The Shadow of things to come.The tabernacle.

Today marks the second week of our two-week break in our year-long series, The Story. Like Pam mentioned, this is a great opportunity to catch up if you need to—take time to review, ask questions, and dig deeper. Speaking of questions, if at any point you have one about what we’re reading, you can send it to [e-mail]. Pastor Andy would love to help answer it or explore the topic further with you.

Last week, we looked at the lives of the patriarchs—the men who laid the foundation of our faith: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What stood out in their stories, just like in our own lives, is that they were broken people. Yet, our gracious God still used them for His glory—just as He continues to use His broken followers today. But what really struck me in that message was that in their sin, God was with them.

To Abraham, in Genesis 15:1—"After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: ‘Fear not, Abram, I am your shield…’"

To Isaac, in Genesis 26:24—"And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, ‘I am the God of Abraham, your father. Fear not, for I am with you…’"

To Jacob, in Genesis 28:15—"Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

You see, God was with them. His presence was with them. And his presence was a GIFT as it brought them safety, guidance, strength, encouragement and joy. The reason I say it is a gift is because were broken people. We don’t deserve for God to be with us, desire us. But it’s a gift because he does. And there is this sense of endless pursuit of God to dwell with his people.  

From the moment humanity entered the picture, all the way into eternity, God has desired to be with His people. He longs to dwell with us. Think about that—the God of creation wants to be with you, with me. And that should stir something in us this morning. Because where His presence is, there is power. And that power causes things to happen in us like those three men.

I’ve come to understand the gift of presence in my own life. If you look at the screen, you’ll see a picture of my dad and me. This was taken when I was in fourth grade, right after my little league football team won the Super Bowl. It’s a moment I’ll never forget. My dad was one of the coaches, and we were losing for most of the game. Near the fourth quarter, we started making a comeback, and the game went into multiple overtimes. It was the kind of game every kid dreams of playing in.

On the final play, I was on defense. The other team was just a few yards from scoring, and we had to stop them. The moment the final tackle was made and the game ended, I locked eyes with my dad on the sideline. I ran straight to him like nothing else mattered and jumped into his arms. He embraced me, I embraced him, and it was one of those moments that I had with my dad I will never forget.

My dad never missed a game of mine—no matter the sport. He was always either coaching or in the stands supporting me. And as his son, that meant everything. I’m even more thankful for it now than I was then. His presence, him being there, him just showing up was extremely valuable to me.

For instance, there were times in football when I felt exhausted and wanted to take a break. But with my dad in the stands, I never gave in, because I could hear his voice in my head encouraging me to keep going. That picture? If you can tell, if you look at my hand you will see that it is taped up. I had three broken fingers. But my dad had taught me to be brave and to push through my fears and feelings and he taught me what it meant to give myself for my team.

As a kid, I struggled with hitting the ball in baseball, but when I stepped up to the plate, I could hear my dad yelling: “You can do this!” “I believe in you!” or “Good eye!” when I didn’t swing at a bad pitch. Just knowing he was there gave me confidence.

And his presence wasn’t just in sports—it was in a lot of areas of my life. He wasn’t perfect, but he was present.

But now think about this: How much greater is God’s gift of His presence to us? Not only does He desire to be with us, but His presence does something for us like we see in the patriarchs.

This morning, we’re going to explore God’s gift of presence—from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, to the tabernacle in exodus, to the gift of the holy spirt in acts, and to eternity, forever with Him.

If you would, please turn with me to Genesis 1. This is where everything begins. God creates the world in six days, and on the sixth day, He creates man and woman. When He looks at all He has made, He declares that it is very good. On the seventh day, He rests.

God creates everything, including humanity, and places man and woman in the Garden of Eden to work and care for it. In this garden, God provides every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. Among them are the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God gives them a command:

"You may eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

They had countless options, yet as we know, through the deception of the serpent, they chose to eat from the one forbidden tree. In that moment, sin entered the world like a disease, infecting everything. They chose their way over God's way.

