Exploring My Strange Bible - Book of Hebrews Part 8 - Tale of Two Mountains

Episode Date: January 22, 2018

In today’s teaching we explore the second to last chapter in Hebrews Chapter 12. It brings to a close the theological and pastoral challenge that the pastor has been offering the early Christian. He compares and contracts an experience that the Israelites had as they all camped out at the foot of Mount Sinai after escaping out of slavery in Egypt. He wants to show that our experience of approaching Jesus is both similar and different. Learn more in this episode.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right. Well, with this episode, we're going to finish out this multi-part series we've done exploring the New Testament letter to the Hebrews. So if you haven't been listening to all the ones before this, this is kind of a culminating passage and culminating teaching of the whole series.

And so I encourage you to listen to the ones that have come before. We're going to explore a passage in the second to last chapter from Hebrews chapter 12. And it brings to a close kind of the theological and pastoral challenge that this pastor has been offering these early Christians. And he tells a tale of two mountains, what I call it. He's going to compare and contrast the experience that the Israelites had as they all camped out at the foot of Mount Sinai after escaping out of slavery in Egypt and when the Ten Commandments were revealed. It was actually quite a terrifying experience as he recounts the story. And he wants to show that our experience of approaching Jesus is both similar in that the very presence and reality

of the Creator and Holy God has come to us in Jesus, but the nature of our relationship to that God should also be different than what the Israelites experienced. And so we contrast that with how in Jesus we're invited to come to the new Jerusalem and the new Mount Zion. So if those images don't mean very much to you, I hope that they will by the end of this teaching. It's a whole riff on the theme of the mountain of God in the Old Testament. But very personally, what that means to encounter the holy God who has come to live and die and be raised for us, to meet the very one who loves us more than anything else. So there you go. This is a teaching exploring the themes of holiness and God's love and God's temple presence throughout

the scriptures. So I hope it's helpful for you. Hebrews chapter 12, let's dive in. So why don't you grab your Bibles. I invite you to get out your Bibles and turn with me to the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament. Hebrews chapter 12. And we're going to be finishing up this series through Hebrews next Sunday. Josh is going to explore chapter 13 for us and with us all together. But today we're going to close down the last half of chapter 12. And this is a very dense, well, all of Hebrews is dense. I don't know, at least I think so. I don't know if you've found that as we've been going through it.

But it's a very dense chapter. And of course, this is the letter to the Hebrews. It's a written sermon to this church, kind of small house church, as far as we can tell, probably mostly Jewish Christians. And this written sermon wasn't actually meant to be divided up into little bits and read just weeks apart and so on. And so, of course, the last half of chapter 12 that we're looking at tonight is closely connected to the first half of chapter 12. That makes logical sense, doesn't it? And so we need to follow a

trail of breadcrumbs through the first part of chapter 12 again, through what Josh already walked us through, because it's going to set the context for some really powerful themes of what we're exploring here tonight. Look at the first sentence of chapter 12 with me, Hebrews chapter 12. He says, Let us also lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and the perfecter of our faith. Let's just pause right there. We could keep going, but this is enough just to focus us here. So he paints this very powerful scene. He just went through this long narrative retelling of the storyline of the Old Testament, all of the characters of the Old Testament who exemplified faith and hope in God's promises. And he says it's like this huge grandstands of all these heroes from the past.

huge grandstands of all these heroes from the past. And as you turn and follow Jesus, you begin to realize you're a part of this great story, this great tradition, this huge crowd of people who have journeyed on ahead of you. And everybody's, it's like the Olympics or something, right? And down at the end of the track, and everybody's watching and observing and cheering, and Jesus is the goal. He's the one that you're racing towards. And let's just, we could focus on a lot of things. I just want to focus on one thing. He said part of this journey of moving towards Jesus as our whole kind of community of faith has

throughout the generations, it involves not just some like mental choice that you make and then you just sit around and I don't know, wait to die or something like that. The life of following Jesus is vigorous. It's arduous. It's like a race, and you have to focus. And as you focus and move towards Jesus, you're getting rid of all this stuff. You're getting rid of weight and sin. And Josh pointed this out last week, that weight and sin is not the same thing. Weights may be good things, but that are not the best thing for you in your life. Good things, but they actually may become distractions in your life

