SPEAKER_00: This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, Lord, your presence needs to be felt, experienced, overwhelming, that's both terrifying and comforting at the same time.
SPEAKER_02: And we need it.
SPEAKER_02: We glory that you've we've had lots of problems, even problems this week.
SPEAKER_02: And yet our biggest problem, sin and death, you have so completely and totally dealt with, it doesn't feel like a problem.
SPEAKER_02: It does not.
SPEAKER_02: And would this give us hope that even this morning you you have a word for us to remind us of your presence, your protection, your provision?
SPEAKER_02: So we submit ourselves to you and speak Holy Spirit through this word this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_02: I'm glad you're here.
SPEAKER_02: And most of you look showered, maybe a hot shower.
SPEAKER_02: I'm really glad about that.
SPEAKER_02: I uh um I want to remind you, remember that time that uh a lot of us went on this unexpected camping trip in our houses, and we uh went off the grid and maybe did about water or hey, remember that one time we went on that mission trip, and um it was in a really nice place, but the uh the utilities were spotty, and um that's kind of what this week felt like in some ways.
SPEAKER_02: Um it really felt like a big time gap.
SPEAKER_02: We emailed our community group yesterday, and somebody wrote back, No, we don't have community group, that was last week.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, No, no, that was two weeks ago.
SPEAKER_02: But there's the time gap, and it happens when things are stressful and out of sorts and and all that.
SPEAKER_02: Um that's what I recognize.
SPEAKER_02: This is this has been a week.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Job 37 says, God says, He says to the snow, fall upon the earth, and to the waters be a mighty downpour, so that all men everywhere may know of him.
SPEAKER_02: So part of what God has been doing is say, Hey, look at me.
SPEAKER_02: You you need me.
SPEAKER_02: I I need him more than I need electricity.
SPEAKER_02: And I learned I I really, I really like electricity a lot.
SPEAKER_02: When it went out for us, it went about 10 o'clock, boom, like, whoa, it's it's dark in here.
SPEAKER_02: I don't consider myself a fearful person, but where's the flashlight's at?
SPEAKER_02: Where's the?
SPEAKER_02: I really like, I really like hot water.
SPEAKER_02: I do, I love it.
SPEAKER_02: But I need him far more than that.
SPEAKER_02: This morning, I think the Holy Spirit wants to warm and illuminate us with this text.
SPEAKER_02: We'll be in 2 Chronicles 5.
SPEAKER_02: And so if you have a Bible or access to a Bible, turn there.
SPEAKER_02: Let's be in the first 14 verses, and we're gonna answer this question.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you may have noticed, you should have noticed, that we got a little scratching of the earth happening on this side over here, right?
SPEAKER_02: This uh construction project or building a new building.
SPEAKER_02: How are we going to know if God is pleased with what we're building?
SPEAKER_02: How are we gonna know that?
SPEAKER_02: How are we gonna know he's pleased with this?
SPEAKER_02: This text this morning is about a completed building project, and the people in the text are convinced we know for certain God is pleased with this.
SPEAKER_02: And they did.
SPEAKER_02: Now, what we're gonna look at, uh, we've been in Daniel.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna back up almost four centuries in salvation history to the completion of the first temple, Solomon's temple.
SPEAKER_02: So, in Daniel, it's a real low point.
SPEAKER_02: They're in captivity, it looks like God's abandoned them.
SPEAKER_02: Today's text is gonna look like God loves us.
SPEAKER_02: Look what he's doing.
SPEAKER_02: Let me read the entire text and we'll walk through it verse by verse.
SPEAKER_02: Chapter 5 of 2 Chronicles.
SPEAKER_02: Thus all the work that Solomon did for the house of the Lord was finished.
SPEAKER_02: And Solomon brought in the things that David, his father, had dedicated, and stored the silver and the gold and all the vessels of the treasuries of the house of God.
SPEAKER_02: Then Solomon assembled the lead elders and of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the fathers' houses of the people of Israel in Jerusalem to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is in Zion.
SPEAKER_02: And all the men of Israel assembled before the king at the feast that is in the seventh month.
SPEAKER_02: And all the elders of Israel came out, and the Levites took up the ark, and they brought the ark, the tent of meeting, all the holy vessels that were in the tent.
SPEAKER_02: The Levitical priests brought them up, and King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel who had assembled before him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen they could not be counted or numbered.
SPEAKER_02: Then the priests brought the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord to its place in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the most holy place, underneath the wings of the cherubim.
