Hebrews 10:11-25
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Illustration- Preaching involves instruction and exhortation-
Illustration- Preaching involves instruction and exhortation-
Paul told Timothy this:
preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.
We were warned in Seminary about our sermons being merely intellectual exercises. Where We spend our time filling our minds and ignoring our heart.
On the other hand, the pendulum swings both ways. A sermon is a good sermon when it instructs and exhorts.
Which means, every sermon should teach you and every sermon should challenge you.
I say that to say this:
Some believe Hebrews was a sermon- In fact there’s good evidence for in the text itself. If you go read the letters of Paul and Peter, and then go read Hebrews, the way they start and end are very different.
The structure of the book lends to this as well.
For the first 9-10 chapters he instructs, now he will turn to exhort.
He will move from the theoretical to the practical.
We have come to the portion of Hebrews, where we find a hinging point where we see this move made.
In the 9 and a half chapters of this book, one thing has been abundantly clear.
That is, the Christ is supreme. I could have titled every sermon up to this point- Jesus is better and would have been well within the context to do so.
I want to remind you of where we have been.
So far, we see Jesus is the highest point of God’s revelation to us in chapter 1.
Also in chapter 1 and moving into chapter 2, he is greater than the angels.
In chapter 3, he is greater than Moses.
In chapter 4, he is the believer’s rest and greater than Joshua.
In chapter 5, He is the Only Begotten Son of God.
In chapter 6, He is the anchor of our soul.
In chapter 7, He is the priest after the order of Melchizedek.
In chapter 8, He is the ratifier and guaranteer of a new and better covenant.
In chapter 9, he is the true High Priest who ministers in a true temple.
In chapter 10, he is our true sacrifice, and the only means of pleasing God.
Now in chapter 10- In verses 11-18, he basically summarizes what he has been saying for the past three chapters.
I want to read these verses with you and summarize it , but we will spend the majority of our time on verses 19-25.
Read with me verses 11-18.
Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws upon their heart, And on their mind I will write them,” He then says, “And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.
To summarize here,
He is completing the argument he has been making.
Christ is better than the priests of the old Testament.
Thats what he says in verses 11-14
Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
He is better than them in every way.
They (The OT priests) stand up daily offering sacrifice after sacrifice, and their work can’t take away sins.
Jesus comes and offered one sacrifice and sits down at the right hand of God. And by that one offering, he perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Verses 15-18 then tell us that the work is done.
And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws upon their heart, And on their mind I will write them,” He then says, “And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.
The work is done. Christ has accomplished it. The Old Testament pictures have found their fulfillment.
That really is the summary of verses 11-18, but it is generally a summary of the past two and half chapters.
And now we come to verses 19-25.
And what we find is that we have been given some amazing things in Christ.
Christ centered Confidence
Christ centered Confidence
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
Christ has given us confidence to enter a place where no one previously entered confidently.
We’ve been given real and permanent access to God.
Where in the OT only one man was able to go in once a year, now, there is perfect access through torn and bleeding body of Christ.
He has opened the door through his death. This is why when he died, the veil inside the temple was ripped from top to bottom.
And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split.
The veil was not ripped from the top by the priests who were working there. God Himself ripped the curtain, showing us access has been granted. The blood of Christ accomplishes that.
It happens by the blood of Jesus.
And because Jesus is our Priest, We can have confidence to enter into God’s presence through Him.
We have confident access to God.
From that confidence that we find in Christ, The author of Hebrews then commands us to do four things:
Look at the first in verse 22.
let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
The first command:
Draw Near to God
Draw Near to God
We’ve been washed.
Our hearts have been cleaned.
Our consciences are clear.
And from that point then, we are commanded to draw near to God.
How do we define that though? What does it mean to draw near to God?
For the OT Hebrews, this must have been confusing. Where are we to go?
The temple? The priests?
What does he mean by “Draw near to God.”
