Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Corporate Worship is designed to humble you by pointing out the depth of your need and enthrall you by pointing to the glory of God’s provision.

—Paul David Tripp

“We all work to convince ourselves that we are better off than we are.

We all want to believe that we are not that sinful after all. . .

We evaluate ourselves by looking into mirrors other than the one truly accurate mirror, the mirror of the Word of God.”

The foundation to approach God is the remission of our sins.

The decisive factor that enables us to approach God is expressed through the phrase, by the blood of Jesus.

This recalls the means by which Jesus entered the heavenly sanctuary, that is, his obedient sacrificial death (9:12, 14, 25).

And he has obtained the right of entry for his people on the same basis.

Hebrews 10:18-19

The author of Hebrews is telling these Christians that because of Christ’s payment for sin, they not only have access, that access is unrestricted.

In verses 20-21 the Bible is showing that Christ is the high priest, before God, pleading our case and offering intercession for us.

He is not speaking of being over this building or the building of the temple but over the house of God found among the corporate gathering of the children of God.

The intimate connection between Christ’s entrance into God’s presence and ours (4:14–16; 6:19–20) is underscored as our author further describes this blessing of free access into the heavenly sanctuary.

This entrance is a way that Christ himself has ‘inaugurated’ or ‘opened’ for us.

V. 19

V. 20

A

for free access

A′

a way which is new and leads to life

B

to the heavenly sanctuary

B′

through the curtain

C

by means of the blood of Jesus

C′

that is, through (= by means of) his flesh.

The call to approach God in purity.

each New-Covenant worshiper should approach God in the conscious enjoyment of freedom from guilt (having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience) and with a sense of the personal holiness that Christ’s sacrifice makes possible (having our bodies washed with pure water).

The writer’s words are probably an exhortation to lay hold consciously of the cleansing benefits of Christ’s Cross and to draw near to God in enjoying them, putting away inward guilt and outward impurity.

So God designed a means for us to be confronted again and again with the depth of our sin and the expansive glory of his provision in the person and work of the Lamb, the Savior, the Redeemer—the Lord Jesus Christ.

He Ordained that we gather again and again in services of corporate worship and confronted with our true identity as both sinners and children of grace.

—Paul David Tripp

We do not have access to the throne by self atonement, but by the precious blood of Christ and our worship should reflect that.

Worshipping God should:

Worshipping God should make us humble

A debtor to mercy alone,

Of covenant mercy I sing.

I come with Your righteousness on,

My humble offering I bring.

The judgements of Your holy law

With me can have nothing to do;

My Savior’s obedience and blood

Hide all my transgressions from view.

1998 Sovereign Grace Music

Worshipping God Should make us secure

So God we trust in you;

O God, we trust in you;

When tears are great and comforts few

We hope in mercies ever new;

We trust in you.

2005 Sovereign Grace Music— “God Moves”

Worshipping God should make us grateful

‘God Moves”

Worshipping God should make us holy

In the presence of a holy God

I’m so small and frail and weak

When I see your pow’r and wisdom, Lord

I have no words left to speak

in the presence of a holy God

There’s new meaning now to grace;

You took all my sins upon Yourself

And I can only stand amazed.

Sovereign Grace Music “In the Presence”

Worshiping God should make us Loving

:20

Worshiping God should make us Mission-Minded

Genuine Worship Changes Lives

The command to approach God together.

This kind of confident access to God necessarily entails that believers hold unswervingly to the hope we profess with full confidence in the reliability of God’s promises.

The writer revealed in these verses that his concern for fidelity to the faith is not an abstraction, but a confrontation with real danger.

There was an urgent need for mutual concern and exhortation (toward love and good deeds) within the church he wrote to.

Corporate worship really does confront us with the fact that we are worse off than we thought and that God’s grace is more amazing than we ever could have imagined.

—Paul David Tripp

His readers were not to abandon meeting together, as some were doing.

Already there seemed to have been defections from their ranks, though his words might have applied to other churches where such desertions had occurred.

In any case their mutual efforts to spur one another on should increase as they see the Day approaching (cf.

v. 37; a well-known NT trilogy is included in these vv.: faith, v. 22; hope, v. 23; love, v. 24).

In referring again to the Second Advent, the writer left the impression he was concerned that genuine believers might cease to hope for the Lord’s coming and be tempted to defect from their professions of faith in Christ (cf.

comments on 1:13–2:4; 6:9).

They must treat their future expectations as certainties (since He who promised is faithful).

If they would only lift up their eyes, they could “see the Day approaching.”

Corporate worship is not a thankless duty for the religiously committed.

No, it’s another gift of mercy from a God of glorious grace.

—Paul David Tripp.