Hebrews: Sinai or Zion

Pastor Fletcher preaches from Hebrews 12:18-29. Discussion points: Mountains in the Bible are often places where the kingdom of earth and the kingdom of heaven overlap, Mount Sinai represents the fear of the Lord in the old covenant while Mount Zion represents acceptance and justification through Christ, Jesus experienced the wrath of God on Golgotha so that we could join him in the kingdom of heaven on Mount Zion.

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  Scripture reader: [Hebrews 12:18-29] For you've not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given: if even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear."

  But you have come to Mount Zion, into the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, into innumerable angels and festal gathering, into the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

  See that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him, who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject Him who warns from heaven. At that time, his voice shook the earth, but now he's promised, yet once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This phrase "yet once more" indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is the things that have been made, in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 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.

  This is the word of the Lord.

  Preacher: Good morning. Hey, it's good to see everybody this morning. I missed you guys last week, but I'm glad to be back today. So, today we're continuing our series in Hebrews and we come to this passage that talks about these mountains, and, I just want to take a moment to tell you a little bit of a story about a mountain that, I recently encountered. I turn 40 in a couple of weeks. Yeah, give it up, give it up. I've made it 40 years. I, I also, I had started shaving my head this year. So, you know, things that happen, as you get older. Turned 40 in a couple of weeks.

  My wife told me a couple of years ago that when I turn 40, that I can just kind of pick my spot on the world map, and she and I will, we'll take a trip. We'll get my mom up here and, and we'll take a trip. She's been stockpiling the credit card miles for years, and it's time to cash in on, on all the hotel miles and the airline miles and everything. So we are going to take a trip and when I first thought about this, you know, it, it's kind of daunting to figure out where in the entire world you want to go.

  And so the place that I chose, originally was New Zealand. And just thought New Zealand looked like a beautiful place. And what I really wanted to do was walk around like a hobbit in the mountains for a few days. So just like walk around, I'll wear shoes. I'm not actually a hobbit, and go hut to hut and do one of their epic hikes that they have in New Zealand. So we decided last summer to test that out and we did a hike in New Hampshire. Now, New Hampshire is no New Zealand. But it's pretty good, and we chose a hike called the Presidential's Range. Has anybody ever hiked the presidentials in here? We have a few who have hiked the presidentials. This story will resonate with you quite deeply, I do believe.

  And in case you're unfamiliar, the Presidential's Range is, though not the highest mountains in the country. The West Coast blows our mountains out of the water. It is actually one of the most difficult hikes in the country. And it's because of the weather and the terrain. The weather is super unpredictable on the East Coast over here, as we know, but even worse on the mountains, and the terrain is terrible. The, the trail is one of the earliest made trails in the country, and so. Now they do this interesting thing that makes total sense called switchbacks, where you go like this on your way up the mountain. Not the presidentials. The presidential's trail, you can just go straight up the mountain. And that's the way that it's designed.

  And then when you get to the top, you do about like 6 or 7 different peaks of different mountains, but you're not really walking on trails with a. Trail's a very glorified name for what it is. It's more like walking from large granite boulder to large granite boulder. And so you're taking these big steps and you're, you can't even do it without sticks. You need your, your hiking poles. And at the risk of sounding nearly 40, it's really hard on the knees. And so we're in the middle of this hike and I look to Megan and I say, you know, a spa sounds nice. I don't think I wanna go to New Zealand anymore. I think I'm good. I think I'm good.

  But we finally made it to our hut. So in the, in the White Mountains, they have these huts stationed. Most people do the presidentials in 3 or 4 days, we decide to do it in 2 because we're complete idiots. And we get to our hut and everyone has already eaten. We're late because it took us forever. We hiked, it took us about 8000 ft of elevation and 12 miles that first day. It was grueling. And we finally got there and they had saved us food. And we had this moment, it's called Lakes in the Clouds Hut, and we had this moment of serenity, where we got to look out and really it's like lakes in the clouds. Like you can see, you're above the clouds. We got to see the sunset over the mountain range. It was quite beautiful.

