Simply the Best No.11 The Worship God finds acceptable

Now in this church we recognize the central place of the Word of God and I'm going to read now our passage for today. We have been thinking for some weeks now about the writings or the letter to the Hebrews and all that's being said in that letter. We're going to read this morning from Hebrews chapter 12, the passage which we shall be thinking about in a few moments, but I'm going to read it not from the regular version which we normally use, the New International Version, but instead from the message.

It's really a, probably not a translation, but more a paraphrase rather like the J.B. Phillips was for many of you who will remember that earlier. This is the New Testament in contemporary English and as long as you recognize that English, for English you maybe ought to read American sometimes, it is actually an extremely helpful version to read from time to time. And in the passage we're going to read today, which I'm going to read from here, and you may prefer therefore to sit back and listen rather than trying to follow it because I don't think you'll find the verses follow so easily, it is in trying to present the argument very clearly I think which may help.

Hebrews chapter 12. So don't sit around on your hands, no more dragging your feet. Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle.

Help each other out and run for it. Work at getting along with each other and with God. Otherwise you'll never get so much as a glimpse of God.

Make sure no one gets left out of God's generosity. Keep a sharp eye out for weeds of bitter discontent. A thistle or two gone to seed can ruin a whole garden in no time.

Watch out for the Esau syndrome, trading away God's lifelong gift in order to satisfy a short-term appetite. You well know how Esau later regretted that impulsive act and wanted God's blessing, but by then it was too late, tears or no tears. Unlike your ancestors, you didn't come to Mount Sinai, all that volcanic blaze and earth-shaking rumble, to hear God speak.

The ear-splitting words and soul-shaking message terrified them and they begged him to stop. When they heard the words, if an animal touches the mountain it's as good as dead, they were afraid to move. Even Moses was terrified.

No, that's not your experience at all. You've come to Mount Zion, the city where the living God resides. The invisible Jerusalem is populated by throngs of festive angels and Christian citizens.

It is the city where God is judged, with judgments that make us just. You've come to Jesus, who presents us with a new covenant, a fresh charter from God. He is the mediator of this covenant.

The murder of Jesus, unlike Abel's, a homicide that cried out for vengeance, became a proclamation of grace. So don't turn a deaf ear to these gracious words. If those who ignored earthly warnings didn't get away with it, what will happen to us if we turn our backs on heavenly warnings? His voice that time shook the earth to its foundations.

This time he's told us this quite plainly. He'll also rock the heavens. One last shaking from top to bottom, stem to stern.

The phrase one last shaking means a thorough house cleaning, getting rid of all the historical and religious junk so that the unshakable essentials stand clear and uncluttered. Do you see what we've got? An unshakable kingdom. And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God.

For God is not an indifferent bystander. He's actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won't quit until it's all cleansed. God himself is fire.

May God bless his word to us. What you heard early was a dynamic rendering of God's Word put into modern idiom. The NIV stays closer to the original, so let's read it through now.

And with a combination of what we hear and what we have heard, I'm sure it will be easier for us to grasp the significance of this remarkable passage. Hebrews 12, 14. Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy.

Without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. See that no one is sexually immoral or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.

Afterwards, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears. You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness, gloom and storm, to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word would be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded.

If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned. The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, I am trembling with fear, but you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven.

You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven.

At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens. The words once more indicate the removing of what can be shaken. That is, create a thing so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Let's just turn to a verse in Isaiah for a moment. Isaiah 33 and verse 14.

There is a very interesting question which links up with what we have just read from Hebrews. Isaiah 33 and verse 14. Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning? He who walks righteously and speaks what is right.

What an incredible couplet of questions. Who can, taking it back to Hebrews 12, who can comfortably be in the presence of God who demands of us reverence and awe? For the writer to the Hebrew says, of God, and I have yet to see this placarded outside any church, including our own, in terms of a pulpit poster. God is a consuming fire.

Oh, how I fear thee, living God, with reverential fears. The writer of Isaiah, the prophet, he is concerned to help us to realize that to be in the company of God, to seek the face of God, is at one level to engage in a very dangerous pursuit. The reason being, well, as I brought out in my prayer, God is all that we are not.

When Peter sees Jesus on the seashore of Galilee on one occasion, you remember, he falls down. He says, depart from me, O Lord. John has exactly the same experience on the Isle of Patmos.

