1. "How you answer the question of what you think the greatest problem is that we face determines so much else about your life. It is the vantage point from which you turn and look at everything else. It's how you view and comprehend life around you."

2. "Sin is the greatest problem. What is sin? Sin is our disliking and distrusting and disobeying God. Sin is where death comes from."

3. "The whole sacrificial system was one huge elaborate illustration of our need and God's provision."

4. "God commanded these sacrifices only because of our sin. But sacrifices compare very poorly with a loving trust that simply obeys God like the completely good heavenly Father He is and deserves to be treated as."

5. "Since only disobedience made a place for sacrifices in the first place, perfect obedience would mean there's no need for any sacrifices. It would displace them."

6. "The sacrifices pleased God like medicines please parents. We'd rather the kids not be sick, but if they're sick, here, take this. That's the way we're to understand these sacrifices."

7. "Christ's incarnation was for the purpose of His atonement. Bethlehem was for Calvary. He was born to save His people from our sins."

8. "The temple priests stood, but Christ sat down. Christ's conquering work was done for the time. His conquest of sin had been accomplished."

9. "Brothers and sisters, it's the Lord's patience that allowed you and me to be saved. It's because He was patient that you and I have been included. Praise God for such including patience."

10. "The amazing news here is that the sins we confess and renounce are truly forgiven and forgotten. And then when we go to be with the Lord, we can be sure of his reception of us with complete forgiveness."

Observation Questions

1. According to Hebrews 10:1, what does the law have, and what can it never do for those who draw near through the same sacrifices offered every year?

2. In Hebrews 10:3-4, what do the annual sacrifices provide for the worshipers, and what does the author say is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to accomplish?

3. According to Hebrews 10:5-7, what does Christ say the Father prepared for Him, and what did Christ come to do as written in the scroll of the book?

4. In Hebrews 10:11-12, what is the contrast between what every priest does daily and what Christ did after offering His sacrifice for sins?

5. According to Hebrews 10:14, what has Christ accomplished "for all time" through His single offering, and for whom has He accomplished this?

6. In Hebrews 10:17-18, what does God promise regarding sins and lawless deeds, and what conclusion does the author draw about offerings for sin?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does the author emphasize that the Old Testament sacrifices were only "a shadow" rather than "the true form" of the realities to come (Hebrews 10:1)? What does this distinction teach us about God's plan of salvation?

2. The sermon explains that God commanded sacrifices yet took "no pleasure" in them (Hebrews 10:5-6). How do we reconcile God's command to offer sacrifices with His lack of ultimate delight in them, and what does this reveal about what God truly desires from His people?

3. What is the significance of Christ sitting down at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12) in contrast to the priests who always stood? How does this imagery communicate the completeness of Christ's work?

4. How does the quotation from Jeremiah 31:33-34 in Hebrews 10:16-17 demonstrate that the New Covenant offers something fundamentally different from what the Old Covenant sacrificial system could provide?

5. The sermon identifies sin as the root problem underlying all of life's difficulties. How does understanding sin as our greatest problem change the way we evaluate other solutions the world offers for human suffering and brokenness?

Application Questions

1. The sermon points out that how we answer the question of life's greatest problem shapes our entire worldview. What problem do you tend to treat as most fundamental in your daily decisions—financial security, health, relationships, or something else—and how might recognizing sin as the root issue change your priorities this week?

2. God desires loving obedience rather than mere religious ritual (Hebrews 10:5-9). In what areas of your life are you tempted to substitute religious activity or church involvement for genuine heart obedience to God's commands?

3. The passage teaches that Christ's single sacrifice has "perfected for all time" those who trust in Him (Hebrews 10:14). How should this truth shape the way you respond when guilt feelings overwhelm you, and what specific step from the sermon's five suggestions could you practice this week?

4. Since God promises to "remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more" (Hebrews 10:17), how does this affect the way you should forgive others who have wronged you? Is there a specific person or offense you need to release in light of how completely God has forgiven you?

5. The sermon warns against trading Christ for "religious sparkly goods" that promise spiritual benefit apart from His finished work. What voices, practices, or beliefs in your life compete with trusting solely in Christ's completed sacrifice for your standing before God?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Jeremiah 31:31-34 — This is the foundational Old Testament prophecy about the New Covenant that the author of Hebrews quotes and interprets as fulfilled in Christ's sacrifice.

2. Psalm 40:6-8 — This passage, quoted in Hebrews 10:5-7, reveals the Son's commitment to do the Father's will and provides the scriptural basis for understanding Christ's obedience as superior to animal sacrifices.

3. Isaiah 1:10-20 — This prophetic rebuke shows how God rejected Israel's sacrifices when offered alongside disobedience, reinforcing the sermon's point that God desires obedience over ritual.

