Hebrews 10:1-18 - Jesus Is Our Permanent Sacrifice

If I'm talking just a little bit quieter or not as full voiced as I sometimes do, it is because it's not because I'm testing out like a ASMR thing for Tabernacle Talk, it's because I am in my kitchen recording right now, and my kids are sleeping

upstairs, so I want to try and make sure I don't wake them up with some hollering and shouting and some glories and things like that. But so we're in Hebrews 10 today.

We've been walking through like Jesus as our perfection of everything that we read about in the Old Testament, and especially everything that we read about in Leviticus many months ago now. And so that's where we're at.

We've been talking about Jesus as our great high priest, Jesus as our sacrifice, and that's kind of where we're continuing now in Chapter 10 and Verse 1. We're going to be going through Verses 1 through 18 today.

I'm going to read through that passage and then we'll attack it. I do want to mention, well, here, I'll mention it when we come to those verses.

Verse 1, since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year.

Otherwise, wouldn't they have stopped being offered, since the worshipers, purified once and for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sins.

But in the sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year after year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Therefore, as he, Jesus, was coming into the world, he said, You did not desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me. You did not delight in whole-burn offerings and sin offerings.

Then I said, See, it is written about me in the scroll, I have come to do your will, O God. And that's Psalm 40 in verses 6 through 8.

After he says above, you did not desire or delight in sacrifices and offerings, whole-burn offerings and sin offerings, which are offered according to the law. He then says, See, I have come to do your will.

He takes away the first to establish the second. By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.

Every priest stands day after day, ministering and offering the same sacrifices time after time, which can never take away sins. But this man, by offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.

He is now waiting until his enemies are made his footstool, for by one offering, he has perfected forever those who are sanctified.

The Holy spirit also testifies to us about this, for after he says, This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, the Lord says, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds, and I will never again remember their

sins and their lawless acts. There he is quoting from Jeremiah 31, 33, and 34. He says, Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin. Amen.

Okay, let's look at the beginning, and we'll dive into a little bit of this, of Jesus as like the once and for all sacrifice.

There's a song, it's a little bit of an older song, Once For All, that I heard from the Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team many years ago, and I'll include that one. If you guys know me, I've got like a wide kind of range of musical loves.

This one's kind of a little bit on the otter side.

If you've ever maybe interacted with perhaps Presbyterian singing or kind of high church singing, it might sound a little bit more like that for some of y'all, but I'll include that one because it sings about this truth that Jesus died once for all.

He wasn't like the earthly priest that had to keep on offering sacrifices because it couldn't actually change the hearts of those that the sacrifice was given on behalf of.

But when Jesus sacrificed his life for us, it did way more than just give us temporary forgiveness. It changed us from the inside out. And what an incredible blessing that that is.

Okay, verse number one. Since the law, the Mosaic Law, the Old Covenant, the Old Testament has only a shadow of the good things to come, that is, the law couldn't, it just did not have the power to communicate to us the life of Jesus Christ.

It gave us like God's will. It gave us an awareness of God's justice, but it could not, it could not give us the Holy spirit. It just was not created.

It was not able to do that. Only God himself could give that to us by the offering of his life. So the law only has a shadow of the good things to come and not the reality itself of those things.

It can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. Otherwise, when they've stopped being offered, since the worshipers, purified once and for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sins.

He says, if the Old Testament sacrifices worked, so to speak, if they fixed us, then you would only need to offer them one time. But because that was not the case, we needed someone that would do the once and for all sacrifice.

That would not, it wouldn't just be like painting over, painting over the imperfections in the walls of our lives, in the walls of our souls, so to speak, but that it would actually do a full renovation, if you will.

Verse number three, but in the sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins year after year of the fact that like, hey, there is a gap between me and God, and I have to remember when it comes to the day of atonement, when it comes to me offering a guilt

offering or a burnt offering or sin offering, that I am alienated from God through my sin, that if I enter into his presence, I'm going to die. And so someone else, this goat or this bull and this pigeon has to die in my place.

That is what is being spoken about. So then the author takes Psalm 40, which we went through a very long time ago. And he mentions this verse, You did not desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me.

And what a wondrous thought that God, the creator of life. And I'll mention this because at the time of recording, we've got the election coming up in just a little bit of time.

