Our God is an Awesome God pt 2
Hebrews 12:25-29
What do you believe about the future God has for you? Pastor Tim Keller tells this story in his book, Making Sense of God.
Imagine you have two women of the same age, the same socioeconomic status, the same educational level, and even the same temperament. You hire both of them and say to each, “You are part of an assembly line, and I want you to put part A into slot B and then hand what you have assembled to someone else. I want you to do that over and over for eight hours a day.”
You put them in identical rooms with identical lighting, temperature, and ventilation. You give them the very same number of breaks in a day. It is very boring work. Their conditions are the same in every way – except for one difference. You tell the first woman that at the end of the year you will pay her thirty thousand dollars, and you tell the second woman that at the end of the year you will pay her thirty million.
After a couple of weeks the first woman will be saying, “Isn’t this tedious? Isn’t it driving you insane? Aren’t you thinking about quitting?” And the second woman will say. “No. This is perfectly acceptable. In fact, I whistle while I work.” What is going on? You have two human beings who are experiencing identical circumstances in radically different ways. What makes the difference? It is their expectation of the future.
Now, this illustration is not intended to say that all we need is a good income. What it shows is that what we believe about our future completely controls how we handle whatever we face in the present. We are irreducibly hope-based creatures.[i]
What we believe about our future controls how we handle what we face in the present. What do you believe about your future? Do you trust that God has eternal good in store for you? That no matter what you face in this life, what God has for you in his presence in eternity will far outweigh even the worst, most painful and fearful circumstances of life on this earth? As we continue our journey through the written sermon that is the New Testament book of Hebrews, turn with me to Hebrews 12:25-29.
When we’re thinking about all that God has in store for his people in eternity, we tend to fall into one of two errors. The first is the error of becoming so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly good. People who fall into this error don’t find any value at all in this world or in the details of day to day life. I’ve actually seen people take this so far as to believe that education doesn’t matter. Job performance doesn’t matter. The suffering of people doesn’t matter. Health and wellness doesn’t matter. Relationships don’t matter. When we fall into this error, we lose our effectiveness for the God in this world. We stop loving people; we stop trying to help people and meet the needs of those who are suffering.
When we fall into this error, we forget that God created this world and humanity in his image, and called it good. We forget that Christ entered this world as a human being. He lived. He worked. He ate. He slept. He played. He laughed. He cried. He suffered – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. He experienced fear. He healed others. He met physical needs as he healed others. He met emotional needs by touching people. He met spiritual needs as he taught about the Kingdom of God and made it possible for us to enter it by dying on the cross. He experienced all of life. He showed the meaning and value of all of life.
The other error is to forget about eternity, in practice if not in fact, and live as if this world and its systems and resources and pleasures are all that matters. When we fall into this error, we are in danger of being overcome by fear and frustration when the political or cultural climate isn’t going the way we think it should be going. We fret and worry and wring our hands as we watch the news. We get angry and frustrated when those we disagree with are in power. Or we hold on tightly to our possessions and positions, believing they’re the only things that really matter.
Jesus invites us into a new way of living as citizens of HIS kingdom. A way that both values this world as God’s good creation that has been marred by sin and seeks to allow God to meet the spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of others through us. And we can do this for the long haul because we know that God has goodness in store for all of his people in eternity, regardless of what life in this world throws at us.
Look closely at V. 25. Our pastor has been talking about God as a God who speaks since the opening words of this sermon. He opened by saying, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son …” (Heb. 1:1-2). God is a God who speaks. Who communicates with his creation, particularly humanity.
When we communicate, it is because we desire and are seeking relationship. God communicates because God desires relationship. Not because God is lonely or needs relationship, but because God IS, in the trinity, three distinct persons in perfect relationship – Father, Son, and Spirit. In 1 John 4:8, St. John says that “God IS love.” Love requires a relationship of some kind, because love is always directed toward something else.
In God’s existence and being as Trinity, Father loves Son and Spirit; Son loves Father and Spirit; and Spirit loves Father and Son. But God’s love doesn’t stop there. God loves his creation. He knows and sees even the sparrow that dies and falls to the ground. God loves humanity. And that means God loves you. Because God loves, God communicates, and God communicates with a purpose. God already knows us, because God is God. But God also wants us to know him. And so God communicates himself to us.
