The Mediator of a Better Covenant

We will be in Hebrews chapter 9 this morning. Hebrews chapter 9 verse 15.

Hebrews 9 · chapter mention Hebrews 9:15

Picking up right where we left off. We had taken a little break from Hebrews VBS

revival but we're back. We'll be back in it for a few weeks. Hebrews chapter 9

Hebrews 9:15

verse 15. The author of Hebrews had been building up to kind of his main point

and really he had been there in the last three chapters 7, 8, and 9. And the main

point being that Jesus has established the New Covenant. The New Covenant is in

fact the perfect covenant, the better covenant. And that's what we talked about

last week is the New Covenant has come through Jesus Christ. And in

discussing that we talked about the Old Covenant, what the Old Covenant looked

like. We talked about the old sacrificial system. We talked about the

tabernacle and the symbolism of the Old Covenant. We talked about the blood of

the animals that were sacrificed that were not sufficient. But Jesus has come

and offered a better sacrifice. And if the blood of animals was at least

somewhat sufficient for what it was there for, how much better the precious

blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God who established the New Covenant through

his blood. And so that's where we left off last week and so we'll continue on

following that same line of thinking when we start here in verse 15. But before

we start let us pray. Father God we come to you we thank you for your Word.

Dear Lord I pray that your Word would speak to us today. Dear Lord there's no

words that I can say that are worth anything. But dear Lord your Word is

perfect in every way. God I pray that you would help me to speak, to preach, to

teach in a way that brings glory to you. That you would hide me behind the cross

dear Lord. That you take away any fear or any pride that is in me today. That

everything that is said and done is for your glory. That your Holy Spirit would

give us ears to hear that you'd free us of the distractions and the worries and

the thoughts of the world. And that you would meet us where we are dear Lord. You

know where we are today. You know what's going on in our life and in our heart.

And I pray that your Holy Spirit would help us to learn and understand your

Word. And that everything that is done here today will point us to Jesus. God

maybe there is one in this room today that does not know Jesus. I pray today

that if that is the case that they would realize it, that they would understand it.

And they would know it this morning through your Word. And I ask these

things in Jesus name, Amen. Hebrews chapter 9 verse 15, Therefore, now with

Hebrews 9:15

that in mind what did we just talk about? That Jesus had established the New

Covenant by better blood than what you used in the Old Covenant. So therefore

with that in mind that Jesus has established the New Covenant, therefore

he is the mediator of a New Covenant. So that those who are called might receive

the promise of the eternal inheritance. Because a death has taken place for a

redemption from the transgressions committed under the First Covenant. So

what does the author of Hebrews tell us here? Well the author of Hebrews begins

to use a little bit of what we would call I suppose legal language. He uses

some legal terminology here in these next few verses. And he tells us that

Jesus is our mediator. Now he's already used this language earlier in the book

but this is important language for us to understand. Jesus is our mediator. What is

a mediator? A mediator is someone who is between two parties. Two parties

who have a difference, who are trying to come to some some general

understanding, who are trying to get on good terms. We see that a lot with

lawyers today. We see you may hear people talk about mediation. A lot of times you

may see a lawyer between two parties and they're trying to come to some kind of

terms, some kind of agreement on some deal that's being made. And so the deal

that's been made here, that's been established through Jesus Christ, is that

God has established a new covenant and as such he has placed Jesus as the

mediator of that covenant. Now why is that important to us? Why do we need

Jesus? Is it go between between us and God? Well the reason why is because we

have sinned and we have sinned greatly. And our sin has separated us from God.

Now in the Old Testament at the very beginning of the Bible, God made Adam and

Eve and God's Spirit would come down among them and and it seemed to be this

beautiful relationship that they had with God and the presence of God but

something occurred and that something that occurred was sin. And when Adam and

Eve sinned, they lost that relationship that they had with God. That ability to

be in the garden, in the presence of God, they lost that due to sin. And that's the

problem that you and I still face today. Is our sin has separated us from God and

it's not just a little ways. It's not that our sin is separated us a little

ways. Our sin is not that big a deal. Sometimes we sin, we do things to other

people, we say things we shouldn't do and we kind of, okay well we shouldn't have

done that, we kind of get over it and we go on our way. But what we need to realize is

that our sin against God is very serious and our sin has severed our our ability

to be in the presence of God. And so there's a problem there. And God began

to address that problem with the first covenant, with the old covenant. And while

