Superior Forgiveness

Because he sat down, his work is complete, and the author of Hebrews is wanting to show this contrast between the priest that stands day after day trying to deal with the problem of the debt of these people's guilt and conscience and sin and contrast that to Jesus who is up there seated because his work is once and for all complete.

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Good morning, everybody. My name is Chuck Ask, and I work with RUF, Reform University Fellowship. It's the campus ministry that is connected to this church, and I have been connected to this church for almost sixteen years. My family and I have loved being a part of CTK, so I know many of y'all and appreciate all the ways that this church has loved and supported myself and my family.

Today, I have the joy to get to come and bring us to the book of Hebrews. This is the book that we've been studying so that we see in the midst of the book of Hebrews what the author wants us to see, which is Jesus. So that throughout the book, throughout the sermons, it always comes back to how Jesus is what we need to see the most in our life. And that's because the people that the author is writing to were struggling whether or not they wanted to keep holding on to Jesus, whether or not they wanted to turn away from Jesus and go back to Judaism. But the author writes this letter almost like a love poem saying, look and study at all of the beauty that is here in your savior. Why would you want to go anywhere else?

So each week, what I hope you've heard is that the thing that you need to look at most is Jesus.

My dad one day was telling me about a dream that he had, and this was when he was in his late sixties. He had a dream that some of y'all probably have had. He had that dream of anxiety when you see yourself in a class and you realize that there's a test you have to take. Now he'd been done with college, he'd gone through grad school, and he was in his late sixties, but he woke up from that dream so caught up in anxiety, so fearful that he was going to fail out of college that he had to get up out of his bed and go and look at his diploma. Can you imagine that? There in your sixties, he's retired, but he still had to go and look at that diploma to calm his anxious heart.

What the author of Hebrews wants to do in this passage is help us to look at Jesus like that. To look at Jesus so that our hearts can rest because when we see his completed work, we know that we don't have to worry about failure. We don't have to worry about debt. We don't have to worry about what we still need to do. The hope is that as we look at this passage, this will help all of us to have a heart that is so at rest in what Jesus has done for us, that instead of living out of that sense of "we still got something to do," we can live with a sense of delight to do things for Jesus.

Our outline today as we unpack this passage is going to be that from debt to delight. From debt to delight.

But before we begin to unpack that, I want to read to us God's word. Usually, we like to read it together, but because it's a longer passage, I'm going to read it for us. So this is God's word, Hebrews chapter 10 verses one through 18. I invite you to follow along.

Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. Otherwise, wouldn't they have stopped being offered since the worshipers purified once and for all would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in the sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins year after year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, as he was coming into the world, he said, "You did not desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me. You did not delight in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings. Then I said, see, it is written about me in the scroll. I have come to do your will, God." After he says above, "You did not desire or delight in sacrifices and offerings, whole burnt offerings and sin offerings, which are offered according to the law." He then says, "See, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time. Every priest stands day after day ministering and offering the same sacrifices time after time, which can never take away sins. But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. He is now waiting until his enemies are made his footstool. For by one offering, he has perfected forever those who are sanctified." — Hebrews 10:1-18

The holy spirit also testifies to us about this. For after he says, this is the covenant I will make with them. After those days, the lord says:

I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds. And I will never again remember their sins and their lawless acts. — Hebrews 10:15-17

Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but this, the word of our lord, stands forever.

It's right for us to pause and ask for his help to understand it. I invite you to pray along with me in your hearts. Heavenly father, we thank you that you do speak to us the words of life, the words that we need to hear. And even as we gather today, I pray that these things will point us to Jesus. We pray this for his sake. Amen.

From Debt to Delight

Again, the outline today is from debt to delight, and I want to start off with that sense of debt. I get a reminder about debt every month when my mortgage statement comes to me. And my wife often says, I don't think we can ever pay this back, Chuck, because it seems like every single month we maybe make five dollars headway on that principle, but it seems like that debt is just huge and outstanding.

What is it like to have a debt that is weighing down on you? In a sense, that's what the author is wanting to bring into the hearts of the people that he's writing to—the sense of a debt that is weighing down on them. And the debt that he has in mind is the debt of sin. The debt of a guilty conscience.

