Christ Our Priest

Good morning.

This week is the week of joy in our Advent calendar.

This is a reading from Philippians chapter four, starting in verse four.

It says, Rejoice in the Lord always.

Again I will say, rejoice.

Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.

The Lord is at hand.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The week of joy.

Safety first.

All right.

Now for this morning's scripture reading, this is from the book of Hebrews, this is chapter ten, from verses one to four, and then from verses eight to fourteen.

For since the law has but a shadow of the things to come, instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.

Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?

But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Then he added, Behold, I have come to do your will.

He does away with the first in order to establish the second, and by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thank you for joining us this morning.

My name is James Raffin, I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

It's a joy to gather together with you, and let us uh begin our time with prayer.

Holy Father, you give us your joy.

You call us to pray to you in your name so that our joy might be complete.

Lord, you call us to, by our prayer, cast all our anxieties upon you, and you promise that you will give us the peace which surpasses all understanding in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Lord, that we can be anxious for nothing.

Father, this is uh this is an unimaginable offering, and it is full of glory.

And we praise you that we might be a people who are marked by your joy, and what good reason we have to be joyful in you, Lord, you who have paid the penalty for our sins, and washed us and made us clean, brought us into your presence by your grace alone, you who rose from the dead, so that we might look forward to a hope of our resurrection, eternal life in your presence, in glory with you.

Lord, that we receive all of these things as a free gift, that you do not require works of the law that we might attain to the glory that you offer to us, but instead as a it is given to us as a free gift of your grace in the Lord.

Lord, these are incredibly joyful truths.

I pray that you would mark us as a people of joy as we remember your coming, and we look forward to you coming again.

We lift this up in Jesus' name, amen.

So we are continuing through our Advent series.

We're in our third week of our Advent series, and we've been looking at these uh we've been looking through the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

It's been sort of our guide, this one section in the middle of it for our Advent series.

We've looked at how Christ is our Redeemer.

The only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then we're looking at the three offices which Christ executes as our Redeemer.

And these offices are the offices of a prophet, of a priest, and of a king.

Last week we got to look at Christ as our true prophet, the one who speaks the truth to us and reveals to us the will of God for our salvation.

This week we get to see that Jesus Christ is the true high priest, the one who accomplishes our salvation by offering the sacrifice of Himself and whoever lives to intercede for us.

So, this morning we look at Christ as our priest.

And I want to guide it this morning with this sort of question of why do you need a priest?

I think we have something, it sort of makes sense that we would need a prophet.

As we were talking in last week, the difficulty of discerning the truth.

How is it that we can know what's true?

We need a prophet who can come in and show us the perspective of God, the right interpretation of things, and then can share with us that truth.

So we know intuitively we need a prophet.

Likewise, I think we know intuitively that we need a king.

I think there's a sense that we get once the prophet shares what the truth is, then we need somebody who has the power to be able to implement justice according to that truth.

Somebody who is in a powerful enough position, a king who can make justice happen in the world.

And so there's an intuitive relationship, I think, between the prophet and the king that we understand, that we know we need in just our normal course of life.

We can see that pattern in the scriptures.

If you think of when Jonah, he's the prophet, who is sent to Nineveh, what happens is Jonah is sent to Nineveh, and then after a brief aquatic adventure, he goes to Nineveh, and he goes to Nineveh and he preaches this sermon, which is uh uh this glorious winsome sermon, Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be destroyed, is the sermon that he preaches.

That's the whole of it, at least it's summary.

And then after proclaiming yet 40 days and Nineveh will be destroyed, the prophet has shared the truth.

The wrath of God is coming, and then the king of Nineveh says, okay, we'll all repent.

He calls for national repentance.

And so you see, this makes sense, right?

The prophet relates to the king, the king has the power to implement right action from the prophet.

I I understand why we need the truth, and we need someone with the power to execute it.

Why do I need a priest?

What does a priest do?

Why do I need a priest?

I think that this is this is a category that to us feels sort of archaic and strange.

It doesn't, it doesn't seem uh I you probably don't feel like, or maybe you don't feel like I like intuit, like, yeah, I need a priest.

I need to make sure I have the right priest.

That would be uh that's a little harder to access.

So hopefully we can access that this morning.

Part of understanding that is understanding what it what it is that a priest does.

Why is it why does every culture have something like a priest in it?

Isn't that a strange thing?

Like you look at almost every culture and there's something like a priest in it.

Even the most exotic cultures that we can imagine, like whoever that culture was in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

You know?

They you we it's these bizarre, horrifying images, you know.

Uh children, your parents won't let you watch this movie for a while.

And there's these scary images in in this, but when you look at it, you it's not like what's going on here when they're when they're taking this man and he's scared and about to be sacrificed.

You're you know exactly what's going on, and you're not like, who is that guy?

