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The River ChurchSermons

Let Us Worship

Josh Yates · Sunday, 6 September 2026 · 44:17 · 7,044 words

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The sermon looks at Hebrews 12:18‑29, contrasting the terrifying presence of God on Mount Sinai with the welcoming arrival of believers at Mount Zion through Jesus. It explains that because we now belong to an unshakable kingdom, we are invited into God’s presence and called to offer acceptable worship—presenting our bodies as living sacrifices, refusing to be conformed to the world. The listener is urged to respond with gratitude, reverence and awe, remembering both the holiness of God and the grace that has made us citizens of his kingdom.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

mount 35 sinai 22 zion 19 hebrew 33 temple 21 mountain 18 dock 7 angel 10 reverence 8 premise 5 worship 25 awe 8

Topics

Sin 4 Salvation 3 Faith 3 Prayer 2 Grace 2 Atonement & Sacrifice 2 The Law 2 Abraham 1 The Wrath of God 1 Israel 1 The Gospel 1

Scripture referenced 21

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Hebrews 12 0:51 Hebrews 12 0:55 Hebrews 12:18-29 0:55 Hebrews 12:18 1:16 Hebrews 12 1:26 Hebrews 12:18 1:26 Exodus 19 10:52 Deuteronomy 33 12:18 Exodus 19:18 12:34 Hebrews 9 16:54 Romans 6:23 17:15 Hebrews 10:31 18:45 Ephesians 2:6 20:10 Hebrews 1 20:50 Hebrews 13:2 21:07 Hebrews 4:13 24:07 Hebrews 10 24:12 Numbers 14:29 31:52 Acts 4:12 34:36 Haggai 2:6-9 35:26 Hebrews 12:1-2 37:08

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 7 lines, 0:35. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

Hey, everyone. My name is Mitchell, and thanks for checking out one of our sermons today.

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Thanks again for joining us, and we hope you are blessed by today's message.

It's good to be with you, and today we are looking at a very interesting passage of Scripture in the book of Hebrews

as we continue our series in Hebrews.

And honestly, I'm excited about what God has to say to us this morning.

In fact, I kind of just want to dive right in.

It's a little long, so if you have your Bibles, turn to Hebrews chapter 12.

It's going to be Hebrews 12, and it's going to be verses 18 to 29.

And I want to be sure to read it kind of in one chunk because it's just important that we hear it,

and then we're going to talk about it and understand why it's so important and how we worship our great God.

So let's dive right in.

Hebrews chapter 12, verse 18.

If you don't have a Bible app, you can go to the River Church app, download that,

and you'll be able to look at the Bible there too.

But I want us to see it this morning.

So Hebrews 12, starting in verse 18.

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 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 to it 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.

So, can you see why this is exciting for me to preach this morning?

I mean, I can imagine some of you are going, really?

I mean, there's a lot in there that we're going, wait a minute,

there's mountains, and there's festal angels, and there's like, you know, covenants and assemblies of firstborn people,

what is it talking about?

I will say upon first reading this week, I'm like, okay, this is going to be interesting,

let's see what God's going to do with this, and then I dug into it.

And I wanted to start this morning by showing you a picture of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

I was able, and I do talk about this from time to time,

Jeannie and I went to Jerusalem, went to Israel in 2019,

and this is a picture of the Temple Mount that we took from the Mount of Olives.

And just seeing the Temple Mount was an amazing thing.

It was early in December of 2019, and honestly, it was a trip of a lifetime.

We started in Tel Aviv, we went all the way up north to Tiberias and Capernaum,

which was Jesus' northern base of ministry.

We stood in the synagogue where the Roman centurion's servant was healed by Jesus in the place.

That got weird and awesome all at the same time.

It was like, I'm reading scripture, this is where it happened.

Right, and that's what was so amazing by it.

We stood outside Peter's home in Capernaum.

We sailed on the Sea of Galilee.

We saw the place of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem at Christmastime, no less.

It was pretty cool.

We saw where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

We were in the place where David was hiding from King Saul.

We were in the valley where David would slay Goliath.

And the stones in that valley, let me tell you, they ain't small.

I have one.

I brought one back.

So it's kind of cool to have that.

We put our hands in the place where the cross of Jesus was at Golgotha.

Yeah, we're not at that one yet.

