Speaker: Greg Sanders

Passage: Hebrews 10:1-20

SAVED FROM SIN

All right, go ahead and grab your Bibles if you have them. We’re going to be in Hebrews 10. We’re intentionally doing a little miniseries between the Book of Titus and where we’re heading, which is the Books of 1 and 2 Peter. 

The reason we’re doing this is both Titus and Peter have a very practical application. Both those books are a lot about what to do and what not to do. And so, we’re really working to ask a question and answer a question that I think is paramount to understanding how to take a book that’s really practical, how to take a book that is a lot about what to do and what not to do. 

The counterargument that sometimes comes out of us is, If Jesus paid for all my sins, why do I have to live a transformed life? Why does it matter? It’s all grace. And maybe coming out of the Titus series, that’s where you’re at. Your answer was, Man, that’s a lot of do’s and don’ts. Paul has a pretty healthy list for all of us on what to do and what not to do. It just feels like a lot of work. 

And maybe it left you feeling like, Oh, the Kingdom is just about what I do. That’s really not what Paul was getting at. What Paul’s talking about the Book of Titus, and what Peter’s going to talk about as we go into this study in 1 and 2 Peter, is what it looks like for the Christ-life to be lived in our everyday lives.

Paul’s just really restating what he began in Romans 13, where he says to put on the nature of Christ and make no allowance for the flesh. Again, that word put on, no different than us making a choice to put a jacket on, making a choice to take one off. 

It’s interesting, Paul doesn’t say, Take off the flesh, put on Christ. And I love that he doesn’t say that, here’s why: if he said that, it would put something upon us that would be difficult, which is, you got to change your nature before you can put on Christ. 

Instead, what he just says is put on Christ. And so, there is a one-and-done solution for us as a believer, and it’s to put on the nature of Christ. But there is a natural tendency– have you ever noticed in yourself that you always want to argue? You always want to justify, you always want to have a reason for why something’s not happening when you’re told it should happen? 

That’s part of our sin condition. And a lot of times, we’ll come out of this with maybe a quip like, Well, doesn’t Grace cover it all? Grace is incredible. I don’t know about you, I’m a really big fan. How many are with me? You’re like, I need a lot of grace. Yes, incredibly grateful for grace. 

The problem with that is, yes, grace covers sin– and praise God for that– but grace was given for far more than to deal with our historic sin. Paul’s entire point in Titus is that the grace of God was revealed to enable us to step into the real plan of God, which was what? The real plan of God was humanity carrying His nature. 

THE PLAN FOR HUMANITY IN THE GARDEN

How do we know that’s God’s plan? We’re going to go to Genesis 1 through 3 in our minds. If you’re like, I don’t know what Genesis 1 through 3 is, now you have homework. In Genesis chapters 1 through 3, what we find are Adam and Eve in the perfect environment, they’re in the garden. 

And there’s four things that we see in the garden, this perfect, utopian environment that we understand is the intent of God for humanity. It’s where they’re at. There’s four things happening. 

Number one: They’re encountering God daily in intimate friendship. We see that in the Scriptures, in the cool of the day, the Lord would come walk with them, they’re hanging out with Him. 

They’re living in a love relationship together of preferring each other. They’re living in this very clear love relationship, which is akin to what we see in the Trinity,  where there’s this constant preference of each other, this is God’s original design. 

They’re producing and managing the authority given to them. What does that mean? God gave them things to do. He gave them responsibilities. He gave them tasks. See, we want to make work something that is connected to the sin nature. It’s not actually, it’s the purpose and plan and things the Lord gives us to flourish and are actually His intent for us. It’s part of His original design. There were things for them to do, and they were managing them with the authority He’d given them well. 

And then the fourth thing, they’re carrying the nature of God as image-bearers, because the Scriptures say they were made in His image. They carried His image. And those realities were altered by sin. All four of those were lost because of sin. 

So, there’s this prophetic declaration that shows up in these chapters, 1 through 3, that says, “The seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent.” We know that this is a prophetic declaration about Jesus. 

In other words, from the beginning, Yahweh, Father God, had a plan to restore to humanity what had been lost in the garden. How? Jesus, born of a woman, sent to restore all things. That’s how. That’s the plan, that humanity would find a restoration of God’s original intent in Christ. 

