All right, well, beautiful singing. So if I met you, my name is Aaron and the PG pastor here and glad you’re with us on this Groundhog Day. And so if you have a Bible with you, if you open up to the book of Hebrews today, our text to studies come from Hebrews 12 verses 18 through 29. If you don’t have a Bible with you, the pew Bibles are scattered around and that’s on page 585. So for this time here, I’m just going to read verses 28 and 29 and then I’ll pray when I get to work. But our texture study is going to be 18 through 29, so I’m just reading 28 and 29, but 18 through 29 will be our texture study. So please follow along as I read. This is what the Bible says starting in verse 28 of chapter 12. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. And thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe. For our God is a consuming fire. Okay, so that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me? Lord, thank you for your word. Lord, I pray that you bless this time for the glory of Christ. Please help me to communicate your word correctly and clearly. Please be with the congregation. Please give them ears to hear what your spirit is saying through your word. And Lord, I pray you’d use this just in our lives, which is just build us up in the faith. In Jesus name, Amen. So today, let me start with a story that I think I may have shared maybe a number of years back, but let me share with it again now. Every story I like to tell always starts off the words, so there we were. Okay, so there we were. Which is my little hometown in rural central Wisconsin, which at the time was 300 people, now has jumped to a bustling 400 people. So a big town. And when we were. Where we were was in my late teens into early 20s, when I was playing at a men’s baseball league where my little hometown would play against a bunch of other little hometowns around the area. Now, in this men’s league that I played in, whatever the teams had in terms of like, lacking in talent, we more than made up for in our competitiveness. As each of the little teams I grew up in, we all wanted, like the baseball bragging rights for that given season. And because of that, because of this competitive fire that burned times burned so hot inevitably between the two teams that were playing wherever they were, a lot of Talking ended up happening like a lot of talking. And this wasn’t talking, just like to catch up, exchange pleasantries, you know, here with summer plans, vacations, we all were doing rather this talking would revolve, let’s just say, thoughts that we have for each other, thoughts on why our hometown was vast superior than their hometown, why our ability to play baseball was so much better than their ability to play baseball, among many other thoughts we had for each other, I guess you could say that we were more than willing to give personal critiques, personal criticism to one another on things like one’s intelligence, personal hygiene, family history, and on and on. And as each team shared their critics or criticism for each other, inevitably like tensions would continue to rise and ideas and suggestions would be thrown out there that perhaps the team should hit pause from playing the game of baseball and move towards maybe something a little bit more physical in nature involve like fists being thrown, backsides being kicked. Now one of the fans on our team who actually played a year or two with us is a man who is 6 foot 8, 6 foot 9 and 300 plus pounds. Like all 300 plus pounds, just a big man. And this man is not only strong, but he’s country strong. And there is a difference between strong and country strong. And this country strong man, from early on he was doing like physical labor in the family business. And so because he’s just a massive mountain of a man, just strong. But the only thing little on this man was his patience, particularly when others were causing problems towards his friends. So at times during our way too competitive baseball games, when tensions were at its highest, when the fire burned hottest, our giant mountain man of a fan would just sneak end up in the bleachers and he would let our opposing team know some options that he was considering doing to them if they dared try to turn the baseball game into some type of physical altercation to go after his friends. And he’d do so by suggesting that they would just stop yapping. Now as this happens, you can imagine a little bit of chain reaction to take place for both teams. For the team that we played against, it’d be amazing how quiet they would get, right? They go from super talkative to the mountain man standing up, all of a sudden quiet. Like all their boldness, all the brash things they’re saying, all the confidence assertions they were making, almost immediately silence, right? Mouths are stopped, yappers were shut. But then for our team, the opposite would happen, where we become like even more galvanized, even more bold, like our backbones would be hardened and our mouths are even more free, more bold, where we could talk with such freedom because we knew with our giant mountain man of a fan, there’s no way we could lose. The other team had no power over us. We were free to do whatever we wanted. The great man, this Chai man, would absolutely galvanize us. Now I’ll