Sermon Tone Analysis

Better Worship

Can you believe this winter we are having?

Man it has been cold.

It is so tough because when you look at the temp and you see numbers like 1 you know you are in trouble!

I don’t know about you but on days like today I like to try to remember what it was like 2 or 3 months ago.

Remember that?

Remember 90+ degrees?

Some of you are saying, NO!

I don’t remember 90 degrees but I will take it.

What we are experiencing today is such a contrast to what we experienced just a couple of months ago.

It seemed like the winter would never get here this year and now we are feeling like the summer will never get here.

We live in a world of contrasts don’t we?

Sometimes its 90, sometimes its 1.

Sometimes we are happy and sometimes we are sad, sometimes we feel confident and other times we feel insecure.

These contrasts fill our lives.

The passage we read today will contrast what used to be and what is now.

It’s the difference between the old and the new.

To give you a little bit of history and background; the law was given by God to the Jews in the desert after they were freed from slavery in Egypt.

And God met Moses on Mount Sinai.

The story is told in Exodus where God comes down to earth and actually is on the mountain, covered in smoke and gives the people the famous 10 commandments.

You may have even seen this scene played in the old movie the ten commandments.

I am not sure that the movie does justice to what actually happened but that is okay.

But what that story tells us is that God wants us to win.

God wants us to succeed in our relationship with Him.

From what we see in the Bible and the stories of God, we know that God wants His people to know Him, we know God wants his people to do what is right in His eyes BECAUSE He is merciful, BECAUSE He is loving and BECAUSE of His Grace.

He wants people to have access to Him.

But God’s complete Holiness doesn’t allow us to physically be with Him.

We are separated from Him.

But none-the-less He provides a way for us to be with Him.

Before we get to what I want to talk about today in Hebrews, I want to read quickly through this story in Exodus so that it will be fresh in your minds when we read the Hebrews reference.

Because what the writer of Hebrews talks about in chapter 12:18-29 is all about the different type of access we have had with God.

We haven’t always had the type of access to God that we have now.

It used to be different and the writer wants to remind these Hebrews of their heritage and of the limits that existed when it came to their relationship to God.

We will look at Exodus again, when God was preparing the people to meet Him.

He does that.

He tells them that they are to prepare for worshipping Him.

Exodus 19:10-20:

WOW!

That is awesome.

I think that it is awesome.

GOD is coming and we have to be ready!

He is coming and He has a message for us.

God is coming!

Just let that sink in for a minute… God is coming and we have to be ready.

How did they get ready?

Because they needed to be ready.

Listen, when we come into the presence of the Lord, especially here on Sundays we need to take a couple of minutes to prepare for that meeting.

Because we really are meeting with God and we need to be prepared.

That is why we have that slide up there that says, Welcome to Legacy Bible Church, Prepare your hearts for worship.

We need to prepare.

That is why sometimes I ask folks to flick the lights because it really is important to be a part of worship.

And you have to prepare your hearts to be able to do that.

The Israelites were given instructions from the Lord.

How did they prepare?

Well, they respected the instructions of the Lord.

And don’t ask why God had them do the things they did (the washing of their clothes) and Why weren’t husbands and wives allowed to be together?

I don’t really know.

All I know is that God has his reasons and his thoughts are higher than my thoughts, and His ways are higher than our ways.

It doesn’t have to make any sense to us.

There is the Holy God who created me and if He tells me that I have to jump on one foot it doesn’t matter what it sounds like to me, I need to follow His commands.

It’s not up to us to completely figure God out, we do desire to know Him and to follow Him yes, but my obedience to God does not depend on me understanding everything about Him.

I don’t have to understand God in order to obey God.

Sometimes we just have to trust Him.

Home Group will resume in January.

Men’s Group – Second Saturday of each month

Saturday, January 13th, 7:30 am at Bob Evans.

Legacy Bible Church Yearly Meeting

January 28th immediately following the service.

Tithes & Offerings (Last week of 2017)

Received: $ 996.46

YTD: $125,232.35

I don’t have to understand God in order to obey God.

Sometimes we just have to trust Him.

Sometimes I think that we feel like we have to figure God out when the reality of it is that we don’t have to figure Him out, we can’t figure Him out we just have to trust Him and act on what He tells us to do.

For the Jews in the desert with Moses, God told them to stay away from the mountain, don’t even touch it, don’t let an animal touch it or they will have to be destroyed because of the holiness/ the complete otherness of God.

As a matter of fact, if someone did touch the mountain they would have to be executed by a method where the executioner couldn’t even touch them, they had to shoot arrows or throw stones.

And so when we read this section of Hebrews you will see the contrast of what worship looked like in the Old Testament verses the New Testament.

The old way: Deut recounts the scene too.

God was not approachable.

God was not accessible.

Can I tell you that because of Jesus God IS now accessible?

That’s what the writer of Hebrews is trying to say

Hebrews 12:18-

The writer gives examples of Christian behaviour.

Be forgiving, pure, harmonious—and serious about God.

What is heaven like?

Is it ominous and scary, like Mount Sinai?

No! Heaven is like a perfect Jerusalem—teeming with life, justice and joy.

Don’t miss this amazing offer!

We have an access to God that we are supposed to enjoy.

And this access is not supposed to be frightening, it is to be grateful, and it is to be reverent and full of awe.

Different than scary God.

And the writer references the time when the Jews were with Moses in the desert and God was about to be in their midst and God was so Holy (so completely other than us) that the people could not even touch the mountain that God was standing on.

God was so Holy that they even had to worship Him from a distance.

This was the separation that people had from God.

It was a difficult way to live, a difficult way to worship, yet God still had them worship Him.

But then an amazing thing happens.

Jesus Christ comes to the world and changes everything about the way that the people of God worship.

God is still a majestic God, He is still a God that requires worship from us.

But he is loving, He is merciful and again, full of grace.