A Taste Of What Is To Come

Good Morning!

Man, as I was prepping this weekend, I was struck again with how much I love you guys!

Getting to share in our experiences with God brings such depth to our relationships and I wouldn’t trade those for anything.

I posted a song yesterday in our Facebook group and I hope you saw it and took time to listen.

It is such a great lead-in to the message for today.

We are about to read verses 3-6 in chapter 8 of Hebrews.

Before we do I want to remind you that last week we saw that verses 1-2 were a transition between the focus being on Jesus’ priesthood and now on him bring the sacrifice.

I also want to share with you an idea that was prevalent in Jewish theology.

It is going to inform how we interpret this passage and how this message was formed today.

There was this idea that Heaven and Earth co-exist, but on different planes.

While separate, they are moving forward in time together and one day they will be joined once again.

When Moses was on the mountain with God and received the law and instructions, he was able to see into this heavenly realm and that is the basis for all that he taught to the Hebrew people.

Look with me really quick at Exodus 25:40.

Exodus 25:40 CSB

40 Be careful to make them according to the pattern you have been shown on the mountain.

This instruction is on the heels of God showing Moses all that was needed in order to build the tabernacle.

This would be the center of all their worship until the Messiah came.

What God told Moses to create was a foreshadow of what was to come in heaven.

In making his argument about Jesus and his role in the restoration of the relationship with God, the author of Hebrews brings this passage in.

Look at Hebrews 8:3-5 with me and you will see it.

Hebrews 8:3–5 CSB

3 For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; therefore, it was necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. 4 Now if he were on earth, he wouldn’t be a priest, since there are those offering the gifts prescribed by the law. 5 These serve as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was warned when he was about to complete the tabernacle. For God said, Be careful that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain.

When I was first hired at Petron, my role was to estimate the cost of building fuel systems and the equipment required to build it.

I started learning under the man I was replacing.

He was old school and would spend hours on a site with a measuring wheel and a note pad.

He would measure and sketch how the system would function.

That worked for him, but I knew there had to be a better and more efficient way to do it.

I say that because when we got back to the office, he would then use rulers and guides to redraw it out and label it out.

He would then give it to our draftsman and he would draw it in AutoCAD so that we could send it to an architect or engineer for review.

There were a lot of moving parts and opportunities for mistakes along the way.

I decided to learn autocad so that I could import satellite imagery, draw on top of that and then my measurements would be really close and I could cut out nearly a days worth of work.

That has developed even further over the past few years and I’ve learned how to use LiDAR data to get elevations that are perfectly precise.

Unfortunately, not all the places we are working have LiDAR data available.

So, last year, I got my commercial drone license and now I can fly the sites and using photogrammetry, I can create point clouds, just like LiDAR, and I can also do an entire site layout that is accurate within millimeters.

There is a problem though…

My drawings, while good, drawn properly, incredibly accurate, and able to be built off of, still lack something that I can’t do.

They must be stamped by an engineer or architect in order for us to use them to actually build a store.

While I have learned a lot and can draw upon the experience I have in running kitchens, all the time I spend studying other fueling stations, traffic patterns, long term up keep, and focusing on pin point accuracy, none to that is enough to qualify me to actually design them on my own.

I have years of practical experience, yet I am not qualified to function on my own.

I am just imitating an actual architect or engineer.

This is what we see in the Levitical priest.

Just like I am asked by my company to do all this work to the best of my ability, I am not an architect, and so there is a limitation to what I am actually able to complete.

The same was true of the priest of Levi.

The priest, while doing what they were told, to the best of their ability, were not enough.

They were fulfilling their roles as they were instructed, but they could never complete the whole work.

That wasn’t their purpose either.

They were intended to be a foreshadow of what was to come.

They were like a movie preview.

God’s intent was for the priest to simply wet the appetite of the people which would draw them in closer to God.

One of the problems that they encountered was the level of emphasis that was put on the priest.

Rather than pursuing God, the people and the priest made themselves the focus of the system.

Jesus makes this clear in his interactions with the priest and how they respond in return.

If we are honest, we can look at our own lives and see similar patterns that are manifested in different ways.

Living vicariously through other people's relationship with God.

Constantly comparing ourselves to others.

Either to justify our own actions or to build ourselves up on the failures of other people.

Relying on others to motivate you in your relationship with God.

This list can go on, but the point is that our focus is on ourselves and not on God.

There are so many around us and perhaps among us that pretend to be followers of Jesus, but what we are actually following is our own passions.

The song, “Not Gon’ Do”, on Andy Mineo’s new album references the tendency of so many to claim that they are followers of God, yet their lives tell a different story.