All of us have to deal in some sense with a guilty conscience. We even know this from Toy Story. If you remember, the toy Rex sees Buzz Lightyear coming into the moving van as they're about to go to the new house. And he thinks at that time that Buzz Lightyear is bad. And so when he sees Buzz, what does Rex do? He pushes him off. But then someone says, no, he's good. And then do you remember what Rex says? "Great. Now I have guilt." That's in a sense what all of us deal with. We do things that we realize are wrong and then we all have guilt. And that voice of guilt is like that mortgage statement that keeps coming to us regularly, often. If we're honest, day after day reminding us that there is something that I've done wrong. There is a debt that I owe.

Guilt is a problem and it's a problem for all of us because God has, in a sense, built into us a conscience that accuses us. God made all people to have a conscience that convicts us for the things that we've done or the things that we haven't done. And though they're not perfect, they are a helpful tool that God puts into our soul to help us realize the ways that we have failed.

But then what do we do with that conscience that convicts us? What do we do with that sense of guilt that we have? We try to quiet it. When we feel that sense of guilt, we try to hush it up by saying, oh, it wasn't that bad. Or we try to appease it, like, okay, yeah, yeah, I did that, but look, I'm going to do this now. We try to do something to get that guilty conscience to be quiet, but that guilt just keeps coming.

And what the author of Hebrews wants the people to do is to see that problem of the debt of guilt that they feel and see what will not help. What will not help is paying God back.

Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. — Hebrews 10:1

When the author is speaking about the law here, they have in mind the sacrificial system that we read about in the Old Testament. The people he's writing to—the Hebrews—were thinking about going back to Judaism and a part of that means going back to a sacrificial system. And what the sacrificial system did was it was a way that people saw that they had guilt, they had sins, and so they would bring forward an animal to sacrifice, a bull or a goat. And in a way, that was built to kind of deal with that guilty conscience. Okay, I'm paying God back something. I have failed, but look at my offering. And so it seems in a way to make sense.

But what the author of Hebrews wants the people to realize is that the sacrificial system was actually never really doing anything. Have you ever gone down to the beach and you go to one of the thousands of wings that are right there one street off the beach? And you go in and buy one of those little floaties so that you can kind of lounge out in the water. And when you're on that floatie, probably like me, you've noticed that on it, it says, "Not intended for a life saving device." Because you're probably thinking, well, now that I have this floating pink unicorn, I can definitely rescue someone if they're in trouble. And so they have to put, no, this is not intended to actually save anyone. It's just for fun.

In a sense, that's what the author of Hebrews wants us to realize about the sacrificial system, that it is not intended as a soul saving device. The sacrificial system itself never actually paid for a single sin. That's what the author of Hebrews tells us.

Every priest stands day after day ministering and offering the same sacrifice time after time, which can never take away sins. — Hebrews 10:11

The sacrificial system in the Old Testament was not intended to take away sins. God was never paid in the blood of bulls and goats in a way that would, in any way, shape, or form lessen the debt that his people owed.

It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. — Hebrews 10:4

It'd be like me trying to take my monopoly money down to Wells Fargo and say, "Here, I think this will cover my mortgage." I don't think that would work. In a sense, the sacrificial system was like it. It looked like maybe this is paying God back, but it wasn't intended to do that. The sacrificial system was not effective for forgiving sins, which is why the author continues:

It can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year.

You see, a part of what the people thought is that if I give enough in this bowl, give enough in this goat, then maybe I can take care of the problem. But the point of the sacrificial system was not to pay God back. The point of the sacrificial system was for them to realize how deep the problem was. It wasn't for them to have less debt before God, but it was for them to realize how much debt they owed God.

Don't you hear it throughout this passage the way that the author is trying to drive home to the people how relentlessly demanding the sacrificial system was? He keeps saying "year after year" or the way that he describes the work of the priests: "Every priest stands day after day ministering and offering the same sacrifices time after time." He's wanting them to understand that the sacrificial system can't ever begin to touch the debt that they owe to God and that all it is is just a relentless reminder to them that they have a huge problem.

The Problem Beneath the Surface

When we moved here to Raleigh, we found this house that was a rental. And because it was a rental, if there was a problem, I could call somebody to fix it. I didn't have to do it myself. But we had a shower upstairs that would always have about four inches of water in it. And so I kept telling the landlord, "Hey, we've got a problem." And he would send a plumber out who would kind of plunge it down and get it to kind of slowly deplete, but it never really solved the problem. It just kind pushed it off for a bit.

