Awesome!

Text: Hebrews 12:15-29

Focus: Holiness

Function: To bring respect for God

Form: Bible study.

Intro:

My daughter and her friend attended their first concert ever when they were 15. I heard them talking on the phone after the concert was over. Her friend was saying: “Oh my gosh! That was the best concert I have ever been to in my entire life! It was awesome!”

The young woman's mother was there, and she muttered to Kathy and I so the girls couldn't hear: “it was the only concert they have ever been to!”

AWESOME!!!

When my children were teenagers, it was probably their favorite word. It was used so much, that it lost its meaning.

It comes from the 1600's and it means: “profoundly reverential.”

So what? Today, it means, excellent, noteworthy, amazing.

But originally, it meant “so amazing that it changes your life.” “Something that, when encountered, changes us forever.”

This passage is about how God, when He revealed Himself in the Old Testament, changed people forever.

It starts with Esau. He is called Godless and immoral. Why? He sold his birthright. Read vs 15-17.

Does that seem a little harsh?

What is behind that?

The word for immoral is pornea. It is the word we get pornography and fornication from.

Funny thing is, the Old Testament record never mentions that sin in the life of Esau. Two of his nephews, Jacob's sons, committed that sin, and they were part of the twelve leaders of Israel, and they weren’t listed as immoral.

What is he talking about, then?

Esau did not appreciate the awesomeness of God.

Esau was in line for greatness. He stood to inherit direct ancestry to the greatest family in history. His family is the one family that God has chosen to reveal Himself to the entire world, and Esau exchanged that honor for just one meal. For the cost of one meal, for a moment's satisfaction, he couldn't control his desire and lost everything.

His sin, was not appreciating what God had given him.

There is a lesson here: Respect yourself.

Although we don’t have a record of him committing sexual sins, he gets that label.

Why make that connection? Because sex is about honor and respect. The woman who puts up with abuse, especially physical abuse, because of her marriage vows is a woman who has dishonored her birthright.

God says, in very strong terms, I love you, and if you don't respect the value of who you are, you cheapen my love.

Now, let us move on to the rest of the passage because he talks about this awesomeness of God and what it means in the NT compared to the Old Testament.

The author refers to the mountain where God gave the Law.

Let me paint that picture. God had the leaders place a fence around the base of the mountain. Moses is standing there in front of the mountain and all of a sudden this huge thundering cloud descends. Everyone hears this trumpet blast and sees these flashes of light.

And then God speaks, and this is where the Movie “The 10 Commandments” misses it.

Before Moses goes up the mountain to spend 40 days with God and to get the sacred tablets, God sounds out the 10 commandments from the top of the mountain in the hearing of the entire nation.

Now God had told Moses to build the fence, to emphasize how incredibly important this moment was. God is Holy, When He spoke, stars came out of His mouth.

This is the God we serve. Esau was in position to be blessed among all of humanity by this incredible Creator.

So, Hebrews speaks of this mountain experience. When the people saw the power, heard the voice, felt the ground shake they were terrified. Actually, it says, when God was speaking the earth shook. I can't blame them for being terrified.

They begged Moses to ascend the mountain all by Himself. They did not want to be exposed to His presence like that again.

In one sense, they rejected God. In another sense, they wanted to carry on with their own lives and they wanted a priest to come in and stand between God and them.

I wonder” Was God saddened by that? You can’t blame them, God in that form, is scary.

I had a former parishioner who told me that one time, while praying, he saw this over-whelming light and he heard a voice, described just as the Bible says in Revelations, Daniel, Isaiah, and others. people heard the voice of God and it sounded like the voice of many waters speaking, or the voice of many trumpets speaking at the same time. It was one person, but speaking in every octave at the same time. He said, “I felt the words throughout my entire being.”

That man was changed. He came into the presence of God. And every-time Dave spoke of God, he never said “God.” He would say this: “The Creator of the Universe.” And Dave, never spoke about God in a flippant sort of way. He was changed.

If Esau had understood the majesty of God, he would have never given up the gift God was giving him just for a moment's satisfaction. I know the text in Genesis 25 says, “he reasoned he would die (and you can add: “before supper”) without some of the stew that Jacob, his younger brother had made.

He was like a little child throwing a fit: “mommy, I am starving to death....”

He didn't understand the awesomeness of his God, who, when He speaks shakes the earth, or as the video shows, the God who speaks and out of His mouth, stars appear.

A good friend of mine was preaching about the majesty of God and he was relating the story he heard by a Televangelist who was explaining to his flock why they should send more money to him. This man claimed to be a prophet. He was explaining his next big project that God was going to do, because he had the faith, except God forgot to finance his project so the people in his audience could help God out, and share in his faith as well. And as a bonus, if they proved to God they had faith by giving to him, then God would believe them and they would get a bunch of money in return. (kind of like: “But wait, if you order in the next 10 minutes…)

The Televangelist says: “I was shaving this morning and God spoke to me...”

You could tell that Jerry, in his sermon, was pretty well put out by this manipulation, and he said something that really hit me.

He said: “I wanted to ask the fellow, `when God spoke, did you stop shaving? Wouldn’t one just fall on his or her knees and worship?'”