And here’s what we not gon’ do

Write “God first” in my profile

Then live my whole life like Satan’s child

If anybody say something, now they hating, wow

This has become so prevalent now that it feels normal for people to call themselves believers, tout that with social media posts, and then follow that up with things that communicate the exact opposite.

We are repeating the mistakes of the past but unlike the Israelites, we have the Holy Spirit that we should be allowed to lead our lives.

Tozer also addressed this idea yesterday in a devotional that I read on cmalliance.org

Yet we have somehow gotten ourselves into a state where almost all church religion is passive. A limited number of professionals act, and the mass of religious people are content to receive the action. The minister, like the undertaker, performs his professional service while the members of the congregation relax and passively "enjoy" the service.

One reason for this condition is the failure of the clergy to grasp the true purpose of preaching. There is a feeling that the work of the preacher is to instruct merely, whereas the real work of the preacher is to instruct with an end to securing moral action from the hearers. As long as there has been no moral response to the instruction, the hearers are passive merely and might as well be dead. Indeed, in one sense they are dead already.

God’s purpose in creating us was not for us to passively go through life ignoring him.

God created us to live in a relationship with him and that comes with the understanding that it is an active one.

I don’t know about your experiences, but when you choose a passive role in a relationship, it doesn’t last long.

This passiveness that Tozer is referencing isn’t new.

The same thing was happening with the Israelites and the same thing is happening today.

Our focus, since we founded TGP, is to help people understand how amazing it is when we actively live with God.

Walking with him daily, learning to hear his voice, and doing what he asks of you.

There is no greater experience than one that you will have while being right where God wants you to be.

This was in Blackaby this morning.

Christians do not live in isolation. When we sin, there are repercussions throughout the Christian community. When a brother or sister suffers, we are affected. Our calling is not to be solitary Christians but to be members of a priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9).

1 Peter 2:9 CSB

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

As we have walked through this book and shared our stories, the purpose was to help all of us to learn what it feels like to share.

In order to do that, we have to walk with God and allow him to expand our comfort zone.

He has to make us more like himself, which means we are less of who we are.

The message that God has for the world and for us is that there is something better than we have experienced before.

Jesus came to crush the serpent's head and free us from sin so that our relationship with God could be restored.

No longer do we have to rely on foreshadowing, we now have the Holy Spirit that lives inside of us.

The author of Hebrews finishes this section by beginning to explain the significance of Jesus’s ministry and the promise that it brings.

Hebrews 8:6 CSB

6 But Jesus has now obtained a superior ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been established on better promises.

While our lives are still just a shadow of what is to come, we have the opportunity to give others a glimpse into that heavenly realm that is waiting for all of us.

What is our role in this process?

We are to walk in obedience to what God is saying and thus experiencing what God intended.

We experience what it is like to be in union with a Holy God.

Yesterday I was talking with Wes between his hunts and he shared a passage that he read that morning. It was perfect to tie together this idea of what it looks like when heaven reaches down to earth.

Look at the contrast between a life of disobedience and life under the Grace of God.

Isaiah 29:13–19 CSB

13 The Lord said: These people approach me with their speeches to honor me with lip-service, yet their hearts are far from me, and human rules direct their worship of me. 14 Therefore, I will again confound these people with wonder after wonder. The wisdom of their wise will vanish, and the perception of their perceptive will be hidden. 15 Woe to those who go to great lengths to hide their plans from the Lord. They do their works in the dark, and say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?” 16 You have turned things around, as if the potter were the same as the clay. How can what is made say about its maker, “He didn’t make me”? How can what is formed say about the one who formed it, “He doesn’t understand what he’s doing”? 17 Isn’t it true that in just a little while Lebanon will become an orchard, and the orchard will seem like a forest? 18 On that day the deaf will hear the words of a document, and out of a deep darkness the eyes of the blind will see. 19 The humble will have joy after joy in the Lord, and the poor people will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah was prophesying to a people that were well acquainted with suffering and living in darkness.

That darkness was the result of their continual disobedience.

Rather than doing what God had commanded, they lived as they wanted and the result was a life of brokenness.

But! There is hope coming.

One day there would be one who would come and bring healing and hope to a people that hungered for it.

That promise still remains today.

There are people all around us who are living in darkness and we have the light.

They are suffering because they don’t know God.

We do and we have the opportunity to share with them the abundant hope and joy that comes by knowing and living in a relationship with Jesus.

This week, have conversations with God about your relationship.

Have you been living in passivity or are you actively pursuing the will of God?

Ask God to show you what it means to be part of a royal priesthood, set apart to praise the excellencies of a Holy God.