I brought my toaster from home. It's gonna be a really long sermon. So I brought my toaster, I'm prepared, make some snacks, get me through it. So we'll plug this thing in. There we go, but actually I think there's something stuck in here. So I'm thinking what I'll do is I'll take this knife and I'll fish it out. What do you reckon? Is that a good idea? No, I'm hearing a lot of no's. Why is that not a good idea? Any ideas? Might have to get some crowd input. Why do you think, no? Yeah, that is true. Why is that? What would happen? Oh yeah, that's right. It would be dangerous for me to do this, wouldn't it? Is it because toasters are dangerous? Or knives are dangerous? I mean, they can be sometimes, but this one's pretty blunt. What is it that's dangerous in this situation? It's the electricity, isn't it? Because it's plugged in. Ooh, I could get a shock. I could get electrocuted. And that would be bad. I could even die. It would be a short service. Well, the story that we're looking at tonight is of a man who touches something and dies. It's not a toaster, it's the Ark of God, which represents God's holy presence. This man called Uzzah, he touches it and he gets a big shock, basically. God strikes him down and he dies. He didn't, I guess, respect how dangerous something like this can be. And, I guess it raises a big question for us, because this is God's holy presence that we want to be in. The fact that I could stick my knife in here and get really hurt doesn't mean that toasters are bad or that knives are bad or that electricity is bad. These are really good things, but we have to be careful about how we approach them, don't we? And it's the same with God. But the really cool thing, the really cool thing is that God has made a way for us to be in his holy presence. And it's not actually the way they do it with a toaster where they like cover it in plastic so that you can't get hurt. Actually instead, God through Jesus Christ and through pouring his Holy Spirit into us, he pours his power, his Holy presence into us. I wonder if that's why maybe when you touch someone you get a shock. No, that is actually electricity. But yeah, God's presence lives in us through Christ and through the Holy Spirit. so that tonight we can come into the holy presence of God and worship him with respect and fear because God is dangerous. He's not safe, but he is so, so good. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for the fact that even though there's a huge problem between us and you because of our sin, where your holiness is actually dangerous to us, God, you've overcome that problem. In your grace, you have made a way for us to know you and to come into your presence, even this evening, and to even pray to you. Lord, we thank you that you have poured out your power into us, that your holy presence is in us even tonight when we trust in Jesus. God, this is amazing grace, and we pray that you would help us to know this truth and to grapple with it, that we would come to you rightly. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. So 2 Samuel chapter six. And we're gonna read the first 15 verses. So let me read those for us. 2 Samuel 6, verses one to 15. This is God's word for us this evening. David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, 30,000. And David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Baalei Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts, who sits enthroned on the cherubim. And they carried the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart with the ark of God, and Ahio went before the ark. And David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. And when they came to the threshing floor of Nakhon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah. And God struck him down there because of his error. And he died there beside the ark of God. And David was angry because the Lord had broken out against Uzzah. And that place is called Perez Uzzah to this day. And David was afraid of the Lord that day. And he said, how can the ark of the Lord come to me? So David was not willing to take the Ark of the Lord into the city of David. But David took it aside to the house of Obed-Edom, the Gittite. And the Ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-Edom, the Gittite, three months. And the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his household. And it was told King David, the Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and all that belongs to him because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David with rejoicing. And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal. And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn. Amen. This is God's word. Let's come to him in prayer. Lord elsewhere in your word you tell us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And elsewhere again that the fear of the Lord leads to life. God, if this is true, and we believe it is, then we long to grow in this fear. Would you increase our fear of the Lord? Would you increase our wisdom? Would you lead us deeper into life? God, we pray that as we come to your word now, that we would hear you speak, that we would know something of your holy presence among us this evening. Lord, would you please give us ears to hear? Would you soften our hearts that we would be quick to believe? And would you do all of this for the glory of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen. Well, what do we do with a passage like this? What do Christians do when the Bible seems to make God out to be angry and vindictive and unfair? Three options that people