There Is Forgiveness (Hebrews 10:1-18 Jeff Kliewer)

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There Is Forgiveness Hebrews 10:1-18 Jeff Kliewer

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from Hebrews 10 as we learn about forgiveness that only comes in Christ. Open the eyes of our hearts that this isn't more, this is more than just information, this is life change as we draw to you.
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We pray these things in Jesus name, amen. This poor man cried, and the
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Lord heard me, and saved me from my enemies.
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The Son of God surrounds his days, he'll deliver them, he'll deliver them.
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Magnify the Lord with me, come exalt his name, together glorify the name, come exalt his name forever.
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Oh taste and see that the Lord is good, oh blessed is he who hides in him.
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Oh fear the Lord, oh all you saints, give you everything, give you everything.
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Magnify the Lord with me, come exalt his name, together glorify the
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Lord with me. Come exalt his name forever.
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Let us bless the Lord every day and every night. Let us bless the
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Lord every day and night, never ending praise, may our voices rise.
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Let us bless the Lord every day and night, never ending praise, may our voices rise.
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Let us bless the Lord every day and night, never ending praise, may our voices rise.
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Magnify the Lord with me, come exalt his name, together glorify the
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Lord with me. Come exalt his name forever.
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Magnify the Lord with me, come exalt his name, together glorify the
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Lord with me. Come exalt his name forever.
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We are so thankful that you have things in our life.
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We know that you are able to take us through difficult times, dark times.
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We are thankful for those because we can still rejoice. We can still sing praises to your name.
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You are faithful. God is able, he will never fail.
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He is almighty God, greater than all we see, greater than all we ask.
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He has done great things, lifted up, he defeated the grave, raised to life.
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Our God is able, in his name we overcome.
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For the Lord, our God is able.
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God is with us, he is on our side, he will make a way.
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Far above all we know, far above all we hope, he has done great things, lifted up, he defeated the grave, raised to life.
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Our God is able, in his name we overcome.
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For the Lord, our God is able.
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God is with us, he will go before, he will never leave us.
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He will never leave us, God is for us, he has open arms, he will never fail us, he will never fail us.
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Lifted up, he defeated the grave, raised to life.
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Our God is able, in his name we overcome.
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For the Lord, our God is able.
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Lifted up, he defeated the grave, raised to life.
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Our God is able, in his name we overcome.
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For the Lord, our God is able.
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For the Lord, our God is able.
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For the Lord, our God is able.
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We can approach the darkest valleys of our life knowing that nothing can happen to us. Nothing can happen to us unless God the
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Father ordains it. We have a promise of eternal peace with him if we accept him, put our faith in him.
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The enemy cannot overcome. We know the end of the story, don't we?
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He is defeated and we are more than conquerors. When my hope and strength is gone, you're the one who calls me on.
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You are the light, you are the fight that's in my soul.
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Oh, your resurrection power burns like fire in my heart.
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When waters rise, I lift my eyes up to your throne.
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We are more than conquerors through Christ.
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You have overcome this world, this life.
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We will not bow to sin or to shame. We are defiant in your name.
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You are the fire that cannot be tamed. You are the power in our veins.
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Our Lord, our God, our conqueror. We will sing into the night.
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Christ is risen and on high. Greater is he living in me than in the world.
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No surrender, no retreat. We are free and we're redeemed.
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We will declare over despair. You are the hope.
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We are more than conquerors through Christ.
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You have overcome this world, this life.
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We will not bow to sin or to shame. We are defiant in your name.
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You are the fire that cannot be tamed. You are the power in our veins.
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Our Lord, our God, our conqueror. Nothing is impossible.
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Every chain is breakable with you. We are victorious.
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You are stronger than our hearts. You are greater than the dark with you.
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We are victorious. We are more than conquerors through Christ.
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You have overcome this world, this life.
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We will not bow to sin or to shame. We are defiant in your name.
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You are the fire that cannot be tamed. You are the power in our veins.
