The Tabernacle: Space for God

God has recreated a way back into his presence after our sin had driven us out. God is restoring his presence with his people because y'all, that's always been the point. The presence of God with his people is the whole point of this Exodus journey. Hey friends, welcome to the Summit Life podcast. I'm Molly Vitovich and before we get started today, I want to share about an upcoming event that might be for you or for the leaders God has placed in your church.

This spring, our partners at the Summit Collaborative are hosting a Multiply Intensive, a two-day experience designed for pastors, planters, and church leaders who are ready to take the gospel further through intentional, scalable multiplication. The Multiply Intensive brings together those who are planting churches, raising up disciples, and equipping teams to make kingdom impact at scale. Participants will gain the vision, tools, and next steps needed to move from maintenance to movement. The event takes place on Tuesday, March 24th through Wednesday, March 25th in Raleigh, North Carolina at the Summit Church Capitol Hills campus. Don't just grow your church.

Multiply your impact. Learn more or invite a leader from your church today at summitcollaborative.org. Today we wrap up our journey through the book of Exodus and we find ourselves in a place that might feel a little unexpected. After all the big dramatic moments, you know, the burning bush, the plagues, the Red Sea, Moses meeting with God on the mountain, you might expect the book to end with another major crescendo. Instead, we land on detailed instructions for building the tabernacle.

And at first glance, it can feel a bit anticlimactic, but Pastor JD helps us see that this wasn't just about a building. Let's return one last time to the book of Exodus. Exodus 27, if you have your Bibles, Exodus 27, as you are turning there, quick survey, okay? You can only choose one. Beach, mountain, or lake.

How many of you are beach people? Raise your hands, okay? How many of you are mountain people? Raise your hands. How many of you are lake people?

Which honestly sounds like something out of a horror movie. Raise your hands. I like all of them, but I think I would probably say I'm a mountain person most of all. I am from West Virginia after all, so country roads take me home. There are two distinctive features of the mountain drive that I've always loved: one is the runaway truck ramp, and the other is the scenic overlook.

When I was a kid, I was always fascinated by those runaway truck ramps, and I secretly hoped that my family would have the chance to use one one day. It looked like a fun little hill with little ridges in it. How fun would that be?

Now I realize how terrifying it would be to actually be in a situation where you needed one of those. In 2013, there was this crazy incident on I-40 where a rookie driver literally just days onto the job. First kind of cross-country trip with the tractor trailer was bringing his rig down the mountain when his brakes gave out. His tractor trailer that was hauling 80,000 pounds got to over 100 miles an hour. And he was doing his best just to keep the thing on the road.

And it kept just gaining speed. And then he looked up and saw that traffic had come to a standstill. He's going 110 miles an hour with 40 tons of freight. Just before the back end of that traffic jam was one of those ramps. He plowed into that ramp at over 100 miles an hour and it just about killed him.

But it literally saved not only his life, but also the lives of all the people in those cars in that traffic jam. Thank God for the runaway truck ramp. The other feature of the mountain drive I love is the scenic overlook where you can stop for five or 10 minutes and just take in the landscape. I mean, I love these, y'all, because I mean, what good is driving in the mountains if you don't stop and enjoy it? You stop, you roll down your windows, you put on your John Denver, and you just have a moment, okay?

Two features, one about rescue, the other about beauty. What's that got to do with Exodus 27? The Holy Spirit ends the book of Exodus by giving them instructions for the construction of the tabernacle. And you're going to see that both of those features, rescue and beauty, are supposed to be part of their daily walk with God. And they are symbolized in that tabernacle.

Remember, this whole Exodus journey they have been on has been like a 101 course in how to walk with God. By the way, if you picked a new time to come back to church and you've been here for a few weeks, this is an incredible time. Because the events of the book of Exodus, what we've learned, we first learned the melody of salvation, the basic patterns of how God saves us. That's a melody, I've told you. You're going to hear played over and over and over again throughout the rest of the Bible, like it's the score in a musical play that you hear at the beginning and then you hear again repeated throughout the play.

Then we saw God take his people through Wilderness University, which we called Wilderness U, where he gave them basic training and how to trust him and walk with him. Then in Mount Sinai, God gives them the law. And the law is like a marriage covenant, a marriage covenant that shows them. The kind of people that he wants them to become. But we see them fail at that.