He spoke first in his creating word, through the cosmos he has given us as our home. He then spoke through angels and prophets and other intermediaries. And then he spoke, and continues to speak, most clearly, through the Son. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus is God’s most clear communication of who he is and what he is like and what he desires. The question isn’t, “Is God speaking?” God has spoken, is speaking, and will always be speaking, most clearly through Jesus. Whether we can sense God speaking to us or not in a moment does not mean God is not speaking. When God seems to us that he has fallen silent, God is saying, “Do you trust me enough to continue walking in what I have already said?”
The question isn’t, “Is God speaking?” The question is, “Are we listening?” Because God’s voice, God’s word, is an effective word. God says, through the prophet Isaiah, “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Is. 55:11). We tend to apply that to the Scriptures. And that is certainly appropriate.
That doesn’t mean the Bible is a magic book and if I just quote the right verse at the right time I’ll get what I want. It doesn’t say that God’s word will accomplish MY purpose, it says that God’s word will always accomplish GOD’S purpose. It will accomplish MY purpose when MY purpose is in alignment with GOD’S purpose.
But it isn’t JUST talking about the Bible. It is also talking about Jesus. St. John tells us that Jesus himself is the word of God. In the opening words of this sermon our pastor reminds us that God is speaking to us through Jesus. Just as the Bible is the Word of God, so Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus is the Bible with arms and legs and a heart and lungs and eyes and mouth. Jesus is the Bible living and walking in this world. Jesus is God revealing to us exactly what he is like.
And Jesus has accomplished exactly what God sent him to do. Jesus revealed to us the nature of the kingdom of God, and what life in the kingdom of God is like, even as we continue to live in this world. AND Jesus made our entry into the Kingdom of God possible through his death and resurrection. Jesus is both the revelation OF God and the way TO God. And because he perfectly accomplished all that God intended for him to accomplish, no other way is needed, and truth be told, no other way exists. Jesus is God’s effective Word to us. We need to listen to him – through the pages of Scripture, through one another in the family of God, and in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
But we need to listen responsibly. When we sense God speaking in our own hearts and minds, we check that through wise and trusted members of the family of God. Why? Because I am quite capable of imagining that my own thoughts and desires are the thoughts and desires of God. Not every emotion or thought is something from God. We need to test our thoughts and emotions against Scripture and in the community of the people of God.
Now, look at Vv. 26-27. God has a word yet to speak, and that word will be a word of judgment. God’s final word. Our pastor first takes us back to Mt. Sinai in the wilderness, where the people gathered in his presence and he spoke the law to them. To the fire and smoke and thunder and lightning and shaking earth as God spoke.
To the people who decided that they didn’t want God to speak to them, asking Moses to speak with God and relay the message, so that God wouldn’t have to speak directly to them because they were afraid that if he did, they would die. And then they decided that they didn’t want a God who speaks, who communicates at all, and so they had Aaron make a golden calf for them to worship while Moses was still on the mountain.
And then our pastor quotes the Old Testament prophet Haggai 2:6. “Yes once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” You think Sinai was awesome and terrifying? You ain’t seen nothing yet. God’s voice at Sinai was earth-shaking. God’s voice at judgment will be earth shattering.
And it won’t just be the earth itself shaking. The heavens will shake too. Not because God is filled with rage and hate. But because God speaks his just judgment over sin. Because he destroys sin and death and banishes Satan once and for all. And because those who have chosen to ignore him, avoid him, deny his existence, and reject his way of making things right without our being punished will receive what they want – to be without him, a state no human being has ever known. Because even in the most painful of circumstances, God is still holding the cosmos together.
St. Paul, in Colossians 1:17, says, “in him (in Jesus) all things hold together.” Without him, nothing holds together. Everything falls apart. Not just lives, but worlds, galaxies, universes. God’s judgment is simply God saying, “You can have what you want. You can have my absence.” Which is no existence at all.
God’s voice of judgment will shake everything that can be shaken. What can be shaken? We think of things like the ground and buildings and bridges and mountains and things like that. And that’s true. But it also includes the visibly invisible things we have made on and in God’s good creation. Governments and political ideologies and systems. Economic systems. Cultures and societies. They’ll all be shaken and, in the process, destroyed.
But that which cannot be shaken will stand. And what cannot be shaken? The kingdom of God – God’s rule and reign. The love of God and our relationship with God through Christ. Our salvation. These things cannot and will not be shaken. They are eternal. And they are our source of hope, even as we live and love and serve God in this broken, messed up world.