And this is where everything changes.

Before their sin, life was perfect—sinless.

They lived in the garden with God, experiencing His presence.

They enjoyed a perfect relationship with Him and His creation.

Animals weren’t eating other animals.

People weren’t fighting, stealing, or killing each other.

But the moment they disobeyed God, everything broke.

Because of their sin—just like our sin—they became separated from God. A holy God cannot dwell in the presence of sin. As a result, God removed them from the garden, sending them out to work the land.

The Garden of Eden functioned like a temple—a place where God and humanity dwelled together. But because of their sin, they were cast out, no longer able to remain in God’s holy presence.

Look at Genesis 3:23-24:

"Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden, He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life."

God placed cherubim—angelic beings—along with a flaming sword at the entrance, fully preventing Adam and Eve from returning to the tree of life.

This moment is critical to the entire biblical story.

God could not allow sinful, broken people to return and take from the holy tree of life. He had to completely protect it.

And this is a picture of our own sin.

Sin has separated us from God. Like Adam and Eve, we are powerless to get back to the garden or to restore what has been lost. No amount of effort, strength, or wisdom can bring us back into God’s presence.

Because sin and brokenness do not belong in the presence of a perfect and holy God.

But just like last week’s message—there is good news.

God’s desire is not to remain separated from His people. His desire is grace.

His heart has always been to dwell with us—to restore what was lost in Eden. And from this moment forward, God begins pursuing humanity to rebuild that relationship.

That is amazing, and it speaks to who He is.

Up to this point in the story, we’ve seen God’s relentless pursuit of His people. He called Moses to lead the Israelites out of 430 years of slavery in Egypt, displaying His power through miraculous signs. After Pharaoh finally let them go, God parted the Red Sea, delivering them from their enemies and proving once again that He was with them.

But despite witnessing these incredible works, the Israelites struggled with trust. In the wilderness, they became hungry and thirsty and quickly forgot God’s faithfulness. They grumbled against Moses and even convinced themselves they were better off in Egypt. And yet, in His grace, God provided—manna from heaven to eat and water from a rock to drink.

But God wasn’t just interested in providing for their physical needs. His ultimate desire was to dwell with them.

In Exodus 25:1-9, we see God’s next instruction:

"The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the people of Israel, that they take for me a contribution. From every man whose heart moves him you shall receive the contribution for me… And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.’"

Did you catch that? "That I may dwell in their midst."

Even after their grumbling, their doubts, and their failures, God still wanted to be with them. So He commanded them to build the Tabernacle, a place where His presence would dwell among them.

The tabernacle was God’s dwelling place, and God gave the Israelite people specific and detailed instructions for the building of the tabernacle. This took skillful hands to construction the tabernacle, also known as the tent of meeting. Moses and his people, would put up, tear down, and put up the tabernacle as they traveled to the promise land. So remember, this is the place where God’s presence dwelt with his people. But there were some serious instructions that God gave his people. Like when God’s presence was on Mount Sinai, the people couldn't just go up or they would die because of the Holiness of God. And this was the same for the tabernacle, but specifically the portion in the inner courts called the Holy of holies. Only once a year, could the high priest go into the Holy of Holys and offer an atonement of sins of their people. Once a year, and the High preist had to go through this progression of the tabernalce to conscreate himself before going into the presence of the Lord.

See the tabernacle was designed to remind israel of God’s Holiness and their seperation from Him due to their sin. But it was also a reminder of God’s presence with them.

Now, i want to take us through the progression of the tabernacle as if we were an Israelite and a high priest. And as we do so, I want you to think about what these things and the tabernacle as a whole might be foreshadowing.