have tried that will get out of the way of trying to get around this is to simply skip it or ignore it. But we don't really have that option because we've just read it. We've got to deal with this. It's one of the good things of working our way through a book like we've been doing with 1 and 2 Samuel is that you can't avoid stuff like this. God did this, and we have to acknowledge that. The other thing that people might say is, well, that God has changed, right? That was the Old Testament, now we're in New Testament times. I was online in this Bible forum and somebody was asking for recommendations. He wanted to read the Bible with a non-Christian friend and was saying, where should I begin? And someone in the comments said, well, make sure it's the New Testament because the God of the Old Testament is angry and violent, but the God of the New Testament is kind and loving. And I'm reading this thinking, sorry, how many gods do we believe in? One, we believe in one God. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He never changes. Or we might say, well, yeah, but now we have Jesus and everything is different. I wonder though, if you've ever read Acts chapter five. after Jesus has come and the Holy Spirit has been poured out and the church is established, a very similar thing happens to Ananias and Sapphira. They lie against the Holy Spirit, God strikes them down in a very similar way. That's New Testament, that's New Covenant. And of course, Jesus is God, right? And we believe in one God and God is never divided in the things that he does. Let me put this in the most shocking terms possible. Jesus killed Uzzah. This is our God. So the question is not simply this kind of intellectual thing of, oh, what do we do with a passage like this? What do we do with God? This is our God. It's the question of verse nine. How can the ark of the Lord come to me? I can't live with this. We can't avoid it. We've got no choice but to lean in. This is our God, whom we long to know better, who we exist to know more, more deeply. And so tonight, as uncomfortable as we may feel, we're going to lean in and ask this question, what do we do with God? And learn that God's presence, even here tonight, means that we must worship his holiness and blessing through sacrifice. I apologize that that's quite convoluted and confusing, but it's a complex passage and it requires a complex answer. God's presence means that we must worship his holiness and his blessing through sacrifice. Well, let's lean in. Let's have a look at this passage. Look with me at verse two. And David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Baal-e-Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts, who sits enthroned on the cherubim. So what's happening here? Well, David, in the last chapter, he's just been anointed the king of Israel, and he's had this decisive victory that he's won against the enemies, the Philistines, that we heard about this morning. If David thought that he had arrived and found out that he hadn't, well, now surely he has, right? He's anointed, he's had this victory. Everything is awesome now. Everything's coming up, David. It's good vibes only. He is the king, basically. I mean, he wields the power of God, doesn't he? Nothing could possibly go wrong. And it's time for this king to establish his kingdom by bringing the ark of God to Jerusalem, the new capital, the city of David. So we're gonna be talking a lot about the Ark of God. It would help for us to know what that is. The Ark of God is a box. It's a box made of wood and coated with gold. It is 110 centimeters long, 70 centimeters sort of wide and deep. Inside this box are the tablets that Moses wrote the 10 commandments on, some of the manna, the bread that God fed the Israelites in the wilderness with. the staff of Aaron that budded miraculously. So these symbols of God's authority of his provision and his power. And so with all that stuff inside and with all the gold, this box, it potentially weighed as much as 130 kilos, almost as much as that piano or like a fridge or something. And so to carry this heavy thing, It had rings on each length, and through those rings went poles, also made of wood, also covered in gold, with which the priests would carry the ark, this box. But the most significant thing about this box, there's not any of this so far, but it's lid. On the lid of this Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of God, well, on either side, there are these golden statues of heavenly creatures called cherubs or cherubim. And their wings, they have wings and they're stretched out over the middle of this box. And in the middle was this gold section called the mercy seat. So on the day of atonement, God in his glory would come and sit on the mercy seat and meet with his people. So the mercy seat is the throne of God. The throne of God himself. Look again at the end of verse two there. The ark of God which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who sits enthroned on the cherubim. The Lord of hosts, the God of angel armies, as the song goes. The ark of God is a symbol of God's holy presence. Someone once facetiously said that when Moses came down that mountain with those 10 commandments, that he was carrying the instruction manual for a nuclear warhead. It's not a great analogy, so don't think about it too much, but it is a striking picture, isn't it? The instruction manual for a nuclear warhead. Boy, would you make sure you followed that thing to the letter. So the plan is to get this ark to Jerusalem. That's what they're up to, from Abinadab's house, where