NewCity Orlando Sermons

Hebrews: Unshakeable | Hebrews 12:18-29

• NewCity Orlando

Share episode

In this sermon on Hebrews 12:18–29, Pastoral Resident Kenneth Dyches leads us into a powerful reflection on the awe-inspiring contrast between Mount Sinai and Mount Zion. He unpacks how the author of Hebrews uses these two mountains to show the radical difference between the old and new covenants — one marked by fear and trembling, the other by joyful access to God through Christ. Kenneth emphasizes that, as followers of Jesus, we are not approaching a place of terror, but a kingdom that cannot be shaken, where grace invites us into reverent and awe-filled worship.

Kenneth calls us to examine what it means to live as citizens of this unshakeable kingdom — to respond to God’s voice with faith and obedience, and to embrace worship marked by reverence and wonder. This message urges the church to hold fast to the hope we have in Christ, whose blood speaks a better word and who invites us to live with confidence in His enduring reign.

Rev. Dr. Damein Schitter:

Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening.

Raquel West:

Pray this prayer of illumination with me. Heavenly Father, your word is truth. By your spirit, give us ears to hear and hearts to believe your word with joy, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. Today's scripture comes from Hebrews 12, 18 through 29. Today's scripture comes from Hebrews 12, 18 through 29.

Raquel West:

For you have not come to what may be touched a blazing fire and darkness and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further message be spoken to them, for they could not endure the order that was given. If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said. I tremble with fear, but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See that you do not refuse him who is speaking? For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth? Much less will we escape if we reject who warns from heaven.

Raquel West:

At that time, his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised yet once more. I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This phrase yet once more indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is, things that have been made in order that the things that cannot be shaken remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. This is God's word. Thanks be to God, you may be seated.

Kenneth Dyches:

Good morning. Some of you in here run long distances and do that competitively, called marathons. I don't understand how you do that. I do like cardio, you know, just running on a treadmill and I've been doing it for a while and I look at the clock and I realize three minutes have gone by and I'm like I can't do this. I just can't do it. So good on you all who are able to do that.

Kenneth Dyches:

But I want to tell you a little bit about Meb Keflizigi. So, meb, he actually was a, or is an, immigrant. He immigrated here back in 1999 as a 12-year-old and he eventually became an American citizen. But he's known for his prolific marathoning career. He's won a few world-renowned marathons. He's also a silver medalist in the Olympics. He's prolific at what he does.

Kenneth Dyches:

In 2014, he ran the Boston Marathon, and that was significant because the year prior was the terrible tragedy of the bombings of that marathon, and so when he came into that marathon, there was a weightiness and a significance to it. As an American, he really wanted to represent Boston, represent America, represent the victims of that bombing, but an American hadn't won the race in 31 years. On top of that, meb was 38, which is considered well past your prime in marathoning and most people were saying that they didn't think that he had another great win marathon in him. So he came into that race with a lot of detractors a lot of detractors within and without undoubtedly doubting in himself that he could win that race. But he came into the race and as he was running the race he made a bold move. About eight miles in he decided to separate from the rest of the pack and run alone. At one point he had as much as a minute distance between him and the racers behind him. So he was running really well and he said that as he was running his muscles were screaming in pain, right, and he was ready to drop. But he kept praying and praying to God. He was carrying the victims. He actually had a bracelet with their names on him, so he was carrying them also close to his heart because he had written them on his race bib.

Kenneth Dyches:

And as he was running he continued to pray and ask God for strength to continue. As he got near the end of the race, he began to hear the crowd getting louder and he realized that someone was closing in on him. Someone had closed that gap in the last leg of the race, and as he got closer, he could hear the crowd getting louder and louder and louder, and he decided not to turn back because he didn't want to stumble, he didn't want to get distracted, he just wanted to run the race that God had given him. So he continued to pray and to ask the Lord for strength, and Meb did win that race, just by seconds. He beat the younger Kenyan that was right behind him, and so this story of Meb winning this race is a reminder of what he was doing.

Kenneth Dyches:

He was not only running the race for himself. He realized that God is the one who had put him in that race. God was the one who was holding the victory, whether it was him or someone else. He was aligning himself with the purposes of God and drawing upon not his strength, but God's strength, not listening to his flesh, which was screaming at him to stop the race, but listening to the voice of God and depending upon him. We need to do the same. We have voices that, as we are running our races, our detractors from within and from without that invite us to run our races in our own strength, to run them or to listen to the flesh and just quit to go after the things that we want sinfully in our flesh on our own. But Meb had an unshakable faith because he depended upon the Lord, and the Holy Spirit, through our preacher earlier in the same chapter, invites us to lay aside every weight and run with endurance the race that is set before us. And so God is inviting us today to that same thing, to an unshakable faith through which we will be able to endure, not by our own strength, not by the strength of our flesh, but by depending upon the Lord. And so you might ask well, what race are we in? And so there's difficulties in all of our races, whether it's raising children and just the day-to-day grind of trying to love and care for them selflessly, as they go through their own trials at every age, as they go through sickness and as we try to love and care for them.

