We will be looking at this morning, verses 1 through 33. Then the Lord said to Moses, set up the tabernacle, the tentative meeting, on the first day of the first month. Place the ark of the testimony in it and shield the ark with the curtain. Bring in the table and set out what belongs on it, then bring in the lamp stand and set up its lamps. Place the gold altar of incense in front of the ark of the testimony and put the curtain at the entrance to the tabernacle. Place the altar of burn offering in front of the entrance to the tabernacle, the tentative meeting. Place the basin between the tentative meeting and the altar and put water in it. Set up the courtyard around it and put the curtain at the entrance to the courtyard. Take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and everything in it. Concentrate it in all its furnishings and it will be holy. Anoint the altar of burn offering in all its utensils. Concentrate the altar and it will be most holy. Anoint the basin and it stand and consecrate them. Bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance to the tentative meeting and wash them with water. Then dress Aaron in the sacred garments, anoint him and consecrate him so he may serve me as priest. Bring his sons and dress them in tunics, anoint them just as you anointed their father so that they may serve me as priest. Their anointing will be to a priesthood that will continue for all generations to come. Moses did everything just as the Lord commanded him. So the tabernacle was set up on the first day of the first month in the second year. When Moses set up the tabernacle, he put the bases in place, erected the frames, inserted the crossbars and set up the posts. Then he spread the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering over the tent as the Lord commanded him. He took the testimony and placed it in the ark, attached the poles to the ark and put the atonement cover over it. Then he brought the ark into the tabernacle and hung the shielding curtain and shielded the ark of the testimony as the Lord commanded him. Moses placed the table in the tent of meeting on the north side of the tabernacle outside the curtain and set out the bread on it before the Lord as the Lord commanded him. He placed the lampstand in the tent of meeting opposite the table on the south side of the tabernacle and set up the lamps before the Lord as the Lord commanded him. Moses placed the gold altar in the tent of meeting in front of the curtain and burned fragrant incense on it as the Lord commanded him. When he put up the curtain at the entrance to the tabernacle, he set the altar burnt offering near the entrance to the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, and offered on it burn offerings and grain offerings as the Lord commanded him. He placed the basin between the tent of meeting and the altar and put water in it for washing and Moses and Aaron and his sons used it to wash their hands and feet. They washed whenever they entered the tent of meeting or approached the altar as the Lord commanded Moses. Then Moses set up the courtyard around the tabernacle and altar and put up the curtain at the entrance to the courtyard, and so Moses finished the work. Here ends our reading. We have a response of thankfulness to the Lord, printed for you in your bulletin. Let us give thanks to the Lord. The Word of the Lord, let us pray, our God and Father, we are dependent upon you to understand this your word. You inspired this your word by your spirit through the prophet Moses, and these words are the words you wanted written down for our benefit and for your glory. So we ask that you would use these words in the preaching of this your word, for our benefit that we might know you and know your love more, that we might know what it is we are to do, how it is we are to think, what our attitudes are to be, and so that you might be glorified. So Jesus we ask that you would preach to us now by your spirit through this your word, that you would cause our hearts by your spirit, our minds by your spirit, to understand and take it in, cause us not to be resistant to your truth as it rebukes and instructs and corrects us and trains us, but causes to understand you are our loving Father who wants the very best for us and therefore you teach us, teach us by this your word by the work of your spirit we ask in Christ's name. Amen.
All of us have had or maybe currently have parents, maybe some of us have had coaches, all of us have had teachers, some of us have had instructors in various things, maybe you've played an instrument or are playing an instrument and you have somebody who is teaching you, all of us take on that role of student and instructor or player in our lives. And we know if we think about
it that it makes a great difference in our development in that role. If our instructor or our parent or our teacher or our coach, if their goal is not to look for something in us to criticize
or to blame, we know how it is when that is the case, don't we? I've had coaches that have been great, that have been my cheerleaders, so to speak, that have wanted me to do well. And in those environments it's been very easy to thrive, but I've also had coaches where
they are looking for people to blame, they're the ones that are angry when you're not winning the game, but when you have an instructor or a teacher or a coach or a parent whose goal is your development, whose goal is you developing, getting better for you, winning for you, succeeding
than that makes a great, great difference for us. Because we know when we're out there, they're for us, they're rooting for us, they are doing things and saying things and responding to us in a way that helps us develop.