it has been since the fiasco of 1 Samuel 5 and 6. I don't know if you remember this, it was a while back now, but the ark did that kind of tour of Philistia almost by itself, just causing absolute havoc wherever it went. The statue of Dagon fell and lost its head and people got tumors and whole cities were panicking as they passed this ark between them like a hot potato. until eventually they said, no, send it back. We can't live with this, right? We can't live with the holy presence of God. And so they stick it on a cart and they strap it to some cows and send it back to Israel. And then when it gets to Israel, some guys who clearly hadn't watched Indiana Jones open the thing and a bunch of them die. They don't respect the holy presence of God. And so those guys, they also say, we can't live with this. And so they leave the ark with Abinadab, and it's been there ever since. 20 years, it's just been sitting in this house. Abinadab has presumably died since then. 20 years. But now it's time. Now it's time to bring it home. It's the right thing to do. So how do they go about it? Verse three. And they carried the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart. It's interesting that that verse contains the word new cart twice. Why might they really want us to know that this is a new cart? I wonder if perhaps it's stressing that this is different, this is foreign, this is strange, this is new. Back in Numbers 7, there's the scene where God, through Moses, is giving wagons and oxen to different family groups. You get a wagon, you get an oxen, so that they can carry the things that he wants them to carry through the wilderness. It's like the Oprah Winfrey show. You get a wagon, you get a wagon, everyone gets a wagon, but one group doesn't. In verse 9 of Numbers 7, it says, but to the sons of Kohath, he gave none. because they were charged with the service of the holy things that had to be carried on the shoulder. This is talking about the ark of the Lord. No cart for you because you have to carry this. And only by the poles, the poles are never to be removed. You are not to touch the ark itself. It says in Numbers 4.15, they must not touch the holy things lest they die. God had told them not only what to do, but exactly how to do it. instruction manual to a nuclear warhead. These guys, I mean, they don't really have time for all that, do they? You know, like it's a long way to Jerusalem, we've got a better idea. We can, we've got to chuck it on a cart, should we, right? It's interesting that the last time that it was on a cart was when the Philistines sent it back, right? So rather than doing things God's way, the people of God choose to go with the wisdom of the world. the wisdom of the little enemies of God. They think that's a better idea. The Israelites here are acting like Philistines toward God, people who don't know any better. I mean, you'd think someone, someone in this crowd of 30,000 people would be like, is this a good idea? You know, should we? Maybe think about what we're doing here, but no, no, they're having a good time. Verse five, and David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. This is David's party and David insists good vibes only. The right thing done the wrong way. And so they get about halfway. halfway before the inevitable happens. In verse six it says, and when they came to the threshing floor of Nakhon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. Surely that was inevitable, that the oxen would stumble and that ark would tip. I mean, it's a heavy box sitting on a cart being towed by animals across rough terrain, up and down hills. Of course it would happen, it was bound to, right? And yet, I also don't think this is just chance. Notice they came to the threshing floor of Nakhon. What's a threshing floor? It's where they separate wheat from chaff. What's interesting about that is that Jesus uses that as an illustration for God's judgment. I think God patiently waits until they get to the threshing floor. Because remember, he's watching all of this. The ark is the holy presence of God. In verse five, it said that they were doing all of this before the Lord. He's there, he's watching. He's waiting to see whether any of them think, hmm, maybe we should not do it this way. He waits till they get halfway to the threshing floor of Nakhon. And now he's gonna stop this party right there. He trips the oxen, they stumble. The cart tips as it reaches for the ark. He grabs it to stop it from falling and the nuclear warhead goes off. Verse seven, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah and God struck him down there because of his error and he died there beside the ark of God. This is a dramatic reminder of God's holiness. I mean, there is no ambiguity in that verse about why this happened. Everyone knows what this is about. These men became too complacent, overly familiar around God. They forgot that he is holy. And boy, can we do the same thing. Doing the right things the wrong way. Well, how does David respond? Verse eight, and David was angry because the Lord had broken out against Uzzah and that place is called Perez Uzzah to that day. David is angry. This was his party. This was his gift to God. They were celebrating and worshiping God. Uzzah only put out his hand to protect the ark of God. God should be grateful that he has a king like me. How dare he ruin my party and kill my priest? Who does God think he is? David is angry. One thing I really love about this passage is the way that it anticipates our own feelings. We're indignant as we read this, aren't we? What