Kenneth Dyches:

It might look like a job that you show up to every day, that you don't love, that you're ready to quit, but you don't have another one lined up. You don't love your boss, you can't work with your coworkers. You come home disappointed. It might look like finding community. Maybe you've been looking for people to walk alongside you in the faith journey for a long time. You want to be seen and known and loved. You want to be people to rejoice with, people to grieve with, but it's been a struggle to find that and you're not sure why. Maybe you're going to be graduating soon, or maybe you recently graduated. You're looking for a job before or after college and those things are just immense pressures. You're not sure what that job is going to be. You're not going to show if you measure up to your parents' expectations. You're not sure where your income is going to come from. Maybe you're in a health crisis, whether it be you or someone else. Maybe family or friends or spouses have been unfaithful and turned away from you and you're just grieving and you don't really know or understand why or what's going on.

Kenneth Dyches:

In the midst of all of those things, we have three choices. We can depend on our own strength. We can try to push through and do what we are able to do, or we can just give up. We can just pursue the passions of the flesh. We can give in to the lies that we believe. We can go whichever way our heart ends up leading us, or we can turn to God, as Meb did. We can turn to him and offer him all that we have and say we can't do this on our own, we're not able to, and trust that whatever his plan is is good, that he is with us and that he strengthens us. See when our heart, mind and body scream I can't do it, I'm not enough, and the voices around you condemn you. There is good news, because Jesus's blood speaks a better word. My main points today are that, because Jesus speaks a better word, we can look back to Sinai, we can look forward to Zion and we can look up to God. So my first point is because Jesus's blood speaks a better word, we can look back to Sinai.

Kenneth Dyches:

Go ahead and look at verses 18 through 21 in our chapter today Hebrews 12, 18 through 21, which reads for you have not come to what may be touched a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them, for they could not endure the order that was given. If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said. I tremble with fear. This is referencing back to Exodus 19, as God's people, who have just been delivered out of Egypt and seen incredible miracles at the hand of God, are now coming to his presence on the mountain. And let me just read you Exodus 19, 16 through 20.

Kenneth Dyches:

On the morning of the third day, there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like a smoke of a kiln and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, moses spoke and God answered him in thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain, and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up, and so it's no surprise that everyone is trembling.

Kenneth Dyches:

Right, this is like a hurricane mixed with an earthquake, mixed with every other natural disaster you can think of. This is terrifying, and it's terrifying because when a holy and just God speaks to a sinful and unjust people. They are rightly terrified. See, it wasn't just the light show, right? It wasn't just the smoke. It wasn't just the earthquakes, right? Many of us in Florida, we go through hurricanes all the time. We live through it. Sometimes we do hurricane parties. We drink while we are partying together and waiting for it to go by. So it's not just the physical circumstances that are terrifying, it's what they represent. That they know is real that they stand before a holy God and that the consequences of being a sinner in the presence of a holy God are death and separation forever. And so Moses quaked. And yet it makes me wonder why we don't quake.

Kenneth Dyches:

We come in here every Sunday and we believe that we come spiritually into the presence of God. We believe that and we know that we are sinners and that he is holy Moses himself, the mode of deliverance for God's people, who by his own hand saw the waters parted right. He quaked with fear as he came to the mountain. Paul tells us in Romans 3 and 6 why this is. Paul tells us that no one truly seeks for God or does good. He tells us that the law was given to hold the world accountable to that fact, that at the end of the day, everything we do, even when we do good, is truly only for our own benefit. And so the law reveals our sin and three, he tells us the wages of sin is death. And so Israel.

Kenneth Dyches:

When they receive the law, we see what happens is that they try to live it out in their own power or they fully reject God and turn away, and they're just constantly in that cycle, unable to fulfill the law. And so how we know we are doing the same thing, with either running in our own strength or running away from God, is by asking when blank happens, what do I do? And you can think of circumstances you're in, you can think of anything that you're going through. But when that happens, what do you do? If the answer is not listen to God's voice through the scriptures, through prayer, through the body of believers and mature counsel and through submitting to the church, then you are either running away or trying to run in your own power, and you will collapse. God will hold us accountable to all of our sins, to all that we do. That is not in his strength for his glory, and so this is an invitation to tremble as we come into God's presence. There is good reason to tremble. There is sin in our own lives.

