Good morning, Last time I wrote about how the Law was a shadow of the greater things to come, greater things being the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the New Covenant found in Him. This means salvation by grace alone, through faith in Jesus Christ alone. We are not saved by any work or action of our own, it was Jesus work and perfection that paid the way for our salvation. While the Law is good and reflects God’s glory, it is a shadow or outline of an even greater thing. Morally, the letter of the law represents a bare minimum level of compliance that a believer in God should be using to guide their lives. Jesus explained a lot of this on the sermon on the mount. Do not Kill should be read do not even hate your fellow man, do not even call someone fool. And even “do not hate” has been superseded by Love your neighbor as much as you love your self. Do not commit adultery should be read do not even look lustfully at another person. The action is forbidden, but so is the thought. Our lives should be lived with utmost devotion and purity towards God. Marriages should reflect the way Christ is wed to the church and would lay his life down for his church. The institution of marriage illustrates how God is wed to his people, how devoted He is towards his beloved, and how when we stray from God it’s like a married person being unfaithful to his or her spouse. You can extend all of the Commandments and the Law to expand it to mean this: We should live our lives in a way that yields and submits all behaviors, words, and thoughts to God, which means we have a total faith and trust in God as a sovereign and good. When this happens, our righteousness should exceed even the Pharisees and teachers of the law. Even though we are not saved by our works, there should be drastic evidence that our hearts and minds and souls and strengths no longer belong to us, but to God.

19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,

The ministry of Jesus Christ followed the Law and the Old Covenant rules, and did so in a way that we can see exactly how the Law was followed and yet also pointed towards a New Covenant. It was necessary to have the Old covenant with a priesthood and a format of worship and ceremony that gave everyone the correct understanding of theology. We could understand things like How holy God is, how sinful we are, how sins and punishments work, how sacrifices can take the sins of one and place them on another, how forgiveness and reconciliation are bought, how innocence righteousness and holiness can be imputed upon another. Without those things, we could never enter the part of the temple called the Most Holy Place or even just the Holy Place where we experience God’s presence. Those places all symbolized being in the presence of God. Now we can enter this Most Holy Place, we can approach God without expectation of judgement and certain death. We are able to do this by the blood of Jesus, because of what he has done. The gate between our separation from God and togetherness with God is just like the curtain in the temple, but now it’s a new and living curtain.

Jesus Christ is the high priest himself, one that is on the order of Melchizedek. That means he’s a priest, but from the lineage and descent of a King. He occupies both roles, and his priesthood is one that lasts forever. So because we have confidence to enter this most holy place, because of the body and sacrifice given as a new and living curtain, because we have this great high priest over the house of God. Because of all these things we get to Verse 22..

22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

Verse 22. Let us draw near to God. The conclusion is to draw near to God. Sometimes people seem to understand a good amount of the theology and the first part of this sentence, but come to an incorrect conclusion. They don’t use these great things to draw near to God. I can kind of understand a bit. If we are so guilty and so unworthy, and we were outlaws and rebels and enemies of a King. And then all of a sudden King then grants us a pardon, it doesn’t seem like the craziest idea in the world to get away from the king and flee; take the gift and run, go about your business and try to never get caught again. People who think this way would say Jesus is great, he saved me from myself and my sins. But then they don’t do anything with their newly acquired forgiveness. There are lots of people who are Christians in name who say they believe, but their lives continue along without much of a result. If they truly believe in what Jesus has done, and truly understand the Gospel has changed our relationship with God, they SHOULD want to get to verse 22 and Draw Near to God! Why doesn’t this happen? Why not draw near to God? There are a few reasons not to draw near. The First is kind of implied by the rest of the verse. Perhaps we still feel guilty. This means we lack a certain amount of faith. Faith brings a full assurance that we can draw near to God. Our hearts are cleansed so we should have a clean conscience. Our bodies have been washed by clean pure water, and we should recognize we are clean. If we don’t truly believe this, we will continue to feel guilty. The weird thing is if we don’t truly believe this, then we still are guilty. But the truth is we can believe the gospel, we can believe that God has forgiven our sins. Verse 23 says we can hold onto the hope that we profess. Our hope is that our sin is saved. And God, who promised this forgiveness, is faithful. So we should hold on Hope that God will do what he promised, and He is faithful. God is good and merciful. Our sin is not beyond God’s forgiveness, and Jesus blood is powerful enough to cover any sin. Believe. And draw near to God! Why else might someone not draw near to God like verse 22 says? Maybe they have forgotten who God is. Maybe they have forgotten God’s character. Verse 23 says God is faithful to his word, but if this person doesn’t want to draw near to God, despite the curtain being torn open and access being granted, and promises being made that they are made able to approach God, it means something else. I believe the curtain is torn open, and my sin is forgiven, but I still don’t want anything do do with God’s presence? Why not? Remember, God is Good! God is Love! God is light, in him there is no darkness at all. God is benevolent, loving, kind, merciful. God is a provider, and a rock, and our deliverer. God is the creator of all we see. Our goal in life should be to draw near to God. Because he is Good, and is worth drawing near to. Maybe we as Christians don’t focus on that enough? It’s not just a relationship where we are escaping judgement or being passed over as objects of wrath. While that’s true, that’s just the first part. We are being showered with love and mercy, grace upon grace. The idea that we would want to use our salvation as a get out of jail free card misses some of the best points. If we think we are saved so we can live our lives the way we want implies that we think God’s way isn’t really better. These two major misunderstandings lead to us NOT drawing near to God. Which is why we should do the following:

