Sermon: A Kingdom Eternal

Hebrew chapter 12 verses 25 through 29. Let's pray before we open God's word together this morning.

Our Father, we come before you this morning with great anticipation, we pray, hoping and knowing that you will speak to us this morning according to the truth of your word. We're thankful that it is a word that does not return void and accomplishes its purposes.

It is not like the flower that fades or the grass that withers, that it is living and active, that it is sharper than any two edged sword.

We pray that this breathed out word of yours. It's our hearts and minds and souls this morning and that we would leave knowing that we have heard from you the living God, not abandon us. We pray even as you have promised, speak to us so Lord, it's in the strong name of Christ Jesus. The living words name we pray. Amen. Hebrews chapter 12 verses 25 through 29. This is the holy and err sufficient word of God. 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 has 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 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. Though the grass withers and the flower fades, the word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

When my family is on vacation in a hotel, we do something a little odd for us. We turn on the television. That's part of what we do when we go on vacation in a hotel and we find something to watch together and uh, often what we land upon, uh, that we can all agree upon a shark tank, uh, it always seems to be on and everybody in the family likes it. Uh, it is where there are entrepreneurs that are pitching their idea for a new company, a new product

before five investors that sit on a platform and one of those investors is always Mark Cuban, the loud and boisterous owner of the NBA Dallas Mavericks. And what they will do is they pitch before these five investors, they will present what it is that they have invented and then they will say how many sales they have. They will tell them how much they are looking to be invested in their company and then how much of a share of

that company the investor will get as he invests in the company. And Mark Cuban, he regularly gives an offer. He will give an offer to that entrepreneur, but if after hearing Cuban's offer, they go on to hear from other investors and listen to them and answer their questions. Cuban will often, it seems to me on the limited time I've seen him on vacations, he gets upset at some point and he will say to them, you have an offer.

He's spoken and he demands a response.

There are not too few who walk out of the Shark Tank having had an offer and then he removes the offer because they didn't respond and they walk out having received nothing.

The writer of Hebrews is giving this kind of warning, see that you do not refuse him. Who is speaking? God has spoken. Have we received it? Often people will say, well, I just want God to speak to me. I wish he would just speak. Well, he has spoken and he speaks. He is spoken by his word and he has spoken in the person of his son and is our first point this morning, listen to God today. Listen to God today. He speaks, he's spoken.

The author of Hebrews is going to make an argument for you. He's going to make an argument from what is often logic and is often used in the scripture as an argument from the lesser to the greater. If this was true with the lesser than how much true must this be of the greater and the lesser? He takes us back to Mount Sinai again, verse 25. For if they did not escape when they refused him, who warned them on earth? You have to remember going back two weeks ago when we were

on Easter Sunday, we looked at this where he took us to Mount Sinai Exodus 19, right before the giving of the 10 command minutes in Exodus 20 and there on the Mount, God appears in a storm cloud and the entire ground before Mount Sinai shakes. Even as the writer of Hebrews says here at the end of our passage, our God, he is a consuming fire. He is a holy God. And when God thunders from Mount Sinai in Exodus 19, he is telling them that they must obey

and if they do not obey, then they will not get what was promised. They will not enter the promised land. And you'll remember it happened. Moses and his generation, there will not be one from that generation except for Caleb and Joshua who obeyed the command of God. They will start to enter the land and the people will rebel because they are afraid of entering the land. They doubt the promises of God. They do not receive his word of promise

and so they disobey and as a result of their disobedience, God has them wander in the desert for 40 years so that that entire generation passes away and only Joshua and Caleb actually enter into the promise. That's the lesser example. They didn't listen, they didn't receive, they didn't obey and they lost if that was true about the warning received on earth. He's saying how much truer if we reject him? Who speaks from heaven? He spoke this from Mount Sinai

and now he's taking us back again like he did two weeks ago when we looked at this passage. He's taking us now to Mount Zion. God is thundering from the heavens from the new city Jerusalem, from Mount Zion.

Listen to God today receive

you remember on the Mount of Transfiguration when Jesus is on another mountain, he is there with the three disciples and he is there with Elijah and he is there with Moses. Remember that God thunders from above and the father says to the disciples, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.

He's spoken. Listen to him. The the writer of Hebrews begins this entire book this way long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers through the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us in the sun.

