Episode Transcript
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Please remain standing if you're able,
and let's turn to John. Two passages
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this morning. First a John Chapter
Four, verses Twenty through twenty six,
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and then Hebrews. If you feel
you need to sit down, that's that's
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fine. It's a little bit longer
this morning. John Chapter four a twenty
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through twenty through twenty six. This
is where Jesus is meeting this woman,
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the Samaritan woman, at the well
and he has just confronted her about her
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sin and she asks him this question
about worship, something will consider this morning.
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John. For Verse Twenty, she
says, our father's worshiped on this
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mountain, but you say that in
Jerusalem is the place where people ought to
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worship. Jesus said to her.
Woman, believe me, the hour is
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coming when neither on this mountain nor
in Jerusalem will you worship the father.
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You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for
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salvation is from the Jews. But
the hour is coming, and is now
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here, when the true worshippers will
worship the father in spirit and truth,
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for the father is seeking such people
to worship him. God is spirit and
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those who worship him must worship in
spirit and truth. The woman said to
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him, I know that the Messiah
is coming, He who is called Christ.
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When he comes, he will tell
us all things. Jesus said to
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her. I who speak to you, am He. And now Hebrews Chapter
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Twelve, verses eighteen through a twenty
nine. Here that mountain, or the
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place of worship that Jesus speaks of
is is described here in contrast to Mount
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Sinai, the mountain that God brought
his people when he brought them out of
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the out of Egypt, so he
says here, Hebrews Twelve, verse eighteen.
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For you have not come to what
maybe touched. He's speaking of Sinai.
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Here a blazing fire and darkness and
gloom and a tempest and the sound
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of a trumpet and a voice whose
words made the hearers beg that no further
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messages bespoken to them, for they
could not endure the order that was given.
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If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed,
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so terrifying was the sight that Moses
said, I tremble with fear,
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but you have come to Mount Zion
and to the city of the Living God,
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the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable
angels, infestal gathering, and to
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the assembly of the first boar and
who are enrolled in heaven, and to
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God, the judge of all,
and to the spirits of the righteous made
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perfect, and to Jesus, the
mediator of a new covenant, and to
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the sprinkled blood that speaks a better
word than the blood of Abel. See
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that you do not refuse him who
was speaking, for if they did not
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escape when they refused him who warned
them on earth, much less will we
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escape if we reject who warns from
Heaven. At that time, his voice
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shook the earth, but now he
is promised yet once more, I will
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shake not only the Earth but also
the heavens. This phrase, yet once
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more, indicates the removal of things
that are shaken, that is, things
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that have been made, in order
that the things that cannot be shaken may
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remain. Therefore, let us be
grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be
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shaken, and thus let us offer
to God acceptable worship, with reverence and
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awe, for our God is a
consuming fire. You may be seated so
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just Jesus meets this woman, as
we've been considering for a few weeks,
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now this discussion that they have between
one another, this question about worship comes
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up. We say, she says, speaking of the Samaritans. We say
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that you have to worship here,
that's on Mountain Garozemas, that she has
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in mind. But you Jews,
she says to Jesus, think that it's
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in Jerusalem. and Jesus says kind
of two things, maybe three. One
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thing he says is you don't know
what you're talking about. He says,
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you're wrong. You worship what you
do not know. This tells us that
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there is a right way to worship
and a wrong way to worship. She
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is worshiping the wrong way. She's
thinking about it incorrectly. It's not just
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whatever we get to choose, for
our God is a consuming fire. We
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are to worship him with reverence and
Ah, the things that we do in
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worship really matter. And he says
that to her. You worship what you
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do not know. We worship what
we what we know. But at the
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same time Jesus qualifies this and says, but this is all changing. He
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says this, the system in which
we operate right now is about to undergo
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a significant change where we are not
going to be worshiping at that mountain,
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the wrong one, or at that
mountain, the right one, but another
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one altogether. What does he mean? Well, what he means is described
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for us in Hebrews twelve and other
parts of Hebrews, in the book of
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Hebrews, we learn that the earthly
Jerusalem, it's Temple, the mountain,
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the priesthood, all of that was
actually patterned after heavenly things. We learned
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that it's the things in heaven that
determined the pattern for the things on earth
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and that the things on earth are
really just a model, a shadow,
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a way of helping us understand a
little bit more about the greater thing that
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in heaven, and this heavenly kingdom
is described for us in Hebrews twelve through
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this contrast with yet another mountain.