He's overwhelmed by a sense of the greatness and the holiness of God and a realization of his own imperfections. Well, the writer to the Hebrews is very concerned that you and I should know what it is, on the one hand, to enter into the presence of God with confidence, and yet on the other hand, to recognize that going into the presence of God should never be presumptuous as far as our attitude is concerned. One of the instructions which the writer gives in the 14th verse of this chapter is that we are to make a determined effort to live so peaceably with one another and to be so sanctified in our lifestyle that we shall be comfortable with God and also comfortable in the presence of each other.

See to it, brothers, says the writer, verse 15, that no one misses the grace of God. Do your best to ensure that your attitude to each other and your walk with God is so consistent that the grace of God, the blessings of God, might cascade upon you. Now, when Moses was around and preaching, he did on one occasion warn the Hebrews that one of the things that would not be acceptable because its impact would be detrimental in the Hebrew community, if you like, in the Hebrew church, was a bitter spirit.

He said that bitterness was something that was contagious. It could pass from one person to another person and, as a result, influence the whole of the Hebrew congregation. Now, it seems to me that the writer of the Hebrews has Moses and Isaiah very much in mind as he's addressing himself to this issue of how do you worship God comfortably? How do you relax in his presence? And the writer says that it depends not just upon your attitude to God, but also on your attitude to one another.

See, he says, that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Now, what is he about? This is not the easiest passage of Scripture to handle, but let me remind you of the ground that we've covered thus far. We started right at the end of the chapter.

Our God is a consuming fire. And in the previous verse, it tells us to worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. The question is, how do you do it? And right at the beginning of our passage, you get laid out by the author of this epistle that you do it on two dimensions.

You ensure that your own relationship with God is right. You make every effort to be holy. And what's more, you endeavor to root out any bitterness in your own spirit, because not only will it affect your relationship with God, but it will also affect your relationship with men and women in the church community.

So, what our writer is seeking to do is this, is to give us lessons as to how it is that we can worship God properly, how we can make our way through this life fully benefiting by God's gracious provision towards us, what lessons we are to learn at the negative level in order to correct ourselves. Well, how does he break it up? He does so by telling us three stories. He tells us a story of two brothers, and you find reference to that from the 16th through to the 17th verses.

Then, if you please, he puts before us the story of two mountains from verses 18 down to the 24th verse. And then finally and strangely, he brings to our attention the story of two earthquakes, two earth-shattering occasions. And from these diverse incidents, these triplet of stories, he comes in time and time again and endeavors to answer the question and to set up the correctives for us.

How can you be comfortable in the presence of God? How can you ensure that you are living peaceably with your neighbor? Well, let's have a look at the first illustration that he gives to help us. The story, I say, of two brothers, and you pick it up from this 16th verse. The brothers, of course, are Esau and Jacob.

Jacob is not named, but he is there offstage. The spotlight falls on Esau. What do you know about Esau? Well, he was a man who when tested in terms of what he felt was valuable in life over against some other option, he settled for the lesser two options, and as a result, he was spiritually impoverished.

Let's put that into context. Here is Esau, and he comes home one day. You remember the story in the book of Genesis.

He's hungry. His brother Jacob has been cooking, and Esau is so spent he will give anything to have some food. And so, in a mad piece of reasoning and bargaining, he says to Jacob, yes, you have my birthright.

As far as I'm concerned, it is not as valuable as the temporary satisfaction of my hunger. In other words, what Esau is guilty of is profanity. Profanity is taking what God gives to you and saying, in effect, it is of limited value.

Now, here you are as a Christian. I ask you this morning, what is the most important gift you've received? The answer must surely be your faith, your faith in the Lord Jesus, the fact that your destiny has been sealed by His precious blood. But are there occasions in your life when things have been dangled in front of you that you knew were wrong for you to take, but nonetheless you did? You pushed on one side, in effect, your inheritance.

You compromised on your faith. Now, this is the case with Esau. Esau, we find here a reference made to the decision that he took.

He squandered for a single meal the benefits of a precious birthright. And in the consequence of that, he became a very bitter man because the decision he took is followed in this assessment in verse 17, by the dismay he registered. Afterwards, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected.

He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears. What does the writer have in mind? Well, the years passed, you recall, and here is Esau's father Isaac, and he's dying. Jacob has come in, and the blessing of the firstborn has been given to Jacob.