  And in that moment, it was literally a mountaintop experience. I don't know what it is about being on top of a mountain, but it can make you feel closer to God. Amen. You can look out there and just see the grandeur and the beauty, and you can see. That this life cannot be all that there is. There must be more. And that actually is a very biblical idea. Now, I'm not trying to say that if you go climb a mountain, you're literally closer to God. But what I am trying to say is that God often uses mountains as a symbolic place to meet with his people.

  And today we come to a story of two mountains, a tale of two mountains if you will. You have Mount Sinai on one hand, you have Mount Zion on the other. And the author is trying to get us to choose between these two mountains. But as he does that, he helps us to understand that each of these two mountains. They represent a different way of approaching God. Mount Sinai represents the old covenant way of approaching God. Mount Zion, the new way of approaching God through the new covenant. And we get to pick which one. And what the author assumes is that there is a God. And that as we read this, we might know that there is a God, that each person in this room will meet that God, and you get to pick the way in which you want to meet that God. You either have to pick the old covenant, Mount Sinai way of meeting that God, or you pick the new covenant, Mount Zion way of meeting that God.

  And so I'm going to walk through this passage, but to do that, what I actually have to do is a whole lot of background stuff, as I do throughout all of Hebrews. You know, I wish that I could just pause on every phrase in Hebrews because each phrase is just pregnant with meaning as we go all the way through here. But if I did that, we'd be in Hebrews for 7 years, and all of you guys would move, and I would be preaching to a whole another church by the time that we finished Hebrews. And so, I don't want to do it that way. So we're just kind of going fast.

  And what the author of Hebrews does is he assumes that you have this encyclopedic knowledge of the Old Testament, much more knowledge than what most of us actually have of the Old Testament. So I actually have to fill in some of the gaps. So what we're going to do with this sermon is first we're going to look at this idea of mountains throughout the Bible. A mountain motif that we find in Scripture. This is so nerdy and so wonderful. I was telling my wife this morning, this is one of my favorite sermons that I've ever written, and everybody's probably gonna hate it. And so I hope that you enjoy it, at least a small fraction as much as I do. And then we're going to talk about Mount Sinai and Mount Zion after that.

  So let's dive into the mountain motif that we find in scripture. In the biblical idea, there are two kinds of places that we understand from the Bible. There's the kingdom of earth and the kingdom of heaven. And the Bible oftentimes describes a place where the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God overlaps with the kingdom of earth, like a Venn diagram, and you have this wonderful little place where the kingdom of heaven is present on earth, and where that oftentimes happens is on mountain top. We have this visual representation. So when you're reading the scripture, and you come to a mountain, pause for just a moment and say, what is happening here? Cause it's almost always important. And what I'm gonna do is walk you through 8 different mountain tops, really 7 different mountain tops, 8 different different events, and help you to see this motif that really outlines the entire Bible.

  And so the first mountain that we're going to start with is Eden. I drew a diagram, OK? The dotted line represents the kingdom of heaven and earth and the mountains poking up into where the kingdom of heaven and earth overlap. these events, where is God most clearly present on earth in the scripture? Well, it makes total sense that Eden would be the place where God is most present on earth in the scripture. He walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, present completely before the fall, so his presence was known fully. And you might be saying, wait a second. Eden, I don't remember that being written on top of a mountain. You have to look very closely with Eden, because it's not described as on top of a mountain, as a garden, but I believe it is a mountain garden, because we have this one passage in Genesis 2:10 that says, a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden. And there it divided and became 4 rivers. Well, where does a river flow out of? From the high places, rivers go to the lower places. And so if a river is flowing out of Eden, it must be higher than all the locations around it. And so we can infer that Eden must be on a mountaintop. And that is where God was meeting with his people. But we sinned, and we were kicked out of the garden, guarded by cherubs, so that we might not come back.