4. Romans 8:1-4 — Paul explains how God accomplished through Christ what the law could not do, complementing the argument in Hebrews about the insufficiency of the law and the sufficiency of Christ.

5. Leviticus 16:1-22 — This description of the Day of Atonement provides the Old Testament background for understanding the annual sacrifices that reminded Israel of their sins and pointed forward to Christ's final sacrifice.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Greatest Problem We Face: Understanding Our Sins

II. Christ's Sanctifying Offering (Hebrews 10:5-10)

III. Christ's Single Offering (Hebrews 10:11-13)

IV. Christ's Final Offering (Hebrews 10:14-18)

V. Living as Forgiven People

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Detailed Sermon Outline

What do you think is the biggest problem that we are facing today?

Many of you have the jobs that you do because of how you would answer that question. You were working for the executive or the judicial or the legislative branch of our nation's government because you want to help, you want to accomplish something.

Or you're working for some non-governmental organization working to help provide solutions to our most pressing problems.

Financial planners, counselors, lawyers, doctors, all of them do what they do in order to help solve life's problems, right? Sharp disappointments or continual stress no doubt sap the strength of some here this morning. Others are strained by financial worries that are too great to bear.

Many of us have known the sharpness of loss and grief among family and friends or both, certainly the grim reaping of death has touched this congregation this past week.

The Bible doesn't deny that any of these are real problems.

In case you're new here or new to thinking about Christianity or reading the Bible, you may be surprised to find out how realistic the Bible is about everything from human actions and motivations to God's own will. How you answer the question of what you think the greatest problem is that we face determines so much else about your life. It is the vantage point from which you turn and look at everything else. It's how you view and comprehend life around you. If you think it's all about money, you look at the world like this.

If you think it's all about power, you'll look at the world like that. If you think the highest good is physical life, well then certain priorities take over. And tragedy seems to unavoidably gather like the years, taking down even the once healthiest among us. Sometimes harvesting even the youngest. The longest reigning queen will soon become the late queen.

Even the young are not spared. The Bible certainly presents many problems in our world, in our life. That's why we Christians describe our whole world as fallen. Because there is a problem. There is a God-created height from which we have plummeted and our whole lives are now marked by struggle and defeat, which will, until Christ returns, finally show itself in death's claim over each one of us.

And at the very root of it all, even of death itself, is sin.

With all due respect, this is what those of you here this morning who are not Christians do not understand.

I doubt you've come to church with a friend or family member simply to be instructed in your own ignorance, but I just wouldn't be serving you well as a former agnostic if I didn't tell you that this is what I think you really can't understand about our world. Why do things keep going wrong? And the Bible has an answer. And even if you don't believe that answer, I would ask you to at least consider what it is. Hear it clearly and carefully.

Sin is the greatest problem. What is sin? Sin is our disliking and distrusting and disobeying God.

Sin is where death comes from. We read at the very beginning of the Bible in Genesis chapter 3 that Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden sinned, and so death came into the world. As Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death. So ultimately the way to deal with our existence in this life is the way we best prepare for the next.

God tells us that we all continue to exist after death, either under His good justice and wrath, or in His perfect love as His very own.

This utterly crucial question then, becomes not how are we doing in our DNA research? Or what's up with our physical ailments? As important as those are. But the crucial question is how we deal with that which causes our physical death ultimately and wants to cause our spiritual death as well, our sins. This is the vantage point from which every other worldview is to be judged and exposed as wanting and insufficient and inadequate.

This is the issue that underlies all others. This is the issue that left unsolved will ruin all your plans and spoil all the problems you may otherwise solve. What am I to do about my sin?

These early Christians that are addressed in the book of Hebrews that we've been studying saw one of two solutions, it seems. The Jewish temple and its rituals and sacrifices were familiar and they were attractive. Some were apparently leading the church and heading back into the regular routines of the offerings at the temple. It was the familiar religion. Others stood feeling the weight of sin, hearing the gospel of Christ preached.

What should they do? I think that's the position in which this book of Hebrews in the New Testament was written. Our writer has been arguing for chapter after chapter that Jesus is the best way, really the only way. To deal with our sins. The question of the priests had come up back in Hebrews chapter 4, and then in chapter 5 the writer had explained that Jesus was the greatest high priest.

In fact, he was so much better than the high priest of the temple that he explained in chapter 7, Jesus was from an entirely different order of priests, one which had been shown to be as superior to Aaron's priests in the temple as Aaron's forefather Abraham paid tribute in tithes to the priest king Melchizedek. Jesus, he argues, is of that higher order of priests. That's chapter 7. And that's why his covenant is better, he said in chapter 8. And his heavenly temple, the better temple, in chapter 9.

