Mark Ordus: Good morning, everybody. My name is Mark. I get the privilege of serving as director of student ministries here at Ward Church. We're so glad you're here with us. Those of you joining us online, and all my people at Farmington, what's up everybody?
But I wanna share a story with you all as we begin this morning. So years ago, my brother-in-law was doing a remodel on the bathroom in his house. And he called in my grandpa for some support because my grandpa had done a lot of work like that before. And as they were preparing to redo the bathtub, they had to remove the old fixtures so that they could do some tile work in the shower and things like that. So, I don't even remember exactly what they were trying to loosen but you all know with plumbing stuff gets stuck, right?
Anybody ever done any plumbing, you know, things get stuck. So, my brother-in-law, there he was. He's a muscly guy and he had his wrench and he was pulling really hard trying to break this thing loose and my grandpa standing over his shoulder said, I wouldn't do that if I were you. You know, you know where the story's going. Yeah.
So he just kept pushing, pulling, and pulling, and then eventually, of course, as you can imagine, snap, pipe broke, water shooting everywhere, all over the bathroom. And then my grandpa, he looked at my brother-in-law and he goes, well, toodles, and he left. He was like, I told you not to do that, and then you did it. And and the funniest part of this story, if you knew my grandpa, is he was one of the most kind people I've ever met in my entire life, but he warned him. You know?
He's like, oh, I wouldn't do that. And then he did it, and it broke, and he was like, alright. Well, see you later. And that story cracks me up because we've all heard that before at some point in our life. Right?
Like, I wouldn't do that if I were you. But there's something about human nature that when someone tells us we shouldn't do something, that just makes us wanna do it, like, way harder. Right? Like, if someone tells us we can't do something, we wanna prove them wrong. We wanna prove to them that we know better than them in that moment.
And it didn't work out all too well for my brother-in-law, but I imagine you've all been there at some point before too. When you were doing something and somebody gave you that stern warning, I wouldn't do that if I were you. See, our passage today, we've been going through the book of Hebrews throughout this series called Anchored, and and moving up the past couple weeks, we've been talking about kind of all these triumphs. We've been looking at Hebrews 11 where it lists a bunch of heroes of our faith and the way they triumphed over evil, and then we looked in chapter 12 a couple weeks ago about how we can triumph over our suffering because we can view it as discipline from god because he disciplines those he loves but then in this passage, it kinda takes a turn. It kinda moves from triumph to a word of warning And it starts in verse 25.
We're gonna be in Hebrews 12 by the way. So if you have your Bibles with you, you can turn there or of course, we'll have it on the screens. But the author says this, see to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. The him who speaks, of course, is Jesus Christ and I say of course because if you've been here the past few weeks at Ward Church, we've been talking all about Jesus Christ.
We've been looking all about who Jesus is. He's been the center of the entire book of Hebrews. In week one of the series, we talked about being anchored in the unchanging supremacy of Jesus, right? And then in week two, we talked about being anchored in our unchanging savior who is Jesus. In week three, it was being anchored in the unchanging mercy of our great high priest who is Jesus.
Week four, we pivoted and we talked a little bit about the father but by looking at the example of one who suffered greatly in this life whose name was Jesus and then being anchored to an unchanging call to faith in Jesus, the unchanging promises of god delivered through Jesus. Are y'all getting the message here? It's all about Jesus, right? So, we come to our passage today and it's almost like the author reinforces this idea like in case you missed everything else so far, don't miss this and he continues in verse 25. He says, if they, which we'll talk about who they is in a quick second here, but if they did not escape when they refused him, who warned them on Earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven?
So, what the author does here is he kind of takes the present situation of the Christians living in Rome that he's writing to and he ties it to their past. See, people in Jesus time would have been very familiar with their history and their history is basically outlined in the Old Testament of the Bible through the people of Israel. In this moment, the author is connecting their history to their present because in the Old Testament, what would have happened is the Jewish people first received the law from a man named Moses. God spoke to Moses, gave him the law, and then Moses gave that law to the people and now Moses was fully human. He was a human man being used as a mouthpiece for the word of god to god's people and if you've never read the Old Testament before, it didn't go great.
