its wiped out. In contrast, the man who has built on the rock, Jesus Christ, remained despite the storm.
The same root word is used in Luke 6:48 as is used here in Hebrews 12:28: Unshakeable. What we are, all that we build on this earth, monuments to man’s ability, it can all be brought crumbling down. But, says our text, we can be eternally thankful to God because what we are receiving from Him cannot be shaken.
If we have surrendered all of our hopes for security and our attempts at have believed that He is our righteousness before God because of His perfect obedience in life and in death, then we are promised that we will be heirs of the eternal, unshakeable kingdom.
Jesus who stood in that small boat and commanded the wind and the waves to cease their torment of His disciples gave us in that action only a small pic- ture of the extent of His rule. And that rule is such that nothing, nothing, can shake His kingdom or the promise to those who are His. Romans 8:38 reads, For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate [or shake] us [loose,] from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Kingdom of Jesus Christ is unshakeable because every shakeable thing,
resurrection has defeated those things. And by His sanctifying work through washed, sometimes scrubbed, away. Jesus saves us and cleanses us because sin cannot enter that unshakeable kingdom.
If you look at Revelation 21 you see that the Kingdom described as the “city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem whose light is the glory of God and of the Lamb.” It is a picture of purity, perfection, and holiness. And it is gratitude for this unshakeable hope that causes us to worship God. We are to be eternally thankful to God that we are not shaken or blown about by the winds of tribu- lation in this life.
As the Psalmist says in Psalm 46, “Though the waters roar and foam and the mountains tremble with the tumult. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved. God will help her right early. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; He utters His voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.” And in gratitude for that gift from God, we worship Him.
Verse 28b The attitude of worship.
In the second part of verse 28 we are urged to offer acceptable worship to God. Acceptable worship. What does that mean?
Have you ever asked yourself as you were leaving the sanctuary, “Was my worship acceptable to God this morning?” I would dare say that most people rarely give thought to what pleases God in worship and instead the tendency is to think simply of what pleases us. How do we like it? How will the congregation respond? Last week as you left the sanctuary was your reaction, “Oh, I liked that!” Or, “He’s a little un- settling?” These are the questions that are asked rather than, “Was my worship an offering acceptable to God?”
May/June 2023
All sorts of inventions of men and women have been brought into the church to make our worship con- temporary, to make it exciting, to lure people into our sanctuaries. Gimmicks used by some churches to because worship is seen as perfor- mance, a spectator event. Worship is in crisis.
The Shorter Catechism 51 asks: “What is forbidden in the second commandment?” The answer it gives is: “The second commandment forbids the worship of God by imag- es, or any way not appointed in His Word.” We are not allowed to wor- ship in any way that we want to but we are to worship God in exactly the way scripture commands us to wor- ship. Now there are differences of in- formed biblical opinion on the extent of that but it is clear that our culture has gone way beyond the bounds. Psalm 121 asks: “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.” worship is the heart condition of the worshipper. When we go to worship we need to ask ourselves, are my hands clean and is my heart pure? In other words, have I committed sin or thought about committing a sin? If so we need to be cleansed. And the joyful motivation for wor- that Jesus Christ cleanses us from sin when we come to Him by faith. Not only will He forgive our sins but He has promised in 1 John to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The very ability to come into the presence of God is the result of the work of God in us. It is a gift.
Jesus says in John 4, “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true wor- shippers will worship the Father in spirit
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