Pay Attention and Persevere!

you would take your Bibles and stand in honor of God's Word. The Old Testament scripture reading this morning is

Haggai chapter two, verses one through nine. In the seventh month, on the 21st day of the month, the word of the

Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet. Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Sheltiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehoshadack, the high priest, and to all of the remnant of the people, and say, who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory?

How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong,

O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehoshadack, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the

Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts. According to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt, my spirit remains in your midst, fear not.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, yet once more for a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the

Lord of hosts. The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the

Lord of hosts, and in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts. New Testament scripture reading is found in Revelation chapter 20, starting in verse 11.

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence, earth and sky fled away and no place was found for them.

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done.

And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.

And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and first earth had passed away and the sea was no more.

And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people.

And God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things had passed away.

You may be seated. Take your

Bibles now and let's turn to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12.

You follow as I begin reading in verse 18. We'll read to the end of the chapter. Hebrews 12, verse 18.

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them.

For they could not endure the order that was given. If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.

Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living

God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels and festal gathering and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.

At that time, his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised yet once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.

This phrase yet once more indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is things that have been made in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe.

For our God is a consuming fire. Let's pray. Father, now the word is open before us.

Your very voice is heard in these words. Would you give us ears to listen, to pay attention?

Help us, for we need these words. Without them, we would fail.

So help us, we pray, so that your glory would be magnified and our good would be increased.

And we'll thank you in Jesus' name, amen. Do you know, one of the things

I constantly heard from my parents, and my guess is you heard them too, two words, pay attention, pay attention, right?

Hey, listen to me, pay attention.

Or, you know, there's no excuse for these grades. You certainly could have better grades if you'd only pay attention.

And I remember that one time, that one time when I was about 12 or 13 and I backed the family car out of the garage and I was too close to the door and it kind of went, and put a scratch in the car.

You know how it is when you're 12 or 13, your parents let you back the car out and drive it up to the house, that sort of, you drive in the driveway.

Well, that's what I was doing, I scratched the car. I remember looking at my dad and saying, Dad, I'm just accident prone.

And his response was, you're not accident prone, you're just plain careless.

Pay attention, right? Pay attention. Well, in our text today,

God says to you, pay attention, pay attention. This is the last exhortation in our book regarding perseverance, that is, the exhortation that should motivate you to remain true to your confession of Jesus, not to motivate you to stay faithful to Jesus and not abandon your faith.

You recall that because of the pressure of persecution, these Hebrew believers were tempted to abandon

Jesus because following Jesus cost them something. And they've been exhorted to remain true to Jesus because to remain true to Jesus meant public humiliation, ostracism, prison, maybe torture, and the confiscation of your property.

And so this entire book is an extended sermon telling you don't give in and don't give up.

The whole book is an extended sermon telling you that. And you remember the writer encourages perseverance by first showing the superiority of Jesus, that Jesus is superior to the

Old Testament way, that Jesus is superior to anything that you face, and to abandon him is to abandon your only hope.

He is superior. And then you recall he really doubles down beginning or at the end of chapter 10.

How can you persevere in light of the afflictions that come with following Jesus?

And from the end of 10 all the way to where we are now, we see these exhortations.

We see him telling us how to persevere. What has he told us? He says, you can endure by faith in the promises of God.

That's the entirety of chapter 11. You can endure, you will endure, you will persevere if you have faith in the promises of God, a perseverance that's fueled by those promises.

The beginning of chapter 12 he says, you can endure when you look to Jesus who also believed the promises that God gave him.

And then he says, you can endure when you adopt this encouraging perspective about your persecutions, about your hardships, which is simply this.

God is treating you as sons in that persecution, in those afflictions. He's treating you as a son.

He's bringing discipline into your lives that will produce holiness, righteousness, and peace.

So get that perspective on your persecutions. And then he says, you can endure when you see that perseverance is a team effort.

Verses 12 and 13 of chapter 12, that you're not alone in perseverance. We're persevering together, we encourage one another.

And then he goes on again with the story of Esau. You can endure when you pursue virtue and vigilance.

And then the last time we were here, he said you can endure because you've come not to Mount Sinai, but you have come to Mount Zion, the heavenly

Jerusalem. All of these particular exhortations telling us how we can endure, how the endurance is produced.

