Exodus: Seeing What You Need To See

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Let's pray together.

God, you're saying something to us this morning.

We got so much to be thankful for in that that you're saying something in this room in this moment.

You're saying things like there are chains in this room that I am breaking.

There are chains in this room that I'm gonna break in my time, in my pleasure.

Because I'm your God, and you're my people.

You're saying things to us this morning like I am never gonna let you down.

Or we just hold on to that this morning because we feel let down.

There are families, there are hundreds of people that just experience what happened in our land of, and they're feeling let down right now, God.

And we hold on during dark times like that.

The truth is like we just say, You're never gonna let us down.

The proof we don't have to look very far to a cross.

Because you let your son down into our midst.

He took on our flesh and he lived a perfect life and died to death that none of us could die, that none of us would die.

So we sing hallelujah, praise the one, risen son of God, because he's the one that we're coming through now, God, to speak to you and to hear you speak to us.

So speak loudly and speak loudest through your word.

We pray this in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, Amen.

You can be seated.

Good morning.

My name is Clyde, and I have the privilege of being the worship pastor here at Grand Parkway.

And uh, if you're a visitor with us, you probably know.

Uh if you've been here the last few weeks, we we've been working through the book of Exodus.

Uh but let me first say, first and foremost, if you're a visitor and you don't have a home church, uh, we love having you here.

We're glad you're here.

We want to welcome you and make you feel welcome.

One of the things we say here a lot is the best part about this place uh is the people.

So thanks for being a part of us today.

Uh these people will love you and welcome you.

I have good news today.

We're gonna be out before 1230.

I can guarantee it.

So that's gonna leave you plenty of time to get to know each other.

But before that, God has a word for us.

So let's look at his word.

If you have a Bible, uh turn in it to Exodus 25.

And we're gonna be looking today at a lampstand.

We're gonna be in Exodus 25, verse 31 through 40.

Exodus 25:31–40

If you don't have a Bible, there's one on the edge of your pew.

That's our gift to you.

Take that home with you.

I'm on page 66 in that Bible.

We're in Exodus 25.

I'm gonna start reading at verse 31, and we're gonna go through to uh verse 40.

You shall make a lampstand of pure gold.

The lampstand shall be made of hammered work, its base, its stem, its cups, its calyxes, and its flowers.

They shall all be of one piece with it.

And there shall be six branches going out of its side, three branches of the lampstand out of one side of it, and three branches of the lampstand out of the other side of it, three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower on one branch, and three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower on the other branch.

So for the six branches going out of the lampstand, and on the lampstand itself there shall be four cups made like almond blossoms, with their calyxes and flowers, and a calyx of one piece with it, under each pair of the six branches going out from the lampstand.

Their calyxes and their branches shall be of one piece with it, the whole of it a single piece of hammered work of pure gold, and you shall make seven lamps for it, and the lamps shall be set up so as to give light on the space in front of it.

Its tongs and their trays shall be of pure gold, it shall be made with all these utensils out of a talent of pure gold, and see that you make them after the pattern for them which is being shown you on the mountain.

This is the word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

First thing today that I think God has for us out of this passage in the Exodus is to look closely at the details.

To look closely at the details.

Now, if you've been with us kind of going through the book of Exodus, one of the things you know is that Exodus is one of those great stories.

I mean, it's one of those stories that shows up all throughout human history because we love the story of people that were in slavery, being rescued out of their slavery and being taken to where they should be, which in this case is Israel being in the promised land.

And so if you're familiar with the story, you know it starts with Egypt uh enslaving the people of God in Egypt.

And uh then you have these plagues, God sends Moses, you've got burning bushes, you've got snakes turning into staffs, staffs turning into snakes, you've got them crossing the Red Sea, drowning the Egyptian army, you've got them going across the wilderness.

It's a great story, and it reads like a great story.

Uh and then you get to chapter 25.

And chapter 25, 26, 26, all the way basically to chapter 40.

Fifteen chapters telling Israel how to build a giant tent.

It didn't take one chapter to do it, they took 15.