it had a purpose and it served its purpose, it was insufficient and that it

can never really fully forgive the sins of people. Now when we read through the

Old Testament and even sometimes maybe in the New Testament we see this

language that the sacrifices of animals were for atonement, for the forgiveness

of sins. Well they certainly were but in a limited sense. They could

forgive the sinner momentarily. They could forgive the sinner just enough

that they could bear to kind of be in God's sight, that God

wouldn't just strike them down, that God would still have some grace and

compassion on them in the moment. There was the old covenant system that God had

established for atonement but it was never atonement that was sufficient to

really forgive the people's sins. And that's why when Jesus comes as a

mediator between God and man, he's there to bring that relationship back together.

Now there's no negotiating on God's side. It's not like God says, okay what do you

want for us to have a relationship? Well I want this. Okay well I want this and

Jesus is going back and forth. Well here's what God wants and here's what you...

That's not the way that Jesus mediates. Jesus says here is what God requires.

Well the problem is is that we can't live up to what God requires. We can't

live up to all the commands that God gives us. We fail repeatedly. We fail and

that's why Jesus is our mediator is so significant. He's not just one who

speaks on our behalf to God but he is one who has laid down his life by

shedding his blood on the cross to fulfill all of God's demands. And so when

Jesus is our mediator, what that is telling us is that Jesus has fulfilled

everything that we have failed at fulfilling. And Jesus through his blood

brings forgiveness of our sins. And we know that when Jesus did that it was

sufficient and we'll see that more as we continue on. It's obvious that the Old

Testament system, that the first covenant, that the Old Covenant was

insufficient. Why? Because God's people had to continually repeat the commands of

the Old Covenant. The high priest had to continually sacrifice the sacrifices. So

it's clear that the blood that was shed through animals was not sufficient to

cleanse sins eternally. There needed to be a better sacrifice. And so Jesus comes

as our mediator between us and God because God still, even though we are

sinners, desires a relationship with us. But that relationship has been broken

because of our sinfulness. But the author of Hebrews says that look, God has

established a new covenant, a better covenant, through Jesus Christ through

which Jesus is the mediator. And when the new covenant comes, it comes with better

promises. It comes with eternal promises. And it comes with promises that are

brought forth only by Jesus Christ. And when the new covenant comes, it's even

able to cover the sins of those who sin under the Old Covenant. That's what the

author of Hebrews is saying here. Remember the audience here, they're

wanting to go back to the Old Covenant system and the author's saying, look, nope,

you need Jesus because the Old System wasn't good enough. It had to be

repeated year after year. But what Jesus has done in establishing the New Covenant

is he has done something better. He's made a better covenant. It comes with

better promises, eternal promises. And that's what we see here in the first

verse, verse 16. Where a will exists, the death of the one who made it must be

established. For a will is valid only when people die, since it is never in

force while the one who made it is living. This is why even the first

covenant is inaugurated with blood. All right, now we need to pause for a second

because there's something that we miss in our English language that is

important to the author of Hebrews in the Greek language. Now he's talking

about this death of Jesus that has occurred, that's established this New

Covenant, and then in our minds he shifts gears and he does to some extent. He

begins to talk about a will, where a will exists or where a testament exists,

some of your translations would say. Now we're familiar with that

terminology, last will and testament, right? You get it ready because one day

you're gonna die and doesn't matter if you're young or you're old at some point

in time, you need to get your will together and your will is gonna say what

you want to happen when you die. But there's one thing that is critical, it

is of the utmost importance, it has to occur for a will to be carried out and

that is the person who made the will has to die. Now you can will your children or

your grandchildren or whoever you want, anything you want, but it's not theirs

until you die. So he seems as though he's kind of shifting gears here, but here's

where there's a disconnect in the English language. Now this is

sometimes the case in Scripture, quite often we miss points because the

original language is different than our English language. Now we've been talking

about covenants. Now the Greek word for covenant is diathake. Diathake is the

Greek word for covenant. Diathake is also the Greek word for will or testament.

Now there's certainly a difference in those two things, in a covenant and in a

will or a testament, but the reason why the author of Hebrews here begins to

talk about wills and testaments is because the Greek word is the same. So

what he's doing is he's bolstering his argument, he's trying to help them to

understand the necessity of the death of Jesus in bringing about the new covenant.