Exodus 32, almost immediately in the golden calf incident. And then God reveals himself again, Exodus 34, as a merciful God who keeps his side of the covenant, even when we break ours. This whole journey comes to a head in the instructions. for the tabernacle. You might think that's a strange way for the book of Exodus to end.

Why would you end a book that's filled with action and adventure with the floor plan and interior design for a building? It almost seems kind of anticlimatic, right?

Well, it's because this tabernacle is going to encapsulate their relationship with God. God is literally going to dwell among his people in this tabernacle, and God's presence with his people has always been the point of this whole journey. This tabernacle is going to be mobile. at least for right now, so that it can go wherever Israel goes, because God wants to be with his people. Eventually, when Israel settles down in the promised land, they'll convert this tabernacle into the temple.

In fact, many think that King Solomon, who built the first temple, actually built the temple around this tabernacle. But for now, it's mobile. The walls are made out of cloth, and all the furniture has holsters for poles so that it can be folded up and picked up and moved quickly. Here's what I'm going to do with today. I'm going to take you on a little tour of the structure of the tabernacle.

We're going to pretend like we're in Israel, and I'm just going to take you on a tour. We're going to cover 15 chapters of the Bible when we do that. And then I'm going to show you how you can incorporate this structure into your walk with God today. Which is why I gave you. Discard.

Make sure you have this out because I'm going to refer to it several times throughout the message. Just sit it right there on top of your Bible because we're going to keep looking at it, okay? First, let's take the tour. Our first stop on the tabernacle tour is the outer courts of the tabernacle. You'll see that there on your sheet, this little area over here, this way from the east.

This is the only way that you could enter into this court. It was a large area, about 10,000 square feet. For right now, in the season of the tabernacle, only Jews, only believing Jews, are allowed to enter here. Later, when the tabernacle was converted into the temple, this court would be subdivided into an outer ring for the Gentiles and then an inner ring for the Jews so that the Gentiles could observe God's people and worship. But for now, only Jews could enter into the outer court.

The first thing that you came into when you came through the gate into the outer court, the first thing was the brazen altar, or what we call the altar of burnt offerings.

Now, this was a big box. It was about seven and a half feet long and seven and a half feet wide and four and a half feet high. It was coated with bronze, why they call it the bronze altar. It was filled with rocks so that you could offer sacrifices on top of it and then burn those sacrifices. This is the place I've told you about where at least once a year, the head of each family in Israel would bring a lamb to sacrifice on the altar.

I asked our production if I could actually bring a lamb in here and do the sacrificing. They said no.

So I had to suffice with this knife that represents what they would have had. The priest would bind the sacrifice, they would lay the sacrifice on top of this altar, and then the head of the family would lay his hand on the sacrifice's head and confess the sins of the family. And as he did that, a priest would slit the throat of the offering, and then they would burn the offering on this altar. Each of the corners of the altar had a horn growing out of it, like this right here. You see the four horns of the altar.

Those horns served two purposes. The most practical purpose was they function like a post where you could tie up the animal who was waiting to be sacrificed. But they also were a place that somebody who was being hunted down by a pursuer seeking justice. Right, if you were fleeing from the Avenger, you could cling to one of these horns for mercy. If you've been accused of a crime and somebody was coming after you for vengeance, you could grab hold of one of those horns and they could not touch you until you could stand trial.

Kind of like when you were a kid playing tag, this would have been base. You're safe as long as you're here.

Next, after that, if we go past the brazen altar, we've got the bronze laver. Braun to Laver.

Now, important. This altar of burnt offerings right here. This is as far as the average Israelite can go. Only the priests could go beyond the altar of burnt offerings. The bronze lover was this gigantic basin of water.

Much bigger than this, but it was filled with pure water that priests used to wash their hands and their feet before they would enter into the holy place, which was the indoor part of it.

Now, I want you to note, this cleansing here was only for their hands and their feet. Priests were already considered clean. They'd already had a sacrifice at the altar of burnt offerings. When they were dedicated to the ministry, they went through a thorough ritual washing in which they were washed from head to toe. This washing here was just for their hands and their feet.

to rid them of the daily defilement that they encountered out in the world.