And Esau, who has known bitterness in his spirit over the passing of the years, he is unable to change the situation. He wanted it remedied, but there is no way in which he could bring about an adjustment of the decision and its consequences that he made years before, though he sought the blessing with tears. Now, you have to be careful in handling this passage, or else all of you will go away thoroughly depressed.

I mean, here is the scenario of someone who has made a mistake, and it seems as though they want to rectify that mistake, and yet their apology is unaccepted. And you think of the times when you yourself have compromised, when you have done things which you knew displeased the Lord Jesus. And the question that arises from this passage is, well, if Esau wasn't forgiven, if no change in the circumstances could be wrought despite his seeking it through tears and through remonstration, does this therefore mean that I cannot be forgiven, having disgraced myself frequently as far as my Christian testimony is concerned? And the answer is this.

The difference, I say, between Jacob and Esau is that Jacob, though himself a twister, always had in mind the promise that God made to Abraham and wanted to see something of its fulfillment. He had a concern for the glory of God. He had a concern for the purposes of God.

Now, you don't find that with Esau, do you? What he bemoans is his loss, not the disgrace or the hurt that he has brought to God. Esau is not in the position, let's clear up the issue by going to David. He's not in the same condition as David.

David too has sinned. David too has offered his birthright for a quick thrill. But when he realizes the enormity of his sin in confession, in contrition, he comes before the Lord and he says, against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight.

You see, he's not so concerned about the loss of privileges. His sorrow is over his sin, and this was Esau's defect. His remorse was over the loss, the blessings forfeited.

His sorrow was not over the sin. So, I can help you if you're troubled by this verse or any other parallel verses in Hebrews. Let me say that God does not from that moment on, because of your sinfulness, reject you as a worshiper, provided there is what the Apostle Paul says, a godly sorrow.

Your sins, they haunt you. Your sins, they bring you down. Your sins, they reduce you to a pitiful condition.

You see, here is the man who can worship God, the repentant sinner. Here is the man who can worship God, the man, the woman who does not allow the root of bitterness to grow in their hearts, as it did for Esau, who never sought the forgiveness of God, but who during his life allowed the venom to accumulate in terms of his attitude to Jacob. Esau, one brother who forfeited God's blessing.

Well, we go on in this examination as to how we can truly worship the Lord and how we can live our lives, which are in a congenial fashion as far as other Christian folk are concerned, so that we may help them and not be a hindrance. The story of two brothers is replaced by an account of two mountains, from verse 18 through to the 24th verse. Now, only one of these mountains is named, and that is Mount Zion, verse 22.

But the other mountain you don't need a great amount, a great knowledge of Scripture to identify. It is none other than Mount Sinai. Now, what is the significance of Mount Sinai and Mount Zion as far as a Christian is concerned? As far as these Hebrew Christians were concerned, who received this letter? Well, you know something about Sinai, don't you? It was here that the law was given.

Here the Ten Commandments were entrusted to Moses, and he in turn gave the contents of the commandments and the attended regulations to the Hebrews. And as for Mount Zion, well, what was that? Well, Mount Zion and Jerusalem are the same. Jerusalem was the capital city which was taken by David, but there is a sense in the Bible increasingly as you read into the Old Testament and most specifically in the New Testament that Jerusalem or Mount Zion as a geographical location is not of the main importance.

It is what Mount Zion stands for that is important. It is what Sinai stands for that is important. Who did God give to the Israelites as He came down Mount Sinai? None other than Moses to proclaim a message of judgment and of law.

Who did God give to the world, so to speak, from Mount Zion, from the heavenly Jerusalem? Who did He send into this world? None other than His Son, our blessed Lord Jesus. When the Ten Commandments were given, what was the atmosphere like? What were the climatic climate conditions? Well, you know, if you read the book of Exodus and Deuteronomy, that when Moses was given the law, the Mount Sinai erupted like a volcano. There were thunderings.

There were lightnings. It was an awesome experience. When Moses came down the mountain with the Ten Commandments and he starts to speak to the people, the people say, we're comfortable with you, Moses, but don't let God speak to us.

Why? Well, because we're afraid of Him. And rightly so. Why were they afraid? Well, what happened again? I ask you at Sinai.

