Reconnecting with the Divine | Living Like Never Before (Part 5) | Stephen Feith

So welcome to Madison Church Online. If you're a part of our online audience joining us on Thursday nights or on YouTuber, or podcast want to begin this morning, there are a couple ways that I was thinking about beginning to be honest, I just don't have anything on my notes because of the three different ways it was gonna start. So I got to kind of pick one now and, and as I'm thinking about worship, and I'm thinking about our connection with with worship and music, and we come to church, and you kind of expect it. I mean, even when you're watching online, you kind of expect that at some point there's going to be music, that's part of what makes it feel like church if we just got together and I just talked to might not feel like church. As a matter of fact, within Christianity we we can disagree with with a lot with each other different churches, denominations, beliefs, even us in the non denomination world, we find things that we disagree with each other about. One of the things that we all agree on is that we sing music, we play music, and we come together and we pray, and we win. We worship through singing. But I want you to maybe ask, why is that? Like, why is that especially when you're at Madison church, we started in 2014. Well, we could have done anything we want it to do. And that's the truth. We can't have Madison, we could have said we're gonna have three our services, we're gonna have 30 minutes services we're gonna meet and buildings, we're gonna meet in homes. We could have done anything, we could have played country music, we could have done rap, we, you know, there are so many options that we could have picked right from the beginning. And why did we choose where we are at today?

Well, it wasn't because of tradition, obviously. Because when you're nondenominational church, you're connected to a whole bunch of traditions. We're all of them Christianity. And so it wasn't because of tradition.

It wasn't because of something religious. But it was because of something that we felt was impactful. Something we still continue to feel is impactful to this day. It's why we begin every Sunday with music. And it's not because that's the only way you can worship. That would be unbiblical. We can read in the Bible that worship is everything. It's so big, even today, we're going to talk about worship being bigger than just the music. But the why behind why do we do that? Is because while God is speaking, moving around you, in you through you, Monday through Friday, Saturday, Sunday to while God is always active, it can be really hard for us to be in tune to that, like we are right now. And we kind of carry some of that into Sunday. I think we do. I think you go to work Monday morning, it's hard. It's it's after a weekend, and perhaps you work weekends. So that's not really a thing for you. But for a lot of people, if you have the weekend off, you come back into Monday, and it's like you're gearing back up for another week, you know, the weekend was too short.

And here we go. You're a little tired. It's it's a snowy or flurry or whatever it was last week that we had and, and you're gearing back up. And then of course, there's some sort of conflict at work or there's something that that doesn't go right at work, or perhaps everything is going good at work. But then once they have a problem with your kid or your teenager or your spouse, something comes up with mom and dad and now all sudden there's a little bit of a tension, a conflict and you're not really focused on God. And that's kind of how it goes right? And perhaps even your super discipline, let's let's give you the benefit of the doubt you you pray and read the Bible every day. And that's great. And that's what we push people to do. But outside of those times, we get sucked up into the world, we get sucked up into things going on in around us. And that just happens. That just happens.

It's not like when you're getting yelled at by your boss.

It's not like when you're talking to your kid that you're really in tune to. I wonder how God is moving right now let's just enjoy this moment. Can you imagine interrupting your boss to tell him that? Just hold on?

Can we just appreciate what God is doing right now? I don't think that would go over? Well, I know you don't think that I mean, very few of us would think that's gonna go over well, but that's what happens is it so we don't do that. But we get caught up in the world. And then, you know, Friday night, we're finally the world like we're putting work away for a lot of us. And your Friday may shift maybe it's not Friday, because you work weekends. So for you.

It's like your Wednesdays here.

Now you get to go out and and maybe you're going to the restaurant, you're gonna go hang out with kids, you're gonna go to the bar, you're gonna have a drink, you're gonna go do something fun, you're gonna go get lost in video games, whatever it might be. You're like, it's finally time for fun.