Next we have number four, the table of showbread. The table of showbread, this Lego-looking thing right there.

Now, we're inside the tent now. This is called the holy place where they are. This was a gold-plated table. that had 12 fresh loaves of bread on top of the table, 12, one for each of the 12 tribes of Israel. On the Sabbath day, the priests who were working in the temple would eat this bread, and then they would put new loaves out for the coming week.

The reason that's significant, and Exodus, I think it's 27 explains all this to you. The reason that's significant is that in pagan worship, Egyptian worship, priests would put out food for the gods to eat. This bread was not something they were providing for God. This bread symbolized. the manna God provides for them.

By the way, if you want to know the difference in biblical worship and pagan worship in a nutshell, there it is. In pagan worship, you take care of the God. In biblical worship, God takes care of you.

Next, we have number five. You come to the golden lampstand. The golden lampstand. This was carved from a solid gold talent. The actual one wouldn't have been this size, would have been about five feet tall and weighed about 75 pounds, so about the size of a 10-year-old.

Now, question. What does the shape, let me see if I can light this thing, what does the shape of this remind you of? What does the shape of this thing remind you of?

Well, it's called a menorah, but yeah.

So the shape. reminds you, it says, of a bush. Like a burning bush. with seven branches. This lamp symbolizes the presence of God.

This lamp, by the way, was the only source of light in the holy place. Because this place is really dark, shrouded by all these curtains. This lamp was to be kept lit continually, symbolizing the constant light of God's presence with his people. What Moses got. When he encountered God at the burning bush, these people are now having traveling with them.

Exodus 27:20 says that the fuel for this lamp was to be made from crushed olives. They had to be crushed, could not be ground or milled. Had to be crushed. That's an important detail that we'll come back to in a minute. But next, we have the altar of incense, the altar of incense.

As we approach now the Holy of Holies, we come to the altar of incense. This altar was lit twice a day, once in the morning, once in the evening. And it symbolized the prayers of God's people rising like incense up to God's throne. This altar also had four horns. But whereas the horns of the bronze altar represented mercy of God, these horns represented the power of God.

The meaning was that the very power of God itself is accessed to the prayers of his people. Lastly, we come number seven to the holy of Holies. This is the final place. It's closed off to everybody except for the high priest, and he can only come in this once a year. There was a thick veil between the holy place and the holy of holies.

This holiest of holy rooms had one piece of furniture in it, one piece. The Ark of the Covenant. The ark was a gold-plated box, looked something like this, and inside that box were three things. We learned there was, number one, a copy of the Ten Commandments. Number two, there was a pot that was filled with manna.

And then number three, there was Aaron's shepherd staff, which had miraculously butted. He had a walking stick, basically, and it came to life and it grew flowers. And it became a symbol to them of God's life-giving power. By the way, the priest at the time taught that this box represented the human heart. Our heart should possess those three things at all times: God's law, the daily manna of His Word, and God's miraculous life-giving power.

On top of the ark was something they called the mercy seat. Was covered by two cherubim, two angels, each made of gold, each facing each other with their faces bowed down toward the ground, and in the place between the cherubim. The literal presence of God dwelt in fire and cloud. Once a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter that Holy of Holies. He would take the blood of a sacrificed lamb or goat, and he would sprinkle blood on the mercy seat on behalf of the sins of the entire nation.

There you have it. Our tour is complete. Those are the elements of the tabernacle. But let me point out a few things that you may not have noticed. Number one, the tabernacle recreated the Garden of Eden.

A few things stand out to the careful reader. First, God gives his instructions about the tabernacle to Moses in seven waves. Seven times in these chapters it says, and the Lord said to Moses, Can you think of anywhere else in scripture where God created something with seven words? in creation. By the way, the last of the times that God spoke to Moses about the tabernacle, the last one is in Exodus 31:12.

And what it says is, the Lord said to Moses, above all, you shall keep my Sabbath. For this is the sign between me and you throughout your generations. In creation, God's last word, his seventh word, had been about the Sabbath.

