Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

For today’s sermon, we’ll turn to Hebrews chapter 9 beginning at verse 1. And I’m actually going to read the first eight verses of chapter 9 and then the first verse or two of chapter 10. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Hebrews 9, beginning at verse 1.

Then indeed even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary. For a tabernacle was prepared, the first part in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary.

And behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant, overlaid on all sides with gold, and which were the golden pot, that had the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. And above it were the cherubim of glory, overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the heirs of the people. The Holy Ghost thus signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while as the first tabernacle was yet standing.

And then chapter 10 beginning at verse 19: Having therefore brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and having an high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promised.

And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the work of our savior in the heavenly sanctuary. We thank you for the exclusion of your people for millennia and yet now for the inclusion of your people, for the boldness that we have through the work of Jesus Christ to enter into that holiest of holies through his mediation. Thank you Lord God for what we find there and may we be given gifts by you today that we can give to one another in Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

I mentioned in my sermon last week this idea of looking at the Holy of Holies and the rending of the veil accomplished through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the ripping in two of his flesh that Hebrews refers to here as being kind of a picture that is reminiscent of an old German Christmas custom. The German custom was to deck the tree behind the closed doors of the living room. And Christmas Eve, the parents would trim the tree, bring in the presents, and then the children didn’t see any of that until Christmas morning, unlike our tradition here in America. But there’d be a grand and glorious parting of the doors and there would be the tree in all its glory and the presents round about the tree.

Today I want to talk about that in some detail and we’ve talked about this before. For some of you some of this will be review but the particular emphasis I want to place on today’s sermon is a movement from understanding that worship is indeed being ushered into the Holy of Holies for the distribution of gifts to us that occurs there, but to the end that we might move from worship to walk by taking the gifts that God distributes to us here in the context of formal Lord’s Day worship and being trained and encouraged to think about how we distribute those gifts in our walk the rest of the week.

We have this movement: worship as we’ve said lifts up our lives. And what we see here, I think, is a way to think of these presents that we receive from God’s grace as he calls us forward into this beautiful and bright morning that he’s given us. We receive gifts, but these gifts only work if we give them away. And so, that’s kind of where I’m going today. I’m talking about this need for us to receive gifts, to understand that great and glorious truth that we’re here for the divine service, the service of God to us. The distribution of gifts, but to the end that we might indeed then give these gifts to one another.

So we come into worship and we come into worship in the particular portion of the church year that people think about affliction. We’re going to talk about gifts today, but gifts are given in the context of God sacrificing us. We don’t do anything to receive the gifts. We don’t sacrifice ourselves today, but the Lord God takes us, cuts us in part with his word, brings us back together. And when we’re healed and transformed, we leave with great gifts that he has distributed to us for the purpose of giving these gifts one to the other.

All men want certain things in life. And what we’ve been given here in Hebrews 9 is a description, I think, by way of imagery and symbol of the great things that we all want. We all want to have glory. We want to be seen as somebody that’s important. We want people to listen to us. We want people to attend to us. We want to have weightiness given to us. Everybody wants that. Nobody wants shame.

We also all want to know the real truth. I asked my son this morning, “Can you remember what these gifts are?” Oh yeah. He says, “It’s Miller time, it’s the Drudge Report, and it’s money.” Three gifts. Well, that’s a pretty good way to sum it up. Money is glory and weightiness. And we feel a little heavier when we got a little jingle in the pocket, glory and weight being added to us. And when we listen to Matt Drudge, we hope to get the true story. We read the truth. We want to know what the real thing going on behind everything is. And then we want Miller time. We want to rejoice at the end of the day, at the end of our work in community.

Well, we go about getting these things wrong. We get shame to ourselves, foolishness, Romans 1 says, and our rejoicing turns into depression. And we don’t know why. Well, the reason why is that we want these things properly being made in the image of God. Get it? God has all these things in the Trinity. They are heavy. They are heaviest of heavy. God is glorious. All glorious. God has all knowledge and understanding of everything. And God has life in the Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have a rejoicing community. It’s what we want because we’re made in his image.

But when we go about trying to get it through some way other than through the work of Jesus Christ, we end up with just the reverse—shamed, you know, having foolishness, exchanging the truth of God for a lie, and then ending up with depression and stagnation and not joyous life together. So today that’s what we want to talk about again: reminding ourselves of these great gifts from this text in Hebrews and then the real focus is we want to minister these gifts to one another.

Now I was asked why I talk about the structure of the text. “Will we get bogged down in all that stuff again?” No, I don’t want to get bogged down. But I do want you to recognize that what we’re talking about today is kind of at the heart of Hebrews. Keep promising I’m going to preach through Hebrews eventually. I’ll get to it. I gave a sermon on the introduction to it at Christmas time. And this is really sort of the center of Hebrews, the text we’ve got here.

And on your outlines, I’ve given you a little structure there like a seagull or something—wings through the center of the very center of the book. I believe that the very center of Hebrews, the core of it is that Jesus Christ has come as a high priest of good things to come. First half of verse 11 of this chapter 9 that we’re in. And so the text we read—the gifts and the administration in the temple, verses 1 to 10—is a description of the ancient institutions, the old covenant, and what happened, what did it look like, what was the temporal layout, and then what the priests did, and that’s described in verses 1 to 10. And then on the other side of the description that Jesus Christ has come as the high priest of good things to come—the world has changed definitively, great things are happening—he then talks about Jesus Christ and the new institutions which, unlike the old institutions which were powerless, the new institutions by Jesus Christ are powerful. And so there’s this movement from these gifts to then the coming of Christ.

