All right, well, beautiful singing. If I’ve not met you, my name is Aaron, and I’m the preaching pastor here, and I’m glad that you’re with us this beautiful fall day. So if you have a Bible with you, if you open up to the book of Hebrews, today’s text for study is going to be Hebrews 8. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there are Bibles scattered throughout the pews, and it’s on page 583. Please keep your Bibles open.
We do a style of preaching here called expository preaching. So I’m going to read this passage, we’ll pray, and then we’re going to get into the words of the passage. All I’m going to do is try to communicate back to you what the text is saying. We, as a church, just want God to speak to us through His word. So that’s all I’m going to try to do this morning for the glory of Christ, whom we just sang to.
So, Hebrews 8, starting at verse 1. I’m actually going to read the entire chapter, if you want to follow along—verses 1 through 13. Before I finish, as mentioned, I’ll pray, and this morning I’ll be reading out of the ESV. So the word says:
“Now, the point of what we are saying is this: We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, ‘See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’
As it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old, as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says: ‘Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.’
In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete is growing old and is ready to vanish away.”
So that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me?
Lord, thank you for your word. You saw fit to communicate your word through preaching, and Lord, that’s very humbling. So please help me today to rightly divide your word of truth. Please keep me from error. Help me to speak what is true. Lord, please also be with the listeners. I pray that you would press truth on all of our hearts. I pray that you use this time to bring glory to Jesus. In His name, we pray. Amen.
So perhaps the greatest college coach of all time is a man named John Wooden, who was famous for winning ten basketball championships over a twelve-year period, including seven in a row at UCLA in California. Because of the unparalleled success that Wooden had, naturally, he was a well-sought-out presenter at various coaching clinics where all sorts of coaches from all sorts of sports and skill levels would spend time and money to hear from Wooden, to hear what he had to say, with hopes that they themselves would find some success similar to what Wooden enjoyed.
Now, at these clinics, no doubt a lot of things would be covered, whether it be drills that Wooden would use, strategies he would seek to implement, or maybe leadership lessons that he would apply. But one of the things that Wooden became well known for, and that he would talk about at coaching clinics, was not something that one would imagine he would talk about, especially for how long he would actually talk about it, which was how to properly put on socks. This is not always something that Wooden would talk about in coaching clinics, but it’s actually something Wooden would do at the start of every year with his teams. Before the start of their very first practice, he got all his players together and he physically demonstrated to his players how he wanted them to put on their socks. In turn, in this demonstration, the players would demonstrate back to Wooden that they understood what he taught them by physically doing it themselves.
Now, there’s a little bit of a leadership lesson by Wooden in this exercise. Wooden was trying to communicate to his players, and to the coaches at the coaching clinic, how important it is to do the little things right, where, most often, success—whether it be in sports or, more importantly, in life—is found by doing a lot of little things, seemingly boring things, seemingly unimportant things, but doing them right. In fact, this is even true, most importantly, when it comes to our faith. We know this. We are called to be faithful with little.
But it wasn’t just a leadership principle that Wooden was hoping to communicate in this exercise. He actually wholeheartedly believed it was really important to put socks on the right way. In most sports, including basketball, which he coached, the game is played on one’s feet. If athletes do not take care of their feet, their feet can blister, which can come from not properly putting on socks. If feet are not properly tended to, athletic success can be very difficult, if not impossible, to find. For Wooden, it was essential to get the feet right, as everything builds off them.
So coaching clinic after coaching clinic, year after year, to stress how important this concept was, Wooden would put way more thought and time than one might think to communicate this simple yet profound and important truth. I’m sure for some of the coaches at the clinics, no doubt some of his players were probably a little bit like, “Yeah, we get it. Let’s move on to something else.” But Wooden thought this simple concept was too important to rush past. He didn’t want his team to take it for granted. Rather, his teams had to go back to the same truth over and over again if they wanted to reach their goals.
Now, I share this with you this morning because I can be a little vulnerable with you. This week, as I was preparing for this sermon from the text I just read for you, there was a little bit of me that felt like, “Yeah, we get it,” concerning the information that we’re about to work through. This information in our text surrounds the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is information we’ve been working through for the past few chapters in our study of Hebrews. In fact, we’re only going to continue to work through it in the next few passages as well.
