Run video - Shadow Puppets (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaqxnvqf_i0) 1 P a g e Who made or tried to make shadow puppets with your hands when you were a kid? I remember I had a book when I was 5 or 6 that showed us how to make em. And the best one I could do was... I thought of those shadow puppets when I read something in the book of Hebrews in the Bible. In chapter 10, which you can turn to in your Bible if you like, the writer of Hebrews says, Hebrews 10:1 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming not the realities themselves. The law, here, does not mean criminal code; it is the Hebrew word Torah. Torah meant either the commandments of God, or the teachings, or it was the title for the OT. God s word, in the NT here in Hebrews, is saying that the things of the OT were never intended to be the final and best of what God wanted us to know and do. Many of the things of the OT were fore shadows, faint versions, of the real things that were to come in the NT. They were fore shadows of the better things that were to come in Jesus Christ. Title slide - Better. This is what we have been saying the book of Hebrews is about. It is about how the things of Jesus are better than the OT way of worship. It is about how Jesus is the better messenger for God than the angels. And how Jesus is the better leader for the people of God than Moses. Last week we looked at Jesus was a better high priest for God than the one described in the OT. Today we are going to look at one other very important way that an OT practice was just a fore shadow of the better way that came in Jesus Christ. So picking up in Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10:1-10 10 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4 because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; 6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. 7 Then I said, Here I am it is written about me in the scroll I have come to do your will, O God.
2 P a g e 8 First he said, Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them (although the law required them to be made). 9 Then he said, Here I am, I have come to do your will. He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. So, what is better in Jesus according to Hebrews here? Jesus is a better sacrifice. In the OT, in the Torah, bulls and goats and other animals were sacrificed to God. God required that they be made. In the OT God gave the people a system of sacrifices and offerings, and burnt and sin offerings But they had to be made repeatedly, year after year. They couldn t clear guilty consciences. They couldn t really take away sin. And God was not really pleased with them. They were only ever intended to be a foreshadow to the real sacrifice of the body of Jesus that made men and women holy... once and for all. So, briefly, I want to explain why God would ask for animal sacrifices. Why is animal sacrifice even in the OT? What is it supposed to do or mean? And how is the sacrifice Jesus made better? I want to start from the beginning because it will explain why God did it. Blank slide Let s assume there is a God who is the creator of life. Many of you believe that firmly. But even if you don t, for the sake of understanding the Christian story today, please assume with me that that is our starting point with God He is the giver of life. Science is discovering processes that develop life and show how life could evolve. But in total they are insufficient to demonstrate and explain so much of how things came to exist and continue to exist. If God is the giver of life, if he made humanity, it would be completely reasonable that he could establish conditions for that life. Right? In the Garden of Eden, God gave the first humans a couple conditions for life. One was that he said, Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you do, you will die. Adam and Eve ate of the tree. They disobeyed God.
What do you call it before we have a the knowledge of good and evil in life? We call that innocence. We lost our innocence when we discovered we could disobey God. We were free to rebel. We were free to choose evil. 3 P a g e It was then entirely just that the one who gave life, if you rebel against Him, would and could take away that gift of life. He is not being punitive. He is being just. That is when and how and why death came. Further, if that God is entirely good and you choose evil, it is entirely consistent that if you disobey him, you would effectively be forfeiting your right to his friendship, his presence. He is entirely good and you are not. God would expel you from his presence and he would withdraw. God creates. He gives life. He warns of evil. We choose it. We lose life. He withdraws. That is the story of Genesis. But then as a way to recover us, because he made us and he loves us and wants us to be in relationship with him, he plans a way for us to be restored. Thru one people & one man Moses, God established the principle of substitutionary sacrifice. It is simple. 1. We sin. 2. We deserve to die for that sin. 3. But God will allow another life to be given in our place. And best of all, he said, this life can be an animal a sheep, goat, a bull, even a bird for the poor. When a person knew they sinned they took an offering, a sacrifice, to the priest. And here s what God made them do. He said, have the sinner put their hand on the animal s head. Then with the hand on the head of the animal, cut the animals throat as a sacrifice. It sounds hard, right? That would deter some sinful choices right there, if you didn t want to have to do that.
4 P a g e But the lesson was clear, you had to touch it as it died cause it was your sin and it was your life Identify your life with that life and that death can be substituted for yours. God even said once a year to make a sacrifice for all the people for all the sins you missed. It is a Day of Atonement. The Hebrew for it is Yom Kippur. Jews still celebrate it, so you might have heard of it. God had the high priest choose two goats. One was sacrificed to the Lord. And the other goat was a called a scape goat, the Hebrew was azazel. God told the high priest to lay his hands on the head of the scapegoat for all the sins of the people. All the sins of the people were transferred to the scapegoat. Then the scapegoat was taken outside the city and it was let go. They actually let it go next to the edge of a cliff, so it couldn t come back. But the point was to show that the goat, the animal, took away the sins of the people. The scapegoat was taken outside the city to the top of a hill where he took away all the sins of the people The sins of the people need to go somewhere. It was sufficient for his justice! That is the story of Leviticus. But, there is still a problem. The writer of Hebrews addresses how imperfect this system was. He writes Hebrews 10:1-4 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4 because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Humanity keeps sinning. We need to keep going back. They had to be made repeatedly, year after year. Animal sacrifices don t really change us. They couldn t clear guilty consciences. They couldn t really take away sin.