And now everything is opened, right? And so in chapter 10, we’re encouraged to walk in, to enter into the holiest of holies. The veil’s been parted through the work of Jesus Christ. Christmas morning, finally, we open the doors and there it is. See, all waiting for us. So from old institutions which were powerless, new institution which are powerful through the coming of Jesus Christ. And then on either side of that, the first covenant is being described which was imperfect and provisional. And Jesus provides us this powerful institutions of the new covenant because he comes, he brings into effect the new covenant which is perfect and established. So this is the core of the book of Hebrews. And what we’re talking about today then is right at the very kind of center of what the book of Hebrews is all about.

At the heart of Hebrews is this emphasis upon the fact that Jesus Christ has come and now the stuff that we couldn’t get, that were locked up, that were neat things—now it’s all changed and because of the work of Jesus we can go in. We couldn’t go in the old covenant period. But now we get to go in.

Now if we’re going to understand what this worship is that we’re called to enter into in the Lord’s day, right? “Don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together.” Encourage each other to do what? To enter the holy place. For what purpose? Well, the author of the book of Hebrews wants us to think through this stuff. He gives us a little detail about what we’re going to find when we enter through the body of the Lord Jesus Christ as the veil is rent—to symbolically what is going on here.

And he’s going to tell us here by way of imagery what we’re going to find when we go into the holy of holies. So this is what the center of Hebrews is about. This is what I want to talk about today. And we have to look at the earthly sanctuary. Why does he talk, by the way—now, the stuff that he says here in Hebrews 9 isn’t temple imagery. It’s drawn from the tabernacle. Why? Well, because he says earlier in Hebrews that the tabernacle was explicitly built upon the image of the heavenly temple or tabernacle.

Now, the same is true of the temple. It gets glorified. It’s the tabernacle glorified. But what he tells us here is that he’s going to describe the first tabernacle which was explicitly built by Moses after the image of the heavenly tabernacle. So two things are being communicated. One, this is the earthly one, right? We want the heavenly reality. It wasn’t. Jesus has gone into the heavenly temple. That’s one thing that’s being communicated. Again, the earthly fallen nature before Jesus comes and makes all things new.

But the other thing that’s going on is if we see manna and the law in Aaron’s rod that blossoms in that holy of holies, it’s a reflection of something that’s in heaven. You see? So, it’s important for us to recognize that these things were images of what the reality would be as Jesus brings about the heavenly realities to us in the context of our worship.

And so, that’s why I think the tabernacle is being described there. Now, I use this illustration of this tree with the gifts around it. And the point is that you’ve got this ark of the covenant there. And around the ark of the covenant are these great gifts. There’s an identification of the ark with these things. In Exodus 25:22, God said this about the ark itself, the ark of the covenant and the holy of holies.

“There I will meet with thee and will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.”

So God says that the ark is a representation of where he sits. It’s a representation of him. The ark kind of is the Christmas tree which we can think of as Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ’s presence brings to us these gifts. So ultimately the gifts are reflections of God’s glory, his knowledge, and his life. But they’re there around the ark of the covenant. And it’s kind of like we understand that we get these things only through union and communion with Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ himself is really the gift, and in that gift, he’s giving us aspects of his glory, his knowledge, and his life. And so these are the great gifts.

Now let’s talk just briefly about these gifts again. And as I say, I know that this is review for some of you, but there’s a chart, page two of your outlines. Let’s look at that chart briefly and remind ourselves of these things. My—I was asked this morning to put in a movie reference so people will pay attention. There is a movie reference and I’ve used it before. I’ve been talking about the gifts. It’s called “21 Grams.” You probably wouldn’t want to rent that movie in its unedited version, but I don’t know, maybe this Mormon film company that edits films and makes them clean has worked with that. I don’t know. But it’s a very interesting movie. 21 grams is the amount of your soul that supposedly you die and immediately you lose 21 grams of body weight. So, it’s the soul that leaves the body is the idea in the analogy. And so, the movie is about—you know, it’s very obvious at the end—what do you do with your 21 grams? You know, when you die you lose the 21 grams your soul goes to be with God, what have you done with it?

And in the discussion of this, the statements are made that 21 grams is the same weight as a pile of nickels and it’s the same weight as a hummingbird and it’s the same weight as a chocolate bar. Okay. So nickels—right? Money, weight, glory. In the Bible, honor means weightiness. And money is a representation of the weightiness of God. So the pile of nickels, your soul is compared to the glory, right? And it’s compared to the candy bar—rejoicing, life together, right? You eat good stuff and Miller time, Hershey bar time, whatever it is for you. And the hummingbird. Well, in the history of the church, the gospels have often been referred to as the four birds that are chirping out the gospel. The chirping bird is a representation of the revelation of God. And so that hummingbird is kind of, you know, a representation of the singing forth, the beating forth of wings, revelation, knowledge.

And so we’ve got these 21 grams that are reflected by glory, knowledge, and life. That’s a pretty good little image. Well, that’s the kind of imagery that’s set up in the context of what Hebrews 9 tells us.

Hebrews 9 is the most explicit description of what’s in that tabernacle. Now, this chart I keep every time I use it, I modify it. And so, this is the latest version. So, if you got earlier ones, you can maybe replace them with this one. I think this is a little better. What I’ve done is I’ve set it up in three sets of three. So, we got that offering stuff at the top and then we got kind of the humanity stuff in the middle. And then we’ve got the imagery from Hebrews 9 on the bottom. What does the tabernacle and temple look like and these things all kind of flow through and we can make these associations with the ceremonial law of God.

