The Valley Church of Christ

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM (2)

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Scott Kercheville

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM (1)

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Scott Kercheville

Series: Daniel (Faith among Babylonians)

Service: Sun AM (2)

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Scott Kercheville

The Lord gave Judah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon in 605 BC. Babylon hand-picked smart, good-looking youths from the royal family to serve the king. Among this group were Daniel and his three friends. They were trained in the language, literature, and ways of Babylon, but they remained inflexible in matters pertaining to God’s law. Thus, God blessed Daniel and his friends.

But Daniel is no longer a young man. He’s probably in his 80s. And now, he has witnessed the fall of both Judah and Babylon. The history Daniel had seen! But now the Medes and Persians are in power. At this point, the new empire typically cleans house — kill anyone in the royal court who might want to see Babylon rise again. But Daniel isn’t a patriot of Babylon — he’s a righteous man of God waiting for a different kingdom altogether. So Darius the Mede immediately recognizes Daniel’s value and appoints him to be one of three chief officials over the whole empire.

These three officials were appointed “That the king might suffer no loss.” Likely, they were supposed to keep the peace and make sure nobody defrauded the king of the taxes due to him. But Daniel had such an excellent spirit in him that Darius was planning to make Daniel the singular official over the whole kingdom.

The other officials and satrap-governors were not happy about this. Maybe they had some less than honorable ways of managing the money and power of Darius’ kingdom, and Daniel’s careful oversight would ruin it for them. If you are a perceived as a foreigner who always does things by the book even when the boss isn’t looking, it puts a target on your back. So, the other officials and satrap-governors tried to find some dirt on Daniel so they could get him fired from his job, but they couldn’t find anything. Eventually, they realized they weren’t going to find anything on Daniel unless they forced some inconsistency between the law of God and the law of man.

Daniel’s Impeccable Record. Consider this: Daniel has been serving for some 70 years and the most powerful men in the empire who have all the resources to dig up whatever dirt there is on Daniel — some inconsistency, something he said about the king behind closed doors, some coin he shaved off the top, some unauthorized favor he did for a friend, some woman in the court he was flirting with — anything! — but there is no dirt to be found. What does our record look like?

Young men and women, get ready for the world. In school projects, in work, and in business, people don’t always do it the right way. They cut corners. They give their friends discounts the boss hasn’t approved. They manipulate the numbers for corporate. They create statistics that benefit them. They inflate price of the sale if the customer won’t notice. They cheat on tests and ask ChatGPT to write their papers. If there’s some gain to be had and a way to not get caught, forget about it. And the world — it wants us to be like them. Why is Daniel the target? Because he’s a Jew with an excellent spirit in him who does things by the book and he’s making them look bad. Why did Cain murder Abel? John says, “Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.”

But they couldn’t find dirt on Daniel. They had to conjure something up. It’s funny, there are all kinds of concerns about privacy today — we don’t want the government or companies knowing our information. On one level, yes, they do want to use our information against us for their own ends. But on another level, what is everyone so eager to hide? In the end, we must be living out the truth now that nothing is private. This is what Jesus warned us, “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.” (Luke 12:2-3 ESV)

One day there will be no place to hide, and the reward on the line is far bigger. Thanks to the grace of our Lord, we have the opportunity yet again today for him to cast all our sins in the depths of the sea. But may God’s grace train us to have a clean record like Daniel’s! But all this leads us to ask the question — how did Daniel become this righteous, this clean?

What happens next shows us. The officials went to the king with their plan to trip up Daniel. “O King Darius, live forever! All the officials are in agreement about a plan to ensure the whole empire recognizes how amazing you are: sign an irrevocable law that anyone who petitions any god or man except you will be cast into the den of lions.”

Nations always feel the need to find some way to keep everyone united in one common direction, loyalty, trust, and hope. Otherwise, people get their own ideas. Other charismatic leaders and their gods offer other hopes and inspiring visions. So nations establish rituals, holidays, celebrations, events, and symbolic objects to keep our allegiance, trust, and hope fixed on them, and not on God’s kingdom. And so, King Darius eagerly signs the law: no petition to any god or man except Darius for 30 days.

And here’s where we see how Daniel gained his strength of character: prayer. When he found out about the king’s new law, it didn’t matter how buddy-buddy he and the king were, he had a closer relationship with God. He went to his house where his windows were open toward Jerusalem, he got down on his knees three times a day, and prayed, gave thanks, and made petitions and pleas before the true God just as he had done previously. And of course, the officials found Daniel breaking the law. They went to Darius with the news, “You know Daniel — that exile from Judah? He pays no attention to you O king. He still petitions his god three times a day.”

Daniel’s faith and prayers. I think there’s a couple different reactions to Daniel here. One is to say, “Bro, this is a great time to start praying in your head. Nobody will know you are praying, it’s great, I do it all the time. It’s only 30 days!” The Scriptures do not at all dismiss the idea of those quick, hushed prayers as we go throughout our day, though I’m not sure that’s what “pray without ceasing” actually means. But there is something important about getting on our knees multiple times a day where we are exclusively devoted to conversing with our God. It’s the difference between texting your spouse, and talking with them. Try it, and you’ll realize why Daniel would rather die than give up this sacred time with the Lord.

I think in our American context, we might hear this and say, “Just watch some Darius try to tell me not to pray, not to read my Bible, not to assemble with the saints, and just see what happens. I’ll die before anyone tells me what to do.” Yet, once we realized after a few weeks that covid-19 wasn’t the black plague and our brothers and sisters were begging us to come back, was that really our response?

But there’s a bigger issue at stake here. When the government isn’t even trying to stop us from kneeling to pray three times a day, is that our practice? If not, why would we suddenly start when our job, reputation, or our lives and the lives of our families are on the line?

This is a good reminder of Revelation’s warning that Satan tries to break us in two different ways: with the stick, and with the carrot. The beast, and the sinful woman. Beastly governments come in with a stick, dangle us and our families over the den of lions, threaten our job, cut our pay, slander our name. But the sinful woman? She says, “Stop your worrying, come back to bed, I have everything you need, click and buy, I have connections with everyone, they all visit my bed, so you can have whatever you want from wherever you want it.” Sometimes the beast and the woman work together. Sometimes Satan calls his beast off so we don’t even realize the sinful woman is there. That’s our culture. However Satan can get us to stop praying, he’ll do it. In Orwell’s 1984, the truth is suppressed by force; but we don’t live in the world Orwell feared. We live in Huxley’s Brave New World where truth is suppressed by the endless pleasures of Babylon. Are the pleasures of Babylon suppressing our prayers?