I had a good experience when I was a senior playing basketball in high school, and I was a slow developer in basketball and signed up to try it out for the, I played all along, but after my sophomore year playing on the junior varsity or not playing on the junior varsity as was more the case. When I came to my senior year there were a bunch of us like that, some of you have heard this before and about five of us who were juniors, signed up to try out for the junior varsity team as a junior, as juniors. And so we did, and so almost all are starting line up that year for the five of us were juniors, playing junior varsity, wanting to get more game experience and develop as players that year, and it worked because the next year or senior year we had developed, we had gotten playing time that we wouldn't have gotten, had we been on the varsity squad and we were better players, we had developed. But both of those years, my junior year under that junior varsity coach and my senior year, under that varsity coach, we had coaches who were for us and my mother was surprised a bit about a month ago or I guess it was at the end of December when we were up visiting and I told her that my varsity coaches, both the head coach and the assistant who went on to be a varsity coach at another school, had always really been for us. They were always glad when we were succeeding and aching when we did things wrong and even when they yelled at us, see I didn't play that much my senior year. I was a better player but I was generally six to eighth man, I started one game. But it was a good year because these coaches even though they didn't play me as much as I thought I should have been player as much as my parents thought I should have been player, they were for me. And we knew as players when they yelled at us, it was because they knew we could do better. And they knew it was a great and joyful thing to do better and to play like they knew we could play. But because that basis was underneath us, that we had their confidence, we responded well as players to them. And even when we got chewed out, we knew they were for us. And then if anyone from the outside criticized us, that they would be the first to stand up for us, that they would be our promoters. What's the point in all this? If you like to fill out blanks and an outline you're invited to do so you don't have to. But here's the point what we see in this passage, when we know we're loved, that's your blank love, when we know we're loved we act differently. See my classmates and I played basketball that senior year, we had all been together our sophomore year on the junior varsity. And we had a coach that was different he left after that year, after a sophomore year. And he would yell at us at halftime, he would yell at us after the game, he would yell at us after practice. And he was looking for somebody to blame. So we all knew he had been a head hunting for a head varsity position for a couple of years. And he was using, we were a team of good talent, mostly my teammates. And we were his ticket to a varsity position. And so when we didn't play well he was mad not because he wanted us to enjoy the game better by winning, but because it was ruining his chances to get a varsity position the next year. And we all knew it. And in fact one day at halftime, he said, guys I love you. And I tell you the talk after that game, all of us knew that wasn't the case. Do you hear what coach said that? Everybody went, and it hurt us in our play out there on the court. We knew if we blew it, we were in for a lashing. We were to come back to a bench not to be developed, but to be torn down. But as we look at the tabernacle here, we get reminded that God loves us. And this makes a difference for us. And how we act, and how we respond to God, when we're rebuked by Him in His Word or we're more instructed by Him. But first the tabernacle reminds us of many things as we see it here, but it reminds us first of our own sin. Someone who loves us doesn't just, someone who's interested in our development doesn't just tell us you're good, you're good, you're good, you're good, but they help us when we're weak, and when we are not good, when we're bad. And God was about doing that with the tabernacle. The tabernacle reminds us as it reminded God's people during the days of Moses that your point number one here, that we are sinful. And the God should rightly reject us. That's what the tabernacle reminds us of. We get out there on the court or we play the piano and we blow it. We don't do certain things well. And the tabernacle reminds us of this. That is to continue on and you're outlining the components of the tabernacle. That's your blank. The components of the tabernacle remind us of our separation from God. The components of the tabernacle remind us of our separation from God. Verse three, we have all these markers or separators or curtains that exist between us, God's people. In these various things that represent the presence of God. Verse three, God tells Moses, place the ark of the testimony in it, into the ark, and shield the ark with the curtain. Now I've printed for you on the back of your bulletins this week. Go ahead and look there on the back of it. A bird's eye view of the tabernacle. And what was in the tabernacle and the entrance of the tabernacle was over by the e there, on the e side. And you would enter in the first thing you'd come to is the altar burn offering, then the bronze, a wash basin or laver there. And then inside of that is a rectangle that's the tabernacle. Okay, the outer rectangle is the courtyard. But the inner rectangle is that tabernacle there. And inside the tabernacle was the table of show bread, the bread of God, the presence of God, a lamp stand that was gold, an altar of incense that was gold. And then there was another barrier, a curtain before somebody, only the high priest once a year could get in there to where the ark of the covenant was. And that ark of the covenant was the footstool of God. It was the place where God was present, resident among his people. But in the midst of having all these markers of God's presence and God's benefits for his people, there are reminders of sin and separation from God based on that sin. And so verse three, God says, shield the ark with a curtain. That curtain went on that right side of that inner square. If you look to the right of the ark of