Perfected Forever, Part 1 (Hebrews 10:14)

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Perfected Forever, Part 2 (Hebrews 10:14)

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And now you will need your Bibles open to the 10th chapter of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 10, and we're gonna read together beginning at verse 11 and we'll read through the end of verse 18 of Hebrews 10.

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Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.

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But he, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet.

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For by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the

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Holy Spirit also testifies to us for after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days says the

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Lord, I will put my laws upon their heart and on their mind, I will write them. He then says, and their sins and their lawless deeds,

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I will remember no more. Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

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Let's pray together before we begin. Our Father, may our meditation upon your word and our study of it produce fruit in our hearts and in our minds and in our lives, both now and for all of eternity.

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We pray that you would open our eyes and our hearts to behold in your word wonderful things and that you would sanctify us by the truth and conform us to the image of Christ in whose name we pray, amen.

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We've spent the last several months working through this middle section in the book of Hebrews and we now come to this concluding paragraph which is verses 11 through 18 where the author is bringing together all of the themes that he has been discussing for the last three and a half chapters and we have consistently seen that the purpose of the author is to compare all of the features of the old covenant with the new and even the old covenant with the new and in every turn and at every time that he describes something from the old covenant and then brings us a new covenant or New Testament parallel, we see that the new has always been better than the old every time

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Christ or what he has provided has been superior. Consistently we have seen that. So now

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I wanna ask you a question that I would like you to reflect upon for just a moment even if it's just for these few moments here at the beginning of the message and here is the question.

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Is there any way in which any feature of the old covenant is superior to the new covenant?

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Is there any way in which any feature of the old covenant is superior to the new covenant?

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Now we all know what it is like to get something new that replaces something old. Don't we?

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A new phone, a new computer, a new car, a new appliance, a new tool, a new software update, a new operating system.

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But typically when we get something that is new that replaces something old, even if we've been expecting it and anticipating it and looking forward to it, typically when we compare the new thing with the old thing, there are all of the new features that we really like but then there are a whole bunch of the old features that we really like that are no longer there in the new version.

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You ever notice that? Everybody has had that happen, right? With a phone, with a computer, with an appliance, you get something new and you think

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I was really looking forward to that new thing. Really looking forward to it. All of the new features, the new bells, the new whistles, all of the new flashy stuff, it's faster, it's better, it's shinier, it's nicer, it's more expensive.

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Nicier, nicer is not a word. It's nicer, it's more expensive. And you compare the new thing with the old thing that you replaced and then you always look at the new thing and think all of these things are great.

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Those new features, those good features are the very reason why I upgraded from the old thing.

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But then there's always some noodle head in the development and design department somewhere who decides that he's going to take that old feature that you really like, that you thought was perfect and never needed to be changed and he was going to update it or upgrade it, right?

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Somebody somewhere decided to take the power button on my phone off of the top and put it on the side.

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Now I am forever taking screenshots of everything that I'm not interested in taking screenshots with. And I think who was the noodle head who came up with that idea?

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Everything else about it was great, but that feature, I would like to go back to that. In the new covenant, we are given a new priest in a new priesthood.

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Is there any way in which the old priest with the old priesthood was superior, better, more effective than Jesus?

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Is there anything about that old covenant that was just any feature of that? I mean, we've obviously upgraded and we're thankful on the whole for the upgrades, but is there any feature of the old covenant that is just a little bit better than something that we have been provided in the new?

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We have a new priest and a new priesthood. How about the sacrifices? A different sacrifice, only one sacrifice as opposed to many sacrifices.

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But when we compare and we look at the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament, there were so many of them, so many different kinds of them for so many different functions.

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There were personal sacrifices and public sacrifices and private individual sacrifices and corporate sacrifices and planned sacrifices and unplanned sacrifices, spontaneous sacrifices, foreseeable sacrifices, bloody sacrifices, unbloody sacrifices, food sacrifices and wine sacrifices, all kinds of sacrifices.

