Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 21, 2019 | Connor Kraus - The Curtain Was Torn

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July 21, 2019 | Connor Kraus - The Curtain Was Torn · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Connor Krauss, and I'm the student pastor here at TBC.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: You might have noticed that Jim is not here right now.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Jim is on his trip over to Israel.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's there right now.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm filling in for him today.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're pretty pumped.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm excited to share the message with you today because there is something that you can do today that would have killed Moses when he was on Earth.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it all has to do with a curtain.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about interior decorating here, that I surely wouldn't pretend to be any kind of authority on that.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I when Hannah and I moved into our home in January, we didn't have any curtains.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so we put up like butcher paper in the windows.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I was the one who thought that that was a great long-term solution because it blocks people from looking inside our home and it lets in a lot of natural light, which seems to be a win-win.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: But alas, you know, we we actually have curtains now.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So no, but what we're talking about today is a lot more significant, and it has to do with God's relationship with you and kind of how it's changed over history.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um when Jesus was crucified 2,000 years ago over in Israel, at the moment of his death, there were a couple interesting things that happened.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so the passage that we're starting out in this morning is going to be Matthew 27.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've got it right up here on the screen.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is Matthew 27, 50 through 53, and it says, Jesus shouted again with a loud voice and gave up his spirit.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly the curtain of the sanctuary was split in two from top to bottom, the earthquaked, and the rocks were split.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: The tombs were also opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And they came out of the tombs after his resurrection, entered the holy city, and appeared to many.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that's a lot of things to happen.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: That is much more lively than any sort of like funeral that I have been to.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: But when Jesus died on the cross and he let out his spirit, there were three things that happened that were really significant.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the first one is that the curtain of the sanctuary, and when we say sanctuary, we mean the temple, was split in two from top to bottom.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: The second one was an earthquake that was so powerful that to the centurions and those who were watching the crucifixion of Jesus that it made them come to faith because of how powerful this was and how it coincided with his death.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third one is that apparently after Jesus, a couple days later, rose from the dead, that other people who had been dead came into the city and were alive, kind of like Lazarus, but on a much larger scale.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so, two brief things I want to say about this, because we're actually going to be talking about this first verse this morning or the first event.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: But these two things, and well, I should say all three of them, are something that God is doing visually, that he has been telling his people throughout history would happen verbally.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so, for instance, the earthquake and these bodies coming back from the dead, it's a fulfillment of prophecy in Ezekiel 37.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you're you're familiar with the dry bones back to life story, this is God fulfilling prophecy that was in the Old Testament.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: But God is narratively showing what is happening theologically in this first point.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really significant.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's really significant because this curtain that was in the temple, it had a really important function.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it partly separated God from his people.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that it was destroyed to Matthew's audience back when this uh when the gospel was written, and to the other gospel writers who parallel the account, this is a big deal.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: But we also understand that Matthew must have assumed that those who were reading this must have already understood explicitly what was being shown here, because he doesn't really give us an explanation.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so this morning that's kind of what we're gonna look at.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is what is the significance?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: What is the curtain of the temple and what does it do?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And sub-point, why are we talking about curtains when people rising from the grave seems a lot more interesting, right?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I totally get it.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I totally get it.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: But my hope is that by the end of my message with you this morning, that you will understand why the curtain being torn has a lot more impact on you today than those who are risen from the grave.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So to understand this, we kind of need to go back.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: We need to go back to the beginning.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to understand that in the beginning, we were with God.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: God was with us, he created everything, and in the Garden of Eden, he created humans.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And God was walking with his creation in the cool of the day.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: We appreciate that, especially right now, because there is no cool of the day in Topeka, Kansas, right?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: But we understand that God had complete fellowship with Adam and Eve, and more significantly for us, Adam and Eve had complete fellowship with God.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: They were together.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: But if you know the story of the garden and what happened next, you know that sin entered into the world, that Adam and Eve, and probably us, if we were in their shoes, they decided that they knew better than God.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: They were deceived by Satan, and they decided to bring sin into the world, not understanding the consequences of their actions.