Worship is transformational and sacrificial. God comes to transform us but it’s always painful to do its work. The Lord God convicts us of sin. He cuts us with the word and he heals us. So worship very explicitly in the Bible in Hebrews, Romans is referred to in sacrificial terms. And we can learn about worship by looking at the ceremonial system of the Old Testament because it’s a picture of the heavenly realities that we enter into in the new covenant through the work of Jesus Christ.

God draws near in judgment, but he also draws near to make us better, to sacrifice us, which is painful. But the result of this is transformational. We become changed. We become more glorious, more knowledgeable, more happy, more rejoicing. You see those three gifts. This is through the substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is pictured in these ceremonial systems. And I’m not going to go through all the details of this, but the three offerings that are listed in Leviticus 9, you know, line up with these very things.

All men have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We confess our sin and our shame to being in the service. And God grants us the gift of the forgiveness of sins, restoration to glory. Those when we justified these he also glorified and God gives us present glory. We become new people, you know, forgiven of our sins. And then we come and so we say, “Amen, Lord God. Thank you for the gift of glory.” And we sing praises to God. And then we do what essentially the ascension or whole offering of the Old Testament does.

We go into the presence of God and he preaches to us. He brings us his word and he tells us how to think about life. What is it that’s really—what’s what’s bugging you? What’s bothering you? Why are you unhappy this last week about things? And God says, “Well, you know, usually it’s because you’ve gone after something improperly or you don’t have it yet and you’re impatient.” Well, what is it that you want?

God says, “He knows you better than you know yourself. What you want is glory. You want to be somebody. I am somebody.” That’s what you want to say. And there’s a proper aspect to that. And you want to understand what’s going on. And you want to have joy. You want to, you know, at the end of the day, rejoice with your wife, with the product of your labors and enjoy what you’re doing. You want to have community. You don’t want to be isolated ultimately.

And so God brings you to worship and says, “This is what’s great for you. You need glory.” And it’s through repentance. And you need transformation of who you are through the knowledge of the preaching of the word.

You know, it’s interesting that in Hebrews 9, there’s some things going on there that are not clear at the first glance of it. We can’t take the time to tell you now about everything here, but apparently if we put together all the texts, the ten commandments are actually placed inside the ark of the covenant. But the manna and Aaron’s rod, you know, that showed his authority and the rest of the law of God that Moses received—from case laws of Exodus 20, all other part—you know, the writings on the scroll that’s placed inside next to the ark of the covenant.

So, if you actually went into the tabernacle and did that holy of holies, which you couldn’t do, the actual ten commandments are in the ark and the law is placed out there the rest of it. And then you’ve got these other two things. Well, you know what’s being associated there is that the word of God is found in connection with that ark of the covenant, which is an altar. Okay? Blood is applied to it. And so the word of God comes as we come pleading the blood of Christ at the altar. There’s an association that’s established between the reception of knowledge and the heart of the people who are broken and humble and contrite at the altar of Jesus Christ.

Okay? So we only get knowledge when we come penitently before God pleading our ignorance and pleading the shed blood of Christ. That association is set up for us here and that’s part of this liturgical movement of our worship based upon the ceremonial aspects of the old covenant worship.

And then finally it’s the peace offering, you know, all about that. So as we move in that first set of three things we have this forgiveness, restoration of glory, we’ve got the transformation and total consecration of the whole burnt offering, you know, we become, we have new knowledge, and then we have communion with God in men and their liturgical actions.

The service moves from the tension of coming into the presence of a holy God knowing that we’re sinful men. And some churches do this liturgically through kneeling. And then God raises us up and we stand and he preaches at us, gives us new knowledge. And then he says, “Now sit down and we’re going to have supper now.” And we come to rest.

So the service, whether we do it liturgically with our body movements or not, the service moves from tension to rest. And as we’ve said in Psalm 6, first book of the psalter, all the psalms, they move this way: from tension to rest, from confession to resurrection and empowerment. So this is the movement of these gifts of God.

In the middle of this diagram, I’ve got three desires. What do you want? You want weight. You want knowledge. You want life. What is Jesus? He’s the way. He’s the way you’re supposed to walk in. He’s the representation of the character of the Father. He’s the way and he’s the truth, right? He’s knowledge. Understanding things comes from his word and he’s the life. Only in connection to Jesus do we really rejoice in the context of community.

I’ve added this category and I didn’t know if I should do it or not. Big words, but some of you will kind of know what these terms mean in some of your studies in college and university. There is this proper psychology of men, you know the psyche, the mind of man and soul. What motivates us, and we all have a dispositional—a perspective to us, our internal who we are as a man. And God grants us glory in this dispositional perspective of our psychology internal. And we all have this normative situation as well. We have a series of commands from the outside that are the standards for how our life are to conform. Okay. And then we have another aspect which is referred to in psychological terminology or sociology as the situational perspective. We’re in the context of a situation, an external set of circumstances.

This is really important. I know it sounds kind of heady and it’s not. When you’re raising kids, if all you ever do is address the normative perspective, if all you do is teach them a series of commands, you fail the test. We were looking at Psalm 78 today in Psalm class. How do we reject the covenant? By not obeying God’s law, but also by not remembering his works. By not remembering the personal aspect of his deliverance of us and the situation in which we find ourselves.

Raising children as Christians means not just conformity to the normative standard of a series of commandments. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They are real people. They want glory just as much as you do. And they should be given it just as much as you are. You see, and they want community. It’s not enough just to teach them to obey the commandments. You got to minister to the fullness of who man is. And that’s what Jesus does.