Our prayers tell us where we consider to be home. Daniel has a direct line to the leader of the country who has written it into law, “Petition me with whatever you want.” But Daniel is an 85 year old man who knows he has no rest, no strength, and no future unless he gets on his knees before his God. He had access to the best life a Jew could hope to have in Babylon, but his prayers showed that he knew he was an exile and that his heart was with his God in Jerusalem. Again, our prayers tell us where we consider to be home. And if the New Jerusalem isn’t our home, where will we be when Babylon falls as it did with Daniel? Little changed for him, because when Daniel knelt in prayer towards Jerusalem, he was at home. Anywhere with Jesus, I can safely go. Brothers and sisters, now, before the beast comes, while the sinful city is calling us to her bed, may we wear out a spot in our homes, our closets, our offices to remind ourselves who sustains our every breath, to commune with our God, to thank him for what we have, and to petition him to bring us home.

Darius was distraught when he heard about Daniel’s prayers — he had been tricked. And he tried to find some loophole, some legal way to set Daniel free, but he was unsuccessful. And so, he ordered Daniel to be cast into the den of lions and he called out, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” And the stone was placed on the mouth of the den and sealed with the king’s signet ring.

Darius was sick over this whole ordeal. He went back to his palace, fasted, refused any and all diversions or entertainment, and was sleepless all night. And what is so astonishing about Daniel’s faith, is that it drove Darius out of bed first thing in the morning rushing to the den actually hoping for and expecting that maybe, maybe this god is really a living god who actually did something for Daniel. Darius called out, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?” And the cheerful reply of Daniel reply echoed out from the den, “O King, live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lion’s mouths, and they have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no harm.”

The king was exceedingly glad, commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. And no kind of harm was found on him whatsoever because he had trusted in his God. But those men who had accused him were thrown to the lions with their families — and those lions were on them before they hit the ground. They broke their bones in pieces. Consider the decree now that Darius makes in 6:25-28.

God’s faithfulness to rescue those who trust him. Notice how the statements about God have increased in intensity throughout the book. In Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar declared Daniel’s God to be “God of Gods.” In Daniel 3, he’s the God no one should speak anything against. In Daniel 4 he’s the God who lives forever who cannot be stopped. Here? A decree is issued throughout the vast empire: everyone must tremble before this God. His kingdom shall endure to the end. He delivers and rescues, he works signs and wonders. Brothers and sisters, this is what the story ultimately reveals: Men make their temporary laws, but God’s kingdom is forever, and he rescues those who trust him.

This is what Paul learned in 2 Timothy 4:16-18. This is how he read Daniel and the lion’s den, and it’s how he’s training us to read it as well. And yet we have been trained not only by culture but sometimes even in church — though I haven’t heard this here, any of us can be tempted to think in these ways — we have been trained to think that heaven is closed for business like this, God did these things then, but not any more. But Daniel, Paul, and even Darius learned from this: no, this is the eternal God who works signs and wonders.

And this is what was revealed in the story of Jesus. He too, when he knew he was in danger, went to pray. He too was caught while he was praying and arrested. He too was maliciously accused. The king tried in vain to rescue him. And he too went down into the pit. The stone was placed and sealed. And God delivered him too — though not unscathed: he was bruised for our transgressions before he conquered the grave. And God did this for Daniel and for we who trust in Jesus to demonstrate to us that God rescues those who trust him.

Whatever we are enduring right now from the world or from Satan, will we wear out our knees in prayer to God? See how the the kings of Babylon and of the Medes were changed by Daniel’s faith! How the world has been changed by Jesus’ faith! What might change if we will trust him? What friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers will be impacted if we will have faith? No matter what, even if we die in faith, that will have its impact: on the last day we will be called from the pit to reign with him in his kingdom. No other God can rescue like this. There is no other plan for when Babylon expires. Trust in the God who delivers the faithful from the lion’s den.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM (2)

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Scott Kercheville

Credit to Jeff Wilson whose class on this text inspired this lesson.

Series: Hebrews (Cling to Jesus in the Wilderness)

Service: Sun AM (2)

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Scott Kercheville

School is out for summer. I feel bad for you kids because for most of us school is out forever! Poor things. But it’s the time for some much needed rest. Some families will take a vacation. But, afterwards, if you’re a parent, you will need a vacation from vacation.

We are all looking for rest. We reorganize our schedules and our workloads. We clean, declutter, and make improvements to our homes. Maybe we scour the internet for products that will make our lives easier. We read global news headlines with concern. Why? We want rest.

And while a nap or vacation might be nice, deep in our souls we long for something more permanent and profound. Hebrews announces good news: a future rest is available for those who believe. Notice Hebrews 4:1-11. Consider three things the preacher says about rest.

1. Good News: the promise of entering God’s rest still stands;

One line of logic here is that the good news of rest Israel heard about is not promise for the past, but it stands open today. The Scriptures have been testifying about this rest ever since page two. Verse 4: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” Back in Genesis 1, each of the six days of God’s work have evening and morning, but not the seventh day — it has no end. In this God is signaling to us that work is not the goal. Work — even God’s good work of creation before the fall — will have an end. And that goal, that end is the seventh day which has no end because — well — it is an end in of itself. The goal of God creating for six days and the goal of all our work is eternal order, goodness, peace, and Sabbath rest in the new creation. Hebrews is reminding us that when God rested, he was signaling, foreshadowing the future of everything and inviting us to join him.

Now, naps are amazing, but rest is not simply about naps. Hebrews says that we’re awaiting a Sabbath rest (v. 9), which is a reminder for us to consider Israel’s Sabbaths as a signpost pointing forward to our eternal Sabbath. So, what did Sabbath look like for Israel? No work. Rich, poor, or animal: no picking up sticks, starting a fire, working your fields, or cooking. Israel also had Sabbath years when they must not sow seed or reap their fields all year — God would give them enough in the previous harvest to cover the Sabbath year. And in the Sabbath year, slaves were set free and debts were forgiven. But every fifty years was the total societal reset of Jubilee. Maybe you fell on hard times, had to sell the family land, or even yourself — but every fifty years the trumpets were supposed to signal the the freedom of every slave and the return of all family land. It was a signpost pointing to the eternal day of God’s rest: when God has provided enough, all work is finished, everyone is free and at home. The future is bounty, peace, joy, and rest.

How did the Sabbath feel for God? How was it supposed to feel for Israel: Exodus 31:17, “On the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” Refreshed. Every other day there are things undone, but the Sabbath says along with Jesus on the cross says, “It is finished.” The land is safe, the home is built, the debts are paid, the feast is ready.

1. Hear the promise. We may have strayed or disbelieved, but today, if we hear God’s voice, he says this promise of rest still stands available to those who will fear and strive. (2) Therefore, let us fear and strive to enter God’s rest.