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Our Lord, our God, our conqueror. Amen. Glad when they said unto me, let us come into the house of the
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Lord. God, we are so glad to be here because we know that we stand here by grace.
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We sit here by grace, not by any merit of our own, by no work that we've done, but by the finished work of Jesus the
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Christ. We thank you this morning for the shed blood of Jesus, that one single sacrifice that makes full forgiveness of sin.
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And we pray that you would bring the image of Christ crucified, the meaning of his death and his resurrection into full view this morning, that you would receive glory and that we would have eyes to see that glory.
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God, we ask that you would help us now we open your word in Jesus name. Amen. It was a snowy day in January of 1850 in Colchester, England.
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As a small primitive Methodist church gathered for worship, the snow was so heavy they recognized that the preacher wasn't there.
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Only about 12 or 15 people had made it and people began to clamor and wonder, should we just go home?
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Come on, dad, let's go. The preacher's not even here. Let's go. But instead they turned to a deacon who was in attendance, a shoemaker who offered to preach the sermon.
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This shoemaker said, I'll preach. And he took just one verse for his sermon, Isaiah chapter 45 verse 22, look to me and be saved all you nations of the earth.
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And so the preacher prepared to preach. Meanwhile, a 15 year old boy walked the streets of Colchester heading for church.
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He was a preacher's kid and his grandfather also had been a preacher.
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And that morning, as he tried to make his way to a church, he was unable to get too far.
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So he turned down a street, artillery street in Colchester, England, and made his way into this primitive
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Methodist church. As he arrived, he felt miserable.
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Anybody feel miserable this morning? Well, he wandered in feeling miserable. And he said later about that morning,
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I had never felt so wretched and miserable. Guilt and despair wrapped around me like a cloak.
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Even though I was yet a lad, I knew well of the sin and evil that lurked in my young heart.
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I sought relief. Oh, how I sought it. I read my Bible. I went to church twice every
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Sunday, but instead of relief, I got the whip. Others could talk tearful eyed of their
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God's forgiveness, but I could not. He was to me a harsh taskmaster.
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I was desperate to find shelter. I had been to the churches in Colchester, but not artillery street chapel.
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It was Methodist, but I was too cold to care. He wandered into that Methodist church.
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Young 15 -year -old Charles shook the snow off of his boots and sat down.
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And the Methodist shoemaker, a deacon, but not a preacher, uneducated, not even pronouncing the words right, which is also the case with me sometimes.
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I get my words twisted. The shoemaker began to preach, look unto
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Christ and be saved. Look at him hanging on the cross.
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Look at him buried. Look at him raised from the dead. Look at him ascended to the father.
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Look at him seated at the right hand of God. Charles would later say that after about 10 minutes, he had pretty much exhausted the length of his tether and had nothing much left to say.
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And so looking out in the audience, he pointed out young Charles. Now, does anybody here care to be called out in the middle of a sermon?
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But he said, young man, you look miserable.
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Charles said later, I had never been accustomed to a preacher commenting on my appearance in the middle of a sermon.
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He said, but it was a good blow because the man went on to say, and you will always be miserable until you obey my text.
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Look to me and be saved. Look to Christ. Look to him. Stop trying to do it on your own.
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Stop trying to lift a weight you can't hold. Look to Christ. And in those words,
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Isaiah 45, 22, Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born again at age 15.
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By age 18, he was preaching in a country church. And so many people came, he was invited to London.
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And by age 21, he was preaching to thousands upon thousands. They built the
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Metropolitan Tabernacle. And for 40 years, he preached the gospel. Wherever he went, there was not enough room for the number of people that were coming to hear the gospel that he preached because he preached
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Christ and Christ crucified. He didn't preach rules and religion. He preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, lifting up the son of God and the son of God drew men to himself.
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Charles Spurgeon, when he was buried, the whole city of London was shut down. They say that the flags were flown at half staff and 60 ,000 people attended his funeral.