It didn't go great for those people. God spoke through Moses and made a covenant with them. It was a earthly covenant that god would be their god and they would be god's people but what happened over and over the people of Israel kept wandering off like even though god would say to them, I wouldn't do that if I were you. They would keep doing that thing that god warned them not to. Worshiping other gods, turning their backs on god completely.
Long and short of it, they were being unfaithful to their covenant with god. So, the old covenant and the old testament was delivered through an earthly person. It was an earthly covenant and the people kept turning from it and now, god has established a heavenly covenant with us by sending his son. So, the author starts with this warning. To put it in terms we'd understand, it's kind of like the author is writing to the Christians.
The Jewish people broke the old covenant which was an earthly one and god shook their world. So, now, breaking or ignoring this heavenly covenant, well, I wouldn't do that if I were you, you know? Continues in verse 26. He says, at that time, his being god's voice shook the earth but now he has promised once more, I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens and in this verse two, the author is tying their present to their past. He's actually quoting a scripture that occurred way back in the book of Haggai who was a prophet to the people of Israel and Haggai gave this warning to those people.
He said, in a little while, I will once more shake the heavens and the earth. So, here we see that promise being fulfilled. The past has been tied to their present. This is a calling all the way back and now, we see their past being tied to their present and also to a future, even a greater future which is outlined in verse 27 of Hebrews chapter 12. Says, the words once more indicate the removing of what can be shaken that is created things so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
Can I, let me read this verse for us one more time? The words once more indicate the removing of what can be shaken that is created things so that what cannot be shaken may remain. See, the author here is referring to the last great shaking the people of Israel had experienced and the reality is, the history of humanity has been a series of shake ups, right? A lot of times where things shook up very well and the Jewish Christians that they were writing to would have known this full well. Even their kingdom, the most powerful kingdom in the world was kings like David and Solomon.
Even that kingdom had been shaken now to the point that they were living under Roman rule. And I think also, if we think about it, we know this feeling of our world being shaken too. The people that the author was writing to would known this full well but I think we do too because as we've gone through the book of Hebrews, we've been trying to see what what can what can this book have to say to us, to Christians living nowadays, or to people living nowadays and I think it's that all of us know what it's like for our life to be shaken too. Our world is shaken when our jobs don't turn out the way we hope they will. Our world is shaken when our families or our kids or our parents, the relationship doesn't turn out the way we thought it would.
Our world is shaken when our relationships either friendly or romantically don't turn out the way we thought they would or our marriages or our health or any other number of things we find ourselves grieving over. Seems as though at some point in another, in all of our lives, our lives will be shaken but praise be to god, my friends. He's not calling us to establish our lives in any kingdom of this world. Verse 28, says, therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, that emphasis was added by me. Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, Let us be thankful and so worship god acceptably with reverence and awe for our god is a consuming fire.
Since the kingdom we are receiving is a kingdom that cannot be shaken. As I was preparing for this message, I was looking through in my office, I have all these leather bound books and to be honest with you, I put em there to make myself look smart, you know, but once in a while, I actually crack em open too and and I have this series of commentaries. It's called the Interpreter's Bible and it's written by a series of authors and theologians who kind of break down scriptures little by little to really dig into the meaning of the scripture and as I was reading it about this passage in here, one of the authors refers to a time where the church was shaken in the nineteenth century. See, what had happened in the nineteenth century was the theory of evolution had begun to threaten the church, to threaten the foundations of the church. This was around the time Charles Darwin's theories on evolution were established and published and people in the church started getting scared.
They started preaching messages about the creation story to make sure that their foundation could not be shaken. The church was in crisis. There's a story of a man named Robert Spear who you may or may not have ever heard of. He wasn't like a famous guy or anything but he was secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions from 1891 to 1937 and he once quietly remarked that even if the theory of evolution shakes the foundation of the church, what will we do? He said, well, go on being righteous.
