46. So Exodus chapter 29 verses 38 through 46. Let us together hear the word of the Lord. Now, this is what you shall offer on the altar to lambs a year old day by day regularly. One lamb you shall offer in the morning and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight. And with the first lamb, a tenth Sia, a fine flour mingled with a fourth of a hen of beaten oil and a fourth of a hen of wine for a drink offering. The other lamb you shall offer at twilight and shall offer with it a grain offering and its drink offering as in the morning for a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the Lord. It shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord. where I will meet with you, to speak to you there. There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate to serve me as priests. I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out to the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord, their God, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Amen. Well, beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters, as you know, I'm a big fan of John Owen, the great English Puritan, and he said in one of his writings, it was a catechism that he wrote on the theme of worship. In the year 1667, he wrote in his catechism on worship about the importance of worship. He asked the question basically to the effect of why should we be concerned to worship God according to his word? And he said the great importance of worship is that we would have a mind towards the importance of bringing God glory But also, he said, it was a high concern, a high concern, a chief passion of the people of God that they worship him as God himself desires, because we find in the presence of God something that we don't find anywhere else. Now, we certainly do believe that we are to pray and to read the word and to meditate upon it. And we are certainly the fellowship of brothers and sisters outside of the Lord's Day. But there is something particular that happens on the Lord's Day in the very presence of God in a way that doesn't happen anywhere else. That's why I mentioned a few Sunday nights ago, a sermon that was preached by one of the Puritans, by John Owen's successor, called public worship to be preferred before private. Not that private worship is set aside. It's not public worship instead of private, but before. The priority of what we do here should be known to us. It should be manifested to us. Public worship should be of a high concern for all of God's children. It should be the central idea that we think of and that we desire. The Christian life, as I said to you many times, can be described like. The tire of a bicycle, a wheel of a bicycle, you have the rim, the spokes and you have the hub. Public Worship in the presence of Almighty God is that hub of the wheel. That holds everything together, every spoke. Private reading of the Bible, singing, catechizing our children, going to Bible studies, fellowshipping with one another, testifying of Jesus grace to the world. All the things that we do as Christians are like spokes of that wheel, but they are all held together by what happens here. God calls us out of the world into His presence in the Lord's day, that we might then go forth into the world as salt and as light. Well, we see something of that idea here, I pray. Exodus chapter 29, 38 through 46. The high concern of worship. And so the Lord has spoken here in this context in chapter 28 of the priestly garments. And then last Lord's day of the ordination of the priests. But then at the very end of that section, it's as if Moses, by the power of the Holy Spirit, wants to remind the Israelites of the importance of all that they are doing. The colors of the garments. The rituals of the ordination. The tabernacle's beauty itself. All of these things have a reason and a purpose, and God reminds them once again, here is exactly why I am saying what I am saying. You see there in that passage, basically there are the passage divides into two parts. The first part is in verses 38 through 42, where God gives descriptions and prescriptions for the daily morning and evening sacrifices. There's a lamb in the morning offered a lamb at twilight in the evening that was offered. But then we want to think about and focus upon is what we find in verses 43-46. Here is the goal. Here is the purpose. Here are the purposes. Here are the blessings and the benefits of why we should want to worship God according to His Word. What was it that God gave to His people when they worshipped Him every morning and every evening? What was it that God brought to the Israelites and what does He bring to us when we worship Him as He commands? When they brought their sacrifices, when they did so in faith, when they offered it according to the rule that God had given, what happened? What was the benefit? Why should we be so concerned to read the word and seek to find how God wants to be worshipped in a precise way? Why should we be so concerned for what happened in the Lord's day? Well, we find that in verses 43 to 46, the wonderful benefits, the blessings, of God himself, his own graces that he pours out upon his people. And so why should I be concerned? Why should we as a congregation be so concerned with the