Jesus says we can come into the holy place, get this stuff. Praise God. He’s ministering to who we are in every bit of our makeup as people. And there’s a sense in which this is the trinitarian nature in which we’re created. We want to walk in a way that reflects the character of the Father and we want to know the word of the Son. And we want the life-giving Holy Spirit to cause us to rejoice in community.

This is a motto from New St. Andrews: Truth, goodness, and beauty. See, it’s the three gifts. That’s what you’re supposed to get when you go to that school. That’s what you get when you go to worship. You get truth, you get beauty, you get goodness. You get the glorious character. You get truth, knowledge, law of God, and you get beauty, that golden pot of manna, community together.

Well, this is all represented pictorially in the architecture of the tabernacle and temple. And that’s the last part of the chart. This is what we’re talking about. The scriptures tell us today that there’s three things in there associated with the ark of the covenant, the presence of Christ. There’s Aaron’s rod. Remember, it blossoms, comes back from the dead, right? New man. He’s got authority in the context of who God has made him. He becomes a glorious man. He’s got weight and authority. And there’s the law. He’s got knowledge. You see, new man takes the new knowledge, takes the truth of God and then produces a rejoicing world around him externally.

So, we’re transformed internally with the glory of God. We’re given knowledge and then we’re told to rejoice together by eating good things. You know the center of worship is eating—center of who we are. Not wrong to want to eat good thing. God made us hungry. It’s a gift he gives us that he feeds us in community. And as we go out from there into the holy place, we have the lampstand which is a watcher tree, an almond tree. It’s authority. It’s power. It’s glory. It’s what Aaron has. Same thing. But now it’s pictured as we’re moving away from the center by watcher tree and a lampstand overseeing ruling over the bread.

We’ve got the altar of incense lining up with the law. Remember I said this connection between the altar, the arc of the covenant, law inside of it. And we’ve got prayer represented at the altar of incense. It’s only through prayer, our communication with God that he responds or communicates with us. So this communication of the word and our prayer to him at the altar is pictured there.

Now I should mention here that Hebrews makes a statement that the golden altar of incense is in the Holy of Holies. And commentators—actually I’ve read some foolish commentators who said, “Well, the author of Hebrews just made a mistake here. It was an error because he didn’t know very well what was really in the tabernacle.” Well, that’s ridiculous, right? I mean, this guy, he is an expert in this stuff. He’s pointing to this stuff as a reflection of the heavenly truths. How can we explain what it says here then?

Well, I think that there’s a different way to construct what the Greek means here. And Barclay in his translation says that really a better way to translate that phrase—that the altar of incense is in the holy of holies—is that the holy of holies is approached by means primarily of the altar of incense. And spatially you got this veil and the three things back there and the thing that’s right next to the veil almost in the holy of holies is that golden altar of incense. So but anyway, don’t be confused. Hebrews isn’t wrong and it’s not saying what’s wrong. It just is—the translation of it gives us a little erroneous view of the thing.

It’s very clear from the scriptures I list on your outline that the golden altar of incense is in the holy place, not the holy of holies. And then it’s also clear that there’s this table of showbread and then later wine would be added to that. And so we see a clear connection to this sacramental manna out to the bread and the wine of the table of showbread.

And then as you move to the third part of the tabernacle and temple. We’ve got these guarding pillars that Solomon established, Jachin and Boaz. Priests were anointed at the which was Jachin, kings at Boaz. And so you see it all lines up. The glory of being restored to authority and weightiness of Aaron’s rod is pictured architecturally in this watcher tree, this almond tree guarding things. And that’s pictured by the two pillars that guard the temple itself.

And the law in the ark of the covenant becomes the altar of incense and then in the outer courtyard the bronze altar is where the animals and other stuff was put. So the other of the most offerings are put on that bronze altar out in the courtyard and then the sacramental gift of manna, then bread and wine, and now we’ve got a golden—or excuse me—a bronze sea in the courtyard and then in Solomon’s temple there are oxen hooked up to that. It becomes water chariots. The idea is that through the sacramental rejoicing community of the church, the gospel, the water of Christ’s word will be taken out into all the world and fill it.

So this is what happens when we come to worship. God gives us these gifts. But what I want to focus on is what do we do with them? Are they just to take home and open up and enjoy ourselves? No, they’re not. 1 Peter 4:10 says, “As each one has received a gift, okay, so this is what you receive in worship: glory, knowledge and life—and whether you know it or not, this meets the basic needs and desires of who you are. And if you’re having trouble in life, it’s really helpful to meditate upon these gifts, these items of furniture that Hebrews 9 talks to us about.

Hebrews says the Christian life is boldly entering into the Holy of Holies to receive these things. And so it’s important for us to recognize that we get gifts.

As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another. We get these gifts so that we can give these gifts.

He said before, it’s interesting. Jesus, you know, says in John, he says, “Well, I got a lot of things to tell you, but you’re not ready to hear a lot of them right now.” Which is interesting because first of all, it tells us that the communication of knowledge is gradual. You know, you don’t dump everything on somebody at once. But how is he going to do that? How is Jesus going to continue to teach them this stuff? He’s going to do it through men. He’s going to be gone. He’s going to die. You know, the next—that night they be raised up. Then he’s leaving. He’s going to continue to teach them as men speak to them. You see, “the voice, my sheep hear my voice.”

So we have this worship, liturgical representation of God’s gift to us of glory, knowledge, and life. But then the whole point is we’re to minister that stuff to each other the rest of the week, right? Our worship connects to our walk. We get gifts and Peter says you only get them to give them away. Okay? You receive these gifts that you might minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

You get glory, knowledge, and life through the work with Jesus Christ. This is the gracious gift of God and your job in response to this wonderful truth of the gospel message today—that he’s restored you in everything you want. It’s there for you in the Holy of Holies which we enter into boldly in worship. This is the manifold grace of God. But you are now a steward of that grace and you have the tremendous high privilege of giving people the rest of the week glory, knowledge and life.