did other ever do that was so bad to deserve this? How is this fair? We feel angry and then we see that God, I mean, sorry, David is right there with us. The Bible anticipates our feelings. God knows what we're thinking. He is present. We can respond with anger when we learn something about God that doesn't fit with our current conception. We feel angry sometimes. I wonder if you've had that experience where you learn something new about God that you don't like. Maybe it's his hatred of your sin that you thought was okay, or his sovereignty over salvation, or maybe something that's about eschatology or baptism or spiritual gifts, whatever it is, you don't like it. You feel angry about that. I mean, I know I've had that experience quite a lot. God's holiness is an unwelcome intrusion into David's theology. And he responds with anger. He calls the place Perez Uzzah, which means the breaking out against Uzzah. Notice, and you might remember from this morning, he did the same thing in chapter five, verse 20. It says there, and David came to Baal-Perezim, and David defeated them there. And he said, the Lord has broken through my enemies before me like a breaking flood. Therefore, the name of that place is called Baal-Perezim. Baal-Perezim, Perezuzah. One is good, one is bad, according to David, right? David's quite happy with God's holy righteous judgment in some cases, but not in others. David doesn't want God to be God. He's not willing to admit that he was wrong. He wants to define who God is to him. David's anger here reflects an arrogant attitude where he essentially is the center of the universe. And I'm not trying to make David out to be worse than he is, but I want to highlight that our own anger really is that kind of thinking. It reflects that kind of thinking where we want to be the center of the universe. We want to define who God is. We're not willing to let him tell us But David's anger, it doesn't change the situation. It doesn't change who God is. And so in verse nine, we read, and David was afraid of the Lord that day. And he said, how can the ark of the Lord come to me? As I prayed at the beginning, the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the fear of the Lord leads to life. The fear of the Lord, according to the Bible, is a good thing. I think, in a way, David actually has an encounter here that we would all benefit from. I mean, how much easier would it be to take following Jesus seriously if we saw even a glimpse of the fearsome holiness of God? The Bible tells us that the fear of the Lord is a good thing, but David's fear here, it's tainted with this arrogant anger. that says, no, I'm the center of the universe and I'm feeling threatened. And if God's like this, well, he can just stay here. I can't live with him. I really think that verse nine there is the question, is the key question of the story. How can the ark of the Lord come to me? Because really it's the key question of the whole Bible. How can a sinful humanity live in the presence of a holy God? See, Uzzah, he wasn't a particularly bad guy. He was just an average Joe. He just did what any of us would have done in that situation. That could have been any of us. None of us can possibly survive the holy presence of God. So how can the ark of the Lord come to me? What do we do with God? See what David does, verse 10. So David was not willing to take the Ark of the Lord into the city of David, but David took it aside to the house of Obed-i-Dom, the Gittite. So he's not willing to take it with him. Interestingly, he is willing to leave it with someone else. It's interesting that as arrogant and as angry as he's feeling, he doesn't just abandon the Ark, he doesn't just leave it in a ditch or ship it off to Philistia again, or he doesn't run away himself to Philistia. No, he just leaves it with someone and goes home. Maybe to just think all of this through or something. It's almost like he's holding God at arm's length. Not like a complete rejection, but also not willing to embrace him. Just arm's length. But look at what happens in verse 11. And the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom, the Gittite, three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household. That holy presence, that struck down Uzzah is now raining blessings on Obed-E-Dom and his whole family. Obed-E-Dom and his whole family are having literally the best three months of their entire lives. You just imagine like his mates at the supermarket, you see all of this fruit, this whole fruit section came from Obed-E-Dom's garden. It's not even that big. And every week for the last three months, he's bought a lotto ticket and won. And you know how his wife had that sickness? Well, she's perfectly healed now, and she looks 10 years younger. These rumors are just flying about how God is pouring out blessings on Obed-i-Dom and his family. The best three months of their whole lives, and everyone knows about it. It's the talk of the town. I wonder what David was doing for those three months. Maybe he was brooding or processing or studying the Bible. Maybe it was all three. Maybe he spent the first month brooding, pacing around his castle or house or whatever saying, that God, who does he think he is? And then maybe he spent the second month processing like, okay, I guess Uzzah isn't coming back just because I'm angry and maybe we did actually do the wrong thing. Maybe God isn't just who I want him to be. And then maybe the third month, he studies the Bible. He goes to home group, he calls the elders around. He says, okay, guys, help me here. Help me to understand