You're like, no, it's a priest.

You know exactly what it is, which is odd that you know because it's a very strange image, but you know exactly what it is, because we know what priests are.

All cultures have them.

What do priests do?

In question 25 for the Westminster Shorter Catechism, it says, How does Christ execute the office of a priest?

The answer is, Christ executeth the office of a priest in his once offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession for us.

Now there are two activities that we see take place.

This is what all priests do.

They sacrifice on your behalf, they offer up something on your behalf, they represent you and offer up something, a sacrifice, and they intercede on your behalf to something that is above you.

Sacrifice and intercession.

We know we need prophets, we need the truth, we know we need kings, we need power.

We know we need sacrifice and intercession.

We need sacrifice and intercession.

But the question is, sacrifice to what?

What do what do we do?

How do we have sacrifice in our lives?

We don't do it, we don't go to anything like a like a priest.

There's no moments in our lives that are like uh bringing something to the altar and you you bring in your bull or goat to the altar and you give it to the priest, and then they take it to the butcher shop and then sacrifice these things.

This all feels very archaic and strange to us.

But it's actually closer than you think.

It's closer than you think.

You know, and I hope to show that you know that you you need a priest.

You need someone who can sacrifice on your behalf and who can intercede for you to the terrifying powers that exist above you.

We can start to see this when we look at a negative ex negative example in the scriptures.

Do you remember when Jesus the people of God after the Exodus are gathered before Mount Sinai?

And they're gathered before Mount Sinai, and when they're there, they uh Moses has taken up the mountain, and he is to receive the heavenly pattern from the Lord of what their worship will look like and what the tabernacle that they will worship in, what the pattern of the tabernacle is.

And Moses is up there and he's receiving the law of God and the system of worship for the people of God, and he, like classic Moses, he just takes too long.

And so the people of God are waiting down at the bottom of the mountain, and they're saying, Where's Moses gonna get back?

And they get frustrated, and so they come to Aaron.

Aaron worked right with Moses, he's he's the next, he's the vice Moses of the people of God, and they come to Aaron and they say, We need you to create an image of God for us, and then we need to offer sacrifices to that God.

This is their request.

A million people wandering in the desert, their leader is gone for too long, and they're you can feel they're on the limits of chaos.

You know, they're barely a people at this point.

They don't even have a place to go.

They're on the limits of turning on one another in chaos.

And their thought is: here's what we need to do.

We need to create an image that we place above us, and then we need you, Aaron, to offer sacrifices to it.

And so Aaron uh uh says, here's what we'll do.

We'll take your golden earrings.

We all got gold earrings from Egypt, and we'll each take one.

So the rest of the time they looked like Michael Jordan, you know.

And I don't know if they actually just took one.

Um and they uh uh uh took they took their earrings that they received the gold, and then he melts down the gold, and then he crafts this image of a golden calf.

And Aaron declares, the gods, behold, the gods that brought you up out of Egypt.

That's what he names the golden calf.

Behold, the gods that brought you up out of Egypt.

You can look and see it, and it's from their offerings of gold.

They pulled their wealth together, everybody gave a little bit, and then they made this golden calf.

And then in uh Exodus 32, verse 6, it says, And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings.

Exodus 32:6

And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

It was a feast, a celebration.

And they all bring their offerings and sacrifices to this golden calf.

Now, we know this story, and oftentimes when we read this story, we just have like our Bible reading eyes on.

And so when we look at things that are just utterly bizarre and strange, we're just like, well, it's Bible stuff, so you know, you never know.

And we read that and we know that's bad.

We know they shouldn't have done that.

It was it's bad and we'll mark in our minds.

I'll make sure to never do anything like that.

You know, I'll make sure.

Like I won't uh if ever I'm lost in the wilderness with friends, we gotta make sure to not pull our limited wealth together to fashion an idol that we then make sacrifices to.

That'd be bad to do.

And we can, of course, know it's bad for biblical reasons.

It's it's at least bad because it's breaking the first three commandments right out of the gate, uh, which they which they shouldn't have done.

They have a God that is before God.

They're fashioning things in his image, they're using the Lord's name in vain, at least titles which ought to belong to the Lord.

They're using that name in vain.

But I don't think when you read that story, you don't think, yeah, yeah, that's probably something I would have done.

It's e what uh what I think we might expect if we just had like our normal, normal eyes, we would think, yeah, probably like when Moses came down from the mountain, he would find the story would be like, you know, half the people went back to Egypt.

Wouldn't that make more sense?

Isn't that what you'd expect?

And then it would be a story about their lack of faithfulness to the Lord.

Or uh what the uh things were getting scarce among them, and uh one of them wanted to build up the most wealth to be the wealthiest in the place, and so he got together a band of uh, you know, cronies and they were going around trying to steal and pillage from the other Israelites, something like that.

