Hebrews 12:18-24
You may be seated. Please turn in your copy of the
Holy Scriptures to the New Testament, to the book of Hebrews. Our reading
will be Hebrews chapter 12, verses 18 to 24. As we are making our way through
the book of Hebrews, we are being reminded over and over that the
Christian life is difficult. Living in the world with its
influences, living where Satan dwells and has some power over
us, and also living with our own flesh with the remaining
sin in us that’s been pardoned in Christ, subdued by the Spirit,
we still have struggles living the Christian life. And the writer
of Hebrews has been reminding us that Jesus is better than
everything else. And he also reminds us that as
we keep our eyes on Jesus, we are able to persevere to the
end. So the goal of the Christian
life is to persevere. The end of the Christian life
is to end up in heaven before the glorious presence of God.
So today we read together from Hebrews chapter 12, beginning
at 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, you have
come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and
to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and
to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous
made perfect. and to Jesus, the mediator of
a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word
than the blood of Abel. Pray with me. Almighty God, we
count it a privilege to come before your glorious appearance.
We thank you for Christ Jesus, who has opened the way for us.
We’re grateful that we We need not be terrified, though we do
stand in reverence in all of you. We need not be terrified,
for Jesus, our big brother, has opened the way. He has entered
into the holy of holies and the heavenly places and has granted
us open entry into your glorious presence we thank you for this
and we pray now that as Jesus speaks to us that we would hear
his voice that we would hear the voice of our Shepherd and
that we would follow him wherever he goes wherever he leads and
that to eternal life for our good and for his glory we pray
in the name of Jesus our Savior amen We have a little book in
our house by the title of Oyee Jigs and Juleps. And it was printed
sometime in the 1940s. And it’s church from a little
girl’s perspective. And it’s a little silly. To be
honest, it’s a little irreverent, which is what makes it kind of
funny. We read it from time to time in our house and we laugh
at the stories. But in this book, there’s a group
of children playing church. The little girl in the story
somehow sneaks the parson’s robe and she commences to have service
and she opens the service in this way. God is in His holy
temple. Everybody sit down and hush up. And then she proceeds
to proclaim different things that she has heard the parson
in their town say. The little churchisms, the little
sayings. Some of you probably do that as well. I’m sure there’s
a good imitation or two of me out there. But then they proceed
to baptisms. And these baptisms are outdoor
baptisms, nothing refined. They’re in the nearest rain barrel
at the corner of one of the houses. And poor little Jimmy ends up
in the rain barrel. His diaper breaks loose and she
just drops him into the water. He’s not baptized in an Episcopal
or Presbyterian way, but he’s Baptist dunked. And it goes worse
from there as one of the neighboring cats gets picked up and dropped
in the rain barrel. And you can imagine the rest
of the story from there. But you see, we have impressions
of church. children play church. But you
know we adults can play church as well. We do what we do because
we’ve always done it. It’s one of the reasons why from
time to time we take an opportunity to understand why we do what
we do in church the way we do it. It’s why every week in the
bulletin there’s that little section in your announcement
sections, why we do benedictions, why we do baptisms, why we preach,
why we read, why do we do what we do the way we do it in church?
Those are good questions to ask. You see, we often follow our
impressions, our memories, what we have seen done for generations. But you know, we really do what
we do in worship because of the realities that they represent. We do what we do in worship because
God commands us to do certain things. We do things in worship
because they point to the heaven realities that exist. They point
to realities in heaven that we cannot see, but the Bible tells
us are true. And so today’s passage from Hebrews
chapter 12 verse 18 to 24, we get a glimpse of worship in the
church that we cannot see. Now we worship here at First
ARP Church. 2250 Saddle Club Road, Burlington,
North Carolina. We have 165 members. If you sneak
into the office and look at our membership roll from the last
51 years of this church’s existence, you’ll see that we have had around
850 members in the total life of this church. Many of them
have moved on or gone on to their eternal reward. We have a dozen
or so who are not with us each week because they’re homebound.
On a given Sunday, there may be 20-25 of us who are traveling,
who are unable to be here due to sickness or some other providential
hindrance. But we worship. We worship here. along with others. And that’s
a reality the Bible wants us to understand this day. We worship
with our loved ones who are scattered around the globe. We worship
with the saints who together proclaim Christ around the world
in the differing time zones, but on the Lord’s day together.