from focusing on what's most important in showing your allegiance to Jesus. So it could be weights that you need to get rid of. It could be sin, moral compromise in your life, these stumbling blocks that keep you from consistently having your walk match your talk, so to speak. And so there's anything, anything but idle is what characterizes the life of following Jesus. The preacher just assumes that this is a lifelong journey, that you're constantly, perpetually changing, transforming, constant metamorphosis, becoming more and more like Jesus as you move towards him. Look down at verse 9 with me. Our role is to move forward, to get rid of the weight and the sin. What is God's role in this equation? Verse 9, he says,

in this equation. Verse 9, he says, besides this, we have all had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them, which as a second, I was reflecting on how much that is not true in the 21st century. Actually, like I can't assume that at all in this room, that we actually all had fathers who disciplined us and that we respected them. So odds are you had some kind of parental figure, and they may have disciplined you, and you may or may not have respected them. But you get the point of what he's saying. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? You see, our earthly parents, they disciplined us for a short time, as it seemed best to them, but God disciplines

us for our good, so that we can share in his what? In his holiness. Now this is very interesting. So we're moving towards Jesus, and we're shedding all of this weight and all of this sin. We're becoming more like Jesus as we move towards him. And then all of a sudden we realize God has a key role to play in this process. He's orchestrating or redeeming difficult circumstances in our lives. This theme of discipline and hardship that Josh explored last week. And it doesn't mean that God causes every hardship in our lives. It may. It may not. It may be brought on by all sorts of different causes and so on. But God can always redeem and turn those difficult circumstances in our lives into opportunities to shape our character, to smooth off the rough edges,

so that we become more and more and more and more what? It's holy. It's holy. We're actually becoming more like Jesus in the process. And as we become more like Jesus, we're actually sharing in God's very nature, which is holiness. Now, this is very important, that we become more like Jesus, we're actually sharing in God's very nature, just holiness. Now this is very important, that we become more like Jesus and that we share in God's

holiness. Last trail of the breadcrumbs, look at verse 14. He says, strive for peace with everybody and strive for what? For holiness, because without it, no one will see the Lord. And we're kind of like, whoa, okay, that raises the stakes a bit, doesn't it? So it's this idea that God's character and his nature is holiness. And that if I'm racing towards Jesus, I need to be moving towards holiness in my life to become more like him. And God's goal is actually to make me holy, to share in that, because the stakes are really high. Because if I'm not holy or in a state of holiness somehow, I don't get to see God. That's kind of intense. So I don't know what you think when you hear that, that line of thought here. You can put it all together. But holiness is extremely, extremely important in the journey

of following Jesus. And what we're going to see in chapter 12 tonight is that encountering the holy God and encountering God and having him shape that holiness in us, it's a mixed bag kind of experience. Because the fact is, is that encountering the holy God and having him expose the broken stuff inside of us, that's no fun. In fact, that can be a very dreadful, terrifying experience. But paradoxically, that dread and that terror of when God wants to shape me into becoming more like Jesus and make me more holy, paradoxically, that's the process by which I actually take hold of true life. It says God's disciplining us so that we can live. He's doing it for our good. And so the complexity of what it means to encounter the holy God and become

holy ourselves, that's what we're exploring here tonight. But the stakes are very high. come holy ourselves. That's what we're exploring here tonight. But the stakes are very high. Because for the preacher of this pastor of this church to which he writes this letter, his assumption is that everybody at some point is going to encounter the holy God. Everybody will. And that encounter may be the cause of great joy and celebration and for throwing the biggest party you could ever imagine. For some. For others, that encounter with the Holy God will be an occasion of dread and of loss and of regret.