Doesn't that seem more intuitive of what would happen?

But that's not what they did.

What they did was they created a god and they put it above them, and then they made sacrifices to it.

Why did they do that?

Why what what's what's going on there?

And what I want to show is that what's happening there is ordinary civilization.

That's what's happening.

We forget it, we've forgotten it, but what's happening there is ordinary civilization.

Now, why is that?

It's it's because sacrifice, sacrificing to something that is above you, is the way that civilization is able to preserve itself.

So this is a group of people who have no real identity.

And there's this opportunity all around them that they might just turn on one another and begin devouring one another, or that something might come from the outside and start devouring them.

They would say, Well, why would we defend ourselves?

Are we even a people?

Is there any loss in any of us being gone?

And they recognize that in order for them to have an identity that provides for their safety among each other and from enemies on the outside, they must have something above them that holds them together that they all sacrifice to.

Now, we we uh we get this in practical terms.

Like there are ways in which we understand this in a practical way.

You know, if there's chaos in a neighborhood in like a borough in uh like New York City or something, and there there's people are stealing from one another, and there's injustice, and the police are not doing the just thing, uh, and so it's just like a chaotic area, then the way what happens is you get you get one family, like we'll call them like the Cor Leones or something, and you and they would come in and they would say, We'll bring we can bring peace here.

But you if you're gonna run this business in this neighborhood, you're gonna have to give a little bit to us.

You gotta sacrifice a little bit to us.

And then we when you all when everybody sacrifices a little bit to us, and they say we're the ones that are in charge here, that's what you're saying by your sacrifice, we'll keep it safe.

We'll keep it safe.

You'll be safe.

You'll be in, we'll treat you like family, you'll be in the family.

You see, we get the pattern.

What are taxes?

They're simple.

It's an offering, right?

We say we'll we all give a little bit, we all give a little bit up to this thing, and then there'll be this protection that we we we receive down from uh uh or down from above that will be our protection for us.

We get it in practical in practical terms, but think what is what is war?

What is war?

It's your you're sacrificing your what usually your one of your most valuable things, your sons, in order to create a sacrifice of somebody else that preserves your identity as a people.

You see, that's that's the this is very practical, this is very ordinary.

And so for them to say, we need something above us that will hold us together and offer us protection and bless us from above with an identity as a people.

Say, you are this people, you are together, you won't turn on one another.

Remember, because you all sacrificed, you all gave to this thing.

None of you are that rich.

You know, you you got a couple of earrings that from the Egyptians.

Yeah, we all do.

But if we pull some of if we pull some of that together, and we then we have look at this beautiful, honorable, venerable uh demonstration of our of our wealth and glory that we can all point to and look at, and we can all in a sense say, that's who I am.

That's who uh that's me, that's our identity, that's who we are as a people.

Now you're all now we're all kind of rich, right?

Now we're all this this type of people.

And so we don't turn on one another and devour one another.

There's there's something above us now that holds us together.

And if we were to be attacked from the outside, we would have reason to defend and and protect us.

See, sacrifice to something above is the way that you receive an identity as a people.

And so what's wrong with what they did was not the strangeness of thinking we need to sacrifice in order to be a people.

There's actually something quite civilized about it.

What's wrong in what they did was that there is a true God who made them his people by a great sacrifice, all the firstborn of Egypt.

That is the sacrifice which we purchased, made the people of God.

And by this great sacrifice, he has made them his people, and they're saying we will deny the true God by creating this alternative God.

But who are our priests?

Like this this is still feels very far away.

Like we can get this in principle, but who are who are our priests?

Like, like I get the the Godfather example, I I get the taxes example, those are those are practical, but creating a God above you that you that you sacrifice to and honored?

Do we have priests that mediate between us and that sort of thing?

Well, I think we I think we have all kinds of them.

We have all kinds, but they're like this God that they made.

They're they're under control and they demand little sacrifices.

And they're they're not like the true God who is over everything and is absolute in his power and in control over everything.

They're designated these little categories of things.

And so they demand sacrifices that are in line with those little categories of things.

You know, I think if it I like there's this baseline assumption where where does the United States get its prosperity from?

Where

What is it that we know why we're all able to live like we live?

Where we can, we look at, we we walk out into the world and we decide to buy things, like that type of wealth, where we get to look at stuff and it's not just what we get, you know, what happens to come into our lives like most of uh how everyone lived throughout world history.

Instead, we walk out like kings and queens and say, I will buy this and not buy that, and bring me this.

You know, that's what it's like to be an American.

What what gives us that sort of prosperity?

Well, there's a god above America.

There's a god above America.

You know what her name is?

I know I made it a goddess while we're having fun.

Economy.

You heard of economy?

We often call it the economy, but let's not let's get real.

