Amen. Well, let me just say that we are continuing our bold sermon series of walking through every book of the Bible. When we started public worship last fall, we started in the book of Genesis. We've walked through every book of the Bible in order. And the goal is that you would get some sense of what this book is all about, that you would have an impression of, oh, now I know why Hebrews is in the Bible and how it fits into the overall story of the Bible. We have a few weeks left to go. Sad to say we won't cover every last book, but I think this series has served its purpose. We will finish up with a few of the last books of the New Testament, and then we will start a new sermon series on August 25th. We'll be taking a deep dive into the book of Matthew, Matthew's gospel we're going to have as our next sermon series. But this morning, Hebrews. What is this strange book called Hebrews all about? That's the goal this morning. And I want to say that ultimately the book of Hebrews is about worship. So we're going to talk about worship this morning. And I want you to know, in case you thought otherwise, I know a thing or two about the range of emotions and feelings that you all have when you're coming to church, when you're coming to worship every Sunday. You might think I'm exempt from those, but I know a thing or two about all the different things you can feel, the highs and the lows from the time I became a Christian as a college student in 1995 to being a young single graduate upon graduating, to being young married, to having young kids, to having kids growing older, to coming to work in the church as a pastor. I've experienced the range of feelings and emotions and all the ups and downs and those moments when you're not sure why you're even coming to church. Is this really worth my time? There's sadness that's blanketing your heart and you just can't think about anything else. I know those feelings of being distant and cold and numb spiritually. I know those feelings of being excited and hungry and not being able to wait, can't wait until I get to be in worship. The joy and the hope, I know all of those things. I know what it's like to be in the midst of conflict, even on your way to church with a spouse or with a roommate. I know those things. I know those feelings. even now as a pastor, every Sunday morning, is the height of emotions for me during the week. I wake up with, yes, a range of emotions. There's a tug of war in my heart. Sometimes sadness, sometimes anger, sometimes frustration, sometimes wondering, is this really all worth it? Sometimes wondering, is anyone even gonna be there? Sometimes wondering and feeling like I do not have a sermon that's come together and I'm gonna be embarrassed and ashamed. I feel all of those things. on Sunday morning, sometimes wondering, is this really worth it? What is this church going to be 50 years from now? All of those things. That's why every Sunday morning I get straight to my knees and I hash it out with the Lord and I lay all these things before Him and I fight it out with Him in prayer and I untangle these things in my heart lest I get up here and I'm just faking the things that I'm saying, which is one of the worst fears that I would have. And so I come to the place where my heart remembers and embraces what's true and why I'm doing this and who the Lord is. I say all that to say, I know the struggle of going to worship Underneath that struggle is the battle that is being waged in our hearts and minds. It's the battle that sin wages in our hearts and minds. I'm not saying one particular sin from Saturday. What I'm saying is, the way in which sin, from our earliest days, has been at work in attacking our desires. You do realize that we're not just walking brains, right? We're not just brains on sticks. We are feeling, desiring beings. And one of the chief targets of sin is to get at our desires. ultimately, ultimately, to get us to desire anything besides God, even to desire religion, desire other gods, but not the true God, not the Lord Jesus Christ, to get us excited about being any other place other than worship. You see, sin goes to work on us over our years, and it actually can reshape our desires, it can shrivel our desire for God, and it can increase our desire for other things and to be other places. That's why there's a tug of war in our hearts in even thinking about going to worship, because there are other things on our hearts. There are other things that we desire more than God, and that includes myself oftentimes. And so there's this tug of war. to where we are looking for something that is more glorious than God. We've been captivated by something more glorious, and so coming to worship, okay, maybe we go through the motions, but our hearts can be cold and numb. We don't really wanna be here because we're captivated by something more glorious. That word glorious, I think it was in both of our songs, by the way, that word. It's a really important biblical word. that you need to understand to understand Hebrews. That word for glory, okay, when we talk about something that's glorious, you need to know this. The Hebrew for that in the Bible is the Hebrew word kavod. That's the word for something that's heavy. It's the word for weight. Folks, every one of us is looking for something that is glorious. Something that's heavy, something that matters, something that will sweep us off of our feet, something that will bring safety, security, something