Worship the Superior

I. All Fear Was There (Heb. 12:18–21)

So you're in chapter 12, verse 18, but go back a couple of verses just to kind of, I don't know, refresh us a little bit. Verse 14, "Pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord."

So remember, holiness is something we don't have as sinners. We need to be given holiness and empowered for holiness, right? We need to get saved, be washed whiter than snow from our sin, and then given the Holy Spirit so that we can be holy. So make sure you're clear that if you're not a believer, that verse is not talking to you. An unbeliever cannot be holy because you don't have the righteousness of Christ. So this is for Christians.

And now that you are a Christian, you might think, well, all my sins are paid for, I don't have to worry about anything anymore. Wrong. If your sins are paid for, you need to be holy because you were given those gifts to be holy. So pursue holiness, peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Then looking carefully lest anyone, interesting phrase, fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble and by this many become defiled. How can you fall short of grace? How can you fall short of a free gift? That's a strange phrase and he's going to say something more like it in today's passage. But I want you to see that sets the table. Pursue peace with each other and all people and then Holiness, without which you're— God isn't— nobody in heaven is going to be unholy, just so you know. Everybody in heaven has to be holy, and you don't have it in yourself, so you have to get it from Christ, righteousness. And then you have to live it, because that's why he gave it to you, so that you would be fit for heaven.

A. God has always expected holiness (18–19a).

That gets us to verse 18. Now you who have suffered but not to the point of bloodshed, you who might be chastened, you who might have gone through difficult things and need to pursue holiness, for you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire into blackness and darkness and tempest. And the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that— and I'll stop right there for a second.

You have not come to this mountain that's described here. What is he talking about? Well, every Jew would know exactly what he's talking about. He's talking about Sinai. He's talking about the mountain that we see described in Exodus 19. He's talking about the mountain that trembled and shook and there was commandments about that. You don't even touch that mountain, right? And so the Jewish people knew of a mountain and the author of Hebrews is saying that mountain that you knew of in the Old Testament, The mountain where the commandments came from, the mountain that scared you, the mountain that trembled and had smoke and had all that tempest and turmoil happening, that mountain is not our mountain anymore. That isn't our mountain as Christians. That was the Jews' mountain back then, but now we serve the risen Christ.

How does the song go? Because he lives, what's the next line? Okay, because all fear is what? Yeah, they still had fear. But we're in Christ, because He lives, we have no fear. But they feared. They were told in that most phobic sense, "Don't go near that mountain."

B. Understanding we have it best (19b).

Look at verse 19, "So that those who heard it," those who heard all the tremblings and the earthquake and the darkness and on the sound of the trumpet and the voice of words, those that heard it, verse 19, the second half, "begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore, for they could not endure what was commanded." And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.

Verse 21, and so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.

That was their mountain. You who want to hold on to the Old Testament, you who want to cling to your ceremony, you who want to cling to Moses and all those things, that's your mountain. And the author of Hebrews is saying that is not our mountain as Christians. That is not us. We do not now approach a mountain where even touching it might kill us, where we would be guilty. And, and even Moses was afraid to the point of saying, I am trembling.

When those people heard that mountain, they were afraid. So much so, did you see verse 19 where it says the people begged not to hear the word anymore? That doesn't mean they didn't want to hear the word anymore. That means they couldn't bear the sound of God's holy voice. They said it out loud. They actually said it in chapter 20. Please, Moses, you talk to us. We cannot handle the direct voice of God. It's too much. That was their life and experience. That was their religion. That was their faith.

I love that the author of Hebrews does this. He does it so well. He's meta. He's always working on layers because he's saying that was awesome. That is our history. That is our awesome God. That was the way God interacted with us back then. But hey guys, it's scary, and we don't live in that fear anymore. We're in Christ. That doesn't mean that doesn't count. It doesn't mean it was bad. It was how God did it. To the point where Moses was scared. And we can't hear God anymore. Please, Moses, you talk to us. We can't handle his voice.

