Obedience Required - [Hebrews 10:1-10]

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It is no surprise that God requires obedience. It's not unknown that God, the
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Creator, expects His creatures to obey. God's laws are to be kept.
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God's standards are to be lived up to. Obedience is not an option.
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Please take your Bibles and turn to 1 Samuel chapter 15. 1 Samuel 15, and I want to give you a stark, memorable reminder that God requires obedience.
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It's one of those chapters in the Bible, when you read it, you'll think to yourself, wow, that's hard to believe it's in the
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Bible, and in fact, without commentary, I get the point. 1
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Samuel chapter 15, and every time you see all caps
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Lord, that's of course His personal name, God, Yahweh. 1
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Samuel 15, and Samuel said to Saul, Yahweh sent me to anoint you king over His people Israel.
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Now therefore, listen to the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, I have noted what
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Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came out of Egypt. Now go, strike
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Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.
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So Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Telheim, 200 ,000 men on foot and 10 ,000 men of Judah.
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Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley. Then Saul said to the
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Kenites, Go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.
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So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt.
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And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword.
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But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fatted calves and of the lambs and all that was good and would not utterly destroy them.
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All that was despised and worthless, they devoted to destruction. Verse 10, the word of Yahweh came to Samuel.
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I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.
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Samuel was angry and cried to the Lord all night. And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning.
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And it was told Samuel, Saul came to Carmel and behold, he set up a monument for himself, turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.
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Samuel came to Saul and Saul said to him, Blessed be you to the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the
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Lord. Samuel said, What then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?
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Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the
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Lord your God and the rest we have devoted to destruction. Then Samuel said to Saul, Stop, I will tell you what the
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Lord said to me this night. And he said to him, Speak. Verse 17,
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Samuel said, Though you were little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel, and the
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Lord sent you on a mission and said, Go devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.
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Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the
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Lord? And Saul said to Samuel, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on a mission on which the
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Lord sent me. I have brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the
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Amalekites to destruction. But the people took the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the
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Lord your God in Gilgal. And Samuel said, Has not
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Yahweh as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the
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Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.
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For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the
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Lord, He has also rejected you from being king. Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the
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Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me, that I may bow before the
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Lord. And Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the
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Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel. As Samuel turned to go away,
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Saul seized the skirt of his robe and it tore. Samuel said to him, The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you.
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And also the glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man that he should have regret.
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Then he said, I have sinned, yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me that I may bow before the
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Lord your God. So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul bowed before the Lord. Then Samuel said,
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Bring here to me Agag, the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came to him cheerfully.
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Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past. And Samuel said, As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.
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And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.
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Then Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house in Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel did not see
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Saul again until the day of his death. But Samuel grieved over Saul, and the Lord regretted that he had made
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Saul king over Israel. What's the first thought when you hear that read?
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When you hear those words? It's amazing. It's fascinating. And right there in the center tucked in, the
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Lord has great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifice. No, behold, to obey is better than what?
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Sacrifice. Now think about it. God requires obedience. And if there was obedience, would there have to be a sacrifice?
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In other words, if you obey God, do you need a sacrifice for the sin of disobeying?
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Sacrifice is for disobeying people. The disobedient should die, but the sacrifice dies in their place.
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And now if you'll take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter 10, we this morning are going to look at Jesus, who as the priest is both the high priest and the sacrifice.
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There's no sacrifice needed if we were obeying people. Hebrews chapter 10.
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I cannot believe that you, dear church, pay my bills so I get to study all week and then get to tell you about the
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Lord Jesus Christ every Sunday. Colossians chapter 128 is true. Him we proclaim.
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If you've come to hear a sermon about Jesus Christ, you've come to the right place. Isn't it wonderful every week to be reminded of our great
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Lord and Savior, not just with the word, but today also with the elements. And we're going to talk about a God who...
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That doesn't bother me at all. Stay, please. After that piano offeratory, you can just stay as much as you want.
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See, it's a workspace thing around here. Perform well, you stay in my presence. And when we come to this book, really, it's a sermon.
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And the whole sermon is, whatever you think about Jesus, whatever you can imagine about Him, He's better than you imagined.