In chapter 9, which is what we looked at the last time we were together studying the book of Hebrews, in chapter 9 he began to explain how Christ's sacrifice was better than the sacrifices that are made at the temple. And that's what we're looking at now in our study here in Hebrews. If you turn to Hebrews chapter 10 verses 1 to 18, you find the conclusion really of this main argument of the book. If you're using the Bible's provided, you'll find it on page 1006. And again, for visitors, you're not promising you believe the Bible is true if you just hold one and open it and read it.

We're not assuming you're giving allegiance or affiance to God by your simply looking at that book, but you will enjoy or at least endure this next hour better if you will have the text upon which I'm commenting open and you can look in and follow at least what I perceive to be the logical order of my comments as we try to engage with what the writer is saying. Chapter 10, verses 1 to 18, the large number, the chapter number, the small numbers, the verse numbers. This is, as I say, the theological climax of the book. You can look down in verse 14 and see the summary of the entire book of Hebrews. Or at verse 18, you see what really amounts to it, just there in short order.

What must we do with our sins? That's what the writer urges on his readers on us really today. Listen as I read our passage, Hebrews chapter 10 beginning at verse 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.

Otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers 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. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, He said, Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, 'Behold, I have come to do youo will, O God, as it is written of Me in the scroll of the book.' When He said above, 'You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings,' these are offered according to the Law, then He added, 'Behold, I have come to do youo 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 high 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.

And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, 'This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,' declares the Lord, 'I will put My laws in their hearts, and write them on their minds. I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

So friends, I want us to look at the first four verses and see that we need to understand our sins, and then spend most of our time looking at verses 5 to 18 and see how we need to have our sins forgiven. So understand our sins, verses 1 to 4, and then have our sins forgiven, verses 5 to 18. And I'll go on and tell you, since you're the congregation that you are, that there are three sub-points in that second point. This having our sins forgiven will not happen through the offering of the priests, but only through Christ's offering. His sanctifying offering in verses 5 to 10, His sanctifying offering.

His single offering, verses 11 to 13, His single offering, and His final offering, verses 14 to 18, His final offering. I pray that as we study this passage, you may more clearly see your sins and what to do with them. First, we need to understand our sins. Look again at chapter 10, those first few verses. For since the law has but a shadow of 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.

Otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers 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's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Something was going on with the people that lasted as long as the laws of Moses in Leviticus. The people in their propensity to sin had never stopped. The author is so direct here in verse 1, it can never make perfect those who draw near. The atonement being made by these sacrifices was partial and temporary and incomplete. It made them ritually compliant so they would be qualified to come and offer more sacrifices.

The writer had already, back in chapter 8, referred to everything that went on in the temple as merely a copy. Or a shadow after the pattern of the true heavenly realities. Paul said the same thing in Colossians 2. He said, these are a shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Looking back, we can see that these Old Testament sacrifices were foreshadowing the coming sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

The whole sacrificial system was one huge elaborate illustration of our need and God's provision. As he says here, of the good things to come. But as he'd said up in chapter 9 verse 11, Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come. Christ is the true form of all of these Old Testament sacrifices that they were pointed to. The atonement, the forgiveness that these sacrifices had brought were only partial and temporary.

And even their temporary ministry as was as a preview of the coming of Christ. Even that had expired now that Christ had actually come. Perfection had not been attainable through the Levitical priesthood. It hadn't happened through the sacrifices down at the temple. The law made nothing perfect, he said back in chapter 7 verse 19.

The gifts and sacrifices even correctly offered couldn't perfect the consciences of the worshiper. That's not what they were meant to do. As Paul put it in Romans chapter 8 verse 3, For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. You see, the Old Testament had always made it clear that God's standards were more than ceremonial.

They involved obedience to His moral law. So David said back in Psalm 24, who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false, and does not swear deceitfully. Isn't that interesting?

David said nothing about sacrifices there. His language was not ceremonial, but about compliance to God's moral law, about having a character conformed to the character of God himself. The temple priests offered gifts and sacrifices for sins But these gifts and sacrifices never perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. The preacher's logic is clear here. You look in verse 2.

If these sacrifices made perfect those who draw near, the offerings would have stopped because if the worshipers wouldn't have continued to sin. They would, as he says here, in verse 2, no longer have any consciousness of sins, not because some spiritual stupor would have overtaken them, but because the claims of justice upon them would have been so fully met that they would have no more been guilty as a transgressor than they would be after they had paid some fine they owed. But these sacrifices cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper. They weren't made to finally quiet the sinner's conscience by themselves, but only as they pointed on to a fuller sacrifice to come. No, he says, verse 3, Instead of fixing our sins, these offerings reminded us of them.

