So Great a God Part 1 - The Tabernacle and Worship

It's so good to see you all. It's been a pleasure for me to be in the book of Exodus. If you want to turn back in your copy of God's Word, Exodus, chapter 24, I will begin reading a bit more scripture than I did a minute ago. So it's good if you have that already opened up. Verse 24, let's pick up in verse 12 and I will read 12 all the way through 18, the end of the chapter. "The Lord said to Moses, 'Come up to me on the mountain and wait there that I may give you the tablets of stone with the law of the commandment which I have written for their instruction.' So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua and Moses went into the mountain of God.

And he said to the elders, 'Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and her are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them.' Then Moses went up on the mountain and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day, he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the side of the people of Israel.

Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain and Moses was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights." If you would join me in a time of prayer. We thank you for this beautiful picture. Lord, it is a terrifying picture that Israelites were really scared to death when you gave your Ten Commandments. And Father, we like to think of the God that scares people in the Old Testament and the God that loves people in the New Testament. But we know that you are the same God, that you are eternal, that you are a holy God. And we come before you in the holiness of your word.

We thank you for your law, that you gave it on the mountain, but you also put that law in the heart of Christ and he did not let go of it. We ask that you would grant us grace to hear this word and that we would receive exactly what you have for us tonight. I will be in chapter 24 of Exodus, but we'll also move into chapter 25. If you're taking notes tonight, the title tonight starts our part three. We're dividing Exodus into three parts, redemption, deliverance, and worship. So we will spend at least two weeks as we conclude this series looking at worship as a critical, as a theme in the book of Exodus.

So the message title, "So Great a God," part one, the tabernacle and worship. Four major truths tonight. We're going to see that trial is critical for worship, obedience is critical for worship, Christ-centeredness is critical for worship, and giving is critical for worship. Last week we studied what I taught was the Sinaitic Covenant. That's a big word and that just means that God showed up to the people of Israel on Mount Sinai and he read the Ten Commandments. He didn't read it, he spoke it. And that was what we learned last week was the formation of Israel as a nation. We saw that the first four commandments were vertical commandments.

They deal with our relationship to God. The other six are horizontal commandments. Commandments five through ten deal with our relationship to man. We said that you got to get the first four before you can do the others. Jesus said this and we unpack that last week. But after speaking to his people, the law, God instructs 70 elders of Israel to ascend halfway up the mountain and they have a meal. We learned that it's common for God to have a meal with those that he is covenanting with. And it's this beautiful meal and actually God visits with them as they're eating.

Scripture says that they looked above them and there was a pavement, looked like sapphire. And that was God manifesting his self, his physical being with the elders of Israel. But this week we're looking at what happens next. God dismisses those elders and Moses and Joshua ascend higher to the mountain. And the cloud of smoke that covered them ascends even higher and it's covering them at the very top. Moses and Joshua are alone. If you read there in your copy of God's Word, it says that Moses was there for 40 days and 40 nights. And this leads us to our first teaching point tonight.

I want you to see that if we're going to worship the way we need to worship and if we're going to learn what we need to learn from Exodus this summer, we're going to have to see that trial is critical for worship. And the reason why I say that is because the number 40 is symbolic of trial everywhere that you look in Scripture. If you look at the flood waters that fell from heaven 40 days and 40 nights in Genesis 7, 4, the Lord tested or tried the earth, punished them for their rebellion.

If you look at the children of Israel in the wilderness for 40 years in Exodus 16 to 35, they were tried and they were tested and they were punished for testing the Lord. The Israelite spies searched out Canaan land for 40 days and 40 nights in Numbers 13. The Philistines followed their champion Goliath. You remember Goliath taunted Israel 40 days and 40 nights. He was testing them. He was taunting them. Of course, we knew what Goliath meant to taunt. God was intending for his own purposes. Elijah traveled 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb in 1 Kings 19, 8. Before he traveled for 40 days, the angels fed him.

