this way? What is the purpose of the shadow? Why did he establish and put so much teaching of the tabernacle? And how does that affect us as Christians? Okay, so there's three things we want to look at in chapter 10. Number one, God used a shadow to cause us to long for the reality.

God used a shadow. We're talking about the tabernacle system and pretty much the old covenant. He communicated through the shadow to cause us to long for the reality. In Hebrews chapter 10 verse one, it says, or the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very form of the things.

In other words, if you're sitting somewhere and you see a big shadow, right, that's coming, the first thing you want to do is to do what? To look who is casting the shadow, right? Who is casting the shadow? So he said that the tabernacle was established as a shadow pointing to the reality that is to come.

In fact, the word gospel in the New Testament is called a mystery. The Greek word for that is musterion. And the word musterion literally means this, and this is straight out of the Bible dictionary. Musterion is that which is known to the muestes, the initiated, okay? Which probably means nothing to you, right?

But basically what it means is the gospel, the mystery means revelation to those who are seeking. Okay? That's basically what the gospel means, mystery. It is information that is given to those who are seeking. And that's exactly what Jesus says. When we look at the Beatitudes, and one of the Beatitudes is, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." Those who are hungering and thirsting shall be satisfied.

Not those who are just religiously going through the motion, but those who are actively seeking. So the first thing that he says is the purpose of the shadow is to cause in us a hungering for the reality. It's to cause us to come seek him out. Let me give you an example of that, okay?

You know, sometimes I've been to a wedding, I've been to weddings where the appetizer is so good, right? It makes you anticipate the main course. You're out there and man, this shrimp is awesome. And then the next thing comes out, it's like, "Oh my gosh, that was better than the other one." And then the next thing comes out, it's like, "Oh my gosh, this is so good." And you, as you eat the appetizer, you can't help but thinking like, "If the appetizer is this good, I wonder how good the main course is going to be." Because that's the purpose of the appetizer.

Appetizer is not meant to fill you up, it's to prepare you, get your, you know, get your taste buds ready, get your stomach juices flowing, and to anticipate. Now if you get full with the appetite, you don't have any room for that, but that was the purpose of the appetizer.

Now obviously, that's just an illustration. I've been to weddings where the appetizer was better than the main meal, right? But the purpose of the appetizer is to prepare you and to long for what is coming. So the shadow is kind of an appetizer to prepare us for the reality that was going to be found in Christ.

That was the whole purpose of the shadow. That's why it says in Matthew 7, 7 through 8, "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. He who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened." You know, as a pastor, one of the things that I really like enjoy engaging in is people asking questions, right?

Now there's a difference between asking questions and questioning. There's a huge difference. Sometimes people question because it's like, "I don't agree with you. Why is that happening? Why is this?" So they're not looking for answers. They're just challenging, right? But there are times when people will ask, genuinely ask questions because they want to know.

"Oh, I'm curious. I heard this. I don't get this. I want to know." And I enjoy engaging like that. People will say, "Oh, I don't want to bother you because you're so busy." But that's why I became a pastor. So when people are genuinely seeking, right, it's great to be able to engage and participate in that type of interaction.

You may ask, "Why does God even make us ask? Why doesn't He just tell us? Why does He make us seek? Why doesn't He just show up? Why does He ask us to knock? Why doesn't He just keep the door open?" See the whole point of what He's doing is He provided everything that we need for our salvation.

He gave His only begotten Son. But the only criteria, the only thing that He was asking of us is to seek Him. He wasn't just standing out and saying, "Well, if you show up to church, I'm just going to pass it out. If you show up to church and you're just raising a Christian home, I'm just going to pass it out." He says, "No." All He's asked us to do is make up our mind.

Are you going to follow Christ or are you just going to go through the motion? So the whole purpose of the tabernacle is to instill in us a hungering and thirsting for righteousness so that when we see the shadow, we would continue to ask the question, "What is the reality?" If the shadow is this good, what must the reality be like?

It's to build anticipation. You know, in 1 Corinthians 13, 9 it says, "For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with." Even now, the whole purpose of the Old Testament was to stir them up for the coming of Christ.