That's what was going on in Yom Kippur, the annual Day of Atonement. It was a day of reminding God's people about their sins. We read here that the Old Testament sacrifices reminded them of the truth of their sins. But friends, of course, what we need most especially, is not merely something that would remind us of our sins, but that would cause God to forget our sins. That's what we need.

The Lord had promised through Jeremiah that there would come a time when He would say, I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. The author had already quoted this back in chapter 8. And He does it again at the end of our passage down in verse 17. The promises of the New Covenant went further than mere reminding. Think of how John put it in 1 John 1:9.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Compliance with the commands to offer animal sacrifices could make sinners temporarily, ceremonially clean. But as he says here in verse 4, it was impossible for them ever to take away sins. That's why Christ came, to take away sins. Such a ministry was always above the pay grade, as it were, of bulls and goats.

At best, they could only ritually purify the flesh. They could never reach into our consciences. These sacrifices provided outward ritual cleansing. The atonement, the cleansing and forgiveness, these Old Testament sacrifices presented was partial. That's why the need for them continued.

Their sin could not finally be taken away by such sacrifices alone. Insofar as these Old Testament believers like Abraham or Moses or David was saved, it's because their faith looked forward to God's provision in Christ, previewed as it was in these animal sacrifices. But being truly cleansed from sin was something that the prophets of the Old Testament could only look forward to. All of us need to know the truth about our own sinfulness. Even today, We can be benefited by studying these sacrifices for sins as we consider the depth of our sin.

Its hold on us, its continuing nature, it's defiling us before God, it's making us guilty and driving us from God's presence. It shows how different God is from our sins, and how committed he is to oppose our sins. In God and the morality and ethics he personifies himself and teaches us the demands of love and justice meet together with goodness and kindness and even mercy. These are not tensions within God. This is what God is like.

This is what it means for him to be holy. Even the darkest of shadows teach us something about the fullness of the light by the contrast. So you and I still today have much to learn about the nature of our own sin by studying the sacrifices God's law demanded.

I wonder how you are reminded of your sins. Of course, at the end of the day, even more than understanding our sins, we need to have them forgiven, and that's where Christ comes in. We need to have our sins forgiven, and that's what we see in the rest of our passage, verses 5 to 18. It's clear that this will happen not through the temple priest's offering, but through Christ's offering. And friends, these verses, verses 5 to 18, are the swelling climax of this writer's theological argument, extolling the virtue of Christ's offering over that of the Jerusalem priests.

I want you to notice three aspects of Christ's offering that distinguish it from what was on offer down at the temple. Christ's offering was a sanctifying offering, verses 5 to 10. It accomplished what it set out to do. It was a single offering. We see verses 11 to 13.

And it was a final offering. We see in verses 14 to 18. Let me just say that again. It was a sanctifying offering. We see in verses 5 to 10.

It was a single offering. We see in verses 11 to 13. And it was a final offering. We see in verses 14 to 18. The writer tells us about Christ's sanctifying offering in verses 5 to 10.

There's no need, he says, for the ineffective offerings down at the temple. Look again at verse 5. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, He said, Sacrifices and offerings you've not desired, but a body have you prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings you've taken no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I have come to do youo will, O God, as it is written to me in the scroll of the book.

When He said, 'Above youe have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings,' these are offered according to the law, then He added, 'Behold, I have come to do youo 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. Okay, the author to the Hebrews here, as he's done in a number of other points in his book, takes a passage from the Old Testament and he quotes it and he walks through it, interpreting it, pointing out some key aspects of it.

He's doing that here with Psalm 40, verses 6 to 8. And what we find in these verses is that David's words are Christ's words. So the Son tells the Father that the Father had a body prepared for the Son. Christ's life of complete obedience was foreshadowed here. And since only disobedience made a place for sacrifices, perfect obedience would displace all sacrifices.

You see that? It's really a key mental move in understanding this passage. Since only disobedience made a place for sacrifices in the first place, perfect obedience would mean there's no need for any sacrifices. It would displace them. We see in verse 6 that God had no pleasure in sin offerings.

I can't tell you how many times this week one of you has asked me, But wait, didn't God order all these things? Yes, He did. But only because of sin. He would much rather have holy obedience, loving trust and submission, willing followers than those who partially comply with ceremonies to teach them the costly evil of sin. And that's what sacrifices were.

They pleased God like medicines please parents. We'd rather the kids not be sick, but if they're sick, here, take this. That's the way we're to understand these sacrifices. You know, sometimes we so celebrate the great abolitionist William Wilberforce that it makes me think that we've forgotten what an evil enormity racial slavery was that he worked to end. The rejoicing over a political person we're here on Capitol Hill, doing something so morally good can be so celebrated sometimes that I just feel like, have you forgotten what we're celebrating is this guy finally ended something that should never have taken place in the first place?