And so in doing so, he's making a connection with the Greek word there. The

Greek word that means the same thing. You look it up in the Greek, same, where it

says covenant, diathake, where it says will or testament, diathake. Your Bible,

Old Testament, New Testament, old diathake, new diathake, or we could call it the old

covenant, the new covenant. That's how we separate our Bible. And so he's trying to

simply make just another way to make a connection for them about a will or

about a testament here. And so he says, where a will exists, the death of the one

who made it must be established for a will is only valid when people die since

it is never enforced while the one who made it is living. That is why even the

first covenant was inaugurated by blood. Now as with many illustrations,

we don't want to try to find the connection in every way between a will

and testament and a new covenant. But the point is simple. Jesus had to die for the

new covenant to be carried out, for it to take place, for it to be

established. And this is something that his audience would have understand by

the use of the words will and testament. And it's something that we understand too.

And so the point is, blood had to be shed. And that's what he's transitioning

to at the end of this thought. Because even, he says, the old covenant was

inaugurated by blood. Let's continue on.

Verse 19, For when every covenant had been proclaimed by Moses to all the

people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with

water, scarlet, wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll itself and all the

people saying, This is the blood of the covenant that God has commanded for you.

In the same way he sprinkled the tabernacle and all the articles of

worship with blood. According to the law, almost everything is purified with blood.

And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Okay, so he

says, Look, the old covenant was established by blood. God has established

a new covenant. How does he establish this covenant? Through blood, through the

blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus tells his disciples that in the Last Supper. I'm

establishing a new covenant. This wine that we drank, it represents the

blood of a new covenant or a New Testament, some of your translations will

say. So Jesus has already began to tell before he died his disciples about this

new covenant that was coming. The author of Hebrews is reminding his audience and

us today that that new covenant has been established through blood and the same

way that the old covenant was established through blood. But what did

he say in that last verse that we read there at the end of verse 22? Without the

shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. Okay, without the shedding of

blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Now, oftentimes we come together and we

sing and you probably have noticed before that a lot of the songs we sing

have to do with blood. There's nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can wash

away my sins? There's all these songs that we sang that have to do with blood

and there's lots of scripture that deal with blood, especially in the Old

Testament. Now you go back and you read God's commands about what the priest

had to do and how they had to kill the animals in a certain way and they had to

sprinkle the blood in a certain way and all of this stuff is kind of strange to

us. But without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. Without

the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. Why is that? Because

the wages of sin is death. Now the blood that runs through our veins, it is our

life. It represents life. It represents that we are living. The Bible even tells

us this in Leviticus chapter 17 verse 11, for the life of a creature is in the

Leviticus 17:11

blood and I have appointed it to you to make atonement on the altar for your

lives since it is the lifeblood that makes atonement. Okay, so God had

established this command that blood must be shed for the

forgiveness of sins. It's very simple. The wages of sin is death. So death has to

occur. Death has to occur. God can't go back on his word. He can't all of a

sudden say, well the wages of sin is not death. Nope, those are the wages of sin

that death has to occur. Now in the Old Testament, God came up with a system that

would work for a little while. Now he could either kill all the people, just

let the people die and they're sinned, or he could come up with a solution. Okay,

now God desires relationship with his people. Even when Adam and Eve sinned, it

says in the scripture that God covered them with a skin. Well, where does skin

come from? Well, it comes from animal. So if an animal skin was given to Adam and

Eve to cover them, then an animal will sacrifice. That's probably the first

sacrifice that we see. That first idea that Adam and Eve sinned and God could

have either struck them down right that moment, or he could have provided

atonement for them, and he did through an animal sacrifice and through the Old

Testament. That's how God continued to work. Okay, so instead of our lives being

taken, there has to be sin that is covered in some way. A life has to be

taken, and in the Old Testament, God took the lives of the animals. So our blood is

diseased, it is rotten, and we're going to die. We need a blood transfusion, and so

the blood of animals would cover our nasty old sinful blood. Now we understand

the importance of blood even in a medical sense in our world today.

You've probably heard of some people who are anemic. You may be anemic. There are a

lot of people in the world who are anemic, and they need to get blood

transfusions. We understand the importance of needing fresh blood. We

need new blood. Well, that's kind of what it's like in a spiritual sense. Our

spiritual blood is tainted by sin, and we will die if we do not receive better

blood. Now in the Old Testament, God sent some blood to cover the people's sins,

but only momentarily, and that was the blood of animals. It was never going to

be sufficient, and so blood has to be shed. There has to be a penalty. There

has to be a price that has to be paid for our sin. Our sin cannot go unpunished.