Notice verses 1-2. We’ve heard this good news of God’s rest, but Israel heard it too — and it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to the promise, like Joshua and Caleb. They fell in the wilderness. So we need to fear lest we fail to reach that rest. Notice verse 11. Israel didn’t strive with God toward the land of rest; they strove against him, longing for slavery in Egypt. So he tells us: strive to enter God’s rest.

Now, 1 John 4 tells us that when our love is perfected, we won’t have fear about the day of judgment, so why is Hebrews telling us to fear and strive? Consider, he is warning that their hearts were hardened, which led them to not have faith, and to disobey God. We are saved by faith. Israel’s problem was that, in the suffering of the wilderness, they started thinking God hated them — that’s not faith. In this unbelief they made direct turns against God and his ways. Please, do not fear that God will dig up some past sin we have confessed and turned from. That’s the opposite of what Hebrews is encouraging. No, he’s urging us to fear lest sin lure us in and harden our hearts so that we rebel against God. And he’s urging us to strive to keep turning from Egypt and wrongdoing, and to keep trusting God, bearing fruit, marching to Zion.

In the end, Israel feared and strove for the wrong things, and we do too.

Israel feared thirst, starvation, their family not being safe, and giants in the land of Canaan. So, what fears and giants tempt us to disbelieve in God? It is wild how we can become scared of things that aren’t at all scary in comparison to this reality — as one brother put it at the camp I was at this week, “If you miss heaven, hell is all there is.”

Israel strove and longed for in their hearts was the good life of Egypt. In the wilderness, they called Egypt the land of milk and honey. Are we not tempted to strive for the same things? To forget to strive for the promised land? What part of Egypt are we tempted to pine after? to return to? It’s insane how good slavery seemed to Israel and can seem to us.

Brothers and sisters, to travel from Egypt to Canaan, we must go through the difficult desert. We must avoid Israel’s mistake of thinking that the wilderness of suffering is a sign God is not with us and does not love us. Otherwise, we’ll find comfort in dreaming about some other hope — marching to Zion while singing songs about Egypt (take care the music you choose to be the soundtrack for your life!).

Let us not fear all the “giants” in our way. Let’s fear the hardening affects of sin. Let’s fear that sin might cause temporary worldly pleasures to sound better than eternal heavenly pleasures. Let’s fear that sin might cause us to think hell isn’t all that bad. Let’s strive to deepen our trust in God. Strive to hope in the rest he will give us.

Before we move on, notice how he tells us that Joshua did not give the this rest. Joshua did lead them to earthly rest in a nice, safe piece of land, but how long did that last? Oh, Christians in the United States: a nice piece of land in this world that’s free from enemies is a blessing from God and is a foretaste of God’s rest, but it is always temporary and elusive in this age. If and when we lose what we have, let us do so joyfully because we will have better possessions that will last forever.

1. Now, the preacher offers us a tool to help us no become like the wilderness generation. Consider verses 10-13. (3) Be exposed by the Word now rather than on the day of accounting.

None of us is hidden from God’s sight. When Israel complained in Exodus about their lack of food, Moses told them that the Lord heard their grumbling. We are all naked and exposed to his eyes: our loves, trusts, thoughts, and intentions. Consider: we don’t experience this with anyone else — at times we are even able to hide our intentions from those who know us best. But not from him. And one day, he says, we must give an account to him. Those words aren’t intended to feel warm and fuzzy. It’s the cold splash of reality that one day we will give an accounting of our lives, our choices, and the very intentions of our hearts.

Before that day, he says we have a tool, a sword, the word of God. These words in Hebrews were written two thousand years ago. Psalm 95, Exodus, and Numbers, some 3,000 to 3,500 years ago. And yet we have seen that the Word of God lives. This matters because sometimes the thoughts and intentions of our own hearts — the very heart we will give an account for — are not plain to us! But when we meditate on God’s words, this ancient paper sword cuts right down to the deepest part of us and shows us who we are.

This is why daily Bible reading, listening, meditating, and praying is so crucial. It is this opportunity to slow down and just spend time one on one hearing from the God who will one day ask us for an accounting. In a sense, when we read God’s word right and when we pray right, our very souls are laid bare for us to see who we are. If sin is hardening us or we feel unmoved by the promise of Sabbath rest — the word makes it plain. If we have intentions, longings, and plans we have not brought before his throne, the word bares all.

James says the word is like a mirror. We can hold it up to our very souls. And when I am not regularly listening to God’s word, I have this low-grade anxiety that there’s something “on my face” I can’t see. If we are living without regular, personal exposure to and personal meditation on God’s word — what we are doing is intentionally planning to walk before the King of all without looking at a mirror first. But here’s the beauty: if we check the mirror and make the necessary fixes, we can go through life breathing easy, confident because we are already trying to settle our accounts now. Unless of course we, like Israel, hear God’s voice and don’t like what he says and shows us, and we refuse to turn.

Revelation 14 says that those who refuse to turn — who worship the beast — will be tormented with fire and sulfur, and that they have no rest day or night. Can you imagine the possibility that after all the trials of this life where — at least we were able to sleep for a few hours at night — we could come to the end and find no rest? Israel realized a taste of what that was like. The day after Israel rebelled they panicked, realized what they had given up, and said, “Never mind. Let’s conquer the land.” Moses urged them, “No, God is not with you, don’t go.” But they went anyway, and were slaughtered and chased away. There is a day when it will be too late. But today, if you hear his voice, you can choose to not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. Now is an opportunity to make a decisive turn towards God’s rest.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM (2)

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Scott Kercheville

The church has been out of fashion for a long time, but in some ways it is coming back, growing in popularity. But as the church grows in popularity, we need to keep our heads about us lest we be remade in the world’s image: what is the church?

Notice Ephesians 2:19-22. Paul speaks of the church as the temple. We are growing “into a holy temple in the Lord…” and “being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” This is a live, ongoing reality: “grows into holy temple” and “you… are being built together.” It’s not that we simply are a temple — this is a role we are growing into until God perfects us on the last day. And this is all made possible by the Holy Spirit.

But I don’t think this was a vague spiritual theory Paul never observed but the Spirit told him to write about it anyway. I think that as Paul wrote this not only because the Spirit carried him along in writing it, but because as lived among and observed the Church, he truly saw the temple taking shape before his eyes — and at that, a better temple than the Jerusalem temple had been.

But how does an assembly become a temple? Luke shows us by first telling us how the apostles and the church were filled with the Spirit. Notice Acts 2:2-4a. When the Spirit comes upon the apostles (or possibly all the believers at that time), tongues of fire rest on them. By day a cloud covered the tabernacle, and by night — fire. This same tabernacle reality was temporarily visible over those who had the Spirit.