Just as Moses was fed before he ascended for a trial. God always is going to take care of his leaders when he's about to send them into trial. They're well fed, they're nourished and now it's time for serious testing and trial. You know Ezekiel had to lie on his right side for 40 days and 40 nights. He was tested. If a young man presented himself to brother Chris and I and said that he wanted to go in the ministry, scripture says that we are to test him. We probably would not make him lie on his side for 40 days and 40 nights. God's testing and his trial of leaders are sometimes very unique. God always has a purpose and a plan in it.

You need Jonah. You remember Jonah entered Nineveh preaching the message, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be destroyed. You know the Lord Jesus went into the wilderness tempted by the devil again 40 days and 40 nights. And after the resurrection in Acts chapter one, scripture says that Jesus showed himself alive by many infallible proofs for 40 days and 40 nights. Now when Jesus is displaying himself to his disciples, they were testing him not to see if God was true. God was allowing them in his grace to test and see that the resurrection was certain.

So I want us to see that if we're going to worship as a church, we're going to have to understand that our leaders will oftentimes go through trial. If you desire to be a leader in the church, rest assured, you will find fiery trials on your way. One word about the testing of Jesus. When we say that Jesus was tested, he was not tested in the sense that we have any possibility of his failure because that was not going to happen. But he was identified with us in every way, yet he was without sin. So we have a merciful savior. When we are going through trials, the merciful Jesus is aware of it. He's aware of the Father's purpose in that trial.

So we see that trial is critical if we're going to worship as a church and if we're going to get everything from Exodus, we're going to have to realize that God will call his leaders through sometimes precarious trials, difficult trials, arduous trials to the point that we might even scratch our heads and say, Lord, are you here? What's going on? The trial is not only critical for worship, our obedience is critical for worship. Teaching point number two. Last week we saw that at Mount Sinai, Israel struck a covenant with the Lord to form a national government. But this week, God is instituting their religion.

God is teaching them how they are to worship him. And while Moses is fasting with Joshua for 40 days, he not only receives the Ten Commandments written on stone, God is about to show him how to worship him. He says specifically the verse that I started with tonight in 24 18. He shows them specifically how they are supposed to worship him all the way in through verses eight and nine. I want us to see three important things about this obedience, three important things. To show you this, I want to ask the question, why can we study the tabernacle for our obedience? Why should we study the tabernacle to help in our obedience?

Well, first I want you to see that God is concerned with the tabernacle in the Old Testament. Do you know that there are 50 chapters in the Bible dedicated to the tabernacle, 50 chapters, 13 in Exodus, 13 in Numbers, 13 in Deuteronomy, and they had to obey him perfectly. But God is not only concerned with the tabernacle in the Old Testament, he's also concerned with the tabernacle in the New Testament. There's eight chapters in Hebrews about the tabernacle. As well as countless references to this in Revelation, Psalms, all throughout the Bible there's references to the tabernacle.

And while there are 50 chapters about the tabernacle, there's only two about creation. Now let that sink in for a second. Fifty chapters that God gives detailed instructions on how his people are supposed to worship. You think, oh, this is Old Testament, Brother Keith, what does that have to do? We don't have blood sacrifice anymore. We don't have fire that consumes the sacrifice. We don't have the Ark of the Covenant. We have all of those things in the person of Christ. And as we study them and realize that God put them in the Bible for a reason, God keeps them in the Bible for a reason, and our Christianity has benefited from them.

This is not just historical because God is immutable. God doesn't change. So trial is critical for our worship, obedience is necessary for our worship, but also Christ-centeredness is critical for worship. Christ-centeredness is critical for worship. We must study the tabernacle to learn of Christ. If you're taking notes, I'd like you to write this passage down. I'd like you maybe to look at it. John chapter one, verse 14, "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us." In the original language, the exact meaning is, "And the word became flesh and tabernacled among us." Quite literally, Jesus pitched his tent. You could read it this way.

John 1, 14, the passage is literally telling us that the very glory of God lived among us in Christ, just as the glory of God lived among us in the tabernacle. That's exactly what John is saying. He's talking to Hebrews who would have known the importance of the tabernacle in Jewish history. And it was the center. The tabernacle then became the temple, but they never lost the significance of the tabernacle in the desert. I'm going to read you a list in my study. I've abbreviated this, but 10 aspects of the tabernacle that we need to remember. You will see that these are necessary if we're going to have Christ-centered worship as a church.