Let me put a finer point on what I’m trying to communicate: the transformed life of Jesus is the life we are to live on the earth that brings restoration in all these areas. That’s the agenda, is that we carry His nature and all these things are restored. That’s His goal. 

THE LEVITICAL LAW

What I want to take a look at today is the way the sacrificial, Levitical system was viewed. This is really what the writer of Hebrews is talking about. It’s a system of right and wrong. What do I mean by that? Do the wrong thing, offer the right sacrifice. 

And yet, the writer of Hebrews here in what we’re going to read will say that that wasn’t actually sufficient to deal with sin, that that system of do-the-wrong-thing-offer-the-right-sacrifice actually didn’t take care of sin. 

Which means for us, if we, in our day and time, are a people that get hung up on right and wrong, we’re going to actually miss the point. Because the point of a believer’s life is not to be right. The point is to be transformed. 

Now, I can say that, and we all nod. It’s like a church nod, like, Oh yeah, that seems right. So then, why do we see such resistance in our hearts to being transformed by Him? Personally, why do we have such resistance to being transformed by him? 

Here’s why: because stepping into the transformed life requires that I deal with my independence, my sin nature, and I truly see my core tendencies for what they are: they’re contrary to Him. 

My hope in this teaching is to just bring health to wrong theology that I think is really prevalent in the church culture today, that’s the grace of God frees us to no longer need to really worry about a transformed life. It’s all grace. That belief is a lie. It’s rooted in hell, and it’s rooted in bad theology. 

Let me say it differently: your enemy wants to keep you from putting on the nature of Jesus Christ, and so he will lie and whisper and cajole to keep that from happening. Why? Because an untransformed believer is supernaturally ineffective. An untransformed believer is supernaturally ineffective. 

HEBREWS 10:1-20

So, let’s dig in. Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 1-20. We’re just going to work through these. I’m going to give some commentary. Hebrews is akin to driving into a neighborhood with a lot of cul-de-sacs. It’s really easy to get lost and get turned around. And so, we’re going to do our best to keep it really simple and keep it really clear, so we understand kind of what the writer is trying to get after. 

My first version of this teaching, I got to the end of it, and I went, I think I just made what was complicated more complicated. And so, we kind of scrapped it and started over, because I got hung out in a lot of cul-de-sacs that I want to teach forever. So, I’m going to take us through this as clean as I can, 

“Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it can never by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach.” That’s a sentence. “Otherwise, would they not have ceased being offered, since the worshipers cleansed once and for all would no longer have any consciousness of sin? But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sin, year after year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” 

Okay, what’s the writer of Hebrews saying? The Old Testament Mosaic Law of sacrifices was only a shadow. It pointed to something else. And in its pointing to something else, it actually could not deal with the full problem. 

It’s important that we understand the Law could never deal with the problem. In other words, it’s not like the Old Testament was one covenant, the New Testament is a new covenant, it’s a new idea. It’s not the Old Covenant, that sacrificial system was never actually able to deal with sin. It was a stopgap measure that was given with a point. It was supposed to point our attention to something different. 

Now, I want you to notice the language. It said, “It could not make perfect those who would approach.” That’s restoration language, and that reveals to us what the intent of God actually was. His intent was to make perfect those who would approach. 

His intent was not to say to them, Hey, that doesn’t actually work. Sorry. But He allowed that to happen for a season so that we would keep wanting something different, that there would be this native thirst in us to be fully transformed. 

I want you to catch that your Father in Heaven wants you made perfect, living the life of His dreams for you now. Don’t take perfect and be like, Oh, so life without mistake. No, no, no. His version of perfect is that you are made in His image, and you carry His nature.

The guilt of consistently repeating the sacrifices, here is proof that they were ineffective to cleanse the heart and conscience, because if you’re free, you don’t want to get free again. If you’re truly forgiven, you don’t need to come back and be forgiven again. 

Do you see how we often live in the Old Covenant? Instantly, as I explained this, you’re like, Whoa. I think we live in the Old Covenant. The animal sacrifices here were just a placeholder. I love the writer of Hebrews. He’s kind of like, You know, bulls and goats were never really going to deal with it, so quit thinking they did so. 

