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All right, well, beautiful singing. So, if I’ve not met you, my name is Aaron and I’m the preaching pastor here, and I’m glad you’re with us on this Groundhog Day. And so, if you have a Bible with you, open up to the book of Hebrews today; our text to study comes from Hebrews 12:18 through 29. If you don’t have a Bible with you, the pew Bibles are scattered around and that’s on page 585.
For this time here, I’m just going to read verses 28 and 29, and then I’ll pray when I get to work. But our text study is going to be 18 through 29—so I’m just reading 28 and 29, but 18 through 29 will be our text study. Please follow along as I read.
This is what the Bible says starting in verse 28 of chapter 12:
“Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. And thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe. For our God is a consuming fire.”
Okay, so that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me?
“Lord, thank you for your word. Lord, I pray that you bless this time for the glory of Christ. Please help me to communicate your word correctly and clearly. Please be with the congregation. Please give them ears to hear what your Spirit is saying through your word. And Lord, I pray you’d use this in our lives, which is to build us up in the faith. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
So today, let me start with a story that I think I may have shared maybe a number of years back, but let me share it again now. Every story I like to tell always starts off with the words, “So there we were.” Okay, so there we were—my little hometown in rural central Wisconsin, which at the time was 300 people and now has jumped to a bustling 400 people. So, a big town.
When we were in our late teens into early 20s, I was playing in a men’s baseball league where my little hometown would play against a bunch of other little hometowns around the area. Now, in this men’s league that I played in, whatever the teams lacked in talent, we more than made up for in our competitiveness. Each of the little teams I grew up in all wanted the baseball bragging rights for that given season. Because of this competitive fire that burned so hot between the two teams playing, a lot of talking ended up happening—talking that wasn’t just to catch up or exchange pleasantries about summer plans and vacations. This talking would revolve, let’s just say, around thoughts that we had for each other: thoughts on why our hometown was vastly superior to their hometown, why our ability to play baseball was so much better than theirs, among many other critiques. I guess you could say that we were more than willing to give personal critiques and criticism to one another on things like one’s intelligence, personal hygiene, family history, and on and on.
As each team shared their criticism for each other, inevitably tensions would continue to rise, and ideas and suggestions would be thrown out that perhaps the team should hit pause from playing the game of baseball and move towards something a little more physical in nature—involving, say, fists being thrown or backsides being kicked. Now, one of the fans on our team who actually played a year or two with us is a man who is 6-foot-8, 6-foot-9, and 300-plus pounds—a big man in every sense. This man is not only strong, but he’s country strong. And there is a difference between strong and country strong. This country-strong man, from early on, was doing physical labor in the family business. And so, because he’s just a massive mountain of a man, his only little fault was his patience, particularly when others were causing problems for his friends.
At times during our way-too-competitive baseball games, when tensions were at their highest and the fire burned hottest, our giant, mountain-man fan would sneak into the bleachers and let our opposing team know some options he was considering if they dared try to turn the baseball game into some type of physical altercation to go after his friends. He’d do so by suggesting that they should just stop yapping. As this happened, you can imagine a chain reaction took place for both teams. For the team that we played against, it was amazing how quiet they would get—they went from super talkative to suddenly quiet with the mountain man standing up. All their boldness, all the brash things they were saying, all the confident assertions they were making—almost immediately, silence. Mouths were stopped; yappers were shut. But then, for our team, the opposite would happen: we became even more galvanized, even bolder; our backbones hardened and our mouths became more free and confident, because we knew that with our giant mountain-man fan, there was no way we could lose. The other team had no power over us—we were free to do whatever we wanted. That great man, this “chai” man, would absolutely galvanize us.
Now, I’ll tell you this story to hopefully set us up for our text study this morning, which I think is meant to be a galvanizing text for the people of God. As we see in the text, even all the uncertainties and difficulties of life—the many different foes that seemingly attack us, whether through criticism, ridicule, shame, or mocking—cannot overcome us because we have the Lord on our side. Not only is the Lord on our side, but He’s the one who fights for His people; through His word, He silences all His foes. He’s the one who proves to be a consuming fire.