Now that Christ has come and He departed, part of the purpose of our gathering is to stir us up for anticipation for His second coming. So in order for us to anticipate that our hope is not here, but ultimately over there. That's why He says in 1 Corinthians 13, 12, "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face, now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known." You and I are gathered together here, and I know it's hot, and it may be uncomfortable, but you're not here because you miss my face, most of you.

You're not here because I'm so riveting that you're hanging on every single word. I know myself. Every once in a while, I'll hear my own sermon, and I can't stand my own voice. And sometimes I wonder, how do you do it? Only reason why you and I are gathered together is because we've tasted the goodness of God.

I just happen to be a mouthpiece in which I'm pointing you to Christ, but I don't have, I'm not gifted enough, talented enough, articulated enough to gather your attention in this hot sun for even a week. If it was for me, you wouldn't be here. You and I are here because we've tasted the goodness of God, and we want more.

But he said, "No matter what it is that you have experienced with God," he said, "it is like a child seeing through a mirror. It's dim." And all of this is to build anticipation. If Jesus that I met, even the little bit that I've tasted, is this good, what is it going to be like when we get to heaven?

The shadow was given to us to point to the reality, to cause us to hunger for the reality in Christ. You know, one of the questions that we commonly get is, "If you go to heaven, what will you say to Jesus?" What kind of questions will you ask? And I remember, I think it was last week when we were having the family feud that the Wongs put together, and one of the questions that was asked is, "What's a question that you would ask Jesus if you went to heaven?" And I think about that question a lot.

Not what am I going to ask, like how am I going to react? I remember when I was younger, when I first became a Christian, because I was young, in my teenage years, I was thinking, "Oh, when I meet Jesus, I'm going to hold his hands, I'm going to hug him." You know, even though I wasn't a baby at that time, because I see him as a father figure.

Now that I'm in my 50s, that doesn't seem appropriate. How am I going to react when I see Jesus? And I can't think of anything that I would say. And I have some questions. And my first question is, "What happened to Andrew? Why did he invite everybody and then not a part of the inner three?" And I want to know the human drama that happened with Andrew.

And I have a lot of questions. Pastor Peter Chung said that his question is, "Did Adam and Eve have a belly button?" You may all have different questions, but I think when we finally meet Christ, we're going to be speechless. That's what I think. I think we're going to be speechless.

We're not going to have words. If this small glimpse that we've tasted of the goodness of God is only dimly, is only a shadow, what is the reality going to be when we actually face to face with him? See, that's what the shadow was for, is to build anticipation so that we would long for his second coming, that we would not make this place our home.

That no matter how tempting and no matter how great it may seem temporarily, in light of the surpassing knowledge of knowing Jesus Christ, that all of this becomes rubbish. And that was the purpose of the shadow. The second purpose of the shadow is to cause us to long for true forgiveness.

True forgiveness. Hebrews chapter 10, 1-4, "By the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have the consciousness of sins." In other words, their repeated need for sacrifices pointed to the fact that their sin was constantly with them.

If the sacrifices that they made took away their sins, they wouldn't have to have to do it anymore. You see, the fact that they needed to do it over and over again was to teach him that they needed true forgiveness. Verse 3, "But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." The purpose of these sacrifices was not to take away sins, but to remind them of their sins.

Did you catch that? You see the difference between the two? When you make the sacrifices, you think, "Well, now I'm holy, now I'm clean, now I have direct access to God." But the author here is saying the purpose of these sacrifices and why it was done repeatedly over and over again is to remind them that no matter how much sacrifices you made, your sins still remain.

You have to do it again and again and again. Even the drama of the Day of Atonement, of all the sacrifices that they made, they would put their hands symbolizing the sins of Israel going out to the wilderness and the scapegoat being sacrificed for their sins. They would go through all of that drama and then next year they'd have to do it again.

He says all of that to remind them that those sacrifices had no power to actually forgive them. It's to remind them that the sins will still remain. You know, I think the best way to understand the shadow, the tabernacle, is kind of like the way we take Tylenol. You know, I've met some people who refuse to take Tylenol.

The reasoning that they give is, "Well, Tylenol doesn't fix the problem. It only hides the symptom." You get a bad headache and you say, "You know, I'm not going to take Tylenol because it harms my body and it's not going to fix the problem." Maybe you got a headache because of dehydration.