Maybe you’ve never thought of it that way before, but we sort of instinctively do this as we minister God’s word and law to one another. But I think it’s good to meditate upon it a little bit. And that’s my emphasis today: giving things away.

How do we give away? How do we give people the gift of glory? And on the outline, I’ve got some more verses about afflicting our souls. Well, you know, the problem we have is we want glory and then we just want to keep it and get off puffed up and we begin by giving other people glory by abasing ourselves. Right?

Pride is the exaltation of self to the denigration of God and others. So pride is the opposite of giving of glory. If we’re going to give people glory, we want to have the right mind about who we are that we’ve only gotten stuff through the grace of God.

The Bible says, “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, be kind. Be affectionate to one another with brotherly love in honor giving preference to one another.” We are commanded to give honor and preference to each other. And then we’re warned in Proverbs 25:27, “It is not good to eat much honey. Said to seek one’s glory is not glory.”

So we begin by giving the gift—to give the gift of glory. We begin by self-affliction, putting on that virtue we talked about last week of humility. Accepting chastisements when we’re not feeling good or problems are happening reflecting on God building into us and giving us the gift of humility and meekness that prepares us then, you see, to be stewards of the glory that were given then by God and give it to other people.

Well, we also want to tame our tongues. What’s the biggest way we fail to give glory to other people or the most great opportunity to give glory? It’s with our tongues, right? Our tongues denigrate one another. We speak scathingly about each other. We put each other down in our speech. We rip each other to shreds. Mostly in our homes, but you know, in little groups in the church, this happens as well. It’s just what we’re we tend to do.

Every good gift, James says, is comes down from above. And then as a result of that, James goes on to say in verse 19, “My beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear slow to speak, slow to wrath.”

So, we sin with our tongues by tearing down each other, removing glory from people that either are there directly or they’re not there that we’re talking about. And just as much, we don’t listen to what other people are saying. We’re not quick to hear them.

It is a wonderful thing that you can very passively give the gift of glory. You don’t got to do nothing. You just got to shut up and listen, okay? To what the other person is saying. This is a way to give glory to someone else. And then of course, positively, we can use those tongues to bless and not curse. We give glory by bringing our thoughts about others into captivity, captive to Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians 10:5.

We’re unable to think of each other as not so important, you know. But Jesus says, you know what, some members of my body have honor, external honor, and some don’t. And so, you know, Terry can get up there and speak, and that looks great, and people think, “Good deal.” And somebody else is doing something way out of sight or they’re scrubbing pots and pans, and it doesn’t seem very glorious.

But God says that our thoughts about each other to be conformed to Jesus’s truth. Every one of us are somebody in the kingdom of God. From the least of us to the oldest of us. We all are somebody. And so we take our thoughts captive about other people. We may denigrate them in our mind, but we want to recognize that they’re important. They’re to be given honor. So in our thoughts and in our speech, we want to reflect glory, weightiness, respect for the people around us.

We want to respect people and have them given preference. By recognizing authority structures. Kind of interesting that this gift of glory has the symbol of it of Aaron’s rod that blossom because you remember the problem. “Oh, what is he doing ruling over us? I’m better than him at ruling. You know, I can—I have better talents and gifts than Aaron. You know, the grumblers complained about Aaron. And God says, “Well, okay, let’s take some branches, some dead branches, and we’ll see which tribe it is, which guy it is that I’ve decided to show you is the ruler.” They should have believed it already. But they needed a miracle. Some tree dead coming back to life. Again, an almond just like the watcher tree, the lampstand has blossoms and buds on it.

So God says that glory—and it’s very important. I think glory is presented as a gift in the context of authority structures. Okay. So it’s important. And so I’ve attached to your outlines one whole page is the Westminster Larger Catechism questions 127 to 132.

It’s also interesting that if we think of the commandments of God, first four are about him. And then what’s the first commandment about people we’re given? You know, before we’re told not to kill them, not to steal from them, not to, you know, commit adultery, not to lie about them, not to desire with them. The very first commandment we’re given about other people, what is it? Honor, right? Fifth commandment, first of the ones on the horizontal plane.

The very first commandment is to give glory to somebody and specifically it’s to give glory to those in authority to the Aarons. And now it does it by summation. The Westminster Catechism says mother and father really constitute all functional superiors in our lives. Parents, bosses at work, wives to their husbands, children to both parents, father and mother, members of the church, to the elders of the church, the governor, the city council people, whatever it is, it’s all comprised together. Westminster Divines said in this fifth commandment that starts with giving glory to functional superiors.

And that’s interesting too to me because whenever you hear about submissive relationships, for instance, the idea in Ephesians, husbands and wives, God always starts with the functional inferiors. You notice that he doesn’t start first by telling husbands to love their wives. He starts first by telling wives to be submissive, to want to follow their husbands. So that’s interesting. And that’s what he does, you know, here as well.

In Romans 13:7, we’re to “give honor to whom honor is due” and the setting again is authority.

Well, so the Westminster divines talk about this. What’s the honor that inferiors owe to their superiors? Number 127: “The honors which inferiors owe to their superiors.” So this is it. You want a list? What should I do? How do I give glory? What does that mean? Here it is. Just read this every day for the next week and you’ll be given the list of what to do.

“All do reverence in heart, word, and behavior.”