tell you this story to hopefully set us up for our text study this morning, which the text, I think, is meant to be a galvanizing text for the people of God. As we see in the text, even all the uncertainties, all the difficulties of life, all the many different foes that seemingly attack us, attack us in ways that they can be like, maybe bold, they can be taxed us with like, criticism, ridicule, shame, mocking us even with all those things on us that we can’t lose. And we can’t lose because we have the Lord on our side. And not only is the Lord on our side, like, he’s the one who fights for his people, where through his word he silences all his foes. He’s the one who proves to be a consuming fire. Now, before we get into our text, let me remind you yet again some of the context of our passage and why this passage has been so important for the first readers of Hebrews. So in the context of Hebrews, the first readers were suffering for their faith in Christ and they were being persecuted in ways that are really starting to, like, ramp up. And as the suffering, as the persecution was ramping up, as tensions were on the rise, I’m sure for the first readers, they felt that they had many foes that they were facing, foes who were leaving them weary. They were not just the foes of, like, the people who were persecuting them, but they had other foes as well. In the context of Hebrews, seemed like these first Christians had foes like discouragement that they’re battling against hopelessness, strong foes of like worry and fear and anxiety. In the context letter, all of these various foes seemingly becoming more and more effective in the fight against these early Christians, where the foes seemingly had the first readers of Hebrews on the ropes. Weary, discouraged. So throughout this letter, the author of Hebrews does a number of helpful pastoral things, all to try to help his readers to fix their eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ, to see him for who he is and what he has done for them, doing so with the hopes that they would persevere in their faith, to not throw in the towel. So it’s by A further way Reminder. Let me just mention a few ways the author of Hebrews tried to do this for his first readers, just to try to help them to persevere. So primarily, if you’ve been with our study, you know the author tried to help his weary readers by just simply see how Jesus is better. Like he’s just better. He’s superior of all things, because he is the definitive word by which God has spoken. So throughout this letter, the author would point to various things, particularly through the Old Testament, whether it be like characters or structures or themes where he’s helping his readers not only see how these characters or structures or themes related to Jesus Christ, but also why Jesus was better superior than them all. In addition, the author tried to help his weary, discouraged readers find hope, find comfort that their suffering was actually not in vain. And as they suffered, they were not suffering in like isolation because for them they had Jesus, the one who is the great high priest who, who can sympathize with us and all of our weaknesses, yet without sin. And because he is the one who can sympathize with us, Jesus is also the one who is able to give us help in our times of need. Furthermore, one of the ways to help the writer of Hebrews tried to help his readers is through a series of warnings that he laid out throughout this letter, which actually include the last of the series of warnings in our text today. And as the writer of Hebrews gave this series of warnings to his weary, discouraged readers about leaving Jesus Christ, he didn’t do this to like further beat them down or to shame them. Rather, he warned them of the dire consequences of abandoning the faith with the hopes that the warning would be almost like ice cold water running down their backs to wake them up to the reality of what they’re considering doing. These dire consequences that he wanted them to see, as well as the reward of Christ, who is the great reward, who is so far superior that even slight momentary affliction, his weary discourage readers to persevere. The author talked a good amount about eternal life really throughout the letter, including actually in our text again today, where he helps his readers remember this life is not the end, that God has promised an eternal life to come for his people. And God cannot lie. Maybe another one. The author also helped his readers by giving them Old Testament examples. So we went through Hebrews 11, the hall of Faith, all these great Old Testament examples who went before them, who also suffered, yet persevered as they suffered with the author hope that some of these characters, some examples, would provide Inspiration for his readers to do likewise. So throughout this letter, the authors pointed his readers time and time again to Jesus in different ways, through different strategies to help them to fight the good fight of faith, to persevere, to endure all the way to the end of their faith. Now, as we get our text to study today, we see the author give another strategy which the author tried to help his readers just see how giant and powerful their God is. Verse. Again, this thing’s an attempt to galvanize