"Faith, Hope and Love: Christ's Priesthood and Ours"

Hebrews 10:19-25

It is remarkable how many biblical passages talk about "faith, hope and love."

1 Corinthians 13 is perhaps the most famous.

But Colossians 1 is also structured around the three,

as is 1 Peter 1.

1 Thessalonians 1:3, Galatians 5:5-6, and Ephesians 1:15-18 also weave these three together.

Augustine and many others have written manuals of Christian living

based around these three.

Faith, hope and love.

In 1 Cor 13 Paul says that the "greatest of these is love"

because love is the one that will endure,

after faith becomes sight-and after our hope is fulfilled.

In Colossians 1 Paul suggests that hope is the foundation of the three,

because Christ is that hope that is laid up in heaven for us.

And in Galatians 5, Paul says that faith is the is the way in which we appropriate that hope,

a faith that works by love.

Hebrews 10 also draws these themes together

in order to take all that he has said about the work of Christ

and apply it to your life in Christ.

"Therefore"

When you see a "therefore"

you should immediate ask what it is "there" for!

For weeks now we have been focused on Hebrews exposition of the

new priesthood, the new covenant, and the new sacrifice.

Now we see the result of all this.

Therefore, brothers,

because of all this exposition of the priesthood, covenant and sacrifice,

we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus.

We get to enter the Holy places-

which holy places?

Obviously not the earthly holy places.

We get to enter the heavenly holy places-

because we enter by the blood of Jesus, which was offered in the heavenlies.

This is the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain,

that is, through his flesh.

Stop for a moment.

Think through the implications of what Hebrews is saying.

In the OT the high priest entered the holy of holies once each year.

No one else got to go in-ever!

What kept the people out?

That veil-the curtain of the temple.

The opening exhortation in 6:19-20,

said that we have a hope that "enters into the inner place behind the curtain,

where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf."

But not only has Jesus gone behind the curtain,

now Hebrews says that Jesus' flesh is the curtain.

The curtain of the tabernacle was made of blue and purple and scarlet yarns

and fine twined linen (Ex 26:31; cf. 2 Chron. 3:14)

There is still only one way to enter the Most Holy Place.

You must pass through the curtain.

As the quotation from Psalm 40 last week said,

"Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,

but a body have you prepared for me"

The body of Jesus is the curtain through which we must pass to enter the presence of God.

He is the priest.

He is the sacrifice.

He is the Holy Place.

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

We have a great priest over the house of God.

This echoes the language of chapter 3:6 (Christ as the Son faithful over the house),

and 4:14, Jesus, the Son of God who is the great high priest."

(All the themes of Hebrews are coming to their climax!)

Verses 19-21, then, set the stage.

It summarizes the "therefore" nicely for us,

reminding us of "the point" of the last four chapters.

We have confidence to enter the holy place through the blood of Jesus,

the great priest over the house of God.

That "confidence" brackets the larger passage (10:19 and 10:35),

starting with "since we have confidence"

and concluding with "therefore do not throw away your confidence."

Your confidence is grounded firmly and finally upon the once-for-all work of Jesus.

Your entrance into the Holy Places is based solely upon what Jesus has done.

But that doesn't mean that you are irrelevant.

As Hebrews 12:14 will say, "strive for that holiness without which no one will see the Lord."

Hebrews holds together two things that many would wish to drive apart:

the finality of the once-for-all work of Christ on our behalf,

that is the source of our confidence;

and the necessity of our response of faith and obedience.

It is because we have been given access to the Heavenly Holy Places,

that God's law is truly placed in our hearts and written on our minds. (10:16)

But in light of this, Hebrews offers three exhortations in verses 22-25:

let us draw near

let us hold fast

and let us consider how to stir each other up to love and good works

(And Hebrews 10:19-25 is all one sentence in Greek!)

1. Faith: Let Us Draw Near (10:22)

The order itself is important.

You cannot hold fast to something that is far away!

If you are far away, drifting further and further away,

then you will not be very effective at "stirring each other up"!

So the first thing is to draw near.

This is priestly language-drawing near to God in the holy place.

You are able to do that which all Israel could not do.

