You can give it up for us. She’s an awesome lady, and really, we’re a better family with her than we would ever be without her. There is no doubt. And I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir because you feel the same way. And I appreciate Marcus mentioned about those of us who lost Moms. My mom is no longer around neither is Lepatic’s and so this day could be a little bitter sweet for some. And yet I encourage you to be comforted and cherish those good memories on this day. My hope and prayer is that all of you moms will really be pampered today. Really just feel great and love it and be thankful for those that made you a mom. But here’s the thing. I thought about it. I said, okay, we’ve been studying Hebrews. Now, if you’re new to our fellowship, I’ll catch you up with a couple of statements as to what we’ve covered. But I thought, that’s okay, is Mother’s Day. How can I call it a sort of wrap Mother’s Day in the Hebrews? And I thought not really sure how I would do that, because I thought I said, there’s some cool moms that we could talk about.
And here’s your quiz for today. I’m going to give you the name of some folks. Who was Moses mom? Anybody remember the name? Jacobed was Moses mom. How about Samuel’s mom? Hannah. Very good. How about the mother of all living? Eve. I don’t know what names I heard, but it’s Eve. All right. I got to make sure you’re awake. Who is Isaac’s mom? Sarah. How about Jacob and Esau? Okay. Rebecca had her moments where she was shown a little favoritism. Still a good study. How about Solomon’s mom? Bathsheba. And John the Baptist’s mom? Elizabeth. And you got to know this. How about Jesus mom? Yes, you guys are good. This is awesome. Y’all must be all UCF students. That’s why you got that right. So, really, there are a lot of cool moms that we could talk about from the scriptures. But I thought that video really said it all. I’m cracking up because, like Marcus, a lot of us here, if you’re honest, you’ve had those things watch behind your ears, all of that kind of stuff. That was awesome. So to all of you moms, we can’t say thank you enough because we do know we’re better with you than we were ever would be without you.
So thank you for being here. Now, that being said, we are going to go ahead and get into Hebrews today, talking about the glory of the Tabernacle. Now, if you’ve been with us for part of this study, we’ve been doing Hebrews for a couple of months. And one of the key messages is what is Jesus is better. Very good. There’s been a lot of repetition of that because we want that indelibly stamped on your brain. And one thing about this whole section is that the Hebrew writer knows these people. We don’t know who the Hebrew writer was. It could have been a woman, could have been a guy. We don’t know. But one way or the other, this person had a relationship with these people. He’s concerned that they have drifted. He’s concerned that they’re getting away from some of those basic teachings. And I couldn’t help but think about that, because I’ve been around a long time. And when you’ve been around a while, it’s easy to start to drift. It’s easy to take for granted. Ask anybody who’s been married a couple of minutes and we can start taking each other for granted.
It doesn’t take long at all. And one quick thing I’ll share on that Marcus mentioned about the family groups this week. We are also starting a mini series to help marriages this week, May 11, all on Zoom. And that’s purposeful because we want as many people who would like to participate, to not be encumbered by what to do with the kids or having to pack up and clean up and come to a building. It’s all on Zoom. It’s a short six part video series. Okay. And so it’ll start May the 11th. You’re welcome to join in for that check with your family group as far as what your group has going on before, just sort of bowing out. But we decided to do this because people kept coming to me as one of the elders, saying, are we going to do something on marriage? Are we going to do something on marriage? This video series comes highly recommended. It was very good. So if you’re interested in that touch base with me or Marcus and we’ll give you more information about it, I’m sorry. Thank you. And the name of it is Sacred Marriage. And I’ll tell you what, this is aside from what I have to say to you today, I have not recently listened to the audiobook all this past week, all 16 chapters. I have not had anything in recent years that I find myself spontaneously sharing about, you know what I mean? So there’s some things that even affected me. And I just find myself thinking, okay, I look at this difference with Lepatic a little different because God is doing something and it’s a good study. So if you want to know more, be happy to share more with you. Okay. But today our focus is to get back into Hebrews. The glory of the Tabernacle is going to look at Hebrews chapter nine, part of what he says there is that there’s a better priesthood, a better sacrifice, and a better Covenant. It’s much better. And so all of the Old Testament priesthood, all of those sacrifices. And we’re going to get into that a little bit. Here’s the thing about today, I’m going to need you to kind of queue into what’s going on because you can hear all this stuff about the Tabernacle and you think, oh, boy, I don’t want to hear this, but it’s good stuff.