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And He tries to go from every single angle, maybe angles you haven't even thought of. Lots of times we think about Jesus as a
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King or Savior, and He's that in this book, but He's more than that. You just can't come up with this
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God. No one could devise Him. No wonder Psalm 50, God says to us,
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You thought that I was altogether like you. He's just different. Luther said to Erasmus, Your thoughts of God are too human.
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And here in this book, the theme is, Jesus is superior. Jesus is better, and you need to make sure you focus on Him, because, friends, the just shall live by what?
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Faith. And that faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's shorthand for the justified people, those declared righteous in God's sight, those who are not condemned, walk, they live, trusting in Jesus.
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They're not paying attention to what they see necessarily. They're seeing things through the lens of this great
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God. And when you've got trials that are huge, you need a God who's bigger than those trials.
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Is that true? You know, if you get through life, that's why a lot of word -faith people, I think, are young and rich and healthy.
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It's when you become older, and you're looking at things in a different manner, and you've got fewer years or months on this side than you had on that side to live, and you think, you know what?
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If death is grim, if death is mighty, if Satan's real, I need somebody who's better than death, who's conquered death, and who is better than Satan.
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And if you're like me, when I'm trying to walk by faith and not by sight, too easily my eyes are diverted off the path of walking by faith.
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You get a phone call and you're diverted. You're watching a show, you get diverted. You just think about things.
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We are so distracted. And this sermon, this writer, this writer to the book of Hebrews wants to make sure it's almost like you have blinders on.
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Is that what they call them on horses? What do they call them on horses? Blinders, that's right. See, I knew, but I just asked.
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Maybe there's a technical term for it, but it's like, okay, I don't want to look to the left or to the right, because when
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I do, that's when I get in trouble. On the bicycle and on the motorcycle, whether there's something that happens, where you look, that's where you go.
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And so when you're teaching people to ride a bicycle or a motorcycle, you want to make sure they're looking straight ahead, because if there's a pothole here and you say, look at the pothole, you look at the pothole and guess what you do?
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You pick yourself up after crashing in the pothole. So you've got to look straight ahead.
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And if you're to walk by faith, then you've got to keep your mind on this object, the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And He goes out of His way to keep saying the same thing over and over and over, but just in a wonderful way, a brilliant way.
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And this morning's outline from Hebrews chapter 10 is pretty simple. Let me ask this question. Why was
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Jesus born? Why was Jesus born? Before you know it, it'll be Christmas time. Maybe I could phrase it this way.
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Why did Christmas have to happen? That's what we're going to answer today in the book of Hebrews chapter 10.
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Why did Jesus Christ have to be born? Well, let's answer it number one in verses 1 through 4 of chapter 10.
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Christ had to be born because all other sacrifices for sin were inadequate.
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Christ had to be born because all other sin sacrifices were inadequate. I could make it more general to apply to our life.
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Christ had to be born because we could never get rid of our sins. We could never pay for our sins on this earth to avoid hell.
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We have to have a sacrifice. Our sacrifices don't do. How do people get rid of their sins?
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Now remember, He's writing to Hebrew people, so He's talking in this way that is flush with Old Testament language,
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Old Covenant language, Mosaic law language. Let me read verses 1 through 4. Christ had to come because sacrifices less than Jesus' sacrifice would never do.
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For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.
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Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?
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But in these sacrifices, there's a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
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Here's what's going on, big picture. Since there's an ongoing sacrifice, and He's talking about the
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Day of Atonement, but you could be thinking there are other sacrifices too, Passover and other sacrifice for sin.
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But Day of Atonement happened every year. Why? Because it was done once and it never had to be repeated because all the sins were taken away?
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No, it was done every year because it wasn't adequate. It wasn't sufficient. It was
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God -ordained, yes. It was pleasing to God in the sense of preparation only. I don't know if you have a
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Greek Bible, but if you did, the first word in Hebrews 10 .1 is emphatic because it's out of place in the original language.
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And that word is shadow. All these Old Testament sacrifices were shadows.
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They were silhouettes. When I was a kid and I did a lot of coloring book stuff,
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I guess coloring books for Christians is big now too. But back in my day, only kids did coloring books, or grandpas, or moms, or dads.
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I would always trace the outside of Batman before I colored him in.
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Darker kind of marker on the outside. Does that make sense? I also put boots on Batman because all men wore boots.
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So I have this funny Batman boot thing going on. Then you would fill in the rest.
