Marquee Service Tabernacle / Temple All Age Talk & Adult Sermon

Morning service "spoiler"!

ALL AGE TALK:

Well, here we are meeting for church in a marquee, a tent.

And there was a time in the history of God’s people when they used to meet with God in a tent.

Does anyone know what that tent was called?

It was called the tabernacle, which just means a tent or hut.

You can read all about it at great length in the Bible in the book of Exodus.

After Moses had led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, God told Moses how to have the tabernacle built.

And where-ever the people went, travelling  through the desert, they would take the tabernacle with them.

God Himself would meet with them in that tent.

The tabernacle showed the people that God wanted to meet with them.

Where-ever they went, God was with them.

But the tabernacle also taught the people that it was hard for them to meet with God.

The Bible tells us that God is holy – he’s very special.

And the tabernacle was meant to teach the people that they could only meet with God in God’s way.

They had to build and look after the tabernacle in lots of special ways exactly as God said.

There were all sorts of rules about it.

The tabernacle had 3 parts:

(1)   An outer court, where the people could come.

(2)   Then inside that an area called the Holy Place, where only the priests could come.

(3)   And then inside that there was a place called The Holy of Hollies, or The Most Holy Place, where only the High Priest could come once a year on what was called The Day of Atonement.

The very inner part of the tabernacle, the Most Holy Place, was where God’s presence was.

And it was separated from the rest of tabernacle by a curtain.

(Like this)

In fact, not quite like this!

It was thick and made of fine linen and was blue and purple and red and it had angels on it as kind of guards.  

It was probably 15 feet high and 18 feet wide.

That’s about 4 ½ meters high and 5 ½ meters wide.

Taller than 2 tall men.

That curtain was like a big no entry sign saying “You can’t come in here, because this is God’s special place.

God is holy and you aren’t so you’ve got to keep your distance!”

(sign)

So, in a second we’ll have our first reading.

One of the big things to notice is what a palather it all was.

It was really hard for people to come into the presence of a Holy God.

And I want you to listen out for 2 things in particular.

Question 1: See if you can work out why people couldn’t just come into God’s presence any old how any time they wanted.

There are a couple of hints of it in the text.  

Try to work out: what’s the problem that’s got to be dealt with if people are going to come into God’s presence?

Question 2: Listen out for what’s the solution to that problem.

How is it that Aaron the High Priest can come into God’s presence?

What does he have to do first?

1^st reading: Leviticus 16:1-17

So, thinking about that reading, does anyone have any idea why we can’t just approach God however we like?

What’s the problem that has to be sorted out?

Sin

13 times the passage talked about a sin offering.

Sin is all the wrong things we do and say and think.

And all the good things we should do that we fail to do.

And it’s the wrong attitude in our hearts.

The Bible says we need a sin offering – we need our sin to be dealt with if we’re to come to a holy God.

The passage says atonement is needed.

(sign)

Just look at that word:

ATONEMENT

It means “AT- ONE – MENT”

God and his people aren’t at one, they aren’t friends because sin separates them, so they need AT-ONE-MENT.

They need to be made at one again.

So what about our second question.
Perhaps we’ve already given away the answer to this but:

In our passage, what’s the solution to the problem of sin?

What did Aaron have to do so he could come into God’s presence?

We need a sin offering – a sacrifice.

An innocent animal would die in the place of the people and take the punishment they deserve.

It was like a swap.

God put all the people’s sin on the animal so that they could be forgiven.

The animal died instead of the people and took God’s judgement in their place.

The animal sacrifices of the Old Testament are a picture of the death of Jesus, which we’re going to read about in a second.

* * *

In the time of King Solomon, the tabernacle was eventually replaced with the temple in Jerusalem and I’d like you to listen out for mention of the temple in this reading.

Reading: Mark 15:25-39

Did anyone notice what it said about the temple?

What happened in the temple according to the reading?

When Jesus died, the Bible tells us that curtain torn in 2 from top to bottom – as if by God.

