God of Imminence

Transcript

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

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

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

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

so I will do my best to try to help you stay along and navigate as we go through Scripture. But if you don't have a Bible, there's one around you in some of the chairs, or you have a Bible on your phone as well. But we're going to be in Scripture quite a bit today, So yeah, I would love for you to follow along. So chapter 25 verse one, "'The Lord said to Moses, "'Speak to the people of Israel, "'that they take from me a contribution. "'From every man whose heart moves him, "'you shall receive the contribution for me. "'And this is the contribution that you shall receive "'from them, gold, silver, and bronze, "'blue and purple and scarlet yarns, "'and fine-shwined linen, "'goats hair, pan-ram skins, goat skins, acacia wood, oil for the lamp, spices for the anointing, oil for the fragrance of incense, onyx stones, and stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breast piece.

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

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

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

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

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

And we continue seeing that as we read throughout the chapter. So we're going to be picking back up in verse 10. And I will admit this reading that I'm about to do is not the funnest, not the most fun reading. It can be a little laboring and a little boring. But the reason that I do want to read these next 12 verses for you, is so that you can get somewhat of a sense of what the Israelites were having to go through themselves. You can get somewhat of the requirements that they had for yourself and kind of feel that detail and that minunity. So it says, they shall make an arc of acacia wood, two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. You shall overlay it with pure gold. Inside and outside shall you overlay it. And you shall make it on a molding of gold around it. You shall cast four rings of gold for it

and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it and two rings on the other side of it. You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark by them. The pole shall remain in the rings of the ark. They shall not be taken from it. And you shall put the ark of the testimony that I shall give, or you shall put into the ark testimony that I shall give you. You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be its length and a cubit and a half its breadth." Sorry, I haven't had allergies today, so my mouth is a little bit dry. Um, and you shall make them two cherubim of gold, of hammered work you shall make them, on two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the, on one end and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make

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

this process and commanding them to build it himself. And the reason that he does this is God commands things in our life and does things even without our permission for our benefit a lot. Like he says earlier in Exodus, I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Notice he doesn't just say I brought you out of Egypt. He says I brought you to myself. Anytime that God rescues us, it's not so that we can go live our life and be free and be saved and just go to to heaven when we die, He rescues us to Himself so that once we are saved, we can become more like Him and grow in Him. Second thing to point out is that the ark is the heart of the whole sanctuary. If any of you have ever seen Indiana Jones, it's pretty good representation of what we're talking about here. It is a gold plated chest that had the ark, that had the testimony inside of it, and then above it was the mercy seat. And we read in verses 21 and 22 that this

This is the place that God said He would meet the Israelites at. So you can essentially kind of think of this mercy seat, this Ark of the Covenant, as God's throne on earth. Obviously, He still had His throne in heaven. That's where He reigns. But when He was going to dwell with His people of Israel, this was essentially where His throne was going to be. And really, that's what made the Ark so special. It wasn't that it was made out of pure gold and had the testimony of God inside of it. It was that God's presence was going to dwell there. That's what made the art so significant. So Indiana Jones was looking for a whole bunch of nothing because the significance in that God was part of that. And the third thing to point out is that everything surrounding God's presence is completely ordered. I'm not going to read the rest of the chapter, but we can see in the rest of the chapter

that God is making much of the same instructions about the bread and the lampstand and it's very, very, very detailed. And the idea is not to get fixated on the little bitty tiny details and try to figure out each little bitty tiny symbol for every little bitty thing in the tabernacle. There is symbolism for a lot of stuff in the tabernacle. But the idea that I'm trying to focus on right now is that all of these details reveal the value of the tabernacle. Just like with our dog analogy earlier, we know that the dog owner that gives you more instructions and gives you more details probably cares about their dogs more. And so it's the same similar concept here. God giving the Israelites all of these specific instructions was Him trying to make a point that hey, I care about this a lot. And so I'm wanting you to put the same sort of care and detail that I have into this as

well because this is where I'm going to dwell with you guys. This is where I'm going to live. But that does raise attention because the Israelites and us are sinful people and God is a holy God. So how can a holy God dwell with sinful people? Well, we start to get a little bit of a glimpse of how that's tackled in chapter 26, which is where we're going to be moving on. Again, I'm not going to read all of the chapter. I'm actually going to skip over the first 29 verses because it's much of the same giving instructions for exactly how the tabernacle should be structured and built. It's a very good read if you want to read it on your own time, but for the sake of I'm not bogging you down to it today. We're gonna go jump straight to verse 30 and read through 34.

