SPEAKER_00: The scripture reading this morning is taken from the book of First Chronicles, chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: And if you uh don't have a Bible here uh with you this morning, there should be a pew Bible located uh there in the uh the in front of you on the uh pew rack.
SPEAKER_00: And you can find it on page 345.
SPEAKER_00: I'd encourage you to turn there.
SPEAKER_00: I will be reading verses five through fourteen.
SPEAKER_00: First Chronicles chapter 13, beginning in verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: So David assembled all Israel from the Nile of Egypt to Lebohannoth to bring the ark of God from Kiriath Jeriam.
SPEAKER_00: And David and all of Israel went up to Bala, that is, to Kirath Jeriam, that belonged to Judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord who sits enthroned above the cherubim.
SPEAKER_00: And they carried the ark of God on a new cart from the house of Abinadab, and Uzzah and Ahio were driving the cart.
SPEAKER_00: And David and all Israel were rejoicing before God with all their might, with song and lyres and harps and tambourines and cymbals and trumpets.
SPEAKER_00: And when they came to the threshing floor of Chedah, Uzzah put out his hand to take hold of the ark, for the oxen the oxen stumbled.
SPEAKER_00: And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark, and he died there before God.
SPEAKER_00: And David was angry because the Lord had broken out against Uzzah, and that place is called Periz Uzzah to this day.
SPEAKER_00: And David was afraid of God that day, and he said, How can I bring the ark of God home to me?
SPEAKER_00: So David did not take the ark home into the city of David, but took it aside to the house of Obed Edom the Gittite.
SPEAKER_00: And the ark of God remained with the house of Obid Edom in the house, in his house for three months, and the Lord blessed the household of Obid Edom and all that he had.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you're probably sitting here this morning thinking this is the oddest passage in preparation for Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I have to admit I have never heard a Christmas-themed sermon preached from this passage.
SPEAKER_00: So uh we're both in the same boat here.
SPEAKER_00: Why did I pick this passage?
SPEAKER_00: Remember, our theme that we're looking at is from Matthew chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: And it is talking about God with us.
SPEAKER_00: And they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.
SPEAKER_00: And I want us to continue to explore and to delve into what we began to talk about last time, uh, last week, and I encourage you, if you weren't here, uh, to listen to the the message from last week uh to get an idea of the theme of what we're talking about last time.
SPEAKER_00: We talked about the radical nature of the fall, of the influence and the impact of sin, and as uh the theologian R.
SPEAKER_00: C.
SPEAKER_00: Sproul said, that sin is cosmic treason.
SPEAKER_00: It is rebellion against a holy God.
SPEAKER_00: It is shaking our fist at God, thumbing our nose at God, of declaring our independence to God, to say, God, I am not gonna do it your way, I am not going to listen to you, I am not gonna submit to your authority, I am going to do it my way, the way I want to do it, independent of your will and your desire and your wishes and your plans, I am living apart from you.
SPEAKER_00: And whether we recognize it or not, all sin is rebellion against God.
SPEAKER_00: It is cosmic treason, as R.C.
SPEAKER_00: Sproul says.
SPEAKER_00: And we saw the pervasive influence of the fall.
SPEAKER_00: When our first parents sinned, and Adam being our representative, sin uh was the consequences were impacted not just to him, but to all who would follow in his train.
SPEAKER_00: And we, as a consequence, are impacted and influenced by the sin of Adam.
SPEAKER_00: And we are born under sin, we have a sin nature, and that sin nature, that disposition and bent towards sin is manifested in all of the choices that we make, and it impacts every aspect of who we are.
SPEAKER_00: And so we we looked at that and explored that last time.
SPEAKER_00: And if you rem if you remember, or uh if you want to look at the passage in Genesis chapter 3, after Adam and Eve sinned, uh, they were expelled from the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_00: Uh when they when they sinned, uh part of the judgment was that they were no longer able to be in the presence of God like they were prior to the fall.
SPEAKER_00: And so there was a cataclysmic event that happened in the fall, that man now was separated from God.
SPEAKER_00: That there was a spiritual separation that occurred and that has lasting impact on each one of us, that we are born spiritually dead, separated from God, insensitive to the things of God.
