is from Exodus beginning in Exodus chapter 36, verse 8, starting from where we left off last week, and we will skim some of this and then read some of the other. This is the point at which we left off last week. It's found on page 67 of the Bibles that are in your seats. Add some commentary here as we skim through so you see what's going on. What this section of Scripture is, at least the first part of this text, is the account of how God's people begin to make the tabernacle, just as it had been prescribed in earlier chapters, chapters 25 through about 29. We go through this and this was made, this was made, this was made, and what we want to see here is we read this text, is all the things that are part of the tabernacle and its structure and its function. Then at the end of this passage we have some comments about what goes on when this work is completed. Beginning in chapter 36, verse 8 of God's Word is eternally true. This is going to be a real fast skim as you'll notice here. Verse 8 there, you see the beginning of the instructions to building the tabernacle. The tabernacle proper, this was the tent within the courtyard, beginning in chapter 37. You have the account of Bezelow making the ark of the covenant. Verse 10 of the same chapter, chapter 37 verse 10, you have the beginning of the description of the table of the bread of presents being made. Verse 17 of the same chapter, the account of the lampstand being made. Chapter, or verse 25 of the same chapter, then the account of the altar of incense being made. Chapter 38, verse 1, begins the account of the altar of burn offering being made. Verse 8, the account of the basin for washing. Next in verse 9 there's an account of the courtyard was surrounded all these things and then we get to verse 21 and there's an account of the materials that were used for all these things for the tabernacle. Next, chapter 39, verse 1, we get an account of the priestly garments. Those who functioned in the tabernacle were the priests and they wore special clothes. So we see the account of the effod being made in verse 2, verse 8, the breast piece and then other priestly garments being made beginning in verse 22. That brings us to verse 32 of chapter 39. Here begins our reading of this text word for word. So all the work on the tabernacle, the tent of meeting was completed. The Israelites did everything just as the Lord commanded Moses. Then they brought the tabernacle to Moses, the tent and all its furnishings, its clasps, frames, crossbars, posts, and bases. The covering of ramskin's dyed red, the covering of hides of sea cows, and the shielding cougar. The arc of the testimony with its poles and the atonement cover. The table with all its articles and the bread of presents. The pure gold lamp stand with its row of lamps and all its accessories and the oil for the light. The gold altar, the anointing oil, fragrant incense, and the curtain for the entrance to the tent. The bronze altar with its bronze gradient, its poles and all its utensils, the basin with its stand. The curtains of the courtyard with its posts and bases. In the curtain for the entrance to the courtyard, the ropes and tent pegs for the courtyard, all the furnishings for the tabernacle. The tents of meeting and the woven garments worn for ministering in sanctuary. Both the sacred garments for Aaron, the priest, and the garments for his sons when serving his priests. The Israelites had done all the work, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. Moses inspected the work, and saw that they had done it, just as the Lord had commanded. So Moses blessed them. Hereins are reading. Let us give thanks to the Lord for giving us this his word, the word of the Lord. Let us pray. And I hope none of you have thought that I was going to speak of you, or of me. One thing we can do though, one thing we can see though, is around us not lives that we would call perfect, but lives that we would call great. Or perhaps tasks work that we would call great. When I think about this, and you have here printed for you in your bullet in this introductory statement, that work well done can bring great benefits for others. Work well done can bring great benefits for others, and you can think through your life of different things that have been done. Great work things that have been well done, done well, and how it has benefited you. I think about my parents, and how they did a good job in raising me. They did a good job at the task of parenting. My mother was taking me everywhere. I needed to go and encouraging me, and being my fan, and always being there for me, waking me up three or four times in the morning each morning. My personal snooze, and making me breakfast, and getting me out the door, taking me to school, or whatever it was, that I needed. My mother did this for me, or my father, and all the direction, and leadership, and guidance he gave me, and the intensity he infused in me, which I did not have naturally. He gave to me, but in many ways my parents did a very good job of loving me, and directing me, and guiding me, and doing what parents should do. And as I look back at my life, and as I look at my life now, I realize how great was the benefit I received of their job well done. And the faults that you see in me, I'll take credit for, but things that have been helpful to me in my life, they have delivered up to me, and brought to me. Maybe you've been in the opposite situation at work, or in the home, perhaps at work, when you and those you work with have depended on somebody to do a certain task, and that task was not done well. In my family, I know we all have a mutual hate of group projects from school. Did you ever have those in school group projects, and you know the way those work, nobody cares, and so you end up doing all the work, or perhaps you depend on somebody in that