Our Once-for-All Savior

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Well, when I first came here, some of you found out that I enjoy working outside. And I think it was Jimmy Ann that asked if I could be hired out to do yard work. And I think I told her I’m not sure she could afford me.

But I do enjoy working outside. But the one thing, as a matter of fact, that’s on my day off, that’s what I do. Unless Carla has to twist my arm to get me to do something else.

But the one thing I hate doing is weed eating. I will do anything else, but I despise weed eating. And so a few years ago, I started thinking, they make liquid weed eater.

Roundup. I use Roundup. And I know every time I say something about that, I start getting ads on Facebook about all the diseases you can get from Roundup, which may be true.

And I kind of weigh that against weed eating and not to minimize how awful those diseases are, but I hate weed eating that much. So my problem, though, is I was talking about this a couple years ago and complaining about the fact that you spray along the fence lines. Because my problem with it is that I end up spending more time.

I’ve got one of those that it’s supposed to, the line’s supposed to come out automatically when it gets low or you can even bump it. That never works. And so I spend more time unspooling the thing than I actually do weed eating.

And it’s just so frustrating. So I’ll go out there and spray, but I was complaining a couple of years ago about the fact that I spray. I spray along all the fence lines and the house line and all of that.

And then about two weeks later, stuff’s starting to grow again. And it has to be done about every week or every two weeks in order to keep it from growing. And it’s just, okay, this is almost as irritating because I have to take all this time to go and do this.

And a friend in Seminole said, oh, you haven’t heard about such and such. I said, well, what are you talking about? He said, you go to Tractor Supply, you get this big bottle.

It’s expensive, but it’ll last you a long time. He said, you mix it up, you spray once a year and everything dies for a whole year. I didn’t believe him, but I thought, well, it’s worth a try.

I’ll go get it. So I went and got this stuff and mixed it up. And sure enough, through the whole season, I didn’t have to spray or weed eat anymore.

It was great. Now that we’ve moved here, I’m kind of waiting to see, make sure what areas I want to be dead for a whole year before I spray anything. So I haven’t done that yet.

But it’s incredible the effectiveness of something that you just have to use one time as opposed to I’m having to do this over and over and over. Because if it was really that effective, you wouldn’t have to keep doing it, right? The writer of Hebrews says the same thing about the sacrifices in the Old Testament.

He makes the point that if the sacrifices of the Old Testament were really so effective, if they were really the be-all, end-all, if they were really good for everything they were intended to do, we wouldn’t have to keep doing them over and over. And so the writer of Hebrews said, what you really want is a sacrifice that is done one time, and that’s all you need, and it’s effective for everything. This morning, we’re going to be in Hebrews chapter 10.

We’re continuing this series that I’ve started about some of the pictures of Jesus in the Old Testament, not necessarily the prophecies, but the pictures that God used in the Old Testament to point to Jesus. I believe our last installment of this will be next week. We’ll finish up this series next week.

But today we’re going to talk about the sacrifices in Hebrews chapter 10. And how these sacrifices throughout the Old Testament, for everything else they did, they were really a picture of what Jesus Christ was coming to do for us. Because if it were not for the sacrifices, when Jesus came and died on the cross, people would have looked at it and said, wait, he did what now?

He sacrificed himself for us? Why? What does that do?

What does that accomplish? But as it was, there was about a 2,000 year, 3,000 year history of the Jewish people understanding the idea that the innocent died to cover the sins of the guilty. For every time an animal that hadn’t committed adultery, that hadn’t stolen things, that hadn’t lied, that that animal had to be sacrificed, had to shed its blood and lay down its life to cover the sins of some guilty person, there was a precedent set.

So they understood it. They understood what they were looking at. Now, Many of them rejected Jesus anyway, but they at least could understand what he was claiming to do.

And so that picture was put there to help us understand what Jesus Christ was coming to do for us. So once you’re in Hebrews chapter 10, if you’d stand with me, if you’re able to without too much difficulty as we read from God’s Word together, if you don’t have your Bibles with you, it’ll be on the screen or you can find it through our bulletin. Hebrews chapter 10, starting in verse 1 and going through verse 14.

It says, for the law, having a shadow of the good things to come and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered. For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.

But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. Now up to this point, some of the wording and the way they throw commas in there and move on to these parenthetical thoughts, it can be a little confusing.

What he’s basically saying here is the law was a picture of what God’s plan was. It wasn’t the substance of God’s plan. It was a picture pointing forward because if the law could accomplish all that it purported to, you wouldn’t have to do the sacrifices over and over and over.