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We have all that from the Old Testament. When you look at all those animal sacrifices, is there anything about those sacrifices of the

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Old Testament, the old covenant, that when you compare it to the sacrifice of Jesus, you would say at least this feature was a little bit better, more effective, more, it was superior to that which we are provided in the new.

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That's the question. Is there any way, any feature of the

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Old Testament, of the old covenant that is superior to what we have been given in Jesus Christ? I wish

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I could stop right there and have you go home and think about that for the rest of this week and to examine your own theology and your own thinking regarding the sacrifice of Christ and say, is there anything that is a downgrade?

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Obviously, we get all the upgrades. One sacrifice as opposed to many. A priest that never dies as opposed to a priesthood with perpetual priests.

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An intercessor who knows how to perfectly intercede for us as opposed to those sometimes pious but sometimes wicked

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Old Testament priests that didn't necessarily know how to intercede for us. We've received all of these upgrades. But is there something, is there anything, is there one little form or feature of that that was just a little bit better than what we have?

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That question is germane to the text that we're looking at today in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 14.

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This is the concluding paragraph, verses 11 through 18. And we looked at 11, 12, and 13 last week.

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And so we come to verse 14, which really is the central statement of this concluding paragraph. And it is not just the central statement of this concluding paragraph here in Hebrews chapter 10.

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It is actually the conclusion to the argument that he has been making for three and a half chapters. And we come in verse 14 to probably one of the most memorable, the most quotable, the most glorious and concise statements on the efficacy and power of the sacrifice of Christ that we find anywhere in the book of Hebrews.

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I would venture to say probably anywhere in the New Testament. This is the most glorious statement that we could ever be presented with.

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And it is right here at the middle of this concluding chapter. Chapter 10, verse 14. For by one offering, he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

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What a sentence. By one offering, he, that is Christ, has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

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That is a glorious statement. And this sentence really brings together a number of themes that we've been looking at for the last three and a half chapters.

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And it is, I think, the gem of this entire middle section of the book of Hebrews. For by one offering,

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Christ has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. In that one sentence, in that one statement, we have a description of the effect of the sacrifice of Christ, the effect of his atonement, the effect of his sacrifice.

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With that statement, he has perfected for all time, that is the effect of his death.

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And we also have there a statement as to the extent of his death, to those who are sanctified.

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The effect of his sacrifice and the extent of his sacrifice. We're just gonna, we're gonna look at both of those this morning here in verse 14.

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Let's look first at the effect of his sacrifice. You'll notice that verse 14 repeats something that he said up in verse 12.

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In fact, he repeats something that he has been saying almost since the beginning of this discussion back in chapter seven regarding the priesthood of Jesus.

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That Jesus' sacrifice is only a one -time sacrifice as opposed to a multiple -time sacrifice.

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Verse 12, he said, but he, having offered one sacrifice for sins, and I would just remind you, we're not gonna go over that again because we've done it so many times since chapter seven, but I would just remind you that this is the one glaring beauty of the sacrifice of Christ to an

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Old Testament Jew, or what should have been. They should have seen the one -time sacrifice of Christ as being that, that is the quality that makes it so glorious that he didn't have to offer a sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice.

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He didn't have to come back from heaven and offer yet another sacrifice. That one, once -for -all sacrifice was sufficient to do everything it was intended to do, and it does it perfectly, it does it fully, and it does it finally, and it does it forever.

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It perfects those for whom it is made. And that one -time sacrifice should have stood out to the

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Jews as being so much different than everything they were familiar with. All they were familiar with was the multitudes of sacrifices, the thousands of animals that were offered, the thousands of offerings that were given.

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And along comes Jesus and does all of that which the Old Testament sacrifices could not do, he does in one offering.

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And the offering that is described in verse 14, just in case you missed it, is not an animal offering, it's not a drink offering, it's not a grain offering, it's not a financial offering.

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The offering that is being described here is the offering of himself. For by one offering, for one sacrifice for sins, has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

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Now I want you to notice that word perfected. This is an interesting word. It's frequently used in the book of Hebrews. We've seen it a number of times.

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I've described in the past what it is that it means, but this whole theme of being perfected kind of comes to a head right here in chapter 10, verse 14.

