This past week, 20 children and 8 adults were killed in
an evil and horrible act in Newton Connecticut. Things like this can be
confusing. They can shake up many people. Terrible actions by bad people doing
horrific things like this remind us that the world is broken. It reminds us
that we need hope outside of fallen humanity. It is also a reminder of the brevity and
frailty of life and that none of us really know when our death may come.
As Christians, we grieve for those who were killed. We
grieve for the families of those slain. We grieve over the fact that people can
be so violent, sinful and evil. And in times like this, there are a few ways we
can and should respond.We should respond by praying. Pray for the families of the victims. Pray for them to know Jesus. Pray that they would trust in Jesus even when there are no answers and nothing makes sense. Pray that the families would be able to turn to Jesus and find comfort and peace in Him, in the midst of the consequences of this violent act. Pray for the students and teachers who survived, that they would not be traumatized and that they too would find comfort in Jesus. Pray for the community – pray that this event would cause many to turn to God. But we are called to do more than pray too.
We are called to talk about the broken condition of
humanity. We should speak up about how sinful people do sinful things and all
of us are capable of the worst crimes. Times like this remind us that our world
is indeed broken; humanity is indeed depraved and we are in need of being
rescued. We need to be saved from sin. We need God to make all things new. We
need for God to redeem hearts and minds. We need for the world to repent and
find hope in Jesus.
We also need to live lives that point to and speak of, (both
in actions and in words), the hope that we have in Jesus. We need to be
ministers of the good news in the midst of bad news. We need to show His love
and care for the broken world we live in. We need to join Jesus in His mission
to make disciples of all nations.
As I was thinking about the tragedy and thinking about
the passage we have before us today, I think there is a connection. You see,
mankind needs to be made clean and we can’t do it ourselves. We need Jesus to
make mankind clean – to give new hearts and new minds to people. And the only
way for true change to occur in this world is for people to repent and be
changed by God.
We all will die one day. And times like this are meant to
be wake up calls and remind us that one day Jesus will return and one day, all
those who have placed their faith in Him will be saved. Times like this are
meant to remind us to live eagerly expecting His return. The main idea of our passage in Hebrews is a
timely reminder. It is something we need to be reminded of and that the whole
world needs to hear.
One of the main ideas of this passage is that: Christ died to put away sins, so that when we die we might not be judged
but saved.
We need to have our sins dealt with. We need to be made
clean. We need to have our sins put away. And the good news that we have is
that Christ died to put away sin. The point of the verses 23-26 that we are
going to unpack is that Christ died to put away sin.
1.
Christ died to put away sin.
Verse 23 says, "Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly
things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with
better sacrifices than these.· In the Old Testament, the earthly copies of the heavenly things had to be purified with blood. Verse 22 tells us that everything was purified with blood and it doesn’t just include the book of the law and the vessels and the tent, it included the people as well.
· The reason why all of these things needed to be purified with blood wasn’t because they were dirty and putting blood on them didn’t make them clean according to human standards. But the reason why they needed to be made pure and acceptable before God, in order to be used in the temple, was precisely because humans had touched them. And anything humans touched was defiled because it was touched by sin.
· The need for purification was because the tabernacle was associated with sinful people. In fact, the book of Leviticus tells us the whole reason the priests had to make atonement for the most holy place was because of the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites .
· What appears shocking about this verse at first is that the heavenly things themselves needed to be purified with better sacrifices. So, is heaven dirty? Has heaven somehow been defiled?
· Verse 24 reveals why the heavenly throne room needed to be purified in a sense. It says that Jesus has appeared in the presence of God on our behalf. The reason why Jesus needed to bring a better sacrifice – a once and for all sacrifice - into heaven is so that humans can be there. Our sin needs to be dealt with and put away once and for all.
· From the context of chapter nine, it seems that the author is speaking metaphorically and he is referring to the heavenly sanctuary symbolically, as representing our spiritual sate, our conscience that is purified. Christ has provided a superior sacrifice that makes us clean so that we can come into God’s presence. And this is important because most of us feel so dirty and so defiled, so bad at times that we feel like we would even defile heaven if we were there. I like how John Piper puts it when he refers to this verse, he says,
“Now listen to this. He is speaking to those of you (all of
us, in our clear moments) who feel so dirty and so deeply bad that you would
only pollute heaven if you got there. O how many people are kept away from
Christ because of this! I pray that you will see what an invitation this is.
This is God's way of saying: "Come, you dirty ones. Come, you defiled, you
deeply evil ones. Come, you who have soiled yourselves and who have been
stained by others. Come to my heaven! For my Son is there. And he has not died in
vain. He stands guard over my holy place, not to keep you out, but to make you
clean so that you can be with me in perfect holiness forever. Come."” –
John Piper
·
Jesus sacrificed Himself once and for all time and comes
into God’s presence on our behalf to welcome us in, so that we can into God’s
presence purified by His sacrifice.· The people under the Levitical priestly system could never go into the holy places. They could never get into God’s presence, but Jesus has gone once and for all so that we can now go freely into His presence.
