If you would take out your Bibles and turn to the book of Hebrews. On Sunday evenings, we are currently studying through Hebrews chapter 11, but this morning we’re going to look at Hebrews chapter 9; page 1005 in the Bibles located in the pew in front of you. Hebrews chapter 9.
As Jamie has already mentioned and prayed, today is our Mission to Jackson Sunday, and during the Sunday school hour we get to hear from some of our ministry partners serving here in Jackson. And in the welcome center, we’ll have the opportunity to connect with some of those ministry partners, to hear about what’s happening in our city and ways that we can help. And we’re so thankful that our ministry partners are here today. We’re thankful for each of them and for the privilege, really for the blessing, we want them to know what a blessing it is that we have to be able to partner with them and for the work that they do serving our neighbors. And as Jamie also mentioned, this week has been Serve Week here at First Pres, and a couple hundred of our members have gone out into the community to serve in ministries like Mission First and Gateway Rescue Mission and Center for Pregnancy Choices and We Will Go and Sojourner Church, as well as on our own church campus with the Day School and Twin Lakes and the Internationals Class. And just so you know, it’s not just this week, but week after week, our members are involved in Gateway and the Rankin County Jail and the Internationals Class and The Mustard Seed, and many other places, serving quietly and faithfully in ways that have a big impact in their own lives and in the lives of others. And Carol Anne and Jamie and Jo Lynn and Owen have worked hard to help more of us connect in these ways so that it can become a regular part of what it means for us to follow Jesus here in Jackson, Mississippi. I want to thank everyone who’s been involved behind the scenes to make this happen.
But something else happened this week that may not have been on very many people’s radars. Thursday, Thursday was the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is the holiness day on the Jewish calendar. It’s a day of fasting and prayer. It’s a day of repentance and seeking forgiveness. And our passage this morning from Hebrews chapter 9 is about Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement. And what I want us to see as we look at this passage this morning is that there is actually a connection between what happened on the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament and with what it means to live a life of service today as followers of Jesus. And so as we read the first fourteen verses of Hebrews chapter 9, I want us to think about it with the following outline. We’ll see, number one – once and for all. Something happened once and for all. Or excuse me – once a year. First – once a year. Something happened once a year. Secondly – once and for all. Something that happened once and for all. And then third – all the time. Once a year. Once and for all. And all the time. That will be our outline for this passage. Before we read, let’s pray and ask God’s help and blessing.
Our Father, we give You thanks for this blessing that You have called us together as Your people to come before You and to sit under Your Word, to hear what You have to say to us. We give You thanks for the blessing of what You have revealed to us in Your Word, that all Scripture is breathed out by You and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training us in righteousness. Your Word is living and active, and we need it to pierce through our hard hearts, our distracted minds, that You would give us ears to hear and that You would help us as we read and listen to Your Word, that we would understand it; understand it perhaps in a new way. That we would embrace by faith the good news that is spelled out for us here so that we might live a life to glorify You and praise You forever. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Hebrews chapter 9, verse 1:
“Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was prepared, the first section, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence. It is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place, having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.
These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing (which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of our God endures forever.
First – once a year. Verse 6, actually verse 6 and 7 say that “the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, but into the second, only the high priest goes, and he but once a year and not without taking blood.” What happened once a year? What happened once a year was the Day of Atonement. It was Yom Kippur. Kippur comes from the Hebrew word “kofer,” which means “to cover” or “to spread over.” And the shedding of blood that we just read about in these verses, the spreading of the blood of the sacrifice was provided in order to cover or to atone for sin. In fact, Hebrews 9:22 will say a little bit later in this passage that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” These first ten verses of this passage are all about what happened in the first covenant. It talks about first what happened in the tabernacle, what would later happen in the temple. There is the holy place and the most holy place, the ark of the covenant and the cherubim and the mercy seat. And here in these verses, the writer says, “of these things we do not have time now to speak in detail.” These things are not really his main focus.
