Transforming Faith Through Sacrifice and Servanthood | Losing My Religion (Part 10) | Stephen Feith

Alright enough on that we have been in a series going through Hebrews, tonight is part 10. And that's This is part two of our series. So if you followed along with the first part of Hebrews, we're actually on Part 17. And we're going verse by verse and word by word through Hebrews. Now, if you've missed some week's ultimate still make sense, I want to assure you, it will. The way that we do this is that we do go verse by verse, and word by word, through the biblical text through Hebrews. But we also make every message every talk, we hope, applicable for you in some way, tonight, and this week. And so if you want to follow along tonight, we're going to go to Hebrews chapter nine, we have Bibles in the middle of the pews, you can also use a Bible app on your phone.

Now, where have we been? So far?

In this series that we've called losing my religion, we talked about how Jesus is this new and better high priest, and we kind of talked about the connotations of that. Talking about the old priests under Levitical law, this would have been very familiar to the Jewish audience, who were the original recipients of this letter. So they would have had concepts like priesthood priests, known. And then when Jesus comes on the scene, it becomes a little confusing for these people who grew up Jewish now that you had this Jewish carpenter, who claimed to be the Messiah and your friends and family who said, Yes, he was, in fact, the Messiah. And they're getting kind of confused, what transfers over to Christianity? What do we keep from our Jewish heritage?

And these are some of the questions that the people of Hebrews are asking. And so the author of Hebrews using the Old Testament Scriptures going through to explain to them that the old system of priesthood is obsolete. We don't have priests anymore, is what they're saying.

And then the author transitions because he's not just going to or he or she isn't just going to say, Jesus, the new better high priest, take my word for it, Bada bing, bada boom, it's over.

That's not what they do. They have a very intellectual arguments. But before they go into that, they weren't people, they weren't new. And I they weren't the original audience, hey, well, we're going to talk about three little complicated, it's going to be a little heavy, it's going to be deep into the weeds. Sometimes it's going to be clear as mud. But they encouraged us and challenged us to stick with it. They said that if we stick with it, or challenge we're trying to grow in our faith. If we're growing in our faith, we're walking toward God. And that's a good thing. But the author does warn that if we don't, we will drift away from God. And really, we were presented with two things. You're either growing in your faith, which is taking you closer to God or you're not and you're drifting away from God. So the author puts out that warning saying that, hey, like, you might have said a prayer you might have had, you might even have like this core belief system within you. But you know, following Jesus isn't just about something you believe it's not just about a prayer that you pray at one time, it's about everyday living, it's about the choices that we're making, to constantly moving toward becoming more Christ, like, in our own lives.

If you're a follower of Jesus, that's kind of the tall order.

It's hard. But that's what we're called to. After establishing that, the author goes in and starts talking about how not only do we have a new, better priesthood, but we have a new, better covenant. And talking about all of the different things that that covenant includes, and what not only does it include, but how does it change your life, which gets us to where we're talking about here, and Hebrews chapter nine, starting with verse 11. Now we've moved on to not just the new priests, not just the New Covenant, not just a heavenly tabernacle, not just what the old systems obsolete and gone, we don't have priests anymore, the old covenant is gone. But today, we're going to talk about how the sacrifices are now gone.

If you've gone to Madison church, whether it's your second time here or your 100. And second time here, you know that at the end of our service, we're not going to bring in a goats or bowl and sacrifice it here on our altar. We don't do that. I mean, I wouldn't be shocks or horrified and curious if there was a church in Dade County that was doing that on a weekly basis. So why don't we do that?

Well, that's what the author of Hebrews is going to talk about, and not only why we don't do that anymore, but why that makes your life better today. And so as the author usually does, they're going to open up with a little bit of an introduction, starting with verse 11. Christ has now become the high priest, over all the good things that have come. He entered that greater, more perfect tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands, and as not part of this created world with His own blood, not the blood of goats and calves. He entered the most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.

Again, as we're reading Hebrews, a lot of these themes are probably sounding very familiar to you. We've heard countless times, Jesus is now our new high priest recurring theme, we're going to continue to visit that perfect tabernacle. Keep coming back to that. But now the author's transitioning to the sacrifice. How is it possible that we have a new covenant? How is it possible we have a new crease, Priest, how is that secured, if at all, and it comes down to the sacrifice, and the author leaning into what we're going to talk about tonight says it was by Jesus's own blood. The blood that Jesus offered was his own. Jesus didn't enter into heaven, on the sacrifice of a bowl of other livestock of crops of currency. Jesus offered himself the sacrifice was of himself, his sacrifice, was the sacrifice of not just someone who was a human, but somebody who was fully God, and fully human. It was the ultimate sacrifice. The author says it wasn't just the blood of goats and calves, he entered the Most Holy Place. The offering wasn't just here on Earth, in a tent, with multiple rooms by a priest.