Kenneth Dyches:

I don't think anybody in here would say that they love God with all of their hearts, souls and strength. Day in and day out. We are reminded as we look at Sinai, the depth of our sins and, at the final, unless you believe that you have prayed a prayer right, that you come to church, that you lead in City Kids, that you serve, that you are reading the scriptures day in and day out, and so this message is not for you, remember that there will be many who get to heaven and who say Lord, lord, and who have done great works in his name, and Jesus will say I never knew you. There will be many more that do indeed enter the kingdom of heaven and yet see so much of their lives burned up because so much of it was lived in their own strength, looking to idols rather than God. We look to Zion to remember that we serve, or rather Sinai to remember that we serve a holy God who says mine over every inch of our lives.

Kenneth Dyches:

It's said that some people who work on Wall Street can work up to 110 hour work weeks. That's nuts. And there's stories in an article I read recently where some of these workers were reporting on their experiences, and one guy. He said he worked a whole year on one project and one day he took 25 minutes away just to go grab dinner and when he got back his boss yelled and screamed at him because he needed to be at his desk the whole time he worked on this project. Another story was a banker who went to HR and said hey, we've been working 20-hour days every week, and then just a few weeks later he was diagnosed with a failed pancreas after collapsing at home from exhaustion. Doctors said they believed the organ failure that was linked to the banker's heavy workload was to blame.

Kenneth Dyches:

I think a lot of us are working like these analysts, right, we're giving all of ourselves, whether it be to your work, to your family, to the church, to whatever it is that you're pursuing after right, we're giving all of ourselves, whether it be to your work, to your family, to the church, to whatever it is that you're pursuing after right, we give all of ourselves to those things. But eventually we will collapse if we are running in our own strength. We will collapse if we're running after the wrong things. And so how can we stop running in our own strength. Well, that brings me to my second point, that as we look back to Sinai, we also look forward to Zion, because Jesus' blood speaks a better word. Go ahead and look at verses 22 through 24 with me. Verse 22 says but and that's a big but and I like big buts and I cannot lie but that's because this but is leading us to Zion. Right, this is good news we are about to hear. We've looked back and now we're looking forward, and so it's worth acknowledging this transition in the text. So, verse 22,.

Kenneth Dyches:

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge. And so here our author gives us seven sublimities, which are beautiful realities, of what it means to be a child of God. First he says Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. This is to live and dwell in the presence of God. This is what Adam and Eve encountered in the garden before there was sin and brokenness in the world. This is what God is slowly bringing us into, into the new heavens and new earth for all who are in Christ, which is a reality, in which there will be no more pain and no more suffering and every tear will be wiped away, where we will dwell with our God forever. Right, this is what will be, but we know that those of us who are in Christ can already experience this in part.

Kenneth Dyches:

Now we also come to the innumerable angels and festal gathering. See, back at Sinai, there were angels blowing those trumpets that terrified Israel, right, that terrified God's people. But now, in Christ, we come to those innumerable angels in festal gathering in a party. Right, they're just up there going. Right, it's like, it is exciting. This isn't just like floating on clouds and like drinking Mai Tais. This is like. This is a joyful gathering at the wedding feast, right, and we come to the assembly of the first born, which is all who are in Christ. Although our brothers and sisters in Christ we will see again in heaven in the next life, we will be with them forever. We will be and belong to the family of God. If you long for belonging, you have it.

Kenneth Dyches:

In Jesus Christ, we come to the God, the judge of all, which previously would have us trembling right, would have us in terror because of our sin. But when we come to him in fullness, jesus will have declared by his blood that we are righteous, right. We forever will have our sins wiped away, we will be before him and we will have a place in his kingdom. We also come to the spirits of the righteous made, perfect, right. So all those in the hall of faith, moses and Abraham. They will be with us, they will be our brothers and sisters. We will walk with them in the light of God's face. In beautiful community we will see unity in diversity amongst God's people. We're a diverse people made in the image of God's face. In beautiful community we will see unity in diversity amongst God's people, where a diverse people made in the image of God will also have perfect unity, something we long for now but we cannot have in fullness until we get to the new heavens and new earth and we come to Jesus right, the leader and perfecter of our faith.