Throughout Acts 2-6, the church in whom God’s dwells continually does true Israel and true temple things in Jerusalem and in the temple. And notice in Acts 5:17 how the high priest and those with him feel — jealous. It doesn’t appear he’s simply jealous because Peter is getting attention — there were always other rulers and religious groups that people gave attention to. The temple leaders are jealous of Peter and those with him because they’re doing the things the temple and priests were supposed to do. This comes to a head in chapters 6 and 7: false witnesses accuse Stephen of speaking against the temple, just as they accused Jesus of doing. It appears they are making false accusations because they feel insecure because in the church a superior temple and priesthood has taken shape around them.

So Stephen takes the opportunity to preach: God does not dwell in houses made by hands and when you reject the church and her teachers you are doing what Israel has always done: you are resisting the Holy Spirit. And so they kill Stephen and declare war on the church — they love their beautiful but empty temple and they are ready to destroy God’s new temple. But, the Holy Spirit won’t be contained — as the church is scattered into exile the Spirit and the Lord are with them wherever they go. God’s temple presence is filling the earth and they can't stop it.

This is a lesson about what the church should be. We will always be pressured to do and be something else, but we must always hone our focus and strive to be what God wants us to be.

The Church Is a Dwelling Place for God by the Holy Spirit…

Where the word of God is proclaimed. Priests and Levites were supposed to instruct people well in the way of the Lord, but we see in the prophets that this didn’t always happen. But in Acts it doesn’t matter what happens — whether persecution from the outside or strife on the inside: beatings, murder, deceit, neglect, you name it — Acts repeatedly emphasizes that the word of God continued to grow and be proclaimed. Why? Because God’s word created all things in the beginning, and in Acts it is God’s word that it creating this new reality that is springing up all over the world. God’s word goes out like a seed, and when it hits good soil the water of the Spirit comes and life comes forth. There are other priorities in the church, but no matter what, nothing is ever allowed to take priority over the proclamation of God’s word. God is seen to be among us when his voice is sounding out. If God’s words are not spoken — this assembly will cease to be distinct, this assembly’s life will begin to fade.

Where the diverse are reconciled. As we read our Old Testaments: the nations didn’t typically get along with Israel, and not even the people of Israel always got along with one another. They often couldn’t decide who was god and who was king, so inside and outside Israel there was division. But the prophets saw a day when the north and the south — Israel and Judah — would be united under one king again. Not only this, they saw a day when the nations would come together with the Jews to God’s mountain in Jerusalem to hear the law of God. Nations would stop fighting, they’d beat their swords into farming equipment, and peace would flourish. In Acts 2, Jews from all nations and even proselytes are all united by means of the Holy Spirit — the Holy Spirit enables the word of God to be proclaimed in languages from everywhere — reversing the tower of Babel. Later, in Acts 10-11, Peter and the Jews with him find themselves united with Gentiles who have faith in, give allegiance to King Jesus. Why? The Spirit of God has come upon them just as it came on others. The presence of God through the Spirit creates unity amidst diversity. We look different and have different customs, but hopefully we can see the common fruit of God’s Spirit in us: love, joy, peace, patience… and we can see that we are one. We have the same Spirit of the same Father from the same Lord in us.

Where there are no needy. In Deuteronomy 15:4-5 Moses declared to Israel, “But there will be no poor among you; for the LORD will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess— if only you will strictly obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today.” If Israel obeyed, the Lord would bless them richly. Moses also explains how they would tithe and regularly release their debtors and redeem the poor — all to the end that actually there would be no poor among them.

This didn’t materialize as it should have in Israel. Prophets accused them of holding back the wages of their laborers and of disregarding the poor among them. But, Luke uses the language of Deuteronomy to demonstrate that this did start taking place in the church — note Acts 4:32-35. Sometimes in our tradition people draw a false dichotomy saying the church is a spiritual community, not a physical one. This certainly isn’t how Luke would have characterized the early church. Their spirituality was very physical, very material — they had all things in common: the word of Jesus, their tables and food, and their possessions. And look: they sold their possessions and brought the proceeds — not to the temple in Jerusalem — but to the apostle’s feet. And it was distributed as there were needs. The result was that there wasn’t a needy person among them, just as Moses said would be the case with Israel.

Certainly a system like this requires wisdom and care. Sometimes people are neglected — as in Acts 6. Sometimes there are abuses. Paul instructs Timothy later how to prevent abuses by warning that a person’s family is the first line of defense. But, despite the certain difficulties, I’m struck to think of the possibilities. This should be a church where we make sure all the faithful here make rent and have access to food and clothing. And we ought even to look to Christians elsewhere to do what we can to lift them out of poverty. In this, we will turn out to be a better temple — or maybe simply a better Israel — than Israel ever was.

Where rebels are judged and all are made to fear. When you encounter the presence of God in the Old Testament, people sometimes died. The 3,000 at the foot of the mountain in the golden calf incident, Nadab and Abihu who offered strange fire, Uzzah who touched the ark, and still others.

And while there is a promise of life and healing in the church — as we will soon talk about — rebels are also judged there too. Just as Nadab and Abihu brought strange fire to the tabernacle and were struck dead, Ananias and Sapphira met a similar fate when they bring a deceitful offering to the apostles. Notice Acts 5:1-6. Sapphira meets the same fate after this. Notice that Peter accuses them of lying to the Holy Spirit — to God. I hope we tremble at this. When Ananias and Sapphira put on a show to deceive the apostles and the church they were lying to God. I appreciate how one author put it: “Deceiving the church is not simply deceiving the pastors, or the other members, but God himself, who is present in the church through his Spirit.” (Schnabel, Acts, Kindle Loc  8203-8218).

Notice the result of this is stated twice: in verse 5 and 11. Great fear fell on all who heard this. And even notice verses 12-13. It reminds me of how people treated Mount Sinai and the tabernacle when they realized God was there — they started backing off. Note what the people said in Numbers after many deaths around the tabernacle. “Behold, we perish, we are undone, we are all undone. Everyone who comes near, who comes near to the tabernacle of the LORD, shall die. Are we all to perish?” (Num. 17:12–13 ESV) We’ll see in a moment that some do draw near and find healing, but others heard these stories and backed away. You don’t enter the temple lightly but with fear and trembling, and there ought to be that respect for the church as well — for the Lord and the Holy Spirit dwells in an among us, brothers and sisters.

This would have never happened if Peter didn’t call out Ananias and Sapphira out on their lie. Sometimes it’s hard to get people to stick around in the church, so at times it may feel counterintuitive to take a Peter-like stance against sin. We won’t grow if the weak are not strengthened and shown mercy… but we’ll never grow into a holy temple for the Lord without the rebellious being disciplined, we’ll just be an empty shell like the Jerusalem temple became. The world won’t see God in us and stand back in awe, or draw near in awe. May we speak the truth in love, but let the truth cut where it may.

