“Any Given Sunday.”
Hebrews 10:11-18
On any given Sunday is a term familiar to those who enjoy professional football. This term refers to the competition that goes beyond what the so-called experts say about anyone team. This is a term that speaks of intangibles. Things like heart, character and fear of defeat. There are many teams that are superior on paper than the one they are playing on any particular Sunday.
However, one thing is for sure that once these teams line up across from one another on the field of battle facts and figures can be thrown out the window. When these men line up and look into the eyes of their opponent they try to stare into the soul of the other. Intimidation takes place. Adrenaline begins to flow, breathing becomes rapid, sweat builds and then the clash takes place. For sixty minutes bodies are flung into one another and it isn’t always the one who is in the best condition that wins. It is the one who, has the most heart, makes the least mistakes and digs down deep into their soul.
On that day when Jesus was hanging on the Cross, Satan thought he had everything in hand. He thought he had the better team on paper. On paper he appeared to be the victor. Satan was on his way to the pay window to collect his winnings, humanity.
However, something happened on his way to the cash window. You see when a championship team is built a number of things happen. First the scouts go around the country and look for what they feel are the best players at each position and also whom they think will be able to come together as a team. This is what Jesus did when he assembled the apostles.
On draft day those players are picked and courted and come together in early July for training camp. When training camp is over the regular season opens and that is when the real fun starts. You see the media across the country picks the winner of the Super Bowl from the information gathered from training camp and draft day. Then their predictions are played out over the season.
On any given Sunday any team can beat another team due to many different factors. Injuries, mistakes, turnovers, missed opportunities. Satan thought he had won the Super Bowl because Jesus had suffered a career ending injury. No one returns from the Cross, or so he thought. Jesus lay strewn out on the playing field, lifeless. Satan thought he would collect humanity and be the champion. Wait, there is another saying in sports, “that’s why the game is played.” The game is played because on any given Sunday the supposed outcome can change. That is exactly what happened on this very Sunday.
1. The Son’s Work. (Hebrews 10:11-13)
The preacher returns to his basic premise from Psalm 110:1-4, an eternal priest like Melchizedek who was to remain seated until his enemies were put under his subjection. Jesus already having offered his sacrifice, he was able to sit down.
Take for instance, Morgan Rowe. As a young boy he was sitting on a moving tractor at his father’s fence company in Georgia when he fell and was dragged under the machine. His left arm was ripped completely off in the accident and his right arm was badly mangled. Doctors were able to restore some of the use of the right arm, but the left one was lost. After three months in the hospital the boy was released with a medical bill totaling $30,000. (Remember. This incident took place nearly twenty years ago. Inflation has made that $30,000 look smaller to us than it was then.)
This story would probably have lost its newsworthiness right then and there had this been someone besides Morgan Rowe. You see, the boy set out to pay his own bill! As soon as he could walk without any help, he scoured the roadsides picking up cans and bottles. He collected and sold newspapers.
His mother said in an interview, “He has gathered hundreds of cans, thousands of can, I don’t know how many. He started out with Coke bottles. Then he read . . . about recycling cans. I thought he’d give up after awhile, but he’s kept it up. He’s still doing it.”
Morgan first paid off the $455 ambulance bill. Then he put $2500 down on the hospital bill. His family raised another $9000 toward the hospital bill.
Then in the month of July following the accident, someone mentioned him to the Bear Archery Company in Florida that makes aluminum arrows. Bear donated its scrap metal to help. As the boy’s story made headlines, contributions from 2,000 people began pouring in. Donations totaled $25,000, more than enough to pay the bill. The extra money was used to finance additional operations in an effort to restore more mobility to Morgan’s remaining arm and hand.
Many of us would have given up under such seemingly impossible circumstances. But not this eleven-year-old boy, he overcame! Many of us would have said, “Certainly no one would expect me to go to such extremes. I just can’t pay my bill. It’s too much to ask” (author unknown).
Jesus paid the price, he gave his body as a sacrifice that has become our great salvation. He is our great high priest, who offered himself as the once and for all sacrifice. That is why on any given Sunday our great high priest has sat down at the right hand of the Father awaiting the acceptance of his gift.