SPEAKER_02: The cherubim spread out their wings over the ark, so that the cherubim made a covering over the ark with its poles and its poles.
SPEAKER_02: And the poles were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the holy place before the inner sanctuary they could not be seen from the outside, and they are there to this day.
SPEAKER_02: There is nothing in the ark except two tablets that Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: And when they came out of Egypt, and when the priests came out of the holy place, for all the priests who were present had consecrated themselves without regard to the divisions, and all Levitical singers, Apes, Heman, Jetutin, their sons and kinsmen, arrayed with fine linens and cymbals and harps and lyres stood east of the altar with 120 priests who were trumpeters.
SPEAKER_02: And it was the duty of the trumpeters and the singers to make themselves heard in unison in place in praise and thanksgiving of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And when the song was raised, the trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments in praise to the Lord, and this is the song, for he is good, his steadfast love endures forever.
SPEAKER_02: The house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud.
SPEAKER_02: So the priests could not stand to minister before the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.
SPEAKER_02: They were convinced God was pleased, is what had happened.
SPEAKER_02: The first one is this there's a process in our approach to God.
SPEAKER_02: There's always been a process.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 1, thus all the work Solomon did for the house of the Lord was finished.
SPEAKER_02: And so if you remember in salvation history, uh God commanded Moses, make this tent.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna protect, provide, and lead you, dwell in this tent.
SPEAKER_02: And then David wants to build a stone temple.
SPEAKER_02: And God says, Nope, you're not gonna be the one.
SPEAKER_02: You got too much blood on your hands.
SPEAKER_02: But I'll let your son do it.
SPEAKER_02: So David gets all the drawings and gets everything ready, and we just gotta wait for Solomon to grow up and be king.
SPEAKER_02: And so the building project is finished.
SPEAKER_02: All the stones have been not just cut, but laid and squared, and and it's secure and it's watertight.
SPEAKER_02: All the dust has been swept up, all the little tools left behind, all the little lunch, I mean all this, all this stuff that happens at a construction site.
SPEAKER_02: It's a bunch of stuff over there.
SPEAKER_02: There's gonna be a bunch more stuff.
SPEAKER_02: It's all cleaned up.
SPEAKER_02: It's already.
SPEAKER_02: Solomon brought the things, the treasures of David.
SPEAKER_02: So David has stored these things and brings all these things that are supposed to be in the building, into the building.
SPEAKER_02: I want to plant this seed.
SPEAKER_02: You should begin thinking, huh, what will God do when our building's done?
SPEAKER_02: What will he do?
SPEAKER_02: Verses 2 and 3, he assembles the elders, the heads of the tribe, the leaders to do one thing.
SPEAKER_02: So there's two things that happen in this text that tells them God is really pleased with us.
SPEAKER_02: One they're hoping for, and one they weren't expecting.
SPEAKER_02: And the hoping for one is this whole Ark of the Covenant deal.
SPEAKER_02: So he gets everybody, all right, everybody, here's a somebody, get out here.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna move the ark.
SPEAKER_02: And they move it, they say just move it one hill over.
SPEAKER_02: It's it, city of Zion, and the next hill over is the Temple Mount.
SPEAKER_02: So let's go down and back up.
SPEAKER_02: It's not real far.
SPEAKER_02: Now, the ark, let me show you an actual historical photo of the ark.
SPEAKER_02: This is a wooden box.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's a tree, it's a treasure chest.
SPEAKER_02: And it probably looked like this.
SPEAKER_02: It's a wooden box overlaid in gold.
SPEAKER_02: You have these cherubim on top, and I'll just let you know right now, those poles are too short.
SPEAKER_02: It's much shorter than the ones in this text.
SPEAKER_02: The ark is uh it's the physical symbol of God saying, Look, let's make a deal.
SPEAKER_02: I will be your God and you will be my people.
SPEAKER_02: I will protect you, I'll provide for you, I will lead you.
SPEAKER_02: And you just respond to that.
SPEAKER_02: You respond to my protection with gratitude.
SPEAKER_02: You respond to my provision with praise.
SPEAKER_02: You respond to my leading by obedience.
SPEAKER_02: It'll be great.
SPEAKER_02: And here, this this box will commemorate it.
SPEAKER_02: Inside it is the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_02: Let's put a copy of our contract here.
SPEAKER_02: So in here, in the Ten Commandments, you got the first four are basically God's the first and best of all beings.
