Exodus 40: 1-8, 34-38 • The Journey's Glory

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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

If we come to the culmination of the Scripture passages in the book of Exodus that we've been using for this journey of grace celebration, so in this culminating service of the last 150 days, let me ask that you would look in your Bibles at Exodus chapter 40, that last chapter in the book of Exodus, as God was leading His people on a journey and teaching them His grace at the same time. Exodus 40, the opening verses are recounting the article of furniture, the articles of furniture in the ancient tabernacle.



 And if you just look down the list, there was the Ark of the Covenant, the Table of Showbread, the Lampstand, the Altar for Incense, the Altar for Burnt Offering, and a Bronze Basin for Holy Water. But what was all of that about?



 If you go to the end of the chapter, verse 34, once all the articles of furniture had been installed, we read this, "Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.



 And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.



 But all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out.



 But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and the fire in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all of their journeys." Let's pray together. Well that was their journey, but you yet have us on a journey of extending your grace by the messengers that you have put in this place for the sake of the glory of our Savior. Teach us what that means by your word, even by the tabernacle, that we might glory in the grace of our Lord. This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.



 Well as the movies and maybe even a few documentaries make clear, there are still people looking for that elusive Ark of the Covenant that guided God's people in ancient times.



 You can stop the search.



 I have found one. I know right where to go to get it.



 Last week as I was preparing my message on the Ark of the Covenant, I came across this in a magazine.



 Looking for the holy Ark?



 Custom made Arcs crafted in Israel place your order today.



 I know you're thinking, "I've got to get me one of them Arcs."



 Do you really?



 Is that what we're really after? The Ark?



 If you're really needing an Ark to worship God rightly, maybe you shouldn't just stop with the Ark of the Covenant. After all, that was just one piece of furniture in the ancient tabernacle. You may remember there was also the golden table of showbread, the golden seven-branch lapstand, the golden altar for incense, the altar for bird offering, the bronze basin with holy water.



 Each one of them gold or bronze, so we're going to need another campaign to actually buy these things.



 I'm not going to encourage that, not because we're cheap, but because these things are obsolete.



 God was showing us by the articles of furniture in the tabernacle a message and a glory and a mission far beyond themselves and far greater than they. A message, a glory, and a mission that eclipses their use, but reveals God's grace. A message, a glory, a mission that we actually celebrate this day as we honor God's faithfulness, not just for sustaining a church, but for multiplying the message of Jesus Christ here for 150 years, but far beyond us to all peoples and nations by the work that He has done in faithful people like those who gather here.



 After all, what was that tabernacle supposed to be communicating? There was a message in the articles of the tabernacle. The Ark of the Covenant in verse 3 is mentioned. What was that all about? You may remember that it contained the tablets of the law of God, a law that would condemn every single one of us and those people had the law of God not been covered by a mercy seat.



 There was that lid of gold whereupon was sprinkled the gold of the blood of sacrifice as God was communicating that by sacrifice mercy would come even upon a sinful people and to show the beauty of it and the effect of it. God Himself would settle on the mercy seat and dwell among His people as if to say, "God Himself will cover our sin."



 What was the message of the Ark of the Covenant? Pity is by the God of grace.



 And then there was that golden table that held 12 loaves of unleavened bread, a loaf for every tribe of Israel, but unleavened bread to remind people that when God delivered them from slavery in Egypt, the deliverance was so complete and so fast that there was not even time for bread to rise for their journey. And so God was by the table of showbread, showing the bread that was a reminder of His deliverance of people who could not deliver themselves. The message of the table, deliverance is by the God of grace.



 There was the seven branch lampstand of gold because it was a tabernacle without any windows.



 And that light showed the priest the sacrifices that they were to offer and the instruments by which God would bring His mercy.



 Biblical minds may think, "Well, that was indicating Jesus." After all, He said, "He was the light of the world."



 But that's not the full quote. What Jesus said was, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." What would happen after His death, resurrection, and ascension? He said that God would send one who would testify of Him, who would bring the light of God into our hearts.



 And it was that Holy Spirit that the lampstand in darkness was indicating. The message to us, spiritual light, is by the God of grace.



 There was a golden altar of incense that filled the place of worship with sweet smoke. It rose heavenward when the priests performed their duties. We don't have to guess what that is about. The book of Revelation says, "The smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints rose to God as that incense burning, the smoke going to heaven, was signifying our prayers rising to God." And even that's special, but made more special by remembering that the incense offering was made in the morning and in the evening. As God was saying, "I will listen to prayers that prepare you for the day, and I will listen to prayers at the end of the day, even prayers of the tears and the fears of the night I will hear. For I am always attentive to your prayers." This was a message that prayers are received by a God of grace. How does He provide that grace to us? Do you remember where the fire for the altar of incense came from?