Let's go back to the Temple Mount.

We were in the tomb that Jesus walked out of.

We were in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus' passion began and where he prayed for us.

That was, the Garden of Gethsemane was so impactful to me.

That's where Jesus prayed for me, where Jesus prayed for us.

And yes, we floated in the Dead Sea.

Weird, totally weird experience.

Now, there's one other thing while I was going back and forth on whether or not to share for the last couple of days.

And I decided, oh, I would share it here.

That's what this next picture is.

Gene and I also got to go to the Wailing Wall.

And that is the only part of the Temple Mount where Jews can freely practice the worship of God, ultimately.

And there's one side where the men go, and there's one side where the women go.

And it's meant to go in and pray for whatever it is that was on your heart.

Men have to wear yarmulkes or a hat.

Our heads have to be covered.

And so they had little yarmulkes for you if you wanted to.

You had to, you know, you could use those.

But I had a hat on, so my head was covered.

And I went there.

And so I was prepping for this message this week.

And I was like, oh, I wanted to talk about the temple because we have to know, in Hebrews,

we're going to be talking a lot about the Old Testament this morning specifically.

But I got to thinking about the temple, and I wanted you to see that other picture.

And then as I'm going through these pictures, this picture hit me like a ton of bricks.

Because when you go there, you pray.

And in 2019, this was before everything got crazy.

And I wasn't sure what God was going to do here at our church.

And so I prayed that day.

And the next slide is a piece of paper that I wrote.

The name of what this was, Gingerville Community Church.

The name of the church is on that piece of paper that was placed in the wailing wall.

What they do with those is about once over some period of time, they'll pull them all out because it gets stuffed with paper a lot.

And they wrap them up, and they go and put them under the temple.

They're always there, under the temple mount.

And what I prayed for is what God's doing in 2019, that we're growing in the Lord.

I mean, I leaned over to Jeannie again this morning.

I said, do you hear him singing?

That's, I don't know.

God just smacked me with his spiritual two-by-four this week.

And said, remember the prayer you prayed?

And I said, no, I forgot.

And I was reminded this week.

So it's just awesome what God does.

And it's awesome what God does in this passage.

And I wanted to bring that up just to kind of share that and let you see a little bit of the temple mount that they can now worship at now.

Because we're going to talk a little bit more about it today.

But I will say one of the things when we were in Israel, one of the many breathtaking things we were in Israel was traveling by bus.

Bus up to Jerusalem, to the place called Mount Zion.

We can go ahead and take that picture off if you want to now.

This is the city that was conquered by King David early in the Old Testament account and became the city of David.

It would be the capital of the Hebrew people and today a major city of three religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

It makes sense that this is the case as it was the center of so much surrounding the time of the turn of the calendar from B.C. to A.D.

And for centuries beyond that.

But as we traveled up the hill, we turned a corner.

In our tour bus.

And the temple mount just appeared.

It just appeared in our sight.

It's in the center of the city of Jerusalem.

It's the place where God's manifest presence once dwelt with the people of Israel.

The people of God.

Today the Dome of the Rock sits at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on this temple mount.

And the temple mount is breathtaking.

The scene is also heartbreaking.

Because across the Kidron Valley at the base of the temple mount is the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane.

One day Jesus will split that mountain.

He will come back.

And he will enter the temple mount as the conquering king.

The funny thing is an Islamic king centuries ago decided to try to, as he has walled up the entrance of the temple that Jesus is supposed to enter.

And put a bunch of graves between the top of the Mount of Olives and the entrance to that place.

As though it might keep Jesus from coming back.

It's an interesting thing.

And the thing that gets me all the time is that Jeannie and I was able to walk that path.

We were able to walk up to that entrance.

The place that Jesus had would have entered the temple in his day.

It's just an amazing thing.

I wanted to give you that picture as we move into this little.

Today's going to be some teaching.

Because we've got to understand this passage.

passage, right? And so I want to make sure that we kind of get the idea of how intense this whole

scene is too. So the writer of Hebrews is talking about worship here today, but it's an interesting

way to go about it, but any reader of Hebrews would have understood what they were reading.

We have to understand it was written to Hebrew Christians, and they knew the history of the

nation of Israel up to this point. They understood it well. Hebrews is establishing with them and us

that Jesus is the fulfillment of everything in the Old Testament. Our passage today continues that.