And then you go and you enter into that fun. So you've gone from work to fun. And then you come to church. And I think what happens is, is we haven't yet shifted. We haven't yet shift or really we're very reactive, reactive to work reactive to the play, and we get here. So then we start off with music. And the music is just powerful, because it's not just music, but it has a psychological and emotional and yes, a spiritual effect on us. As we take a breath, and we begin to sing and reflect and even meditate on words that we sing over and over again. I could just sit. I could just sit. We reflect on that. Think of that. Eventually it's like our spirit is sitting What happened. And that's why, because as we come to this part where we we open the Bible, and we study the New and Old Testaments, we study what God has spoken to people through people, for 1000s of years, want to be in tune. And that should be me. And I know for a lot of us, that is our aspiration through the week. And maybe it's just our aspiration this morning, you don't have to raise your hand or anything, you don't have to tell me how aspiring This is that I'm talking to you and what you hope to get out of it. But as we talk about coming here this morning, at the very least, and I want to hear from God, we start with music, to help tune our hearts, our minds, our souls, into God. And this is something that fellow believers have been doing for 1000s of years, as we're going to get into today. We are in the final part of our series. Oh, we have one more week next week for this current series that we're living like never before. But this is the third and final installment of a series through the entire Book of Hebrews. And so we're on week 29. Over the past, I believe it was 18 months, we're on week 29. Now, and so let me clarify for those of you who your first time or 10th time with you haven't been here for all 29 times, we don't do these quick long runs. There's nothing quick about a 29 week series, we break them up into smaller parts. And so that's why this is the third installment. In the first installment we did Hebrews one through four. And at the beginning, and there was a natural break at Hebrews four.

But at the beginning of Hebrews in a series called Finding my faith we're talking to primarily are talking about a primarily Jewish audience that have converted to Christianity based on what they've heard about Jesus. And now what's happening in his in our church, that's probably about the size of this room right now, this wouldn't have been the church I was originally receiving the message of Hebrews, you had some people who used to be here. They're not here anymore. They used to be here, not here anymore. And it's because they started to doubt, which we all do. From time to time, we all doubt we all have questions that don't get answered, We all wonder we all.

We all go through that stuff.

That's fine. But they started to leave. And the author of Hebrews, whoever she or he may be, is concerned about this.

They love the people in the church, they love the people in this little community, this little house church. And they're concerned because we're asking questions, well, maybe Jesus isn't who he said he was. mean, we know people who know Jesus when he was a little boy. And, and that's kind of weird. I mean, that'd be the equivalent.

Some of you know my son, Elijah.

And you've known him since he was a baby, you might have known us, you might have known Megan, when she was pregnant, you might have known us and Megan, before she was pregnant with Elijah.

And then imagine someday Elijah grows up. I'm just trying to get you in the mindset of maybe some of these folks. But Elijah grows up, he claims he is the Messiah, he does somethings dies on across races from the dead three days later. Everyone's saying that Elijah is this son of God who can save you from your sins, and you kind of go on board with that. But then after a while you're like, but I knew Elijah and, and I was there that one Sunday were the week he figured out how to force himself to Burke. I was there that was actually this morning. You say, There's no way.

And so that was beginning to happen. And so the author of Hebrews says, No, we're not settled on Hold on a second.

Jesus didn't start a new religion. This was all written about already. The entire Old Testament, whether you're reading in Deuteronomy, or Isaiah or the Psalms, it's all pointing to Jesus and the author of Hebrews then meticulously begins to go through that. The second installment we called losing my religion, it's a lot of talk of temples, and curtains, and high priests, and sacrificial lambs. And all of these things that we might think are weird. As a matter of fact, if you've ever tried to read through Hebrews, I would guess that these are will be called fly over passages to like the flyover states, when you're flying over Kansas, there's nothing to see. So you're not looking out the window. When we're reading. Sometimes these parts of the Bible, it's kind of like that we're like, I don't I don't know how this is applicable or practical. And so we go through the series to show you that, you know, Jesus has a new covenant with us. And Jesus is our new high priests. And because of that, this is why and now we're in this final part where the author of Hebrews as summarizing everything and getting ready to land the plane, the original letter to the Hebrews would have been read out loud in one sitting so well, we've what's taken us 30 weeks to do, they would have just done it in one one sitting. But we're getting ready to land the plane here next week is our last week.

And so far in this last series, we've talked about how to persevere. You might know that Jesus is God and have experienced that. And you might be like theologically, just tracking with us Old Covenant, New Covenant, you might be with us. But now we got to put it into action. Because the author of Hebrews is saying this isn't just about what you think it's about what you do. It's not just about the beliefs that you have, if they don't translate into action. So some of the things that we have to do based on the knowledge that we know And what we know about life, the persevere. And how do we persevere? It isn't a pep talk.