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When Charles Spurgeon preached a sermon on Sunday morning, by Monday morning, it was already transcribed and given to the people of London in the
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London Times. As a matter of fact, they actually wired it to New York.
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And every Monday morning, the New York Times published Charles Spurgeon's sermons. Things haven't changed at all, right?
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It's about where they're still at. My goodness, times have changed. Charles Spurgeon was converted by the message that there is forgiveness.
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You see, he was trying to lift a weight he couldn't. He was trying to earn something from God by reading the
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Bible, by going to church, the preacher's kid. But he still had this sense of guilt.
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Maybe you came in this morning aware of your sin. There's two ways you can handle that.
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Number one, you can harden your heart because the guilt is so heavy, you can just become callous to it and push it out of your mind and keep doing the sinful things that you do until it no longer stings and your conscience is pacified by the callousness of hardening your heart.
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That's one option. The other option is you can just go into despair. You can become depressed and live your life in a constant state of depression because you can't get rid of your guilt.
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That's really the only two options. You can push it out of your mind and become callous, or you can be just distraught because you're such a sinner.
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That's the only options that are available to you. But there is forgiveness.
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There is forgiveness. There is the wiping away of sin, the cleaning of a conscience, the removal of guilt, the expiation of that actual stain on you, the guilt of sin can be lifted through Jesus Christ.
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There is forgiveness. So you say, where is forgiveness? Where does forgiveness come from?
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There, the cross of Jesus Christ. Look there, like the
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Methodist said. It's only there. There's nowhere else you can look, nowhere else you can go.
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Like the disciples said, where else would we go? You have the words of life. Jesus alone offers forgiveness of sin.
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Hebrews 10, 1 through 18. There is forgiveness.
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As we pick up in the 10th chapter, we are about to make a transition.
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Today will be the last of the heavy doctrinal theological sermons from the book of Hebrews.
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As we transition from verse 18 to 19, next week we get into the practical section.
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So the book of Hebrews kind of parallels the letters of Paul. Interestingly, a lot of people think Paul wrote
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Hebrews, and this would be one of the evidences for that. However, the Greek of Hebrews is very different from the
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Pauline epistles, so it's possible that what happened was Paul preached a series of sermons that Luke, in very
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Lukean terminology, later recorded and paraphrased. That's possible of how the book of Hebrews came to us.
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But what is the main idea of Hebrews? Theologically, it is the supremacy of Christ.
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Jesus is better. He's better than angels, chapter 1.
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He's better than man. He's the better man. He's better than Moses, chapter 3, and Joshua.
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He's a better high priest. And so we have chapter 7, Jesus as the priest, according to Melchizedek, not a
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Levite. Jesus brings a better covenant arrangement, a better plan.
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And Jesus is a better sacrifice. That's where we are in chapter 10.
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What Jesus does by being sacrificed for our sins actually accomplishes what all those
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Old Testament sacrifices never could. He is better. And you see through the book of Hebrews some warnings, three of them already.
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Chapter 2, verse 1 and following, you have the warning that you better pay closer attention lest you drift away.
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And then in chapter 3, see to it that you do not fall away the way the children of Israel all fell in the wilderness, where for 40 years they disobeyed the word of God, and that generation all fell in judgment.
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And then in chapter 6, we're warned about those who hear the word of God and taste the goodness and see the powers of the coming age and yet fall away.
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It's impossible to renew them again to repentance. There are three strong warnings that have come at this point.
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But what I need you to see is that before we get into verse 19 and following next week, we have to grasp the supremacy of Christ.
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Because if I preach from this pulpit laws for you to obey, it will crush you and it'll crush me.
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Even if I tell you, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself,
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I have loaded nothing but a burden upon you unless I preach Christ crucified.
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You cannot love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength unless you're born of the
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Spirit. And you cannot love your neighbor as yourself. You would admit to that, right? Don't you love yourself a little more than your neighbor?