Now there are two mountains that are referenced in this passage, Mount Sinai and Mount Zion, and it

is a huge contrast with what God had done and how God fulfilled his promise to his people. So I want

to start with Mount Sinai. The reference to this place is where God originally gave the law,

the Ten Commandments specifically, to Moses in Exodus 19 to 20, and he references back to it in

Moses went up the mountain to meet with God, and they were directed by God to consecrate

themselves, the entire people, which means setting themselves apart, cleansing themselves, making

sure they were doing certain things, so that they could receive the law, which told them how to have

a relationship with God, the one true God. Now they had stayed from sexual relations to be

ceremonially clean. They made sure that no human or animal even touched this mountain when they

were at the base of this mountain. Otherwise, they'd be put to death by

That was the direction from God. It was that holy. Moses was the only one invited up the mountain

to speak with God. And so they remained in this place for three days, but then on the third day,

something amazing happened and terrifying happened. They would see a thick cloud cover

the top of Mount Sinai. Lightning would flash, and thunder would roll down the mountain toward

the people, a lot more intense than what we experienced this last week and many of us lost

power with. Then a deafening trumpet blasted the mountain, and the people, and the people, and the

people, and the people, and the people, and the people, and the people, and the people, and the people,

would reduce everyone to trembling. One commentator believes that the sound of heaven came upon Mount

Sinai at that place. And it was the angelic trumpets that were heard, because it was heard by

over a million people at the same time. Deuteronomy 33, Moses talks about the fact that myriads of

angels hovered invisibly around and over Sinai at this time. So Moses would lead the people from

their tents to the foot of the mountain. And this is what they saw in Exodus chapter 19, verses 18 to

19. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of

it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the

trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. I love what a

commentator says about this scene. He says, imagine what it must have been like to have been there.

The ground is unsteady under your feet due to perpetual seismic tremors. The sky is

black in deep darkness except for the radiating forks of lightning and the gloom and the blazing

fire from the top of Mount Sinai to the very heavens. Celestial shofars blare louder and louder

in primal moans. Moses speaks, and God answers him with a voice like thunder. The only thing that

matches this incredible display you're witnessing is the seismic trauma that sometimes might happen

in our heart if we were to see that. The people were visibly, physically assaulted with the holiness

and the majesty of God. Let me read that again.

The people were visibly and physically assaulted with the holiness and majesty of God. This palpable

divine display on Sinai communicated far more than speech or written word ever could, and all Israel,

young and old, could understand it. Remember what the writer of Hebrews reminded us at the end of

our passage today? These physical signs of the presence of God at Sinai allowed the people to see

that God is a consuming fire. See, today, E.W. Tozer has

said, and I've said this before, but he says the most important thing about us is what we believe

about God. God is love. God is gracious. God is amazing to us. He sent Jesus to die on the cross,

but my friends, our God is a consuming fire. He is holy. He is righteous. And may he never just be

our homie in the sky. He is holy, holy, holy. He is God.

And when we grasp that, his love changes us even more.

We have to understand all of who God is.

And these signs showed the people and us the absolute unapproachableness of a holy God.

He is unapproachable in this scene.

The mountain was so full of God's presence and holiness that to even touch it meant death.

For humans, which made a choice, and an animal that just might be going, oops, you know, it's dead.

It died.

And it instilled a proper fear of God in the people.

And may I say this morning, I'm not so sure that we have a proper fear of God anymore.

But this isn't a necessary, I mean, in this instance, yeah, it'd be quaking.

And there's times, I mean, yeah, we need to understand that.

This scene should instill a proper fear of God in us.

But here's the thing that the Rite of Hebrews is telling the original readers.

The law provided no power to overcome sin.

It only defined what sin was.

But this passage, listen to how it starts.

It says,

Sinai was the mountain that could be touched physically, but it brought certain death.

Right?

We are being reminded of what came with the law and how God revealed himself at Sinai.

And this ultimately would institute a sacrificial system that would allow the sins of the people

to be covered over by the blood of animals and rams and goats and bulls

so that they could have a relationship with God.

Hebrews was already established in Hebrews 9.

22.

Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood.

And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.

Our sins equal death.

That's the truth.

