Well, if you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10. This evening we're turning a corner in the book of Hebrews at verse 19, 19 to 25. That is turning from a primarily doctrinal section to a primarily practical section. We're moving in the book from theology to Christian living, from a very high Christology, a high doctrine of Christ to the implications and the applications of believing in Him, belonging to Him.
Last time we were together in Hebrews and it's been a month. We were in verses 11 to 18 and just very briefly we saw it in verse 12 that Christ offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins. And having finished the work of redemption, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high and He sat down because His work is done. The work of redemption is done.
It was accomplished. It was achieved. All that was needed to reconcile sinners to God. Jesus did for us.
Now the writer turns and He says to His audience and to us, since you have this Christ as your mediator and redeemer and priest, since He is yours and you are His, well, since you have a new state of existence in Him and union with Him. Well, then here's how you live that out. Here's how you enjoy and make use of the privileges you have in Him. And here's what you're to do as you live for Him.
What are we to do? Well, that's the subject here in Hebrews chapter 10 verses 19 to 25. Let me invite you to give your attention to it. And God's holy and inspired Word.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day.
Draw you near. Amen. This is God's Word. Let's look to Him in prayer, Father.
We ask that by this Word, through the work of your Spirit, because of Christ, that what we know not, you would teach us. And what we have not, you would give to us. And what we are not, you would make us. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. What are Christians to do? How are Christians to live? Well, He says in verse 22, let us draw near.
In verse 23, He says, let us hold fast. And in verse 24, He says, let us stir one another up. But before He tells you those three things, it's almost like the author just can't help himself. At least that's how I view it.
He's got to say again, even in this transition from the theological to the practical, from what you have in Christ and who He is and what He did to how then that's expressed in your life. It's almost like He wants to get to the let us do these things, but He's got to remind you what's more of what you have in Jesus. And so it's a good reminder. We should never lose sight of how important sound doctrine is to Christian living.
How important the truth about Jesus is to how we respond to Jesus. First comes correct theology. Then comes right practice. And we need both together in that order.
Good theology without practice is just dead orthodoxy. It's just saying I believe all the right things, but doing nothing with it. It's just dead. But also practice without sound theology creates a burdensome legalism.
It just puts weights on people's back that they can't in themselves carry. But sound doctrine is for Christian living or the doxy is for the proxy. And so I don't know anybody fool you should someone say to you and you hear this in different parts of the Lord's big church. We just really need to quit talking so much about what we believe and what's true.
And let's just get out of doing something with it. So those folks don't know what they're talking about. What is it after all that can enable us to do what the writer wants us to do? How can I be aided and helped and resourced as well as encouraged to do what I'm supposed to do?
Well, it's through the truth that we already have in Jesus. It's what we already have in him. And so it's a reminder that truth is for life and grace is for good works. And notice then first of all the three things we already have and then the three things we are to do.
So two big points. First what do we already have? This is 19 to 21. Well, three things.
First we have confidence. Notice therefore brothers first 19 since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus. We have this confidence he says. We've been given this confidence to enter the holy places.
That is to appear in the very presence of God in the throne room of God before the throne of grace. We have a confidence he says to draw me here. He's not so much here saying that personally we have just a, I mean our cup is overflowing with personal confidence. But he's saying we have a boldness.
We have a freedom. We have a liberty given to us. It's an objective confidence. It's because Christ has accomplished something that we can have this liberty to come boldly into the presence of the Lord.
And we have this confidence he says to draw near to God. And you don't have to bring anything with you. If you were an Old Testament saint, well, it was your duty when you drew near to the tabernacle or to the temple. The closer you got to the holy places, it was your duty to offer sacrifices.
But if you're a new covenant believer, it is your duty not to offer sacrifices. That is, it's your duty instead to depend upon the finished sacrifice that God has already offered for you in Christ, for your sin. That's what we mean. And because God has offered that, we can come to God joyfully and confidently with great freedom and boldness.
Whereas for the Old Testament saint as we've noted this time and again, there was a kind of hesitancy built into Old Testament worship. There was a tentativeness and a fearfulness. God's presence in the camp, in the tabernacle or his presence in the city and the temple, in the most holy place. On the one hand said, I'm with you.