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You kind of color it in, and if you kind of made a mistake, it was already covered by that dark outline. It's almost the same thing.
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The Old Testament, when you look at it, it's got the outline, it's got the silhouette, it's got kind of the dim part, but you're going to need the
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New Testament to focus that in, to color it out. It was meant for you to go, you know what, this is a shadow, that's the reality.
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This is kind of blurry, that's focused. If you get binoculars and just put them up to your eye and try to look out in the cape and see a boat, it needs some kind of adjustments, right?
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You're going to need the New Testament for this to be adjusted. And these sacrifices, these shadows, showed something.
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With its frequency, it showed failure, as one writer said. Instead of remission, what does verse 3 say?
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Instead of remission of sins, you get a reminder of sins.
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How would you like to have a reminder of sins every single year? They're still not covered. By the way, verse 4 says, out of all the thousands of bulls or goats or animals slain, millions, not one single sin was atoned for by all those sacrifices.
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They might have been covered, but never atoned for. And the writer is saying, these things never took away sin.
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And by the way, if they did, you don't need Jesus. And by the way, if you're tempted to run back to Judaism, you're tempted to go back to what?
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The empty set, to more sacrifices? They don't do anything. You could even be thinking, maybe you're the old religion that you came from.
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You're like, well, this kind of born -again stuff I don't know about. My life is harder now. Maybe I'll go back to my old school kind of religion.
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If it's not Jesus Christ and Him crucified, the resurrected Savior, it doesn't do any good. You're running back to nothing.
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You're running back to the shadow. The great day of atonement, can you imagine?
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What happened every year? What if you were 80 years old and you would watch what was going on before the high priest went into the holy place and then the
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Holy of Holies? And you're thinking, I have seen this thing 70 times and I could see it 700 more if I would live to be as old as Methuselah, but it's not working.
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It's a perfect illustration of something better to come, but it's a shadow.
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It's not the substance. As Lewis Johnson says, the expression shadow means outline, the silhouette, the law having the outline of good things to come.
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We read the Old Testament in that way. We read through the Old Testament and we, on the authority of the
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New Testament, we look for the things that remind us of the things that we know have come to pass and further explain it.
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That's one of the great benefits of reading the Bible. Verse 1 says,
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For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come, instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, and you can get the kind of language, day in, day out, over and over and over, by the same sacrifices, plural, that are continually offered every year, make perfect, or stand before God as holy, those who draw near.
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It doesn't work. We just sang this song in his prayer.
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He will by never, no never, no never forsake. These sacrifices can never, no never, no never forgive.
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And you can hear the preacher in verse 2, as he asks the question. Good preachers should ask questions. He does often.
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And there's a question at the end, the question mark at the end of verse 2. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?
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If you knew it worked and your conscience reflected that, why would you have a day of atonement the next year?
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Why don't you just take your knives, that you would keep sharp? Can you imagine? I have a lot of duties as a pastor, but one of my duties is not keep my knives sharp for the sacrifices you bring in.
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Now, this priest can just let his knives be turned into rust, as far as we're concerned.
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They don't need to be used for sacrifices anymore. He asked in verse 2 that rhetorical question.
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And for a Jew to hear this, they must have been going apoplectic. You mean to tell me?
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Are you sane? And the answer is, there's one final sacrifice by Jesus the high priest, one and done.
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It lasts forever. Are you trying to tell me that? The answer is yes. I'm trying to tell you that. Verse 3, it's kind of a
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PS. It's kind of a reminder. It's kind of a postscript. Don't forget this.
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But in these sacrifices, there's a reminder of sins every... That's not a good thing.
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This New Covenant Jesus, go back to 8 .12 and you'll see, because of the one and done sacrifice of Jesus, it is finished.
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Instead of being reminded of sins every year, how about this, 8 .12, for I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins, what?
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No more. There's no more remembrance, because Jesus doesn't remember.
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What does that sound like? That sounded funny, didn't it? I don't manuscript my sermons,
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FYI. Every sacrifice
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I would do, I'd be thinking, oh yeah, my sins, my sins, my sins. But since Jesus paid for my sins, now the sacrifice that we remember of the risen
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Savior is, He doesn't remember my sins. God doesn't remember my sins anymore. This, by the way, is language only used here in Hebrews 10 and of the
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Lord's Supper. Do this in what with the Lord's Supper? We have the bread and we have the cup and we say, because of the
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Lord Jesus said, do this in what? Remembrance of me. That's the exact same language. We're doing this in remembrance of Jesus, because in those old sacrifices, the only thing we can remember was, we're not forgiven.