And here's the last, the last exhortation to perseverance. Pay attention, pay attention.

Verses 18, I'm sorry, verses 25 through 29. Let's look at that text again.

Verse 25, see that you do not refuse him who is speaking, for if they did not escape when they refused him, when he warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.

At that time, his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.

This phrase yet once more indicates the removal of things that are shaken. That is, things that have been made in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our

God is a consuming fire. So if you would persevere, here's what he says.

Pay attention to the warning. Verse 25, pay attention to the promise.

Verses 26 through 28, and pay attention to the character of God. Verse 29, so first of all, pay attention to the warning.

Now note, you've come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the mountain of God's grace, as he's told us.

It is a place of welcome, of free access to God. It is a place of forgiveness and transformation.

It is the place of joy and celebration. Now, God thundered at Sinai, but he also speaks from Zion, and notice it says he is speaking.

That is, he's speaking today from that heavenly Jerusalem. He's speaking today from Mount Zion. He is speaking, that is, he continues to speak to you in his word, his voice is now heard in his word.

He continues to speak to you through his word, and you have settled on that gracious mountain.

You are on Mount Zion. Nevertheless, do not think that you can refuse

God just because you live on that mountain of grace. Don't think that you can refuse God. Don't think that you can treat him lightly or ignore what he says as he speaks.

He says here, notice, he says in verse 25, see that you do not refuse him who is speaking.

See that you don't refuse, or make sure you don't refuse, or take care that you don't refuse.

In other words, pay attention, pay attention. Now, look what happened to God's old covenant.

He says here, pay attention because God issues a warning. God issues a warning.

He says, look what happened to God's old covenant people when they refused God's word from Sinai.

What happened to them? Well, God warned Israel on earth, okay?

He warned Israel on earth, especially in the covenant curses he threatened to impose if they did not obey the stipulations of the covenant.

There were curses that were to come upon them. The curses imposed were earthly curses, such as famine, defeat in wars, unproductive crops, infertility, disease, and finally, exile.

And you know from the history of the Old Testament that God was true to his warning. All those curses came to pass, but particularly the last, exile.

They were exiled from the land. As the Old Testament says, the land vomited them up because they would not stay true to the covenant.

They did not escape because they refused God. They refused his voice.

They did not pay attention. Now, he argues from the lesser to the greater here.

Do you notice that? He says, for if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven, all right?

He argues here from the lesser to the greater. If it's true here, how much more here?

So you remember when you were 12 and you stole your neighbor's bike, right? It was too much for you.

You had to have it, and you stole it. Well, you were discovered eventually, and your parents scared the liver out of you because they had a policeman come and talk to you about it, and then they grounded you for three weeks.

How much more do you think is gonna happen if you steal a car, right?

You're not just gonna have a policeman coming to talk to you at home. He's gonna handcuff you and take you to jail, and then you'll stay there until you're arraigned before the judge, and then you go to trial, and most likely, you'll be convicted.

There's much more. If that was true back then, how much more so now? And so that's what he's saying.

What makes you think you'll escape when you refuse God's clearer revelation,

God's clearer word? You have more than those folks had. They didn't have as much as you do.

What makes you think you're going to escape if you refuse the things that he's saying now?

He says you have a superior revelation of God in Jesus. We've seen all these things. You have a superior revelation of God in Jesus.

You have a superior high priest in Jesus. You have superior access to God in Jesus.

You have a superior sacrifice in Jesus. With all that in mind, what makes you think you'll escape if you ignore his warning?

All right, by the way, he's told us this already. Look back at Hebrews chapter two for a moment.

You remember Hebrews chapter two, verse one. "'Therefore, we must pay much closer attention.'"

Same word that we have it in ours, although it's translated see. Here, it's pay. "'You need to pay much closer attention "'to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.

"'For since the message declared by angels,' "'that is the old covenant, proved to be reliable, "'and every transgression or disobedience "'received a just retribution, "'how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?''

Don't think you'll escape. It's gonna be harder than it was on the people of the old covenant.

Pay attention to this warning. You have a greater judgment if you abandon

Jesus. Pay attention to this warning and you will persevere. If you take it seriously, you will persevere.