That every day it took place was an enormous evil and affront to God and harmed countless millions of individuals. So am I glad it ended? Yes, I am. Am I glad that William Wilberforce worked to that? Oh, very much so.

But that celebration of that can hardly overshadow the terrible thing that was done by so many for so long. Friends, I use that not to get into a racial conversation, but to help you, as an analogy, see the way I think we Christians get confused by sacrifices sometimes. The point of the sacrifices was never the sacrifices themselves. They're only there because our sin provoked them. When we say sacrifices are God's will, it's only He prescribed them because we were sinners.

God commanded these sacrifices only because of our sin. But sacrifices compare very poorly with a loving trust that simply obeys God like the completely good heavenly Father He is and deserves to be treated as. That's what we want. That's what the Son offered. The Son offered that kind of complete loving obedience, which the Father far prefers to sacrifices.

But didn't God order the sacrifices? Yes, God ordered the sacrifices, but they were only there because of our sins. They were never the point. And so when Jesus came, he offered no sacrifice. For his own sins.

His sacrifice was only for ours. Sometimes this is why I think we see statements in the Old Testament. There's so many of them, like David in Psalm 51:16, you, will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. These sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you, will not despise.

The Lord says more like this through Isaiah. If you look at Isaiah chapter 1, you just get a perfect idea of what the prophets are always recounting the Lord's railing against. Isaiah chapter 1, look at verse 11. So again, I'm trying to deal with the confusion that Christians have when they say, why is He ragging on sacrifices when He commanded them? It's because of the way the sacrifices were used.

Isaiah chapter 1, great example of this. Verse 11, the Lord says, 'What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices,' says the Lord. 'I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats. When you come to appear before me, Who has required of you this trampling of my courts?

Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and the calling of convocations, I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me.

I'm weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean.

Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good. Seek justice, correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widow's cause.

Or he says it very summarily in Isaiah's friend Hosea's. Prophecy in Hosea 6:6, he says, I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. You see, it seems like the Israelites, when you read the prophets, they would be openly idolatrous and at the same time keep the sacrificial laws. They would literally have areas with idols set up and they would be making sacrifices to those false gods and then they would go and keep the sacrifices prescribed in the book of Moses. And they somehow thought that would be pleasing to God.

Do you realize how insulting that was to God? Like he couldn't see the other stuff. Like if you get really moved singing the hymn or the song we just sang, God won't care that you're stealing money at the office.

God isn't confused by our religious obediences like they cover up our sins. That's what all of this language about sacrifice is here for. If you look back in our passage, chapter 10, verse 7, shows us that in Psalm 70, or Psalm 40, the Son presented himself not to so mock God, nor even to need to use the sacrifices provided. But best of all, he presented himself to the Father to do his will. He would do what is written in the book, the Scriptures.

Doesn't this sound like Jesus? Jesus said in John 6:38, I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. In another place he said, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. We hear the Son speak like that again, of course, at the Garden of Gethsemane. Christ came to do the Father's will and so accomplish the redemption of His people.

So then He contrasts here in Hebrews 10 in verses 8 and 9, the sinners taking the prescribed refuge in the observance of the Law's offerings. He contrasts that with the Son's coming in verse 9 to do God's will. So the Son came to establish a new covenant based on His Obedience. The Levitical sacrifices provided in the Old Covenant were replaced by Christ's perfect obedience in the New Covenant, provided then as a perfect substitutionary sacrifice for each sinner who would turn and trust in Him. A friend, if you're here today and you don't know God, or you're at enmity with God, if you're not a Christian, you should turn from your sins and trust in Christ.

He offers forgiveness full and free for everyone who will trust in him. His sacrifice is sufficient in a way no amount of your religious sacrificing will ever be. Learn more of what Jesus Christ has done and what it would mean for you in your life to follow him. This is why Christ went to the cross, not because of his own sins, but because of our sins. The best sacrifice is always sacrificing our desires for sins and so conforming to God's will.

And so we come to verse 10. This refers to God's willing His Son's saving mission and has led to our having been sanctified. And here sanctified doesn't mean being made progressively more holy over time. Here He's using the language positionally. It's something that happens.

It's more like Paul uses the word justification. We have been sanctified here, means something that we've been saved. You can find a number of times the author of the Hebrews uses the word sanctify like this. If you want something edifying to do this afternoon, just read back through Hebrews. And find the times the author uses the word like this, you'll find there are other times.

One clear example is over in chapter 13, verse 12, where we read that Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through His own blood. So he's speaking here of our status, our position, our being qualified to enter God's presence. He can use that word sanctify more progressively like Paul often did. He does it in our passage down in verse 14. He has perfected those who are being sanctified.