SPEAKER_02: Don't have any beings near me, close to me, nothing like me.
SPEAKER_02: I'm the best.
SPEAKER_02: And the next six are, and and and then this is how you treat one another based on that.
SPEAKER_02: And here's a contract.
SPEAKER_02: Now, this uh it says it's in the feast of the seventh month.
SPEAKER_02: You and I, English readers, this doesn't mean a whole lot to Jews.
SPEAKER_02: This meant a whole lot, like, oh, I know what feast that is.
SPEAKER_02: It's the feast of the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_02: This is commemorating when God told Moses, here's what I want you to do.
SPEAKER_02: Here's what I want you guys to approach me.
SPEAKER_02: You build an ark, you build a lampstand, you build a table for the bread of presence, you build an altar for the burnt offerings, you build this pool of uh cleansing, and you build a tent to cover most of it.
SPEAKER_02: And here's how it's got to be woven and this high and this special place for the ark, and the ark is the centerpiece of this tent.
SPEAKER_02: And the feast of tabernacle is commemorating.
SPEAKER_02: Let's have a feast every year to remind ourselves, God said, Meet me this way.
SPEAKER_02: Now we'll give a little peek at the future of the sermon.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna see Jesus in the text.
SPEAKER_02: One way we see him is this Feast of Tabernacles.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, this is this is when Sam Samuel, Samuel, Samson.
SPEAKER_02: Is that Samson?
SPEAKER_02: Solomon.
SPEAKER_02: I started thinking, how many S's are in the Bible?
SPEAKER_02: Stay with me.
SPEAKER_02: Don't get don't start thinking about that.
SPEAKER_02: Solomon finishes this building project during this feast.
SPEAKER_02: Then later on, the gospel writer John says of Jesus, he became flesh and dwelt among us.
SPEAKER_02: This Greek word dwelt references this Hebrew word tabernacle.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is truly God's presence with us.
SPEAKER_02: Back to the text, verses four and five.
SPEAKER_02: So the Levites say, Take up the ark, the holy vessels, the tent of meeting, and here's the great, great, great news.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing bad happens.
SPEAKER_02: This is the fear.
SPEAKER_02: Because usually when the ark has gotten moved, it's unpredictable, and sometimes it's deadly.
SPEAKER_02: And so in the beginning, the ark is God's presence.
SPEAKER_02: This is his contract.
SPEAKER_02: He says, okay, uh, Israel, when you go battle, okay, you take all your battle stuff, but take the ark with you.
SPEAKER_02: And because really, I want to get the credit, Lord God, for winning this battle.
SPEAKER_02: And so you bring the ark, and so they got real comfortable with we go into battle, we bring the ark, we win.
SPEAKER_02: This is great.
SPEAKER_02: It's like superpower.
SPEAKER_02: So much so that King Saul, he's done a couple battles this way, and he wants to go fight the Philistines at a particular time, and he inquires of the Lord, and the Lord says, Nope, don't go.
SPEAKER_02: And he goes anyway.
SPEAKER_02: And he takes the ark because that's what you do, because it's your lucky rabbit's foot.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: It's how you win.
SPEAKER_02: God has to help you.
SPEAKER_02: And they lose.
SPEAKER_02: And the Philistines capture the ark and they take it back to their capital city and they put it in their temple, their god Dagon.
SPEAKER_02: And the next day, this the ark that's at the foot of Dagon, like Dagon, God, Dagon falls.
SPEAKER_02: They meant like, let's let's do a little test.
SPEAKER_02: We'll put it on a cart with some oxen, and they just start walking to Israel.
SPEAKER_02: They finally stop, and David goes, So he's kicking, this is great.
SPEAKER_02: Let's get the ark back here, and they put it on a cart, and they go a little ways, and the cart starts to wobble, and this guy, Usa, goes, Well, I can't have this, reaches out to being very helpful.
SPEAKER_02: He touches it and he dies.
SPEAKER_02: So he's kind of all right, park the cart.
SPEAKER_02: Later on, they move it again.
SPEAKER_02: You just never know what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02: Almost always when the ark moves, somebody dies.
SPEAKER_02: And they gotta move this thing from the Mount of Zion to the Temple Mount.
SPEAKER_02: And some are wondering who's it gonna be?
SPEAKER_02: And so uh there's a process in our approach to God.
SPEAKER_02: See, all the stuff has to be in its place, it has to be done the right way.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what you think about this.
