Passage: Exodus 30:1-10
The Big Idea
The tabernacle had two altars. The bronze altar pictured Jesus’ work on earth: His sacrifice. The golden altar of incense pictures His work in heaven right now: interceding for us and leading our worship. Jesus didn’t stop working for you at the cross. He always lives to make intercession for you.
What Have You Done for Me Lately?
When you woke up this morning, did you say thank you? Did you know a spiritual battle raged around you all night while you slept?
We feel its heat on those dark nights when condemnation comes, when the enemy of our souls drags up every failure and sin. But Jesus stood watch over you all night long. He does it every day and night of your life. It’s the joy of His heart to represent you before God, even when Satan attacks with all your failures.
Who can bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who condemns? It is Christ who died, and is risen, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us (Romans 8:33-34).
Many of us have known Jesus for a while. We remember the cross, and the day we realized it was for us. But our memories are fickle. The intensity fades. Thoughts of our forgiveness don’t fill our minds like they did when we were first born again.
That’s okay. Because Jesus does more than forgive us. He’s always serving us: bringing our needs before God and standing before God in worship.
What does that mean for me?
- When I need spiritual resources, which is always, Jesus provides them through His prayers and His connection with the Father. He asks, and God gives.
- I need to worship God, because I’m only complete when I’m worshiping Him. So Jesus stands before God in righteousness, worshiping perfectly, and invites me to stand in Him and worship through Him.
I don’t have to know how to worship “right.” I’m not required to have the right words or be the right kind of person. I’m invited to let Jesus be all that for me. I just trust Him and abide in Him.
The Altar of Incense (Exodus 30:1-10)
God told Moses to make an altar for burning incense: acacia wood overlaid with pure gold, a cubit square and two cubits high, with horns on its corners, a gold molding, and rings and poles for carrying. It stood in front of the veil, before the mercy seat, “where I will meet with you.” Aaron was to burn sweet incense on it every morning and every evening when he tended the lamps, a perpetual incense before the Lord. No strange incense, no burnt offering, no grain or drink offering on it. And once a year, its horns were to be touched with the blood of the atonement sacrifice. It was most holy to the Lord.
Two altars
- The bronze altar in the courtyard spoke of Jesus’ death, His work on earth: offering Himself as the sacrifice for sin.
- The golden altar inside the holy place speaks of His work in heaven now: interceding for us and worshiping God.
Why do we need both? Because we won’t fully know Jesus without both. His intercession is more than just praying for us. It’s being everything we need every day. And it includes worship. He provides all we need to worship God as He deserves. The Father is seeking those who worship in spirit and truth (John 4:23).
Prayer and Praise
God wants to meet with us. “Where I will meet with you.” And He wants it daily: incense every morning and every evening.
David asked that his prayer would rise before God like incense, and his lifted hands like the evening sacrifice (Psalm 141:2).
- God loves it when we pray and worship.
- Jesus prayed, and God loved it.
- Jesus worshiped openly: “In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You” (Hebrews 2:12).
- And Jesus still does both. He didn’t stop when He ascended.
What does that mean for me? I’m invited to join Him. Through Jesus we continually offer God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name (Hebrews 13:15).
We can only truly praise God and give thanks through Jesus, with active faith and humble dependence on Him. Anything we bring on our own is weak. God is only ever pleased by Jesus. But we’re invited to be in Him, so what He does, we share in.
Where Did the Fire Come From?
On the Day of Atonement, the high priest took a censer full of burning coals from the bronze altar, put incense on them, and carried them inside the veil so the cloud of incense would cover the mercy seat, “lest he die” (Leviticus 16:12-13).
The fire for the incense came from the altar of sacrifice.
As A.W. Pink observed, this tells us our High Priest pleads for no blessing His blood has not purchased, and asks pardon for no sin He has not atoned for.
That makes His intercession completely reliable. When Jesus asks the Father for something, He receives it, because He has paid for it. He calls on God to witness that His death matters, that it was worth it. And the Father’s heart is so moved that whatever His Son asks is given, by grace through faith. Father, Son and Spirit all agree: they want us blessed by this grace.
Prayers that shake the earth
In Revelation, before the trumpets sound, there’s silence in heaven for half an hour. An angel offers much incense with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke rises before God. Then the angel fills the censer with fire from the altar and throws it to the earth: thunder, lightning and an earthquake (Revelation 8:1-5).
When Jesus brings your prayers before God, the result is staggering. So pray! Through Christ, pray. Never stop. God hears and answers.
A Warning: Don’t Pray Without Jesus
No unauthorized incense was allowed on it (Exodus 30:9). And the high priest offered incense so that he wouldn’t die (Leviticus 16:13).
In other words: you don’t think you can come before Me without My Son’s blood, do you?
We can never try to gain God’s favor in prayer or service by our own performance, the Law, the flesh or our own plan. There’s one plan: Jesus. One High Priest: Jesus. Everything else is death.
Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and offered “profane fire” before the Lord, which He hadn’t commanded. Fire came out from the Lord and consumed them (Leviticus 10:1-2).
- They didn’t come in faith or in dependence on the high priest.
- They didn’t light their fire from the altar of sacrifice. They lit their own.
- They assumed they could walk into God’s presence based on their position. Self, not faith. Pride, not humility.
- They wanted to worship on their own terms, not through the sacrifice God provided.
If we want to worship, it has to be through Christ alone. And God wants us to do exactly that.
He Always Lives to Intercede
Jesus is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them (Hebrews 7:25).
Jesus is always at work. He never sleeps. And His work is saving you, completely. He’s so good at His job. He’s the only source of grace you need for any problem at any moment. It’s His very purpose for living. He just wants to provide everything you need.
Why? Because He loves you. Like a husband who’d sacrifice everything to give his wife what she needs, Jesus has committed Himself to you. His love is reckless. He’s perfectly devoted to your good. His love is more than you can handle, and our hearts have to be transformed just to contain it.
How Do We Respond?
What does a young woman do when the man she loves proposes? Scream for joy, cry, hug him, hold on. She wants nothing more than to be with him. To abide.
So imitate God as His dearly loved children, and walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Ephesians 5:1-2).
Not imitators like employees wearing a company logo. Not slaves with no choice. Not people who think they can be like God without needing Him. As dear children. God accepts and adopts us in the same position as His beloved Son. Every bit of love He feels for Jesus is shared with you.
Walk in that love. Every step taken in trust, never to earn it, but believing you already have it. His love and sacrifice are the sweet aroma to God, and our lives, praise and prayers take on that same aroma when we abide in His love. Marinate in it.
“But God is so big. How can He love me?” He knows every hair on your head (Matthew 10:30), and He still loves you.
“How can He love a sinner like me?” The blood of Jesus washes away all sin when you trust Him. He loved you and died for you while you were still a sinner (Romans 5:8).
“I don’t feel like God loves me. It’s so dark.” Nothing can separate you from the love of Christ (Romans 8:35-39), even when you don’t feel it. Be stubborn about believing the gospel.
“I haven’t done anything to deserve this. Maybe I should prove I’m worth it first.” God’s love is never based on your performance, but on Jesus’ performance for you. Enjoy it. Believe it.
Grace Takeaway
“We have an altar” (Hebrews 13:10). Jesus offers all of Himself as everything you’ll ever need. He asks God for what you need and praises God the way you wish you could, and He invites you to join Him. Come to the altar and worship through Him. It’s the only way, and it’s always open.
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