importance, the chief importance of worship? Well, we find those things here. There are four blessings there. You can simply circle them, if you will, in your Bible for words that you see there. Why should we be concerned? Well, in the first place, when we worship God, according to his word, we receive the blessing of a meeting with God. Secondly, when we worship God, according to his word, we receive the blessing of sanctification from God. Thirdly, when we worship God, according to his word, we receive the blessing of the dwelling by God. And fourthly, the knowledge of God. meeting with God's sanctification from God, dwelling by God and knowledge of God. May the Holy Spirit give us understanding today. In the first place, we see then, as God gives very detailed prescriptions, as he always does for how he wants and desires to be worshipped, he says to them that the first and chief blessing of offering sacrifices as He has commanded is that they would receive this wonderful grace of a meeting with God Himself. He says at the end of verse 42, speaking of the tent of meeting, where I will meet with you. And again in verse 43, there I will meet with the people of Israel. To meet with Almighty God. And brothers and sisters, we have to remember that in the large overall scheme of where we've been in Genesis and how we've now come to here in Exodus, what this precisely means and what a stupendous benefit it is. That God says he now comes to that tabernacle for the very tenth of meeting to its door, as it were, and God meets with his people as it were in a house. Close fellowship, personal fellowship, family fellowship. There I will meet. With the people of Israel. Ever since Genesis chapter three, recall where the Lord sent Adam and Eve out of the garden that was in Eden. And he sent them east of Eden, away from his presence. Now, of course, God is everywhere present at once. God is everywhere. Children, you know that. But in the garden of Eden, there was a very particular special place, just like in the tabernacle, just like in a public assembly, something special that happens there that doesn't happen anywhere else. And so God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden, out of the place of a special, particular blessing of His presence. And ever since Genesis chapter three, all the way up through now, the people of God have been wandering east of Eden. far away from God, at least in that graphic of senses, not being next to him in the garden. They wandered. They were pilgrims. Noah and his family floated upon the flood. Abraham met with God, sure, but met with God in a very peculiar way for a peculiar time. The Israelites cried out, where is God in the midst of our suffering? And God heard their cries. But yet now God begins. God begins in the tabernacle to reverse the curse of sin. The great curse of all, of course, of our sins is that we are disfellowshipped. We are away from God. We are strangers to God. We are aliens from his promises. We are enemies of God. God begins to reverse that in the tabernacle. He begins to welcome back into that special, peculiar, intimate, close place of his fellowship, his people. Again, the tabernacle, think about the curtains as we saw them a few weeks, maybe months ago at this point, a few months ago, the curtains, the curtain that divided the holy of holies from the holy place. and a curtain that divided the holy place, the first room, from the courtyard, the dirt outside. Those curtains had cherubim, angels, woven into them. Because God was showing them, remember the curse. I sent Adam and Eve out of my presence and I placed cherubim with a flaming sword at the gates. But now they could go beyond. that curtain, the gates. Now they could go past where that cherubim was and they could enter the presence of God. What an amazing blessing that God then begins to meet with his people. And when they offered up sacrifices as God desired and as God prescribed, he says there I will meet with the people of Israel. And that should strike us in another way, because here it's not really that God is beginning to reverse the curse, which he's doing, but that God is showing us something about himself. His own holiness. His people's sinfulness, but yet God dwells in the midst of sin. He's not coming to dwell in the midst of a holy, righteous, clean people. He's not coming to a people that were more numerous than the rest of the tribes of the peoples of the earth. He did not come to a people that sought his face with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. No, he came to those, as he says in Deuteronomy chapter seven, to those that he chose who are the least of all the people. Sinful, wretched, depraved, east of Eden, under the curse. He comes to sinners, but yet he says, there I, the holy God, there I, the one who's perfect, I, the creator, will come and meet with you, a creature. The holy and exalted God now meets with lowly, vile, sinful people. The God who is eternal now meets with the people who are temporal, who will die one day. What an amazing blessing of this God condescends. He stoops down to meet with these Israelites who've already shown their unworthiness. Are there not enough graves in Egypt that you've brought us out here into the wilderness? There's no meat