There are a lot of cool parallels that will help you as far as your relationship with God. But there are three things of the priesthood, the sacrifice, the better Covenant. But one of the message of Hebrews is that all of the priesthood, all of those sacrifices, all of that old Covenant, didn’t give us access to God. It didn’t get us there. It only took us so far, and that was as far as it would take us. And at the end of the day, who is our only access to God? It’s Jesus Christ. Jesus says, I am the way. And we know that scripture very well. And so there are three things here. And these are scriptures that you can write down. You can study them at your leisure with the better priesthood. Chapter seven talks about how unlike those old priests, Jesus doesn’t have to go in and make the same sacrifices over and over and over again because he sacrificed himself once. That makes him a better priest. Chapter eight talks about the Covenant, and it talks about how Jesus is the mediator of a better Covenant because it’s built on better promises. So we have that to look forward to in chapter nine, the better Sacrifice.
The law required that everything was cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood, there’s no forgiveness. Well, Jesus shed blood, but whose blood did he shed? It was his own blood. He was the only one who could be a perfect sacrifice. So he’s a better sacrifice. And that’s what the old covenant was all based on is those three things. And that’s what we’re going to get into tonight. Once that new Covenant comes into place, it automatically means the old Covenant is no good. It would be like if I was driving a 2022 car, and some of you would be so excited because I never owned a car the same year that it was born, you know what I mean? I just don’t do that. And so if I had a 2022, though, and all of a sudden we go through the year, and then January 2023, the new cars come out. What does that automatically do to my car? It makes it old. It’s sad, but Eddie’s going to still drive it till it dies anyway. But that’s what he’s saying about the Old Covenant. He says guys you got to let it go. You’ve got to let that go because something so much better is here in Jesus.
And that’s what we’re going to look at today in a special way. But it’s the kind of thing where you could find yourself asking a basic question. In chapter seven, he talks about how we got to have a better let’s see, seven was about the better priesthood. Chapter eight was about a better Covenant and say, okay, you say now we have a better priesthood in Jesus. Right? Right. You say we have a better Covenant in Jesus in chapter eight. Yeah, that’s right, too. And so the basic question could become, why do we need this stuff anyway? Why did God even Institute the old Covenant system? Why did he Institute this whole Tabernacle and all that stuff? What’s the point? Isn’t it useless? And the answer is a resounding no, it’s not useless at all. Here’s the secret about God, and I got to share this with you. God gives a lot of detail in the Bible and places, and you could be so tempted, if you’re like me, to just sort of bypass all that detail. You know how you get to the genealogies and Matthew and it goes. And this person begot, this person viewing the King James Version begat, begat, begat, begat.
And you think, okay, God really have to read all of this. Now, how many of you, truth be known, you check out and you say, I’m not going to read it. Put up your hand. Be honest. Okay, we got some, honest folk. I found another section in the Old Testament where God took every single tribe one by one, and he says, okay, and this tribe needs to bring twelve Bulls and seven goats, and they got to bring a hen of oil and you got to bring an ephah of flour mixed with olive oil. And it’s got to be baked a certain way. And he would give the exact same thing for the next tribe, and the next tribe, all twelve tries. I mean, it’s like 72 or 80 verses in one chapter, and most of it says the exact same thing. And there have been times when I’m so tempted to say, okay, God, really do I really need to read through all of this? And I said, but you know what? God, for whatever reason, put it in the Bible. I mean, he could have after the first tribe says and all of these other tribes did the exact same thing.
But God doesn’t do that. He spells it all out. And I said, well, God, if you took the time to spell it all out, I’m going to read every single one. And guys, I came across something I had not seen before. I didn’t think, Eddie, you got OCD, but I did. I came across something I had not seen before because there’s one section talks about how every tribe had to bring a silver Basin. And I got to this one tribe where it just said Basin. And I said, Whoa, what happened to the word silver? What happened to the adjective? Why doesn’t it say a silver Basin? And I looked at it again and I looked at the tribe before and the tribe after. And sure enough, they said, silver Basin, this and this and this and said, silver Basin. So I went to the end when he summarized what everybody brought and he said, twelve silver basins. And so I thought some translator messed up. They forgot the word silver in this translation. But I noticed that because I took the time to read it. And I know it’s tough. I’m not giving you a law if you can remember what the first tribe was without having to read it again, kudos to you.