It isn't some hype song that gets you fired up to seize the day. It's nothing like that. But the author says, the community around you. If you are going to persevere through life with a vibrant and thriving faith, look around you because the people around you are going to be the reason that you do. Do people around us aren't great, don't motivate us to do good things aren't encouraging. The author of Hebrews warns, warns, your faith may not last and not because God is changing. But because that's just the practical reality of living on this earth. Then they talk about the different heroes of faith, all of them going back to Abel, they do these great things because of their faith. And as such, God responded with the author of Hebrews wanted to say was your persevering. You have a community around you? Remember, all these folks were they had faith? What did they do? They did something. That was the point. They did something. It's not just about theology. It's not just about belief, but they did something. And it wasn't just for the sake of doing something, but God always responded. And it wasn't always health and wealth. The people we talked about in Hebrews 11. They weren't all kings. They weren't all influencers. They didn't have yachts and multimillion dollar mansions and private jets. Some of them had good life. That's true. Some of them had good lives. But the author says remember, some of them were stoned and beaten and tortured and thrown in jail. Kind of like let's see here. Oh, Jesus.

That's what the author tells us last week was what we studied, like, don't forget, that Jesus, who had the greatest faith of any of us, didn't have an easy life. He wasn't the King, the influencer with all the money.

As a matter of fact, he died, the worst death of the Roman Empire could conjure up at the time to hang him on across let him slowly die a humiliating death naked in front of everyone. And we get to where we are today, where the author is going to talk about, finally, the two covenants and the difference, and he's going to call us or she's going to call us to make a decision based on everything we've heard. So if you want to follow along, we're going to Hebrews 12 words will be on the screen. starting with verse 18. The author writes, you have not come to a physical mountain, to place a flaming fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind, as the Israelites did at Mount Sinai, for they heard the awesome trumpet blasts and a voice are terrible that they begged God to stop speaking.

They staggered back under God's command, even if even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death. Moses himself was so frightened at the sight that he said, I'm terrified and trembling.

So again, primarily Jewish audience. So the author is going to go and say, remember, the Israelites, they just they gotten out of Egypt out of slavery, these are some of the good days, they come up to the mountain, Mount Sinai. And the mountain represents a boundary between God and people. There was God, and there was people and God is holy and sat apart.

And so we can approach them. And they will think about maybe the holiest person you can think of at the time. The author says, I don't know maybe Moses, they're all Oh, yeah. Moses, for sure.

The leader. Yeah. And he says, how what was Moses, his response there? Oh, yeah. Terrified, absolutely terrified to approach God, absolutely terrified. He says, this was the mountain of physical mountain that people used to come in, and, and you were around, and this is where God was. But there was a key separation here. Now remember, God used to walk with people were told in the creation narrative, whether you believe that's figurative or literal, whatever you believe about the first couple of chapters there.

But we were told that God walked with people. So we should believe that God walked with people on point. And then sin enters the world, and then God no longer walks with people, this sort of punishment for the sand, all of a sudden, the world is infected, and there's a separation. Well, that was the situation for them. Now we know that we live on the other side of Jesus, where God is again, walking with us. But there was a period of time for 1000s of years in which God did not walk with people like you and I can experience God. Today God is holy instead of park, and this is good. Now last time, we talked about holiness, we think of legalism, we think you know, don't see right or movies don't listen to music with swear words in it. We tend to think very legalistic ly about holiness.

But when you think about holiness, I want you to think of God who is so holy, He is so sad apart, that injustice can't exist. God is so sad apart, that discrimination couldn't exist.

Sexism, racism, homophobia, Gotta so holy, that those things cannot exist around him in him through him. And when we get to see holiness as this perfection as we begin to see holiness as the way that things should be, I think that we begin to change our minds and say, Well, maybe holy, isn't that bad, maybe holy? Isn't this thing that I should be terrified of, or rather this thing that I should pursue? Now we're told, and here's where I think the problem is, I think we pursue holiness as an it's something that I could attain. What has the author of Hebrews already done?

I mean, the author has gone all of this way to tell you that you cannot make yourself holy. They tried. Look at Leviticus, oh, boy, did they try 400 Different commandments, they tried, still not good enough. You cannot make yourself holy, as God is holy.