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So it's important for us to give some consideration to what the author means when he says that we have been perfected. There's a range of meaning for this word, and I don't want you to think of it in terms of its moral quality, because the

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Greek word translated perfected does not necessarily describe the moral quality of that which is perfected.

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The word means, and oh, one other thing I should mention. The book of Hebrews uses the word in a slightly different way in some contexts as opposed to others.

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In other words, it's not like there's just one meaning to this word and the author uses it consistently throughout. There are multiple meanings to this word, and the author varies the nuances of what he means by perfected.

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By using the same word, he employs different meanings. That way, as you look at how he uses it throughout the book, you kind of say, oh,

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I see what he's doing here, and kind of in another way, there's another aspect of this word that is true of this group over here, okay?

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So there's multiple ways in which it is used. Here's the meaning of that word perfected. It means to bring to completion, to accomplish fully, to reach the goal, to complete or to be finished, to make fit or to make full.

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Kind of has somewhat of the idea of maturity, bringing something to its appointed goal or its appointed end.

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That is the word. So it can describe something that is completed or accomplished, right?

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I mowed my lawn, I perfected it. Now, my lawn might not be perfect. It might not look like the ball diamond at the local baseball park, but I have completed it in the sense that I brought it to completion and I have perfected that task.

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You could also use the word to describe filling out the number of something. So if you say, we were going on a seven -day trip and we got to the end of it, we could say that we had completed our seven days or we had fulfilled the seven days of our journey, and it's used that way in scripture of the days being completed or the days being perfected, simply meaning that that which was allotted for this task, they had gone all the way through it and completed it or brought it to fulfillment, the end of that accomplished task.

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Does that make sense? That's how the word is used. So it's not necessarily a moral word. When we think of perfection, sometimes we are thinking in terms of its moral quality, that something is perfect, meaning that it is without flaw.

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That's not necessarily true. It just means that it's completed or accomplished. Sometimes we think of, we just say some of you think that you're perfect or you act as if you're perfect or sometimes you think you're perfect, and what we mean by that, by perfection, is a moral quality, an ethical quality.

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There's not necessarily moral or ethical qualities with this word. It simply means that which is brought to be finished or brought to completion.

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Now, it is used of Jesus. This is not to say that Jesus is not morally perfect. He is. But when it's used of Jesus in the book of Hebrews, the author is not necessarily describing

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Jesus' moral qualities, though those are part of what it means for Jesus to be perfected. So it's used of Jesus in three different ways in the book of Hebrews when it is translated perfected or made perfect, and it simply means to make fit or to complete for a task or to fulfill for a task.

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So here are the ways that the author uses this of Jesus. He speaks of Jesus being perfected. Hebrews 2, verse 10.

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For it was fitting for him from whom are all things and through whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.

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Now, it was a long time ago we were back in Hebrews 2, but there we saw that when the author speaks of Christ being perfected through sufferings, it doesn't mean that he became morally perfect as if he wasn't before that, but simply that through his sufferings, he became fit.

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He became full or accomplished. He was brought to a state of completion for something.

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It was fit for the author of our salvation to make Christ fit through his sufferings.

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And back in chapter two, we saw that what he has in mind is making him able to sympathize with us in our weaknesses.

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Because of his sufferings, he is more fit to intercede for us as our high priest. It's used of Jesus in Hebrews chapter five, verse nine.

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The author says this, and having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation.

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Jesus had been made perfect. Was he not morally pure or not morally perfect before that?

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Before his suffering, before his life here in righteousness on this earth, he was not fit in the sense of necessary completion, having accomplished all that he needed to do to provide for us what the

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Father sent him to provide. But through his suffering and through his life of obedience to the Father, he became fit to do something.

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That's the idea. Hebrews chapter seven, verse 28 uses the word of Jesus. For the law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints a son made perfect forever.

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There is a sense in which Jesus was made fit for a task. His suffering on this earth, all of the humiliation of 30 years lived in this world and seeing the affliction of men and sympathizing with people and being maligned and blasphemed and hated by those around him, all of that experience, everything he experienced by taking human flesh and coming all the way up to the

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Garden of Gethsemane and giving his life for the salvation of his people, all of those experiences fitted him.

