8.2.26 | Sam Fischer

Sugar Plain Friends Chruch: Today is on the dwellings of God. The simple truth in Scripture is that God desires to be with us. He desires to dwell with us. And we're going to look in Scripture to kind of look at all the ways that God has chosen to dwell and how that's developed over time to the present and what we're looking forward in the future. The message that we'll be looking at today is in John 1.14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. This word dwell is not simply just being there, being present, and not simply just existing, but we can think of it almost like a home, making a home. And that brings a much more personal connotation and something that is much more deeper than just being present. Word that we were to put it in the original language is often from the word tabernacle. The word became flesh and tabernacle among us. We can think of the tabernacle of scripture about how that was God's dwelling place for the period of the time in Israel and re-looking at that. But it goes back even further. God's desire to dwell with us goes back to creation. Genesis three eight Then the man and the wife heard the sound of the Lord as he was walking in the garden. While this was after the fall, it showed a pattern of walking that God would come down to be with Adam and Eve, that he would be present with. That the he had an intimate enough relationship with them that it would be perfectly normal for the creator of the universe to be walking in their garden in the middle of just a random time of the day and to meet with them. And they were expected to come and talk with them and do this, to interact. We see that God's presence in creation was seen and heard by mankind. That's already a wonder right there. That's already a wonderful truth that we can live out today, a timeless truth, that God's presence can be seen and heard. Because we know that Adam and Eve saw and heard God's presence. God's presence walked in creation, was seen and heard. We also see that God was seeking to be present with mankind. He took initiative. He didn't expect Adam and Eve to come to heaven, come to his throne and meet with him, but he went down. showing a kind of pattern where God is taking initiative to to initiate relationship. We also see that they had access, that they lost access to God's presence following their disobedience. The cherubim and the they God after their disobedience where they sinned, and he gave them provision of the la of the clothing from the slaughtered lamb, he then sent them out of the garden, and they no longer walked with God in the same way. They did interact in a way, 'cause we see Cain and Abel also talked with God, that they gave offerings to him, and we assume that Adam and Eve may have talked in a in a similar way to Cain and Abel, but their relationship was not the same. They didn't walk with God in the cool of the day and they didn't There was a separation. And two cherubims with fiery swords that separated them. Kind of indicating a sh an assurance of death if they were to cross that barrier. That is what that means. They the angels that were there with fiery swords that went to and fro, that if they were to cross that line that God had set, their death would be assured. They will be destroyed. God took sin so very, very seriously, even then. And it affected their relationship with him. It affected access to God's presence. We can see already some amazing truths about how God dwells with us. The first that is that God's presence can exist in physical space. He's not a God that is so distant that he can't exist with us in the present matter. He's not so distant that he can't manifest his presence before us that we can understand and hear in Satan. This separates God from the gods of Eastern religion. That there's that they are either of creation, they are all of creation, where if you were to hear God, it would be no different than hearing nature, be no different than hearing anything else. And that he is not like the gods. in Islam, the God in Islam, who would never go so far as to condescend, to reduce himself to talk in that way, to walk in that way. He would never come back. That would be a re reduction of his holiness, reduction of his glory to do that. But God did not see this as a reduction of who he was, to be in relationship with humanity. And as we'll look later, it's actually amplifying his beauty, amplifying his glory that he's able to do that. When we talk about the power of God's reduced, this is So important here because we can either the common arguments against God that we hear all the time is the first one is that why can't if God is so powerful, why can't He do some things? Like why can He make a rock that he can never move? Can he make a square that is also a circle? Can he do that? If he can't do that, is he really all powerful? Now, those are very common objections, but it's obvious that God cannot do something that he logically to do. Can God destroy himself? If he was all powerful, can he destroy himself? Well, there's also the truth that God is always existent. So if he's able to break all laws, can he break the laws and he can break all laws? It's it's a contradiction that goes down to where you're no longer working in logic. But it's so important when we talk about God existing and walking and being seen and heard. Because how can a God that is so distant be so present? While it may not be that God's power can make him do something that he can is unable to do, it is certainly within his power to limit his ability for a purpose. Would it be greater for him to be unlimited in the sense that he can't set limits