2. The Spirit’s Witness. (Hebrews 10:14-16)
God has taken away the first covenant and replaced it with a better one. This covenant was to make his people perfect in their nature and holy in their action. How was God going to accomplish this? There had to be more than a pardon because this able to be accomplished through the first covenant. Though the blood of rams and bulls could never atone for sin, they were never meant to. They were only symbols of the sacrifice yet to come. No one has ever doubted that those who abided by the terms of that covenant gained eternal life. If this is the case, and it is clear that the blood of rams and bulls could not bring life, then it was in the blood of Christ that brought eternal life under both covenants.
A German princess on her deathbed ordered that her grave be covered with a great granite slab, that around it should be placed solid blocks of stone, the whole be fastened together with clamps of iron, and that on the stone should be cut these words: "This burial place, purchased to all eternity, must never be opened."
It happened that a little acorn was buried in the process of covering the grave. During the months that followed, the seed sprouted, and the tender shoot found its way up through the crevice between two of the stones. Years passed and the small shoot grew into a sapling, then a huge oak tree. It burst asunder the clamps of iron binding the stones and pushed aside the rocks that were never to be moved (Zuck 327).
What greater thing existed than a simple pardon? It becomes very clear that the second covenant brought along with it more than cleansing it brought with resurrection power. Jesus offered his sacrifice and sat down at the right hand of God. This one movement gave way for all of mankind to be able to rise from the dead. All they had to do was to accept the sacrifice of the new and better covenant. Write it upon their hearts and minds. That is why on any given Sunday our great high priest has sat down at the right hand of the Father awaiting the acceptance of his gift.
3. The Justification. (Hebrews 10:17-18)
In these verses one of the greatest principles of the New Covenant. When our sins are forgiven by God, something happens that is beyond our understanding or capabilities. God forgets our sins and wipes them from his memory. God cannot deal with us as a tainted object by remembering our past because through the work of our High Priest Jesus the ultimate sin has been made and Jesus has risen to his seat beside the father. Since we have accepted the sacrifice in faith through grace, God must deal with us accordingly.
When the conflict between the States broke out, a young man who was engaged to a beautiful New England girl was one of the first to be called into service. Their marriage therefore had to be postponed. He managed to get through most of the conflict uninjured, but finally in the Battle of the Wilderness he was severely wounded. The young lady of his heart, not knowing of his condition, was counting the days until he returned. She waited for word from him, but no more letters came. At last she received one addressed in a strange handwriting which read: “There has been another terrible battle. It is very difficult for me to tell you this, but I have lost both my arms! I cannot write myself, but a comrade is penning this for me. While you are as dear to me as ever, I shall now be dependent on other people for the rest of my days and I feel I should therefore release you from the obligation of our engagement.”
This letter was never answered. Taking the next train, the young woman went directly to the scene of the late conflict and sent word to the captain concerning the purpose of her errand. The man was sympathetic and gave her directions where she might find the soldier’s cot. Tearfully she went along the lines of the wounded looking for her love. The moment her eyes fell upon him, she threw her arms around the young man’s neck and kissed him. “I will never give you up!” she cried. “These hands of mine will help you; I am able to support you, I will take care of you” (Zuck 116).
If our sins have fully been blotted out then, there is no longer a need for sacrifices to be offered. The offering of Christ’s blood provided both perfect pardon and cleansing. With his death Jesus ushered in a new way for us to enter into a new and living way. This new way opened up a passage where we could enter with boldness the throne room of the Father. That is why on any given Sunday our great high priest has sat down at the right hand of the Father awaiting the acceptance of his gift.
The Father’s will for the removal of sin from the lives of people must come through the work of the priesthood. However, the Old Testament priest who stood daily was not to be the answer. His work was never finished and because he was faulty in his own right the work he was preforming was never to be finished. In contrast Christ sat down. The Old Testament priest offered his sacrifices often. Jesus offered his once and for all sacrifice, himself. Through the new priest God offered one sacrifice. The Old Testament sacrifices produced remembrance of sins. The offering of our High Priest destroyed the memory of those sins in our life forever. Through the witness of the Holy Spirit in our heart, we have the promised blessing of the New Covenant through the sacrifice of our Great High Priest.
Remember as Jesus lay strewn out on the field his body broken and shattered and I said that is why the game is played? Well what Satan forgot to remember was that Jesus got up and a come back was made.
As we sing the chorus “If on my soul,” I would invite you to accept that sacrifice that our Great High Priest has offered. Make a come back in your life today through the sacrifice of our Great High Priest. As some are still deciding as to accept the gift or sacrifice that Jesus offered on that day he went to the Cross, we will sing “In thee, O Lord.”