But we also worship with a throng, with a group, with a congregation
in heaven that day and night for eternity worship God. And what we’re going to understand
from this passage is that there is a worship service taking place
in heaven. And it goes on 24 hours a day,
7 days a week. Now on the Lord’s Day, we just
happen to gather with them. You see, the church on earth
is an outpost of heaven. Think about your old western
movies or your history books about the West being settled. These little towns or outposts
were way off out in the boonies. They were away from the luxuries
of life. They were away from things which
pleased people and gave them joy in life. They were where
the pioneers went. They were outposts of real life.
And that is a real sense of what we are as the Church of Jesus
Christ. We are not yet home. We are not yet in heaven. We
are not yet where God will have us to be, but we are serving
in little outposts, little outposts of heaven. And our job as a church,
the reason we do what we do, the way we do it in church, in
worship, is not out of habit. It’s not because of what we remembered
our parents did. It’s because we are representing the heavenly
realities here on earth. And so this passage will help
us understand just that. Now as we walk our way through
this passage, think about this. All else in the world is changing.
There’s new technology. There’s a new set of cars coming
out for 2017. There’s new ways to dress, newfangled
this, newfangled that. And what God is doing is He is
encouraging the church here in this passage and saying, look,
there is a church in heaven that is fixed. It is firm. It is final. And though the world around you
shake and quake, though things around you change, this does
not. And what is this meant to do?
It’s meant to encourage you that as you live the Christian life,
though you live in a wacky world, a sin-filled world, though you
live in 2016 with one of the wildest elections yet on the
books, or so we say at least, there’s nothing new under the
sun though, right? Though much is in flux around
us, God is saying, I don’t change. My church does not change. So
there are seven aspects of what is taking place in heaven that
we want to consider. And He’s going to use the phrase,
you have come to. And there are going to be seven things you
have come to from this passage. The first is this, you have come
to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You see,
God has always desired to dwell in the midst of His people. The
covenant blessing, the covenant promise, I will be your God and
you will be my people and I will dwell in the midst. When Israel
sinned, what did God do? He left. You sin, you don’t get
my presence. And so in the days of the prophets,
God always threatened, if you sin, if you’re wicked, I’ll leave
you. My presence will not be with you. And so we see just
before Israel is exiled into Assyria and Babylon, God leaves
Jerusalem. He leaves Mount Zion. He leaves
His temple and His glory no longer dwells there. But God’s desire
And sin is for sure in the way, and Christ opens the way. God’s
desire is to be with you. God’s desire is for you to gather
in His presence. And where has God always descended
or dwelled with His people? Well, it’s always taken place
on a mountain. He dwelled with Adam and Eve
in the garden at the mountain which was in Eden. He dwelled
with his people in the wilderness on Sinai. David conquered Jerusalem
from the Jebusites and made Mount Zion the city of David, really
the city of God. His son Solomon built a temple
there. No longer would God live in a tent, but he would dwell
in a tabernacle or a temple made by Solomon. And now we realize
that God, by His Spirit, dwells in each of us. We are temples
of the Holy Spirit, and God dwells in each of us who by faith trust
in Him. But God dwells in the heavenly
city. He dwells in the New Jerusalem,
the city of Jerusalem which is above. And so when you come to
worship, when you come to faith in Christ, God is saying, you
have come to the city of the living God. Yes, you’re at 2250
Saddle Club Road. Yes, you sit in the same pews
because you’re Presbyterian. Yes, you do the same things week
after week. But there’s a bigger reality
that you need to have in your mind and in your heart, that
I have come to the city of God. I have come to the place where
God is worshiped, where God dwells. That’s why in our worship service
every week we say our help. is in the name of the Lord. It
is He who made heaven and earth because you could not worship
this God without His help. It’s why every week there’s a
greeting, grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and
who is to come. And the seven spirits who are
before His throne in Christ Jesus, the faithful witness, the firstborn
from among the dead. God is greeting you. You’re entering
the presence of the triune God and He greets you. He calls you
to worship. You sing, you pray, you confess, you repent. He speaks,
He assures you of your pardon. And on and on our worship service
goes. You see, we believe in spiritual
realities that are true in heaven and we want to make them manifest
on earth. And that is why, my friends, our worship is not like
the world. Somebody may come in here from
off the street and they say, what you do is really weird.