Will go on being righteous. I really love that response because in the church today, there are so many areas where we're being shaken. In fact, whenever I tell people I work with teenagers, almost always they say something to the effect of, wow, that's gotta be so tough these days, you know? It's gotta be so tough because we're living in the days of the internet where they can go and find any ideas or someone to support any ideas they have or anything they want to find. We have all kind of confusion being raised about human sexuality and our teenagers are living in and through this.
How could we possibly teach our students in a time like this? And to me, it's really quite simple. Youth ministry isn't simple, far from it. That's why, you know, my hair keeps getting grayer and less of, you know what I'm saying? But the message is really quite simple.
What do we tell our teenagers in the midst of a chaotic world? Go on being righteous. Pursue Jesus. Because laws may change Educational practices may change. Society itself may change.
Even though personally, if you've heard me talk about society before, you've heard me say things like, I don't believe society is worse off than it was in Jesus' day. Because in Jesus day, instead of watching sexually inappropriate and violent things on the internet, they watched him in person in places like the Coliseum. But our hope is not in loss. Our hope isn't in our education or our society or in culture. Our hope is in a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
So, the question is, what do we do with all this? What do we do with all these things we learn about in the book of Hebrews? Parents, how do we model for our kids? What it looks like to live for god's kingdom? Sisters, brothers, how do we do this for our families, for our friends?
Well, I think there are a couple takeaways that our scripture gives us about exactly how we can reframe and focus our lives on living for god's kingdom. The first thing we can do, we saw in the verse, we can be thankful. It's interesting because I don't know if that you all have noticed this as well but it's really hard to engage in worshiping god when we're not thankful and you all know the feeling, right? Sundays can be tough, man. Especially if you have little kids, you're trying to get them dressed, and out the door, or you get in the car to go to church and you realize you have no gas and maybe you can't afford gas because gas is really expensive all of a sudden.
Have you all noticed that? It's like really expensive. But maybe you spilled your coffee as you were getting in your car. One time on a Sunday morning, I spilled my coffee on my car. I set it on top of the car, and it spilled all over the place.
And I was like, the rain will get it, and now there's still a big mark where the cough. Anyway, that was a while ago. I don't we don't need to talk about it. Maybe your parents are driving you nuts, trying to hurry you out the door in the morning. Maybe life in general is driving you nuts.
It's kind of hard in these moments to come and sing about how good God is. It's kind of hard in those moments when things don't feel like they're okay. My wife and I kind of have an inside joke. There's this song called I'm So Blessed by Cain. Maybe you've heard it on like Christian Alternative Radio and everything and some days, we'll be driving and like it seems like nothing's going right and then you hear the person singing, I'm so blessed.
I'm so blessed. And I'm like, shut up, you know? Just a dog. I guess, let me let me stew right. I shouldn't have said shut up.
I'm sorry. But you know what I mean? Like, in in in those moments, sometimes it's just really hard to worship. But at the same time at the same time, it's hard not to worship when you start thinking about all you have to be thankful for. It's interesting in this passage.
That's why the author starts probably with, let us be thankful and so worship god. I remember this moment. We went on a retreat with my students when I was pretty early in my youth ministry career and we had this idea because we were trying to focus on giving them downtime, quiet time with god. So, we gave them prayer journals one time and after our worship session, we said, just go find a place by yourself and just start writing out things you're thankful for. Just start writing out a prayer to god.
We had no idea how this would go but kids came back. Their their notebooks were full asking us for another notebook so they could keep writing because once you, once you focus on what you have to be thankful for, it focuses you, right? I love telling the story about my friends growing up, Zach and Ian, their grandma used to always tell us, every morning, she would start the day going A to Z through the alphabet of things she's thankful for. I wonder how much that focused her back on being in a worshipful spirit throughout the day, every single day of her life. Thankfulness drives us to worship which is the second takeaway from our passage today.