(tear)

Now people could come into the presence of God because Jesus had died to take away his people’s sin.

The way to God had been opened up.  

The NO ENTRY sign was taken away.

Jesus was the ultimate sin offering, the ultimate sacrifice of atonement.

Jesus has made a way for sinful people like you and me to come into the presence of God by dying in our place so that we might be forgiven.

The barrier that sin created between people and God has been taken away.

Isn’t that wonderful good news?!

We need to put our trust in Jesus – to depend on his death in our place, so that we can be friends with God again.

Let’s pray.

* * *

ADULT SERMON:

I want just for a few minutes to give you a very quick crash-course in the Biblical theology of the tabernacle and the temple.

Now, I realise that might sound as dull as dish-water.

But the tabernacle and the temple are really important in the Bible.

They help us to answer two of the great questions of life.

You went to the tabernacle for 2 reasons:

(1)   To meet with God

And:

(2)   To be put right with God, to be forgiven and have your relationship with God restored.

So as we look at the tabernacle and the temple we’ll think about those 2 vital issues:

(1)   How can I meet with God?

(2)   And how can I be in a right relationship to him?

Those questions are just as important and relevant today as they were when Moses first had the tabernacle put up.

Many people go on religious pilgrimages today in the hope of a fresh encounter with God, or to be put right with him.

Is that the Bible’s answer to these questions?

People look for God in all sorts of places.

And they try to do all sorts of things to get into his good books.

But , in fact, what the New Testament does with these ideas of the temple tells us where to look to meet God and be put right with him.

The big thing to say is that in the Bible, Jesus himself replaces the tabernacle and the temple.

Those famous words which we read at Christmas tell us that:

“[Jesus] the Word became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us.”

Literally it says, the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.

The Word tabernacled with us.

For 33 years, it was as if Jesus himself was a mini-tabernacle walking round Israel.

It was in Jesus that all the fullness of God dwelt in bodily form.

For Jesus’ lifetime, God camped out on earth – a bit like he had done in the days of the tabernacle.

Jesus was filled with the Spirit of God as the Spirit had filled the temple.

Jesus was the glory of God shinning forth and revealed.

“Anyone who has seen me”, Jesus said, “has seen God the Father.”

If you had been there 2000 years ago, you could have met God living as a man.

Jesus is the new and better tabernacle – the place to go to meet with God.

Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and I will build it again in 3 days.”

The people didn’t understand what he was on about.

The mocked him:

“It’s taken 46 years to build this temple,” they said, “and you are going to raise it in three days?”

But the Bible tells us the temple he had spoken of was his body.

In our reading, Jesus, the new temple, was being destroyed as he died – only for God to raise it up again on the first Easter Sunday.  

Jesus is the new and better temple: the place to go to meet with God.

You might say, “that’s all very well, Vicar, but how can I meet with Jesus today – he’s not here, is he!?”

It’s a perfectly fair question.

Jesus isn’t here physically.

We meet with Jesus today in his word the Bible.

The Bible was written, Jesus tells us, so that we might come to him and have life.

In the power of the Holy Spirit, as it were, Jesus walks off the pages of Scripture to meet us.

The Bible puts us in touch not with a dead hero but with our living Lord.

Second, Jesus puts us right with God.

We thought about that with the children.

All the sacrifices of the tabernacle and temple pointed to him.

The blood of sheep and goats could never really take away sin.

They were only ever intended as a picture of Jesus’ perfect sacrifice which was to come.

Jesus was the spotless lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.

Jesus’ death was the one all-sufficient sacrifice for sin.  

The Bible tells us “we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place [to come into the presence of God] by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body”.

Jesus’ broken body is the way for sinners like you and me to come to a holy God.

And so there’s no more need for the temple or its sacrifices.

Indeed, Jesus predicted that the Temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed.

And it was.

Within a generation of Jesus’ death, Jerusalem was besieged by a Roman army and soldiers burnt down the temple in AD 70.