the covenant, you see the line marking the edge of the holy, the most holy place. And there was a curtain that went right there so nobody could get in during most of the year. Verse five in this passage here, God tells Moses, place the gold altar of incense in front of the ark of the testimony and put the curtain at the entrance to the tabernacle. So there was another curtain, there was a doorway, but a curtain on the far right of that inner rectangle. So in other words, in between the table of show bread and the golden lamp stand on the left. In the bronze labor on the right, there was a doorway, but there was a curtain separating God's people from God's presence in a second way. A curtain at the edge of the tabernacle on the right, a curtain on the edge of the holy of holies at the right. So the God's people were separated from God's presence at the ark of the covenant. Furthermore, verse eight in this passage, God tells Moses, set up the courtyard around it and put up the curtain at the entrance to the courtyard. So even beyond that, in everyday life, God's people were around a tabernacle, a sign of God's presence, but that there was a curtain at the front of that tabernacle. It wasn't an open door. There was another separator, a third separator, a third curtain separating God's people from God's presence upon the ark of the covenant. And then, verse 33, then Moses set up the courtyard around the tabernacle and put up the curtain at the entrance to the courtyard, and so Moses finished the work. Separators, separators, separators. The tabernacle, as it stood, reminded God's people that they were separated from God from His presence because of their sin. It reminded them that God was holy and that they were marred by sin, that they had the the guck of sin upon them, that the wash basin there in the middle, even the priests, had to wash their hands and their feet in order to cross one of the barriers, one of the separators between them and God's presence. So the components of the tabernacle reminded God's people of their separation from God, and we see that in the New Testament as well. Romans 323 for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God. We are separated from God because of our sin. God is holy. God is righteous. And we are not. In our actions, we sin in our words, in our thoughts, in our deeds. And this would rightly separate us from God. That's what the tabernacle shows us. But the tabernacle shows us something else. The components of the tabernacle also point out that not only are we separated from God, but that we are sinful. That's your next blank there. The components remind us of our sinfulness. The components of the tabernacle, as we think about these things, this New Testament believers, they remind us of our sinfulness. At the very center of the tabernacle, the testimony which is a term that describes the two tablets of the Ten Commandments. That's the testimony. Two tablets of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments were separated from us and were placed at the very center in the Ark of the Covenant. But over the, in between God's law and us, separating us from God's law, it's not just a cover, but what's called in Scripture an atonement cover. And this is a reminder to us of our sinfulness. Our sins need to have atonement. We need to have atonement. We need to have God's wrath satisfied against us because when God looks upon those commandments, and when we look upon those commandments, we see that we are covenant breakers. We are transgressors of those commandments. The Ten Commandments remind us that we sin. And so God places over that set of commandments, an atonement cover. And it's a reminder to us that we're not the good guys. We're not the guys that are keeping the Ten Commandments. We are, as God's people, just as Old Testament folks under Moses, as God's people are the ones who sin. They're the ones for whom the atonement cover is made. And that speaks us today as New Testament believers. Jesus' death was an atonement. His blood covers the fact, just like blood covered the atonement cover on the day of atonement, back during the day of Moses. Jesus' blood covers over the fact that we break his law. We need the blood of Jesus. And when we confess our sins, we are in effect saying, Jesus, we need your blood to cover my transgression, my transgression of your law. Jesus' death, the cross, is a remindment. As Jesus' tabernacle, we talked about that last week. Jesus is what the tabernacle foreshadowed. Jesus' death points to the fact that we are sinful. What we look elsewhere, the bronze altar, the altar burnt offering, there toward the right by the e there. That was a reminder that our sins deserve death. Another reminder of our sinfulness, the priests had to wash their hands and their feet, verse 31, the wash basin before entering the tabernacle, the place of God's presence. This is a symbol to us of our sinful state. Even our priests, even our go-betweens, after we bring, as in Israelite, we bring to the altar, burn offering a sacrifice. And after the priest gives that sacrifice, he turns around, and before he can enter into the tabernacle, he needs to wash because he is stained with the blood of sin. So the tabernacle reminds us that we, as God's people, we as the people in covenant with God, are sinful. We're separated from him, we're sinful. These are reminders to us of our repetitive sin. God uses the tabernacle to remind us of our sin, to remind us of the separation we deserve. And Jesus is tabernacle, as the one who has given himself, as the offering on the altar, burn offering, as the one who has been washed by the Spirit and resurrected from the dead, as the one who has gone into the very dwelling of God, and who inner seeds for us is the altar of incense, symbolize the one who has taken his place upon the seat of the throne in heaven that the right hand of God, having ascended on high, represented for us by the ark of the covenant, we think of these things in Jesus' life, and we realize it is our sinfulness that has brought these things upon Jesus. And these things, Jesus' life, Jesus' cross, is a reminder of our repetitive sin. You ever remind your kids, a few of kids, of their own sin or shortcomings out of your love for them? I do it when I've done something for one of my kids, and you ever do this, and you say, you're welcome? Don't mention it. So the girls will