project, and everybody's done their part, and one person doesn't. And so the grade suffers, because that one part was not done well. This passage is about work done well. One of the reasons we, I kind of told a half-truth last week, had somebody encourage me this week, one of you say, please don't skip over all that, that you said you were going to skip over. You've told me before that when we come to things again, that you pitch them again anyway, because God and His wisdom has put them there again. But one of the reasons we skimmed over these things, rather than working through them one by one, is they are verbatim repetition of the instructions that were given earlier in this book, the Book of Exodus. And there are verbatim repetitions because God's people, as we see, especially as it gets to the construction of the priestly things, if you look at the end of each section, you see in chapter 39, it says this, this mantra, so to speak, as the Lord commanded Moses, they did this. As the Lord commanded Moses, as the Lord commanded Moses, it occurs over and over again. And finally, we get to this section here in verse 42 of chapter 39, where it says the Israelites have done all the work just as the Lord commanded Moses, if you didn't get that already. Moses inspected the work and saw that they had done it, just as the Lord had commanded. That's the emphasis of this passage here. That the tabernacle and the priestly garments for the functioning of the priests in the tabernacle were all done exactly as the Lord had commanded. Catch you up on some blanks here, you're going to fill in your blanks. The tabernacle, that's your first blank there, the tabernacle and priestly garments, were work well done. Work done just or exactly, that's what's in your brackets there, exactly, as the Lord commanded. They all repeat and then hit that last blank. The tabernacle and priestly garments were work well done. Work done just or exactly as the Lord had commanded. That is, these were things that were perfectly, as your last blank in this series, perfectly constructed. And what's the result of this? We find out what the result of this is right here in this passage. The very last thing that this passage says, the very end of chapter 39. The result is because of a perfect tabernacle, God's people were blessed. There's a lot to this. Because of a perfect tabernacle, God's people were blessed. On the one level, this is true, just flat out. They did it just as the Lord commanded, and some Moses blessed them. They were literally blessed by Moses. But this was also a book that God's people looked back to in years to come. And God's people, in Old Testament times, read the book of Exodus. And they were reminded that their source of blessing in the promised land was that the things in the tabernacle were perfectly constructed. Then when it came to the things of God, they were to do them exactly as the Lord had commanded them. And if they did that, they would receive great blessing. So there's a larger sense of what's going on here when the tabernacle is perfectly constructed. When that's at the center of all of Israel, when the temple is functioning as it should be, when the priests are robed as they should be with 12 stones here and 12 of these and 12 of those. When the priests were representing the people, the 12 tribes of Israel in their sacrifices, God's people received blessing. And when we go through the rest of the Old Testament, we find out that there are some kings who come along that allow the tabernacle or the temple, or rather, to come into disrepair and to fall into disuse. And it's during those times that the people are not blessed. And so this is seminal or foundational or in seed form, a truth for God's people. When you get God, when you get worship right, you receive blessing. So what's the say to us today? We don't have a building. So we can't apply it that way, at least right now to ourselves, but we shouldn't apply it that way either because we find out as we come to the New Testament that this was yet another form or shadow of the reality that would come in Christ. These were all things that spoke about Christ's life and work. And so here's the message for us understanding that this morning, that you and I are blessed. This is your point number one and it's your only point. You and I are blessed because of Jesus' perfect life and perfect work during his life here on the earth. Having said this, we reveal this, that the tabernacle, that's your next blank, the tabernacle, prefigure Jesus' life and work. The tabernacle prefigured Jesus' life and work. And the reason I've skimmed through all these things, but pointed these things out to you, things like the the table of the present, the bread of presence and the lampstand and all these things, they all are demonstrations of what Christ brings to us, the people of God, in the gospel. He is the tabernacle and we get indication of this specifically in John 114 when it tells us that Jesus tabernacled with us. He dwelled with us. We get indication of this further when we get a glimpse of the new heavens and the new earth in Revelation 20 and 21. There is no need for a temple, it tells us, because Christ, the Lamb of God, is the temple. He is, what was the temple? The temple was Christ dwelling among His people. God dwelling in the midst of Israel in this one place in the temple. But Jesus is the temple of God, the final temple of God. You don't need a temple when you're next to Jesus. He's dwelling next to you. You don't need something representative. He's there already. And all these elements of the tabernacle that we see described for us here in these chapters show us something about Jesus' life and work. We're going to walk through what those things are just briefly. If you've been here for months, you had all this preached to you earlier. And so we're