What does that mean? You and I still sin, we still break the world, we contribute to the hurt of the world, whether you mean to or you don't, whether it's something you meant to do, or you didn't do. Because sometimes we think of sin, we think of doing something wrong as something we do. Sometimes it may be something that we don't do. And maybe that time we look the other way, when we heard someone say something they shouldn't say, when we didn't speak up for someone who couldn't speak up for themselves. Sometimes it's the absence of doing something. So we don't have to pursue holiness as in something that I need to attain. But we need to act like people who have been made holy.

And that's what you and I are, no, you are not perfect, but you are set apart, because of the life death and resurrection of Jesus. So as you sit here today, maybe you've never thought about this, but you are holy, not as holy as God is holy, because let's admit it today, you might cut someone off in traffic. Or you might gesture at someone who cuts you off, right. So you are not quite as holy as God is. But you are no doubt set apart not because of what you've done. But because of what he has done and continues to do. So you holy is good. And at one point, God's holiness kept him from people, and they're on holiness kept them from him. And that's why we had all of these things, the ways that you had to sacrifice the bowl to cleanse yourself, you had the tabernacle, and you had the veil, and only one person could go back there. And, and in some cases, they actually tied a rope to the guy just in case, God didn't like it. And that got struck them down, we couldn't go in and bring out the dead body, we would pull them out by rope because I don't want to die. This is true. It's all in there. We don't have time to unpack that today. But that was God's holiness and the author of Hebrews and saying, that is a choice that you can continue to make today. You can keep going back to the mountain, keep going back to Mount Sinai, you can keep offering sacrifices, you can keep having one priest, you can keep doing that. That is one of your choices.

But we're not a people who live under the Old Covenant. He says you're not walking up to that mountain if you don't want to.

We don't need to approach Mount Sinai in terror of God, and separation from God. The author continues in verse 22. No, you have come to Mount Zion. This is different. This isn't Sinai, this is Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the countless 1000s of angels and a joyful gathering, you have come to the assembly of God's firstborn children whose names are written in heaven, you have come to God Himself, who is the judge over all things, and you have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven, who have now been made perfect. You have come to Jesus, the one who met mediates the new covenant between God and people, to the and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness, instead of crying out for vengeance, like the blood of Abel. The author's own words, there is a huge contrast between the Mount Sinai, the physical mount, and Mount Zion, this spiritual mound, whereas before you might be terrified, and before you are separated. Now the author says welcome. You don't need to be terrified of God. You can now approach God and for us today that seems weird, because how do we begin every Sunday? By trying to approach God? If you walked in here, and you were terrified, it was probably because there wasn't a huge crowd in here, right? It wasn't because of God.

It was because you were like, Oh, I hope I can approach God this morning. We don't even think about it. But at one point, that church, this church that they're writing to, would have been terrified. Can we approach God? Can we pray to God? Can we sing to God? The author of you ever say, Yeah, you sure can because of everything that we've talked about this assembly, if depending on the translation that you're reading, it says you have come to the assembly is the word that we use for church She Ecclesia and Greek ecclesia, you have come to the church of God's firstborn children. That's where you have come, you are part of a new family, your new covenant.

And we don't come to God every Sunday morning, to make ourselves to have to prove ourselves right anymore. But we come to God, we come to Mount Sinai to celebrate what God has already done to worship. And I love this last part, if you're someone who writes in your Bible, and you absolutely should, or you highlight this last verse, you have come to Jesus who mediates the new covenant between God people, which speaks of forgiveness, instead of crying out for vengeance. What a contrast, right? Because I think that a lot of us, we tend to think or we can think that God is waiting to zap us or waiting for us to step out of line. And what are we told here, the exact opposite. We're told God isn't like that the rather Jesus mediates on our behalf. What?

Forgiveness, not vengeance, I love that. And this is really important, because some people think that, you know, some churches don't talk about hell enough. They don't talk about sin enough, not talking about God's anger and wrath enough.

