Jesus Is The Altar

Well, a few weeks ago, we had our first all staff meeting of the year here at the Refuge. And during that all staff meeting, Pastor J invited us as a staff to just start to declare in the atmosphere what we're believing for. For 2025. He was asking us to declare what we're believing for in our personal lives and in our ministries and in the prayer context. I was so stoked as I was hearing my co workers, my comrades, just declaring things into the atmosphere.

And during that time, I had a phrase that began repeating in my head that I didn't declare in the atmosphere at all staff, but I've been pondering and thinking of ever since. And it's actually the springboard for this message today. It's the invitation of God over my life and ministry, what he's inviting me to in 2025. And it's simply this, for my most sought after and visited destination this year, to be the altar.

And as I have pondered this, as I have explored it in scripture and have been exploring it in prayer, the Lord's shown me some things that I'm going to present to you this morning. And the title of this message is Come to the Altar. Come to the Altar. Pastors Jay and Pastor Abe are returning from Louisiana today. They've been part of a prison event there in Angola.

They're in Louisiana, Angola, prison. Can't wait to hear about it. But we bless them as they're doing that this morning or as they're returning from that this morning. In Joel 2. Then later quoted in Acts 2, God promises an outpouring of his spirit.

The revival that we're crying out for is really based on what we read there in Joel 2. And then quoted in Acts 2, he said, there's coming a time that I'm pouring out my spirit on all flesh. And it's gonna be unlike any other time in history. Sons and daughters will prophesy. Old and young men will both dream dreams and see visions.

Men and women servants will experience the outpouring, these distinctions of age and gender. Really, it's God saying, all hands on deck, there's a time coming where there's gonna be wonders in heaven, in heaven above, and wonders on earth below. There will be a deliverance like we've never known. And obviously throughout history we've experienced measures of this. But he gives a promise that I believe we haven't yet experienced.

And he experienced. And he starts the promise with the words, and it shall come to pass afterward. This great revival, this great outpouring of His Spirit will come after some things. In other words, there's some things that need to happen first. What things?

Well, let's look at Joel 2:15 through the first part of verse 17. Blow the trumpet in Zion. This is what has to happen. Consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly, Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and nursing babies. Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber and the bride from her dressing room.

Let the priests who minister before the Lord weep between the porch and the altar. Holy Spirit, I pray that you would convict each of our hearts and you would show us what it means to move from the porch to towards the altar and in that place that we would weep, that the altar would become our most sought after and visited destination. So that the generations coming behind us, whether those later in life having generations coming behind them, or even children, they still have generations coming behind them. May the altar be established for our own heart and exchange with heaven, but also for those that come behind and God, I'm praying that today would be a mark day. Not because I'm speaking, but I'm praying.

God, I believe it's your heart, that no hindrance of our flesh and no attack of the enemy would be an obstacle to what's on your heart today. May the dreams of your heart, O God, be realized in our midst. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.

So in the book of Ezra, specifically the third chapter, the Israelites are returning from exile to Jerusalem. They were there in Babylonian exile because of their sin and their disobedience because of their rebellion. And the Lord brought them out of that place of punishment, if you will, the consequences for their sin. They're returning to Jerusalem. And as they return to Jerusalem, they know that their first order of business is to rebuild the temple that's been destroyed.

But what's so cool and what I want to bring our attention to this morning is even within this mission of rebuilding the temple, the first thing they built was not the structure of the temple itself, but they built an altar and they offered sacrifices to God. I believe God has heard the cries of his people all over the world and a cry that is crescendoing in America for revival. And I believe as a direct result, God is calling us to build the altar again. There are over 400 references to altars in the Bible. In scripture, we learn that the altar has all kinds of significance and symbolism.

I'm going to give you a list that I pulled together. The altar is central to the worship system Established by God, even beginning in the book of Genesis, the altar is a structure upon which the people of God could offer acceptable worship. The altar is a place of sacrifice. It's a place of death. It's a place of memorial.

It's a place of spilled blood. It's a place of redemption. It's a place of remembering God's provision. Like Pastor Nathan talked to us about a moment ago, it's a place of breakthrough. It's a place of encounter.

It's a place of exchange. It's a place where the divine and the natural interact and transact. And I'm here to declare this over my own life. And all of you this morning, come to the altar. I'm gonna speak to you about three components of the altar this morning.

Three points. Cause that's what three good preachers do. Three points.

I'm gonna talk to you about the altar established. I'm going to spend the most time on point one, so don't start to do the calculations based on how long I take. On point one. The altar established and what we need to be careful of when establishing the altar. The altar expounded and the altar embodied.