And inside the tent, you've got all sorts of things.

And so the pace of Exodus kind of all of a sudden just stops.

And I was thinking about this uh in terms of my own life.

Uh in February, we do a men's trip and we go down to Costa Rica where our church has adopted a village there, and we go down and we do construction projects.

We're going actually next month uh to do a medical and music missions trip kind of thing.

Um but on this men's trip, the main thing we do is construction.

And the first few days of this construction trip are hitting it hard, you're you're pouring concrete, you're mixing the concrete, you're setting posts, um, you're doing all this big, kind of heavy manual labor stuff that everybody's just all hands on deck getting it done, right?

Well, then day three or day four sets in, and then all the big stuff is done, and you've got to start doing the detail work.

Now, this is the slow part.

This is the part everybody has to slow down.

You've got to start doing the electrical wiring.

Uh, you've got to start hanging doors, you've got to start doing tiling, you've got to kind of start cleaning it up and making it look good.

This is the part that I can't stand.

Uh I can mix concrete all day.

Just give me the mixer, give me the water, the sand, the gravel, and the seaman, I'll throw it in.

I can make concrete.

You know, a monkey could do that.

I can do that.

Uh but when it comes to all the detail work, electrical wiring, you don't want me doing that.

Uh they assigned me to hanging doors.

Uh that didn't go so well.

I made it about 30 minutes, and Neil was like, Clyde, I got something else for you to do because I was ready to kill this door.

Uh hanging doors is not for the weak of heart, right, Dennis Scott?

Uh so the detail work.

We had to slow down and kind of get into the nitty-gritty and take our time and slow, and you know, by this point, everybody stinks.

You've all been up on the mountain a few days and you're ready to be done.

But the details have to be done.

And that's the point that I want to make for us today in Exodus.

It would be really easy if you're reading through this book of Exodus to go, oh yeah, the Red Sea crossing, oh yeah, getting out of Egypt, oh yeah, being in the wilderness, the Ten Commandments, this is great.

And then you get to chapter 25, and it's 15 chapters of instructions on how to build a tent.

And you're like, I'm gonna skip ahead to Numbers or Leviticus, and then you're gonna get there and see it's all the same kind of stuff until you basically get to the book of like Judges and Joshua.

But I think the first thing here for us today is to look closely at these details.

Slow down and look, because everything is here is designed with a purpose.

Neil said a few weeks back, you know, God takes how many days to create the world?

Seven.

Yeah, well, six, and he rests on the seventh day, right?

How many days does he take Moses to tell Moses how to build this tabernacle?

Forty.

God's saying something there.

And we'll get to that here in a little bit.

Um, you know, Israel made a big deal about these instructions.

I mean, when you read this, when Moses wrote Exodus, they kind of brood over these details of gold and silver and bronze and this furniture's got to be here, and this has to be made out of this wood and all these rules.

I mean, let's not forget that these first four uh first five books of the of the Old Testament are called the Pentateuch, the Torah, these were so important, you had to read it aloud every seven years.

Now, if I if I'm a man and I've got my wife and my kids, and I've got to gather with all of Israel every seven years and hear this, I'm hoping, you know, it's gonna be worth shaving my legs for, right?

But this was the deal.

You know, every seven years they got to hear this entire thing read aloud.

Now I'm thinking, okay, this is exciting.

Listen to Genes, Adam, and Eve, you know, and then Abraham and all that.

And then you get here to chapter 25, and it is instruction after instruction.

It's let me put it this way: it's like you go to uh, I don't know, Ashley Furniture, you buy a bed, right?

And it's got instructions of how to put it together.

You put it together, you read it, you put it up.

It's like every seven years, taking out the instructions of how you made your bed and reading them aloud to everyone again.

Real exciting, right?

No, not so much at first glance, but there's a purpose behind it.

And I think if we look a little deeper, we're gonna see a purpose here when it comes specifically to this lampstand.

What does it say the lamp stand is supposed to be made out of in verse 31?

Pure gold, right?

Well, here's my question.

Israel's no longer in Egypt, but they're not to the promised land yet either.