I’m not like you. I read all of it. My point in saying all of that is that God came up with this Covenant. It’s from him, and it is not purposeless, it is not useless. And it’s very important the stuff that we’ll get into. The Hebrew writer is asking these guys to give up the old and to embrace the new, to give up what was a symbol or a picture and embrace reality in Jesus. Now, let me take you through how that looks. And I’m going to use Marcus and Amy. I can just see Amy, she’s got this great picture of Marcus. Marcus is away from home. She’s got this great picture of Marcus. And she thinks, boy, that was such an incredible time. Man, he looks so great. Oh, my goodness. Man, God, you’re so good to me. Look at what you bless me to have in this man. And she’s just going on and on and she’s just fawning over that picture. And then all of a sudden he said, that’s what she does. And then all of a sudden Marcus comes in. It’s kind of like that scene you see at football games where they’ll have the wife on the football field, maybe on the 50 yard line, and they’re honoring her for some reason.
Her husband husband’s off in the military. And all of a sudden they bring him in, they bring him from behind. And it’s like if you’re there, it’s like, oh, my goodness, little kids are involved. It’s hard not to be tearful right along with just the joy of that whole scene. And it’s so amazing. But it would be like her continuing to admire the picture when Marcus is there. Um, I’m right here, Amy, you can hug me. Don’t hug my picture. That’s kind of what God is trying to say to these people. He said, look, get rid of the old it was just a picture. It was just a symbol. But you got reality now in Jesus. Jesus is the one who brings a better priesthood, a better sacrifice, and a better Covenant. And so that’s what we’re going to look at today. That’s what he’s trying to get over to the Israelites. So we’re going to go ahead and read Hebrews nine, verse one. And it says, now the first Covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary. Now, we could read on, but we’ll go to that in a moment. Was the sanctuary worthless? Hopefully, you’ve already begun to see that.
I don’t believe it was at all. And we’re going to see some reasons why it’s really helpful. But the sanctuary, like I was saying about these other places in the scripture, it was ordained by God. Anything God decides to do is important. If God decides to put extra words in the scriptures, read them. God thought it was important, but it does say it was an earthly sanctuary. That is critical.
Why?
Because everything in this world will be burned up. Nothing in this world lasts forever. So by its design, God says, this is an earthly temporary arrangement that I have for you. So the old Covenant was not bad, and it wasn’t useless. It was just temporary. But we’ll see some reason why it’s helpful. And we’re going to go ahead and read chapter nine, verse two. We’ll read this section. “A Tabernacle was set up in this first room where the lamp stand and the table with his consecrated bread. This was called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, which had the golden altar of incense and the gold covered Ark of the Covenant. This arc contained the gold Jar of Mana, Aaron’s staff that had budded. And the stone tablets of the Covenant. Above the Ark were the Cherubim of the glory overshadowing the atonement cover. But we cannot discuss these things in detail now.” And it’s kind of interesting. It says, okay, we’re not going into detail. You think to yourself, you just gave us a lot there. But believe it or not, this isn’t a very detailed account.
And I think that’s purposeful because he knows that they understand this. He’s talking to Hebrews, they know this background of it. But this stuff is really powerful because God takes the time in the old Covenant to talk about this stuff. Do you know that in the Bible there are only two chapters that deal with creation and 50 that talk about the Tabernacle? 50. That means that God thinks it’s a big deal. And there is something that we need to learn from this. And for those of you who want to study it out, 13 of these references are in Exodus. Chapters 25 to 31 and 35 to 40. 18 are in Leviticus. Chapters one through 10, 16 and 17, 21 through 25 and 27. I’m not going to repeat all these if you’re not writing it down. Don’t worry, I’ll give it to you. Numbers has 13 and Deuteronomy has three. And then there’s reference here in Hebrews. So the point is, this is a big deal. The Tabernacle was a big deal to God. Why would he take so much time to make sure we understand it if it was not a big deal? So what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at a few things about it, okay?