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They made him fit or able to do something. And what does the author have in mind there? Again, it's not the moral quality of Jesus.

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He is describing Jesus's fitness for the task of being our high priest, interceding for us, atoning for our sin, paying the price, dying on a cross and saving his people.

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That's the idea. But then it's also used of us. And interestingly, except here in Hebrews 10, 14, when it is used of us prior to this, the emphasis is not on our being perfected, but on our inability to be perfected by other things.

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So when it is used of us, the worshiper, because up till now the predominant theme has been upon that which cannot perfect us, when it is used of us in the book of Hebrews, that is his people, the emphasis is not on us being made fit for something, but the emphasis is on the salvific flavor of this word.

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The idea that we have been prepared, made fit for God, for eternity with God. We have been reconciled to him.

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Salvifically, we have been given everything that we need for life and godliness. He accomplishes the task that he came to do in the lives of his people.

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That he saves us, he sanctifies us, and he secures us everlastingly. That's what the idea of perfection means when it is applied to us.

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A completed salvation, a justification obtained, a forgiveness granted and fulfilled. We're made fit for heaven, fit for worship, fit to be in God's presence.

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Completed and made fit in our relationship with God. We're brought near to God and reconciled to God. And I'm gonna give you an example of how the author uses this idea of being brought near to God and equates that with us being made perfect.

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So when it describes us as worshipers or as his people, and it talks about us being perfected, it doesn't, again, it's not describing our moral qualities.

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It is describing a standing that we have with God that we have been brought to, a completed standing, a salvation that has been made full and complete and accomplished for us.

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That's the idea. So here's how it's used of us. It's used first of a priesthood that is unable to perfect us.

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Hebrews chapter seven, verse 11. Now, if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood, for on the basis of it, the people received the law, what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek and not be designated according to the order of Aaron?

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Do you have the reference to it? Hebrews 7, 11. If perfection was through the Levitical priesthood, then there would have been no need for God to promise another priesthood, which was to come.

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And back in chapter seven, we were looking at Psalm 110, where the Lord swore you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

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And the author is making the point, if that first priesthood, Aaron's priesthood, was able to perfect the worshipers who approached

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God through that priesthood, there would have been no need for God to promise yet another coming priesthood. The fact that God promised another coming priesthood, one fulfilled by Jesus, is evidence that that first priesthood could not perfect the worshipers.

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Because if that first priesthood was able to perfect the worshipers, bring them near to God, reconcile them to him, then there would have been no need for Jesus to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek.

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The law was unable to perfect us, Hebrews 7, 19. For the law made nothing perfect.

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And on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God. Notice the contrast there, the old hope, the law, which made nothing perfect, the new hope by which we draw near to God.

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It is being drawn near to God, being reconciled to him, brought into a relationship with him that makes us fit, whole, complete, and perfected in that sense.

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Doesn't mean that we're living perfect lives. It means in terms of our standing before God, there is nothing between he and us that keeps us from having fellowship with him.

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There's nothing between us. We have been brought near, we have been reconciled, we have been justified, we've been made perfect through the death of his son.

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The law could not provide that. The law provided for the priests and for the sacrifices and regulated all of those things, but earlier in the book of Hebrews, it says the law is useless and weak.

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Why was it useless and weak? Because it could not perfect us. And even all of our attempts to obey the law only demonstrated that we are, not only cannot be perfected by the law, but the law is unable, completely, completely unable to change the heart of a worshiper, to sanctify us, to justify us, or to bring us near to God.

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So the law cannot perfect us, but that being brought near is the goal that is accomplished by Christ when he brings us near, and in that sense, he perfects us.

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Third, we saw that the sacrifices are unable to perfect us. Hebrews 9, verse 9, both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience.

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Hebrews 10, 1, the law, since it's only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.

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The law cannot, the law cannot perfect us, and the sacrifices cannot perfect us, because the sacrifices cannot atone for sin, they're animal sacrifices and not human sacrifices.