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I still do, and I'm born again. See, the great commandment is something that Christians are to go forth and obey, but only after the great commission has been accomplished, meaning we have come to the saving knowledge of Christ.
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The first 10 chapters of Hebrews present Christ as better. He is a better sacrifice.
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And when you see that, now you can live the great commandment. Now you can begin to obey all the things that will be commanded of us in the practical section of the book of Hebrews.
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So gospel comes before law. That's how the book is structured. 10 chapters of gospel doctrine.
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And when you begin to see that, now you're transformed and you can begin to live for God from the heart.
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Chapter 10, verse 1 and following. We pick up with the better sacrifice.
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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 is 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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So the first four verses present the problem. The insufficiency of the animal sacrifices.
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It particularly draws here upon Leviticus chapter 16, where once a year the high priest would have to go into the holy place, kill an animal, sprinkle blood on the mercy seat, and the people's sins would be covered for another year.
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Or really, retroactively covering the sins that were committed that previous year. Here's the problem.
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That yearly sacrifice never actually accomplished anything. That's why the priest had to keep doing it year after year after year.
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Look at verse 1. It says in the second half, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, the idea is it's tedious.
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It's kind of boring. I hope you don't feel bored when you come into the house of the Lord. But it could be boring if you're just trying to do the same thing, but your sin is still with you.
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The problem here is it never actually takes away sins. So what was the animal sacrificial system of the
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Old Testament? What was that all about? Picture it like a shadow. Verse 1, the law has but a shadow of the good things to come.
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The animals that were being killed in the temple never took away sin. They were a shadow of Christ being sacrificed.
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The reality, the thing itself is Christ crucified. So for thousands of years,
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God gave a shadow to foretell the crucifixion of Christ. I like the way
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Joe Foch made this plain. He's a pastor of Calvary Chapel, Philadelphia. He said that if you have the shadow of a key, it won't do much for you in unlocking the lock.
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If you have the shadow of bread, it won't do much for your hunger.
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If you have the shadow of the cross, it won't do much for forgiveness of sin.
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You see, the shadow does nothing. The shadow only points to the reality.
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And here the problem is those animal sacrifices could not take away sin. So verse 4, that's a big idea.
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It's impossible. Shadow can't do it. Charles Spurgeon said, if any preacher makes it through an entire sermon without mentioning
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Christ, that should be his last sermon. The shadow can't do it.
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If I ever stand here and preach anything other than Christ and him crucified, that should be my last
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Sunday. But as a preacher of the word of God, I recognize the shadows can't bring you salvation.
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All of this is pointing to something better, better than those sacrificial animals. Let's see it verses 5 to 10.
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What's better? Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me.
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In burnt offerings and sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold,
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I have come to do your will. Oh God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.
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When he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings.
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These are offered according to the law. Then he added, behold,
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I have come to do your will. He does away with the first in order to establish the second.
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Now here's your answer in verse 10. What was the problem in verse four? The animals can't do it. You can't get rid of sin by the blood of animals.
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You need some better blood, something more valuable than my life. You need the life of God's son, a body prepared for him.
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Verse 10, and by that will, we have been sanctified.
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That word sanctified means set apart or made holy. We have been forgiven.
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The sins have been taken away in verse four language through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
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Once for all, a single sacrifice that accomplishes the forgiveness of sin.
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This is what is so unique about Christianity. The genuine gospel message has in it the forgiveness of sin.
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It is the only thing that can forgive sin. The blood of Jesus offered on the cross, paying the penalty of sin.
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That's what we need and that's what we have here. Now let's look a little deeper because verses 5 to 10 are actually rather complicated.
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First of all, we have Christ speaking. You say, what's the big deal about that?
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When does Christ speak? Look at verse 5. When Christ came into the world.
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When did Christ come into the world? In his incarnation, in the womb of Mary.
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Problem here, babies in the womb don't do much talking, do they? Yet this one millimeter baby inside the womb of Mary is speaking.