So the same thing is true here of the tabernacle. It's obvious something's being hinted at, right? Oh, there's more, okay? Exodus 27, 13 tells us that the direction of the gate always had to face due east. Wherever they were, wherever they set it up, the gate had to face east, which is significant because east was the direction that Adam and Eve had been driven out of the Garden of Eden.

Genesis 3, 24 says that after Adam and Eve sinned, God killed an animal in front of them and then drove them out of the garden toward the east. And then he placed a cherub, an angel, with a flaming sword in front of the east entrance.

So now we got worshipers coming into the temple from the east. And the first thing they come to was a brazen altar where a sacrifice was both killed. and then burnt. The picture, this brazen altar. Is the flaming sword of God's judgment?

It's being extinguished, and the way to God is being reopened, or it's beginning to be reopened. Gets even better. Exodus 26, 1 and 26, 31 tell us that the curtains separating the people from the holy place and the holy of holies had cherubim woven into them. Again, this is all a deliberate recreation of the Garden of Eden. And remember the golden lampstand that we talked about?

It was shaped not just to look like the burning bush, it was also shaped to look like the tree of life. The message is clear, right? God has recreated a way back into his presence after our sin had driven us out. God is restoring his presence with his people because y'all, that's always been the point. The presence of God with his people is the whole point of this Exodus journey.

Interestingly, by the way. Takes only two chapters. Takes only two chapters to tell the entire creation story, Genesis 1 and 2. These instructions for the tabernacle cover more than 50 chapters. Five zero.

Let that sink in for a minute. For God to create the sun, the moon, the stars, all the molecules, all the atoms in our universe, that only took two chapters, no big deal. But to provide your salvation. to create the new creation. Yeah, that was much harder.

Here's the second thing you may not have noticed as we went through those elements. Number two, the tabernacle was a mobile Mount Sinai. Remember Mount Sinai where God had given the law? Exodus 19 says, Son, I've been a mountain of smoke and fire. with a great barrier between the people and God that no Israelite could cross lest they be killed.

Only Moses was allowed up into that mountain to meet with God.

Well, now you have a holy of holies with several barriers between the people and God. which only the high priest is able to penetrate once a year. The furniture in the holy place recreates Mount Sinai. Not just the layout, but the furniture itself. The golden lampstand representing the presence of God was like the burning bush Moses encountered on Mount Sinai.

God's presence is encapsulated in smoke and fire in the Holy of Holies. This is a mobile Mount Sinai. The people weren't supposed to just meet with God at Mount Sinai, get some instructions, and move on. That might be how we summarize some of your Christian life. You come get instructions and then you go on throughout the week without God.

No, the presence of God went with them. Because the point of the Exodus was not God's instruction of his people. The point of the Exodus was God's presence with his people. In fact, those of you who go with us to Israel will learn this. Scholars are not even 100% sure today where Mount Sinai even is.

They kind of know the region, but nobody knows which mountain was Mount Sinai. Moses didn't record which mountain it was because after they built the tabernacle, it didn't matter. The presence of God was the point, and that was now in the tabernacle. And if they got the presence, the mountain became irrelevant.

So most importantly, number three, the tabernacle foreshadowed Jesus. The Apostle John talking about Jesus. says this about Jesus in his introduction, the Gospel of John. The word, Jesus, became flesh. and dwelt, literally in Greek, it says, he tabernacled among us.

We have seen his glory. Glory is of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth, Jesus, who is God's ultimate word in creation. Was, according to John, a walking tabernacle. Everything you see pictured in that tabernacle is fulfilled in Jesus in John 10:7. Jesus said he was the door.

The one way you can enter the presence of God, Jesus was the sacrifice on the brazen altar. The flaming sword of God's wrath for sin dropped onto him, and his blood was poured out in the altar so that all those who grab hold of those horns of mercy can find eternal safety. Jesus is our daily cleansing at the bronze laver. John tells us that if we confess our sins, he Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's not talking about salvation.

Salvation happened here. That's talking about daily cleansing. Jesus is your table of showbread. John 6:35, Jesus says, I am the bread of life. And then to prove it, he does the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, where he multiplies the bread and the fish.

