What cannot shake message 6

Hebrews 12:18–29 ESV

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 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, 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, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 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.” 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. 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, for our God is a consuming fire.

When everything is shaking we pay attention to everything in Christ that isn’t

When We lived in Oregon on the Northwestern part of the US, we lived in the Willamette valley, about an hour from the pacific ocean. And off of the Oregon coast was the Cascadia Subuction Zone. It was a massive fault line that had scientists worrried for decades. They are still worried about it. Because of the possibility of earthquakes and tsunamis there were warnings when you spent any amount of time on the coast. We loved to vacation in Astoria and on the drive there you would pass in and out of a tsuanami evacuation route. And every beach you were on had a large sign with arrows pointing up to where the tsunami evacuation routes were. Show 2 pictures.

For some reason I was always really concerned about it. The possibility that an earthquake and a tsunami could happen at any time was a bit anxiety producing. I’m not high anxiety normally but we would be playing with the kids on the beach and the signs would just be looming.

There was always this unease that at any time everything could change. That everything could break apart. In fact in an article I read about the Cascadia Subduction Zone, it stated that everything West of the I-5 was overdue for an event that would be basically liquefied. That is disconcerting.

And we live in a culture where it feels a bit the same. That at any point there can be a life shattering event that changes everything.

- People are feeling that uncertainty. We are feeling that uncertainty. There was a study done by Springtide research about young people and faith and they ended up calling 2021’s study “The State of Religion and Young People: Navigating Uncertainty.” And they interviewed over 10000 people in order to understand the culture more clearly. Show slides

57% of people ages 13-25 stated that they expected that when the pandemic is over a lot of things will be different in mostly disappointing ways.

So whether it’s us, the next generation or our neighbors, we live in a world where things shake.

Hebrews gives us helpful but serious parting words. We have experienced shaking. WE have experienced the moving of most everything we have known to be certain ground. The author of Hebrews understands that and invites us to the mountain that cannot be shaken.

When things are shaking we tend to not look to much of anything, in fact we tend to look to ourselves. We can’t see much outside of ourselves to do much else.

I want to show another part of the study where it shows what it is young people are anxious about: Show slide.

While we have new things to be anxious about the experience of being anxious about our lives is not new.

Soren Keirkagaard talks a lot about anxiety and the spiritual experience. HE was an early exetentialist philosopher and a devoted Christian.

And he spent his entire life looking at the Christian experience on the inside.

At this point in history there was a shelling of Christianity. A loosening of it in the culture. There was through the enlightenment continued talk of a culture that exists without God.

And that the best way forward is to pursue life without God.

Kierkagaard argued that a life given infinite choices left up to us only leads to anxiety.

And you can see that in the slide. People are anxious. They are shaking. And it feels like everything is shaking around them.

And it is not just the younger generation. It is us too. We shake. We worry. We feel anxiety.

I love Kierkagaard’s definition of anxiety, it is “freedom’s actuality as the possibility of possibility.” So it is freedom that may happen based on what we think is a possibility of a possibility.

Have you ever ruminated on something over and over and over. Anxiety is a perverse meditation where we keep placing a possibility of a possibility over and over and over again in our lives.

Anxiety is never what is happening, it is always what may possibly happen.

And when we shake we will often come to the end of our own means. anxiety will quickly absorb our resources.

But for the church that is good news

- It seems like for us and for the church that maybe we have already reached the end of our own means.

- What are we find when we reach the end of our own means? For the international church there are still some strategies and means and gifts that churches are employing in order to perpetuate the church. Before those are Christianity as marginalized insignificant and nearly forgotten, you find that the only thing at the end of our own means of Christ. We have seen what shakes and seen what breaks and we have seen Christ.

We don’t shake when we know Christ is the founder and perfecter of our faith

Hebrews 12:1–2 ESV

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

I think that therefore is a giant therefore, a callback to the entire book. What difference does it make that we know any of this?

Because seeing Christ changes us in such a way that we can shed everything that weighs us down and run.

He gives a great description of what Christ did and why He did it.

Christ is the founder and perfecter of our faith. He started it and He will complete it. Christ’s work on our faith allows us to walk on uncertain ground. Because it is not the ground that we have to worry about.

Philippians 1:6 (ESV)

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

We don’t shake when Christ speaks a better word

Hebrews 12:22–24 ESV

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, 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, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

The author continues to do what he has been doing up until this point. He is using the copy, contrasting the OT with the NT. He is showing us a mountain where God resided and no one could ascend (except Moses) with a mountain where we can ascend.

Notice the two descriptions.

Mt Sinai is void of people or of community. There is no cloud of witnesses.

It is void of ch 11.

Mt Zion is full of celebration.

It is full of angels

It is full of worship.

We have come to this mountain. The one that speaks a better promise through Christ.

It is His word that allows to ascend unscathed.

It is His word that allows anyone to get close to Him.

These descriptions take us to Deuteronomy 4 where Moses receives the 10 Commandments.

And we are reminded that God through His word delivered and gave them words of life. This is what a life in God looks like

And now God speaks through a better promise in Christ. Not just that we would have the words of life but that we would have life Himself.

The commandments showed us what life is like.

Christ gave us life Himself.

We don’t just have to see what it is like we can experience in His better Word.

We move from a place we cannot be, we are not allowed, we will die if we touch it to a place where we are welcomed in.

This is the picture of transformation. Where we ascend based on what God is doing not based on our own attempts.

When I was 15 I was really into golf. Really. And in Milwaukee where I grew up there was a pro golf tournament every year. And my dad found out you could host an up and coming PGA golfer in your house. So a day or two before the tournament a PGA golfer showed up at my house. For me it was the highlight of my young life. Everything was already about golf but when he showed up I ate breathed lived and slept it. And if things couldn’t get better he invited me to golf with him.

So we showed up to the course and go to the first tee box and I was brimming with confidence. It wasn’t my ability to play golf. I hadn’t gotten any better. But there was something that happened when I got around a pro golfer. I felt like I could drive further putt better. There was something that changed in me simply because of my proximity to him. It was his work and his ability and his presence that changed me.

Christ speaks a word and gives his presence that when we are around Him, when we know Him, it changes us. We are transformed, not because of our ability but because of His work and word.

Hebrews 12:25–29 ESV

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 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.” 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. 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, for our God is a consuming fire.

This passage seems to answer the question, “how long will this last?”

We are doing ministry with eternal consequences.

That reality doesn’t escape us.

The things that we are doing, the places that we are involved in are the things that cannot be shaken.

When everything else is sifted,

And shaken

and broken

we get to receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

And knowing we receive that kingdom that cannot be shaken shows us that no matter what we face He has made Himself known. No matter what we head toward, He has shown Himself. He has steeled Himself toward us.

Our confidence is in Him because His word shakes the earth and stays the eternal.

Psalm 29:3–9 ESV

The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

The cross is where we see the duality of shaking and maintaining. The very will and direction of God sent Christ to the Cross to pay the penalty of our sin. IN doing so, it looked like everything was breaking apart. God was dead, his followers were scattered. IT was dark in the middle of the day. Earthquakes. God speaks and everything looks like it’s falling apart. We hear “My God my God why have you forsaken me?” But in the same moment we hear “it is finished.” We see the place where God brings healing and restoration. God used this broken moment to call humanity back to Himself. The moment when everything seemed like it was falling apart was exactly the moment that God was putting it back together.

We stand where everything is shaking and we get to cry glory! Because God is putting together and inviting in even when nothing feels as solid as it should.

Christ gave everything so that we can know Him in anything