They're where?

They're in the wilderness.

I don't know about you, but I don't think there's like a steady, you know, uh steady amount of gold mines out in the wilderness.

And there's not.

Well, where did all this gold come from?

Exodus 12.

What does Exodus 12 say?

The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing, and the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked.

Thus they plundered the Egyptians.

Think back, after all these plagues have been happening, these Egyptians would do anything to get these Israelites out of there.

And what did they do?

They send all their gold and all their silver and all their jewels with them.

And so Israel has everything they need now to make this tabernacle because God said to Moses, Hey, tell them to grab this stuff.

God was thinking, even then, I'm preparing something for my people.

He didn't just decide, boom, I want a tabernacle.

He wanted to communicate something very specific to these people.

So that when Israel looked at this tabernacle, they weren't just going to see it as what it was, which was, we'll get to that.

It represented God's presence among his people, right in the middle of it.

But it didn't just represent his presence, it represented his provision, right?

Because this lampstand was made out of gold, right?

Where'd the gold come from?

Well, some Israelite lady probably went over here, took a gold necklace off an Egyptian lady, and she's like, Here, Moses, I got some gold, put that in the lampstand, kind of thing.

I mean, I just love that picture of God provided what he needs for the people to do this.

Bob Coughlin, he's one of my favorite worship leaders, worship pastors, he had this saying, he said, God's work done in God's way never lacks God's supply.

God's work done in God's way never lacks God's supply.

When we're obedient to God, he's gonna give us what we need in order to be obedient and to stay obedient.

I think a great example of this is when you look at the story of David.

You know, David, he wanted to what?

He wanted to build God a house.

He wanted to build God a final temple, a tabernacle.

Uh and what's interesting to me about that is God wasn't so interested in that.

God's always interested much more so in what he can do for you than what you can do for him.

Let me say that again.

God's more interested in what he can do for you than what you can do for him.

This is how it happened with David.

This is 2 Samuel 7.

It'll be on the screen, verse 1.

Now, when the king lived in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, See now I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.

And Nathan said to the king, Go do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.

But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, Go and tell my servant David, thus says the Lord, Would you build me a house to dwell in?

I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day.

But I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling, in all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel.

Did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar?

Now therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel, and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you.

And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth, and I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more.

And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel, and I will give you rest from all your enemies.

Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.

David wanted to make God a house, but God says, No, David, I'm gonna make you a house.

Because God's more interested in what he can do for David than what David can do for God, just like God's more interested and concerned about what he does for us than what we do for him.

I love that about God.

God's a good father.

And good fathers, they don't lord it over their children and tell them to go to the kitchen and get them another sandwich.

They're more worried about how they can father and parent and love their children and take care of them and provide for them what they need.

That's what God's doing here in this tabernacle.

And so this lampstand that they get from this, that they start making from gold, is is something that God's gonna speak to them through.

He's gonna use this thing as a symbol.

Now, let's think about symbols really quick.

This week, all over America, what's gonna start going up?

What are you gonna see?

Flags, right?

Now, why is that?

Why are we gonna see flags this week?

Because it's flag day, right?

Yeah, all the government buildings you're gonna see.

Tuesday is flag day.

And and the flag, on a very technical level, represents what?

You've got 50 stars, right?

What's that mean?

50 states.

You've got 13 stripes, what's that mean?

13 original colonies.

You've got the red, which represents valor, courage, blood.

You've got the white, which represents, you know, the purity.

You've got the blue, which represents, you know, kind of the perseverance aspect.

So on a technical level, that's what the flag means.

But here's a question.

What does the flag mean to somebody who survived World War II as a soldier?

Somebody who made it out of the Pacific?

What does it mean to uh a woman who lost her husband because he went off to fight for his country?

What does the flag mean to someone who grew up uh in a war-torn country?

Someone who comes out of a place like the Middle East to come to a place like America and they become a naturalized U.S.

citizen.

And they don't have to deal with the poverty they dealt with anymore because they get a fair shake at it now.

Because they came to a country that espouses things like capitalism.