say, oh, thank you. God reminds us through the life and death of Jesus that we are sinful, and that we have needed him, and that we are recipients of his grace. So, first of all, as we see this tabernacle this morning, we remind it that we are sinful, and God should rightly reject this. But beyond this, this tabernacle reminds us of better things. God doesn't leave us there, and tell us that we are sinful, and go the other way. But, secondly, this morning God says to you and to me that he loves you by Christ. That's your blank. God loves you by Christ. What would God have you do about this? Here's what. He wants you to, next blank, believe, believe his love for you. The tabernacle is not only a reminder to God's people of their sinfulness, but it was a reminder of God's people of his love for them, and it was a repetitive reminder. Over and over again, these elements, these furnishings, these garments of the priests, the actions that occurred in the tabernacle were reminders of God's people over and over again of how much he loved them. In the components of the tabernacle and its priests, which Jesus fulfills, we see God in way after way after way prove his love. That's your blank. Prove his love for you, his people. As you look again at the outline of the tabernacle on the back of your bulletin, we see the outer curtain to the courtyard. It's not only a reminder of separation from the presence of God, but it's a reminder of entrance to a place closer to the presence of God that God grants to his people. How does his love for them? God's people could enter. Yes, there was a curtain, but there was a door, and they could enter that door through the shoving of that curtain aside and come to a place where God was present. You know, if you have started dating someone, if you remember back, if you're married, when you were first dating your spouse, remember what you wanted to do. You wanted to be near them. You wanted to go out. You wanted to do something together. You wanted to be together. You wanted to go places together. You wanted to be near them. Why? Because you cared for them. And God does this thing with his people with the tabernacle. He wants his people near to him, and so he doesn't transport them or teleport them up to heaven, but what he does is he comes down, and he says, I will be present among you in this tabernacle. And he has them build this tabernacle structure and he builds a door for them so they can be close to his presence. But beyond this, the altar of birth offering, in addition to it being a reminder of sin, it was also a reminder that God cared to take care of that sin problem because God instructed with that bronze altar of birth offering, that God's people would come with an animal sacrifice, and that they were required to place their hands upon the head of this sacrifice. And God told his people through the law of Moses that when they did this, that God would consider it that their sin had been symbolically really transferred away from them to this animal sacrifice. And that when this animal sacrifice was killed, when this animal sacrifice received the death penalty, the death penalty that was due upon the bringer of this sacrifice was fulfilled upon this animal. And that was a reminder time after time after time, as often as one brought a sacrifice, that God loved him or her, the bringer of this sacrifice. The God had provided a way of having the guilt of sin removed. For us this animal to speak very crudely but truly is Christ. God has transferred our sin upon the head of Christ and Christ has endured the death penalty that we deserved because God loves us. So we look at the cross and we say a reminder of my sin, but we look at the cross and we say a reminder of God's love for me, for he transferred my sin upon his own son and killed his son, spilled out all his wrath against my sin upon another upon Jesus. The atonement cover that sat upon the ark of the covenant, that in one way was a reminder of my separation from God. A separation from God's presence is also a reminder of God's love because God used that atonement cover to place blood of an animal sacrifice on the day of atonement. He placed blood upon that cover and the blood sat there upon this cover and shielded God's law from his eyes above. So then instead of God looking down upon his law and seeing a reminder of how we've disobeyed him over and over again instead he sees blood. He sees that the guilt of transgressing this law has been taken care of through the death of a sacrifice. In Jesus' death is that atoning sacrifice for us. The New Testament tells us, quote, in the Old Testament, without blood. There's no forgiveness of transgression. In Jesus' blood was spilled for us, we celebrate it when we celebrate the Lord's suffer as atonement blood covering over the fact that we've disobeyed the law of God. And so when we think of this atonement cover, we again think of God's love for us, that Jesus spilled his blood so that our transgression against his law would be covered over, that his love would cover a multitude of our sins. But more in the priests, their reminder that God provides for us, that God loves us, he ordains the priests to represent God's people before God. After the sacrifice he washes them clean from your sins so that they can enter the presence of God and they enter representing you with 12 stones representing the 12 tribes of Israel. They go in on behalf of God's people and through these priests, one of us, a priest, a high priest every year, gets in to see the presence of God. We have entrance to the very presence of God because we have a high priest, not a high priest back during Old Testament times going into this physical tabernacle on the earth, but our high priest is Jesus and he brings his own sacrifice of himself. He receives the sacrifice as priest. God transfers our sins upon his head as our sacrifice and he offers himself, presents himself as a dead sacrifice before God. But God raises them again by the spirits represented by water. By the spirit of God he is raised to new life and he enters into the tabernacle above of heaven and goes back to the very presence of God and is seated by God at God's right hands on a throne which this arc of the covenant represented. And Jesus comes before the presence of God, not with 12 stones upon his chest, 12 this and 12 that but he comes with our names written in his hands.
