Christ our sanctifier
Hebrews 10:1-18
Don’t you just wish you could start all over? Several months ago I was having a great deal of difficulty with my home computer. It was slow and sluggish and would often freeze right in the middle of some important work. Now I don’t know much about computers, but I did know of something on my Windows XP called “system restore.”
This wonderful little device would allow me to go back to a date in the past, before the computer started having glitches and restore the computer to its condition at that time. This worked OK for awhile, but one of the bad things was that I couldn’t completely get rid of viruses or bugs in the system. Little pieces of computer sin would stay attached and even when I restored the system, problems would carry over. I didn’t need a clean-up job. I needed a complete make-over.
So in stepped my computer savior, Bruce Lingenfelter. First, we totally removed everything from my computer. And then Bruce reinstalled the windows programs from the very beginning. It was like having a brand new computer all over again before the bugs.
Wouldn’t it be great if that could happen in our lives? Wouldn’t it be fantastic if all the sins of our past would not just be covered over or cleansed from our system, but if our whole system could be completely restored as if there had never been a bug in the first place. Wouldn’t it be great if we could be totally born again, as a new creation? No memory of any sin we have committed even existing anywhere?
Well, I want to talk about this very thing today. My main point this morning is this:
Jesus is able to completely sanctify those He has saved!
We have been studying diligently this year from the book of Hebrews. In it we have discovered that Jesus is
- the greatest messenger of God
- the greatest builder of God’s house
- the greatest answer for man’s need
- the greatest priest who has made the ultimate sacrifice of His own blood for the removal of sins
Mixed in with this celebration of Jesus we have also been challenged with several warnings:
- Pay attention to Jesus – don’t drift away (chapter 2)
- Keep your heart soft towards the Lord (chapter 3)
- Approach His throne of grace with confidence because He loves you, He wants to save and sanctify you, and give you rest (chapter 4)
- Leave behind the old pattern of works for a life of faith (chapter 6)
Turn with me now to Chapter 10
10:1 Notice the contrast between a shadow and the reality. A shadow is a pale outline of something else. We can get the basic idea of an object from the shadow, but many of the details are dark and unclear. A shadow directs you to the object that is real. Once you see the real object, the picture becomes crystal clear.
The law with all of it’s instructions about washings and sacrifices was a shadow. It wasn’t the real thing. It was meant only to teach and instruct, never to answer the question raised. The law taught us that mankind is inherently sinful and incapable of fulfilling the holiness and righteousness required by God. Access to God was denied. We could not fellowship with a holy and righteous King. We could only hope that one day our sins would be completely removed from us.
The law as a shadow reminded those who worshipped under its system year after year and day after day that they were never going to attain the holiness of God through self-effort. It could never make perfect those who followed it.
To be perfect means to be complete, to be as originally intended or designed. It carries the idea of fullness. Man at one time lived in the Garden of Eden and knew nothing of sin, but once sin entered the picture man could never be perfect again. Sin would always be there, crouching at the door, destroying the purity of man, and filling our hearts with guilt. No matter how hard we tried, sin was always there, and we felt guilty.
10:2-4 The repetition of the animal sacrifices only accentuated the problem. It was designed by God to show to mankind the horror of sin. Some accounts say that over 100,000 lambs would be sacrificed in Jerusalem during the Day of Atonement. The sounds of animals crying out, the smell of the burning flesh on the coals, and the blood that ran so think through special channels out of the city that it turned the brook of Kidron red from the blood. It was a horrible site.
As a boy I lived a block away from a pig slaughterhouse. Almost every day the trucks would arrive with the pigs. They would scream as they were ushered through channels into the butcher pens. I remember playing around that slaughterhouse when it was closed and everything was covered with the remnants of dried blood.
Why, all this bloodshed? To teach us, to show us - sin is horrible. It is a stench in the nostrils of a holy God. He hates sin. His righteousness demands that sin be handled justly and rightly. The death of an innocent lamb on behalf of the guilty man was a constant reminder that sin cannot be tolerated. That mankind was meant to live a different kind of life, a holy life.
10:5-9 Would there be anyone who perfectly obeyed the will of God? Would there be anyone who lived without sin? Who though he faced temptation, He never succumbed. And of course, the answer is yes! Jesus, our great high priest, lived a perfect life of obedience. He alone fulfilled the requirements of a holy life. And then He made the ultimate sacrifice. He gave His own life for ours. He poured out His blood so that we might be restored. We must remember forgiveness came at a terrible price. We must never take lightly the cost to our heavenly Father and His one and only Son, Jesus.