just going to hit these things. Just give quick summaries of what all these furniture pieces and things in the tabernacle, how they portray Jesus. One, the materials that are used. We have this list of materials. And the point is that the materials were very costly. Costly spices, costly oils, costly gemstones, costly metals, costly cloth, costly yarn. And this demonstrates that when Jesus comes and when Jesus, the person we have is our tabernacle. It's not just something common, something ordinary. Jesus is not just another man, but the materials here demonstrate they speak to the fact that Jesus is divine. And that's your blank there what you can fill in. Jesus is God. He is the most costly of all heavenly treasures and he comes to earth to tabernacle with us. He's not just a religious leader. He's not just a bright religious guy who has some good ideas for us, but he is God himself. Be the courtyard. Now the courtyard, I've included for you in the back of your bulletins. You can look here now and that'll, I think, help you out here. The courtyard is that outer rectangle that borders the northwest eastern south signifiers there. The courtyard was all of that. And the courtyard for the Jew in Israel was a reminder of sin. When a Jew came into the courtyard, they brought a sacrifice, an animal of some kind. And they came up to that altar of burn offering and that animal that they had brought was slaughtered. And with that reminded them of or anyone who was standing in the courtyard, seen animal after animal slaughtered. It was a reminder and it was to be a reminder to God's people of their sinfulness before a holy God. So how does that relate to Jesus? When Jesus comes on this earth, your blank is the incarnation. The courtyard represents the incarnation. When Jesus comes to this earth, he is entering into the courtyard. He's entering into a place full of sin. And his life is going from that E right there. His entrance into the courtyard, his life is contained between this entrance by that E and that altar of burn offering. His life span on this earth was right there in that space, figuratively speaking. The courtyard was the representative of Jesus, God Himself coming as God and yet as sacrifice. An animal coming, not at the will of his master, but at the will of his father, into this earth to offer up a sacrifice that sins would be transferred to Him and that He would be killed. And that brings us to see the altar of burn offering and your outlines. The altar of burn offering was a precursor of the cross that foreshadowed the cross that Jesus would lay his life down on this altar of burn offering, so to speak, on a cross. And that the sins and the guilt of God's people would be transferred to His head, just like the priest would have the greater of the offering during Old Testament times, would have the offerer placed His hands upon the head of this offering, symbolically transferring guilt and sin from the person to this animal. And then this animal having received this sin upon himself would be slaughtered. This animal would receive the penalty of death that was due for those sins. Indeed, the basin for washing, after all this blood was spilled everywhere, worse than CSI fashion, there was a basin for washing. And Jesus after He offers Himself His own bloody sacrifice up for our sins, receiving the wrath of God, death upon Himself so that we don't have to, so that we can turn around and go our happy way. After Jesus does this, He is resurrected. A water and scripture is often times used as a symbol of God's Spirit. And it is here too. Jesus is in order to approach the presence of God, which is inside the tabernacle proper, is resurrected by the Spirit of God. And the Spirit comes upon Him raising Him physically from His death in the grave and giving Him a physical resurrection so that He can go on and be ascended and go back to the Father, go back to the presence of His Father. So the basin for washing, D represents Jesus' resurrection by the Spirit, is cleansing from the sin He had taken upon Himself that He might again go into His Father's presence. Now, E, the tabernacle itself, this inner tent represents heaven. When Jesus is resurrected He also ascends and He re-enters heaven, that He had left heaven being the place of God's presence. And in this tabernacle it was the place where God was present. The ark of the covenant in the innermost place where it says the most holy there. The ark of the covenant was the throne of God and called that in the Old Testament. So the tabernacle is representative of heaven. The ark is representative of God's throne and we know that Jesus, upon giving Himself as a sacrifice, upon being raised from the dead, ascends to the Father and sits down at the right hand of God upon His throne. And the chief picture we have of heaven in Scripture is a throne room scene. I say a thesis or am I a thesis? We see glimpses of it here and there. And Jesus returns to heaven and sits upon a throne which this ark of the covenant represented. The table of bread outside of this, holy of Holy, the most holy place, represented the fact that Jesus is the bread of life to His people. Provision of God's people is by God. God's presence brings His provision. Jesus calls Himself the bread of life. He who eats of me shall never hunger. He who drinks of me shall never thirst. And so in the gospel we have this message that not only has Jesus sacrificed Himself for us, not only has our king risen and is he sitting in his seat above, reigning for us, fighting for us, giving out commands to His angels to protect us. To fight for us from His heavenly throne but also that He is providing for us as symbolizer, preshown for us in this table of the bread of presence. But also Jesus is to us a lampstand. He said, I am the light of the world. Did He not? And He gives us light. And we