With Reverence and Awe
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We’re opening up the word today, continuing in the season of growth between Pentecost and Advent, the expansion of God’s kingdom in the world and especially in our own hearts. And we’re continuing to look at the book of Hebrews, following the thread that has takes us through the meaning of faith, to the discipline that prepares us and keeps us in a life of relational trust in God and his promises, and now continuing to build up our perseverance in the faith, the author to the Hebrews encourages us with good news that’s made sweeter by looking at how things could have gone. And these words serve as a warning, for our good, so that we might continue in the faith.
It’s not smart to ignore a warning from someone you trust. It’s not smart to ignore street signs. And it’s not smart to put yourself in a position to lose the ability to see clearly, to deaden your ability to hope.
The author to the Hebrews is writing to a group who many scholars think is a congregation of Jewish Christians thinking about abandoning the faith because of persecution and going back to a Christ-less Judaism. And in our passage today, the author wants to help them remember what it looks like to be on the outside of the covenant of love that Christ made in his own blood. Here we see a picture of what it looks like to be under the Law instead of grace. And it’s terrifying. And the point that we need to hear in this season of spiritual growth is that God is otherworldly, he can be terrifying. Our senses are not compatible with trying to apprehend him in his holiness. He is holy, righteous, all-powerful, even these words can’t do him justice. He holds our molecules together and if held his breath, all life everywhere, the sun, moon, and stars would perish. God is not a God that you want to feel indifferent towards you. And in his grace, he established a relationship with Israel, and codified it in the Law, the Pentateuch. The people of Israel had seen the terrible miracles of God in the plagues of Egypt, having bugs eat all food, turning the Nile into blood, the death of the firstborn that was only averted by the blood of a lamb being smeared over one’s door. He could have made every Israelite draw a circle above their door, but the peculiar holiness of God demanded sacrificial blood to keep the angel of death at bay. The Israelites saw more and more terrifying things. They saw the water of the Red Sea pushed to each side and walked for hours between walls of water being held up by the breath of God. And as they entered into legal relationship with God at the giving of the Law, they were terrified continually with lightning, and fire, and dark gloom, and overpowering wind. Exodus describes these things.
18 Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly.
18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off
If the atmosphere at the giving of the Law was a church planting strategy, people would run, and not because it was lame, or dysfunctional, but because it was terrifying.
And yet, if we’re going to have a God to call our God, do we want a personal assistant, or do we want a God who can melt mountains and break cedar trees with his breath? Which one could deliver us from slavery? Which one could forgive us our sins? Which one can cause the sun to shine? And so it was still grace, unfathomable grace when God limited himself in love for his people by giving them a law, an agreement of how he, that spectacular, terrifying God would treat them in love. It was absolutely grace. But it was absolutely terrifying.
And so that’s the situation under consideration by the congregation that this letter to the Hebrews was written to. And the author is saying. You didn’t end there. God’s plan and his revelation of himself came so much further than a life of fearful obedience to a God you could never understand. The people of Israel eventually traveled further, past Sinai to another mountain, Mt. Zion. And Mt. Zion is the land of promise. It was where God’s provision for his people was headed until Jesus was finally revealed. They came to the peace that comes from their wandering ending and peaceful establishment at their new home. We see a picture of this in verse 22.
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.
These Jewish Christians had moved from fear and harsh obedience of a God that humans can’t fully comprehend, to peace and grace, living with their future life in the New Jerusalem breaking in to their lives here and now. Not without problems. Not without pain. But with peace having been made with God on their behalf. With the blood of Jesus, the sacrifice to end all sacrifices.
The gospel calls for the bad kids to change. But it calls for the good kids to change as well. The bad kids need a new life but the good kids need a new life too. Sin doesn’t get you anywhere, not anywhere good. But neither does righteousness. Not since Jesus made a new covenant in his blood. And that’s because God has accepted all the sacrificial blood he will ever accept in Jesus’ sacrifice. Even if someone looks at the covenant in Jesus’ blood and wants to change and move away, back to the covenant of terrifying obedience given at Mt. Sinai, there is not a way to go back. The sacrifices demanded by the Law have already been fulfilled. And that means that if you try to go back to the Law, and reject Jesus, God has no more acceptance left to give. Jesus’ blood is so fully sufficient to forgive sins that it received all the acceptance for all sin. And that means that forgiveness of sin is found through Jesus and Jesus only. Even if you wanted to go back to killing animals and offering them on an altar to God, it would just be meat, maybe beautifully arranged meat on a nice homemade stone altar or something, but a meaningless animal death, because God’s acceptance was paid for in full by the blood of Jesus Christ.
And if there isn’t a way back to God’s acceptance through the Law apart from Jesus, there is definitely no way to God’s acceptance through randomly doing whatever is right in your own eyes to be a good person apart from Jesus. Acceptance in God’s eyes was fulfilled in the blood of Jesus. So we need to stop pretending that Jesus’ offering of himself was less than perfect, that it did less than it really did by adding to it or finding a way around it. We may try to impress God or justify ourselves in some other way, but there’s no other justification left to give. It has all been given to and in and through Jesus. We only need to trust in his work on the Cross and believe his promises and he takes our sin and gives us the justification, the peace with God, the forgiveness that belongs only to him. And this gives us a new life, the life of a new creation. The life that is ours in the heavenly Jerusalem becomes ours now. Our passage says:
26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.
We may go through trials and temptations. We will, in fact. The enemy is always trying to knock us off the tightrope of relational trust in God and his promises. But as we go through the hard things of life, we’re being refined by God and what remains of our lives will be unshakable: an eternal, abundant life in the new heavens and new earth breaking in now, even in these last days.
28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.
Looking back to the beginning of the passage. Our faith together is worth nurturing in each other. Scripture commands it here.
15 See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; 16 that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
Don’t throw away what is yours. Don’t throw away this unshakable kingdom that is yours to inherit and draw life from even now. Let’s continue to encourage each other so that no one who has started this journey fails to attain the grace of God. We need to guard against bitterness, both the cause and the effect. Don’t do something that will cause someone else’s bitterness and work on letting go of your own. There’s this thing called the expulsive power of a greater affection. It means that if your heart is full of something, like idolatry or bitterness, the thing that drives that thing away is a greater affection. A thing that you love more than your bitterness, more than your idol. And so we do that by learning to value God more. And that doesn’t happen by drumming up emotions. In the case of God, it comes from seeing him more clearly, learning about him. As we see God more clearly, we will love him more. And that’s why we need the Bible, because there he’s revealed everything he wants us to know about who he is. It’s there that we see him more clearly and begin to value him more because of it. And as we value him more, we value our idols, our bitterness less. And we can let them go.
And then another angle in persevering in the faith is to set our eyes on the reward that will last. Let Esau’s life be a warning for you. He gave away his whole inheritance for a bowl of soup. Our whole society is geared toward making us give up longterm happiness for momentary pleasure. But we need to turn that on it’s head and learn to value longterm happiness over momentary pleasure. When you find yourself faced with that choice, remember Esau and ask yourself, “Am I giving up my inheritance for a bowl of soup?” “Am I giving up my eternal life, for some kind of momentary pleasure?” The writer to the Hebrews encourages us to remember the unshakable kingdom that awaits us, to drive out the things that cause our faith to stumble. And we do that through worship.
Remember who it is that you worship. You worship someone who could totally end you. But instead he used his limitless power to take away your sin and build you an unshakable kingdom. Because of Jesus he uses his power, to love us. So let us respond by offering acceptable worship, worship through Jesus, with reverence and awe for our God who is a consuming fire.