And the ultimate idea here is in verse 4, that it’s just not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away our sins once for all. So it says in verse 5, therefore when he came into the world, he said, sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure.

Then I said, behold I have come. In the volume of the book it is written of me to do your will, O God. Previously saying, sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings and offerings for sin you did not desire, nor had pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law.

Then he said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God. And so it’s got Jesus here quoting from the book of Psalms, if memory serves, and talking about his obedience to the Father, that he came to fulfill the law for us in a way that we could not fulfill it for ourselves through these sacrifices and offerings. He came through his obedience to the Father and did it for us.

Then it says in verse 9, He takes away the first, that he may establish the second. By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. From that time waiting until his enemies are made his footstool, for by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. And you may be seated.

So throughout this whole passage, the writer of Hebrews is comparing the sacrifices that Jesus Christ, excuse me, the sacrifice, the one sacrifice that Jesus Christ made to all the thousands and potentially into the millions of sacrifices that were made by the Jewish people under the Old Testament law. And he says that Jesus, he’s making the case here, that Jesus’ sacrifice is not only equal to, but is greater than all of these other sacrifices combined. That Jesus’ sacrifice, this one-time act on the cross, was the ultimate act of sacrifice for us.

And this teaches us that all other sacrifices were simply a picture to foreshadow what Jesus would do. Now, it doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a moment in time where that provided some kind of temporary covering for their guilt. It doesn’t mean that it didn’t have the effect of demonstrating their faith and their obedience to God.

It doesn’t mean that it wasn’t important as something that they were supposed to do. But ultimately, the meaning and the effectiveness of these sacrifices was in what they showed about what Jesus Christ was coming to do. Now, I’ve heard Jewish teachers and Jewish experts get offended at the suggestion made by Christians that the Old Testament law had no value apart from Jesus Christ. That’s not what I’m saying.

All right? It was important as a demonstration of their obedience to God, as a demonstration of their faith, but it’s ultimate fulfillment. I’m not saying it wasn’t important, but its importance can’t fully be realized apart from Jesus Christ. And so these sacrifices, yes, they were important in the moment.

In the moment, they mattered because they were a demonstration by the person who was making the sacrifice that, yes, God, I believe you. I take you at your word. When you say this is sin and it’s wrong and it needs to be atoned for, and I’m not right with you and I need to be made right with you, and the innocent have to die for the sins of the guilty, I understand all that and I believe you and I’m going to obey.

It had value in that. But those things in and of themselves were never, ever going to take away a person’s sin once and for all. They were never intended to.

They were sort of the training wheels. It says in verse 1 here, for the law having a shadow of things to come and not the image of the things, can never make these same sacrifices, which they continually year by year, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. Now, there were several different kinds of sacrifices that they made, and none of them were ever enough.

And again, keep in mind that the writer of Hebrews, we don’t know for sure who it is. People have argued for years and years. Maybe it was Paul.

Maybe it was Apollos. I tend to lean toward Barnabas, although I can’t make you an airtight case that that’s who it was. We know from chapter 2 that it was either an apostle or a close associate of the apostles.

But the writer of Hebrews is making the case here to a group of people who had a background in the sacrifices. And he’s trying to get them to understand if it was really effective. Don’t be offended here when we say it’s ineffective because the fact that you go back the next day and have to do it again shows it’s not effective.

At least it’s not effective in the sense of being long-lasting. It doesn’t last forever. And so something greater was needed is the case he tries to make.

It could never do these things. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have to keep offering. But there are about five different kinds of sacrifices.

There are so many instructions about the sacrifices and when to do them and which sacrifice to do and how to do it and what to offer, that I couldn’t go through all of that with you this morning. There’s just not time. But there are five main classes of sacrifices that are offered in the Old Testament.

One of those is the burnt offering, that it would involve the transferring of guilt to an animal, symbolically. You would take whatever animal was being offered according to the law and you would place hands on the animal and you would symbolically transfer the guilt to that animal and then that animal would be sacrificed. And it’s a picture of what Jesus Christ came to do.

When he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It’s not that the Father suddenly turned his back on his Son. I believe it’s that Jesus Christ, for the first time, God the Son, the one who knew no sin, had no sin of his own, God the Son, at that point, bore the weight of the responsibility for my sin and yours, and for the first time felt the weight of that sin and that separation that it brings from the Father.