And then he goes on to say pay attention to the promise. Pay attention to the promise, verses 26 through 28, where he says, "'At that time his voice shook the earth, "'but now he has promised yet once more "'I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.'

"'This phrase, yet once more, "'indicates the removal of things that are shaken, "'that is, things that have been made, "'in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.

"'Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom "'that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God "'acceptable worship with reverence and awe.'"

Pay attention to the promise. Now, he says look again at Sinai and see what happened there. When God spoke from Sinai, the earth shook.

It was like an earthquake. But now he speaks in his word, but now he speaks in his word, and there he speaks a promise.

Now, he speaks that word in the book of Haggai chapter two. What our writer does is quotes for us from the book of Haggai, which you heard this morning in our

Old Testament reading. So, if you want to, turn there to Haggai again. You can use your table of contents if you would like.

I always remember H -Z -H -Z, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah.

So, there you go. You can find it now. All right, remember, in Hebrews chapter two, which

Levi read to us earlier, it talks about what we see here is this temple dedication, and he's quoting for us verse six.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, yet once more in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land.

Now, this is all in the context of the dedication of the second temple, the first temple being

Solomon's temple, the second temple being this one, a smaller one. It wasn't as glorious as the first, but it was built with the limited resources that the

Jewish people had when they had returned from the Babylonian captivity and returned to the land, and they built this temple.

This is the dedication of that temple. And this oracle from Haggai declares that God will rise up to vindicate his cause, and he will shake the nations.

That is, he will end the Gentile dominion over his people, the pagan dominion over his people, and he will exalt his

Davidic king, and he will make Jerusalem the center of worship and allegiance of all the nations.

Now, our writer looks back at what Haggai said in Hebrews chapter two, and he says, Haggai was talking about the end of the present world order.

This is going to be fulfilled when Jesus returns. The exaltation of the Davidic king before all the nations happens when

Jesus returns and is clearly the ruler of all, to all eyes. And the center of all worship and allegiance will be the new

Jerusalem, which descends from heaven to the earth. And so our writer is saying, Haggai was really looking to the future, and that's what we need to see.

And so through the prophet Haggai, God makes this promise. Well, what is that promise? That God will shake not only the earth, like at Sinai, but he will also shake the heavens.

He will shake all of creation. It'll be so cataclysmic, heaven and earth, so cataclysmic, so much so that the created order will be shaken and will collapse.

Now, in the last few months, a few months ago, we saw something like that, almost, if you will, a picture of it, in the earthquakes that shook

Syria and Turkey, and tens of thousands of people lost their lives, and whole cities collapsed and disintegrated, and now are nothing more than heaps of rubble.

Entire cities, there's a few of those cities in Northern Syria that have been completely leveled, not to mention all the villages around it, everything leveled, disintegration, piles of dust and rubble.

And he says, at the end of this age, all of creation will crumble and disintegrate. It's a cataclysmic thing that's going to happen.

But God also says in that promise that something will not be shaken. Something will remain when all else crumbles, when it all falls away, when there's nothing left.

What is left? What is left? The unshakable order, which is the kingdom of Christ, to which his people belong.

The kingdom of Christ is the thing that will last. It will be unshakable. Now, he says, pay attention to that promise, and you will endure.

When the pressure is on and persecution is so intense, remember that all this will collapse and crumble.

All those earthly authorities who use their power to move you away from Jesus, and those days may be coming, and you need to remember these words.

When those earthly authorities seek to move you away from your only hope in Jesus, remember, they will one day dissolve and be vaporized at the glory of Christ when he returns.

You must be thinking that. This is not the ultimate authority.

There's coming a time when all of this will crumble. He says, you participate in the unshakable, the kingdom that will never collapse, but will explode in glory when

Jesus returns. You must think this way. This is not the ultimate reality.

Someday, no matter how intense the persecution, no matter how bad the hardships of life that come your way, always remember that the only unshakable thing is the kingdom of Christ, and you are in it.

All else will be gone. I tell you, one thing

I've learned from this study in perseverance is simply this. There's a better day coming, and I believe it, and that's what's gonna fuel your perseverance, this promise.

Now, you know, we already participate in that unshakable kingdom, and so in the midst of hardship, we ought to worship.

It's interesting to me that even in the midst of persecution, he calls on them to worship. You know, we tend to think when things get so hard, we stop doing the things that we normally do, and the point is, no, we don't.