It was at this offering was made in heaven for heaven. Yes, it happened here on earth. You and I are physical Jesus became a physical human being. But the sacrifice didn't just cover what was going on physically. It covered what was going on spiritually.

It was a sacrifice, not just for Earth, but it was a sacrifice in the heavens. The offering was it is eternal sacrifices made before Jesus, we're about atoning for something that happened in the past. So once a year, you would come in, I need to make everything I did over the past year, all the wrong things I did, right, including we talked about last week, how there were even sacrifices for ignorance, things done out of ignorance. So even the things that you didn't necessarily know you did, we had a sacrifice for that. Well, those sacrifices were all about the past. Jesus's sacrifice wasn't just about the past, it included the past, but it includes the present, and includes the future as we walk into the future. And as the future becomes present. Jesus's sacrifice covers that it is eternal. Now, one final word before moving on to the next series of verses here, if you're following along in your own Bible, you see that word redemption and verse 12, most of your Bible translations probably have that second the last word or so redemption. And it's an interesting Greek word, because it doesn't show up very much.

And it's the only time we actually see this Greek word. In Hebrews at all. It doesn't just mean redemption doesn't just mean that something that is redeemed, this Greek word is based on a Hebrew word, which we see in Leviticus and Numbers.

Remember, these are the Bible books of the Bible that the author of Hebrews keeps coming back to. This word specifically meant the redemption and liberation of slaves. We only even see it a few times in Leviticus and Numbers, because it doesn't happen all that often. But essentially, what happened is, if you own a slave, and for some reason you had to sell it, trade that person, it wasn't he or she wasn't your slave anymore. There was this word in which you would go back, you would buy that person back by that slave back, but you didn't just buy that slave to redeem them back to you back to your household. You didn't bring them back and promote them to a better spot, a better job within your household. This was that you bought that person. And then you set them free. You liberated them. It wasn't just redeemed, it was liberating. And so what we're talking about with Jesus's sacrifice, you're not only redeemed from your sins, they don't hold you down anymore. But you have been liberated, you are free. You might have been a slave to sin in the past, you are no longer a slave to the past anymore. No one or no thing can enslave you spiritually anymore, because you have been liberated and redeemed. And so if you see that word, circle it and write in your Bible, it's okay to write in your Bible, right? Liberated as well. So you know, as you go back in the future to reread this passage, you'll be reminded it's not just about the past, but it's about the future. Now we're going to read a very long section together, and it's going to be talking about why The blood of Jesus offered was and is better than the blood offered by animals. So beginning in verse 13. Under the old system, the blood of goats and bowls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people's bodies from ceremonial impurity. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciousnesses.

That's that same word from last week, referring to not just your conscious, not just that you're awake, it's referring to the spiritual, the unseen, our emotional health, our relational well being, Christ will purify those from sinful deeds, so that we can worship the living God, for by the power of the eternal spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. That is why he is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people.

So that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them, for Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under the first covenant. Now, when someone leaves a will, it is necessary to prove that that person who made it is dead, the will goes into effect only after the person's death, or the person who made it, it is still alive, the will cannot be put into effect. That is why even the first covenant was put into effect with the blood of an animal. For after Moses had read each of God's commandments. To all of the people, he took the blood of calves and goats along with water, and sprinkled both on the book of God's law, and all of the people using his up branches and Scarlet rule. And then he said, This blood confirms the covenant God is made with you. And in the same way, he's sprinkled blood on the tabernacle, and on everything used for worship. And fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood flow, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. So I want to go back to this idea that for for you and me, we live after Jesus, not just a little bit, not just the generation, we live 2000 years after Jesus, we don't even live on the same continent that Jesus lived, we don't speak the same language, we do not have very much in common with the culture that was going on then that it is now that you and I live in. And so when we read about when we read Leviticus, I don't know if you've ever done like the Bible in one year, and you start in January and your sight because this year is going to be the year right? That you're going to read the Bible every year. And usually you do pretty good through January, because you get through Genesis, and you get through most of Exodus. And then you get into Leviticus, and you're like, oh my gosh, and that's usually where most people ditch the Bible in one year, because it's so bloody. It's so bloody, it's so like crass, it's in your face. And you're like, you're wondering, Why is God so bloodthirsty? Like what is God gaining from all of this blood?