So to be honest, a little vulnerable, I had some struggling thoughts this week. I’m trying to preach to you yet again another sermon on the high priesthood. But obviously, the Lord who inspired the author of Hebrews to write this letter knows what He is doing. He understands how critical this information is to us, His readers. We have to continue to go back to see this fundamental truth: that Jesus is our great high priest, the one who is so much better, so much superior to the Old Testament priests of old. This information we have to get right because our faith is built on it. If we can’t get this part right, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for us to live a faithful Christian life, one that’s filled with the joy of Jesus Christ.
So that being said, if you want to look back with me, starting in verse 1, as mentioned earlier, we’re just going to walk back through the passage.
For verse 1, read this: “Now the point in what we are saying, and all that we’ve already covered concerning the priesthood, how Jesus is priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek, which was our text last week. The point of all that, to work through all that which is laid out, is this: We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, who, as He is seated at the right hand of God in the throne of heaven, in verse 2, we see that He is ministering in that holy place, meaning as Jesus is in heaven on His throne, He’s not just hanging out in heaven, passively watching what takes place in the world, kind of like sitting passively watching television as we sit on our couch after a long day, just kind of zoned out.
That’s not what Jesus is doing. Rather, as He sits on the throne, our high priest, our Lord Jesus, is actively ministering in the world, which He is doing through the power of the Spirit which He has sent, and through the power of the word which He’s given. John, chapter 4, Hebrews, you may remember, is a living and active word.
In verse 2, as the Lord Jesus Christ is ministering in that holy place, we see that that is the true tent, the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. This here is a reference to the tent, specifically the Old Testament tabernacle, where the presence of God would dwell, which is actually something we talked about briefly a couple of weeks back in chapter 6 of Hebrews. We will talk a lot more about it next week, but as a reminder, in the tent that was made by man, the tabernacle, remember how there was the curtain inside the tabernacle that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies? In the Holy of Holies, that’s where the presence of God would fully dwell. So you can read about that tent, the tent that was made by man, in Exodus. As I mentioned, we will cover this a lot next week, but for now, what our text is saying is real: as God’s presence was in that tent, in the tabernacle made by man, there is a truer tent where God dwells, where the Lord has set up. It’s a tent in the heavenly places, which brings us back to verse 1. This is where the throne of the Majesty on high is located. This is where the Lord Jesus Christ, the great high priest, is now ministering as He eternally reigns in the true tent, where all of the fullness of God dwells.
Keep going to verse 3: “For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices,” which is something we covered in the past chapters 5 and 6 of Hebrews, where in the Old Testament, the priests who came from the lineage of a man named Levi were appointed by the Old Testament law that was given to the people through Moses. The priests were to serve their roles by offering up gifts and sacrifices as part of the Old Testament sacrificial system. Because of that, in verse 3 of our passage, it is necessary for this priest, this great high priest, the Lord Jesus, to also have something to offer, meaning because part of the job description of being a priest involves gifts and sacrifices.
So for Jesus to eternally fulfill that role, He would need to fulfill that part of the job description. However, in verse 4, if Jesus were ministering as the priest on earth—which He’s not, as talked about—He would actually not be a priest at all. Because, as mentioned, the Old Testament priests offered up gifts and sacrifices according to the law, according to the Old Testament sacrificial system, which you can read all about in the Old Testament, particularly in the book of Leviticus, all these different gifts that were offered up.
Now, as real as those gifts and sacrifices were that the Old Testament priests offered up, we see in verse 5 that they actually serve as a copy. They serve as a shadow of heavenly things, of something better that was to come. Meaning, as real as those sacrifices and gifts were, ultimately, they’re pointers to a greater gift, a greater sacrifice found in the heavenly places, which is a gift, a sacrifice that Jesus offered when He offered up Himself to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin, which we’re going to talk about more in just a bit.