Where forgiveness and healing are found. In the Old Covenant the tabernacle and later the temple was the center for forgiveness and healing. In Leviticus, if a person was unclean in some way the priest had to examine them and they had to stay away from the tabernacle (and later the temple) so as to not defile it. But if the uncleanness went away, they would go to the priest and the priest who would instruct them to offer the proper sacrifices and to wash in water before declaring them clean.

But now it now appears that this is happening in the church through the apostles a lot better than it ever happened through the temple or the priests. There’s a lame man who has sat outside the temple receiving people’s charity his whole life — Peter declares him healed by Jesus and walks him right into the temple. And Acts says at multiple points that all sorts of signs and wonders — healings — were being done by the apostles. Sicknesses are cured and demons are sent away that would have likely kept them all outside God’s temple presence, but now they draw near.

Notice Acts 5:14-16 as an example. Isn’t Peter’s glorification here shocking? He looks like Jesus and almost God-like. When God’s presence filled the tabernacle, the Greek translation of Exodus says the glory cloud settled or overshadowed the tabernacle. Using the same word, Luke said that the power of the Most High overshadowed Mary, and that the cloud of God’s presence overshadowed the apostles at Jesus transfiguration. The woman who bled hoped to just touch Jesus’ garment to be healed; now, people are hoping that maybe Peter’s shadow would  — same word — overshadow. But why here? That they might be healed. And all who come are healed. It is after this that Luke said the high priest became jealous — it appears that Luke is showing that through the power of the risen Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit, Peter is mediating the healing temple presence of God outside the Jerusalem temple.

And this is true for forgiveness of sins as well. If someone sinned, they were explicitly told in the Law to bring their animal to the tabernacle so the priest could make atonement for them. In Acts, people are being forgiven of their sins, but the Jerusalem priests and temple don’t have a single bit to do with it. Rather, the apostles and the teachers in the church are washing people with water and declaring them forgiven in Jesus’ name. And declaring the Holy Spirit — God’s temple presence! — is now in them.

And note this: just as no one was to ever offer a sacrifice or do explicitly temple things outside the temple, no one in Acts is ever washed, forgiven, or healed by themselves or apart from the church. Even when Jesus appears to Saul or when the Holy Spirit falls on Cornelius and those with him — still someone from Jesus’ church baptizes them. Why? Could this not be another way that the church is the temple and priests of God? God always cleansed people in the past with priests and a temple, and now that power has mystically been bestowed upon the church as well.

Conclusion

As I consider in particular here the glorification of Peter and other stories later — like the way the Philippian jailer falls at the feet of Paul and Silas wondering how he might be saved — I am reminded of what Isaiah foresaw concerning renewed Israel. Isa 60:1–4 ESV, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes all around, and see; they all gather together, they come to you…” Isa. 60:9 ESV, “For the name of the LORD your God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because he has made you beautiful.”

The temple was impressive. Yet God began a new, wondrous thing by making his dwelling among us. Whatever people see in us — that the word of God is proclaimed, that the diverse are reconciled under Jesus, that there are no needy among us, that rebels are judged, and that healing and forgiveness are offered among us — this ought to be the lasting impression people have: Yahweh God — not some other god — dwells among you.

In the final pages of Scripture — Revelation 21 — God’s dwelling place has been perfected. May we continue growing into that dwelling place, that holy temple for the Lord — not at all trying to be what the world would have us to be, but simple building everything according to the pattern of Jesus.

Series: Hebrews (Cling to Jesus in the Wilderness)

Service: Sun AM (2)

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Scott Kercheville

I love how confidently little ones express their desire to love and serve God. “I will always love God,” “I will always follow Jesus.” But sometimes reality shines through and they have this moment when they realize that not everyone always does this. Why someone would ever rebel against God is a mystery, but they are confident: that could never happen to me.

In our text today, it appears the Christians the preacher is writing to feel the exact same way.

Hebrews is written to Christians who at one point were very zealous, very faithful. Some had been imprisoned for their loyalty to Jesus. Others had their property plundered, their possessions taken away. Yet, they endured this joyfully. But as the years have worn on, they are not the fruitful land they once were. “Weeds” and distractions made the word less fruitful in their life. Rocks in the ground were preventing their roots from growing deeper, and the hot summer was withering their strength away. They are not dead, but they have grown sleepy and sluggish.

And yet, try telling a “has-been” — someone who used to be successful — that they are a “has-been.” When we were once very fruitful, it’s hard to take another genuine look over our lives and admit that whatever we were, we are not any more. So in our text today he points them to another group of “has-beens” who experienced God’s grace and power, but were unable to enter God’s rest. Read 3:6b-11 with me.

Today, Do Not Harden Your Hearts (3:7-11)

Through Jesus’ faithful service we are becoming the heaven on earth place, the house of God. But we are only God’s house if we hold onto our confidence and hope. And to motivate us hold onto that hope, he quotes Psalm 95.

Psalm 95 is one of the most sung and prayed Psalms. Jews pray it to start the Sabbath. Some Christian traditions pray it at the beginning of each day. This Psalm warmly invites everyone to come and worship the Lord and to make a joyful noise before him. But this comes with a warning in the second half of the Psalm: Today, if you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did so long ago.

He’s referencing the generation of Israelites who died in the wilderness. When they hungered, they complained, “I wish Yahweh would have killed us in the land of Egypt, where we sat by meat pots and ate all the bread we wanted. But you’ve led us out here to kill us with hunger!” Yet, God gave them manna and quail to eat. But then they became thirsty and complained, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us and our little ones with thirst? Is Yahweh even among us?” But Moses struck the rock and God gave them water.

More complaints happened, yet God kept bringing them to his rest in Canaan, until the fateful day when they rebelled once and for all. They sent 12 spies to look at the promised land. They came back with grapes, pomegranates, and figs saying, “Truly, the land does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. But the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and large.” And even though Joshua and Caleb plead with the people to trust in God, they said “No. The Lord is trying to get us and our families killed. Let’s choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” And so, God swore that day: “The earth will be full of the glory of the Lord, but none of those men who have seen my glory and the signs I have worked and yet still put me to the test and disobey me — none of them will enter my land of rest and see that day.”

Psalm 95 pleads: Come and worship the Lord. He is good. But if you hear God’s voice today, don’t harden your hearts as they did. They saw God’s signs and heard God’s voice, yet they still questioned whether God was with them, and still disobeyed God’s voice. Don’t do that.

But how was it that these people who saw and heard so much rebelled? Notice verse 10, “They always go astray in their heart, they have not known my ways.” Here’s what this means: they saw a lot, but in their hearts they did not appreciate who God was, his love for them, and how if they would only trust him, he would give them the world. They went astray in their heart in their beliefs about God. Notice what he does with this in verses 12-15.