Do you remember how many baskets full of leftovers it says they took up after the miracle was over? 12. Remember the number of loaves on this table of showbread? 12. You think that's coincidental?

Listen, when you know the Old Testament, you understand the New Testament so much better. Right, what he's saying is, I have always been a showbread. I am the presence of God in there. Jesus is the golden lampstand of God's presence. John 8, 12, Jesus stands up in front of this large crowd and he says, I am the light of the world.

By the way, do you remember the detail about where the fuel? For the lamp came from. It had to be made out of crushed olives, not ground or milled olives.

Well, the night before Jesus died, where did Jesus go to pray? The garden of Gethsemane. And do you know what Gethsemane means in Hebrew? It literally means crushed olive. The Garden of Gethsemane is a place where they crushed olives.

On the night before Jesus died, he goes to this garden, and as he prayed, he began to sweat great drops of blood as if God's wrath for our sin was literally crushing him. His crushed body was the fuel that brings the light of God's presence back to us so that it does not destroy us with holiness, but heals us with mercy. We'll return to our brand new teaching in just a moment, but I wanted to take a minute to tell you about our featured resource this month. Lent is a season that invites us to slow down, to reorient our hearts toward the cross, and to remember why Easter matters so deeply. And this month, Summit Life wants to help you walk through that season with intention.

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Jesus is our altar of incense. John says, Jesus, as our advocate, stands before the Father day and night, right now, interceding for us if we are his children. He's doing that for you right now, believer. Before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea. A great high priest whose name is love, whoever lives and pleads for me.

Robert Murray McShane. One of the just a saint of yesteryear, he said, if I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room. I would not fear a million enemies. Yeah, distance makes no difference. Scripture assures me that he's praying for me right now.

Imagine that. Imagine that during a time of temptation or fear. You can just hear Jesus in the next room praying for you. How would that make you feel? Distance makes no difference.

He's doing that right now. He's the altar of incense. Jesus is the holy of holies. The moment that Jesus died, this curtain. This curtain was torn in two from the top to the bottom, showing that the way had been opened for all to enter the very presence of God.

By the way, let me take you a little deeper into this. On the Day of Atonement. The one day a year the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies. Two goats were involved in the sacrifice, not one. On that one day there were two goats, not one.

One goat was offered up on the altar. like we've talked about. And then his blood was carried into the Holy of Holies on behalf of the whole nation, sprinkled in the mercy seat. By the way, while the high priest was in the Holy of Holies, Everybody in Israel was nervous. They always had a great crowd that was always gathered outside of the tabernacle to see if the high priest would come out.

Because if the high priest didn't come out, it meant that God hadn't accepted the sacrifice, and the high priest was dead.

Something had gone wrong. Maybe the priest was unclean, or Israel hadn't repented, or something went right. That was where the tradition or the legend developed that they would tie a rope to the high priest's ankle.

So that if he got struck dead, they could pull him out so they wouldn't have to go into the Holy of Holies and get struck dead too. When the high priest finally did appear. Everybody in the whole camp of Israel will start to cheer because it meant the sacrifice had worked. for another year. God has been reconciled to his people.

Well, then, if the high priest emerged, the first thing he would do is he would walk straight back to the altar of burnt offerings. Where the other goat had been tied up. Did you forget about that fella? The high priest would then lay his hands on the head of this second goat. He would confess Israel's sins.

And then they would send that goat outside the camp into the desert to die. symbolic of their sin being carried away from them. It's like if I had two balloons up here, two helium balloons. I took a pen and I popped one of them, showing that God had exploded the penalty of my sin. And then I took the other outside and let the wind carry it away, picturing how God carried our sin away from us.

That's basically what's happening here. One goat was sacrificed, showing the penalty was extinguished. And one goat was sent away, showing that God had carried our sin away from us forever. By the way, this is awesome. It was considered a bad omen if somehow that Second goat wandered back into the camp a few days later, right?

Like he's bringing back the guilt of the people.

So, Jewish rabbinic tradition tells us that there was usually somebody that was waiting just outside of the temple or tabernacle to grab the goat and throw him over a cliff or something to make sure that he didn't come back.