And it's very important to recognize where I stand in that series of events. Look at verse 18 with me. He says, For you have not come to what may be touched, to a blazing fire or darkness or gloom or a storm. You haven't come to the sound of a trumpet or to a voice whose words may those who were

listening beg that no further words be spoken to them because they couldn't even endure the order that was given to them. And what was that order? Well, here was the order that even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses himself said, I'm trembling with fear. And that's all just immediately clear. What's happening here, right? What? What's happening? What? So we were talking about God's holiness and the race and so on, and then we're on a mountain and there's a storm and Moses is afraid. What's going on here right now? So like obviously you remember this is just this is how the preacher works. He assumes you have the storyline of the Old Testament scriptures just in your head and you can just kind of pull

from it. No, oh exactly. Oh, I see what he's doing here. Oh, that's very good. Okay, so most of us don't have that. So let's kind of quick. We've done this a lot through the book of Hebrews, but that's just what we've had to do. So let's catch the storyline and where the preacher is situating us in the storyline of the Bible here. So the story of Israel begins with Abraham. God calls this man through whom he's going to bring blessing to the nations through his family. And Abraham becomes a huge family indeed. He has lots of kids. His kids have kids and their kids' kids have kids and so on. And they become a huge, huge nation. They run out of food, however, and so they have to go down to Egypt to get food. And is going to Egypt a good thing or a bad thing? Well, all right. It's good because they don't die from starvation. So they get food. But it's bad

because they set up kind of a permanent settlement there. They're immigrants, but they become permanent. And then they become enslaved by the Egyptians and so on. It's horrible. Life is horrible, horrible. And so the Lord raises up who? To deliver the Israelites. Come on, Moses, let my people go. There you go. You've seen the movie. So at least you've seen the movie.

So Moses is raised up. He's the leader. God visits the acts of justice on Egypt's injustice against Israel. And so they rescue them to go through, you know, walk through the sea as on dry land and that kind of thing. They go through the wilderness and they camp out at what mountain afterwards? Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai is the location of the story that we just read, the storm and the fire and Moses being afraid. After that, they go to the wilderness, promised land, and so on. Okay, so Mount Sinai is a very important moment in the storyline of the Old Testament. God's rescued his people. He wants to enter into covenant relationship

with them, and so he brings them. They camp out at the foot of this mountain, and God himself, his holy presence, descends on top of the mountain. And it's not a picnic for the Israelites. It's a terrifying, terrifying experience. Here's the full story that he's alluding to. Then the Lord said to Moses, he said, I'm going to come to you in a dense cloud in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.

So go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Consecrate is one of these Bible words no one used in conversation this week, I'm certain, you know, so it's one of these religious words. What is that? It's connected to the idea of holiness in the Bible. It's the idea that God's presence is special, it's holy, it's unique. You don't just go like waltzing into God's presence. And so God's going to descend on this mountain, and so the people need to make themselves ready. They need to make themselves holy.

So all these words, consecrate and sanctify, they are making themselves fit to be in the presence of the holy God. And so have them wash their clothes and prepare for the third day. Because on that third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all holy God. And so have them wash their clothes and prepare for the third day. Because on that third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. Set limits for the people all around, saying, be careful not to go up the mountain or even to touch the edge of it. And anyone who does touch the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch them, but they shall be stoned or shot with arrows, whether animal or human being, And then when the trumpet sounds a long blast, then you can go up onto the mountain. And you're like, who on their right mind is going to be the first person to cross that line?

You know what I mean? Like, well, I don't want to, is it the third day yet? I'm not sure. Did I hear the trumpet blast? Maybe there's something wrong with my ears. I don't know. Like, it'd be terrifying. It's clearly, clearly terrifying. Three days pass. God shows up on the mountain. And here's the scene. Here's the scene. It's in chapter 20. When all the people witnessed thunder, lightning, and the sound of the trumpet in the mountain smoking, they were afraid. They were trembled. They stood at a

distance. And they said to Moses, no, no, you, you speak to us and we will listen. Don't let God speak to us. No, no, we'll die if he does. Moses said to the people, no, don't be afraid. God has only come to test you, to put the fear of him upon you so that you don't sin. And then the people stood at a distance while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. This is the story that the preacher of Hebrews, he just kind of condenses and retells in small form. And he says, do you remember this story? Do you remember this encounter that the Israelites had with the holy God? Is this what you've come to if you're a follower of Jesus? Answer. What does he say?