The altar established. The altar expounded and the altar embodied. Yes. That's three E's, and I'm very proud. Thank you.

Thank you. So the first scriptural reference of actually building an altar is found in the book of Genesis. Early on in the book, we read of some animal sacrifices being made. But the first time an actual altar is built is found in the eighth chapter of Genesis. And it's after the flood.

You know, there was a devastating flood that changed the face of the earth. And the only people that were spared were Noah and his family. And then there were animals, sets of clean animals, so that later they would have the ability to produce fruit. And so these animals in Noah's family were spared on the ark. I don't know what that would have been like to be Noah and his family.

But it was a long time to be on that ark while the earth was being devastated by the flood. And in Genesis 8, it's time for Noah to leave the. And when he leaves the ark, the first thing he does is he builds an altar. See, even after the devastation of the flood, I'm sure Noah didn't fully understand why God had to allow his judgment to be expressed in that way. And I cannot imagine what it looked like for Noah.

And I can't imagine what some of you have endured in some of your lives. But Noah's first order of Business was in to establish a place where he could worship God. He was saying, in this new world, the new day, the new earth that was accomplished by the flood. He was saying, it's going to be built on a foundation of obedience and submission to the Creator. And this was established at the altar.

We read of the altar being established throughout the book of Genesis. But for now, I want us to fast forward to the book of Exodus. The Israelites were in slavery in Egypt, and their deliverance came by way of plagues coming to Egypt. Pharaoh finally released them. And after he released them from their slavery, then Pharaoh decided he wanted to destroy them.

And they get to this impasse of the Red Sea, the most miraculous sign probably in human history of the Red Sea being parted. And as the Israelites crossed over, then the waters gathering again and defeating Pharaoh and his enemies who were pursuing them, they were liberated in these moments there from their slavery in Egypt. And then as they cross over and they're going towards their place of prayer, promise, God meets with Moses on Mount Sinai, and he gives the Ten Commandments. God's giving Moses and the Ten Commandments the law so that they could have a way in order to obtain righteousness. But at the same time, God knew that the people could not live up to the standard of the law.

It was impossible. But the law was the means by which they could be righteous. But then there was no way for them to accomplish it. So God made a way. Number one, the altar.

Established right after the Ten Commandments are given. The Lord speaks to them about that he will have no idols. And then we come upon Exodus 20, verses 22 and 25. This is God making a way. The Lord said to Moses, say this to the people of Israel.

You saw for yourselves that I spoke to you from heaven. Remember, you must not make any idols of silver or gold to rival me, but build for me an altar of earth and offer your sacrifices to me, your burnt offerings and peace offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle. Build my altar wherever I cause my name to be remembered. And I will come to you and bless. If you use stones to build my altar, use only natural, uncut stones.

Do not shape the stones with a tool, for that would make the altar unfit for holy use. In one translation, he says, don't use your tools on this altar, for it will profane it. I have a replica of an earthen altar. Did you see Allison carry that thing out like it weighed nothing?

Moses. The Lord was telling Moses, I'm making a way. I'm establishing a place where man would be able to approach me because here's a fact. There's not access to the throne of God without righteousness because he's holy. And there's not righteousness without the shedding of blood.

We learn that reality throughout Scripture and certainly in the book of Hebrews. So the altar was a place where an animal's blood could be shed and offer atonement, be it temporarily, but the atonement for sins committed nonetheless, bringing redemption to the one who committed sin. So God was establishing a place where humankind could encounter Him. And in this passage, he says, build me an altar made of earth. And if you use stones to build my altar, use only natural, uncut stones.

Do not profane my altar by using your tools.

God was making it uncomplicated for the people of God to just come to him, to make sacrifices to Him. The Israelites didn't have to go on a journey to find an altar. We have opportunities in our everyday lives to establish an altar. There's an ottoman in my family room that I that has become the place of my tears more than probably any other time in my life over the last couple of years. He's saying, you find something in your everyday lives and let that be the place.

But he goes on to say, but use natural uncut stones. He's saying, I don't want your place of sacrifice to be contrived. Hear me, church. The altar is to be used only for the process and purpose that it was intended. He's saying, don't you build an altar with some idea that maybe people will be impressed by it.

Don't glorify the altar. I've been in holy sites all over the world. I've seen huge cathedrals with tall ceilings and beautiful stained glass. They're breathtaking edifices. Perhaps the thought behind those who built these opulent edifices thought only the best for God.