SPEAKER_02: There was a few priests who were present.
SPEAKER_02: What God has done through Christ is he now says, Oh no, we got a whole bunch of priests.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, if you're a believer, you have a priesthood.
SPEAKER_02: You are a priest right before God.
SPEAKER_02: The stuff in its place, it's not the piano, it's not the pulpit, it's you.
SPEAKER_02: You here is the stuff in its place.
SPEAKER_02: You here are the consecrated instruments of God.
SPEAKER_02: Think about your priesthood and what you're you to be doing.
SPEAKER_02: The the basic thing God is doing is moving us toward one another in love.
SPEAKER_02: And here's the main thing that looks like us talking to one another, us speaking, the one another commands of admonish one another, console one another, encourage one another, instruct one another.
SPEAKER_02: And so if you come to church and you don't talk to anybody, you're doing it wrong.
SPEAKER_02: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_02: If you come here, you don't talk to anybody, or you don't listen to anybody, you're doing it wrong.
SPEAKER_02: You are now these holy vessels of God, and he wants to wield you as a tool in his hand.
SPEAKER_02: And so when you when you come to the house of the Lord, some things you should always be thinking.
SPEAKER_02: You gotta think for hours, but at least a couple minutes.
SPEAKER_02: Who does God want me to speak to today?
SPEAKER_02: Who does God want me to console or admonish or instruct or encourage?
SPEAKER_02: The second thing, who does God want me to hear from today?
SPEAKER_02: There should be some margin when you gather.
SPEAKER_02: This is not just singing and hearing the preaching.
SPEAKER_02: Part of the experience in this new temple God has made of the people of God is us speaking to one another.
SPEAKER_02: So who's God want you to talk to?
SPEAKER_02: Who's God wants you to hear from?
SPEAKER_02: And and don't be super cynical.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, are you just talking to me because the guy said last week talk to people?
SPEAKER_02: If they are, they're obeying the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: It's fine.
SPEAKER_02: That's good.
SPEAKER_02: When we speak to one another, it's the process that God uses to approach him.
SPEAKER_02: Second point, there's a price for having the presence of God.
SPEAKER_02: Let's look at verse 6.
SPEAKER_02: And King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel who had assembled before him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that could not be counted or numbered.
SPEAKER_02: Isn't this hyperbole?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, couldn't surely someone could just keep track of this stuff, right?
SPEAKER_02: Surely someone was, you know, a task-oriented, a counter person.
SPEAKER_02: Surely.
SPEAKER_02: So look, we're making comparison to between what David did and what Solomon did.
SPEAKER_02: So when David is gonna move the Arklands of the place called Obed's house, and it gets to Obed's house after Usa reached out and touched it and died, they leave it at Obed's, and Obed's house isn't cursed, isn't what the Philistines experience, it is blessed.
SPEAKER_02: So for 90 days it's there.
SPEAKER_02: Obed experiences, I mean, just talk about catch catching a break after break, I mean, just everything going great.
SPEAKER_02: And David's okay, we're gonna move the ark from Obid's to the city of Zion.
SPEAKER_02: Not going real far, we're gonna move it.
SPEAKER_02: I know it's gone badly many, many times.
SPEAKER_02: And so they move it, they take a few steps, and nothing bad happens, and they begin sacrificing sheep and oxen, and they just do that all the way there.
SPEAKER_02: The writer of Chronicles is saying Solomon way outdid his dad.
SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't a competition, it was saying, We are going to not to appease God, but celebrate, thank you for not smiting us.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for showing us your kindness and your pleasure.
SPEAKER_02: The point of this is there's way more sacrificing, no cost was spared.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 7, they bring the ark to its place, the most holy place, under the cherubim.
SPEAKER_02: And here's the amazing thing it's it's not in the text, but it's between the lines, nothing happens, nothing bad happens.
SPEAKER_02: If you've ever had to like uh you know cut some wood, and so you get your saw and you cut it, and you know, you measure, but you just never know.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know.
SPEAKER_02: Cut a lot of things, and it's it's just never what's happening in this text, which you cut this thing, you put the wood up in the spot, and you almost don't even need anything to secure it.
SPEAKER_02: It's just it's a perfect fit.
SPEAKER_02: And so they get the ark into the most holy place and they lay it down, they got these long poles, and no one dies, it doesn't wobble, nothing goes wrong.
SPEAKER_02: No one dies.