But then we bought that house and the problem became mine to deal with, which on one side was frustrating, but on the other side was helpful. Because instead of kind of continually making that plumbing system walk along and work out just okay, I opened up the wall, got down underneath the tub, and got into the drum that had been filled with decades of guck and pulled it out so that finally, the drain would run freely.

The sacrificial system in a sense is like that plumber that kept just trying to make it limp along, but what Jesus does is he comes into this world and gets into the midst of the gunk of our life to once and for all completely remove all sin so that our life is clean. This is what the author of Hebrews wants them to see—that the sacrificial system can't do what only Jesus can. Blood of bulls and goats cannot satisfy God, but only one thing can: Jesus.

The Old Testament sacrifices did not please God or appease God. God didn't want the blood of bulls and goats. There's only one thing that can please and appease him, and that is Jesus, which is why it tells us:

But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. — Hebrews 10:12

You see, as long as they think that they can pay God off with the blood of bulls and goats, they're gonna be relentlessly in debt. But what the author of Hebrews wants them to see is that in Jesus, they have one that will pay that debt completely, that will satisfy that debt completely. The author of Hebrews doesn't want them to let go of Jesus because all it's doing is inviting into their life never ending debt.

But the beauty of what he says about Jesus is he sat down. Now did you notice when I came up, what did the worship team do? They sat down. Why? Because they're not working right now. And when the author highlights that Jesus sat down, what he is saying is because he sat down, his work is done. Because he sat down, his work is complete.

The author of Hebrews is wanting to show this contrast between the priest that stands day after day trying to deal with the problem of the debt of these people's guilt and conscience and sin, and contrast that to Jesus who is seated because his work is once and for all complete. Now which do you want? The perpetual debt that never seems to be getting paid off, or the once complete work of Jesus? The author wants the people to see Jesus so that they realize that in his work, their hearts can rest because this is what we need. We need to be able to speak into that guilty conscience of our own, that that debt has been paid.

Your heart says, "I still owe God more." But what happens when you look at Jesus? You see him sitting down, and you can say to your heart, he rests, so you can too. Your conscience says, "You can never be forgiven for what you did there. You are going to deal with this debt your whole life." But you look at Jesus and what do you see? Him sitting down. And you can say, that sin is already paid for. I don't have to wear that debt anymore. Your shame says, "God can never accept you after all you've done, for who you are." But what do you do? You look at Jesus and you see him sitting down, and that tells your soul that everything about me is now perfect before the Father because Jesus is sitting down.

The only remedy for the debt that we all feel, the only way that we can quiet our guilty consciences is not by us trying to do more for God, but to see that Jesus doesn't have to do anything more for God. His work is complete, which is the beautiful thing at the end of this passage where he says:

"And I will never again remember their sins and their lawless acts. Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering of sin." — Hebrews 10:17-18

The author of Hebrews wants you to see the beauty of what Jesus did so that you remember God doesn't remember. That the sacrifice of Jesus was sufficient to wipe away every bit of debt that you feel. But what is it about Jesus' sacrifice, in particular, that makes it better than the blood of bulls and goats? Is it something that is different about it, actually being Jesus—as though because of him having human blood that it's more powerful than the blood of bulls and goats? Why is it that Jesus, in particular, his sacrifice was superior to the Old Testament?

The author wants us to understand this, and the way that he does is by helping us to understand what was driving Jesus. Look at verse five:

"Therefore, as he was coming into the world, he said, 'You did not desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me. You did not delight in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings. Then I said, See, it is written about me in the scroll. I have come to do your will, God.'" — Hebrews 10:5-7

After which he says:

"You did not desire or delight in sacrifices and offerings, whole burnt offerings and sin offerings, which are offered according to the law." — Hebrews 10:8

Do you hear what the author keeps highlighting? God did not want sacrifices. God wasn't like they thought about some gods in that age, like this hungry spiritual being that needed the blood of bulls and goats to feed it. That's what other religions believe—that their offerings of wine or grain or bowls or goats was somehow feeding and satisfying the soul of their god. But God wants to make it clear to his people that he does not need their sacrifices. Throughout the Old Testament, he keeps reminding the people that he's not trying just to get them to offer more animals to him, that there's something different that he wants.