Sometime we'll have to talk about the importance
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of mountains in scripture. That's fun
one. But this other mountain, Mount
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Sinai, as I mentioned before.
Mount Sinai is the mountain that God brought
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his people to after he brought them
out of Egypt. All right, we
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saying in and can it be about
God? I'm releasing us out of our
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bondage. My chains fell off right
I was set free, I went forth
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and I followed him. This is
describing, and I exodus. It's describing
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in some ways what God did when
he brought his people out of Egypt and
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when he brought him out of Egypt. He brought them to establish them as
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a people and as his people,
and he did that at Mount Sinai.
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What happened there is described at various
places in scripture and this is one of
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them. He's talking to them about
something that they are he assuming that they
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remember, and yet we have a
lot of details here. So it's helpful.
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Even if this is if this is
new to you, listen to it
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again. He says you have come, not this is now. He's going
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to describe Mount Sinai with what maybe
touched a blazing fire, a darkness,
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a gloom, tempest, trumpet and
a voice who made the hearers bag,
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made the heros bag, that no
further messages bespoken to them. Today I
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want to consider with you what it
means to worship God, what it means
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to hear him, and how that, because of what he says and because
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of who he is, how that
affects our responses, how it affects what
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we listen, how it affects how
we worship this woman. You do not.
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You worship what you do not know. You worship in the wrong place.
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You're waiting for the wrong things.
How does who God is and what
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he said as affect us? Well, we see the effect that his words
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had on his people at Mount Sinai. They begged him not to say anything
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else. So many people say,
if I could only have a word from
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God, right, if I could
only hear more from God, if I
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could, they assume that that would
just be okay. Right. These people
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received a word from God and they
said please stop. Even Moses, the
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scripture says, was terrified. Even
Moses, the one who had been talking
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with God in a very intimate way
for a quite a while before this moment.
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He was terrified. CAN YOU BE? Can you imagine standing at the
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foot of a mountain that was shaking
by the power and Voice of God?
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I'm trying to imagine anything that is
even come close in my own experience to
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that. The roar of the waves
maybe gets a little bit there. I
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mean, I really can't even think
of how scary that would be to stand
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at the base of a mountain that
looks like it's about to fall apart,
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and that is shaking and trembling and
on fire and and the Voice of God
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saying, touch it and you die. If even a beast touches this mountain,
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it shall die. And this was
all to communicate to them that he
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is holy, perfectly holy, that
he determines what is right and what is
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wrong, what is just and what
is unjust, what is true and what
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is not. You remember that it's
on Mount Sinai that he would then give
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them the ten commandments, the ways
in which they are supposed to love God
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and love their neighbor. With all
of this holiness, with the Great Law
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of God being proclaimed in this powerful
and memorable way, it terrified them,
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not just because it was powerful,
but because they understood, as we all
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understand, that there is a big
difference between God's holiness, his Justice,
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his righteousness, is goodness, and
us. We understand, we know,
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our consciences tell us that we can't
approach God if he stands before us and
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says you must be holy, we
know that we're not. Now sometimes we
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forget this and this affects how we
treat him. When we think of God
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is just a power, that it
is available when we think of God as
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a sort of as a vending machine
or as a buddy, when we think
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of him as our servant. And
of course we don't treat him in these
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ways, you know, we don't
treat him with reverence and awe. We
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don't treat him we don't have any
sense of fear in ourselves because we're fine
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the problems with him, because he's
not given me what I want. Right.
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That's all backwards. It's all very
backwards. So that's what that's how
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the scriptures describe what happened there at
Mount Sinai, when the law was given.
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There was a separation between God and
his people. There was fear,
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there was trembling. But that's not
where the Christians of the new covenant have
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come to. That Old Testament Mountain, that Mount Sinai, was the Old
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Covenant Mountain. It was where the
old covenant was established, where the law
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was given. Do this and you
shall live, God said. But there's
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been a change, there's been a
new covenant that has been made. Remember
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what Jesus, what Jesus says and
what the word says here and says that
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we have we come to Jesus.