this. How am I meant to think about God's holiness? Maybe that's what he did, I don't know. But I do know that sometimes that's what we have to do. We, like David, have to grapple with the holiness of God, wrestle with passages and doctrines that we don't like. that we're tempted to get angry about and avoid. I mean, the question is for David and for us, do you want a God in your image? Or do you want to be transformed into the image of God? Do you want a God that you've just invented? Or do you want a real dynamic relationship with the true and living God who can and will offend you? These are the questions that David wrestles with, and whatever he did for those three months, he definitely learns something. Verse 12, it was told to King David, the Lord has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him because of the ark of the Lord. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing. So those rumors of how God is blessing Obed-Edom, they reach David, and by now he's ready. These rumors or understanding God's blessing has caused him to realize that he can't live without God. He can't hold him at arm's length forever. God's presence is scary, yes, but it's also the best thing ever. It's where blessings are found. In John 6, Jesus says that some, Sorry, he says some things that people get really offended by. In fact, they're so offended, they're so angry that it says in John 6, verses 66 through 68. After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the 12, do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Peter knew that even though Jesus said and did things that made him feel angry and afraid, what he needed more than anything else was to be in Jesus' presence. Where else can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We can't live without him. The blessing is only found in his holy presence. So I wonder about you, whether you are tonight holding God at arm's length. I wonder whether there are things about God that make you feel angry and afraid, and I wonder what are you gonna do about that? Jesus has the words of eternal life. To whom shall you go? Well, let's look at this last part. So David repents. and he does the right thing. He recognizes his need for the blessing of God's presence. He can no longer live without God. So we're gonna do this again, but this time we're gonna do it right. The right thing, the right way, God's way. And there's a parallel account of this in 1 Chronicles 15. And there's evidence there that David really has been studying his Bible. He really has learned a lot over these past three months. So 1 Chronicles 15, Verse two, it says, then David said that no one but the Levites may carry the ark of God, for the Lord had chosen them to carry the ark of the Lord and to minister to him forever. And then in 1 Chronicles 15, verse four, and David gathered together the sons of Aaron and the Levites, and then down in verse 12, and he said to them, you are the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites. Consecrate yourselves and your brothers so that you may bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, to the place that I have prepared for it. Because you did not carry it the first time, the Lord our God broke out against us, because we did not seek Him according to the rule." So the priests and the Levites consecrated themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel. And the Levites carried the ark of God on their shoulders with the poles as Moses had commanded according to the word of the Lord. The right people, the right family, the right method, even down to the right body part, according to the word of the Lord, the right thing done the right way. And he does it with rejoice. This isn't just kind of begrudging compliance on David's part. The party is back on. It's just that this time God gets the place of honor. See, David, he is not the king that wields the power of God. No, he's just a servant of the true king of kings. He's found his place, worshiping God according to his word. Interestingly, verse 12 is actually the first part in this chapter where he's called King David. He's only king when he knows his place before God. But we still have a problem. What about the question of verse nine? How can the ark of the Lord come to me? What about that question of the whole Bible? How can sinful people live in the holy presence of God? Is the moral of the story really just make up for your mistakes by doing better next time? How does that make up for Uzzah's death? Is the message of the whole Bible really just, don't mess this up now? It can't be. It can't be because Uzzah wasn't that special. He was just like one of us. We're all Uzzahs. We'll all die in the presence of the Holy God. The question remains, how can the ark of the Lord come to me? We can't live with him and we can't live without him. We're stuck. Well, if verse nine is the key question in this passage, I think verse 13 points to the ultimate answer. And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal. The first party was interrupted by God's holy judgment. The second party is interrupted by David's sacrifice. They walk six steps and God yells, sorry, David yells, stop. Can you imagine the music stops and everyone turns and looks, what are we doing? We need to make a sacrifice. David recognizes the need for atonement for sin, for sin to be covered. David knows that he and everyone with him and everyone else and everyone ever and even us tonight still bear the guilt of our sin and deserve to die like Uzzah died in the holy presence of God. He recognizes the need for a