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They're not righteous sacrifices, they're not willing sacrifices, they're not of infinite value and worth, they were only pictures and types and shadows, and not the very substance of those things, and because that was what characterized the

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Old Testament animal sacrifices, those sacrifices could never take away sins, and those sacrifices offered year after year, it is impossible for them to take away or to put away sin.

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That's what the author says in chapter 10, verse 4, it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin, sacrifices could not do it.

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Chapter 10, verse 11, the same sacrifices can never take away sins. So you notice the argument of the author so far through the book of Hebrews?

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This has been a lot of bad news, hasn't it? The law cannot perfect you.

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The priesthood, which was established by the law, cannot perfect you. The sacrifices, which the priests made, the priests who were established by the law, cannot perfect you.

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The law cannot perfect you, the priests cannot perfect you, and the sacrifices cannot perfect you.

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That should bring you to the point of despair. If I can't be perfected, if I can't be made perfect by any of those things, all the sacrifices

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I could muster, all the priests that have ever lived, and all the law that God gave me, if those things cannot perfect me, then what hope do

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I have? For by one offering, he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

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That's the hope. He has been building up to this for three and a half chapters. The law can't do it, the priest can't do it, the sacrifices can't do it.

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Are you at the point of despair? Good news, by one offering, he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

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It's important to notice that the word perfected is in the past tense. At least it appears in the past tense here in our

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English translation. It's actually the perfect tense in the Greek, and this is an important verb tense, and I usually don't go on about verb tenses unless there is an important theological point that is made by the way that the author uses or tenses a certain verb.

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This is in the perfect tense. The perfect tense describes a completed action that happened in the past but results in a continual present day state of being or exists, a state that exists in the present.

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That's the idea behind the perfect. And it's not the past action which is so much in view, as in that is the focus of this, but using the perfect tense, the author is emphasizing a present reality that exists because of a completed past action.

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So that that past action, accomplished, completed, has ramifications and effects and brings into place a state of being which is currently in the present.

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That's the tense of this verb. This perfection is described as a present state of being which you and I enjoy, and it is accomplished by a past action.

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Now whose action is this? What is the action that perfects us? Is it your faith? Is it your obedience?

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Is it your perseverance? Is it your mortification of sin? What is that past action which has perfected us?

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For by one offering, he has perfected those who are sanctified. So the past event that currently has a present state of reality for you and I is something that was done and accomplished on the cross, that past completed action that has brought into being a state of being that exists today, a reality that is today.

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So that my current state of perfection, and listen, I have been perfected.

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I will say that only because I spent the last 20 minutes explaining to you that we are not talking about a moral condition.

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We're not talking about ethical behavior. We're not talking about a perfection of lifestyle or a perfection of mortification of sin.

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But I have been perfected. I have good news for you. If you're in Jesus Christ, you have been perfected as well.

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And you stand today perfected because of what happened 2 ,000 years ago.

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Now this is important. You stand perfected, not because of anything that you have done, not because of anything that you can do, not because of anything that you will do, but because of what somebody else did 2 ,000 years ago.

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At that moment, on the cross, in bearing our sin, Jesus Christ did something.

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He perfected us. That event perfected us, not our faith.

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You and I do not make our perfection a reality, the perfection that is described here in this text. You and I do not make our perfection a reality by our belief or by our faith or by our response to the good news.

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You are not perfected when you believed. You are perfected when he died for you. You are not perfected when you exercise faith and repentance.

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You were perfected when Christ died in your stead. That perfection was achieved back then, and it currently has a state of being, a state of reality that is true of you in the present, not because of anything that happened in your lifetime, but because of something that happened before you were ever born, roughly 2 ,000 years before you were ever born.

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This is magnificently glorious good news that on the cross, he perfected those who are sanctified.

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That is the effect of his salvation. I do not make his sacrifice for me effective by my faith and belief.

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I believe and have faith because his sacrifice was effective for me. There is a world of difference between those two statements.

