find Exodus 25. So my plan is, Lord willing, is to cover 25 through 27 today as God shares with his people about a place that he's going to be and they're going to serve. And then 28 through 31 is gonna focus on some people God's gonna call to serve. And so I hope to go through two sermons in the next two weeks to cover that. This is one of those sermons that as I studied it, and I knew it was coming, but as I studied it, it's hard not to turn it into a flat out Bible study more than a sermon if that makes sense. There's some interior design going on here in this and some of y'all are good at that. Like, you know, y'all good at decorating the church or decorating your house. I know some of y'all really good at that. I left my house today and looked on my front porch and there's some old busted up pumpkins laying there. I need to do better. Everybody else has Christmas decorations up. We're not real big, we're not real good at decorating, we just put stuff out there. But some of y'all are good at that. This text talks about some interior design if you will. But I thought about how to try to apply this before I get into it. Anybody ever been to Washington D.C.? Anybody ever been to the White House? I've never been, I'd like to go at some point. Anybody ever been in the Oval Office? You'd like that'd be neat though, right? You'd like to go to the Oval Office. I was thinking, if you were to go in the Oval Office, do you think you'd walk in there and just hop up on the president's desk and be like, this is nice? Would you do that? We wouldn't do that, would we? Or sit down and just prop your feet up on something? We wouldn't do that. Why? Because we would respect that place. We would think, man, this is, not only am I in Washington, DC, the Capitol, not only am I in the White House, I'm in the Oval Office where things happen, right? And so we would treat it, I think, I hope, with a little respect, a little bit of separation, like this is a different place, I'm not going to touch anything in here. Well, we're going to see today that God, and even much more so with God, of course, He's going to form and tell His people to form this dwelling place where He will dwell with His people. And if you think we would take the oval office seriously, you gotta look and see how these people had to take the tabernacle seriously. And in particular, the holy place and the most holy place in there. A very, very serious place. As God says, I just called you up into a mountain with thunder and fire and gave the law to Moses. Now I'm gonna tell you this, Moses, I'm going to come and dwell in the midst of the people. I imagine Moses is going, what? How are you gonna come and be with us even more? And then God's gonna lay it out for him here in this text. But the big picture I want you to see before we dive into our points is, and this is what we've said the last couple of weeks, God did not redeem his people to leave them alone. He redeemed them for a relationship. That's a good line to remember. God redeems us for a relationship. God does not want Christians to just meet with him once a week, does he? We are his people and the sheep of his pasture and he wants to be with us every day and to us to worship him and notice that every day. So notice that God desires and designs for us to fellowship with him. We fellowship with him, that's what he desires, all right? So four points I found in this and the first one comes from the first nine verses. We're not gonna read all the verses today, it's three chapters, but I do wanna focus on chapter 25, verse one through nine. Y'all found it? All right, if you dare say a word, The Lord spake unto Moses saying speak unto the children of Israel That they bring me an offering of every man that giveth willingly with this heart. You shall take my offering and This is the offering which you shall take of them gold and silver and brass and blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen and goats hair and ram skins dyed red, and badger skins and chitin wood, oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense, onyx stones and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate. Let me stop here and say God's specific. God's specific in everything, right? He's not like real general about things. He's very specific. Verse eight, key verse. And let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it. This is a great text to kind of have because he says, tell everybody to gather all these offerings up of all these different things. Here's the list, we're gonna get the stuff. You're gonna make me a tabernacle, you're gonna make me a tent, you're gonna make me a dwelling place, and you're gonna do it, verse nine, according to everything I'm about to tell you. And he goes on to tell them that. That's kind of what we're going to cover here today. The first point of the sermon is God does desire to dwell with his people. He says that, you know, verse eight, Moses, make a sanctuary, make a tabernacle. Why? Because I'm going to dwell among the people. You know, we know God's been with them, hasn't he? He's been with them. Remember when they left Egypt, he led them by the cloud, the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire. It's like everything is intensifying more and more. I'm going to be with you more, I'm going to be with you more. Make this special place and now I'm going to reside there. This reminds us, and I wrote this, you know, God could have said things like this to Moses as he starts this thing. He could have said, here's what y'all need to do when other countries come to attack. Now he's going to say stuff about that later. God doesn't start with strategy about war. God doesn't start with so many other things he could have done. He starts with his presence. God starts with his presence. This reminds us that God is not distant. God is not distant from us. And I was talking to someone this week who was kind of talking about, they've been through some stuff this