We read in Hosea:

"For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice. The knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." — Hosea 6:6

Or we hear Samuel say to Saul:

"Has the Lord great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams." — 1 Samuel 15:22

Or think about David in Psalm 51 as he's dealing with his own guilty conscience and bringing it to God in that beautiful prayer. What does he say at the end?

"You do not want sacrifice or I'd give it to you. You are not pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God." — Psalm 51:16-17

You see, the author of Hebrews wants to remind the people that God wasn't just excited about a bunch of animals being killed. That's not what God wanted. What God wanted was not sacrifice. What he wanted was obedience. God wasn't excited about the death of blood of bulls and goats. What God would get excited about is somebody who said, "I want to obey. I want to follow you."

What God Truly Desires

Now why is it? Why is it God would see that as the preferable desire? What is it about obedience that would get God to delight? Perhaps you've seen the classic movie or read the book, The Princess Bride. It's a personal favorite of mine.

And if you remember at the beginning of the movies, we're being introduced to the characters. You have Buttercup, the princess, and her servant, asking Wesley to do something. Every time that she asks him to do something, what does he say? Do you remember? "As you wish." "As you wish." And then the narrator tells us soon that she begins to realize that every time he says "as you wish," what he's really saying is "I love you." He submitted his desires to her out of love into the most menial task of, "Boy, would you bring me that pitcher?" His bringing her that pitcher was a way he said, "I love you."

And this is what God desires—not a heart that pays him debt as though he's a money launderer that's trying to get money off of your interest and your debt. What he wants is someone that looks at him and says, "As you wish." What he wants is not people to deal with their guilt by giving him more and more stuff. What he wants is someone who gives their heart over to him in loving obedience. And that, the author says, is something that Jesus' sacrifice provides.

Look back at verse five. It says:

You did not desire sacrifice or offering, but you prepared a body for me. You did not delight in burnt offerings or sacrifices—but verse seven—I have come to do your will, God. You did not desire or delight in sacrifices or offerings, but verse nine, see, I have come to do your will. — Hebrews 10:5-9

You see, what Jesus did that is different is that his whole life was an "as you wish" life. God gave him a body not just so that body would be on the cross spilling out blood that would somehow pay the debt, but so that every single moment of Jesus' life would be a life saying, "As you wish" to God. A body you have prepared for me. God gave him a body so that he could live out in his body perfect obedience, loving obedience. And this is part of what makes Jesus' sacrifice so compellingly different than that of a bull, than that of a goat.

You see, the reality is the bull doesn't really get a say in his sacrifice, does he? The goat has no vote. It's not a willing sacrifice. It's not an obedient sacrifice. It's not a loving sacrifice. But Jesus' sacrifice is different. He was not compelled to do it out of duty, but he goes to the cross out of delight, which is what we see in the Garden of Gethsemane. As he's wrestling with the terror of what it means to bear on himself our sins, to be naked on the cross in shame, to be held in derision by the people he created, he's wrestling with the intensity of what is to come. But what does he say? "Not my will, but yours be done." He's saying, "God, as you wish."

Paul tells us in Philippians 2:8 that in what Jesus is doing, he's humbling himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. He was humbled in obedience, and that's what God delights in. A contrite heart he will not despise. And it's not saying that he's just okay with it, but it's a way to flip that around—that what God delights in most is a humble heart, a heart that trusts him and his goodness so much, so completely that every single thing that he asks is met with a delight of "yes."

And this is part of why the sacrifice of Jesus is the only sacrifice that can work—because the sacrifice of Jesus isn't just on that cross, but it is his entire life of obedience. From the very first breath he took, every single breath he took, every single act that he did was to fulfill all righteousness, was to say in every single moment of his life, "God, I humbly and joyfully obey you."

And why that is important is because you and I are not like that. You and I do not have that kind of heart where every single moment of our life is joyful obedience to God. And that's why we can never pay the debt that we have. Because even after we have that sense of forgiveness that we sometimes experience and the assurance of pardon, we look down the aisle and our heart covets. Our kids start to fidget and we get unrighteously angry. We just keep putting ourself into debt because we do not have a heart of complete and total joyful obedience. But Jesus did.