24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

We can see the point to meeting together and encouraging each other. If we are prone to NOT draw near to God, and it’s in our sinful nature to distort a correct view of who God is, we need to keep meeting up and encouraging each other to draw near to God. That’s the purpose of worship time at the church. It’s not to just play a bunch of songs and sing. It’s not to put on a show, or to draw people’s attention to ourselves. The worship team pays close attention to the songs we choose to play and each and every lyric that is sung. We don’t want to misdirect the congregation to worship a God that isn’t the one in the Bible. We don’t want to say things about God that aren’t true, we want to draw our brothers and sisters to a place of worship, and we want to prepare their hearts for the instruction from the sermon. The time for the sermon isn’t the pastor’s chance to advance his views or enlist people to his personal cause. Our goal isn’t to get in front of everyone and entertain them or tell stories. Our goal is to advance the Kingdom of God, and the way we do that is to encourage the congregation. How do we do that? We read our King’s words. We encourage the church to study the word on their own, we encourage them to live lives that are Godly, spur each other toward glorifying God by living lives guided by the Spirit. We encourage each other to treasure and cherish the fruit that comes from the Holy Spirit, which means we encourage people to continue living lives that are rich in love and good deeds. The word tells us to make disciples, not just to convert people, but to train each other and correct each other and grow together and live as a family. That also means bearing with each other sometimes. It means figuring out what each other is thinking and what motivates our lives. It means redirecting each other away from this world and towards our King and his Kingdom. The church isn’t about increasing membership, or raising revenues, it’s about taking people and making them fall more and more in love with God, and less and less in love with the world. It is most effective when we are in the habit of meeting up, and not in the habit of skipping or being alone. But a Sunday meeting or Wednesday Bible study should always be an opportunity for each person to fall more in love with God, whether it’s your first time here, or your 500th time, the goal is the same. Love God more and more, love sin and our flesh less and less.

26 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.

This is the strongest level of encouragement so far. Please pay close attention. Are we sinning deliberately? Do we practice sin and make it our habit? Is our sin part of our identity and our life? We understand that as long as we are in the body, sin will affect us. We will be prone to wander from God, prone to retreat to our earthly comforts and flesh’s desires. We will never be perfect on this side of heaven. Taken alone this verse might seem to be used to demand perfection from each of us. If you read quickly you get, “if you keep on sinning, expect judgement, raging fire, hell.” This verse might be why some Christians start to delude themselves into thinking they are perfect and do not sin anymore. In church last week the pastor talked about this delusion found in some people claiming to be Christians. People claim to be perfect after being Born again. It may be a fear of Hebrews 10:26. or It may be that these people actually believe they are perfect. But 1 John says if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, God is faithful and will forgive us and he will purify us from unrighteousness. In the next verse in 1 John, he says “I write this so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin we have an advocate with the Father, and that Advocate is Jesus Christ.” The encouragement in both verses is clear. I encourage you to Not Sin. I encourage you to value your permanent relationship to God more than your desire for immediate gratification. Perfection is impossible, but that should be our desire. Any time we do sin, our actions are saying that we prefer our way to God’s way. Any time we sin we are saying we prefer slavery to freedom. We prefer death to life. Any time we sin, it should sadden us and break our hearts a bit. If we are not saddened by our sin, we are missing something. If we are not asking God to help us remove sin and temptation, we may be clinging to something that should be released. Our sin demonstrates we do not have a full allegiance to the God that we say we love. But we should know that we have an advocate, we have a priest, we have a sacrifice in Jesus Christ. We should believe in that, and the point the author is making here is this: look no further. Don’t keep looking around for another sacrifice. Because guess what? there’s nothing else out there for your sin problem. There’s no other sacrifice left. No additional way. There’s not another lamb or ram, or dove or grain offering, that can get you what Jesus has done. There’s no incense offering as powerful as the intercessory prayers of Jesus. If you pass on Jesus, you pass on friendship with God. Not just friendship, but sonship, daughtership, if that’s a word. You pass on adoption into God’s family. You pass on the one offering of peace and mercy, you remain on the path of judgement and wrath. I encourage you, please don’t say “No Big Deal.” this is important.

