Hebrews 10 (Part 2)

Open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 10. We're continuing on with our study in Hebrews, which was basically preached almost word for word through worship today, as it often is. Our worship lyrics were very germane, very connected, very appropriate to the things that we're actually looking at here in Hebrews 10. We're going to begin by reading verse 19. Look at 10:19. We're going to go through verse 25. It says:

Stop there. Let's pray. Jesus, we ask you to fill our hearts with your grace and truth. And nourish us in your Word. For we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. I want to begin here this morning by just commending those of you who have been sticking to our study in Hebrews thus far. Because the first ten and a half chapters are not for the week of heart, I guess, or something like that. I mean, they are filled with pretty complex theological details that can be kind of hard to digest. And yet, you guys, you made it and I want to commend you. But now the author is going to turn to things that are a little more practical, a little more devotional, a little more application related. And that can be a little bit easier to kind of take. But we see that the section we're looking at here beginning in this first verse that we're looking at, begins with the word "therefore." And of course, you know that whenever a section begins with the word "therefore," you know that what you're about to read is based on what has been said previously. And what has been said previously took ten and a half chapters to say. And it was a lot there, covered a lot of territory. In the first four chapters, the author of Hebrews talked about the superiority of Jesus Christ. You'll remember, He's superior to the Old Testament prophets. He's superior to the angels. He's superior to Moses. He's superior to Joshua. And then of course, he went on to argue for the priesthood of Jesus Christ, showing how His priesthood is superior to the Levitical priests. And that covered the first seven chapters. And then we got to chapters eight and through beginning of ten, and the author showed us how Jesus ministers in a superior sanctuary and with superior offerings that He brings into that sanctuary than do the Levitical priests. And that brings us to our current section. That's what the therefore is. Therefore, knowing all that, hearing all that, understanding all that, or in light of all that, he goes on to say, "since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus," in other words, just as the Jewish high priests only approached God with blood when they came into the Holy of Holies. He says, so also we're going to do the same thing. We're going to have confidence approaching Him by his blood since we have confidence, he says, "to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus," do you get that? In fact, let me go further. Do you ever talk about the blood of Jesus when you're approaching God in prayer? Do you ever do that? I think it's important. I am careful to tell the Lord when I approach Him that I am not coming in my own righteousness. I'm very careful to say that. I come to Him and I say, Lord, I'm coming before you and making requests of you, but I want you to know something going into this. I am not coming to you based on my goodness, my righteousness, anything related to me at all. I am coming to you based on the blood of Jesus Christ that has cleansed me. And that is the basis, that is the foundational basis on which I approach God. Do you get that? That's what he's saying here, and he's saying that we have confidence to do it that way. And that's interesting, he's going to use that word confidence later on in this chapter. And the Greek word carries the idea of boldness and assurance. I can come before God boldly and so can you, not because of our lives or anything related to us at all, but purely by the blood of Jesus Christ.

I am bold. I hope you're bold. I hope you are bold approaching God. And that doesn't mean cocky. Be careful here we don't mix terms. We're not cocky about it. We're not arrogant. But we're bold. We are bold. Do you remember how back in chapter 4, he talked about kind of the same thing he was leading up to this? Let me show you on the screen from Hebrews back in Hebrews chapter 4, verse 16. He says:

But let me show you how the New King James Version renders the same passage.

It's the same meaning. Remember I said that word in the Greek carries that idea. So this is a proper translation as well. Even though they use a different word, "confidence" in one, "boldness" in the other, it's the same thing. Come boldly. Come with confidence. I'm confident that I can approach you because of what Jesus did. I'm an idiot. I am completely unworthy. I have no standing in and of myself to approach God's throne. None. I don't deserve it. And neither do you. And yet we come boldly, right? We come boldly to the throne of grace. So here's the key question that we're looking at: KEY QUESTION: On what basis can we approach God's throne boldly and with confidence? Well, as we've said, it's certainly not in us. And that is reiterated by Paul's statement into the Philippians where he says:

That means in us. None. So no confidence in me. All confidence in Him. That's why he says, we "glory in Christ Jesus" don't you love that? We glory in Him. We don't glory in ourselves. I don't even begin to think that I am good enough to approach Him. I've been telling you guys as we've been talking about this issue of assurance, confidence, stuff like that. I've been sharing with you how I correspond pretty regularly in any given week with several people who are communicating to me over and over and over again that they lack assurance. And I know that's not a isolated sort of a deal. A lot of people lack assurance to approach God, assurance to even believe that they are forgiven of their sins. The lack of assurance of their salvation. I think a lot of, well, how do I say this? I think that the people who communicate to me that they lack assurance are probably a small sampling of a number of people who feel that way, but don't ever get around to saying anything about it because they're probably ashamed. Or they just kind of feel like, if I were to say that, that would kind of make me look pretty bad and I would look like I don't have any faith. But whenever somebody says to me, 'I'm just not sure.' Whenever they tell me they lack assurance in approaching God. 'How can I go to God' they'll say to me, 'and ask for forgiveness after what I've done? How can I do that?' That's a person who lacks confidence to approach God. 'How can I do that, Pastor Paul? How can I do that? When I've done what I've done, when I've sinned the way I've sinned? How can I even come to God?' I know exactly why they're feeling that way. It's not rocket science guys. But I know exactly why they feel that way. And it's because they are focused on their sin. And they're not focused on what Jesus has accomplished for them on the cross. And that is a work . . . I've said to you many times before, I'll say it again because I think it probably needs to be said. It's a work of the enemy and he's done an effective work. And many people have swallowed that particular hook of the enemy. Taken the bait as it were, to use a fishing metaphor. And as they say, hook, line, and sinker. Because it's very easy for us to sit and fixate on our failures and our mistakes. It's very easy thing. But I'm here to tell you, if you are sitting around thinking about how much you've messed up and replaying it over and over in your mind, and thinking about how awful it is and how terrible you feel and

--- how God must hate your guts right about now, which is a lie, that's the enemy lying. But if that's where your fixation is centered, I'm here to tell you, you will never walk in confidence and boldness. It's as simple as that. It will keep you from walking in confidence and boldness, which is what we are being exhorted to do in this very passage. So what do we need to do? Well, to borrow a statement from a little bit later in the book of Hebrews, which I absolutely love how it is translated in the NIV. Let me show you this from Hebrews 12:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, that was the message he was giving to his audience. It's the message I'm giving to you, and that is the answer to having confidence and boldness before God. Fixing your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who it goes on to say, for the joy set before him endured the cross, what did He endure on the cross? Your punishment. We've made this mention of this before. It's over. The punishment phase is done. He endured it and he did it gladly. Guys, do you know why He was so glad to endure your punishment and all the suffering and humiliation that went along with it? It was so you could come boldly before the throne of God. To free you up. To come boldly and with confidence. That's where our confidence comes from. That's where our boldness comes from. By fixing our eyes on Jesus. So if confidence and boldness doesn't describe your particular personal approach to God, then I'm just going to give it to you straight. There's a good chance you're focusing on the wrong person. You're focusing on yourself, not on Him. Now in verse 20, the writer of Hebrews explains how we are to approach God. Look at verse 20 with me. In your Bible it says, "20by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh," so he describes the way. I love this. I love the language. He calls it the new and living way.

Well, it's new only in relationship to the old covenant. This is a new covenant with this new way he says. But it's this word "living" that really grabs my attention. It's a "living way." And it's important because living is a word that describes so much of the new covenant. It's so often used in relationship to talking about the new covenant. Let me show you some examples. 1 Peter has some great examples. 1 Peter chapter 1, he says:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to what? I highlighted it for you so you couldn't miss it TO A LIVING HOPE. It's a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And then we go on to 1 Peter, chapter 2:4-5:

And He's a living stone. I like that too. Rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious and so forth and so on. And it says that you are like living stones too, being built up into a spiritual house. Isn't that cool? So He's the living stone, and you are being built up as living stones. You're not dead. You're living. You're vibrant. And what do we do? We offer, he says there in that passage of 1 Peter we're a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices, right? Guess what the Bible says about those sacrifices. Romans chapter 12:1:

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I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies, which is he says, your spiritual sacrifice and worship as a living sacrifice. It's not dead. It's alive. And you can see that this concept of living just permeates the new covenant, even the very thing we're studying today. Remember back in Hebrews chapter 4. Check this one: Hebrews 4:12 (ESV)