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Not only is he speaking, what's he doing? Look at the next verse. He's quoting Psalm chapter 40 verses 6 to 8.
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He says, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired. How is it that Jesus, this person, is speaking from within the womb?
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Sounds like a problem, right? The answer is a bit difficult, but not.
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The big word is hypostatic union. The big idea is that Jesus has two natures.
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Jesus is one person with two natures. He is the only person who is fully divine and fully human.
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When you see this baby developing in the womb and Jesus will be born in ordinary birth and grow up among us and learn wisdom and gain understanding in his human nature, he is fully human.
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The person Jesus is fully human from the point of conception on. But listen, he's unlike any person who's ever lived.
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Before Jesus came into the world, he existed as God the
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Son. Now he's taken on flesh and he will always have that divine nature.
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So while he walked our streets, he was upholding the universe. That's why he could say to Nathaniel, I saw you when you were under the fig tree.
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Anybody watching The Chosen? Wasn't that a great episode? I encourage you to watch this show called The Chosen.
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You can get the app and watch the episodes. It's really good from what I've seen so far. So you always have to be careful.
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You never know what direction something will go, but so far it's been amazing. Jesus saw
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Nathaniel under the fig tree. How does he do that if he's walking somewhere else? He has a divine nature.
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So when John the Baptist is in the womb of his mother Elizabeth and Mary comes walking into the room, what does
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John the Baptist do? He leaps for joy inside the womb of his mother.
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Jesus speaks from the womb because he's God and says, hi John. And all of a sudden the baby leaps inside of his mother.
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You see the idea here in verse five. Christ can speak from his divine nature and quote
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Psalm chapter 40. Now I'd encourage you to spend some time in Psalm 40. You can see it's the words of David.
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So how does Jesus apply the words of David to himself? The answer to that is Acts chapter 2 verses 39 to 41.
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Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecies of David. David is a prophet.
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So follow this. Very often David will say things in his Psalms that apply to himself.
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Psalm 16, you will not allow your holy one to see decay. But David died and was buried in his body decayed.
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He was speaking prophetically of the son of David. David is a prophet who foretells things.
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Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Pierced through the hands and feet. Tongue sticking to the roof of the mouth.
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Bones out of joint. Wild dogs surrounding him. Did that ever happen to David? Only symbolically and figuratively when he was oppressed.
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But it happened literally to Jesus. He was speaking figuratively and prophetically of the coming
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Christ. So how does Jesus quote Psalm 40? David had spoken prophetically of the coming
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Christ. And then verse 8 and 9. We're back to Hebrews 10. The author of Hebrews will simply read and repeat.
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He reads Psalm 40 and then he says, when he said, above you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in the sacrifices.
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And then verse 9, then he added, what is the author doing here? He's reading
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Psalm 40. He's repeating it. I almost, almost named this sermon read and repeat.
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Because what you're going to see is from that first mention of scripture in Leviticus 16 to here,
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Psalm 40, in a minute we're going to quickly see, I think it's
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Numbers 28. And then we see Psalm 110. And then we see
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Jeremiah 31. What is the author doing here? He has one thing to say, but he keeps making the point from scripture.
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He reads scripture and then he repeats it. He exposits the scripture.
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So in verses 8 and 9, that's all he's doing. And this is the preacher's job, by the way. I really believe that preaching should be expository.
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We should read scripture and repeat it, explain it, draw it out. That's what the author does.
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Verse 80 saying, when he said above, he quotes it, and then verse 9, he adds, behold,
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I have come to do your will. Now what's the application? He's doing away with the former to establish the latter.
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He's doing away with the animal sacrifices to establish that Christ has been crucified once for all.
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Why is that important? Because it solves the problem of verse 4. It forgives sin.
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It takes away sin. In verse 4, the blood of bulls and goats can't do it. We got to set that aside.
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That's becoming obsolete. Instead, establish the second.
