*Title:* A Glorious High Throne — Pastor Kyle Baldwin, March 21, 2026

Why did God want children in the first place? In this sermon, Pastor Kyle Baldwin answers with a story: an elderly father phones his son in New York to announce, after 45 years of marriage, that he and his wife are getting a divorce — then admits he only wanted both of his children to come home for Christmas, at their own expense. Loving families, Pastor Baldwin says, will go to great lengths just to be together. Is our heavenly Father any different? The whole message grows out of that question, and its answer is the Bible’s sanctuary story: God wanted children simply so He could be with them.

The sermon’s text is Jeremiah 17:12 — “A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.” From the beginning, worship centered around the throne of God, angels gathered around the mount of the congregation in uninterrupted praise. But Pastor Baldwin also traces why that worship was broken and how God refused to leave it broken. God is plural yet one — Elohim, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26) — and because God is love, and love is always others-directed, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit wanted to share that love with sons and daughters. Sin introduced a separation, but the sanctuary was reconstituted as restoration: through the sacrificial system, and above all through the sacrifice of Jesus, we can approach the throne again. Hebrews 4:14–16 gives the invitation its boldest form — we have a High Priest tempted as we are, yet without sin, so we may “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

The sanctuary’s throughline, Pastor Baldwin says, is a single sentence: “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). God had Moses recreate heaven’s sanctuary on earth so His presence could come down and be with His people. And the Father at the center of that sanctuary is not waiting stiffly for an apology — He is the father of the prodigal, running toward the returning child with a smile, embracing him before the confession is finished, declaring, “My son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” The sermon closes by turning David’s prayer back on us — “One thing have I desired of the Lord… that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life” (Psalm 27:4) — and asking whether we want to be with God as much as He wants to be with us. Now we have access by faith (Romans 5:1–2); soon, Pastor Baldwin says, we will stand with the redeemed and say, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us” (Isaiah 25:9), gathered before the glorious high throne at last.

*Key texts:* Jeremiah 17:12; Genesis 1:1, 1:26; Exodus 29:45–46; Isaiah 57:15; Hebrews 4:14–16; Exodus 25:8; Psalm 150:1; Psalm 27:4; Psalm 23:6; Romans 5:1–2; Isaiah 25:9; Revelation 21:1–3

*Watch:* https://youtu.be/NcaN0hxorDw · *Listen:* https://cloud-1de12d.becdn.net/media/original/f7c0c6d59991911856743b45d17a9078.mp3