That's in a continuous sense. One other note here in verse 10, you see he says Jesus Christ here. It's the first time he's put those two names together in the book. He's doing it here at the climax of his argument, where he's making clear that this Jesus Christ is the one who's being held up in all of his fullness over against the pale and vanishing offerings in the temple that were alluring to some of them. The whole reason Jesus Christ came into this world was to do the work of sanctifying his people.

In the way that the temple sacrifices could never do. Christ's incarnation was for the purpose of His atonement. Bethlehem was for Calvary. He was born to save His people from our sins. So Jesus Christ's offering of Himself sanctified His people.

It worked. Not only was Jesus Christ's offering sanctifying, it was also single. We see that in verses 11 to 13. There's no need for it to be repeated. Look again, verse 11, 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. So in verse 11, the writer depicts the temple priests, what are they doing? They're standing. They're offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, repeatedly offering their unsaving sacrifices. Now the books of Moses were full of instructions for sacrifices which were to be repeated at set intervals, particular times of day or the year for certain reasons.

And situations. But these sacrifices in the law brought nothing to completion or conclusion. They were all partial and provisional just for time. Remember how he had put it back in chapter 9, verses 9 and 10. According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings, Regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.

So here in our passage, chapter 10, verse 11, he really finishes with this theme that he's returned to time and again in this book. He has put the image into people's minds, hasn't he? Every priest stands daily. Friends, there were no pews or chairs in the temple or the tabernacle for the priest to sit down in. He was constantly at his business, constantly offering these sacrifices.

They were unending. Their work was to stand and attend to the continuous round of sacrifices to be offered. But look at the contrast in verse 12. Christ offered a single sacrifice, then sat down at the Father's right hand. Christ sat down.

The temple priests stood, but Christ sat down. Saw this back in chapter 1, we read it again here in verse 12, Christ's conquering work was done for the time. His conquest of sin had been accomplished. And so began his session. That's what you call it when somebody sits.

So Mark Feather right now is in session. You know, the Senate right now is in session. You know, you say that the court is in session. So Christ here began his session. His sacrificed body He presented as an offering to His heavenly Father and sits at His right hand in this place of authority, and He sits as a priest who is also a king.

Friends, here is our salvation. We are saved by Christ's completed work, never by our own. And there we see in verse 13, Christ sits in authority waiting until the Father's victory. As powerfully effective as Christ's death has been, the full effects of Christ's sacrifice are yet to be felt. That's what we see here in verse 13.

It's what Peter talks about in 2 Peter 39. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises. Some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Brothers and sisters, it's the Lord's patience that allowed you and me to be saved. It's because He was patient that you and I have been included.

Praise God for such including patience. And it may be more here this morning who have not yet become Christians will decide to follow Christ and obey Him in baptism, join His church, be identified publicly as His, Because at least right now, you can't say for how long, his waiting continues. But he never needs to get up to repeat his sacrifice because that is done. It never needs to be repeated. But it is so good for us to realize that we are in a period of waiting.

Because what that lets us know is that there is still more to be done. Christians, as good as what we've been given is, it is not everything that we will be given. There is more to come. There is a completer victory ahead as we wait for that final victory. One problem with any religion that says Christ needs to be physically killed again and again in order to generate more and more grace are passages like this.

It's the whole image of Christ sitting at the Father's right hand, the offering once offered completed. It is grossly mistaken to understand what Christ meant at the Last Supper when he held out the bread and said, this is my body, and the cup and he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Friends, I don't know if you've ever been tempted to think that what's going on in the Lord's Supper is somehow what some medieval theologians called transubstantiation. That is, the accidents, the appearance, remain the same, but the substance is changed into the physical body of Christ and the physical blood of Christ. That has nothing to do.

That's completely unrelated to what the Scriptures teach us. And to base that on this idea that Jesus said, this is my body. Friend, if I'm talking to you at the door and I show you a picture of Connie and I say, this is my wife, Not one of you thinks I'm talking about being married to that physical object, this picture. You know what I mean when I say that. None of Christ's disciples reached for his elbow and began to chomp.

No one thought that. No one thought that for a thousand years. So, friends, if you've been looking at what should we think about transubstantiation, friends, it's clear there, the sacrifice was presented once. Christ's disciples understood that. So when we celebrate the Lord's Supper this evening, we are rejoicing in that one single sacrifice, still overflowing in power, saving power in our lives today.

And Christ's offering was also the final offering. There's no need for anything more. Look there at the last verses, verses 14 to 18. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us for after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds.

Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. Friends, he is entirely evacuating any reason Somebody would have to get up out of the church and go back to the temple. He's just showing them that that is absolutely without reason because the Son's offering is the final offering. Look at verse 14.

By Christ's offering, he perfected those who are being sanctified. Unlike up in verse 1 where we saw the sacrifices did not make the worshipers perfect, we see here Christ by his single offering has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. So here sanctified is used more like we often think of it in the progressive sense. And we Christians are being sanctified, but we have been perfected in Christ. That is, we are completed in Him.

In His offering, God's claims and our needs are met. A number of times in Hebrews the author has mentioned Jesus being made perfect through suffering. Back in chapter 2, verse 10, or again in chapter 5, Verse 9, this doesn't mean that Jesus was morally flawed and then those flaws were fixed, but that in the course of His obedience to the Father, running even through suffering, He was completed. He finished the work that He set out to do. You find the word perfect used this way on at the end of the faith chapter in chapter 11, verse 40.

Where we read this very provocative statement that all these people that are detailed in chapter 11 did not receive what was promised since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. So there's a sense in which our experience in Christ completes what God had begun doing in Moses and Samuel and the prophets and all those listed in chapter 11. So here in chapter 10, verse 14, Christ has completed His work for us, even as we are still progressively being sanctified. See how that's different than He had used sanctified up in verse 10? And both uses capture part of what the Bible teaches about the Christian state.

We are regarded as in Christ once for all, and then our spirits are changed and transformed morally. Then again in verses 15 to 17 he quotes Jeremiah 31:33-34. He first quoted it back in chapter 8 when he began this exposition of Jesus' priestly and sacrificial work. This is the passage that he really takes these early Jewish Christians to in the Jewish Scriptures to show them that the Jewish Scriptures themselves told them that a time was coming when God would do something different than He had done in the Levitical laws with all their ritual cleansing laws and repeated animal sacrifices. So if you really want to boil it all down to as mere as you can possibly make it, Hebrews is simply a commentary on Jeremiah 31:33 and 34.

It's that little bit of Jeremiah 31 that promises the New Covenant that this preacher knew is what these first century Jewish Christians needed to understand better. In their own Jewish Bible. Their own Jewish Bible would show them why the Jewish temple was not going to be of any help to them now that the Jewish Messiah had come. That's what Hebrews is about. That's what that prophecy is about in Jeremiah.

And that's what he's done, especially in chapters 8 to 10, which is the theological heart of his argument. When he starts to cite Jeremiah again in verse 15, notice he says, this is the Holy Spirit bearing witness. What he means is that the pages of Scripture teach this. The Holy Spirit is the inspirer of Scripture. Look back in Hebrews chapter 3 verse 7.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, and then he quotes the Bible. You can find Luke doing this in Luke chapter 4. This is what we find again and again. In the pages of the New Testament when the Bible is quoted, very often the writer will say, and the Holy Spirit says. Why?

Because we understand the scriptures to be the word of God. That's why we've just taken an hour of your Sunday opening the Bible and reading it and talking about it. Because we understand as interesting as your insights or mine may be, none of them really matter if they're not confirming what's taught here. So we give our time as a church family to looking together at this book, to understanding it, to teaching and obeying and rejoicing in what we see here. We revere the Bible and understand and regard it as God's own Word.

That's why we give ourselves to it as we do. The writer of this letter had already quoted Jeremiah 33 back in chapter 8 to show that Christ's ministry is more excellent and more lasting than that of the first covenant. Jeremiah 16 and 17, he quotes just a portion of it to emphasize God's ancient promise given through Jeremiah 33 to put His laws on their hearts. There would be a sanctifying going on in this new covenant that exceeded anything that was seen in the old. And this is the promise of gospel conversion.

This is what's being described here. And praise God, this is what we here today have and can testify to. That God has really made these changes in us. The Lord promised in Ezekiel 36, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will put within you.

I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Or as the Lord had said in another chapter of Jeremiah, I will put the fear of me in their hearts. The Lord is our Redeemer. This is the heart of the new covenant that the Lord had first actually promised to Moses back in Deuteronomy 30, verse 6.

The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. Friends, this is what we Christians have begun to experience in this life. We have already begun to experience these realities. We are being made more like the Son here in Psalm 40 verse 8. I delight to do your will, oh my God.

Your law is within my heart. So when Jesus talks about being born again in John 3, or we have that verse that Hans read earlier from 2 Corinthians 5:17, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. This is what they're talking about.

This is the reality that you and I, if we're truly Christians, have begun to experience this new creation, this newness in our relationship to God and His Word. This is the real change that God works in His people through the saving work of Christ and the outpouring of His Spirit. A fundamental part of that newness in our relationship with God is this precious promise that he repeats here in verse 17: I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. What a promise! That's something you can't even do yourself very well.