And so you take the pill to get rid of the headache, but it has nothing to do with dehydration. So Tylenol can be harmful if you never deal with the problem. If you don't drink water, if you take Tylenol and you don't drink enough water to get rid of the reason behind the headache, then the Tylenol becomes a problem.

So some people, and I've met some doctors who don't believe in taking Tylenol, right? But we take Tylenol so that we can function. We can function. It doesn't deal with the problem. We have to drink the water. We have to deal with the problem. But having the headache go away helps me to read, help me to study, help me to function without really curing the problem.

See, that was the tabernacle. The tabernacle basically dealt with the sins in order to be able to have a covenant relationship with this God without ever taking away the root problem. And that's what he was telling them. It took away the immediate symptom to be able to function with God, but it constantly told them, but the problem still remains because sacrifice has to be done again.

When Tylenol wears off, you have to do it again. You have to take it again because you're still dehydrated. He says that's the reason why he has this. So anybody who relies on their good deeds and religiousness, all they're doing is masking their sins with good works. And it eases their conscience for a minute.

But eventually the real problem is going to surface over and over and over again. But you know what's interesting? Hebrews 10.17. Hebrews chapter 10.3 says, "All these sacrifices were the reminders of sins year by year to cause them to remember, 'You are in your sins.'" But then we get to verse 17 and he says, "And their sins and their lawless deeds, I will remember no more." Did you get that?

The whole reason why he caused us to remember our sins is so that we may anticipate the only one who can actually deal with our sins. And he says he will remember no more. He's causing us to remember our sins so that we may run to the only one who can actually deal with the actual problem of sins.

And when we give it to him, he says he will remember it no more. Isn't that incredible? He said that's why he communicated to us through the tabernacle. So that we may be able to understand it. Psalm chapter 103 verse 12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transmissions from us." And then in Isaiah chapter 43, 25, "I, even I am the one who wipes out the transgressions of my own sake, and I will not remember your sins." I will not remember.

I wanted you to remember so that you will recognize that I will not remember when I come. You know, Satan has a lot of different names. But one of his key names that identifies how he works in our lives is an accuser. He's an accuser. The one who accuses.

He's the prosecutor. So if you have anything that he can cause you to feel guilty and stray away from God, he said that's his duty. In Jeremiah chapter 50 verse 20, this is what God says about the sins of Israel. And I want you to remember, if you've ever read through the Old Testament, it's basically history of Israel's sin.

How the curse of the law was being added upon them generation after generation after generation. So by the time we end the Old Testament, Israel is in utter despair. Almost every single king in Israel led Israel to sin. But here was what it says, Jeremiah 50 verse 20 in the New Covenant.

He says, "In those days and at that time, declares the Lord, search will be made for the iniquity of Israel, but there will be none." Did you catch that? He said, they're going to try to accuse Israel for their sins. They're going to search for their sins, but there will be none.

And for the sins of Judah, but they will not be able to be found, for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant. He said they're going to search for it. They're going to look to accuse Israel, but not because they are righteous, not because they got their act together and they're not going to sin anymore.

It says, because I will pardon them. And because I will pardon them, they will look for reasons to accuse them. They will search, actively search to find reasons to disqualify them, but they will not find it. He says, because I will pardon them. That was the whole purpose of the shadow, is to remind us of our sins so that we would run to the one who will not remember.

Third and finally, God used the shadow to cause us to long for true worship, for true worship. The text that we're looking at in verse 5 through 9 is almost verbatim a copy of Psalm chapter 40, verse 6 through 8, where David is crying out to God, and this is what he says.

He says, sacrifice an offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. Let's just stop right there. Sacrifice an offering you have not desired, meaning God did not desire it, right? Who commanded these sacrifices? Who commanded these sacrifices? They're not talking about idols. He didn't say, worship of idols I did not desire.

He didn't say that. We spent almost a year and a half studying the book of Leviticus about what God desired of these sacrifices. And yet here in Psalm, David says, sacrifice an offering you have not desired. Which is it? Why did you go through all of that drama, tell them to sacrifice, and then when they gave sacrifices, God said, I don't want it.