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, because of that, the two worlds were separated from each other.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they were separated for an important reason.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because God is holy.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's an intrinsic part of his character that he is holy.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is part of who he is, and it can't be divorced from God's character that he is holy.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so the significance is that he didn't go to Adam and Eve, and he was like, Look, you guys kind of messed up here.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sort of frustrated.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I need to take a break.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: You guys go and like, you know, take a breather outside the Garden of Eden, you can come back later.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: No, he's holy, and that means that sin cannot be in his midst as part of who he is.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so the two worlds were separated.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: But from the beginning of time, we see that this was something that really didn't make God very happy, because his goal throughout creation was that he would have a deep fellowship with humans, and that he would have a strong relationship.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can see this sort of this struggle, if you will, um, in the book of Exodus, right?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So in Exodus 32, Moses has gone up on up to Mount Sinai, he's receiving the Ten Commandments, he's up there for a while, and the Israelites are like, oof, okay, you've been gone for a while, like 40 days, and in that time, we basically decided that God had left us and we needed to create a golden calf so that we should worship it while you were gone.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses, it's your fault.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: So Moses comes back down the mountain and he's got these Ten Commandments, right?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, guys, this was one of the big ones.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you really weren't supposed to do this.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: He drops it, God gives him the replacement copy for the Ten Commandments, right?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: But after that point, after the golden calf, something really significant happens.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're about to head out again, and God says, Look, um, I'm going to send an angel to be with you, and I'm still going to guide you by this pillar of fire by night and these this pillar of clouds by day.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: But because of your sin, I can't be with you.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: I can't be with you like I have been, because if I'm true to my character, I would have to destroy you.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to do that.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so out of my love, I am going to somewhat separate myself.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the solution.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you plans for a tabernacle, and later on it becomes the temple.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the way and the physical location wherein which we can come together, and I can be with you, and you can be with me.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And though it's not really the Garden of Eden, I want it to remind you of the garden.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so God does a number of things to remind his people that they have fellowship with him, or had better fellowship with him, in the garden.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: So in 1 Kings 6, this is like Solomon now, and he's actually building the real big temple.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it says he carved all the surrounding temple walls with carved engravings, cherubim, palm trees, and flower blossoms in both the inner and outer sanctuaries.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: He overlaid the temple floor with a bunch of gold.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so what is going on here?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're seeing basically these inner and outer sanctuaries are the same word, or excuse me, a different word for the same thing that we see in the temple, which is in the temple.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: You go in, and there's a holy place where there's a lot of instruments of worship, like the menorah and the basin for washing and other such things.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then you go in the next spot, and the one that he's describing here is what's called the Holy of Holies.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what we think it looks like during Solomon's time.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you can see that, it is covered in gold, right?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Behind that is cedar.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: There were no moths in the temple.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: But there was gold, it was covered in gold plating, there were cherubim, and cherubim are basically a type of angel.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the type of angel that God set forth in front of the Garden of Eden with the flaming sword to prevent Adam and Eve from being able to come back in.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: So with that and the nature imagery, the palm trees and the pomegranates and figs and all these kind of things that were being worked in, God was reminding them that the Garden of Eden was a place where they had this fellowship, and that in this temple was a location that they could go to where God would dwell, and they could have that fellowship with him.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: The Ark of the Covenant significantly was at this spot.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: The Ark of the Covenant caused some people some trouble in ancient Israel.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you looked at it when you weren't supposed to, if you touched it when it fell off an ox cart and you weren't supposed to, if you basically were in this presence and you weren't supposed to be, you died.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: It has to do with God's holiness.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: It has nothing to do with his specific frustration at preventing it from falling off an ox cart, and everything to do with the profane touching the holy.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: But there was one other thing that was really significant that God did to show his people that from the very beginning he wanted to have a relationship with them.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Every single tabernacle and temple that was set up was to face east.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is what the temple would have looked like during Jesus' time, okay, which means that as he's being crucified about 2,000 feet away on a hill outside the city gates, this is where the curtain was torn.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is what it looked like.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's facing east, not facing the city.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the significance for that is shown here in Genesis 3.24.