And there’s kind of an artist rendering of the whole thing with the curtain and all of that. And we’re going to look at a couple of things about this. First of all, you see the door is on the east side and there’s only one door into the Tabernacle. There’s one door. There’s one way in, one way out. There’s one door to Tabernacle. How many doors are there to God? There’s one. And Jesus is it. Jesus says, John 14, verse, Jesus, verse six. Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life. And no one comes to the Father except through me. It’s only through Jesus. Acts four, verse twelve says, There is no other name under the heaven given among men by which we can be saved. So it’s only through Jesus if we say, well, wait a minute, what about Islam? What about Hinduism? What about Buddhism? What about the Quran? What about the Bhagavad Gita? There are other writings, there are other religions. Are you saying that Christianity and Jesus is the only way to God. Yes, I am saying just that. Jesus is the only way to God. Well, gosh, Eddie, that sounds like you’re kind of arrogant.
I mean, what makes- Jesus makes me think that way and say that. There is one way to God. Christianity is very exclusive, and that is the way God intended it. But you go from that door, the first thing you come to is the altar. That’s where the sacrifices were done. You can see the Bull or cow there. That’s where the sacrifice is done. And in case you don’t think this through, there’s a lot of blood involved in this thing. They will slit the animals’ throat, they catch the blood in some sort of Basin. They probably have to stir it and keep it from starting to coagulate and all of that. And then the priest would go around shaking blood all over the place. He would shake blood on people. They would shake blood on the sides of the altar. Tradition says seven times on one side, seven times the other side. There was a lot of blood. This was a very bloody ceremony. But the idea of that altar reminds you that Jesus is our sacrifice. Jesus is our sacrifice. And all I’m trying to do is show you some parallels so that if you ever see an image like this again, you can leave it thinking, okay, yeah, there’s that one door, and there’s the altar.
Well, behind the altar. Then you’re going west is the labor of the wash area. That’s the area where the priest will wash their hands and their feet, because you can see it’s a bloody business that they’re doing. The thing I like about this set up is that you have the altar and you have the wash area. The altar, when we came to Christ, Jesus dealt with all of our sins through his sacrifice. Amen? We understand that. But then we continue living the Christian life, and we mess up and we sin and we fall short. So we need that continual cleansing. And in a sense, that’s kind of a picture that I hope you can take away from this with that wash area behind the brazen altar. And then from there is the Tabernacle itself. It was 45 X 15 X 15. It was a cool structure. The first part of it is called the Holy place. And in that area was the golden lampstand. That was on the left side. On the right side was the show bread, where they would put the twelve loaves of bread representing the twelve tries of Israel. And in front was the altar of incense.
I said, okay, talk to me about it. Go to the lampstand where the lampstand do. It provides light. Jesus is the light of the world. Trying to give you some connections that you can make to hopefully leave with some things to think about it. But Jesus is our light. He is a light of light. He has a light that lights our path. Guys we depend on him. But then you got the bread. And what did Jesus say of himself in John six? He said, I am the bread of life. Amen. What does he say when he was tempted by Satan in Matthew four? Man does not live by what? Bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Jesus is the bread of life. Jesus is one who sustains us. And then the altar of incense. I thought about how Jesus really represents our intercession with the Father. If you look in the Bible, Revelation eight and some of this you have to just look at. If you look at Revelation eight, it talks specifically about the incense that came up before God with the prayers of the Saints. Jesus is interceding for us.
One Timothy two, verse five. There’s one mediator between God and man, and that’s Jesus. And that’s the altar. of incense. But then you go to verse three. It says, behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place. Through the second curtain. If we go through this second curtain, and in reality we couldn’t, could we? Because the only one who could go into the second curtain was the high priest. And he only did it once a year on one day. They would tie a rope around this man just in case he messed up while he was in there. They could drag him out because you would fall dead on the spot. This is powerful stuff. But once you get into that Holy place, let’s just assume we can go on and you get there and there’s the Ark of the Covenant. In that was Aaron’s staff that had budded, you would have the tablets of the stone. But I love that it talks about the mercy seat and the atonement cover. Mercy seat. Atonement. Let’s talk atonement what is atonement. Well, Jesus’s atonement for our sins. So really that’s the place where we meet with God.