SPEAKER_02: And to you and me, ah, no one dies.
SPEAKER_02: Everyone, somebody dies every single time this thing gets moved.
SPEAKER_02: The thing they're most fearful of is is God we're gonna do this wrong, and he's gonna say, hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_02: Make a new temple.
SPEAKER_02: Boom, it's gone.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is kind of what's happened many times before.
SPEAKER_02: So they bring the ark to the place, nothing bad happens.
SPEAKER_02: It says the poles were so long, we didn't get near this thing.
SPEAKER_02: We had these long poles, you could see them from the front of the tent.
SPEAKER_02: And the time that the chronicler wrote this, you can still see them.
SPEAKER_02: So there's nothing in the ark but two tablets.
SPEAKER_02: This is really an understatement.
SPEAKER_02: These are significant.
SPEAKER_02: These are the documents of their nation.
SPEAKER_02: For us in America, it would be the Declaration of Independence.
SPEAKER_02: If you go into the rotunda at the Capitol, that's usually what declarations held.
SPEAKER_02: It's under this thick UV protected, bulletproof glass.
SPEAKER_02: You can't even really touch it without some security guard.
SPEAKER_02: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_02: It is the document.
SPEAKER_02: This thing is 490 years old, these tablets of stone in the box.
SPEAKER_02: It represents God's covenant with them.
SPEAKER_02: There's no jar of manna, there's no errand staff, and we're not told why, so we won't speculate, we won't linger.
SPEAKER_02: But we'll say there's a price for having the presence of God.
SPEAKER_02: There's a price for it.
SPEAKER_02: For them, they had to take this risk.
SPEAKER_02: Let's move the ark.
SPEAKER_02: Is God's presence going to be with us?
SPEAKER_02: We're going to sacrifice all these sheep and all these oxen.
SPEAKER_02: Some people are going to put themselves at risk.
SPEAKER_02: Some guys were on the poles.
SPEAKER_02: Some guys were in the front line.
SPEAKER_02: What if God gets mad and the fire comes down and the front line, we're toast?
SPEAKER_02: The price.
SPEAKER_02: Now, for us, the price, the price of God's presence, there's two charges in a sense.
SPEAKER_02: The biggest price of God being pleased with you has been paid fully by Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: That's what we call the doctrine of justification.
SPEAKER_02: Being right in God's eyes.
SPEAKER_02: God considers all that Jesus did is if you did it.
SPEAKER_02: So whatever your failures, and there's many, Jesus' perfect living and thinking and acting is in your place.
SPEAKER_02: The second cost is what writer Hebrews talks about.
SPEAKER_02: It's what Neil prayed about.
SPEAKER_02: Let's run the race that's set before us to endure suffering.
SPEAKER_02: See, often this feels like a price because it feels like a series of many deaths.
SPEAKER_02: And the song we sang about that you know, you see, I see the ashes, you see the beauty.
SPEAKER_02: We feel the many deaths.
SPEAKER_02: God's I see the resurrection out of this thing.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing in the ark but the two tablets is this price.
SPEAKER_02: The price we pay is what we call sanctification.
SPEAKER_02: God's doing it, but it feels like all to us.
SPEAKER_02: It's like a bunch of many deaths, and ultimately we get to get changed into Jesus' character, and we get to truly know him deeper and deeper as we experience this.
SPEAKER_02: Let me just offer two questions.
SPEAKER_02: You might want to write these down.
SPEAKER_02: Do I want God?
SPEAKER_02: As long as he gives me what I want.
SPEAKER_02: Do I want God?
SPEAKER_02: I got I want you.
SPEAKER_02: As long as he gives me what I want.
SPEAKER_02: See, that's how I orientate towards him.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna want nothing to do with sanctification.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna be very allergic to it.
SPEAKER_02: The second is do I trust these little mini deaths that God brings to me?
SPEAKER_02: Do I trust his leading me to these things?
SPEAKER_02: Third point, praise is the proper response for seeing God at work.
SPEAKER_02: Let's look at the verse 11.
SPEAKER_02: And so all the priests, it was nobody's day off.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: We have this little phrase here in verse 11 that you have uh they they were present and had consecrated themselves without regard to divisions.
SPEAKER_02: Divisions is just what shift you're on.
SPEAKER_02: You got these couple hours, you got this couple hours, you know.
SPEAKER_02: They weren't just there 24-7, you got you got your own shift.
SPEAKER_02: Everybody was on duty, all hands-on deck day.