Verse 5: “Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings you’ve not desired but a body you’ve prepared for me in burnt offering and sin offering you’ve taken no pleasure.’ Then I said, ‘See, I’ve come to do your will, O God. In the scroll of the book, it is written of me.’” 

Okay, when Christ came, the entire system shifted. It didn’t change, it shifted. It’s an indication that His arrival was intended to bring a solution or a conclusion to something. What Jesus did upon arriving was put a new focus on the system. 

Let’s pick up in verse 8, “You’ve neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings.” There’s a bunch of offerings. One of the cul-de-sacs that I almost got stuck in, that I wanted to take us into, was if we look at all these Old Testament sacrifices, we do away with them because we’re modern, and we actually shouldn’t because I believe they have direct overlay into what our worship gathering should have. 

There are aspects of these sin offerings and these different sacrifices, they purchase different freedoms, and they were meant to aim at different sins, and they are actually an indication to us of how we’re supposed to interact together. We’re going to choose that cul-de-sac on a different day. 

Verse 9, “Then he added, ‘See, I’ve come to do your will.’ He abolishes–” Jesus, that’s who he’s talking about– “He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. He abolishes the first in order to establish the second.” 

Jesus came with an agenda to make it possible for humanity to actually live the will of the Father. That was His agenda. So, He came to abolish a sacrificial system to establish a second. And the establishing of the second was so that the original intent could be fulfilled. We have to catch that. 

Verse 10, “And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.” Okay, big idea. The first step in God’s will was that humanity’s sin would be dealt with by the sacrifice of Jesus. There’s sacrificial language in here, and it’s a shift, through the offering of the body. 

I want you to catch this because I think we have poor theology in this realm. The sacrifice of Jesus deals with and dealt with our sin once and for all. Your sin, historically, your sin present, your sin future, has all been dealt with by Jesus and His sacrifice at the cross. 

We have to understand that there are not new sacrifices being offered, there’s not a new appropriation of a sacrifice being offered. His sacrifice was a once and for all time sacrifice. The word phrase, have been sanctified, this is not a phrase that means, Hey, your old sin was dealt with. It’s a term that places us into a state of sanctification. Was, is, being. 

I want to egg on that moment for just a second because I think the enemy of our souls loves to tell us that our misalignments are disqualifications. He loves to encourage us that the places we misalign with the Kingdom are disqualifications from the Kingdom. That’s a lie. Jesus offered a once and for all time sacrifice that had an intention, and it was to restore the original intent of the Covenant. 

The problem is, I think we actually believe what the enemy says. We believe that we’re in this constant war with this thing called sin, and it keeps winning, and we keep having to come back, going, I need You to deal with my sin. I need You to deal with my sin. That’s not actually the truth. The war with sin was done at the cross. 

According to Romans, He was the propitiation, which means the once and for all time dealing with sin, which means we don’t ever have to come back to Him, going, I’m still a sinner. We have to come back and say, I haven’t actually done what You gave me, which is to put on Your nature. Because, according to this, what Jesus did was a once-and-for-all solution. Do you see that in the text? It’s really hard to miss it if we’re willing to see it.

Well, what about backsliding and blaspheming, and falling away? Let me say this carefully, two things I’d love to say: do not add to the Scriptures what they don’t say. I don’t care who taught you that. Number two: you can choose those things Biblically, but you actually have to choose them. They don’t happen because you’re wrestling with your old nature. 

I would love to free you up from that fear. You wrestling with your sin nature does not disqualify you from the Kingdom. You choosing bold-faced to look at God and say, I don’t care about You. I don’t ever want You, I think that’s blaspheming, and I don’t think people that are worried about it are actually doing it. 

In other words, if you’re asking the question, Am I in blasphemy? You’re probably not. If you’re asking the question, Am I backsliding? That means the Lord’s already dealing with you about sin, so just repent. Does that make sense? 

Okay, let’s move on. Verse 11, “And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifice that can never take away sin.” This is a nod to the Old Covenant, saying, look, they kept doing it, and they kept doing it, they kept doing it, but they weren’t there to actually deal with sin. They were there to be a reminder of something. 

And what were they there to be a reminder of? “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.” Really simple. What Jesus did was final and complete. There is no more work to do. 