But here’s what happened on the Day of Atonement. It’s described for us in Leviticus chapter 16, right there in the middle of the first five books of the Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – the Torah, right there in the middle. Jamie read for us earlier in our service a summary of The Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are key to the Torah, to the Law. They are found two times in those first five books – In Exodus chapter 20 and in Deuteronomy chapter 5. But they’re not in the central spot of those first five books. And in some ways, The Ten Commandments create a problem, don’t they? They create a problem because we’ve broken every one of those ten commandments. We’re guilty. And what are we going to do about it? Well that’s where Leviticus chapter 16 comes in and the Day of Atonement. And what happened on that day? The high priest, he would take two goats and cast lots for these two goats. And one goat was selected as a sacrifice to the Lord, and the other goat was selected as a scapegoat. And so the goat that was sacrificed was sacrificed as a sin offering. It’s blood was taken into that most holy place and sprinkled on the cover of the ark of the covenant for the sins of the people. It was the only time of the year, once a year, that the high priest could go into the most holy place. And even then, even when he went in, he had to take an offering for his own sin.
But what about the other goat, the other goat that was set aside as a scapegoat? It’s life was spared. It’s life was spared and the priest would lay his hands on the head of the goat and confess the sins of the people. And then that goat was sent away. The goat was sent away outside the camp into the wilderness, bearing in a sense the guilt and the sin of the people, taking it far away from them so that they would never be condemned. They would not be condemned or consumed because of their sins. Because of what happened to these goats, the same thing would not happen to the people of Israel. It’s this vivid picture, isn’t it, it’s a beautiful picture of atonement, of God’s amazing grace, because God is a holy God and we are a sinful people and we need atonement.
You know the part of the story of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when the children first make their way into Narnia. They’re hearing for the first time about the great lion, about Aslan, and about what he’s like. And it makes one of the children, Lucy, it makes her quite nervous about the thought of meeting a lion. And she asks Mr. Beaver, “Is he safe? Is he quite safe?” “Who said anything about safe?” Mr. Beaver said. “Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn’t safe, but he’s good.” And you see, the Day of Atonement is saying to us that there is not anything that is safe about God. There’s nothing safe about a holy God. There’s nothing safe about a God who is set apart and who cannot and will not tolerate sin. There has to be an atonement for sin. There has to be a covering for our sin. And the Day of Atonement, it was provided in the Old Testament, it was provided in the first covenant because this God who is not safe is also good. And He’s a God who is good to forgive sin. He’s a God who is so good that He provides a covering for sin until the time of reformation, as verse 10 tells us. Only once a year.
But once a year – and year after year after year, and over and over and over again. Why? Because this Day of Atonement sacrifice, this Day of Atonement ritual, it was insufficient. It was made in order to pass away. The tabernacle – it was a copy of the heavenly reality. The high priest himself was tainted by his own sin. And the blood of the bulls and goats could not change hearts. Look at verse 9. It says, “According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper.” You see, the distance between us and God is too great. Something more, something better is needed to really deal with our sin and to make us right with God.
Or maybe you’ve heard the story about Martin Luther from back in his convent days. And he had a sensitive conscience. He had this acute sense of his guilt before a holy God and he was terrified. He would break out into cold sweats. He would torment himself on more than one occasion, the other monks in the convent would find him passed out on the ground because of his fear and they would pick him up as if he was dead. One of Luther’s biographers says that “All the time, all this time he thinks of God as one who can find delight in these continuous torments. The righteous,” he says to himself, “live by penance and by pain. The righteous live by fasting. The righteous live by fear. The righteous live by good works and service hours. All of it was insufficient. None of it worked because none of it could perfect the conscience of the worshiper.” But you see, for Luther, his salvation, his deliverance came when he embraced, by faith, not what he could do but what Jesus had done once and for all for him. And when Luther came to understand what Jesus had done once and for all, then he says that it was like he was born again as a new man. It was like he had entered into the very gates of paradise. So there’s this once a year sacrifice.
But what about what happened once and for all? Verse 11 and 12, “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.” What the writer of Hebrews is saying to us is that Jesus fulfilled the role of the high priest on the Day of Atonement and He did it once and for all. He left nothing undone. He lacked nothing in what He accomplished on the cross. Jesus, you see, Jesus is the better High Priest because He was made like us in every way yet without sin. He did not have to go and offer a sacrifice for Himself, for His own sin, like the priests did in the Old Testament because Jesus was sinless. He was “holy, harmless and undefiled” as the King James Version says in Hebrews 7:26. And He didn’t go into the earthly copies of the heavenly realities with His sacrifice, not into a temporary structure like a tent or the tabernacle. He didn’t go into an even more permanent structure like the temple. No, He went into the holy places not of this creation. He went into the very presence of God. And His sacrifice, His sacrifice wasn’t the blood of goats and calves. No, He shed His own blood. It was a perfect sacrifice. A sufficient sacrifice. And by it, He secures for us an eternal redemption. Jesus is the better High Priest.