But I want to remind you a little bit of what we talked about last week, which was for these people 1000s and 1000s of years ago, this was quite clarifying. You had other people in the world in society, your neighbor is sacrificing chickens, goats, burning up crops, maybe offering a child for rain. Because if it doesn't rain, you're all gonna die. So I'd rather lose one child sacrifice him or her and hopefully the rain god will see that see that I'm offering my best in sand rain for the crops.

So if you're just in this and we don't have at this point, you don't really have the Old Testament you don't have the Torah. You believe in Abraham's God Sure. Be like, what do I need to do to make God happy?

What do I do when I you know, do I make God mad? How do I connect with God? Can I connect with God because my neighbor Joe over here he doesn't connect with the rain god, it just kind of seems like the rain god is is out there. It's uh, you know, doesn't know what's going on seems really kind of maybe even emotional. Sometimes there's a lot of rain, sometimes there's no rain, well gives. And so for the for the God that we worship, then I don't assume that everyone does. But for those of us who are followers of Jesus, that God for him to meet people where they were at and say, Well, if you do this, yeah, you're right. That's wrong. And here's how you can make it right. Oh, and if you do that, yeah, that's wrong. And here's how you can make that right. And you know what, this is awesome.

And you should do that. It was so clarifying for people who wanted to connect with God. So you didn't have to wonder do I need to sacrifice my kid? He didn't need to wonder do I gotta kill all the goats this year?

Because God was very specific and saying, No, this is what you need to do. And so yes, I know that 2000 years after Jesus, we look at this and we're like, well gives it seems weird, but you got to put yourself in the shoes of people who have six 8000, even longer years ago, and said that for them, this was quite clarifying. And it was the evidence of God, even 1000s of years before Jesus, God was reaching out to people. He's relational in his essence. And God was saying, this is how you can connect with me. That's quite the contrast from these other gods who can't be known.

God says, I want to be known by you, and I want to know, you.

And we're also reminded that this old sacrificial system, I'm talking about the word conscious here, the old sacrificial system dealt with the physical sins that you did, I killed someone, I said, something I shouldn't have done, I did something I shouldn't have done, I said, something I shouldn't have done.

So I'm gonna sacrifice it's gonna make me physically good and clean before God. But it wasn't like a spiritual cleansing. A goat can't cleanse you spiritually, even 1000s of years ago, it couldn't cleanse you. Your crops wouldn't cleanse your spirit.

So something had to be done, which is what Jesus did. His blood is what covered it.

Jesus's God's blood is what seals the covenant for you and I, it takes care of the past, we are redeemed today, from the past to the present, we read in verse 23. That is why the tabernacle and everything in it, which were copies of the things in heaven, had to be purified by the blood of animals. But the real things in heaven had to be purified with far better sacrifices, than the blood of animals, For Christ did not enter into a holy place made with human hands, which was only a copy of the one true, or the true one in heaven, he entered into heaven itself to appear now before God on our behalf. So again, thinking about the presence, Jesus's blood, it's not just the past, not just what you did, physically, spiritually cleansing. But to this day, Jesus is doing something for us.

They talk about how the temple even in the Old Testament was made with human hands, and how Jesus didn't walk into a copy of heaven, but that Jesus walks into actual heaven for you and me now this, I want to point something out, okay? This has a dynamic picture of heaven.

Because Jesus wasn't there. Now Jesus is there, something has changed in heaven, right? That's what we read, we read that we didn't need to cleanse heaven with the blood of animals. But what we needed was Jesus. And I want to point that out. Because some people think that when you die, and you go to heaven, it's like, you become an angel. And you're handed like a harp or a flute, and then you know, a diaper, and then you sit on a cloud for the rest of eternity poking the heart. Now, some people have gone a little bit further with that they say, churches like, or I'm sorry, heaven is like one long, eternal church service. And that makes some of you requestion your faith right now you're like, Well, I don't know, when all my friends and hell are doing. Um, it's not that either. The only people would be psyched about an eternal church service are some pastors, okay. But that's not at all what heaven is, we see that heaven is dynamic, that Jesus comes into heaven, that there are things going on, that it is not static, that heaven is this new kingdom. It is not a copy of this earth, but it is the better version of it. We also see that Jesus is appearing before God on our behalf, which I talked about a few weeks ago how, you know, we pray to God and we think about that, like, Oh, my God, I need this or God helped me with this. But it's this idea that Jesus is also praying on your behalf. So you can come to Jesus and say, Well, God, you know, I pray for my health. I pray for my well being I, I pray for wisdom and discernment with this decision I make, but we also have to, we're reminded that Jesus prays on our behalf to we might be praying for our health, and Jesus is praying for our discernment. We might be praying for our well being, and Jesus is praying for wisdom. And that's great. You're not alone. In your spiritual battles, and your physical wanderings. You're not alone. You're not just throwing up prayers to God, but God is also thinking and talking about you, as well, which goes to the point that God Jesus is looking to get people in, not keep them out. And this is probably something that we could do an entire teaching series on, but I can only mention it briefly here. Tonight. Everything we've studied in Hebrews to date, new covenants, better sacrifices, new high priest, Old Covenant gone. Everything that we have studied, has been about how Jesus has gone how God has gone out of the way to get you in God is going out of the way to know you how God has gone out of the way. So you can know Him.

