Hebrews 10:1-18
Let us give our attention now
to the reading of God’s holy word from Hebrews chapter 10,
beginning at verse one. For since the law has but a shadow
of the good things to come, instead of the true form of these realities,
it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered
every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would
they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having
once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness
of sin? But in these sacrifices, there
is a reminder of sin every year, for it is impossible for the
blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when
Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings
you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In
burnt offerings and sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure. Then
I said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is
written of me in the scroll of the book. When he said above,
you have neither desired or taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings
and burnt offerings and sin offerings. These are offered according to
the law. Then he added, behold, I have come to do your will. He abolishes the first in order
to establish the second. And by that will, we have been
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all. And every priest stands daily
at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can
never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for
all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right
hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should
be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering, he
has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And
the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us. For after saying, this
is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares
the Lord. I will put my laws on their hearts
and write them on their minds. Then he adds, I will remember
their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is
forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. This is God’s word for us. Pray
with me. Our God and Heavenly Father,
we do thank you that you speak and that you speak with thunder
clarity. And we do pray now that our ears would hear, that our
eyes would see, that our hearts would perceive, and that after
hearing what you have to say to us, that we would desire to
bear fruit in keeping with our repentance. This is This is a
great task. And so we need your help. We
need your grace. We need your blessing. We need your provision.
And so we ask for it boldly now in the name of Jesus, our great
savior, the living word. Amen. Some of you have most likely
heard your friends or your children or your grandchildren or someone
in this generation say something like this. That is so yesterday. Or that is so 1980s or so 1990s
or so of another era that it’s no longer cool anymore. It’s
no longer the thing to do. It’s no longer hip or with it
or whatever you might say. You see, what was formerly the
thing to do or be is no longer. It is past. It is time for something
new. And that’s, in a sense, what
the writer of Hebrews is saying to his audience. He’s saying
to them, that’s so Old Covenant, that’s so Old Testament, that’s
so last redemptive history period, something of that nature. He’s
saying to them, you have been putting your trust or you are
tempted to put your trust in the old covenant. You’re tempted
to rely on the old covenant sacrificial system or maybe Maybe look at
what other people think and believe, not just our audience, but what
we might believe today. We put our trust in our savings
accounts, our retirement plans, our job security, our social
skills, our friends, our network, our real estate. We put our hope
and faith and trust in things other than Christ. And what is
the writer saying to us? That is not the way to salvation. And so he’s saying to us, he’s
saying to the audience of Hebrews, he’s saying the old covenant
has passed. It’s done its duty. It’s time
to put your faith and your hope and your trust in Jesus, the
mediator of a better covenant, the new covenant, the covenant
with greater and better promises. And you know, the problem with
the old covenant is that it’s It’s not because it’s out of
style. It’s not because it’s so yesterday, as we might say
in our modern language. It’s because it cannot. It is because it is unable to. It is because it will never cleanse
your conscience. or give you access to God. You
see, it is unable to do the things you need to have a relationship
with God. It is unable to bring you into
his presence. It is unable to cleanse your
conscience of sin. Now, why do we have a sin problem?
Well, it’s because of our birth. We are born in sin because we
are of the generation after Adam and Eve. By virtue of Adam’s
fall into sin as Christians or as created beings, we are born
with what’s called original sin. Our nature is sinful at birth. Yes, we may be cute and cuddly
and sparkly eyed and all that. But we are born with a sinful
nature and from that sinful nature proceeds actual sins. And so God holds us guilty for
that sin nature that we inherit because we’re children of Adam.
But he holds us guilty also of our actual sins that proceed
from that nature. And so brothers and sisters of
the Lord Jesus as sinners before Almighty God, who is holy because
of our nature and because of our actual sins, we are alienated
from God. We are at odds from him. As this
Bible tells us, we are not near him, but we are far off. And
so the story of the entire Bible is God forming a people for himself. calling them to himself. He begins
in the story of Abraham. We follow it all the way through
Isaac and Jacob and Israel gathering in Egypt under Pharaoh’s slavery.
God rescuing them and giving them a promised land. He forms
a nation to be holy unto himself. They disobey. He sends them into
Babylon and to Assyria for exile. He returns them and rebuilds
them. He renews his covenant. And as we’ve spoken of in previous
weeks, God says to his people, the old covenant is not working.
And so there will be a new covenant with a new mediator, a new way. And that way will open for you
not only access to God, it will cleanse you from all your sins.
But you will know me. And you will obey me. Those are
the blessings of the new covenant. And so the story of the Bible,
the whole story of God and redemption is before us. And God’s ultimate
end and desire is that you will be his people and worship him
not only in this life, but in the life which is to come. That’s
why we go on short term mission trips. That’s why we send missionaries.