Well, we can just stop right there, I suppose, because already we’ve probably failed this last week in some way, right? To give glory to functional superiors in our thoughts, with our tongues, and with our behavior. And ask yourself, think of people that you report to. Did you do it? Did you glorify them? Did you attempt to add weight to who they were or did you tear them down when you got home from work and you rip apart your boss to your wife?

See, well, that’s what’s being talked about here. Our job, how we give glory, the gift of glory. Remember, we don’t want it. The way you’re going to be happy in relationships is to give it and to receive it. Right? This is not some kind of, you know, secondary aspect of the Christian faith. You fail in this, the whole thing breaks down. This is what men are motivated by.

“Prayer and thanksgiving for them,” praying for those in authority over you, thanksgiving, thankfulness for them, “imitation of their virtues and graces, willing obedience to their lawful commands.”

Children, children, children—not enough to obey what mom and dad says. The Bible doesn’t say, “Children, obey your parents.” I mean, it says that, but that’s not the fifth commandment. The fifth commandment is “honor your parents.” Give them glory. Make them shine. Give them weight, honor, respect. It’s not just doing what they say. It is a joyful and willing submission to their commands. You see, it’s not a—if you grudgingly do what mom and dad says, you know, you’ve given them shame instead of glory. You violated the whole fifth commandment. I don’t care what you did. You see.

And it’s the same with us. You know, your relationship to your boss is at work. You’re supposed to not just do what they tell you. You’re supposed to be joyfully, willingly submitting to them, wanting to follow their lead. Sometimes you can’t because they might have you sin. But you want to find a way to make your boss better in other people’s mind, in your mind, and in what he’s doing. Okay?

And you want to do that by joyfully submitting to what he says. You know, the elders ask the congregation, give us your feedback. We want to give the congregation weightiness to know what you think about the officer candidates we place before you. And when you submit joyfully to letting the elders know what you think by casting your vote, this is a way to give glory and honor to your elders.

And conversely, if you didn’t do that—he couldn’t get around to it or something. You see, that’s not a joyful and willing submission. So, it’s real clear. It’s not hard. It’s not hard. Just think about it. Think about your parents. Think about your boss. Think about your elders. Think about the government. Are you trying your best to add glory, weight, honor, and respect to them?

“Willing obedience to their lawful commands. Due submission to their correction.”

Oh, now it gets tough. Kids do submission to their corrections. “Defense, fidelity to defense and maintenance of their persons and authority. It is your job to defend the honor of your mother and father. And when you do things disobediently, disrespectfully, when you do it in the context of other people, it is doubly bad. You know people worry about hypocrisy. Well, I don’t want my kids being submissive in public if they’re not submissive in—well, I do. I want them to start in public by showing me deference and honor. And I’ll work on it in private if it’s not flowing through there. But this is their responsibility.

The Westminster Divines did a great job on this commandment. Our job with the functional superiors, how we give them glory, how we minister that great gift to them is through a maintenance of their persons and authority, defense of them, building them up. This is what we’re supposed to do. Bearing with their infirmities, covering them in love. You see, overlooking things we can overlook about their infirmities so that they may be an honor to them and to us in their government.

What are the sins? Well, to “neglect the duties.” If you don’t do what I just said, the catechism says you’ve not done it right. Plus “envying them, contempt of rebellion against.”

See, that’s what they did against Aaron. They envied his authority. And so this is how not to give glory: to envy, to have contempt, to be mocking and dismissive of authority and outright rebellion against their persons and places in their lawful councils, commands, and corrections, cursing, mocking—all such refractory and scandalous carriages proves a shame and dishonor to them and to their government.

It’s not hard. Once you know you’re supposed to give honor, glory, weightiness to people, you know, the list will help you, I think, to meditate on it. But it’s not hard. You know, when you’re not doing that, you know, when you’re, you know, scratching someone’s bright and shiny reputation as opposed to building it up.

Giving glory to functional inferiors. Glory is not just to those in charge. It’s to give those who are under you. Parents, listen to this now. Husbands likewise, 1 Peter 3: “Dwell with them with understanding, giving honor,” glory, weight, respect to your wife. You know, Calvinist husbands a lot of times they don’t get this. We’re supposed to praise God that Eli’s given Amanda a dowry, right? That’s the way it starts. I mean, it doesn’t have to be a dowry, but you know, the idea of the dowry is you’re valuing the woman with an external symbol. You’re giving her literally weight, glory, if it’s gold and silver. So, this is how you start the relationship and that’s what it’s supposed to carry on through.

If you don’t start it that way, I guarantee you, you’re going to have a hard time getting into that in relationship. Husbands are supposed to give glory to their wives. And the picture there is rulers are to give glory to functional inferiors. Parents, you have got to understand that your children have a legitimate and absolute need for glory and weightiness from you. They don’t just need you to tell them what they’re supposed to do and get with it and obey it.

That is not—that’s that middle, you know, normative aspect. But their disposition—they’re real people who really want glory and they want it from you. You got to give it to them. If you’ve got half a brain, you see this is what you’ll do as parents.

How do you do it? What’s required of superiors toward their inferiors? “It is required of superiors according to that power they received from God and that relation wherein they stand to love, pray and bless their inferiors.”

How do you give your children glory? You love them. Gee, I thank the world of you. You pray for them, right? Right? And you then bless them. Literally, bless you today in your test, son. Bless you as you go about doing your work today under mom’s jurisdiction and authority. Bless you as you go off to work. That gives them honor and glory. You see, the restoration of honor and glory means we’re being called back to who we really are supposed to be in a function. It’s a restoration. It’s a mission. We’re on a mission from God now. And your children will know they’re on a mission from God and had the glory and weightiness of that. If you commend them to that work through your blessing of them, through your words of blessing and benediction.