But to keep going in the text: “For when Moses was about to erect the tent,” which is once again recorded in Exodus, “he was instructed by God in how he was to do so, where God told Moses everything that he was to make according to a pattern that was shown to him on the mountain.” This is a quote from Exodus 25:40, where in Exodus we see that God had very specific, very detailed instructions on how the tabernacle was to be built, right? This tabernacle, this tent made by man, where there were specific dimensions, specific materials, even very specific coloring for this man-made tent.
And by the way, on this note, one of the reasons why God was so specific in these instructions is because the tabernacle was meant to help us look back. The tabernacle is almost like a recreation of the Garden of Eden, where the Garden of Eden is a temple-like place, where Adam actually is like a priest-like figure. But the specifics of the instructions for the tabernacle are also meant to help us look ahead, not only to Jesus Christ, who is the true tabernacle of God, in whom the fullness of God is pleased to dwell, but the tabernacle in the Old Testament is also a pointer, helping us to see the new heavens and the new earth that is to come.
This true tent that God is setting up in heavenly places, where heaven is described in ways that are actually similar to creation.
Back in our text, verse 6: “But as it is with Christ, who is not on earth offering up sacrifices according to the Old Testament law, we see rather, He has obtained a ministry as a priest, one that is much more excellent than the priests of old who ministered under the law, who ministered under this old covenant, as a covenant that Christ mediates is better since it is enacted on better promises,” our text tells us.
Now let me just hit pause for a second, just to make sure we understand what’s going on here. The Old Testament law that the priests were part of was actually a contract. It was a covenant between God and man, where man promised to keep God’s law, which is a good law, where they promised, in doing so, that they would be God’s people. Then God promised that if they perfectly obeyed His law, He would be their God. So this is like a two-sided agreement, a bilateral covenant. The people promised something on their side, and God did the same on His side.
There was nothing wrong with this covenant in terms of the agreements that God and man made. It was sound. However, there was a problem for man in this covenant, in that this covenant, this contract, was one that the people could never keep. In fact, none of us can keep up our end of the contract or the covenant, and none of us can keep it because Scripture is so clear: we all have sinned; we all have fallen short of the glory of God.
By the way, this is actually one of the purposes of the law: to help us see that we are sinners who have broken God’s law, who are actually in need of a Savior. Now if you’re with us last week, remember one of the things we circled around in the passage, right? The law made no one perfect because we can never fully keep God’s law. So this old covenant between God and man ultimately did not bring mankind to God by keeping it.
In the end, the law could never give us hope; the law could never be the means by which we draw near to God. Yes, the law was good; God was good in how He kept up His end of the contract, but keep saying it: as mankind, we’re not good; we all have broken the contract, the covenant.
However, friends, because God is good, there is good news for us, which is verse 6—good news that Christ, our high priest, has obtained a ministry for us, for us on our behalf, one that is much more excellent than the one of old, because in the ministry of Christ, He has given us a new covenant, a new contract, one that He alone mediates.
Meaning this new covenant is not a two-sided bilateral covenant. Rather, this covenant, this contract, is unilateral; one that is enacted on better promises—promises that are based fully on the Lord, fully on the promises that He has given, promises that find their “yes” and “amen” in Jesus Christ and who He is and what He has done for us.
Keep going. Verse 6: “For the first covenant, this old covenant, if it had been faultless”—one that we could keep, one that could make us perfect—the writer of Hebrews tells us that there would have been no occasion, no need for this second new covenant. However, he keeps saying it: the old covenant didn’t make one perfect; none of us can perfectly keep it.
So in verse 8, he, the Lord, finds fault with them. The old covenant, the old priesthood could not get us into a relationship with God. The reason we know the Lord finds faults with them is because of what He said in verse 8 in Jeremiah 31, which our text today quotes. Look back there where we read from Jeremiah, the Hebrews quotes:
“The Lord said, ‘Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,'” which represents the people of God who signed the first contract in the law in the exodus.
Verse 9: “And this new covenant will not be like the one that their fathers had in the exodus, which happened on the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt,” which God led His people out of bondage, of slavery that they were in before the exodus.
In our text: “For they did not continue in my covenant.” Rather, they broke it over and over again, just like you, just like me. Over and over again, we have failed to meet God’s good standard. And because God’s people broke that covenant, the contract between God and them likewise was broken in that bilateral covenant in the text. Because of that, the Lord declared, “I showed no concern for them,” which is actually what He promised to do in the covenant.