That’s why you evangelize. That’s why we have church, because
the goal of human history is to worship God. All other things
feed and help aid us in that. But God, brothers and sisters,
has made a way for sinners to come to Him. and to approach
him and to have their consciences cleansed and to dwell near him
and not far off. The Old Covenant pointed to the
ultimate way, which was Jesus. The Old Covenant provided a temporary
means for people to be able to come to God, but it was not ultimate. It was not final. And so our
passage today tells us something we’ve heard over and over. The
Old Covenant, not good enough. the new covenant perfect. And
there’s some sense where he’s not telling you anything new.
He’s just telling you, and you might say for the thousandth
time, something you already know. But guess what? God has written
these words to us. And we don’t say, well, I’ve
heard this before. We heard this last week or the
week before. I heard it a year ago. Guess what? If God says
it, he means for us to hear it because guess what? He knows
that we are forgetful. He knows that we need to be reminded
over and over of what is true. And so he is writing to the Hebrews.
He’s writing to you and he’s writing to all those in between
the Hebrews and us who needed to hear this message. And he’s
saying the old covenant, the Mosaic law, the way of sacrifices,
it was good. God provided it. It served its
purpose, but it was a glimpse. of the greater realities that
are in heaven. It was a shadow of the things that are to come.
It was a placeholder until Jesus could arrive on the scene. And
so, brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ, we now have
the new covenant mediated by Jesus, the great high priest,
after the order of Melchizedek and his once and for all offering
of himself is so much better than this forever and ongoing
sacrificing that the priest of the Old Covenant had to make.
So there are two things that we want to leave here today knowing
from this passage. The first is this, Jesus can
make you perfect. Jesus can make you perfect. What
an amazing gospel statement. Jesus can make you perfect. No,
he’s not talking about your teeth being whitened. He’s not talking
about Botox and wrinkles. He’s not talking about, was it
crow’s feet and all those things that they talk about. You look
at these glamour advertisements, you know, you’re not looking
like you used to. And so you need to get a little fixed up, implant teeth
and all that business. No, he’s saying, I can renovate
you from the inside out. And friend, no cosmetic doctor,
no cosmetic dentist, no hairstylist or beauty consultant can do that
for you. Only God through Jesus Christ
can make you clean and make you perfect inside. Now, we say very
often in America, there are two certain things, death and taxes. Well, if you’re Jewish, there’s
a third thing. There’s death, there’s taxes, and there’s Yom
Kippur, there’s the Day of Atonement. Every year, Every year, every
year, continually, the priest of God sacrificed animals, the
blood of bulls and goats. And you see in your passage,
you’ll see that there are four offerings mentioned. There’s
the sacrifices, the offerings, the burnt offerings, the sin
offerings. They were required by the law and they were offered
daily, weekly, And in the case of Yom Kippur, yearly, on the
Day of Atonement. And the people of God thought
it could cleanse them. They thought it could bring them
near to God. And our writer of Hebrews saying,
that’s so Old Covenant. That’s so previous period of
redemption. God has done something better. And so we read in verse 9, where
our writer tells us, behold, I have come to do your will. I, Jesus says, have abolished
the first covenant in order to establish the second. You see,
Jesus in his person and in his work has set aside the old covenant. He has done away with it. Because
why? First, These, speaking of sacrifices
in verse one, can never make perfect those who draw near.
Friends, you can sacrifice bull after bull, goat after goat,
turtle dove after turtle dove, grain offering, sin offering,
peace offering, whatever offering prescribed by the law. You can
do that over and over and over and as often as you want, and
it will never make perfect those who draw near to God. for verse
four tells us this, it is impossible. You hear that impossible for
the blood of bulls and goats to take away the sins of the
people. And he goes on to say in our
passage, the sin offerings of the old covenant were actually
not bringing peace to the conscience of the center. No, they every
year reminded you of your sin. Do you like to be reminded of
your sin? Of course you don’t. Do you like to be reminded of
your guilt? No. Do you like to be reminded of
your past transgressions? Of course not. And so what the
writer is saying to the Hebrews is those offerings of the old
covenant could only remind you that you are a guilty sinner. But Jesus comes onto the scene. And He tells us that your sin
is paid for. He comes and tells us that I
can make you perfect. He comes to say your sin is in
remission. It’s no longer able to master
you. It’s no longer able to destroy
you. For I have given you victory. Now, you may say I’m not tempted
to build a temple. And in that temple put up altars
and basins and curtains and follow all the rituals of the old covenant. I’m not tempted to reconstruct
the old covenant system of the tabernacle. But you know, we
substitute Christ in other ways. We say, maybe my tears can merit
my salvation. Maybe my good works or my morality,
maybe my good will outweigh my bad or my donations to the church,
my financial contributions, my donation of my time and energy.
The number of hours served will somehow be pleasing in sight.
