Unlimited Grace

Guest (Male): The one who bears the marks of judgment will make sacrifice for the people. It is long ago in the wilderness, but the winds are blowing a name: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. The one who bears the marks of judgment will make sacrifice for his people.

Guest (Male): So glad you joined us for today's Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. In today's episode, Pastor Bryan shares a lesson from Exodus chapters 25 through 31.

Dr. Chapell turns our attention to a description of the tabernacle that reveals God's intention to bring true satisfaction to the souls of humanity. You can find this lesson and many others when you visit unlimitedgrace.com.

And while you're there, look for this wonderful resource from Dr. Chapell: Holiness by Grace. In this book, Pastor Bryan will guide you through reassuring scripture passages to discover how works and obedience are not a means of establishing or maintaining salvation, but a grateful response to God's mercy. Let's hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the lesson, Having God's Temple Vision.

Bryan Chapell: Tarek and Christina are perfect for HGTV. He's the tough negotiator, equally adept at pushing subcontractors or swinging a sledgehammer. She is the stylish designer who can make demolitions into dream homes.

They follow the HGTV pattern. Christina is the one who gives the designs, and HGTV following that pattern that a lot of us watch at bedtimes of seeing the dream home that's supposed to make your life perfect, whether it's the beach house or the mountain resort or the urban McMansion, whatever suits you, we recognize that what is being promised is something very special that will change our lives.

Caitlin Flanagan, a journalist, says the now $12 billion HGTV network runs the never-ending fantasy loop. That if you can just get the right house, the one that looks like your friends' houses but just a little bit better, if you can get that house, your family will pour into it like thick cream into a pitcher—smooth, fluid, pleasing.

Who could get a divorce in a house with so many lush towels in the master bathroom? How could you raise a sullen teen when there's a great room with a large screen TV and everybody can gather for nachos to watch the football game?

What's wrong with that picture? Those of you who are followers of HGTV and particularly Tarek and Christina's Flip or Flop show know that their marriage flopped. Not only did they get a divorce despite the dream home and the two children, but because they were famous through HGTV, it played out in the public media, and we learned of the day that Tarek went down the lonely path with the loaded gun and suicidal intent.

The police talked him down, talked him back, and apparently, producers talked Christina and Tarek back. Because even though they are now apart, there's a new show coming, a new season, where if your home is just a little bit better, your life will be perfect, even if theirs is not.

What's the message? The message clearly is that a new house won't fix your marriage, or a new kitchen, or a new car, or a new pool, or a new baby, or even a new location. Didn't work for Tarek and Christina; didn't work for Israel. They keep going location after location after location and still finding out that all the best places are not bringing peace to their hearts.

The message for us is that we need something more than what's in our homes to satisfy our soul. And the message of the Scriptures is God is telling us by what is in his house what he intends to bring true satisfaction to the souls of humanity.

Here he's describing a tabernacle to be built in the wilderness, but in doing so he is by symbol and sense giving us an understanding of what is truly being offered that would bring satisfaction deeper down than we might understand. What after all is to be experienced in the tabernacle of God? Worship. And that worship is being expressed through gratitude.

We understand what worship is about. Worship is at its essence the overflow of our satisfaction as we learn to express by appreciation, gratitude, thanksgiving, praise what is even deeper than what we can say. We sense it.

Kathy and I walked out of a restaurant last week with some friends and as we did, somebody was just starting in the fall Christmas to burn in their fireplace pinewood. And as we walked out and smelled it, the friend who was walking with us said, "Don't you love it?" He didn't have to explain. We understood.

Simply the sensation, the smell was touching something of memory, something of sweetness, of goodness. Whether it's something that we possessed or something that we lost, the things that we treasure are being touched by our senses. And when the worship is being described here, it's being prepared for first by the heart of gratitude that is bringing all that is needed to touch the sensations of the people of God.

The opening verses, verse two: Speak to the people of Israel, God says to Moses, that they may take for me a contribution. From every man whose heart moves him you shall receive the contribution for me. The people are to show gratitude, which is in itself just an overflow of their heart satisfaction.

We actually love doing that. We were made for worship. When something touches us and we appreciate it, we want to be able to express that. And God says, "So take a contribution from people whose hearts are overflowing with appreciation for what I have provided for them."

What surprises us is that it's to be from the heart. In the Old Testament, there were various tithes that were required: tithes to take care of the poor, tithes to take care of the refugees as they were passing through the land, tithes to take care of the priest as he would make offerings and sacrifices for the people. But God says when it just comes to my glory, only take what people want to give from their hearts.