He's spoken in the sun. Listen to God today, have you received the sun?

Which leads to the second point. No God's promise of tomorrow, no God's promise of tomorrow. Verse 26. At that time his voice shook the earth. He's speaking about Mount Sinai. When God gave the 10 commandments to the people, the the ground under their feet shook. But now he has promised yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens. Verse 27, this phrase, a quote from Haggai two. 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. God promises about tomorrow he will return and when he returns, he will thunder from the sky and it will not just be the ground before Mount Sinai that trembles. It will be all of the heavens and all of the earth. That shake

and that just not rooted in him will fall. There's going to be a cosmic shaking and all that is not rooted in him will just fall.

When I was uh, in high school, a tornado came through our town and I had a stepsister and her husband, they, they lived in town and they were standing at their, in their kitchen looking out the window watching the storm and all of a sudden the husband heard the sound that you're told to listen for the sound of a freight train. And so he lunged for the basement door. He swung it open, he grabbed my stepsister by the shoulder,

he threw her down the stairs and he jumped in after her and he pulled the door shut, the tornado struck and after it had struck, they having tumbled down the stairs, they walked their way back up the stairs and they opened the door and when they opened the door they merged and it was just sky.

The house was gone.

It's really fascinating is there was this one wall, that dining room wall that was still standing and on that dining room wall was a hutch and on that hutch were all of these porcelain plates and they hadn't moved.

They were just shining there in all of their beauty.

When he returned, that which is not fixed in him, it's destroyed.

Well, that which is beautiful in him stands and remains.

It's all just destroyed. He will thunder like he did for Mount Sinai and everything will fall. There's a lot of confused Christians this morning that are waking up and thinking, oh, last week there was a complete solar eclipse yesterday Israel was attacked and they're nervous this morning thinking, oh, this could be the day of a secret rapture. There's no secret rapture. When he comes he will thunder and when he comes you will see him on the clouds

with the angels and the archangels. There will be no mistaking it. He will thunder like he did from Mount Sinai and all that is not rooted in him will fall but notice it more than falls. He says in verse 27 that all these things shaken are removed. They they cease to exist. They are no longer they vanish.

Peter describes the last day this way, the return of Christ and second Peter, he says, but the day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done in it will be exposed with a roar.

And all that is not rooted in his kingdom is simply burned up, it's removed, dissolved.

Do you understand that

so much of what we're expending our lives on, so much of what we are traipsing after disappears,

it vanishes,

burns away like the morning mist.

We're so busy setting up our little petty kingdoms, they disappear.

And my greatest in life, greatest regrets in life,

It may seem small to you was day when I was probably a freshman in high school and my sister was maybe in seventh grade. We were latchkey kids. We would ride the bus home and we would get home and we would let ourselves in the house and then we would wait a few hours for my mom to come home from work. And on this day, this particular afternoon, my mom decided to do something nice for my mom. She vacuumed the house And I was probably wasting my time watching TV

or playing video games and we had the kind of carpet where you can make lines in it in our living room, in our dining room, and she spent an inordinate amount of time making these nice fresh lines in the carpet. I mean it looked like a well-manicured major league baseball field when she was done

and she was so proud of it and so excited to show my mom but she just couldn't wait and so she called in her older brother to come in and take a look first and I looked at it and I looked at her and then I jumped into the middle of the living room and started dancing all over it

and she just started sobbing.

I look back and I ask why? Why was I so mean?

And I think it was rude in the fact that she was going to get praise and that bumped up against my petty kingdom of pride.

Say that's so small, Jason, that's so petty. All our kingdoms are petty.

Whether it's a kingdom of pride or possessions or wealth or position that they're just petty kingdoms.

So many things we chase after in this world will be shaken and removed.

I'm thankful for Christians laboring hard and working diligently and being resourceful, even gaining wealth and moving up in position. All fine things but all necessary secondary things. Secy first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you. Our small little personal kingdoms are burnt up while his kingdom remain.

This happens not just with our petty kingdoms, it happens with the greatest kingdoms. We could make an argument from the greatest to the least.