year. They've had a tough year. And some of us can relate to that at certain years, right? And they said this, he said, he said, it feels like throughout this year going through my struggles, it feels like God hasn't been near, or God hasn't been close. What'd he say? I haven't felt God is what he said, I haven't felt God. Which I said, I understand that. Even though you haven't felt him, do you still believe he's close? I believe I believe it but I don't feel it and I'm like well if you believe it just keep believing it and I just believe you believe it you stay in the word he will bring that feeling when he when he needs to to your life but I want us to know that this morning God desires and we see it in this text he desires to be here so notice that Last chapter, could Israel all go up into the mountain? Remember what we said? No, they could not, right? Only Moses could approach God the closest. And so since they couldn't go up to him, here God's gonna come down to them. I love that. Can we go up to heaven on our own? No, but God sent his son to come down that we might one day be in glory. Notice again that worship here is God's plan. Verse nine, according to all that I show you, Worse, Moses and Israel didn't say, we need to build a building or a tent or a tabernacle. God said, here's exactly what you need and here's how you're going to do it. He doesn't leave their worship to chance. He doesn't leave their worship to their own brainstorming session. Worship as God dwells with his people begins with his initiative We can't worship today just because I play some songs and and stand up here in front of you can we it has to be God? leading this God working in this through his word and the way we worship is the way God has told us to worship And anything else we do is just extra, I guess, or on the side. But God has said, approach me on these terms. Worship as I have commanded. Everything we do in church, or at home, or in worship, must filter through, what did God say about that? Did God say, worship me this way? If God told the pastor to stand up and do a bunch of back flips, then that's what I'll have to try to do this morning. But is that in the Bible? And thank God it's not, right? We'd be in trouble. Although from here, I might be able to pull it off. But, no, what's he say? sing, pray, preach, fellowship, serve, share the gospel. I mean, there's not that many things. He's told us clearly what to do. So as he dwells with his people and desires to dwell, he initiates. And the Christ connection here is so clear. And we're gonna see this throughout the sermon, these connections to Christ. In John chapter one, verse 14, I don't think I put it up there for you, but it says this. The word became flesh, and dwelt among us. Have y'all heard that verse before? John 1.14, the word Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us. The word dwelt in John 1.14 means literally tabernacled. So as God dwells with the people in the Old Testament in this tabernacle, he says Jesus took on flesh and dwelt, tabernacled among his people. So God desires to dwell with us. Number two, God defines the way he must be approached. So we're going to talk here about this tabernacle. Kendall show everybody a picture of this. I think it's the last picture I gave you. This is again, just some pictures people have made. I'll do the other one. I'm sorry. An example of what it could have looked like here. Again, you can Google and find different versions of these things. You see the tabernacle there, the tent, that's the big thing in the back, you see this courtyard here. And What's interesting in chapter 25, when you get to verse 10, God does not start with the outer stuff, the outer courtyard or what's outside, or even the altar there that you see on fire. God starts with his description of this worship at the very center. So he starts it, in verse 10, with the ark. They shall make an ark of shiddom wood, two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. Show them the ark, Kendall. The Ark of the Covenant, we've heard of this, you know about this, you've talked about it, you've seen it. This box, probably four foot by two by two, something like that, not very large, but very important. Very important, and this is where God starts in this, and it has these poles, and you remember famously, don't you, later on a man named Uzzah's gonna touch it, and what happens to him? He's dead. I mean, he was trying to do a good thing in a sense, right? I don't want it to fall, but what did God say? Don't touch it. This is the presence of God in this tent, in this tabernacle. It has the Such a meaning and inside that tabernacle or inside that ark of course would be the tablets, the Ten Commandments. Hebrews 9 actually tells us too that Aaron's rod is in there and a jar of manna was in there. And this was a very important thing. Later on we're going to see that that ark would lead them into battle. and be used in various ways. Very, very important. It is the centerpiece of this. It is the picture of God's glory, the picture of God's presence is that Ark of the Covenant. Think about that picture, Kendall. On the top of that you also notice what's called the mercy seat. On the top of this has the cherubim, angel-looking beings on the top, which of course they would go in and sprinkle blood once a year. on the Day of Atonement. So this was a very important piece of furniture in the holy place. It was the most holy. Go to that white background picture of the whole tabernacle, the other one. If you see this picture here, the Ark of the Covenant is in the very back, so the very back left side there, the entrance will be over here, and it's in the very back, the most holy place. Again, no regular person would ever go back there, only the high priest, and only once a year. Very sacred place where God's, someone said it's the footstool of his invisible throne. It is a picture of God's presence with them. Very important, and of course, the mercy