We continue to worship. We continue to worship. He says you must be involved in grateful worship.

Does he not? We've received this kingdom from God's gracious hand. We can endure by faith in God's promises.

We ought to respond to God with gratitude. Even in the midst of hardship, even in the midst of persecution, we respond to God with grateful worship.

Why? Because as you look to the glorious day when you'll be exalted with Jesus before the world and all those who oppressed you and persecuted you, you should give thanks to God now.

There's a day coming when you'll be vindicated. Give thanks to God now. Worship him with gratitude.

You know what? Gratitude keeps you from drifting into dry duty. When you're thankful to God for what he has given you, obedience now isn't just dry duty.

It flows from a heart of gratitude to God who saved you from unspeakable misery.

A God who saves you from the misery of this life, not meaning the hardships, but the misery that comes on you because of your disobedience.

Out of tune with God, out of tune with everything that God intends. You're miserable. You're miserable.

We ought to be thankful for that. And that ought to keep us from drifting into dry duty. Right? Gritting my teeth and saying, okay,

I got to do it, as opposed to God, I want to do it because of your marvelous love to me and your grace.

It says we ought to give God acceptable worship. What's acceptable worship? It's gratitude clothed in reverence.

Gratitude clothed in reverence, a humble gratefulness. You did not earn your place in this unshakable kingdom.

You didn't earn it. You received it by grace as God the spirit dispelled the blindness you had and the darkness around you.

And you saw the glory of what it would be like to have Jesus be your king. Right?

You see? And that's all of grace. You're not clever enough to take the blinders off your eyes.

You're not smart enough to figure out your way through the darkness. It takes a supernatural act of God.

By the way, if you're looking for miracles today, I'll tell you the greatest miracle of all is

God changing a hard heart, a heart of stone. Right?

And so we worship with reverence, with a humble gratitude because of what

Jesus has done. And it's a gratitude expressed in awe that is a holy fear.

God in his great mercy and grace did not owe us anything, but he sovereignly brought us into the kingdom.

We weren't looking for him. And by the way, he didn't drag you into his kingdom.

He made you willing. He changed that heart. And so I should hold him in awe.

And that reverence and awe keeps joy from degenerating into flippancy.

When you recall that God graciously did it without any help from you, we're not gonna be flippant in God's presence.

We'll have joy, but we won't be flippant. You will persevere when you remember that your inclusion in this unshakable kingdom is by God's grace and you respond appropriately.

You respond in worship. Now we respond in this kind of worship because of the character of God.

And so the last thing he tells us in this text is to pay attention to the character of God.

What is the character of God? He says, for our God is a consuming fire.

The brightness of his righteousness consumes everything that is unrighteous, consumes it all.

Now once more, he's taking a look back at Sinai. He's looking back at Sinai and we see there the character of our

God. If you look at Exodus 24, if you want to turn there, Exodus 24, you see a description of what's going on at Mount Sinai.

And here's what we read beginning in verse 15. When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it.

And the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain and on the seventh day the

Lord called to Moses from within the cloud. Now note, to the Israelites, the glory of the

Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of that mountain. There's God, he's a consuming fire.

In fact, later on, as they're about to enter the promised land, we find these words in Deuteronomy 4,

Moses is explaining to them why he can't go with them. You remember that he lost his temper.

And God says, I wanted to show my glory and the only thing they saw was a grumpy old man and therefore, you're not going in.

You obscured my glory by your attitude and because of that,

I'm not gonna allow you to go to the promised land. Moses is explaining that to the people in his final sermon, which is the book of Deuteronomy.

And in Deuteronomy chapter four, he says to them this. The Lord was angry with me because of you and he solemnly swore that I would not cross the

Jordan and enter the good land the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance. I will die in this land.

I will not cross the Jordan. But you are about to cross over and take possession of that good land.

Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you. Do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the

Lord your God has forbidden for the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous

God. Now look, God is not the kindly gentleman of heaven who says to you, look,

I get it. I warned you, I did and you weren't entirely convinced that I was serious, but look,

I'm not gonna hold it against you. That gentleman of heaven is how a lot of people think of God.

That's not what our text says. God is a consuming fire and he will not overlook anyone who refuses his son, who refuses to obey and follow him.