I want you to see that the tabernacle was temporary. They would build it, and when the cloud moved, they would tear it down, and they would erect it once again wherever the cloud stopped moving. It was a temporary, movable structure, just as Christ's flesh was temporary. Christ is eternal, yet He dwelt in flesh for 33 years. Philippians says that He did not see equality with God, something to be grasped, but He took on flesh. He tabernacled. He put on the flesh just as He put on the tent in the Old Testament. The tabernacle was not only temporary, it was used in the wilderness. Just as Jesus dwelt in the wilderness, that is this world.

We unpack this. Your Christianity is a wilderness. Your life in this world is like traveling as a pilgrim through a barren land. The prophet says that the Hebrew people turned away from God even though He led them through a wilderness where men do not travel, no one even lives. It's a place so barren, you can't even build a highway there. That's what the prophet is saying. And Jesus dwelt in our wilderness. Every temptation you face, He faced. The tabernacle was temporary. It was in the wilderness. The tabernacle was humble and unattractive. On the outside, it literally would have looked to be 45 foot long. Those are the exact dimensions.

Fifteen feet wide and 15 feet tall. In a population of 2.6 million people, you would have thought common knowledge would say get a very, very big, well ornamented outside to let people know that you're in town. This was not a seeker friendly tabernacle. The only thing that would have made it notable on the outside was that there was a cloud that constantly dwelt above it and that was the presence of God. But the thing about this tabernacle is that the further in you got, the more ornamented, the more beautiful it became. You get inside the holy of holies, which was a cube, 15 by 15 by 15.

You might read cubits and not know anything what a cubit is, but basically 45 feet long would equal the cubit measurement. And inside the holy of holies, 15 foot long, 15 feet wide, 15 feet tall. And inside, everything was gold. And that represents the throne room of heaven. And when you see that the Ark of the Covenant on top of it was the mercy seat, were two cherubim were facing each other and they were fully gold, completely gold, and they covered their face. Scripture tells us that is a shadow of things to come. And while it was beautiful on the inside, there was nothing about it that would garner our attention.

Such was the way with Christ. Scripture says there was nothing about him that we would deem attractive, meaning he didn't come as the tallest, he didn't come as the strongest, he didn't come as a military savior. The tabernacle was temporary. It was wilderness. It was humble. And it was the place where God met with men. Exodus 25, 21 says, you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the Ark and in the Ark you shall put the testimony I shall give you as the Ten Commandments and there I will meet with you. Christ is the meeting place between God and men. John 14, 16 says, no man come cometh unto the Father, but by him.

Timothy 2, 5, there is but one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. The tabernacle was the place where God met with man. Such is with Christ. Christ is where God meets with man. Pleased with man to dwell. Jesus Christ our Emmanuel, the Christmas song. Sings. The tabernacle was also a place where the law was preserved. The first set of Ten Commandments, Moses threw down and God never condemns him for this because the people, while he was receiving the law, ceremonial law, the moral law, they were desecrating the law. So the Lord writing another two tables of the law. They are then kept in the Ark of the Covenant.

And if we see this Ark is Christ, just know Jesus Christ kept the law within his heart completely. Within the Ark of the Covenant was hidden manna. Scripture is teaching that Jesus is the hidden manna, meaning he is. Completely all satisfying bread from heaven. The tabernacle was the place where sacrifice was made. We see that the cross. Was the altar upon upon which God's lamb was slain. Where his precious blood was shed for us. And where complete atonement was made. You know the tabernacle was the place of worship that might seem redundant. But all 2.6 million Israelites would have brought their sacrifices in through this.

Not one at a time. You think of the job that the Levites had. All of these individuals once a year would bring a costly animal that would be slaughtered. You think about the work that the Levites had in those sacrifices. But it was a place of worship. You know the tabernacle was unique. There was no place of worship like this in the world. Because any other temple to a pagan deity would have had images of the deity. Would have statues of the deity. Because God had said do not make a graven image. They were not worshiping an image of a created deity. They were worshiping God who was right there in the holy of holies. It was a unique place.

