Sermon Tone Analysis

Main Idea: God’s Kingdom is separate from ours, cannot be moved and causes us to worship God.

Introduction:

Have you ever had the “untouchable” thing in your house?

I can remember getting into an untouchable area when I was about three or four, in fact it is one of my first memories as a child.

My father hunted and had a gun case in his bedroom, but not only guns were kept there, ammunition was kept there, cleaning supplies, scopes, some important documents.

However these were not the untouchables I went after.

In a drawer as part of this case I also found my dad’s knives.

These aren’t your typical kitchen knives, but knives that had specifically sharpened to cut hide off an animal.

They were shiny, they had moving parts, they could slice things.

To an adventurous young child it was like finding gold.

I grabbed the knife and everything was going smooth.

I put the blade out, I was wielding it like a warrior, I was mesmerized by it’s shine, but then I needed to close the blade, and in my ignorance and hurriedness I tried to close the blade except it wouldn’t close, so I tried harder, and harder, until my little pinky hit the blade release and the knife collapsed on my fingers.

I didn’t receive the excitement I had intended instead I received pain, fear of punishment, blood, lots of blood, and a scar I still have to this day.

My mistake was not in wanting to see the knife, wanting to hold it, wanting to be familiar with it.

My mistake was approaching something powerful without understanding it’s purpose and power.

Today’s passage is a reminder of this.

As followers of Christ we must be aware of God’s purposes and His power.

His purposes and His power are meant to cause us to be drawn in to Him through Jesus, be grateful for His work in our lives, and fuel our worship of Him through reverence and awe.

As we begin this year, let me ask you, “How are you approaching God?” Have you been lackadaisical in your approach?

Have you neglected to understand God’s purposes and not sat in awe of His power?

If that is you you are not alone, in fact in the Bible there are many stories of people who have great downfalls because they approach God incorrectly.

Example of approaching God in an unworthy manner - Nadab and Abihu

Leviticus 10:1-3 “1 Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. 2 And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. 3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’

” And Aaron held his peace.”

My hope today is that you avoid these downfalls and live lives of worship to God because you understand Him greater.

We are going to look at three truths about God today and then three applications for our daily lives because of who God is.

The first is the truth that God is untouchable.

I. God is Untouchable.

(Hebrews 12:18-20)

Hebrews 12:18-20 – “18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them.

20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.””

Moses - burning bush

We have been spared the theophany, a visible representation of the invisible God, that Moses experienced.

We have no wandering through the desert, no need to go up mountaintops to experience God.

We have no gloom that should surround our hearts when we approach God, no irreverent fear that should hinder us.

This is good news.

The law that was given to Moses and the fear that accompanied it are no longer the manner in which we approach God.

We are in the “boldly I approach the throne of God” phase of time.

This is a passage referencing back to the Israelites, their creation of a golden calf and Moses’ response in Exodus 19 and Deuteronomy 9.

The scene is that God had called Moses to Mt. Sinai to deliver the 10 commandments to Moses to give to the people.

These were commandments to instruct people how to live for God and not according to the world.

They were commandments that would reveal the ways in which they could not measure up to God’s perfect standard.

God writes the commandments on two stones and presents them to Moses.

As Moses descends down the mountain he is shocked to see Israel, led by his brother Aaron, has constructed a golden calf to be the object of their worship.

This totally neglected the God who they were called to worship.

This act showed their lack of fear and reverence for the God who had rescued them out of Egypt!

Moses ends up breaking the tablets in frustration toward the people, and lays prostrate before God for 40 days and 40 nights in prayer and fasting.

Rather than revering God as one whom they could not approach because of His holiness, they manufacture a God that will work for them.

A god on their terms.

This is still a problem today, we are tempted to want a god on our terms.

If we aren’t careful we neglect chasing after the God of the Bible, we manufacture what we want God to be.

Let’s take a look at how this happens.

We see people neglecting the command of Paul to Timothy.

2 Timothy 2:22 – “So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”

Instead, people pursue convenience.

Rather than dying to self daily they create ways in which they can follow their thoughts and intentions, rather than conforming to the perfect thoughts and intentions of God.

For instance, in 2021 George Barna found that while 63% of Americans claim to be Christians only 9% hold to a Biblical Worldview.

That means that only 9% of Americans would hold to the Bible being the accurate word of God, that God is all powerful, all knowing, perfect and just creator of the universe.

When we minimize God and His word we change the standards of morality.

In this study they also found only 9% (those with a Biblical worldview) would agree that lying, abortion, unmarried sex or cheating on your taxes is morally wrong.

Israel’s mistake and what the author of Hebrews is trying to get us to avoid is forgetting the holiness of God.

That He is set apart.

That’s what holiness means.

Holy is the Hebrew word (ka-dosh).

It’s used to show two truths about God: He is separate from His creation and He is without sin.

Numbers 23:19 – “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.

Has he said, and will he not do it?

Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”

Psalm 99:9 – “Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy!”

However God is still to be reverenced, like He was on that mountain that day.

His holiness and worth of ultimate and primary praise and worship never changes.

God’s holiness leads us into the second truth that God is to be reverenced.

II.

God is to Be Reverenced.

(Hebrews 12:21)

Hebrews 12:21 – “Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.””

Reverence -

Psalm 47:2 – “For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared [reverenced], a great king over all the earth.”

Transition - Moses trembled, but we come.

Look at what the grace of Jesus does in our life.

Fear is not mentioned in our approach to God…but boldness is!

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Hebrews 10:19 – “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,”

1 John 3:21 – “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;”

1 John 5:14 – “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.”

Michael Horton says it this way:

“Only in Christ can God’s holiness be for us a source of delight rather than of fear of judgment.”

(Michael Horton)

Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 269.

III.

God Lives on High.

(Hebrews 12:22-24)

Hebrews 12:22-24 – “22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”

God is holy.

He is set apart from His creation.

He is without sin.

He is without error.

He is to be reverenced.

Those are descriptions of who He is, but this passage in Hebrews also describes where He is.

And by the way this is where we are viewed for eternity.