You are my people. Come to me. But it also said, no, don't come too close. Don't come in all the way.
Y'all stay back and let the priests go in. But even the priests were told, now, y'all come close, but y'all stay back. Only let the high priest come in and only once a year. But now the invitation is to all who are in Christ to just simply march right up into the throne room of grace, not arrogantly or flippantly, of course, or with a misplaced confidence ourselves.
But we have this confidence by the blood of Jesus, he says. So we come. We come out of the way. We approach God of worship and we appeal to God in prayer.
And we do so, not in our own righteousness, but in the righteousness of Christ. We come not in our own name, but in his name. And we come not because of who we are, what we've done, but we come because of who Jesus is and what he has done. And now the writer says, because the blood of Jesus has been spilled, the way into the holy places is open for all who come to God through Christ.
So we have, he says, this confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus. But secondly, he says, we have a new and living way open for us to do so. Verse 20, notice, we'll pick it up in verse 19, therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh. So what's he saying?
He's saying we can enter because Jesus gave his life for us. There was no other way into the inner sanctuary of the tabernacle except you recall through the veil. There was a veil into the holy place. And another veil into the most holy place.
And so he's saying here, the flesh of Jesus actually is that veil, that curtain, it alone, his death alone affords the only means of access into the heavenly sanctuary. And so he says, and use it, use what you have. Jesus said in John 10, 7, truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. Verse 9, if anyone enters by me, he will be saved and he will go in and out and find pasture.
And so doors and buildings are, well, they're shut and they're locked and others are shut and unlocked and others are just open. There are different kinds of things you can do with the door. For example, the front doors of this building are usually locked during the week. We have a bunch of people here.
And that's because even if I'm here, even now with Zach here, well, I'm upstairs in my study, he might be downstairs in his study and there's nobody on the first floor. You can't hear anything. Should somebody come in and start wandering around and as a safety feature and for the stuff that we have, well, we have a doorbell. The door is ordinarily locked.
But please, ring the bell and set us attached. Let us know you're here. But that door is locked. Now, if you're in the building, you may notice that my study door at the top of the stairs is almost always closed.
It's not locked. It doesn't have a lock on it. And it has a window. You can see in, but it's usually closed.
It even has a sign on it that Marty very kindly put that says, please keep this door closed, especially in the summer. And the reason for that is simply this, that it's at the top of the stairs and the heat rises in the building and it fills that room. And you can almost sometimes feel each step, a different degree of temperature as you climb to the top. And it's just a way of keeping my study cool, keeping the air conditioning in and not letting it float down and out and keeping the heat from getting up.
I'm not complaining a bit. I've got an air conditioner. I'm very comfortable. You are always welcome.
Just come right up those stairs and oh, if I didn't hear you, just tap on that window, right? The door is shut, but it's not locked. And then of course, some doors just remain open. Ordinarily, on Sunday, Sunday by Sunday, the doors to this section right there remain open.
And you don't need a key. You don't need a secret password. You don't need to knock. They aren't shut.
You're simply allowed to pass through. It's an invitation to come in. The sanctuary doors are like that. There's no barrier.
And it's like that with the door of heaven is what the writer is saying. For all who trust in Christ or all who come to God through Christ. He is the door. And the doorway stands open to the throne of grace for all who come in Jesus.
No one says Jesus comes to the Father but through me and put positively. You can come to the Father through me. It's a new way. Notice the author says in verse 20, a new and living way into the presence of God.
The word new there is very unusual. It's a religious term that really means newly slaughtered or freshly slain. What he's saying is we have a fresh slaughter that ends all the other slaughters or a new sacrifice to end all the sacrifices that allows for this freedom of access. And it's a living way because he wants to remind you that though Christ our lamb was sacrificed.
And though he died yet, he lives. He rose from the dead and he lives forevermore. And so it's a living way into the presence of God that he opened for us. The writer says, as we mentioned, through the curtain that is through his flesh.
And we've mentioned this before but this is a regular pattern in Scripture. There's a God built into the Bible and his dealings with people. This picture you remember when Adam and Eve, well after the rebellion were banished from the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Paradise where God walked with them in the cool of the day and they had access and freedom of liberty to talk to him.
