8/25/24 Hebrews 12:18-29 “Unshakable Love”

22 Aug 8/25/24 Hebrews 12:18-29 “Unshakable Love”

8/25/24   Hebrews 12:18-29          “Unshakable Love”

I remember one time when I thought that the area where we were pastoring would be in a crisis.  I have found out that there would be 3 Lutheran pastors leaving within a month to go to other places or to retire.  I hope they all did very well as they are all fine people.  However, this threw something like 7 congregations into a little turmoil.  If I’m not mistaken, all of these pastors were replaced with interim pastors.  In other words, this will be a pastor who will only be with them until they find a permanent replacement.  Many churches go through a time of transition when they get a new pastor and that is just the way it is.  We don’t live forever.  We don’t preach forever.  Unfortunately, during this time of transition some things may not be as smooth as they should be.  The last thing that I would want is for anyone to recruit someone from these churches during this period.  However, when we come across someone who is hurting, help them through the situation and remind them that this will only be temporary.  Pastors may come and go but the word of God will always remain the same.  This is pretty much what our passage is about today.  We have a God who is steadfast and who loves us beyond our comprehension.  Let’s see if we can reinforce our faith a little as we go through this great message.

I always get a charge out of how people get to rolling along in life and they begin to think that some of our institutions, our ways of life or our world are unshakable.  I want you to remember how the tsunami, of a few years back, came and killed 100’s of thousands of people in just a few minutes.  Think about how some of the earthquakes around the world have killed thousands in just a matter of a few seconds.  Suddenly, our world doesn’t seem so unshakable.  In our own area, we have hail storms and tornadoes that suddenly disrupt all that we are doing.

We have other kinds of things that also shake up our world.  Our families sometimes seem to get turned upside down by a death or a divorce or something else.  Our churches get altered as we have someone new come along to reinterpret the Scriptures and they are usually in error.  Our governments get on pretty shaky grounds when they try to implement new ideas that go against the grain of the people they stand for.  The list goes on and on as we can talk about terrorism, murder, wars, corruption and famines.  We don’t even like to think about the poor little children around the world who are starving to death as I speak today.  What I’m trying to say is that our world isn’t nearly as rock steady as we like to think.  That is one of the reasons why it is so good to be able to come here and hear the Word of God which is always firm.

As we read this passage there may be some who are wondering what the first part is all about.  The writer is talking about Mount Sinai when God came to the mountain and appeared to Moses.  God came to these people to show them that He was indeed their God and worthy of their worship.  That is the reference here and then the writer tells us that we have not come to this mountain but rather to the mountain of Zion, which is where Jerusalem and the Temple were built.  They now come to the mountain where Jesus was and we have a completely different picture or do we?

In the first instance of God being on Mt. Sinai, we get the picture of God as an all-powerful being that will do whatever He wishes.  He can cause the earth to quake, the storms to come and the crops to dry up.  He is the all-powerful, all-knowing God who is in charge of the whole physical world where we live.  These early people understood their physical world as we saw last week.

Then we come to Mount Zion and Jesus.  We see a completely different picture.  We see a God who is full of love and compassion for anyone and everyone.  We see God as a being who loves us so much that He became one of us so that we might be saved to be able to spend eternity with God.

The question that may come up here is “Did God change to a more loving being?”  The answer is a definite ‘no!’  The God of Sinai came down to His people to show them who He was so that they would love Him as we love Jesus.  Then Jesus came to show us another side of God.  This is the side that we know and love today.  He is full of love for us and everyone.  God didn’t change.  He only showed us another aspect of Himself.  God is both of these images and I also think that He might be a lot more that we don’t even know about yet.  I think that God is so great that we can’t bear to see more of Him at this time because we wouldn’t be able to stand it.  That is how great God is.  He is totally unshakable, unmovable and yet absolutely full of love all at the same time.  That is the nature of God.

This passage also implies the rule of God.  It tells us that we would not be able to bear what God is and even animals were to be stoned if they touched the mountain.  God’s rule is totally sovereign.  There is absolutely nothing that goes on in this world that God doesn’t know.  Just remember that He knows the number of hairs you have on your head.  Of course for some this is an easier task than others but God knows.  God rules from the throne as we read about many times in the Bible.  This is hard for us, especially in this country.

We broke away from a country where we bowed down to a king.  We feel that we will not go back to that but Jesus isn’t just any King.  He is all-powerful, all-knowing and perfect.  There will come a time when He will bring earthquakes and disasters like this world has never seen before.  He will judge those who have mocked Him, spit in His face and rejected Him.  He will do all the things that have been promised because He is King.  God is the same as He was when He came down to Mt. Sinai.

However, and praise the Lord for this, He is also the God who loves us so much that He sent Jesus to die in our place.  For all those who love God, honor Him and try to obey Him in all they do, God loves you so much that He will provide a perfect place for you with Him in the place we call heaven.  He will continue to rule over you, giving you all we need and then much more.  We have an extravagant God who rules over us with more loving care than we can imagine and it will all be ours, yours if you accept Jesus as your Savior.

But Jesus is never done giving to us.  Jesus left us to go home but He didn’t leave us to our own devices.  The new covenant was poured out for us and for many for the forgiveness of sins.  We have a place where we can go every day to reinforce this concept.  It is a place where I urge you to go all the time.  It is called the Bible.  It is called your prayer time.  Our reading isn’t specific on this but I think it is a good place to bring it up.