 It actually came from the altar of burnt offerings where sacrifices were made. As though God were saying to His people, "I will show you the effect of the sacrifices that are being made for your sin. They are actually purifying you in such a way that I will receive your prayers, sinful, weak, fearful, and yet when the blood of an innocent has been offered for the blood of the guilty according to the plan of God, I will cleanse you and listen to you, and your prayers will come to me as ones that I delight to hear as my own children."



 We like the message, but it burdens us at the same time, okay? God provides sacrifice for our sin, but how do we ever provide sufficient sacrifice ourselves for our sins? After all, in the Old Testament time, a priest had to offer an expensive bull in order for himself to be sanctified before God. And if you were just a regular person, you had to provide a lamb without blemish.



 What if you couldn't afford that?



 Within just two pigeons.



 What if you couldn't afford that?



 Then just a handful of flour.



 As God was saying to His people, "I will make a way. If you come to me in humility, I will receive you. And as you acknowledge the sacrifice that I've approved, however able or poor you may be, I will receive you." This was the message of the God of grace who would make a way for everyone to come, who would approach Him by the sacrifice that He authorized.



 You know, last week I mentioned our desire to serve the special needs, children of this community.



 And as John Wieland just reminded you, we really want some of you to serve these special needs families with some substantial thanksgiving gifts this season that are dedicated to special needs children and families. But even as I say that to you, I want to alert you that someone has already provided his gift.



 Because last week when I told you about that the first time, there was a special needs child in the congregation who through the course of the week sent me his gift. You want to see it?



 Here it is.



 I will provide what I can. Will God receive that?



 Yes, He will.



 As we approach Him with whatever means we have, the God who says, "You trust in me to receive you and I will receive you." It is the great message of salvation by the mercy of God, the God of grace who makes a way for everyone who comes to Him, not on the basis of our merits, but on the basis of His heart that is willing to receive. It's that great message that we proclaim again as we look back to the ancient tabernacle. But remember what it signified. It signified a sacrifice that was beyond our offering. After all, in that Old Testament time, people offered sacrifices. Yes.



 What if I sin again?



 Well, then you had to come again and again and again and again and again. The message for an imperfect people was that the sacrifices of bulls and goats and coloring books would never be enough.



 What then?



 God would have to provide a better sacrifice, and that's precisely what He did. The New Testament writer of Hebrews says, "For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God." That came the perfect sacrifice, the one who was holy before God, divine before God, the just giving Himself for the unjust. It became the sacrifice we would need for all time. Says the writer of Hebrews, "What was done in the past were but copies and shadows of what was to come." Jesus does away with the first order of things in order to establish the second. We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.



 We don't need an ark. We've received grace by the mercy of God once for all. What the ark foreshadowed has come. We don't need a golden table. We have a greater grace of deliverance to which it pointed. We don't need a seven branch lampstand. We have the Holy Spirit shedding abroad in our hearts the light of the gospel. Why don't we need incense?



 Because the Spirit takes our prayers to God where Christ is at His right hand interceding for you and for me. Why don't we need an altar of sacrifice?



 Because Jesus paid it all. And He said it is finished. And because of that great work of sacrifice, the just for the unjust, we may approach God in confidence and joy. There is mercy that has come once for all. And as we trust in Him, the sacrifice has been made. Why settle for a copy when you can have the real thing?



 Why settle for shadows when you can live in the sun?



 The message of the tabernacle was of a greater grace to come. And yet, even that message of anticipation and every article that was in the tabernacle, like an arrow on a compass pointing to Christ, as inadequate as those ancient articles were, as crude as they were, because of what they pointed to, they were bathed in glory.



 What is the glory of that ancient tabernacle?



 Moses recorded that the tabernacle itself was covered with goatskins and cow hides. No windows.



 So when God ultimately came to dwell in the tabernacle, you recognize the glory of the shekinah cloud of God came into the tabernacle. Even Moses and the priest could not stay because the glory was so great.



 But what that meant was that the king of creation had come to a place that stunk like an animal stall to show his glory. It wasn't the last time, because there would be another time in which the king of glory would come to an animal stall, and he would light the way with a single star to show again that part of the glory of God is the Creator coming to the created, that he would come in all his glory to the dark spaces of our life. And that is the glory of itself, that the star shining would come to the darkness of our night.



 And the one that all the tabernacle furniture anticipated came into the world. He showed us the glory of his grace in the darkness of an animal stall. Why do we need that?



 Soon after I came to this church, a wonderful young person wrote me, "Sometimes I feel as if I'm in a pit, a deep pit with no way out, a dark, damp, deep pit.



 But there remains a spot of light that is never left or even dimmed. The king of the universe who should be seated on a high throne humbled himself and lowered himself into a dark, dirty pit just to be with me because he loves me that much.



 When mercy comes to darkness, that is glory.



 When darkness does not turn away my Savior, that is glory. When the stink of my life and the inadequacy of my worship is received by God, that is



 glory. And the glory actually shines brighter because it comes into our darkness.