  And the second mountain that we find is Ararat. And this is the the mountain where God met Noah. And if you remember the story of Noah, as many of us do, he collected the animals and was in the ark, and then as the floods came, he was protected from the floods, and then the floods receded. And where did his ark land but on Mount Ararat. And verse 4 says, and in the 7th month of, this is of, Genesis chapter 9, I believe, the 8th, sorry. And in the 7th month of the 17th day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. It was here on a mountain where God established his covenant with Noah.

  And since we're talking about Noah, I need one quick disclaimer. A couple of weeks ago, I was preaching. And I was delivering a wonderful sermon, as they all are, and, was mentioning Noah, and I referenced the fact that after he got off the ark, he planted grapes, a vineyard. He produced wine. He thus, as soon as he could, fermented thus grapes and got as drunk as he could. And then I mentioned that he impregnated his daughters, which is just not true. I was conflating the story of Noah and Lot, and in my mind they like meshed together, and I know those stories. I'm sorry. But, you know, sometimes I get it wrong. I think the whole point of the thing was like messy there are all these people. Messy, and here I am, a messy, a messy saint before you. Anyways, Edwidge sent me right after the service. Very gently, may I add, and kindly, and I just wanted to say that, you know, sometimes I mess it up and you should always go back to the scripture, just in case I mess things up. He did get drunk though, and his son looked upon his drunkenness.

  Anyways, let's continue with our mountain motif. There's a, there's another mountain before we get to the 3rd mountain, let me mention a different mountain, because there's a mountain between the 3rd one and the 4th one, and it's a man-made mountain named Babel. And what's the goal of Babel, which was like a ziggurat, it was, it was, it was not a straight tower. They didn't have the science to do that. It was almost a man-made mountain. And what's the goal is that the people would build their own way to God, their own way to reach Him. But what does God do? I love the way that it's written. When I was taking Hebrew, my Hebrew professor, was really funny. He was reading this, and then we read the part where it says, and God came down and laughed at them, and he went, hah! Cause it's funny, they thought they were building their way up to God, but God had to come down and he laughed at them and he, he said that's not the way to me.

  OK, 3rd mountain, Moriah. This is where Abraham went to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. Genesis 22:2. Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains in which I shall tell you. And it was on the top of Mount Moriah that God stopped Abraham's Abraham's, arm from coming down with the knife, and instead offered a ram, so that he might have a substitutionary sacrifice instead of his only son being killed, that the ram would be killed on behalf of his son. And it was there that God met with Abraham and Isaac.

  And the 4th mountain is Sinai, where God met with Moses to receive the 10 Commandments. And here we have Exodus chapter 19 verse 11, and be ready for the third day, and on the third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all people. And we're going to be talking about Mount Sinai more in just a moment because it's highlighted in our passage today. But I just wanna highlight that this is this place where God met with his people, and it was scary, and the people were intimidated. There was a loud thunder, and there was a cloud over the mountain, and it was a holy place. And I love this, that it says that the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all people on what day? The third day. And isn't it cool? Cause doesn't that make us think of something else that happened on the third day where the Lord came.

  The 5th mountain is Horeb. Now this is really cool. I didn't actually know this until now, but many scholars, in fact, most scholars would say that Horeb and Sinai are the same mountain. Because when you read the account in Exodus of what, of what Moses received the 10 Commandments, it always mentions Sinai. But when you read the account in Deuteronomy, it mentions Mount Horeb. And so we think that it's probably two names for the same mountain. It might not be, but it probably is. And we also know that this is where Elijah met with God and heard the still small voice of the Lord. So 1 Kings chapter 19 verse 8 says this. And, and he arose and ate and drank and went into the strength of that food, 40 days and 40 nights to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God. And so this is this place where God met with Elijah in a really powerful way. It says that there a wind came, but the voice of the Lord wasn't in the wind, and the earth shook, and the voice of the Lord wasn't in that. Instead, the voice of the Lord came in a still small voice and he met with Elijah there on that mountain.