Now, let's come back to Jesus. When Jesus died When Jesus died, scripture tells us that he was sacrificed outside the camp. which is odd terminology because you're like, where are they camping? He's out he's talking about the tabernacle They're outside the camp. Jesus' blood was shed, and he was taken outside the camp.

In other words, Jesus was both goats. He was the one who shed his blood for our sin, and the one who carried our sin away forever. And after he died, remember everybody was nervous. Jesus was dead. He was gone.

Had it worked? What went wrong? Why did the Messiah die? Had something bad happened? Is God not really with us?

Just like Israel stood fearful when the high priest was in the Holy of Holies. The disciples were fearful after Jesus died, but then after three days, out he walks from the Holy of Holies. It's as if he's walking back out saying, it works. Then the culmination on Pentecost, Acts 2 says the disciples were standing just outside. Actually, we're most likely in the outer courtyard here.

when they hear the sound of a mighty rushing wind. And fire comes out of the temple. If you read it carefully in Acts 2, it says, it implies that it was a single ball of fire that came out. And then that ball of fire subdivided into little tongues of fire that came to rest on the heads of each of the disciples. The very fire of God's presence that was once contained in this Holy of Holies behind a thick, impenetrable curtain now lives inside of you and me.

Try and tell me you're not special. You're a walking holy of holies.

So I will say it again. God's presence with his people. has always been the point of this whole journey. In the Garden of Eden, God had walted with his people every day that they sinned and drove themselves out of God's presence.

So God built a tabernacle so he could dwell in their midst. Though he was still separated behind several threatening barriers. But then Jesus came, who was God tabernacling with us in person. And now, in the person of the Holy Spirit, the God of the Holy of Holies has taken up residence in us, and we can have communion with Him every single day. Try and tell me you're not special.

Try and tell me that God doesn't have a plan for your life. You try and tell me that you don't have the power to overcome sin or temptation or loneliness or despair. God put His Holy of Holies inside of you. You are more sacred than Mount Sinai. You're more sacred than the Holy of Holies.

When you're in Israel, if you go there, they'll take you through a long tunnel that goes under the whaling wall, and you get to this spot where the tour guide will say they think this was the very place where the Holy of Holies was in the temple. And it's like this amazing moment. I'm trying to get my mind around the fact that I'm standing in the former Holy of Holies. And I'm like, wait a minute. The Holy of Holies is not here.

It's here. I am a walking holy of holies. There's literally no more special, sacred, anointed place on earth than your heart. You are the temple of God. Which Brings me back to this card.

A devotional journey through the tabernacle. Hebrews 9:24 says, you flip it over to the side. Says that the tabernacle is a copy. A copy of the very throne room of God. Which means that you could use the structure of the tabernacle as a way to come into God's presence every day.

That's what I've tried to give you through this car. By the way, special shout out to my friend Brad Cooper, pastor of New Spring Church down in South Carolina, who gave me this idea. He says he uses something like this every single day in his quiet time. He actually prays through it with his young kids in the car on the way to school.

So, you parents out there have young kids, this is actually a great tool that you can use. It's in the car with them. Stop number one in your time with God could be the outer courts. That ought to be characterized by thanksgiving. Psalm 104 says: Enter his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise.

He's talking about the tabernacle.

So here's the prompt I gave for you. What am I thankful for today? What do I want to praise God for today? Praise, you see, brings you into the presence of God. Pastor Brad calls praise the password into God's presence.

So start right there in that hour court. Start by telling God what you love about Him, what you're thankful for from Him. Don't rush through it. Linger there, sing, or listen to a worship song if you want. By the way, it doesn't matter if you can't sing.

God doesn't care about the quality of your voice, He just wants to hear from you. Stop number two is the brazen altar. I want you to think of this as embracing the cross. See Ephesians 1, 7. It says, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace.

I just want you to notice the prompt I've given you, rejoice that because of Jesus, there's nothing you could do that would make God love you anymore. Nothing you have done that would make him love you any less. Friend, that's the gospel. Rejoice in it daily. God accepts you not on the basis of how well you've done, but on the basis of Christ's finished work.