He gets us access to the presence of God so that we are no longer separated from God so that our sin has not been a barrier. He fulfills all this tabernacle structure and action so that we can be present with God. When we die our souls present with him in heaven. When Jesus returns that we body and soul are present with him in the new heavens and the new earth, he has taken care of us, his life, his actions are actions of love toward us that we might be with God. The lamp in the table that are in the tabernacle representing heaven, representing God giving us light and understanding of his word, the gospel, scripture, the bread of presence representing the fact that God provides for spiritually and physically in our lives. He is the bread of life. He who comes to me, I am the bread of life, Jesus says, he who comes to me shall never hunger. He who drinks from me shall never thirst. The tablets, the testimony in the arc of the covenant represent the fact that God loves us. Sure, the remind us that we transgress God's law, but the remind us that God loves us. He loves us like a loving father loves us. A loving father tells us what to do and what not to do. He tells us what will get us in trouble in life. He tells us what will bring success to us in life. He instructs us that we might succeed. God does that with his moral law. He gives it to us that we might not screw ourselves up so badly and mess up those around us. He does that because He loves us. So the message of this, there was a man, a PCA pastor in years past, who has gone to be with the Lord. He died about 98 and he said the gospel can be summed up like this. You're a lot more sinful than you realize and you're a lot more loved than you realize. That's the gospel. The gospel is the message that we are more sinful than we acknowledge. We are more loved than we could ever imagine. Now, how does this belief in this gospel message communicated for us in the tabernacle? He's blatant, gruesome reminders of our separation and sin. He's blatant and wonderful reminders of God's love for us. How do they change you and me? Well, they change us in at least a couple of ways. One, an action point for us here. When we understand how great is our sin and how much greater is God's love for us, our action that God would have us take is that we would be free. That's your blank. Be free in confessing our sin. God wants us to be free in confessing our sin to him, to God. That's your next blank here and to others. And going on in your outline, when you know that God knows that's your blank nose, KNO, WS. When God knows of your sin and loves you, you become freed up from hiding your sin. Our tendency, our natures within us, are being employed by somebody, or at least having customers of our self-employed, tells us that we have to hide our sin to be accepted and esteemed and valued. And so, when we're in class, we hide the fact that we don't know something. When we're playing the piano in front of an instructor, we hide the fact that we have trouble with a certain thing. Or when we're playing on an athletic team, we hide the fact that our skill is low at a certain point. Because we think if we're found out, we'll be yelled at, or criticized, or fired, or that we won't get playing time, whatever the case may be, or that we'll get seated in a twelfth chair instead of first chair, if we're in a band or an orchestra. But the good news of the gospel is that God knows our greatest weaknesses. He knows our own sin more than we know our sin ourselves. And in full knowledge of that, he loves us. And that frees us up to confess our sins. That's the message of Tabernacle. God says, hey, I've put all these things here. I know you guys sin, but come with your animal sacrifices. Priests, do your work because I know that you sin and know this. I love you. So bring your sacrifices and give thanks to me and confess your sins and put your hands on the top of that animal sacrifice and rejoice knowing that you're loved. This is great implications for us. It means we don't have to hide from God. It means we don't have to try to fool him. It means we don't have to try to fool ourselves into thinking that we're better than we are. Oh, I do that well or I don't have a problem with that. That's one of the most freeing things for me when I went to seminary to be around a bunch of people that understood the biblical doctrine of our depravity, of our resident sin within us. And these folks freely admitted it. They didn't brag about it, but they said, oh, man, I have so much trouble with that. We don't have to worry about what our brother or sister in Christ thinks about us when we confess our sin because we're so abundantly loved and taken care of by God. And as we understand the gospel more and more as a church, as a community, we come to the place where we're able to confess our sins to each other more and more and not meet condemnation. Oh, I'd never do that. But oh, man, I have