Sojourn New Albany Podcast

I have repeated this phrase or a version of this phrase over the past two months, “I apologize for the delay!  I am behind on everything.”  Another driver backed into my car in January and I got a follow up email from his insurance company that in essence said, “You haven’t met with an auto body repair shop yet, we haven’t gotten a quote, or pictures of the damage.  Get your life together or we are closing the case.”  In fairness to her, she didn’t say, “Get your life together”, that was my interpretation of her professional email.  I got my life together on Thursday afternoon and drove the car to an auto body shop to have the car looked at.  

My apologies for delaying getting things done has been communicated to everyone I interact with on a regular basis lately: my family, my boss, my co-workers, my accountant, my payroll guy, my pastors… you get the idea.  These last few weeks have taught me and reinforced for me a basic lesson: I am limited.  My time is limited.  My abilities are limited.  My understanding of the tax code is especially limited.  You get the picture.  

In the Christian life, we will encounter seasons when our limitations are brought to our attention.  Marriage is meant to create limits on your time and your affection.  Our bodies are limited in the tasks that they are able to perform.  And over time, our bodies become even more limited in what we are able to do and not do.  The needs of a family creates limits on our time, our duties, and our resources.  Parents create limits on children and children create limits on parents.  And all limits that we experience are directed by the hand of God.  

How is it possible that our limits draw us closer to Christ?

First, they show us the places we cannot go.  

Second, they speak to the needs that we still have. 

Third, they show us that God’s presence is better.

Explanation -- The writer of Hebrews in this section will discuss the Old Testament sacrificial system.  The way that the faithful Israelite would worship God in that place that God chose.  Look with me at verses 1-2, “Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary. A tabernacle was set up.”  So the sacrificial system centered around a meeting place, sacrifices, and the people who offered those sacrifices.  In that identified place, the faithful Isarelite worshiped God.  Here he speaks about the Tabernacle.  The Tabernacle had three main meeting places.  The first was the court of the people where all Israelite people would gather.  The second was the sanctuary, the place where the priests would serve.  And the third was the Most Holy Place, also known as the Holy of Holies where the high priest once a year entered. 

The people were connected to the place where they met.  But not everyone was allowed to enter each place.  The Jewish man, woman, boy, or girl can enter into the court of the people.  But there was a distance between them and the sanctuary, the meeting place of the priests.  At that time, they could not enter into the sanctuary unless they were a man descended from the tribe of Levi.  There were limits that God placed on them because the place belongs to God and he can do what he wants.  And then, only one priest could enter the Most Holy Place.  But not just any ol’ time, but once a year.

But did you also notice that the writer uses past language like “had” and “was set up.”  In fact, he mentioned the Tabernacle which was a place that God’s people met with God, until Solomon built the Temple.  It was temporary.  Which is a type of limit.  And it created distance.  For a period of time.  

Illustration -- There are a lot of places we cannot go.  I was speaking with someone I work with who mentioned that he thought it was strange that a place like Sam’s Club won’t let you into a shop if you don’t have a membership.  Well, if you don’t have a Sam’s card then you have no reason to be in a Sam’s Club.  He said to me with some amazement that if you don’t have a card they will stop you from entering.  It seemed so strange to him.  Kinda strange.  Kinda not.  If you have a membership, you enter.  And to quote the theologians Jimmy Eat World, “If you don’t honey, honey then you don’t.”

Argumentation -- But the difference between shopping at Sam’s Club and what Hebrews is addressing is if you can’t access Sam’s Club then you can go to Costco.  You can go to Kroger.  You can go somewhere else to get your groceries.  Hebrews is saying that you can’t turn your back on Christ and go back to the Jewish sacrificial system.  It was temporary from the beginning.  It is passing away.  It was created by God.  For that time.  For those purposes.  But within the way of worship, limits were placed that are fading away even as we speak.

To be a human is to be limited.  When you become a Christian, guess what?  You are still a human and thus, still limited.  The limits are baked into the cake.  It is part of the way things are designed by God.  And as you progress through the Christian life there will be places that you might stand on the edge of but you cannot enter into.  A relationship that you long for.  A job that you want.  A school that you want to attend.  A sin that you want to commit.  But you can’t for whatever reason.  And the message will come, “This Christianity thing is not working out for me.  My life is harder because I am a Christian.” and the temptation to leave and go to other places will arise.  

Application -- Alright Christian, where are you going to go?  What is the place that you long to go to?  And is Jesus in that place?  Or are you longing to get away from him?  Where are you going to go?  Who is there?  

Illustration -- So I got a follow up email from the insurance rep about the fender bender this past Tuesday.  I didn’t even notice it for another two days.  I took the car into the auto body shop and when the guy asked me when this happened I said it happened about two months ago and I started giving him an apology.  He told me, “That’s alright” as if I committed some sort of transgression that required his priestly confession over me for my vehicular sins.  