Uh, I'm not saying capitalism saves the world, but I'm saying, what does the flag mean for someone who comes from such a terrible place where they don't get to experience the freedom we get?

That flag starts to take on different meanings, doesn't it?

Yeah, so symbols are powerful and we give them meaning.

Um I think, now this is a side note.

I think all of us would do ourselves a big favor if this Tuesday tell your parents, children, to go on YouTube and go search Ragged Old Flag by Johnny Cash and listen to it on Tuesday and understand some of the meaning behind the flag.

I would say like go around the old-time radio, but nobody has those anymore.

So go around your computer screen and watch it on YouTube.

Um because it's a powerful symbol.

You know, I think there are powerful symbols that we give a lot of meaning to.

One for me is uh this is a simple one, uh, and it's it's small, but uh on my keyring, you probably can't see from here, I've got a little brass hook.

And this belonged to my dad.

He gave it to me before he died, and I always thought of my dad with this because he always carried, he had a ton of keys for his job.

And he would always hook them, you know, right here uh on his pants.

Uh and I thought, I think that looks really dorky, so I always put it in my pocket.

But uh this little brass keyring is just one of those things he gave before he died.

And I always think of my dad when I think of it because it reminds me of the relationship I had with him.

Um, so what am I saying?

Well, well, symbols, they can be powerful.

I mean, think about some symbols that you have in your family.

What are some of the powerful symbols that you guys gather around you give meaning to?

Um, is it, you know, some horns on a bull because you're Texans fans?

I don't know.

Uh there could be all sorts of things, but the most important question for us today isn't so much what value do we give to symbols?

But when it comes to this lampstand, when it comes to this tabernacle, what kind of value is God putting on it?

What is God trying to communicate through this?

So there's two simple things today: life and light.

And that's the second thing we've got here today.

Um, the lampstand points to life.

The lampstand points to life.

Now, where do I get that?

When we start reading these verses, it had all these things about calyxes, branches, leaves, fruit, almonds.

What does that sound like it's describing to you?

A tree.

Right?

Now, here's my thing.

God could have chosen any way to display light in this tabernacle, right?

I mean, because the light's there to do what?

Give light, you know, help the priests see so they could do their job.

He could have put a stick in the ground and put a lamp on top of it.

He could have, you know, stuck a torch in the ground, he could have cut windows into the you know the walls of the tabernacle.

He he didn't tell them to do any of that.

Because God wanted to communicate something about himself through something as simple as a lampstand.

And God does this.

If you read the Bible carefully, you'll you'll start to see this.

Um, Jesus, this is one of the things that Jesus understood.

John 3, most of us know John 3, 16.

We might not know the part that comes right before it.

Jesus is talking to a man named Nicodemus and says to Nicodemus, Just as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

Serpent?

What serpent?

Well, if you go ahead from Exodus a little bit to the book of Numbers, chapter 22, you'll see a great story about how the people of Israel sinned against God, and God judges them, and he sends in a bunch of snakes to start biting them, and they're poisonous snakes.

Numbers 22 · chapter mention

And so the people start dying, they start crying out.

God says to Moses, I want you to take a cast a bronze snake and lift it up on a pole, and anyone that looks at it is going to be safe.

What's the point being?

That anyone who had sinned against God and was experiencing the consequences of their sin, they had to look up and see their sin put up on a pole, and they were forgiven and healed their sins.

Jesus understood this symbol, which is why he pointed to it later in his life.

And so the question for us today is well, what's so important about this symbol?

It's a lampstand.

Well, the lampstand is there to remind him of a tree.

Now, let's just look at a few things that kind of get us thinking about trees.

Uh I want us to go to Genesis chapter 2, verse 5.

Genesis 2:5

It'll it'll be on the screen.

When no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground, then the Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

One of the things that we have in the garden before Adam and Eve sinned, and before they get kicked out of the garden, is they have this intimate, open access to God.

They can walk with him, they can talk with him, they can just enjoy being with God.

They have what we would call access to God's presence, right?