And what he offers to us is his obedience for our sinfulness. So that it tells us he is the one who perfects us. This is what it says in verse 14:

For by one offering, he has perfected forever those who are sanctified. — Hebrews 10:14

You see, you don't stand in a place of just kind of even with your debt. You stand in a place of perfection because Jesus didn't just pay your debt, but he also gave you his righteousness. And so you stand before God knowing that he looks at you through that lens of one who forever obeyed willingly and joyfully and humbly.

And what that does for us is that changes the way we relate to God. Look back at verse 10. It says:

By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time. — Hebrews 10:10

There's something about seeing Jesus and his will, seeing Jesus and his humble obedience that changes us.

The author keeps contrasting in the middle the sacrifices that God doesn't want with the will of Jesus that he does because through that, we begin to realize something changes in us. You see, when we begin to realize that we don't owe God anything, what it means is that whenever we obey, anytime that we obey, it is not to pay God back for something. Do you sometimes think that way? That like, okay, I owe God for yesterday, so I better really read my Bible. Or do you sometimes feel like it's a way that you get ahead of God? Like, I really better pray today because I really want him to come through for me.

Part of you is feeling that sense of guilt in your conscience that God can't bless me, God can't care for me, God can't provide for me unless I pay him back. We have that sense of debt that still lingers and it tinges into our obedience so that our obedience in some ways is self-motivated. I gotta keep God on my good side. But if the way that we stand before God is with Jesus seated down, what does that mean? There's not a single act of obedience that you can do today or any day in the rest of your life that is gonna give you one bit more than what you already have in Christ. Do you believe that? That there's not one single act of obedience that you can do when you are justified in Christ that can make God love you one bit more.

If that's the case, why even bother with obedience? Because every time you obey, you're not getting something more from God. All that you're doing is saying to him, as you wish. All you're doing is saying to him, I so love you. It is my delight to serve you in this way. Instead of, I obey to get your blessing, God, I obey to bless you, God. Instead of I obey to avoid your anger, I obey to bring you joy. Instead of I obey so that you will not leave me, I obey because you are always with me. Instead of I obey because it's the right thing to do, I obey because you make me right. Do you feel the difference? Do you feel that shift?

I mean, think about it this way. Think in your mind of one area in your life that you feel God leading you to change, one area in your life that you're trying to obey. What is it that you try to motivate yourself to make that change? Do you try to make that change by saying, I better do it or God's gonna get me? Do you try to do it because you're worried that you're gonna feel more shame and embarrassment? What if you begin to look at that place of obedience in your life and you look at it and say, God, I wanna do this because it would please you. I want to do this because I want you to see my love. Doesn't that feel different? Because that's obedience not out of will, not out of debt, not out of guilt. That's obedience out of delight.

Obedience Out of Love, Not Debt

And what Jesus' sacrifice does is it clears the deck of all the guilt, clears the deck of all the shame, clears the deck of anything that could cause us to say, gotta pay God back so that every single thing that you can do can be a way that you offer to God your love. This is what Paul gets at in Romans chapter 12 when he says:

Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, the gospel, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true worship. — Romans 12:1-2

What's Paul saying there? The only way that your heart is really truly worshiping is when you're beginning to give back to God what he has given to you. The only way that you can ever respond to the death of Christ, the paid-for sacrifice, is to take your life and make it a living sacrifice, not to pay him back, but out of worship. What you did on the cross, what you did for me is so compellingly beautiful. All I can do is give back to you the same.

What God wants from his people is not us to pay him back. What God wants from his people is for us to delight, to obey, to trust, to hear, to follow because we know that every single thing that he says to us to do is coming from that heart of love, the heart of a father for his children.

There's a hymn that puts it this way: to see the law by Christ fulfilled, to hear his pardoning voice changes a slave to a child, and duty into choice. CTK, be people that love to obey, not out of debt because Christ has paid it all, but out of delight for the way that Christ shows you the depth of his love.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of the cross and the way that we see in it a truly humble and contrite heart in our Savior. And the way that through it, you write onto our hearts the desire to love and follow you. Continue to strengthen us to keep looking to Jesus. We pray this for his name's sake.

Community rooted in the depth of the gospel, refined by hard conversations, fueled by meaningful relationships, and committed to redemptive work in Raleigh. If you have questions about our sermon content or about our church in general, please visit our website at ctkrally.org.