But the tabernacle was heavenly. Hebrews 8.5 says of the tabernacle it is a shadow of heavenly things. If you want to learn about heaven study Exodus. Specifically if you want to learn about heaven study the tabernacle. Because it is designed to show us as a shadow what heaven is. You think of this image I was thinking of this week. Imagine a little boy who didn't get to see his father. Maybe his father was away. And he only got to hear his father's voice. If for some reason he should see his father's shadow cast in the yard. Although not seeing his father's face. He would treasure his father's voice. And he would treasure that shadow.

Although the illustration is incomplete. That is our attitude towards the tabernacle. We stare at the shadow. We are in amazement at the shadow. We understand that it is only a shadow. But we also see that the tabernacle was God's instruction. All of this was necessary. Without the shedding of blood. There is no remission of sins. Hebrews 9.22 says. And I say all this to say that God gave these instructions to be followed to a tee. And the application for us tonight is we ought not to allow worship. That is for any other purpose. But to glorify God and to do his work his way. We must be quite persistent that our worship is biblical.

That our programming is not created for man. Is created for God. That our worship is not created for our feelings and our comforts and our felt needs. But it's created to worship and glorify God and to do so the way he has prescribed. So tonight in our congregation we must understand trial and it's necessary in the life of worship. But also obedience and Christ centeredness in our worship is absolutely critical. We see the tabernacle. We should see Christ. And finally I want us to see that sacrificial giving is critical for worship. Sacrificial giving is critical for worship.

I want you to take your copy of God's word and open back up to Exodus 25. I want us to read in chapter 3 Exodus chapter 25 verses 3 through 9. And this is the contribution that you shall receive from them. Gold silver and bronze. Blue and purple and scarlet yarn and fine twine linen. Goats hair. Tanned rams skins. Goat skins. Acacia wood. Oil for the lamps. Spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense. Onyx stones. Stones for setting for ephod and for the breast piece. And let them make a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst. Verse 9 exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and of all its furniture.

So you shall make it. I want you to see that sacrificial giving or giving is critical for worship. In verses 1 and 2 you'll see God commanding Moses to instruct the people to give. Now I want you to know about this instruction. This was not a building campaign where they have the thermometer to show you how well we are accomplishing our goal. This is not a guilt trip that makes you feel like this is a have to. This was what is called a heave offering. A heave offering quite literally meant to throw your offering to God's possession. To heave it. To lift it up on the altar.

And they would literally take something very costly in their possession and give it willingly. No one said you had to give. This was a free will offering. Now you might think where did they get the gold that we just read about? Where did they receive the silver? Where did they get the acacia wood? Where did they get the costly gems? You might remember as we've been studying this the Lord told Moses that his people would plunder Egypt. And this is how they plundered. Right after the Passover when Egypt is in great grief, the loss of their first born son, the Lord commanded all 2.6 million of the Israelites to go throughout Egypt.

Their former slave masters, the former people that they worked for to go to their houses and knock on the door and say we've been dismissed to go worship. Do you have anything to help us? It was simply going on the door and asking what you got. And God predisposed, he moved upon the Egyptians to give them their treasure. You think that the Egyptians at this point in time had had the better part of 450 years of world domination. They were an empire. So they had benefited from the world's resources. They had gathered the world's resources into Egypt. The homes would have been opulent.

So everything that God moved on the heart of the Egyptians to give to the Hebrews who were obedient is now being purposed for the tabernacle. And God is orchestrating 1000% of all of it. He doesn't have a formal plan and say, okay, we need some Acacia wood, so we need to have an Acacia wood committee. And y'all are going to go out and guilt trip people to drum up the Acacia wood. He doesn't say, now we need some gold, so we need a gold committee of people to go hunt down the Hebrews and guilt trip them and let's get their gold. And we're going to track your progress. We're going to have a spreadsheet and see how well we're doing.