That's the way it was in the Old Testament. They were so afraid to approach the holiness of God, so afraid to be near him that they didn't even want to hear his voice. And the author of Hebrews is saying, not that God changed his standards. He didn't change his standards. God didn't come down and become low. He did come down and became low for us as Jesus, but he didn't change his standards. God is perfectly holy still.

We still approach that God, the God of the mountain of Sinai. That is still the God that we have access to. But now because of Christ, we have free access and we're welcome to go. So you don't have to go to the scary mountain. You get to go directly into his presence.

II. Now We Can Freely Exalt Him Words (Heb. 12:22–24)

A. We have access to exalt (22, 23).

Look at verse 22, some of my favorite verses in all the Bible. This is my, my Revelation 5 right here, the verses I love to appeal to because listen to the warning. Listen, the fear of being chastened, the fear of dying and being sawn in two for the faith, everything that's been said up to this point, the fear, that you might deny the Lord instead of accept the Lord, that fear and the things that come with it.

Then you have this amazing, beautiful praise service in verse 22. "But you," and this is important before I say it. There are two words for "but," B-U-T, adversatives. There's one that's strong and one that's not as strong. The strong one is "alla." It's like a real strong— my professor said it's the pulpit pounding "but." Not this, but that. It's strong. It's an absolute contrast. And then there's a lighter one, de, delta epsilon. It's a smaller word. And that one, it's not as strong. It can be used as a but, and sometimes it can be even used as an and. Right?

The reason I bring that up here is this is a strong adversative. And I don't usually do that. I don't usually dig into the Greek too much. But I do want you to see it here because here he is saying, no, you Jewish believers, Christians, you don't go to that mountain anymore. That is not the place where we encounter God and experience the fearful tempest and, and the cloud and the voice that we can't hear and stand.

That's not you anymore. It was that, but now look at verse 22: But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect.

Wow. Wow! Instead of putting your face down, instead of trembling, instead of saying, Moses, please tell him, stop talking, I can't handle it. You talk, we can handle you, you're human, but we can't handle hearing from him. Instead of that, you know what God is saying? You get to go right in there with him, the him that they were afraid to hear. You don't even have— you can bypass the mountain and go directly to the throne room. You, Christian, have direct access to Mount Zion.

Now, what I said earlier applies here. I need to say it. Zion is a hijacked word. It almost makes no sense in our modern culture. Don't equate the word Zion you're hearing today with what's happening in Gaza and everything. Do not equate that with Bible Zion. They don't mean the same thing. It's like calling America Christian. It doesn't make any sense.

Zion is the city of God. It could have been Jerusalem or the city of David. It's a literal place where the temple might have been. It's a— think of it as the spiritual capital of Israel. And in that case, the spiritual capital of the faith, the true faith of the true God. So when you say you've come— it says you come to Mount Zion, don't put that in your head as that the significance is an actual location on Earth's map, even though I do believe there is a place on Earth's map. That's not the significance. The place is the place where you encounter God. You get to go to the place where you encounter God. Not Mount Sinai where the law is, but Mount Zion where God is and the grace of God is. They're contrasted. It's better to go to Zion than it is to Sinai. We don't have to be afraid anymore.

Look at all the things described there, the city of the living God. Again, even Augustine tried to hijack that. There's the sort of Roman Catholic idea of the city of God, and that is the church on earth. Don't— that's not what that means. They tried to hijack the Bible. The city of God is this place that he's been telling us about the whole time. Remember Abraham didn't get the city. The Old Testament saints didn't get the city. The city is where God lives.

And now you Christian, you Hebrew Christian, and you American Christian who trust Christ for real, you get to go directly into the city of God. You're a citizen of the city of God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the heavenly central location, to the command center, to the place where God is.

And then I love these verses, to an innumerable company of angels. I remember my professor, and I don't know if he's right. I always say this. I believe him, but I'm not dogmatic about it. I always love my professor that Talks about that on Sunday morning when we gather, we're not just gathering with us here, we're gathering with all believers all over the world on the first day of the week, and we're gathering with the saints in heaven and the angels in heaven.

