Sermon Tone Analysis

Good Morning!

Man, I don’t know about you guys, but this week was one for the record books.

Stress stacked upon stress.

Even in the midst of all the chaos, God gave me many opportunities to put His words for last week into action.

Literally, that afternoon I had to swap up my schedule in order to fulfill what God had for me.

While it was stressful, it was also really cool to see that God’s work was bigger than the obstacles that the enemy was putting in front of me.

Even when I was messing things up, God was still working and still accomplished what He wanted to do.

It was really neat to see that I, as hard as I might try, couldn’t mess up God’s purpose for the week.

In the text that we studied last week, we saw another warning from the author to keep our focus on what really matters.

We heard the challenge that we must make a decided effort to pursue peace and holiness.

Our obedience to God’s call on our lives, and letting Him work through us, is the avenue in which others get a glimpse of God.

Our pursuit of God, on a daily basis, prepares us for the work that God has for us each day.

It makes us sensitive to his prompting and prepares our hearts for the challenges that lay ahead.

We were also challenged to let God reveal the sin that exists in our lives and let Him deal with it.

We looked at the story of Esau and saw how his decision to give up his birthright for a single meal forever altered his life.

The author compared that to our tendency to trade the treasure of knowing God personally for momentary happiness.

Our pursuit of what we believe will bring us joy just separates us from the plans that God had for us.

Instead of experiencing the goodness that God had for us, we are left dealing with the consequences of our sin.

Our daily time with God sets us up to be able to successfully walk with God throughout the day because our hearts and minds are primed to see God’s activity around us.

I’ll be honest, there were some times this week where I was right in tune with God, and other times where I failed miserably and had to deal with those consequences.

The beauty we find in Jesus is that regardless of our performance, his forgiveness and love never falter.

When I messed up this week, Jesus was right there to help me get up and recover in a meaningful way.

I still felt the sting of my sin, but Jesus has never felt closer than He did this week.

This is the treasure that I want all of us to experience.

God loves us so much that when we mess up, there He is, helping us to stand back up.

He doesn’t ridicule or beat us down.

He corrects us, forgives us, and then continues to help as we deal with the consequences of our mistakes.

In spite of all my missteps, God did some amazing things this week.

I got to have some incredible conversations with a few different people and it was clear that God was and is working in their lives.

That gets me so excited!

One conversation that I had, and I didn’t know this in advance, is exactly what the author of Hebrews is going to address today.

I got to share with a friend something that many of us have experienced as we learned to abide.

There is a difference between religious activity for God and a relationship with God.

This is significant for us because it allows us to go from doing things for God to being able to experience and enjoy the presence of God.

As we are about to see, this is literally why Jesus came.

Look at this next section with me and look at the comparison that the author is making and we will see how this played out for these churches and how it plays out for us.

In this passage, the author is drawing a direct comparison between two places and two completely different responses to what God was doing.

In this first part, we see the author recalling a story that would have been instantly recognized by the churches, Israel seeing God on Mt.

Sinai.

Experiencing God on Mt.

Sinai was a fearful event.

He is calling back to a significant moment in their history as a people.

While he doesn’t say the name of the place, it is obvious that he is talking about Mt.

Sinai.

Look at a few passages with me so we can fully remember what he is pointing to.

I want to draw your attention to God’s desire is for the people to see him and to hear him.

He says that He is coming in a dense cloud and that they will hear Him speak.

But before that can happen, the people must be consecrated and cleansed so that they can be near God.

I also need to point out that this is a significant moment in the history of Israel and all mankind.

This is the first time that God is calling a large mass of people to Himself and revealing himself.

If you think back through the old testament, most of God’s interactions are with one person at a time, and certainly this is the first time that He was going to not only reveal himself but also speak to the nation as a whole.

Every other time we see God giving instructions to the nation, it was through Moses.

God would speak to Moses and Moses would relay the message to the people.

God revealing himself and speaking is a major step in the process of God redeeming his people.

However, look what happens next.

God did exactly what He said He was going to do.

He came down on the mountain in a thick cloud, there was thunder and lightning, and a loud blast from a ram’s horn.

Imagine for a moment what that must have been like!

Smoke billowing up from the mountain, the rams horn growing louder and louder, and the whole mountain is shaking!

What do you think God’s purpose was in revealing Himself to Israel?

He wanted to show that he was not like any other Gods that they had ever been told about.

God revealed His Glory and Might so that there could be no doubt in their minds that He was the one, true, living God.

And how did they respond to God’s glory?

Don’t forget that these are the same people who had just recently experienced God do some amazing things.

Protection from the plagues

Their release from slavery

The crossing of the Red Sea

The drowning of Pharaoh's army

God’s provision in the wilderness, etc.

On top of all of that, which by the way is God showing them how much he loves them, God reveals more of who He is and the people reject Him because they are afraid.

It is during this revelation on Mt.

Sinai when God gives the Law to the people.

And what was God trying to do?

God was setting the nation of Israel apart from the rest of the world.

He was doing something special in the lives of these people.

He was creating a covenant with them and drawing them to Himself just like he said he was going to do.

God was making them “His People”.

But rather than joining God in what He was doing, Israel rejected God and settled for mediators.

They told God, no, we don’t want to hear from you, we want you to tell someone else and let them tell us.

God was drawing them in and they were pushing Him away.

The author of Hebrews is reminding these churches of what it was like for their ancestors who saw God on Mt.

Sinai and the results of that experience in their lives.

Now he contrasts that with what they have personally experienced when they met God.

Experiencing God on Mt.

Zion is a joyful event.

Look at his description of their meeting with God.

Do you notice how different the descriptions of these two places are?

Wilderness - City

Thunder, lightning, and clouds - Angels

Fear and trembling - A festive gathering

Rejection of God - Assembly of the Firstborn

When these believers began to experience God working in their lives, it was a completely different experience than it was for those at Mt. Sinai.

Jesus had come and revealed to the world the true heart of God.

While God’s glory is awe-inspiring, it is also loving, kind, and gentle.

Jesus has revealed to the world that because of what He has done, a way has been made for our relationship with God to be restored.

He has made us His co-heirs and our names have been written in Heaven as such.

God is still our judge, but when He sees us, He sees the righteousness and perfection of Jesus.

God has made a new covenant with his people through his son Jesus so that we can enjoy the relationship that God intended for us to have when he created us.

Do you see how incredibly different these two experiences are?

The first covenant gave the law, which enslaved people because it had no power to save them, only to condemn them.