to eat. We sat by the meat pots. Oh, and we desire them now as we desired them in Egypt. There is no bread to eat. There's no water. They complain. They grumble. They murmur. And God puts up with them. And God, once again, brings them close. There, he says, I will meet with the people. And we should notice something particular. Where was it? Notice the reference is to the entrance of the tent of meeting. That is where the Israelites, as we've seen from previous chapters, That is where you, if you were an average Israelite, you would bring your lamb, you would bring your pigeon, you would bring your turtle dove, you would bring your bull, you would take them to the priests at the entrance of the tent of meeting, the place where they took the animals and they sacrificed them. God then meets with his people in the place of sacrifice. There I will meet with the people of Israel. It's in the place of substitution and atonement. It's the place where God's wrath is propitiated, turned away. It's a place where God's grace is found and sins are taken away and guilt is removed and sins are covered that God meets with his sinful people. And so we can read over and over and over again in The book of Hebrews phrases such as we have an altar from which we eat and others who are outside may not. The altar is the gospel of Christ upon the cross. We have a heavenly tabernacle where Christ's blood was offered in a heavenly place upon a heavenly altar. We have this very same meeting with God. In Jesus Christ. For it all was pointing towards him. the tabernacle, a picture of his incarnation, the altar, a picture of his death, and the whole apparatus to show the blessing of God meeting with a sinful people. Jesus Christ comes to us and offers us to meet with God. He offers us sinners to come into his presence. He offers those who are weak strength and those who are sinful righteousness and those who are dead, who are dying in themselves life. He offers those who are enemies to be friends and those who are outsiders to be insiders and strangers to be welcomed. There, he says, I will meet with them. There in the cross of Christ. Here where Christ comes and speaks to us. He offers us that same blessing when we worship God as he commands, when we come to the Father through Christ and his sacrifice, the place where he was offered. When we come through that place, God brings us grace and he stoops to us, vile, weak sinners. He meets not with those who are arrogant. He doesn't offer his grace to those who are obstinance and those who hate him in the sense in which God in his irresistible grace makes those who hate and reject willing. But it comes to those who are here, comes to those who are burdened, comes to those who are weak. He offers to meet, to fellowship, and to enter that door to all who hear His voice. So the first blessing then was, I will meet with the people of Israel. Secondly, you see the second blessing of the Israelites worshiping God as he commanded there in the tabernacle with their sacrifices was it shall be sanctified by my glory, sanctification that comes from God again, verse forty four. Moses writes down, I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons, I will consecrate to serve me as priests. There is a sanctification that occurs, a consecration in the place of worship. Now, children, let me just pause and ask you to think about that big word sanctification. No doubt you heard that word, but maybe you've not thought about it much. What does that big word sanctification mean? Let me give you an example. I'm willing to bet that if I came over to your house and I looked into your closet or into your dresser drawers, that you have basically two kinds of clothes, two kinds of shoes. You have clothes and shoes that you wear everywhere and any day. Play clothes, even school clothes, clothes that you can wear after school. But I bet you have some other clothes and some other shoes that you're not really allowed to wear playing baseball, running around in grass, rolling and getting him dirty. You have some clothes that are set apart for some special occasions. Sanctification, children, means to be set apart. God sets us apart from the rest of the world. And after he does that, he begins to set us apart even more from our sins. From our thoughts, words and deeds, which are so tainted by our sinfulness, God begins to make us more and more holy. God promised that in the place of worship, it shall be sanctified, but notice something. God promises a sanctification and a consecration, he promises to set Someone or some thing aside, he promised the blessing of making someone or something holy. But there in the tabernacle, notice, though, what was sanctified and what was consecrated, it's. Shall be sanctified by my glory, I need to reiterate that verse 44, what was the if I will concentrate the tent of meeting. The tent itself was set apart and consecrated. The altar, again, verse 44, he says, was consecrated and sanctified. Aaron and his sons were consecrated to serve as priests. But what about us? What about the average Israelite who would bring their animal sacrifice? What about them? Did they not receive that blessing? Were they not given that wonderful grace of sanctification? Well, there's a distinction that's