So when we do a call to worship, can you imagine what it sounds like in heaven? A call to worship of the angels? Because this says that we are in the presence of those people. That's what it says. It doesn't just say the visible, it's talking about the invisible. That when you are in Christ, You get to join with the invisible angels.

And then it says, "To the general assembly and church of the firstborn." That firstborn is plural. So the idea is we are the firstborn. You remember what firstborn means, right? It doesn't mean born first. In this case, it kind of means both because it means that we are the first ones that kind of in the New Covenant idea. That's the idea the author of Hebrews is saying. Like, we are— it led up to this, and we are now in the family of the people kind of born first as Christians, right? Where God is now bringing in all the world. He's bringing in Jew and Gentile alike.

But it's also the firstborn idea. If this is Paul, it's definitely the firstborn idea of the prestige and inheritance of being the firstborn. That doesn't have to do with birth order. That has to do with the honor of getting the inheritance, the inheritance of Christ. You are joint heirs with Christ. That's the idea of firstborn, that he is the Son of God, but we are the sons and daughters of God. We're not equal with him, but we are sons and daughters. In that family.

Then it says, who are registered in heaven. Hmm, that almost sounds like a place where there's names written in heaven. Not people that invited themselves, but people whose names were written maybe in a book of life, maybe before the foundation of the world. They're registered in heaven.

And then it says, to God the judge of all. Don't go too fast past that. Do you want to be in the presence of a judge? Not if you're guilty, you don't. Not if you should be condemned, you don't. What happens if you're washed in the blood of Christ and made righteous? What happens if he calls you his justified son or daughter? You're not afraid of the judge anymore. You're not scared. You're not hiding. You don't, you don't say, I don't want to hear the judge's voice. I'm scared of it. He might call me guilty.

You say, Lord, I'm here. I'm in your presence, and all of my guilt is on your Son. And you said if I put my faith in him, he would redeem me and he would give me his righteousness. So now you can declare me righteous because of the work of your Son. So here I am in your presence. And you know what the Lord says? Good, get in here. This is where you belong, with me. I made you righteous so you could be with me. It's amazing that it says, judge and we don't tremble. It says, judge and we put our arms around him and give him a hug. Thank you for making and declaring me righteous.

And then lastly, it says, to the spirits of just men made perfect. That probably primarily has the idea of Old Testament saints, the ones maybe listed in the prior passage of chapter 11. But I also think you can apply that to anybody who has gone before us into glory. So that today, if I'm right and my professor's right, and it's okay for me to say it, all of our fallen fellow believers are in glory right now worshiping the Lord with us.

And we're giving our feeble version down here as best we can, and they're giving unfettered by sin, undivided worship to the Almighty. I love it. I love the idea of it.

People always talk about, you know, Grandma looking down on me at the football game and all that. There's nothing in the Bible I can see that says humans are looking down on us and seeing what we're doing. No, they're looking up to the Lord. You don't want them looking at your football game, by the way, if they can look at Jesus, okay? But now think about it. They're exalting Him, and down here we're reading about Him. Angels are exalting Him right now in the presence of Him. The innumerable number of saints that have gone before us are praising Him. And we get to join that worship service. It's beautiful.

And I also like that it says, "just men made perfect." That is the end of our faith. The idea is that that sin that we had that started in Adam is dealt with by Jesus so that in heaven nobody's got any sin. Thank goodness. I've heard pastors say that for 100 years, that that's his favorite thing about going to heaven is he won't have to battle sin anymore. I totally agree.

B. Worship the Superior (24).

Verse 24, and then if that wasn't enough,— look at all that's said in 22 and 23. Mount Zion, we get to go there. The city of God, we get to go there. The heavenly Jerusalem, we get to go there with the angels. We get to be there with them, with the general assembly of all that have died before in Christ that are safe in Christ, including the Old Testament saints that put their faith in Him ahead of time. The people whose names are in the Book of Life, to God Himself, to the spirits of just men made perfect, all those that are there.