So Exodus 26 starting in verse 30. "'Then you shall erect the tabernacle "'according to the plan for it "'that you were shown on the mountain.'" Again, we see God using that language. "'And you shall make a veil of blue and purple "'and scarlet yarns and fine-shwined linen. "'It shall be made with cherubim skillfully worked into it. And you shall hang it on four pillars of Acacia overlaid with gold, with hooks of gold on four bases of silver. And you shall hang the veil from the claps and bring the Ark of the testimony in there within the veil. And the veil shall separate for you the Holy Place from the Most Holy. You shall put the mercy seat on the Ark of the testimony in the Most Holy Place." So we get the idea right there that this separation is happening in the veil. Yes, there's some things to point out. It's all beautiful. It's all gold. It's all silver.

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

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

And so the key idea really of all of chapter 26 is that while God does desire to draw near to us, he's still holy. He's going to draw near, but he's still going to be separate from us. And so that takes us into chapter 27, where we move on from a little bit of the structure and the furniture of the tabernacle, and we get into a little bit more of an idea of what the people were going to be ordered to do. We're still getting instructions for things being built and whatnot, but we start to get a little glimpse of exactly what these priests going to be in ministering. And again, Drew will cover that more, but I'm going to briefly touch on it today. So we'll be in chapter 27. We're going to read the first eight verses. You shall make the altar of Acacia wood five cubits long and five cubits broad. The altar shall be square and its height shall be three cubits. And you shall make horns for it on its four corners. Its horns shall

be of one piece with it and you shall overlay it with bronze. You shall make pots for it to receive its ashes, and shovels and basins and forts and firepans. You shall make all its utensils of bronze. You shall also make it make for it a grafting, a network of bronze. And on the net you shall make four bronze rings at its four corners. And you shall set it under the ledge of the altar so that the net extends halfway down the altar. You shall make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with bronze. And And the pole shall be put through the ring so that the poles are on the two sides of the altar when it is carried. You shall make it hollow with boards. As it has been shown to you on the mountain, so shall it be made." Again God loves repeating Himself to provide emphasis and it is the same thing we see there. So the altar of sacrifice was essentially before the priest could enter into the Holy

Place. provide a sacrifice on the altar and this is what this is for because like I just mentioned only way to be able to enter God's presence is through their emission of sins and through bloodshed and so that is exactly what the priest had to do. You can't just casually walk into the presence of God and expect everything to just be okay. He is a holy God, we are a sinful people so that has to be dealt with before we can just approach God. So we're going to jump ahead to verse 20 and we're just gonna read a couple verses there to get a little bit more of an idea of what the people were doing. So now to verse 20 here in chapter 27. You shall command the people of Israel that they bring to you pure pure beaten olive oil for the light that a lamp may regularly be set up to burn. In the tent of meeting outside the veil that is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall tend to it from evening to morning before the

Lord. It shall be a statute forever to be observed throughout their generations by the people of Israel." So, Drew is going to cover this more later, but essentially the idea there was that God does want to draw near so that He can dwell with us, but He also wants to provide that sanctuary and that tabernacle so that His people have a proper place to worship Him and to minister to him. He doesn't want them to just do this randomly and in different locations. He wanted to provide an actual location and place where his people could come properly worship and minister for him. And then the last thing that I want to point out is, notice how the further we get away from the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies, the less valuable the materials are. The Ark of the Covenant was made of pure gold. Everything in there was pure gold. And And then we get right outside of that,

right outside the veil into the holy place. And things are starting to be made of silver. And then you exit the sanctuary. You're still in the walls of the tabernacle. And then now this altar out of it is made of bronze. So you go from gold to silver to bronze. And the idea there is that the closer you get to God, the more fearful he becomes and the more glorious and beautiful he becomes. And that's something that I experienced in my own life. The more that I grow and learn to know about God and grow in relationship with Him, the more I fear Him, but the more I also fall in love with Him and find the beauty in Him. And that's kind of the imagery that we see here going on with the materials getting less and less valuable. So the key idea for chapter 27 is that although God does draw near to us, He sets the terms on how we are to worship Him. And He sets the terms on how we are to follow Him.