If God’s people kept up their end of the agreement, as mentioned, because the covenant contract was broken by the people, it became null and void in terms of God’s requirement to keep up His end of the contract. Now, I’m saying this doesn’t mean that God’s laws are not good or that we dismiss various laws and commands that God has given us throughout the Scriptures, both Old Testament and New Testament. Friends, I keep saying it: the law, the keeping of the law, no effort can’t make us perfect. It will not allow us to draw near to God because we can’t fully do it.
However, keep going. Verse 10: “Because God is good, because He loves His people, whom He’s calling to Himself, He has made a new covenant with the house of Israel.” We’re in this new covenant, this new contract. God declared, “I will put my laws in their minds and I will write them on their hearts,” meaning God’s going to do the work alone in the lives of His people, which is the work by which He takes out like the hardest stone that’s dead in sin, that’s dead towards God.
In God’s gracious work, He actually replaces that heart of stone with a heart of flesh, one that’s alive towards God. Making this new contract, this new covenant, not based on some type of external attempt to obey God, but rather because of this new heart that God graciously gives to His people, there is now an internal desire for God’s people to follow Him—an internal desire that God births inside of us, which, by the way, this is a real part of the ministry of Christ and what He’s doing in the heavenly places through the power of His Spirit, through the power of His word.
We’re in this new heart that God has so graciously given to His people. Now the love of Christ is controlling, compelling our hearts’ desires in ways that we actually want to follow and obey God, not as an attempt to bring ourselves to God, but rather as an overflow, an outworking of what God has done in our life.
Keep going as God graciously does this work in the life of His people. Receive the words: the Lord declared, because of what He has done, that “I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” which was the promise that He made in the old covenant. The covenant, once again, His people broke. But in God’s goodness and kindness, God’s desire still remained, an eternal desire to call a people to Himself. But this time, in this new, better covenant, with better promises, it would not be based on what we did or how well we kept the law, or even how well the priest administered gifts and sacrifices. Rather, this time, in this new covenant, we will be God’s people because God has declared it to be so.
Because of the promises that He has made to us, because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, our great, true high priest—the work that He has done on our behalf as He ministers His grace and mercy on His people—because it’s through Jesus Christ that this new contract, this new covenant, is signed with His shed blood. And that’s the only signature on the contract—not ours, just His—as God calls the people to Himself.
In this new, better covenant, verse 11, we see that they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, by teaching, “Know the Lord.” And the reason why, in this new covenant, we see that they all will know me, they all shall know the Lord, from the least of them to the greatest of them.
Now, to help explain what it’s saying here in verse 11, let me read from Tom Schreiner, who’s a really helpful New Testament scholar. He wrote this concerning chapter 11: “Israel’s covenant with Yahweh,” meaning this old covenant that was made, “was theocratic.” So all those who were circumcised were members of the covenant community. If you’re not familiar with circumcision, this is actually a physical marker that was to testify that one is part of this old covenant of God’s people.
Schreiner went on to write, “Not all those who were circumcised were regenerate,” which is a reference to receiving a new heart where one knows God. They are regenerate in the New Testament; they are born from above, born again. They are a new creature. In the Old Testament, you can receive the sign and not be born from above, not be regenerate.
So, we’re not under the right for Israel, under the old covenant, was both a people of God and a political entity. But under the new covenant, the political dimensions of the people of God fade away. Which is to say, the church is not a theocratic entity. I mean, the church is not church and state combined because if so, it would mean that it was made up of both regenerate and unregenerate people—people who know the Lord and people who do not know the Lord.
Rather, Schreiner wrote, “The church consists of believers, those who know the Lord, people from every tribe and tongue, people and nation.” And because the church, the new covenant community, is made up of those who know the Lord, they don’t have to teach one another to know the Lord like they did in the old covenant community.
Okay, now this is still a little bit confusing. An illustration was given to me to help understand this when I was in seminary by a scholar named Steve Wellam, who’s actually very helpful. The illustration he gave was actually a circle inside a circle, which represents the structure of this old covenant, this old contract. So the outer circle represents all those who were physically born into Israel, who received the sign of the covenant, circumcision, which boys did on the 8th day.