A holy God gave a holy law to an unholy world and unrighteous people, and nature itself seemed to recoil with the awesomeness of the occasion. The mountain trembled. The people were afraid.

And the message of the law did not give a sense of forgiveness as far as the people were concerned. They knew that the law would find them out. That's what Sinai stood for.

But over against Sinai, contrasted with that mountain, there is Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem. When Moses was on Sinai, the message given to the Hebrews was, stand back. They couldn't climb the mountain because it was charged with the holiness of God.

Even an animal that might stray to the mountain was so impregnated that he had to be skewered by a javelin or stunned by a stone. But you don't get that language, do you? In the ministry of Jesus, you find it with Moses, but not with Jesus. Moses says, in the name of God, stand back.

Jesus says, in the name of God, come close. Sinai says, you cannot climb me. Zion says, come unto me, all you that labor under heavy laden.

So, you see, these Hebrew worshipers, these old Hebrew Christians who had this temptation of slipping back to the Old Testament regulation, thinking that the law and Moses and so on and so forth was superior to the Lord Jesus and the revelation that Jesus brought into the world, they have this blunt reminder. If it is a choice of Sinai or Zion, what would a wise man elect for? Verse 22, the author gives the people the credit that they appreciate that the reason behind Mount Zion and the implications of being a Christian is far better. The option is far more wonderful than to languish in the law and come up against, time after time, the judgment of God.

You have come. They have made the choice. You have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem.

Here is a description, so to speak, of what life is like within the community of the people who have acknowledged God and confessed their sins through Jesus Christ. Here is not, I say, a description of the earthly Jerusalem. This is of the heavenly Jerusalem.

This is a description of the society and the place to which Abraham was moving. You remember when I preached on Abraham from Hebrews 11 some weeks ago? I told you how this beleaguered man who had so many difficulties to go through, when he eventually arrived in the promised land, he lived there and he died there, and he did not inherit one little tract of that land apart from some that he bought, some acres, to bury his wife. And the Bible says, Abraham looked for a city whose maker and whose builder is God.

Well, look at verse 22. You see, it has this in mind. You have come to Mount Zion.

To where? Well, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You can enter into God's presence. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly.

You have come to the church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven. When Moses was on earth, all the males, the firstborn males, had to be registered. You read of that in the book of Numbers.

And when our Lord Jesus was engaged in His earthly ministry, you remember on one occasion the disciples came back and they said, Lord, we have had such a great time. We went out and we preached, and we laid our hands on the sick, and they were healed, and they were cast out demons, and they were rejoiced. And Jesus said, look, that in itself is only secondary.

If you are going to rejoice, rejoice in this. Not that the demons are submissive to you, but that your name, your names are written in heaven. Now, this is the same idea, you see.

Here is the concept of this heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God, which is peopled by those who have already gone on before, who have confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and the righteous dead of the Old Testament. The population also including thousands upon thousands of angels. You are members of the church of the firstborn.

Your names are written in heaven, and you have come to God, who is the judge of all men. See how easily He moves into this, that you have come to God, as though there is no longer any problem. But go back to Sinai, there is a lot of problems.

Sinai presents you with great difficulties. Here is a holy, awesome God. What is the difference then between Sinai and Zion? And the answer is Jesus Christ.

You have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. If it is a question of Moses or Jesus, the law or grace, what are you going to choose? And for the thinking person, there can be no question at all. They glory in what Jesus has done.

They glory in the blessings of Mount Zion. What is Mount Zion? Well, Mount Zion in effect, what it represents is the blessing of eternal life, the firstborn blessing. Now when Esau was offered the blessing of the firstborn, what did he do? He tossed it on one side.

Ha ha, says the writer to the Hebrews, only people who worship God in the fullness of their hearts, only those people are the ones who appreciate the blessings that are packed into the gospel which Jesus came into this world to bring, Jesus the mediator of the new covenant. And when our writer, when our author continues his description of the heavenly Jerusalem and picks out the most important aspects in ascending order, notice where he finishes. You have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

What happened to Abel? Well, he was the first person to be murdered. Cain did him to death. It was a violent death and the blood of Abel cried out for judgment.

Ah, says the writer to the Hebrews who has also dealt with the blood that was offered by the animals in so many sacrifices in Old Testament times, there is something more wonderful than that blood. There is something more significant than the spilt blood of Abel. It is the blood of Jesus and his blood was spilt voluntarily.