What does he say in verse 18? Have you come to something like Mount Sinai as you encounter the Holy God through Jesus? Answer. Say no. Yeah, say no. It's really important that you say no. No. No.

But there are times, there are situations, there are some people for whom an encounter with the holy God is a dreadful, terrifying experience. And this isn't the only time this happens in the Old Testament. Now, I don't know how you, how do you feel about a story like this? There's a number of them in the Old Testament, and some of us, we really wrestle with this. Because we have, okay, I see holy, like smoking fire mountain God. And then I've got this stuff also in the Bible about God's gracious and loving and forgiving. And how do those two go together?

I'm not quite sure. And many of us struggle. We struggle with this. There's another encounter. Another story of an encounter that's very similar to the Mount Sinai encounter with God's holiness. It's one of Israel's prophets, most famous prophets, who has a vision that he's in the presence of the holy God in the temple. And it's very similar to this. What's this guy's name? Isaiah. Isaiah. He has this vision that he's in the presence of God in the temple. It's very

similar. There's smoke and there's earthquake and so on. And it's no picnic. There's no picnic. He's not like, oh, God's my buddy. You're going to hang out or something. He's terrified. He's absolutely terrified. And he immediately yells out loud, I'm a broken, sin-compromised person. I live amongst sinful, broken people. And I'm looking at the holy God. And he hears these crazy creatures, these crazy, fiery creatures screaming, screaming. There's this vision in the temple, and what are they screaming? They're screaming, Kadosh! Kadosh! Kadosh!

Is Yahweh of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory, and he's just freaked out. He thinks he's going to die. He thinks he's going to die. It's these encounters with the holy God in the Bible. And it's very difficult for some of us, and I think it's difficult because holiness is such a foreign concept. God's holiness is such a foreign concept to us.

So we need to camp out here. This will, I think, illuminate the whole of Hebrews chapter 12. You can see, I'll get a little language geeky here on you. The Hebrew word for holy is the word kadosh. Why don't you say it with me? Kadosh. The Greek word, so Hebrew is Old Testament. That's what Isaiah, that's what the crazy fiery creatures say in the Old Testament. The Greek, the language of the New Testament, is the word that the preacher of Hebrews is reading. It's the word hagia. Why don't you say it with me? Hagia.

Kadosh and hagia. These are the biblical words for what gets translated as holy. Now here's the problem. I think for most of us, the English word holy, when you hear it, it's a religious word. We don't really use it in conversation from day to day. And if people do use it, it's actually usually kind of pejorative or negative. You know, she thinks she's so holy or something like that, right? And I think for most of us, what we hear when you hear the word holy, we hear moral behavior of religious people. She's holy or thinks she's holy or something like that.

And that's a part of holiness, but it's not the most important part in the Bible's definition of kadosh or hagyas. What does it mean to say that God is kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, hagyas, hagyas, hagyas? In the Bible, this word refers specifically to someone or something, and God is the source of all kadoshness, as being unique and one of a kind and set apart, totally other, other. And look at specifically in Isaiah 6, holiness is linked to God's status as the creator. He's not just kadosh because he's like the nicest guy in the universe or something, one of a kind that way. He's one of a kind because he is the author, and out of his own power, he's generated what we call the universe. That's pretty impressive, right? To be able to do something like that. It takes a lot

of power. And so Kadosh, to describe God in the Bible, is about his power and purity. He has the power to generate and sustain reality. And he is also the very definition of the beauty and goodness and all that is just and right and good and pure in our world. It's about God's power and his purity. He's the source of our experience of reality, our existence is sustained by him and so on. This is all wrapped up in the idea that God is Kaddosh. There's no other being like this.

The author of reality and the ground of all that is pure and good and true. And so the basic idea is this, is that when people like you and me come into the presence of a being who is power and who is purity and goodness defined, it's like, it's just overwhelming. And it's actually not very fun because in the presence of such a powerful being, it becomes very evident that I'm a puny little human. And in the presence of being of such purity and goodness, it becomes very clear that I am not good. And that I'm corrupt and duplicitous. And that my heart's broken and that I'm selfish and so on.