Maybe that was the intent. But I think it's important that we realize that oftentimes instead of the opulence of these structures turning our thoughts towards God, they're turned to human hands. I love stained glass artistry. I think it's beautiful. In fact, if there's a stained glass artist in our midst, I'd love to talk to you afterwards.

There's a couple things I'd love to commission you in. But the stained glass handiwork, the stonework in our modern expressions, our LED screens and cutting edge graphics, I'm not criticizing it. I love the visual arts. But if that's what has our attention, if that's what moves us. If the presentation of sermons, God forbid, were so moved by the creativity God saying, don't you profane my altar with your tools.

I'm calling a people to the altar again. In fact, it's required for my great outpouring. But don't you make it about you. He's saying, I don't want the altar to distract from who I am. He was saying, keep it simple, nothing ornate.

Look at that thing. It'll cover up a well pump or something. All right, I gave you my secret. I wanted to tell you I dug it out of some anyway. But he was saying, keep it simple, nothing distracting.

He's saying, and I am telling you, this altar, that makes a way. You've got to be careful. Don't you profane it with your tools.

We have to guard against what he warned the church in Sardis. He said, you can have an appearance of being alive because of all your tricks of the trade. You can have a reputation of being alive, but be dead on the inside. He said, don't do it. Use uncut and natural stones.

As much as we don't love this reality and it may be counterintuitive to us, it takes broken things to build an altar. We have a photo of what an earthen altar could have looked like. If you guys could put that up. There it is. Naturally in a field, you see a pile of uncut stones.

I want to share this quote with you from Jack Hayford that he said about the earthen altar. Listen to this. He said, you can take hard things and arrange them before the Lord, or you can drag the rocks around and be burdened by them. When you're frustrated at lugging them around, you get mad and throw them at somebody else. The way you build an altar is to bring those hard broken things before the Lord and put them there.

And I'm telling you, I have been in a place of conviction in my own life, specifically as I have prepared for this message. We can pick up those hard things, and even if it's in our minds, we want to throw them at those things that are hurting us. And the Lord is saying, no, you use those things to establish altar, because we meet with God in that place and those that come behind us can meet with him there as well. I remember as a teenager in the church I grew up at, we would have Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night services. And I remember spending most of the conclusion of those services in the altar.

Even if what was being preached about wasn't applicable to me, I Just remember that it was a very valued place. And the church I grew up in, and not grew up in, but the church I ended up at as a teenager. And so many things established in my life during that time. But I remember watching people that were older in the faith than me weeping at the altar. That being a place where they met with God and church.

We have to return to that place. When we're bringing the conclusion to our corporate gathering, it's not the time to speak. I know sometimes we have to. I'm not saying that in any judgment, but I'm saying if we really want the move of the spirit. And some of you aren't there yet, you're like, no, I'm good.

I don't need that kind of outpouring. But we do. And especially as the world becomes more difficult, there is a greater outpouring promise. But even without the difficulty, we need Him. There is nothing more glorious than what he can do for us.

At the altar, we see Jacob in Genesis 29 encounter God. He fashioned an altar from the rock he had laid his head on to sleep. God met Jacob there. And after God met Jacob there, Jacob turned the stone upright and poured oil on it. And he said, let this altar be a memorial pillar.

He called the place Bethel. He said, this is the place where God is meets with his people. And I am declaring this morning, may we be saying to the generation behind us, come to the altar. This is where God meets with his people. Abraham.

In three different places, God took him to. He took a stone, set up a memorial pillar, and said it was God who brought me here. Joshua, as he went through the Jordan, took 12 stones from the river, erected them as pillars, recognizing God's deliverance for his people. People. These old covenant altars were places of remembrance, but they were places of sacrifice.

And I'm here to tell you this morning there is power in the altar. I believe God's looking for us to establish the altar again in our midst. But it's most likely going to require tearing down the wrong kind of altars first. Gideon in Judges 6 was instructed by God to build an altar. He said, but before you build that altar, tear down the altar to baal.

And then Gideon built an altar in that exact same spot, but it was an altar unto God. But as we established this altar, and even in the tearing down of old altars, maybe practices, our lives, criticism, gossip, a place in our homes where we allow people's names not to be safe on our tongues, or maybe judgment among those that you cohabitate with and those things that can happen, and we justify them because it's not quite as bad as what the world does. We've got to be super careful. Because, see, the people of Israel understood that they didn't want altars built to pagan gods. But then they were pulled into a mixture.

Remember the golden calf? Now, stick with me. I told you the longest point would be the first one. And then I need to hurry.