Now what happened there?  Apart from reinforcing my personal neurotic tendencies.  I read an email that struck me and was the trigger for me to get to the auto body within a certain period of time.  I am limited in how much time I had to take care of this matter.  And then was asked a question by the auto body guy that reminded me of my own limitations.  And my need to address them. 

Explanation -- Now I acted as if I committed a sin.  Whether I did or not is irrelevant.  The sins of people who limit them.  Sin creates a barrier, a block, a boundary between us and God.  Sin gets in the way before God is a holy God and he must be approached with care.  And the sins of people need to be dealt with.  Look at Hebrews 9:6-7, “When everything had been arranged like this, the priests entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry. But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.”  So when the high priest, once a year, entered into the Most Holy Place, the Holy of Holies, here called the inner room, blood had to be spilt.  It is a costly thing to approach the living God.  High price to pay once a year.  And he mentions that he offered the sacrifice for himself and for the sins of the people he represented.  The wording that is used for the type of sin we might call a mistake.  Or an error.  It is to summarize every kind of sin.  Not just the bad ones. 

This system was set up for a time to remind them of what is the real problem in their life.  Their sins.  

Argumentation -- To poorly paraphrase a really smart German lady, the greatest problem that we face is human action.  Because once a person takes action, it can’t be undone.  In common speech, what’s done is done.  To add an additional hoosier paraphrase to it, as I like to say, “Well, it’s done been did” or, “Well you done it now.”

For our purposes today, there are all types of limits that we are faced with in life.  There are limits based on the fact that we are human and it is a part of living in the world.  And then there are limits that are a part of our lives that are directly related to the fact that we sin by thinking, saying, or doing things that displease God.  And the solution to our sins is not found in temporal solutions.  Wherever we go in this life we take our sins with us and we go to a temporary experience.  If you go to find a job, you take yourself and your shortcomings to a job that is temporary one way or another with other people there and their shortcomings.  If you go to find a relationship, you take yourself and your shortcomings to be with another person with their shortcomings.  If you go to a bottle of some substance to find meanings, you take you and all your shortcomings to a temporary substance.  

Application -- We apply this in our lives by asking God to not lead us into temptation.  Wherever we go there we are.  Meaning, we take us with all our limits, shortcomings, and sins, into that new place.  And we have to be honest with ourselves about ourselves.  We are prone to wander as the hymn said.  And so we ask God to keep us close to him.  So Christian if you are tempted, then say to God, “I’m tempted and I need you.”  

Explanation --  Because what is the point of the limitations that are placed on us by God and because of our sins.  What is God doing in all this?  The writer of Hebrews says this in verses 8-10, “The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still functioning. This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings—external regulations applying until the time of the new order.”

Here the Preacher says that God the Holy Spirit was showing something to us.  God had a purpose with the priesthood, the sacrifices, the Tabernacle and this way of life.  And what was this purpose?  What did the Holy Spirit want to teach?  That is this way of life, though it was ordained and chosen by God.  It was limited.  In that it could not clear the conscience of the worshiper.  The worshiper knew as they were going through the process of bringing lambs to priests, witnessing the animal die in their place, watching the priests offer sacrifices for their own sins, and so on.  It wasn’t enough.  It was what they were supposed to do, for a time.  

But these sacrifices could’t deal with their souls.  They couldn’t cleanse that inward thoughts, desires, emotions, and impulses.  What they did do, they did well.  They taught them to look forward by faith.  They taught them to trust in the Lord’s mercy.  

So much of the Old Testament is the expressions of these desires left unfulfilled.  Isaiah the prophet near the end of his book after years upon years upon years of people refusing to hear his message about the Lord says to the Lord, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down!”  He longed for God’s presence in the world.  Psalm 144, the psalmist has experienced persecution, he is suffering because of his faith and he says to God to bow down the heavens.  Fold them in half, and come down.  

Argumentation -- Christian, God operates in such a way that limits are placed on us.  How are you going to respond to these limits?  What will you say to the Lord?  And what is God’s purpose in placing limits on us?

Well the Holy Spirit uses those limits to make us long.  To make us desire.  To make us call out to God.  Throughout the history of salvation, the people of God were repeatedly placed in a position that only God could save them.  You and I will be placed in positions in life when the only thing that we can do is call out to God to help us.  And that is the way that God has designed it.  We call out to him and he rescues us.  The Father sent the Son to do something that only God could do.  Deal with our sins.  Fulfill our longings.  And God promises that when we become Christians, he will never leave us or forsake.  He didn’t promise to remove all our limits.  He promised to be with us.  And he also promises that because our Lord Jesus was raised the dead.  The one thing in life that places the greatest limit on us, death itself.  Has been overcome and will be overcome when the Lord Jesus calls us home.  To satisfy the longing.  To remove all that limits us from God.  And to grant that we live in his presence forever.