on himself, or would it be greater power that he is able to set limits on himself? If God is all powerful, he can set limits. He can set limits, he can accommodate himself to humanity. And we see that in the Garden of Eden, that he's able to exist in a present moment in time. While God's outside of time, he chose to exist in time. While he is boundless and infinite, he chose to be limited in space, that he could be seen and heard in a tangible way. that he obeyed the laws of physics in some way, because if he was heard, there were sound waves, we assume. That he would be seen, that there was something visible, there was light, he obeyed the laws of physics. So God made himself tangibly known at that time. And it's not that he reduced himself in any way in the sense that he removed a part of his nature, but he accommodated that which could be accommodated. He didn't reduce his immensity the sense that he's omnipresent because he was omnipresent in that moment. It's just that his power manifested more specifically. We also see the truth that God wants to be present. So we get revealed not just something about his power, but we reveal something about his nature, that he wants this, something about his character, that he wants to be present with mankind. So that creation is not a hands-off process, that existence is not a hands-off process for God, that he did it with a purpose. In the past there have been ideas, especially around the Enlightenment, that God is a what they would say a watchmaker. That He created the world like a watch, that He worked it and crafted each part, and then He s turned the knob, wound it up, and then let it go and left it on the table to tick until the end of time. What does that teach about God's character? Well, it certainly affirms that he's the creator, obviously, that he intelligently did this. But it shows that his purpose for creation was nothing more than to make a toy. Something to leave on the table, or some relic to look at. That he was not involved with it. It shows that God doesn't do anything at the present time to keep it. And that he's separate, and that he doesn't want to be a part of it. But we see here in the Genesis account that that's not the God that we serve. That he walked with Adam and Eve was proof that he is not a watchmaker God. Because he was present there. And even more so, we see that after their disobedience, they lost their claim to eternal life. They lost their eternity because of that separation. They didn't have access to the garden. So but then we also see that human life is sustained. So it's not so purely a watchmaker. And we can go back to the first chapters in Genesis and see that. See the character of God. Well, God could certainly have the power to create the world and leave it be, that's not the way that his character would have chosen to do it. And it's not the way that Scripture teaches. We also see that God's presence cannot exist with sin. Their disobedience separated them. And under the threat of death they couldn't access in the same way. They still had a way to interact with God because God's grace in that. God didn't God didn't have to talk with them still. God didn't have to keep them living. Would it not be right for him to just immediately kill Adam and Eve after their disobedience? And it destroy all of creation, restart, make it be one. He had that right, he had that power, and he would have been morally just to do it. Because he set barriers and boundaries that could not be crossed, and it's up to him to determine which barrier or boundary can be gone backwards. Five bits. And that is what we toss up. we see God's dwelling in creation, that it is God wanting to be physically present in a way, to be tangibly present, to be seen and heard, that his character is that he wants to do it, and that God's presence has to be separated from sin. There has to be purity and holiness in it. And we look through, continuing in chronologically through the Bible, not exactly chronologically, but looking throughout the Bible, that his dwelling kind of changed forms over time. In Adam and Eve, it was the most clear, it was the most present in all of Scripture save the coming of Jesus Christ and the Old Testament, definitely. But we see also that before the tab the literal tabernacle, that Moses and the people of and Israel built. We see examples in Genesis five, where Enoch walked with God. That there was an example of God dwelling with Enoch, and so much so that Enoch was taken up out of this world. We see God's covenant with Abraham, that God presently came down as a fire and walked between the animal carcasses. I'm just going quickly through this. You can read them, I'll give the references Genesis fifteen. We see God's presence there. The Lord appearing to Hagar in Genesis sixteen. It's not exactly described as possibly the angelings, possibly some other presence, but it was enough that Hagar knew that it was the presence of God and heard and sought. And was present there. The three visitors, Genesis fifth eighteen. Came to Abraham was a present and physical manifestation of God there, and is possibly the pre incarnate Christ in that moment. Jacob wrestling with God, Genesis thirty two, believed to be also the pre incarnate Christ, says the angel of the Lord there. Jacob knew that it was God, so much and he was so physically present that Jacob was hurt and had that hurt for the rest of his life. We see the burning bush, Exodus three two. It says the angel of the Lord was in the bush, and then it also says the presence of God was there. And that's where we get the most clear understanding that the angel of the Lord is