Before we get into our text, let me remind you again of some of the context of our passage and why this passage has been so important for the first readers of Hebrews. In the context of Hebrews, the first readers were suffering for their faith in Christ and were being persecuted in ways that were really starting to ramp up. As the suffering and persecution increased, the first readers felt that they faced many foes—foes who left them weary. Not only were there the foes of those persecuting them, but there were also internal foes like discouragement, hopelessness, worry, fear, and anxiety. In the letter, these various foes increasingly wore down the first readers of Hebrews, leaving them weary and discouraged.
Throughout this letter, the author of Hebrews does a number of helpful pastoral things to help his readers fix their eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ—to see Him for who He is and what He has done for them—with the hope that they would persevere in their faith and not throw in the towel. Let me just mention a few ways the author of Hebrews tried to help his weary readers persevere: primarily, the author helped them see how Jesus is better, superior to all things, because He is the definitive Word by which God has spoken. Throughout the letter, the author points to various Old Testament characters, structures, and themes to help his readers see how these relate to Jesus Christ and why He is superior.
In addition, the author tried to help his weary, discouraged readers find hope and comfort in knowing that their suffering was not in vain. As they suffered, they were not in isolation because they had Jesus, the great high priest who sympathizes with all our weaknesses—yet without sin—and is able to help us in our times of need. Furthermore, one of the ways the author of Hebrews helped his readers was through a series of warnings laid out throughout the letter, including the last of the warnings in our text today. As the writer warned his readers about abandoning Jesus Christ, he did not do so to beat them down or shame them, but to warn them of the dire consequences of abandoning the faith—hoping that the warning would serve as a wake-up call.
These dire consequences, along with the reward of Christ—the great reward, so far superior that even slight, momentary affliction could not discourage His weary readers—are emphasized repeatedly. The author talks a good amount about eternal life throughout the letter, including in our text today, reminding his readers that this life is not the end, and that God has promised an eternal life to come for His people. And God cannot lie.
The author also gave his readers Old Testament examples; we went through Hebrews 11, the Hall of Faith, and saw great Old Testament examples who, despite suffering, persevered—hoping that these examples would inspire his readers to do likewise. Throughout the letter, the author repeatedly points his readers to Jesus in different ways, using various strategies to help them fight the good fight of faith, persevere, and endure to the end.
Now, as we get to our text study today, we see the author give another strategy to help his readers see how giant and powerful their God is. This, again, is an attempt to galvanize his weary readers—to encourage them to trust that the Lord silences their foes and, through the galvanization of their faith, become more bold and confident.
That introduction leads us to our text, starting at verse 18. If you’re with us for the first time today, I’m going to walk us back through the passage. So please keep your Bible open. We do a style of preaching here called expository preaching, and I’m just going to try to explain what the text is saying, verse by verse.
Starting in verse 18, we see the author continue one of the great themes of the book, where he once again points his readers back to the Old Testament. This time, in verse 18, he points back to a story in the book of Exodus, chapter 19, where God brought His people before Him at Mount Sinai—also referred to in the Old Testament as Mount Horeb. In Exodus 19, at Mount Sinai, as you may remember, the Old Covenant or the Law was given to God’s people, which included the Ten Commandments. This covenant, as we’ve learned in our study of Hebrews, served almost like a contract between God and His people, where God promised to bless His people if they promised to obey all that He commanded. However, while this was a good contract, we also learned in Hebrews that this covenant had faults because God’s people could not keep up their end of the agreement due to their sin.
Now, back up to our text, verse 18. Here, we don’t read the details of that contract, but we actually read what the scene looked like when this contract was being made. In the text we read: “For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice of whose word made the hearers beg that no further message be spoken to them.” This is the author of Hebrews speaking about the terrifying reality of the scene in Exodus 19.
When this covenant between God and man was being laid out, it was not a casual conversation—like sitting together over a cup of coffee and casually working out the details. Rather, Exodus 19 shows that for God’s people this was a terrifying scene. They were gripped by reverent fear of God. You get the sense that they were physically still, captivated by the awe, power, and majesty of God at Mount Sinai. It was so awe-inspiring and terrifying that the people were almost begging for it to stop, for no further message to be spoken to them. Their ears and minds could not handle all that was taking place at the foot of Mount Sinai.