And there's, you know, there's a whole mess of things that could be said about politics.

One thing that I do want to encourage those of us who are here in Maryland is there's a proposition this year to enshrine what's being phrased as reproductive rights into the Constitution of Maryland.

Similar things are happening in Florida and in Missouri and in several other places. What is being spoken about is a blanket allowance for abortion at any stage of development. Here's why I would speak to this.

Is this a GOP thing? Is this a Christian nationalism type thing? Here's the belief of Christians other than the Seventh Day Adventists from the 1800s.

We believe that life begins at conception. We believe that because of Psalm 139, that God is the one that forms us within our mother's wombs.

We read all of the various passages of scripture, even the punishment for the crime of killing a pregnant woman's child, or if you killed her and her child, it was basically a double homicide, like it was treated as murder if a child in a womb was

killed. So we believe that God, as the giver and former of life, is the only one who is authorized to take that life, that human government is responsible to protect human life.

And human governments obviously will do that imperfectly, but it's the general thought behind like our police force or in, you know, extreme circumstances, our military, that they would defend people's lives.

That's the goal anyway, at least from the Bible's perspective. Certainly, there's whole other things that could be said, but the main essence is this. The government's goal is to save human life, and it is to punish those that do evil.

Going back to the Book of Genesis and the statement, you know, whoever sheds man's blood by man, his blood shall we shed.

That is kind of that institution initially of capital punishment of those that kill others, that they would not be able to just continue in that, but that there would be the most severe consequences for such actions.

Abortion is stating that, elective abortion in particular, certainly when there's medical issues, when the life of a mother is at stake, and you can only save one, or you could lose both, certainly then there can be discussions and things that are

taking place on what is right to do. It's kind of the trolley problem, if any of you have ever gone through like an ethics class or something of like, okay, if you don't pull the lever, five people die.

But if you do pull the lever, the trolley will go to a different track and only one person will die. And they'd go, okay, well, if you just allow it to happen, is that the same as you like intentionally committing the action?

And are you now guilty of killing five people? Or by choosing to actually move the lever, are you now responsible? So, there's that whole thing going on.

Here's where I'm going with this. As Christians, we believe every single person is made in the image of God, from the youngest to the oldest. From the moment of our conception, God has given us life.

God is the one who is authorized to take life because He is the Creator. And when He calls us back to Himself, that is His prerogative.

So people say sometimes, OK, well, then if God's really like against abortion, then then why do women have miscarriages or something like that?

Well, certainly if God calls a child back to himself, that's very different than us saying, OK, well, I didn't intend for this to happen. You know, me and my boyfriend, we didn't want this.

And so we're just going to kind of like get rid of this problem in our lives. That's not God's that's not God's design. And we are not authorized to take life.

So when Jesus came to the world, verse number five, it says that Jesus speaking to the father, you prepared a body for me, that God prepares the bodies of every child.

And so when it comes to some of these laws that would enshrine elective abortion as a quote unquote reproductive right in our states, we ought to vote against those types of things, certainly.

And much more could be said, I think that will suffice for the moment.

If you are shocked that I, as a conservative Baptist pastor, would say that we should not vote for abortion, I apologize that other Baptist pastors have not had that stand, maybe if that's not been your interaction with people.

We do not take that position as in a, here's something that should be held over others or beaten over others, but it's simply the fact that we want to be faithful to follow what the Bible says, and in this most important aspect of human life, we

ought to be those that advocate for those that can't advocate for themselves, and certainly that does not end with abortion. It should also extend into how we vote and think about families and taking care of families.

It should influence how we think about end of life, care and different things like that. So all of that, again, you guys know me, you guys know I don't normally go into any sort of political things.

Certainly having seen quite a few statements and because it's such a battleground, I did want to make that statement of Christian should stand for life, because it's made by God. God's the only one that's authorized to take it.

And so we, when it comes to the government asking our opinion of, should this be enshrined in law as Christians, we ought to have a heart that says, no, like let's save life whenever and wherever we can. Jesus, he was the sacrifice that God did want.

He was the only acceptable sacrifice that bulls and goats and birds could never be. That Jesus was the perfect one. Okay, I'm going to jump down to verse 10.

He says, by this will, by the will of God, by the will of Jesus, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time. That you are forever the Lord's through what you have done. Sorry, through what he has done.