that will set us free, right? Something that will give us relief. We're looking for something glorious and oftentimes we look any other place besides the Lord. You know, Jonathan Edwards, he's a famous 18th century pastor, theologian, He said, it's like we're people with hearts that are on fire. He described human beings that way. Our hearts are on fire, and that's true. You were made with hearts that are on fire with desire, okay? That is true of human beings. That is a God-given fire that you would have this desire. Jonathan Edwards goes on to say, no fire ever has said, that's enough oxygen for me, that's enough fuel, I'm fine, I don't need any more. No, every fire wants more oxygen, every fire wants more fuel, every fire wants to burn hotter and brighter, and that's the same with our desires. Our hearts are constantly looking for oxygen, looking for fuel to feed this fire. We're constantly looking for something, again, that's glorious, that will set us free, that will give us relief. We're constantly looking for these things. If you want to know what is the fire of your heart, what's the object of the fire of your heart? What are the things that you're looking for that are glorious? A good question to ask Tim Keller, who's now with the Lord, longtime pastor in Manhattan, would often say, Ask yourself this question. If only I had, fill in the blank, then life would feel right, then life would feel safer, life would be better, life would be complete. If only I had, or if only I had this person or this thing or were in this place, underneath that question of if only I had this, That's the glory you're seeking. That's what you're trying to fill the fire of your heart. We can look around and it's clear to see that human beings have hearts that burn with a fire of desire for a certain kind of glory. We want glory. I saw it on the face of my son, and he saw it on my face when I took him to Yellowstone for his 18th birthday, and the one thing we wanted to see, the one thing we wanted to see, grizzly bears. And when we saw a couple of grizzlies off in the distance, we stopped and you could see it on his face. He knew there was a sort of glory. They were glorious as they frolicked together. amazing beasts, and then people started to pour in. Everyone that drove by would just stop and you could see it on their faces, just beholding this glory, trying to capture it in their minds and on their cameras. And we wouldn't have left unless the park ranger would have come and said, get out of here. We can't get by on the road here. And they shushed us away. But we saw something that was heavy, that was glorious. a young mother and father when they set their sights on their newborn child. There's a certain glory. You can see it in their emotions. They recognize this is significant. This is heavy. If you watched the Republican National Convention this past week, and as the camera panned the crowd, you can see in the exuberance and the excitement and the tears and the crying, you can see that on the face of those people, they realized they were in a place that they felt a kind of glory, something big, something heavy. is happening that will fix some things and we get to be part of that. And guess what, in a few weeks at the Democratic National Convention, you'll see the same exact thing. There's a sense of, there's a glory here, this is heavy, this is weighty, this matters. This coming fall, at the big house and at Chrysler Arena, you know what you're gonna see on the faces of people in those games, in those stadiums? A sense of glory, something big is happening here. something that can sweep us off our feet, something that will delight us and gladden us. We roll around to the last game of the Big Ten season in basketball, and Michigan's tied for first, and the game is tied, and a three-pointer goes up, and Chrysler Arena is silent, the ball goes in, and there's an explosion. See, there's glory, people are hungry for a kind of glory. I've just gone through a list of things and there's all kinds of glorious things that we should rightly recognize as glorious. But here's the problem. I mention those examples just to observe we are desiring creatures. We are hungry for a kind of glory, okay? We were made for glory. The problem is when we exchange the glory, the weight, the heaviness of God for lesser glories. When we exchange the glory of God for the glories of this world and make them more important, more heavy, when our glories get out of order, that's where the problem comes in, okay? Because when our glories get out of order, it actually has an enslaving effect because you need more and more of that glory because that's where you found life. And so you become addicted, you might say, to lesser glories and we lose our taste for the one glory that truly gives us life and that is unshakable, okay? We lose our taste for the glory of God, so our glories get out of order. And so how do we fix this problem of being addicted to lesser glories, of getting our glories out of order? This is what Hebrews is about. Hebrews is about that fire in your heart that desires a certain glory, but getting those sort of mixed up and out of place. Hebrews focuses on this issue. It says, here's how you deal with that. You don't deal with that by trying to put out the fire in your heart. He's not saying become sort of a stoic, just numb yourself, just squelch your emotions so that you don't desire other glory. No, he's not saying that at