Do you know who the best person there is? Ah, verse 24, Jesus. Look, to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

III. Do Not Miss Worship Heb. 12:25-29.

Did you hear all of that? Everything that was said to the city of God, everything is said. How does it culminate? What's the last thing said by way of encouragement to the people of Hebrews? You come to Jesus. You come to him.

And maybe it's possible that you haven't loved Jesus in a way, or maybe even known him in a way that that isn't the most attractive thought to you. But I would challenge you, I would challenge you, I would encourage you, I might even admonish you, get to know Jesus so that you think correctly about it.

Just like you've all probably eaten unhealthy food, I mean, you're American after all, right? You've all probably had too much ice cream or McDonald's or whatever you like, whatever your thing is. And we all know, at least I know, that if I could live and it was healthy to eat McDonald's, I would be really happy. Or talk about like if— I would be happy to find out that it's good for you to eat ice cream. That would make me happy. But we all know it isn't.

But you also know that it's not fun always to eat the foods that are good for you, right? And maybe like many Americans, over time our diet has changed in such a way that we don't like healthy food because we're addicted to junk food. It isn't that junk food is so good. It's that it does the thing to us, to our insulin receptors and to our stomach and to everything in our taste buds to trick us into thinking this is the best thing. But if it's killing you, is it the best thing?

So it's possible over time that we think the junk food is the best and the healthy food isn't. But ask anyone who has changed their health regimen. Becomes actually healthy— I don't mean during the interim, the hard part, giving up McDonald's or whatever, coffee or soda or whatever your thing is. I don't mean in the beginning. It's hard to give it up.

But ask anyone who has pursued actual health. And I don't mean the CrossFit people that scare you. I don't mean— I don't mean— I don't mean the carnivore people. I don't mean the people who put this thing on display as the thing. I just mean people who become healthy, whose knees don't hurt when they walk, who can lift something heavy without hurting themselves, people who become generally healthy and they have control over their intake and they will splurge and have their cheat day on occasion and eat that McDonald's once here and there. And— but over time they're healthy.

You ask that person if they regret giving up candy and cake and food, they'll say no. In fact, they'll even tell you, man, I went to try to drink a soda and it doesn't even taste anything like it used to. It's too much now. It's too rich now.

I say that's what it's like to think of your faith and think you are losing something by following Jesus. That we have had a steady diet of junk food spiritually. And we think the thing we want is our happiness and our pleasure and our itches scratched. We think the things we want are sexual, are financial, our positional, our reputational, our political.

We've eaten a steady diet of junk food and we think that's what we want. And the thought that you might just live a quiet life, a simple life, pointed to Jesus might seem boring to you. In fact, Jesus himself might seem boring to you.

And I'm just telling you, you need to go on a diet. You don't know him. If Jesus is boring to you, that's not a Jesus problem, that's a you problem. Because Jesus is awesome. He's awesome. He is the best. And if you spend any time with him, if you go through this life with him and he helps and he redeems and he forgives and he supports and he strengthens and he helps you conquer and he walks through those valleys with you, You would never want anything else.

So I'm telling you, maybe you don't think you need him, and maybe you don't love him like you should, but that's just because your diet's messed up. And I promise you, when the diet lets you down, when the world lets you down— not if, it will— he'll be there. He will be there, and he'll welcome you. But I would just go ahead and tell you, get started now. Don't wait. Don't wait till you've given your best years to this stupid world. Give your best years to the Lord now.

A. Look unto and listen to Jesus 25.

"See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape," I'm in verse 25, "who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven."

There's some question as to whether this Him is Jesus directly or God, because you see in the next verse that it's God speaking at the mountain. So it might be the Father speaking. I don't know doctrinally. That's not the crucial part.

The part is God is speaking from heaven now, and when He was on earth, you would have been smart to listen to Him, but you're more smart to listen to Him now while He speaks from heaven. That's essentially what it's saying.