I mean, literally say, “Bless you today in your schoolwork, son. May God bless you. May it grant you prosperity. Bless you in your vocation today. Bless you in your driving. May you be a blessing to others. May God protect you.” This gives glory to them.

“Instruction is part of it. Counsel, admonish them, countenancing, commending, and rewarding such as do well.”

My, this is so important. I know what it’s like, particularly with a lot of kids. So hard to not just always attend to the negative. But we’ve got to understand that this is one of the ways that we give this wondrous gift of glory: is to commend and give thanks to our children when they do things well done. Even if they’re only half well done, even if they’re only a little bit well done. You see, you want to nurture that positive aspect of who they are. It will you will simply be frustrated the rest of your lives if what you focus on is what they got to do and that’s it. If you don’t understand that they desperately need glory and they need the Father’s, you know, countenance beaming upon them, giving them glory and weight, letting them know that they’re loved. You see, this is the obligation of all functional superiors.

You know, the elders need to tell the congregation, you’re waiting. We’re not just joking around. It’s not some kind of little formality. We ask for your input. An officer candidates or changes to the constitution or we show you the budget and ask for advice. We believe that you’re an important part of what we do. We’re giving you glory and weight. We really do. Listen. It is really important to us. We know this stuff. You know, we try hard to practice it. Not always perfectly, never perfectly, but we try hard to do it. You see, that’s what we’re doing. We’re giving glory and weight.

I don’t do it enough, you know. I thanked God for several men at the congregational meeting. There’s so many things that people do for this church. And part of how we give God glory is to reward them. And people worry, well, it could just puff them up. Could, but you know, God says, “Don’t worry about that. You just give them glory and wait. And let me I’ll bring the afflictions to keep them humble.” Okay? Don’t worry about puffing people up too much. Reward them. Thank them. Tell them what a wonderful thing they’ve done for the church through their efforts and their time and their work.

“Reproving and chastening such as do evil.”

We give children glory by correcting them and by helping them to see when they’re fools. Part of the child is foolishness. We when we can get rid of the shame that’s on a child’s face, then we’re actually adding to their glory. So the corrections of parents are intended to actually improve their glory. And we should address our kids that way. You’re killing the king. What are you doing? A prince, a princess, acting, you know, in a way I get you all dirty and silly and bring shame to you and bring shame to us. This is not what royal children are supposed to do. Our children are inheriting the world. They should know that. And they should be treated with respect and dignity and reminded that when they sin, they rip all that down. You see, they move in a way that’s not theirs.

What are the sins of superiors? Sins of superiors are besides the “neglect of the duties required of them, an inordinate seeking of” themselves. See, puffing up of themselves, myself as an elder, you know, seeking my own glory. This is par. Seeking their own glory too much, their own glory. Specifically, it says that in the text here: “ease, profit or pleasure.” You know, wanting our kids to do this for our own profit or pleasure as opposed to trying to train them up in glory, knowledge, and life.

“Not the power of”—when we command kids to do things they cannot perform or command parishioners to do something they simply cannot do. This is to remove glory from them. It’s not honoring to them. Okay? So. And then the Westminster divines go on to say that “provoking them to wrath, correcting them unduly anyway dishonoring themselves or lessening their authority.” If I act in a way to bring dishonor to myself, it’s not giving glory and honor and weight to you. It’s putting a stumbling block in front of you. So we have an obligation to give glory in the context of authority.

And then third, giving glory to functional equals, which is the place most of us are in. How do we give glory to one another? And the Westminster divines address that as well.

What are the duties of equals? Duties of equals are to “regard the dignity and worth of each other and giving honor to go before one another,” putting other people first, “rejoicing in other people’s gifts.”

He says, “Do it. Put on the mind of Christ. Regard each other as having glory, weight, consideration.” That in your speech treat people in that way “to undervalue the worth or to envy the gifts of a functional equal.” This is to remove glory from that person.

So I know I spent a lot of time here and I don’t have much time left, but I think that first one is so important. We kind of know about the knowledge thing. We know about the commandments, the law of God. We’re to minister that to one another, but the glory thing, it’s so important. It’s so motivational to people.

May the Lord God grant that we give these gifts to one another.

And on the outline how to give and get the gift of knowledge. Well, you know, you’re supposed to understand first of all, you want to receive knowledge from others. And you have an obligation to give knowledge to others. Well, how? By seeking to know others as others. I mean, this, you know, it’s interesting and I, you know, can’t get into detail on this obviously, but the knowledge of other people, we’re confronted with that in the early chapters of Genesis and in a very interesting way when Adam knows his wife—carnally in terms of you know marital obligation, marital joys—this is the word that’s used in the Hebrew is “to know.” That Adam “knew” his wife. You see, that’s what I’m trying to get at here. We minister knowledge by seeking to know others as others.

Adam’s motivation is not for his own pleasure. It’s not for himself. He’s not treating his wife as an object for him to get personal pleasure. Now, that’s the result. But his goal, his intent is to know her. You see, to know his wife, a knowledge of it. And we. So, what we want to do in ministering knowledge to each other is to recognize that we want to treat others as others, not as extensions are part of who we are. You see, and this leads to the gift of knowledge one to the other by seeking to reveal ourselves to others. You see, we close ourselves off out of fear. God says, “Reveal who you are. Explain your perspective on an issue. Let them know what your life is sort of about.” We try to do this in the prayer meetings, right? Confession of sin. What are you really struggling with this last week? And opening up of ourselves is a giving of knowledge of who we are to each other.