I think what God's saying hundreds of years later, in this building of this tabernacle, by simply putting a lampstand that kind of looks like a tree, he's saying, Remember the last time that you had open access to my presence?

It was in a garden full of trees.

That's simple, that's subtle, but but it's true.

I think that's what God is saying to the people of Israel, that this whole tabernacle, this whole us going to the promised land, this whole me building a tent and putting my presence in the midst of you, is about us getting back to what we lost in the garden.

It's about us getting back to you and me being together with God.

And that's as simple, I think, as we can make the tabernacle is about us getting to enjoy God's presence.

God says, You will be my people, I will be your God.

And so I think this tree is there because the last time he was there with them, they were surrounded in a garden full of trees.

And this tabernacle is all about putting that presence back in the middle of his people.

But here's the problem it's a limited presence.

It's a limited presence.

And what do I mean by that?

Well, this limited presence has to do with their sin, which also happened because something happened at a tree.

Genesis 3, verse 22 says, This, then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil because he ate from the tree.

Genesis 3:22

Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden to work the ground from which he was taken.

This tree there is a subtle reminder that sin has consequences.

And now there is a veil separating us from God's presence.

And the Holy of Holies.

No one could go in the Holy of Holies any time of the year except one day, and that was just one man, the high priest.

He was the only one that got to go there and be around God's presence.

Anybody else would have died.

So we got this lampstand.

It was the back of the lampstand.

You got a lampstand, it looks like a tree.

So what?

Why why does it matter?

Well, the third thing the lampstand holds light.

Very simple.

I mean, I was this this text was kind of I was like, what do what do we say here?

What do we look at here?

And I was thinking about this week, and I was putting my daughter Evie Kate to bed, and uh we have a little night light.

Plugged into the wall, and so I just looked at Evie Kate and I said, She's about two.

Well, what do lights do?

And she said, Dead dad.

That's all I got from her.

And I said, Lights help us see.

Lights help us see what we're supposed to see.

And so that's pretty simple today for us.

You know, the point of a lamp stand is to hold light.

Uh, you can have a beautiful lampstand, but if it's not holding any lamps, it's not doing its job.

That's why in verse 37 it says, You shall make seven lamps for it, and the lamp shall be set up so as to give light on the space in front of it.

But I think in terms of who gets to see this light, well, who was in there?

Aaron, the priests.

They're the ones that get to go in and minister before God's presence.

It was this select group of people that got to experience what God was doing.

And what was their job?

Other than making sacrifices and making atonement for Israel, they would go outside and they would bless the people.

It's almost like God would pour something into them and then they would turn around and turn and go pour that into the people.

They acted like this mediator, this role between God and the people.

The Bible picks up on this, obviously.

But one of the things that the leaders of Israel would say would be this: the Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make his face to what?

Shine upon you.

The Lord be gracious to you and lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

You know, light helps you see what you're supposed to see.

And I think just like these guys were going out and blessing the people and being their spiritual leaders, a good spiritual leader helps you see what you're supposed to see.

My job as your pastor is to help you see what you're supposed to see.

Parents, your job as the spiritual leaders in your home, especially dads, is to help your kids see what they're supposed to see.

You've got all sorts of different things coming at you in this world, whether it's a different color light than the light God really wants you to see.

You've got all these things that are trying to influence your vision of reality, of whether it's who God really is or what sin really is.

Our job as spiritual leaders, as mature Christians, starting at home, is to help our people see what they need to see.

So that's what the light's doing.

It helps us see true things, it helps us see beautiful things, helps us see good things.

I think it's interesting.

The first thing the Bible calls good is light.

It's the first thing God says in Genesis 1.

I mean, here's just a few, here's how I think light is one of the most consistent descriptions that God gives Himself in the Bible.

So Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

God said, Let there be light, and there was light, and God saw that the light was good.

Psalm 18, for it is you who light my lamp.

The Lord my God lightens my darkness.

Psalm 119, your word is a what?

A lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Proverbs 4.18.

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.

Isaiah 2.5.

O house of Jacob, come let us walk in the light of the Lord.

