From the Garden to the Tabernacle

Oh, crossing family, it is so good to be with you on and

welcome those of you joining at our different locations, those

of you watching online and inside, and also a special

welcome to those of you who are joining us for the first time or

the first time in a long time. We are in the middle of a series

called Decisions in the Desert. All of us are going to spend

some amount of time at some point in our life in the desert.

And the decisions that you make, they will define you.

They will determine your destiny.

And today we're going to do something a little bit

different. I'm going to put on my professor

hat, which Can you imagine me being a college professor?

I would be fired quickly and but I'm going to have you.

I'm going to put on my professor hat and we're going to go to

school like old school school. And but at the very end, I have

a strong belief that you will have a new appreciation for the

work of God and the love of Jesus that has been poured out

on your behalf. So turn to your neighbor and

just say hang on 'cause you're gonna have to hang on for a

little bit, but it'll all make sense in the end.

We begin in the Garden of Eden. God says let us make man in our

image. And so they created Adam and Eve

and they were in perfect harmony with God.

The Creator and His creation were in perfect harmony.

And then Adam and Eve sinned and the relationship was forever

fractured. It was changed.

Why God is holy. Exodus chapter 33 starting in

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

verse 18 unpacks this a bit for us.

Then Moses said, now show me your glory.

And the Lord said, I will cause all of my goodness to pass in

front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord in

your presence. I will have mercy on whom I have

mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have will

have compassion. But he said, You cannot see my

face, for no one may see my face and live.

Then the Lord said, There is a place near me where you may

stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will

put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until

I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and

you will see my back. But my face must not be seen.

If you were to be in the presence of a holy God, you

would be destroyed. God's holiness is really hard

for us to kind of comprehend. Holy means separate, different,

all together, apart. I'm going to explain this to you

in two ways. One is old school and one is if

you were to be hanging out in my house.

Here's the old school version. The Latin word for book is

Bible. So if you were to be in a place

that spoke Latin, you could say and you were say, hey, I need a

book. You would say, hey, I need a

Bible. Well, you'd have to come up with

different words for hey, I need a but book and Bible, same word

and you're going, that's kind of weird because I have a Bible.

And when we say Bible, we mean something different than just a

book. We mean the book, which is why

even on your app, or if you were to open up the real Bible that

you have either on the front or on the title page, there's a

different word. There's an adjective describing

this book, this Bible. The word is holy, the Holy

Bible, the altogether different Bible, the separate Bible, or

the altogether different book. There are lots of books, but

there's only one that is completely different than all

the others because all the other books contain the words of man,

but this book contains the words of God.

This book is holy. Here is how I describe it.

If you were hanging out in my house, in our house and and

husband's plate cool here because I want you to be able to

ride home with the woman that you came with.

But we have a bunch of towels in our house.

We have towels for you drying off our hands.

We have towels for drying off our bodies.

But then if you were to go into the kitchen, we have kitchen

towels for you to dry off your hand.

But then we have these other towels.

They're called decorative towels, and these towels are

different than all the other towels.

These towels are holy. And what we do, ladies, because

you guys are smart. You hang your decorative towel

in the most convenient place for a towel that you would use to be

hung. So that way when you get done

and you turn to use the towel that's right there hanging on

the oven door, you're not allowed to use that towel.

This towel just for us to look at.

Now, I want you to go home and look in the mirror, ladies, when

you were in high school, college, you're an absolute

smoke show. And I want you to tell old you,

when you get older, you're going to look for cute little sayings

to put on towels to decorate your house with.

Say that to your daughter. Say, sweetie, there's a day

coming when you're going to be going.

Oh, yeah, We're going to put towels with words on them all

over our house. Yeah, that your high school

daughter would go. You're weird because, ladies,

you're weird. And then you get mad at us for

using the towel that has words on it.

That's still just a normal towel.

You wonder why, Fellas, this kitchen towel is holy.

It's altogether different. It may have some qualities like

the other towels, but no, this towel has been set apart.

It is holy unto your wife. Now, after the Israelites have

been given the law, God tells Moses to build him a Tabernacle,

which is a tent, a temporary dwelling place.

And this Tabernacle was going to be a portable place of worship.

The reason is because God has been separated from his people

because of sin, but he wants to be in the presence of his

people. And so they begin to build the

tent, the Tabernacle, and they're the people will be able

to worship God and offer the sacrifices for their sins that

they had committed as a result of failing to live up to the

standard of the law. Here's how it goes down.

It was going to be a special place inside of this Tabernacle

where God's presence would dwell in the midst of his people.