10:10-14 And here is the point of it all. The animal sacrifices were a shadow of the perfect sacrifice of Christ that was to be made for us. Jesus died once for all mankind. He did what Adam was unable to do. He obeyed God.
And so to quote John 3:16: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him, will not perish, but will have eternal life.” This eternal forgiveness and life is obtained not by our works, but by His work. It is received as a gift by faith as we put our trust in Him and confess our allegiance to His name.
We preach Christ crucified!
There is a story of an old English village whose chapel had an arch and on it was written: “We preach Christ crucified!” For years the church loudly proclaimed that Jesus alone was the savior of the world. But as generations passed, a generation grew up that considered the message of the cross as old news and repulsive. They began to preach salvation came by following Christ’s example of a good life, not by His blood. Ivy began to creep up the arch in front of the church until it covered the word ‘crucified’. The chapel continued it’s ministry under this banner: “We preach Christ!”
Then the church decided after a number of years that its message did not need to be confined to Christ and the bible. So messages where proclaimed that included social issues, and politics, and philosophy, and anything else that seemed to spark the interest of a bored congregation. Soon the ivy on the archway spread covering the words so only the phrase: “We preach” remained.
Brothers and sisters, we must be a church that fulfills the whole message of the cross: Together with Paul we must have a heart that is determined to know nothing except Jesus Christ, and him crucified!” (1 Corinthians 2:2) We must preach Christ crucified!”
10:15-18 I want to summarize this passage with 3 basic points this morning. The first point is found in verse 18:
“And where these have been forgiven (our sins and lawless deeds), there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.”
1. No sacrifice for sin remains!
You cannot face Mecca 5 times a day and pray your heart out and hope that your sins will be removed.
You cannot climb the steps of some monastery on your knees and have a conversation with a guru and hope that you will be enlightened and have your sins removed.
You cannot clap your hands over some statue of Buddha and burn your incense and hope that someday your sins will be removed.
You cannot attend church faithfully, and read your bible everyday, and pray and work hard to please God and hope someday your sins will be removed by your self-effort of good works.
There no longer is any sacrifice for sin. It is done. Christ has finished the work. We must either accept this, or by our lifestyle choices reject it. There is no middle ground. You either believe it or you don’t.
Illustration: You see the contrast of the old life of works and the new life of grace is like the difference between a prescription and a healing. When you discover that you are sick, the doctor can prescribe some drugs for you to take. You can take those drugs in the hope of getting better, but the daily take of the drug only reminds you that you are still sick. The sacrifices in the old Testament where like that. They were a daily reminder that all is not well. I am sick with sin.
But when a person is fully healed, they no longer need to take the prescription drug. The drug has no effect for better or for worse. They do not need it. They are well. Jesus atoned for our sins, so that we would be healed. By His stripes you are healed, Isaiah says. There is nothing you can do to make yourself more healed. You are either healed or you aren’t.
Some believers live tormented lives of guilt. Is God happy with me? Will He receive me? How can He possible forgive me of all the terrible things I have done or the good things I have failed to do in my life? They live with this daily reminder that they aren’t quite well. And so they fill their lives up with works in a hope to balance out the bad. Maybe if I take this pill, I’ll be better.
They don’t realize that Jesus has healed them!
Illus: Ron Lee Davis tells the true story of a priest in the Philippines. He was a much-loved man of God who carried the burden in his heart of a secret sin he had committed many years before while he was a seminary student. He had repented of this sin, but He still did not have the peace of God in His heart. There was no sense of God’s forgiveness.
In his parish there was a woman who deeply loved God and who claimed to have visions in which she spoke with Jesus and He spoke with her. The priest was very skeptical of this woman, but he decided to put her gift to the test. He said to her, “The next time you speak with Christ, I want you to ask him what sin your priest committed while he was in seminary.”
The woman agreed. A few days later the priest asked her, “Well, did Christ visit you in your dreams?”
“Yes, he did” she replied.
“And did you ask him what sin I committed while I was a student in seminary?”
“Yes”
“Well, what did He say?”
“He said, ‘I don’t remember!”
