The Crumbling World and the Unshakable Kingdom
Anchor: Hebrews 12:27-28
Every image competing for my eyes is advertising something. None of them print the date the shelf gets cleared.
The shelf is my picture. The writer of Hebrews tells us what happens to made things. Before he says a word about shaking, he names Jesus:
"and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." (Hebrews 12:24, ESV)
Then he says who is speaking, and it is one speaker at two moments: the God who warned them on earth at Sinai is the God who warns us from heaven.
"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." (Hebrews 12:25-27, ESV)
Some things are removed and some things remain, and the writer gives the first group one label: things that have been made. He doesn't name them here. Screens, markets, and the words of men are my application.
I woke up intending to read my Bible and pray. My Bible never showed up. 15 minutes of reels about the cost of living caused by the Iran war and the kids woke up. This breaks the quiet prayer moment up. I broke my own first things first rule.
I never picked up what cannot be shaken, and picked up something already coming apart.
Setting God's word down for man's words can look like prudence. "Informed responsibility" is the respectable name for it. The world is interesting, and I give it more importance than it deserves.
Work notifications, the ding, the anxiety to know, the drift away from being still, the next steps in the meeting, the uncleared task, you name it. It all can drive a wedge between us and the Lord.
The crying child comes early and breaches the day. Honest and natural, and that is not sinfulness. It is legitimate obligation. Sometimes we have to put things down that require our attention in the moment.
But work before work day has begun? The device we keep reaching for because we are anxious about it? Different things entirely.
To whatever extent those fifteen minutes were neglect, there is a way back, in John's first letter:
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9, ESV)
I was in my living room, in the chair that wobbles to remind me of life's uncertainty in focus.
God forgives, and the cleansing reaches further than I would have asked. It rests on his faithfulness and justice, and I take it on that same blood that speaks a better word.
Then the writer turns:
"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," (Hebrews 12:28, ESV)
Receiving. Nobody assembles this kingdom. It is handed over, and the shaking cannot touch it.
The ESV renders the first phrase as being grateful. The word underneath is the word for grace, and where the ESV says "and thus," the Greek says through which. The verse says to have grace, and through it to offer God worship he accepts. I still have to offer it.
The verse does not stop at comfort:
"for our God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:29, ESV)
The God who promises the unshakable kingdom is the same God who shakes.
The fight repeats. It does. Every single day.
Call it "informed responsibility" if you like. What gets your first attention tomorrow, and will it be among the things that remain?
Scripture chain: Hebrews 12:24-29 (ESV); 1 John 1:9 (ESV)
AI tools assisted with critique, structure, and editing; the experiences and convictions are his own.