hear who have come to faith in Him. Know what it was like before we understood the gospel. Remember that you heard it, you knew Christ died on the cross and it had no connection with your brain or your heart. But then God by His Spirit regenerated you and you understood Christ died for my sins. I've heard that before. I've said that before but I have not understood it. And the lampstand represents that God has given us light. It is allowed our eyes to see. His brought light in the midst of darkness. He has granted us understanding that in that understanding by His Spirit, by the light He gives us first occurred at our point of salvation. But continues to occur for us as by His Spirit He grants us understanding of His words so that we can live in our lives that is not foolish, that is not marked and identified by folly. But that we can live in a way that represents an understanding of God's word, a way that is wise. And then lastly we have mentioned for us the altar of incense. That altar of incense is right outside the presence of God, right outside the throne of God. And we're told in scripture that that altar of incense was a pleasing aroma to God. We're told in the book of Revelation that our prayers are that pleasing aroma that rise up in the heavenly throne room. See, that's what a tabernacle is called a picture or an image of what is above in heaven. And when we pray through the mediation of Jesus, our prayers are heard and they rise and there are pleasing fragrant aroma to the Lord. So this altar of incense represents the intercession of Jesus, the intercession of Jesus. Jesus always lives scripture tells us to give intercession for us. And we would expect that because Jesus is interceded for us at the cross as well, didn't he? He stands before the Father and pleads our case. He intercedes for us. So the tabernacle in its every aspect represents something that Jesus has done for us, something that He has accomplished for us, taking it back to this passage, book of Exodus. Jesus builds the tabernacle. That's His life. Jesus incarnation, His whole life, was coming to earth to build the tabernacle. And He doesn't build it in a renegade way. He doesn't cross over the law of God. He obeys the law of God in every detail, in His attitudes, in His actions, in His words, in every way possible. Even to the point of His parents obeying the law and bringing Him as a child in the eighth day to be circumcised. Jesus lives a perfect life. He lives a life to use the language here of the tabernacle, a life that is just as the Lord, His Father, commanded. And at the end of His life, He speaks to His disciples. And in John 16, He talks about righteousness. And the spirit of God would convict the world, convince the world that He was righteous, that He had lived the life that was just as the Lord commanded. See the disciples had caused for wonder on this. Because the Pharisees were calling Jesus a sinner. Because Jesus associated with sinners and was coming up with interpretations of the law that were different from their own. The quick answer to that was, he was right and they were way wrong. But in their wrongness, they were accusing Jesus of being a sinner and of someone who misled the people. And Jesus said, I'll tell you how to determine who's right and who's wrong. Who's righteous and who's unrighteous? Jesus said, the spirit of God will convict the world concerning righteousness because I go to the Father. My life, my words, have not excluded me from being in the unmediated presence of the Father. My life, my words, my attitudes, my actions, everything I have done has been just as the Lord commanded. So I go to the Father. I present my life as a tabernacle and say, just as the people here did before Moses, here it is, we've done it just as you commanded or just the Lord commanded through you in the case of Moses. And Jesus does that with his life. He says, Father on the cross, it is finished. The tabernacles of my life that you have commanded me to do is finished, therefore, receive my spirit. Into your hands, I commit my spirit. It is finished. The tabernacle is completed. Inspect it. And the Father does. And the Father is pleased. And the Father blesses his son by raising him to life, by ascending him up to him, by sitting him down at his right hands and blessing him. And we being his people, we being those who scripture calls in Christ, are blessed because we are in Christ. Because we have a perfect tabernacle, don't we? And just like the Israelites in the Old Testament, who could count on being blessed by God because the tabernacle was perfect. Who could count on being blessed by God because the priests were performing their roles just as they were supposed to perform their roles? We too, can say, our tabernacle is perfect. All these things were done. Jesus was incarnated. He offered Himself on the altar, burnt offering. He was washed in His resurrection and rose up to heaven. And He now, from His throne, the ark of the covenant, intercedes for us as His altar of incense and indicates. He gives His bread for life. He feeds us. He sustains us spiritually and physically. And He gives us the light of life, life by which to live. Spiritual life by which to live, understanding that the world ourselves and of others through His word guided by His Spirit. So to catch up here, your next blank, Jesus' life and work was the tabernacle. All this mess with gathering stuff and constructing things by the Spirit of God was all to show us what Christ would do and be for us. Jesus' life and work was the tabernacle perfectly constructed just as the Lord commanded. Perfect. There's a connection with that passage we read from Matthew 5 this morning. Jesus said, you've heard that it was said, love your neighbor or love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love everybody. Pray for those who