SPEAKER_00: We saw that death entered into the created order towards mankind, and that and that death now is a consequence of sin, physical death, and the Bible tells us that there is a second death that occurs when somebody doesn't come to faith in Christ, and ultimately those who don't place their faith in Christ are separated from God for all of eternity, in a Christeless eternity in conscious torment in payment for the punishment of their sins.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what we saw, though, was that when God expelled Adam, it was an act of mercy, that he could have struck him dead if he had so chosen, and he would have been just in doing so.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he provided for them a covering and he expelled them from his presence.
SPEAKER_00: And this was a manifestation of God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: And it also reveals the reality that sinful people cannot be in the presence of a holy God.
SPEAKER_00: And when we look at Emmanuel, God with us, and we look at Christ's death on the cross for sin and his resurrection, his physical resurrection, it really, the weight of that really comes into sharper focus when we recognize the holiness of God.
SPEAKER_00: And the astounding reality that God visited this planet is in light of who God is and what we see of him in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: God's unveiled presence, uh sinful man cannot dwell in.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what we learn as we read through the pages of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, even when God manifested his presence, when he made his presence known in unusual ways, when when uh Moses uh saw the burning bush and God was there, and and Moses is told to take off his sandals, for the place that he is standing is holy, and yet we recognize that God is not revealing himself in his full glory.
SPEAKER_00: And even in these manifestations, God is still veiled.
SPEAKER_00: We think of God in the tabernacle and later in the temple, where God was in the holy of holies there in the temple, and the priest could go on the Day of Atonement and offer sacrifice for his sins and the sins of his people.
SPEAKER_00: And yet there was a veil that separated God in his manifest presence in the holy of holies in the tabernacle in the temple from the people.
SPEAKER_00: In Exodus chapter 33, there's an incident, and Moses is asking to see God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: He he asked God, and this is what the passage says, Exodus chapter 33.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Later, Moses asked God to see God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: And God said to him, Moses said, Please show me your glory.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
SPEAKER_00: And then God says this, But he said, You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand in the rock, and when my glory passes by, I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.
SPEAKER_00: Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.
SPEAKER_00: God allows for a glimpse, kind of a fleeting backward glimpse of his glory, but God's glory Moses could not see unveiled.
SPEAKER_00: The holiness of God, the reality of God's purity in his presence that sinful man cannot dwell in, is a reality that sometimes, because of our familiarity with the cross, the weight of that, the weight of his glory is lost on us.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to share two brief stories from the Old Testament, the one that we read and another example to remind us of the holiness of God and the dire consequences of sinful man uh dwelling in God's presence and disregarding his holiness.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is found in Leviticus chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: And both of these passages, the one I read and this one, strike us uh as shocking because of our unfamiliarity with uh the depths of God's holiness.
SPEAKER_00: In Leviticus chapter 10, Nadab and Abihu.
SPEAKER_00: It says in verse 1 of Leviticus chapter 10, now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them.
SPEAKER_00: And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: These were two sons of Aaron.
SPEAKER_00: And they offered, it says, unauthorized fire.
SPEAKER_00: What was their grand sin?
SPEAKER_00: Their grand sin was they had decided to innovate and change what God had prescribed in worship.
SPEAKER_00: God had told them to worship him in a certain way, and here were these uh these two young guys, and they had decided that they were going to innovate.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, they were gonna make some changes and offer God uh this incense.
SPEAKER_00: That was that was the extent of their sin, and God struck them dead.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we read this at first blush, it's gotta be shocking to us to think that they they went before the Lord and they just changed the formula.
SPEAKER_00: They just changed a little bit of what was prescribed by God, and uh as a consequence of that, they were struck dead.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what uh Aaron's reaction, Moses and Aaron.
SPEAKER_00: This is then Moses said to Aaron, This is what the Lord has said, among those who are near me, I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.
SPEAKER_00: And Aaron held his peace.
SPEAKER_00: Aaron was displeased by this.
SPEAKER_00: His sons had died as a consequence of uh their foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: Well, why didn't God cut them some slack?
SPEAKER_00: Why the harshness, the seeming harshness of what God did to Nadab and Abihu?
SPEAKER_00: The answer to it is in verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Among those who are near me, I will be sanctified.
SPEAKER_00: I will be regarded as holy.
SPEAKER_00: And what Nadab and Abihu did was they disregarded God's word.
SPEAKER_00: They had violated his will, they had acted independently of God, they had misrepresented God to his people, and they represented God or the people to God.