all. He's not saying to put out the fire of your heart, but to feed the fire of your heart with the oxygen that alone that heart was made for, and that is God. To feed that fire of your desire with the right thing, with the glory of God, the beauty of God, knowing Him and worshiping Him and tasting Him. and seeing in Him is the life that you so long for. You remember the story of Jesus and the woman at the well in John chapter four. Jesus meets this woman at the well. There was a fire burning in her heart. She was a woman of desire and in conversation with her Jesus revealed the fact that he knew that she was feeding her fire, the desires of her heart, with romantic relationships with men. She seemed to be a little embarrassed and sort of changed the subject to religion, which was interesting, and she said, well, you know, your people worship on that mountain, and we worship on this mountain, and we'll all find out what's true one day. And Jesus looked at her as though he was very interested that she brought up the subject of worship, and essentially said, what you've been doing is worshiping, but you haven't found satisfaction there in these romantic relationships. You've been looking for the glory, the glory you've longed for, you've been looking for it in men. But the glory that you're really after, it's me, it's me. You're looking at him, the one thing that you really want, it's me. And I come with living water that will satisfy you forever. And then Jesus said, this is what the Father has been seeking, worshipers, worshipers, who turn to me, find living water in me. You know, there's not many things, you'll be hard pressed to find any place in scripture where it says God seeks after something. He doesn't need anything, he's God. But here we're told he seeks after worshipers. who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. And so the author to the Hebrews is writing to a people whose hearts are on fire. with desire, but they're addicted to lesser glories. We haven't talked about what those are yet, we will here in just a moment, but they're addicted to lesser glories. And he writes with a sense of urgency to say you gotta deal with this glory problem. You have to deal with this addiction to these lesser glories. And he writes with a sense of urgency. In chapter three, for example, he says, today, Like, not tomorrow, today is the day. When you hear the Lord's voice, don't harden your hearts. Don't harden your hearts, don't be ruined by the deceitfulness of sin, he says. But when you hear the Lord's voice today, turn to him. Admit that you've gone after other glories, come back to him, soften your heart, receive him. Okay, with a sense of urgency, he's saying, we have to deal with this glory problem. We have to deal with our addiction to lesser glories. And the only way to do this, and he gets really practical, as we'll see here in just a moment with our passage, the only way to deal with this glory problem is to get into worship. I know that might sound strange, to get into worship. That's his encouragement, that's his message here to this young church, that they would get into worship to be encountered by God, to taste a greater glory. You see, how do you break your addiction to lesser glories? You get captivated. by the greatest glory. And the only way to do that is to get in and to taste his goodness and to remember what's true about him and to see his beauty and to let God sweep you off of your feet. And the way that God does this in the most special and holy way is in the assembly of worship. And so the author here is telling these people, get back into worship. and taste this greater glory, the glory of God, the glory that you were made for. Now, how does he do that? Look at our passage. This is really at the heart of the book, here as we come to chapter 12. And notice, he's contrasting two different mountains, okay? This is really brilliant and poetic, the way that he does this, but in the passage that was just read for you, He's contrasting two different mountains to sort of make his case, okay? The first mountain that he contrasts when he says, for you've not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet, as he says that in verses 18 through 20, he's describing Mount Sinai. Think the mountain where the Lord was with Moses after the people You have to remember, he's conjuring up in our minds the story of how they even got to Mount Sinai in the Old Testament. Remember, Abraham's children were enslaved in Egypt. God raised up Moses. He sent Moses to set his people free. He told Pharaoh, set my people free. But that wasn't all he said. What was the second part of that sentence? Set my people free. so that they might worship me. The whole point of setting them free was to bring them into worship. Pharaoh, of course, resisted. He hardened his heart. The Lord sent plagues. Finally, Pharaoh was broken to the point where he said, leave. But he didn't just say leave, he said leave, and even Pharaoh got the point, so that you may worship the Lord. And so there they journeyed off to Mount Sinai, where the presence of the Lord was. And you think, great, they must have been thinking, this is so sweet, this is wonderful, we're finally here to the place where the Lord is. But guess what? And this is what he's beginning to describe here. It wasn't sweet. It wasn't wonderful. It was terrible when they showed up in the mountain. Not because God wasn't there, but because God was there. He was