The first time Daniel the prophet saw the Angel of God, which is a phrase that describes God in human form before He came as Jesus the Nazarene, the Bible said that he actually fell down dead, and the Lord raised him back to life. God’s awesomeness is a life changing experience.

This God we serve is a consuming fire. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into a fiery furnace, 7 times hotter than normal, so hot that the guards who threw them in died from the heat. And again, that Angel of God, Jesus, came and walked with them. The Creator of the Universe, the Creator of fire simply did His thing, saved their lives and the great King Nebuchadnezzar fell down and worshiped Him. That is how awesome God is!

My friend, Jerry was offended at the “cheeky” irreverent attitude the Televangelist claimed.

Is this important?

Yes, on two levels. 1^St, if God can create a star by speaking and it comes into existence, then He can care for you. Have faith! Hebrews has a lot to say about trusting God, no matter what. Don't throw away your birthright because in the moment you happen to be afraid, and you fear that God is not able.

1^st, having faith is important, and 2^nd, let's go back to that question about how God might have felt when the people, as a nation, decided to be afraid instead of be in relationship with God.

I don't in any way want to confer an attitude of irreverence since the term Awesome means Providentially Reverential.

So bear with me for just one moment of frivolity, as if God were on our level.

If you pictured God saying, “Hmmm, what did I do to scare them away?” And Moses answering Him by saying, “Well God, don't you think that loud voice, that trumpet, the peals of lightning and thunder and shaking the entire earth could have been well, maybe, and I'm not criticizing, but could it have been a little `Over the Top? God?'”

Now again, that didn't happen, God, who created us, knew exactly how the Israelites would react to this show. He had a purpose in that demonstration.

I am pretty sure Moses went up that mountain with his knees shaking terrified out of his wits.

When he came down, 40 days later, the Bible says that being in the presence of God caused him to glow with God's glory. He came down that mountain a changed man, again.

Was God's heart broken when the people told Moses to stand between them and the AWESOME and terrible God?

I think not. I believe that God Himself needed to wait to have this personal relationship with His people.

When God passed before Moses, because Moses was begging to see Him, the bible says that God covered Moses' face with the back of His hand, otherwise, seeing God would have killed Moses.

When God spoke to Elijah in 1 Kings, or revealed Himself to people. There is this story of Elijah who is being persecuted by none other than Jezebel. He has been running away, on foot, for 40 days. He hides out in this cave and God stops by. First, there is a mighty wind, but that wasn't God. Then there is an earthquake, but God wasn't in that. Then lightning, thunder and other tremendous displays of power, but God wasn't in any of them either.

Nope, after that was over, God stood somewhere behind him and spoke to him, instead of this voice of many waters at once, God speaks to him in a still small voice.

All of this, the shaking mountain at the beginning of His covenant with Israel, this still small voice that Elijah hears are leading up to this moment of time when God doesn't have to conceal Himself to us anymore.

Both of those events, the still small voice, and the shaking earth, are symbolic prophecies about the change that happens when the path to God is restored to Him by God's own sacrifice for us, on the cross.

So the author of Hebrews says this: Your relationship with God is no longer this earth shattering fear and trembling. God is now able to change His method of relating to Him because of Christ.

It is still the same God. He reminds them that God is still the Creator of the universe, the consuming fire, a force that cannot be taken without reverence.

But God, who created you and me and every other person to have a personal relationship with Him has brought us into His family.

In chapter 11, he keeps referring to these people who trusted Him and had not yet received the promise of His own Holy Spirit dwelling in them.

So here, an huge change is marked off for us. We have not come to a mountain at cannot be touched, flames, fire, terror but:

Hebrews 12:22-24:

²²But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering

²³and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,

²⁴and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Finally, and I believe it is God who says it as well. Finally, you have come back to God. You are now in the place where God and you can abide in the same place.

He makes this reference to this sprinkled blood. In chapter 9, there is a reference to Moses, after sacrificing a bull, taking the blood of the bull, dipping an hyssop branch in it, and then sprays the crowd with that blood.

Thank God that we weren't serving Him at that time! Can you imagine?

We talked about that awesomeness and holiness of God. And Moses who couldn't see lest he die?

Did that make God happy?

No!

We talked about the privilege of birthright and how Esau didn't see it is important?

Think about the whole thing from this perspective.

The Creator God, the one who speaks and stars pop into existence.

This incredible God who authored all of this creation. This incredible God, who has always existed has a purpose in all of this creation.

And that purpose was to make us, humanity, people with the power to choose right or wrong, to choose good or evil, to choose to trust in Him, or trust in ourselves.

Us, every human, created by the Creator to have a relationship with Him, to be a part of His family, to come to Him.

As Dan said at our last Leadership team meeting, “The whole story of the Bible is this, God wants everyone back.”

And here it is. This blood of Christ that speaks better than the blood of Abel.

The Message says: “The murder of Jesus, unlike Abel's—a homicide that cried out for vengeance—became a proclamation of grace!”

We are talking about faith here. By faith in Christ, we make our way back into our birthright. We make our way back into our the family of God.

It is a privilege, a joy. It is restoration, reconciliation.

Now that the atonement has happened. God can be with man.

I don't know why. I don't know why it took that price to bring us back. But when I see the terror of that mountain, and now the invitation to family. I believe.