Sermon Tone Analysis

When Mary and Joseph brought baby Jesus to the temple to present Him to the Lord, Simeon being filled with the Holy Spirit, took the child in his arms and said,

When an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, the angel gave Joseph this message:

Of all the messages of the Christmas season, this one message comes to the forefront.

Jesus Christ, the little babe in the manger, He is our Savior; He is our Salvation- a light to lighten all people; He is the One who saves his people from their sins.

What did it take for Jesus Christ to be our Savior?

Why was it so significant that Jesus Christ became a little babe in a manger, and how did this act of God taking upon Himself human flesh qualify Him to take away the sins of His people?

Last week we adored Jesus Christ because of his Deity- We, along with John, beheld the glory of the Word.

We beheld the glory of the Eternal, Triune, Divine Son of God.

This week I want us to adore Jesus Christ because of his humanity.

Jesus Christ, the Incarnation, is fully God and fully man.

What is so significant about Jesus becoming a man?

Why does his humanity matter so much?

How does the humanity of Jesus Christ qualify Him to be our Savior?

Hebrews 10:1-18 gives us two answers to that question.

I.

The humanity of Jesus enabled Him to be our perfect sacrifice (10:1-10)

The book of Hebrews was written to a group of primarily Jewish believers who were contemplating turning away from following Jesus and going back to Judaism.

They were facing persecution because of their faith in Christ, and rather than endure persecution for Jesus’ sake, they were thinking about going back to following the OT, the Old Covenant Mosaic law so that they would no longer have suffer earthly persecution.

The author Hebrews in response, spends the whole book comparing Jesus Christ to the Old Covenant system, and showing over and over again that Jesus Christ is far better!

If Jesus is far better why would you go back and follow anything else?

In the first part of Hebrews 10, the author of Hebrews compares Jesus to the OT sacrifices.

And Jesus Christ is a far better sacrifice!

A. The purpose of the OT sacrifices (v.

1a)

The purpose of the OT sacrifices was to point OT saints toward the future coming of Christ.

The law was only meant to be a shadow, just a representation of something real, a picture of the true reality.

When you go into a McDonald’s and you look at a menu what do you see?

You see a bunch of pictures!

It’s great.

McDonald’s has made things as easy as possible.

It’s lazy food in its ultimate form.

You don’t have to read words (Ugg!), you can look at pictures, and when you go to order you don’t have to communicate in full sentences either.

How do you order?

Number 3. 30 seconds later you have your food.

It’s great!

What if after you ordered your food the server gave you the choice- you can either have this picture of a double quarter-pounder with cheese, or you can have the real thing.

How many of you would take the picture back to your seat and take a big bite?

No one, that would be crazy!

I can prove it to you!

Picture of a snicker’s bar-

That is what the OT sacrifices were, they were just a shadow, a picture, they were not the very form of the thing.

They were meant to point people to the reality, to God’s perfect sacrifice- Jesus Christ.

He is the only sacrifice that matters.

B. The problem with the OT sacrifices (v.

1b)

Here is the problem- the OT law, the sacrifices, they were just a shadow of the things to come, and they can never with those sacrifices, even though they offered them year after year continually, but they can never make those who desire to come unto God perfect.

Perfect- without blemish or defect.

And it is a once and for all action.

However, this is exactly what is needed in order for sinful people to come into God’s presence.

God is a holy perfect God, and if we desire to come into His presence and to have a relationship with God they we too must be once and far all perfected.

We must be made to be without any blemish or defect whatsoever.

But mere animal sacrifices were powerless to do that.

It didn’t matter how often or how many sacrifices you made, under the OT sacrificial system, it was impossible to be made perfect.

How do we know that?

1.

Because OT saints were never done offering sacrifices (v.

2a)

The OT sacrifices could never make one perfect.

How do we know that?

Well if they were able to make one perfect wouldn’t they have stopped offering sacrifices?

Don’t you wish exercise worked this way- you go to the gym once and do one workout, you go on a diet once for one day- and then your good.

You can go eat that double quarter pounder with cheese because You worked out one time and you dieted one time- so your done.

But that is not the way it works.

You have to continually exercise and you have to continually eat right for as long as you live in this earthly body if you want to stay in shape.

So too were the OT sacrifices you had to offer them continually.

Why?

Because they were not effective.

They were not what God intended- they were simply a picture of a better, perfect sacrifice.

But they themselves had no substance and they could not make the worshiper perfect.

2. Because OT saints always had a consciousness of sins (vv.

2b-3)

OT believers should have realized that these sacrifices could never make them perfect by forgiving their sins, because ever year when they had to make another sacrifice they were reminded once again of their sins.

Forgiven people no longer bear the consciousness of their sins.

Or you could say forgiven sin should no longer weigh on our conscience for there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.

The fact that the sacrifices were made year after year should have reminded people that their sins could not be forgiven through the sacrificial system.

Imagine you want to start a business.

But in order to start a business you need to get a loan.

So you go to a bank and a you take out a loan for 1 million dollars.

Now what bank in their right mind would give just anyone that kind of money.

It doesn’t happen.

So, in order to make it possible for you to get your money from the bank a very rich benefactor (a friend) promises to make good on the loan if you cannot.

So you are able to take out the loan, but you have to promise to pay it back in one years time.

A year goes by, and sadly you don’t have the money to pay back the bank.

So now you have to go back to the bank and ask for another year’s extension on the loan.

And you rich friend once again promises to pay off the loan in your place- so the bank extends your loan.

You do this year after year.

Each year instead of paying off your debt you add to it instead.

And each year the only thing keeping you from ruin is the promise of your wealth friend to one day pay off your debt.

This is what the OT sacrificial system was like.

These sacrifices could never forgive their sin debt.

And year after year they would be reminded of this fact.

Their sins were not forgiven.

They still had a conscious of their sin.

The only hope they had was the promise that one day God would provide for them a perfect sacrifice and pay their debt in full.

And they put their faith in that future sacrifice.

3.

Because mere animal blood could never take away sins (v.

4)

Why did the levitical sacrifices not remove sin?

Part of the problem lay in the sacrifices themselves.

The sacrificial animals- bulls and goats, for instance—were merely brute creatures.

It was not possible for their blood to remove sins.

This image of an offering made yearly, and an offering of the blood of bulls and goats would have pictured in the minds of these Jewish believers the day of atonement.