We don't it's it's much higher than than that.

It's economy is the God that's above us.

And but and and if the if if economy is happy with us, well then economy blesses you with prosperity.

And you uh you feel like you have an abundance, and and you feel like you're you're it you're blessed, and there's this freedom and and liberty that you're able to experience when economy is happy with you, but when economy is mad, then uh uh uh everything gets worse.

Your prosperity goes away, and it goes away.

And so who do we have?

Who's our priest that operates economy for us?

Well, it's Jerome Powell.

And he lives in a palace of gold, you know, a temple of gold, full of gold.

You know?

It's a temple full, it's it's a temple full of gold.

You know, I I think if anybody from any other culture throughout world history were to come in and see Jerome Powell, they would say, Yeah, I completely get this.

I get exactly what's going on.

Well, economy's mad with you.

I see what he's doing.

So he comes out of his temple of gold, and he says, We're going to economy's mad.

You're all going to have to give little sacrifices to please economy.

And then economy will if we it will, it's called quantitative tightening.

And then economy will be pleased with you, and later economy might bless you.

I just want I just want you to see, I know that this sounds so strange and for you, and it's a in a like if this were if there were a soundbite of this, it would be like like our pastor talked about how Jerome Powell's a high priest of a terrible deity that's not what I'm trying, it's kind of what I'm trying to say, but it's uh it's more like it's more like I want you to see that this intuition of having a priest who mediates something that you can't control by offering sacrifices and hoping to get blessings in return down from above from this thing that you can't control is utterly intuitive.

That we we this is this is so that when the Israelites go and they make another God for themselves, and what what do they need?

What type of blessings they need?

They need things like rain, things they can't control that are above them.

And then they offer sacrifices to that in order to receive blessing, to cohere as a people.

They know the nature of the sacrifices that they are to offer to those things, and then they receive blessing down from it.

This isn't this my whole my point of this is to say this is not strange.

We've invented new categories to blur these out of our minds, as though we don't do this.

This is precisely what we do.

This is the ordinary structure of the world.

This is normal.

This is normal.

You need a priest.

We do this in all kinds of ways too.

That's just a financial way of provision.

We do this in all kinds of ways.

Like I think one of the one of we we do this morally.

When we need when we need our uh sins to be uh uh to be uh part of a sacrifice, is it's like you're putting your sin out in public so that it might be killed.

You who where how do we put our sins out in public or the sins of another out in public?

You know what?

The Stranger Things just came out again.

And that would that show, I was talking with Gibson, and he's like 15 years old, 16?

And so he doesn't even remember when Stranger Things came out.

We don't even and when Stranger Things first came out for us millennials that are like our our age, it was like I mean he probably remembers when it first came out, but it didn't like hit where he was like, This is this is the best thing.

Like what happened to us, some of us, me feeling more and more like just me as I look out.

Anyway, the the point is that that that happened, that really happened.

You had to it's like stomp and shout music, you had to be there.

And we uh we uh now the fifth season just came out, and you think this has got to be the biggest thing ever.

This has got to be the biggest show ever again.

It's the number two show right now on Netflix.

Because you know what the number one show is?

Don't be afraid.

What's the number one show on Netflix right now?

Does anybody know?

Yeah, yeah, Matthew.

Diddy documentary.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Because you know what the Diddy documentary?

That's where that's where 50 Cent broadcasts all of Diddy's sins.

I haven't watched it, but that's the that's what you need to know to get the example.

That's number one, because you know what that one offers that the uh Stranger Things doesn't offer?

Absolution for your sins.

Because we take this celebrity, that's one of the best things that we have, and then we offer him up to the public.

And then we say, let's destroy him.

And he it sounds like he did very, very bad things.

You know, I'm not saying like we shouldn't really be doing that.

I'm just saying that this is this is what we do.

We're always sacrificing to something above what's the biggest thing we can think of.

It's public opinion.

You know, we've neutered the spiritual terms for these things, but they're the same things.

And then we sacrifice him, and then we we all go watch it.

We we watch him.

It's a public execution.

We watch him, and what we say together is, yeah, yeah, we're not that type of people.

We're us type of people.

And I'm in us type of people because I never did that type of people things.

And it's like, yeah, you never did that type of people things, but you also didn't really have the opportunities that Diddy had, you know, to do, our lives are very different.

You your life is probably very different from his and the opportunities that he had to sin.

But we're but you see, one offers absolution.

I think comedians are this is one of the roles that comedians play in our culture.

They're they take these hidden terrible things and then they they they frame them publicly so that if so that in a way that's that's the the comedy is like it, see, it's unshamable.

It's like it can't be shamed now because it's nested in the in the joke.

It's a priestly function.

We're doing it all the time.

We're offering these sacrifices, they're like priests.