  And so I keep those together because at the 6th mountain that I want to highlight, and you could do more, but these, this is just a quick tour of the mountain motif of the scripture. The 6th one is the Mount of Transfiguration. Where Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain, he was transfigured into a blinding white brilliance to show his true nature. Matthew 17:1-2. It says, and after 6 days, Jesus took it with him, Peter and James and John, his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And so what's happening here? God is meeting with his people. And we see it on this mountain. Now, the next verse is really cool, because it says, and behold, there appeared to them, Moses and Elijah talking with him. Well, when you've been reading the Old Testament and paying attention to the mountains, this immediately makes sense to you. Because these were two men who met with God on a mountaintop. And here they are talking again with God. Moses and Elijah appear on this mountain. You should be thinking of Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb when you read this passage.

  Now, the 7th mountain to mention here, and again, there's only 8 that I'm gonna mention, is Golgotha. Golgotha. Which is Aramaic for the word skull. If you read the King James Version, it might say Calvary. That might be a word that we're familiar with. But what Cal Calvary just means skull, Golgotha means skull. It's the mountain of the skull, where Jesus was crucified. Matthew chapter 27 verse 33. And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull. And Jesus was crucified on this mountain, it was, it was here that the wrath of God for all sin was poured out on God's very own son. And most scholars today believe that this mountain is the very same mountain where Abraham hiked with his son Isaac to offer the sacrifice. I love the poetic symmetry that you have in the Bible, as you read the whole thing together, you just have this poetic beauty that is captured. As we see God offer a substitutionary sacrifice for Abraham in the form of a lamb. So that he would not have to sacrifice his one and only son. And here we have God offering his one and only Son as a substitutionary sacrifice the Lamb of God, paying the penalty of all the people.

  And the final mountain to highlight here is Mount Zion, Revelation 21:10, and he carried me away in the Spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. And so when we read the scripture, when we see Mount Zion named, what we should be thinking about is the mountain of God, the holy place of God, heaven itself, new heavens, new earth, and is oftentimes associated with Jerusalem. That's why even people who believe that Jerusalem is, is should be established forever, they're, they're called the Zionists. And so we see this Mount Zion being conflated with Jerusalem, but really, it's a metaphorical Jerusalem, a place where God would come and establish his place forever with his people. It's where we all long to be, where God is. Jerusalem is that place in the heavenly sense.

  And so that's the mountain motif of the scripture. I hope that you haven't found it too nerdy. I hope that it's, something that's insightful for you. And so what does that have to do with our passage today? Is this, we, we come to two different mountains in the mountain motif. You should have all of this mountain motif in the back of your mind, and you come to these two passages, and you read the passage, and the first, the first half of this passage, it doesn't even mention necessarily what mountain we're on, but we're led, we have to just know which one we're on, because as it is described, it becomes very obvious.

  Verse 18 of Hebrews chapter 12, back to our passage now. For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and, and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them, for they could not endure the order that was given. If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. Now the author doesn't even tell us what mountain this is. But if you are paying attention to the scripture, you know what mountain this is. This is Sinai. And what is Sinai supposed to represent? Terror is supposed to represent this place that we cannot come into the presence of God.

  And guys, this is the normal response for anyone to come into the presence of God throughout the entire Old Testament. When you see God, you should just think, oh no. That should be your first thought. And that is what people's first thought is. Yeah, I think about Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah having the the vision of the throne room of God, and he comes into the throne. And what is the first thing he does when he sees God? He says, woe is me, for I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the Lord Almighty. This is a natural response to seeing who God is.

  But then after it describes Sinai, it goes on to describe Mount Zion, verse 22. But you have come, not to Mount Sinai, but to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the innumerable angels and festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Get that? It's a lot. It's a lot of references, very quickly, OK? It's like very quick references all over the place. Let me just break it down to you like this. There's two different descriptors of mountains. The first one is Mount Sinai, the second one is Mount Zion. And each have 7 descriptors. I'll just list them on the screen for you, OK?