That wording in verse two, from every man whose heart moves him, actually is from every man whose heart makes a vow. I want to show this appreciation for the Lord. And that surprises us, but it actually reflects the New Testament ethic that the apostle Paul will say in 2 Corinthians, chapter nine: Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly, not under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

As God is saying to us, if it's not from your heart, I actually don't want it. If it's not gratitude that's your guide, if you're doing it out of guilt, if you're doing it out of compulsion, then it will ultimately make you hate me rather than delight to honor me. If worship is what's compelling you, if it's true overflow of your heart satisfaction, then offer me from your heart. It sounds sweet, but we know it can be hard to do.

Phil Ryken, the pastor, now president of Wheaton College, talks about being a pastor and receiving a very large gift from a woman in the church who herself had received an inheritance and decided to tithe off of the inheritance to make a very large gift to the church.

Later, some years, she herself passed away, and her heirs going through the family papers came across her decision to make that tithe of the large inheritance that she had received. But along with the notes on the decision was this sentence: Quick, quick, before your heart gets hard.

And we understand. We want to give, but we all suffer from HGTV envy. If I keep a little more, I'll get a whole lot more. If I just hold back, I will experience better. And the notion that we would give to God's glory and purposes, ministry and mission as much as we actually delight in that, our hearts get torn by what we think we would gain more than what would glorify the Lord.

And so the Lord is requiring of his people here in the worship not only to understand the benefit of gratitude, letting gratitude be your guide, but to understand the reason for the gratitude. He begins to have them express his glory in what they give.

Verse three: This is the contribution that you shall receive from them, Moses—gold and silver and bronze. Now listen, God doesn't need the gold and the silver and the bronze. He's got plenty more where that came from. But it's not just the gold that's to show glory.

Did you see the others? Verse four: blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twin linens and goat's hair. Beyond that, verse six: oil for the lamp, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense. As though God is preparing for sight and scents and smell and touch, everything to be affected by what's happening in the temple itself that our senses are revealing aspects of the glory of God.

So that what he says in verse nine will actually come to pass. God says to Moses: Do this exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle. There's a pattern, a type, an example of what's being shown in virtually every detail. We lose it because we're not familiar with this culture, but so many pieces are important to demonstrating what God will say about himself for his glory and our gratitude.

Even the pattern of the preparation. Do you remember, it took 40 days and 40 nights for Moses to get down all these seven chapters? You've heard that before, haven't you? 40 days and 40 nights. Where does that first occur in the scriptures? Do you remember the rain came in Noah's time? How long? 40 days and 40 nights. Why? Because it was punishment.

At that time, every thought of the imaginations of their hearts was only evil continually. And God for a people who had turned away from him brought his judgment. And now he says to Moses, prepare a tabernacle and it takes 40 days and 40 nights to say how do you prepare the provision that will turn aside judgment?

It's the equal counter. Just as there were 40 days and 40 nights of punishment, so there are 40 days and 40 nights of the preparation for the presence of God in his mercy by the sacrifices that will be offered. And that's not the end of the story. You're going to hear about 40 days and 40 nights again in the Bible. Where is that?

All the way in the New Testament when Jesus, being prepared in righteousness to be the perfect sacrifice for our sin, is on another mountain. It's the Mount of Temptation, and Satan comes and tempts him with the pleasures and privileges and powers of the world. How long does Satan tempt him? 40 days and 40 nights. As though God is ultimately saying, "I'm not only showing you punishment, I'm not only showing you what is righteousness required, I'm going to show you the righteousness provided."

Guest (Male): You're listening to Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. God instructs us in his word to be holy as he is holy. How can God expect us to be as holy as he is?

Such a standard seems either to ignore our frailty or to impose certain failure. That is, until we understand how God views us. In this challenging yet heartwarming book, Holiness by Grace, Dr. Bryan Chapell illustrates the principles of grace, the practices of faith, and the motives of love in living a life of holiness.

Pastor Bryan will guide you through reassuring scripture passages to discover how works and obedience are not a means of establishing or maintaining salvation, but a grateful response to God's mercy. Holiness by Grace draws straight from the heart of God as Pastor Bryan's encouraging words will help you understand that your holiness is not so much a matter of what you achieve as it is the grace that God provides, a grace so rich as to make the pursuit of his holiness your soul's deepest delight.

You can request your copy of Holiness by Grace when you go online to unlimitedgrace.com or by calling 844-41-GRACE. That's 844-414-7223. And now more from Bryan Chapell on today's Unlimited Grace.

Bryan Chapell: God is ultimately saying, "I'm not only showing you punishment, I'm not only showing you what is righteousness required, I'm going to show you the righteousness provided." And the complete picture is the pattern that we are to be understanding. Penalty deserved, righteousness required, but ultimately righteousness provided.

And that message is being taken again and again through the tabernacle because it's meant to penetrate our consciousness with every sense that the apostle and the prophets can gather. Verse seven: we just read right past hardly understanding. The people are to bring onyx stones and stones for setting for the ephod and for the breastpiece.