· Verse 25 tells us that unlike the high priests who entered every year with the blood of animals, Jesus doesn’t continue to offer Himself. We know, that once He offered His own blood on the cross, He said “it is finished” because it the sacrifice for all of the sins of those who trust in Him was completed.
· Indeed, if the sacrifice of Christ was not sufficient to deal with any and all of the sins of man finally, then, as verse 26 tells us, Jesus would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. This is because ever since the foundation of the world and the time of Adam, mankind has sinned, time after time, person after person, generation after generation.
· But gloriously, verse 26 tells us that He has appeared “once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” God always planned to delay His wrath, to stay His wrath for a time, until Jesus would come at just the right time – at the fullness of time to deal with sins once and for all.
· Paul tells us in Galatians 4:4:
Galatians 4:4-5 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
· Our passage tells us that Jesus has now come at the end of the ages. What this means is that all of human history is divided by the time before Christ and the time after Christ has come. We now live in the end of the ages – the final stretch of time, when we now await Christ’s return. Jesus has ushered in the end times; the time of the fulfillment of God’s plans and His self-offering is completely sufficient for all of history past, present and future!
· It doesn’t just say that He covered over sins. It says that He has “put away sin”. When you put away a criminal, you lock him up. When you put away judgment, you no longer judge. When it says Jesus put away sin, He effectively exiled it; He made it ineffective and dealt with it finally. Our hope is that sinful humanity can be made clean, because He paid the price for sins once and for all, to put away sin.
· The stark reality that verse 27 tells us of is, “just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
· The second point from the text that we are going to focus on is that
2. All mankind will die once
·
And there are some key words in these verse that are very
important. Notice, the author uses some important words He says: Appointed; Once;
die; after that; comes judgment.
·
What the author is saying is that humans die only once
and so, just as it is impossible to die physically more than once, it is
impossible for man to avoid God’s judgment.· Hebrews is reminding us of is that ever since the fall of mankind in Adam, it has been appointed to man to die once. And we are meant to think about what the word appointed means. To be appointed is not to choose something. We don’t choose our time of death, even if we were to take our own life.
· This means that our death is also not random. It has been appointed for us all to die once. The very word appointed speaks of the divine act of a judge to decree that human beings would indeed die.
· So, you have to ask, when was it appointed for man to die? It was appointed to man to die way back in Genesis. In Genesis 2:16 before woman was ever created, He addressed Adam as the head of the human race. Genesis 2:16 says,
Genesis
2:16-17 “And the LORD God
commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the
garden, 17 but of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it
you shall surely die."”
·
The death of all men doesn’t just come about by natural
processes set in motion by our biology. God appoints the day of our birth and
the day of our death. In fact, Psalm 139:16 says it this way,Psalm 139:16 “And in Your book were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.”
· As Christians, we cannot subscribe to meaningless fatalism, because it is clear that God has ordained and written down all of our days, even before we were born. This should give us great assurance that nothing is outside of His control. We can trust that He is all-wise, all-powerful and all-knowing and no matter what life ends up looking like, we can trust in His sovereign plans.
· All of us will die because of sin and this will only happen once. There is no second chance after death. It is impossible for a human to die more than once. Once we die, this life is all over. There is no coming back, there is no do-over and there is no returning to try again. Reincarnation is a myth from the devil to convince people that they can just keep trying until they get it right; that there are not any truly eternal consequences.
· But this passage is telling us something different. It is telling us that not only is it appointed for all of us to die and by the way, it could be at any moment. And once we die, (the only time we will die), there are some other very important words in the text. It says, after that comes judgment.
· All of us will die and we will only get one chance at this life. God has appointed it and after that comes judgment. After death is judgment. This is meant to be a sobering truth. It is meant to wake us up from slumber. It is meant to stir us to live differently, not to earn God’s approval or to earn salvation, (we can never do that), but to live in a manner that is wise.
· If you knew that you were appointed to die in a month, you likely would be focused and aware of how you spent your time. In Psalm 90:12 Moses prayed,
"So teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom."
· A verse like Hebrews 9:27 is meant to help us see the seriousness of our lives and to live accordingly. And for all those who are not found in Christ, you will experience the certain, terrifying judgment of God.