God will not overlook anyone who abandons Jesus. He is a consuming fire.

Now that's not because he's a grumpy old deity who gets angry when people don't do what he likes.

He's not the grumpy old man in heaven either. He's neither the gentleman of heaven nor is he the grumpy deity of heaven.

He's not grumpy. When God commands or warns you about something, it's based on his character and God is the highest good.

Right? He's the highest good. And so to disobey him is to disobey the ultimate good.

It is wickedness. It is evil. God's not losing his temper. He's a consuming fire because he's just.

Have you ever been enraged about something and thought, oh my, that's terrible. I shouldn't be that way.

When you've read, for example, when you've read the story of a survivor of Auschwitz and the

Jewish Holocaust, and you're enraged when you read that kind of injustice that's perpetrated against people made in the image of God, do you not get angry?

Is that wrong? Of course not. We ought to be enraged at things like that.

When I read stories of some of our black citizens who in Jim Crow days, who suffered horribly for the things that they did, right?

I'm enraged by those sorts of things. They make me angry. And it's good if I didn't get angry, something would be wrong with me.

And so God is not a grumpy deity, nor is he the gentlemen of heaven.

He is instead a consuming fire that consumes all that refuse him, that refuse him.

And so our writer reminds you that you can not trifle with God.

You need to take him seriously. You cannot trifle with God. How do most people envision

God? Oh, they see him as, if you will, the loving gentlemen of heaven, right?

God is love. And you know what? That is absolutely true. I rejoice that God is love.

You know why? Because that gives me hope. You know, on those days when

I think I have failed most miserably, and I'm gonna say I'm gonna write out my resignation for the church,

I gotta stop. It's in days like that that I remember, God loves me because of Christ.

In Christ, he loves me and forgives me. And he says to me, son,

I know you've sinned, but my son paid for that, and God comes along and puts his arm around me and says, come on, let's go, let's grow.

That's the God I have. He is a God of love. But that's not all that God is. It's interesting to me that we see

God is love, and here we see God is a consuming fire. God is this.

He doesn't act like this, he is this. Now, you know, when

I was growing up, I had a dad who loved me. I was absolutely convinced of that.

I was sure that my dad loved me. There was no way

I could deny that. But my dad was also a man of integrity. And if his sons did not measure up to what integrity was, we sure found out where we went wrong.

And we were taught how to live in a way of integrity. My dad was not just a loving dad.

That's not his whole character, right? He had much more depth.

There was more to him than love. There was also justice. There was also integrity.

There was also anger. It's beyond me why we always wanna make

God the most, the infinite being in all of existence, why we want to make him into a one -dimensional character.

Right? No. This God is a consuming fire.

Love gives me hope, but this keeps me from being casual. This makes me serious.

This makes me say, God's serious about this. I better pay attention.

I better pay attention to this. Those who heed the heavenly warning, those who do pay attention to the warning will enjoy the kingdom forever.

But those who forsake him will face the fire of his anger. Pay attention to the character of God.

Now these warnings and this promise have a great urgency about them for they come from heaven and not earth.

This is God speaking. If those warned on earth did not escape, it stands to reason that those warned from heaven will certainly never escape.

A new world is coming, an unshakable reality, and those who make

Jesus their hope, even when it costs them, will be a part or will enjoy that unshakable kingdom.

So pay attention. Pay attention to the warning. Pay attention to the promise.

Pay attention to the character of God. If you pay attention, you'll be able to persevere.

Father, thank you for your word. Father, we want to thank you today that when you call us to persevere, you don't just stand back and say, do it.

You have given us warnings, given us promises, told us we do this together.

You've told us all sorts of things that can do nothing but produce perseverance in us.

We're thankful for that kind of grace that you would show us. It shows us that you're a father who cares for us.

It shows us that you're a father who wants us to persevere no matter what the cost, and you tell us how to do it.

So we are thankful for that. We look to you now as our father, and thank you.

But let us never forget, Lord, that you are a consuming fire and those who walk, those who refuse you will be consumed in righteous, holy, just anger.

Remind us of that, we pray. Help us to see you then as both our father and our judge.

Help us to see your love and your holiness so that we might live lives that magnify your name and that brings greater good to us.