So a recap of all of these three chapters, because I know it was very, very fun and a lot to take up, is that the Holy God who desires to dwell with his people provides a way to approach him despite their sin. Now I was thinking about saying even through their sin, but I thought you'd get the idea, is that even despite us being sinful people and having nothing good to bring to God, he still provides a way for us to approach him. And this leads me to my next, sorry. And that way for us to approach him is obviously through Jesus. He imprided the way for the Israelites to approach him through the tabernacle in the Old Testament. New Testament, we see that the way that we can approach the Father is through Jesus. And so this leads me to my next point is that Jesus fulfilled everything that we see in the Old Testament perfectly. Perfectly. Everything that you see in the tabernacle,

Jesus fulfilled perfectly. Now, I don't have time to get into exactly how he fulfilled every little bitty piece, but if you wanna take a time yourself, you can look up exactly how Jesus was the fulfillment of the tabernacle and how he fulfilled much of the Old Testament. But in order to kind of flesh this out a little bit more, we're gonna be turning to the book of Hebrews. And we'll be in Hebrews 9 and then also chapter 10. Now, at this point in the sermon, I thought about just reading Hebrews 9 and 10 and just letting that preach for me because it is that good and it is that rich, but we're gonna kinda break it down and dissect it piece by piece. So we'll be in Hebrews 9 starting in verse one. Let me turn there as well. All right, so Hebrews 9 starting in verse one.

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

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

that we're talking about in Exodus was not supposed to be the final order. The final order was yet to come. And we see that final order whenever we continue reading here in Hebrews. So picking back up in verse 11, here's the final order. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, Then through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands, that is not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a hifer sanctify for the the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore, He is the

mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive a promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant." So we see obviously that Jesus Jesus is that final perfect order. God didn't want to leave the tabernacle as the final peace for his dwelling. He wanted to send his son to complete that final order. And that's why I said earlier that Jesus is the fulfillment of much of what we see in the Old Testament. Jesus is the perfect priest who is able to intercede and minister us to the Father daily. He's the perfect king who rolls over us and reigns over our lives every day. He's the perfect prophet who's able to speak the whole truth and counsel of God. the perfect sacrifice who's able to once and for all take away all of our sins forever. And he's also the perfect tabernacle.

And that's why he says to the Pharisees that in three days I will destroy the temple and in three days I will build it back up. He wasn't talking about the physical temple in Jerusalem. He was talking about his own body because his own body was the temple. He was saying that in three days I'm gonna die and then I'm going to come back to life and that is going to be the proof that you guys have. And so Jesus was the perfect fulfillment of a lot of what we see in that Old Testament. And that's why I think reading the Old Testament is so important because we can see Jesus all throughout the Old Testament. Not every single verse is talking about Jesus, but the idea and the entire intention of the Old Testament from Genesis all the way to Malachi is that it is waiting for this person. it is waiting for the Messiah. Even right at the beginning of Genesis in the first few chapters, we have a promise of a Messiah.

So the perfect and final order, even before the tabernacle was made, was already prophesied to come, and we see that fulfilled in Jesus. So we're gonna continue here in Hebrews 9, but we're gonna jump ahead a little bit, and we're gonna be starting in verses 23. And we're gonna see a little bit of how this tabernacle was a foreshadow of what was to come. So Hebrews 9:23,

every year with blood and not of his own. For then he would not have, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin and sacrifice of himself, or by the sacrifice of himself. So we see that Jesus didn't just die solely for the forgiveness of our sins. Yes, that's a big deal. We need our sins forgiven. But like I said earlier, he saved us and redeemed us for himself. Everything is about Christ, everything is about God. Even him saving us and being loving and sacrificial, it's still about him. He still gets all the glory in the end. God doesn't do anything that doesn't glorify his own name. And so God in saving us glorifies himself. So we'll be done in chapter nine. Now we're gonna be jumping into Hebrews 10. We're gonna skip the first nine verses.

It's very rich. If you have not read the book of Hebrews, please go read the book of Hebrews. It makes a lot of sense, especially after you read the Old Testament. But we're gonna be resuming here in Hebrews 10 verse 10. "'And by that will we have been sanctified "'through the offering of the body "'of Jesus Christ once for all. "'And every priest stands daily at his service, "'offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, "'which can never take away sins. "'But when Christ had offered for all time "'a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he is perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to this, saying, This is the covenant that I will make with them. After those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds.

Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. where there is forgiveness of these, there's no longer any offering of sin. So Jesus wants to be in communion with us just as God wanted to be in communion with the Israelites in the Old Testament, and he provides a way through that through his bloodshed on the cross. Except this time, God doesn't just set the terms and conditions and on tablets, and he doesn't just set the terms for the people to follow in any instructions, instead he set those very terms inside of our heart. He sets His will and His law inside of our hearts so that we may meditate on it and know it. And again, He draws us near, but it is on His terms. So we've just spent the entire time talking about how you can't just casually walk into God's presence and how there has to be order in the way that is done. So when we get to Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19, something incredibly extraordinary happens.

So let's read. hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near." So like I just said, we spent the entire time talking about how you can't just walk into God's presence. And then Hebrews 10-19 comes along and says, you can now walk into God's presence. And that is something that I think we need to find absolutely amazing. The Israelites could not even dream of something like this happening. Being able to just approach God at any time and make any request to him was wild. I mean, they were thinking you had to do sacrifice, you had to have bloodshed, you had to do all these things because God made it clear that there's order to approaching Him.

So what does all of this mean for us? Well, one, it means that we've been given new instructions. We still have order, just because Christ did all of the work on our behalf doesn't mean that we're just free to do what we want. We still have order. So the old order and the old instructions was that of a tabernacle and sacrifices. The new instructions for us is how we respond to what Jesus has done, is how we respond to Jesus fulfilling that sacrifice and that tabernacle. And we see these instructions for us being laid out here in this chapter in Hebrews. So I'm gonna break it down and I'm gonna give you three that we can kind of take home with us and that we can use to help us remember and help us draw near to God. And that's the first one is that we are to draw near to God. The way has been opened to us, it's wide open, the door is wide open, but we still have a choice to walk through that door.

We still have a choice to go to God. Just because he's opened the way for us doesn't mean that he's going to just drag us in through that way. He wants us to come to him. He wants us to be drawn near to him. Am I wrong Paige? I was made fun of for writing all of my sermons. So I guess this is what I get is that I get mixed up a little bit with my own writing. So a way that we can draw near to God is pray even when you don't feel like it. Even when times are tough and you don't feel like going to God, pray anyways. I promise you, God knows your heart, so just be honest with Him. Even if your prayer is God, I don't really feel like talking to you right now, so please just bear with me and listen to me. He respects that. He wants you to be honest with Him. He doesn't want you to come with a mask and act like everything is fine and dandy. He wants you to be upfront and honest with Him.

So even when you don't feel like it, pray. The other thing that you can do is, even when life is hectic and you don't have much time, open his word. Do you make time every day to eat food and to drink water? Of course. Well, it should be the same thing. His word is our spiritual food. So if we just go on without eating his spiritual food, then our spirit starts to become perch, and our spirit starts to become hungry, and we start to get weak. So it is very, very important that even when life is hectic, We open his word and we have our soul nourished and our spirit nourished. Another thing we can do is confess sin to one another. Bible says, know the truth and it will set you free. Well, I think this is much of the same thing. Whenever we don't confess sin to one another and we just continue living in that, we are living in a lot.

We are living in straight lies by not confessing our sin. God wants us, yes, to confess our sins to him, obviously he's the only one that can actually forgive us of our sin, but he also wants us to confess our sin to one another because we have each other here for a reason, and we're going to get more to that in a second. But confessing sin is a very good way to just kind of get things off your chest and put them out in the open. Because just like the Bible says, when sin has light revealed on it, it cowers away and it scrams and freaks out. So put that sin out into the light. Confess it to speak about it, be open about it.

Another thing is worship him in tough times. Go to the book of Job and get a perfect example of this. After Job had pretty much everything taken away from him, he had his kids, his kids were killed, he had all of his wealth taken away, his health was taken away from him. I mean, he had pretty much everything you can think of stripped away from him. And what was his response? God giveth and God taketh away, blessed be the Lord. He was saying that in any circumstance, I'm gonna be content with what I have. Obviously, Job was still human. He still questioned God, and that's why we get those awesome chapters at the end of Job of God confronting him. But it's still the same as that Job was content in every circumstance, just as Paul instructs us to be content in every circumstance. So that's the first thing we can do is draw near to God. Second thing is hold fast. Hebrews 4:14 says,

let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Notice it doesn't say, let us hold fast our confession because we have strong faith. It says, because he is faithful. We're not to look at our own faith. Our own faith is shallow and weak. We're to look at the faith of Jesus and the promises that he made. Because he is who we're to put our hope and trust in. Everything I have of in and of myself is nothing. I've seen what I can do. And what I can do is, it's not very good. I'm tired of what I can do. I wanna put my trust and hope into someone who I know can actually do something and help me in my life. So that's the second thing is to hold fast. Third thing is to love one another. Couple years ago I was in life group with Daniel Oster and I asked him, if you had to in simple terms explain to somebody what it means to take up your cross daily, what would you say?