And I know this is some crazy stuff probably for you to follow, but it’s good stuff. Main thing I want you to understand is that there was only one way to God that’s through that door. The sacrifice occurs, daily washings occur, the light to light the path, the bread of life, Jesus. The altar of incense, the prayers going up. That’s what we get to have before God. But here’s the thing. God no longer communes over that mercy seat. And great verse for you just to write down. Exodus 25 22, it says, God said they’re above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Covenant law, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites. So God would meet on the atonement cover. God would meet at that mercy seat. That’s where we meet with Jesus as disciples because we get to bypass all of that other stuff all the way into God. We don’t have to stay at the door. We don’t have to stay in the outer courtyard. We can go all the way and we can go into the Holy of Holies.
And so what does this represent for us is that we can have a walk with God. We can be in close proximity with God. Now you go to verse six and you guys are doing great. You’re hanging with me. In verse six, he says, when everything had been arranged like this, the priests enter regularly into the outer room to carry on their Ministry. It says arranged like this. And so every day these priests would go in, they put on their robes and they do their thing. They have to trim the lampstand. They have to continue to do the incense for the altar of incense. They have to continually every Sabbath, change out the bread. At the end of the week, the priests would get to eat that bread. And again, it’s kind of an allusion to Jesus. Jesus is always on duty, guy. He is a high priest who is always at work. He never takes a day off. He never says, okay, I’m tired today. I’m not going to be the light of life for you. I’m not going to be your sustenance today. I’m just going to take the day off. Jesus does that.
In verse seven, it talks about how but only the high priests. And anytime you see the word but or therefore those are always good turning point words, you know what I mean? He’s been talking about this altar and how it was set up and all of that. And then he says, but only the high priests entered the inner room, and that only once a year. This was the day of Atonement. Let me make sure you follow this. All year long, I mean, basically God had a relationship with the Israelites, just as he has a relationship with us if you’re a Christ follower. But at some point you mess up, don’t you? You sin, you fall short. That’s why we teach people. Isaiah 59 Our sins have made a separation between us and God. And so we know we have to deal with sin. And so these guys will go to the priest. When they realize they’re sin and they come to their knowledge, they will go to the priest and sacrifice will be made. The subordinate priests, if you will, were probably the ones doing those sacrifices on a regular basis. Because let’s face it, how often do you need forgiveness of sin? Every day, every hour, every few minutes.
We don’t even know how many sins we commit. So we need forgiveness all the time. So I don’t really know how often these priests have to make those daily sacrifices, but they probably did it pretty much every day because every day we would all sin. But then the day of Atonement, that would be that one time per year when all of the sins would be accounted for. In other words, right now, if I were to ask you, okay, if I were to pick on my buddy Christine Boyle and say, Christine, what sin have you committed today? You say, Well, I got mad at Kevin again. She wouldn’t do that. She loves Kevin. But say, she would say, okay, I was short with my husband. Well, in reality, God is aware that Christine has some thoughts long before that about her husband. But Christine may not be in touch. And so it talks here about there being sins committed in ignorance. So the day of atonement would be the catch all for all of them. You can know that all of your sins are going to be forgiven on that day.
And at least for a few minutes, you’re okay. At least for a few minutes. Not the most encouraging thing, but here’s the good news for you and me. I got to show you this verse in one John, chapter one. This is one of my favorite scriptures in the Bible. I absolutely love this because here’s the good news for you and me. “But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus Son purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” With the Israelites, sin would sever the relationship with God. When it came to their attention, they’d go to the priests and they would offer sacrifices for that and that kind of thing. And even the day of atonement, maybe for a few seconds you would feel okay. But here’s the good news. If you are a follower of Jesus, if you walk in the light as he is in the light, can I tell you a secret about that? You won’t even do that perfectly.
You can do the best you can, but you won’t even do that perfectly. But if your mindset, if your bent is to walk in the light, that if your heartfelt desire is I’m going to be right with God when I sin, I’m going to do my best to be open about that, get help. I want to grow. I want to change. I want to be what God wants me to be. If that is your heart, your sins are forgiven. You walk in a continual spiritual bath. Your heart is being sprinkled clean every single day, every single moment. You don’t have to worry. Am I going to heaven now? And now I’m going to hell with what I just did. You don’t have to live your life that way. Guys, you can be fired up when you take Communion that God is good to me and I’m okay, guys, I have been around a long time and I really don’t worry in every single moment. Well, God, am I saved right now or am I going to hell? No. God doesn’t want you to live that way. That would not be encouraging for anybody else. God wants you to have that assurance.