Not that there's not a time for a building program or a thermometer chart to show how we're doing. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that this is a miraculous offering. Three things I want you to see. I want you to see the Israelites willingness to give. The Israelites willingness to give. John commands them commands Moses to tell the people to simply give and the materials started flooding in. I want you to see free will gift offerings. The gifts were not to Moses. The gifts were not to Aaron. The gifts were to God. We're going to worship. We're going to realize the songs we sing are not for men to hear.

Therefore, God are offering and our tides are not for men. They are for God. If you desire to bless someone, there's a need in the community, the church, and you give to that need willingly with no one knowing that is not for anyone but God. We see willingness to give. We see free will gift offerings and we see a miraculous offering. Notice they did not steal these precious gifts. The Lord had given used the Egyptians and gave them the rewards of their labor. Now we could easily just read over this list of gifts. These raw materials that would be used in the tabernacle, but we would be missing so much Christ centered stuff.

So I want us to see the gifts. I want us to examine these for a minute. Gold gold is at the top of the list. Gold was used in the tabernacle. Gold is a symbol of deity. Like I said before, the further you get into the tabernacle, things become glorious. Everything covered with gold is a direct reference to God. So you think specifically, this is deity within humble, insignificant tabernacle. That's greens Christ. He was fully God and fully man. Silver when you see silver in scripture, such as first Peter one 18 through 19, you always see it associated with atonement.

You might notice that 30 pieces of silver was the price that Judas paid to be received. He was paid this price to betray Jesus. 30 pieces of silver. That was the going rate of a common slave in Roman commerce. Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 silver coins, which was the price of a common slave. So silver then is representative of atonement. You see silver being used to purchase things. And so when you look at the tabernacle and the curtains are hung with silver, we should see that as indicative of God's plan for atonement throughout the history of the Israelite people. Brass brass, this material can withstand intense heat.

You might have heard of the brazen altar of the bronze altar. This material actually would have probably been a little closer to copper, but it is referred to in scripture as bronze. Because it can withstand such heat. We think of Jesus Christ who withstood the heat of the wrath of God. The altar was that upon which all sacrifices were consumed completely. So we see the wrath of God, his righteous hatred of sin. Any evil in the world today God hates, but he must punish all of it. There's a song that we sing here. It's have mercy on me, but the song says that God cannot forgive sin. He must punish it.

I have shared that with students and people that I'm witnessing to and you think, of course God can forgive sin. Well it's a misnomer in the sense that God has to punish all sin because he's just. But in his grace, he poured out that punishment on his son Christ. So the altar withstood the heat of God's wrath towards sin. You'll see also the Israelites brought these free will offerings, these heave offerings of blue yarn, purple garments and scarlet. Blue, the color blue is heavenly. Purple symbolic of royalty. Scarlet speaks to humiliation. We see Christ in those colors. Jesus Christ was lifted into the heavens on the cross.

He was given a purple robe mocking his deity. The scripture tells us that the crimson flow flowed from his sides. Blood and water flowed. Even the goats hair and the skins of animals which were used for the outer covering of the tent. This conjures up thoughts of the prophets. The prophets went about in the Old Testament in animal skins. Zachariah 13, four through five. On the Baptist, Matthew three, four, second Kings one, seven. Again this is a humble tabernacle. In many times God is going to use people who are insignificant. God will use people who do not look like they're much of anything.

Everything in the tabernacle was constructed of acacia wood. This is a very dense wood. Friend of mine who's a guitar guy said when I bought my guitar that my guitar actually is the type of wood that is the closest similar to acacia wood. I'll take it. But the acacia wood was a very dense, incorruptible wood. And it was used in the ark and the post that carried the ark just about everything. And it was overlaid with gold. This represents the humanity of Christ. You see the ark of the covenant being acacia wood box covered in gold. That is Christ in his humanity and in his deity. Now obviously I'm not being exhaustive here, but incense.