We can be thankful and then second, we can worship god. Now, again, it's really hard to worship when you think you're getting the short end of the stick, right? But the reality is, for those in Jesus Christ, there is no short end of the stick. For those who follow Jesus, we are living and placing our hope in an unshakable kingdom. That means even though our country and its laws may be shaken, our our god's kingdom never will be.
That means even though our relationships here on Earth may be shaken, god's kingdom never will. That means, even though society seems like it's going to heck in a handbasket, God's kingdom will never be shaken. Friends, imagine imagine what life would look like if throughout everything we go through, we could face it with the confidence that the kingdom we are living for will never fail. Our hope is in the kingdom of perfect love which casts out all fear. Our hope is in the kingdom of perfect peace which casts out all anxiety and worry.
Our hope is in a kingdom of perfect hope which means that when we suffer, hope always remains. And if all that's true, if all that is true, then friends, we can always find reasons to be thankful. And what other response could there be than to worship God in everything? I know we tend to get caught up in the songs we're singing or do we know the songs or are there the songs I like and all those kind of things but don't let worshiping god be limited by how you feel about the music. Worship is a response to our thankfulness to god for all that he has done.
Knowing that, number three, is we can stand in reverence and awe of god. I want you to think of a moment when you've been completely awestruck. I know what moment it is for me. The first mission trip I ever led was to Tennessee and we camped in the Smoky Mountains and every morning, we would do a morning devotional before we went and did our work project for the day and this one morning, they said, we're going to take a little extra time for our morning devo today. We're going to lead you guys to a spot where we're to be doing our devotion.
So, we started hiking through the woods and as we were moving, we couldn't really tell where we were going, all these kind of things but then we get to this spot where there's a opening and all of a sudden, we're basically seated on the side of a mountain and there's a mountain in front of us and there's a river beneath us. It's kind of like all the things you see in postcards but you're seeing it like in HD now, right? And in that moment, man, I don't even I don't think any of us even talked at all for our morning devotions that morning. We just sat there in awe and wonder of the beauty of god's creation. I felt really close to god in that moment.
I still remember it like it was yesterday. And and I remember thinking in that moment, why is it only when we're sitting on the side of a mountain that we find ourselves in awe of who god is? What what if what if there was a way that we could live our lives every single day being so awestruck by our creator and his creation that we're just overcome with his awe and wonder every single day. How would life change for us? If everyday we were thankful to god, worshiped him, and just took a moment to stand in awe of him.
It might change the way we go through tragedy to know that god's kingdom will never be shaken no matter what happens here on earth. It might change the way we interact with family and friends if we were standing in awe of god's creation. And when we're able to do that, as followers of Jesus Christ, to be thankful, to worship him, to stand in awe of him. It's in those moments that we see god's kingdom coming here down to Earth. When Jesus started his mission here on Earth, when he started going out and teaching about the good news and teaching about the kingdom of god, there was something irresistible about Jesus.
There was something about him that people would travel from all around just to come and hear about what he would say next. People were in awe of his message of hope and love. And the ministry grew from 12 common uneducated folks to a revolution of now 3,000,000,000 people. And just like Jesus brought his kingdom here to Earth, I believe he's calling us to go and do the same. To take this hope we found and live in awe and wonder of it until people who encounter us find this hope as irresistible as the people in Jesus day did.
To instead of worrying about losing political influence, we focused on making god's kingdom famous To instead of trying to win fights, we focused on winning souls. Because when you catch a glimpse of god's kingdom, when you stand in awe and wonder of who Jesus is, you see everything else in a whole new light. And friends, if you are in Christ, you are anchored in an unshakable kingdom and I believe it's time we start living like it. Let me pray for us. God, we just want to take a moment just to be thankful Thankful for the air in our lungs.
Thankful that we woke up this morning. Thankful for the people in the pew sitting next to us. Our family. God, in this moment, we worship you. We offer these worship songs to you knowing that you are so good.
God, help us to stand in awe of who you are. Help us to stand in awe of your power, of your love because god, you are worthy of all of it. You are worthy of all of our awe we have to show you today. Help us to live for your kingdom and yours alone because that is a kingdom that cannot be shaken. We love you.
We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.