Look at verse 22 and it gives us some help in determining what is meant.
let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
We draw near to God-
With a sincere heart. The word here for sincere could be translated- truthful.
We come with true hearted worship.
Whole-hearted worship.
We all know what it means to be half hearted on something.
He is saying here that with the confidence we have in Christ, there is no room for half hearted worship, half-hearted service, half hearted prayer, or half-hearted devotion to God.
He has cleansed our heart. He has sprinkled our consciences clean.
Jesus said this
“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.
When he speaks of drawing near to God with a sincere heart, he is speaking genuine and truthful worship.
Prayer that is whole hearted.
Giving the is whole hearted.
Singing and preaching that is whole hearted.
But thats just in our worship services.
We are also to live whole hearted, which means to live truly engaged in pleasing God with our lives.
He reminds us here what is spiritually true about us.
Look at verse 22 again. This is what is true about us if we are believers.
let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
We have our heart sprinkled clean.
No evil conscience.
Our filthy bodies have been washed with pure water.
Living whole hearted means becoming in practice what God has declared us to be in truth.
Which means our lives begin to show proof that our hearts and consciences are clean and that in and of itself is an act of drawing near and worshiping God.
Drawing near to God now doesn’t mean we move ourselves geographically somewhere.
We draw near to God through our hearts devotion to Him, through prayer, through worship, through our love of the people he died for.
Look at the second command in verse 23-
Hold Fast to the Hope.
Hold Fast to the Hope.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;
As we draw near to God, we grab hold of the hope that is found there in him.
This week, (Storming of the capitol Jan 6, 2020) we have watched as our country once again has demonstrated its hopelessness.
Our leaders are corrupt. Our common people are corrupt. The foundations of everything our country once stood for are crumbling.
Sin is celebrated, paraded, and legalized.
We look around at what seems to be and often is a hopeless situation.
I think what we saw this week, and what we’ve been seeing the past 10 years in our country reveals that people have misplaced their hope.
For the believer, our hope does not reside who sits in the Oval Office or who sits in the senate or the house.
Our hope is in our resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ. And if we spent the energy and time campaigning for Christ and the hope found in him as we do on other causes that we find important, we might just see this world change.
The problem is our hope has been misplaced in things unfaithful.
The author of Hebrews tells us:
Cling to Him who is faithful.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;
Which means no matter what happens in our lives. No matter the storm, Christ is our anchor. We can grab ahold of something that doesn’t move.
A lot of people’s boats are rocking right now.
So many people right now are trying to find some way to hold the boat during hard times in life. They grab weeds in the water to try and steady themselves.
But the only faithful anchor is Christ.
He’s faithful. The anchor thats found in him isn’t going any where. As believers, We just have to hold tight to Him.
He is our hope.
I’m convinced God is revealing who does and who doesn’t have that hope right now.
While everybody else falls apart,
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;
Church, we have hope. Don’t grab a hold of other things in this world that can’t help you. Hold fast to our hope.
Thirdly,
Push other believers to love and good deeds.
Push other believers to love and good deeds.
Look at verse 24
and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,
In light of all we have found in Christ, he essentially says here, let us consider others.
What can we do to help other people love and do the work of kingdom.
Don’t miss this.
He is speaking to the church.
One of the main functions of this church and should be of every church, is the encouragement of each other to love and good deeds.
Too often church is just a place we visit occasionally, when it fits in our schedules, on Sunday.
But church is much more than that.
The true biblical church.
Holds each other accountable.
To their confession
This is why we Baptize publicly.
This is why we vote people into the membership of the church publicly.
This is why membership in the church is absolutely essential.
If you are a believer, and are not united in membership to the church to which you are committed, Do what you must do to make that right. You need it. The church needs it.
You can’t serve in positions that the church needs without being a member.
The church has no right really to speak into your life if you are not a member.
Its so important, and its not so that we can pad the stats at the church and say how many members we have. Hopefully, y’all know me better than that now.