Incense was used in worship. We think in revelation that the prayers of the saints rise up like intercession. And the holy of holies to follow this through. Jesus is in the holy of holies and he ever liveth to make intercession for his children. So what's the point? What does this have to do with you and I in worship here in the body of Grace Life Church? Well in a nutshell we can't worship like we're supposed to if we're not giving people. Now I'm not just talking about money. I'm talking about the things that God puts on your heart to give to the church.

Your service, your time, singing with all your heart, showing up and being an expository listener, acts of kindness to people in the body. And we ought to not look at our giftedness and compare ourselves to others. First Corinthians 12, 11 says the Holy Spirit came and he powered by one same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. When God purchased you out of your Egypt of sin. When you became born again into the family, the Holy Spirit gave you gifts. And this place can't be what it is supposed to be if you do not bring your gift willingly. We're not going to guilt trip you.

We are not going to have a sermon once a year when it's deacon ordination time and we just guilt trip people to serve on committees, the committee on committees and the committees on committees on committees on committees, not that those things are wrong or sinful. But what drives a church is not our organization. What drives a church are the free will, loving gifts of the people. Do you realize that none of this could have happened if the people did not respond to God's compelling, God's movement on their heart? You may not feel like you have much of a talent, but God has given you a talent to be used.

Now in closing, I just want to sum up what I've said with this. We're going to worship. We're going to have to be serious about obeying God, about being Christ centered, about enduring trial and also about sacrificially giving. Can you imagine the scenario of somebody, they've served a slave master in Egypt for all these years, the Passover's happened, they're going to obey, they're going to go to their master, their former master and they're going to knock on the door and they knock on the door and they say, well, we're about to leave. Do you have some resources for our journey? And this particular slave master comes out with goat skins.

Can you imagine this? Well, it's been a hard night. We lost our son. We should have listened to Moses, but now you've been a good people. I got three donkeys and they're attached to three big baskets, three really big wagons of goat skins. Take them. Okay. So this man and his sons take the three donkeys and the goatskins and now that's their stuff and they don't know what they're going to do with it, but they're, and they're getting ready to go to the Red Sea and his Hebrew friend shows up and he's got three wagons and three donkeys and it's filled of gold.

Now you, can you imagine, he just looks across the caravan as they start heading out of Egypt. He's got gold and I got goatskins. Now think about it. Now God, he is, it's time to construct the temple and he says, bring in, we need goatskins, we need gold, we need silver, we need Acacia wood. And this man comes and he says, I got goatskins. I don't know what you're going to do with this.

I wished I had the gold like my friend over there, but a few months later when the tabernacles constructed and you see that the goatskins have been dyed in beautiful purple, beautiful scarlet thread and you see the seraphim on the inside and you think God did that. And that's what the body of Christ does when we show up. You may not think that your talent is worth much. You may think that your goatskins are simply insignificant, but it is not about what you do and what you bring is about what God does through your talent. I've oftentimes said that in this body of fellowship, our choir are the voices that are out in the pews.

Now choir practice happens on your own as you simply sing and worship the God. But when you come here to sing, does not matter the quality of the voice or whether you deemed it necessary, whether you deemed it beautiful. What matters is you're bringing your offering. And I told my friend, Jared, who led for us the other time, I was preaching and I said, "I recommend something to you." I said, "Acoustics in here are great." I said, "Every once in a while, just stop playing and listen." And I do that so you get blessed by people bringing their offering. And I bring that out because nobody thinks that they can sing.

But together, God is blessed and he says that he can take what you may feel is a meager offering and he can use it for the kingdom and he always uses it for good. So I'm going to pray. I'm actually going to ask Tommy if you would close us in prayer tonight. But as we are dismissed, I want to challenge you to go out this week and to ask the Lord what you might bring to him in worship, what you might bring to him in the way of an attitude, even bringing a notepad and taking notes as your offering to the Lord, just to receive the word with more gratitude.

Maybe your offering in worship would be go to bed a little bit earlier on Saturday night so you could be more well rested so you can receive the word of God in its fullness. Think about it like this, about giving your all to the Lord and it may seem insignificant, but it is not. Tommy, you close us in a word of prayer.