They offer up these sacrifices, which are meant to bless us with moral absolution, or we offer up sacrifices to a deity like economy so that we might be blessed with provision.

It's it's we're you're you're just regular people, is what I'm saying.

That if the if these ancient archaic patterns of a priest that offers a bloody sacrifice seem like the these inaccessible, strange, that has nothing to do with me, if they were to come into our time, they would completely get it.

They'd probably get it better than we get it.

You know, they'd be like, yeah, I perfectly see what's happening here.

The guy from the Temple of Gold calls for sacrifices from all of you, so that some power none of you can measure blesses you with prosperity later.

We're like, well, well, I don't know.

You hear you need a priest.

The second thing the priest does ever after sacrifice is intercession.

Because likewise, you know that you need intercession.

You need somebody to offer up the sacrifice for you, and that they need to intercede on your behalf, intercede on your behalf to the power that is above you.

And so what they do is they they plead your case to the power that is above you, the power that's above you that you can't control, advocating for your needs.

Sacrifice is the offering up, intercession is the re is like the receiving down.

It's like guiding the receiving down from above, the blessings that we need down from above.

And Moses, in this same story, he acts as the intercessor for the people of God in a beautiful way.

Because God comes down, excuse me, Moses comes down from the mountain and the Lord speaks to him, and he says in Exodus, I think it does that say, is it in Exodus, I it auto-corrected to Exodus 32.7 in my Exodus 32.7, the Lord said to Moses, yeah, sorry about that.

The Lord said to Moses, Go down from your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, for your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.

God calls them your people, because Moses is the representative of them.

He's the one who stands before them and God.

They have corrupted themselves.

The Israelites rebelled against God and they fashion this thing that is not God, and it's controllable, it's understandable, it's measurable, you know, they know its origin story.

This is a God that we can understand the relationship with.

We can sacrifice to it in this way, and we can expect to get something out of it in this way.

That's why we, as people, we like gods like that.

We like to make gods like that in our lives.

And that's the type of God that they make.

And the Lord coming down is sees the sacrifices that are taking place to this idol, this false God that they have created for themselves.

And the Lord burns with anger.

In Exodus 32, 9 through 10, it says, And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.

Now therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.

He's coming down and he sees them, worshipping this other God, giving uh this giving the true God's story to this other God, saying, This is behold, this golden calf, these are the gods that brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

And then the Lord says, I'm going to consume them.

He's burning hot with anger, with jealousy over his people.

And he's saying, I'm going to destroy this people.

And now that we have a sense of what sacrifice is, what sacrificing to the thing above you to bless you with an identity is, don't I think when we normally read this, we think that's a little much.

God, this re- it was just a cow.

You know, you're off golden cow that happens every now again when you're bored in the desert with your friends.

Burning man is what happens.

That's actually very true, actually.

But the um uh when you now that we understand the purpose that the sacrificing to the God above them gives, that this creation of identity, and that they give that to another God other than the true God, don't you see?

That means they, as the true people of God, ought to be destroyed.

It's uh it's it's inevitable that they would be destroyed.

Because they're not coherent as a people.

They have a lie at the basis of their identity.

They have a lie that's holding them together from above.

It won't last, it can't cohere.

They will be destroyed, they will be consumed.

This is the inevitable, necessary response of God to this people.

This is this is the way things work, that they would be destroyed.

Now, when we sin against the God who is above us, is the priest who goes before us to represent us.

And this is what we know we need.

This is what we long for as a people.

You know, how do we re how do we, how do you ever collectively repent?

You know, when you're a participant in the sins of your people, how do you, how do we repent as a people?

You know, I was I was talking about this with some folks after the men's night.

You you think of like uh our our nation, like what are some things that we've done?

You think of 64 million abortions.

Well, where do where do we go to how do we how do we repent of that?

Each individually, uh yes, of course, there's repentance for for everything.

There's repentance available, there's grace.

But what is the what who do we go?

How do we do that collectively?

When you see, you need a person who represents you.

And then that one person can stand in your place.

It's the only way we're able to do anything collectively.

Is you have a person that stands in your place.

They are your champion, they're the one that you give your identity to, they're the ones that that it that we say they represent us.

That's the way it always works.

You know, you send forward your champion, and your champion represents you.

And uh, and then they they embody the ideals and the values of of what you are, and then it's like it happens for you.

We need a person to do that.

So Moses is that person for the people of God.

He is the one who represents them.

He he is their true carrier of their identity.

That's what the intercessor is.

They carry your identity into the presence of the Most High, the highest thing.

And so in verse 30, it says, The next day Moses said to the people, You have sinned a great sin, and now I will go up to the Lord.

Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.

This is the role of the priest.

You've sinned a great sin against your God, the God of your identity.

And he goes up and he says, Perhaps I can make atonement.