Membership is for accountability.-- Sinclair Ferguson says this- “When the Shepherd calls His sheep to Him they inevitably come nearer to each other...Being a Christian, by definition, involves belonging to The Church—and that, in turn, means belonging to a particular church.”
Part of being the church and stimulating one another to love and good deeds is confronting people when they aren’t loving each other well, and encouraging them when they are.
How do we know though?
The Bible tells us.
So when we don’t, the church should hold us accountable- to our confession and to God’s standard.
There should be people in your life who love you enough to tell you when you are wrong. Apparently, I have a lot of people who love me a lot.
When a brother or sister sins, you go to them sin… etc. etc..
This is called church discipline. Matthew 18 - Jesus outlines that.
There is built in designed accountability inside the Bible for the church.
I love the size of our church. You can’t slip in and slip out without someone noticing. There are some churches where lots and lots of people attend, but its easy for someone to get lost in all that. Not here.
Thats a good thing.
We should be the best at this- Holding each other accountable to God’s Word. And when we do that we stimulate one another to love and good deeds.
The last exhortation we come to today is in verse 25
and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Final Exhortation- Do not Forsake the Assembling of yourselves together.
Final Exhortation- Do not Forsake the Assembling of yourselves together.
not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
If you’ve ever wondered where the biblical command is to come to church, here it is.
Black and White.
Clear as Day.
not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
He tells us here to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together.
Don’t forsake it.
That word means this: Let there be no lack of gathering together.
Don’t leave it behind for anything. … Don’t abandon it. . . .Don’t desert it. . .Don’t leave it for anything. . .Let there be no lack.
That is a command straight from God’s Word.
not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
So what is it when we do forsake the assembling of ourselves together?
Its disobedience. Its sin.
Now hear me well here:
I know there are legitimate things that at times prevent us from gathering together as a whole and as individuals.
But the majority of times,
It boils down to a lack of prioritization or a lack of effort.
Something else is more fun or more important to us than the worship of God.
Something else is more fun or more important to us than the worship of God.
Or, in our laziness, we simply choose ourselves over God and others.
Hebr
We must devote ourselves to the local church.
If Jesus left the glories of heaven, to come and die for the church, we can devote a few hours a week to her.
If Jesus left the glories of heaven, to come and die for the church, we can devote a few hours a week to her.
I know I’m preaching to the choir here today, y’all are here. but even the choir has been a little hard to find here lately.
Look at the rest of the verse
not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Don’t forsake- Some people do- Some people did then. They do now.
But we are to encourage one another- all the more as you see the day drawing near.
This past year- I’ve seen more and more people post on facebook and I’ve heard people say, It won’t be long before Christ returns.
I pray its not long. I want Him to return. Come Lord Jesus! Come quickly.
But he says in verse 25 to devote ourselves ALL THE MORE AS YOU SEE THE DAY DRAWING NEAR.
Which tells me this- As the world gets worse, we don’t need the church less, we need it more.
What the world deems non essential- Our Lord says we must not neglect it.
I’ve found the truths of this passage to minister to my heart. this week in tangible ways.
I lost my grandfather this week to the Corona Virus.
Early Wednesday Morning, my Papa found his earthly hope to be his eternal reality. It hurt. I cried a lot. Death is hard. Pastors are not immune sorrow.
My comfort during this tough week has been Christ and the hope that I have in him that I will see my grandfather again because we believed in the same Lord. I can draw near to Him and Hold fast to the hope.
You know what else though.
This week, I’ve come to realize how much I need you.
You reached out to me. Y’all cooked us food. You called. You texted. You were there.
And there is absolutely no other place I would rather be right now than with you.
I don’t need you less. I need you more.
As the days get harder, we need each other. More. Not Less.
I love you all so much. You really have no idea how much.
As we close today,
Four commands-
Draw Near to God
Hold fast to the Hope
Consider Others
Don’t forsake the assembly.
These things have proven to be a source of strength for me this week.