Well, after the rebellion they were banished and the chair of him and a flaming sword guarded the way through the entrance to keep them from going back in. That sword warned them of their danger. It would be death to them to try to go back in. The way was closed.
The chair of him guarded the way. And then likewise in the tabernacle and in the temple there was a place where God dwelled in the midst of his people in the holy of holies. And there was a doorway of sorts that is a curtain. And on that curtain were embroidered, chair of him guarding the way in.
You and I or any Jew in that day and the existence of the tabernacle and temple would be killed for entering the holy places. It was for the priests only as we said. And then again on that veil into the most holy place it was just for the great high priest. And just one time a year the chair of him guarded the way as it were.
And the writer and I was saying that curtain, that door so to speak, it's really Jesus. And so it was on Good Friday when he died that that heavy temple curtain was torn from top to bottom, not bottom to top, not because man or priest started cutting and cut their way up because as it were God himself grabbed two ends of it and ripped it apart and ended all of that and said come, come right in all of you because the pure and spotless flesh of Christ was killed for us. And by the sword of God's wrath and because of Jesus we don't face that sword. We're not barred by the terrible.
So we have this confidence to enter and we have this new and living way to enter. And thirdly he says what else do we have? We have a great priest over the house of God for us 21 cents. We have this great priest over the house of God.
So we've got this great high priest as the book itself has told us time and again. He's Jesus who with perfect sympathy offered a perfect sacrifice to make a perfect attention. He says what a priest is and does. A priest was one who was to have sympathy for the people.
He was made like the people and he could be a merciful. A priest Jesus was made like us in every way says Hebrews 2. He had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the world, for the sins of the people. Because he is himself but suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
He's perfect sympathy for his people. He offered a perfect sacrifice to God as a priest. That's Hebrew 7, 26 and 27. It was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest.
Holy innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens. He has no need like those, those Old Testament Levitical priests. He has no need to offer sacrifices daily first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people. He did this once for all when he offered up himself.
He offered a perfect sacrifice and to make a perfect atonement. That's what the writer is lately. He's speaking of in chapter 10 verses 11 and 12 even every priest, the Levitical priests, they stand daily at their service offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, sat down the right hand of God.
So we have all this great priest over the house of God. So we have confidence to enter. We have a new and living way. Because we have all that already in Jesus, what should we do?
What should we do? Well here's your second major point and it's three things. We should draw near to God in faith verse 22. Hold fast our hope verse 23 and love one another verses 24 to 25.
Notice these things. And by the way, just notice the first words of practical Christian living as he turns to this entire section of the book, invoke that great triad of faith, hope and love. Just like the Apostle Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 13 where he says, so now faith, hope and love abide these three. But the greatest of these is love.
It's interesting. These three are the subject matter of each of the following chapters of the book of Hebrews. You want to know how do we outline things from here to the end. One verse 22, he calls on us to draw near to God in full assurance of faith.
And then in chapter 11, it's all about faith. The faith of our forefathers and foremothers who drew near to God and walked with God by faith. And then verse 23, he calls us to hold fast the confession of our hope. In chapter 12, he's all about our Christian hope.
In chapter 12, one to three says, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight in the sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. What he's saying is Jesus looked forward, passed the shame of the cross to the joy of bringing many sons and daughters to glory and being reunited with the Father, having completed his work. And look forward in hope, even enduring hardship. Chapter 12 will say, as God's fatherly discipline, even as we have received a kingdom which cannot be shaken and we wait in hope for its consummation, we wait in hope for our glorification.
So there's faith and there's hope. And chapter 13 is about what? It's about verses 24 and 25, which tells us to stir one another up in love and to encourage one another in love. And chapter 13 is about love.
It starts at verse 1. And it calls us, it says, to let brotherly love continue. Verse 16, do not like to do good. Share what you have for sacrifices are pleasing to God.
So it's the great Paul upon Christians to prioritize faith, hope and love and to live out our common faith, hope and love. Well, let's get into the nitty-gritty's then. What is he saying here about faith? He says, let us draw near to God.
In full assurance of faith, verse 22, let's make use of our access. Don't hesitate. Don't shy away. Don't look at yourself and say, yeah, I'm not worthy.