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The will of God was to sacrifice Jesus the son. So this is Trinitarian language.
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The son is speaking to the father. I know it's complicated, but try to follow the logic of it.
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Christ is speaking to his father, and he's speaking of the father's will and how he's come to do that.
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He's been given a body in order to be the offering. Verse 10.
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Now verse 11, this kind of repeats it from another passage. Read and repeat.
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Read and repeat. That's what the author does. Verse 11. Every priest stands daily at his service.
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This is Numbers 28 .3. The author, Moses, commanded from God's authority that every day the priests were to make offerings.
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Did you realize that? Every single day of the calendar year, the priests stand in the temple slaughtering bulls and goats.
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Two things are operative here. One is stand, and the second is daily.
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See that? Every single day he stands. Why does he have to stand?
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He has work to do. He's got to kill this animal. And it's every single day.
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Now look at the contrast in 12 and 13. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.
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For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
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Daily stand. Work to be done. But Christ once offered a sacrifice.
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That's himself. His own body is the sacrifice. He lays down on the cross, offers the sacrifice, dies the death that we deserve.
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And having done that, this is the big point. He rises from the dead, ascends to the right hand of the
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Father. Now catch this. He sits down. What does that mean?
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By this, the Holy Spirit is indicating that the work for the forgiveness of sin is finished.
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On the cross, Jesus said, Tetelestai. It is finished. And then he breathed his last and gave up the spirit.
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Why? He accomplished the forgiveness of sin in one single sacrifice.
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The work was now done. He doesn't need to stand there day after day, year after year. It was one and done.
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And the seating of the Messiah, the session, the heavenly session of the
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Christ, speaks to the finality of forgiveness.
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It is so good to be forgiven. If you're like me, you know the guilt of sin.
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You know what that weight feels like. But I have found a balm in Gilead.
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I have found a cleansing for sin. Have you experienced it? Do you know what it feels like to have your sin lifted?
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The weight of it taken off of your back, like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress who carried that backpack day after day, so heavy, until one day, looking at the cross, the weight fell off of him.
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And he was free and he ran. That's what it means to be forgiven. The sacrifice was made once.
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It never has to happen again. The work is done. Christ is seated. Of course, now, you guys who have been with us through the study of Hebrews, you recognize where this is coming from, right?
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You better know. Psalm 110, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.
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The Christ will rule in the midst of his enemies. The scepter is extended to him because he is also a priest.
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Psalm 110 .4, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. You're going to have to go back and listen to Hebrews chapter 7 if you want to understand who is
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Melchizedek and how does that speak to Christ. We spent a lot of time on that and it was worth it because Christ is a better priest and Melchizedek pictures
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Christ and all the Levitical system looks up to him. We spent so much time on that, but this is the language here in verses 12 and 13.
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Read, repeat, read, repeat. We've read Psalm 40 and we've repeated what it means.
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Numbers 28, repeat what it means. Psalm 110, repeat what it means. Now the last one,
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Jeremiah 31. It says the same thing. There is forgiveness in the one -time sacrifice of Christ.
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So it says, and the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us. For after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the
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Lord, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds. Then he adds, this is the crucial part,
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I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.
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Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
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So this is a very Trinitarian passage. I don't know how anyone who studies the scripture in depth is not a
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Trinitarian. It's on every page of the Bible. It all points to the idea that God exists as one
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God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, so far earlier in the text, we saw the
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Son speaking to the Father. I've come to do your will. The will of the Father was to give the Son a body that would become the sacrifice.
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Well, now we have the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity. He chimes in in verse 15. What does he say?
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This is the covenant that I will make. He offers the new covenant. The Holy Spirit will write the law of God on your heart and in your mind.
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He will live within you and give you a desire to do the will of God. We studied that in chapter eight.
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This was quoted from Jeremiah 31 verse 33. But where is the emphasis here? Read, repeat.
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Look at verse 17. This is the crucial thing. I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.