God. Exodus three and then also the pillar of the cloud and smoke. It says the angel of the Lord was in the pillar of cloud and smoke. people forget that that pillar of cloud and smoke and fire by night, it says it was the angel of the Lord leading. And it was also the angel of the Lord that came out of the smoke, went back and destroyed the Egyptians. And then the Lord on Mount Sinai, one of the most clearest indications of God there. And also God the Father walking before Moses at around that same time, Exodus 19. So these are some examples of God's dwelling before. It was not in the same way, but it was actually more formal. It became more formal. God's presence came in specific ways for a specific purpose for a specific time. It was not just a general walking anymore. As the number of the people of God grew, it can see that the formality of God's communication and presence increased. While it was with Enoch, it was very personal. And then with Abraham, it was still personal. And talking with Hagar and the three visitors and Jacob, it was still personal. But then the burning bush came. And now there's a separation. It was not as personal anymore. There's a power, a holiness behind God's presence that was seen very clearly. That even Moses was afraid to be. And we see the more formality of the Pillar of Cloud, and then ultimately the Lord on Mount Sinai talking to all the people in all of his glory, that even the moment that he appeared, all of Israel fell before the mountain, afraid that they were gonna die. As the number of people grew and the greatness of sin grew, the greater the formality and the glory and the holiness that was shown. There was a greater separation. We can see that it's both the sinfulness of man got worse, but also the glory of God was greater, shown more clearly shown. Well what caused the other when they're both at same time. On Mount Sinai God ratified the covenant. We see God moving from personal visitation to kind of a nebulous presence. It's not very clear who he is. We see that with Abraham and the burning bush. But then a divine proclamation and a presence of his divinity and his glory on that sign. We also see God's punishment increasing with his holiness. With Nadab and Abihu who offered unholy fire in Leviticus ten. We can kind of see the parallels with with the two cherubim, that fire came from the altar and destroyed them. They had crossed a line that they shouldn't have crossed. They went into the tent of meeting with an unholy heart, an offering unholy fire. And they were destroyed because of it. It'd be difficult in that moment that the Lord commanded, and if you read the passage in Leviticus ten, the Lord commanded Aaron, who was their father, to not mourn. His family was not to mourn for Naanab and Abidu. Because what they had done was to blaspheme God. And their punishment was deserved. That's a difficult reality there. sometimes punishment is just and we don't need to grieve for the punishment always need to grieve for the punishment. Sometimes it is within our nature to sometimes celebrate the punishment of the wicked. When we see we kind of get happy in a way, justified when we see maybe a criminal on death row and we know what he did, and when his punishment is carried through. When we see a dictator in a foreign country finally taken down, we get a sense of justice, don't we? We get a sense of accomplishment that we knew that something right had been done. So ultimately we do value human life and it's not the right of any person to take another There is a just hand of God that is in part of it and sometimes the state carries that out. The truth of these passages is that God wants an intimate relationship with us first, but he'll not compromise his holiness. We see so many ways that God accommodates to us, but he doesn't compromise. He accommodates, he does not compromise. He accommodates in the way to make it possible for us to come to him, but he doesn't lower his standards. And we see that so clearly with how Nadab and Avihu was so immediately punished. He did not compromise for them. they just had a bad day, they didn't think about it. It's almost kind of paralleling it this is kind of on the side, but it's almost paralleling the start of the new church. You see, this is the start of the new covenant with Israel. When we see the start of the new chur church, A Acts five, who also was killed? maybe an unholy offering to the church with unholy hearts that they lied to the Holy Spirit and they were struck dead immediately. And it says the Holy Spirit struck see this parallel there. God is saying most clearly that his holiness will not be compromised. While he makes it possible for us to come to him, he will deal seriously with sin and that kinda goes with our own We have Jesus in our heart. We have the Holy Spirit. We have that promise. We have that hope and salvation. If you have belief in the Lord Jesus, you have Jesus in your heart. You have the Holy Spirit. sin you'll not fight with sin and the sin you will not want to live and dwell with sin in your heart. He wants that to be pure. You will not live in an unholy dwelling. If we had rightly understood sin in the way that God sees it, we would see sin as blaspheming God. Is so unholy that it's deserving of immediate punishment. But God chooses grace. Your posture as a Christian should hate sin. If you have sin in your life, you should hate it. You should be doing everything in your power and asking God for help to get rid of the sin. Sin is not proper, and it's throughout Scripture we see that God, while He accommodates people's sinful parts so that they can come into relationship with