Verse 13 says, “And since then, he has been waiting until his enemies will be made a footstool for his feet.” Okay, this is where I want to dig in. It’s a very curious statement. Since the time of His sacrifice, Jesus has been watching and waiting for His enemies to be made a footstool. That’s a very strange picture that I don’t think we get taught much. 

He goes through the cross, He ascends, and He sits down, and He waits for something. What’s He waiting for? He’s waiting for His enemies to be made a footstool. He sat down at the right hand of God. It’s this very restful picture in the narrative of He’s just chilling out, watching for something. 

What could that mean? How does that happen? If you go back to Genesis, here’s my question: could Jesus be waiting for the sons of woman, which is us, to learn to bruise the head of the serpent? Do you not realize that when you carry the nature of Christ, you’re the living nightmare of the enemy? 

His desire was to be like the Most High, is what the Scriptures teach. His original desire was to elevate himself and be equal. And yet, who was given the status of image bearer? We were. We were given in the garden the status of carrying His image. 

Therefore, when we step into the restoration intent of Heaven, we’re putting the enemy under our feet and becoming living trophies for our King. He’s parading us around, going, Oh, you know the thing you wanted? They have it. 

And look, here’s a thought that has killed me. I woke up at two o’clock this morning thinking about this. Pastor Dustin and I had this conversation yesterday afternoon. Could it be that the Lord is not waiting for the earth to be filled with His knowledge alone before He comes back? He’s not waiting for enough people to get saved. 

Could it be that He’s sitting back waiting for the sons and daughters of the Kingdom to learn how to carry the nature of Christ? Because He already showed us that it’s possible to carry His nature in a sin body, and we can actually rule over it, and look divine and live divine, and that’s what He’s waiting for before He returns? That’s terrifying because that means we got a long time to wait. 

“You see, for by a single offering he has perfected all those who are sanctified.” But wait, time out. “For by a single offering he has perfected…” It is a statement of it’s already been done, all those who are being sanctified. Who are all those being sanctified? Us. So, through a single offering, He perfected us, which means it’s already been done. 

“And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us. For after saying, ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,’ says the Lord, ‘I will put my laws in their heart, and I will write them on their minds.'” 

This is language of shifting of nature. Inside of them, they’re going to begin to long for and desire the very things that I long for and desire. And then I love what He adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin again.” 

If you missed it, your sins and your lawless deeds aren’t being remembered against you anymore. They’ve already been dealt with at the cross. Okay, then what’s this thing all about? It’s about carrying His nature. 

And here’s what I’d love to say: that you currently have everything you need to walk in the restored nature of Jesus Christ. What remains is your choice. If you are waiting for Heaven to choose the nature for you, it will not happen. He will never choose for us what He gave to us to choose. Otherwise, Paul would not have written put on the nature of Christ. It’s a choice. The choice is to step into the places Jesus restored and aligned. 

CHOOSING TO BUILD ENCOUNTER

So, think about those four things we saw in the garden, encountering God in a daily, intimate friendship. You, as a believer, have to build your encounter with Him. It can’t be built for you. You have to make a choice to build an encounter. 

This doesn’t make you a good believer. It’s actually the restoration intent of the Father. It’s what He wants. He wants you with Him in Divine friendship, so you can hear His voice. And you’re not just hearing the voice of the Scriptures. You’re also hearing the voice of Heaven. And these two things together are leading and guiding you. That’s always how it was intended to be, and the sacrifice of Jesus came to restore that opportunity. 

The second thing is, He wants you living in a love relationship with others by preferring them. How you treat others becomes an expression of your worship and your commitment to Jesus, that we live in kindness and love towards others, because it’s what He teaches us to do. 

That we’re seeing a restoration of how we treat others, not based on how we feel about others, but based on what Jesus teaches us to do towards others. We’re putting on His nature. We’re producing and managing the authority that He gives us, so we gratefully manage all He entrusts to us, serving with fervor because He trusts us with those things, your jobs, your home, your family. 

In other words, you view everything in your life that you’ve been given to do as a trust opportunity. He’s given it to you and said, I want your imprint on this. I want you to carry My nature into this realm, and I want to work with you divinely. It’s going to be you and I as co-laborers together. But I want you to take it into the marketplace, take it into your homes, take it in your neighborhoods, and live My nature in these realms. 

And so, if you’re like, Well, I don’t like my job, well, stop complaining about your job, and learn to be grateful for the place He’s given you to influence. Because if you’re faithful with little, He does what? Gives you more. 