And he thought about it for a second And he responded and said, living for others. And I thought that that was a great response. I thought that was perfect. Because if you think about it, if I'm being drawn to God and you're being drawn to God, then we're also being drawn to each other. So we're supposed to walk this life with each other and lean on each other. Jesus is guiding us, he's the leader, but we're supposed to hold hands and walk together with each other. And what that made, and a way that you can examine yourself and see if you are actually walking in communion with other believers is, then ask yourself, who am I praying for? Do I pray for someone on a regular basis? And am I concerned about their salvation if they're an unbeliever? Or am I concerned about their walk if they are a believer? Do I pray for someone constantly? Another thing is, do I check on anyone?

Is there anyone in my life that I check on? Or is there anyone that checks on me in my life? I mean, these are things that we need. We're not supposed to walk through this life alone. When you read all throughout the book of Acts, the apostles and the disciples did everything together. I mean, you very, very, very rarely see someone acting completely alone in the book of Acts. They're usually doing things together and ministering together. So it's important that we do the same. Another couple of questions to ask is, does anyone know you well enough to detect if you're drifting from your faith? Because we all at times can steer a little bit away from our faith and that's just life. That's how things happen. That's how life happens. But it's important that we have people in our life that can detect when that's happening and that can help us steer us back on the right track.

And another one is, do you, like we just talked about, do you have anyone that you confess your sins to? It's important to confess our sins to God, but it's also important to confess them to one another. And I'm not talking about some Catholic idea of going and confessing your sins to a priest. I'm talking about just with one another. It can be with your spouse. It can be with your brother. It can be with your friend. It can be with your pastor. It can be with a deacon here. It can be with whoever that you feel comfortable with and whoever you think is going to be able to talk to you about your sin while with you, confess that sin to them. Because God didn't just give us a church full of people so that we can come and just worship individually. He gave us a church full of people so we can be together and worship together. And so the last thing that I wanna leave you with

is a little image that we get in the book of Revelation. In Exodus, God says, "'Let them make me a sanctuary "'that I may dwell in their midst.'" And then later, in the Gospel of John, we see, "'And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.'" So that same God who dwelled with the Israelites in the tabernacle was the same God who became a man and dwelt among us in the actual flesh. And then we fast forward to Revelation, which is our future, which is our hope, and we get the end of the story. Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people. Because you see, the plan from the very beginning, even before the tabernacle, even before the creation of the world, was for us to be with God. That was the plan. And that plan didn't change throughout all of history, despite our sin, despite everything that happened, the plan was the plan.

He dwelt with the Israelites in the tabernacle, he dwelt with the disciples in the flesh, and he dwells with us through his spirit inside of us. And then ultimately and finally, when we are in paradise with him, we will dwell fully in his presence, completely away from the presence of sin, completely away from the penalty of sin and the punishment of sin, and completely and the glory and the beauty and presence of the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. So when life does, or so when you do feel distant, draw near. When life is hectic, hold fast to the hope that is given you in Christ. And when you feel weak, lean on one another who Christ has given us. Because until we fully dwell with God in paradise, His Holy Spirit, and us each other in His church, is what we have to lean on. So we must take advantage of that and do it every single week and every single day.

Let's pray. Father, we know that you are on your throne and we know that from there you desire for us to be drawn to you. You have made a way for that to happen. You did it for the Israelites. You did it whenever you died on the cross for us. And we know that you just desire for us to be drawn to you and for us to enter into that way. And so we pray Lord that as we go throughout this week, you allow us to be bold and allow us to confess our sin to one another and to reach out to each other and to lean on you and open your word up and go to you in prayer and ultimately just realize that we have a way to you. We have direct access to you now. We can take our requests directly to you, Father. And so we pray that that just resonates in our mind and that you allow us to fully embrace that and fully come to know you, Father. That's your new righteous name that we pray, Jesus, amen.