21 Jan

9/2/2018   “SO POWERFUL YET SO GENTLE”    HEBREWS 12:18-29

I’ve always been one that likes to have a little fun so it’s not unusual for me to play an innocent practical joke.  My wife, Sharon, will tell you that the only time that she can believe me is when I’m in the pulpit and preaching.  I think that life is meant to have some fun moments so I try to supply them.  Today I’m not joking.  I want you to follow along with your Bibles so that you don’t think that I am making this stuff up.  This is what it says in Hebrews and once again it isn’t easy.  We will be looking today at what an awesome God we have.  And as we look at his power, a power that I can’t even begin to describe, we will be also looking at the grace He offers us which I also cannot understand.  Then we will see what we are to do to help to build His Kingdom.  But first let’s take a glimpse at the power.

Has anyone listening today ever been in an earthquake?  I haven’t and I really don’t plan on it either, but it may happen.  I wasn’t planning on having a heart attack last week but I did.  I don’t think that the people of Tokyo planned to be in an earthquake in 1923.  But ¾ of the city was burned as a result of a massive quake.  2.5 million people were left without homes.  It was estimated that almost 300,000 people died.  Other nearby cities were leveled.  And then there were the aftershocks to contend with the main quake.  Disease and despair ran rampant in nearly the whole country.  And all of this happened in just a few short minutes.  One minute it’s all there and five minutes later a city is gone.

Or I can’t imagine having a nice Christmas and then waking up the next day and there is this huge 30 foot wall of water bearing down on me.  But that is what happened in 2004 in countries like Indonesia and its neighbors.  So many people died and were never seen again that it has been hard to assign a death toll but they figure that it was around 280,000 people.  And there was no warning.  It just happened.  One minute it was there and five minutes later huge coastal areas were gone.

In 2001 an earthquake hit India that measured 9.7 on the Richter scale.  Without warning, 100,000 people died.  In 1999, a cyclone hit India and again 100,000 people died.          These are rather gruesome statistics to be citing in a sermon.  But the point I want to make is that we know about all of these things.  We know they happened and we know the devastation of these disasters.  And this is the same kind of thing that the author of Hebrews is talking about in verses 18-21.  So before I begin I would like to remind you of the fragile balance there is between what we think of as a normal life and total disaster.  In other words we need Jesus at all times because we don’t know what is next.

But the difference is that the people of the Old Testament and now is that they knew that these things were coming.  If you remember the story, God comes down to Mt. Sanai to meet his people.  Prior to this, these people had witnessed the plagues of Egypt as they were in the process of being freed.  Can you imagine all of the locusts? Can you imagine the water being turned to blood?  Can you imagine all of the firstborn males dying?  These people knew the power of God; they knew it and they were afraid!  Then there were the pillars of fire and the parting of the Red Sea.  Then they got manna, meat and water from nowhere.

Now they come to the mountain that is covered by a heavy cloud and are told that God is on the mountain.  Probably the only light that they could focus on was coming from the mountain as the lightning flashed in the cloud.  And there is tremendous thunder.  There is a blasting of a trumpet to announce that God is there.  I want all of you people who need proof that God is exactly who He says He is to take special heed here, because God is here and He is all powerful.

Then there is an earthquake that would knock people to their knees.  Everyone had to be scared and shaky.  And on top of this, Moses disappears into the cloud on the mountain; their leader disappears.  The people are told that they are not to touch the mountain or they will die.  Soon a powerful voice filled the air saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”  God then speaks and gives the Ten Commandments.  These people are so shaken and scared that that they send Moses to speak to God because they think that they would die if they did themselves.

This is the God of the Old Testament and this is the God of the Old Covenant.  I think that we would be terrified if this started to happen today.  But the important thing to remember here is that God is still a God of love and forgiveness and that this is just part of the story.

Let us fast forward here a few hundred years and take a look at Mt. Zion.  If you remember, Mt. Zion is where Jerusalem was built.  This was the city where the temple was built, then it was destroyed and then it was rebuilt.  This was the center of Judaism.  As we read in the Gospels, this was the place where Jesus was headed during his whole ministry.  Everything pointed to Jerusalem and Zion.

Finally, Jesus comes to Jerusalem where he is met by joyous people who are not afraid.  They celebrate his entrance with a parade but soon they put him on trial.  It isn’t long before they hang him on the cross and He dies.  And when He dies, He dies for the forgiveness of sins for all people of the world, past, present, and future. (Repeat)  He dies and is raised again to walk among us.  He dies so that we may have the grace of God with us.

Now this changes everything.  We used to come to Mt. Sinai with fear and trembling.  Now we come to Zion with vision of grace in our minds.  God still has all this power we just talked about but now God’s plan has just shifted into another gear.  He wants us to see Him in a more complete way.

I don’t have time to really look at this closely but I hope that maybe you can begin to see how intricate this all really is.  And we need to remember that God set this plan in motion before He made the world.  It is all part of the plan where we get to know God, respect God for all of the power that He has and finally to be able to look to Him through Jesus Christ for the grace that we need to be restored to Him.