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And by the way, when you see the word remember in the Bible, especially when it's talking about God, it doesn't mean this.
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You know, God has a lot of people that He's omnisciently involved with. And sometimes
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He might forget some of the people in West Boylston. He's thinking about Manhattan, right?
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Because He's in it for the city. No, just kidding. When does the radio host stop and the preacher begin?
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This isn't a word God doesn't remember. God is omniscient. He doesn't learn.
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He doesn't forget. He knows everything. He's the God, Hannah said, of knowledges. Noah's on the ark.
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Genesis 8, verse 1 says, but God, what? Remembered Noah. What does that mean? It means
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He's going to do something about it. Action is required. The thief on the cross. Jesus, remember me when
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You come to Your kingdom. Not just, oh yeah, some kind of psychological thing where I didn't know, now I remember.
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No. 73 times in the Old Testament, remember is used with God as the one remembering.
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Action is involved. When we remember our sins, we can either, as believers, grovel back in them, or we can remember that Jesus paid for them and we remember what
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He's done. When God remembers sins, if it's an unbeliever, He punishes them.
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If it's a believer, He has punished the son in their place. At the bottom line marker, it's simply the sin payment that has to be done every year is not a real sin payment.
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You could just imagine every day of atonement, the priest could come out after he slays the animal and he could say, it's not finished.
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It's not finished. It's not finished. It's not finished. Because there'll be another year, another high priest, and I'll have to do it over again.
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That's a lot different than the Lord Jesus on the cross. The better sacrifice we need, not just a covering, but a cleansing.
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Verse 4, it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. That old shadow was set up by God.
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It wasn't wrong because it was ordained by God, but it just wasn't the substance. It was just the shadow.
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I love Isaac Watt's song. Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain.
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But Christ the heavenly Lamb takes all our sins away, a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they.
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Friends, okay, let's just make it practical. I have committed certain sins that I wish
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I couldn't remember. Can you identify? Don't you wish you could go back in time and not do it?
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I mean, I remember those things. Now, does God know those things? Do they know that they've happened?
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Yes, because God doesn't unknow things. He's omniscient. But the idea, He doesn't remember your sins anymore.
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There's nothing for Him to be angry about with those. He doesn't even need to bring those up because the
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Lord Jesus paid for every one of those. And when God sees you, while you might think of those sins regularly,
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God never does. How about that? I think that's pretty good news. Whatever skeletons are in your closet, and you're like, how does
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God see me? Does He see me as that struggling person, that sinful person, that wicked person?
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You know how He sees you, Christian? If you're not a Christian, He sees you as enemy and one in rebellion.
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But if you're a Christian, if you're a son or a daughter, He sees you in Christ. Jesus has paid for those sins.
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As a matter of fact, He has lived the life that you should have lived, but you didn't when you fell into those temptations. Everything about this points you to the true sacrifice of Jesus.
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Chuck Swindoll said if the author of Hebrews could have used bold font,
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Hebrews 10 .4 probably would have been emphasized. Not one drop of blood from any animal ever gave forgiveness of one sin.
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Repetition doesn't help. Number two, question two, why did
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Jesus come to this earth? Why do we need Christmas? It's a little early for a
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Christmas sermon, isn't it? Christ had to be born because all other sin sacrifices were inadequate.
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Chapter 10 verses 1 -4. Secondly, Christ had to be born because only His sacrifice, only
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His life and death could fulfill God's will. Only His life and death could fulfill
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God's will. Hebrews 10 .5, 6 and 7. Consequently, Hebrews 10 .5,
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when Christ came into the world, He said, by the way, what did you say when you came into the world? We're going to have a new little crane baby here pretty soon.
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I wonder what that crane baby will say. Is it she? He. What will He say when
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He comes to the world? I have an idea. Now, already we're thinking pre -existence because when
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He comes into the world means He's already existed before the world began. He doesn't begin at His birth.
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He doesn't begin at His conception. The Eternal Son, when He comes into the world, He said.
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What does Jesus say when He comes into the world? This Semitic way of talking about birth and arrival.