5 P a g e Animal sacrifices were never meant to make man right with God, they were only a shadow pointing us to the real way, the better way, God would restore us. The writer of Hebrews says he knows a place in the OT that told us how that would happen. He quotes Psalm 40 which says Hebrews 10:5-10 5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; 6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. 7 Then I said, Here I am it is written about me in the scroll I have come to do your will, O God. 8 First he said, Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them (although the law required them to be made). 9 Then he said, Here I am, I have come to do your will. He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. He says, see this was always God s plan. God was not pleased with animal sacrifices, but a body you prepared for me. It is written of me in the scroll I have come to do your will. He says this describes Jesus! Jesus said here I am, I have come to do your will Father? Not my will but thine be done. And Jesus let his body be the better sacrifice. When did Jesus let his body be a sacrifice to God? When he died on the cross. When he was taken outside the city to the top of a hill where he took away all the sins of the people Blank slide God prepared a body for Jesus. Jesus comes as fully God and fully man, incarnate. He lives a perfect life he was made like us, weak like us, but he did not sin. And because he does not sin two things are true: 1. is He fit to be a sacrifice. A sacrifice was always to be an animal without defect. No spots, wrinkles. No broken bones. 2. is He does not deserve to die! Since he never sinned he did not deserve death, which had always been the consequence of.
So, he does not deserve to lose his life, but he has a life to give. 6 P a g e Jesus is the only one who ever lived who could die for your sin debt. Every one of us owe our own death. He did not. He did not sin. He did not deserve to die. That is why, even though He died, death could not keep him! He arose, because he did not deserve to die. But, in his death, for the 3 days he is dead, God says his death is a sin offering - man for man, human for human, full payment for our sin. He takes away sin. The sin needs to go somewhere. Jesus takes it all. And because it is a perfect sacrifice, it does not need to be repeated. Jesus dies one time on the cross and his death is so perfect, so complete, that it is sufficient once and for all people of all time. He died once for all. No more sacrifices needed. It is finished! Here is the one thing you have to do for that sacrifice to apply to you. Come to Him. Put your hand on his head. Identify your life with his. His life is your life. Your life is his life. His death is your death. Your death is his. In effect, put your trust in his death as a substitutionary sacrifice for yours. He gave his life for you, give your life to and for him. If you do, you can be restored. You can have that relationship with God the way he originally made us to have. And then you do not need ever die. You can live forever. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
If you are not a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, today I hope you will see the profound purpose and plan of God. 7 P a g e And that you would accept Jesus sacrifice for all as being for you. If you are a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, I want to finish today with what the author of Hebrews says we should do since Jesus is a perfect sacrifice once and for all. Listen. After a paragraph where he reemphasizes that Jesus is our high priest, he concludes, Hebrews 10:19-25 19 Therefore, brothers [and sisters], since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Since we have his body and blood as our perfect sacrifice and he is a perfect high priest, there are 5 things he says we as his followers can do. All 5 are easy to see because he starts them all with the exhortation, Let us. Therefore since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus... v. 22 Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. Let us live in the confidence that we are forgiven. Let us live free from guilt for our sins, but in full assurance of the purifying power of Jesus. The idea of confidence in v 19 and assurance v. 22 isn t the feeling kind of confidence that a boy needs to muster before he walks up to a girl at a dance. The word for assurance here could also be translated as authorization, or permission, or freedom. It is not a subjective feeling. It is an objective possession based on what Jesus has done for us. Because of what Jesus has done we can have access to and a relationship with God. v. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess. The hope here is in our present and future salvation. We live our lives in the hope of the salvation Jesus has provided for us. Hold unswervingly to that! Don t turn to right or left in life follow Jesus. Don t turn back to the OT way.
Why should we hold onto this hope??because we are good and religious and deserve our salvation? No. Because God is faithful. He will do what he has promised. 8 P a g e Then, v. 24 Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us be concerned for or let us care for. Make this a priority, he s saying. Spur one another is the word provoke. It is a strong word. We are to provoke one another to love others that is expressed in good deeds. And with this, the author calls us to be engaged in the 3 cardinal graces Faith v. 22, hope v. 23, and love v. 24. v. 25 Let us not give up meeting together. Let us not give up gathering together. The idea does not just mean hang out together. The word gathering was synonymous with coming together as a church to worship. It has always been God s intent that we worship Him together. Our worship is something we do one on one in some ways in our lives. And it is something we are called to do together for each other. We are not to neglect doing it. It is to be a priority. Because one of the things we can do for each other when we meet is v. 25 Let us encourage one another. We can help each other to follow Jesus Christ. We can help each other to face the challenges in life. When you come to a worship gathering of other Christians, you can be encouraged in faith, hope, and love expressed in good deeds. He says to do this All the more as we see the Day approaching. That day is the day Jesus will return.
Since the world is still being redeemed one person at a time across history so that God can redeem for himself a new people, We still see God as removed. 9 P a g e But a day is coming, and coming soon, when he will end this era. The door on salvation will close. He will have a people of his own who have come to him through Jesus and his sacrifice. And he will return. And for those who rebelled and sinned, even the smallest part, who did not accept his offer of life through faith in Jesus will be eternally dead and eternally separated from God. But those who have identified with the perfect sin offering of his Son, we will experience his presence, he will dwell among us and He will be our God, forever. This is our hope. This is the reality of the good thing that is coming. Even now Lord Jesus come.