going on. In the time of the Old Covenant, God is speaking in terms of sanctification in a very outward way. There's a very external sanctification, setting aside of certain things and certain people in a temporary way. And the book of Hebrews describes this in terms of them being sanctified and then being purified and then being set apart with the sprinkling of blood and the ashes of a heifer in an external way. They were sanctified as the body. Hebrews chapter nine says. But now in Jesus Christ, he says, how much more so shall we be sprinkled from our evil consciences? the internal work of the Holy Spirit. And so they were receiving some form of outward sanctification and holiness and being set apart and being consecrated to serve the Lord. But again, it points every single one of them to a day to come in which God in a greater way would begin to work in the hearts of His people. He would no longer just set aside a building The tabernacle or the temple, you know, you no longer set aside a certain class of people, the priest, a certain tribe. But God promised to begin in the new covenant. In words, Jeremiah 31, to write his law upon the hearts of his people, to inscribe them upon their minds, to forgive them of their sins, to know the Lord. In Jesus Christ, when we come to meet with Almighty God in worship, we come together, brothers and sisters, we come together as priests. We come not as mere lay people, as the old covenant distinct from the priesthood, we come not even merely as priests, but we come together all each and every one as a high priest of God. Whereas in the old covenant, one high priest, one day a year, went to the one holy place, the Holy of Holies. Now, with boldness and confidence, Hebrews 4 says, let us enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus Christ. Every single Christian, every single person who trusts in Jesus Christ can, as a high priest, go beyond the veil. It's been torn in two. To go and stand before that are the covenant. It's now in heaven to come before the throne of grace and offer up prayer and petition before the Lord to meet with him there. Look at the passage in Hebrews. That's so interesting in this light. We come together as a priesthood in Hebrews chapter 10 verse number 19. The sanctification that we receive in the presence of God is now so much greater than what they received then in the old covenant. And he says this Hebrews chapter 10 verse number 19. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the most into the holy places by the blood of Jesus, there's the language of us being priests. We can go into the holy places by the blood, the idea of an altar and sacrifice of Jesus. by the new and living way that he has opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh. His death upon the cross itself is the curtain of a new temple, the new tabernacle. And since first 21, we have a great high priest over the house of God. He is there interceding for us. Chapter seven said. Notice what he says to us in terms of our gathering together, our assembling, our worshiping God, let us draw near That's Old Testament language. To draw near is to meet in the presence of God in his prescribed place. Let us draw near and notice this wonderful language, the blessings of God's sanctifying grace with a true heart in full assurance of faith. With our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, not merely as chapter nine said, the washing of the body, the ritual purifications that we have already had. And we then are to draw near with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, even as the priest washed in the bronze labor, cleansing their bodies in a ritual way to show the necessity of purification to go into God's presence. We have already received these wonderful blessings of God. We've already had our hearts sprinkled clean, our consciences cleansed, our bodies have been washed. And it's because of those things that we draw near. It's because of the work of God and Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit that we approach God in worship. That we might. Continue. and that sanctification. Notice how he connects that with verse 23 and following. Our drawing near serves a purpose, it serves an end, a goal, and that goal and end and purpose is our sanctification. We draw near with all those blessings in mind. And he says in verse 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who has promised is faithful. holding on to our confession, our profession of Jesus Christ's name in the midst of the world. And in Hebrews, it was written to Hebrew Christians who were tempted and persecuted by their Jewish friends and loved ones and neighbors to return back to the temple. The world was tempting them, the world was seeking to bring them back, the world was seeking to persecute and crush their faith and change their beliefs. Because you draw near to God here in this place, as I said, like that rim, that hub of a bicycle. We come here and then go out. It's because we've drawn near to God in his holy presence that we can hold fast our confession of faith. It's because we come here one day in seven that we can go back out into the world for six more days of warfare against the devil. Holding fast, clinging to our confession, our hope in