sacrifice. If we are to embrace the blessing of the presence of God, then we need a sacrifice. And the gospel, the good news of the whole Bible is that God has provided that atonement. That Jesus sacrificed himself so that we could enjoy the blessing and the presence of God. Jesus' resurrection and ascension means that he has even poured out his spirit to live in you. Can you imagine that? Even closer than Uzzah ever got by touching the ark. You as a Christian can experience the holy presence of God every day and not die because Christ died for you. The navigators have this gospel tract called the Bridge Diagram, where they draw humanity on one side and God on the other, and in between there's this chasm of sin. where in the middle, God, well, you put the cross, right? The cross of Christ comes in the middle of this chasm as a bridge between us and God. So God makes a way for us to come into his holy presence and not die. The thing about that, I think, is that you can sometimes get the impression that, well, okay, we've got this gap here and the cross is there, so I just sort of take hold of the cross and step aside and we're good, right? Like I probably could have jumped that, but it's nice to have a little bit of help from Jesus. But David's experience here with Uzzah, His experience of God's holiness has helped him to see, it's allowed him to see that the gulf is really a grand canyon that he can never possibly jump. He has no hope of ever crossing unless God graciously makes a way and he has through the sacrifice of Christ. the more we understand the holiness of God and how far short of that we fall and the danger that that poses for us, the more we will rejoice in the cross of Christ. I mean, look at David, verse 14, and David danced before the Lord with all his might and David was wearing a linen ephod. So God's acceptance of the sacrifice means that David can be joyful in God's presence. The fear is not gone. The fear is still there, but it's met with joy. It's no longer flippant or self-centered, but directed toward God. And we're told that David is wearing a linen ephod. A linen ephod was a simple garment that the priests wore. The priests worked in the presence of God. So maybe it's communicating to us that David wearing this garment highlights his embrace of God's presence. or whatever it means, notice that it's not his kingly robes. He wants all the glory to go to God. It's not my party this time, it's God's. Notice too that David dances with all his might, whirling and leaping. His worship is more joyful, more passionate than it was before. He's seen the holiness of God. He's felt the fear of being in his presence. And now he's seen the grace and the blessing of God as well. And he feels the joy of being in God's presence. So then what about us? What about our worship? What is our worship? Well, it too is acknowledging the presence the holiness and the blessing of God through the sacrifice of Christ. We worship in the truth that we can live with him and we never have to live without him. God has made a way. There are some things that are radically different for us worshiping today than back then. For instance, we don't have an ark. When Jesus died, the curtain separating the ark from us was torn. we could have walked right in and touched the ark into the most holy place. In fact, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19 and 22 to 22, it actually tells us to do just that. Hebrews chapter 10. 19 through 22 says, Friends, this is exactly what we've done tonight. By the Spirit, we enter into the holy presence of God and we lay hold of Christ. And in a sense, we do die, don't we? We die to ourselves, we die to our sin, and we are raised again with him. So things are radically different. But some things stay the same. Hebrews, this book that talks about this confidence and assurance that we can have coming into the presence of God, also contains the strongest warnings of the entire New Testament about taking that for granted or being flippant about the holiness of God. God is still fearsome and we must take him seriously. As with David, so with us. Fear and rejoicing come together in a huge party. So maybe your relationship with God needs more fear and reverence and solemnity. Maybe the application tonight for you is that you need to search out any new cuts that have been imposed or imported into your worship of God. What right things might we be doing the wrong way? Or on the other hand, maybe it needs more rejoicing. Maybe it needs more joy and celebration and dancing as you look at this huge gulf overcome by the cross of Christ. These two things, fear and joy, come together in Christian worship as we experience the presence of God, the holy presence of God through the sacrifice of Christ. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much that here tonight we are in your presence. We thank you that through Christ and trusting in him, we can know your presence in an even more intimate way than what we've read tonight. Lord, we thank you that though there was this huge gulf created by our sin, and this huge danger of your holiness to us, your sheer goodness. We thank you that you have made a way through Christ, that you have opened up this new and living way and called us with confidence and full assurance of faith. You have cleansed us. from our guilt, that we can enjoy your presence. So Lord, we pray that as we worship you in your presence, even now, God, you would help us grow in us fear and joy as we worship through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In whose name we pray, amen.