But what do we know to be true? Nothing in my hand I bring simply
to the cross. I claim naked come to thee for
dress. We come empty. and we leave full. We come empty and full of sin
and misery. And Jesus, brothers and sisters,
who came to do the will of God and to obey God Almighty, has
offered not the blood of bulls and goats, but offered himself
that you may be forgiven, that you may be cleansed, that you
may have access to God, that you may have full and final salvation. What was the will of God? It
was for Jesus to come. What was the will of God? It
was for Jesus to obey. What was the will of God? It
was for Jesus to resist the devil, which he did. Adam and Eve failed. They were tempted in paradise.
And here Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. Adam failed,
but Jesus passed. It was the will of God for Jesus
to come, to obey, and to die. To offer one offering, the offering
of himself, as a satisfaction to God for sinners. And what
does that do for you? What does that do for you who
by faith rest in Christ alone for your salvation? Well, our
passage tells us it sanctifies you. Verse 10 says this, and
by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once and for all. Jesus can make you perfect.
How can he make you perfect? By his coming. his obedience
and his death on your behalf. And so you are sanctified. You
are made perfect. You are cleansed. Your sins are
taken away. If you are a Christian, if you
are truly resting in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, there
is good news. You have been made perfect by
Jesus. Now, let’s take for just a moment
what Jesus says about himself in this passage, as he quotes
from of the words of David in Psalm 40. He’s saying God does
not want your outward conformity. He doesn’t want your suit and
tie or your best dress from the department store and your ceremonial
walking into worship. I mean, yes, come, right? Yes,
dress appropriately. Yes, make your offerings, all
that. But what is he saying? I’d rather your obedience. I’d rather your devotion to me. I’d rather you hear me and believe
me and do what I ask in my word. Outward conformity in the scriptures
is never pleasing in God’s sight. Remember the Pharisees? Oh boy,
they had it just right. Their ties were straight. Their
rules were exact. Their performance of the law
of God. Well, no, actually their own
man-made law was to perfection. But what does Jesus say? You
look good. But you’re dead inside. And so brothers and sisters of
the Lord Jesus, if you are resting in Jesus alone for your salvation,
he can make you perfect. He has made you perfect. And
he doesn’t want your outward conformity through sacrifices
and this, that and the other. He wants your obedience. So what’s
the best way to show that you’re a Christian? It’s by the fruit
of your life. He wants your obedience. He wants
you to listen to his word, delight in his word, and do his word. The Apostle Paul says to us in
Ephesians, you were saved. You were sanctified. Not just
to be safe from hell and wrath, but you were saved and sanctified
that you might please Almighty God. Now remember what Jesus
has done so far in our study of of the Old Covenant here in
Hebrews. Remember when he died, the curtain
of the temple was torn in two. And so access was given to us
through faith into the heavenly holy of holies. But what else
did Jesus do when he died? He gave the Old Covenant priest
their pink slips. Go home. You’re no longer needed. Great job. Time has passed. Jesus has come and you are no
longer needed for service. Now, this must have been a shock
to the audience who heard these words first, because this was
their very life. We wake up every day guilty.
We wake up every day to provide a sacrifice. We wake up, we go
to temple, we go to tabernacle, we go and we get right with God
through the offering of blood of bulls and goats. Well, you
know, friends, it’s sometimes Actually, it ought to be, or
in fact it is. It’s a shock for us to hear sometimes
what the gospel is not. For some to hear these words,
it doesn’t matter how good you are, you have to have faith in
Jesus and His goodness to get to heaven. That’s the gospel.
But what do we preach? If you love your mama, If you
go to church on occasion, if you don’t kick cats, if you don’t
drink, cuss, and smoke and chew and hang out with those that
do, we’ve accepted that as gospel in our culture. But what is the
gospel? God saves sinners who have faith in Jesus, who know
that they need a Savior and they rest in Him. Nothing of their
works, nothing of their tears, nothing of anything in them except
they bring to their Savior their sin. And he has taken it on the
cross. And so, friends, it ought to
be a shock to us to hear what is not the gospel, what will
not perfect us. And to say very clearly, Jesus
can make you perfect for his sacrifice does not go on and
on year after year. but once and for all has been
made. Look at verse 10, it sums it
up very well. It says, by the will of God,
we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once and for all. Brothers and sisters, if you
are in Christ, you are holy. If you are in Christ, you have
been made perfect. Yes, God is still at work in
you. Yes, you still sin, but he sees you in that way. And
that is a reality that is true. There’s a second thing that this
passage teaches us, though. Not only can Jesus make you perfect,
Jesus can forgive you of all your sins. Sometimes you might
wonder what preachers do all week. You know, there’s the old
joke that they work on Sunday mornings only. Well, that’d be
great. Play golf the rest of the week. If you watch TV, what
do preachers do? straighten the hymnals. They’re
in the dark sanctuary, you know, tidying up that sort of thing. Well, you might ask the same
question. What did the old covenant priest do? They made offerings
all day long. In fact, their work was so hard.