his weary readers, to galvanize them to trust, indeed, the Lord silences their foes, that through the galvanization of their faith, that they become more bold, more confident. So that introduction, as we look back at the meter text starting at verse 18. And so if you’re with us for the first time today, all I’m going to do is kind of walk us back through the passage. So please keep your Bible open. So we do a style of preaching here called expository preaching. And so I’m just going to try to expos it to explain what the text is saying. Okay, we’re going to go through verse by verse. Starting verse 18, we see the author continue one of the great themes of the book, where he once again points his readers back to the Old Testament. And this time in verse 18, he points back to a story in the book of Exodus, chapter 19, which is where God brought his people before him at Mount Sinai, although also referred to in the old testament as Mount Horeb. And in Exodus 19, at Mount Sinai, as you may remember, the Old Covenant, or the law, was given to God’s people, which included the Ten Commandments. And this covenant, we’ve learned in our study of Hebrews, would serve almost like as a contract between God and his people, where in this contract God promised that he would bless his people, where his people promised that they would obey all that God commanded of them. However, while this is a good contract, well, we also learned in Hebrews that this covenant, this contract, had faults because God’s people could not keep up their end of the agreement, and they cannot do this because of their sin. Okay, now back up to our text, verse 18. So here we don’t read details of that contract, what that was all about, but we actually read what the scene when this contract was being cut, what did it look like? So in the text we read, for you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of trumpet, and a voice of whose word made the hearers beg, that no Further message be spoken to them. Now this here, this is the author of Hebrews speaking about the terrifying reality of the scene in Exodus 19. Okay, so when this covenant between God and man and this law as it being laid out, this is not some type of like casual conversation between God and his people, you know, where they kind of got together over a cup of coffee and they casually worked some back and forth details, you know, what the contract would look like, what the covenant would look like before it was ratified. Rather Exodus 19. For God’s people this is a terrifying scene. They were gripped by reverent fear of God. You get the sense they were like physically stilled, captivated, captivated by the awe, the power, the majesty of God at Mount Sinai. We’re at the scene, it was so awe feeling, so terrifying we see in our text that they were like almost like begging for it to stop, that no further message be spoken to them. Their ears, their minds could not handle all that was taking place on the foot of Mount Sinai this week. I was trying to think of maybe some type of illustration just going to help us in our mind’s eye what this scene must have been like in Exodus 19. But I just decided that any illustration would just be huge disservice. I what this must have been like, just awesome, terrifying. A soul gripping scene in Exodus 19. An incredible weight, incredible gravity that was like crushing people in verse 20 of our text. For they, the people of God could not endure the order that was given, which is an order that even if a beast touches the mountain of God, that the beast shall be stoned, meaning the holiness of God that was present at the scene. So great, so terrifying, so awesome. Book of Deuteronomy scene uses the word gloom. Describe all the heavy the scene was, right, the weight of God was so heavy. Here Mount Sinai was like not approachable. And even if like an innocent animal just so happened to wander its way into the presence of God, that animal would not escape with its life. By the way, in Exodus we actually read that no living thing, including mankind, could approach the mountain on its own and live. I mean just this is a terrifying, weighty, heavy scene. Verse 21 Indeed, the glory, the majesty, the holiness of God was so terrifying to behold. We see that even the the great Moses, when we study Hebrews, we’ve learned is basically the par excellence of the Old Testament faith. Even the great Moses said, I tremble with fear, friends, to keep saying it, just an awesome awe filled scene, just completely gripping. That was too much to partake in the glory of God at Mount Sinai was more than could be handled. However, keep going. Our text, verse 22 for the first readers of the book of Hebrews, these early Christians, for them, their faith was actually not established at Mount Sinai. And that terrifying reality, rather we see the author of Hebrews reminds his readers that their faith was found on a different mountain. A different mountain filled with glory. Bear with me in the text. But you, you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels and festival gather, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God who is the judge of all, and the spirit of righteous made perfect. And to Jesus, the meteor of a new, a better covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Now, there’s