SPEAKER_02: Everybody's clocking in.
SPEAKER_02: So all the priests are there, and the Levitical singers, and we got their names, and they got uh their kinsmen, right?
SPEAKER_02: The people we're related to.
SPEAKER_02: They've got these instruments, the lyres and the harps, and they got this big band of 120 trumpeters.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know how many trumpeters you know.
SPEAKER_02: I know a few.
SPEAKER_02: None of them have a problem being quiet.
SPEAKER_02: No, that's not true.
SPEAKER_02: They all have a problem being quiet.
SPEAKER_02: None of them have a problem being heard.
SPEAKER_02: The trumpeters, hey, hey, look at me.
SPEAKER_02: You got 120.
SPEAKER_02: This is gonna be crank up the volume, big noise.
SPEAKER_02: If God is pleased with us and we move the ark and it gets in its spot, and the temple doesn't fall, no one dies, we're gonna sh.
SPEAKER_02: Well, praise is the proper response to when God is at work.
SPEAKER_02: We're not gonna hold anything back.
SPEAKER_02: We're not gonna save anything for tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna give him everything.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you lost power this week.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe all of us.
SPEAKER_02: And when maybe you got a text, or maybe you were there when it was restored.
SPEAKER_02: Was there a great difficulty conjuring up praise or relief or gratitude?
SPEAKER_02: We got a text, we're at someone else's house, getting a hot shower, we got a text, power's back on.
SPEAKER_02: Woo, we were really our house too dry, you know.
SPEAKER_02: So we made our way home, and you know, my wife's like, our neighborhood's so pretty with the lights on.
SPEAKER_02: And you know, whoa, we love our couldn't see anything for a while.
SPEAKER_02: When God does a work, praise is the most natural normative response.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 13, here's the two elements of the song they sing, the chorus.
SPEAKER_02: He's good, and his steadfast love endures forever.
SPEAKER_02: And this God revealing himself as good.
SPEAKER_02: This is really central to how he reveals himself.
SPEAKER_02: And what's so ironic is this is the thing that we constantly, repeatedly, creatively doubt.
SPEAKER_02: Says he's good.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Jesus in Matthew 7 says, Which one of you, if your child asks for a piece of bread, a roll, you're gonna say, okay, I got one for you.
SPEAKER_02: Here it comes, and you give him a stone.
SPEAKER_02: Can't eat this.
SPEAKER_02: Or which one's asked for a fish?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, one fish coming right up, and you give him a snake.
SPEAKER_02: He says, No need to do that.
SPEAKER_02: And God says, Compared to me, you're evil.
SPEAKER_02: Really, the the subtext is we're crazy to think that God is being mean to us, or that he's forgotten us, or he's withholding goodness from us and not letting us have it.
SPEAKER_02: We're crazy to think that we're good and he's not, or that we know and he doesn't.
SPEAKER_02: That's how we talk to ourselves sometimes.
SPEAKER_02: God's punishing me.
SPEAKER_02: God's mad at me.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not getting what I want.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure if I want God anymore.
SPEAKER_02: One of the key ways to fight against that is what they're doing here, which is singing, you're good and your steadfast love endures forever.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, there's a whole psalm, Psalm 136, and I'm gonna pause, it's important enough.
SPEAKER_02: Read a few verses of this.
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 136 is a recounting of what God has done.
SPEAKER_02: Give thanks to the Lord for he's good.
SPEAKER_02: His steadfast love endures forever.
SPEAKER_02: Give thanks to the God of gods, his steadfast love endures forever.
SPEAKER_02: Give thanks to the Lord of Lords, his steadfast love endures forever.
SPEAKER_02: To him who alone does great wonders, his steadfast love endures forever.
SPEAKER_02: To him who by understanding made the heavens his steadfast love endures forever, and on and on to 26 verses.
SPEAKER_02: This would be fun.
SPEAKER_02: How about some homework from church today?
SPEAKER_02: How about you write your Psalm 136 so that you can give yourself truth when your self-talk is saying God is not good, and you should recount some major points that God has done.
SPEAKER_02: We had a kid when he was born that went to the NICU for six days, and none of you would ever think so because he's this big, tall, strong guy.
SPEAKER_02: But it was this little touch and go in the beginning.
SPEAKER_02: We're in the NICU.
SPEAKER_02: Now we're towering.
SPEAKER_02: Give thanks to the Lord, his love endures forever.