persecute you. And then you'll be sons of my father. And He ends up with this strange phrase that we have trouble with. Be perfect, therefore, just as my Heavenly Father's perfect. The gospel is always something that points us to Christ. And we always see our failures in the gospel. We see that we can't present a perfect life to God and say inspect me. Hey, I've got great confidence. Look at me. I can't wait to get in there. We can't do that. We don't have a perfect life. But we rejoice in the fact that Christ had a perfect life and we are in Christ and we get in by virtue of Him. And so that's the gospel. Last week we talked about the gospel is that life is not about you. And one of the reasons that's good news is that the gospel were about us. We would be in hell. If the gospel were about ourselves having perfect lives, we would all be in hell. But the good news is it's not about us. It's about Jesus. It's not about us living a perfect life creating a perfect tabernacle, so to speak. It's about Jesus being a perfect tabernacle. The gospel also always gives us an example. And the New Testament writers, in addition to pointing us to Christ and telling us, He did it perfectly. It always says, now you go and do the same. Ephesians 4, forgive others because you've been forgiven. Or Jesus tells that parable who can be forgiven as such a great debt by their king and then go out and imprison somebody who owes them a small debt. Live out the gospel in your life. Conduct your life in a manner worthy of the gospel. And Jesus spells out in Matthew 5 in the 40s that passage we looked at how He lived His life. What is gospel living? Jesus' life was praying for those who persecuted Him. On the cross He says, Father, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. And so Jesus rightly stands in the sermon on the mountain and says, do as I do. Don't just love those who love them, who love you, even the pagans, the worst of people do that. Love those, love your neighbor, whether He's your enemy or your friend. Pray for your neighbor, whether He's your friend or your enemy. That's the gospel. I have come and as a man have loved you who persecute me, have loved you who hate me. Jesus says, he who loves me obeys my commandments and none of us obeys commandments in their entirety. And prior to coming to Christ, we are described by Scripture as being haters of God. And Jesus came before we are even born and loved us. Died for unrighteous people. As Romans 5 the passages do read other passages to read for us this morning. He did that. This is the perfect life. This is the mature life. It's what Jesus did and Jesus says go and do the same. The tabernacle was about that. It was about loving God and loving others. If you loved others, you desired for the tabernacle to be perfect so that your neighbors could get their sins forgiven too. If you loved God, you desired for the tabernacle to be perfect because it represented God in the world. Jesus' work, this is your blank, consisted of loving His Father and His neighbor. This whole life was lived in obedience to His Father because He loved His Father. This whole life was lived in obedience to His Father's, the same to Him Jesus you go and you be the sacrifice. Jesus' life is marked by Him loving us. And that's your next blank. The gospel is that all Jesus' work was to love us. The reason He came, the reason He did all that He did was to love us. Therefore He tells us love others that's your last blank. Love others as I have loved you. Jesus' life was a perfect tabernacle because He loved us. He wanted to be before the Father, a perfect tabernacle so that the Father would bless Him and in the blessing of Him that we would be blessed. And as we see this, we say in our lives that we are to emulate this. We are to emulate this perfect tabernacle life a life that perfectly loves God and loves neighbor. Now we won't be perfect, but that is our aim. That's the example of the gospel. And through our example, our brothers and sisters will rejoice because we will treat them as Christ has treated us. And as we live out this example, the gospel, others who are non-believers, we'll see it as well. Being a Christian must mean that God forgives because this Christian person that have kind of made fun of in the past has forgiven me and treated me with grace and kindness when I've kind of not been the nice sky to Him. Jesus did that in His life. That was His perfect tabernacle life. And that's the life we are to emulate. Let us pray. Our God and our Father, we are amazed that you have done these things. That you saw to this tabernacle being created just as it was and that all these elements of it were appreciating of what Jesus would do and say and be when you came to this earth. Thank you for entering into the tabernacle the outer courtyard of this life in your incarnation. Thank you for doing that, entering in all the while, headed to the altar, burn off in your cross. That our sins might be placed upon your head and that you might take upon yourself the wrath of your Father against our sin. That we might be forgiven. Lord, we also rejoice that you were raised from the dead by your spirit. That you have ascended on high and sat down at the right hand of God upon your throne seat and from that seat you rule and reign for our benefit. You intercede for us, you give us nourish ourselves, you give us light, understanding of you, your gospel, our lives and ourselves that we might not live aimlessly and folly but that we might live wisely in a way that brings glory to you. So thank you for being light of the world, bread of life, one who intercedes and reigns as came for us having been risen from the dead. We declare you the perfect who dwells with us, cause us to be an example of your loving us and loving your Father. To each other and to the world, we ask in Christ sleep, Amen.