· Romans 3 tells us that no one is righteous. No one is worthy to stand before God on His own. All have sinned and all people have earned the just, eternal wrath of God
· Romans 12 and Hebrews 10 both reiterate that God is the one who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay”. So, when the passage says that it is appointed to man once to die and after that comes judgment, it means that God will judge all those who are still in their own sins; all those who are trusting in themselves; all those who look like Christians and go to church and act like Christians but are not really Christians. God will judge all those who are not truly trusting in Christ and His judgment is terrifying because the Almighty will take vengeance and pour out His unmitigated wrath for all eternity.
· We don't want to think about this. We don't like to think about our death. Every one of us will get old or get in an accident. Some illness may take us down. The scary thought is that death isn't the worst part. We will face judgment and the opportunity to choose our path will be done. There will be no more going back or changing directions. Most people don't want to think about standing naked before the judge who hates sin.
· This is a sobering truth that is meant to see what really matters in the world.
· For Christians, it should motivate us to be about the work of making disciples.
· For unbelievers, for those only playing church, it should shake you up and hopefully wake you up, so that you repent, turn from your sins and trust in Jesus before it is too late.
· Thankfully, the passage doesn’t just leave us with judgment. It tells us that those who eagerly await His return will be saved. And that is our third point this morning.
3.
Those who eagerly await His return
will be saved
·
Verse 28 says, “so
Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second
time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him”· There is a way for everyone to escape judgment for sins after death. We can escape spiritual death by trusting in the death of Christ on the Cross in our place once and for all. We die and after that comes judgment but Christ has died and will save us from judgment for our sins.
· “For every decisive experience that you have (like dying and facing God in judgment), the Son of God has a corresponding experience. Only Christ's experiences are not merely alongside ours and like them. His have an impact on ours. His death and our death are not parallel. His utterly transforms ours. Our arrival at the judgment and his arrival at the judgment are not parallel. His rescues us. In other words, the parallel between our life and Christ's life is designed to show how utterly dependent on him we are at every point of our lives, and how great he is. He is the strong saving one and we are the weak and desperate ones.” - Piper
· The question is – are we eagerly waiting for Him? And what does eagerly waiting for Him look like?
· Last week I mentioned the ancient Jewish Marriage ceremony and how the groom would offer the cup to the woman and make a marriage covenant to her and if she took the cup and drank it, it would signify her acceptance of his covenant and the groom would offer a bride-price to the father.
· From then on she would become the bride of the groom and be betrothed to him for a year. After the covenant was made and the bride was betrothed, the groom would then return to his father’s house and prepare a room for his bride.
· This is a beautiful picture of Christ and His bride and how we accept the covenant that Jesus offers to us – the covenant that He has kept in His blood. But I intentionally didn’t share what would follow, because it is appropriate to our passage today.
· You see, the bride would be expected to remain pure and set apart for her groom. During this period, she would be trained and prepared to take on the role of a wife and ensure she was a fitting bride for her groom. And the groom would go and separated from the bride in order to prepare a place for her in his father’s house and after a set period of time, he would return.
· Now, the bride knew that he would return but she didn’t know the exact time or day. So she would be expected to be ready. She would be expected to have her bags packed, to be ready to go with him as soon as he came for her. And the custom used to be that at the end of the period of separation, the groom would come, typically at night, to take his bride to live with him in the place he had prepared for her.
· Even though the bride was eagerly expecting, longing for, looking for her groom’s return, she didn’t know exactly when it would happen. So people would go ahead of him and shout, “behold, the bridegroom is coming, the bridegroom is coming, come out to meet him!”, and the bride would be expected to be ready to go with him and they would return to his father’s house, where a great feast had been prepared and many guests invited for a time of feasting and celebrating.
· It was with the awareness of these customs that the people heard Jesus tell the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. They were members of the wedding party and had all been invited to the feast but five of them were foolish and unprepared for the return of the bridegroom and five were wise and were prepared. And the bridegroom was delayed and so they became drowsy and slept. “But at midnight there was a cry, 'Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.'
· Then the ones who were prepared rose and trimmed their lamps. “And the foolish [ones] said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise answered, saying, 'Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.' And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.' But he answered, 'Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.' Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
· The point of the parable is that those who are eagerly, wisely awaiting the return are those who will enter into the marriage feast. But those who are unprepared will not have a second chance and will be cast out and the Lord will say to them that he didn’t know them.
· So we are to watch, to eagerly expect, the Lord’s return because we don’t know the day nor the hour. So, what does this kind of watching look like? Are we to have literal lamps and oil ready? No, but we are to watch. To live lives that show that we are watching. To live our lives as if we really are aware that Jesus will return to save us from judgment.
· It is to live in a way that isn’t attached to the things of this world, as if they are what will really satisfy us.
· So, we need to ask ourselves “How are we living in light of eternity ?” This is especially true this time of year, with the hustle and bustle of the season. What we're doing and who we are going to visit, what we're going to buy, all of these things can consume us.