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I do not believe, sorry, I do not make his sacrifice effective for me by my belief. I believe because he perfected me 2 ,000 years ago.

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When he bore my sin on the cross, that is when I was made perfect. When he bore your sin on the cross, that is when you were made perfect.

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That is a past reality that has present -day implications. The past event secured those present realities and those present blessings so that we can say that the faith of God's elect was secured on the cross.

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Our faith is the result of what happened 2 ,000 years ago. Our faith does not actuate what happened 2 ,000 years ago.

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Our faith doesn't make it real for us. Our faith is because that happened. Because he perfected all those for whom he died, you and I are made perfect today.

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You and I are perfect today. Notice the tense. By one offering, that offering on the cross, he perfected.

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That's the past event. The offering on the cross perfected us at that time. He perfected for all time.

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This perfection is an objective reality. It's not something that is determined by the subject. That means that if I'm aware of it or not, it still happened.

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Before I ever trusted Christ for salvation when I was roughly 15, 16 years old, before that event ever happened,

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I was perfected roughly 2 ,000 years before that by an event that happened 2 ,000 years ago when

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I wasn't even aware of it. When I was 14 before I trusted Christ, when I was 12 before I trusted

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Christ, when I was six before I trusted Christ, even at that time, I had already been perfected by the work done back then, a work that has present state of being truths regarding me.

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Does that make sense? So that it's not something that I do and it's not something that I actuate by responding to it.

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It is an objective thing that exists outside of me even if I'm not aware of it.

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And even today, having been perfected 2 ,000 years ago, even today, driving down the street and the guy pulls out in front of me and I respond like somebody who has not been perfected at all ever, even when

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I respond in that moment in an imperfect way morally, but also in an imperfect way as if I had not been perfected by Christ's death on the cross is still true of me.

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At that moment, it's still true of me. It's true of me when I was six. This will be true of me when

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I'm 60. Why is that? Because by his offering, he perfected us.

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Not by my faith that we perfect ourselves. It's not by our response to that that we are perfected.

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We respond in the way that God has decreed and determined because he did something 2 ,000 years ago that has present day implications for you and I.

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We are perfected through his offering on the cross. You say, I don't feel perfected.

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Well, the reality of this doesn't depend upon your feelings. That your feelings have nothing to do with the reality of this.

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You may at times when you draw near to God feel as if you have been made perfect by the offering of Christ on the cross.

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That's true. You might feel that at times. There are other times when you're not going to feel it. Your feeling doesn't affect the reality of this.

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Doesn't affect the permanency of it. Doesn't affect the power of it, the efficacy of it, nothing. Your feelings have no bearing upon this reality at all.

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Except that sometimes you may feel as if this is genuinely true of you. Other times you may not even be aware that this is genuinely true of you.

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In fact, it might be the case that before some of you even walked in here today, you had never even thought of these things in these terms. They're nonetheless true of you even this morning.

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Before you even became aware that you had been perfected on the cross 2 ,000 years ago. It is his offering that makes it so.

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It is his work that makes it so. We have been made perfect. Eternal salvation has been accomplished for us and granted to us and applied to us because we were perfected in him 2 ,000 years ago.

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That is the effect of his sacrifice. You experience his gifts, yes, yes. But he is the one who secured those gifts.

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He secured them, you experience them. He secured them in the past, you experience them in the present.

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Now for how long is this true of you, this perfection? Verse 14, for by one offering, he has perfected for all time.

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You say, that sounds familiar. It sounds like we talked about that phrase for all time sometime recently, we did just seven days ago back in verse 12, look at it.

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But he having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God. And I said last week that that phrase, that verse means, that word means forever, enduring, going on, continuing in that state.

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It meant that in verse 12 and it means that here in verse 14. For by one offering, he has perfected for all time, forever, those who are sanctified.

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This is the length of this perfection. This goes on forever, for all of time and for all of eternity.

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This is used of his sacrifice in verse 12 or of his sitting down at the right hand of the Father in verse 12. And it is used here of that act of perfecting us in him.

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So when do the effects of his sacrifice wear out for you? When do they wear out? Are you gonna sin yourself out of that state of perfection?