... For the word of God is living. It's living. It's all living you guys. It's all alive, which is so cool. You can kind of see how the idea of a living gospel with living stones and living sacrifices and the living word all connects itself here to our passage in Hebrews, where he talks about a living way. I looked up the word "living" in the Greek. I thought there's got to be something special about that word. So I looked it up in the Greek to find the real meaning. Are you ready for this guys? The word living means "alive." I know. I know. You come to Calvary Chapel for these deep insights. It means alive. It means it's alive. So I thought, well, you know what, I'm going to go to my buddy Merriam- Webster, and I'm going to look up the word: Definition of alive 1: having life: not dead 2a)still in existence; b)still active And the definition of alive means "having life: not dead. Still in existence. Still active." Still going strong. Right? That's us. That's what He has done in us. That is what He is doing through us. That is the way that we walk, the way we come, it is all alive. Can I just encourage you guys, we are confronted every single day as we watch the news and just see life around us, we're confronted with death every day. Something is dying. It doesn't necessarily have to be people. It could be something we're related to or connected to or involved in. Could be a job that died, could be a dream that died, could be a relationship that died. Good grief. It could be your mower. That's what it usually is for me. 'Honey, the mower died again.' Anyway, we're just surrounded by death all the time. Guys, we have been birthed into a living hope, through a living way, and every time we open our Bible, we embrace the living word of God. So what's the word that is given to you and me over and over and over again throughout the course of this whole world. With all the impact and influence that death is having on you and having on me. Let's choose life. Let's just choose life. I choose life over all the death that's going on. And that is a prevailing attitude that I think believers need to be ready to just kind of go, yes that's my life. It is full of livingness. I just made up a word just like that. See how easy that is? It's full of life. It's full of vitality and energy. I may not always feel very vital or energetic, but I'm going to choose life. And that's not just a political stance. It can be, great, if it is yours, wonderful. But that's not just all it is. It is a prevailing attitude for all of life. I remember years ago . . . I'm kind of getting off the track here, but I do that occasionally. But there was a gal, lovely gal, in our fellowship. Man, we just had started the church probably in the first couple of years. She was a sweetheart and she contracted leukemia and and frankly it took her pretty quickly. But I went over to her house to visit her. And I felt like the Lord gave me a word for her and I couldn't even explain it at the time, but the Lord wanted me to say, even in the midst of this woman's dying body, the Lord wanted me to say to her, to choose life. And she said to me, what does that mean? And I said, I don't know. You're going to have to pray about it, but I just feel like that's something that God wants me to tell you. Choose life. And I knew and she knew that her body was going. And later on she said something really incredible to me as we were talking. Because I mean, it was the elephant in the room. We had to address it. And the fact that her body was dying as all our bodies are. She just had an end date that was a little closer, is all. But the point is we were talking about what was coming up and she looked at me for just a moment and she got this big grin on her face. I don't mean to sound gross, but her gums were black from chemotherapy, but she grinned this big grin and she said, "I am going to see Jesus." And I was like, it was one of those weird times when you go to minister to somebody who's going through a hard time, and they minister to you. You are the one that walks away encouraged. I was encouraged. I think she chose life. The life that is in Christ. I get to go see Jesus. Yeah. This body is going the way of the world, but

I get to go see Jesus. This is a good deal. Dying is never a fun prospect, but good grief, we get to go be with Jesus. That's pretty sweet. So I like that definition. All right. He goes on. In verse 21, he says, "21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us draw near" (now he begins to talk about some of this other) "with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." He reiterates that issue of assurance, confidence, boldness. But you'll notice he also uses some terms related to cleansing. He talks about our conscience is sprinkled clean. He talks about our bodies, which, by the way, our body is a symbolic language. The body represents the person. He says we've been washed clean. And the emphasis that he's giving to you and me in this particular couple of verses is that we've been made clean by the blood of Jesus Christ. That's why we have assurance. We've been made clean and that's the emphasis here. I know that you mess up. I know that. I know. Here's how I know: because I do too. So I know. I know you make mistakes. I know you have failures, But you've been made clean. Do you get it? We need to get it because this is where our assurance lives. In the knowledge and the hope we have been made clean before the Father. I know you don't feel clean. Get over your feelings. You have been made clean. And by faith we accept it, right? You have to look your feelings right in the eye and say, I don't care what you're saying. The Bible says, I have been made clean. I've been washed. And that is the reality of our condition and our position before the Lord. And it is as we've been saying, based solely on Him and not on us. He goes on with his exhortation, verse 23. He says, "23Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." What is the confession of your hope? That's simply the declaration of faith that you made when you accepted Jesus as your Savior. By the way, let me just say this. I don't know how many of you actually prayed the sinner's prayer. If you did, wonderful, and that was kind of the confession of your hope. But don't ever get weirded out or let the enemy whisper in your ear if you didn't pray the sinner's prayer. And you think that somehow you're a second class citizen in the Kingdom of God, or maybe you didn't do it right, or I didn't do the right formula. I never actually prayed the sinner's prayer. But I know that