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The Holy Spirit comes in to say that there is forgiveness in the sacrifice of Christ.
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He bears witness. There's many times in my life where I have experienced the witness of the
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Holy Spirit. The witness, an internal, subjective feeling.
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According to Romans 8, the Spirit bears witness that we are the children of God. I can only stand here and preach because I know my sins are forgiven by the shed blood of Jesus.
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I feel that in my spirit as the Spirit confirms it. And there's times where I feel the Holy Spirit speaking to me in a subjective sense, an impression that I might have.
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Like yesterday in dad's deli, I went to drop off some fruit and I felt the
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Spirit leading me to speak. And before long, somehow we had a whole conversation going with all the workers about Christ.
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It was the leading of the Spirit. There's been times I was at a wedding one time and I felt the
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Spirit to say to me, get up and go. And witness to Mormons.
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I thought, what? I'm at a wedding. It was my Vietnamese friend and it was a wedding and I just thought, okay,
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I feel like I just felt the Lord telling me to do that. So I got up and I left the wedding reception and there were two
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Mormons walking down the street. And I thought, okay, well this is obviously who you sent me to talk to.
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So I pulled the car over and I talked through the rolled down window. I said, hey, are you guys going somewhere? You need a ride? And they said, sure.
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And they jumped in my car. And for an hour, I shared the gospel with these guys right out in front of a park before they had to go to their picnic.
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We're having a picnic after this, by the way, if anybody wants to come hang out. It was amazing.
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The Spirit gave this impression. He bore witness of what I was to do. But look carefully at the text.
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You say, I never heard the voice of the Spirit like that. Here it is.
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This is a thousand, a billion, infinitely times more important than the story I just shared with you.
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My subjective impressions, I think that's the Spirit leading me. But here is where the
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Spirit speaks authoritatively through the Word. The Holy Spirit bears witness.
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Do you hear this? The Spirit of the living God uses the words of Scripture because He's the author of Scripture.
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Read, repeat. When you read these words and you begin to hear them and repeat them, there's life.
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He bears witness that there is what? Forgiveness of these. Forgiveness of what?
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Verse 18. It refers to verse 17. Forgiveness of lawless deeds.
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Forgiveness of sins. Every one of us walked in here today with a track record of sin.
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The things that you have done, sexual immorality, anger, greed, every form of sin.
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It's like a weight over your shoulders. And I will tell you this, there is nothing you can do about it.
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You can make restitution to the people that you've hurt. You can go ask for forgiveness and do things to try to make it right.
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But you cannot undo what's been done. There is a guiltiness in your soul on account of your sin.
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And there's nothing you can do to take it away. There's no religious thing that you can do.
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You can't take a journey from Mecca to Medina or go on some pilgrimage to some holy site.
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You can't give a certain amount of money. Even coming to church, that won't do it.
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And certainly all these social religions that you see that are just constant grievances that can never be assuaged.
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There's nothing that you can do to erase your own guilt. But the
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Holy Spirit says, echoing the words of Christ, who's quoting scripture, authoritatively, the
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Word of God says, there is forgiveness. There is forgiveness for you.
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And there's one place to find it. There is one way to be forgiven.
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It is through the shed blood of Jesus the Christ. A one -time single offering that He made to pay for sin.
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And having done that, He sat down, the work is done to tell us that. And there is forgiveness for you.
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I don't know what weight you carried in this morning. I don't know if you struggle with a guilty conscience.
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But you can lay it down at the foot of the cross. There is forgiveness for you.
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There is. Your sin cannot be more big and powerful and precious than the blood of the
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Lamb. His blood is infinitely valuable. He's the Son of God.
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You can lay that down right now. There is forgiveness. What do you do? You stop trying to earn anything from God, and you look, like the
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Methodist preacher said, look at Christ hanging on the cross. Look at Him risen from the dead.
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Look at Him ascended to the right hand of the Father. Look at Christ, and you will be forgiven.