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Here's what Jesus says. Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for Me.
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In burnt offerings and in sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, you want to know how important obedience is?
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I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of Me in the scroll of the book.
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When Jesus comes, since all of our lives, those who were before Jesus and those who are after, tried to obey
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God's law, love God, love neighbor, do the Ten Commandments, do the moral law of God, obey
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God, we never could. Therefore, somebody needs to. It's not enough just to punish people or punish
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Jesus for the sins of people, but God expects someone to live like Adam lived without sin.
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To live like Adam did except not eat of the fruit of the tree. You know what
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I love about this little section? This is like you're eavesdropping on the
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Trinity. The Trinity is talking to one another. One God, three persons. One eternal
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God subsisting in three persons. And it's like you're kind of... Can you find out this information when you look at trees or go to the golf course for your worship?
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You can't find this in any way unless God tells you. And here's what he told you. When Christ comes in the world, he's got a plan.
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David, he won't obey. Abram, he won't obey. Sarah, she won't obey.
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And the list goes on. So we're gonna have to have one, a king who represents people who's gonna come and perfectly obey.
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And Jesus comes and he says, you know, when I come to the world, I'm here to obey. It's fascinating to me.
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It's wonderful. This, by the way, is from Psalm 40. Psalm 40.
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And you can probably see maybe some indentations in your paragraph in your Bible there so you can get the idea it's an
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Old Testament quote. These wonderful words of Psalm 40 are inserted into the mouth of Jesus by the writer because this was the attitude and the thoughts of Jesus as he comes into the world.
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What a conversation that must have been. He's quoting
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Psalm 40 for lots of reasons. Here's one. I can just imagine if I'm a Jewish person and I'm hearing the writer of Hebrew say this,
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I'm like, uh -uh, time out. Give me chapter and verse. I want you to prove it from the Bible. Here's from Moses to Malachi.
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I want you to prove from the Bible this is true. And so now he goes to Psalm 40 and says, here, listen, there's a greater
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David. David couldn't live up to these things. Psalm 51 that we learned in Sunday school with David and Bathsheba proved that.
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Christ comes into the world. He's born and He comes to obey. That's why
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He has to be human. If you're trying to tell kids Jesus is God and man. He's fully
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God and fully man. Why does He have to be fully God? Well, because He is.
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That would be a good answer. Because He can't undo that divinity. But let's first answer why does
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He have to be man? Because God expects people to obey and for Jesus to be our representative He has to be a man.
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He has to be God so He doesn't lose His deity but also because He can have enough righteousness, infinite amount of righteousness to bestow on all those who would ever believe.
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A body is needed to do what Adam couldn't do.
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Now, I don't know if you want to go here. Maybe just keep your finger on Hebrews 10. Go to Psalm 40 for just a second and I want you to just see where this is coming from.
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Psalm 40. Because there's a different translation between Hebrews 10 and Psalm 40 and it's caused some consternation in some people's minds.
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But there's an easy explanation. Psalm 40, verse 6.
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This is where the quote comes from. See if you can tell the difference between what I said in Hebrews 10, 5 through 7 and now
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Psalm 40, verses 6 through 8. "...in sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given
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Me an open ear. Burn offering and sin offering you have not required.
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Then I said, Behold, I have come in the scroll of the book as it is written of Me. I delight to do your will.
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O my God, your law is written in My heart." Now what comes to my mind right away is that second little stanza in verse 6.
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"...but you have given Me an open ear." What's that all about? You've given Me an open ear?
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That sounds a lot different than but a body you've prepared for Me. Let's go back to Hebrews 10. You've given
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Me an open ear, you've got a body prepared for Me. What's all that about? Now some people think
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Psalm 40 with the open ear was kind of alluding to that custom where you would have a slave and that slave would work for you and when the slave's duty was done and he didn't have to re -up to work for you any longer, he could be cut free, that slave could say, you know what,
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Master, you're such a great master, I want to work for you the rest of my life as an indentured servant and then
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I want you to take my earlobe and run that all through it, that piece of metal.
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What's another word for all? Yeah, some kind of...
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Who just said ice pick? Ice pick? Go to the third row with the coppers, please.
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And you've got this, you know, the lobe of the ear is kind of bored out because you're saying, you know what, I want to serve that master with joy because he's such a great master.
