Proper 28 (November 17, 2024)

EPISTLE Hebrews 9:24-28 (RSV)

Sermon Notes/Introduction

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) affects many millions of adults. It is more than shyness. SAD includes an acute fear of being judged. An individual with SAD struggles with everyday tasks like talking to people at work or school because he is terrified that he is constantly being evaluated. Even if you don’t have that disorder, perhaps you have experienced that uncomfortable feeling that others are watching you, trying to find something to criticize. We don’t want others judging us. It is bad enough listening to the voice inside our own head, whispering that we aren’t worthy.

How do we overcome the fear of judgment? It begins by realizing that there is only one person whose opinion ultimately matters—the Judge. Everyone is going to live forever in one of two very different places. Where you spend eternity depends on a judgment that Jesus will render. This week we see why his judgment need not trigger any sort of anxiety. Judgment day is something we can joyfully anticipate. We can live free from the fear of judgment.

The second reading was chosen as the sermon text since it provides in vivid, straightforward language the reason we live free from the fear of God’s judgment. It clarifies what is meant when Jesus says, “Those who have done what is good will rise to live. The “good” is not avoiding sin. That, we cannot do. The “good” is trusting in our high priest who made the sacrifice “once for all… to do away with sin.”

The heavenly sanctuary that Christ entered is prefigured by the Holy of Holies of the Old Testament tabernacle and temple. In the Old Testament sanctuary, darkness and clouds of incense veiled the unworthiness of the priest from God and also the glory of God from the priest. But Christ entered before God with no separating cloud, indicating the perfect fellowship attained between people and God through Christ’s offering of Himself (Hebrews 9:24). Christ has entered the realm of blessedness, heaven, not at all in the repetitive way in which the high priest entered the Holy of Holies (Hebrews 9:25). If Christ had entered heaven repeatedly, He would also have had to die repeatedly (Hebrews 9:26). But since Christ’s sacrifice on the cross atoned for sin once and for all, His intercession for us before God has ongoing efficacy.

“Since the foundation of the world'' (Hebrews 9:26) alludes to the sin that has been committed and continues to be committed since the beginning of the world. Continual sacrifices, therefore, had to be offered by the high priest year after year. But when, in God’s own time, Christ came to sacrifice Himself, sacrifices no longer had to be repeated. Christ’s act was valid for all time, from the foundation of the world until Judgment Day. The great objective of Christ’s manifestation was to abolish sin in its destructive effects and consequences. To enforce the statement that Christ’s sacrifice marked the completion of His work and that it was a “once for all”' sacrifice, the writer (Hebrews 9:27) refers to the normal order of events for human beings. After dying, we cannot return to earth but must immediately face the judgment. As human life ends in death and judgment follows, so Christ's death marked the completion of His work, and judgment follows, carried out by Himself (Hebrews 9:28).

Since Christ by His death did away with the drastic consequences of sin, those consequences will be eliminated for His believers on the Last Day. When Christ comes a second time, He will not come as a sin offering but rather to make those who wait for Him partakers of salvation in all its fullness.

Sermon Outline

Life has a once-and-for-all quality about it. We live our childhood and youth but once. Neither those periods of our life nor our later years can be retrieved. We make decisions about our careers and relationships that affect us for the rest of our lives. Those were once-and-for-all decisions. We couldn’t change them; we had to live with them. Our whole life is a once-and-for-all matter. We die once, and after that we face the judgment. There is no returning to remedy mistakes or to make up for failures. The life of our Lord also had a once-and-for-all quality about it. This is especially true of His sacrifice on the cross. The text spells out

THE MEANING OF CHRIST’S ONCE-AND-FOR-ALL SACRIFICE

Sin has been put away once and for all.

Sin has had to be dealt with from the foundation of the world (Hebrews 9:26).

We have to face up to the reality of sin, for the corruption of human nature resulting from the disobedience of Adam and Eve manifests itself in an endless catalog of human evil and misery.

The yearly entrance on the Great Day of Atonement of the high priest into the Holy Place was a constant reminder that God demands expiation for sin and that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22).

The Old Testament sacrifices all pointed to the sacrifice of Christ, whose blood had power to expiate sin once and for all, so that no more sacrifices would be needed (Hebrews 9:12).

Christ’s sacrifice was God’s way of dealing adequately and finally with sin.

Our remorse over sin and our attempts to do right are not adequate to atone for our sin.

Nothing on our part is needed to complete what God did through Christ.

The effects of sin have been annulled for us who believe that Christ was sacrificed for our sins.

Our sinfulness, ingrained and perverse as it is, cannot separate us from God.

Our sins, heinous and shameful though they be, cannot condemn us to hell.

Christ’s once-and-for-all sacrifice means that sin’s power to destroy us has been put away once and for all.

Heaven has been opened once and for all.

Christ entered heaven on our behalf (Hebrews 9:24).

His presence before God testifies that through His sacrifice we too will come into God’s presence in heaven.

His entry into heaven assures us that where He is we will be also (John 14:3).

On the Last Day Jesus will come to take us to heaven (Hebrews 9:28).

Just as Jesus died once and will not die again, so we will die but once and will then be raised by Christ to life with Him forever.

On that day we will be free from sin's corruption.

On that day we shall partake fully of the salvation that Christ’s sacrifice made possible for us.

Christ’s once-and-for-all sacrifice means that heaven is open to us. Only by rejecting Christ’s sacrifice in unbelief can heaven be closed to us.

This life on earth will be over once and for all, but that won’t be the end of our life. Because of Christ’s sacrifice, sin has been put away and heaven has been opened, once and for all.