Today, Take Care and Exhort1 One Another (3:12-15)

The warning is clear: if only we will hold our original confidence firm until the very end, we will share in the life and inheritance and rest of the Messiah. And yet, that’s only if we keep our confidence to the end. Here’s how big that IF is: he’s telling a group of Christians who have suffered for more for Jesus’ name that we today can imagine that he is concerned that they too could have an evil, unbelieving heart leading them to fall away from the living God.

How is it that a church like this — and we ourselves — could ever be at risk of developing an evil, hardened, unbelieving heart as Israel did? The end of verse 13: the deceitfulness of sin.

What kept undermining the Israelites in the wilderness? The deceitfulness of Egypt. It was the strangest thing. In Egypt, they were miserable, working sun up to sun down seven days a week, crying out to God for mercy. And yet, as soon as they hit the wilderness, Egypt seemed like the promised land of plenty in their eyes, and the actual promised land became this trick God was playing on them. Egypt deceived and hardened them against hope, faith, and confidence in God.

And the deceitfulness of sin can harden us. The deceitfulness of the love of money and all the fine stuff that comes with it, the deceitfulness of venting out our anger, of holding onto a grudge, the deceitful “fun” of partying, weed and alcohol, of sex, lust, and pornography, the deceitful “rest” of binging food, screens, and video games, of laziness and giving up, or simply the deceitfulness of being loved and accepted by the world: sin is so tricky. It not only deceives us into doing the wrong thing, it deceives us into relying on, preferring, trusting, and loving the wrong thing, and instead to mistrust, become indifferent towards, step away from, and even at times to become angry with and to hate the Lord. In this wilderness on the way to the promised land, have we not all heard the voice at one point or another: “Just do what you want, this is too hard, this is pointless, it’s better in Egypt anyway, you’re praying like God is with you, but he’s not here, he’s not listening, he doesn’t even know who you are: you’ll never make it to Canaan, go back to Egypt.”

Sin is also so deceitful because sometimes it can cause us to sleep walk on our journey so that we don’t even notice that in our hearts we have turned with Lot’s wife back to Sodom, with Israel back to Egypt and that our hearts have become indifferent toward the Lord.

How can we resist this lure and deceitfulness of sin and Egypt?

First, he quotes Psalm 95 twice in this passage: Today, if you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as in the rebellion. However far we have strayed, we need to recognize that if it is still called “today” — which it is — thank God, he is still speaking. So, there is still an opportunity to humble ourselves, let down our guard, and listen.

Second, verse 12, we ought to “take care… lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart.” We need to keep a close watch on our hearts. Who or what do we trust? Or, rather, when things don’t go according to plan, where do we instinctively go in our hearts? And where is our sense of purpose and meaning founded? In other words, what gets us out of bed each morning? Who or what do we love? Where do our hopes lie? Or, rather, when we imagine the good life, what does that look like in our hearts? Does it look like the cross and empty tomb, or like something else? We have to take care over our hearts. By the way, remember the lesson about habits from December — wherever we accumulate treasure and habits, there our hearts will be also. If we will shift the pattern of our habits, by God’s grace, our hearts can follow.

Third, he says, verse 13: “exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” The resources to protect our hearts from the deceitfulness of sin do not come from inside us, they come from our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Endurance is a group effort. This is why our meetings together — whether Sunday, Wednesday, or other times — are so important. I — brothers and sisters — I would not still be loyal to the Lord without you. I am too weak. These are times to set aside — but not only to make it here, but to be here, to be present, to encourage one another. Somewhere along the line some of us got the idea that the Lord’s Supper is this required thing on Sunday, but not “encourage one another.” Make no mistake, we desperately need the body and blood of the Lord. But we also need the hymns, the prayers, the Scriptures, and those conversations before and after where we check in on and exhort one another. We need those texts and phone calls and meals and meetups throughout the week. He’s saying those regular touches from our family is the difference between spiritual life and death, between living in deception or living in reality. Psalm 73: “My feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped… until I went into the sanctuary of God.”

One Wednesday a few months back night when Ashley, Willa, and Ruth were sick I felt Judith and I needed to just get up and leave after the “Amen” was said. I will never forget what Judith said when she realized we were leaving so quickly. She suddenly had this teary-eyed, sad and angry face and she said, “I don’t want to go home! I didn’t get to play with anybody.” Whatever was going on in her heart, it reminded me that our connections together with those who are on the same journey are essential nourishment that we need every day, as long as it is called today. Are we checking in on the people we need to check in with? Are we talking out where we are feeling discouraged or tempted with that trusted brother or sister?

Today, he says, if you hear his voice, take care, don’t harden your hearts, exhort one another. Why? Verses 16-19.

Today, Unbelief Will Keep You Out (3:16-19)

It’s a series of rhetorical questions intended to drive home the simple point: the ones that left Egypt are the same ones that heard God’s voice, rebelled against it, died in the wilderness, and did not enter God’s rest. Just because we have been delivered from the slavery of sin and death and just because we still hear God’s voice today — it does not mean we will enter God’s rest. The reality of falling away is just as real for us as it was for them.

As we conclude, notice the other word he uses to describe why they fell in verse 19: unbelief. This is why Eve grabbed the fruit — she didn’t believe God’s word, she believed Satan’s. This is why Israel wanted to go back to Egypt — they did not believe God’s promise. Every time we sin, what’s underneath it is a failure — even if for a moment — to believe in, trust, hope, and have confidence in God’s words, God’s promises, God’s rest. Notice the unbelief next time you slip and how it is a choice to carve out our own rest, our own solution.

If we realize that we are spiritually sleepy, distracted, indifferent, today we have heard God’s voice because he wants us to turn back to him, stop straying in our hearts, to cut of each source of temptation, and to march with this assembly to the rest God has planned for us.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM (1)

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Scott Kercheville

Scott K. – For Real or For Show? (Matt. 6:1-6, 16-18) – 5/25/25

Some time back I received a promotional e-mail from a pizza chain asking me to help fight childhood hunger. If you gave $25 or more, you would receive a free meal and restaurant t-shirt (which is weird because the cost of a t-shirt and a meal is $25). I scrolled down to see what the t-shirt looked like. It said: “I helped fight childhood hunger.” It didn’t say, “Fight childhood hunger” or, “You should donate to this cause.” It said, “I helped fight…” Imagine wearing a shirt like that in public. What is the purpose of wearing a shirt like that?

In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us that it’s not just what we do that matters, why we do it matters just as much. Specifically, Jesus challenges us to ask: in our righteous deeds, do we want to be seen by the Father, or by men?  Notice Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18.

Don’t Practice Righteousness for Show

Jesus gives three examples of righteousness for show. Verse 2 tells us about people who sound a trumpet when they give to the needy. This is probably a metaphor for people who loudly alert everyone to their generosity. Verse 5 speaks about people who enjoy praying in the synagogues and street corners so people notice them. Verse 16 speaks about people fasting in ways that cause others to notice them — put on gloomy faces and such. Jesus gives us two reasons why we must not practice righteousness like this.