Romans 6.23.

For the wages or the payment of our sin, of your sin, is death.

Physical, spiritual death.

Our sins bring death.

There's no way around it.

As soon as we say it's not a big deal, it's a big deal.

But this sacrificial.

system was the echo of the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.

See, when we don't dig into God's word and understand this part of who God is,

I go back to saying that the cross doesn't seem like much.

All my sins aren't a big deal.

It's not a big deal what I do or what I think or how I act or how I treat my family

or if I cheat at work or if I, you know, I mean, everybody does it, right?

If it's not a big deal, we don't understand who God is.

We have to dig in to see who God is.

We have to understand who this God is that we serve.

He is gracious and loving on everything that we see in the cross.

But we have to also understand what we see in the cross.

The wrath of God falling on Jesus instead of us.

That's huge.

That's a big deal.

It's a huge deal.

And so Zion, the mountain to which every Jesus follower has come to,

is the place where grace is found and the law is fulfilled.

This passage reminds us of what was said in Hebrews 10.31.

It's a fearful thing to fall.

We fall into the hands of the living God.

But here's the thing.

We have a choice.

We can fall at his feet and receive Jesus who's paid our debt.

Or we fall into his hands to judge us for what we have done.

That is our choice.

I do not ever want to scare anybody into the kingdom.

And yet we have to preach truth.

There is reality here.

There is reality that our sins have separated us from God.

And they're a big deal.

They're such a big deal that God would send his son.

And he would sacrifice himself for you and for me.

This is the gospel.

Praise God for who he is and what he's done.

It's an amazing thing.

And so when we come to Zion, what are we coming to?

This other mountain.

We are marching to a kingdom.

But who's there?

What are we going to?

Well, there's a list here.

It talks about the city of God.

we have come to the city of God when we come to Zion instead of Sinai. It's the place where God's

presence dwells. It's the city of the living God. For those of you that know Jesus, your citizenship

is now in heaven. We are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms, Ephesians 2.6 tells us.

The readers of Hebrews would have this earthly city in view with all of its splendor and the

presence of God in the temple of what it once was. Also knowing that the heavenly temple is so much

greater. But we have come into this setting because of Jesus and coming to the spiritual

Mount Zion. There are angels in this picture. It's a picture that Moses painted on Sinai.

The picture which we enter as followers of Jesus. There's a picture of angelic beings in the

presence of God all over scripture. They're everywhere. Mighty flaming spirits in Hebrews

chapter 1.14. Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who inherit

salvation? Angels pass in and out of our lives as we live for Jesus.

Jesus. God's word tells us to be kind to those around us as we may be entertaining angels and

not even know it. Hebrews 13.2 says, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for thereby some

have entertained angels unawares. Quick side note, pretty convinced that an angel saved Jeannie's life.

I've heard this testimony many times. How old were you? Like five or six. She was swimming as if she

was on a dock and she'll probably tell me later I told the story wrong but that's all right. We'll

get the point right.

She was on a dock and she ended up falling in or something like that and she was swept under the

dock. All of a sudden she says she felt a hand pick her up, sit her on the dock. Family runs down

because she's crying. Family couldn't find anybody. And this dock, it's not like this dock was like

on the edge of a shoreline and it's right there. It was out on a dock and there was nobody around.

God does this kind of stuff. I really believe that in his word, right? And finally the idea

of the joyful assembly here would refer to the great national assemblies.

And the games of the Greeks, the sport idea again. The idea is that everyone is joyful and dressed

in festal garments in the presence of God. They're having a party in the presence of God. The angels

are having a party. I love this. Sometimes they protect God's elect. These angels do. These are

some testimonies from a commentator. For example, the tall men in shining garments who surrounded

Mr. and Mrs. John G. Payton years ago in the new Hebrides. Or the tall soldiers with shining faces

who protected missionary Marie Munson in North China.

Or on another occasion, these huge men dressed in white flaming swords who surrounded the Rift

Valley Academy. And on another, the hundreds of men dressed in white with swords and shields who

stood guard over a hot shielding Clyde Taylor who had one day found the National Association of

Evangelicals. Similarly, a missionary from the church that this commentator pastored,

her name was Carol Carlson. Say that 10 times fast. Carol Carlson, serving in China in 1922,

learned why the bandits never attacked her compound.