28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

The law punished sin and transgression with death. If you reject the law of Moses, you die. No mercy. The author does what he has been doing for the entire book of Hebrews. He compares the old with the new again. The old Covenant, the Law, says the punishment for rejecting God’s way is death without mercy. Now we have the New Covenant. Eternal life and Mercy. Now we have God’s best and final offer.

God says: Here is your King, Here’s your priest, Here’s your sacrifice. Here’s My Son. This is the best and most precious thing I can give you. My punishments have been served. The payment has been made. Your guilt has been cleansed. My own Son’s blood flowed to sanctify You. If you reject this, what’s left? What more do you need? What more could you possibly want? If you reject this, what kind of an insult is this? You’re taking grace and spitting on it. If you reject this, you are not just rejecting the goodness of God’s Law, but you are rejecting the mercifulness of God’s Grace.

30 For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[d] and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”[e] 31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

We are commanded to Judge not, because it’s God’s job to Judge. God will make all wrongs right. Every injustice you see, everything that doesn’t seem good, we are called to wait on God to judge. He will be a righteous judge and will extend mercy to those who he will extend mercy to, but to those who reject His mercy, it is not a place I want to be in. At some point You will fall into the hands of God. Do you want to be on his side or do you want to be against Him?

 

32 Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. 34 You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. 35 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.

Here the author takes a quick moment to pause and reflect. Think back to those earlier days. The days when you had received the Light. Think back to when you first believed. Do you remember what it felt like when you realized that Heaven was in reach? When your eyes were opened and you understood that Jesus made you acceptable before God. Nothing else mattered, when I realized that I was one of God’s sons. The world and everything here just seemed to fade away. I could deal with anything here, because I knew that the suffering here was temporary. Insults, persecution, being mistreated, those things didn’t matter. They aren’t my ideal choice for my life. I don’t wish them on anyone, but temporary losses serve to draw our thoughts and minds on something that lasts forever. Jesus said whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. Paul said to live is Christ, to Die is Gain. What we have in God’s kingdom is so much greater than what we lose here. And what we have here should belong to God anyway, so what’s the big deal if we lose something temporary? Thinnking this way takes faith and confidence. It takes a hope in something unseen. Verse 35 says don’t throw away that confidence, there is a great reward in the faith that gives us confidence.

36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 37 For, “In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.”[f]
38 And, “But my righteous[g] one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.”[h]
39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.

Here’s where verse 10 ends. Encouragement. You need to persevere. When you do the will of God, you will receive the promises. Right now, we don’t see the full picture. We only see the things that are temporary. But verse 37 says God is coming and will not delay. People expect the second coming of Christ, but ever since this has been written, that hasn’t happened. What has happened first is our mortal bodies of flesh have expired. There is a time where God returns, and we may see that, or we may see death first. The preparation for either scenario is the same. Either way, Our behavior should be the same. We should keep our confidence, we should be encouraged to continue to study God’s word, and put his instruction into practice. We should be in the habit of meeting up and strengthening each other. Verse 38 we should live by faith; this is something that will be discussed at more length in the next chapter. God doesn’t take pleasure in people who shrink back or doubt. He doesn’t take pleasure in those who are ignore him, shrink back, and are ultimately destroyed. The opposite of shrinking back is to hold on. Basically when the Bible talks about one who shrinks back, it’s talking about someone who doesn’t persevere. Perseverance is promised to those of us who are God’s elect. If we shrink back, then it means we were never of the group that was meant to endure. People who shrink back are ultimately destroyed. But that’s not us. We don’t belong to those who shrink back. We are those who are given faith, and cherish that faith, and are saved by that faith. We are the elect, and we will live out our faith, and we will persevere. Not by our power, but by the power of God and His Holy Spirit living in us.