unbearable. Actually, he wasn't unbearable. He was unbearable to them because they stood in the guilt of their sin, and the Lord spoke to them in his unapproachable holiness, and it was as if they felt the wind from his voice. They felt the heat of the fire. It was like a gloomy storm. That's what he's describing here, the blazing fire, the darkness, the gloom, and the tempest as the presence of the Lord was there. It was like the scariest storm you could imagine. and there's God in his holiness, and he says, if even an animal touches this mountain, it shall be put to death. You cannot approach my holiness. Well, that's a problem, because you set us free to worship you, but now you're saying we can't approach you. That's what took place at Sinai. Now, how is the problem dealt with? of the people entering the presence of God, sacrifices. The sacrificial system, the Lord prescribed sacrifices that signified that when the blood of an innocent victim is shed, in this case the animals that were offered as sacrifices, the guilt of the sin of the people would be atoned for. Your guilt would be placed on the victim and the Lord would wash away your sin, you would be clean and so you can approach me and worship me. Now, he's bringing this up because that's how the temple and the sacrificial system and worship was patterned in the Jewish temple. It was patterned after this experience with the holy of holies and the sacrifices. Now fast forward to the early church here in the first century that's receiving this letter. The people receiving this letter come from Jewish heritage. They grew up going to the Jewish temple or synagogue for worship. But one by one in these different families, they heard the gospel and they received Christ. They became Christians. And so they left their Jewish temple worship and they formed together to make this Christian church. And it seems as though this is the lesser glory, this is the glory problem that he's writing to. They were tempted to go back to the former glory. People were tempted to leave the Christian church and to go back to temple worship, in part because of persecution. the Jews in these Roman colonies enjoyed a special exemption by Roman law, but when you left that and were not part of a recognizable religion, which Christianity wasn't, there was great persecution. So in part, they had lost certain political freedoms, they were under persecution, but perhaps even more because of nostalgia and sentimentality, they simply remembered back to those days of walking with the family to temple worship. Now they're not as connected with their family. They remember the fun meals after church, and they're remembering these things. And now when the rest of their family is off to the synagogue on a Saturday, they're mowing their lawns, and they're not at the family gatherings, and they miss that. And they missed the smells and the sights and the sounds of temple worship and the sacrifices, and it felt so tangible. And so there's a sense of they were being tempted to go back, to leave the glory of Jesus Christ and His worship and to go back to temple worship. And so that's what he's describing here. And he's saying, he's saying, don't go back. Don't go back, because if you do, you're losing, you're forgetting the glory of the gospel. Don't you realize that Jesus Christ, who is God, he came and saved you. and He came and took away all of your sins so that you could have a relationship with God and approach Him and worship Him, which is what your heart most deeply desires. The Lord set you free so that you could worship Him. And you're going back? You're forgetting that? You're walking away from that glory? So He's saying, don't go back. This is why you might find Hebrews a little strange when you start to read it, because it goes on and on about how Jesus is greater than the angels, and he's greater than the prophets, and he's greater than Moses. And you might say, that's great, but that doesn't really mean anything to me. I don't really struggle with wondering if Jesus is greater than the angels. But for the people he was writing to, you see, they remember back and thought, man, Moses is kind of a big deal. There's a certain glory to Moses. And by the way, God sent angels to deliver the law, the message to Moses, and so that must mean something. That has a certain glory to it, right? So maybe we should go back to this. And the writer to the Hebrews is saying, wait a minute. Jesus created the angels. The angels bow down to Jesus. His glory is superior to the glory of angels. Jesus created Moses. Moses bows down to worship Jesus. The glory of Jesus is superior to every other glory. You see what he's doing? He's helping them to see this. He's saying, listen, the things of the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, it's like a beautiful building was being built, but you couldn't see it because of all the scaffolding right around the building. The scaffolding was up. But now that Jesus has come, you see the glorious building that was being built. You see the real glory. The scaffolding has fallen away, so don't give your attention to the scaffolding. That's not where the glory is. It's as if they received a gift. Think of you receiving a birthday gift. It's an amazing gift. And you unwrap it. It's beautifully wrapped. You unwrap it, and then you set aside the precious gift to play with the wrapping paper. The glory was not in the wrapping paper, folks. What he's saying