And then verse 6, in whole burnt offerings and sacrifice sin, you have not taken any pleasure. Not only did he not like it when they gave it, he said he found no pleasure. Verse 7, then I said, behold, I have come in the scroll of the book it is written of me to do your will, O God.

And after saying above, sacrifice an offering, then whole burnt offerings and sacrifice for sin you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law. In case anybody was thinking that the burnt offerings, they didn't follow the rules. And that's why. You know, I told you to give, you know, goat offering, you gave a lamb.

I told you to give a bull, but you gave this. He said, no, he said they followed the law. They did what God told them to do. Then why is he saying he finds no pleasure in them? Why does he say there's no pleasure in all of that? In fact, one of the harshest rebuked toward the nation of Israel is written in book of Amos and Isaiah, and their sin was superficial worship.

In Amos chapter 5, 21 to 23, listen carefully to the rebuke of Israel. I hate, I reject your festivals. Who commanded these festivals? God did. And yet God says, I hate, I reject your festival, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. Why were they assembling? Because God told them to assemble.

Even though you offer up to me burnt offerings, God commanded the burnt offerings and your grain offerings, God commanded the grain offerings. I will not accept them. I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. Take away from me the noise of your songs, the worship songs that you are singing, the guitar that you are playing.

He doesn't say, oh, you're worshiping me. He says, no, they are noise to me. I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. Man, that's harsh. And you can dissect all of this and saying, well, they're just following your instruction. We're assembling because you told us to assemble.

We're singing because you told us to sing. We're sacrificing because you told us to sacrifice. Then why do you reject this? Again, it's in Isaiah chapter 1, 12 through 14. When you come to appear before me, who required of you this trampling of my courts? We just automatically assume because we're gathered, he must be pleased.

I mean, at least we're sucking it up. I mean, this is not easy, right? I mean, we're pretty soft Christians here in the United States, but this is hard business, right? And so, hey, we must be godly. We just automatically assume if I showed up, God is worship. But he said, who required of you this trampling of my court?

He called their corporate worship trampling. Bring your worthless offerings no longer. This is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath, the calling of the assemblies. I cannot endure iniquities in solemn assembly. I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feast. They have become a burden to me.

I am weary of bearing them. Every little thing that he mentions in this text are things that he commanded the nation of Israel, and yet he says, I hate them. Why? Because God didn't ask for sacrifices because he was a connoisseur of dead meat. God didn't tell them to assembles because he liked his people coming and he wants to hear good music.

He didn't like the smell of barbecue. That was not the reason why he set this up. All of this was a shadow to point to the reality that we can only find in Christ. And what the Jews did was they gathered together and was going through the motion and checking off the list and thinking that that made them righteous before God.

And God says, your superficial worship to me is a burden. It does nothing other than blind us to think that we're righteous. Our sacrifices, our giving, our leadership, our singing, all of that in God's eyes become a burden because it fools us to think that we are more righteous than we really are.

Sometimes those people who've been raised in the church in good Christian homes are the first ones to be blinded. Those who have positions in the church as leaders in the church are the first ones to be blinded because we automatically assume that our title, our position, our work somehow makes us more righteous before God.

But what God desires more than anything else is true worship. What he wanted was worship, not the assembly, not the sacrifice, but worship. Hosea 6, 6, for I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offering. When was the last time you pursued God?

We always say God pursued us, but when was the last time you were hungering and thirsting for God and you wanted him and you wanted to know what he had to say and you went to the scriptures because you wanted to hear from him, not because you were accountable to the small group that you were at, not because you're a small group leader, not because of the title, not because there's a test coming up, but because you wanted to know God.

Because you wanted to worship him in spirit and in truth. He says the whole purpose of the tabernacle was to instill in us a hungering and thirsting that we may come to him to give him true worship. And that's why in Hebrews chapter 10, 15 to 16, the new covenant is described this way.

And the Holy Spirit also testified to us for after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws upon their heart and on their mind, I will write them. In other words, worship. What is God doing in our hearts that we express through our mouth is what God desires.

That's why when he encountered the Samaritan woman and say, well, you Jews worship on that mountain, but we say with that mountain and Jesus stops are right there. They worship and they may have the truth and you may think you have the spirit, but what God is looking for people who will worship him in spirit and in truth.