a lot here, so let me hit pause and try to work this a little bit more slowly just to understand what the text saying here. So first let me just mention that this here as this transition into Mount Zion. So, right, this is setting up like a comparison and contrast between Sinai and Zion. Okay. How each different. Each mountain is different. Okay. So it’s kind of. Notice that it’s gonna be kind of going throughout the rest of the text. Second, in verse 22, let me just address the you. It says, but you, you have come to Zion. And so that you. I was talking to the first readers who were Christians who had faith in Jesus Christ. But that reality, this you by extension, actually goes to all who have faith in Jesus Christ. If you have faith in Jesus Christ, you’re accounted among the you of this passage. So your faith is not established at Mount Sinai, rather you, through faith in Jesus Christ, you belong to Zion. Now, as I say that for those who are here are not Christians, we’re very happy you’re here with us. But I do have to tell you, Sinai is actually your mountain where you’re left trying to keep the law of God in ways that you will never be able to do. And if you’re in Zion, you’re in a terrifying reality that is your reality apart from Jesus Christ. So let me plead with you here to change your residency and move from Mount Sinai, trusting in yourself, trying to earn God’s favor, trying to keep some type of moral law and move to Mount Sinai, the mountain of trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Third, let me just address Mount Zion, the city of living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. So in scripture, Mount Zion was part of Jerusalem, a place that actually David was able to capture as Jerusalem was Like the Old Testament, holy city of God. And this is the holy city because that’s where the temple would dwell. Or in the Old Testament, that’s where God’s presence would be. Mount Zion. In the Old Testament, you actually find a good amount about the presence of God found in Mount Zion. You can read this in the Psalms, as well as some of the prophets like Micah, Joel, Isaiah. So let me just read just a few that speaks of the presence of God in zion. So Psalm 9. Sing praise to the Lord who sits enthroned in Zion. Tell among his people his deeds. Psalm 20 May he send your help from the sanctuary and give you support From Zion. Micah 4 and many nations shall come and say, come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that it may teach us his ways, that we may walk in his path. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord. From Jerusalem. Joel 3. The Lord rose, roars from Zion and, and utters his voice from Jerusalem. And the heavens and the earth quake. The Lord is a refuge of his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel. So you should know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy and strangers will never again pass through it. One more. This is back to the Psalms, Psalm 2, which is speaking about the promise. Christ was the come the king. Psalm 2 says this. As for me, I’ve set my king. Who’s the Christ? I’ve set my king on Zion, my holy hill. This Old Testament symbolism of God’s presence found in Zion, Jerusalem, something actually New Testament picks up on, particularly in the book of Revelation, where Zion is used to speak of, like heaven itself, the eternal city of God, the new Jerusalem. So Revelation 14 and I looked and behold I saw the Lamb speaking of Jesus Christ, the Lamb standing on Mount Zion and this heavenly Zion. This is ultimately what the text is speaking towards, pointing us towards this heavenly Zion. Third, let me just point out the angels and festival gather in the assembly of the firstborn. So this year, this is referring to all those who will fill up the the heavenly Jerusalem, where in Zion that is to come, angels will be present along with all who put their faith in Jesus Christ in this life. And the text referred to as the firstborn. This is a place of position, a position of honor and privilege in Scripture. And as the angels, as the believers of Jesus Christ, fill up the heavenly city where the presence of God is found, we see in the text, they’re going to fear or experience a far different reality than what the people of Mount Zion did. Mount Zion said again, they’re gripped by terror, fear. Where Mount Sinai, not even a beast could touch the mountain without being stoned. But now for those amount Zion we see, they’re gonna be gripped by joy, by rejoicing, as Mount Zion is filled with life, not death. So when the commentaries are read this week referred to this festival gathering, this is like an enthusiastic gathering of worship, overflowing worship of God, like Revelation 14 in heavenly Zion we read this and heard a sound from heaven like the sound of many waters, like the sound of a loud thunder. And the sound that I heard was a harpist plot playing their harps. And they were singing something like a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. The heavenly Mount Zion, where the fullness of God’s presence is found. Friends, this is a party. This is a celebration. This is a place of great joy. Much different in comparison to Mount Sinai. The reason why this gathering is a gathering of joy