here is that the glory of the Old Testament and all that happened there, it was beautiful wrapping paper. But the real gift is with the glory of Jesus Christ who has come. And so he's saying, don't go back. This is why he's saying, get into worship. In chapter 10, for example, he says, don't give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing. It seems as though some had already fallen back and fallen away. Don't give up meeting together. That word for meeting in the Greek is the technical term for assembly. It's literally, don't give up assembling together, as those who are in Christ, of those who know Christ, who have been saved by him, Come and taste His glory together. Ascribe to Him the glory that is due His name. Don't give that up, as some are in the habit of doing, he says. And so he describes why this is significant. He describes how getting back into worship is the answer to our glory problem, for being captivated by any lesser glories. Notice he goes on here, he says, but you have come to Mount Zion, into the city of the living God. You've come to innumerable angels and festal gathering into the assembly of the firstborn. Do you realize what he's setting us up to realize here, folks? He's helping us to realize what's happening right here as we're assembled here on this first day of the week, which became the Sabbath day of worship for God's people because it was the day of Christ's resurrection. And so they saw the fulfillment of the fourth commandment to keep the Sabbath holy as now the first day of the week, we see that language all through the Old Testament, it wasn't called Sunday yet, but it was called the first day of the week. And so every Sunday was Easter for them, the day of the resurrection. On the first day of the week, there's something different that's happening, there's something holy, there's a special way in which God is working, there's something very extraordinary about what's happening here, and he describes it. As ordinary as this feels, here we're in a room on the campus in the Union, it feels ordinary. This is very extraordinary, folks. He says, you've come to Mount Zion. You're no longer at Mount Sinai. No, don't go there. You've come to Mount Zion. That's language for the heavenly courts. Mount Zion speaks to God's heavenly throne room, the new Jerusalem that is in heaven where he is right now. We're transported there in a special way, in an extraordinary way. We are transported into the heavenly courts. You might put it like this, he's saying, as we gather together on the first day of the week, those who are in Christ, the walls between heaven and earth become very thin. The walls between heaven and earth become very thin. Notice he says, we come to thousands upon thousands, innumerable angels in festive celebration. You know what he's saying there? It's not just us here. It's as if if he pulled a curtain back, there's another realm where the angels are joining us in worship. I mean, think about that. If we could see physically what's happening spiritually, we would be in utter shock right now. It's so sad how most, I've been to some art galleries this summer, and there's some paintings of angels. They always look so bored. It's such a misrepresentation. They're in festal celebration. It's Easter. Not only angels, he says, we come to those who have been enrolled, that is those who have died as believers, that is the spirits who have been perfected, he's saying, we also. are worshiping alongside those who have died in the Lord. Yeah, people from the Old Testament who placed their faith in the promise of God were worshiping with Moses and King David. These are the images he wants them to realize. With Rahab and with Esther, not only those, those whom you have known who have died with the Lord, their bodies are in the ground but their spirits are very much alive in heaven. We are worshiping with them. We're worshiping with them. Some of those whom you've known, we don't think about that too often. October 7th, I believe, Jonathan Lau, his father, October 7th, what year? 2019. since 2019, October 7th. You might not think about this much, but he's worshiping alongside his father who's singing hymns with us. This is the image at the beginning of chapter 12 when he says, we're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. The picture there is we're surrounded by this great cloud of those who have gone to be with the Lord in heaven, and they're looking upon, they're witnessing us, it's as if we're in a race, and they're cheering us on, and they're saying, guys, it's worth it. Right now, they're cheering us on, they're saying, don't give up, don't give in, yes, turn to Jesus, yes, lay your idols at his feet, yes, live for him, yes. They're cheering you on, they're singing these hymns with us. That's amazing, but that's not the most amazing thing. The most amazing thing, where the real glory is, notice what he says next, we come. Who else is here? Not just angels, not just those who have gone to be with the Lord, we've come to Jesus. We come to the feet of Jesus, Jesus in his glory, he's here. It's not just us doing stuff in worship, he's active too, he's working in our hearts, he's strengthening our faith, he's reminding us of how beautiful, how heavy he is. He's doing that right now in your hearts and minds. Sin goes to work on you to try to shrink your desire for God, to go after other glories. Jesus comes in and says, no, let me enlarge your desire for me. Let