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Did you believe yourself into that state of perfection? If you didn't believe yourself into that state of perfection, you're not gonna sin your way out of that state of perfection.

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Since it's something that happened by somebody, try that again. Since it is something that is accomplished by the work of somebody else before you and I were ever born, then there is no possibility that you and I can be abandoned from that state of perfection or that we can be reversed out of that state of perfection.

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How long does that perfection last? What does the text say in verse 14? He has perfected for all time.

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For all time. When does the sacrifice lose its power? When does the sacrifice lose its ability to save?

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When does his work run out? When does this eternal salvation that he has secured run dry?

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Never. Never. He has perfected for all time. Are you and I only perfected until we sin?

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Are you and I only made perfect if we endure? Are you and I only made perfect if we mortify sin?

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If we walk in perfection? If we're perfectly obedient? Are you and I only perfected until we backslide or are we perfected until we lose our salvation?

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How long are we perfected for? You're perfected forever. Forever. What he did on the cross has a present day, present moment reality.

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You are perfected by his work on the cross. You are brought to completion. Your salvation has been fully and completely accomplished and that state, that thing which he did back then will endure forever.

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That is true of all of those for whom he has died. That is the power of his sacrifice.

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It does not need my assistance. He does not need my faith. He does not need my endurance.

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His sacrifice does not need my perseverance to ensure its effectiveness. His sacrifice is effective and powerful and guarantees my perseverance and my endurance.

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And just in case you're thinking, well, Jim, are you saying then that you can just sin and sin and sin and you don't have to worry about it, that you can fall away, blaspheme

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God, turn your back on him and you're still saved? No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that his sacrifice is powerful enough that for those for whom he has made it, he has perfected them forever because those are the ones who are sanctified.

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Those are the ones who are sanctified. Not that we can sin and do it with impunity or that we can not persevere and not maintain faith, that we cannot walk with him, that we can abandon him and apostatize and yet we're still saved.

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That is not what I'm teaching and that is not what Scripture teaches. But I am saying that that sacrifice, which was powerful enough to save us and to save us fully and infallibly is also powerful enough to keep us everlastingly so that we will be the ones who are sanctified forever.

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It's those who are sanctified, not those who continue in sin. And if you continue in sin and walk in an unsanctified state and yet you say, well,

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I heard Jim say that Christ sanctified me on the cross. No, this perfection, this sanctification that is here is for those who walk in sanctification, for those whom he has set apart, for those who are his.

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Those are the ones who are saved by this. Those are the ones who are perfected. That sacrifice, powerful enough to save you, is powerful enough to secure you so that you will not walk away.

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You will not abandon him. Even the preservation in our state of grace rests upon the power of that sacrifice which perfected us 2 ,000 years ago.

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If salvation is not permanent, in fact, I'm just gonna read you, this is what one author writes.

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If salvation is not permanent, then eternal life is not eternal and neither is eternal perfection. If you can lose your salvation, then the offering of Christ perfected nobody forever.

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If the author believed that his readers could fall from the state of grace and blessing either by their own doing or something else, then he could never say that the death of Christ perfected them forever.

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Only if the death of Christ has secured finally, fully, and forever all the blessings of salvation can the author say that we have been perfected forever by that one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, close quote.

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Now, the author who wrote those words was me and that was just my way of saying, listen to what I'm just about to read you that I wrote earlier this week.

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That's a true story. See, if I just said, I'm gonna read you what I wrote, you'd have thought, oh, this is not gonna be any more profound than anything else he said.

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But when I tell you, hey, as one author writes and I keep it anonymous, you listen to it, you think, that sounded really good, didn't you? Got to the end of that, you thought, that sounded really good.

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Now, I point this out because in the context, and I'm emphasizing here the security of our salvation.

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I do this because in the context here in Hebrews 10, we are about to get into the warning passage beginning in verse 26.

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Do you remember the warning passages in Hebrews where it talks about falling away, right? The possibility you can lose your salvation.