And we’ll say, yes, we know because it is not from here. This is otherworldly. This is
heavenly. This is the presence of God come
down into the midst of his people. And so God desires to be worshipped
at his mountain and he draws you into his presence. You have
come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
And you see, you taste that now because you’re saying in your
minds, I can see it. I’ve not been to heaven yet,
but you will. But God is giving you a foretaste. How do we sing it? Oh, what a
foretaste of glory, divine air of salvation. We understand that
what we have received is only a down payment on the full inheritance
that is ours. When we get to heaven, you see
our citizenship, as Paul says to the Philippians, our citizenship
is in heaven. We are heavenly city citizens
exiled on earth for now. And as the writer of Hebrews
puts it, we are pilgrims making our way to the heavenly city.
But we have present privileges. We have access to God through
Jesus Christ into the heavenly holy of holies. And our future
home is in the city of God. But when you gather to worship,
you come into that place now and you experience it in a very
special way. The writer of Hebrews has said
this, the patriarchs looked for a city. They did not dwell permanently
in the promised land. They did not dwell permanently
in the places where God put them. They kept their tent pegs loose
because they knew God would call on them to pull up stakes and
to move on. Now, how does this help us? I mean, the writer of Hebrews
is speaking to citizens who lived in Rome under Nero facing certain
death and persecution, and he’s saying, look, you’re not from
here. There’s a better place for you. Some of you, I know
it because I hear it from you, are bemoaning the politics of
2016. I can’t believe what our country has come to. But friends,
you are not from here. And plenty of other Christians
have lived under Nero. They’ve lived under communist
regimes. They’ve lived under Hitler’s. They’ve lived under
all the wicked world. Nothing is new under the sun.
So in one sense, God is saying, quit your belly aching. You’re
not from here. You’re in exile and you’re going
to make your way to the heavenly city. You’re marching to Zion. And to use a running theme, as
we have considered this passage, remember we’re running the race
that is set before us. You’re running up Zion. I’m not
a runner, I’m a walker. So I don’t ever get out of breath
or wanna quit. Walking’s easy. But those of
you who run know what it’s like to go up a hill to the finish
line. It’s hard. You’re faced with hitting a wall
and God is saying to you Christians who are faced with hitting a
wall, keep on marching to Zion. Keep on running to Zion. Run
the race. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Cast
aside everything in your life that clings closely to you and
hinders your run, especially sin. You’ve come to the city
of the living God. Secondly, you have come to innumerable
angels. What is he saying here to us?
He’s saying you have come to a party. You have come to a festal
gathering. You’ve come to one of the greatest
festivals ever recorded in Scriptures. And it’s the eternal worship
of Almighty God. And the angels and the saints
and the elders and all the creatures made to serve God are looking
upon Jesus. They’re looking upon the Father.
They’re looking upon the Holy Spirit and saying, Blessed God,
you have saved us. You have redeemed us. You have
ransomed us with your own blood. And you have drawn a people to
yourself into this festal gathering. And here he speaks of the angels.
Innumerable angels. Now sometimes we get a little
hokey with our angelology. We get a little wacky in our
theology. We get a little heretical. We need to be very careful. As
one man has put it before when preaching on angels, he says,
I don’t know much about angels, but I know more than you do.
And there’s a sense where we need to stand in awe of angels.
We don’t know a lot about them, but we do know this. They were
created by God to serve Him. And He very often uses angels
to serve you. In fact, Hebrews is going to
tell us in just a little while we need to be careful about our
hospitality because without knowing it we may entertain angels unaware.
But you remember Abraham sitting out by his tent and two men came
and greeted him. They were angels, he didn’t know
it, but they were sent to look into Sodom and Gomorrah and then
the next day destroy it. You think about the angel the
angels that appeared to the shepherds in the fields while watching
their flocks by night. And they sang glory to God in
the highest. The son, the Messiah, Jesus has
been born. And you think of Gabriel, you
think of all the angels that attend and do God’s bidding on
this earth. And you in your worship are gathering
with them as they praise Jesus. And so he’s saying, you have
come not only to the heavenly city, but you have come to the
innumerable angels that gather before his throne. You remember
Isaiah. When he saw the Lord, when he
saw Him high and lifted up, he also saw angels and they had
multiple sets of wings and one of their sets of wings was to
cover their faces for they could not look at God and live just
as Israel could not. There’s a third you have come
to here and it says this, you have come to the assembly of
the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven. We just heard our
choir saying that Jesus, that God knows us by name. In fact, He knows your name.