  So here you have Mount Sinai first, and Mount Sinai has these 7 descriptors. The mountain cannot be touched. It's burning with fire. It's darkness. I put the, the Greek letter there for, the Greek word for darkness because there it's actually a wordplay. The first one is [Greek word], and the second one is [Greek word]. And so darkness and gloom, English, a better English interpretation might be doom and gloom. That's kind of how it reads whenever you read the, the Greek here. But there's darkness, there's gloom, there's a storm, a trumpet blast, and a voice speaking. All very terrifying.

  But then you come to Mount Zion, and Mount Zion describes it differently, with 7 descriptors. That's the city of the living God, that's innumerable angels celebrating, that's the assembly or ecclesia. Ecclesia is the word for church, and so it's the church of the first born, church and assembly are used interchangeably throughout the New Testament. God is the judge of all. He's there. There's a spirit of the righteous made perfect. Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and there's sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. And I can't pause at every one of these and offer more explanation, but I will with the last one, because it's probably the most confusing as you read. When Abel was killed by his brother Cain, God came down and he said, the the blood of your brother is crying out for justice. And now we have and and Cain bore the the penalty for his sin. And now we have the blood of Jesus speaking a better word, crying out also for justice, but a justice has been poured out on Jesus himself, and so the blood of Jesus cries out a better word than the blood of Abel.

  And so as we described these two mountains, we're left with a choice. Which one do you wanna go to? It's a pretty simple choice, right? Do you want to go to the one full of darkness and terror and dread? Or do you want to be on the mountain of joy and excitement and life? Everything about Mount Sinai screams, you are not worthy. And everything about Mount Zion screams, excitement. You're welcome here. You're loved. But friends, here's the trick. When you read this passage, you can't just say, well, I choose Zion. Because you can't, it's not that easy. You have to go on a journey from Sinai to Zion. There has to be a stop in the middle, because everyone starts in Sinai. Everyone starts in Sinai. No matter who you are, you start in Sinai, and it's not until you realize that you're not worthy to come into the presence of God. What do the people of God do as Moses is climbing the mountain, and what do the people of God do is they're sitting there and looking at all the darkness and the gloom and the terror and God right there next to them, and the mountain that they can't even touch. What do they do? They say, I, that's too much. I need to distract myself. I need to focus on something completely different. I can't handle the presence of God.

  So what do they do? They make an idol. And they focus their energy on something else to worship. Isn't this what our hearts are are prone to do? Instead of thinking about the unworthiness that we are to go into the presence of God and how we feel so distant, we just distract ourselves by creating an idol and focus on something else. But friends, once you do look at the mountain and you see that you are unworthy, you can start your journey towards Zion. But the jour journey towards Zion isn't straight to Zion. Instead, you have to take a stop at Golgotha. Because on Golgotha, what do we see happen? But the curse of Sinai is brought down on Christ. Read with me, Matthew chapter 27. On the hill shaped like a skull.

  Verse 45, Matthew 27. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. That darkness is cluing you in. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, I'm gonna butcher this. I'm sorry. I, I should practice this. I, I read it in my head and I never Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? That is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, this man is calling Elijah. And one of them ran and one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. And but the others said, wait, let's see if Elijah will come and save him. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice. And he yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook and the rocks were split. Again, you should be thinking Sinai. The tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe, and said truly this was the Son of God.

  Do you see that Jesus experienced the darkness and the dread that filled the people at Sinai, that he took on our unworthiness, and he went into the presence of God. Jesus experienced the wrath of Sinai at Golgotha, so that we might experience the joy of Mount Zion. Jesus experienced the wrath of Sinai on Golgotha, so that we might join him in Zion. And when you place your faith in Jesus, you're transferred from the kingdom of darkness and doom and gloom, and, and scary seeing God as this threat and and your unworthiness, you're transferred into his Son, you're transferred into the kingdom of light. You're transferred into him. And let me just encourage you that if you've never placed your faith in Christ truly, today is the day for you to choose Mount Zion. And not Sinai.

  And I, again, I, I recognize that this has been a really nerdy sermon, but let me give you a little bit of application here at the end, OK? The author concludes this section by basically saying, If you build your life on Sinai, you will be shaken. And it will come tumbling down. But if you build your life on, on Mount Zion. You have a city that cannot be shaken. Your life cannot be shaken.