And that's the idea. That's why when people encounter the Holy God in these stories, it's not fun. It's like having a spotlight just shown on you and you don't know if you're going to survive. And this is actually a very important part of God's holiness in the Bible. We will get to the God is loving and gracious and likes to forgive you kind of thing, but you have to stop at Mount Sinai first before you get to the next mountain. It's very important. And we kick back against this. Many of us have a very difficult time with this idea of God in the Bible. And so I'll just name something in the room. Many of us have a very difficult time with this idea of God in the Bible. And so I'll just name something in the room. Some of us might be saying, we hear this about God and we're

like, I don't understand how that goes together with how God is loving and good or something. Or it just kind of ticks me off. Like, why does God have to be so uptight? Why can't he chill out a little bit? Like, we're not perfect, you know? And for many people in our culture, for sure, this is just downright offensive. This is intolerant of God. That he can't stand our failure or somehow because I'm morally broken, I can't be in his presence.

What's up? Who wants to be around that kind of person? We get ticked off about this. And it's because I think it's such a foreign concept. Think of it like this. This is a way that's helped me get my mind around what's happening when I kind of get ticked off that God's so holy. Think about it like this. Think about there's an object in our day-to-day experience that all of us encounter on a day-to-day basis, roughly. We may not see it every day, but we're aware that it's there.

And we're also aware that it's not there, especially. And this is an object of pure holiness, at least in our solar system, right? It's a huge, huge ball of gas and fire and flame and heat. What am I talking about? Okay, go. I wanted to make sure the sun, the picture wasn't up there before. Cat out of the bag kind of moment. Anyway, so the sun. Now, you may not see the sun every day, especially here in Portland, right? So it's definitely, the months are coming where you just won't see the sun. But then, even then, you're aware that you're not seeing it. You know what I'm saying? The sun is a holy object in our solar system, right? Now, of course, there are other solar systems with other suns that are actually a lot bigger and a lot more powerful. And in the universe, the sun's not holy at all.

There's billions of other stars and sun. But at least in our solar system, it's holy. It's the only thing like it. And the sun is holy and unique and one of a kind of different in ways that are similar to God's holiness. So the sun is just an ongoing fusion explosion of heat and energy. And so here we are. We're 93 million miles away from this thing. And yet if you spent too much time outside today, like exposed to it, it burned you.

Does that trip you out at all? It's 93 million miles away, for goodness sakes. You know what I'm saying? It's unbelievable. And so it's pure energy. It's the very definition of raw, pure energy. And here's the thing, is the sun good? Do you like the sun?

Yeah, who doesn't like the sun? Some people do, I don't know, but I think they're crazy. So the sun is really great. Without the pure, holy, unique, one-of-a-kind energy of the sun, life doesn't exist on our little rock, right? There's no grass, there's no plants, no trees, salamanders, humans, deer, whatever, right? There's no life whatsoever. Life is fueled by the light and the energy of the sun. The sun is a good thing, yes? We all agreed. However, does this mean that the sun is like

your buddy and that you can just go like teleport to the surface of the sun and have a picnic with your friends or something like that. No, of course not. That's absurd. Why? It's absurd. If at 93 million miles away the sun burns you, you know what I'm saying? Like just get 2 million miles closer and you're done for and you're still

91 million miles away. No, it will incinerate you. It'll roast you, right? You're gone, done for, annihilated. We're not meant to be that close to the sun. Is that because the sun is bad? Is that because the sun is intolerant? Or is the sun a jerk for doing that? You know what I'm saying? Like, no, of course, that's ridiculous to accuse the sun of being a jerk. The sun is just being its very nature, which is raw, pure energy and power. The problem is not the sun in that silly little story. The problem is me. I am not fit in my

present condition to be in the presence of an object like that. And I can kick back and I can protest against the sun and be like, you know, dang, son, why you gotta be so hot or whatever, you know? And people you know, like, and people do this, right? A month ago, it was 100 degrees, and people are complaining about the heat of the sun. And you're like, what, what do you, we wait all year for these days. Like, what are you complaining about, right? So, but what a ridiculous thing for me to protest against the sun. Because the sun, if it could talk, would just simply reply and just say, like, being a human or whatever. Like, you exist because of me. And you're going to kick back and protest against the very thing

that I'm giving off that sustains your life at this moment. It's absurd. Somehow we have such a selfish, me-centered view of the universe that the very thing that sustains me when it shows up and exposes how messed up and screwed up I am,