But you know what else this passage is saying to us? It’s saying to us that Jesus does for us what both of those goats on the Day of Atonement were meant to signify – that Jesus is both our substitute and our scapegoat and His blood was shed in our place. On the cross, Jesus took our place. He took the penalty that our sin deserved. “The wages of sin is death,” and on the cross, Jesus satisfies the justice of God. He covers us from the wrath of God. And what else does He do? He takes our sin far, far away from us. He bears our sin outside the camp, out into the wilderness so to speak. He separates our sin as far away from us, as far as the east is from the west, never to condemn us. “There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Never to separate us from the love of God. Jesus, you see, is our atoning sacrifice. And He reconciles us to God. Even that word “atonement,” even the word contains in it what it is. It is “at one-ment” and it is to that we can be “at one” with God. And because of Jesus’ resurrection, His sacrifice, His atoning sacrifice, is a once and for all sacrifice. By His resurrection He has defeated sin and death, once and for all. There is no need for Him to offer Himself over and over again. There is no need any more for that once a year sacrifice on that Day of Atonement because Jesus has done it. And He’s done it once and for all.
Remember what happened on that day when Jesus gave His life on the cross. That curtain, that curtain that separated the holy place from the most holy place was torn in two from top to bottom giving us access into the presence of God. And what did Jesus say on the cross? He said, “It is finished.” There is nothing more left to do. There is nothing that we can do to make it any better. There is nothing that we can do to take away from what Jesus has done for us. Jesus paid it all.
John Bunyan, the author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, he also wrote, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. It’s his spiritual autobiography. And in it, he wrote about how he struggled with guilt. He struggled with the shame of his sin. But then one day, this thought came to his mind. The thought that came to his mind was – “My righteousness is in heaven. My righteousness is in heaven.” He says he thought about Jesus at the right hand of God, and there was his righteousness because Jesus’ righteousness had been credited to his account. Jesus died for his sin. Jesus’ record, Jesus’ righteousness was his by faith. And there his righteousness was – at the right hand of God in heaven. “My righteousness is in heaven.” He says, “Wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, ‘He lacks my righteousness’ because it was there right before Him.” And he also realized that it wasn’t his good frame of mind, it wasn’t his good heart that made his righteousness any better. And it wasn’t his bad frame of mind or his bad frame of heart that made his righteousness any worse. No, his righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, today and forever. And from there, Bunyan’s heart was set free. He went on his way rejoicing.
You see, that’s what it means for Jesus to be our atoning sacrifice, our once and for all sacrifice. This is, as it has been said, the center of the Gospel. This is the central point in history, the main point of Christianity and the central reference point for Christian living. Because what is the bridge between theology and ethics? What is the bridge between what God has done, what Jesus has done for us on the cross and how we are to live? The thing that bridges those two together is gratitude. Gratitude for what Jesus has done for us merely out of grace, mercy and love for us. Our gratitude, our gratitude for what Jesus has done once and for all for us, it will display itself in how we live all the time.
Once a year. Once and for all. Now – all the time. Look with me at verse 13 and 14. “If the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to” – do what? – “to serve the living God.” What are we to do all the time? We are to serve the living God. In Hebrews, here it is saying to us, showing to us, presenting to us how Jesus is better. He is the better Priest, He has offered the better sacrifice, and He’s saying, “Don’t go back to your old ways. Don’t go back to the ways of the old covenant. Don’t go back to that once a year sacrifice because Jesus has offered the once and for all sacrifice.” It’s the sacrifice to end all sacrifices.