Kenneth Dyches:

God become man, who for our sake died and endured the pain of the wrath of God, that we might know him forever. So how do we come to all of those things? Well, hebrews, chapter 9, verses 13 through 14, bring out how we, as defiled persons back in the Sinai covenant were sprinkled with the blood of goats and bulls, right, and so this was according to the law. But it wasn't for the purpose of cleansing them then and there. It was to show them the depth of their sins, that they needed to come to God. Right, they needed to look to Sinai and to the law to remember that we in and of ourselves cannot do this. We need to trust on God's promises to sanctify us, to make us new, to bring us to Zion, and so that's what they were intended to do. We need to depend not on ourselves but on God's work. And so we see that, through the blood of Christ, a better word is spoken over us.

Kenneth Dyches:

The Old Testament roster of faith opened with Abel's acceptable sacrifice and death earlier in Hebrews. But the cause of his death, his brother's violence, was not mentioned. Now we hear an echo of God's accusation against Cain. The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. Its cry was for avenging justice, but Jesus's blood intercedes for mercy and forgiveness. And what does it declare? It declares that we are justified. And what does it declare? It declares that we are justified. The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines justification this way.

Kenneth Dyches:

Justification is an act of God's free grace, unmerited love and favor upon us, wherein he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight. Only not on our righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, placed upon us and received by faith alone. Justification means rest right. We no longer have to strive to be acceptable to God. We no longer have to strive to make sure everything in our lives works out the way we need it to work out. We have a good God who has good purposes for us, who, in Jesus Christ, has claimed us as his children and we know we are forever righteous in his sight, forever belong to his kingdom and we'll be with him in the new heavens and new earth. Justification means rest, so we can look back at Sinai right and know the depth of our sin, but look forward to Zion and not in fear run the race, but in joy.

Kenneth Dyches:

In John 16, 22 through 24, jesus is about to go to the cross, and so he's talking with his disciples and they're confused, and so he says so also. You have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive that. Your joy may be full. See, for those in Jesus, the other side of death is resurrection, and not just resurrection but fullness of joy with a good Father.

Kenneth Dyches:

You know my children. We preach the Bible to them, we pray with them, but you don't really know what sinks in until they say something that is like profound, but with childlike faith, and you're like what in the world? And so the other day so Luca and Holland both do this. But the other day Holland heard Lauren and I talking about just the long day we've had and the things that we're stressed about and kids are always listening, you know. And later she says to Lauren I prayed for you that you would be full of joy and be happy, that you wouldn't be sad anymore. And she said she prayed to God. You are a good God who loves me and my mommy. One day we will die and be with you. It's okay that we will die because we will be with you. Just the beauty in that childlike faith. That's the faith that Jesus invites us into when he declares over us that we are forgiven and that we belong to his kingdom, which is unshakable. When you believe that even death can't shake you, you have that childlike faith, and so I invite you to come as a child of God, which leads me to my third point and conclusion, because Jesus' blood speaks a better word we can look up.

Kenneth Dyches:

Let's look at verses 25 through 29. Letter word we can look up. Let's look at verses 25 through 29. See that you do not refuse him. Who is speaking? For if they did not escape when they refused him, who warned them on earth? Much less will we escape if we reject him. Who warns from heaven.

Kenneth Dyches:

At that time, his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised yet once more. I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This phrase, yet once more, indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is, the things that have been made, in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. There's a lot that can be said on those verses, but I wanna invite us to look at verse 28. Because of the blood of Jesus, we can look up in worship, in gratefulness and acceptableness. And this is in the context of his last words in this chapter, which is our God is a consuming fire. And that's a reference back to Exodus 20. See, in Exodus 19, they come up to the mountain right. They are beholding the God who is a consuming fire.

Kenneth Dyches:

But in Exodus 20, god gives his law, the Ten Commandments, and the first two commandments are explicitly about his worship. You shall have no other gods right and you shall not make any idols in any other image. And he says why is that? Because I, god, am a jealous God. And when we hear the word jealousy we often have a negative connotation. But the Bible has no negative connotation, especially in relation to God.

Kenneth Dyches:

John Frame, a renowned theologian, puts it this way. He says God's jealousy is a passionate zeal to guard the exclusiveness of a marriage relationship. God's jealousy, he says, is always directed against idolatry. By nature he deserves and demands exclusive worship and allegiance. John Owen, a church father, calls this God's vehement burning affection right. This is God's vehement burning affection that we would be with him in fullness, that we would love him with all our hearts, mind, soul and strength, so that we can receive all of his love, his steadfast love, his strength for us, that we can dwell with him in fullness in the new heavens and new earth, but as full as possible now. That is his vehement, burning affection for our worship, not just for the sake of us giving him something, but for the sake of us receiving the great goodness that he has for us.