"God, who in various times has spoken to us by His Son," verse 2 said. So if God judged people by fire when He spoke on earth, you better listen to Him now while He's speaking from heaven, whether that's Jesus, whether that's the Father.

B. Earthly things can be shaken, not Him 26-27.

Verse 26, "Whose voice then shook the earth, but now He has promised, saying, 'Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.'" Now, this yet once more, the author is telling us that yet once more he just said indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. That might be confusing to you.

The idea is that when God used to speak, everything used to shake and it scared everybody, right? When God was on earth speaking, things were shaky and scary. And those earth things could be shaken.

And at some point, God can speak and not only things on earth shake, but things in heaven. His voice is strong enough to shake all shaky things. But at some point, the shaky things won't exist anymore, and all you'll hear is his voice in heaven with him on the throne, and there will be no more shaking.

That's the idea, is that the trembling idea, the fearful idea, this, the scary idea that the man-made things are temporal and, and not permanent, all those things that you're putting your confidence in, the blood of bulls and goats, the Tabernacle, all the system of Moses, those things that you might be putting your trust in that are on earth, they're earthy things and they're temporal things and they're things that can be shaken by the voice of God.

Eventually, those give way to the things that can't be shaken, namely, God's throne itself and heaven itself. So he's essentially saying, "Don't pick the shaky things." You can write that down as extremely theological. That's why, you know, you preach for 20-something years and you say that very astute things like, "Don't trust the shaky things."

I hope it makes sense though. I'm being silly, but I'm not being silly. The idea is don't trust temporal things. Secular, that word means the here and now. It means the present only, thinking that the thing now is the thing to cling to.

And he's saying in the old times, they clung— is that the right past tense, cling to, clung? They clung to things on earth that were important that God instituted. And the author is telling us now when God would speak and those things would shake and the smoke would come and remember the the Holy of Holies and the presence of God directly in there and all that happened in those things when he would burn up the sacrifices in those old times.

When God would speak, people would tremble. The whole earth would shake. It was a scary time.

You don't come to that time anymore or that mountain anymore. You come directly into the presence of God, into Jesus himself. And since that's true, since all of that's true, don't refuse the one who speaks to you about those things.

Don't refuse the one who brings you to, who shows you, who spoke to you and said, "That was then. This is now." He is speaking to you. And when He spoke, the earth shook, but now things aren't shaking anymore. Be on solid ground.

That gets us to verse 28.

C. Worship is solid ground 28,29.

"Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace." I had to translate this multiple times because I didn't think I understood it. So I'll try to get— I'll get my best shot at that in a second.

"By which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire."

So I'm going to actually summarize the sermon first before I get to the scary judgment part, because I really would like you to leave with the overall picture and theme. I really want you to leave with that.

If you were a Jewish— well, a Jew first, but then a Jewish Christian in the first century, these would have been, no pun intended because of what I just said, it's an accident, but earth-shaking things. These would have been life-altering things.

Like if I were to say— the only equivalent I can come up with right now, especially in the culture we're living in and what we're seeing all over the news, it would be like if I told you right now you are not free to say whatever you want in the United States. That would be a fundamental to us as Americans who wouldn't understand that. Not only do we think we can say whatever we want, but we can actually threaten law enforcement, right? We can do whatever we want in our culture.

The thought that there's any limit to our You can say anything you want except hateful things toward marginalized groups, right? You can say Christians are idiots, but not anybody else on the other side of the aisle.

But this idea of freedom of speech, that idea is so fundamental to us that it is a foreign— literally a foreign concept for if I were to tell you, you cannot say those things anymore. You are not allowed to say those things.

In our 250-year history as a country, it's been a core belief of ours that we can say what we want. Now, something like that is going to the Jewish people and saying, we don't do Moses anymore. We don't do the ceremonies anymore. We don't sacrifice animals anymore. We are not the only people of God. The Gentiles are the people of God too who trust the Messiah.

This would have been earth-shaking, core-rattling things to the Jewish believers. This idea of them being joined together with Gentiles when they had seen them as dogs before that.