You think about the greatest kingdoms that have ever spanned the globe and surely one of the greatest has to be Rome and we like to think about Rome as men do. As we pointed out earlier in the series,

remember the context. These Hebrew Christians, they are facing persecution, the beginnings of persecution from the Roman Empire and the writer of Hebrews is reminding them to keep on in the faith, to keep their eyes fixed upon Christ, the author and perfecter of their faith. Why they must know God's promises of tomorrow. Why? Because Christ's kingdom is lasting and Rome's empire is not lasting. Now we say that and that's easy for us to hear,

but it would not have been easy for them to hear. You have to remember that Rome dates all the way back to the seventh century BC By this time it is an empire that spans the known world. It controls the entire Mediterranean. Its armies and its navies are undaunted by anyone or anything. Its culture is omnipresent, its emperor is a God on earth.

A couple of centuries after the writing of this letter in the third and fourth centuries, Rome will still dominate.

There is a famous emperor during that time by the name of Dian. He's famous, maybe not in history, but he is for us because he was been one of the greatest opponents to Christianity ever to live. He saw it as his great aim to stamp out Christianity that he was going to dash it to pieces and he believed he had even done so. He erected a monument to himself in Spain and he wrote this on the inscription, Diocletian, Jovian,

Maximilian, Hercules, Caesarea Augusta. You have to be important to have that many names for having extended the Roman empire in the east and the West and for having extinguished the name of Christians who brought the Roman republic to ruin all apparent power, all apparent sovereignty, his kingdom over Christ's kingdom. He destroyed Christianity except he didn't. He didn't because he couldn't. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church.

His kingdom is eternal.

The name of Jesus is now known throughout the world. Dian. I was telling this history at a conference a decade or more ago and I brought Grace and my daughter with me who was seven at the time, and I put her in the back row of the the sanctuary we were in while I went up to preach and I was using this illustration and I said along these lines, the name of Jesus is known throughout the world and who has even heard the name Dian.

She was in classical conversations at the time reading all kinds of history and I saw a little arm with a little hand raise.

It's still a great illustration.

Every knee will bow before that name. Christ. Every tongue will confess that name. Christ Diocletian is a thing of the history books,

the greatest earthly kingdom shake and they're removed. Diocletian appeared. Omnipotent, appeared to have all authority as kingdom appeared to be permanent. Christianity appeared to be but a vapor it appear. He appeared to stamp it out. You are to know God's promise of tomorrow. Christ's kingdom cannot be overcome. It cannot even be shaken. As the author says in verse 27, it remains even when the kingdoms of this world appear

to have mover maneuvered their way to the upper hand. They're but angling to be Christ's footstool. He reigns and his voice shakes the earth and heavens on that last day, the author tells us that it will reveal the things that cannot be shaken. And what is that? It's the Christian, it's the church. It we remain. The church remains in the work that we have done for the church to the glory of Christ remains. Everything else is burnt up.

This is a kingdom that not only cannot be destroyed but not even shaken.

Now I confess that's hard to believe. At times you look around and you say, I I don't see it.

I don't know. It sure doesn't feel that way, but this is why the writers reminded them. He is reminded them in chapter 11 that faith is the hope of things not seen while he has gone through the hall of fame of faith to show us all of these men and women that held onto the faith that continue to look to Jesus that finished the race. And then he says at the beginning of Hebrews chapter 12, you're surrounded by this cloud of witnesses.

He's telling you, look, they've arrived and they're telling you, keep your eyes on Jesus. This kingdom is real. This kingdom is present. He's enthroned above, were witnesses to it.

Jesus said in John 18, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would've been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from the world. His is a spiritual kingdom. You can't always see it with your naked eye. It may not appear to be gaining ground. You can't measure it, you can't weigh it. You can't chart its growth. His kingdom does not have borders like the Roman empire.

It doesn't win battles for all to see like D-Day in midway. It doesn't set its flag everywhere. It conquers like Bri Britain. His kingdom is spiritual and that means that for the Christian, your eyes cannot dominate your heart. You cannot allow the headlines on internet news, web pages or headlines of newspapers to dictate your theology to you.

He reigned his kingdom is present, his kingdom proceeds and his kingdom is the one thing that lasts eternally. Everything else is shaken and falls everything else.

Listen to God today, know God's promise of tomorrow, which leads to our final point. Do your duty today.

Do your duty today

and he gives us two things. Verse 28, therefore let us be grateful. Second, let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and all your duty, gratefulness and worship.