God is trying to get back in the presence of his people.

It began by creating a courtyard that was about 75 feet by 150

feet, making the square footage of this courtyard about 11,000

square feet. And as you entered the

courtyard, the very first thing that you would see would be the

altar of burnt offering. Now, the altar of burnt offering

was a square structure about 7 1/2 feet on each side and about

four and a half feet tall. And upon this altar, every

morning and every evening, a lamb was sacrificed on behalf of

the people to pay for their sins.

In addition to this sacrifice, there were many other sacrifices

that would take place on Sabbath days and during special days on

their calendar. There were burnt offerings.

There were grain offerings. There were fellowship offerings.

There were sin offerings. There were guilt offerings.

Have you ever experienced sin and guilt and shame?

You would pay for that if you ever made a mistake.

If you were an Israelite, you were constantly paying for your

sins in sacrifices. Exodus chapter 29, verse 37 and

Exodus 29:37

record these words for seven days.

Make atonement for the altar and consecrate it.

Then the altar will be most holy, and whatever touches it

will be holy. Whatever touches the altar of

burnt offering, where the sacrifices of sins take place

will be holy. Past the altar of burnt offering

was a place called the Lavar or the lava.

Here this structure was placed right before they went into the

tab or the Tabernacle. It was a place for the priest to

wash themselves, to purify themselves for their duties.

And before you could walk into the next place, the Tabernacle,

it was the last thing that they would encounter before they went

into what the Bible records as the Holy Place.

You see on the afar side of the courtyard, there was the

Tabernacle. It was 45 feet by 15 feet.

It had walls that were 15 feet high and it had large pieces of

fabric draped over the top. It was a big tent.

And this Tabernacle had two rooms in it.

The first room that you entered was the Holy Place.

It was a rectangle about 30 feet by 15 feet with 15 foot high

walls. And it had three items in it.

If you look right over here, they have the table of presents.

It was a small table and on it were 12 loaves of bread that

were placed there every single week.

This signified the 12 tribes or the 12 families of the

Israelites. It signified them as a people

group, the sons of Jacob or Israel.

Then on the other side was a lampstand.

The word for lampstand is menorah for those of you who've

ever hung out with people who have Jewish descent.

It was made of pure gold. And every morning and every

evening they would pure pour, they would pour pure olive oil

into it to to light it. So that way it was continually

burning and giving light to the holy place.

And then before you could go into the next room, you'd be

confronted with the altar of incense.

Here at the altar of incense, both morning and evening, they

were to burn incense on the altar as a regular offering to

the Lord. The fire was to burn.

Incense was always taken from the altar of burnt offering.

Ladies, this is where you get your spiritual reasoning for

having a Sensi burner in your house.

This they were. The God was the original Sensi

distributor. He's like on a regular basis

we're going to have smell good stuff through the whole house.

And they would go in order to light the altar of incense.

They would go out and they would get the hot coals and the fire

from the altar of burnt offering, and they would bring

it in and they would light it and the fragrant offering would

ascend up to the Lord. Separating the holy place from

the next room, which was the most Holy Place or the Holy of

Holies, was a veil, a large curtain that was 15 feet tall,

15 feet wide, and it was 4 inches thick.

And if you were to go inside of there, what you'd find is you'd

find the arc of the covenant. It was about four and a half

feet long and 2 1/2 feet wide and 2 1/2 feet high.

It was a wooden chest but had been completely covered inside

and out in pure gold and inside the ark were the stone tablets

that God had written the 10 commandments on as well as a jar

of manna because remember God was providing food for them

every morning with manna. The ark was covered by a solid

gold lid called the Atonement cover or the Mercy Seat.

And sitting on top of this mercy seat, this cover, were gold

figures of cherubim, which were Angel like creatures facing each

other with their wings almost touching.

And it was here at this mercy seat that the presence of God

would descend and God would be in the midst of his people.

All of this was put in place so that way a holy God could be

close to his fallen people. So they did this.

They did all the things that God required.

They finished completing the Tabernacle, and this is what

happens in Exodus chapter 40. Then the cloud covered the tent

Exodus 40 · chapter mention

of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.

Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had

settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.

In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud

lifted from above the Tabernacle, they would set out,

but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out until the

day it lifted. So the cloud of the Lord was

over the Tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night,

and insight of the Israelites during all of their travels.

So if you were an Israelite, you would be able to peer into the

courtyard and you could see the Tabernacle, and above the Most

Holy Place, it was a pillar of cloud.