You are able to draw near to God himself.

You draw near to God in prayer and in worship.

You are not left at a distance from God-

gazing from afar.

But how do you draw near?

There are two things that Hebrews says about this:

"With a true heart in full assurance of faith"

And

"With our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience

and our bodies washed with pure water."

What is a "true heart"?

This is what was promised in Jeremiah 31-that God would give his people a heart of flesh,

removing their hearts of stone.

Or as Ezekiel 36 said, "I will give you a new heart."

The true heart is that new life that has been given to you in Christ.

When the new covenant comes, God gives his people a new heart.

And since Hebrews has demonstrated that the new covenant has come,

therefore we may draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.

In other words, there is no reason to doubt God's welcome of you.

You may draw near in full assurance of faith.

But as we said, drawing near is priestly language.

When the priests drew near, they had to be washed with water and sprinkled with blood.

Therefore we draw near, as priests,

"with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience

and our bodies washed with pure water."

Hebrews talked about the sprinkling of the blood in Exodus 24 (9:18-22),

where Moses sprinkled the people with the blood of the covenant.

That blood was unable to cleanse the conscience of the worshipers.

But Jesus' blood sprinkles clean our hearts,

even as the water of baptism washes our bodies.

This shows us the two parts of baptism-

the outward sign of water, and the inward work of the Holy Spirit.

We are able to draw near to God because we have received the cleansing of the new covenant,

a cleansing that is not merely outward, but also inward.

Your baptism is your priestly consecration that sets you apart for your priestly service-

a service characterized first as "drawing near."

2. Hope: Let us Hold Fast (10:23)

Second, we are called to "hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering."

It is probably no accident that baptism and confession are placed together here.

To "confess" is to "say the same thing"-(homologia)

and we are called to hold fast the confession of our hope-

and our hope is nothing more or less than Jesus

(6:18, and the hope set before us,

4:14 and the confession of Jesus as the great high priest in the heavens)

We are called to maintain a firm confidence in the objective work of Jesus for us.

There may be times when you wonder, why does the pastor keep focusing on what Jesus did!

I want to know what I should be doing.

What are you supposed to be doing?

Hebrews says that you need hold fast to the confession of your hope!

You need to hold fast to Jesus.

Why?

Because he who promised is faithful.

It is that hope that will keep you going when all hopes fail and wither.

When you are tossed to and fro by the trials and temptations of life,

what are you going to be holding fast to?

"I was a good person..."

"I tried my best..."

Or will you be gripping on tight to that confession,

"Jesus is Lord!"

"He is my hope!"

"He is faithful to the end!"

So we draw near to God with full assurance of faith.

We hold fast to the confession of our hope.

And because of these things,

we love.

3. Love: Let us Consider How to Stir Up One Another (10:24-25)

Yes, love is the one of these three that will remain.

But love is rooted firmly in faith and hope.

And a love that does not flow from faith and hope,

is no true love at all.

Only when you have drawn near to God in faith,

and only when you cling to Christ, the confession of our hope,

can you truly love.

And so let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.

Now the focus turns.

So far the focus has been upon our relationship to God-

as our faith and hope are in him-

but now we are called to consider each other.

Those who have drawn near to God,

those who are holding fast the confession of their hope,

must not forget about each other.

How often do you consider how to stir each other up to love and good works?

What are some ways that you could do this?

How can you show concern for your brothers and sisters in Christ?

Jesus said that the world would know that you are his disciples by the way that you love each other.

What should the world say about you?

Does your love for the body reveal you as a disciple of Christ?

It is far too easy to get caught up in your busy schedule

(and to make sure that your schedule stays that busy!).

When was the last time you looked for a project to help out with?

When was the last time you called someone up and said, "hey could we get a cup of coffee?"

We need to stir each other up to love and good works.

That means we need to create opportunities for love and service.

We need to encourage each other to get to know us.

There are two participles in verse 25 that flesh out the meaning of verse 24:

"Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some"

This refers to the regular gathering of the church for worship.

Sunday was a business day in the Roman world.

It would have been easy to miss worship and say, "well, I had to work!"

