Signs and Seals for Us Weak Believers

Hebrews 10:5–25 ESV

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you 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 nor 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 does away with 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. 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 in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another 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 drawing near.

Scripture: Hebrews 10:5-25

Sermon Title: Signs and Seals for Us Weak Believers

           As you may have read in the midweek e-mail and Facebook post, we are beginning a 5-week series on the sacraments. The Reformed tradition holds that God gave the church two sacraments, which are baptism and the Lord’s Supper. That is unique compared to the Roman Catholic Church, which recognizes 7 sacraments, as well as other Christian traditions, which view baptism and the Lord’s Supper as ordinances. That’s not just a different word, but there’s a different meaning and understanding of what’s happening and the intent behind the practice.

           Today we’re looking at sacraments in general. We aren’t getting into the nitty-gritty of either the Lord’s Supper or baptism, or what practices in the Old Testament period they follow. We’re not getting into paedobaptism versus believer’s baptism. We may wade into those waters in weeks ahead. But to remind or inform us of what the Reformed tradition has held regarding our celebration of the sacraments, I invite you to join in the answer to Heidelberg Catechism Question 66: What are sacraments? Sacraments are visible, holy signs and seals. They were instituted by God so that by our use of them he might make us understand more clearly the promise of the gospel, and seal that promise. And this is God’s gospel promise: to grant us forgiveness of sins and eternal life by grace because of Christ’s one sacrifice accomplished on the cross.

           These are things that we do or that we use. We can see them and touch them—the water sprinkled over a person’s head or that they’re immersed in; the bread or wafer that you eat and the grape juice or wine that you drink. I love how the Belgic Confession Article 33 begins: We believe that our good God, mindful of our crudeness and weakness, has ordained sacraments for us to seal his promises in us, to pledge good will and grace toward us, and also to nourish and sustain our faith. God has added these to the Word of the gospel to represent better to our external senses both what God enables us to understand by the Word and what he does inwardly in our hearts, confirming in us the salvation he imparts to us…

           The catechism said “visible,” the Belgic Confession talks about representing “to our external senses.” These are tangible and physical things that we are involved in. Yet the word “sacrament” ties back to the Latin word “sacramentum,” which is a translation of the Greek word, “musterion.” I think you can hear it, the word “mystery.” While our sacraments are visible, tangible, physical, and we believe there’s nothing remarkable about what we need—water out of a faucet, bread cut up from a grocery store-bought or homemade loaf, juice poured out of a bottle—they’re ordinary, but what they connect to is deeper than washing without soap and deeper than a quick snack. God is mysteriously at work in our appropriate participation, which is by faith. We’ll be looking at that throughout our message today.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, whether we’re still in our youth or have moved to the prime of our lives or we’re getting on in age, not too many people enjoy being called or proven to be weak. I remember back in high school when some of us guys sat around the lunch table—I think this happened multiple times—we felt the need to prove our manliness by arm wrestling. I knew it wouldn’t go well, but I took on one of my best friends. He was a dairy farm boy, half my weight, but when we locked fists, he very quickly taunted me with, “That’s all you’ve got?” and put my arm to the table. He was stronger, and I was weaker.

But that’s not the only kind of weakness. If we go to a dictionary, what do find? Oxford Languages, the Google dictionary, offers a lengthy list of definitions for the word “weak.” “Lacking the power to perform physically demanding tasks, lacking political or social power or influence, containing…members of insufficient quality; [something is] not able to fulfill its functions properly, of a low standard, not convincing or logically forceful.” Something weak is “liable to break or give way under pressure; easily damaged, lacking the force of character to hold to one’s own decisions, beliefs, or principles.” It’s “lacking intensity or brightness.” So, people, material things, institutions, teams, or organizations can all be called weak.

There are times in Scripture when we come across the word “weak” as well. It may not be the only word that is translated this way, but the one I was drawn to was when Jesus is praying in Gethsemane, he tells his sleepy disciples, “‘The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.’” In 1 Corinthians 1:25 and 27, the same word is used as Paul wrote how God’s weakness “is stronger than man’s strength,” and how “God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” The word used here and 23 other times in the New Testament is as-theneis, and it can apply to physical or moral weakness; it can also refer to that which is sick or crippled or ill.