You say, well, why can't God just give grace? Because God is not just a God of

grace. He is also a just God, and justice has to be served. Therefore, our sin has

to be dealt with. God's people's sin had to be dealt with, and in the Old Testament,

God dealt with that sin through the blood of animals, but that was not blood

that was good enough. There needed to be better blood that was shed, and that's

why God sent Jesus Christ, His perfect Son, to shed His perfect blood

for the forgiveness of our sins for all of eternity, and that's the only blood

that is sufficient. There must be shedding of blood for the forgiveness of

sins. Okay? The author of Hebrews wants his audience to know why is Jesus's death

important? Because He has come as a better sacrifice. Now, we've seen all of

these ways in which the author of Hebrews has talked about Jesus. He's

talked about Jesus as the high priest. Well, the high priest was the one who

carried out the sacrifice and who sprinkled the blood in the Old Testament,

but not only does Jesus act as the high priest, but Jesus also acts as the

sacrifice Himself, and so in the Old Testament, the blood was necessary. All

the blood that was slain, all the blood that was shed, it is a reminder of just

how bad our sinfulness is. Now, it didn't forgive the sins of the people. It only

just briefly covered the sins of the people, and God gave the commands to the

high priest and how everything was supposed to be done. We talked last week

about the Day of Atonement, the one day of the year that the high priest would go

into the Holy of Holies and sprinkle the blood and carry out everything that God

commanded him to do, and there were all these instructions about sprinkling

blood and about offering sacrifices in this way and all of these things, and all

of that was necessary, every bit of it, so that one man could go one day a year

into the presence of God. That's how bad our sin was. That all the blood that was

shed was only only good enough to allow one man one day a year to go and stand

in the presence of God. Now, our sin is pretty bad. All that blood that was

slain was not good enough to allow people to come in to the presence of God,

and even the high priest, if he didn't do everything just right and he wasn't

cleansed and he wasn't prepared, guess what would happen when he went before

the Lord? He would die. We see the sons of Aaron. We see them in the Old

Testament, that they died because they didn't do things the way they were

supposed to do them, and so God's people sin was very serious, and God put all of

these things into place, and all of the blood shed, all of the blood sprinkled,

still not good enough to bring God's people into his presence. Yeah, the high

priest could come there once a year, but God desired something better than that,

and so God sent Jesus Christ to bring about a new covenant, to establish a new

covenant by his blood. What did we talk about last week? We talked about that

veil that separated the holy place from the holy of holies, and that is why it

is so significant that when Jesus died that veil was torn. Why? Because now it

opens things up. It opens it up for all who would come to Jesus Christ to have

that relationship with God. Praise the Lord that there's not just one

tabernacle in the world today, and not just one man who can go before God, but

every one of us today can go before the Lord through Jesus Christ. Isn't that a

beautiful thing? That we can pray before God today, that we can go before God

today, that we can seek God today, that we can talk to God, and that God can talk

to us, and that is all made possible through Jesus Christ. Because if we were

still in the Old Testament system, we'd be doomed. But praise the Lord, the

sacrifice of Jesus Christ was sufficient for the forgiveness of our sins, and

without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. If we want our

sins covered today, it's only covered through Jesus Christ. 1st Peter chapter

1 verses 18 and 19 says this, For you know that you were redeemed from your

empty way of life, inherited from the fathers, not with perishable things like

silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb

without defect or blemish. The precious blood of Christ is why we can come here

today in the presence of God, and praise God. It's why we can come here today with

assurance that our sins are forgiven, because the blood that was shed by Jesus

Christ is far better and far more precious than all the sacrifices that

came before. Continuing on, verse 23, Therefore it was necessary for the

copies of the things in the heavens to be purified with these sacrifices, but

the heavenly things themselves to be purified with better sacrifices than

these. For the Messiah did not enter a sanctuary made with hands, only a model

of the truant, but into heaven itself, so that he might now appear in the presence