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the Lord God sent him away from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: He drove man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming whirling sword east of the Garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever heard the phrase going east of Eden, we understand that the opposite way to get back into the garden would be going west.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if you were somebody, if you were a priest who was going through the temple, you're actually heading west closer to the place where God had designated.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really beautiful thing that God was showing his people through their worship.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: But there was a pretty big problem and a reason, though, that a curtain was there in the first place, and that was because of our sin.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine for a moment that you are a priest, the high priest in Old Testament Israel, okay?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're a Levite, meaning you are one of the twelve tribes.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: You've known since the day that you were born, that basically your job was going to be running the temple for the nation of Israel.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really high calling and something that was very significant.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Only a select few people were able to do it.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now you've lived your entire life following the law.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: You've been very careful to follow all the sacrifices and the rules that have been placed before you.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you are ritually clean, and you're also physically pure.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's no defects.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: You are the perfect example of what God wanted in the old covenant for as a minister between his people and himself.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so let's say it's the Day of Atonement, the one day a year when the high priest is able to go behind the curtain and access God's presence and make a sacrifice for the entire Israelite community.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you're this priest and you're walking.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: You go in and you're in this magnificent space, and you're going, and then you're get up to this curtain.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you know that though it is the day of atonement, and you can walk behind that curtain, the other 364 days of the year, that that curtain is a representation of your sin.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a physical manifestation of our separation with God.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's there to protect us, and God put it there.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, as you'll see here in Exodus 26, the purpose that it served was to separate us from God in the most holy place, but that it was supposed to be made out of this beautiful material.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Fun fact um the first time that the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament or in the Bible is shown to come into people and give them spiritual gifts is for the craftsmen who were making the temple.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so basically we had Holy Spirit-inspired people on the loom.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's awesome.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's really great.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it shows us, right, that there was this barrier between us and God, for the Israelites and God.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was really significant.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so then this guy named Jesus comes along, right?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: You might have heard of him.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in John 1, it says the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that word dwelt in John 1, it's this is the Greek word for it, it's skinao, which you don't need to know.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's no test at the end of this, but it literally means that he tabernacled among us, which is a confusing phrase.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Basically it would read, and the word, meaning Jesus, became flesh, because Jesus was here before he came to earth, and dwelt among us.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: So he became flesh and tabernacled among us.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: It really doesn't translate well, so that's why we say dwelt.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: But what it means is that Jesus was the same thing as what the temple was and the holy of holies.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: That if the temple was this meeting of two worlds, of God's world and our world, and a physical location, that Jesus was now the living, breathing temple.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's why he was able to say things to the Pharisees, like, um, you know, like in three days the temple will be raised again after it is destroyed, and they're like, look, it took us like 70 years to build this thing.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: No way you're building it in three.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's because he's talking about his body.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the temple.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he now is God in flesh, meeting with his people.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And God is actually able to develop these relationships that he has had the whole time.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he's doing some really crazy things.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's healing the sick, he's casting out demons, he's telling people that their sins are forgiven if they would just believe in him.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the rulers of the day, the priests, they're like, no, no, no, listen.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: God wouldn't do that.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: God is separate from us.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's not, he wouldn't even touch you.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't even be in the same presence as you, let alone share a meal with you.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you, a sinner, why would he ever want to spend time with you?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, if he's gonna spend time with anybody, he would want to spend time with us because we're holy, right?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus breaks out some sarcasm, which is lovely.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: But God became the flesh and dwelt among us.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so the temple was represented in Christ.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: But significantly, Christ did not just come here to heal people.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he did, but more in a spiritual, long-term kind of sense of the word.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus came and it was God's will that he would come so that he would be a sacrifice for our sins.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: This whole system that had been built on for thousands and thousands of years, um, with the blood of bulls and goats and doves and other such things, it wasn't really it wasn't really doing the job.