And if the cloud moved, the people knew to pack up, because

if God was on the move, the people of God were going to be

on the move because God and his people were going to be

together. But if the cloud stayed, the

people stayed. And as they went to bed at

night, they could see the pillar of fire.

And God had descended. He had rested in the most Holy

Place. He had sent his presence there

to be close to the people. Much later, the Israelites take

possession of the promised land, which is modern day Israel, and

they set up their capital city in a city called Jerusalem.

Yeah, you know that one, the one that's in the news.

And here King David is allowed to accumulate all of the

necessary materials to move away from the Tabernacle, a temporary

place to worship God and create a temple, a permanent place to

worship God. But he wasn't allowed to build

it, but his son Solomon was. And Solomon built this permanent

place of worship, the temple. And when the temple was

completed, Solomon finished dedicating it.

Fire came down from heaven, consumed all the burnt

offerings, and the glory of the Lord filled that place.

Later this temple is destroyed and King Herod came or Herod the

Great came along and rebuilt it over many, many years.

It is this temple that was rebuilt by Herod that is the

temple during the lifetime of Jesus.

So when Jesus is walking around in Jerusalem and he's talking

about the temple, he's talking about the one that Solomon built

was destroyed and Herod the Great had rebuilt.

Let's look at actually what happens when Jesus walks onto

the scene. John records these words.

John chapter 1. In the beginning was the Word,

John 1 · chapter mention

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

He was with God in the beginning.

Through Him all things were made.

Without Him nothing was made that has been made.

In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

The light. The light shines in the

darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the

world. He was in the world, and though

the world was made through him, the world did not recognize Him.

He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive

him. Yet to all who receive Him, to

those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become

children of God. These children are not born of

natural descent, nor of a human decision or a husband's will,

but born of God. The Word became flesh and made

His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the

glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full

of grace and truth. Let me unpack a couple of the

highlighted parts. This Word is God, and this God,

this Word is coming in the flesh.

God is descending again into the midst of his people.

He has wrapped himself in skin, in humanity, in the person of

Jesus, and it says and made his dwelling, the word here,

Tabernacle. He's tenting.

God is in the midst of his people.

He's setting up a tent to be in the presence of the people that

don't deserve to be in his presence.

We are. He is tabernacling with us in

Jesus. And in the very next chapter,

Jesus goes to the temple and he starts to drive people out of

the temple who are acting in a way in which they should not

act. And people are frustrated by

this and they begin to question him.

Why are you doing what you're doing?

And this is what it says in John chapter 2, verse 18.

John 2:18

The Jews then responded to him, him as Jesus.

What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all

this? By what authority do you get to

kick people out of this temple? Jesus answered them.

Destroy this temple. And I will raise it again in

three days, they replied. It has taken 46 years to build

this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days.

But the temple he had spoken of was his body.

After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled

what he had said. They believe the Scripture and

the words that Jesus had spoken. The Jews are looking at Jesus

and Jesus says destroy this temple and I'll raise it again

in three days. And the Jews are like this big

building temple. It's taken us 46 years, but

Jesus is talking about him because Jesus is tabernacling,

He's tempting, He's templing with his people.

Fast forward to Jesus on the cross, Matthew chapter 27.

Matthew 27 · chapter mention

I want us to pick up right here. From noon until 3:00 in the

afternoon, darkness came over all the land.

About 3:00 in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice.

Eli, Eli, Lama Sabakhthanai, which means my God, my God, why

have you forsaken me? And when Jesus had cried out

again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

That's verse 50. Why is God forsaking Jesus?

Because in that moment Jesus is covered in all of my sin and all

of your sin, and God is holy, and God cannot be in the

presence of sin. And so Jesus, for the very first

time is experiencing the absence and the separation from God,

because he is covered in what you and I have done.

Jesus, who has always been in the presence of the Father, has

now been removed from the presence of the Father.

Because God is holy and Jesus is covered in what you and I

deserve. Look at what happens in the very

next verse, Matthew 27, verse 51.

Matthew 27:51

At that moment, the moment that Jesus cried out His last name,

gave up His Spirit, the curtain of the temple was torn in two

from top to bottom, you see, in the most Holy Place, and we're

going to get into this next week, the place that you and I

were not allowed to go into because the presence of God was

in there. All of a sudden, because Jesus

is dying on the cross, the curtain is torn, not from the

bottom to the top where the people grabbed a hold and ripped

it. But it is if God himself placed

his hands on the temple that separated us from His presence.

And he rips it in half with his own hands, saying that you and I

can now be in the presence of Him.