It’s not that the Father was suddenly absent. It’s that Jesus had been transferred the responsibility for our sin. And the Bible says, God made him who knew no sin, who had no sin of his own, to be made sin for us.

That’s a picture, that’s a reference to the Old Testament sacrifices when they would transfer their sin symbolically to this sacrifice animal and say, now you have been made sin for us. And the Apostle Paul says that this happened so that we could become the righteousness of God in him. So they would take this animal, they would transfer the responsibility, at least, for their sins to this animal, transfer the guilt, then the animal would be killed, would be sacrificed.

It would shed its blood. The blood would be collected because then they would sprinkle the blood on the altar as a covering for sin, as a symbolic covering, and they would burn most of the other parts of the animal. And all of this was a way to make peace with God, at least temporarily, over sins that they had committed. And so there were certain sins, certain transgressions that you would have to go periodically, and you would have to transfer the guilt to this animal. And it would have to be sacrificed.

But guess what? Not good forever. You do it again, you sin again, you have to go do the sacrifice again.

And that’s what the writer of Hebrews is telling us. If it was effective, we wouldn’t have to keep doing it. So that was the burnt offering.

There was the sin offering that involved also the killing of the animal. They would set aside some of the blood to be sprinkled outside in one of the courtyards of the temple, I believe. They would save some of the blood to be poured onto the altar. And they would burn some parts of the animal. And this was a way to cover unintentional sins.

Have you ever done something wrong without realizing or meaning to? I have. And especially when you get into the Old Testament law and all the things that they could do just by not tying something right or not doing something in the right order.

They could break God’s law just by doing that. And so they would have to go and make one of these sin offerings for their unintentional sins. And guess what?

At some point, they’re going to be back there making the sacrifice again. Because it covered for a little while. It dealt with the guilt for a little while.

But they’d have to go and do it again. The guilt offering was similar to a sin offering, which was the second one I mentioned. And it was an offering to make peace with God when your sin also victimized another person.

So there are sins that are just against God. Every sin is against God. But there are sins that are just against God, and there are sins that are against another person and against God.

And so you might have to go and do a guilt offering if your sin also victimized another person. In each of these cases, the guilt for our sin is being transferred to this sacrifice, and then the animal is losing its life in our place. And that is a picture of Jesus Christ. Now, there are two other kinds of offerings in the Old Testament.

There’s a peace offering and there’s a grain offering. But they weren’t specifically to deal with sins, but they dealt with our relationship to God. They dealt with the way we interact with God.

And Jesus Christ came once and for all to change that as well. Through His sacrifice, we no longer have to make certain offerings so that we stay right with God. We’re told we can come boldly before the throne of grace.

Not because we’ve earned it, not because we deserve it, but because of what Jesus Christ did. All of these offerings that were either designed to deal with our sin or to keep us right with God or to give us access to God, all of these things were taken care of in Jesus Christ. All of these things, I believe, are a picture of what Jesus Christ was coming to do for us. All these sacrifices foreshadowed what he was going to do.

And so like all of our religious efforts, all the things that we can try to offer, all the boxes we can try to check off, like all of our religious efforts, animal sacrifice could never make us right with God. could never make us truly right with God. Verses 2, 3, and 4 talk about this.

Would they have not, excuse me, then would they not cease to have been offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices, there’s a reminder of sins every year.

For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. See, it was never going to be enough. And I know I’ve driven that point home so many times already this morning, but we need to understand that.

They were coming doing all these religious rituals, all these things. They were trying to be right with God. They were trying to do right.

They were trying to follow the law. And it was never, ever going to be enough. It wasn’t designed ever to be enough.

If it was ever going to be enough, they wouldn’t have needed so many sacrifices. So what these sacrifices did is they might have cleansed the conscience for a moment, might have cleansed them from a sense of legal guilt over particular actions. You told a lie, you stole something, you feel guilty about it, go and offer a sacrifice and, oh good, I don’t feel guilty anymore.

It’s covered, it’s cleansed, it’s no longer held against my account. But what those sacrifices don’t do is address the root of the behavior, which is the sin in our hearts. Anything that only addresses the behavior misses the point.

Jesus talked about how even in our words, the things that come out come from inside. A friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook of a t-shirt that says, I love Jesus, but that mouth, I can’t control that mouth. And she said, is that biblical?

Because Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. What the condition of our hearts is on the inside is going to come out on the outside in the way we talk, in the way we behave, in the way we react to things. And so any system of sacrifice, any kind of religious rituals that only address our behavior, are never going to get it done.

