Ex 38:21, This is the number of the things for the tabernacle, the tabernacle of the testimony, as they were numbered according to the command of Moses, for the service of the Levites, by the hand of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest. 
	This morning’s reading details all the items used in the setting up of the tabernacle of God. There is precision and detail and a cataloguing of each element that was to be used within the service of the priests unto the Lord God Almighty. There was a lot of time and effort and expense put into getting everything in order for the Tent of the Tabernacle of the Lord to be put together in full accordance with the guidelines and stipulations required by God. 
After all was done in accordance with the pattern and dictates of the Most Holy requirements, the tabernacle, God’s dwelling place with His People was finally completed. In Num 9:15, we are told of what happened on the day of it was finished. Num 9:15, Now on the day that the tabernacle was erected the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony, and in the evening it was like the appearance of fire over the tabernacle, until morning. 
    	As a matter of fact, as we will read together in Ex 40:33-35, 
in the near future, when the tent of meeting was first completed, God’s glory so intensely filled it that none could enter for a period of time. Ex 40:33-35, And he erected the court all around the tabernacle and the altar, and hung up the veil for the gateway of the court. Thus Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 
God’s very presence with His people was so desired that the nation had erected the tent of meeting with the every aspect as would honor God. There was a realization throughout the encampment of the Israelites that God desired to commune with them within the tabernacle of His design. They were a blessed people to so know the Lord God Almighty, The Creator of the heavens and the earth. He was physically represented in their presence within the structure that was their source of communication and communion with Him. 
The Psalmist, in Ps 15:1+2, would later write as to the truth of what this entailed within the hearts and beings of those who were so blessed to know God. Ps 15:1+2, O Lord, who may abide in Thy tent? Who may dwell on Thy holy hill? He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness, And speaks truth in his heart. There was an abiding knowledge within the people of God that everything about them was different because they served the One True and Living God, Holy and Righteous Altogether. As such, they had to come unto Him, not in their sin, but in humble contriteness of heart and mind and being. They had to acknowledge that it was only by His grace and His mercy and His love that they could have any knowledge of His presence in their midst. 
They knew they were not perfect in any measure. All the continual need for sacrifices and washing and burning of incense reinforced that truth. However, unlike the other nations of the earth, they did have a means of coming unto the Living and Holy Lord God as they would continually offer Him those sacrifices that would show they wanted to honor and to reverence Him above all else. 
This then brings us to the work of Jesus Christ and what He represents now in the perfection that He instituted through His death and resurrection. As the nation of old was dealing with the tabernacle made by the work of man’s hands, so now are we brought into the tabernacle which has always been and will forever be in the faultlessness and the precision of the work of Jesus Christ. He has made our hearts to be the tabernacle of God, His place of indwelling love and grace and mercy. 
Please open in your Bibles to 2 Cor 5:1-9 so we can read of this together. 2 Cor 5:1-9, For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven; inasmuch as we, having put it on, shall not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, in order that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord — for we walk by faith, not by sight — we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. 
	What was the Old Testament type has become the New Testament reality of our living relationship with Him at all times. His glory, as it indwelled the Tent of Meeting and eventually the stone structure of the Temple, is now indwelling each one of us. We are made, in Jesus Christ, the Living Temple of God on this earth. He abides within us as the tabernacle of God with man is now accomplished because of the perfect work of the Only Begotten Son of God. 
	The Writer to the Hebrews, in Heb 8:1+2, highlights the measure of the work of Jesus as our perfect High Priest Who ministers within the lives of those whom He has redeemed. Heb 8:1+2, Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary, and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. 
	We are made, by the very working of God, to be what has always been His heart in the creation of humanity. We are His people who desire to know Him in all the fullness of His perfect holiness and righteousness and honor, giving continual glory to His name for what He has done. That is the reason that mankind was created with an internal need to worship. There is an indwelling requirement within the very being of each person, to offer praise and worship to God. 