seat I told you on top, Romans 3.25 says Christ is the propitiation of our sins. That word propitiation means the same as mercy seat in the Old Testament. The sprinkled blood on that mercy seat, Christ sprinkled his blood, poured out his blood for us. I love all the pictures of this. Go to the bread table, Kendall. This is in verses 23 through 30. And again, I'm not gonna read all the verses, because basically it's just him describing how to make them or what they're supposed to look like. You can look at that. This is maybe what the bread table would look like. Why is there bread in there? Maybe simply to put, the priests are the only ones who went in there, in the tabernacle, and they would eat the bread. So God was providing for those people to go in and eat. I think it also just shows, and I think I said this last week as well, God's desire for fellowship. And is there a better way to fellowship than eating with other people? There's no better way to me. The people that you're closest to, you usually spend time eating with family, closest friends and church like today, right? And there's something, there's something more. You can go deeper over a conversation to me over a meal. And so God, I think through these meals, even when we saw one last week on the mountain, he, he is inviting his people to this fellowship. So we have this, table of bread that the priests would eat and they would replace it every Sabbath. And how does that point us to Christ? What did John 6 say? Jesus is the bread of life. All these things point to Christ. The lampstand is next. This is verses 31 through 40. Again, I don't know exactly what it looked like. There's some pictures, differing pictures online. You can look at the verses there starting in verse 31, the golden stick, the golden candlestick. Of course, what's that used for? That's kind of obvious, right? It lights up the place, it lights up the room. And so very simply put, Jesus said, when it comes to light, what did he say? I am the light of the world. I light up a dark place. One writer said, the entire tabernacle is a mirror of heavenly things. As if God specifically put it all there to point to Christ. Which is great, right? Every item in there is a picture of Christ. I'd like to talk more about some of these items. Maybe that'll be a Wednesday night discussion. My third main point. God distinguishes his presence. I was trying to use the word like separates his presence, but then I had to stick with, I had two D's in the first two points. He distinguishes his presence by these boundaries. So in chapter 26, he talks about the curtains. He's given instructions about curtains that he's supposed to put up in this tabernacle and go back to the, one of those pictures of the whole tabernacle, Kendall. Yeah, you can see the blue and red curtains on this side. You can see in the middle there's curtains. And so these are just, of course, right near the entryway. And what's really important about this, the closer you get to God's glory, the closer you get to the holiest place, it's like the layers seem to intensify, or the layers seem to be more great, I guess you could say. And so, as you look at that back curtain, that is the veil. The veil that would separate priests from working in the holy place from the most holy place. And that veil, and I like to think of it this way, when the priest walked in there and saw that veil, they knew what was behind there, right? They knew the Ark of the Covenant was behind there. They knew this was the presence of God behind there. And they also, I like to think of it, every time they saw that, I think that was like a sermon. Every time they saw it, they had to think, God is holy. I can't go back there except once a year, you know, and the high priest can. Maybe one of them, I can never go back there, only the high priest, and it takes blood, you gotta have blood to go back there. And so there's this, these barriers. So let's look at chapter 26, verse 31. 26, 31. And thou shalt make a veil of blue, and purple and scarlet, and fine twine linen of cunning work, with cherubims shall it be made. And thou shalt hang it upon four pillars of shouldum wood, overlaid with gold. Their hook shall be of gold, upon the four sockets of silver. And thou shalt hang up the veil under the patches, that thou mayest bring in thither within the veil the ark of the testimony. And the veil shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy. And thou shalt put the mercy seat upon the ark of the testimony in the most holy place, and thou shalt set the table without the veil and the candlestick over against the table on the side of the tabernacle toward the south, and thou shalt put the table on the north side. Again, notice how specific he is. But he says this veil is going to block people from the most holy place. They cannot come into God's presence except for once a year with a high priest with the blood. The sermon that that veil preaches is this, you can come near, but not all the way near. You can come close, but you can't get too close as far as the normal person, right? Access to the holy place is limited. Why is all this important? Some of you already know in Matthew 27, 51, as Jesus died on the cross, The veil, which at this point is in the temple, a permanent, the tabernacle was this temporary structure, right, they could move around with. Later on, Solomon builds the temple, they have no need for the tabernacle anymore, but the ark is put in the temple, and in that temple, Jesus dies on the cross, and God does what to that veil? Rips it in half. Tears it. It kinda gives you chills if you think about it. Because what is God saying? He is saying the great, the great high priest just made the sacrifice, better than all other sacrifices, and in making this one sacrifice as Christ gave his life, the veil is torn, the barrier between sinful man and holy God is removed through Christ. In Christ, John Owen the Puritan said this, every veil is taken