I was trying to think of an illustration to help us imagine this scene in Exodus 19, but I decided that any illustration would do a huge disservice. I can only imagine what this must have been like: awesome, terrifying—a soul-gripping scene with incredible weight and gravity that crushed the people. In verse 20 of our text, we read that the people of God could not endure the order that was given, which stated that even if a beast touched the mountain of God, the beast shall be stoned—demonstrating the holiness of God present at the scene. So great, so terrifying, so awesome.
The book of Deuteronomy uses the word “gloom” to describe the heavy nature of the scene; the weight of God was so intense that Mount Sinai was not approachable. Even if an innocent animal wandered into the presence of God, it would not escape with its life. In Exodus, we actually read that no living thing—including mankind—could approach the mountain on its own and live. This was a terrifying, weighty, heavy scene.
Verse 21 continues: indeed, the glory, the majesty, the holiness of God was so terrifying to behold that even the great Moses—whom we’ve learned is the par excellence of the Old Testament faith—said, “I tremble with fear.” It was an awe-filled scene that was too much to partake in; the glory of God at Mount Sinai was more than could be handled.
However, keep going. In our text, verse 22 tells the first readers of Hebrews that their faith was not established at Mount Sinai. The author of Hebrews reminds his readers that their faith was found on a different mountain—a different mountain filled with glory. He says:
“But you, you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels and the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God who is the judge of all, and the Spirit of righteousness made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new, better covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”
There’s a lot here, so let me pause and work through it slowly. First, notice that this is a transition into Mount Zion, setting up a comparison and contrast between Sinai and Zion—each mountain is different, and this contrast carries through the rest of the text. Second, in verse 22, the text addresses “you”—referring to the first readers, who were Christians with faith in Jesus Christ, but by extension, this applies to all who have faith in Jesus. Your faith is not established at Mount Sinai; rather, through faith in Jesus Christ, you belong to Zion.
For those who are not Christians, we’re very happy you’re here with us. However, I do have to tell you that Sinai represents that mountain where you’re left trying to keep the law of God—a task you will never be able to accomplish. And if you’re not in Zion, you are in a terrifying reality apart from Jesus Christ. So, please change your residency and move from Mount Sinai—where you trust in yourself and try to earn God’s favor by keeping some type of moral law—to Mount Zion, the mountain of trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Third, let me address Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. In Scripture, Mount Zion was part of Jerusalem, a place that David captured, and was regarded as the holy city of God because that’s where the temple dwelled—where God’s presence was. In the Old Testament, you find much about the presence of God in Mount Zion in the Psalms and in the prophets such as Micah, Joel, and Isaiah. For example:
– Psalm 9: “Sing praise to the Lord who sits enthroned in Zion; tell among his people his deeds.”
– Psalm 20: “May he send your help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion.”
– Micah 4: “And many nations shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that it may teach us his ways, that we may walk in his path. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord.’”
– Joel 3: “The Lord has roared from Zion, and uttered his voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and the earth quake; the Lord is a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel.”
Also, Psalm 2 speaks about the promise of Christ: “I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” This Old Testament symbolism of God’s presence in Zion is picked up in the New Testament, particularly in the book of Revelation, where Zion is used to refer to heaven itself—the eternal city of God, the new Jerusalem.
Fourth, let me point out the angels and the festival gathered in the assembly of the firstborn. This refers to all those who will fill up the heavenly Jerusalem. In that eternal Zion, angels will be present along with all who put their faith in Jesus Christ in this life. The text refers to these as the “firstborn”—a place of honor and privilege. As the angels and believers fill up the heavenly city where God’s presence dwells, they will experience a far different reality than the people of Mount Sinai. At Mount Sinai, even a beast could not touch the mountain without being stoned; but in Mount Zion, the people will be gripped by joy and rejoicing, as it is filled with life, not death. When commentaries refer to this festival gathering, they mean an enthusiastic gathering of worship—overflowing with praise—like the sound from heaven described in Revelation 14, where a sound like many waters and loud thunder is heard, accompanied by harps and a new song before the throne, the four living creatures, and the elders. The heavenly Mount Zion, where the fullness of God’s presence is found, is a celebration—a party filled with great joy—unlike Mount Sinai.