And we’re ministering then knowledge. We’re giving the gift to each other of who we are by “not thinking of ourselves too highly or too lowly.” You see, you think, well, I’m with Ti. He studied the Bible a lot. I don’t even teach him. Yeah, you do. You got all kinds of things to teach me. You’re a complete separate person from me. And the Lord God has been maturing and changing and making you into who you are. And you’ve got knowledge, wisdom, truth that I don’t have and I need it. So don’t think of yourselves too lowly. Give the gift of knowledge which means knowing that the Lord God has granted you knowledge and understanding of certain things in life and be willing to give that in communication within the family.

Parents, you’re supposed to be giving knowledge to your children, right? You know that. Who’s the ultimate responsibility to teach our children the Bible? The church or the parents? It’s the parents. I have kids in Psalms class for 40 minutes, 30 minutes or less instructional time, and I’m going to teach them the Bible. I’m going to set up some big categories, but you know, it’s the parents work day in and day out ministering this gift of knowledge to your children that’s going to build them up in an understanding of Christ.

We should all desire to help others learn about the Bible. We’re to give knowledge, and knowing how to give knowledge in community. We don’t have time to spend on this, but when you’re going to teach functional superiors, you want to treat them as functional superiors. You want to treat them as those above you in some way, functionally, not better. And so, you have to be careful how you teach those in authority.

Children, you have things that teach your parents, but you must do it in a very respectful and submissive way. And then there’s a different way to teach functional inferiors, and we have that obligation that I’ve mentioned.

So, we have this tremendous ability to teach one another to minister this gift of knowledge. And then finally we have this tremendous obligation to minister or give the gift of community to one another.

A Roman numeral 3 on the outline: by “cultivating the commanded grace of hospitality.” You can look up the scriptures on your own, but it is a commanded grace. We are commanded to be hospitable to one another. If the only time you get to hear with the people of God is at this table, you’ve missed the point. This sets up a perspective of life at which we minister community to other people. We have an obligation, you know, to bring people into our lives, not just with knowledge and giving them weight, but into our lives to rejoice together in community.

And you know, I know that in this church that’s done quite a bit. And this is mostly friends, but there are other things here. We are, I think, by—we’re to “consistently prioritize the parish prayer meetings and community events of the church.” We see it as a—you see, it’s not just some kind of adjunct thing put onto our Christian walk and knowing the Bible. For the elders to lead the congregation into community and into extending community to others through parish prayer meetings, you know, in particular regions of the city where people gather once a month for prayer, community events, family camp, whatever it is we end up doing, the basketball nights, Eli’s advice night tonight to try to prioritize.

You can’t make them all baby showers. But you see, when you go to these events, you’re granting the gift of community to the other people that are there. You’re engaging in community and you’re ministering that great gift that we all have need of to rejoice in community together.

And then C: “by being sensitive to minister community to those who appear to need it most.” Psalm 68 says that God “sets the solitary families.” Do you? God takes people that through whatever reason have difficulty experiencing rejoicing community life. God of his way, he wills and he does to set those people in the context of families. Now, what does it mean? How does he do it? Well, get the basic point first. This is an obligation of you. God has granted you the gift of community and you’re supposed to be like God, taking those who have particular need of community, the singles, whatever it might be, and granting them community, bringing them into your homes, having people over, going over when you’re invited over.

You see, prioritizing the gift of community. It’s not something tacked on. It’s one of—it’s that pot of manna in there. It’s rejoicing time together. It’s the peace offering. It’s the Lord’s supper at the end of our service. It’s one of the basic needs of humanity to rejoice together in loving and joyful community. And God says, “This should be a priority to you.”

You go home today, talk to your wife about this stuff. How am I at giving you glory, knowledge, and life? How are we as a couple or as a family—how are we? Let’s rate ourselves at giving glory, knowledge, and life, community life to one another.

The final example is speech, right? Speech. We give people—we’re talking, having a conversation. We give the gift of glory when we be quiet and listen to the other person. That’s not understanding. That’s the gift of knowledge. You see, we receive the gift of knowledge and foster that when we understand what they’re saying. But I’m saying before you get there, you want to give the gift of glory, telling that person that they’re important to you by hearing them out. You may know 5 seconds into the conversation what they’re going to say, but if you cut them off, you see, now you’ve not ministered glory. You’ve given them shame.

So speech, listening, hearing each other out, giving each other glory, and then moving to understand, asking questions if you don’t understand. You see, ministering, cultivating this gift of the exchange of persons first through just hearing a person out. Glory. And then understanding what they’re saying. And when you do that, then you get to the final phase. Well, now you’re going to have a good time together with the person.

You see, if you cut him off, or are not interested in learning or teaching or interrelating knowledge to them, you’re never going to get to community or if you do, they show up at your house, it’s going to be kind of empty.

So speech and the way we conduct that speech is critical here. Couples, marriages. I mean, you could almost—I could take everybody that comes into my office for counseling, marriage or whatever it is, and think about these gifts and number one, do they know that God has granted them these gifts? And number two, are they ministering these gifts to their wives, to their husband, husbands to their brother if the problem is a brother problem. You see this is—this is core stuff. This is who we are. This is how God made us. We’re made in his image. He has all glory, all knowledge and all rejoicing community and life. He grants it to us today. But you know what gifts you receive today, you’re given so you may minister it to others.

May God grant us the grace to be ministers of these wonderful gifts of gifts.

Let’s pray. Father, we do pray that this week—today we think about how well we are ministering the gifts that you give to us to one another. Grant us, Lord God, the joy every Sunday of opening those doors, coming in through the work of Jesus, rejoicing in the great gifts you give us to the end that we might give those gifts to one another. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.