This is verse twenty, for the mediator
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of a new covenant, and to
the sprinkled blood. That speaks a better
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word than the blood of Abel.
But this is pointing to is this is
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reminding us of this sacrifice that Jesus
made. The blood that Jesus sprinkled is
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an allusion to the Old Testament language
of the Holy Spirit sprinkling our hearts clean,
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something will consider about with August baptism
next week. This way in which
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the Lord cleanses us and he does
it by his own blood. Jesus,
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who is now standing in front of
this woman at the well, says I
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am he, I am the Messiah
who's come as one who is better than
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Jacob, one who is better than
Moses, one who is going to establish
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a new covenant, and he's going
to do it on the basis of his
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own blood. He's going to take
our sins upon himself. Our Holiness are
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our unholiness, to cleanse us so
that we can come together with God,
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so that, though we continue to
fear him because he never stops being a
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consuming fire, we relate to him
in a different way. Yes, there's
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trembling, yes there's fear, and
yet bold eye approach right. We see,
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we go before God and we go
before His throne boldly, not because
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you know, I guess I'm okay
and I've got my act together and I'm
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not sinning anymore. We go before
God because he's given us forgiveness, he
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has removed the separation and doesn't say
don't touch the mountain or I will strike
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you dead, but says come up
upon my Holy Hill in my name,
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I've provided for you a mediator,
and so verse. Twenty two you have
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come to Mount Zion, to the
city of the Living God, the heavenly
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Jerusalem. When Jesus establishes the new
covenant, Things Change in the worship of
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God. I noticed none of you
brought animals with you this morning for sacrifices.
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That was a good decision and that's
for a particular reason, because the
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sacrifice has been completed, because that
old system that was pointing and pointing forward
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to something else, that was patterned
after something heavenly, has has gone away,
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not in a way that leaves us
vacant with nothing to do, no
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God to worship, no way to
serve, no but with something greater.
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God hasn't left us, hasn't departed, and know he's made himself health known
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all the more in such a way
that we didn't have to travel to Jerusalem
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this morning to worship. We traveled
to the heavenly Jerusalem. This is where
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we have come, this is where
we stand, this is where we are,
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how because, of course we're here
in Tucson well, by the spirit
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of God, who unites us to
him and draws us up into the heavenly
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places. It's true, our physical
bodies are here, just as Jesus is
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physical body is not here. Nevertheless, by the spirit of God, we
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are united to him and we are
united not only to him, but we
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come into this place. You have
come, he says. He's not saying
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this will happen sometime in the future, he says right now to these Christians,
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even in the past. So this
is past, past, past,
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he says to these Christians in the
past and to us in the present,
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you have come to Mountain Zion,
the city of the Living God, the
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heavenly Jerusalem. And then he describes
that by saying to innumerable angels and festal
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gathering, Wow, and to the
assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in
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heaven, and to God, the
judge of all and to the spirits of
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the righteous made perfect, and,
of course, to Jesus, the mediator
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of a new covenant, and to
the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word
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than the blood of Abel. This
is where we are, this is where
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we stand. That changes things,
as he goes on to say, he
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says in Verse Twenty Eight, therefore, let us be grateful. That's one
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of our responses. Right. Be
Grateful for what? For receiving a kingdom
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that cannot be shaken. That word
about shaking their describes the versus we read
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earlier where he describes this kingdom right. So he says Mount Sinai was this
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mountain and it was shaken in a
way that was terrifying in a way.