The sad part is that, at the fall of man in the Garden, that focal point was twisted and perverted to seek anything other than God. It became the need to exalt ourselves over The Lord God Almighty. Rather than desiring to walk with God and to fellowship with Him, we promoted ourselves as needing nothing else in this life except that which we created with our own hands. We lost ourselves in idolatrous lusts and cravings after fame, fortune, self-exaltation, and prideful arrogance over all others. 
That was why the Lord had to establish a type of true worship, a place for man to come to know a bit of what it meant to pray and to praise and to offer thanksgiving and to know the presence of the One True Lord God Creator of Heaven and Earth. It was all as a shadow of what would ultimately take place in the perfected sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary. 
Again, the Writer to the Hebrews details this for us, if you would please turn to Heb 9:1-12, and follow along as we read it together. Heb 9:1-12, Now even the first covenant had regulations of divine worship and the earthly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle prepared, the outer one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the sacred bread; this is called the holy place. And behind the second veil, there was a tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies, having a golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden jar holding the manna, and Aaron's rod which budded, and the tables of the covenant. And above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat; but of these things we cannot now speak in detail. Now when these things have been thus prepared, the priests are continually entering the outer tabernacle, performing the divine worship, but into the second only the high priest enters, once a year, not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people committed in ignorance. The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed, while the outer tabernacle is still standing, which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience, since they relate only to food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until a time of reformation. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. 
The Writer describes what was necessary for entry into the holy of holies just once a year by the High Priest Alone. There was so very much that was in place just for a single, annual coming into the presence of God by the one man. Yet, in the face of all those requirements, there was the continual need to do them over and over and over again, year after year after year. It was all a stop gap, symbolic representation of that which was to come as Jesus would institute a more perfect and eternal sacrifice that would satisfy, beyond all measure and comprehension, the just and perfect requirements of God’s Holiness. 
The work that Jesus accomplished was in His freely offering Himself to become our sin on the cross. He took our guilt and our shame upon Himself in order to pay the required price of our sin and our trespasses which resulted in our complete redemption unto God. In fact, it went far beyond the stupendous miracle of redeeming us. In Him, He made the avenue of our acceptance before God at all times into the reality of our being included into the very family of God. In Christ, we are the adopted children of God, fully incorporated into all that this adoption entails with all its privileges and its inheritances throughout the ages of ages to come. 
All of eternity will be insufficient to detail and to describe what the Lord God Almighty has done through the very love and mercy and grace that has been so richly poured out upon us in the giving of His Only Begotten Son. Not only that, but all the requirements and the stipulations of the Old Testament practices have been forever dealt with by the faultless work of Jesus for us. We are made to be those living tabernacles of the indwelling Lord God Almighty in whom He dwells and communes and fellowships and works to build a relationship of unity and love and acceptance and commitment and holiness. All that He created as the ultimate needs of humanity, He chooses to meet and to fulfill by His indwelling presence. This could only and forever be in place by His operation of grace and mercy. 
Our final passage is found in the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, Chapter 21, verses 3 and 4. In it, we have the disclosure of all that is the heart of God from before eternity began. He knew that the only measure in which the complete fellowship with His created beings could come to fruition was through their willingly seeking to know Him in the perfection provided through His atoning work by the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is the united expression of His complete essence of Love shown in such an emptying of His everything for you and for me. 
Rev 21:3+4, And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them, and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away." 
    	All the joy of the eternity of heaven is expressed in knowing God in the full reality of Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son, the Lamb Who was slain for you and for me. It is in Him that the tabernacle of God comes into the heart of humanity and is expressed in the every detail of our lives. What will be true is absolutely detailed in this passage…He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away. This is the course of what we will find in the relationship which we share together in Him, with Him, and through Him with Our Heavenly Father. So be it. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Ps 134. Behold, bless the Lord, all servants of the Lord, Who serve by night in the house of the Lord! Lift up your hands to the sanctuary, And bless the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion, He who made heaven and earth. Amen.