Him, when they're in His holiness, He does not. compromise. And if we have the Holy Spirit, we're closer than the Israelites ever were to being in the presence of God. Even the Israelites couldn't be as close as are. Maybe we should take it more seriously. Take sin more seriously. We see the tent of meeting. Exodus twenty nine forty five clearly states the purpose. He says, Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. To speed up a little bit. I kind of took this from research I've done before, but I need to speed up a little bit if we're going to get through this. The tent of meeting was God's dwelling place, and moving from more general to specific concerning the tent of meeting, where God kind of just comes in the way that people needed to understand him. Now God's setting a pattern to how people need to come to him. He's kind of moving from a general way that God interacts. So now it's more specific way. They have to enter through the priesthood. They have to offer sacrifices. They have to go before him in a specific way at a specific place at a special time. So the tent of meeting moved from a more general to specific. And we saw how people before Nahadap and Abihu failed that. And God's presence became exclusive. Terrible, right? But think about that now. God's presence exclusive. They didn't have the atonement. It had to be exclusive. It had to be limited. Or else everyone would have been destroyed. No one would have been right before God. They couldn't access his presence. So God accommodated by creating a physical place that they could know that the presence was there, but they would not be destroyed by it. It's became exclusive only the priest at a specific the Day of Atonement could go in after offering the sacrifices and going through the rituals. But even in this, there's still a grace and mercy. Because God showed a sinful people how they could come before a holy God and worship. He showed how they could interact with Him. There was an option. He didn't just say, Tough luck, you're not getting anything. He gave them an option, a way that they could go to God and worship. And he showed that God had a plan of redemption. We know from the New Testament and from the prophets that the tent of meeting was not God's final plan. It was not meant to be the permanent place. Because even the tent of meeting, the one that was taken down and rebuilt everywhere that they went, was saying that soon it will reach a place where you'll build a permanent place that won't be. And that was Jerusalem, and that was the temple. But the writers of Hebrews, Hebrews 8 5, go so far as to say that the tent of meeting is only a sh copy and shadow of what is in that. means in the context of God's dwelling. Was God gonna was that the way that God wanted to live? And a tent made of animal tides? And died specific ways and he wanted that? Dwelling was in heaven. I mean accommodated in ways. But it was just a shadow of what was to come, a shadow of what we would have. E points. tabernacle in God's dwelling is the representation of God's redemptive work in the world. The ways that God appears to Himself is proof of His redemptive work. Isn't that such an encouragement for us now? That when you see God's presence, when you come to church and you say, I know the Holy Spirit was with us today, when you look at the history of God's presence, you see that when he made an appearance, it was proof that he was doing a redemptive work in humanity, that he still cared, that he was still working. And when come to church and you feel the Holy Spirit and you feel God's presence with us, you can have assurance. And when you do it at home or when you're devotion time or however you feel God's presence, you can have assurance that He's still working on you. He's doing still doing a redemptive work in you. He's not left you all. Writers of Hebrews were saying it's a shadow of what is in heaven, but he also points out the problem with the tabernacle. He says that it could not make hearts pure. Law could not make Than do it. The tabernacle had to be holy so that God could be present. And they had to go through processes to even get in there. A very specific way. And it was still by God's mercy. Because what if the high priest forgot about a little sin that he didn't deal with? What if he forgot a small little bit of the ritual? Well, they did take careful guidance. It's hard for me to think that they did it absolutely perfect every time with man's ignorance. So there's certainly a little and how they access them. it the law could not make man's heart holy and so God couldn't be with us as directly. But it was through Christ's atoning work in the blood of Jesus Christ that makes our hearts holy, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that prepares us to be in God's presence. Christ is the one who fulfilled the purpose of those other examples of God's dwelling that we saw here in Scripture. In that core verse that we started with, John 1:14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us, says so clearly. And he says we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. He said the fullness of God's presence was right here with us, that we could physically walk and talk and be with him, almost like the Garden of Eden. But it did not just end there because Christ gave the Holy Spirit. He says that has been with you in all this time, but now will be in you. fourteen, sixteen and seventeen is one the most beautiful promises in all of Scripture. It says in the advocate the Holy Spirit. be with you, has been with you, but now will be in you. The spirit of truth. Jesus says that he will send the Holy