For what reason? So that your sins might be forgiven. So you see these wonderful contrasts in the story of two brothers, Esau and Jacob. Where do you find yourself? As a true worshiper, you have to have the same concerns for God and his grace and his promises, as did Jacob, as opposed to the insularity and the crass selfishness of Esau.

Here are two mountains, Sinai and Zion. Where do you feel at home? It is almost an absurd question. The answer has to be with Zion.

Why? Because the preacher from Zion is none other than Jesus and he is a preacher of grace, whereas the preacher from Sinai is Moses and he is a preacher of law. Well, the whole argument is brought together in the twenty-fifth verse right through to the end, and it speaks about these two shakings. But before he leads us into a reminder of one earthquake and the prediction of another, he comes in at verse twenty-five, this is the author, giving the impression that he believes that despite the scenario that he sketched, these Hebrews are not so silly as to do an Esau.

They are not so stupid as to opt for Sinai over against Zion. So he says, see to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. See to it that you do not refuse the gospel of Jesus.

How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Here were these Old Testament Hebrews. The Word of God was spoken to them. They did not escape the judgment of God.

If you were to turn your back on Jesus, to where would you go? If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? At that time, his voice shook the earth. What time? Well, when the law was given, his voice shook the earth. It literally did.

We have had a look at the concept of the law being given on Mount Sinai. Here in the Book of Exodus, we read, then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. This is Exodus 19 and verse 16.

On the morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast. And then at the end of the giving of the law, a similar sort of comment is made, verse 18 of the 20th chapter, when the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, speak to us yourself, and we will listen, but do not have God speak to us or we will die.

He shook the earth when he gave his law. Now he has promised, verse 26, once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. What's he referring to? Well, the first shaking was the giving of the law.

The second shaking is the coming of Christ in power and great glory. He will shake this earth to its very foundations. He will shake it in such a way that created things will be removed, and left will only be those things which cannot be shaken.

What does he mean? Well, of course, he's referring to the dissolution of the Old Testament's sacrificial system. He's making reference to the eternal benefits of the death and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. But more than that, he's talking about the dissolution of this earth as we now know it, and its regeneration.

The returning of the earth to what it originally was when it left the hands of God, as he cleansed it with the flood. So he will shake it once more. He will shake it to the very core.

This will be the completion of the work of salvation. It will also be the completion of the work of judgment. And there is a sense in which this is a horrific picture.

The earth being shaken, the Lord Jesus Christ returning, those people who are of Esau's caliber crying to the rocks, falling, trying to find a crevice in which to hide, hoping that they could drown themselves in the depths of the ocean. All these things are not options. There is no way that you can hide from this man, the Son of Man, the Son of God, who comes again in great power and glory, who comes with the tablets of the law and brings those tablets before the unrepentant sinner and says, what then? How do you answer, sinner, for the way that you have lived your life? What an awful day that will be.

The shaking of the earth. And yet there is a sense in which it's not just an awful day, it's an awesome day. Awesome for the believer.

Why? Because it means the beginnings of the new era. I, John, saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God as a bride adorned for a husband. Behold, he said unto me, I make all things new.

Now are you positioned when the heavens and the earth, when the sea, when the dry land, as Haggai says, whose words are being quoted here, are you positioned when this occurs to enter into the blessings, the eternal blessings of salvation? Or have you done an esau? Have you had a look at the birthright and pushed it on one side? You've settled for the material and the transitory over against the eternal that has increasing value. Have you opted for the law, Mount Sinai, instead of Mount Zion? Oh, my friends, if you're going to be true worshippers, then you can only worship God in sincerity and with a feeling of being comfortable by acknowledging who Jesus is, what he has done, make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy. See to it, brothers and sisters, that the one who spoke at Sinai and spoke again from Zion has had your attention and not only your attention but your obedience.

Let's sing. Let's sing about him and his grace. That is our Lord Jesus Christ and what he has achieved for us.

207, hallelujah. Sing to Jesus. Here's the scepter, here's the throne.

From the third verse and onwards, we'll prepare to come around communion and some of you may need to leave to collect your children, but I trust the vast majority will remain as we take a brief time following through the word by coming around this table and taking bread and wine in remembrance of our Lord Jesus who spoke to us from Zion and did not just leave us with a message from Sinai.