SPEAKER_02: What would you count as the high point of your history with God?
SPEAKER_02: You need to write your own Psalm 136.
SPEAKER_02: You need to share it.
SPEAKER_02: You're older, you need to share it with your kids.
SPEAKER_02: They need to know how has God been with you.
SPEAKER_02: Praise is the normal response of seeing God at work.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 13 and 14.
SPEAKER_02: So the house of the Lord, not the house of David, even though David got all supplies, not the house of Solomon, and those Solomon's temple, the house of the Lord was filled with the cloud.
SPEAKER_02: The glory of the Lord, this is Shekinah glory, his presence.
SPEAKER_02: Now, this filling happened one other time in history.
SPEAKER_02: Tells Moses, make the uh tabernacle, do it this way, the tenth instruments, and they get it all set up and it's all done, everything is swept up, and boom.
SPEAKER_02: God is not just a pillar of fire and cloud, he presents land, and they gotta evacuate.
SPEAKER_02: And it didn't happen for 490 some years.
SPEAKER_02: They're not expecting this.
SPEAKER_02: They're not.
SPEAKER_02: They're hoping the ark goes well.
SPEAKER_02: They're hoping, but they're not expecting what God does, which he lands with this physical glory.
SPEAKER_02: Where it's like the spiritual tear gas, and the priest got it very vacate, make your distance.
SPEAKER_02: You can't stay in this thing, it'll choke you out.
SPEAKER_02: So they scatter away, and they were convinced already God was pleased because the ark thing went great.
SPEAKER_02: And this is above and beyond.
SPEAKER_02: I can't believe how pleased God is.
SPEAKER_02: Convinced that God's pleased in what they've done.
SPEAKER_02: It'd been 490 years since God had done this.
SPEAKER_02: Fifth, sixth, twentieth hand.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you didn't believe it'd ever happen again.
SPEAKER_02: Are there some things you've given up on that God doing?
SPEAKER_02: Are there some people you've given up on God filling?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's been three or four decades.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's been three or four years.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe if you're impatient like me, it's been three or four weeks.
SPEAKER_02: He hasn't acted yet.
SPEAKER_02: Don't give up, don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_02: Are you open to being surprised by God?
SPEAKER_02: Are you open?
SPEAKER_02: What new mercy, what new surprising thing might you do today, Lord?
SPEAKER_02: Now, some of you might be thinking, hey Blake, will uh will this whole smoking thing happen in our building?
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, we get it all cleaned up, we got the birth thing in there, and I don't know what Neil's gonna do.
SPEAKER_02: He's gonna, you know, hate on labradodils, maybe he'll do something with one of them.
SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna do that there.
SPEAKER_02: There's gonna be this big pillar of smoke come down and choke us all out.
unknown: No.
SPEAKER_02: Uh no and yes.
SPEAKER_02: No, it's not gonna be that.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, God will be present in a very particular, tangible way.
SPEAKER_02: Here's how.
SPEAKER_02: You might want to write this down.
SPEAKER_02: Believers, when you enter that building, that's when he'll be present.
SPEAKER_02: So the Holy Spirit resides in you.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus promises, when you gather in my name, I'm there.
SPEAKER_02: Did you not know he was here today?
SPEAKER_02: Did you not know that right now he's coursing this sermon to a one-on-one conversation with you?
SPEAKER_02: When you gather, God says, I'm present.
SPEAKER_02: So that building will be filled every time we get over there, unbelievers gather.
SPEAKER_02: Yep, God will be present.
SPEAKER_02: In a much better way than just a one smoky tear gas event.
SPEAKER_02: Last point.
SPEAKER_02: And I want you, I want us to see Jesus in the text because he's here.
SPEAKER_02: See, Solomon gave an amount of sacrifices.
SPEAKER_02: The chronicler says, this can't be counted.
SPEAKER_02: It was too much.
SPEAKER_02: We lost count, we gave up.
SPEAKER_02: It was just, it was an obscene amount.
SPEAKER_02: Uncountable.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus' sacrifice of himself, this is truly the uncountable, unmeasurable, unvaluable sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02: Solomon had a stone temple finished, and it happened during the remembrance of the Feast of Tabernacles.
SPEAKER_02: And I already told you this one.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus said, uh John says of Jesus, the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus' incarnation probably happened during this Feast of Tabernacles because God takes these things very seriously.
SPEAKER_02: And now it's not just gonna be a one-time smoke or a two-time smoke.