Everything is about your life becoming increasingly better.

And sometimes throughout Christendom, it seems the opposite. Because our language is like, Oh, well, you did that, well, God can't use you anymore.

Oh, well, you believe that, well, that's too bad. You know, you really got to change the way you think if you want to be with God someday. And that's not at all necessarily what we see Jesus doing. I mean, the entire premise of Hebrews is Jesus is looking for a way to get you in, not keep you out. And so us as a Christian community, people, when it comes to our attitudes toward people that we don't like, or people we don't get along with our do we take Jesus perspective on that and say, hey, you know, Jesus loves that person enough to die for them.

And Jesus looking for reasons to get them in? Am I looking for reasons to get them into? Or am I looking for reasons to keep them out.

And guys, by not acting at all, you're doing one of those things. And it's not to get them in. So apathy isn't a choice.

We're either working to get people in, or we're not passively or actively. So that's what Jesus doing for us. Today, breathing, verse 25. And he Jesus did not enter Heaven, to offer himself again. And again, like the high priests here on Earth, who enters the Most Holy Place year after year at the blood of an animal. If that had been necessary, Christ would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But now once and for all, He has appeared at the end of the age, to remove sin, by his own death, as a sacrifice. And just as each person is destined to die once, and after that comes judgment.

So also Christ was offered once for all time, as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people, He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all those who are eagerly waiting for him. I love this last paragraph as it really lands, the entire message, this entire series of verses for us. What Jesus did is about the future. It isn't just about the past, it isn't even just about the present today.

But what Jesus did was once and for all, Jesus's death covers us today covers us tomorrow covers us next year covers us centuries from now, you won't be there.

But it covers humanity centuries from now, if it didn't, you and I would be in trouble today, some 1920 centuries after Jesus.

What Jesus did dealt with our sins once and for all. And we do read that Jesus is coming back.

At some point Jesus is coming back. But it's not to deal with your sins. Again. It's the offer salvation is to fulfill the promise of the covenant, which is that we have salvation. And so we see by Jesus sacrifice, it's not just the past, it's the present, but it's not just the present. It's also the future and by the blood of Jesus on the cross, fully human, fully divine, our covenant is sealed for eternity, you don't have to wonder if in 50 years, God is going to change his mind. You don't have to wonder after you die, and we're in the kingdom of heaven together, you don't have to worry some 10,000 years into that. If God's gonna say, Let's try again. It's sealed for eternity, by the blood of Jesus.

And that's why his offering his sacrifice is so much better than the sacrifice of animals. So what do we do with this information for you and I living today 2021? Well, to lose our religion, we follow in the footsteps of Jesus, and we ourselves have to sacrifice, you're gonna have to sacrifice your own life. That's not what I'm saying. That's been taken care of by Jesus. We can't add to that anyway. So don't try to.

But in our own lives, we have to sacrifice you and I don't earn our salvation. That is a gift by God's grace, because of the sacrifice of Jesus. But you and I are called throughout the entire New Testament to make sacrifices. Jesus was not just an example of a good person to follow. He is our Lord and He is our Savior. And he provides an example for us to follow.

There's a story in Mark chapter 10, in which two brothers, James and John, they come to Jesus and with their mom with them, this is a great scene, and they asked I hate Jesus man. I'm a favorite ask you, but when we all you know, die, we all go to heaven.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

Can my brother sit on your right side and I sit on your left side. And of course the other 10 disciples are around and they're like, What the heck, like, what the heck. So they're all ticked off. And so in Mark 1041, that's where I'll pick up reading, when the other 10 heard the conversation about who gets to sit on Jesus, right and left side in heaven. They all lost their tempers with James and John. And Jesus got them together to settle things down.