I'm saved because although there's nothing wrong with confessing your faith, the expression of your confidence in what Jesus did on the cross. I remember when I got saved. No words were spoken, at least not verbally. I just knew that I knew that I knew that I was born again. And I think all I said to Him was, I receive. I receive. That was all it took, and I'm glad to say it took. So don't get weirded out, okay? Don't get legalistic about, you got to say it just like this. If you said the sinner's prayer, wonderful. If you're witnessing to somebody else, I encourage you to lead them in the sinner's prayer. It's great prayer because it expresses confidence. Lord, I believe you died on the cross for my sin. I believe, and I receive you now as my Savior. Those are great things to say. But even if you didn't say that, I'm sure that at some point down the line there was a confession of your hope that was made, whether it was made be before other people in verbally, or whether you made it in the waters of baptism. That's really kind of where I expressed my confession of hope. Because I was baptized in water at the age of about 24, I think, or so. And that's when I really started walking with the Lord. And that was that I made a confession in front of a whole bunch of people that my hope is in Jesus Christ. So he's saying here, let us hold fast. And that's the point of what he's saying. Let us hold fast. Because remember, the people to whom he was writing this letter were being tempted to let go of their confession. He's saying, no, don't let go, hold fast. And it's a single Greek word that has translated "hold fast." And it means to grip hard. Don't let it go. And he's going to have a whole lot more to say about holding on to our hope in the next chapter coming. As we talk about faith and our hope in Christ and so forth. But he tells them to do it, you'll notice, "without wavering," hold on to the expression and confession of your hope without wavering. And that's exactly what the people that he was writing this letter to were doing. They were wavering. Should we go back to the law? Should we go back under the law? That was the way we were raised. I mean, our people have been doing that for hundreds and hundreds of years. Maybe we ought to go back under the law. Should we go back under the law? I think we should go back under the law. They're wavering. There's all this persecution and maybe this persecution is proof that we're not on the right track. I don't know. See that? We're wavering. We're wavering. He says, no. Hold on to your confession of hope without wavering.

--- And the foundation of our unwavering . . . how does he end? How does he end that there? Look at verse 23 again. "23Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." There you go. Right there, guys. If there's any wavering going on, we need to come back to God's faithfulness. It is predicated upon God's faithfulness. Listen, when a believer has their hope fixed on Jesus Christ, His faithfulness to give His life on the cross for you, for me, we then have a faith that is unwavering. When we get our eyes off Jesus, and we get them onto ourselves, we waver. That's when we waver. But you can't waver with your eyes completely on Him. Do you know why? Because He never wavers in His faithfulness. His faithfulness never wavers. So if you're fixed on the faithfulness of God, you won't waver either. It's when like Peter, remember, when he is walking on the water. Lord, if it's you, let me come walking on the water (Matthew 14:28). Jesus was like, all right, fine, Pete, you're the dude. So Peter swings his legs over the boat pushes off, starts walking on the water. What happens? It gets his eyes off Jesus, it says. And then he saw the wind and the waves and he began to sink. His faith wavered because he got him off Jesus and onto his circumstances. So we know what keeps us from wavering. It's keeping our eyes on Jesus. Okay, now we finish up these last two verses from this morning section. I have to say they're kind of interesting to go through in light of the past year and the pandemic that has kind of changed all of our lives. He writes here in verse 24,