You know, the there's there's I I'm sorry for talking about this so much.

It's probably it's vulgar, but it's kind of relevant, I think.

It helps make it make sense.

So the so Diddy, you know.

The he you think what's what it what's being exposed is these like the this the sexual sin that's taking place in this.

We are we are a culture of sexual sin.

We are we we are a people marked by this by this sexual sin.

Yes, this is for this is perhaps mar it's it's it's different only in it's it's quantitatively different.

It's not qualitatively different from the way that we just ordinarily allow sexuality to take place in our in our culture and in our hearts and uh in a in the among us, amongst ourselves.

But if we put it on him, if we put it on him and we offer him up to the world, then it's like we could that thing could could be atoned for.

And the type of thing that we would like to be as a people, the ideals and values that we would like to think hold us together as a people, those sins against those might be restored in a way.

And so Moses says, You have sinned against God, against God the Most High, the one who has given you everything.

You've denied him as the one who grants the identity and blessing over you as a people, the one who has performed your great rescue, you've denied him, sinned against him, and he says, Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.

So he has to go up the mountain, up to God, to represent his people.

He says, Perhaps I can bring you back together so that this sin that separated you and made you not his people, you can there can be atonement.

And atonement is one of those beautiful old English words, because you can see what it means just by looking at it.

It's an old English word, it's at one-ment.

See it?

That you can you can bring them together, you can make them one again.

That you with your highest, the highest good, the highest value, you with the true God, that have now been broken because of your sin, and you're not a people, doomed to destruction, that you could be made one again.

And Moses goes up to do that, and the anger of the Lord burns, and Moses says, If you are to blot this people out, then blot my name out of the book instead.

The priest's intercession is representation to them in their sin.

It becomes one thing with the sacrifice, for Moses says, As their representative, I realize that they ought to be destroyed.

Therefore, destroy me.

And then they'll be a people, absolved of their sin.

They'll be held together with you, they'll be at one-ment with you.

This is it's strange, it feels seems strange and archaic when we look at it, but then when you look at it in just an ordinary examples in our culture, this is we long for this all the time.

We're doing this all the time.

Offering up someone to absolve us of our sins as a representative.

At least we were the ones chanting for his downfall.

You see, so they make that our absolution.

So Moses seeks to offer himself, but he uh the offering is not accepted.

Moses is an insufficient sacrifice.

Moses will do the very same things that the people of God have done.

He will deny the word of the Lord to him.

He will strike the rock rather than speak to it, and he will not enter the promised land.

But the Lord does have mercy on his people as a whole, after sacrificing some of them, by the priests, actually, who sacrificed the portion of people who do not repent.

And then God sets up what he gave down to Moses when Moses was on the mountain.

He sets up a system of worship and a system of sacrifice for the people of God.

And it's a pattern of their worship.

And what the pattern is meant to do is it maintains this relationship between God and man.

He requires offerings of sacrifice, of the blood of bulls and goats.

He requires the offering of grain and of oil, these the produce of their land, the fruits of their provision.

He calls for those to be offered up to him for gratitude for the provision that he's offered, and likewise for absolution from their sin against him as the God who is above them.

Now, once again, uh to our minds, this idea that God is requiring the blood of bulls and goats in order to sacrifice to him, and that this is the pattern of worship that he sets up, you know, it's very different than the worship that we do together now.

It's very different than singing.

But now that you see that the centrality of sacrifice and holding a people together, doesn't it seem obvious?

Isn't it, of course, he would set up something like this.

And to the people of God, at this time, the I think what should stand out to us, what should be strange to us, is not that there were sacrifices demanded in the temple by the Lord.

A temple full of gold where sacrifices are made on behalf of the people by high priests.

That is actually ordinary.

In fact, if they if the people of God were to look around at all their neighbors, they would see that their neighboring countries, they all have something similar that they're doing.

They look at a neighboring country and they say, they say, What God do they worship?

They worship Baal.

They worship the God Baal.

And so, well, what types of offering, what does Baal give you?

Well, he's the storm god, he's the god of the storms.

And we need storms here because we need the Rain to come down.

And we don't have any control over the rain.

We can't make it rain.

And so we need to instead uh offer up these sacrifices that are like a type of what Baal gives to us.

And what is the fruit of what does the rain give to us?

Well, it gives us grass.

And so our livestock can can live from the grass that grows from the rain.

It gives us uh it grows the grain that we use and then we turn it into bread, and so we give these offerings of grain, and it grows the olives that we turn into oil, and and we uh so we offer up these offerings of grain and of oil and of uh our cat our cattle and livestock up to this God so that we might receive down his continued provision of those things.

And that makes total that there's do you see how it's sensible?

You see how it's a sensible thing.

The weird thing is that the true God is no local deity.

He's not the god of the rain.

