Hebrews 10:19-39 Confidence: Drawing Near to God
Turn with me this morning to the book of Hebrews, the 10th chapter. We’ve been looking at this book in the end of the NT, written to Hebrews, Jews, or “Israelis” in our modern terminology. They are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are Jewish in nationality and in religion. The author, very possibly Paul, writes to a group of Jews who had accepted Christ as their Messiah - they had experienced salvation - he calls them brothers - but they were tempted to go back to the sacrificial system they had known under the Mosaic law. The author writes telling them that faith in Christ is far superior to the sacrificial system.
In chapter 1 he tells them that Jesus is greater than the OT prophets who gave messages from God - they gave bits and pieces, but Jesus is the embodiment of God’s truth; also Jesus in better than angels - who were held in high regard by the Jews - for the angels are merely servants, but Jesus is the Son.
In chapter 2 we see that although Jesus is greater than angels, he was made lower than the angels - he took on a human body - so he might suffer as a human. Why? So he would be able to identify with us and help us in our suffering.
In chapter 3 we see that Jesus is better than Moses, the one who gave the Jews the law.
In chapter 5 we see Jesus is better than any high priest, even Aaron, the first high priest.
In chapter 7 we see that Jesus is better than Abraham, the father of the Jews.
And then we talked last week about four dangers we are warned about in Hebrews.
We need to pay attention to the truth - or we will drift into error
We need to make sure our hearts are not hardened by sin
We need to make sure we are growing spiritually, not staying spiritual “babies”
We need to make sure we do not give up or become lazy spiritually
And then Hebrews goes on to talk about an image that every Hebrew in the first century would have been familiar with: the OT tabernacle. During the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, God met with the Jews in a tent that was in the center of their camp. It was called the tabernacle. Hebrews 9 mentions the different pieces of furniture that were in this tent. In this tent, only the priests went. It had two rooms. The first room was called the Holy Place; and the second room, hidden behind a curtain, was called the “holy of holies” or the “most holy place” or the “holiest of all”- depending on the translation you are using. The “holy of holies” was only entered by one person, the high priest, and only once a year on the Day of Atonement. It was in that back room where the high priest would intercede with the people before the presence of the Most High God.
In Hebrews 6:19 we read, We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. Hebrews reminds us that Jesus gives us direct access to God. He is better than any priest because Jesus has direct access 24-7 to the presence of the Most High God. When Jesus was crucified, something so significant happened that all three synoptic gospels - Matthew, Mark, and Luke - all record it. Matthew 27:50 recounts it: And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. That visible parting of the curtain showed all the Jews that we now have direct access to God through the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
So let’s look at that idea in Hebrews 10:19 - But before we read the scripture, let’s pause for prayer: PRAY - okay, let’s look at Hebrews 10:19 - Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
In Hebrews 4:16 we already saw the same idea - Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. - This word “confidence” is the idea of boldness. The message of Hebrews 10 is that Christ’s sacrifice for us will give us boldness for living. Hebrews challenges us to BOLD living. Far too often we live timidly and in fear. We fear Satan; we fear being mocked for our faith; we fear whether we will lose our salvation; we have all kinds of fears. But as believers in Christ we are called to be BOLD, to have Confidence! We need to remember that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual, demonic forces that we face. Satan, our adversary, the one fighting against us, is likened to a roaring lion in 1 Peter 5:8. We battle against the attacks of Satan, and we battle against the temptation and lust of our own sinful hearts. So we need to build up our strength so we will be able to stand. To live boldly in a world of ungodly attacks and temptations, we need to Build our Confidence. How do we do that? We need to believe in God’s love for us. All too often we live and think and focus merely on the earthly level instead of on the spiritual level: we think about what we will eat and wear and how we will make more money. Colossians 3:1-2 calls us to focus on the spiritual. Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
Thinking on a spiritual level, there are two key questions that we need to face up to before we can live in confidence. The first of these is an obvious question that each of us needs to answer:
*How will I deal with my sin? Because as long as we have our sin to deal with, we will never find the confidence or boldness to come before Almighty God. Because we would be afraid of His serving as our judge and sending us to hell! Society comes up with all types of WRONG answers to the question of how we deal with sin: sin doesn’t matter; there is no sin - whatever is right for you is okay; God loves us all and doesn’t hold our sin against us; as long as you believe in God, everything is OK. But those answers are all WRONG!