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I like the idea, although I don't think that's what he's after. What do you mean I've got some open ear?
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He's dug an ear for me. Essentially it's this. This is where you receive the commands from people to be obedient.
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And here the Lord has an attentive ear. He's ready to obey. Open ears.
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A readiness to hear and obey the will of God, so said Wiersbe. Jesus said, my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and accomplish
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His work. Isaiah 50, the Lord God has opened my ear. I was not rebellious.
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I did not turn backward. Jesus says, you know, you've given me a body.
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That's according to Hebrews. It's no different than Psalms when the ear's open. Now the Messiah has an ear, so He's ready to obey.
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Perfectly obeying. Gladly obeying. A body prepared for Jesus so that He may obey as your representative.
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Psalm 51, you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it, said David. You're not pleased with burnt offerings.
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Sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise.
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Let's go back to Hebrews 10, verse 6. Hebrews 10, 6 says what? In burnt offerings and sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure.
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I mean, when it comes to either obeying or sacrifice, what would you pick? Well, there's no sacrifice if you obey.
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If you simply obey, nobody needs to be sacrificed for you. So that's the idea with this language from the Psalms.
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And we have Jesus in verse 7, willingly wanting to obey. Doing what the elect must do but could not do.
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Jesus, the guarantor of a better covenant, says simply, verse 7, I've come to do
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Your will, oh God, as it is written of Me in the scroll of the book. Dear congregation, true or false, you're saved by works.
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True or false, you're saved by doing. True or false, you're saved by obedience. And the answer is, yes, yes, and yes.
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And before you kick me out, it's not our works because our works are sullied and tainted and our motives aren't right.
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They're the works of another. Adam, do. He couldn't do. Abram in the wilderness, do.
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He couldn't do. And the list goes on and on and on. And here in Jesus, when He comes into the world,
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He says, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do. God requires obedience.
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We can't, so we need the obedience of another. And you can see Jesus' entire life leading to the cross and then the cross as one typified by a word, obedience.
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In everything, Jesus is obeying. And you look when Jesus is 12 at the temple, He's obeying
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His heavenly Father. When you look at Jesus cleansing lepers, He's obeying the heavenly Father to show the compassion of the
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Messiah. When He is forgiving sins on earth, He is showing that God is merciful and kind to people, obeying
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God. Remember, we're going to talk about this next week. In eternity past, the Trinity still existed.
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God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, and they made a plan to go rescue sinners. And the
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Father said, Son, go rescue the elect. Go obey for them and die for their disobedience and go rescue them.
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And the Son said, Father, I would love to do that. You love sinners. I love sinners. The Son comes.
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He perfectly obeys. He doesn't abolish the law, but He fulfills it. He earns righteousness for us. And then
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He dies for the disobedience of the sins of the people. Then God the Father is pleased.
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He raises Him from the dead and therefore we're saved by works, the
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Lord Jesus' works. And I love the verse 7. It is written of me.
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It stands written of me. It's always written of me. Obey our sacrifice.
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Jesus obeys the positive demands of the law and becomes a sacrifice to pay for the penalties of the laws that we have broken.
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That's why we talk about Jesus as meriting salvation. He earns our salvation by obedience.
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Some people call this the active and passive obedience of Jesus. He's actively obeying all the laws that a person should and He receives the judgment of God for the sins
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He never committed. He was not active in any of those sins because He never committed a sin. So He receives the judgment from the
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Father and makes propitiation for our sins. He's assuaging the wrath of God, exhausting the wrath of God, extinguishing the wrath of God in our place.
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So He's obeying the law. That's called active obedience. Passive obedience, He's receiving judgment for our sins.
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And by the way, if this God has done this for you and you're trusting in Him by faith, therefore when
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God sees you, He sees Jesus perfectly obeying in your place, positively, actively obeying, and then
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He doesn't see your sins anymore because they're gone. He remembers them no more. Both the penal sanctions and the positive demands are taken care of by our
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Lord and Savior, the One who's called the Righteous One. I love some of the verses when
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I read in the Bible about the righteous life of Jesus, the obedience of Jesus.
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I love to talk about His death, that's for sure. We've got to talk about His life as well.
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Why did Jesus live? Romans 5, Therefore, as one trespass led to the condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
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For as by the one man's disobedience the many remain sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.