And that’s all the sacrifices did, was they covered this legal sense of guilt for our actions, but they never did anything to change the heart. And so it had to be done year after year. The sacrifices had to be made year after year, because all they could do was cover the guilt.

They could never take it away. They’re just covering it up. Only Jesus’ sacrifice could do that.

Where these animal sacrifices and these religious rituals could cover up the guilt in a sense. They could never take away the guilt. Only Jesus could do that.

Only Jesus’ sacrifice could bring us peace with God. He came and he fulfilled the demands of the law perfectly. Like nobody ever could, like no priest ever could, as we talked about two weeks ago.

In this quote from Psalm chapter 40, some of you might see italics in your Bible in verses 5 through 7. That’s where he’s quoting from Psalm chapter 40. He says twice in there, in verse 7 and verse 9, that He’s come to do God’s will.

He’s come to do the will of the Father. I talked about that last Sunday night from the book of Mark, that Mark wanted us to understand from the get-go that Jesus’ ministry was about fulfilling the demands of the law. It was about fulfilling the Father’s will.

It was about being obedient on behalf of those of us who could not be perfectly obedient. And so He came and He fulfilled the demands of the law where you and I never could. And all throughout history, people have thought, if I could just be more religious, if I could just do more things, I’ll be right with God.

The Pharisees had the market cornered on religiousness. They were dotting all the I’s and crossing all the T’s as far as their behavior. And Jesus told people, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you’re not going to get into the kingdom of God.

He said it was not going to be enough. Only Jesus could perfectly fulfill the demands of the law. And so he did that for us.

He ended the need for the first kind of sacrifice. And when I say kind of sacrifice, I don’t just mean the first of the five. I mean that whole first sacrificial system.

It says in verse 9 that he takes away the first that he may establish the second. What he’s doing is abolishing the need for the whole system of animal sacrifices. When Jesus came, it wasn’t necessary anymore because something had come along, a sacrifice had come along that had finally and once and for all accomplished what that whole system set out to do and never could.

He ended the need for the whole first system. And that’s why it says in verses 11 through 13, every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices. They were doing this over and over and over, even though it could never take away sins.

He said, but this man, Jesus, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, not one sacrifice a week, not one sacrifice until you mess up, not one sacrifice until you just don’t feel it anymore, one sacrifice for sins forever, he then sat down at the right hand of God. Those priests are still out there. He said in this system, they’re still out there waiting for the next offering, preparing to offer the next offering.

Jesus made one sacrifice and then he sat down at the right hand of God the Father. Not that he’s being lazy and taking time off, but his work was done. And he has provided us perpetual access to the Father that these sacrifices never could.

He now sits there at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us, pleading our case, advocating for us. And He doesn’t have to do anything else again to accomplish this because He made that once for all sacrifice. One sacrifice for sins forever, and then He sat down at the right hand of the Father.

He accomplished all of this. He brought us peace with God. He brought us access to the Father, and He did all of this by the mere act of sacrificing Himself.

Now, when I say the mere act of sacrificing himself. I don’t mean to act like it was a small thing. What Jesus went through on the cross for us defies description, boggles the mind to begin to understand what he went through for us.

When I say the mere act of sacrifice, I mean he didn’t have to go out and fulfill a bunch of rituals. He’s not out there still today having to work for it for us. That one sacrifice was enough.

He did everything that we needed by sacrificing himself for us. And through this sacrifice, you and I are made righteous before God. You ever feel like you’re not good enough for God?

You should. Sorry, is that too blunt? Let me put it this way.

We should. Is that better? That’s where I was going with it.

I’m going to say me too. If you ever feel like you’re not good enough for God, it’s right because we should feel that way. We’re not and we never can be.

And so apart from Jesus Christ, we never will be and we should feel like we’re not good enough for God. But if we belong to Jesus Christ, if we’ve trusted Him as our one and only Savior, the idea now that we are not good enough for God is a lie from the enemy. Because we have been declared righteous in Jesus Christ. God looks at us, He looks at our record and says righteous.

It’s got stamped righteous on it because of what Jesus Christ did. It says in verse 14, for by one offering He has perfected us. He’s made us complete.

He’s made us able to stand before God lacking nothing. Through this sacrifice, we’re made righteous before God. So if you as a believer, if you as somebody who’s born again has trusted Jesus Christ, and you think, well, I know what the Bible says, but I feel like I’m not good enough for God.