I get ticked off. And I get angry about it. And I think it's like, it's nothing's fault, you know? And so the scandalous and challenging message of God's holiness, when it shows up in the Bible, is challenging us to entertain, is it perhaps possible that it's not God who's at fault here. Perhaps I'm the one who's bad. And what's coming up inside of me as anger or frustration, that God would expose that in me or that he would judge me, is that he's actually putting his finger on something that I know is wrong,

but that I want to do anyway. And go on living a version of life that at least I like to call life. It's this paradox of God's holiness. And so if I'm unwilling to humble myself before God's holiness, when it shows up, bad news. It's bad news. There's no picnic. And it's not, at least the claim of the scriptures, that it's not because God's a jerk. It's because I'm unwilling to face reality. But that does not have to be the way that we encounter God's holiness.

That's one mountain you can live on. But because of the good news about Jesus, there's another mountain where you can encounter God's holiness. Let's keep reading. Verse 22. He said, you have not come to Mount Sinai, in verse 18, but now in verse 22, he says,

but you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem. You've come to numberless angels in a big festival gathering. You've come to the assembly of the firstborn, all those who are enrolled in heaven. You've come to God who is the judge of all.

You've come to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. You have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. You've come to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Now again, wow, that's all immediately clear too, isn't it? It's like a collage of images here. Now you may not have been able to make sense of every piece of that, but you can see life on this mountain is way different than on the other mountain.

When you encounter the holy God on Mount Sinai, it's dread and it's fear because just your mess and your sin and your brokenness is exposed. It's fearful. It's dreadful. But on this mountain, when you come and enter into the presence of that same holy God, the same holy presence, it's not cause for fear and terror. It's cause for a party, and a huge party. In fact, the largest celebration on a cosmic scale that you could possibly imagine. That's what he's getting at here. That's the contrast.

What's the difference between experiencing the same holy presence on these two different mountains? Let's unpack the imagery for a second here. So he says, you haven't come to Mount Sinai. You've come to what mountain? Zion. Okay, Zion is the name that King David gave to the city of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is where David and his son Solomon built what? After Israel came into the land and so on.

They built the temple. The Israelite temple in Jerusalem. And the temple, again, the preacher just assumes you know the storyline of the scriptures. In the theology of Israel's story, the temple is like this hotspot of God's holy presence. It's like a portal. We'll go with the space imagery here. It's like a portal or something, a link between heaven and earth. portal or something, a link between heaven and earth. It's a place where God's space and human space come together and meet. And so that's, again, that's good news, but it's also bad news because when God shows up like that, it exposes sin and brokenness in people. And so part of God's

presence come to dwell among Israel in the temple was priests and sacrifices offered on behalf of the sins of the people, right? This is the land we've been living in, Hebrews, for the last two months. But just like the author of Hebrews, he sees that the animal sacrifices in this ancient temple, they were just, they couldn't actually deal with the problem between God and humanity. They were just reminders of the problem. He saw them as pointers forward to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, who undoes the great barrier between God and broken humanity. But not just the sacrifices, he says. As he looks, he envisions the cosmic marriage of heaven and earth. When Jesus returns and heaven and earth, it's like they're married to each other. At least in the imagery of Revelation chapters 21 and 22.