All of that to come back around to the title of this message, “Signs and Seals for Us Weak Believers,” and to come back around to what we heard in the opening of Belgic Confession Article 33, “…Our good God, mindful of our crudeness and weakness, has ordained sacraments for us…” how are we weak? I think most, if not all, of us know the answer to that question. I’m not calling every one of us out because we can’t lift above a certain weight or because we don’t have a certain, high enough level of influence or authority on leaders or other powerful people. No, our weakness lies in the reality that we are sinners by nature. We are rebellious towards God by nature. If we are not intentional and purposeful in our walk with him, we will go astray. We will try and forge our own path and live life for our own glory and desires. We will forget his goodness.

Hebrews 10 does a wonderful job offering the comparison between the sacrificial system that God put into place for the Israelites when he brought them out of Egypt, and the once for all sacrifice of Jesus. There’s much more that can be said about that, but for now, let’s recognize that the need for a sacrifice being explained here is sin and unholiness—why sacrifice of any type is needed is because people are not living unto God. If we back up to verses 3 and 4, we’re told the old sacrifices “are an annual reminder of sins.” In verses 10 and 14, we read how the sacrifice of Jesus is what makes holy, what makes perfect. By nature, then, that is, on our own terms, our own ability, we ought not to think we have “confidence to enter the Most Holy Place.” If we think the Lord God Almighty is just some deity, some big being out in the universe that gets to determine what all happens, if we think he’s just waiting on our apology for acting badly—we’ve missed the whole hope of the Christian faith.

We’ll look more at that in a moment. For now, may it be enough to remember and acknowledge, even when we know God, when we believe in him, our sinful nature still clings on. Our separateness, that he is the holy God, and we are his creation, we are limited, we are mortal, we are finite testifies—that all testifies that we are weak. Understanding this, accepting this, isn’t to excuse and ignore our behavior. It’s to recognize that we need someone else’s help. Adam and Eve knew God, they knew when he was with them in the Garden, and yet they were deceived by the serpent, by another creature, a created thing in the Garden. The Israelites encountered God as he cast the plagues on Egypt, as he led them out and parted the Red Sea, as he led them by pillars of cloud and fire, as he provided daily manna and quail, as he showed up in a terrifying way at Mount Sinai, and yet they had Aaron make golden calves. They did not believe God could go before them into Canaan after the spies’ report.

Even when God’s people have seen God’s actions among them, when heard from his direct prophets, leaders, and priests, we have record in Scripture that they still went astray from him.  We are not so different. We, as Gentiles and New Testament believers in Jesus, are not so different. Spiritual weakness can show up even among people of faith.

Let’s move to our second point, what is the sinner’s hope? If we can’t do enough and figure enough out, if forgiveness isn’t just about saying sorry to God and having everything magically be better—what actually is our hope? We confessed it earlier in Heidelberg Catechism question and answer 66, but the surrounding questions and answers help build the whole picture. From 66, “…This is God’s gospel promise: to grant us forgiveness of sins and eternal life by grace because of Christ’s one sacrifice accomplished on the cross.” How does this gospel and the grace of Christ’s sacrifice connect to sinners? Question and Answer 65 highlight that: “It is through faith alone that we share in Christ and all his benefits. [Faith is produced in our hearts by the] Holy Spirit…by the preaching of the holy gospel.” Question and Answer 67 repeat the point, “…In the gospel the Holy Spirit teaches us…that our entire salvation rests on Christ’s one sacrifice for us on the cross.”

Back to the comparison in Hebrews 10, the Old Testament system of repeated animal sacrifices was put in place by God. It gave the preview of something being killed and offered to God on behalf of the people. The people sinned, the people offered, but that was never sufficient. It was never enough. But the author of Hebrews knew at the time of his writing, what is enough. He gives us the fulfillment of prophecy in Jesus in verse 7, the sinless Savior, God in the flesh, said, “‘“Here I am…I have come to do you will, O God,”’” and we hear in verse 10 the effect, “And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Because of what Jesus did, verse 19, “We [do!] have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus.” What that means is we can “draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” The water being referred to there in verse 22 is not the literal baptismal waters that I and other pastors place on people. It’s referring to the washing away by the blood, the death, of Jesus, where all our sins are washed away and punishment paid.