He closes it with that little C clause at the end there in verse 29. For our God is a consuming fire. And it may be that that clause is just in reference to the fact that we are to offer acceptable worship to God with reverence and awe, but surely it applies both to both practically. That we are to be grateful and that we are to worship with reverence and all we're to be grateful. Why? Because the God of Mount Sinai has not changed.

The author of Hebrews is not running from that God. No. The same God who is the God of Mount Sinai is the same God. That is the God of Mount Zion. As we looked at Easter Sunday and that God of Mount Sinai is a God of holiness, a God whose voice when he speaks the le, the cedars of Lebanon break Syrian the mountain of Syria and leaps like a calf. The mountain range of Lebanon leaps

is a God of holiness, God of power. He's a consuming fire and it is this God who thunders from Mount Zion,

God who's made us his children,

God who has sent his son to live and to die for sinners so that we might be covered over with his blood so that we might be inheritors with the son of the heavens and the earth.

Be grateful

this holy God, this consuming fire provides for sinners to be grateful.

Why is that so hard?

Think about when Jesus healed those 10 lepers. He sent them off to go be healed and all 10 of them are healed and then the only one returns with thankfulness.

You think about Israel, they're let out of Egypt, they, they've been let out of bondage in Egypt and they just go a little ways and they're, they're complaining and longing for the leaks. Onions in Egypt,

we've been cleansed from a lot more than leprosy.

We've been redeemed from a lot more than bondage in Egypt.

How? How can there not be gratefulness?

I mean just a living, breathing, walking gratefulness.

We also offer worship seems to be one of the great expressions of gratefulness

is deserving the writer of Hebrew said in chapter 10 that we are not to forsake the weekly fellowship of the saints. That word that used there weekly fellowship, it has the idea of corporate worship. You, you're to not miss this week in and week out. Why? Because this consuming fire, this God has made a way for you to be in his presence,

to commune with him, to draw near him, and he draws near us. It's here that we enjoy God like nowhere else, that we, we, we get to experience him like nowhere else. That we get to hear his word, that we get to be with his people. That his spirit is especially present as all the gifts of the body are, are manifest in this room.

Why? To response to receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

It should amaze you. You get to draw near to the Holy King

and he draws near to you.

The response is just worship.

I give you four applications to end first.

If you listen to God today,

the writer admonishes us. See that you do not refuse him. Who is speaking? Have you accepted him? Who is speaking from Mount Zion? Have you received his son? You can't sit on the fence. There's no InBetween here. You, you can't say, well, I haven't made up my mind. No. You've either received him or you've rejected him. There's no InBetween. Have you received him?

This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. Jesus said in John five, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my words and believes him, who sent me has eternal life. Have you heard and received him? Who is speaking to you this morning?

Second, if you have Dear Christian, then you strive for what lasts. Strive for what lasts.

And Christ returns all will be shaken and like a a sifting pan, it will reveal what has been done for and to Christ and only that lasts.

That's how Peter, I mean Paul speaks about it in one Corinthians. He says, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest for the day. Christ return will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

If that work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss. Though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. It is what you do for Christ in Christ to the glory of Christ, for the sake of the kingdom of Christ that lasts. Is that where you're expending yourself?

You have perspective.

If you're a Christian, you're seated with Christ on high, you have perspective. You can see what lasts. So strive for that third Christian, be on guard, be on guard because the world is going to continually and constantly appeal to you, to enter other kingdoms, to set up your own kingdom,

but compromise with the world compromises Christ and whatever it offers, the promise of love, of promotion, of riches, of position, of respect, even peace is not worth compromising your relationship with Christ. For you. Seek first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added to you, whether it is here or it is there. There were neither moth nor rust destroyed.

Finally, be grateful and worshipful live life with gratefulness. Would you? You're a Christian live with gratefulness. Too many dower Christians running around

too many bellyaching, Betsy and complaining. Charlie's, do you understand what you've received?

Do you know what you've been saved from?

To understand what you've been made,

you get to be an inheritor of the new heavens and the new earth.

What? Walking around complaining for

grateful and offering your bodies as a living sacrifice for a God who's a consuming fire is the right response.

Much to be grateful for. Let's pray.

Father, we are thankful for so great a salvation that you have established a kingdom that cannot be shaken and that with Christ we get to reign and be inheritors of this kingdom may be true of every one of us in this room and we hear spoken word through Christ and we receive it and we live in light of it. We pray all of this in the strong name of that King of Kings. Amen.