Those are great verses, aren't they? Well, the pandemic kind of tried to give them a kick in the side, you got to admit. And as this pandemic that we've gone through for the last year, and I think we're like right at a year, aren't we? I saw a funny meme that's saying that we're celebrating one year of two weeks to flatten the curve. Something like that. Anyway, I thought that was kind of cute. It obviously enveloped the whole world and of course that's where we get the word pandemic. But it did more than just make people sick and make them fearful of being sick. It shook people. It shook Christians. It shook the people who it shouldn't have shook. And I'm not going to get into the politics of whether or not the verses that we're looking at here supersede the governmental mandates that have been --- passed down to us related to limiting our ability to gather as believers. That's God's position to judge, and I'm confident that He will. But we do learn something still in the midst of that. It's very simple from these verses, and that is that we need one another. We need one another. We need one another. Can I just say that again? We need one another. I need you. You need me, kind of. I mean, we need each other. The Apostle Paul talked about that in his letter. The eye can't say to the hand, I don't need you (1 Corinthians 12:21). We need each other. And I have to tell you something in the midst of this pandemic I have been greatly encouraged as I've watched believers gather however they could. And "to stir up one another to love and good works," I really have. I've been encouraged. Whether that meant gathering with one or two people in their home. Whether it meant gathering with others electronically through live streams and online video meetings. Some people just did whatever they could. They knew they needed one another and they did whatever they could. And while we all know that a virtual church meeting is never a complete substitute for an in-person gathering, we know that and nobody's trying to kid us about that. Let's just all stay home and go to church online and we can go to church in our jammies. We get it. We know that's really not a reality. But what I saw people doing, this is what was encouraging. I saw that they were attempting to be true to this exhortation and encourage one another because that's what we're told here. That's the essence of what he's saying here. Don't stop encouraging one another. We need encouragement from one another. We need to be encouraged. I need to be encouraged. You need to be encouraged, right? So let's not stop doing that. Now when something like a pandemic comes rolling through and it changes everything, it wrecks stuff and we have to start making changes in the way we do things. Our attitude shouldn't be, 'how are we going to fight against this thing?' Our attitude should be, 'how are we going to be true to the word of God?' Right? So we're not going to take up a banner and go, 'lousy rotten politicians.' Let's just say, 'well, let's see what we can do.' Let's do what we can do. And that's what has encouraged me. People have just done what they could do, however they could do it. And of course that doesn't mean everybody did. Whenever there's a shaking, you're always going to see some of the dead branches fall out of the tree. And sadly, some who were attending church before the pandemic have left with probably no intention to come back. But there have been many many many who we have not seen their faces back here at Life Bible Ministry, but they've stayed connected. And I do hear from them and they say, 'Hey we're here. We're watching every week. We miss you guys terribly, but we're here.' We're staying in the Word and so forth. And there are people watching us right now live. I forget about the camera while I'm teaching you sometimes. But I had a lady write to me and she said, 'why don't you ever look at me?' Seriously? You never look at me. I wrote her back and I said, 'I forget the camera's there.' To be completely honest with you, I really do. If I could for just a moment speak to some of the people who are watching us live today, I want to begin by saying, good for you. Good for you for staying connected as best you could. For those of you that felt like there was no other option because of your physical issues or whatever, I want to just say, good for you. It's what you need to stay encouraged. And that's a good thing. But I want to further exhort anybody who takes time to watch us just online or to listen to previous teachings online or whatever, that we still have a passage here that tells us that we need "to stir up one another to love and good works." So you see, it's wonderful that you're staying encouraged, and I'm very very glad that you are. But it doesn't stop there because we're not just here to take. We're here to give. And I say that just as much to the people sitting in this room as to the people who are online. We're not just here to take, we're here to give. What is the writer of Hebrews saying? Let us stir up one another. What are you doing? I know you're here. You're here to get encouraged. But what are you doing to encourage others? That's the question we really have to ask. It's not enough just to come to church and sit on your hands. We need to come and we need to say there are people who are going to be here today who need my encouragement. They need my encouragement. What I can do. It might just be a quick something in the morning where you just encourage them somehow. I don't know. But we need to be involved. And even if somebody's staying home, and can't leave the house, you don't get a get out of jail free card on this particular exhortation.

--- You still need to encourage people. Well, how am I going to . . . I don't . . . call them up on the phone, send them an email, send them a card. Hey, I just want to write a note. Just encourage you to keep on keeping on with Jesus. Keep pressing in on Jesus. We can all do that. Smiling at somebody when they come to church, writing a note, calling somebody that you've maybe lost touch with, a believer in the Lord. You are to and I am to as well. Stir up one another to love and good works, and that takes effort. But it's what we need to do. Can I get an amen? Let's stand together. Well, as we normally do after a Sunday service, we'll have some people down front to pray with you, but don't be limited by that. If you want to just pray with the person who's standing near you, if you know them, just ask them to pray too. It doesn't matter. All I care about is just get prayer. If you need prayer before you take off today, get it. Father, thank you so much for your Word. We so need these reminders and especially, Lord, during a pandemic, when we're just being told to separate, separate, separate, separate. And we recognize, Lord, that your Word expresses this need that is inborn in every one of us to gather and to encourage. We need that encouragement, and we need that gathering. And if for some that gathering is only virtual and it happens online, so be it. But I pray, my Father, that you would speak to them this week about ways they can encourage others with the encouragement they have received. To comfort others with the comfort they have received. And Lord, all those who are here in this room, in Jesus' name, I pray that you would encourage each one of us to step outside our comfort zone and encourage others to love and bless and stir up others unto love and good works. Thank you for the reminders. Help us to be about the work that you've called us to do. We pray it in Jesus' precious name. And all God's people said together, amen. God bless you. Have a good rest of your Sunday. ---