It has never been re-built.

For completeness sake, we should say that the Bible describes the Christian church collectively and believers individually as the temple of God.

The Bible never calls a church building a church.

Really, the church is the people who trust in Jesus, not the building.

You can have a perfectly good church service in a 13^th C church or a 21^st C marquee.  

Another answer to the question, “How do we meet with God?” is that he promises to be specially with us when we meet together in Jesus’ name.

Of course God is everywhere.

We can talk to him in prayer wherever and whenever we like.

But when we gather together as a church, God is particularly with us to bless us, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We get together as a church to meet with God as we meet with one another.  

And if you’re a Christian, you too are a little temple.

Paul tells believers that their bodies are God’s temple and that the Holy Spirit lives in them.

When we trust in Jesus, we are made clean by his blood and God himself can come and live with us.

It’s not only that we can come to Jesus to meet with God, but when we do so, God the Holy Spirit comes to take up residence in our lives.

May God enable us today to trust in Jesus that we might meet with him afresh, be put right with him and know the blessing of his presence in our lives. Amen.

Lee Gatiss on some church history heroes and big issues

I happened to stumble across these links on the Monergism website so this is really a note to myself that I might like to listen to some of these sometime:

The following MP3s are some very helpful talks by Lee Gatiss with Ermine Desmond

Luther – Salvation by Grace Alone (vs. Free Will) MP3

Calvin – Union with Christ MP3

Cranmer – The Lord’s Supper MP3

Owen – Infant Baptism MP3

Whitefield vs. Wesley - Calvinism vs. Arminianism MP3

Gresham Machen – Christianity & the Tolerance of Liberalism MP3

 

 

Evangelical Ministry Assembly 2014 audio available

I am especially looking forward to listening to Vaughan Roberts on The Doctor.

http://www.proctrust.org.uk/resources/

Word and sacrament

Alexander Schmemann writes:

“Western Christians are so accustomed to distinguish the Word from the sacrament that it may be difficult for them to understand that in the Orthodox perspective the liturgy of the Word is as sacramental as the sacrament is “evangelical.” The sacrament is a manifestation of the Word. And unless the false dichotomy between Word and sacrament is overcome, the true meaning of both Word and sacrament, and especially the true meaning of Christian “sacramentalism” cannot be grasped in all their wonderful implications.  The proclamation of the Word is a sacramental act par excellence because it is a transforming act. It transforms the human words of the Gospel into the Word of God and the manifestation of the Kingdom. And it transforms the man who hears the Word into a receptacle of the Word and a temple of the Spirit… For the Gospel is not only a “record” of Christ’s resurrection; the Word of God is the eternal coming to us of the Risen Lord, the very power and joy of the resurrection.” (pp32-33)

Food as sacramental

Just dipping into Alexander Schmenmann, For The Life of the World. Stimulating quotable stuff.

"Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. Food is still treated with reverence. A meal is still a rite - the last "natural sacrament" of family and friendship, of life that is more than "eating" and "dinking." To eat is still something more than to maintain bodily functions. People may not understand what that "something more" is, but they nonethless desire to celebrate it. They are still hungry and thirsty for sacramental life." (p16)

All language analogical

From my quick skim, there appear to be lots of good and interesting things in The Revd Dr James Robson's article, as one would expect. I liked this bit:

In reality there is always in the use of a word a component of “like” and a component of “unlike.” “Univocal” and “equivocal” are labels describing ends of an axis, rather than inhabited locations. Usage of words is always analogical, since no two understandings, no two situations are identical. There is, within analogical usage, a spectrum from more nearly univocal to more nearly equivocal.

J.E. Robson, 'Forgotten Dimensions of Holiness' Horizons in Biblical Theology 33 (2011) 121-146 pp128-9

Church non-growth

I think John Stevens said at EMA:

For every person who joins the UK church, 4 church members die.

Evangelical churches in the UK are experiencing 0% growth and are only avoiding decline because of the number of immigrants who are evangelical Christians. 