1. We will be hypocrites. This word was used of people who were pretenders or two-faced. If you watch a movie or see a play — some actors are really convincing! But they’re actors: it is simply not who they are. If we practice righteousness to be seen by men, we are actors trying to fool people. Outwardly, one may say, “Praise God and give to the poor,” but their hearts say, “Give me honor and praise me.”

2. We will have received our reward. Jesus says at the end of verses 2, 5, and 16 that those who practice righteousness for show “have received their reward.” There are two rewards available and we will only receive the one reward we want and aim to receive. Hypocrites practice righteousness for man’s praise, so they’ll get that reward — some credit in people’s eyes, some extra social standing — but not not the Father’s reward. And brothers and sisters, let’s remember that people are fickle, what they love fluctuates with the winds. Those of us in leadership, we have a choice to make decisions as in the sight of God, or we can follow popular opinion. It just depends: what do we want?

Practice Righteousness for the Father

What are correct motives? Verses 4, 6, and 18 tell us: “And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Hypocrites — actors — want others to see them, our goal must be to have the Father’s audience, for him to be pleased by us, and to reward us. Think about why this is so important.

First, this is the only way our actions are honest. We should give and serve to share the love of God, and to seek God’s attention. We should pray and fast to commune with God. We should worship to glorify God. We should read the Scriptures because we we want to hear God’s voice. It’s simple: if our actions are saying that, our hearts should say that to. Otherwise, we just dishonest.

Second, think how lame it would be to cause people to give attention to us. We are corrupt, incomplete — if people praise us, their attention is taken away from the one who can love, fill, care for, and save perfectly onto a human who can’t do much. Would we love others so little that we’d take their attention off our great God?

What do we really want, more than anything else? Let us crave to hear nothing more than the Father’s reassuring words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” How terrible if we had other motives and he said, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”

So, how we can give, pray, and fast to get the result we desire?

Practice Righteousness in Secret

Give in secret (vs. 3-4). Christ says we need to give so secretly that our opposing hands are not aware of the other hand’s generosity. This hyperbole emphasizes how quiet our generosity and service needs to be. We must not alert others to our generosity and service. We shouldn’t even dwell on our own service and think much of ourselves. We give and serve so he will be glorified.

It is easy to fail at this. We can have this desire to promote what we have done to sacrifice for other people — post a pic of how servant-like we are. Would we serve if there were no honor? Consider your life. Try to think of the last time we gave or served in some way. Who did we tell? And why? We may initially give in secret, but Satan tempts us to feel like it’s pointless if nobody finds out.

One way to work on this is to undermine any puffed up view we may have of our acts of kindness. Jesus says in Luke 17:10, “So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” Giving and serving — is there any reasonable alternative? We’re just doing our duty. It’s the only natural response to God’s kindness towards us. And it’s such a joy to give and serve — would we even want to do anything else? If we develop this mindset, we won’t be tempted to tell others about something we aren’t really impressed by.

Pray in secret (vs. 6). With prayer, since we only desire the Father’s audience in our prayer, we will not long to pray in public to be seen by men but instead love praying secretly behind closed doors. So, Jesus says, pray in a closet or behind closed doors. Jesus prayed by himself on a mountain (Matthew 14:23). This is not saying that we cannot pray in group settings. Group prayers happen all over the Scriptures. They key is not doing it to be seen by men, but by the Father.

But this is important with any public act of worship and for those who lead us in singing, reading Scripture, offering talks or sermons. If God gifts us with abilities to lead, we need to ask ourselves: do we crave to lead? If so, why? Because we want God to be glorified? Or because we like the attention?

Fast in secret (vs. 16). Instead of fasting with gloomy and disfigured faces, Christ teaches us to clean ourselves up when we fast. We should blend in with a crowd. Our stomachs may be hungry, but fasting is meant to connect us more profoundly and fill us up with the Lord. If we are being filled up, why act empty? If we love connecting with the Father, why act miserable? Hypocrisy causes us to not make sense at all.

Before we conclude, let’s make sure we do not misapply this text.

Common Misapplications

1. This does not mean we should not corral others to give, pray, and fast. These are 100% things we should do in private and in community. Jesus’ words aren’t intended to undermine the natural flows of community.

1. This does not mean our giving, serving, praying, or fasting is pointless if other people do see us. It is only pointless if our goal is to be seen and praised by others. After all Jesus said that we should hope people will see our light and glorify our Father in heaven.

1. This does not mean people cannot thank us or that we cannot give thanks to others for their righteous deeds. Mutual encouragement is an important part of how the body functions. It helps us all continue doing what we ought to do. It’s simply on us to not act in order to receive this attention.

Whose reward do we want? Jesus always focused on doing the Father’s will. One group loved him for it, another killed him for it. We may be praised, or ignored, or hated. Our church may be full or empty. Our goal is the same regardless: get God’s attention. So, let’s go get it!

Series: Hebrews (Cling to Jesus in the Wilderness)

Service: Sun AM (2)

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Scott Kercheville

Read Hebrews 3:1-6. Let me simply state what he does here.

• He tells us we all together share in a heavenly calling, purpose (what is it?!);
• Well, first: we need to consider that Jesus is a faithful builder of God’s house just as Moses was a faithful servant in God’s house.
• Then he tells us our calling: we are God’s house.
• So, because we have transcendent purpose to become God’s house through Jesus the faithful Son and builder: we must hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

Let’s walk through this step by step.

“Holy brothers and sisters, you all share in a heavenly calling.”

He’s telling us that we have been set apart by God for a purpose that is from heaven. We are not ordinary: we are chosen and called from heaven.

We all know that part of the book or movie when, laid before the main characters is this manifest destiny: an obvious future and path that feels written in advance for them to walk down. The fate of the galaxy or a nation rests on their shoulders, or they have the capability to save a damsel in distress, or the stars have aligned and we see this man and woman were made for each other. And isn’t it so frustrating when these characters can’t see it? The weighty importance and writteness of it just doesn’t hit them. So they become discouraged, give up, lazily neglect their purpose. Or they give their energies to something else.

This is where the author of Hebrews is at with his readers. He’s on the other side of the screen watching the characters, the church wringing his hands, jumping up and down, and saying, “Come on guys! Wake up!”

And here he puts his hands on our shoulders, looks us in the eyes and says:

• You are holy, brothers and sisters;
• You share in a heavenly calling.

Okay, what should we do? And he points up and says…

“Consider Jesus, the faithful builder of and Son over God’s house.”