Next, back again to Mount Sinai—the old covenant. Time and again, God’s people proved they could not keep the law because of their sin. While the old covenant had faults, it also proved to be a schoolmaster, teaching mankind that none of us, not even one here today, can make ourselves righteous by our own efforts. Mount Sinai instructs us that on our own we are all guilty before God, the judge of all.
However, friends, there’s good news for us—a reason why the people of Zion are counted as righteous. This good news is found in verse 24 of our text. It reads about Jesus, the mediator of a new, better covenant—a covenant sealed with the blood He sprinkled on a different hill just outside the city gates of Jerusalem, a hill called Golgotha or Calvary, where the Lord Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross to take on the judgment of God over sin. Through Jesus Christ—by His spilled blood—we can be forgiven. In this new covenant by faith, His righteousness is counted as our righteousness. This is the real reason why Zion is filled with such joy and rejoicing in worship: because Mount Zion is a place where, by grace and through faith, we have a right standing before God because of Jesus Christ.
Fifth, let me address in the text the blood of Jesus that speaks a better word than Abel. Abel was the brother of Cain. In Hebrews 11, we are reminded that by faith, Abel gave an offering to the Lord that was accepted, in contrast to Cain’s offering, which was rejected because Cain did not give by faith. When Cain recognized that his offering was rejected, instead of repenting, he became angry and jealous toward Abel, and in an act of bitter jealousy, Cain struck down and killed his brother, whose blood then cried out for justice. And even though that blood still speaks, the blood of Jesus speaks a better word. Although the Lord Jesus Christ was also killed by sinful men in hateful, bitter jealousy, His blood speaks a better word than Abel’s because, according to God’s eternal plan, He shed His blood to cry out forgiveness, mercy, grace, and love to all who come to Him.
The text pleads with us: “See that you do not refuse Him who is speaking.” Meaning, do not ignore or reject our Lord and what He has to say. In our study of Hebrews, we’ve learned that if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart or ignore it. Do not be like the people in the Old Testament who wandered in the wilderness and were not allowed to enter God’s rest—the eternal Zion. Rather, respond to this better word, the better word that the blood of Jesus speaks, and respond by faith and trust in Him.
The final word in Hebrews reads: “Do not refuse the Lord Jesus Christ. For if they did not escape when they refused Him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject Him who warns from heaven.” In verses 25–26, the author speaks of how, at one time, His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” These verses take us back to Sinai, to Exodus 19, where the prophet Haggai wrote about the shaking of Sinai as God spoke to His people. This final warning sets up another contrast between Sinai and Zion: at Sinai, God spoke to His people on earth in a terrifying way, but now from Zion, God speaks from the heavenly places—which is even more powerful.
This appears to be the author picking up on something we discussed previously: the new covenant for which Jesus is the mediator, particularly noted in chapters 8 and 9. Remember how the author compared the Old Testament tabernacle—a man-made tent that was a copy or shadow of the heavenly tent—with the heavenly reality where Jesus entered behind a curtain (His flesh) on the cross, shedding His blood as the mediator between God and man to provide forgiveness for all who trust in Him. In His incarnation, Jesus poured Himself out in the most vulnerable and loving ways for His people. That’s the message of the Gospel in our text—the heavenly reality that God now speaks through Jesus from Zion.
So, here’s the logic in the contrast between Zion and Sinai: if the earth shook when God’s people rejected Him at Sinai, how much more will it shake for those who refuse Jesus Christ—the one who went to the heavenly places on our behalf in the most vulnerable and loving ways? How little will we escape the terror of God if we harden our hearts toward Jesus Christ? Notice again that this book is filled with warnings scattered throughout, and this last one sums them all up. In a nutshell, it’s a sermon that warns us: as terrifying as the Old Testament judgment of God was for those who broke and rejected His law, it is even more terrifying when God comes in judgment for those who reject His eternal Son who bled and died only to rise again. How much more terrifying for someone to say in their heart, as they stand before God, “I really don’t need Jesus; His blood that speaks doesn’t apply to me.” As terrifying as Exodus 19 was for those who rejected Jesus, there’s an even greater terror that awaits.