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because the problem is, as humans, you and I, we keep sinning.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: After we ask for forgiveness in the temple, the problem was I'm gonna go out and sin the next day.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so that means I need a new sacrifice.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really keeping me from having this relationship with God.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to read to you from Isaiah 53.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you were here for when Jim was going through the book of Isaiah, you'll recognize this.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's talking about Jesus.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is in the Old Testament, and it says, Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's an amazing truth for us to consider that it was God's will that Jesus would come and die for us.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus went willingly to that cross.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: You have to understand that.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't duped by Judas when he came and gave him the kiss in the garden.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't fooled when they were scheming around him, and when he rode into Jerusalem on that donkey.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't just thinking that they were really throwing a party for him.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: He knew what he was doing, and he knew that he was going to die, but he also knew the reason why he was going to die.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: That he had lived a perfect life so that he could be the perfect sacrifice for our sins, and could forever set aside the old covenant and usher into uh reality a new covenant, a new way of life.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we kind of go back to our passage at the beginning in Matthew 27, and we see that when he dies, the curtain of the sanctuary was split in two from top to bottom.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is no this is no mere piece of fabric.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: This thing is thick, it's wide, and it's very, very tall.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the temple.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the moment that he dies, those people who had considered his death and his crucifixion not even worthy of attendance and were in the temple, they experienced the tearing of the veil.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And for the first time in probably their entire lives, they were able to see what was behind the curtain.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: They were able to see the ark, they were able to see these other things.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: But as Christians, we understand that we don't worship at a temple.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: We we don't need to go to Jerusalem and go to the temple in order to worship God.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, the curtain was a visual representation of what was happening theologically.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, that the way was opened for us to have a relationship with God that was unparalleled in history, coming the closest that we've ever been to back what it was like in the Garden of Eden.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so God, knowing this, displayed it in a way that we would be able to understand.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: People would have cowered in fear when the curtain was torn because they feared death.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't have to fear death any longer, because Christ has made it so that you can walk into that place.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so at the beginning of the message, when I said that you can do something today that would have killed Moses, at the end of Exodus, once the tabernacle was built, we see that even Moses, the guy who received the Ten Commandments, the most humble man on earth, whose possessions in life occupy much of the Ark of the Covenant, that the most wonderful person to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, that even he could not enter into the Holy of Holies.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of Exodus, we see him going into the temple or into the tabernacle, but having to stay outside the curtain because even he was not righteous enough to be with God.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: But you guys can go into that space.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: So to kind of show you maybe some application here, because Matthew doesn't really give it to us, there's one verse in the New Testament, or there's one passage in the New Testament that speaks into what is happening here and gives us some significance.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's from the book of Hebrews.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And just briefly, I want to say the book of Hebrews is like, if you guys um ever read comic books, and you know that there's like that um ad at the back of the comic book for the decoder ring, right?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you would send in for it, and it would take like seven weeks to get to you, but then you'd be able to read like the secret message that was in the comic book.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like the book of Hebrews, okay?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is this wonderful, it's kind of deep, but this wonderful book that explains to us a lot of the stuff that we didn't understand in the Old Testament.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 19, we're gonna go through 25.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: But this is how it begins.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way he has opened for us through the curtain, that is his flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, and then it goes into application.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to stop and pause here for a moment.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are some really significant things that are happening.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, we have to understand that, and the writer of Hebrews wants to make very clear that you understand, and I understand that the reason that curtain was torn was it wasn't like, you know, somebody like, you know, jumped up and dragged a dagger through it or something like that.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was because Jesus' blood cleansed us from our sin.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, this thing that had separated us from God was torn.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: There was no more need for a physical curtain because there was no more spiritual need for a separation.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we are very specific, that is from the blood of Jesus.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: But probably the most amazing thing about this passage is that it says that we have boldness to enter the sanctuary.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: We have boldness.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, can you imagine?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: For thousands of years, you're scared literally to death because of the possibility that you might set your sights on the Ark of the Covenant.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And because God is so holy and you are so sinful, you are terrified of what might happen.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, God's holiness did not change in this story.