of God for us. So what does the author say? Okay, well the Old Testament way was

necessary, okay? God had shown Moses a pattern of how to make the tabernacle, a

pattern of things that he had seen in heaven, a pattern of the heavenly things,

and what exactly that means, I'm not sure. But what he says here is that the

earthly things, the earthly sanctuary, it was necessary for them to be covered

with God. It was necessary for them to be purified, because God was going to

descend and he was going to come down there in that tabernacle right on top of

the Ark of the Covenant on the mercy seat. That's where God would descend in

the Holy of Holies, and it was important that everything had to be cleansed,

everything had to be purified by the blood, so that God would be able to come

and descend in that one room for that one moment with that one person. So the

Old Testament system had its reasons for doing things and they

were necessary. So it says here that these things are copies of the heavenly

things, that is the earthly things, the tabernacle, were copies of the heavenly

things. And if it was necessary for the earthly things to be purified, then how

much more so for the heavenly things to be purified and purified with a better

sacrifice and purified with better blood that comes through Jesus Christ. Now

there's a couple of ways we could look at this. Well there's probably a lot of

ways we could look at it. One, we could assume maybe that there's some

type of tabernacle setup that looks very similar to that of what we see here on

earth, that Moses followed a pattern in that sense. That's possible. I don't

think so though. I think that probably this is symbolic language. That is

to say that in the same way that here on earth to be in God's presence, things had

to be purified, that is we had to be purified, so it is in heaven. That if we

are going to be in the presence of God, all of the things we see in the

tabernacle we're pointing forward to Jesus Christ, we're pointing forward to

what our relationship with God would look like, and if we're going to be in

relationship with God, then the heavenly things need to be purified. We need to be

purified. The way needs to be prepared for us so that we can stand in the

presence of God, so that the eternal promises can be inherited through those

who put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And so just as the old things

were purified in the Old Covenant, the author of Hebrews says there's better

purification that comes through Jesus Christ. Continuing on, verse 25, he did

not do this to offer himself many times as the high priest enters the sanctuary

yearly with the blood of another. Otherwise, he would have had to have

suffered many times since the foundation of the world, but now he has appeared one

time at the end of the ages for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of

himself. Now the very the Old Covenant itself, the very methods that it had to

be repeated yearly, speaks to the fact that it was insufficient. And that's what

the author of Hebrews tells us, is that Jesus Christ has died once and for all.

He does not continually offer himself. He has not continually sacrificed, but that

when Jesus Christ gave his life on the cross, that it was sufficient to cover

our sins, to cover the sins of those who come before us, and to cover the sins of

those who will come after us. And so Jesus's priesthood is a better priesthood.

It's one that's established both now and forevermore, and that's what the author

of Hebrews has been telling us. And here he reminds us what Jesus has done is

sufficient. Now these audience here, they're wanting to go back to the old

system. They're wanting to go back to the old priesthood. He's reminding them that

Jesus has offered the sacrifice once and for all, and there is no other sacrifice

that can be offered for. What did the text there say? For the removal of sins.

For the removal of sins by the sacrifice of himself. Now in the Old Testament our

sins were covered in some way through the animal sacrifice, but they were

never removed. Jesus has come to remove our sins, to cast them as far as east is

to the west. The Old Testament system was a temporary fix, but what Jesus has done

is an eternal fix, and our sins are forgiven. Just this week there's a

there's a rotten spot at the bottom of one of the windows at Michelle's office,

and it leaks when it rains, and it needs to be fixed. It needs to be

repaired. And so I didn't have time to repair it. It's gonna be a big job. So what

I did was I covered it. I made a cover to put over there. I put some silicone, and

it covered it, but it didn't fix it. Eventually it's gonna have to be fixed.

In the Old Testament system, the animal sacrifices, they covered the sins of the

people momentarily, but they never completely took away the sins. There was

ultimately gonna have to be a better fix that was gonna have to come. And when

Jesus come, he took away the sins of the people. They're gone. They are done away

with if we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Now we're no better off

than the Old Testament folks here that we've been talking about. Our sin is bad.

You may not realize how bad your sin is today, but I'm telling you your sin is

bad, and it's probably worse than we could ever possibly imagine, and our sin

has separated us from God, but our sin can be removed through Jesus Christ our

mediator, who is the one who intercedes for us, as the author of Hebrews tells

us. But the only way that our sins can be forgiven today is through Jesus Christ.

Have your sins been forgiven today? Have your sins been removed? They have not

been removed if you have not put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

Continuing on in verse 27, and just as it is appointed for

people to die once and after this judgment, so also the Messiah, having been

offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear

sins, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him. Praise the Lord. The

author of Hebrews says, look, everybody's gonna die once. That's what it says.