The Holiness of God

You have heard that it is said that the basic idea of the word "holy" in the Bible is seperate or set apart. God is holy because he is seperate from all evil and sin, set apart in his purity.

At EMA this year, Sinclair Ferguson suggested (if I heard him correctly) that this is an inadequate understanding of the holiness of God if we think of holiness as one of his attributes. Considered in himself as eternal, what sense does it make to describe God as set apart from evil? There was no such thing as sin.

Of course a similar argument could be made about other characteristics of God. If we called wisdom only lack of folly similar considerations would apply.

No doubt it is helpful to make such negative statements about God to distinguish him from creatures and indeed from fallen creatures. For example, it makes sense to say that God is timeless even though (if?) time is a created thing.

But what positive account of the holiness of God would we give? We want to think of God's holiness as more than a privation or lack of evil, right?

And how, if at all, would we distinguish it from God's goodness?

One thing we can say is that God has all his attributes in a holy manner: he has the kind of goodness and wisdom suitable to an unchangable, eternal, Trinitarian God. Something of God's holiness then is his uniqueness. He is special.

(I think Dr Ferguson may have gone on to speak of God as the intensity of his glory and talk about places in the Bible where the holiness and glory of God are associated such as Is 6:3).

Muller quotes Leigh who describes God's holiness as "original, absolute and eternal..., the incommunicable eminence of the divine Majesty, exalted above all, and divided from all other eminences whatsoever... (Is. 17:7; Hab. 1:12)." (PRRD vol 3 p498) For Brakel, God's holiness is "the brightness of all his perfections." (p499) Leigh says: "Holiness is the beauty of all God's Attributes, without which his Wisdom would be subtlety, his Justice cruelty [etc.]"  (p499) Ridgley says God's holiness is "not so much one perfection as the harmony of all [God's] perfections, as they are opposed to sin." (p500)

One way of describing holiness is as conformity to God's will. God's nature and will are one. God perfectly conforms to who he is, which is also who he wants to be. (Muller p500)

Muller says, "God's holiness is in a sense the foundation of all his other virtues or "excellencies. God's self-enjoyment and the fact that he has himself as his higest end and good depends on the purity of his nature or holiness (p500).

(In the article cited in the comments, James Robson discusses the connection between God's holiness and love esp. in the OT. Part of his conclusion is worth quoting in this connection:

Holiness as something proper to God has often been located along the axis of separation and moral perfection, expressed in unapproachability, on the one hand, and judgement against sin, on the other. These are important, and should not be lost. But from within divine holiness, rather than from a separate source, comes YHWH’s love, a love expressed in selfdisclosure, in saving activity, in a desire-to-be-in-right-relationship. There is a dimension of divine holiness that declares “Come close, but on my
terms!”

p146)

Anyway, perhaps you'll forgive my thinking out loud. I'd like to think about this a bit more sometime. Do please tell me if this is heretical / where I'll find the best account of the holiness of God.

The Gospel as News

Somewhat sparked by John Stevens on the glorious message of the gospel from Romans 1 at EMA this week, I thought this might give a little hook for a parish magazine item:

5^th July 2014 was the 60^th anniversary of the first ever TV news bulletin in the UK.

The Christian faith is news – good news. That’s the meaning of the word gospel. In other words, Christianity is a message or an announcement. It’s the kind of thing a herald should proclaim. The good news comes to us not merely as a helpful suggestion or first of all as an invitation to a conversation but as a momentous and authoritative declaration of what God has done in Christ. For those who were the eye-witnesses of what Jesus did and taught there was no doubt that he was the best news in the world ever – news worth attending to and sharing. 

Although in our age of 24-7 media much of what passes for news is speculation or opinion, like real news, the Christian faith has at its core factual events, verifiable history. The Christian faith is not just a theory or a philosophy. It is the report of what God did in the man Jesus Christ in a corner of the middle east just over 2000 years ago. It’s a helpful analogy to think of some of the New Testament writers, such as Luke the evangelist, as somewhat like reporters, wanting to convey to us what’s actually happened and draw out its significance.  