Now, moving on to the text, verse 27 uses the phrase “yet once more” to indicate the removal of things that are shaken—referring to the old covenant, the law, and the man-made tent that was the tabernacle—so that only what cannot be shaken may remain. As Christ came, He ushered in His new kingdom. Unlike the shaking at Exodus, the kingdom of Christ is a kingdom that cannot be shaken—an unshakable kingdom that will eternally remain sure, steady, and immovable. For the first readers, whose entire life and faith were being shaken and tossed about, the author of Hebrews brings Christ and His unshakable kingdom before them, hoping that it would galvanize them—and us—to stand firm, bold, confident, and unwavering.
Friends, who knows? In this life everything can and will shake. But take heart, have hope, find courage, find peace, and find security in Christ and His unshakable kingdom. And finally, we are in our text today because of this unshaken kingdom of Christ that He gives to all who, by faith, come to Him. You see? Therefore, our application is: let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship—a worship filled with reverence and awe, knowing that our God is a consuming fire.
This fire is something we see at different points in the Old Testament. I think the particular text the writer of Hebrews is picking up on is from Deuteronomy 5, which recounts Exodus 19. Let me just read what Deuteronomy says in verse 23:
“And as soon as you hear the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders, and you said, ‘Behold, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire this day. We have seen God speak with man, and man still live. Therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of the Lord anymore, we shall die. For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire, as we have, and still live? Go near and hear all that the Lord our God will say and speak to us. The Lord our God will speak to you, and we will hear and do it.'”
Friends, for us, in the end, this is the application of all things as we set our hearts toward faith in Jesus Christ. This is the why behind all that we do—why we refrain from what we shouldn’t do—so that we may worship our God, knowing that in the end our God is an all-consuming, awe-inspiring, consuming fire who has come to set our hearts ablaze.
Before I close, I want to give you a few reasons for the text that I hope will galvanize our faith—no matter how hard the foes coming at you are. First, be galvanized by the awesome power of God—the power that shakes mountains and grips hearts in ways that seem almost too much to handle, leaving people silent and stunned by its might. I don’t want to minimize whatever foe you may be facing this morning, but know that you can find hope, courage, and strength in the awesome power of your God—the very One who promises to put all things, all your foes, under His feet and to judge all things as a consuming fire.
Second, be galvanized by the glory of the gospel—the good news of what Jesus Christ has done for us, which is the victory over death through His resurrection. Let that gospel message galvanize you and our church. As our church, Red Village Church, we proclaim that the message of the cross—of the empty tomb and resurrection—should galvanize us by God’s glorious grace, who sent His only begotten Son to take on the judgment of our sin by shedding His blood that speaks a better word.
Third, be galvanized by the unshaken kingdom that awaits. In this life, everything can and will shake; in a moment, everything can fall apart. But for those who have faith in Jesus Christ, this life is not the end. There’s a better life to come—an unshakable kingdom where we will live with Him in Zion on a mountain filled with joyful celebration. Let that galvanize you into worship: worship your God with reverence and awe for who He is and what He has done for us through Jesus Christ.
Friends, worship the Lord with grateful, thankful hearts—a heart that longs to live for Him in ways that honor Him, knowing that living for Him, no matter the cost, is always best. May we be galvanized to worship the Lord with our tongues and not just in our singing, boldly declaring His excellencies to the world around us.
If a giant, mountain-man fan was enough to galvanize an entire small-town baseball team—where we could not help but talk, knowing we could not lose with him on our side—how much more should the Lord, the One who shakes mountains and dwells on Zion, who sent His Son to die and rise again to defeat our enemies, galvanize us from a heart of worship to proclaim the message of the Gospel all our days? See your God who sits on the throne; hear the word that Jesus has spoken through His blood; have a heart of worship; be galvanized, stand firm, hold the line—with boldness, confidence, hope, and worship.
Let’s pray.
“Lord, thank you for being an all-consuming fire. Lord, I pray that You would set a fire in our bones for Your glory and for the message of Your gospel. And Lord, I pray for those who are here today that are weary and discouraged—fill them with much hope. And Lord, please help our church to worship You in spirit and in truth in all that we do. Praise be to Jesus’ name. Amen.”