And so the author is telling us, as good as all that was, now we are in Christ and we go directly to the city of God, to the throne room, to where the angels worship God. Now there is no hindrance for anybody in Christ to go directly to God Almighty without fear, no fear of his voice anymore.

His voice is soothing to us now. His voice isn't fearful because he doesn't speak to us as the judge who wants to condemn us. He speaks to us as his Father. This is why Jesus tells us, when you pray, pray Abba. Right? Abba, Father. Our Father in heaven.

We love him and he loves us. It's a completely different dynamic, but it is really important before I finish these last couple of verses that we never— I've already said it, but we never get presumptuous and think, well, that must mean I'm okay then. It must mean I'm better than.

Maybe I'm better than that Muslim I talked about earlier. Maybe I'm better than the trans person. Maybe I'm better than that person on the other side of the political aisle. Maybe I'm better than that person in the other country. Maybe I'm better than that person with the wrong color of skin. I'm better because I know better, right?

Because I was smart enough to give myself to Jesus and do Him the favor of giving Him my presence. No, we can get proud. Pride is a human flaw. Like, I think it's Boyce that says, "All sins have pride as their root." All sin, lust, addiction, every other sin, they all at their core say, "I should be happy in the center of attention." I'm most important.

And it's really easy for people who have that dispositionally, born in Adam, still battling the old sin, still carrying that around with them, to think, my life is most important. And what I get out of the deal is most important. And so then we can say, God, you owe me happiness or pleasure or whatever I want. You owe me.

And I don't have to walk holy. I don't have to live for you. I don't have to put away the old man. I don't have to stop sinning. I could just keep doing what I used to do when I wasn't saved.

So now I get the get-out-of-hell-free card of praying a prayer and asking Jesus to save me, and then I get to have the world too. But you can't serve two masters. You can't. And I'm trying to impress upon you at whatever weak ability I have that you don't want to serve two masters. You don't want to.

I'm trying to, like, believe me when I tell you, Jesus is better. He's the best master. I want you to take that with you and say, well, yeah, maybe Johnny thinks that because he's a pastor. I wasn't always a pastor, and I'm not only a pastor.

There are things I like too. Milk Duds. Just had a long sermon to my family the other day about why I love Milk Duds so much and how dangerous it is that I don't have them handy all the time. So there are things I love, and I probably love in an unhealthy way, that I need to put Jesus first in.

So just because I'm a pastor doesn't mean I sit around all the time in my house saying, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." It's not like that. I was going to say I'm normal, but I'm not normal. You know what I mean though. We all have those things that we live and do. And you like fishing, you like sports, there's things you like cooking, you like— I don't know, hobbies and those kind of things in this world you might like. And then there might be more serious things like that girl or that guy you might like or the right person in office and the things that make you angry and you want to talk about in the world.

And if these amendments of mine are being attacked and these things that become the most important thing to us. I'm trying to tell you that Jesus is a better, most important thing. I'm trying to tell you that it's best to choose him.

And I'm trying to do all that before I warn you that if you don't, it will hurt. So the last verses are a threat. But I want to try to impress on you, don't respond to just the threat. Look at the throne room where the mediator is, where the freedom of access to the Almighty is, where the gift of grace takes you there.

Therefore, since we are receiving— sounds so certain— a kingdom which cannot be shaken, the next phrase is hard to translate because it literally says, let us have grace. What does that mean? What does that mean to have grace? It doesn't say let us get grace. It also doesn't say, "Let us give grace." It says, "Let us have grace." Huh, strange phrase.

"By which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." And then there it is. Why do you do that? Why should you— whatever "have grace" means. And I think the idea is it means something like retaining the grace that's been given you, right? Since God has given you grace, own it. Something like that, right?

That since God has presented you this beautiful offer of the gift of salvation in Christ, since instead of the trembling mountain you get the Mount Zion experience, since God has done everything for you so that you can have free access to God by grace, since God has given you grace, have it! That's the idea, right? Like, have it, own it, retain it, cherish it.