In the ancient world gospel often meant an epoch-changing event. It could be used to describe the good news of the birth of a new king or a decisive victory in a battle. And of course the Christian gospel includes those very things: the birth of Jesus the God-man as God’s long promised rescuer king. It tells of how Jesus has brought in the Kingdom of God by defeating the forces of evil and winning the ultimate victory over sin. The official proclamations of the Roman Empire would have trumpeted all sorts of supposed good news, much of it propaganda. Jesus was a different sort of king with a counter cultural kingdom which was thoroughly good news, especially for those who knew themselves to be poor, weak, vulnerable or oppressed. This was news of freedom and flourishing.

The BBC’s first news bulletins didn’t show a newsreader. In striking contrast to the celebrity culture of today, the producers thought that news was a serious business that should be soberly delivered and that seeing a newscaster would detract from the stories themselves.

The Christian faith, however, is above all about a person. The whole purpose of the Bible’s good news is that we might “see” Jesus. He is centre-stage. The good news is all about him and what he has done for us.  

All Christians are meant to be messengers of this good news and there’s a tension here. For sure believers are not to hog the limelight but rather to point to Jesus. Like John the Baptist, their message is to point to Jesus and proclaim: “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” John was humble enough to say of Jesus, “he must become greater; I must become less.” The Christian is a servant who ought to be happy to fade into the background so that all eyes might focus on Jesus. Nevertheless, a Christian’s life ought to commend the Christian message. Part of the good news is the life-changing power of Jesus and despite all our faults and failures we hope that something of Christ’s on-going work in our lives might be evident in us.

Perhaps there’s another contrast here between your average TV news report and the Bible’s good news. If we’re honest, much of today’s news will make little difference to us. The Bible’s age-old message is ever relevant. There could be nothing more important to us than the offer of forgiveness of sins, friendship with God and hope in the face of death. Knowing Jesus gives fresh meaning and purpose to everyday life and affects everything. That’s not normally true of the 10 o’clock news.     

Lunchtime Bible Talks Across London

http://www.gospelatwork.org.uk/

Exodus 3 jottings

Well, according to my limited skills, I've been working hard at my PowerPoint for the family service on Exodus 3.

In textbook style, you might say it has at least 8 take-home points, some of which are probably incomprehensible.

And no gimmicks except for a few PowerPoint slides.

Perhaps it's not too late for you to suggest your improvements. Maybe I needed to decide on simple theme and aim sentences and go after those. Maybe less would be more.

As it stands, the take-home summary might be:

(1) God reveals himself so that we can know him

(2) God is holy and we aren’t

(Moses is rightly afraid of God)

(3) God is with his people in their suffering (as the fire is in the bush)

(4) Because of God’s mercy we are not burnt up

(5) God sees, hears, cares and promises to save

(6) God uses his people and will be with them

(7) God’s name is “I AM WHO I AM”

He is the (unique, eternal, self-existent, self-defining) unchanging, faithful God (the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who keeps his covenant promises)

(8) Jesus is this God (John 8vv58-59): he reveals himself, is holy, suffers with us, is merciful, sees, hears, cares, saves, is faithful and unchanging

Applications:

If you want to know God, look at Jesus

Trust in Jesus the Saviour

Clothes as sacramental

I am trying to do some thinking about whether the Scriptures and other stuff might be said to be sacramental and came across this quotation on The Facebook:

"The traditional Quaker maid covers herself with the most voluminous and ugliest possible vesture of unrelieved black, while her shallow sister of the world thinks of nothing but 'fashion.' To the Christian woman, clothes can be as sacramental as anything else, they constitute something which can pleasingly express spirituality, that can be a quite joyful sign of the glory of God's intricate creation. 'Let *all* the world in *every* corner sing: My God and King'" -- Martin Thornton.

Possibly from Christian Proficiency