There were men in white walking up and down the wall. Testimonies of angelic beings all over our

lives. You're also going to come to fellow believers on Mount Zion, the spiritual Mount

Zion, the assembly of the church of the firstborn. Their names are written in heaven, Hebrews says.

Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. And because we're united with him through salvation

and his work on the cross and salvation, we become the firstborn. We will see saints gone before us

in this spiritual Mount Zion.

Self is there, the Hebrew says, or the writer of Hebrews says. It's a joyous occasion, but this is

not a casual thing. We come to meet the God that was also at Sinai. He is the judge of all. We have

to remember when we come to God, he is described in Hebrews 4.13, no creature is hidden from his

sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 10,

30 and 31, for we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the Lord will

His people, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. We come to him because he

is the righteous judge, but because of Jesus, our penalty falls on him instead of us. And we get to

know God's grace. But again, if we don't understand who God really is, we hear grace and go, that's

nice. This is huge.

writer of Hebrews also says in the spiritual Mount Zion, we will see the church triumphant,

righteous men and women made perfect. We will experience our faith made sight. We will understand

what we've struggled to understand and how God makes us perfect. We'll hear from Abraham and

Isaac and Jacob and David and Solomon and Samson and so many more people. We're going to hear from

them the stories of God that were in scripture. It's going to be a lot better than just walking

the path and being in the place where scripture happened. We're going to get to talk to the people

that it happened to. And you know what's going to be cool? Abraham's going to look at us and go,

Jesus did that for you? He's going to be amazed because he looked forward to the cross. We get

to look back to it. I mean, for years, I've often thought it's going to be so great to hear these

stories. I believe those guys are waiting to hear yours. Think of that because of Jesus,

because of Jesus. We're going to see Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. Again,

Old Testament, Old Covenant.

New Testament, New Covenant. Again, teaching today. We have to understand the old to understand

the new. We will see him face to face. In fact, God's word says, we will see him as he is. He's

the mediator of the new covenant. He mediates between God and us. And every time the enemy

accuses us before God and says, look at Josh, look at the idiot he is. Jesus says, he may be an idiot,

but he's my idiot. Paid for that too. It's no longer about the sacrifices of animals that simply

cover sin because the blood of the lamb,

has mediated a new covenant and Jesus covers us. We will see him. Last thing that the writer of

Hebrews mentions in this virtual Mount Zion, we will see forgiveness because of Jesus' sacrifice,

because of the blood he shed. We have come to forgiveness because of the shed blood of Jesus.

But again, we can move past passages like this and go, oh, that's interesting. There's a lot

of stuff in there I don't understand. Let's get to the forgiveness part. When we do that,

we miss the enormity of the forgiveness part. We miss what God has done.

So we have come to Mount Zion, not Sinai, because of Jesus. And if you know him as your savior,

you have come to all of this right now. If you've come to Jesus, you have life. If you do not,

you do not have life. I want you to hear that this morning. If you have not given your life to Jesus,

if you have not believed on him, believed who he says he is, that he's the son of God,

and that he did what he said he did, that he died and he rose from the grave to pay for your sin.

If you've not asked for forgiveness, if you haven't made him Lord,

you haven't confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believed in your heart that God raised

him from the dead. If you have not done those things, you do not know him. You cannot be saved.

And if you have him, you have life. If you do not, you do not have life. Our God is a consuming fire,

but he's also not one who's going to force himself on you. If you want to choose him today,

you can choose him where you sit. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

But he's also a God that says, if you don't want me, you don't have to have me.

He loves you that much. If you don't want me, you don't have to have me.

As you're like, wait a minute. No, he gives us a choice. He allows us to choose. You don't have

to have him. But if we do not choose to have him now, we will not have him then. And I don't say

that to scare you. I tell you that because it's the truth. And so I beg you today, if you don't

know who Jesus is, look into who he is. Don't wait. Don't wait. Car accidents happen like that.

You're not guaranteed tomorrow. Find out who Jesus is. Ask questions of whoever you came with today.

Shoot me a text message.

Find out because you are loved. God is all of these things I'm talking about this morning,

but he is love. That tells us it is because he died for us. Come to Jesus today.

Because now we hear a warning in Hebrews.

Verses 25 to 29, I want to read it again.