trouble with that too. With sympathy. When a coach or piano instructor or parent is all about your success, there's a difference. If I know that my coach is committed to me becoming a better player, I can come to that coach and not hide the fact that I don't do a certain thing. Well, I can come to that coach and I can say, coach, I have trouble with this. Is there any way that you've thought about this or mentally? What are you thinking about? What should I be thinking about when I do this? Are there any drills I can do to practices to develop in this weakness that I have? If I know my coach is committed to me becoming better, I can come to him with weaknesses. I can confess my sins, so to speak. But if I believe that my coach is my judge, I will hide it. And the message is this, God is judge, but he's no longer your judge. He has been your judge in Christ death and the cross, and he has pronounced your judgment upon Jesus. And his desire, his goal for you is for you to develop as he always wanted you to develop before sin entered this world. He wants to produce the fruit of the spirit in you. He wants to develop you into a more gospel-oriented person, a more gracious and loving and patient and forgiving person.
God is no longer our judge. Jesus said it in John 3, for those of you who believed you've already passed out of judgments. This is why in our order of worship we do something a little bit funny. Normally, in an order of worship there's the confession of sin and then a declaration of the gospel or declaration of pardon or an assurance of pardon if you've been in liturgical services that have the definite order of worship before. But why do we do this declaration the gospel before we confess our sins? It's because we're more free to confess our sins when we're assured beforehand that they're already forgiven. We want to be free to come before the Lord and confess everything we've done and to say yes, Lord, I need your blood here too. And I need your blood here too. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for assuring me of your gospel truth. Now here I confess my sin to you. That frees us up and our souls, doesn't it? When we can confess freely, when we don't have to pretend to be spiritual before God, when we don't have to pretend to be spiritual before others. You know, I'm a being, you know, I'm a pastor. Oh, really? You know, as a pastor, when people find out I'm a pastor, when they're not believers, but they've had some kind of church background, 80% of the time. The first thing that then comes out of their mouth is one of two things. One, they apologize to me for the language they've been using, which I don't mind, but they think they need to apologize. But usually the thing that comes out of their mouth is their most spiritual deed that they've ever done in their entire life. Or they profess, oh, I think that's great. That's just great. You know, pastors are great in all this, all this kind of thing. They're pretending. You've heard this and you know this. You know, maybe you're from a family and you're the only believer and you're an adult. And so when people come around you, they know you've gone religious and so they come to you and they say their most spiritual thing, or they say, yeah, I heard this pastor once and they tell you some story and the more they speak, the more unspiritual you realize they are. But they're still living under this system where they think I'm not accepted by God and indeed they aren't if they don't have faith. So what does this mean to us? The tabernacle that God loves us greatly, that we're more loved than we dare dream imagine, even though God knows that we're more sinful than we even know. It means interactions that we're free to confess our sins to God and to others. We're free to be humble. But there's at least one other way that belief in this gospel changes you and me. And it's in our attitude toward God. That's your viewpoint here. What attitude changes? God says to you and I this morning, be reverent. Be reverent toward God because of this great love. Be reverent toward God because of this great love. You didn't do any of this. You didn't come up with the tabernacle structure. You didn't come out with an outline of Jesus' life. What Jesus would have to do so you could be acceptable to God. You didn't force God's hand or blackmail him to do it. Nothing like that. You had nothing to do with this. God did it. God made the tabernacle. God put Jesus upon this earth. The Father put him here. Jesus willingly came here. God did it all. And that makes us referent. God, I didn't deserve the midst of the tabernacle. We say, God, I didn't deserve any of this. I didn't deserve my sins to be forgiven. I didn't deserve your love. I don't deserve your love. I never will deserve your love. Your next blanks here. God has ordained. That's your blank. God has ordained your forgiveness through a tabernacle and a priest who is Jesus. God has ordained.