It is enrolled in the heavenly places. You think back to your
grade school days. The morning roll was taken. Are
you here? Are you here? Are you present?
God knows you by name. He knows you. He made you. He
formed you. He knows the hairs of the top of your head. He knows
your needs before you ask. Jesus has led the resurrection
way to heaven. He is the firstborn from among
the dead as our apostolic greeting from Revelation 1 reminds us.
He is the firstborn from among the dead and those who have fallen
asleep in Christ who have been raised from the dead are there
in heaven with Him. They are enrolled. Their name
is in the book. This is the church triumphant.
These are those who have persevered in the Christian life. And by
faith, they have made it to the end. These are those. Who have gone before us, they
have preceded us in death and they have entered into heaven.
We are worshiping with the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven. And
you think about your loved ones. You think about Abraham and Isaac
and the Apostle Paul and Peter and James and John and all those
great Christians, the heroes of the faith we want to meet.
They’re there in heaven. You have come. You are worshiping
today with them. This fourth aspect is a little
scary. You have come to God, the judge
of all. You know, if you stand accused
of doing wrong in this nation, you’ll likely stand before a
judge. And what a terrifying thing that is, the evidence presented.
A prosecutor, a defense attorney will make their case, but you
stand in the hands of the judge. And it says here, you have come
to God, the judge of all. Not a human judge. You’ve come
to the great, big, scary God of the universe, the Lawgiver
and the Law Avenger. and that we come before Him in
reverence and awe. You know, we forget when we come
to church sometimes that we’ve come to the house of God. I mean,
sure, we’re going to church, we’re going to worship God, we
can say it all in name, we can spit out the sentences, but we
forget, don’t we, that we have come into the presence of Almighty
God, the maker of heaven and earth, the one who’s created
you, the one that sustains you, the one that with a snap of His
fingers or the word of His voice could put you to death and be
justified in doing so. We’ve come to worship God. No,
this building doesn’t shake and quake. There’s no smoke coming
up from under the pulpit. But God is still here and we
worship him and we come into the presence of God, the judge
of the earth. But we come in confidence because
in Jesus, in Jesus, the the thunder of Mount Sinai has been hushed.
It has been quieted because on another mountain, on another
mountain Jesus died. He suffered and he bled and he
fulfilled the law and all its righteous demands so that you
can come into the presence of God. You know, tomorrow if you
were to appear in a court of this country or this land or
this state, you don’t know the outcome. But dear friends in
Jesus Christ, we know the outcome. We are justified by our faith
in Jesus. He has perfectly obeyed and He
has perfectly paid the penalty for your sins. And so you know
that when you stand before the Judge of the earth, He will not
look upon you and your sins, He will look upon Christ and
His perfections. And you who by faith receive
Him and rest in Jesus alone for your salvation, you can confidently
stand before the Judge. Yes, in reverence and in awe.
But you can confidently go saying, I know that my sins are forgiven,
that God sees me as if I have always obeyed and he sees me
as if I have never sinned. Oh, friends, what a wonderful
position that is to be. But it comes only. By faith in
Jesus, recognizing that you’re a sinner and that you are without
hope of anything except the mercy and love of God in Christ. And
you receive that and rest in it alone for salvation because
you believe that the Bible teaches that you’re a sinner and Jesus
is a Savior. And those two are wed in your faith, which is a
gift from Almighty God. So when you come, when you come
to the judge of all the earth, oh, what a fearful and terrible
thing it is. But we come in confidence. What
is that we sing? In confidence, I will draw nigh. Fifthly, he says this, you have
come to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. At every funeral
service that I conduct, at every graveside service in particular,
I’ve made this my practice because a seasoned minister has told
me it’s a very helpful thing to do, is you look into the eyes
of the family. is they’re about to lower their
loved ones body into the earth. You simply recite the Shorter
Catechism. It says this, the souls of believers
are at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately
pass into glory. And their bodies being still
united to Christ, that body that is about to descend into the
grave, and their bodies being still united to Christ, do rest
in their graves till the resurrection. You have come to the spirits
of the righteous made perfect. You as you are worshipping today
and you believe this. You are worshipping with your
loved ones who had faith in Christ and you may have worshipped with
them here in this place on earth. But today, as you gather in worship,
you are worshiping with them now as they are in heaven worshiping