Spirit. And he did in Pentecost. And now we have the Holy Spirit. It's such a beautiful promise because it's the promise that God's dwelling has now moved from a place. We could even say that Jesus was a place because he was physically present in a time, moved from a place to renounce with every person. The beauty of that. And it's almost when we look at the past of the dwelling, when we know that if God is dwelling in our hearts, He's gotta make us holy. He's gotta remove sin. And it can't just be God says you're holy. He actually has to make you that. So with the Holy Spirit and the promise of God's dwelling that Jesus Christ gave, we can almost completely, we can infer from that that God's going to do a work in us to remove sin. That we will be sanctified and we will be made holy. Because it's necessary for God's dwelling in us. When we look in the Old Testament, we see that He did not compromise a single time with sin. Why would He compromise now with the Holy Spirit in our hearts? with that we almost get a promise that God will make us holy. And we know throughout other scriptures in the New Testament that God will make us holy. It is God's will through sanctification. Continuing on as we finish out, this is not God's permanence. Do you think that this is the way that God wants to dwell with us forever? relationships between each other. Fully manifested? Certainly not. We know that's not true. Our spirit screams against that say that that's not the way it's supposed to be. The truths of the Old Testament and the New Testament in the present time show the process of redemption. That we've gone from the fall where we were brought down to the lowest, where God was slowly bringing the people back. He worked individually with the with the fathers of faith, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He worked directly with them. Then he worked with the nation of Israel, bringing them back even further through the tabernacle and the temple system. And then how Jesus Christ brought his disciples to a new death. relationship and even now in the church age, our present age, God is bringing us even more in that path of redemption, making our hearts whole. So the next step of redemption is redeeming all of creation. It is looking forward to fulfillment. Our present time is looking forward to fulfillment. It says in Scripture that the Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. We have a little bit of it now. That's what a deposit is. We have a little bit, but we're looking forward to something. Revelation twenty one two through three. I saw the holy city, this is John writing. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of the day. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look, God's dwelling place is now among his people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and will be their people. Just perfectly parallels that passage that we had earlier in Exodus 29, then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. God's purpose in dwelling never changed from the beginning, never changed throughout all of Scripture. His purpose has remained the same, that he will dwell with his people and be their God. The holy city, Jerusalem, will be perfectly established forever. However, there's no temple there. It's a Jerusalem without a temple. Revelation twenty one, twenty two I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord Almighty and the Lamb are his temple. dwelling, it just gives you chills. God's dwelling is not gonna be a place. It's not gonna be just a new heaven. It's gonna be present just like he was in creation. And his dwelling is no longer going to be something different than himself, but it will be God. The purpose of creation, the purpose of this of the tent of meeting, the purpose of the nation of Israel in the temple, and the purpose of Jesus Christ was not just to bring us a little bit further, but to bring us to this point in Revelation, where God's dwelling, that there is no temple, because we don't need it. We don't need a special way to access God. He removes all the special ways that we need to get to Him. We know He doesn't need to accommodate anymore because He's made us perfect. And that is the hope. And now as we get to understand God's plan of redemption, why does that matter? 'cause I hope it gets you to understand what God that his purposes have not changed throughout all of history. And that when hard times come, you can be assured of God's presence that he's still working towards that. I said it in the prayer today, but we have faith because we have hope. If we had no hope There's no help and assurance. We thank you for your holy presence with us here today. We thank you for how consistent your purposes are throughout creation, that we can see your character so clearly. We pray that your purposes will be done in us right now, that you will continue to prepare us for that hope that we have that one day we won't need to even come to church. We won't need to go to a Bible study. We won't even need scripture, God, because you'll be right there, the word himself. just walk up and talk to you and sit at your feet. Father, we look for that and we hope for that. We pray that your redemptive work will be done now, that our that we as your people would be open and willing, that we can be like the Israelites who are bowed to do it, but we could be different than the Israelites, because you've given us the Holy Spirit that we can do. Lord, let us keep to your covenant, keep to your redemptive plan, God, and help us to keep our faith as we look forward to the hope you have. Jesus, we pray this in your name. Amen.

John 1:14