Do you remember when Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan,
the man who fell into the hands of enemies? There came a priest
and a Levite and they’re coming down from Jerusalem because it’s
their week off, their month off or whatever. The labor was so
intensive that they went in rotations and cycles. They worked hard.
Maybe some of you work. two weeks at a time, and then
you get a week off, something of that nature. That’s what the
priest and Levites did. They worked hard night and day,
making the sacrifices and keeping the cultic practices of the temple
of God in place. And so they labored on their
feet, making offering after offering. But what does it say in verse
11 of Jesus? It says, Every priest stands
daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices,
which can never take away sins, But it says when Jesus offered
for all time a single sacrifice for sins, guess what? He sat
down. He had no more work in the business
of sacrifices that was done. It was complete. And so friends,
Jesus has come. He’s obeyed. He’s suffered. He’s
died. He was in the grave. He’s risen from the dead. He
ministered for 40 days to his disciples. And then he went to
heaven and he sat down. Because his sacrifice was won
and done, as we say. It was accepted. It was pleasing
in God’s sight. It satisfied divine wrath and
justice. And notice what he says in verse
12. When Christ offered for all time a single sacrifice, he sat
down. And what is he doing? He’s waiting. until all his enemies should
be made a footstool under his feet. See, the question you might
ask, what’s Jesus doing all the time? Well, we know from other
places he’s interceding for us. He’s cheering us on. He’s encouraging
us heavenward. But one of the things he’s doing,
and he will not come again to take his church home until all
his enemies are under his feet. Now, we can’t go into all that
means, but Jesus is ruling and reigning and seated And he is
serving on behalf of you, the Christians. And he is waiting
for God to say, your enemies are all underfoot. Your time
is now. Go and bring your church home.
Bring your bride to heaven, to the great temple. And we will
feast. And there will be a great wedding
of God and his people through Jesus. You see, friends, Jesus’
work is completed. His work is finished. That was
never the case for a priest in the Old Covenant. And one of
the things we have to understand in the New Testament language
is that when God did something in the past, it has present and
future and ongoing benefits for you. It’s like taking a dollar
to the bank and investing it wisely in the interest and the
dividends continue to benefit and bless you for future. That’s
what the death of Christ has done for you. It accomplished
something. It paid for your sins. It provides
something for you, access to God and cleansing of conscience. But there’s a future blessing
that is that it will bring you into heaven safely. And when
you stand before the judgment seat of God, guess what? You
will be declared innocent because of the obedience and blessing
of God himself through Jesus Christ. It has present effects
for you. We read in verse 14, it says,
by a single offering, he has perfected, there it is again,
he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And then he goes on to say in
verse 15, and he connects us again to the covenant
promise from Jeremiah. He says, this is the covenant
I will make with them that in those days declares the Lord.
I’ll put my laws in their hearts. I’ll write them on their hearts.
And I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. So friends, these two promises
that are ours in Christ, God or Jesus can make you perfect.
And Jesus can forgive you of all of your sins. There is no
greater message in the world than that. not whiter teeth,
not perfect hair, not to be well educated and successful or to
have the right retirement plan in place. All those are necessary
for sure in some ways and shapes and forms. But the fact that
we will stand before the God of the universe, perfected in
Jesus and forgiven in Jesus. Can you believe these words?
I remember their sins no more. There is release from your sins.
There is absolution of your sins. And that didn’t happen in the
Old Covenant every year. Every year, the priest took a
goat and he put his hands on the head of that goat and he
pronounced the sins of the people of Israel on that goat and sent
that goat out in the wilderness to die. But when Jesus came,
he obeyed. The sins of the people were put
upon him. They were imputed to his head,
so to speak. He was sent outside the camp,
outside Jerusalem. And he was hung on the cursed
tree where your sins were paid for, where your redemption was
purchased, where God’s wrath was satisfied. And our passage
tells us that the word of God and the Holy Spirit assure you
that if you know of your sin and of your need for a savior,
that there is provision in Christ and that if you rest in him alone
for salvation, you have been made perfect. and your sins are
remembered no more. Let’s give thanks to God. Our
Heavenly Father, we do thank you. We do bless you. We do have
hearts full of gratitude to you for the work of Christ on our
behalf. We thank you that he has come
and obeyed and suffered and died and risen and ascended and is
seated. No more offerings to offer because
the one he did offer was accepted. We do pray that We would take
advantage of our position in Christ, of our encouragement
to love and serve and obey you, and that we might, like Christ,
desire to do your will. Because it’s the right thing
to do, but also out of gratitude for what’s been done for us in
Christ. Help us. Give us your strength that we
might do this. And we pray it all in the name of Jesus. Amen.