John 1.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that it was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Jesus spoke to them again, John 8 12.

I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

And 1 Timothy Paul says he is the King of kings and the Lord of Lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.

The first thing the Bible makes a big deal about is just this simple idea of light.

And it also talks about the nighttime.

One of the things I think is interesting about nighttime, we I think there's lots of people here.

We love the nighttime.

We think it's beautiful, especially if you get out in the country away from the city and you can look up and see the sky, see the night sky, see the clouds, see the moon.

Have you ever thought about this?

The only reason that nighttime is beautiful is because there's light in it.

I'll just let that settle for a second.

The only reason that nighttime, the only reason that darkness in any form, any shape, is beautiful is because there's at least a little bit of light in it.

And that light gives perspective to the things around us, whether it's the land or the moon or whatever else.

I think we look back on our darkest moments of life with joy because we see a little bit of light in them.

And some of us, I think, right now, are still waiting to see the light.

We're still waiting to get out of this darkness.

Now, this morning you might ask me, Clyde, do you get all that from a lampstand?

No.

But I get it from reading the rest of the Bible.

I think on one level, yes, God wants a simple lampstand that his priests could see and do their job.

But he makes it to look like a tree.

So on another level, I think he's saying more that, hey, light and life and the way I'm communicating these things to you, they matter to the people of God.

They matter to Israel and they also matter to us.

But this lamp and this tabernacle, all these things that they built, they're not good enough.

They didn't really help the people see what they were really supposed to see.

Which is where I want us to kind of land this morning with the last part here, verse 40.

Look closely at the pattern.

Read with me here, verse 40, back in Exodus 25.

It says this.

After end of describing all these lampstands, all these ark, the ark and the table, it says this.

And see that you make them after the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain.

The pattern which is being shown you on the mountain.

As I said earlier, God spends 40 days with Moses telling him how everything's gonna look.

But this pattern is not just for these things.

This pattern is for other things to come.

This pattern is gonna result in two things.

You're gonna have an earthly copy, but you also got a heavenly copy that hasn't been revealed yet.

Now, what do I mean?

Well, this lampstand, this ark, this bread, this tabernacle, all of it is a pattern for what's to come.

These are earthly copies that are that are gonna go away.

The word there that they use in Hebrew, it gets translated in the New Testament as the word tupos, which is the Greek word we get our word type.

And that that word type is used of all sorts of people.

Jesus Christ was a type of Adam.

He was the second Adam, right?

Jesus Christ was a type of Moses.

Jesus Christ was a type of the Lamb.

He was a type of sacrifice.

Jesus Christ was a type of priest.

He was, I think Moses, God was saying to Moses, use this word, this pattern that I'm showing you on the mountain, because years later, I'm going to show my people something through it.

And I think in Hebrews 8, it's probably the clearest example of this before we get to the end.

So Hebrews 8, this is what it says.

The writer of Hebrews, whoever he was, he's talking about all this tabernacle, these lampstands, these priests, all the work that they do.

And this is what it says.

They serve as a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things.

For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.

But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.

For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would be no occasion to look for a second.

We had a picture of an engraving that uh can we put that up there, Mike, of the uh lampstand?

Yeah.

So if y'all aren't familiar, if you've never seen this picture before, uh there on the top left kind of is what the lamp stand, that's the earliest recorded image we have for the lampstand.

And it's from about 70 or 80 A.D.

Now, I think it's interesting the source of this uh picture.

This actually is an engraving on a stone arch in Rome.

Uh and it was built sometime towards the end of the uh first century, and it's called the Arch of Titus.

Now, it's not the Titus of the Bible, it's uh Emperor Titus.

Emperor Titus was the emperor in 70 A.D.

who sacked Jerusalem.

He went there, they destroyed it, they destroyed the temple, they destroyed all the government there, and you know, took the people away into exile.

So what you're seeing here is Roman soldiers actually carrying away the artifacts of the temple.

No, those are not old school movie projectors.

Uh, those are things like the table of the show bread and then the lamp stand there.

Um, what's my point?