I was looking at the name Jesus Christ. Through what he has done for you, you are sanctified forever. And it's not through your own work.

It's not through the offering of your life that you are sanctified for all time, but through the sacrifice of Christ. Verse number 11.

Every priest stands day after day, ministering, offering the same sacrifices time after time, which can never take away sins. But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.

He says he is now waiting until his enemies are made his footstool. That Jesus, God is subduing the world, piece by piece, nation by nation, person by person, until every one day, every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus is Lord.

And Jesus is enthroned at the right hand of God. Jesus is not nervously pacing the floor, wondering if his work will be accomplished or applied. No, Jesus has completed his work, and now he stands interceding on our behalf and praying for us.

And what a wonderful thought that he is now waiting until his enemies are made his footstool.

Even as we'd read Psalm 2, many other places, that there is a settled-ness with the nature of God, that he is not frantic, he is not worried, and so we shouldn't be either. Listen, this is a political episode already.

I'll state one more thing, and we're just about out of time. We ought not be worried.

I know plenty of people, they're scared about the ramifications for personal freedom, they're worried about economic repercussions, they're worried about even on kind of the global scale of things that will happen, they're worried about perhaps their

own jobs and things, and I want to encourage you with this fact that Jesus is enthroned, and He will take care of you. Certainly, that is the admonition that we get from Hebrews Chapter 13, at the very end of this book, where he says this, Keep your

life free from the love of money, be satisfied with what you have, for He Himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you. Therefore, we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

Have a confidence in the God who bought your salvation. Have a confidence in the God who brought you into the Lord's own very presence, that gave you His Holy spirit to indwell you. Do you think that He will drop the ball when it comes to your life?

Do you think that He will not provide for your needs? Do you think that He will not keep you safe even if there is chaos around you? Rely on the Lord.

Have confidence and strength in Him.

And if Jesus can wait until God makes His enemies His footstool, then certainly we can have a waiting, a patient expectation to say, God, I don't know what you're doing right now, and I might be a little nervous and a little scared, but God, I have

confidence in you. And I know whatever happens to the world around me, you are going to take care of me. Let us have confidence in the Lord.

So again, that doesn't have a direct thing to do with Jesus being our once and all sacrifice for sin, but I want to warn and to encourage my fellow believers. Have confidence in God. Let Him be our refuge that we turn to.

Not political parties, not figures, not presidents, but let us have confidence in the Lord of Heaven's armies, the King who is enthroned and whose kingdom is forever. Okay, gonna read just verses 16 and 17, and then we'll end today.

So this is Jeremiah prophesying the Holy spirit, obviously giving him these important truths. He says, this is the covenant that I will make with them, with God's people after those days.

When Jesus comes, the Lord says, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds, and I will never again remember their sins and their lawless acts, that we are forgiven forever.

God chooses, he has intentionally forgotten, he will never again remember the sins that you and I have committed. What a wonderful truth that is. And if God is for us, if God has forgotten all of our sins, then what will not our joy be?

Like there is no limit to the life that we will have with God because of the work of Jesus that is once and for all. So I want to give just a brief reminder of what we've talked about today because it has been a bit across the map.

And thank you for your patience. Number one, Jesus is our once and for all sacrifice for sin. Because of that, we can have confidence, we can have joy, we can realize that we will never be alienated from God again.

But we're not having to like re-sacrifice for our sins every year, re-sacrifice every time we have a terrible sin like they did in Leviticus. But Jesus is the once and for all sacrifice. So let's worship, obey and rejoice in him.

Secondly, if God prepared Jesus' body, and Psalm 139 would tell us that he is responsible for creating all of our bodies, let us view human life even in the womb with dignity, and let's vote for things that would exalt life and promote human

flourishing, especially in keeping life alive. Let's not vote for things that would indiscriminately take human life, or discriminately take human life in ways that just don't honor the image of God in the lives of infants in the womb.

Then let's have like a confidence, a hope, an expectation in God that even if the world around us is falling, that we will stand firm because of who our God is. And certainly that is the testimony of Christians from all of the years past.

And let us walk in their same faith in the God that loves us and has forgiven us and has seeded us in heavenly places in Christ as Ephesians talks about. Thanks for tuning in today and I hope that you have a great weekend worshiping the Lord.

God bless.