 So glorious is that grace message that there is blessing for whatever or whomever shares it. Think of that. The tabernacle showed the glory of what God blesses. It was through instruments so crude and hard for us even to understand in these days, but God was beaconing the glory of His light. The last article of furniture that I haven't mentioned yet was the bronze basin of holy water. It's always last in the list of tabernacle articles even though it was something that was used at various stages of the sacrifices. Why? Why was it last? Because in that large basin of water, a priest would take a laver and he would dip it in to the holy water and wash one hand.



 Now this hand is still defiled, but that one's clean, so he would grab the laver on the other handle, dip it in the water, wash the other hand, and now dip one more time and wash his feet.



 As the priest was signifying by that baptism that whatever I do now and wherever I go is holy to God.



 And the image which we pick up again, no matter the amount of water in our baptisms, is that we are signifying by the mercy of God. We are made holy in whatever we do or wherever we go for the purposes of God and those who are made holy for that purpose. And where they go and what they do is a message of God's grace. The glory of the Lord settles on them.



 Lots of documents have come to me in this 150th anniversary year. One was the document prepared for the 100th anniversary of this church. And there was a testimony recorded in there, not on a video wall like we just did, but a testimony in that 100th anniversary. An adult raised in this body of believers recorded key memories. Number one, a little card that came in the mail after a prolonged illness.



 The card portrayed a picture of a seated circle of little children with an empty chair indicating that the church missed me.



 Is recited to wonderful, consecrated Sunday school teachers.



 A memory of Mrs. Elliott's guidance through my early teens and that most important day in July 1912 when I publicly acknowledged my acceptance of Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.



 Wonderful memories.



 But glory as somebody is saying, "This is God's grace to me," and I tell it to others. I don't know who sent the card.



 I don't know who the Sunday school teachers were. I don't know if Mrs. Elliott is still around.



 What I recognize is every single one of them who's doing and going was sanctified by the message of grace, was distributing the glory of God. And that last article of God's distributed glory being shown to priests is more meaningful to us when we recognize the Apostle John says to the people around me, "Now you are a kingdom of priests to serve our God." Every single one of us has hand-sanctified and feet prepared for the glory of God. And we have evidence after evidence of it happening. I think of Reisa and Ashley this morning in the glory of listening to their testimony and others that some of you will know, Ruby Thompson and Betty Esch and Helena Majeska and Lindy Arndtland, Mary Peterson and Dr. Bordeaux, Dorothy James, faithful parents,



 grandparents, college roommates, children's teachers, now international families who are part of our family by the grace of God. And we recognize what God has done. He's taken fallible, weak, broken, sinful people, and He sanctifies us by His grace so that we become instruments of His message for the glory of Christ.



 And that means that every single person who is part of that kingdom of priests is a messenger



 of Christ Jesus, which ultimately means that what that tabernacle about was not just a message and not just a glory, but a great mission.



 What was supposed to happen to this tabernacle? Do you remember? Verse 36, "Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out."



 Verse 38, "For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and the fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys." Whenever they took up the ark, wherever they took the tabernacle, the message of God's grace was with them wherever God called them to go.



 They had a mission to declare His glory in all the land, in all the places where God would send them. That was not to sit and soak up the glory, but to move forward in God's calling according to God's leading.



 Whenever they looked back, whenever they believed that the best days were behind them, they were turning from the forward path to which God was calling them. Their calling then, as it always is, is to move forward in the mission of Christ.



 One of the things that I received in this 150th anniversary year was a bulletin from 1907.



 Some of the things in this bulletin are wonderfully familiar. The Women's Missionary Society, second Friday of each month.



 The Board of Trustees, second Monday of each month.



 The Young Couples class meeting, I bet they aren't young couples anymore.



 But the meeting that caught my eye was the meeting of the Forward Movement Committee.



 The Forward Movement Committee. Now what do you imagine their task was? The bulletin records they are in charge of the mission interest of the church.



 And there's explanation at the end of the bulletin. We are leaders in evangelistic movements. All that we have done as a church to reach out has been met with stout objections.



 But there are those learning gods will from us. Some have had revival. Let us come out under the old roof tree this evening to assist. I wonder if the old roof tree is still growing.



 I do know the mission is still here. And by the grace of God, He is yet performing His purposes by His people as we envision a church where God's unlimited grace is inspiring all generations and all peoples to follow Christ. We gather together with a message that God brings glory to and gives us the mission to distribute. Praise God who has been faithful to this place for 150 years. Know to this people for 150 years. God who is faithful, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to God alone be the glory. Amen. Heavenly Father, we praise You that by Your Spirit You have given us a great cause to let the world know of the grace that is in Your Son. Reach us again. Inspire us again. Lead us forward again in the ministry of the gospel. This is our message. This is Your glory and our mission for which we give You thanks. In Jesus' name, amen.