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Christ, Romans 10, is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
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You don't have to get saved anymore by keeping the law because you can't. Christ kept the law for you.
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That's what that verse means. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
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2 Corinthians 5. Philippians 3, Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing
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Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I've suffered the loss of all things. Count them as rubbish in order that I may gain
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Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, not having a law keeping of my own, not meriting things of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
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It's simple. You're here today and you're not a Christian. The blood spilled by a thousand bulls and goats could never forgive you.
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You being spiritual could never forgive you. You being religious could never forgive you. You doing more good than bad could never forgive you.
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You going to confirmation class could never forgive you. You having memberships in churches could never forgive you.
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You giving money to the church could never forgive you. You have water sprinkled on your head or dunked in a tank full of water could never forgive you.
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He's painting this picture here so you say, that's true because if any of those could make myself forgiven, then the death of Jesus was a cosmic mistake.
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It was masochism is what it was. To show Jesus' love for you, the Father would do that to the
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Son and it wouldn't be sin bearing? You've got to be kidding me. But that's the only way it could happen.
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So if you're not trusting today, believing, understanding who Jesus is and saying, Lord have mercy on me a sinner.
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Then you'll answer for your own lawlessness because God expects you to obey. But if you're a
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Christian, while God has expected you to obey perfectly and personally, He knew you didn't.
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He knew you couldn't. And what does He do with such creatures? Despise them?
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Hate them? Regret that He made them? You know what
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He does for His people? He loves them. And He says, here's how much I love you. It's not just that I'm going to give you things.
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I'm not just going to make it... You get rain and food and a family and wonderful things.
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I'll just shower my love with all those things. You know what He gives? He gives His Son. He gives the
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Son to the Lord Jesus. And He says, Son, I know it's going to cost you. You're the eternal
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God. And now you have to be having a body on earth and you get tired and you're going to get dirty and people are going to punch you and spit on you and mock you and scorn you.
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Can you imagine? The Colossians 1 God of the universe is going to so condescend that He's going to do that?
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That's the only hope for anyone because somebody's got to obey. Jesus says to the Father, Father, I'll obey.
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Send Me. And that's exactly what He does. So for the Christian, 1
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Corinthians 1, because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus. You're seen as a law keeper. What's the text say?
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Who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness sanctified and redeemed.
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Christian, you're perfectly righteous. God looks at you like you're a law keeper. How about that?
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You know, promise keepers came out several years ago. By the way, Christian fads come and go, right?
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I don't need more promises to try to keep. Some of them weren't even biblical. How about let's start a new movement for men and women, boys and girls at BBC.
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Law keepers. And we'll trick people because they'll think we're going to say we earn law.
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We do law to earn our standing before God. No, no. Law keepers, small print, in Christ.
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We have totally kept the law. I'm going to go to heaven and you know what a scoundrel
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I am on the inside to only a little degree. And I'm going to stand before God with great joy and I'm going to be blameless because Jesus is my stead.
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He's the one that paid for all my sins, even the ones I made as a Christian. I talked to somebody this week.
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I said, Pastor, I'm really struggling with X, Y, and Z. And the short of the conversation was I put my hand on his shoulder and said,
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Friend, I've got some good news for you. You're worse than you think you are. He didn't know what to do.
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He wanted me to get the holy oil out or something and to do something to him. I said, we only know the one one -hundredth of our sin.
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God knows it all. And he says, I love you anyway. My son's kept the law in your place. He's died for all those sins.
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You're my son now. You are righteous. You are sanctified. You are redeemed. And a
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God like that who would love us like that, it should make us respond with, God, thank you. God, I praise you.
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God, I want to live a life commensurate with that. I want to live a holy life because you're holy.
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We're going to celebrate in just moments this great supper. And here's what the supper says. The supper says,
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Do you know what, dear Christian? God did enough. The supper says,
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When you begin to think, God will accept me if that's wrong thinking.
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God accepts you, Christian, because of the work of Christ. Let's pray. Father in heaven, I thank you for your work, planning, sending.
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I thank you for your son going. I thank you for your spirit attending to the
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Lord Jesus. And that Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
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The whole life of Jesus, obedience. Even the death of Jesus, obedience.
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And your law requires obedience. And now we stand in the stead of our law keeper, the
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Lord Jesus, obedient. Thank you that not one more sacrifice has to be done.