But then the inner circle represents the elect, those who had faith, those who knew the Lord. Now, in the New Testament, it says not all Israel, the outer circle, those who received the sign, were part of the Old Testament covenant community. Not all of those in Israel were actually Israel, meaning the inner circle, the spiritual Israel, who had faith, who knew God.
Thus, because not all who were part of the community had faith, in ways that they knew the Lord, then what they had to do is teach them, each one his neighbor, each one of his brothers, saying, “Know the Lord.”
So that’s the old structure: an outer circle and an inner circle. Those who received the sign, but those who knew the Lord. However, in this new covenant, in this new structure, now there’s only one circle, and everyone in this circle, from the least to the greatest, who is part of this new covenant community, that is the church—they know the Lord; they have faith in Him.
By the way, on this note, this is why, as a church, we believe in what’s called regenerate church membership, meaning to be a member of Red Village Church, you have to testify in ways that communicate that by faith you know the Lord, that you’ve been born from above, that you’ve been called into this new covenant.
Now, obviously, someone who does not know the Lord can be with us, can attend our services, can receive benefits of being connected to us, to our church family, to our ministry. But they can’t be a member of the church. They must know the Lord to be fully in the community.
In addition, this is why, as a church, we believe the two ordinances in the New Testament are signs of the new covenant: the Lord’s Supper and baptism. These ordinances are for believers, for those who know the Lord. Back to the Old Testament or the old covenant, the baby didn’t have to know the Lord to receive the sign of circumcision. But now, in this new covenant, those who know the Lord are the only ones who receive the New Testament symbols.
We’re going to give you this more as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. But all those who know the Lord can participate in this. However, those here who do not yet know the Lord, at least not at this point, as we get to the Lord’s Supper, we ask you just to observe and observe in ways that, as you watch all those who participate, they are testifying to you, to each other, that we know the Lord, that we believe in the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and what He has done for us.
Likewise, this is why, as a church, we don’t baptize babies who, at this point, can’t profess knowing the Lord. So we don’t think that baptism simply replaces circumcision in the New Testament, where maybe both symbols are basically communicating the same thing—that this child is born into the covenant community.
The only difference between this and that would just be that, like, baby girls can now receive this sign. We don’t think that’s why we don’t baptize babies—babies who, as they grow up, have to be taught to know the Lord. If we did so, it would be almost like operating in this old covenant of an outer circle and an inner circle, with perhaps the outer circle representing those who are receiving the sign of baptism, and the inner circle representing those who have faith.
Rather, as a church, we believe Scripture teaches that baptism is for those who can testify that they know the Lord, that they’re trusting in Jesus, that they’re identifying their life with Him, His death, His resurrection, that they know the Lord and that they’re regenerate, that they’re part of the community.
By the way, kind of keep pressing this point. On this note, we believe that both ordinances in the New Testament actually are pictures representing what Christ has done to bring in this new covenant, to bring His people into His community. Right? The Lord’s Supper, the bread is a picture representing Jesus’ body broken for us. The fruit of the vine is a picture representing Jesus’ blood spilled for us.
Baptism is a picture of being buried with Christ in baptism, which one does by going under the water, but being raised in the newness of life as they come up out of the water. Do you have questions on any of this, whether it be church membership, regenerate church membership, Lord’s Supper, or baptism? Please talk with me, but for now, let’s keep going.
Verse 12: “For those who know the Lord in this new covenant, we see that God promised that I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more,” which is why Christ, our great high priest, is not continually being offered up as a gift and sacrifice for sin.
This was true back to the old covenant, where over and over and over, the priesthood offered up gifts and sacrifices for sins. But with Christ and His new covenant, His one-time sacrifice is enough. It proved that the mercy of God found in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is sufficient so that all the sins of His people—whether past, present, or future—would be forgiven in ways that our sins would be no more, that they would be cast as far as the east is from the west.
Meaning for God’s people, we would never be defined by our sin. That is not who we are. Rather, we are defined by God’s mercy on us through Jesus Christ.