Of course you aren't worthy. You aren't being asked to make yourself worthy to appear in the presence of God and to talk to your Father in heaven. God knows you can't make yourself worthy. Christ is worthy.
And he's your mediator. He's your priest. He gives you access. So we need this gospel-based confidence in him.
And how are we to draw near? Notice that language. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. And he goes on from there, there are four things to highlight here.
He says, come and draw near with a true heart. That is with a sincere heart. A genuine heart. Not faking it.
Not sincerely. It's to come as a child to your heavenly Father from one who is trusted in Christ. And so you've been brought into the family. And so you know that you're heard in Jesus and you're welcomed as the child of God.
Not because you're saying all the right words, not because you're long-winded in your prayers, not because you have to manipulate God. And you're talking to him and not somebody else, but come genuinely, honestly, sincerely. That's the first thing he says. We come with a genuine heart in full assurance of faith.
He says, and I hear him talking about our confidence in Jesus, our assurance in Christ, not in anyone else, not in ourselves, not in Mary, not in some saint, right? He's now in heaven, but in Christ. Come with a genuine heart that trusts in Christ and come with, he goes on to say, our heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. And our bodies washed with pure water.
Now this is interesting. These last two, he uses a perfect participle. I didn't learn my grammar in seventh grade like I ought to have. I didn't learn English grammar until I had to take Greek and seminary.
But these perfect participles are the perfect tense. It's really an important tense. It refers to an unrepeatable act that has abiding effect. And as one put it, they express not conditions of approach to God which are yet to be achieved, but conditions already possessed.
What he's saying is come to God and come, you who have already had your heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. If you have had that in unit with Christ. So he's not saying, I got to get something new here. He's saying, this is what you have in Jesus because the spirit came into your heart, bound you together with Christ and his blood makes you clean.
You've been sprinkled as it were with the blood of Christ. And likewise, you already have had, he says, the outward baptism that symbolizes the inner reality. Here he's speaking of people who profess their faith in Christ and in that time. Their bodies have been washed with pure water.
So he's thinking of both the inward and the outward symbol of redemption. He's speaking of the sprinkling clean of our hearts with the blood of Christ by the work of the spirit. And he's thinking of the outward expression of that in baptism. And he may be here reminding his Jewish years who are on the fence still who may be have not yet embraced Jesus and not been baptized with Christian baptism or not sure if they want to be.
Or maybe speaking here as well as his newly converted Christian hearers that y'all do need to be baptized. And it's important to fundamentally and in principle and consistently reject Christian baptism was not a good sign. Right? Because it was to be an expression of your faith in Christ and God commanded grace to you.
But he's saying that then look, y'all have the work of the spirit on the heart. You've had the blood of Christ sprinkle your hearts. You've been baptized externally. You believe with a real genuine heart come with that heart and trust in Christ.
Draw near this way. That's the first thing you're to do. Don't be shy. And then the second thing we're to do, let us hold fast our hope.
Verse 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. Hold on to your confession of faith in him and the hope that he gives you persevere. He says, don't fall back. Don't go back.
Don't turn away from Christ. You go back to Judaism. Even under persecution, even under the family pressure, even under those who think you're a nut job for believing in Jesus. Y'all just keep on persevering in hope.
Why for he who promised his faithful? And he says, well you yourself are well always tempted to be less than faithful. And you will at times be unfaithful. You'll fall.
And the Christian often is saying things like, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Yet what sustains you is ultimately God's faithfulness. He who promised is faithful. And so our perseverance in hope is based on God's faithful preservation of us.
He preserves us and that enables us to persevere. And knowing then that God is faithful and will do for us what he promised enables us to keep going under trial, disappointment, hardship, persecution. And even chapter 12, God's fatherly discipline. Don't give up.
Persevere in hope. God will hold on to you. God will fulfill his promise to you. There's a whole faster confession of hope.
And that hope that we possess in Christ, we confess before watching world. And it's a world without hope, isn't it? I mean, just think, I don't even know if we can imagine, but just imagine for a moment how many people are going to not just be simply disappointed in a couple of weeks after, you know, when the election results come in. But maybe say, bitterly disappointed and driven near to despair, at least based on what they say, out loud.
But here's some people talk. Some think if one candidate wins, democracy is lost forever. And some people think if the other candidate wins, democracy is lost forever. The writer here isn't interested in democracy in the United States.