That may be true occasionally, but Hebrews warns against making that a habit.

Because absence from worship and fellowship has dire consequences.

The "for" that starts verse 26 seems to suggest

that absence from worship and fellowship is the first step of "sinning deliberately."

If we draw near to God in our worship,

then it is here, in our worship, that we are refocused on the confession of our hope,

Jesus Christ.

And yes, you can draw near to God at home, too.

But Hebrews says that what we do when we "meet together"

is at the heart of that love that binds us together in Christ.

Faith, hope and love are not three unrelated things.

You cannot have one without the others.

And if you lack one, then the others are missing as well.

If you say you have faith and hope, then love must be present as well.

And if you do not love your brother, whom you have seen,

then you cannot love God whom you have not seen (1 John 4:20)

The second participle, is

"But encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."

Hebrews 3:13 urged us to exhort each other "daily,"

which may suggest that the church gathered daily at this time.

I suspect that we are probably all too immature to handle daily meetings at this point in our life together!

But the idea of encouragement is crucial.

We need encouragement.

This includes loving reproof, admonitions, warnings.

We need to be called and exhorted to walk in the good way.

What are you doing to encourage others?

Different people have different needs.

Some people get really quiet when they are discouraged.

Other people get really bouncy to try to put you off the scent.

How often have you participated in this conversation:

"How's it going?"

"Fine, how about you?"

"Doing great! Thanks for asking!"

That's a standard greeting in our culture,

and there's nothing wrong with it.

But we need to go deeper.

Why?

Because of what comes next.

"The Day" draws nearer.

And (read v26-31)

We'll look at this in more detail next week,

but this is why we need to encourage each other.

No, God's elect will never fall away,

but God ordains both the end and the means.

And we are one of the means that God uses at keeping his elect from falling away!

I know it was the encouragement of Mark Kirchgestner

who was God's agent in keeping me from falling during my freshman year of college.

Faith, hope and love.

The greatest of these-

the one that endures through all time and eternity-

is love.

We give thanks to you O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

that you have qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light,

that you have delivered us from the power of darkness

and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of your love,

in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.

We praise you, Our Father, for this great redemption,

which you purposed before the foundation of the world;

and for the hope that is laid up in heaven for us-our Savior Jesus Christ,

who lives and reigns at your right hand.

We praise you, O Son of God, for your great mercy,

that although you were in the form of God,

you did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped,

but humbled yourself

and took the form of a servant,

submitting even to the death of the cross for us, and for our salvation.

We praise you, O Holy Spirit, that you have come and raised us up to the heavenly places,

and seated us with Christ at the right hand of the Father.

Now we pray, O triune God,

that your gospel would continue to bring forth fruit throughout the world,

and that it would grow and flourish in our hearts.

We pray for those who have proclaimed the grace of God in truth to us,

and for those who preach your Word throughout all the world,

that you would give them boldness and power to proclaim the gospel faithfully,

As they ought.

And as your Word goes forth, may it accomplish the purpose for which you sent it,

that every knee may bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

(Pray for the salvation of the world-particularly for those areas struck with disaster)

Have mercy upon your Church, and preserve her from heresy and schism.

Grant that those who are called by your name would demonstrate that

faith in Christ Jesus and love for all the saints that is the fruit of our hope.

And grant, O faithful Father,

that we might be filled with the knowledge of your will

in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.

Grant that we might know the mind of Christ,

that we might reflect his glory and his mercy to those around us,

that the mind that was in Christ Jesus, might also dwell in us.

Like Him, may we set the interests of others ahead of our own.

May we walk worthy of the Lord, pleasing You fully,

being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

Do not let our knowledge of You be vain and empty,

but let it produce righteousness and peace in every home;

justice and mercy in every relationship.

(Husband and wives; parents and children; work)

(Elders in the church)

(thanks for peace in our land; prayer for magistrates)

Strengthen us, we pray, with all might, according to Your glorious power,

for in ourselves we are weak;

and in our flesh, there is nothing good;

but give us patience and joy in the midst of suffering:

(The sick; those approaching death; the suffering Church)

[Thanks for hearing our prayers in Christ's name]