And like, because we don't, it's like we don't believe in the Bible as fully as they do, or that our faith is somehow shallower than theirs. But you me remind you that, while they might be on a soapbox, today, we're meeting in a body of other believers, and that Jesus himself in the biblical texts, isn't telling us to cry out for vengeance. We're told that Jesus is praying for forgiveness. And so that's so important that we get that this morning that it is about God's love, grace and forgiveness. But that's not to say that there's not a reality of warning here, as the author has done throughout the entire letter. Anytime we get to a verse a segment a paragraph, they do come back with a warning who said, they say be careful that you do not refuse to listen to the one who is speaking for the people of Israel did not escape when they refused to listen to Moses, their earthly messenger, we will certainly not escape if we reject the one who speaks to us from heaven. When God spoke from Mount Sinai, his voice shook the earth. And now he makes another promise, once again, I will shake not only the Earth, but the heavens also.

This means that all of creation will be shaken and removed, so that only unshakable things will remain. And since we are receiving a kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful.

And please God by worshiping Him with holy fear and awe, for our God as a devouring fire. One of the things that has been repetitive, but even to me it's been surprising is the repetition of the author who writes all of these things made promises about God's love, grace, free of Jesus is praying for Your forgiveness. And the author always comes back to this idea. But that doesn't mean that what you do doesn't matter. They always got to come back to that throughout this whole thing. But it doesn't mean that life doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that you can just do whatever you want doesn't mean that the people who defected, you know, it was fine. Remember, there's a warning. And the warning here is they said, think about this.

There was judgment for people who didn't listen to Moses, who God was speaking to people through him. How much worse will it be now that Brianna, you can hear from God? You don't need me to tell you about that. Dan, you can hear from God, you don't need me to tell you that you can all hear from God. And the author of Hebrews saying, how much worse Do you think it's gonna be? That's not Moses, you're not you're ignoring, but it's God. How much worse Do you think that's going to be?

Remember, God is holy, inside apart and all is good. And if we're not listening to God, we're just kind of living in this unholiness, which cannot coexist. Justice can exist within justice. A choice needs to be made. And yes, God will make us holy, as he continues to do. But at some point, we also make the choice here on Earth.

And our response to faith, as the author of Hebrews says, is a passionate worship, a passionate spirituality, what else can we do? The author is asking in almost a rhetorical sense. What else can we do? What can we offer God except ourselves, our entire being and worship? And so yes, worship includes the singing of songs and prayers, but it also includes the raising of hands includes deep meditation. Worship can is about our financial contributions are volunteering. Worship is the clothes we wear, the foods we eat, perhaps the foods we don't eat. Worship is everything. It's holistic, It's spiritual. It's emotional, and it's physical.

And so our response is to live our lives as living sacrifices.

Are you perfect? No. But it's to keep worship at the forefront of our mind. So my question to my challenge the application for today, which mountain are you worshiping on? Which mountain?

Are you worshipping at? An ancient one that represents something God used to do a physical one that represents separation from God and legalism and not being able to approach God, some sort of tradition, some sort of familiar religion.

Is that the mountain? Or are you oriented toward a future mountain that is unseen, a mountain that represents what God is currently doing a mountain that represents what God has yet to do a vibrant faith that expects that whatever God is going to do next, is better than what he is all ready done. As you think about it, I would imagine there's probably elements of your life that worship at an old one, an old mountain, and elements of your life that worship at the new one. And our challenge our application is to continue to reorient and orient our lives on the future and present workings of God by not ignoring the past, but looking at and saying, look what God has done. But that's not where I worship. Look what God has done. But that's not where we're at. Look at what God has done, but look at what he will do next. What this looks like when we worship at an old mountain, is it looks like being focused on something that God did in your life. At one point, a long time ago, we talked about our baptism, talk about our salvation, the day that we found encountered Jesus, and we continue to look back. And if we only ever look back, we're stuck at an old mountain, we need to look forward to the next thing that God is going to do. When is the next time God is going to answer that prayer? When is the next time I'm going to experience God's President, as you walked in here today? Did you expect to experience God? More than you did last week? You should? You absolutely should. And guess what? Next week, you should expect to experience God more than you did this week. That should be our expectation. And furthermore, which mountain are we pointing others to? Are we pointing people when we talk about our faith that we point them toward a mountain of the past in which one had to prove their worth? Or they were going to be judged? Or do we point them to a mountain that stands for acceptance because our worth has been proven by the life death and resurrection of Jesus because he said it was worth it.