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 let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe,

for our God is a consuming fire.

Israel knew God and the Old Testament by his voice.

They heard him speak to them.

Thus, this warning is telling the readers and to us

to listen what God is saying and how he is speaking.

Here's the crazy thing about how God works today, too.

You and I are a part of that voice of God

as we share the gospel to a world that needs Jesus.

We are a part of that.

That.

Presentation from the Lord.

Because every time the gospel is presented, it requires a response.

Either it's believed or it's rejected.

It's either believed or rejected.

And that's what the writer of Hebrews is talking about here.

It's a warning about refusing what God is saying through Jesus.

Because if the people that rejected God at Sinai were not spared

and they did not escape the wrath of God on sin

and his voice shook the earth,

then after Sinai and the years that followed

for these people, they explicitly refused God's word.

And they repeated disobedience

during the four decades of wandering in the wilderness.

So grievous was their disobedience

that Numbers 14.29 records

that God pronounced judgment

and that everyone who was 20 and older

would die in the desert.

And indeed, none escaped

except the faithful Caleb and Joshua.

A million plus corpses littered the desert.

See, we have a choice in that, though.

So many people come to the Bible and go,

well, God's a vindictive God and he's evil

and he's all these things.

See, there's something called the Holy Spirit

that helps us actually understand what God is telling us.

Because the Bible even says to those that don't know God,

to those that the word of the verse is,

to those who are perishing, it's utter foolishness.

But to those who have been brought to life,

it is the words of life.

See, the premise of saying that God is like evil for that,

the premise is we're right.

The premise is I'm God, we're not God.

The premise is my sin doesn't matter.

Honestly, the premise is it doesn't matter what we do.

Let's murder anybody we want

and go have, you know, a purge from the movie or whatever.

Have the purge day and everybody's fine.

Ain't nobody gonna get ever judged for anything.

That's what we're saying is that our sin doesn't matter

and we don't deserve to be judged.

Our sin deserves judgment and it deserves death.

God didn't have to save us, but he did.

He did.

We gave God the eternal bird.

We said, forget you.

We said, no way, I don't want you.

And he said, I love you.

Too much to leave you there.

I'm gonna show you who I am.

I'm gonna show you my love

and I'm gonna die on the cross for you

and pay that penalty that you can't pay.

That's what he did.

This shows us the immensity, the gravity of our sin.

And now he has promised he will not only shake the earth,

but he's gonna shake the heavens as well.

But often we shy away from this truth.

We're scared to talk about it.

I'll tell you, I don't love talking about it.

And yet I'm talking about who God really is.

There's a reality that we have to speak about

the fact that God will judge sin.

And if Jesus is rejected,

that he is who he says he is,

that he did what he said he did,

there is no escape.

Acts 4.12,

there is salvation under no one else,

for there is no other name under heaven given among men

by which we must be saved.

His name is Jesus and he is our savior.

And we must talk about Jesus.

We must.

The Bible is straightforward

about the certainty of God's holy wrath against sinners.

Those who reject the word God has spoken,

through Jesus Christ will not escape his wrath. It's an essential part of the gospel, a part that

we as followers of Christ should not be embarrassed to proclaim. Our rebellion against God merits his

wrath. It does, but praise God that he placed that wrath on his son for everybody who repents and

believes. It's an amazing thing that he's done for us, but if we reject Jesus, we will not escape

wrath. The book of Haggai tells us that God says in Haggai 2, 6-9, a prophet, and this I believe is

and a lot of commentators believe this was in full view of the writer of Hebrews,

for thus says the Lord of hosts, yet once more in a little while I will shake the heavens and the

earth and the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations so that the treasures of all nations

shall come in and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine and the

gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former,

says the Lord of hosts, and in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts. Once more, the writer of

Hebrews says, once more I will shake the earth, God says. This is his judgment and this time it'll be

over all creation. Today we have to understand that we are called to worship with all that we are

for all that he is in reverence and awe for he is gracious, faithful, true, and a consuming fire. We

worship him for all of these things because at the end of this in verse 28 it says, therefore, there's

that word. It's therefore because refers to back to everything that was just said. We have therefore,

we are grateful for what God has done. We have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken, though

it seems like things around us shake. Our hope in Jesus is secure. It's secure. Jesus will not fail

you. He will save if you've called on him. Then it talks about what is acceptable worship. It says

acceptable worship. What is it? Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God,

to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual

worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you

may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Acceptable worship is

worship that gives us all of ourselves to him. The only bummer about being a living sacrifice

is we can also crawl off the altar. We got to keep crawling back on that altar and give him

acceptable worship. Stop being conformed to the world. We are in the world. We are in the world.