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Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, and those who looked at that serpent were healed of their snake bites.
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That was prefiguring Christ lifted up on a cross so that whoever looks at Him will be saved.
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For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him, to believe is to look.
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To look is to believe that the death of Jesus was the sacrifice that takes away sin.
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It's your only hope of being forgiven, but it's a true living hope, for He lives.
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And Hebrews 7 .25 says, He ever lives to make intercession for you. Lay it down now.
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Don't come so close only to miss it. I'll close with the words of Spurgeon as he was referring to Agrippa, the king, who was hearing the message of the gospel, but he didn't quite believe it.
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And he cried out to Paul, would you make me a Christian in such a short time? I'm almost persuaded.
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And here's what Spurgeon says about that. Almost persuaded to be a
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Christian is like the man who was almost pardoned, but was hanged.
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Like the man who was almost rescued, but was burned in the house. A man that is almost saved is damned.
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Spurgeon was right. He definitely cuts to the chase, doesn't he? He didn't pull any punches. Here's the thing.
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There is no other way to be forgiven. No other offering. That's the point of the text. Verse 18.
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No other offering, no other way. But there is forgiveness through the shed blood of Jesus.
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We're going to close in prayer. If you just bow your heads, close your eyes. If there's anybody here, you've never asked for the forgiveness of sin through the death of Jesus.
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Let's do that right now. Just say some words like this.
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You don't have to say it out loud. Just say it in your own heart to God. He's listening to your thoughts. Say, God, I am a sinner.
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I am guilty. I brought the weight of my sin into this church, but now
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I see Christ. I see that He is the sacrifice for my sin.
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He died the death that I deserve. I see
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Him buried. I see Him risen. I believe in Jesus.
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I ask you to forgive my sin because of His blood.
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I turn away from my sin and look to the cross.
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God, save me, the sinner. Take my sin away.
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Sanctify me. Remember my sin and lawless deeds no more.
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In Jesus' name, amen. If you prayed that and you meant that you were calling on Jesus to save you,
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His word assures us that those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.
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It's the only way to be saved. If that's you, we have Bibles in the back. You can take one, begin reading.
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This day will change your entire life. You'll no longer come to church to do my duty.
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Same thing every week. Now it will be a response. I'm saved by grace, and now
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I want to worship Him. Keep coming. Keep learning. Talk to one of the elders, and we can encourage you.
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He's a good God. He forgives sin, and it's only through the blood of Jesus. Let's stand and sing.
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Turn your eyes to Jesus. Jesus, to you we lift our eyes.
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Jesus, our glory and our pride. We adore you, behold you, our
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Savior ever true. Oh, Jesus, we turn our eyes to you.
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Turn your eyes to the morning, and see
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Christ the Lion away. The storm, fear of death is gone, for we carry
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His light. Jesus, to you we lift our eyes.
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Jesus, our glory and our pride.
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We adore you, behold you, our
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Savior ever true. Oh, Jesus, we turn our eyes to you.
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Turn to the heavens, our
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King will return for His own.
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Every knee will bow, every tongue will shout, all glory to Jesus alone.
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Jesus, to you we lift our eyes.
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Jesus, our glory and our pride. We adore you, behold you, our
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Savior ever true. Oh, Jesus, we turn our eyes to you.
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Oh, Jesus, we turn our eyes to you.
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For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
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For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.
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Amen. Go in peace, but before you do, we have food and a meal available.
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You might want to linger in here and talk so that it doesn't just get completely backed up in the hall, but you're also welcome if you're hungry to get out there quick.
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It's the last classroom on the left, okay? You'll enter the first door, get your sandwich, grab water bottle, whatever, and there's plenty of picnic tables and seating outside, or you can come back in here if you'd rather be in the warmer room.
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So, and then after that, there's pies out there too. Oh, we should bless the meal. Yeah, would you like to pray for the meal?
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All right, pray for me right there. Kristen's going to pray for the food. And all