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: God is still just as holy today as he was at the beginning of my message.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: But what did change was how God views us, or those who believe in Jesus.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that that changed is that we now have boldness to enter the sanctuary because we are just as clean and just as seen, just as righteous and justified as Jesus Himself, which is a very bold statement in itself.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: But you can go into that space and be with God in a way that is unparalleled.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are the applications?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think there are three, and the writer of Hebrews gives us three ways that we can look at this and understand what God wants us to learn.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: They are that we draw near, we hold tight, and we stay together as a community of faith.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the first one is draw near.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, because of all the things that we've learned, because of all the things that have happened, and what we just said about the curtain being torn and this unfettered access to God that we now have, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of our faith, a heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: These last the hearts being sprinkled and the bodies washed in pure water, that would have set off some bells if you were a Jew, because you understand that that is the way that people were described when they were ritually clean.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so what it's saying here is that because of Jesus, you are now seen as ritually clean in the sight of God.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now it doesn't mean you guys need to stop taking baths.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about ritual baths, they are different.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: But what it does mean, excuse me, is that Jesus was the, well, the big phrase is that he was the substitutionary atonement for us.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: That he took our place, and because of him, we received the benefits.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's really awesome.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so because of that, because this curtain has been torn, let us now draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know for some of you the idea of drawing near to God is something that's maybe been kind of hard.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um I remember speaking with a guy, I was in Texas before we moved up here, Hannah and I were, and there was a guy who was fixing our windshield because in Texas everybody drives pickup trucks and they shoot rocks, right?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so we had a guy who was fixing our windshield, and I was having a conversation with him about faith.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we got to the point where he said that his grandfather was a pastor, and I'm like, awesome.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is great.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: We can have this conversation.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, so what was that like for you?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Well, my grandfather was the biggest alcoholic I've ever met in my entire life.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Wow, okay.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: I can understand why it might be hard for this guy who didn't believe in Jesus to walk closer to a God where the person he saw as the closest to God was really struggling.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean, it doesn't excuse us from the opportunity that God has given us to draw near to him.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's fair to say that in our lives we've had different things that have made drawing near to God feel difficult at times.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't rely on other people telling us to go near to God for the reason that we do it.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: We don't, you know, rely on the fact, or please don't rely on the fact that I'm telling you to draw near to God.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: What we do rely on, and what the writer of Hebrews is saying, is that because the curtain was torn, because Jesus died for you, because you now have access to God that people in the Old Testament would have dreamed of having.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, because of that, that you have the opportunity, that you have the opportunity to have this relationship, that you should take advantage of it.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to think one more thing.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Think of this in a way that you would think of any other relationship in your life.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's much larger, and God wants it to be the most important.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: But whether the most important person in your life is a spouse, maybe it's a family member or a friend, if you only spent one hour with that person a week, or exchanged three texts during the week with that person, your relationship would suffer.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: We don't consider relationships here on earth in that way.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: We know that they require a little bit of effort.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And us kind of going a little bit outside of ourselves in order to pursue that relationship.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: So much it's the same with God.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: He has opened this door for you to have this relationship with him, and you kind of got to walk through it on your own.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, James 4.8 does tell us, which I'm so thankful, had a wonderful sister in Christ after the first message tell me that I missed this point, so I'm really glad because I want to share it with you, because it is a great point.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: In James 4.8, it says that if we draw near to God, that he will draw near to us.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so my challenge for you today, um, in this first point, is that if drawing near to God is something that is kind of foreign to you, I challenge you to just try it, to walk through the door that God has opened for you, or rather this rended curtain, and approach God and see if he does respond the way that he has promised to respond, which is if you seek him with your face, that he will shine his light upon you, and that he will meet you where you are at.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: The second application that we have here is that we are to hold tight to our faith.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let us hold tight to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Might ask the question, I'm so glad you did.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: What is the confession of our hope?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: The confession of our hope is this.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: I, Connor, I am a sinner, and I have fallen short of God's glory.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, I have been separated from God forever.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's because of my own doing.