Finally, in our passage, verse 13: “In speaking of the new covenant, He, the Lord, makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away,” which is verse here. The scholars think this is Hebrews actually making a timeline reference to Jeremiah’s day as it relates to the quote we just worked through in Jeremiah 31.
As Jeremiah gave this teaching on this new covenant that was to come, that the Lord Jesus Christ has brought forth, the old covenant, at that point in Jeremiah 31, was already becoming obsolete, growing old, ready to vanish away. Because from the time the contract was first signed in Exodus to the time of Jeremiah’s day, hundreds of years later, once again the people of God, over and over and over again, proved they cannot keep up their end of the covenant.
The bilateral contract only brought failure, destruction, death, and judgment. Even though God graciously gave these people the priesthood to minister sacrifices as a gift, the old covenant would not be enough to fully cover one’s sins. Friends, we need a new covenant, a better one with a superior high priest who is able to fully forgive us, who can fully bring us into a relationship with God in ways that we would know Him.
Okay, now as I close, I want to do so just by giving you a few things from this passage and why this high priest, this high priesthood that Jesus fulfills is just so important—so important to the author of Hebrews that he actually keeps going back to it over and over again, as mentioned. He will continue to do this in the next few passages that come. This is seriously so important that the writer of Hebrews understood that we can’t miss this because if we miss this, we actually miss everything.
If we miss the superior high priest, we miss the new covenant that He ushers in, and we’d still be living under the old covenant. And our text has faults; the old covenant cannot make us perfect. In the end, we just see how far short we fall.
So, being said, let me just give you a few things in closing—why it’s so important for us to get this right. As I do that, for those here who are not yet Christians, friend, this is really important for you to understand. This is only where your hope is found in this life. Listen, there’s no other hope.
Because of that, this morning I want to plead with you to actually put your hope, your faith in Jesus Christ—to confess your sin, turn from your sin, turn to Him, trust in Jesus Christ, believe that He died for you only to rise again, that He would be your great high priest.
This information in our text about this new covenant is not just for those who are not Christians; it’s actually important for us who are Christians as well to help remind ourselves where our hope is found. Back to the context of the letter to Hebrews, he wrote this to assumed Christians—people who were professing faith. As mentioned many times in our study, yet they were getting so far off track in their faith.
So how does he get them back on track? The author keeps going back over the same thing over and over again to the point we might actually be tempted to think, “Yeah, we get it.” As Christians, friends, we have to get this right. We have to continue to get this right. So much of what we believe in, so much of what we stand for is built off this.
So as I give you these final few things here, I’m going to do so hopefully as an encouragement for us to apply it to our lives.
So we have a handful of things. First, friend, have hope. Jesus, our high priest, He’s there, and He’s ministering to us, ministering for us on our behalf, which our text is. What He’s doing in the heavenly places is not only aware of what’s going on in the world; He’s aware of what’s going on in each of our own individual lives, where He is fully invested, where He is ministering to His people through His Spirit, through His word, according to His good, eternal plan by which He’s pouring out His grace and His mercy as He’s drawing a people to Himself.
Friend, this morning, if you’re feeling hopeless for whatever reason, can I encourage you to please look to your high priest, to look to Him in ways that you’re actually boldly approaching His throne of grace so you might receive help in your time of need, so you might be filled with His hope.
Second, as you think through this passage, have wonder that Jesus, our high priest, gives us direct access to God. So verse 10, God puts His law on the hearts and minds of His people, where He will be their God, and they will be His people.
In verse 11, they will all know me. I keep saying we can’t know God by our own effort, by trying to keep some type of law or doing some type of religious practices. Or perhaps they’re trying to balance out the scales to do more good things than bad. It does not work. That’s a faulty thought process.
It’s actually a faulty thought process to think that going through another person—even someone like a priest who can offer up sacrifices and gifts to appease God—somehow that will work. Friends, have wonder—like real wonder and amazement—that God, in His grace and mercy, is drawing people through Jesus Christ so that we would know Him eternally, know Him fully, where He is fully ours, and we are fully His, where we will know Him as His people, whom He loves—His people whom He calls His children—where we will know Him as our God, whom we get to call our heavenly Father.