SPEAKER_00: It was a blatant disregard of God's holiness.
SPEAKER_00: They thumbed their nose at God and asserted their own self-will.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in Exodus chapter 30, verse 9, God had specifically told them this you shall not offer unauthorized incense on it, or a burnt offering, or a grain offering, you shall not pour a drink offering on it.
SPEAKER_00: They had disregarded the holiness of God, and as a consequence of that, God had struck them down.
SPEAKER_00: Then we have this odd story of Uzzah in 1 Chronicles 13.
SPEAKER_00: And a little background here, give some uh some uh a frame of reference to it.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember, the Philistines had captured the Ark of God.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Ark of God represented the throne of God, had been captured by the Philistines.
SPEAKER_00: And they had carried it, carried it away, and uh because of all of the problems that they had, they decided to send it back, and uh they had sent it back, and uh it was kept in safekeeping in storage, uh, in essence.
SPEAKER_00: And during David's reign, David decided that he was going to bring it back from where it was in storage, back to Jerusalem, to its rightful place where uh when Jerusalem was built and the temple was uh the that uh that they wanted it back in, uh that he wanted it in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So they were gonna move it to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So they placed the ark of God on a new cart that had two men, Uzzah and Ahio, uh, to drive the cart from Kiriath Jirim to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And then we saw what happened.
SPEAKER_00: As the ark is going along on this ox cart, the ox are pulling along, uh, they hit a bump.
SPEAKER_00: They hit a bump, and as the ark is shifting and possibly about to fall off, Uzzah reaches out his hand to stabilize it so it doesn't hit the ground.
SPEAKER_00: That's all he did.
SPEAKER_00: He reached out and put up his hand so that this ark wouldn't hit the ground.
SPEAKER_00: And God judges him.
SPEAKER_00: And David's angry.
SPEAKER_00: If you notice what David's reaction was, it says uh that David, uh, verse 11, David was angry because the Lord had broken out against Uzzah.
SPEAKER_00: And in some senses, that reaction is understandable.
SPEAKER_00: David, it says, was angry and afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Did David have a right to be angry at God over this?
SPEAKER_00: Did God overreact?
SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the questions when we read this that we we come to think all he did was stuck his hand out to help this this box from falling on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Did did he overreact?
SPEAKER_00: Was that something that was was well beyond what was deserved?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we understand a little bit more about Uzzah.
SPEAKER_00: It's helpful.
SPEAKER_00: We all know about Uzzah, right?
SPEAKER_00: You know, Fuzzy Uzzah was a bear.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: No, not that.
SPEAKER_00: That was Fuzzy.
SPEAKER_00: No, Uzzah is Uzzah was a Kohathite, and that doesn't mean anything to us.
SPEAKER_00: He was a Kohathite.
SPEAKER_00: That was the family that he was born into.
SPEAKER_00: He was born into the Kohathites, and the Bible tells us a bit about the Kohatites.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the Kohites were a branch of the Levites, the Levites, the priestly tribe of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And they had one job, according to Numbers chapter 4, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: They had one job, and that was to take care of the sacred articles in the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_00: They had one job to take care of the sacred objects, the sacred articles in the tabernacle.
SPEAKER_00: And they they that was the one thing.
SPEAKER_00: You grew up, you had one job.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like I don't know if this has ever happened to you.
SPEAKER_00: This has happened to me.
SPEAKER_00: I go to Starbucks and I order a I order a regular cup of black coffee.
SPEAKER_00: That's almost that's the only thing I drink, or mostly what I drink.
SPEAKER_00: And they say, I'm sorry, we're out of coffee.
SPEAKER_00: And I sit there, I think, you guys have one job.
SPEAKER_00: You sell coffee, you're a coffee store.
SPEAKER_00: How can you be out of coffee?
SPEAKER_00: You only do one thing.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the whole existence of your corporation is, is to make coffee, and you need, oh, it's gonna take a few minutes.
SPEAKER_00: We need to brew some.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Kohites had one job.
SPEAKER_00: One job to take care of the articles in the tabernacle later in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And and the main part of that job was to know how do you handle the ark.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in uh in Numbers chapter uh four, it says this.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it says, and when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the furnishings of the sanctuary, as the camp sets out, after that the sons of Koath shall come to carry these.