me bring you out of that numbness, out of that coldness. That's what worship is, it's looking at the face of Jesus and it's our response to his beauty and his glory as he sweeps us off of our feet through his word proclaimed and the gospel unfolded and the songs that we sing. We're looking into the face of Jesus. That's why he says don't go back to Mount Sinai. That's a lesser glory, it's the scaffolding, it's the wrapping paper, it's not the real thing. And as we come to him, you see the glory of what we get to be part of, and this is what he's persuading them. We come to the same God who was at that mountain. It's not a different God. It's the same consuming fire, but he's not terrifying. It's not unbearable. It's actually the thing our hearts most crave. It's the thing that our hearts most crave when you look into the face of Jesus and see who he is and what he's done for you and that he's here right now. We realize the one thing, that one thing, if only I had that one thing, we realize the answer to that is Jesus. He is the one that we so desperately long for and that's why he's here showing himself to you. Worship is our response to looking into the face of Jesus. And what does that response look like? Notice in verse 28, he says what that looks like. With reverence and awe. It's not a bad question to ask yourself if that marks your worship. Reverence, there's the weight. Oh, there's a glory here, folks. There is a glory. Do you feel the weight of it? There should be a reverence, the gravity, but also, also, not a terrifying kind of gravity. It's a joyful gravity. That's the reverence and awe. There's a joy-filled awe and wonder at who God is, that we get to be part of this. How amazing is it? He's given you eternal life. You will see him face-to-face one day. I mean, look what he's done for us, going to the cross. It's absolutely amazing. So there's a joy-filled wonder. and awe with reverence and awe we worship him. Now this gives us a little bit of a better idea of why we do what we do in here in our worship services. Now you can get a peek at sort of my heart and my thinking of why our services are shaped the way that they are. The mood, at least my goal, for the mood of our worship services here at Red Tree is that they would be services with a joyful gravity. I always want that tension in our services, because we're dealing with a holy God, and that is heavy. His glory weighs more than anything else. But it's so joyful. It's amazing we get to be part of this. I mean, this is so exciting. We're part of a kingdom that lasts forever, and we belong to the Lord. This is so joyful gravity. But the shape of our services, you might say our liturgy, you can see this in your bulletin. In fact, it might be helpful to look there now. the shape of our service is that of a dramatic dialogue. A dramatic dialogue, okay? So the mood, joyful gravity, the shape of our services is that of a dramatic dialogue, in part because I know the world says that the real drama is out there, the real exciting stuff is somewhere out there, but no, folks, the real drama is happening in the assembly of worship. is we're gathered with angels and those with the Lord and with Jesus himself. And because Jesus is here, really here, there's a dialogue. We don't want this to be just like a concert to where we're up here on the stage doing something and you're back there just watching. No, this is a dialogue with us, God's people that we're having with Jesus. So that's why there's a back and forth. That's why there's a call and response because you participate in this dialogue. I love the imagery from Hebrews of the mountains, and so that's the way I sort of think about our worship services. It's as if God is up on a mountain. And he's looking down and he's saying, Saul, come up to the mountain. Come into my presence. That's what you should think about every Sunday morning when you wake up. It's the Lord on the mountain. And he's saying, come up into my presence. I'm so excited to have you. That's what our call to worship is, folks. The very first thing in the bulletin, call to worship. That's the Lord saying, come up to the mountain. And it's thrilling. It's absolutely thrilling. that he calls us into his presence. And you have to remember, remember, the walls become very thin between heaven and earth. I mean, remember what we're walking into here, with angels and festive celebration, those who've gone to be with the Lord, and with Jesus himself. Now, this moment, this is where there's a war in our hearts. There's a tug of war, there's a glory war. Because maybe we're not all that excited. Maybe this is the last place we wanna be and we feel that, and you should be honest about that. That's why the next thing we do is we offer a prayer for God's presence. It's a prayer saying, God, we really need you. We need you to come and minister to us. We need you to come and change our hearts. I hope under your breath sometimes when I'm praying this prayer for the Lord's presence, I hope sometimes you're praying, Lord, would you please help me to want this? Would you help me to want your presence? And then there's a transition in our hearts because we realize God keeps His promises. He really is here. Jesus said, where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I with them. He's here. And maybe there's a little fire lit in our hearts of excitement that He's here. And what do we do next? We sing to the Lord. and we lift up his name, we