Jesus is the apostle and high priest of our confession. Yes, the apostles were messengers sent by Jesus, but Jesus is the O.G. messenger sent by God. As apostle he brings God’s message to us, and as high priest he brings and represents us to God.

So, he says, consider this Jesus: wasn’t he so faithful? Satan tempted him, people tried to pull him in different directions, the leaders mocked, beat, and crucified Jesus, yet he was faithful to the God who appointed him.

One other person was like this: Moses. When God sent him to let set Israel free from slavery, Israel resisted him and Egypt rejected him, but he stayed the course; and when Israel needed someone make judgments in the people’s cases, he worked sun up to sun down; and when Israel worshipped the golden calf and God was ready to kill Israel — Moses offered his life on Israel’s behalf and begged God to show mercy (he did this many times). And when God told him to build the tabernacle — God’s house — Moses made everything exactly as God showed him. Moses was faithful in God’s house. So, why bring up Moses?

First, a comparison. Moses was faithful in God’s house to testify to things that would be spoken later. Moses’ faithfulness in God’s house is an illustration of and a testimony to Jesus’ faithfulness in God’s house. In other words, every time we see Moses’ faithfulness, we’re also seeing a picture of Jesus’ faithfulness.

Second, a contrast. Moses was a servant, Jesus is the Son. Moses was part of God’s house, Jesus — as God — is the builder of all things, and builder of the house. Thus, Moses was worth of glory and honor, but Jesus is worthy of so much more. (By the way, notice how he just said, “Jesus is the builder of God’s house and God is the builder of all things…” and leaves us to draw the conclusion: Jesus is God, God is Jesus)

What’s the point? Look at Moses’ patience with the people, his humility in dealing with those who rose up against him, his love for the congregation and faithfulness in interceding for them, and his faithfulness to God’s purposes — to build God’s house exactly as he said, to take Israel exactly where God directed. If you look at Moses and say, “Man, we get distracted, we get discouraged, and we veer off course, we need someone to keep us on course, to remind us to hope in God, to intercede for us, to show us how to be faithful in this calling,” the writer of Hebrews is saying, “In Jesus, you have someone just like that and more. Moses was so faithful and he wasn’t even working on a house that belonged to him! But now the one to whom God’s house belongs has come — the Son. Consider him.

Why? The middle of verse 6:

“And you are God’s house.”

This is our calling about which the writer of Hebrews is wringing his hands, jumping up and down, and yelling at his TV screen — or his scroll over — holy brothers and sisters, you have a heavenly calling to be God’s house.

What does that mean? For various reasons, sometimes we imagine that what it means to have a heavenly calling is that “we unfortunately live on earth right now, but our calling is to go to heaven.” To be clear, when we die, we temporarily are in heaven apart from the body. But at the end of the story, our bodies are raised and transformed into heavenly bodies and the heavenly New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven to fill the new heaven and new earth, living in God’s house forevermore. Exactly what that will be like, only God knows. But that means that it’s not quite right to say that our heavenly calling, purpose, and meaning is to simply and only “go to heaven.” Hebrews says it’s to be God’s house.

Think about God’s house from the perspective of the Queen of Sheba. Why did she travel from the ends of the earth to Jerusalem? Was it because she heard about this king Solomon who said, “Yeah, I don’t want to be here. Nobody wants to be here. We’re going to heaven. I don’t care what happens to this place.” No, it was actually the opposite! She travelled there because she heard God had given Solomon astonishing breadth and depth of wisdom from heaven about this world, and that Solomon had built God a house, and that the God of heaven had actually not remained only in heaven but had also come down and taken up residence in Jerusalem so that Jerusalem was a wonderful place to be: full of God’s wisdom, justice, transcendent beauty, peace, prosperity, and happiness. She didn’t travel to Jerusalem to see a city that was falling into disrepute because they all wanted to go to heaven (though certainly, we all desire this good thing!), she travelled to Jerusalem because heaven and its God had come down to make Jerusalem a special place.

Our heavenly calling is not a shout from heaven to escape the world, its a transcendent calling, purpose, meaning, and identity granted to us from heaven to become God’s heavenly house on earth. Our heavenly call is to be the place where the earth has become heavenly. How? Because we are inherently righteous, brilliant, powerful? No! It’s because, as he’ll say later, we already live in the heavenly city. We can’t always perceive it, but we simultaneously live in the world and in the heavenly realm — they are not two different places — we already have the first fruits of the Spirit, already have eternal life working in us, already taste the powers of the age to come. God has taken up residence among us, he walks among us, and we are becoming his house.

… but, he says, that’s only the case if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

Why say this? His readers and we too can find ourselves at times as those characters in the story who have a manifest destiny — a purpose and future we were made for — but we encounter difficulties, become discouraged, and are in danger of losing sight of the goal, wandering off to something else, and not giving the attention we should to our calling, purpose, and hope.

Do we sometimes forget why we are here? Forget God is coming down to make his dwelling among us so that we are becoming God’s house? Forget that we have given ownership of our bodies, lives, families, and this church to God? And instead we give our energy to things, people, and goals without first considering what honors God in his house?

Or maybe we don’t forget, maybe we just become discouraged. We lose sight of what a great hope it is to say we are the place where the heavenly God is dwelling and will one day fully come to be with us. We don’t feel confident in it. And we start looking to other comfort — he warns later: don’t look for comfort outside the marriage bed. Or maybe we look to other hope — he warns later: don’t hope in riches, be satisfied with what you have. Don’t hope in some lazy retirement of “take you ease, eat, drink, and be merry” in this life, hope in the rest God we receive — and will receive — in God’s house.

In our forgetfulness, this is why he told us to consider Jesus who is like Moses. We can’t see Jesus right now, but as Moses faithfully served in God’s house, Jesus faithfully speaks God’s word to us, faithfully intercedes for us, and is faithfully building us up as God’s house. Jesus isn’t giving up, and you shouldn’t either.

What does this all mean? Don't stop boasting about our hope. Don’t stop talking about the day when we who have been been becoming God’s heavenly house will live fully in his house. Imagine the wonder: dwelling in the house of God forevermore!

It’s sad when you hear about people who have lived under neglectful, selfish, or even abusive spiritual leadership. It can lead to some pretty serious PTSD. This happened in the OT church, and it happens in the NT church. People in these situations find it difficult to trust people again, to trust God again. A leader who seemed real turned out to not be that, so they intuitively start feeling: is there even such a thing as someone who is good, reliable, faithful?

Jesus is. I hope as leadership we are never like that here. But this is why we confess faith in and pray to Jesus, not in other human spiritual leaders, not Mary, not saints, not even Moses. This is why we pray to Jesus and trust him as high priest, not other humans. Give him your loyalty, he will not let you down. He will incorporate you into God’s house now, and we’ll live in God’s house forevermore.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM (2)

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Scott Kercheville