Third, friends, have peace. Jesus, our high priest, forgives us of our sins, which in verse 12, the Lord tells us that He will be merciful to us—merciful to us, merciful and gracious towards us, even in our iniquities—even in the ugliest places in our heart—where the pastor tells us He will actually remember our sins no more.
Friends, have peace. That’s really good news to us for those who are in Christ Jesus. Friend, if I can speak a word of encouragement to you because of what Christ has done: listen, there’s no condemnation on you. You are not marked by your sin. You’re not marked by your failure. You are not defined by your faults or your imperfections. If you’re in Christ Jesus, you’re defined by God’s mercy and grace on you, where He’s reconciling all things for your good. You’re His. You’re not your sin. Let that fill your heart with peace. You’re not your sin; you are your Savior’s.
Fourth, have freedom. That Jesus is the high priest who fulfilled the law on our behalf. He did that for us. This week, I was thinking through this passage, and my mind kept going back to the book of Galatians. Maybe some of you remember that book.
The Christians in Galatians seem to be having the same struggle that the Christians in Hebrews were struggling with. Perhaps they were trying to keep the law to earn or try to keep God’s favor. In Galatians, as they’re trying to earn favor with God by somehow keeping the law, it was like they were putting themselves back in some type of spiritual slavery.
In this, they were becoming proud, frustrated, angry, divisive, maybe really anxious. Among similar traits, you can read about in the book of Galatians, they were not walking in the freedom that Christ has given to His people in the new covenant, which frees us to walk in the fruit of the spirit—having love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, meekness, and self-control—to walk in the freedom to love God, to love His word, to love His laws that are written on our heart—the freedom to love others.
Friends, for those who Christ has set free, they are free indeed. Thus, stand firm in that freedom.
Last one, have joy. That Jesus, the high priest, has given Himself, which He’s done through His gift, through His sacrifice on the cross, which qualifies Him to be the great high priest, which is at the foundation of our fate, which we can’t miss. We can’t get wrong what Jesus Christ has done for us.
All the things I just mentioned that we can have are all because our great high priest came down from His heavenly throne to live the life that we can never live—in ways, as mentioned, He actually kept the law for us. Yet in His grace and His mercy towards His people, the Lord Jesus Christ actually submitted and committed Himself to the demands of the law, which is the judgment of God, which Jesus Christ did by dying on the cross in the place of sinners, where the just died for the unjust.
So that the just, the Lord Jesus, would bear the punishment of our sin for breaking our end of the contract. For the Lord Jesus Christ died, was buried, but rose again from the dead to provide the forgiveness of our sin so that the unjust—us—would be counted as righteous. His righteousness counted as our righteousness.
And we know in the Scriptures, after the Lord Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, He ascended back into the heavenly places, which in our text is where He continues to minister to us, which He will continue to do until the appointed time when our Lord will come back again. He will come back for His people to fully bring us into His presence, into the heavenly tent that He has gone before us to prepare a place for us, so that where He is, we might be forever, forever filled with His joy, forever experiencing all the fullness of His love.
So, yes, friends, it’s really important for us to continue to go back to the same important, fundamental truth over and over again, never taking it for granted: the simple, profound truth of who Jesus Christ is—our great high priest, the one who died and rose again, the one who continues to minister to us.
We must get this right if we’re going to reach our goal, which, in the Scriptures, is a goal we are to press on toward, which is the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Let’s pray.
Lord, thank you for Jesus. Thank you that through Jesus Christ, you are so good, kind, merciful, and gracious to sinners. Thank you that according to your eternal plan, you saw it fit to give us this new covenant. So through the new covenant that Christ purchased on our behalf, that we could know you as our God and we would be known to you as your people.
Lord, please help us to get this right always. And Lord, I do pray for those here who may have not yet trusted in Jesus Christ—whether because they love their sin or because they feel that their sin is too much. Lord, I pray that today you would give them eyes to see, that you help them to trust that through Jesus, sin is forgiven. That this morning, they would take their sin and nail it to the cross, and that today you would call them into this new covenant.
I pray this all in Jesus’ name. Amen.