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These are the passages that everybody who believes you can lose your salvation, they go to these five warning passages in the book of Hebrews and they camp there and they say, hey, it looks to me like you can lose your salvation.

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They go through the warning passages. What have we just read here in Hebrews 10, 14? Before we even get to the warning passage, we have to stop for a moment and say, here in verse 14 is an absolute, perfectly clear, ironclad declaration that what was accomplished on your behalf by Jesus Christ at the cross endures forever.

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Let that ring in your mind before we get into the warning passage because as with all the other warning passages, they're sandwiched between these ironclad declarations of our security in the faith.

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We saw that back in chapter six with the last warning passage we looked at. There was that passage in chapter six and before that passage and after that passage, the author is absolutely clear that we cannot lose our salvation because it rests upon God's nature and character and not upon our response to these things or our ability to obey in these things.

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It rests upon his nature and his character. That's in the context of all of those warning passages. So I stop here to emphasize this so that you and I not miss that.

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Now, we do not have time to go on to the second part of this which is the extent of his sacrifice.

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So I'm not even gonna pretend to you that I have a landing for this message at this point because I'm just stopping in the middle now.

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So we're just gonna drop the plane out of the sky onto the tarmac, that's it. We will pick that up next week.

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Oh, except I would leave you with this. Now you have an opportunity to go home and think for a week about that question I asked you at the beginning.

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Is there any feature, anything from the old covenant which is better than what we have been provided in the new covenant?

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Now the answer to that, well, no, I'm not gonna give you the answer to that. That's my conclusion, okay?

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That's the effect of his sacrifice. For by that one offering, he has perfected, forever, those who are sanctified, his people.

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It completed work and as we observed the Lord's Supper, that is indeed what we celebrate with communion.

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We're not reflecting upon a potential sacrifice, a potential atonement, a potential payment. We're not talking about a ransom that could have been made or something that depends upon us and how we respond to it.

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We're talking about and celebrating what Christ has done in his sacrifice on the cross, a past and completed event that has present day implications, ramifications, things that are true in a present state.

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That if you're in Jesus Christ, you have been perfected. Your salvation has been accomplished.

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And it is so eternally, forever. There's nothing that can alter that because your belief doesn't get you in it.

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Your momentary sin, your momentary feelings don't get you out of that either.

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His salvation, his atonement is a completed work, a perfect and completed work. And that's what we reflect upon.

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Now if you are not a believer in Jesus Christ and you have never trusted Christ for salvation, I would ask you to not partake of the communion elements as they're passed out to you this morning.

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Scripture warns against that, that you actually eat and drink judgment to yourself. Or if you are a believer and you are harboring sin in your heart that you're clinging to and not repenting of, don't eat and drink this.

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You're eating and drinking judgment to yourself. That's the warning that Scripture gives. For all of us here, we have an opportunity before we partake of communion to bow our heads and to confess our sin to the

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Lord and then we can partake with a clean conscience. So let's bow our heads together and then after a couple of moments, I will lead us in prayer and ask the ushers to come forward and help serve the elements.

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Let's pray. Our Father, it is only by your great mercy that we are able to come before you.

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You have given us free and full access to your throne of grace because of what Christ has done. And so we come with boldness, we come with humility, we come with thanksgiving before you and affection and adoration to thank you for the great work of salvation which was purchased for us by Jesus Christ.

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We thank you that his atonement is sufficient to cover all our sin and we confess to you our iniquity, we confess to you our wrongdoing, we are aware of sin in our lives and things that we do which are imperfect, ways that we sin against you and against others and we even know that there are things in our lives which we are not aware of that are also sin before you, things that you make us aware of from time to time.

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Lord, we just confess all of that to you and confess our iniquity and thank you for the forgiveness that we have in Jesus Christ.

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Thank you that no matter what the weight of our sin is, that we have a sacrifice, that we have a payment and an atonement that has accomplished what you have intended it to accomplish, that is the salvation of your people.

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Thank you for calling us to yourself by your grace and for that continual work of sanctification which you do.

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We praise you for these things and confess these things to you in the name of Christ, our great Lord and our Savior, amen.