You keep thinking of your sins and your lawless deeds. But God, whom it really matters much more than whether or not you remember them. God gives us this promise, not a promise like the temple sacrifices of our being reminded of our sins, but the promise of God remembering them no more because they've been dealt with by Christ's substitution in our place. The amazing news here is that the sins we confess and renounce are truly forgiven and forgotten. And then when we go to be with the Lord, we can be sure of his reception of us with complete forgiveness.

Now once again, just to criticize some perverted notions of Christianity here, like I did with transubstantiation in the last point, realize that here this means there is no room for the idea of purgatory. You aware of the idea of purgatory? That is somehow that there is some suffering that we endure as individuals after death that is the means by which God purges us and makes us morally appropriate to be in the presence of God. Even as God can change us spiritually from death to life in our regeneration and conversion in an instant, so at His appearing He can glorify us in a second by that same all-powerful, gracious working of a Spirit that resurrects our bodies. There's no slow treadmill of improvement controlled by the earthly church, particularly by your obedience to My words and your giving money to this church.

That's how purgatory has worked in the past. That's how purgatory works today. Friends, there's nothing like that here. There's no room for that in this gospel. The point of the arrow of the chapter's arguments here in Hebrews 1 to 10 comes in verse 18.

To all of those who are tempted to leave the church and return to the temple where sins are forgiven, offerings are no longer needed. The only offering that's needed has been made. Brothers and sisters, this verse is a summary of it all. Hebrews in a verse. The remedy God has provided is full and final, and therefore there's no point in returning to the temple.

There's just no point. There's nothing to be gained there.

Now, I realize most of you are not considering going back to being Jewish again. Though when I said that six months ago, I was informed afterwards by someone that they had a friend with them who was considering becoming Jewish. So when I'm in a group of five or six or seven or eight hundred, I'm going to be careful about saying things like that. But I will tell you what I assume many of you do struggle with. You wonder, Mark, if all of this grand news is true about my guilt being dealt with in Christ, why do I still feel so guilty?

What should I do with my guilt feelings that often just seem overwhelming to me? Five things. There were no imperatives in this portion of God's Word, so I'm supplying a few. Number one, understand the difference between guilt and guilt feelings. Guilt is your moral debt before God for having done wrong.

Guilt feeling is your perception that something is wrong. The two are not the same. They can be lined up, but they can also often not be. Number two, understand what Christ has done for all those who believe in him. Understand His offering.

Consider this passage we've been studying today. Number three, pray that God help you to trust in Christ alone for your standing before God. That's the only place you'll find peace. It's in what God has provided in Christ. Number four, join a Bible preaching church.

You weren't meant to try to do this alone. Keep coming to join in the singing and be led by the praying and instructed by the preaching. And number five, build some close friends so that you can do some Galatians 5:19-23 exploration. Galatians 5:19-23 are the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. Those are good things for you to use as tools in your own heart and in the heart of someone you love to try to help them think soberly about their own spiritual state.

But friends, we have all we need in Christ. There doesn't need to be another offering. Not at the temple in Jerusalem, not at the Roman Catholic Church. There's just no need for another offering. Christ's offering was final.

Nothing else needs to be done to save sinners like you and me. To be forgiven of our sins. We should conclude. Many of you will know the work of the American Red Cross. You know it's headquartered here.

You may not have known that its original headquarters were over in Glen Echo, right next to Georgetown. And in fact, that's why its founder has been honored in the Parkway there along the Potomac River, named after her, the Clara Barton Parkway. Many of you drive on it every day. One story which I read considering this idea of our sins and what to do about them was the simple fact that Clara Barton was known to never harbor resentment against anyone. And if you know her story, she faced a lot of opposition for things she was trying to get done.

On one occasion, a friend recalled for her an incident that had taken place some years before that Clara didn't seem to remember. Don't you remember the wrong that was done you? asked her friend. Clara Barton answered calmly, no. I distinctly remember forgetting that.

Isn't that one of the cash values of what we've been thinking about today? That God would remember our sins no more? Do you live like someone who's been forgiven in the way you forgive others?

I guess it's one thing for you or me or Clare Barton to forget sins, but what could cause God justly to set aside His judgment on our wrongs? Only if that judgment has been poured out and exhausted, if sin's debt has been fully paid by Jesus, if our sins, not in part but the whole, have been nailed to the cross and we bear them no more. Beloved, if that's the case, then let's keep trusting in Jesus. Let's never trade him away for anything else. No religious sparkly goods.

Let's praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. Let's pray together.

Merciful God, For Jesus' sake, forgive our sins. Grant us the Holy Spirit that we may obey youy and fulfill youl will.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.