Ephod: strange language to us. The priest would wear a vest, and on the vest there was this breastpiece. And we learn about it in chapter 28. We won't read all of chapter 28, but just so that you see it, what was that all about? Chapter 28 and verse 15.

God says among the instructions, "You shall make a breastpiece of judgment." Verse 17: "You shall set in it four rows of stones, a row of sardius, topaz, carbuncle should be the first row; the second emerald, sapphire, diamond." And there are four rows of three sets of precious stones.

Verse 21: why? "There shall be 12 stones with their names according to the names of the sons of Israel." Verse 29: "So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of judgment on his heart when he goes into the holy place to bring them to regular remembrance before the Lord."

There is a priest who will have on him for a thousand years to come the breastpiece of judgment, whereupon are the representation of the tribes of Israel, the people of God who will not keep the righteousness of God. And so the priest who will bear the marks of judgment will make a sacrifice for them.

Did you hear the words? The one who bears the marks of judgment will make sacrifice for the people. The one who bears the marks of judgment will make sacrifice for the people. It is long ago in the wilderness, but the winds are blowing a name: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. The one who bears the marks of judgment will make sacrifice for his people.

And we have to hear it the way they were meant to hear it and at the same time confess how difficult it is to receive this message, which is why all the senses are being engaged so that we will actually hear. It is hard to hear what is actually being said because everything in our existence says, "I don't need that" or "it will not satisfy."

Pastor Carrie and I met this past week with a group of women who have experienced abortion in their lives, including from this church. And as we talked to them, they talked about how their desire is to provide counsel and comfort to women that they know are in this church and in this community who have experienced that, been hurt by it, or even contemplating it now.

The more they talked to us, the more a message just began to echo as they said, "As we'd never dealt with that sin for years—hid it away, kept it quiet, feared the shame, feared the reaction of the church—as we hid away our sin, we listened to messages on grace, but we did not really hear them. We heard judgment. We heard rejection. We heard the sense that we cannot be made right before God because of what..."

And they are here today, and they are listening to us. And we have to say, listen to what the scriptures say: He who bears the marks of judgment made the sacrifice of peace. And he says that not just to women who have experienced or have experienced abortion, but to the men who were complicit, or to the people even now who are in addictive behaviors of sex or substance, or parents who look back at their parenting and see in their children waywardness or self-destruction.

Inside they're saying, "I listen to these messages of grace, but I don't really hear them. It can't be true." And God is saying for a thousand years and plus more to his people: The one who knows the names and bears the mark of judgment made sacrifice for his people that they might know peace.

It's just so hard for us to hear because we assume the values of the world. We assume that we cannot be made right. We assume that we have to make it up. And God is saying the gospel through the tabernacle in all its pieces: "I who bear the marks of judgment, Jesus Christ on your behalf, I made the sacrifice that brings you peace."

Why don't we hear? Because we have trouble separating our lives from what is actually being said here. And what Jesus actually is saying by the prophets, by the people of old, by the apostles is you actually need a little sanctuary in order to be able to hear what I need to say to you.

Verse eight: God says to Moses, "Let them make me a sanctuary." The words just go past us, but you have to understand how important it is that a sanctuary, which is a place of separation from the world, how important that is. You get a sense of it if you were to go to the next chapter, chapter 26. You get a whole chapter on curtain making.

But some very special things being expressed there. Chapter 26, verse one: "Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns where you shall make them with a cherubim, that is an angel, skillfully worked into them. The length of each curtain shall be 28 cubits, the breadth of each curtain four cubits; all the curtains shall be the same size."

Okay, got it. Cubit: elbow to fingertip, right? Verse seven: "You shall also make curtains of goat's hair for a tent over the tabernacle; 11 curtains you shall make. The length of each curtain shall be 30 cubits and the breadth of each curtain shall be four cubits." Okay, got it. Two-thirds of a football field long, half again as wide. Okay, got the curtains.

Verse 31 of chapter 26: "And you shall make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen. It shall be made with cherubim, angels again, skillfully worked into it, and you shall hang it on four pillars of acacia overlaid with gold with hooks of gold and on four bases of silver." Well, that's kind of glorious; I'd like those curtains.

But verse 33, pivotal: "And you shall hang the veil from the clasps and bring the ark of the testimony in there within the veil, and the veil shall separate you for you the holy place from the most holy." All right. We have a separate out space in the wilderness of the world, and in that separate out space, there's not only a place that people enter, but there's the holy of holies where God will enter.

And that means that God's people, by being separated from the world, not only are separated from its words and ways, but actually can have audience with God.

Guest (Male): That's Pastor Bryan Chapell, and you've been listening to Unlimited Grace. Please be sure to join us next time as once again we endeavor to put Christ at the center of our efforts so that lives might be transformed by his unlimited grace. This ministry is brought to you by Unlimited Grace Media and continues to be made possible with your generous financial support.