Sermon Tone Analysis
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Illustration- Preaching involves instruction and exhortation-
Paul told Timothy this:
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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.
The first command:
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.
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
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.
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.
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