I come before God literally with Jesus' righteousness credited to my account because all my sin was put upon him. And that means I could not be more righteous in God's sight than I am right now because you can't get more righteous than Jesus, and Jesus has become my righteousness. I couldn't be safer or more beloved than I am right now. There's nothing I could do that would make him love me anymore, nothing I have done that makes him love me any less.

So spend a few minutes just holding on to those horns. And just rejoice in them. Thank God for Christ. Then go on to station three, the bronze lava. Let that represent daily cleansing and renewal.

Already quoted in 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But. You need a You need to go through this. You don't need to be re-saved every day. That's already happened once for all back at the bronze altar.

You've already been forgiven. You've already been cleansed from head to toe. But You do need daily cleansing and renewal.

So here are the prompts I've given you. Confess, where have you sinned and need forgiveness? What's taken over your mind in the last day? Ask God to cleanse you and renew your mind, your heart, and your body for His service. Confess those sins, whatever they are.

Take that runaway truck, Rand. Get back on the road with God.

Next stop, number four, the table of showbread. Scripture feeds us. Matthew 4:4 says, Man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That's what Jesus said in a time of temptation. That's a quote from the Exodus.

John 6:35, Jesus told us, I am the bread of life.

So I gave you this prompt here in this card. Spend time in God's word. That's the table of showbread. Let it feed you and sustain you. Embrace his promises.

Rehearse God's promises every morning until they feed your soul and flood you with confidence and change your outlook on you and the people in your life and your whole day. George Mueller, George Mueller used to say, he's a great saint of the 19th century. He used to say, It is my sacred duty each morning, my duty. To get my soul happy in God before I go about the day. The greatest thing that I can give to every person in my life.

My wife, my kids. My coworkers to you. The greatest gift I can give to you is a soul happy in God, brimming with confidence in his promises. Because see, then I won't walk around like a sad sack of unbelief. Or even worse, with an emptiness that causes me to use you to fill up some void in my heart.

When my soul was happy in God, I can love people. and not use them, I can forgive them instead of resenting them. To stop number four, spend time in God's Word every day. By the way, do you have?

Something good that you use for a daily quiet time. If not, let me encourage you to use the Summit Daily Revival on our Summit app. I use it literally every single day. It's the first thing on the top of the app. I use it every morning.

I do that one and another one called LEC DO365. Those two tools are the best way for me to start my day feasting on scripture. Stop number five, the golden lampstand. Let this represent God's glory in His presence. Here's what I've written as a prompt for you with this one: worship.

in the light of God's presence through song or through quiet adoration. or a declaration. This is different from Thanksgiving, which you did in the outer courts. This is more focused on who God is. And who he is to you.

Sit in the light of his presence. Name those qualities about God that you love the most. The name of the Lord is like a strong tower.

So call out those names and run into them. You say, well, why do I need to name them? God already knows what they are. Yes, but just calling them out will fill your own soul with faith. Psalm 22:3 says, God inhabits the praises of his people, which means as you pray and you praise, he comes.

Put them into a song. By the way, for most of us, we should probably use a song somebody else has written. I know some of you are gifted as songwriters.

Some of you. But if you don't have that gift, don't be one of those weirdos that's always making up tunes for God. God's like, I love you, but I know good music from bad. You say, yeah, but he just likes to hear our songs. It's like me with my two-year-old.

I love to put their terrible drawings up on my refrigerator. Yeah, I'm sure when you were a new Christian, God put your songs up on his refrigerator. But if you're still drawing stick figures for your parents when you're 35, your parents are gonna stop putting those pictures up, right?

So, I'm just saying, feel free to use somebody else's song that's not less authentic. God's not weird. You don't have to be weird to be a Christian. Can I say that again? I'm not saying it's about the quality of your music.

I'm not contradicting what I said before, just saying you don't have to be weird to be a Christian, always making stuff up. I don't do that with my wife. I'm in love with her, but I'm like, Veronica, you're so amazing. Did the dishes last night and you always look, I don't do that. She'd be like, stop that, right?

The point is, it's coming from your heart and it's expressing.

So feel free to use somebody else's song. It's very authentic. The main point is spend time in the light of God's presence and watch your heart fill with joy. Ask God for eyes to see him more clearly. That's what Paul prays in Ephesians 1:18.

Give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation. I understand you. And my salvation more clearly.