And so I encourage you to walk in the light, even today when you take Communion. I want you to take Communion, but make a decision. God, if there are some things you need to talk to somebody about, just talk about it. Give it to God when you take Communion and that will be great. And so before we take Communion, though, I want you to just talk briefly about the ritual. And I won’t get into all the details because time won’t permit. But what would happen is that priest would get on his road and on his shoulders there would be the onyx stones with the twelve tribes of Israel. On his breastplate would be the twelve tribes of Israel. Kind of reminiscent of God. God carries us on his shoulders, just as that lost sheep in the parable of the sower, luke 15, what did he say? He took that sheep, put it on his shoulders. God carries you and me every day, but he also holds us close to his heart, and I hope that encourages you. And so he would go in, he would take the blood of that Bull and he’d sprinkle it around all over the place to bring about atonement, at least in a general sense, bring about atonement.
But we know it doesn’t give total access. But what’s the point that the Holy Spirit is trying to make with all of this? From Hebrews chapter nine. I don’t want to read this for you sometimes. Okay. God, what are you trying to teach us? What? God spells it out right here, verse eight. “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.” In other words, he’s saying the three thoughts that he’s sharing with us here. The worship of God was limited in the old Covenant. Worship of God was limited. As long as that old Covenant was in fact, and Jesus hadn’t come, that’s all he had, that was the best that they had, but it was limited at best. Secondly, that the cleansing was imperfect. It wasn’t able to clear the conscience of people.
It could only take us so far and he wants them to understand that. And thirdly, that it was temporary. He talks about food and drinks and various washings, all of that stuff is temporary. But then comes the really good news in the very next verse. And we got to read this because we’re going to end on a very high note, verse eleven. And this will be explored probably a lot more in the next session we have. But Hebrews 9 in verse eleven. “But when Christ came as high priests of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect Tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say is not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves, but he entered the most Holy place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. The blood of goats and Bulls and the Ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean, sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more? How much more than will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God?”
Jesus has gone into a much better Tabernacle. And if you’ve got a relationship with God, you get to have this incredible redemption that he has brought about. And he’s making that contrast. Guys, unlike these guys, where could the people go? They couldn’t go any closer than the outer court. They couldn’t even get into the Holy place. They had to stay outside. Well, Jesus makes way all the way up for us to the mercy seat, to the atonement covered with God. And that’s what I want to share. And we’re going to end with Hebrews Ten, verse 22, great passage that I think summarized what we’ve been talking about. It says, Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with a full assurance that faith brings. Having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Guys, we get to be in God’s presence. Our hearts are sprinkled clean, unlike the size of the altar, our hearts are sprinkled clean. We can have sincere confidence as we go to God. So when you get the Communion, if you need Communion, ushers have it in the back.
When you get Communion, I want you to think about what you have. You are blessed. You are blessed. If you’re a follower of Jesus, you have access to God. They could only go so far, but you have access to God. So let’s go to God in prayer and take the Communion. Father, we are so grateful to have this time together today. I know these are deeper things. These are headier things and things that require us to sort of wrap our minds around it. And yet I see so many cool parallels to Jesus. The one door and Jesus being the one door, the place where the sacrifices are made and Jesus being our sacrifice, Jesus cleansing us daily just as the priests had to be cleansed, the lampstand lighting our way, the bread that sustains us, the incense, the prayers of the Saints as you intercede for us and for the arc of the Covenant, for the atonement cover the mercy seat. Thank you, Father, that we get to have a relationship with you and thank you so much that you gave us these symbols and this way of looking at this. And I pray God that we’ll be even more thankful that we can have a relationship with you.
And I pray specifically for those who have not yet embraced the relationship with you or for those who are maybe refusing to do that. I pray that they’ll understand that they are refusing the only access to the Father and help us all to really be grateful and to go after that. Right now we’re about to take the emblems, the bread and the wine, the body and blood of Jesus and I pray that we’ll take it with gratitude and humility. Father, we love you. Thank you for our time together. We pray in Jesus name, amen.