  Verse 28, 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. Fire is not evil in and of itself. Fire is a good thing. We would be really rough without fire in a New England winter like we had this past month. Fire is a wonderful thing, but in the wrong context, it becomes a thing that brings pain and misery. It's kind of like the sun. You look at the sun. Many of us are longing for days in the sun's light. Sounds great. 40th birthday coming up, OK? In the sun, that's what we want. But if you were to go too close to the sun, or you stand out in the sun, the sun is millions of miles away. You stand out in the sun long enough, it will burn you. Like it's crazy.

  And this is how God's describing Himself. He's saying, hey, I am not bad. I am a good entity, but you have to come into my presence in the right kind of way. And what he's saying is you need Christ so that you can experience the joys of coming into the presence of God, and not the sense of unworthiness. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that to follow him is like building our house on the rock. The rains fall, the floods come, the winds blow, but you're safe when you're built on the rock. But to not listen to the words of Jesus is like building your your life on the sand. The rains come, the wind blows, and your house, though it might be on beachfront property, is soon falling into the waters.

  And so let me just ask you this question. What are you building your life on? Are you building your life on Mount Sinai? On the sense that you're not worthy, that you have to do enough to prove your existence, that you have to show that your life is valuable? Are you building your life on more achievements, more success, more money, more things, more approval? Whatever it might be, more of this life? Or are you building your life on Mount Scion that cannot be shaken? Placing your investment in the kingdom to come and the achievements of Christ. How much of your life is spent pursuing the things of the kingdom of earth, as opposed to the kingdom of God? Because if you invest on the kingdom of Earth, your life will be shaken. And if you invest on the things of the kingdom of heaven, you are unshakeable.

  In just a few moments, we're going to take a, have an opportunity to respond. And I'm gonna give you opportunity to consider where are you investing your life. And the things to come or the things that are on Sinai or Zion. And you can respond appropriately. You can kneel at your seat, you can talk to a prayer counselor, if you have never taken that pit stop at Golgotha, where you've seen Christ for who he is. We encourage you to go and pray with someone, share that, or if you just are in a moment where you're feeling the, the effects of Sinai again, the unworthiness. Maybe you need someone to pray for you this morning, and so that you can be reminded of Golgotha and then pointed towards Zion.

  We take a moment each week to practice the sacred meal, and this is an opportunity to evaluate our lives, see how we're living, and reorient them back towards Christ. We call it a communion meal, or a Eucharist meal or a Lord's supper. And the way that we do it here is all Christians, if you are following Christ, you're invited to this table. On the night that he was betrayed, Jesus took this bread, and he tore it and he said, this is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And so as believers, we come to him this morning being reminded that he took on the penalty that we deserve, so that we might have the life that he earned. So would you stand as we prepare our hearts to respond and worship? Through the table. Pray with me.

  Heavenly Father, we come before you now. And if we're honest, many of us come trembling. To think about coming before you, it feels like Sinai. We know what it feels like. To have the weight of your holiness and the reality of our sin, the ability to hold things together, we have tried to prove ourselves worthy instead of receiving your grace. We've built our careers on approval, and comfort, on control, things that cannot stand when the storms come. And so today we, we confess plainly, our foundation is not as strong as we pretend it is. And we thank you, God, that you've not left us at Sinai. We thank you for Jesus. We thank you for Golgotha. We thank you for the one who stepped into the darkness, who bore the wrath, who was shaken so that we might stand secure.

  And now by faith we come to Zion, not because we deserve it, because you, but because you made a way. Would you help us, God, to rebuild our lives on the rock? Not to trust in ourselves, but to trust in Christ. To rest in your grace. Instead of striving for approval to live with joy instead of fear. And for anyone here who hasn't taken that step, who's still standing at a distance, would you draw them near today? Give them courage to leave behind the sand and to plant their lives firmly on Jesus. God, shake whatever needs to be shaken in us. That we cannot be shaken in the future. We love you, God. We trust you. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.