It's like this marriage of heaven and earth and God's holy presence floods the entire creation. And for some, the flooding of God's holy presence throughout throughout all the renewed and restored creation for some that is terrible news but for others that is the best news they have ever heard and so he envisions the great parties and festivals at the temple and he said it'll be like that it'll be like when all the people used to gather at Passover in Jerusalem and it'll be like this huge party and there's feasting and there's music and on. How many of you have been like a part of a Passover festival before or something? A handful of you. I mean, it's just a great party. There's music, there's all this great food, and there should be dancing at least. This is this great huge party, and so on. And so he has this vision

of the sacrificial system, and the feast, and going on at the temple, and he says it's like that. When you come to Jesus, it's not like coming to Mount Sinai. When you come to Jesus, you encounter God's holy presence that is no longer a threat to you, because if you come to Jesus, you are on this journey of sharing in God's holiness. And because of the cross and his death on your behalf you were declared holy even if you don't feel like it and even if you don't act like it sometimes the good news of the cross is that even for broken people like us god's holiness is open and he wants to draw us into himself flawed flawed as we are god's holy presence doesn't have to be a threat. And the key difference

between the two mountains, go down to verse 24, here's the key difference between the experience of God's holiness. He says, you have come, if you come to this mountain of Zion and God's temple and the new Jerusalem, you come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and you come to his sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. So Abel was this innocent man who was killed because of the malice of his brother. His blood was spilled. And Jesus, this innocent man who was killed because of the malice and the brokenness of all humanity, but he wasn't a helpless victim. It's actually his death was the means

by which he conquered human evil and malice. And so his blood speaks a better word because his blood actually can be sprinkled and make other people holy who don't deserve to be called holy. And those people are you and me. And this is cause for celebration. Amen.

Amen. It's the same God. It's the same holy presence of God that exposes the brokenness inside of me. Some people, it's going to be a dreadful, terrifying experience. For others who've humbled themselves before Jesus and before the cross. It will be cause for the biggest party you could possibly imagine.

And so here's where I think this speaks a very challenging word to us. It's where these two mountains, all of us live on one of two mountains. And all of us have a choice. And all of us have a choice. When you recognize that in whatever way it happens, whether it's through your conscience, whether it's through reading the scriptures or hearing them or hearing from somebody else, when you feel God's presence, His holiness pressing in on you,

like the sun exposing the mess inside of you and inside of me. We have a choice in that moment. We have a choice. Am I going to humble myself and recognize I am absolutely screwed up and I need to be rescued? Then God's holy presence is really good news for you because it's not here to destroy you. But if I refuse to humble myself, and if I want to hold on to those very things that God's holiness is exposing, and I'm like, who are you to judge me? Or like, no, these are actually the way that I'm going to find true life, and God's holiness is this dreadful, terrifying experience.

What mountain do you want to live on? And the irony, of course, too, is that if I say I'm a follower of Jesus, but then I still perpetuate choices and behaviors and so on, that I know that God's holiness is exposing inside of me and that it's saying this is not the way to true life, but I don't want to let go of it or I get ticked off at God, then even though I say I'm a Christian, I actually spend most of my time living on Mount Sinai anyway. And it's like, what's the point of that? That doesn't make any sense at all. Sinai anyway. And it's like, what's the point of that? That doesn't make any sense at all.

It's this great humbling that God's holiness presses in on us. It's absurd to protest against. It exposes what's inside of us. So this brings us around to his final challenge in the whole sermon.

Verse 25. He says, pay attention that you don't refuse this one who is speaking. You see, if the Israelites, if they didn't escape when they refused the one who was warning them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who's warning us from heaven? God's holiness comes and it confronts us in order to save us. But if we reject the very thing that's trying to save us, then what's left?

This is a theme we've come across before in Hebrews. Verse 26. At that time, back at Mount Sinai, God's voice was shaking the earth. Verse 26, He's quoting, again, from the ancient Hebrew prophets here, Prophet Haggai. And Haggai, when he looks forward to the day when the presence of the Holy God floods through all creation, he doesn't see a fire or a storm. He envisions an earthquake, like the quaking of Mount Sinai. It'll be like this cosmic shakedown of all humanity, right? It's like the experience of God's holiness

at Sinai but it's this future cosmic earthquake so to speak it's a metaphor what's happening here verse 27 now this phrase pay attention here when the prophet says yes yet once more it indicates that all the things that can be shaken