So while Moses is on Mount Sinai receiving the ten Commandments and hearing from God, the Israelites became restless. And they were asking that God that Aaron would fashion for them something they could worship. They were tired of waiting. They were tired of not being able to have a tangible sign that God was moving. Hello.

Can anyone relate? So they said, make us something we can worship. And they even gave extravagantly. They took their gold jewelry and gave it in the offering. And then Aaron fashioned this gold calf.

And they're like, ah, this golden calf. They said, oh, that's good. We can see it, we can touch it. And then they began to point at that golden calf and say, that's the God that delivered us from our slavery, our own striving, our own gifts. Oh, that's what delivered us.

Here's the irony. They had just come out of Canaan where there was a pagan God that was represented by a bull. They were. Or they had just come out of Egypt. Excuse me.

Where that pagan deity was represented by a bull. They're headed to Canaan where baal, the God of baal, was also represented by a bull. And they said, no, we're not going to reach back to what we've known in the pagan culture. We're not going to reach towards where we see culture headed where going to have something that's not quite that. It's not quite as scary as a bull.

Bulls are big and dangerous. But a calf, we'll say yes to that. It's deconstruction at its best.

We don't necessarily say we want fully what the world's offering, but we don't want to do it God's way either. So we often. And we have to look at this in us, we take the scary version of something in our culture, the thing that other people are worshiping. And we try to find a safer way to worship the same thing. Our own time, our own preferences, our own comforts.

And we find a way to participate in the practices of the culture and assign a spiritual value to it and tell ourselves it's not a problem. That is good. I'm gonna listen to my own sermon later. It's time we tear down the altars. We've built on mixture and commit ourselves to the altar being established.

Number two, the altar expounded. As we continue in the Old Testament and the temple and the tabernacle are those are built and these places of worship, we see a progression of sacrifice, encounter with God. And there are two altars, one in the outer court, one in the inner court. I think we have rendition of those as well, an image for them to put up. The large one on the right is the brazen altar.

It's made out of brass, my right. The one on the left is the altar of incense. The brazen altar represents judgment of sin, the need for atonement and the coming of Jesus. I don't have time to unpack that. But these altars represent him.

The altar of incense in the inner court represents the prayers of God's people rising to God, the intercession of Jesus himself, who's at the right hand of the throne of God right now, praying for you and me. Let that breathe for a minute. He cries out on behalf of humanity and he is the sacrifice. So both are places of worship and connection with God. Both these altars, but they also prophesy of the one to come.

The altar was the axis of heaven and earth. Jesus is the axis of heaven and earth. I'll talk about that more in a moment. Jesus was both the sacrifice and the means by which we have access to God. Jesus is the intersection of the old covenant and New covenant altars.

Let me give you an illustration of this. We see this intersection throughout Jesus ministry. But probably my favorite one, and I'm going to share this quickly for the sake of time. But it's found in Luke 17 when Jesus enters a village and there are 10 lepers that say, jesus, master, have mercy on us. And Jesus looks at them and he says one thing.

He doesn't say, be healed. He doesn't say, I'm gonna do it. He says, go show yourself to the priests. They knew what that meant because there was a law. In Leviticus 14, there was a ceremony that was ordered that once people were healed of a skin disease, there were very specific things that they were supposed to do.

And the first thing was to go to where the priest was to stand outside the camp to show the priest that they were clean. And then the priest would allow them to enter into the temple where they could receive cleansing. That was very. A very specific purification ceremony involving lambs, two birds, a stick of cedar, scarlet yarn, a hyssop Branch, a loaf of bread, a stick of butter and a bottle of milk. Some of you know what I'm referring to.

So when the 10 lepers experienced they encountered Jesus, they said, have mercy. He said, go show yourself to the priest. So they went to do what he said. And on the way they were healed. You know the story.

All nine continued to show themselves to the priest. One returned to Jesus and gave him thanks. This was an intersection of the Old Covenant and New Covenant altars. See the lepers, it was big for them to go towards the priest. Like, okay, we asked him to have mercy, we still are suffering.

But he told us to show ourselves to the priests. So I guess we're cleansed. And as they went, as they stepped out in faith, whole other sermon, they became healed. All 10 were on their way to the temple, but only one returned to Jesus to thank Him. Because only one was allowing the New Covenant altar to be created, which was to be an altar of praise.

The nine lepers did what Jesus said. They went to the Old Covenant altar. They were on their way to show themselves to the priest. But the one leper was understanding that Jesus is the priest. The altar is precious throughout Scripture and God calls us to establish the altar.