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was that was frightening in a way
that separated God from unholy things. Mount
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Zion, however, is doesn't shake, because there's there's no need for a
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separation anymore. Here all is right
with God, his people, his angels,
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his creation, it's all there and
it's all solid. And in a
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way that certainly has a lot of
mysteriousness to it. He describes this mountain,
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this Mount Zion, this this city
that's heavenly, Jerusalem, it's something
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that's already existing, at the same
time that this world exists. And he
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says there will come a time when
all of this will be shaken, this
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world will be shaken in such a
way that it just falls apart and one
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thing will be left, the heavenly
city which you now belong to. So
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it's saying you are solid, you
are protected, you are secure that even
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as the world falls apart, as
it is shaken by the Justice and Wrath
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of God, you're okay, you
will remain. Why? Because you have
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been made holy, you have been
made clean through this blood that Jesus has
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shed. So when God speaks to
us from this mountain, we don't say
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stop, we don't say I can't
take it any more, I'm going to
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die if you talk to me any
more, because we've already died. In
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Christ we stand as those who are
alive, those who are permanent, those
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who are eternal. Instead of saying, don't talk to me any more,
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I can't bear it, we say
more and more and more and more and
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more. Let's worship more and more
and more and more. Let us,
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he said, the author says in
Verse Twenty Eight, let us offer to
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God acceptable worship with reverence and awe. So you can see, then,
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this word that has spoken to us
here is a word that is consistently spoken
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throughout the Bible, and all of
it ties up together in this place around
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Jesus. And that's why God says
things like he said in proverbs seven that
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we read are earlier. Treasure these
things. Hide them in your hearts,
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write them down on the tablet of
your heart. That's why Isaiah says,
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come by, you have no money, come by and eat. Listen diligently
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to me, he says, for
the benefit of your own soul. The
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word that we received from the heavenly
Jerusalem, the word of that we receive
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from Jesus, as he speaks to
us from this mountain and calls us up
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to it, in his in by
his sacrifice and in His grace, is
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a word of grace. It's not
a word of of threatening, it's a
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word of invitation. Come by,
e enjoy. I'm giving this to you,
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but of course it does have a
warning, a warning to those who
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refuse the gift. If, if
God's invites you, out of your wretchedness,
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out of your sin, out of
your poverty, out of your want
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and he says, come, here
are my gifts, I give them freely
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to you. Not a different God, the consuming fire God, still him.
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He gives these things to us.
And if we stand and we say
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I'm not interested, he says this, see that you do not refuse him,
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who is speaking verse Twenty Five.
For if they did not escape when
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they refused him, who warned on
earth, much less will we escape if
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we reject him who warns from Heaven. So when Jesus stands in front of
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the woman at the well and when
he stands in front of us and says
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I am he of whom you speak, our ears should open up. We
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should say, tell me more,
we should want to hear his words and
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hear them with faith, listening,
ready prepared open. At that time,
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his voice shook the earth, but
now he has promised yet once more,
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I will shake not only the Earth
but also also the heavens. My friends,
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you do not want to be one
of the people that remain when he
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shakes the earth. If you don't
belong to the heavenly places, if you
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don't belong to Jesus, if you
haven't had your heart sprinkled clean, if
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you don't belong to the new covenant, people of God. Then you will
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be consumed with the Holy Fire of
God. See to it that you do
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not refuse him, hear his word. It's offered to you graciously, wonderfully,
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with full of promises that are to
be treasured. Jesus tells a parable
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about a man who goes into a
field and he finds a treasure. What
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does he do? Buy The whole
field. Right, just buy is the
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whole thing. Immediately. Why?
He doesn't care about the field. He
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wants the treasure. Get the treasure. That's what God's Word says to us
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this morning. receive it then,
with eagerness, examine it, according to
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the scriptures here that it is true, it is the voice of your savior,
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and know that when you do receive
it, when you don't refuse it,
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when you take it in and you
say with gratefulness to God, thank
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you, thank you for saving me, thank you for changing me, thank
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you for opening my ears so that
I could hear your word. It will
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change it'll change you and it'll change
the way you worship. When you understand
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yourself as an unholy person, as
a sinner who has been saved by God
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himself. It's always it changes the
way you think. It becomes difficult,
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when we have those kinds of thoughts
in our minds and written on our hearts,
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to treat God as just another friend
or someone we could ignore, or
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someone who is on there to do
our bidding and follow our will. No,
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instead, we come to him with
joy and gratefulness and reverence and awe.
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My prayer for you is that you
would know God in this way,
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that you would know him not according
to the way that you imagine him,
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but the way that he is and
the way that he offers himself to you
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in the sacrifice of his son.
Let's pray