Because the that which made us unholy has now been purified by

the One who always was holy. You see, there's no longer a

barrier between US and God. We have access to the Father.

But hear me, it doesn't end there.

Let's recap. In the Garden of Eden, people

are separated from God because of sin.

God makes a Tabernacle in the desert so the people could be in

the presence of God. Then they make a temple, which

is a permanent place for people to be in the presence of God and

have their sins atoned for. Then God comes as a temple in

Jesus and becomes the place for us to be in the presence of God.

And then Jesus goes on the cross and removes the need for the

temple so that way we could be in the presence of God.

But it just keeps getting getting better.

You see, in Acts chapter 2 we find these words on the day of

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Pentecost. This is 50 days after Jesus was

on the cross. They were all together in one

place. Suddenly a sound like the

blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole

house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be

tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of

them. All of them were filled with the

Holy Spirit. There's lots of spirits, but

there's only one that's all together different.

There's only one that has God like qualities.

There's only one God, and here he comes.

And he began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled

them. Hold on a second, when God was

on the mountain giving Moses the 10 commandments, it was filled

with fire and smoke and lightning and Thunder.

And when God descended into the Tabernacle, His presence filled

the place. And then when God entered the

temple, His presence filled and His glory filled the place.

And there was fire that consecrated absolutely

everything. And then all of a sudden, hold

on a second. What?

The Spirit is descending not on a place, but on a people.

God is taking up residence in His people.

He is making His people a temple.

He is consecrating it and removing the barrier.

You see, we don't just have access to God.

We are becoming, through Jesus, the residence of God.

You and I get to become the temple.

That is why the very first sermon ended with these life

changing, soul altering words. Watch how Peter describes it.

Acts chapter 2. Peter replied.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Repent and be baptized everyone of you, in the name of Jesus

Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive

the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is for you and all

of your children, and who all who are far off, for all whom

the Lord our God will call. When you and I come to faith in

Jesus, our sins are forgiven because of the work that He is

done, and then He places His presence in US.

And when this happens, look at how Paul describes it in

Ephesians chapter 2. Consequently you are no longer

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

foreigners or strangers, but fellow citizens with God's

people, and also members of His household built on the

foundation of the apostles and prophets, which with Jesus

Christ Himself as the chief cornerstone in Him the whole

building is joined together and it rises to become a holy temple

in the Lord. And in Him you 2 are being built

together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.

Now let me take the professor hat off and let me preach for a

second. Look back at the temple.

Your sins and my sins are atoned for through the blood of Christ

that was shed on the cross, the altar of burnt offering.

And whatever touches the blood, whatever touches the altar,

becomes holy unto the Lord. You move past this, and we go to

the law of our which are sins are washed away in the waters of

baptism. We go into the the holy place

and Jesus is the bread of life and we are continually before

him in his presence. But this is not just the 12

tribes. This is for all who call on the

name of the Lord. And we look over to the other

side and we see the lampstand and we remember that Jesus is

the light of the world. But it's not just Jesus that is

the light of the world. Because of what he has done in

us, we too become the light of the world.

A city on a hill, a lamp on a stand that should not be hidden.

And then we go past that into the altar of incense, and the

Bible tells us that when we lift our prayers, it is an incense

unto God, a fragrant offering to Him when we walk in love towards

one another. This is why you and I are to

live a life worthy of the calling we have received because

we have been made holy. Because He is holy.

God has been making you and I into a temple, a place for us to

be able to worship and experience the closeness and the

proximity of God. And not only that, we are a

place when other people come into contact with us, that they

have an opportunity to come into contact with the life changing

power of the Holy Spirit. We are the temple of the living

God. God is Emmanuel, He is with us.

And when the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our lives, God

is in us. God is going through all of this

work, all the way back to from Eden to get back to you, to make

you a place where He can be in an intimate, personal

relationship with you. And guess what happens when you

get to heaven? We are forever in the physical

presence of God because there's no longer any sin, there's no

longer any shame, there's no longer any guilt because we have

been made right by the work of Jesus.

We've been cleansed in the waters of baptism and the Holy

Spirit, the presence of God, has taken up residence in our lives.

And you might be asking yourself, who is this promise

for? This is for everyone.

It is for you and for your children and all who are far

off. And I just want those of you who

might find yourself far off. God is a whole lot closer than

you think. We're moving to a time of

decision. If you're here today and you've

never started an intimate personal relationship with Jesus

Christ, you might be going Clayton, I love this.

I'd love to be, you know, part of this little temple thing

you're talking about. But I got to be honest with you,

I'm not the best building material.