And then we see the altar expand, expounded throughout history. And then number three, the altar embodied.

I grew up the first 11 years of my life in the Catholic Church. And I remember my mom during the different parts of the service, pulling the altar bench down on the pew in front of her and praying and having her time with God and also reaching back and snapping her fingers and telling my siblings and I to be quiet. And I remember one Sunday in particular, I looked up at this image, actually this statue that was on the wall in the Catholic Church. I grew up in St Bernadette there in South Florida. And there was a life size crucifix with a statue of Jesus, seriously, the size of a man.

And it had been there, it had become familiar. It wasn't something I ever thought about. But I remember one Sunday looking at that image and tears rolling down my face. And I didn't really understand what was happening. But what was happening in me was that I wasn't looking at an image of who he is.

The Lord was starting to stir my heart and introduce to me the beauty of the altar embodied. God made a way through the law. Remember the earthen altar? He made a way. There was a sacrificial system to atone for sin.

But the problem of the sacrificial system represented in the earthen Altar, and then the brazen altar in the outer court was that these sacrifices had to be repeated day after day, year after year, century after century. As one hymn puts it, not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain. A better sacrifice was needed on a better altar, and the sacrifice was Jesus himself on the altar of the cross, the perfect sacrifice to end all sacrifices. Jesus is the axis of heaven and earth. He is man and God together in him we are reconciled to the Father.

And so I say to you this morning, come. I'm talking about those that don't yet know him. Come to the altar. And I'm talking about those of you that already spent a lot of time in his presence. You've given your life to him.

Come to the altar. The cross is the altar embodied. Jesus paid the final sacrifice. The cross is the altar we need to approach. The cross is now the thing that is central to the worship system established by God.

It's the structure upon which the people of God can offer acceptable worship. It's the place of death, the place of memorial, the place of redemption, the place of remembering God's provision, the place of breakthrough, the place of encounter, the place of exchange, the place where the divine and the natural interact and transact. The worship team can come. When God established the altar in Exodus 20, he required a stone. Jesus is the living stone.

First Peter 2, 4, 5. As you come to him, the living stone, rejected by humans, but chosen by God and precious to Him. You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. So he became the altar. And then he establishes us as the altar for others as we meet with God.

The New Covenant altar no longer requires an uncut stone. It requires Jesus, the living stone. And he's made us living stones. Listen. At the start of this message, I read the promise for revival in Joel 2.

And I feel a trembling of the Lord in this. He said, I'm going to pour out my spirit. Sons and daughters will prophesy. Old and young men will dream dreams, see visions. Men and women alike will experience, experience the outpouring.

There will be wonders in the heavens and on the earth. There will be deliverance. Revival is coming. He will do this. But when?

When we learn to weep between the porch and the altar. The porch represents the flesh. It's the outer court. The altar represents the spirit, the place of sacrifice, the place of giving up and consecrating your life unto God, we need to leave the place where we're choosing our flesh. The things we know we shouldn't say, but we say the things we know we shouldn't do, but we do the things we think that we're entitled to because of what we've endured.

We've got to leave that place of the porch. And there's only one way. It's with weeping. I'm not talking about striving for it or contriving it. I'm talking about coming running to the altar of the Lord and he lets the weeping come.

Come on grandmothers and grandfathers and children alike. We've got to allow the altar to be rebuilt again where we encounter Jesus and we say, not my will, not my life, not, not my way, not my preferences, not my outcome. At 3:30 this morning, I had to get out of bed on my knees and talk. Okay, God, I give you the outcome. I am scared to death, but I give you the outcome because for your outpouring to come, which is more precious than anything we could fight for, anything we could strive for.

He says, taste and see. And I believe he wants to give you a taste of his spirit today. Because when we taste that there's nothing that we will hold on to, come to the altar, leave the place of your flesh and move towards the place where we die and he lives. So, Lord, I pray in the name of Jesus that you would do what only you can do. I pray, God, for those that don't know you.

I pray, God, that today would be the day. I pray that they would come running to the redemption of a Savior. And I pray for the one that's known you but has slipped into their comfort. I, I listen. I've been preparing all week and all week I've been slipping back into the place of comfort.

But I told the Lord again this morning, no, I will leave the place of my flesh and I will come running to the place where you say, now I can pour out my spirit. Listen as the team leads us. I'm not going to come back. Nathan. Pastor Nathan will come close the service in just a moment, but I'm going to ask you to respond to God.

Respond to God. Come to the altar. Because afterward the weeping between the porch and the altar, the outpouring will come. And we say yes to you today in the name of Jesus.