Why? Because we have a kingdom that can't be shaken no more. We never go to shaky mountains anymore. We go to Mount Zion that doesn't shake and heaven that doesn't shake, that no one can rattle. The only thing that would shake is if God says something in heaven, that would rattle, right? But there's nothing that earth can do. There's nothing that man can do. It's not man-made, it's God-made.

And then we serve God. And that would be the end of most sermons, like, yeah, go serve God, do your best. But there's a threat with it. We serve God acceptably. That means that He doesn't accept all service.

We don't just say God wants us available, not just able. Have you heard that before? God wants us available, not just able. And that sounds good, but there are acceptable sacrifices and there are unacceptable sacrifices, even for Christians. So you're supposed to be presenting your body an acceptable sacrifice. In other words, doing the things that he says to do.

You don't say, "I am fishing to the glory of God and ignoring worship Sunday." That's not acceptable. That's you making up the way he wants to be worshiped. You got to worship him the way he says.

And then it says, "With reverence and godly fear." Wait a second. You just said have grace. How can you tell me to have grace and also be afraid at the same time? And the answer is because you're supposed to have grace and be afraid at the same time. That's why I'm telling you that, to have a godly fear, a reverence that if I am not walking in the will of the Lord, I should expect the chastening that's in this chapter of chapter 12.

If I choose to marginalize God and minimize His influence in my life, if I say He's my Savior but not my Lord and I'm not going to follow His word, I should expect something to happen that isn't happy, because it's never safe to disobey God.

It isn't— God's not up there just waiting for you to mess up. Just mess up, you just mess up, I'm going to get you. He's telling you, this is where it's safe, stay close to me. This is the place where you want to be, in my will. You want to follow me, stay tight. And then we go veering, what does the Lord do? He might swat us to get us back. Godly fear. It's not wrong to fear God. It's wrong not to.

And don't think that I'm only saying fear God. I've tried. I've tried to put both before you. The beautiful gift that comes in the grace of Christ. The difference between not being afraid of him like in the Old Testament and being free to go into his throne room. I've tried to paint that picture so well for you that when now I say fear, you don't hear me being a legalistic, old-fashioned, conservative Baptist that says you got to obey God or he hates you. That's not what's being said.

But it is true in the New Testament, in Christian thought, not just Jewish thought, that we must obey God. It is not enough to say he loves you, he loves you, he loves you, he loves you no matter what. If that's the only message that's being said, it is not a balanced message with the New Testament.

The New Testament says he does love you, but it also says you better love him. And then the threat at the end, "For our God is a consuming fire." Did you notice who the warning is to? The warning is not to unbelievers that God is a consuming fire. That's not the warning.

What I think is happening here is the Hebrew church— remember, that Christian church had what I think are a mixture of believers and unbelievers in it, just like most churches. And the idea would be the author of Hebrews sending this to the Hebrew believers is saying something like this the whole book.

I know there's both kinds of people, saints and ain'ts, right? I know there's both kinds of people. Those of you who are actually walking with the Lord, hang in there. You're going to go through difficult time. It's going to hurt. But you are the people at Mount Zion. You have a city. Hang in there.

But if there's anyone in this room, the Hebrew room and our room, who doesn't walk with the Lord, who thought it was your tradition, who thought it was because you were of Abraham, who thought because you were raised in church, who thought you're a good person, who have not trusted Christ and you have not said to the Lord, "I'm a sinner and I need a Savior," you need to watch out. You in the church, watch out because God is a consuming fire.

We've seen it over and over again how Jesus did it when he preached. You thought it was only physical adultery. Lust equals adultery, right? The Amplification, the heart of the commandments of God. You thought murder, physical murder, was what God meant when he said, "Thou shalt not kill." He even means hate. Hate equals murder.

He does this over and over again. The Bible does this over and over again. You thought angels were the most important, the author of Hebrews says, no, Jesus is most important. You exalted animal sacrifice in the system, the ceremonial system. No, Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, amplified better.