I'm kind of, I'm a little jacked up.

You know, some of my edges have been kind of worn off.

And of all the rocks in the rock garden, I'm not the most, I'm

not the best rock. And I, I just want you to know,

welcome to the club. That's kind of where we all are.

And the good news is, is that it's not about the quality of

the rock. It's about the quality of the

architect and the builder. And God can build beautiful

things out of bust up pieces. For instance, if you were to go

to like an old school church, you know what the the people

there get super frustrated if you take out of there.

They get super frustrated if you take out the stained glass

windows. And stained glass windows are

just broken pieces of glass arranged in such a way that they

reflect all kinds of beauty. Let that be a testimony to you

that even though you may be broken and you may not have the

same shade as everybody else, and your sin looks a little bit

different than everybody else's, when you are placed in the hands

of Jesus, He can make something beautiful out of it.

The question is not whether or not you're busted up and broken.

The question is, is whether or not you are busted up and broken

and you are willing to place your hands or your life in the

hands of the builder, the chief architect.

And I would just tell you from my personal experience, the best

decision I ever made was making Jesus Christ, the Lord and

Savior of my life, and beginning an intimate, personal

relationship with him. My biggest regret is that I

didn't do it sooner. And you might be going, Clayton,

I get it. That's just what you know you're

supposed to say. But I want you to know that I'm

not the only person who believes that.

In fact, this room is filled and this region is filled with

people who that is their testimony.

And if you're going, you know what, I think this is great.

And in about a month and a half, I really think I'm going to have

things figured out and I'm really going to turn my life

over to Jesus. What I would tell you is that if

you could figure things out, God wouldn't have sent Jesus if you

could get it together in the right kind of way.

This is not, hear me, this is not about you getting it right.

God has already got it right in Jesus.

This is about you receiving what Jesus has done on your behalf.

Our job is believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of living

God. Our job is believing in His work

on our behalf. Our job is repenting for doing

it our own way. Our job is being obedient in the

waters of baptism and our job is to receive the Holy Spirit that

He is aching to pour out into your life.

And if you're here today and you've never started that

relationship, I'll just encourage you.

While the people around you stand and worship and some of

them come to the steps and pray. I want to encourage you to take

a faith filled walk right over there underneath that screen

next to the baptistry and talk to somebody about what it means

to start that relationship, to put your life in His hands.

To the rest of you, to those of you who already have a

relationship with Jesus Christ, you are supposed to be a temple

residents of God. His Spirit is supposed to

produce fruit in your life. And when people come in contact

with you, they're supposed to be coming into contact with the

presence of God as His Spirit controls you, directs you,

empowers you. And that's why the cry of the

New Testament is for you and I to live in a manner worthy of

the calling we have received. So the Bible says that you and I

are ambassadors as if God himself were making his appeal

through us. And if we were to just kind of

leave the sermon where we're a temple of God, we'd all high 5

each other and we'd leave here. But I, you just, you know me

well enough to know that that's not where we're going to end.

My question is, do the people in your family, do the people that

you work with at work, get the impression that a temple clocked

in, that the presence of God is in the cubicle, that there's

something altogether different, separate, set apart?

Like Clayton? Leave my workplace out of it.

Leave my marriage out of it. You don't understand.

This good news is not just for your children, it's for all who

are far off. And God is wanting to use you as

a temple, as a place for other people to begin their connection

with Him. And so I know some of you are

going to come to the steps and pray because you've got health

stuff going on in your life. I know some of you are going to

come up to the steps and pray because you've got marriage

stuff going on in your life and you've got parenting stuff going

on in your life and you've got work stuff going on in your

life. And I, I get all of that.

But maybe some of us would, whether we come up to the steps

or we want to bend a knee in our seat, just spend a little bit

time going. God help me to be holy like

you've created me to be. Would you stand with me,

Heavenly Father? It is crazy to me, all that you

have gone through to be in relationship with us because

God, we know us and we know we don't deserve it.

And I can't imagine how much it frustrates you when you hear us

say things like, you know the God of the Old Testament.

We try to explain it away because here you are at the very

beginning, revealing the redemptive arc that you are

doing on our behalf. And God, I'm thankful you have

big shoulders because we say all kinds of things in our

frustration at you, accuse you of doing all kinds of wrong that

you've never done. But here you are, still pursuing

us, still purifying us, still making us new, still doing

everything in your power to be in proximity to us.

God, thank you for making us holy, something we could have

never done ourselves. But God, we're going to need

your strength to be your holy people to a lost world.

And you're in my praying. Amen.