By the time Jesus came to this world, the Old Testament was complete.  Then Paul and the others had to write down what happened when Jesus came.  The Old Testament gives us the story of God.  It points the way to one coming that would have all the power of God but He would also show a different side.  Well, Jesus fulfilled all the prophecy about the Messiah and then some as we read in the New Testament.  The devil couldn’t stand up to Him as He drove out demons which are everywhere today also.  He healed the sick.  The lame could walk again.  The blind could see.  All these things were foretold in the Old Testament.  He showed us what love was all about and yet He had total command over all the physical world like our picture at Sinai.  Jesus was and is the real deal.  He is the whole package.  He is everything we ever need to know or love in the world.

And yet so many people reject Him or they only accept certain parts of Him.  Some of this goes back to where we have a hard time to bow down to anyone.  Let me just say this again.  Jesus is a different kind of king.  He is perfect.  Is President Biden perfect or the King of England?  Of course not and they make many, many mistakes.  But Jesus doesn’t and won’t make any mistakes and that is a promise.  If you swear your allegiance to Jesus, you will have the most extraordinary life.  Things will be different.

And of course, Jesus came here to set up His church so that you would have a place to come to worship.  Jesus mentions His church here but it isn’t the church as we think of it today.  Today, we have twisted and turned things around to the point where many churches will be unrecognizable when He comes again.  If you remember, when Jesus started all of this, there was nothing, no church.  He started with His disciples and built.  There were no buildings, only the fellowship of Christians who sometimes met in their homes or fields.  Jesus shook the world when He started His ministry and church.  It would never be the same.

Even though I think today we have weak churches for the most part, especially in this country, they will stand.  God will do something to get churches back in line with His teachings.  It is important to know that the church will never close.  If we get overrun by the Canadians and they take over this country, the church will survive.  It always has and it always will.  God doesn’t do things because He is a wimpy God.  He does things because He is an all-powerful, perfect God that will never be shaken.  We will shake but God will not.

So we have the nature of God, the reign of God, the word of God, and the church of God which will never be shaken.  If you put all this together, we have the Kingdom of God which will never be shaken.  We like to think of the Kingdom of God as being heaven which is certainly correct.  But that isn’t all.  This world is part of His Kingdom.  So is the universe and everything in it.  All things are a part of this wonderful Kingdom.  Now God is going to shake things up a bit when He creates a new heaven and a new earth but His Kingdom will remain the same because the physical is only a small part of His Kingdom.

In our modern world we have many who feel that they can believe what they want to believe and I guess that they can.  However, they will not be a part of the Kingdom of God in its final form.  That is because our God is totally unshakable.  His reign is not a democracy where we have a say, a vote in what happens.  However, we do have something that is better than a vote.  We have prayer where the Lord of the universe will listen and answer you.  I think that is a pretty good deal.  However, He will not change because He is unshakable.

Over the past years I have noticed some of the headlines around the world.  First, we had a man trying to murder a presidential candidate and I praise the Lord that he was not seriously hurt.  I guess that my question is ‘why?’  We have the story of the Russian/Ukraine war where Russia bombards the hospitals and nothing is said.  But when the same thing happened in Israel, everyone was up in arms.  This is atrocious no matter who does it!.  However, no one around the world really does anything except to tell the Russians that maybe they shouldn’t do this anymore.  Why?  Then we have all the killings and knifings in Fargo and no one does anything about it.  We used to think Fargo was pretty safe but that is not so.  How many people have to die before we decide enough is enough.  Then my question is, what in the world is wrong with us?  Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty asked us once if there is something wrong with this country that we want to kill our babies through abortion.  If you ask me, there has got to be a better way to deal with this problem other than legalized murder.  I could go on and on with many more examples but I hope that you get the point.

The point is that this country and much of the world has been rejecting God on a major scale.  God loves you so much that He will let you go away if that is your choice.  He will leave you alone. He will let you destroy ourself!  The only problem with this is that you are left alone with the devil.  You are absolutely weak compared to the devil so all these types of atrocities are happening with more and more frequency.  And I’m afraid that we haven’t seen anything yet.  It will get worse, much worse.

But the Good News is that Jesus is with us as individuals.  If you have Jesus in your heart, then you have everything you need and that is good.  All we have to remember is how big, strong, powerful Jesus really is as we see Him in His unshakable form.  He formed the world that you live in.  He put every star in the sky.  He devised the scheme where all plants and animals live together in a balance.  Everywhere you look we see the hand of God.  When I stand on an ocean shore looking out onto the endless water, I can’t help but think of just how big our God actually is.

And yet as unshakable and breathtakingly large as God is, He knows you by your name.  He knows everything about you and there is nothing that you can hide.  He sees your every fault and every one of your sins.  And still He loves you like you have never been loved before.  He will help you in any situation.  He has provided a place for you in eternity.  God has thought of every little detail that you will ever need.  He loves you and loves you and loves you.  And when He is done loving you, He loves you some more.

We don’t understand this and we don’t have to.  All you have to do is let Him live in your heart and the universe is yours.  I think that is a pretty good deal from the one who is absolutely unshakable in His power and yet loves you so much on a personal basis.  Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.