before the face of God. And you are worshiping on earth
before the face of God. But through the mediation of
the church, the souls of believers are at their deaths made perfect
in holiness and do immediately pass into glory. And they enjoy
the presence of God, the worship of God forever. You’re worshipping
with the great cloud of witnesses. You’re worshipping with Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob. You’re worshipping with Peter
and Paul and Martin Luther and John Calvin and Wycliffe and
Huss and all the great people of faith who throughout the years
have had faith in God. You have come to the spirits
of the righteous made perfect. And then he says, number six,
you have come to Jesus. Oh, it can’t get any better than
that, can it? You’ve come to Jesus, the mediator of a new
covenant. He is your high priest. It’s
not Aaron, it’s not Melchizedek, it’s not the sons of Aaron. No,
you’ve come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, not the old
covenant, not the obsolete covenant, not the covenant incapable of
saving you through the blood of bulls and goats. You’ve come
to the mediator of the new covenant, Jesus Christ, who has died in
your place, who has shed his own blood, and whoever lives
above to make intercession before you. He’s met the demands of
the law. He kept them perfectly. He’s
hushed the law’s loud thunder. He has quenched Mount Sinai’s
flame, and His sprinkled blood has saved you. And that’s the
final thing you come to. I don’t know how to explain it
to you, but it simply says, you have come to the sprinkled blood. You know, we’re a weird religion,
aren’t we? Other people say it, but we’re a religion of blood.
I mean, what is it? Monthly, we have the Lord’s Supper.
We drink the blood of Christ, we say. What a strange thing
it is, but it’s the religion that God has given us. It’s the
faith He’s given us. We sing of the blood. Oh, precious. Lamb of God. We think of the
Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world. He’s
in heaven now bearing those five bleeding wounds on his body.
But you have come to the sprinkled blood. Remember the writer of
Hebrews has said this to us, without the shedding of blood
there is no remission of sins. Without blood, you would still
be in your sins. Without the blood of Christ,
you would still be dead in your trespasses. And what does He
say to us in other places? The blood of Jesus has sprinkled
your heart clean. It has cleansed you of your evil
conscience. There is no longer any vengeance
in you because you have been washed by the blood. Why is He
saying all this? Why the seven aspects of the
worship in the church you cannot see? Well, if you go back to
the beginning, to the first few verses of our passage today,
18 through 21, and then you remember what we read in Exodus 19 just
a little while ago. The old covenant was terrifying. The law brought death. But you’ve not come to Mount
Zion or Mount Sinai. You’ve not come to a mountain
that cannot be touched. You’ve not come to a consuming
fire that will destroy you in your sin. No, you’ve come to
Mount Zion. You’ve come to a mountain that
can be touched. And even better than that, brothers
and sisters, you’ve come to a mountain that because of your clean hands
and your pure heart given you by Jesus Christ and his work
on the cross, you can ascend that mountain. The other mountain,
you had to stay clear of even the foot of it. You could not
go near and touch even the fringe, but now you can go right up the
mountain by faith in Christ and worship God in this place, but
in the life that is to come. You see, friends, in Christ,
there is something greater. In Christ, there is something
better. In the old covenant, you approached
God and you died. But one has died, Jesus, his
son, that you may approach him freely. And so he’s saying to
you, brothers and sisters, run the race. Persevere. You’re going to make it up the
mountain into the presence of almighty God. By his grace, may
it be so, let us pray together. Our gracious God, we thank you.
We thank you that we are blessed to live under the new covenant.
whereby the precious blood of the Lord Jesus, we have been
brought near. We have been brought near to
the presence of God, and we will be brought even nearer in our
death. Lord, we can’t wait. But until
then, make us strong to persevere, to persevere until the end with
our eyes on Jesus, our eyes on Him who can perfect us, Him who
can save us, and Him who has died in our place. And we pray
this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Let us sing now of the
heavenly city and the church as we sing glorious things of
Thee are Spoken, number 278. you so Amen. As you go into the world
to serve the living God and persevere until the end, until He brings
you home safely, go now with God’s blessing, His benediction.
Look up and receive it now. Now may the God of peace who
brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus the great shepherd
of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant equip
you with everything good that you may do his will and may he
work in you that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ
to whom be all glory and dominion and power forever and ever and
all God’s people said amen.