SPEAKER_02: Now it's gonna be in a form you can hear and you can see and you can touch God's very presence with us.
SPEAKER_02: Stone by stone, Solomon had this temple built.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus too is building a temple with you.
SPEAKER_02: This is what he says through Peter.
SPEAKER_02: As you come to him, the living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious, you yourselves are being like living stones are being built up into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Some of those sacrifices are what?
SPEAKER_02: You talking to one another, you listening to one another.
SPEAKER_02: If you don't talk to anybody when you come to church, you're doing the sacrifices wrong.
SPEAKER_02: Solomon's temple was eventually torn down.
SPEAKER_02: It didn't last.
SPEAKER_02: When we get back to Daniel, uh that's that temple's long gone.
SPEAKER_02: This this great day, ooh, God's so happy with us.
SPEAKER_02: Now they're like, I guess, I guess he's not happy.
SPEAKER_02: He's forgotten.
SPEAKER_02: We're in exile.
SPEAKER_02: That was torn down.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus said through John the gospel writer, destroy this temple, talking to himself, and I'll raise it back up in three days.
SPEAKER_02: See, the Bible really is about salvation history through Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: So let me answer the question I asked in the beginning.
SPEAKER_02: How will we know God is pleased with what we're building?
SPEAKER_02: How will he know, how will we know he's pleased with that thing?
SPEAKER_02: Now, God is ultimately pleased already in what Jesus has done.
SPEAKER_02: But I think you're gonna see evidence in at least two other ways.
SPEAKER_02: When you see these, you'll know that's it, God is pleased.
SPEAKER_02: One is as you see lives change from the kingdom of darkness moved into the kingdom of the sun, you'll know God is pleased.
SPEAKER_02: See people turning from their idols and to Christ, people fleeing life bed down in sin and moving toward life and repentance and walking in faith.
SPEAKER_02: You'll know God is pleased.
SPEAKER_02: That's a much mightier work than just a one-time cloud fall.
SPEAKER_02: I think also you'll know God is pleased when we begin speaking to one another.
SPEAKER_02: When you come to the assembly of the body and you and you have a thought, I should encourage her.
SPEAKER_02: I should console him.
SPEAKER_02: I need to speak.
SPEAKER_02: Or you come thinking, God, I I got some margin time.
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna linger.
SPEAKER_02: I'm open to who you want to speak to me.
SPEAKER_02: I'm open to who you want to use.
SPEAKER_02: You'll know he's pleased.
SPEAKER_02: If you've been here for any sort of time, uh, you know we like to teach the Bible, and then we like to pause and give some space to think about it.
SPEAKER_02: And really what we're doing is we're asking God, all right, take some truth and just let this thing fall like a heavy anchor into my heart and bed down there to where I can't ignore it.
SPEAKER_02: Where I need to respond to it.
SPEAKER_02: Lindsay's gonna come up and give us some background space for this.
SPEAKER_02: There'll be questions on the screen.
SPEAKER_02: Let's use these and ask God to anchor down in us.
SPEAKER_02: Father, that's what we want in these next minutes secure, seal in us directions of obedience, directions of response.
SPEAKER_02: We just trust you, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: We trust you to move right now to Jesus, where you've gotten this down to a one-on-one conversation between us and you.
SPEAKER_02: Taste it, feel it, touch it this week.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe this afternoon, maybe even right now.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: I'm thankful you're here.
SPEAKER_02: If if you're new to our congregation, I'm really thankful you're here.
SPEAKER_02: And um, you may notice in front of you uh there's a there's a chair with some cards in it.
SPEAKER_02: We'd like for you to just fill out a little bit of information and just let us know who you are, linger a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: There'll actually be some pastors up front.
SPEAKER_02: You can come, anybody can come to speak to them.
SPEAKER_02: But if you fill out one of those cards, just boxes at each of the exits, you drop it in there.
SPEAKER_02: If uh this is your church and this is the day you uh worship by giving, um, that's also where you take care of that, put that in there.
SPEAKER_02: We don't have any announcements, and so I'm gonna uh close our time with a blessing.
SPEAKER_02: But please stand with me, hold out your hands, like you're gonna receive something.
SPEAKER_02: Your God has filled you with something greater than his presence one time at a temple.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you have God Himself, the Holy Spirit in you.
SPEAKER_02: You've been given a role in the kingdom and the king's power to do it.
SPEAKER_02: So depart now and fill this world with his presence.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.