Not of it. I love differently. Live differently. Commentator says, you know, the gospel isn't fire

insurance. All of life is worship and there's a response to the one who redeemed us by the blood

of the lamb. We present our whole selves to God in this kind of worship. Reverence and awe should

characterize really true Christian worship. It's why I implore you every week. Don't just come in

and sing words and phone it in. He is worthy. This is why to me worship is so important. I speak to

God so much through music and he does so much for me. I speak to God so much through music and he does

to me too. I love musical worship. I know that's not all of us, but I got to tell you, most of us,

I'm going to say 90, up to 99% of us, we're listening to some kind of music at some point.

There's some of us that don't, but the majority of us have songs that we have memorized. Let's get

some songs in our minds that are about the Lord. They remind us about who he is because we got to

come to him in reverence and awe. We got to come to him in reverence at all. We shouldn't flippantly

and haphazardly approach the one who will shake the heavens and the earth. We worship him with

reverence and in awe. Holy spirit, we worship him with reverence and in awe. We worship him with

fear, humility, not with arrogance and carelessness. We worship him as those who know we don't deserve

his mercy and grace. Man, can I ask you a real question? You ever feel like you deserve his

mercy and grace? There's times in my life I do. It's like, man, I'm tempted to go, look at how

long I've been serving you, God. Look at what I did. Now that's the flesh in me. I guarantee some

of us at some point go, man, they got more than I did. I deserve that grace too. I'll be careful

with that. Gotta remember that, man, there's

there's nothing good in us, but Jesus. We worship with awe that we're citizens of this unshakable

kingdom. And when we worship, we need to keep both mountains in view. I love this picture.

And it's something, honestly, I hadn't really dug into until this message. Remember Sinai,

but know that we've come to Zion. We've come to the spiritual Jerusalem, to Jesus. But in order

to know the immensity of Mount Zion, we have to know the immensity of Mount Sinai. Because we

haven't come to a mountain, this writer of Hebrews says, that's untouchable. We have to understand

the unapproachableness of God. Remember that temple veil we talked about a few weeks ago?

God's the one that tore it. He's made himself available to us. So we remember Sinai that

wasn't touchable, but we've come to Zion where we are welcomed in to the presence of God. And now

where is the temple of God? In our hearts. When you really dig into this, thank you, God. Thank you, God. Great place to end.

Heavenly Father, I think that's all I've got. Thank you, God. Thank you. We don't deserve grace and

mercy. The cross. I pray it's never a situation in our lives, though, where we go, I'm just so bad.

I'm so terrible. I mean, we have to understand that. But God, because of you, we don't have to

be anymore. That's the beauty of all of this. It's not about a degradation or a wallowing in our sin.

It's a reality of that's who we could be if not for you. Paul says all through, you inspired him

to write the fact that he would list out these lists of sin. And then he'd say this thing, and

he'd say, that's what you used to be. That's who we would be if all it was was Sinai. But because

of Zion, because of Jesus, because of Mount Zion coming into your presence, we no longer have to

be those things. If there's anybody here today who doesn't yet know you, God, I pray that this

wouldn't be a message that is fearful. I pray that it would be sobering. The truth of your word would

get into all of our hearts, whether we know you, whether we don't. God, we'd be thankful that you've

invited us into your presence through the cross of Jesus Christ.

If there's anybody here that hasn't yet called in the name of Jesus, I pray they would call on your

name, Jesus, that they would call you their Lord, that, Lord, they would believe in their heart that

you were raised from the dead, and they would believe on the name of Jesus Christ, and that

they would be saved in their seat. It's not specific words. It's not a mantra. We pray.

It's what we believe and what we confess. God, for some of us who maybe have been making a lot

of excuses for the things that we've been doing, I pray that we might remember Sinai. Remember to

be thankful for Mount Zion. Thank you, God. In Jesus' name.

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