So ask God for greater knowledge of Him. That's your second prompt. Here's your next prompt, number six. Number six, the altar of incense. These are your prayers of intercession.

You're joining Jesus in intercession. Psalm 141, too, literally says, I love this, let my prayers rise before you like the evening sacrifice of incense. He's talking about the tabernacle.

Here's the prompt I gave for you. Intercede for others. Let your prayer rise like a pleasing aroma to God. Pray for your family, your church, your community. Pray for the world.

Don't just pray to God. Pray with Jesus, who's also there as that altar of incense. Lastly, number seven. The Holy of Holies. I want you to think of this as the fullness of the Spirit.

That's what it was all about, right?

So here's what I gave you as a prompt: ask for the fullness of the Spirit and then yield yourself to God completely. Abide, listen, be still, and know that He is God. Ephesians 5:18 commands you be filled with the Spirit. And Paul wouldn't command you to be filled with it if you were already as full as you could be. Yeah, you got the Holy Spirit when you got saved.

I get that. But I'm telling you, there's a fullness, there's a greater richness of experience of that presence that you can experience if you'll just ask for it and earnestly seek it. Here's the second prompt I gave you: ask for new spiritual gifts by which to serve God and others. That's why the Holy Spirit came on them, right? The tongues of fire was so that they could minister in his name.

1 Corinthians 14:1. Paul tells us: eagerly desire spiritual gifts, eagerly desire more manifestations of the Spirit's power in your life. Paul says especially that you may prophesy. Prophesy means to relay messages directly from the Spirit through you to somebody else. By the way, I'm trying to obey 1 Corinthians 14, 1 this year.

And every day this year, I'm asking God for more of the gift of prophecy.

Now you gotta be careful with it. There are rules for it. We'll talk about those more later, but maybe you should consider praying the same thing with me.

Okay? I want you to notice the last instruction on your card. It says, let this pattern guide your time with God. Not as a ritual. but as a relational rhythm to draw near to him daily because You know, that's why God gave us the pattern of the tabernacle.

His presence was always the point. You got to make space for God. Which was the title of this message, by the way? The tabernacle was literally the center of Israel's life. Your daily time with God should be the center of your life.

Right? And that's not a stretch.

So put this card in your Bible. If you've never started what we call a quiet time, Use this and our Summit app and start tomorrow. Listen, there's probably no single spiritual discipline I would recommend more to you than a daily time with God. A couple years ago, the Institute of Biblical Research did the largest nationwide study ever conducted. on the effect of Bible reading on people's lives, surveyed thousands and thousands of people.

Here's what they found. If you read the Bible one day a week, It has almost no effect on your life. Read it one day, listen to one sermon. Nothing. Read it two or three days per week.

They say the studies share there's a slight effect, but still rather negligible. But get this. They found that if you read your Bible four times a week or more, You are 59% less likely to view pornography. 228% more likely to share your faith. and at least 30% less likely to struggle with loneliness, depression, or anxiety.

Here's a big idea, friend, when the word, not the world, becomes the center of your life. It'll transform you like nothing else can.

So let me encourage you, if you're serious, about growing in Christ. I want you to start this habit daily. If you're not serious, you're like, I just like to come in, hear an inspirational sermon. Feel good for a few minutes, feel like I did my religious duty and go on about my life, and I'm really serious about growing with Jesus, then yeah, just keep doing what you're doing. But if you actually want to change, you actually want to become the person God wants you to become, you start spending time with Him every day.

And see, that brings us to the end of the book of Exodus. The book that establishes for us the melody of salvation, the book that shows us the basics of walking with God. It ends. with a tabernacle. To spend daily time in his presence because that's always been the point.

God's presence with his people has always been the point of this whole Exodus journey. That concludes our journey through Exodus. Hope it brought new insights and a more beautiful picture of God as a result. Before we go, I want to remind you about our featured resource this month. As we journey through the season of Lent that begins on February 18th, We are offering a 40-day devotional called Walking Through Lent.

It's available as a digital download when you support Summit Life with a gift this month. To request this resource, visit jdgreer.com. Thanks for listening today and we'll see you next time on the Summit Life podcast. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries. Yeah.