away. We have no reason to say, I'm blocked from God, because Christ has unblocked us. He has made the way. When you see this tabernacle, when you see this veil and the holy place, you have to think forward to Christ. You have to. God distinguishes and separates himself. We will not go to God because we're a good person on earth, will we? In this room, we all want to be good people. I think we all, I'm sure we all are, in a sense. But we also know that we're sinners and deserve hell, right? We don't deserve God. But he has made a way for his people, for us. He's made a way. Number four. I love the bell, by the way. Number four. God provides access through sacrifice. Now, chapter 27. Go back to the picture of the whole courtyard, Kendall. Kendall earned his keep today. Appreciate you, Kendall. All right, here's the whole courtyard. So when you first enter in, you clearly see this altar on fire, right? And this is the bronze altar. I'm not sure if I sent another picture of that or not, but we can just look at this one. You see the bronze altar there on fire. The priest would come in and they would, even before they could even go in, right, there is offerings being burnt on this altar. And here's what they would do. The priest, every morning and every evening, would sacrifice something. So it's like this continual, Sacrifice happening now regular people would not come for sacrifices except for special occasions, but the priests would daily do this And it's or it's this reminds us of a few things You don't just get to rush into God's presence you don't just get to flippantly go into God's presence When you go in there and watch this before you even get there, you're gonna smell the aroma of sacrifices I picture the people that kind of got close to Tyrone Echo and it's in the midst of the people so they're around it. What a sermon or a daily reminder. Wow, that's the most holy place. And you smell those sacrifices and you're reminded of your sinfulness and that you need God. The altar said to come into the fellowship with God, there's going to be a cost to it. The altar says, to come into fellowship with God, it costs. It costs life. Holiness, approaching God, costs something. Something we can't pay, right? Something only Christ can pay. Again, in the center of this courtyard, we're reminded of how God is near and also far. How God, we can approach God, but we can't, on our own, we can't approach him. We can't grasp him, only through Christ. And as I said a moment ago, the altar points to this. As you see that fire there, the altar points to Christ, who was the sacrifice once for all. And Christ makes all this stuff on that screen mute. He fulfilled all that stuff. He makes that not necessary. We don't come in here and light any fires, do we, unless we're burning a candle or something. We don't light fires. We don't have all these specific things we're told to do. We don't have to build a tabernacle. We can build a building. This is nice to have a building and things, but God doesn't tell us you must have 100 chairs in here. He doesn't tell us all those things. He says we can approach him through Christ, breaking all the barriers. So when I look at this whole message and kind of reading through these chapters, I should have called this sermon this, The Gospel According to the Tabernacle. The Gospel According to the Tabernacle. God desires to dwell with his people. He defines how we approach him. He distinguishes or separates himself. He requires sacrifice, removes the veil, provides the one who became the tabernacle. Someone wrote every beam, every curtain, every piece of gold whispers his name. So for us, and I know I'm probably preaching to the choir, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Do you know Christ? the one who dwelt with us, the one who is the bread of life, who fulfills us and satisfies us, the one who is the light of the world, who brings light to a dark world, a dark life, do we know Jesus? Are we born again? And again, I know I may be preaching to the choir, but I don't know who needs to hear this. Do you know Christ? You cannot approach a holy God apart from Jesus, right? We know this, you cannot. I can't stand in heaven one day and say, God, you should let me in because A, B, C, D, E. What should I say? You shouldn't let me in. But because of Christ, thank you for letting me in. How should we respond? Four things. with reverence. We should respond to God with reverence. I want you to think about this over the next few weeks as we come to worship and even in your personal study. Am I approaching God with the reverence he deserves? Now, yes, God is a friend. He's close to us. We can talk to him just like we talk to people. We can just talk to him. We can, but this has been kind of my prayer lately is I need to approach him with more reverence than ever before. Like I would go in that oval office and be like in awe of all that stuff. I should approach God that same way. Even greater. I need to approach him, number two, with gratitude. The fact that he would be near to us and draw near to his people should make us more thankful than ever. God, thank you. I need to approach him, number three, with worship. And I mean that not just on Sunday mornings or Wednesday nights. I mean that with our lives. how we treat our spouses, how we raise our kids, how we, of course, church, how we do our daily devotionals, how we treat people, like all these things. Worship Him with our lives. Finally, we should respond with joy. Christ is our tabernacle. So I wanna kinda end how I started, and that is this. God does not save us Well, he does. He saves us from something, condemnation, but he also saves us for something. Right? He saves us from something, but also for something. And what he saves us for is that we might know him and make him known. Our goal in life, because of his grace through salvation, should be to know God more and to make him known. And I pray that we do that day by day. Let's bow.