Brothers and sisters we can quote the scripture that says that He removes our sin as far as the east is from the west. We can say to ourselves that He forgets, He chooses not to remember it anymore. But, do you live your life according to this truth about God and the perfect sacrifice of His one and only Son on the cross. Or do you walk around weighted down by guilt?
I John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us of ALL unrighteousness.” System restored!
Now look with me again at verses 1 and 10. Notice the tenses of the grammar used in these verses.
‘For this reason it (the law) can never, by the same sacrifices repeated year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.”
‘And by that will (Jesus obedience to the Father), we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
2. Jesus sanctifies us at the moment we receive Him!
Jesus died to make you a new creation. He died to remove from you for ever the stain of sin. He died to give you new birth. He died to make you a saint, a holy one of God.
Before Jesus did this you had no access to God. There was nothing you could do to clean up your own act. Darkness has no fellowship with light. You needed to be changed in order to have a relationship with God and in order to have full and complete access into His presence.
What this means is that when a person comes to Christ, humbles themselves, repents of self-effort and of their sin and receives by faith the finished work of Christ on the cross – at that instant they are immediately transformed into a perfect, holy, sanctified individual.
Remember the definition of sanctification is to set apart by God for God. It is to be made new, to be holy and pure like your creator. It is to become what man was originally created to be – like God.
At the moment you receive Jesus you have all that you need for life and godliness.
- You now have the perfect patience of Jesus in you.
- You now have the perfect love of Jesus in you.
- You now have the boldness of Jesus in you.
- You now have the power of Jesus in you.
- You now have the perseverance of Jesus in you.
- Jesus lives in you!
This is why Paul could declare in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Jesus lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.”
This is why Paul would write: “Consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God.” Something happens when you receive by faith Jesus Christ into your life. You become different.
You begin to live the Christ life. You don’t need to perfect your character. You need to let your character die, and receive by faith the character of Jesus Christ. In the words of John the Baptist: “I must decrease, and He must increase!”
When God looks at believers today, He doesn’t see their failure. He sees Christ’s success. God doesn’t see that you blew it again for the 100th time and can’t seem to get over that sin hurdle in your life. He sees that Jesus fulfilled the whole law, and that you by faith are now just like Jesus.
You are a saint! Live like one!
3. Jesus transforms our lives as we learn to live the sanctified life by faith!
He is preparing for 2 whole chapters, chapter 11 and 12 which will all be about the faith life. But for now he wants his readers to understand that day by day we can learn to live the Christ life.
Look at verse 14
“By one sacrifice Jesus has made perfect (already done – perfect tense with continued results today) forever those who are being made holy (there is a process of transformation that is on-going in the life of the believer)”
Positionally – you are a saint, you are perfect, you are holy. Now practically – today, grow into who you already are.
How does a person grow? You see God designed my physical body that I would one day be 6 feet tall. What did I have to do to achieve that 6 foot height? Nothing. My genes were designed to do that. It was in my DNA. All the self-effort in the world wasn’t going to make me 1 inch taller than I am. Now I could slow down the growth by not taking care of my body, by not giving it the right nutrition, exercise, etc. But I wasn’t going to add any height to my frame.
You can’t make yourself any more perfect. You are already perfect. God has declared you a saint. You just need to let God do what He has already started in you.
Get out of the way of what God wants to do in your life.
It’s not about self-effort. It’s about surrender!
We aren’t talking about sinless perfection. We are talking about death to self.
Let me read this quote from A.B. Simpson, the man who started the Alliance over 100 years ago. This little book is available for those who want to study further.
Sanctification is not our working; it is His grace. It is not attainment slowly acquired by painful effort, but an obtainment instantly received by intelligent faith. It is above all the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is not moral improvement or the culture of personal character; it is not the building up of ourselves on an ethical plan of higher living and human virtue. It is the complete giving up of our own righteousness, strength, and goodness, and the receiving instead of the Lord Jesus Christ as a living and divine Person to dwell within and, in doing so, to become our life and our righteousness. The best that the best of men can do falls far short of the supernatural and divine.
It is not so much character as relationship. It is not so much a blessing as the blesser. It is not so much ‘it’, but Himself, our all-in-all forever.
Once we realize that Jesus has transformed our lives, and that through the filling of His Holy Spirit we can live radically different lives, we will not want to settle for anything else. We will draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.
Read verses 19-22
Won’t you receive Him today! Die to self. Let Christ live His life in you. System fully restored!
Close in prayer.