You thought the priesthood was good. You thought Moses was good. No, Jesus is better. Well, now on the other side of it, the other side of that coin is you thought it was bad to be against the God that was speaking on earth. He thought it was bad to ignore the commandments while on earth. It's 10 times worse if you ignore Jesus, ignore the Son of God. He said that back in chapter 10.

We have a kingdom and it can't be shaken. Sell out, sell out to the kingdom, to the real kingdom. Give your life to this in service to the King. Don't compromise. Don't try to have one foot on the platform and one on the train. Don't try to be in the world and in the kingdom.

Now again, you are already in the world. I think maybe that warning is don't be of the world and of the kingdom. You're already in the world, but now do what you do in a way that shows that Jesus is first in your life.

I stole it from Piper, borrowed from Piper, that God gives us our treasure so that we can show with our treasure that our treasure is not our treasure and that he is.

So whatever God gives you, take it. I'm gonna eat Milk Duds if they come to me, and I'm gonna like it. And I drink coffee and I like it, but it will never be the thing I live for. It will be me pointing me to the one I live for.

Are you excited to go to the throne room of Christ? Does the thought of looking him in the eye do anything for you?

I always talk about Steve Meisner, our dear friend. When he— it just meant so much to me and it made a lasting impact on me when he— I had said, "I'm not all that happy about being on this earth, and if Jesus came back now, it would be okay."

I say that to you because I didn't always think that, even as a Christian. As a young Christian, I didn't think that. I always thought, "I have a lot to do." And even now, I have a grandbaby, and I want to be a grandpa for a while, you know? And you kind of might cling to this earth a little bit. But I said, "I'm clinging to this earth less and less."

And then I remember Steve cornering me in the back He hadn't been at our church in a while. He had been helping with a church plant with his family member. And him whispering to me that somebody at his church had just preached something like that. That they were excited about heaven and excited about meeting Jesus.

And there were young people talking and saying, "I'm not ready yet. I'm not ready to go yet. I'm not ready for that." And Steve didn't understand that because he was very much wanting to see Jesus, you know. He's like, the thought of seeing Jesus was exciting to him.

And he's telling me— it was like we had a secret meeting. Don't say it out loud, but we want to see Jesus.

And he tells me that, and you all know the story that I had him come to my house literally the next day to look at some concrete work. And then we were at his funeral days later. And I was so grateful to have those moments here, right there by that door, then in my driveway, talking about the Lord.

And when we talked about the Lord, I'm not trying to tell you we mixed it into the conversation. We were trying to talk about the concrete work, which we never did, by the way. Trying to talk like he's at my house. So I need to pour a slab right here. What do you think? We never— it's still not poured right now.

But man, we were talking about like, look at Jesus. Remember when he did the coin thing? Remember they tried to get him and he had the coin thing? He was ready for that. Remember when he said that thing to Peter? And we were just talking about the idea.

And I remember Steve saying, and people think Star Wars is cool. Like, how do they think that is so cool when Jesus is so awesome? And then he went to heaven. He was ready.

Are you ready like Steve was ready? Or like Paul was ready? I don't know how many times you keep telling me, like talking me into, like he's ready to go, ready to go. Hey, we still like you here. Are you ready? Are you excited at the thought of meeting Jesus?

That doesn't mean you're suicidal or want to die or want to give up on earth. No. If you're going to live, serve him, right? Like Paul says, if I live, I'm going to serve. But the thought of dying, is it— do you feel like it's a subtraction to you? Like you're really going to miss out on TikTok or whatever? Like you're going to be missing if you go to be with Jesus? Ah, you're not missing anything. You're not missing anything.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your Son. Thank you for him being who and what he is and worth all this attention. And I personally, Father, thank you that you've given me the privilege of talking about him all these years. I still don't feel worthy. But I'm thankful for the opportunity, and I would just ask all— that all of us would see him more clearly and love him more fully, and that that would show in our life this week. Help us encourage each other to hang in there for his glory. In Jesus' name, amen.