SPEAKER_00: You see, they had one job to take care of the articles, and they had a responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: How do you carry the ark?
SPEAKER_00: One job.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what it says.
SPEAKER_00: This is how the Koheth, the sons of Koath are to carry the ark.
SPEAKER_00: They must not touch the holy things lest they die.
SPEAKER_00: These are the things of the tent of the meeting that the sons of Koath are to carry.
SPEAKER_00: There were poles that were to go into each side of the ark.
SPEAKER_00: There were rings and the poles were to slide in, and they were to put, they were to put the poles on their shoulder and lift up the ark and walk with the ark, making sure never to touch the ark.
SPEAKER_00: Because the ark represented the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: And he would have known this from the time he was a child, he was growing up to do one job with his life, to take care of the things of God and to carry the ark of God.
SPEAKER_00: He should have known what God had expected of him.
SPEAKER_00: And he disregarded the word of God and the holiness of God and the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: And as a consequence of that, God judged him.
SPEAKER_00: It's a reminder to us, and we don't often think about this, that the Bible tells us that sinful humanity cannot be in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: The prophet Habakkuk says, You, uh God, you who are of pure eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, God can never overlook or see and accept the wrong in people.
SPEAKER_00: In Ezekiel 18, it says, The soul who sins shall die.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew chapter 5, verse 48, Jesus is talking and he says, Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.
SPEAKER_00: That to be in the presence of God, we need to be perfect.
SPEAKER_00: That is the standard for which God has set, and he has not lowered his standard, that sinful humanity cannot dwell in the presence of the holy.
SPEAKER_00: And so throughout the Old Testament, even when God manifested his presence, his presence was always veiled.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the amazing reality.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at this next week, that Jesus Christ is God incarnate.
SPEAKER_00: He is God in human flesh.
SPEAKER_00: But what's amazing is even in John chapter 1, when it says, and in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God, and then in verse 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
SPEAKER_00: The word for dwelt there is a Greek word that means to tent or to tabernacle.
SPEAKER_00: And somebody reading that would immediately go back to the Old Testament and think about the tabernacle of God.
SPEAKER_00: It was God's manifest presence with his people.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we read Emmanuel, God with us, in light of the fact in the Old Testament, nobody could be in the presence of God, it is astounding.
SPEAKER_00: That God visits this planet and that Jesus Christ manifests the presence of God walking among us for thirty-three years.
SPEAKER_00: And the fact that we needed Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus could, only God could provide forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Only God could provide the forgiveness that we need.
SPEAKER_00: What's amazing is that God came near.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ is fully God, and fully man is what the Bible tells us that he is God Himself that came, that He is Emmanuel, God with us, and He took upon Himself human flesh so that Jesus is fully God, and at the incarnation he became fully man without losing at all in any way his deity.
SPEAKER_00: And then he walked among us for 33 years, and he came to do what we couldn't do.
SPEAKER_00: He came to provide what we needed, which we couldn't secure on our own.
SPEAKER_00: The message of the gospel of the good news of Jesus Christ is in light of the reality that we could never go to heaven on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Because of sin, because of our sinful choices, because of the impurity and the unrighteousness that is in our life, we can never be in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus did in coming to earth was first of all that he took all of the penalty and the punishment that we deserve, all of the unrighteousness that we deserve, the justice and the wrath of God.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, and uh we often don't think about this, but when Christ came, he saved us for God, he rescued us so that we can have a relationship with God, but he also rescued us from God.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: When Christ rescued us from the righteous judgment of God that we deserve.
SPEAKER_00: Absolute full obedience to the Father without ever sinning.
SPEAKER_00: And when Christ died, he died to pay the penalty for our sins, but not only that, the righteous life that Jesus lived, all of his righteousness in active obedience to the Father is credited to our account.
SPEAKER_00: So that we stand before God forgiven and righteous, so that we can be in the presence of God for all of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the miracle of Emmanuel, God with us, and it really comes into sharper focus when we understand our sinfulness and the holiness of God.
SPEAKER_00: And it causes us to worship.
SPEAKER_00: For the next several minutes, we're going to spend time in worship, reflecting on Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: And next week we're going to look at who Jesus is in greater detail.
SPEAKER_00: But I want us to come uh come now as Pat comes to lead us in a time of worship, of reflecting on our sinfulness, God's holiness, and the grace that comes through Jesus Christ.