Jesus Christ to be salt, light, testimonies, living epistles. It's in this place that you receive the strength and the grace and the work of the Spirit to do that. And, verse 24, let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good work. Again, what flows out of the public assembly, the work of the Holy Spirit and sanctifying his people is that they and we might consider that our minds, loved ones of the church, as we think with a single mind how we can consider each other, And how wonderful it would be and how powerful the work of the spirit would be in our midst if we fought on these terms to consider constantly. How can I stir up a brother? How can I serve a sister to love? To do good works. The kinds of good works that Peter describes as good works that the world sees. And comes to glorify God in heaven. If we thought not for ourselves, if we thought not being selfish, if we thought not about what we could get out of something, if we thought not about what we needed and what our schedules are like and what our preferences were, but if we thought considering here, as he says, to stir one another up to love and good works, how powerful. The Church of Christ would be. Having come together to receive the gospel, to receive the forgiveness of sins, to then go forth in love and in good deed. And he says in verse twenty five, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Drawing near to God in his presence brings us the work of the spirit and sanctification, and it then draws us to desire and to seek and to be more passionate and to prepare ourselves for the next time that we go. Coming here prepares us for the world and then that again and prepares us for meeting with God once again, it brings us full circle. And so there in that place, God was sanctified and he actually did a work of sanctification, but only for a select few people and only for a select few things, the tabernacle, the altar. The priest. But now in Jesus Christ, God Himself by His Spirit works in our hearts, the hearts of all of His people, the hearts of all people who are described as priests in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God acceptable. God blesses us at the meeting. God blesses us with sanctification. God blesses us with a dwelling by God, that God Himself, verse 45, I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. They shall know that I am the Lord, their God, that I might dwell among them. The meeting with God that was described there in verse 43. Lest we think that it was merely a transitory, temporal idea that it just happened every once in a while that they would meet with God. The Lord reiterates and reassures with the promise, no, I will dwell amongst my people constantly. A perpetual dwelling that the Lord himself assures his church. When the people of God worship him as he commands and as he desires, God dwells in the midst. We read this in the book of Revelation chapters 2 and 1, 2 and 3. The churches that are faithful, Christ dwells in the midst like a lampstand. The churches that are unfaithful, Christ at any time could snatch our lampstand away. He has lampstands elsewhere, after all. He needs not our laziness, he needs not our half-hearted worship. He dwells in the midst of his people. I will dwell among them. And in a wonderful thing for us to think about loved ones. That there is God was being worshipped as he commanded he was in their midst, and we know that this comes so true in the work of Jesus Christ. Again, that he comes, he is the glory of God in human flesh. He is God walking amongst a sinful fallen world. All the fullness of the deity dwells in him. Bodily Colossians 2 verse 9 says the word became flesh and dwelt among us. John 1 14. God himself, Emmanuel, was with his people and he promises to continue to dwell in the midst of his people. How? Jesus has been taken away from us. Children, those of you in my catechism class remember last week the ascension of Jesus. He's ascended, he's not here anymore. He went up to the right hand of God and he's going to come again, but what about now? Is he still in our midst? Now, you remember from catechism, we learned. He's not with us according to his human nature, but he's with us according to his glory, majesty, grace, and spirit. I will not leave you as orphans, Jesus said in the Gospel of John. But I will send you another comforter, the Holy Spirit, and he will lead you and guide you into all truth. It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that God dwells in the midst of this church, even after Jesus completed his work. Have you thought about the church being a dwelling of God? We think so individually, oftentimes, as the Holy Spirit residing within us, which is true. The Holy Spirit was there in the tabernacle in the form of a glory, in a cloud, in a fire. But what about the church of Christ collectively? Ephesians 2, verse 22 says to us this. In Christ, in Him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place. You are being built together As Peter 1 Peter 2 says, you are like living stones and he's making you here. He's describing the fact that we are being erected up like the tabernacle into a dwelling place for God by the spirits. And so when we assemble together, we partake in that in a