I'm not saying it's unimportant. What's a great blessing. But what he's interested in is the kingdom that cannot be shaken. And the hope we have in the consummation of that kingdom, in the glory that's to come.
And that's where we put our hope so that we aren't despairing, even if things don't go the way that we would hope in this world. And then he completes the Christian triad of faith, hope, and love. We respond by drawing near to God in genuine faith. And we respond by persevering in our hope and by pressing on in love.
That's verses 24 to 25. Let's consider how to stir one another up to love and good works. Notice he says we must consider. What does that mean?
Well, what he's saying is you actually have to stop and think. You need to take a breath, pause, and reflect. That is, think about what might be helpful to another person to stir them up to love and good deeds. And we shouldn't just simply assume that as we go about living the Christian life and talking about it, that that will inevitably do so for other people.
And the reason, of course, for that is, people are different. Their needs are different. How they're encouraged, how they're stirred is different. And there's not a cookie-coder approach here.
In a different just long ago, there was a woman who said notes to people. Very kind, extremely well-intentioned. Don't misunderstand me. But it was, well, as people got to receive these notes, you're using it brought to the ministerial tension at one point, it was always kind of the same sort of note, saying the same sort of thing.
And often it really actually missed the mark and came across as tried or like a platitude, not meaningful and helpful, like just something you say. Because it appeared anyway that she wasn't so much thinking about the individual who was going to receive that note. And so it often felt short, even in her very genuine efforts to love people. And what the writer here is saying is, you know, you want to stir others up to love and good deeds, but you need to stop and think about that first.
And that's a challenge for all of us, because we live in a world that simply wants to occupy every waking moment of our time and attention with the little device we have here and so on. It's something you have to deliberately choose to pause and reflect. But also, as many noted, when we are thinking about how to love someone or help someone, so often it's ourselves, we're thinking about, how do I love me and help me? But he says we should consider how to stir one another up.
Stir one another up. We've been around a campfire in the morning. The coals have burned down. Sometimes they're a little embers hot under the ash and all they need is to be poked and prodded and stirred.
Our Ben had a ball of camping this last week. And he would get them all the ashes off and then he would hop and he would pop and he would blow oxygen into that fire. We kindle it. And sometimes, well, that's what really needs to happen.
We need to poke and prod. He says, provoke. He says that these things can be fanned into flame. We need to be provoked to good deeds.
I suppose one of the best ways to be provoked to love and good deeds is to have love and good deeds done to you. And it teaches you as you receive it what a blessing it is. It shows you by the example of the one who did it. Perhaps how to do it.
So he goes on then, verse 25, let's look at the stir one another up to love and good deeds. And he says, 25, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some. But we need to consider and he says we also need to congregate. You know what a congregation is?
A congregation is an assembly of people who've gathered together. That's what we are. People who meet with one another in person to be known and to know, to serve and be served, to love and be loved. They're not lone ranger Christians.
That's an oxymoron. But God has placed us in his household, made us family together, and we belong to one another. And we need one another. And yes, we are our brother's keeper.
He's saying, so we need to encourage one another. But don't fall into the habit. And some, well, the early church wasn't perfect. Some the writer says have already begun the habit of not meeting together.
And he's saying, don't let that become your habit. And I'm preaching to the choir tonight. Look at you. You're here.
Calvin says this, there is so much peevishness in almost everyone that individuals, if they could, would gladly make their own churches for themselves. This morning is therefore more than needed by all of us that we should be encouraged to love rather than hate and that we should not separate ourselves from those who are joined to us by a common faith. And all the more the writer says, as you see the day appearing, that's the day of the return of Christ. Because Christ has come.
Christ has died. And Christ has risen. And Christ is coming again. Therefore, do I hear God?
Hold fast your hope and let us love one another. Let's pray. Father, make it so. You know how fickle our hearts are turned inward, how even reluctant we are to talk with you, manage our own problems or just think you're not interested in us.
You know how the troubles of this world trouble us in our hope. You know how much we do love ourselves and how little we really do love others. We confess it all and ask, oh Lord, that you would transform us. Help us.
Bless us and make us a blessing in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Let's stand together to sing.