Jesus says, you've observed how godless rulers throw their weight around. And when people get a little power, how quickly it goes to their heads. It's not going to be that way with you.

Whoever wants to be great, must become a servant.

Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done. He came not to serve. But to be served, I'm sorry, He came to serve, not to be served, and then to give away his life. In exchange for many who are held hostage, Jesus says, follow my example. I'm the king of the freakin universe. And if anyone was entitled to come to earth, and be served, it'd be me.

That's what Jesus is low key saying right now. But just as that's not why I came, that's not my purpose. I came to serve not be served. And with you, as my followers, you are to follow in my footsteps, and you are to serve others. No, you do not need to die on a cross. Jesus took care of that, that study for something you could have done if you wanted to. But we must serve. John 330 says that Jesus, that God must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less. This is a reoccurring theme in the New Testament of dying to myself, it is that act of baptism in which I say I need Jesus, I will die to my old way, and be raised out of the water into new life. It's not just something that happens once on a June day in Madison in 2021. That's an exciting, fun day. But the process of dying to yourself occurs every day, and dying to yourself is about sacrifice. Because what Jesus has done for us through the new priesthood, the New Covenant, by his new sacrifice, we die to ourselves, which is about sacrifice. Sometimes that sacrifice might be driving downtown for an evening gathering. Because it's the only option. We have a Madison church for building the place to gather and connect with God and each other. But gathering is critical to the reason that God has called me here in New here and us here. So we make the sacrifice. Sometimes sacrifice is spending time with someone who you may not want to spend time with. But as someone in your life who was hurting someone in your life is going through a tough time. It might mean that you're busier this week, may mean that you have less time to yourself, less time to sleep, you might be a little bit grouchy. That might be part of the sacrifice that you make.

Sometimes the sacrifice is saying no to something good.

Because we know that God has something better for us. Even if we don't know what that is, or when it'll be here. Sometimes that sacrifice is strategically removing certain people, certain places, certain things from your life, things people in places that you may even enjoy. That's what makes it a sacrifice.

Sacrificing those things and removing them from your life because God you know, doesn't want those people in your life, those places in your life, those things in your life. But sacrifice always has a cost.

That's what makes it a sacrifice is that it has a cost it has the cost do something if it doesn't cost you something. It is not a sacrifice. Jesus's death on the cross cost him something it cost him his life. And by cause of that set because of that sacrifice something better happen. Alan Hirsch and Michael frausto My favorite authors, when they're thinking about the church and mission and Jesus, they have a book called read Jesus, and they which they write surely the challenge for the church today is to be taken captive by the agenda of Jesus, rather than seeking to mold him to fit our agendas, no matter how noble they might be. I love that last part, no matter how noble our agendas might be. Our goal in faith is not to make Jesus agree with me. But to make me agree with Jesus as I follow him and part of that will have salutely require sacrifice. This is a little heart check. But if Jesus agreed is with me on everything. I've made Jesus into my image. And I have not made myself into His image. If Jesus doesn't like all of the same people that you don't like, but Jesus likes all of the same people that you do, like, you have made Jesus into your image, and you have not conformed to His image. And so as we challenge ourselves tonight, we think about the sacrifice Jesus made, and the sacrifice that I need to make, I want you to begin to think when was the last time that you did something that cost you something for Jesus?

When was the last time you did something that costs you something for your faith? When was last time you did something?

It was uncomfortable? You didn't want to do it? It was challenging. It was hard. It was difficult, but you did it anyway. For your faith for Jesus. When was the last time that you made a really hard decision that ended up leading you to a closer and better relationship with God. And let's contrast that with the other sacrifices that I know you're making. Because I make them to sacrifices that we make for our kids. sacrifices that we make for our spouses, our partners, sacrifices that we make for our careers, sacrifices we make for our happiness. And perhaps we make so many other sacrifices for so many other people that today, tonight, you can't imagine making a sacrifice for Jesus or your faith because you're sacrificing everything else for everyone else. And I want to tell you, that has to change. Because we're followers of Jesus. We're not followers of our kids. We're not followers, followers of our spouses. We're not followers of our careers.

We're not followers of our own happiness. We're followers of Jesus. And so perhaps the thing that we need to quit is sacrificing to these other people, these other places these other things, so we can sacrifice more to Jesus.