Listen, you’re going to go with your feelings or are you going to go with what God said? And I understand the temptation because our feelings feel very real to us, but nothing is more real than what God has promised. And he says we are righteous, we are perfected in Jesus Christ. That doesn’t mean we never sin.

First John says when we sin, we have an advocate with him. First John says that he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin if we confess them. It doesn’t mean we’ll never sin, but it means as far as our standing with God, all the charges have been dropped and the slate’s been wiped clean.

Everything is expunged. And through the sacrifice of Jesus, we’re transformed. He says by this one offering, he’s perfected those who are being sanctified.

And it says in verse 10, by his will, we have been sanctified. That word sanctified is a fancy church word that just means we’re being made holy. So in a legal sense of our guilt because of that sacrifice, those charges have been dropped.

Legally, God considers us not guilty because of Jesus. God legally considers us righteous. But then this sanctification means he’s transforming us from the inside out now to act like it.

I tell my children from time to time, you’re a burns, act like it. All right, they left here Thursday to go somewhere with their Sunday school class. By the way, thank you for that.

I’m not sure what y’all were thinking, but thank you for taking them on that outing. They left here to go somewhere with their Sunday school class. And as this gaggle of children was rushing toward the door, I called out to my older two and I said, remember what you’ve been taught and who you belong to.

Okay, I get such a chore. I just don’t want you to burn down the city. If you come back without doing that, I’m good.

Now, they were my children from the time they were born. Actually, they were my children from the moment of conception. They’re not going to ever be any more or less my children, but we’ve been spending the last eight, ten years teaching them what we expect.

And that’s what God does with us. Once we belong to Him in Christ, we are His children. There’s that legal declaration, they’re mine and they’re not guilty.

But sanctification comes in where He says, I’m going to spend the rest of your life teaching you how to act like that, teaching you what that means. And so he begins to transform us from the inside out. Remember I said any system that only deals with the external is never going to be enough.

God has wiped away the guilt of our sin, and then he addresses the root problem of the sin within. Through his sacrifice, we’re not only made righteous and we’re not only transformed, but we’re also held secure. He says in verse 14, for by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

Again, not just until next week, not just until the next time you mess up and not just until you don’t feel it anymore. He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. Verse 10 says, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

And verse 12 says He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever. There’s a controversial passage in Hebrews chapter 6. I say controversial, it means there’s disagreement and debate over what it means.

Of course, I could pull out any scripture and tell you it’s controversial. People debate about what it means. It talks about, some people have said, losing your salvation. And I’ve had more discussions.

I don’t want to say arguments. More discussions. I’ve heard every side of this issue.

But what I understand Hebrews chapter 6 to mean, I’d encourage you to go read it later on. I didn’t think about talking about it. Well, let me just turn there real quick.

I hadn’t planned on talking about it this morning. Hebrews chapter 6, starting in verse 4, says, For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put Him to an open shame. Now that verse has been interpreted as saying that you can lose your salvation.

But notice what he says there, if you can lose it, you can never get it back again, because there is no other sacrifice. There’s nothing more that God can offer. There’s nothing more that God can do on our behalf.

What I believe that means is that the writer of Hebrews is setting up a hypothetical and saying, if you could lose it, if you could lose it, if that sacrifice ever became not enough, what else is there to be offered for you? If you could lose it, you could never get it back. Folks, what I’m telling you is from that and from here in chapter 10, there is no other sacrifice.

There’s no other sacrifice that we need. There’s no other sacrifice that could ever top this. What Jesus Christ did once was enough.

It was enough for those days that we mess up. For those days that I’m left thinking, what did I just do? I just disappointed my father.

I just let him down. For those days that I just don’t feel like he could possibly love me, seeing who I really am. There was one day this week, I was driving around and in traffic.

No dirty words came out, but I wasn’t particularly nice in what I said. And then I kind of looked up and said, God, I’m just not a nice person sometimes. God sees that.

And on those days when you think I’m not a particularly loving person, a lovely person, on those days when I can’t form a full sentence, on those days that I just think, God, I just don’t feel like it even makes sense that you can love somebody like me. His sacrifice is still enough. And our standing with God is not dependent on anything we do.

It’s not dependent on what we’ve earned, what we can deserve, how we can hold ourselves secure, it is dependent on the fact that Jesus Christ sacrificed himself for sins once for all and is perfecting forever those who are being sanctified. So we don’t typically offer animal sacrifices today. I don’t know what any of you do on your weekends, but we don’t typically offer animal sac