And if you’re whining about what you make, you’re like, I don’t make enough. You know what? Hard work brings prosperity. A great job doesn’t bring prosperity. There are Biblical principles when you learn to live those, which is, you just work hard, you appropriate hard work, and the Lord prospers it, and He blesses it. 

It’s this law of entropic gain that doesn’t make sense on the human level, but it does on the Divine because He adds where there shouldn’t be the ability to add because we understand Kingdom. 

The fourth thing is we carry the nature of God as image-bearers, that we choose to put on His nature, that we understand the nature of Christ is not native, it’s chosen. No matter how good you think you are, you don’t naturally carry the nature of Christ. You have to choose it. 

How do you put on His nature? Paul gives us a clue in Romans 13, you make zero allowance for the flesh. When the flesh rises up, when you see a response pattern, you see an attitude, you see anything, you just stop and go, No, no, no allowance. You’re not allowed. 

Instead, we’re going to choose what Jesus says, when we choose what the Kingdom teaches, when we choose what Scriptures teach. Well, isn’t that behavior modification? Welcome to the Scriptures. I just want to remind you, behavior modification is not a term that’s in Scripture. That’s a human term about people that don’t like to have their behavior modified. I should want it. 

Do you know how you learn to want what the King wants? By writing what He gave you on your own hearts and forcing yourself to live it, and then you begin to want the very thing that He wants for you. 

So, every time we want to step back into our nature, we just crucify ourselves with Christ. That’s Galatians 2. That we reckon, the word is to mentally remind ourselves that we’re dead to that nature and only alive. It’s just really simple. I really want to live here. I can’t, I’m dead there. He told me I was dead here. 

Well, then, why am I still alive? Because you have to learn by faith to crucify yourself. If He took our nature away and just gave us His, there would be no choice, there’d be no love, there’d be nothing we have to offer Him. 

What we get to offer Him when we stand before Him is the level we were willing to lay our nature down for His. Those are the crowns we lay before Him. These are the places that I laid myself down. I crucified myself because of my love and my adoration for You. Here it is. It’s back to You. It’s because of You. It was for You. 

We always want to believe it’s the people we won for the Kingdom. It’s way more about the nature-carrying of Christ. And if you’re for His transformation to happen to you, you have bad theology because grace is actually the activity that was given to us to make it possible to choose His life. 

Verses 19 and 20. I’m gonna finish up. “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way he opened for us through the curtain–” that is, through His flesh, His life, His nature, His character. “Transforming us is the new and living way.” 

Jesus came to seal it all up. He said this: “I did not come to abolish the law, I came to fulfill it.” The point of that fulfillment was so that we could see restored, in this day and this time, the Divine order of Genesis, that those four things were to be restored in our lives through Him. 

Stand with me, please. I thought bread and cup might be a really appropriate way to seal this, to be willing individually before the Lord to just ask this question: Am I carrying Your nature? Have I made the choice to carry Your nature? A great answer is, I want to, Lord. Will You please forgive me for the places I’ve not carried Your nature? Forgive me for the places I’ve been unwilling. 

Maybe you’re one of those people, like, I just want to go through life on my own. I don’t really have to talk to God. You’re missing out. It’s like secret knowledge. It’s like an unfair advantage. 

Maybe it’s the way you treat others. Maybe your attitude towards work has been terrible. Maybe you just are really proud of who you are, and you don’t want to carry Him. The intent of Heaven was for us to be image-bearers that live in these four intentions. 

And my call for us is let’s get back on track while He’s watching and waiting. Let’s be a people that would say we are putting the enemy under our feet by living in these intentions. 

So, Lord, we stand before You today just with a sense of the magnitude of what we’re talking about. We thank You for the Book of Hebrews, for the clarity to remind us that we’re not wrestling. 

Will You forgive us? You already forgave us. We love it, sin’s dealt with. We just got to make a choice to carry You. Lord, we’re sorry for the place we’ve been stubborn, and we haven’t done it. Sorry for the places we haven’t walked in Your intentions. 

Lead us and guide us as we take the bread and we take the cup, reminding ourselves of Your sacrifice, Jesus, of what You did to purchase this. We love You. We honor You, Jesus’ name, amen.