I think it's interesting that Jesus, during his life, he said the temple was going to pass away.

He said, Tear this temple down, and in three days I will rebuild it.

And that really made the Pharisees angry because they didn't understand that what he was talking about was that all of these earthly copies, things like this lampstand, this tabernacle, this temple, the ark, all of it had to be taken away to make a place for the ultimate heavenly copy, which is Jesus Himself.

And I want us to look this morning how the Bible describes this.

Are y'all still with me?

Let's go to Revelation 21.

If you got your Bibles, turn there with me.

Revelation 21.

I'm gonna start at verse 22, and we're gonna read into chapter 22.

While you're turning there, I think it's worth noting that the lampstand, as we said, looks like a tree.

The Bible begins with a garden full of trees.

I think it's interesting, it also ends with a tree.

So I'm in chapter 21 of Revelation, looking at verse 22.

This is what it says.

And I saw no temple in the city.

For its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb, and the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it.

For the glory of God gives its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.

By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there.

They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations, but nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor any one who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Then the angel showed me the river of water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the street and of the city.

Also on either side of the river, the tree of life, with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.

The leaves of the tree were for the healing of nations.

No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads, and night will be no more.

They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Amen.

One of my favorite things about reading this this week was just the thought that went through my head that I get to be there and see that one day with you.

We get to enjoy that together.

We're gonna get to be there worshiping Him together at this tree.

And nobody's gonna have to turn on the lights.

Because the Lamb is the light.

There's not gonna be, I mean, three simple things I think you can take away from just this last section today of where I think this lamp stand, all this leads to just the simple conclusion that we get access to God.

You never have to doubt whether he loves you or whether he's there with you because you're gonna be with him, and he is going to love you, and he's gonna give you a taste of that even now in this life.

The second thing, there's gonna be healing.

We don't have to watch our loved ones die in their beds anymore.

We don't have to watch our kids grow up sick and catch diseases.

We're not gonna have to send our sons and our daughters off to war anymore.

And then thirdly, there's no more curse.

There's no more curse.

This is why we get together at Christmas and we sing, no more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground.

He comes to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, far as, far as the curse is found.

That's what this is all leading to.

So God's not gonna have to use things like lamps and temples and buildings for us to see and to sense his presence, because he's gonna be our life, he's gonna be our light.

And he did all that through Jesus so that you could know him and be known by him.

Let's pray together.

Just take a minute at the end of the service.

Lindsay, our worship leader is going to come and may play or sing something over you.

I just want to invite you to ask the Holy Spirit to show you what you need to see today, to help you hear what you need to hear today, to help you sense in all of what you've heard, what God wants you to sense.

So, Holy Spirit, I pray right now that you would just kind of brood over these children of God.

There's some in here that are crying out, as we sang earlier, for you to break some chains.

Because we hit we feel stunted, we feel underdeveloped as to where we know we should be.

So bring that healing.

Help us to simply know that we get to be with you and enjoy you.

Because of what you did for us, because of what you're always doing for us, and because of what you're gonna do for us.

Lord, thank you for that confession, for being all to us.

Our prayer now is for those that your light has shown in their hearts today.

Your word says that God said, Let light shine out of darkness, and that you have shown on our hearts.

You've shown in our hearts the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

So, Jesus, we want to see your face really clearly right now.

So that we can know that we're not crazy, and that what we believe actually matters.

We believe that to be true today.

We believe you're all to us.

As we go now, help us to live and walk in the light of that truth.

Pray this.

And all God's people said, Amen.

Amen.

Well, thank you for being with us.

Uh, if this is your first, second, third time with us, you're a visitor.

I want to invite you to come forward.

Uh, and there's gonna be pastors down here at the front at the conclusion of our service.

We just want to know, put a name for the face.

Uh, so come find me or one of our other pastors.

We'd love to just hear your name and hear your story.

Uh, if today's the day you worship through giving, there's boxes by the door on the way out and the exits.

Uh that's where you can put your tithe and offering uh today.

Why don't you stand together?

I want to speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out like this.

The Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

God bless you.

You're dismissed.