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I believe in Jesus Christ, who is God and flesh, that he lived a perfect life, that he died on that cross, so that his death and his punishment, he might take that away from me, the death and punishment that I deserve.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: And because of him, I am able to have eternal life with God.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that statement is both a confession of hope because it's pointing to the future where eventually we are no longer separated by sin from God.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: We recognize that even though we have the blood of Christ with us now, our relationship with God is still not like what it was in the Garden of Eden.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it is a confession of hope in the sense that we are looking forward to a time when we have once again complete access to the Creator of the universe who deeply loves us.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing that this is, is it's also a value statement.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a value statement of the sufficiency of Jesus' sacrifice and of the power of God to conquer sin and death.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, what it says is that there's no sin too great that Jesus' death didn't cover it.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's arrogant to say that something that you have done or I have done is so deep or so wide that it is beyond the reach and the scope of Jesus' blood.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: It says that that is, that his death was sufficient.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing is it says that I believe in a God who is powerful, that he rose from the dead and he conquered death.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that though my body is experiencing decay, even though I'm saved by Jesus, my body is experiencing decay, and one day, unless Jesus comes first, God will call me home because my body has expired.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: That God is so powerful that that is not the end of my time with him.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so the confession of our hope, it's a really important one, and there's a lot wrapped up in it.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: But we can hold tight to it because he who promised is faithful.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: The one who's backing these claims is the creator of the universe who's never let us down before.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's completely trustworthy.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: He has truly never let go of a promise that he has made.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: And though there are times in our life where we feel like God might be have abandoned us or let us down, it is never truly the case.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, God deeply desires to have a relationship with you.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: That is his foremost desire.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is why Jesus came to die on the cross, so that God might receive glory for us believing in him.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: But we can hold tight to this, and we know that our faith, we know that our faith is something that is difficult at times.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 11:1 tells us that, just a couple verses after this, that faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, God's not surprised by the fact that you can't see him.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's not taken aback when you say, you know, it's a little difficult to trust so deeply in something that I haven't seen.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: But what I would challenge you is that we have, though we might not have seen it physically with our own eyes, we've surely seen it in other ways.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen it in history, right?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: We know that Jesus isn't just in our Bible, but he's in other people's history books too.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: He was a real person.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: We know it in the Bible and the first hand accounts we have of all the things that God has done.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: We know it in the prayers that have been answered that we have, that have been made over us and that we have made for other people.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: We've known it in just the intrinsic feeling that we have at times that God is present in this moment.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I um my my wife's side of the family has had a some problems with their appendix.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of them have had appendicitis.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And um it is pretend it like this, okay?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: One of them goes to the doctor and says, Doctor, I'm I'm having some pain in my stomach here.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: I actually don't know which side I've not had it, so I don't know which side it is.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: But anyhow, they're like, I have pain in my stomach.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the doctor says, Okay, all right.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've gone to school for this.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm seeing quite a few signs that this might be what it is.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Let me do some blood work to check and see, yeah, it's definitely appendicitis because of all these different things.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the person says, Yeah, I hear what you're saying.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: I know that it hurts really bad.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know that all the signs are pointing to it, but I haven't seen my appendix before.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I don't believe you.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to make it trivial, the fact that we sometimes struggle with our faith, but to say that our faith is based on nothing is a fabrication.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Our faith is based on a lot, and it's based on truth.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: But God does require and ask of us that our faith is measured not by specifically what we believe in, but by the conviction that we hold to those beliefs.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, that we would stay together as a community of faith.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: The verse that we're looking at here is um uh this is 24 and 25.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: And let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, not staying away from our worship meetings as some habitually do, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in Texas, I worked for a nonprofit youth ministry very similar to Young Life called K-Life.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh when I did it, uh, one of my jobs was I had a small group of senior high guys.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in that small group that I met with, um, the first meeting that we had, or one of the first meetings, I had them write down for me their top priorities in life.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: And because we are in the buckle of the Bible belt, everybody said that the number one priority was God.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's so awesome.