6.5.24

This week we’re looking at what it means to live an unshakable life. How can we live without our circumstances - our hopes and dreams - our passions and desires - leading us on an unending rollercoaster of emotions? How can we live without being owned and driven by these things?

And what we’re seeing is that God intentionally uses the brokenness of this world to mess with those shaky foundations in order to show us what is lasting and what is not. And he points us to Jesus as the solid Rock that will never be moved or shaken.

So, how do we get that unshakable life? And it’s interesting that his conclusion is: it comes when we turn to God as the Judge. He says, “You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” But how can a Judge be the source of an unshakable identity?

It’s interesting that this entire passage is about judgment. All throughout the Bible, God’s judgment is associated with the shaking of the earth…with darkness and gloom. Take Isaiah as an example. God came and revealed his true heart to him, and rather than being comforted and reassured, Isaiah felt shaken - everything felt like it was falling apart and unravelling. That’s the presence of God. God intentionally comes to us and shakes everything that can be shaken, so help us see what thing remain - what things are unshakable.

So how can we live this unshakable life? Because of Jesus, the Mediator of a new covenant. On the cross, darkness came over the land. The curtain of the temple was torn in two. The earth shook. The rocks split apart. It was a full blown earthquake. Why? Was it just God’s special effects to make the crucifixion more dramatic?

No…what was happening here was judgment. Jesus is here being judged in our place. Jesus was taking the shakenness that we all deserve. The Maker of all the earth was being unmade, so that we could be remade after his image. Jesus was being shaken so we could live an unshakable life. And the curtain was ripped in two so that the presence of God that you were built for - the thing you’re looking for in all your romance - the thing you’re looking for in all your success - the thing you’re looking for in all your work - you can now find it in Jesus. And because of what he accomplished for us, the thing that used to be fatal (God’s holy presence) can now come into your life - and it won’t destroy you. It will only refine you and consume the parts of you that need to be killed (selfishness, pride, etc).

Through Jesus, you can get back in. The way into the holy presence of God that you were built for is now accessible because of the judgment that Jesus took for us. And so now we have nothing to fear. We have an eternal kingdom that can never be shaken.