Look at Vv. 28-29. What is our response to the voice of God, to the Word of God? How to we hold on tightly to the hope we have in the unshakable kingdom of God, the love of God, the grace of God, the forgiveness of God?
First, in obedience. Faith is more than just agreeing with God in our minds, or thinking the right things about God and about Jesus in our brains. Faith is actually trusting God. And that means bringing my life into alignment with the Word of God, the voice of God. Faith and obedience are two sides of the same coin. If I handed you a coin and said, “Cut the back side off,” you couldn’t do it, because there would still be a back, the coin would just be thinner. We cannot separate faith from obedience.
And obedience isn’t me following a prescribed set of rules. Obedience is bringing my heart and mind into alignment with the will of God. And even that is empowered by God through the Holy Spirit. As I hear and follow the voice of God in scripture, in Jesus, the Holy Spirit goes to work in me and empowers me to live more and more like Jesus. In this world, there will always be too much of me still in the way. God doesn’t just take over and turn me into a robot, reprogramming me in an instant. He gently transforms me so that his heart and his grace and his love take root in my life and grow, slowly transforming me.
We hold on tightly to the hope we have in the unshakable kingdom of God, the love of God, the grace of God, the forgiveness of God first, in obedience. And second in worship.
Now, real worship involves three things … gratitude, reverence, and awe. Gratitude for what God has done and is doing, no matter what I am going through. Awe at who God is … an earth and heaven shattering God of power and might and majesty.
And reverence … godly fear. Great respect. Godly fear means that I recognize the majesty of God. That I recognize God’s authority over all of creation, including humanity, and that includes me. And recognizing my accountability to God. Recognizing that God has the authority to serve as judge over me. But that God also loves me and wants me to know him just as he knows me, and in Jesus God has made the way for that to happen.
I don’t think we typically have enough awe in our worship. We’re too concerned with what other people are doing during the service, with whether things are “cool” enough or not, with who is watching us as we worship. We don’t have enough godly fear. Enough awe. If we did, we wouldn’t be thinking about any of those other things at all. We’d see only Jesus, and we’d fall at his feet in gratitude, reverence and awe. We’d tremble, a little out of excitement and a little out of fear. Not fear of being destroyed. Jesus has taken care of that. Just fear of being in such an awesome presence. If we don’t tremble a little in fear, have we really worshipped God?
After all, our pastor tells us that “our God is a consuming fire.” Not because that’s what God wants to be or chooses to be. Simply that it is what God is. God’s holiness and righteousness and goodness and justice shake, rattle, and ultimately will consume all that isn’t those things. That’s why we need Jesus to make us those things before God.
God speaks. Are we listening? Because if we are listening, we’ll respond with obedience and worship.
Andrew Brunson, a Christian pastor from North Carolina spent 20 years in Turkey. He had a quiet but deep ministry there until 2016, when after a failed military coup, the government arrested him along with journalists, activists, military officers, and others. The Turkish government labeled Brunson a spy.
Brunson was held for more than a year without charges. He spent nearly two years in prison, often enduring long trial sessions. At one point, it looked like he could spend years or even decades in Turkish prisons. Finally, after pressure from the Trump administration, Brunson was released from prison and returned to the United States.
In a Wheaton College chapel talk, Brunson candidly said that he did not feel God’s overwhelming presence during his stay in prison. Instead, he experienced something even deeper. Brunson said, “[After a few days in prison], I completely lost the sense of God’s presence. God was silent. And he remained silent for two years.”
When he was finally brought to trial, things were even worse. He says:
There are some who go into the valley of testing and some do not make it out … I was broken. I lay there alone in my solitary cell, I had great fear, terrible grief, and I was weeping. And the thought kept going through my mind, Where are you God? Why are you so far away? And I opened my mouth as I wept aloud, and I was surprised at what I heard coming out of my mouth. I heard, “I love you Jesus. I love you Jesus. I love you Jesus.” I thought here is my victory. Even if you’re silent, I love you. Even if you let my enemy harm me, I love you. [As] Jesus said, “But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”
That is a picture of someone who trusts God with his eternal future, regardless of his present. That is a picture of someone who obeys and worships our God, who is a consuming fire. Let’s pray.
[i] Tim Keller, Making Sense of God (Viking, 2016), page 153