There can only be one answer to the question of our sin. God, being a holy God, cannot dismiss our sin; being a just God, a penalty has to be paid. That is why the Jews were given the OT sacrificial system. To teach them that the consequence of sin is DEATH! An innocent animal had to DIE and give up its life because of their sins. But all those OT sacrifices looked forward to the day when Jesus would die as the perfect sacrifice for the sins of all men. Hebrews 10:1 starts out with this reminder - For this reason it [the OT law] can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshippers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Those animal sacrifices in the OT never took away sins. They merely were symbolic of the day when Jesus would die as our perfect sacrifice.
Look with me in verse 19 - Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body...
This image was clear for every Jew reading this. Remember the tabernacle - the tent of meeting in the wilderness where God met with man. The Jews were excluded from the Most Holy Place - because of their sins. And it was necessary for the high priest to go in once a year to offer sacrifice to cover the sins of the people. So he would first sacrifice for his own sins, and then he would go into the Most Holy Place, into the very presence of God to sacrifice for the sins of the Jews.
Now, what we need to remember is that the OT tabernacle was just a replica, a toy reproduction of what exists in heaven. We’ll talk more about that tonight. Heb. 8:5 tells us, They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. There is a heavenly tabernacle, and a heavenly Most Holy Place, before the very throne of God.
And it says we can have confidence to come before God himself by the blood of Jesus. It is the death of Jesus, the Son of God in human form, offering to die in our place, taking our sins upon himself, that gives us this confidence to draw near to God. It says this confidence is by a “new and living way.” Literally it says by a “freshly-slain” and living road. All the OT sacrifices were sacrifices of death. Men lived under the penalty of the law. The OT law made no one righteous.
Some people say, “Well, I’m just trying to keep the 10 commandments.” But those commandments will condemn everyone. Because none of us can keep them. There is no righteousness, no forgiveness, no salvation in keeping the law. The law only brought a penalty of DEATH. The ONLY way of having our sins forgiven is through Jesus, the lamb of God, slain for the sins of mankind.
How do we deal with our sin? We can live boldly, because through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we no longer need to face the penalty of our sins. Eph. 1:7 - In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.
Jesus died so that all men could be forgiven. But only some WILL be forgiven. Many try to work for their salvation. But Titus 3:5 reminds us He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. Good works will never take away sin. Forgiveness only comes as a gift.
John 1:11-12 - He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Forgiveness of sins is available only for those who call on the Lord for salvation. Rom. 10:13 - “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
So, we have two key questions: first
*How will I deal with my sin? To which the answer is - I find forgiveness through the sacrifice of Jesus -
but the second question is similar - even though I am forgiven,
*How will I come before a holy God?
And Hebrews 10 gives us the answer to this question as well. Look in verse 21:
and since we have a great priest over the house of God.
This also presented a picture every Jew understood. In the OT it was the priest who spoke to God for men and who spoke to men for God. But we no longer need a priest to speak for us. We don’t need to go to a confessional and have a priest pray for us. Rather there is only one mediator we need. 1 Timothy 2:5 tells us - For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
Through the forgiveness of sins offered by Jesus, we can now come freely to the very throne of God without fear. Jesus has restored the relationship between God and us. 2 Corinthians 5 says this:
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
We can have CONFIDENCE in Jesus, that our sins are forgiven, and that we can come into the presence of a holy God. And we have been given the good news to share with others - that they can have their sins forgiven and be reconciled to God. We are ambassadors of this good news! When is the last time you shared that with someone else?
So in light of this, what are we to do? Five times here in these few verses the phrase “let us” is used. I would encourage you to mark each one, circle it, highlight it in your bibles. For these are action steps that we need to take. And we see the first one here in verse 22 - let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.
Today, what is the one thing that God is calling you to do? DRAW NEAR TO GOD! Do you want to know God’s will for your life? Here it is - Draw near to God!