particular, peculiar, special, wonderful way. that God comes and He meets with His people in the midst of their sins, but yet there He is in His Holy Spirit, face to face, sanctifying, dwelling with us forever, assuring us of His powerful grace and His powerful work and His preserving work. There I will dwell with Him. There He will make us to be a dwelling place for God by the spirit and we stumble together. We come out of the world, living stones gathering together. And then the spirit of God comes and he meets and the spirit of God works and he powerfully exerts his influence. Well, how does he do that? We know that he meets with us, we are told. Face to face as Moses met with God upon the mountain. God meets with us now face to face. He sanctifies us. He dwells with us in our midst. But notice also. Notice the connection in our passage between verse. Forty two and forty six and verse forty six, we read this and they shall know that I am the Lord, their God. And he concludes, I am the Lord, their God. They shall know the Lord, the Lord, who saved them from their sins, who redeemed them out of Egypt. They shall know that I am the Lord. But notice verse 42. They're in the place of regular burnt offerings throughout your generations of the the entrance, the tent of meeting before the Lord. Notice the Lord says where I will meet with you to speak to you there? What is the means by which God dwells, meets, sanctifies, and brings us to know the Lord? Even here in the book of Exodus, so far back in the history of redemption, God connects so closely, notice that God dwells and meets and sanctifies and causes us to know him with the preaching of the gospel. It was there in the tent of meeting that God spoke to the priests. And the priests would later on in the in the law of God and Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The priests would do more than just sacrifice sins for sins and pray and even care for the sick. But the priests were teachers. This is why God laments and God condemns the priest in the book of Malachi, for example, for not teaching the people as he commanded. God would speak to the priests, his word, his law, and they would go forth and teach that to the people there in the tabernacle. Later on, as they entered the land, every tribe would have a place in which priests dwelt. Little teaching stations, as it were. But we learn here that the connection between the presence and the work of God, the sanctification and the power of God dwelling in our midst and causing us to know him is found in his speaking to us. Through his word. They, of course, would hear it and speak it. Eventually, it was written down, we have the word of God and it's full in its fullness and its totality. And God is, of course, set aside for the service of the church, certain people to serve that word and to serve the people. So that we might meet with God. When we come here, then we are not coming to hear the pontifications of a pastor, the platitudes of the pastor. You're not coming to be entertained, I hope. I know you're not being entertained. Trust me. You're coming to hear God. We come here and I pray that we come to expect to hear the voice of the Lord. To hear the shepherd whispering to the ear of his sheep. I pray you come to hear God like a father speaking to you like his child. To hear God who is the great Lord to you as his servant. that you might know Him. That you might know Him, not merely in facts. We could rattle off easily and have a fun time doing it. Hebrew and Greek, parsing verbs, throwing out an occasional Latin phrase here and there. We could do that. But to know the Lord is not merely to know facts. It's not cognitive knowledge as we would think of it. It is that, but it's more than that. God wants us to be instructed by the lively preaching of His Word, our catechism says. Not to be taught by dumb idols, so that we might know Him in the fullest of senses. The God who now comes to you and meets with you today, face to face, and God who now speaks in your very ears, would instruct you, but also relate with you. and that you, with all of your burdens, sins, and woes, come to Him, and to sit before Him at His feet, and give Him all your concerns, knowing that He is a God who speaks, and a God who's living, and a God who's real, and a God who hears. And so God met with His people there in the place of worship, that He might sanctify them. He sanctified them that he might dwell in their midst. He dwells and he dwells in their midst that they would know him. All of these blessings come, oh, loved ones. In the place. Of Jesus Christ. The place where he sacrificed himself. The place where sacrifices were offered then. There it is. And here it is. where Christ meets with us in the Word and in the sacraments, offering us the benefits that He's once and for all offered on the cross, that we might meet with Him, not be alienated, that we might be sanctified and holy and desirous of that holiness, that He might dwell with us and that we might know the assurance of that dwelling, and that we might know Him and love Him and relate with Him. May God, by His Spirit, cause those to be true of us today and all the days in which our congregation gathers to meet, to be sanctified, to dwell, and to know this wonderful Lord. Amen.