Here is a picture of the Tabernacle as a whole- The tabernacle was pitched with its door facing the east. If you remember, in the garden of Eden when the people were removed from the Garden, they went out from the east of the Garden and thats where God placed the cherubim and the flaming sword- walking out of the tabernacle like walking out of the Garden is a representation of moving away from Gods presence. To walk through the east entrance, the only entrance, is to walk into God’s presence.

This next picture is a picture of the entrance of that gate like we were talking about. If you notice, the curtains are made up of three colors: the blue represented deity, because the court you are about to walk into is a place of God. The purple, it was a very expensive dye to get and produce so it represents the royalty of God. Now if you go to the next slide, this is us entering the gate. But still on the curtain, there is the third color of red. This as you might think, is the color of sacrifice, the blood of an animal for forgivness. Next picture, as we enter the entrance, we walk into what is known as the outer courts. The first thing that you would see as you walked in is the bronze alter or also known as the alter of the burnt offering. The Israelites made daily sacrifices to God on this alter to atone for their sin. This is as far as a normal israelite could go. But what you would do is, you would bring in your animal, and the priest would meet you at this alter, you would place your hand on the animal to signify your sins being placed on to the animal and then it would be slaughtered and placed onto the alter as a sacrifice. Next slide for a closer look, the fire from the presence of the Lord consumed the sacrifice and the alter was to be kept burning at all time. So like I said, the normal israelite can only go this far into the tabernacle.

Now, if you were a priest, one that acted as a mediator between God and man, after you would go to the bronze alter, you would go to what you would find between the bronze alter and the Holy place was a wash basin called a ‘Laver’. This is where the preists washed themselves as to be consecreated or set apart for ministry duties. They would typically wash their hands and feet due to the blood from the sacrifices at the bronze alter.

The next picture is a picture of what would be the inner courts, which included the holy place, and the holy of holies. This is us walking into the first room, the holy room which as a reminder only preists could enter. In this room there were three items. To the right of the room is the table of showbread to the back is the alter of incense, and to the left is the golden lampstand.

This picture is the golden lampstand. Remember, God had the contsurcted specifically to his desire, it is tructured as a tree with the base and middle shaft representing the trunk and with three branches on each side. This lamp was to be shining at all times so it was tended to by Aaron and his sons day and night. This is pointing directly to Jesus as the light of the world.

The next picture is the table of showbread. At the start of each week, the preists placed 12 loaves of fresh bread on the this table- one for each of the 12 tribes. It served as a memorial food offerign the Lord as a rememberence of him providing for the Israelites in the wilderness.

This next picture is the alter of incesne, Aaron was inscrutucted to burn incencse on the alter every morning and night as a regualry offering to the Lord. Incense is associated with the prayers of God’s people.

Now behind that curtain was a smaller room known as the Holy of holies. Only the high presist could enter this room once per year on the day of atonement. Inside this room laid the Ark of the Covenant. Now you see those poles, that is how the priests would carry the Ark as they traveled. Now this room was extremley important because this is where the presence of God was physically. Inside of the ark, were three items. 1. Was the tablets that contained the 10 commandments. 2. A jar that contained the manna that God had provided for his people in the wilderness and the 3rd item was Aarons staff. Where you see those two cherubim on top, that was known as the mercy seat. In 1 Samuel and Psalm 18:10, Go describes as him being enthroned between the cherubim over the Ark.

So, that was a lot of information about the structure and the progression through the tabernacle. See the tabernacle was for the israelites, so that the presence and the glory of the Lord would be with them always as they traveled. And it opperated as a way for man to be forgiven of their sin.

But listen, this couldnt have been it. This wasnt the final solution because the peopel would have to conntinually come back and offer sacrfices for their sin which means it was only temporalriy. The high preist could only enter the holy of holies once a year to sprinkle blood of a bull and a god to make atonemnet for his own sin and the sin for all the poeple. But because it was somehting that had to continueally happen it was only tempoary. The tabernacle was a shadow of things to come. There was more. God desired to be fully with his his people.

Genesis 2:16-17

luke 24:46-49