· What we have for Christmas dinner and where we will have it can become more of a focus this season than focusing on Jesus and the fact that the reason He came was to take our place, to rescue us, to die for us and put away sins, so that we might be saved.
· We need to ask ourselves whether our focus in this season is on the right person and in the right place. Most of us are aware of many pressures and expectations. So, especially in a time like this, we need to have our focus reoriented.
· Maybe you’re trying to get a lot done at work, so you can take time off. College students are home and have time off – which can be a blessing and a challenge both.
· Some parents may be stressed out about whether your kids come visit you for as long as you’d like or visit at all.
· Most of us will struggle with difficult relatives at some point. And it is interesting how eternal perspectives are most often revealed in the little things, in routines.
· Our passage and the parable of the virgins remind us though, of why our perspective matters.
· Judgment is coming for those who die in their sins. But Jesus is coming back to save. This is critically important and it's not just ritual. Think about your life in the next two weeks. What will your life look like? What is consuming you?
· There is something much bigger than this for all of us. Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year but this is not what we are living for the most. We need to think about what is most important.
· When I was a kid, I eagerly waited for Christmas. I looked forward to it; I thought about it, I dreamed about it. And this is the sort of eager expectation that we are meant to have not for presents or sentiment, but for Jesus Himself.
· For some of us, we cannot imagine that what is up ahead is even better than now. There is not an idea that what God has planned is even better. For many people this is as good as it gets. Be careful because it could be and that would be scary.
· Living in a manner that is “eagerly awaiting”, is to live a radical life that says that what really matter is Christ and His return for His Bride. But if you are not sure you are ready for the Lord’s return, you can be ready.
· You can trust in the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus on your behalf in a way that makes you eager for His return. And this eager expectation, this kind of watching for His return is a sign of the fact that we have really entered into a covenant with Him and that we want to live with Him and for Him and give ourselves fully to Him.
“This eager expectation for Christ is simply a sign that we
love him and believe in him authentically. There is a phony faith that wants
only escape from hell, but has no desire for Christ. That does not save. And it
does not produces an eager expectation for Christ to come. It would rather that
Christ not come for as long as possible so that it can have as much of this
world as possible. But the faith that really holds on to Christ as treasure and
hope and joy is the faith that makes us long for Christ to come, and that is
the faith that saves. So I urge you, turn from the world and from sin and to
Christ. Take him not just as your fire insurance policy, but as your eagerly
awaited bridegroom and friend and Lord.” – John Piper
·
The final book of the Bible, the Revelation of
Jesus Christ, is all about anticipating the coming of the bridegroom. At the
beginning of Revelation, in the first chapter it says, Revelation 1:7 “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.”
· And the end of revelation leaves us anticipating the return of the bridegroom, and that is where we will close:
Revelation 22:12-21 "Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my
recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the first and the last, the beginning and the end." 14 Blessed are those who wash
their robes,1 so that they may have the right to the tree of life
and that they may enter the city by the gates.
15 Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually
immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices
falsehood. 16 "I, Jesus,
have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am
the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star." 17 The Spirit and the Bride say,
"Come." And let the one who hears say, "Come." And let the
one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without
price… He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming
soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! 21
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.”
Potential
Application Questions:1. When tragedy strikes and evil people do evil things, where is your hope? How do we find hope in Christ when tragedy strikes?
2. Does our peace and security rest in Jesus Christ, what He has done in putting away sins and what He will do to save us and redeem the world? If not, what are the false things that we are tempted to put our hope in?
3. How does it affect the way that you think about your sin to know that for those who trust in Jesus, His death has put away your sin?
4. Read Romans 7:15 through 8:5 out loud and think about what it is saying. In what areas of your life can you identify with the verses in Romans 7:15-25?
5. Do you feel dirty, defiled, unworthy or even evil? How does knowing that Jesus died to put away your sins change the way you view Jesus? How does this reassure you that there is no condemnation for you in Christ Jesus?
6. Jesus died to welcome us into God’s presence. How do you take up this invitation? How do you come into God’s presence on a daily and weekly basis? If you don’t come into God’s presence very often, what does that say about where you are trusting and looking for help?
7. If you knew you were going to die next month, what would you do differently? What things would you see as significant? How would you speak and act?
8. How can we live eagerly as if Christ could return at any moment?
9. What things tend to consume you in the holiday season? How can you keep an eternal perspective on these things?
10. How does knowing that we all have a day that has been appointed for us to die help us to live wisely?
11. How is God calling you personally to wait eagerly for Christ’s return? What changes do you need to make in your own life to prepare for the Lord’s return?
12. How does this motivate you to go and make disciples? How can you practically incorporate evangelism and disciple making into your daily life on a regular, continual basis? How can you help each other stay “on-mission” in making disciples?
