Sermon Tone Analysis
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Good Morning!
What an incredible thing to be part of the proclamation of a new believer!
Congratulations to Jude and his family!
This gives us such a good introduction into our passage today, to officially welcome a new believer.
These last few months we have been focused on the role that Jesus plays in the lives of all people as the Perfect High Priest and Final Sacrifice.
Last week we specifically talked about the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice.
First, we learned that Jesus’s sacrifice has no limit and is of the highest possible value.
Second, we learned that his sacrifice never has to be repeated and is permanent in its effect.
Because of what Jesus has done, the sacrifice that he made on all of our behalves, days like today are possible.
Days when we can celebrate the beauty of what God has done for all of us.
He gave his own life so that we could enter into a relationship with God.
In response, we follow Jesus’s example in being baptized to mark the work that God has done and is doing in our lives.
The main focus of last week, that the O.C. Has been completed and we now live under the New Covenant.
Jesus, giving Himself as the sacrifice, fulfilled the Old Covenant requirements for all of us.
Jesus took the punishment that we deserved upon himself so that the broken relationship between God and people could be restored.
Today we celebrated Jude’s decision to accept the forgiveness, that Jesus offers everyone.
Salvation and baptism are the first steps that all of us must take to begin our relationship with God.
Salvation is the decision to trust your forgiveness and acceptance by God based on what Jesus has done, not what you can do.
Baptism is simply the public announcement of that decision to trust Jesus.
It is the way we share with others what God has done in our lives and that Christ wants to do the same in everyone’s life.
But salvation is not the end of the story, it is just the beginning.
It is the beginning of a relationship with God that all people long for.
To know God is to truly understand what it means to be human.
As we grow in our experiences with God, we learn who he is as we walk in obedience, and our lives are forever changed.
In the past, the church has put such a focus on salvation and baptism that what comes after is forgotten.
Don’t misunderstand, salvation is the first step, but today we are going to talk about what comes after that.
Today the author of Hebrews is going to speak of the promise of what is to come through the new covenant.
Read with me in chapter nine, verses 23-28.
Today we are going to focus on two main points.
Jesus entering the true temple, which is in heaven.
He will return to completely remove sin from the earth.
1. Jesus lives in the heavenly temple.
The author has made many references to the temple and we have talked about it a lot over the last few weeks.
It is important for us to understand its role in the daily life of God’s people, but also its role in God’s redemptive work.
The earthly temple was just a copy or representation of the true temple that is in heaven.
God had Israel build that temple to help them understand his holiness and to point them to a better future.
It is clear though that this point had been missed by the priest.
Rather than the focus of the temple being on God, they made the temple and its rituals a god.
We see this through the message in this section where the author is trying to help the people understand that the role that the temple had once played in the life of Israel was no more.
The temple was no longer needed because its usefulness was gone.
The author is showing them that, at one time, the sacrifices were needed in order to purify the copies, but now, the actually heavenly temple has been purified by the sacrifice of Jesus.
We also see this misunderstanding about the purpose of the temple in John 2.
For the priest, the temple had become their profit center.
People were coming from all over to celebrate Passover, but rather than bringing their sacrifice, they took the easy way out and bought one.
You can see just in that simple decision that the purpose of the sacrifice was lost on the people and the priest.
The heart behind the ceremony was lost because their focus was on convenience, not on sacrifice.
This reminds us again of Cain and Able and how important the heart behind the offering is to God.
God’s desire was for Israel to be brought back to himself and he gave them the law to reveal the sin in their lives.
The law has the same effect on us today and it is the reason that we realize our need for a savior.
When a person gives their life to Christ, the first thing that must happen is for them to have a realization of their own sin and depravity.
It is only then that our hearts can be opened to Christ.
I read somewhere this week that there are two kinds of people; “The righteous who believe they are sinners and sinners who believe they are righteous”.
The purpose of the law is to show all people that no matter how hard we try, we are not righteous.
In this passage from John, Jesus is alluding to what the future holds for himself and for God’s people.
The copy of the heavenly temple will be destroyed and the heavenly temple will be revealed.
His death on the cross opened the doors on the heavenly temple for all people and closed the earthly temple because it is no longer needed.
Jesus was raised to life and now resides in heaven at the right hand of the father.
He has entered the real temple in heaven and has made it possible for us to join him.
This brings us to the second point that the author is making in this section.
2. Jesus will one day return to the earth, not to die again, but to completely remove all sin from the world.
We still struggle with sin because it still exists on this earth.
In fact, we spent an entire year talking about God’s love in this broken world.
Because the world is sinful, God gave the law to reveal the sin and show the need for a savior.
Jesus came to earth, lived, died, and rose again as the savior that we needed.
Both of those actions are part of the total redemptive process.
The forgiveness and grace of Jesus, if we accept those things, bring us into right relationship with God.
Sin has been concurred, but not destroyed.
You and I are well acquainted with sin.
It doesn’t matter how hard we try, we still find ourselves making the very mistakes we try to avoid.
The apostle Paul describes what we know so well.
There is a constant battle between our spiritual selves and our flesh.
Even though the battle has been won in the future, we are still in the midst of the war right now.
It is that daily war that we are so acquainted with.
Like Paul, we want to be like Christ in every way, yet we find ourselves falling short.
It is not because of a lack of desire, but because of the sin that still exists in the world.
We can and do experience victory over sin, but the point I am making is that there is still the struggle with sin.
Look at what Paul goes on to say in Romans 8.
We are given new life, through Jesus’s work, not through our works.
This is why we say in baptism that we die to ourselves and are raised to life in Christ.
The hope we have is that one day the war will be over.
No longer will we have this struggle between the flesh and the spirit.
The final step in the redemptive process is for Jesus to return to earth and completely and irrevocably remove sin.
The author is showing the final step, the one that will finally bring God and his people back together as we were created to be.
Look at how John describes this in Revelation 21.
Do you see what John is writing about in verses 3 and 4?
When this final step happens, God will come and dwell here on the new earth with his people!
No longer will there be a war between God’s holiness and sin.
No longer will there be suffering on the earth.
All things will be made new and be like they were meant to be in the beginning.
This is what all of us are longing for.
This is what the world is trying so hard to accomplish.
Peace on earth, where there are no natural disasters, wars, famines, etc. this will happen when Jesus returns.
Jesus’s work on the cross was to save us from the penalty of sin and His return will save us from the consequences of sin on earth.
There is great hope in trusting in Jesus!
Jesus is in the heavenly temple, right now, interceding on our behalf.
He has promised that one day he will return and the earth will be made right again.
No longer will we have to experience the brokenness of a sinful world.
It will be restored to its former glory and the creator of all, the beginning and the end will return and all will be reconciled.
It is my prayer today that the testimonies you have heard, both in word and in baptism, will work in your heart.
It is my prayer that those who know Christ will love him more as they understand more fully just how much he has done.
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