Kenneth Dyches:

Another commentator says both visions must be held in blessed tension within our souls consuming fire and consuming love. Right worship is full surrender to that love, to the vehement consuming fire of God's love. All ourselves and our affections are owed unto God and he desires them for our sakes. And yet this can feel overwhelming. How the heck do we love God with all of our hearts, souls and strengths? We know the ways we fail in that every day and it can be defeating. And the way to it is through gratefulness. We've been given.

Kenneth Dyches:

Gratefulness is to understand that we've been given a gift right. We have been declared justified. We have received the promises of God. We didn't do anything to earn those. God has given them to us and invited us to look upon his son, jesus Christ, and receive them. We've been justified in his sight, we have belonging in the kingdom of heaven, and so we look with gratefulness on what God has already given us His vehement, burning affection and steadfast love. His chesed, pursues us nonstop. We see, this is the story of the Bible of God's people. God constantly pursuing his people, regardless of the sins that they are in, regardless of the ways that they turn away, regardless of their idolatry. He is always pursuing us. His love is at the door knocking and always ready to enter.

Kenneth Dyches:

Gratefulness is the key to an unshakable faith and right worship. We cultivate gratefulness. Are you ready? Through postures of great fullness? See what I did there.

Kenneth Dyches:

We need to be filled with the fullness of God. God is offering us himself, to us in Jesus Christ in relationship, and he invites us to be filled with his fullness. And in order to do that, we do need to look back to Sinai. We need to invite God to expose our brokenness, our sins and our great need for him, and then to offer those up to him daily and allow him to cover them with the blood of Jesus. Go to him and ask for what is ours right, which is to experience the justification, the righteousness, the sublimities that God offers all his people in Jesus Christ.

Kenneth Dyches:

We need to, then, look forward to Zion, to claim that as our own and to seek God and all of the things that he has given us, his instruments of mercy, the church, community, the scriptures, prayer. He's available to us and he desires that we engage him everywhere we can and we might be filled with his fullness, not for the sake of those things themselves, but to encounter and receive from him. And then we can look up in worship, and in right worship, because we are grateful for a God who has already given us all of these things. And so we can invest our lives in what is shakable, right, day in and day out. We can just kind of go through our lives and not really consider what's going on in our day go to work, feed our family, do things that are good in one sense but ultimately will be shaken and sifted, and the new heavens and new earth. Or we can invest in what is unshakable by looking to God. For all that. We need Meb Keflasigi. So he ran with the names of the 13 bombing victims on him, he carried them with him and he won the race, but only for a perishable crown. Jesus, he also runs the race for us and the joy set before him when he endured the cross Jesus was unshakable, and the names he carried were also of those who were dead. But in reaching the end, jesus actually raised them from the dead. Jesus has run the race for us, brothers and sisters. He has and is carrying you now and he will complete the work that he started.

Kenneth Dyches:

In Isaiah 40, verses 9 through 11, we see an image of this which says go on up to a high mountain. O Zion, herald of good news, lift up your voice with strength. O Jerusalem, herald of good news, lift up fear, not Say to the cities of Judah behold your God who is running to you. Behold your God. The Lord God comes with might and his arm rules for him running to you. Behold your God. The Lord God comes with might and his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense is before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom, near his heart, and gently lead those that are with young. Give the God who loves you with burning affection, all of yourself, and you will find yourself full of joy and not fear, and you will find yourself unshakable in his hands.

Kenneth Dyches:

Pray with me now, lord.

Kenneth Dyches:

We do come.

Kenneth Dyches:

We come to the living God.

Kenneth Dyches:

We know you are here with us now.

Kenneth Dyches:

We know that there is much in our lives that you declare mine, that we have not yet given over to you.

Kenneth Dyches:

We know you are here with us now. We know that there is much in our lives that you declare mine, that we have not yet given over to you. We know that that grieves you. And we know that you have already covered us in the blood of Jesus, when we believe, by faith, that you have died for our sins and you've risen to new lives so that those who belong to you would know the unshakable kingdom would receive it. And so, lord, we ask by your Spirit, give us faith to believe, help us to draw near to you, Help us to surrender all of our lives, all of our sin and brokenness. We declare to you that we are in need, o Lord, we are not enough, but you and Jesus Christ, through your blood, have covered us and declared that we are justified, righteous, forgiven. Thank you, we look forward to the new heavens, new earth and the joyful party that we will have with you in heaven. We pray that you'd help us to keep that before us. We pray this in Jesus' name Amen.