He, of course, is the god of the rain, but that's because he's the god of everything.

He's not the god over some carved out little s little spot of the world that you might violate and he might not grant this particular fertility or something.

He is the creator of all things.

He is the one from whom you receive existence itself.

He is the one by whom you have the breath of life within you.

He is the one who provides for all of your needs.

Well, what do you offer?

What do you what then what could that God then ask you to offer?

What look what sacrifice would you give up to create oneness with him, to return to relationship with him?

Now, it not only as you can see, just by the nature of who the God is, what I'm trying to show is that by the nature of who Baal is, it makes sense to offer up rain, stuff you get from rain.

When you see who God is, what you what do you offer?

You must you must offer everything.

You must.

You must offer everything from the one who gives you everything.

And then what would be the demands of sin against that God?

What could be the absolution that you would receive from that God?

How could you return to oneness with this God who is most high, the God most high?

How do you return to oneness with him?

Don't you see it must require laying down the whole of your life?

It would require death.

The wages of sin, the cost of sin against that God would of course be death.

There's no way it could be otherwise.

It makes no sense otherwise.

So the price that must be paid to the true God would of course be death, your death.

Your death.

For the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice that he should live on forever and never see the pit.

How do you ransom your own life to this God when you are in sinful rebellion against him?

What do you give?

You give your very life itself?

Well, these are only the just deserts of your destruction.

And so, yes, justice is served.

Justice is served, but you're dead.

How could there be atonement?

It's intuitive that you need a prophet, because you need to know the truth.

It's intuitive that you need a king so that the king can execute justice in accord with the truth.

What happens when the prophet says, the truth is you deserve to die?

And that is what justice actually requires because of your sins against the Lord.

Well, then who can the you see, when that's what the prophet says, which that is the truth, now do you see I need a priest, is what I need.

I thought I just needed a prophet and a king to know what the truth is and then to see justice executed in accord with the truth.

Well, here's what the prophet says: the sins of others that you sent before yourself only revealed your own.

And so that's an insufficient sacrifice.

So you're going to die, and your death will look like eternal punishment away from the one who gave you life and existence itself, whom you received everything from by grace alone.

You denied him, you turned against him, and you lived a life of sin with these other petty little gods that you offered to as though they were him, as though they were the ones that gave you your provision or your satisfaction or your absolution.

And then the prophet shows up and says there's a true God, and he recognizes that all of those are wildly insufficient.

And also he's the king, and justice demands that you are destroyed out of his presence.

And you say, I gotta get a I gotta get a priest.

What priest?

You can get a priest to go to Baal.

He's just the god of rain.

What priest do you send to the true God?

The writer of Hebrews understood this.

Baal might look at bulls and goats and say, great.

This is kind of my this is the type of thing I'm God over.

Sin of man against the only righteous God.

You think bulls and goats are gonna work?

Here's what the writer of Hebrews says.

He says in Hebrews 10:1, for since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come, instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.

Hebrews 10:1

The writer of Hebrews recognized the reality of the system of sacrifices that took place under the old covenant for the people of God.

Says, these these things, this temple sacrifice system with the high priests that God himself had commanded as the right worship of him for his people at this time, this was this was not the thing itself.

This was not, there was no absolution from the giving of bulls and goats.

There was there was no it tw you know satisfying or appeasing the Lord God.

What do you think he need?

He doesn't need the smell of barbecue in order to be appeased.

He doesn't need this.

These were a shadow of the things to come.

They were like the scaffolding on the building that you needed in order to hold things up for a while.

But the thing itself, the real building, the real sacrifice that needed to happen, well, it must be far higher than that.

So then what was this time of sacrificing bulls and goats to the Lord in faith, just as the Lord had commanded that?

What was that time then?

It was a it was a condescension of the Lord.

It was him coming down to the type of people that he had and graciously showing them, here's how you relate to me.

You know how you relate to these things that are above you?

You can relate to me like that, but I'm way higher than those.

I'm above all of those, well beyond, far beyond, unthinkably beyond all of those things.

But I will graciously condescend to be at one with you, receiving up just the type of things that you can offer.

But why would he do that?

How could something the the writer of Hebrews he goes on?

He says in verses three through four, but in these sacrifices, the sacrifices that were given every year for the atonement of the people, but in these sacrifices there was a reminder of sins every year.

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Why do they have to do the Day of Atonement every year, where the high priest sacrifices for himself and then goes in to sacrifice for the people in the Holy of Holies?

It's be it's it's a testimony in a sense that it's not working.

That's why they have to go every year.

So what is working then?

Why is God with them?

Why is he graciously being in their presence and being God over them?

He is condescending to them as he looks forward patiently to the true sacrifice that he will offer.

Who is the true high priest that will come?