in the presence of God rather than the terrifying reality. The next thing I want to point to from this text, we see that this gathering, this is a righteous gathering. Now back again to Mount Sinai. The old covenant. As mentioned, this is the covenant. Time and time again God’s people proved they cannot keep. And they could not keep it because of their sin as they continued to break God’s covenant, continue to break God’s good law. Which not only proved the old covenant had faults, but it proved that it could make no one perfect. However, within that, the old covenant did prove something. It proved to be a schoolmaster as teaching mankind, proving to mankind that none of us, no one on our own is righteous. No, not one, including like all here today, none of us, including you, none of us, none on our own, can make ourselves righteous, can make ourselves perfect by keeping the law. So Mount Sinai instructs us to see that on our own we are all guilty before God, who in the text is the judge of all. However, friends, there’s still good news for good news for us. Good news that explains the reason why the people on Zion are counted as righteous, made perfect good news and why we can even be at Zion in the first place. And this good news is found in verse 24 of our text. If you want to look there, we’ll read the good news that Jesus, who is the meteor of a new covenant, a better covenant, and this is a better new covenant that’s sealed with the blood that he sprinkled, which he did on a different hill just outside the city gates of Jerusalem. A hill called Golgotha, or Calvary, where the Lord Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross to take on the judgment of God that burns over sin, to take on the penalty that we deserved to pay the punishment of our sin, so that through Jesus Christ, his blood that was spilled through him, we could be forgiven. So in this new covenant by faith, his righteousness is counted as our righteousness, which is a righteousness that invites us into Zion. Friends, that’s such good news to us. Good news that gives us such hope by grace, through faith, we have a right standing before God because of Jesus Christ. His righteousness counted as ours righteousness. By the way, this is a real reason why Zion is filled up with such joy and rejoicing in worship. Because Mount Zion is a place where forever the people of God will joyfully celebrate this good news. We will celebrate in the presence of God, not with fear of him as our judge, but we worship God in the presence of God because of Jesus as his beloved children. Friends, Scripture is so clear. Without the Lord Jesus Christ, without faith in him, we are left to the terror of Sinai. But the good news is because of Jesus, if you put your faith in him, his righteousness, count it as your righteousness. Mount Zion is yours. Just something worth celebrating. Fifth, just let me address in the text the blood of Jesus that speaks a better word than Abel. Now, Abel, this is a brother of a man named Cain. So if you’ve been with us in our study of Hebrews, we actually met Cain and abel in Hebrews 11, where in Hebrews 11 reminded that by faith, Abel gave an offering to the Lord that was accepted. And this was different than the offering that his brother Cain gives. As you remember, the Lord actually rejected Cain’s offering because Cain did not give his offering by faith in the story of Cain and Abel. As Cain recognized that his offering was rejected, rather than being sorry for his sin, repenting of his sin, Cain became angry and jealous towards his brother Abel. So in an act of hateful, bitter, jealous jealousy, Cain struck down and killed his brother Abel, who spilled his blood, which is the blood that now is like crying out for justice, for vengeance. And even though that blood still speaks, the blood of Jesus. Speaks is a better word. And it’s better even though the Lord Jesus Christ also was killed by sinful men in hateful, bitter jealousy. But his blood speaks a better word than Abel’s. Because according to God’s good eternal plan, the Lord Jesus Christ would shed his Blood. And that blood would cry out forgiveness, mercy, grace and love to all who come to Him. Friends. That’s the better word. Keep going. The text in light of the better word that Jesus speaks, that’s good news. We see the plea of the text tells us this. See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. Meaning do not ignore. Do not reject our Lord and what he has to say. Been with us our study of Hebrews we’ve already learned today. If you hear his voice, do not harden it, do not ignore it. Do not be like the people in the Old Testament as they wandered in the wilderness, who are not allowed to enter into God’s rest, into the eternal Zion. Rather today here respond to this better word, the better word that the blood of Jesus speaks. And respond by faith and trust in Him. The text and the final word in Hebrews read, do not refuse Lord Jesus Christ. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape to reject him who warns from heaven. Verse 26 at this time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This verses 25 to 26 is author yet again going back to Sinai to Exodus 19. The Prophet Haggai wrote about the shaking of Sinai as God spoke to his people. And this year this final warning. This has set up another contrast between Sinai and Zion. Around Sinai God spoke to his people where he warned them on the earth, which was terrifying enough. But now from Zion God speaks from the heavenly places, which is actually even more powerful. The speaking from heaven. This appears to be the author picking up something we actually talked about previously. We talked about the new covenant that Jesus is a mediator of. Talked about this particularly in verses or chapters eight and nine. If you’ve been with us in our study, remember how the author talked about the Old Testament tabernacle and how that tabernacle was like a man made tent which was a copy, a shadow of the heavenly tent that was the come where in that mad made tent the priest would enter in behind a curtain to offer up sacrifices for sin through the shedding of blood of bulls and goats. But now in the heavenly tent, Jesus entered in behind the curtain that is his flesh, where on the cross he sheds his own blood to be the mediator between God and man, provide forgiveness to all who trust in him. Where as mentioned, Jesus died on the cross, where in his incarnation, in incarnation, in the flesh Jesus poured himself, which is in the most vulnerable and loving ways he could for his people. That’s the message of the gospel in our text. Ultimately, that’s the heaven reality that they think this, the text is now speaking about. The heaven reality that God now speaks through Jesus from Zion. So this comparison contrast between Zion and Sinai, here’s the logic. If the earth shook when God’s people rejected God in Sinai, how much more will it shake for those who refuse Jesus Christ, the one who went to the heavenly places on our behalf in the most vulnerable and loving ways? How much less will we escape the terror of God if we harden our heart to Jesus Christ? Notice again, this book filled with warnings that are scattered throughout. This last one actually sums all the warnings up. In a nutshell, it’s a sermon that warns us. As terrifying, as terrifying as the Old Testament can be, the judgment of God we see in the Old Testament the judgment of God that came in terrifying ways. This guy’s people broke and rejected his law. How much more terrifying when God comes in judgment for those who reject his eternal Son who bled and died only to rise again? How much more terrifying for someone to say in their hearts as they stand before God, I really don’t need Jesus that his blood that speaks, it doesn’t apply to me. I don’t need it. Say again, as terrifying as Exodus 19 was for those who reject Jesus, there’s an even greater terror that awaits. Keep going to text verse 27. This phrase yet once more is a phrase our text tells us indicating the removal of things that are shaken, that is things that have been made and order that things that cannot be shaken may remain. This is the last of the comparison contrast between Sinai and Zion. The things shaken just refers to the old covenant, to the law, including the man made tent that was a tabernacle, so the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, his new covenant, those things, the old covenant, have now been removed. They served no purpose as they were not sure and steady. Rather, they were shaken. In the text, these things have been removed. And as Christ came, he has come to usher in a new kingdom, his kingdom. And unlike the shaking of Exodus, the kingdom of Christ is a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Rather, it is a kingdom that will eternally remain sure, steady, immovable, an unshakable kingdom, which here once again, just think about the context. For the first readers who no doubt felt their entire life and faith was being shaken, being tossed to and fro, where for the first readers, they had so many different type of hard, complicated realities to work through, there’s a reason why they were weary so Here again, the author of Hebrews brings Christ before them, along with his unshakable kingdom for his first readers, for us today. And the author does this because he hopes that Christ, the kingdom that Christ will bring, would galvanize them, galvanize us in our faith, so that we would not cower in fear, but we would stand firm, bold, confident, unwavering. Friends, who knows in this life everything can and will shake. But take heart, have hope, find courage, find peace, find security. Christ his kingdom on unshakable. And finally, we’re in our text today because of this unshaken kingdom of Christ that he gives to all who by faith come to Him. You see? Therefore, our application is to let us be grateful. Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. And thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, which is a worship filled with reverence and awe, knowing that our God he is a consuming fire. This fire here is actually something we see at different points in the Old Testament. I think maybe particular text the writer of Hebrews is picking up on is from Deuteronomy 5, which is actually recounting Exodus 19. Let me just read what Deuteronomy says. 5 says says this verse 23 and as soon as you hear the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of you tribes and you elders, and you said, behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire this day we have seen God speak with man, and man still live. Therefore why should we die? For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of the Lord anymore, we shall die. For who is there of all flesh and who has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire, as we have and still live, go near and hear all that the Lord our God will say and speak to us all. The Lord our God will speak to you. We will hear and do it. Friends, for us, in the end, this is actually the application of all things for us as we set our hearts towards faith in Jesus Christ. This is the why behind all that we do, why we don’t do the things that we don’t do, is to worship our God, knowing that in the end our God is at all consuming awe, consuming fire who has come to set our hearts ablaze. That’s we’re in our text today. But before I close, just for a few moments, I just want to give you just A few reasons for the text that I hope does galvanize us in our faith. I hope this galvanizes you and your faith no matter how hard the foes that you’re about in are coming at you. So first, friends, be galvanized by the awesome power of God. This is awesome power that’s on display in this text. The awesome power of God that. That shakes mountains, that grips hearts in ways it’s almost like too much for us to handle. They can cause, almost be silent, stunned by this awesome power. I don’t want to minimize whatever foe that you may be facing, even this morning, whatever foe is leaving you feeling weary. That being said, friend, find hope, find courage, stand firm. Be galvanized in the face of all your foes by the awesome power of your God, the very one who promises to put all things, all of his foes, all of your foes under his feet, where he will judge all things as a consuming fire, where none of the foes of God will be able to stand before him because our God will prove that he is the victor. Be galvanized by the awesome power of God. Third or second, be galvanized by the glory of the gospel, the good news of what Jesus Christ has done for us, which is how we know the victory has been wonderful to the death, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let that gospel message galvanize you for us, our church. Tagline, Red Village Church. We’re wooden cross, empty, tombing everything. Let that galvanize us that according to God’s glorious grace, he sent his only begotten Son to take on the judgment of your sin by shedding his blood that speaks a better word. So that through this better word you would find forgiveness and hope and peace and joy and love. So through this better word you will forever and ever be his friends. If Jesus Christ, if God is for us, who could ever be against us? Be galvanized. Find your hope, find your identity, find your joy in Jesus, the message of his gospel. Third, be galvanized by the unshaken kingdom that awaits. Say it again. In this life, everything can and will shake. And in a moment, we can have everything fall apart, everything taken away. We’re in a moment. This world is just so shaken. Everything could be completely turned upside down on us. But friends, take heart, have hope. Be galvanized. For those who have faith in Jesus Christ, this life is not the end. There’s a better life to come where Lord Jesus will come and usher us into this better life, into an unshakable kingdom where we will live with him in in Zion on a mountain filled with joy celebration. Give me one more little church be galvanized into worship. Worship your God with reverence, with awe for who he is and what he has done for us through Jesus Christ. The Text Friends, worship the Lord with grateful, thankful hearts. Worship the Lord with a heart that longs to live for him in ways that honor him, knowing that living for him no matter the cost, it’s always what’s best. Friends, may we be galvanized to worship the Lord with our tongues and not just in our singing. Let’s worship the Lord where for the rest of our days we boldly declare His Excellencies to the world around us. Church if a giant mountain man of a fan was enough to galvanize entire small town baseball team in ways that we could not help but talk knowing with a giant mountain man with a fan on our side we could not lose. How much more should the Lord, the one who shakes mountains, who dwells on Zion, who sent his Son to die and rise again to defeat our enemies in ways that we could never lose. How much more should the Lord galvanize us from a heart of worship to proclaim the message of the Gospel all of our way, all of our days, to proclaim it in ways that there’s almost like a fire shut up in our bones that we just cannot keep it in the church today. See your God who sits on the throne. Hear the word that Jesus has spoken through his blood. Have a heart of worship, be galvanized, stand firm, hold the line, do so with all boldness, all confidence, all hope, all worship. Let’s pray. Lord, thank you for being an all consuming fire. And Lord, I do pray that you would shut fire up in our bones for you, for your glory, for the message of your gospel. And Lord, I pray for those who are here today that are weary and discouraged that today you would fill them with much hope. And Lord, please help our church to worship you in spirit and truth in all that we do. Praise on Jesus name. Amen.