will be removed that is the things that have been made the present world orders you and I experience it. It's going to be removed so that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. And so therefore, let us be grateful that we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Wait, I thought God was an earthquake, and now he's a fire again. Whoa. So the metaphors, they're just kind of spilling off the page here. So this idea here, this is not

just about the past, past temple Zion, Mount Sinai. This is about our present and about the future. Zion, Mount Sinai. This is about our present and about the future. That when we encounter God's holy presence in whatever form that happens in the present, it points forward to this great encounter of the whole cosmos with the holy God's presence. And it will be the cause of great terror for some, like an earthquake. But in the same way, that earthquake is going to remove and shake down and take away things that need to be taken away so that what is true and beautiful and good may remain. That's what he's getting at here. Things that cannot be shaken. What's he getting at here? So again, it's this idea that I'm clinging on to things. God's holiness exposes things in me.

In this metaphor of the earthquake, it's like we fill our lives with flimsy structures, right? Little like tent buildings, flimsy things with like we prop them up with little sticks and whatever rocks and so on, flimsy structures. That's what most of us build our lives in and around and so on. And so the great shakedown, right? When God's holiness comes and shakes it all down, what will be left?

Only the things that are built on the right foundation. The things that will remain. Here's what I think he's getting at. This encounter with God's holiness. And this is part of what the Bible calls idolatry is when you and I we look to things in the created realm that are not the one true holy God

and we treat them as if they are God we put them in the place of God which means that we worship them which you're like I don't know, I don't bow down to too many things, so check. Don't do that one. You know, that's good.

So it's about allegiance. It's about where I spend my waking hours, giving my energy and my time and my resources. It's about the things that I look to to give meaning and significance and purpose in my life. Those are my gods. And the author is saying these are flimsy structures we're building our lives on. And the thing about idol gods in the Bible is that they don't actually give us life. They dehumanize us, right? And so I look to my girlfriend or my

boyfriend or the desire of having someone like that in my life. I look to my spouse or to my kids. I look to my career. These things become the flimsy structures of my life, these unpredictable shaky things that give me meaning and fulfillment. And how do I know if they've taken the place of the one true God in my life? Well, what happens to you when they're threatened? What happens to you when they're taken away? What happens to you when they're just barely in your grasp and then you all of a sudden find? What happens to you when they're just barely in your grasp and then you all of a sudden find yourself making decisions that you wouldn't normally make and making compromises to get those things in your life

or to keep them or to protect them and so on. It's shaky ground, shaky ground. And so when God's holiness comes, it exposes and it threatens to burn away that stuff. The cosmic shakedown comes and it just tumbles it all to the ground. And for some of us, that's totally threatening. That God would do something like that. But the paradox is that this is how he's giving us life.

This is actually how he's showing his love and his grace to us. He's taking away these things that get exposed by God's holiness. Burning them away. Shaking them. Shaking them away. So I don't know what those things are in your life, but I would encourage you to ask yourself a number of questions. First of all, when God's holiness points out stuff in me,

what is my response? Do I get ticked off? Do I get feared with fear or dread? Or do I turn to the cross so that God's holy presence can become a joy to me, a difficult pleasure? Because it may be God's holiness that needs to burn away that stuff,

that stuff in my life. And you know what it is. I don't know what it is in your life, but you do. You do. And if you don't know what it is, I would encourage you to think a little harder, because I guarantee you have some flimsy structures in your life. Lord knows I do, you know. So I don't know where this leaves you, but this is where Hebrews 12 kind of gets in our business. And God's holiness, it gets right up there. It exposes, it burns away, it shakes, and it leaves us with a choice for what mountain,

what mountain we want to be on. With the time that remains, I would just urge you to do some business with God and to discern what mountain you're living on and what mountain you want to be on. Let me close this in a word of prayer. All right, that wraps up this series on the letter to the Hebrews. I hope this was helpful for you. I hope that you learned as much about the first three quarters of your Bible,

what we call the Old Testament. I hope you learned as much about that as you did about the actual letter to the Hebrews itself. And so there you go. We're going to continue with a new series in future episodes, and you'll learn what that is when we get there. And cheers. Thanks for listening, you guys. We'll see you next time.