Of course, the blood of bulls and goats are not sufficient to take away your sins.

Think of all of the little sacrifices that you might get tempted into making.

You know, there's there's um there's all these guys that are trying to live forever, which I don't blame them.

I guess in what sense I'm one of them.

We're just taking a different approach.

But you can see the incentives are aligned.

And that what they say is that the the like in order to live forever, you just need to make these little sacrifices every day in your life.

You just need to get your omega-3s, and you need to do zone two cardio, and you need to get your VO2 max up, and your bone density, and you need to stretch, and drink lots of water and hydrate, but not too much, because then you'll deplete your whatever, you know, things.

So drink salt with your there's tips and there's things, and then you and then if you sleep seven hours a night and your air is pure enough, you we're gonna beat this thing.

We're gonna beat this thing.

You see how that's the these offerings.

These offerings.

You sin uh against a spouse or against a and you try and make up for it.

You you bring flowers, you try and atone, you try and be you try and bring some at one-ment here.

There's all we live these lives that we're trying to make the sacrifice, but we know we know you can't ransom your own life.

You know you need a priest, one who can make a true offering.

How do you, who can that priest possibly be who can be the priest between you and the true and living God who you have sinned against?

In Job 9, 32 through 33, he cries out for this priest.

Speaking of God, and he says, For he is not a man as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together.

There is no arbiter between us who might lay his hand on us both.

Who can be the arbiter between you and God, the giver of life, the one who gave you this breath who you've rebelled against?

Who can lay their hand on you, this creature from the dirt, and the eternal God in the heavens?

You can't reach that far.

Who could be the true priest?

And what would that offering finally look like?

It had to be.

It must be.

The only hope that we have is that it would be the Lord Jesus Christ, the true high priest, because he would have to be God and man.

He would have to be God to reach up into the heavens, to receive the absolution that he offers.

He would have to be man because there is a sacrifice that must be made, because the wages of sin is death.

Why would he come to do that?

You see, you couldn't, there's nothing you could offer up to God that would twist his arm so that he might come down and make you at one again and restore that relationship again, save you from death.

There's nothing you could offer.

Who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?

Whatever gift you give to God, even your righteousness, God says, Thanks, I already mine.

I hate to.

This was already mine.

Who's given a gift to him that he might be repaid?

What could compel him to take on the form of a creature from the dirt to die in their place so that at one-ment might be made between him and them in their rebellion?

You see, it could only be his love.

It could only be his grace.

He is the one who must be the priests, the priest who makes the offering on your behalf.

You see, the priest you need is the one you've sinned against.

And what could you do to restore that, to make up for the loss?

You couldn't do anything.

What you owe is death.

He would have to, out of the depth of his love towards you, which you don't deserve, come and offer an unthinkable absolution by taking your death for you and be able to take up his life again for you and present it to the Father so that you might be freed.

That's the priest that you need.

In Hebrews 7, 23 through 28, it says, I'm just gonna read a lot.

The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office.

Makes it hard to continue in office.

But he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever.

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

Think of your sins.

Who can rescue you from them?

What can you offer in their place?

He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him.

Verse 26, for it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

That's the type of high priest you need.

He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.

We need the high priest who can truly represent us.

That means he needs to be a man, but he needs to represent us to God.

That means he needs to be God.

He needs to be a perfectly pure sacrifice that stands in our place as a representative of humanity before us to go before God and die in our place, offering himself as a sacrifice.

Then there's forgiveness of sins.

Then there's restoration to the Father.

Then you're a people again.

Then you're adopted in.

You can't go anywhere else for the forgiveness of sins other than to the true high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the one who has done it.

You're plagued in your sin, you're looking for absolution.

You can turn to him.

In Romans 8, 31 to 34, it says, What then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all.

How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

It is God who justifies, who is to condemn.

Christ Jesus is the one who died more than that who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Right now, Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God interceding for you.

And so when Satan comes to condemn you of sin, then the Lord Jesus Christ pleads before the Father.

And what he pleads is his own death.

He says, I am a sufficient sacrifice.

They are atoned for.

They walk in the freedom that I have purchased them.

He is our true high priest.

Before the throne of God above, you have a strong and perfect plea.

A great high priest whose name is love.

Whoever lives and pleads for me.

Your name is graven on his hand, it's written on his heart.

You can know that while in heaven he stands, no tongue can bid you depart.

Not from the Father.

Jesus Christ is our high priest.

Let's pray.

Holy Father, we just thank you.

What could compel you to come and die in our place?

Lord, when we cannot atone for our sins.

What can we offer up to you?

Even if we offer perfectly the things that you called us to offer, we know that these are insufficient.

We must be saved by your grace, Lord.

And praise God.

We praise you for this, Father.

We pray that we would worship you as the one who did it, who saved us from our sins, our true high priest.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.