           Brothers and sisters, this is our hope! By yourself, without Jesus, you are not enough. You will never be enough for salvation, redemption, eternal life, on your own. You’re sick with sin. We can apply any number of terms—we’re depraved, we’re wretched, we’ve got original sin that stains us. All of that is real and true. Yet to go back to my failed attempt at arm wrestling my friend who taunted my weakness, Jesus doesn’t taunt us—Jesus faithfully provides his promise by grace.

           We live in a day in which there’s a lot of talk about identity. Who am I? Who do I decide I am? What do I feel or what do I think I am? People expect they will find eventually something satisfactory to and for themselves. As believers, our identity is in Christ—that is first and foremost. But I think we often take that understanding and we come up with truths and things about us. That’s not wrong, but I encourage us today to think about what being in Christ means God is saying about himself and his actions to us. If you are in Christ, God tells you that he is enough; his grace is sufficient for you; he—the Son of God—did God’s will for you once for all. He doesn’t count you his enemy any longer, he is justifying you and sanctifying you with the Holy Spirit unto perfection forever. He will remember your sins no more. My identity, and I hope each of ours, our identity of being in Christ, of being loved, of being a child is God—that’s all good and true and wonderful, but our faith is in God and what he has done for us. Let us not only be encouraged by the benefits of Christ and what it earns for us—let us also be drawn to what God has done for me and you despite our weakness and undeserving.

           Now this is where you say, “Pastor, I thought you were preaching on the sacraments this morning?” And I tell you, “Thanks for the reminder. I guess my newborn distracted me, and I’ve been preaching the wrong sermon—I better start over.” I’m kidding. We’ve reached the connection in our third point: If God has accomplished all that is necessary for salvation in Christ and we have his Word—we have it to read and to hear proclaimed in preaching, why the sacraments?  

           Everything that has been said and that you’ve heard when it comes to our weakness because of sin and our hope being in Jesus Christ, is essential, is part and parcel, it cannot be separated from what we do when we come to this table, or from what we will witness, Lord willing, when we use that font in a couple weeks. What we’ve read in Hebrews 10, what we’ve heard summarized in our confessions, it all goes together. The gospel message produces faith by the work of the Holy Spirit, and then the Holy Spirit continues to work. Question and answer 65, he “confirms [faith] by the use of the holy sacraments.” Question and answer 66, God gave them so that “he might make us understand more clearly the promise of the gospel, and seal that promise.” Article 33, “They are visible signs and seals of something internal and invisible, by means of which God works in us through the power of the Holy Spirit. So they are not empty and hollow signs to fool and deceive us, for their truth is Jesus Christ, without whom they would be nothing.”  

           When I was a seminary student, I did a summer internship, with a church outside of Hamilton, Ontario. I was permitted by their Council to help serve communion and that evening I preached on the Lord’s Supper. The pastor and I met occasionally to review how things were going, and his input at the meeting after that message was to remember and be very clear that the sacrament—what we do, the elements themselves, “They’re not the thing; they point to the thing.” Obviously, that has stuck with me. As I said earlier, our participation in baptism and in the Lord’s Supper as actions, is doing a couple fairly ordinary things. We wash, we bathe, we shower. We eat, we snack, we feast. So too, we recognize that we’re not being saved by these actions. If you are and remain a non-believer but you got baptized, that baptism isn’t your ticket to heaven.

           These things point us to Jesus and what he did for us. They aren’t just memorial actions, though. If we are believers, and we accept what Jesus has done, we know he is our holy hope, then when we participate in these sacraments, the Holy Spirit can work—mysteriously and internally, on our hearts and souls and minds to remind us of the truth of Jesus’ sacrifice, to refresh us and nourish us in that. We can hear things over and over again and sometimes, because of our laziness or our making too much of things that really ought to be less than we treat them, those things that should mean so much, should be the highest priority, most gladdening things to us and to our hearts—we don’t give them their due. That’s our weakness on display. Yet when we pause and we partake and celebrate, the Holy Spirit can be at work to poke us, to wake us up, to remind us despite all that is going on—that “he who promised is faithful.”

           The sacraments themselves are not the thing, but they point us to the thing. They point us to the sacrifice of Jesus, and they remind us of all the truths of who God is and what he has done for us. The Holy Spirit, through them, takes what happened long ago, what’s been recorded and passed down, what we’ve heard once or thousands of times, and he reminds us of the power and fullness of the truth of Jesus’ work. Our participation is for us, but it is not only about us. It is about God through his Spirit making his Son’s promises real and refreshed in our lives. Amen.