ascribe to him the weight and the honor that is due his name. We recognize he is heavy, we want you to be the heaviest thing in our lives, and so we lift our voices to him. Not only lifting our voices, we lay our treasures at his feet. Those are just ways that we say, we know we can't save ourselves, we know that giving to you doesn't contribute anything to our salvation, but because of your grace, we just wanna lay our whole life before you. We wanna give you our voices, and I promise you guys, there's not a worse singer in this room than me, and there's also no one that'll sing louder than me, so let that just embolden you to sing. Sometimes, even when you do sing the words, even if you don't feel them, there's something about it deep down where you say, even though I don't feel it, I know this is true, and I wanna tell God what's true of him. And sometimes your heart might just follow along. And then, you know what happens? What happens next? We realize we're kinda hungry. We've been out in the wilderness all week, we've been beat down, we've been listening to lies, we've fallen, we're just exhausted. And like the pilgrims wandering through the wilderness, you remember in their hunger, the Lord worked a miracle and that's what the Lord does when He, now it's His turn to contribute, it's His turn to speak during the sermon. The Lord in the wilderness brought miraculous manna to sustain his hungry people. That's what the Lord does through the preaching of his word. I hope you'll never view this as a lecture hall. This isn't me, you're not just here to get some information. The sermon is so much more than a lecture. This is the Lord, the Lord wants to feed you, wants to instruct you and teach you and gladden your heart, help you to remember what's true. He wants to bring you out of this fragmented world and all the lies and all the lesser glories that have captivated your heart, and He wants to anchor you to remember the truth that it's His glory that your heart most longs for. And so through His word, He feeds you. And we realize in the preaching of His word, we're dealing with a holy God. We love Him so much, but we've fallen short. So what do we do next? We confess our sins to Him. And then it's His turn in the dialogue. He says, I want you to remember, I've forgiven all your sins. You're clean. I'm so delighted in you. I'm pleased with you. And what can we do? He says, I know there's things on your heart, bring them to me. Lay them at my feet. That's the pastoral prayer. As we go to his throne room and we just lay at his feet the burdens of our hearts. And then at that point we think maybe, okay, we're ready to go back out into the world. We're ready to go out the next six days. He says, wait, not so fast. Don't leave yet. Take off your armor. Come to the table, I've prepared a meal for you, I wanna see you a bit longer. And he's here, not under the table and not on the table, he's not in the bread and the wine, he's at the table here, present with us, so that you can just gaze at his face a little longer and remember the glory of the gospel. And so that he can work in your heart more and reorder your glories, get them straight. He says, I wanna feed you, and that's what he does. And then we sing again because we're just so overwhelmed. And he has the last word in this dramatic dialogue. He offers us his blessing. He says, you're safe, and I'm with you, and my face is turned toward you. And you know what, I just wanna say, I think the reason why the author of the Hebrews wanted to get his people back, back in, back assembled, is because little by little, you know, you're not completely transformed all in one setting, right? Little by little, over the long haul of life, as we come back again and again from manna, in the presence of Jesus, we are transformed. He transforms us little by little because he's here doing that in our hearts, and he's bringing us to the place where, as it says in verse 28, we realize that we belong to a kingdom that cannot be shaken. And so, as we leave these services, we have that sense, we belong to a kingdom that can't be shaken, no matter what falls apart in my life, no matter how things unravel. I belong to a kingdom that can't be shaken. And you know what? We're ready to put our armor back on. And we go out for another six days. And we go out, and we roll up our sleeves, and we get to work. We make the world a better place, and we love on people, and we lay our lives down. And yes, we pray, and yes, we get in the Word, but you go out into your place of business and make it the most beautiful, wonderful business you can imagine that serves other people. And you do everything you can to enhance the Lord's reputation, to be a witness to his glory, to show him forth in all that you do in your family life, in your work life, and that's exhausting. And then he says, come back again, I wanna feed you again, I wanna encourage you again, I wanna give you spiritual rest again. And over the long haul, he transforms us. And so, that's the message, I think. of the book of Hebrews, it's a message that says the glory of Jesus is better than any other glory out there. The glory of entering his presence with his people is a greater glory, it's a more thrilling glory than any other place you could be. The glory of Jesus is superior to every other glory. And so he says, throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and fix your eyes upon Jesus. That's the message of Hebrews.