What are the things that keep us from coming to God? We could probably make a list of 101 things. But let me have us consider three things that these verses refer to: first,
•insincerity - often we don’t come to God because we are insincere - we really could care less about God. We don’t word it that way, but that is really the truth. God is not a priority in our life. We would never say that. What we say is that we WANT to come to God ... AFTER we get our life straightened out. We WANT to read our Bibles, AFTER the game is over or after we’ve watched the video we rented. We WANT God to bless our families and our marriages, but we will commit our familes to following God AFTER life isn’t nearly so busy as it is right now. The truth is we are LIARS. God is NOT important if He is not part of our lives. So, the first thing that keeps us from God is insincerity.
Verse 22 gives us the answer to this - let us draw near to God with a sincere heart
A “sincere” heart is one that is genuine, one that is true, one that is not hiding something. John 4:24 tells us - God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. God wants us to come to him with sincere hearts that truly desire relationship with him. Today, take a moment to think about your heart
- Do you really have a genuine desire to draw near to God? Or if you are honest, is God a little lower on your priority list than a number of other things. Sometimes if we are honest we really are afraid to draw near to God because we wouldn’t want to hear what He thinks about the way we live our lives. We are ashamed, guilty, we are in the wrong and we know it and just like Adam and Eve we try to hide from God.
We are called to draw near to God. But often we don’t because of insincerity. We need to make the choice to be sincere in drawing near to God. That might mean we need to reorder our priorities. We might need to change our schedules. We might need to clear the calendar and do a little less so we have time for God in our lives. We need to put God in First Place and then work out the rest. The second thing that keeps us from God is
lack of faith - Often we don’t come to God because we don’t really have faith, we don’t believe that God wants a relationship with us; we don’t believe that He will bless us if we draw near. We doubt the goodness of our God. We would rather enjoy the “pleasures of sin for a season” instead of the eternal, incorruptible riches that God desires to lavish on us for all of eternity. Because Satan offers us immediate gratification when we sin. When we sin, we feel good right away - but then guilt comes later; but when we choose to follow God, sometimes we don’t feel good right away, but we will enjoy the rewards for all eternity! We are like a little boy who would rather eat stale cracker crumbs that fell on the floor than wait five minutes for the Prime Rib being served with all the side dishes.
Sometimes we lack that faith because of circumstances in life. Maybe someone we loved let us down. Maybe you can’t think of God as a loving father because your father was anything but a loving father. Sometimes we are angry because God didn’t answer a prayer the way we wanted Him to.
We are told let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. As Hebrews tells us in chapter 11, Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. We draw near to God being fully assured of what we do not see.
We are to BELIEVE that God can and will receive us if we draw near to Him. And the third obstacle,
•sin - it is our sins that separate us from our God. A holy God cannot tolerate sin. And even though the blood of Jesus gives us forgiveness from the penalty of those sins, the continued attraction and choice to engage in sin willfully breaks the fellowship, the relationship, the oneness with our God. But once again, Hebrews has the answer: let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
In the OT example, the priest would cleanse himself before he ever entered the tabernacle. He then was able to draw near to God. We have been forgiven when we accept Jesus Christ as Savior, but to the believer these words are written in 1 John 1 - If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. We need ongoing cleansing, because we still sin. We are not any more saved, but we receive cleansing by confession. We receive cleansing through the word of God.
But the most beautiful truth of drawing near to God is found in James 4:8 - Come near to God and he will come near to you. Today, are you living boldly as a Christian?
*God wants you to build your confidence by knowing your sin has been forgiven:
•have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?
*God wants you to build your confidence by knowing you have a mediator in Jesus Christ:
•are you trying to gain God’s pleasure by your works or by faith alone?
*God wants you to build your confidence by having you draw near to Him:
•do you sincerely want to follow God?
•do you have faith that following God is the best choice you could make in your life?
•do you confess the times you fail and sin and seek to allow God to cleanse you.
When God has forgiven us, he puts our sins in the past. We no longer need to let Satan keep bringing them up. The singer Carman say, “When Satan reminds you of your past, remind him of his future!”
Let’s be those who are confidently drawing near to God, and in return He will draw near to us.
Let’s pray.