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so we praised God for that, but I held on to those sheets of paper that they gave to me.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: And over the next year and a half, when they would come to me with a girl problem, a school problem, sports problem, or just the busyness of life.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it was time to kind of walk through these things, I would be able to sort of pull that sheet of paper out and say, hey, I remember what you told me about your number one priority.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that God isn't your number one priority right now.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe there are some things that we can do in our life to maybe show that a little bit more in our day-to-day walk that really focus on the fact that God is the number one thing that you say is important to you.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm I'm very aware that this passage has been used in the past to talk about church attendance, but that's not the focus of this passage.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: What this passage is saying is it says that the because of once again, all of the things that God has done for you, one of the ways that you should want to pour back out some of that love that you have been shown is in the community of faith.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so that we meet and we are concerned with one another, so that we can promote love and good works.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's the focus.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: But what it does say is that the number one obstacle to that community of faith, being a healthy and thriving body of believers, is making a habit of skipping church.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: That is what it says.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm not trying to throw any stones here.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is the passage that I was, you know, that I wanted to work on, and it just flows through the text.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the things that the writer of Hebrews thought was a direct application of the fact that the veil has been torn.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if I'm thinking the way that he is, which I wouldn't presume to say, but um, if I now have access to God, that is, once again, unparalleled in history, and is the closest thing we will get to the Garden of Eden until we are with God in eternity, that should make me want to spend a little bit more time with other people who believe that, and where I can learn more about it and where I can worship that God.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a pretty clear application.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're not trying to throw stones in any way, but to say that going to church is not important, or if you are, as the Barner group said in 2017, in the growing percentage of people, at that point it was 10%, but it's growing, who say that they believe in Jesus but not the church.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that really it's an individual faith, and they're not really down with all that religion stuff.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: I have to tell you that, you know, Jesus wasn't really down with all that religion stuff either.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: That in the book of James it tells us that true religion is this it's helping the orphans and widows in need.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: That coming to church is not about the pomp and circumstance of communion or something like that, but it is rather about being together as we are now, and we're able to support one another.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: We should not be living our lives in this silo of Christianity.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: But that's often how we look at it.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when we kind of begin to isolate ourselves, if we begin to stay in that format, then we begin to look at church more as entertainment rather than something where we can grow from it spiritually and benefit other people.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when we begin to look at church as entertainment, then we begin to substitute it when other things become more entertaining.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a slippery slope.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I digress, I don't want to labor that point, I don't, I'm not holding a cudgel, but I do want to say that I think this is important.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I, if you're somebody who maybe doesn't consider church to be a top priority, I would just challenge you to consider what the community of faith looks like as we are all working out our faith in God and our relationship with Him individually.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so to close today, I want to leave you with this.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is the this is my recap slide, that we would draw near, that we would hold tight and stay together with God.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: But what I want to leave you with today is this that God saved you to have a relationship with you.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: That Jesus died on that cross for you.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: He died on it for me too, but he died on it for you.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that his death and the blood that was there, and the pain, and all the stuff that's kind of wrapped up in that, and the significance of it, that he was willing to go through all of that because he knew that it would help him have a deeper relationship with you.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as we consider all of the things that we've talked about today, I hope you understand why the curtain is pretty significant.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because it is God's representation of the fact that you now can have a deep and abiding relationship with him.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And though God does promise to minister to you and come and meet you where you are at, there is a point in time where you have to come to him.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because the curtain has been opened, I pray that just like the priest who used to walk through the temple, if you were him once again, you would now be walking through the temple and see that the curtain is on the ground and it is torn in two, and you can have complete fellowship with God.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: As we look all the more and more towards the day that is coming where we have it and it is complete.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and pray.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we um we thank you for the cross and for Jesus.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: We praise you because the veil has been torn.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Please help us to grow in our relationship with you because we know that that is what you desire.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: God, I ask that for those of us who see an obstacle in our way, as we're on that path towards you, that you would show us, Lord, how you have already gone about setting it aside.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Father, we pray that your spirit would minister to us and help us to see uh what it looks like to have that deep relationship with you as we look forward to the day in which Jesus returns.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: It is in his name that we pray.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you, have a great week.