Pressing Into His Presence Series

PRESSING INTO HIS PRESENCE

Understanding The Tabernacle

Dr. Larry Petton

Text: Exodus 40

Series: Greatest Chapters of the Bible #6

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God can be worshipped any way you want, as long as you are sincere. True or False?

The biblical answer is FALSE. The popular answer is just the opposite. We have been made to think that the only thing that matters is sincerity, not truth. Did you know that the men who crashed their planes into the Twin Towers in New York City and murdered 3000 innocent people were performing an act of worship sincerely from their hearts?

Sincerity alone is not enough.

If you go to the hospital with a stroke, get your family to call me and I will come and pray. But if you need a heart surgeon and ask me to help……….even though I sincerely love you, I will kill you and send you straight to Jesus because my training is not in surgery.

Sincerity alone is not enough.

The Tabernacle of Moses described in Exodus 25-40 shows how God desires to be worshipped. What is a good definition of true worship?

Here are a few examples:

William Temple: To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.

Louie Giglio: Worship is our response, both personal and corporate, to God for who He is, and what He has done; expressed in and by the things we say and the way we live.

Warren Wiersbe: Worship is the believer’s response to all they are – mind, emotions, will, body – to what God is and says and does.

Who am I to edit a great teacher like Warren Wiersbe? However, because I have a Journalism minor, I love to edit and I would like to edit Wiersbe’s definition just a bit. I would say that true biblical worship is the believer’s response of all they are – spirit, soul and body – to all who God is according to His Word.

So, let’s talk about SERIOUS WORSHIP today. When we examine Exodus 25-40, we see that the Tabernacle of Moses shows us five fantastic facts about what God wants to show us about SERIOUS WORSHIP:

I.GOD IS LOOKING FOR SERIOUS WORSHIPPERS.

When you think of serious worshippers in Scripture, who comes to mind?

Would it be Abraham sacrificing his son on Mt. Moriah?

How about Joseph crying out to God in a dungeon in Egypt?

Maybe it was Moses dying to see the glory of God in the Wilderness?

Or could you consider Elijah praying down fire from Heaven?

I would like to nominate an anonymous woman from Mark 9:25-34. Listen to hear story:

25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

This woman was desperate to touch Jesus. And she not only touched the hem of His rabbinical garment, she touched His heart. That’s serious worship. That’s exactly the kind of heart that God is looking for today.

II.SERIOUS WORSHIPPERS PRESS IN TO THE PRESENCE OF GOD.

Paul stated twice in Philippians 3:12-15 that he desired to “press in” to all that God has for him in Christ, leaving the old life behind. He had been a religious man who was sincere…..but sincerely wrong. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees, a Jew of Jews and a murderer of Christians. While on his way to finish off even more Disciples, Paul met Someone bigger than himself!

Here is a quote to remember forvever:

THE TURNING POINT IN OUR FAITH COMES WHEN WE STOP WORSHIPPING THE GOD WE WANT…….and START WORSHIPPING THE GOD WHO IS!!

That’s exactly what happened in Paul’s life that changed him forever. He met Christ personally. But he wasn’t satisfied to live in the past glory of that experience. He wanted to go deeper. He wanted to “press in” to Christ.

I had a basketball coach who always talked about pressing. He made us play foul-court pressure defense the entire game. He was always yelling at us to push the ball up the court and press the opposing defense. He taught his players how to be intense.