And then you get to the very end of the book of Hebrews to chapter 13 – turn with me there a few pages to Hebrews chapter 13. We’ll see where this writer is going with his argument. He says in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 9, “Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. For if the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sins or burned outside the camp, so Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through His own blood. Therefore, let us go to Him outside the camp and bear the reproach He endured. For here, we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through Him, then” – and get this – “Through Him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of lips that acknowledges His name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”
The once a year sacrifice is over. Jesus has done the once and for all sacrifice. Now how are we to live all the time, continually? As a sacrifice, by offering sacrifices. All of life is sacrifice, you see. “I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,” Paul says, “holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” All of life is sacrifice. Not a sacrifice of atonement, not a sacrifice of meriting salvation, but a sacrifice of praise, a sacrifice of gratitude, a sacrifice of worship, a living sacrifice. This, you see, is the key to our relationships. Whether it’s marriage, or as parents, friends, neighbors, coworkers, church members, in our community, how are we to view our lives? We lay down our lives as a living sacrifice. We die to ourselves and to the world so that we now live with abundant generosity and a compassion for the needs of others. That we deny ourselves and carry ourselves now with humility. We look for ways that we can be a blessing to others, ways that we can serve our community, ways that we can steward our gifts, our resources, our time to help with the needs of those around us. Ways that we can be, like the words of Jim Elliot – you remember Elliot, who was killed by the Aucas in Ecuador as he sought to reach them with the Gospel. That night, day before they went out to try to make contact with the lost, they sang the hymn, “We Rest on Thee, and in Thy name we go.” And in Elliot’s journal was written that line which has been an encouragement and an example to so many in the years since then – “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
That’s what it means to be a living sacrifice – giving our lives for the sake of the kingdom of God in order to gain eternal treasures, treasures in heaven, as we serve the living God. One commentator, in his commentary on Hebrews, makes this comment. He says, “Although the one, perfect, complete, unrepeatable sacrifice has been made by our great High Priest, other sacrifices ought to be presented to God day by day. These offerings are not made in order to secure redemption but to please God.” He goes on to say that, “Doing good is an important part of the New Testament doctrine of the Christian life that we, oftentimes in an understandable fear of salvation by works, that evangelicals have sometimes minimized this important, this all too important aspect of Biblical Christianity.” Doing good. Another writer adds that, “Without the practical demonstration of love to others, the praise of God simply lacks integrity.”
Our Mission to Jackson seeks to do this very thing – to help give our worship integrity, to provide us with practical opportunities to love those around us because this is a vital part of the Christian life. It’s serving God and serving others. It’s living a life of sacrifice, a living sacrifice, because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, because of His once and for all sacrifice.
I’ll close with just two quick stories. One is from my own personal testimony. When Molly and I were first married, we moved to Memphis and joined a new church. It was the first church that we had joined together. It was a big church, and we really didn’t know many people there, but there was an opportunity that the Mission to Memphis committee gave to the church, to the church members. Once a month, on Saturday, some members would go out into the community and serve with one of the local ministry partners, similar to what we’ve done with Serve Week and Serve Day this week. It was not a big commitment. It wasn’t even a big group. There were maybe ten, fifteen, twenty people that would go out once a month on a Saturday morning, but here’s what it did. Here is what it did for us and the way it was a blessing to us – we got to know and love our city, and we got to know and love our church. We got to know and love this older couple who had recently retired and moved to Memphis to be closer to their family. We may not have gotten to know them any other way, and they became some of our favorite people, not because of a social event, not because of years that we had spent together with them. No, because of serving. Serving God and serving others in our community.
One other example that I learned about this week. This is not to put anyone on a pedestal, but because it was such an encouragement to me. Jamie prayed earlier in our service that we’re still shocked in many ways that the world called Lisa Lake to go home this week. But when Lisa was in the ICU last Wednesday, Jane Stringer was there by her bed, holding her hand, and sharing with her words of comfort and encouragement and Scripture. And it was a dear picture of friendship, of the bond as sisters in Christ. You know what? Their friendship, it wasn’t from growing up together, it wasn’t because they worked together, it wasn’t because they lived in the same neighborhood. Their friendship began because they served together, week after week, at Gateway Rescue Mission. That’s how their friendship was formed. It was serving God and serving others, together. And that’s what knit them together closer as sisters in Christ. It was a beautiful picture to me to see that, and how that impacts not only the community but individual lives, and even at the greatest time of need.
That’s what happens, that’s what happens when we follow the One who laid down His life for us once and for all – that out of gratitude now, we lay down our lives as a living sacrifice for others. Once a year. Once and for all. All the time. May God purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Let’s pray.
Our Father, we come before You humbled to the ground to know what You have done for us with Your great love with which You have loved us. You have loved us with a love that is beyond our imagination. We give You thanks that You have called us to be Yours, that You have set us free from our sin, our guilt, our shame, to live with a clean conscience, a purified conscience, to be free, to be at peace with You and within and with the world around us. And so we pray that as You again remind us of this good news of the Gospel, the heart of the Gospel message, the good news, that You would change us from the inside out. Give us new hearts, new eyes, new desires, new motivations that we would love You more and seek to serve You wherever You have called us. We thank You for those opportunities, the privileges, the blessings that, even as we give and we serve, we do not do it just for our own benefit but to know that You are at work, making us more into the image of Christ. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.