Everybody's gonna die once. Jesus died once, and He only died once. Now a little

clarification there. When he says that in verse 27, it is appointed once for men to

die. We need to talk about that just for a second, because oftentimes that verse

is kind of plucked out by itself, and it's used for a lot of things. A lot of

people would argue everybody has to die at least one time. Usually this is

brought up in regards to Elijah and Enoch. They were taken to heaven, they

didn't die. They have to die at least one time, so at some point they'll have to

come back so they can die. However, that's not the point at all that the author of

Hebrews is making, and I don't even believe that that's a good point to make.

After all, there are some we see in Scripture who die twice, so it's not

appointed for everybody to die once. Some have died and they were raised from the

dead only to presumably die again. There will also be others who will not die,

along with Elijah and Enoch. That is, if you believe in a future rapture that's

going to occur at some point. That is, Jesus will return, and when that return

happens, that those who are still alive will be taken up with him. After all, Paul

says not all will fall asleep. So we see some in Scripture who didn't die. We see

some who died twice. We see some who died once, and if Jesus comes and we're all

lifted up to be with him when we're alive, then there will be a whole host of

Christians who will not die once. That's not the point of that verse, even though

it's often used in that way. The point of that verse is this, is that Jesus'

sacrifice was sufficient. That is, Jesus will not have to die repeatedly. Jesus

has died once and for all for the forgiveness of sins. When Jesus came the

first time, Jesus came to die so that our sins could be forgiven, so that his

blood would be shed. And Jesus will return again, and when he returns it will

not be to bear our sins, but to bring about salvation to those who have put

their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The question is today, is have you done

that? Have you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ this morning? Are you

living under the new covenant, under the blood that was shed for you by Jesus

Christ? If you do not turn to Jesus Christ, you have no mediator between you

and God. If we do not turn to Jesus Christ, our sins are not covered, and

the wages of our sin is death. But praise the Lord that the forgiveness of sin only

comes through blood, and Jesus Christ has shed his blood for us. And after death

comes the judgment. One day we will stand before the Lord in judgment. Maybe we

take our last breath today and we die, and we go and be before the Lord. Maybe

the Lord returns and carries us home. However we end up seeing Jesus, the next

time we see Jesus, we're going to see Jesus and we're going to face judgment.

But praise the Lord that if we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, that our

sins have been forgiven, that they have been canceled. Colossians chapter 2

Colossians 2:13

verses 13 and 14 says, when you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of

your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins. Having

canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and

condemned us, he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. Now apart from

Jesus, today we are dead in our sins. But praise the Lord, Jesus come to die on a

cross. He came so that our sins could be forgiven, so that our debt could be

canceled. And how did he do away with our debt? How did he do away with our sins?

By nailing it to the cross. And so it is through the precious blood of Jesus

Christ today that our sins are forgiven and it's only through Jesus Christ. If

you've never put your faith in him, maybe today the Holy Spirit is speaking to you.

If God is speaking to you today, if you've never been covered by the blood

of Jesus, I pray that today that you would. Father God, we come to you. We thank

you for your good word. I pray dear Lord that you would help us to understand

just how rotten our sin is and just how important Jesus is dear Lord. That our

sin is the ugliest thing that we have ever seen, but Jesus is the most

beautiful thing that we have ever seen dear Lord. So I pray God that we would

confess our sin to you today, that we would repent of our sin. God that we

would know that there is no other way for our sinfulness to be forgiven other

than through Jesus Christ. God I pray that if there are any this morning that

do not know Jesus that they would know him today. I pray dear Lord that as we

as we study your word that we would grow in it, that we would understand what

Jesus has done for us, how he has fulfilled everything in your word.

Everything that we see in the Old Testament was pointing us forward to

Jesus dear Lord and I pray that everything that we have discussed today

that we've seen in your word today has pointed us to who Jesus is dear Lord.

That we understand today that the death of Jesus Christ was necessary God to

cover our own sins dear Lord so that death would not get the final say in our

life, but that we would have victory over death through Jesus's victory over death

dear Lord. That we would have victory over our sins through Jesus's death on

the cross dear Lord. That our sins would be forgiven dear Lord. That they would

not determine who we are God. That we are not determined by our sin but God we are

determined by the blood of Jesus Christ. I pray dear Lord that if there are any

today that do not know who Jesus is that your Holy Spirit would speak to them

and that they would respond in this time of invitation and I ask these things in

Jesus name. Amen.