It is not enough that you and I learned the Bible week after week. In fact, we can easily be fooled because the word is getting into you that that's enough. You know more than other Christians. You've studied more than other Christians. And all that will do is to give you false confidence that somehow you're more righteous than other people.

If the spirit of God is not moving you to worship, if the word of God is not causing you to be broken over your sins and broken over the sins of the, of the world, and it doesn't cause us to reach out with the gospel and all it has done is added information after information after information.

What God desires is in spirit and in truth to worship him. And that's what the shadow was for. So now we come to the new covenant in Romans chapter one, chapter 12, one, didn't he say in view of the mercy of God to present your body as a living sacrifice.

You know, let me, let me wrap this all up with this. Okay. In the Old Testament, all the sacrifices fall into two categories, the mandatory offering and the free will offering. The mandatory offering is required. You cannot get to the presence of God unless there's a burnt offering or whole offering or sin offering or guilt offering.

Those offerings had to be made in order to have a relationship with God. And then there was the free will offering. It was when God blessed you or just out of the abundance of your heart, you just wanted to thank God. And so it was not mandatory, but you voluntarily brought things to God and you worshiped.

In the new covenant, the mandatory offering is complete in Christ. So when Jesus was dying on the cross, it says it is finished. He's saying that the mandatory offering, what is mandated for us to come to God has been done. It is finished. So when he requires of us a living sacrifice, he's talking about a free will offering for us to give to him from our hearts voluntarily.

So what we do, we volunteer to him because he's done so much for us out of thankfulness, out of act of worship. We give to him. We come to church, not because it's mandated, because I want to express to my God what he has done for me. I cannot begin to understand why he puts up with sinners.

And if there's any mystery that I just cannot figure out is why does he love us? I don't get it. I really don't get it. I mean, I've said this many times, but I don't have any compassion for cockroaches. None, zero. Because that's nothing to my life. It's a burden.

You know, it's disgusting. You know, and it's not because it brings disease. It's just I just don't want it. I think about our relationship with God and how we so easily get distracted. How easily we complain because we didn't get what we wanted. How easily we just get bored.

It's just bored. You know, everything else in this world seems so exciting, but God sometimes is bored. Why does he put up with this? I mean, just not to crush us. That in and of itself is a mystery. Why doesn't the earth just explode? Enough of this. These people burning Bibles and questioning me.

Boom, done. I just create something else. Do it over. I know he promised that he would never crush us again with the flood, but he's God. Once we're gone, who's going to question him? No, you said it's like start over. Why not? I would have done it. You would have done it.

I don't get it. I understand hell. I don't know about you, but I understand hell. Yeah, I mean, you can understand. I think you and I do understand hell. Why an almighty God would create hell. I get it. He's God. You mess with him, you get hell. I get that.

I don't get heaven. Why does he choose to show mercy to us? Why does he give his only begotten son for our sins? And that will remain a mystery to me. And I'm not sure if I get to heaven, that is going to be answered. I'm not sure. But the glimpse of what I have seen in him, there's nothing.

There's nothing on earth that compares. I pray with all my heart that as Christians living in this fallen world with all the distractions, with all the things that make us uncomfortable, that we would never lose the fact, lose the mystery of what it is that you and I sing every single Sunday.

That it's not just empty words. The mystery of the cross, I cannot understand. I pray that that mystery would cause us to persevere, endure, to be bold in sharing the gospel and be the light that God called us to be. Let's pray. Father, we just want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Lord, you know my sins better than I do. You know our weaknesses. Even now, Lord God, as we come to worship you, you know the burdens that we carry. You know the distractions and the temptations, bitterness, Lord, we harbor in our hearts. The anger that we refuse to let go of.

Forgive us. Help us, Lord God, to fix our eyes upon Christ, what he has done, what he has endured, the grace that he's given us, that we may have this life and have this life abundantly. That everything that we do may be a reflection of that grace you've shown us.

I pray, Father, that through the shadow, that you would cause us to hunger and thirst for the reality. As we remember our sins, that we would remember, Father God, that only you can forgive us and cast away our sins. That it would cause us to worship you genuinely in spirit and in truth.

May your name be glorified in all things. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.