Motives For Faithfulness Series

Motives For Faithfulness

Hebrews Series

Heb. 10.1-25

June 8, 2014 Chester FBC, Chester, IL Dr. Mike Fogerson, Speaker

Introduction:

A There is a plaque that is devastating the modern church, unfaithfulness.

1 Over 40% of members in an average congregation never attend services.

a Among the faithful, they’ll miss 10 Sundays a year (over 3 months of missing church/a quarter of the year!)

aa When they’re gone they don’t make up their giving, tithe.

bb As if the weeks they miss, all ministry that the church takes that week off too.

b Another symptom is that we have “gypsy” Christians.

aa Make journeys from church to church, conference to conference and never settle into faithful service.

bb We are called not to be gypsies, but to be pilgrims, journeying together with the people of God.

2 Why should believers remain faithful?

a Hebrews 10 gives us four driving motivations for faithfulness.

aa There is a clear challenge to faithfulness for believers.

bb Jesus entered into a blood covenant with His people & that covenant comes with certain responsibilities.

b Those responsibilities can be summed up in one word, “FAITHFULNESS.”

B Prayer

I Our Great Salvation (vv.1-8)

Hebrews 10:1-10 (NASB) 1 For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? 3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 5 Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, "SACRIFICE AND OFFERING YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, BUT A BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME; 6 IN WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE TAKEN NO PLEASURE. 7 "THEN I SAID, 'BEHOLD, I HAVE COME (IN THE SCROLL OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME) TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD.'" 8 After saying above, "SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS AND WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, NOR HAVE YOU TAKEN PLEASURE in them" (which are offered according to the Law), 9 then He said, "BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL." He takes away the first in order to establish the second. 10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

A We are saved from the guilt/condemnation of sin . . . heaven is our home . . . adopted as children into God’s family . . . friends of God . . . what greater reason do we have to be faithful to God than the simple fact that we have been saved.

1 The sacrificial system of the Old Covenant was incomplete.

a v.1, refers to this system as a shadow (lit. means contour/outline)

b The religion of the OT offered only a faint shadow of the reality of Christ’s coming sacrifice that would occur at Calvary.

2 The sacrifices of the OT were insufficient because they had to be offered every year . . . they never completed the work of atonement.

a Because they repeated the sacrifices, the worshipers were constantly reminded of their sins. (vv. 2-4)

b The sacrifices in the OT was an extension of the payment that breaking the Law required.

aa IL. You had a banker friend who made you pay an annual loan & at the end of the year you discovered you couldn’t pay it so your friend extends it another year.

bb Year after year, the loan & interest pile up as the note is renewed. This is exactly what was portrayed by the sacrificial system of the OT.

cc Each year the “sin note” was delayed another year looking toward Calvary.

B Paul reveals that the Levitical sacrificial system was inadequate by citing Ps. 40.6-8,

Psalm 40:6-8 (NASB) 6 Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My ears You have opened; Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required. 7 Then I said, "Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me. 8 I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart."

1 This Psalm gives us a glimpse of the eternal counsel where the plan of salvation was designed.

a Jesus agreed to take a human form in obedience to the Father offered the final sacrifice for our sins.

b The sacrifices offered by the priests at the Temple (& Tabernacle before it) could never take away sins (v.11).