But He isn’t done yet.  I just love the parts where He isn’t done yet.  We need to read on in verses 25-28.  These are the verses that we don’t like to look at and understand.  We can read of similar texts in Revelation and the Gospels. We had a similarly hard text last week.

In verse 25, he is telling us that we are not off the hook.  Just because the old covenant is gone, doesn’t mean that we can do anything we want to under the new covenant with Jesus.  We have to listen to God.  We have to obey God.  And we have to believe in God through Jesus Christ.  Today I’m living proof of the love God has for me as we had many God moments last week during my heart attack.

And the world today has problems with all of these elements of our belief.  There are a lot of people that have become too casual about God.  There are a lot of people that don’t know or have forgotten how powerful He is.  There has been a trend over the past few years or decades to only preach from the New Testament.  In many cases this can be alright if it is tied into some of these events of the Old Testament.  And I think that when we just teach the New Testament, we are leaving out the some of the truth.  If you remember reading in the book of John we find that Jesus always ministered with the delicate balance of truth and grace.

Today, we have forgotten the truth and try to minister with only grace.  This doesn’t work any better than if we only minister with truth because the truth is too hard.  Some of you are old enough to remember when pastors only talked truth and not grace.  Those were the fire and brimstone days.  I just chatted with a lady about this.  She told me of her youth where only the truth was taught and she couldn’t become a Christian until she found the grace.  Jesus showed us the path to ministry by using a balance.  This is what we need today.

And when we start to leave out some of the truth, then we start to leave out the respect that we should have for God.  I’m going to use an extreme case here but I’m also sure that everyone here has heard this in some form.  Some people refer to God as “the big guy upstairs” or “my buddy.”  If you use any of these kinds of expressions, make sure you use them with the proper respect and not as some sort of slang.  Because this is the big guy upstairs who can level a mountain in an instant.  This is my best friend who can part an ocean.  He has given us this book to read and study so that we can get to know Him.  This is the God that will extend to us unlimited grace when we get to know Him.

So far this sermon has not been real uplifting.  And there may be some of you who think that this last part is really dreary.  As we read on in verse 26, we find that God will shake the earth along with heaven.  He will shake the world so hard that only the unshakable will be left.  Everything and everyone else will be gone.  If you need verification of this take a look in Rev. 6:12 where it tells us that there will be a great earthquake.  It will be one massive quake, not many quakes, which will level the earth.  It will shake the earth until all that is left is the unshakable.

Now for those of you who don’t know the Lord, this has to be quite frightening.  I will be the first one to say that even for those of us who do know the Lord, this is frightening.  God is all powerful and He is all just.  If you are one of the people who is saying that God is your best buddy and He wouldn’t do something like that, then just read what He has to say.  God is telling us through the Bible what will happen.  He doesn’t tell us in hate or wrath or any kind of anger. He is telling us in a matter of fact way here in Hebrews, in Revelation, and the Gospels what will happen.  We are nearing the end of another phase of his plan.  And God has given us all the instructions that we need to make the right decision.

So if you haven’t asked Jesus Christ to live in your heart yet, then do so today.  Confess you sins to Him and ask Him to live in your heart as your Lord and Savior.  Ask me for help or ask someone else for help, but ask.  Time is running short and you are in total control of your own eternity.

As we look at verse 28, we finally come to the good news.  It is here that we find that if we are anchored in Jesus Christ, if we have Him living inside of us through the Holy Spirit, then we are the unshakable.  Yes, you are unshakable.  You are a part of the rock.  You have your names etched in the Book of Life and you will live in glory with God forever.  I don’t think that life can get any better than that.  We know and can feel the love of God around us and He will not leave us even in these terrible times ahead.

So how do you keep your faith alive when you know that such things are coming?  They may not be coming in our life time or they may come tomorrow but they are coming because the Bible tells us so and the Bible is the truth.  One of the things that you can do is just gather together like we are here and worship God.  This is so important. You are to worship God. You need to do so regularly so that you can be recharged for another week.

If possible you also need social gatherings where you can just talk with one another.  I hope that you can set some time aside this coming year to gather for a monthly meal with other Christians.  I pray that you can read a book a month and discuss it amongst yourselves.  Maybe you can gather together in a remodeling project or a coding project or some other project where you can minister to yourselves as you minister to others.  You could have a game night where you can really show off as to how you are really terrible at games.  There are hundreds of things you could do but remember.  Do them all in the name of Jesus Christ.  It won’t be long before you find how much better life can be with Jesus.  And to make these events even better, think of a friend or neighbor that you can invite.  Let’s see if you can spread the Good News of Jesus Christ in a wonderful Christian fashion.

And another way to help you reach others is to read a little about what happened on Mt. Sinai.  I would like you to read Exodus 19 & 20 this week.  I want you to do this as a reminder of just who God is.  He gave the people a plan then for salvation just like He has given us one today.  Read these two short chapters and remember.  God has never wanted to harm any of us in any way.  He has only wanted what is the best for us.  But you have to make the choice.  Many of you have chosen and now are being reminded.  God loves you through Jesus Christ.  He loves you through the Holy Spirit.  He loves you and wants to be with you at all times.  This is the good news of this passage and of the Bible.  I praise the Lord for the day that I took my blinders off so I could finally see.  And thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.