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Introduction: The Old Covenant vs. The New Covenant

Well, good morning again. We have come to Hebrews Chapter nine, which is one of the most theologically dense passages in the entire Bible. Some scholars would say it’s the most theologically dense. The amount of theology and doctrine on display, being asserted, being taught, and being defended is frankly mind-boggling. There are hundreds of different theological debates amongst Bible scholars and theologians. Literally hundreds, maybe thousands, but at least hundreds of different topics and debates. There is not one single debate or theological topic that Hebrews Chapter nine doesn’t speak to in one way or another.

You can’t find one. You can’t say that about any other chapter in the Bible. So Hebrews chapter nine and into chapter ten has its arms and everything. It’s like a massive giant squid with hundreds of tentacles and arms reaching into every single genre and subgenre of theology. Sort of how Hebrews chapters 9 and 10 function in some ways. There’s a big chunk of Hebrews 9 that can be pretty complicated. It’s sort of convoluted in our English translations, because of the style of the Greek language in the original, it’s not always easy to translate. So there’s a chunk of this chapter that Bible scholars have debated for quite some time as to how to properly translate.

So it is pretty normal in sermon prep throughout the course of a week to spend a bunch of time studying a passage. The vast majority of what we do in sermon prep doesn’t make it to the pulpit. It’s cut on the floor, the threshing room floor. It’s like the hair in the barbershop on the floor just getting swept out. So hours and hours of research, and most weeks it’s like 80-90% of what you come across out there in scholarship doesn’t really make it to the pulpit sermon.

With this passage, it felt like an even higher percentage. 99% of the discourse around this chunk of Scripture feels really valuable, insightful, but probably too complicated to deal with on a Sunday. Probably more helpful to deal with at the living room table with Bibles out and coffee in hand. It lends itself to that sort of conversation. So there are lots of things in this passage that I’m just gonna skip this morning, and I encourage you to read through it on your own. If you want to sit and chat with me one-on-one or in a small group, I’d love to do that.

I told you about my friend in Tennessee who preached through the Book of Hebrews at his church, and it took him seven years to get through the Book of Hebrews. Well, he preached 12 sermons from Hebrews 9. Like, I think he knows more about the Book of Hebrews than the writer of the Book of Hebrews. But if you really start investigating the passage, I could see it actually.

There are a lot of different topics and themes being dealt with or alluded to. Various debates amongst scholars are worthy debates, but can be a little difficult. So we’re going to do one sermon on the entire chapter and a few of the verses in chapter 10 as well. So we’re going to cover quite a bit of all the things that are taught, the dozens of themes that are asserted and argued for in this passage, I want to hone in on one. There’s one that I think is most important above the others. The others are also important, but there’s one that I think is most significant. That is this:

What was the ultimate purpose of the Old Covenant versus the ultimate purpose of the New Covenant? That’s one of the overarching themes being taught in this section. Here’s what the Old Covenant was all about, here’s what the New Covenant is all about, and here’s why the New Covenant is clearly, oh, so better than the Old Covenant because it accomplishes something much grander than what we even realize.

Throughout this section of Scripture, the writer of Hebrews is going to highlight at least six or seven differences between the Old and the New. He’s going to allude to multiple things, but there’s one overarching sentiment kind of woven through all of that. That’s where we’re going to hone in on this morning. We’re going to focus specifically on the purpose of the Old versus the New. Once you see the purposes, you go, oh, the New is clearly better. So that’s what we’re going to do first this morning.

Our plan is to answer the question, what was the ultimate point of the Old versus the New? In addition to that, I’m going to give you three side notes as you go through this chapter. There are three ideas that arise that are, as we’re talking about this, there’s a question that’ll pop into your mind. I want to answer those questions. There are probably several questions that’ll pop into your mind, but there are three that I know will pop into your mind because I’ve been asked those three questions by people in this room right now.

So that makes sermon prep easy. What do my people need? Well, they asked me a question, so I can answer that. That’s great. Then the third thing we’ll do this morning is we’ll give you one practical implication from this passage. So that’s our plan for this morning. What’s the difference between the Old and the New? What’s the biggest difference? We’ll do three side notes as our second section, and then our last section will be one practical application for our lives today. Before we do that, let’s ask God for help.

Lord, we thank you for your kindness to us. Would you help us understand this passage? I thank you for the many scholars who have given us great insights into passages like this that may seem convoluted or difficult, but they help us. So, thank you for the body of Christ at large, which is helpful to us when we navigate these sorts of passages. And I pray, Lord, would you speak through me this morning? I’m a sinner, I’m inadequate. I’m incapable of explaining this text in a way that’s most helpful to your people. So, God, would you take my basic futile efforts? Would you use them to help your people in this room this morning? I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen. 

 

Recapping the Old Covenant

So the first few verses of chapter nine, the writer of Hebrews is, in essence, he’s recapping things. He’s already hit on the first few previous chapters. He’s talking about the Tabernacle extensively. Remember, the Tabernacle has an outer wall. There’s an outdoor court area. There’s the actual tent. The tent has two sections, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. The two sections of the tent are split by a curtain. Beyond the curtain is where the presence of God is. The priest would come in and do all sorts of various rituals throughout the course of the week, throughout the course of the year.

Then, on the highest day of the year, one day a year, the high priest would go beyond the curtain throughout the course of the year. The priest would make various sacrifices and go through various rituals. So he spends the first seven or eight verses here in chapter nine, recapping all the things that he’s already talked about from chapters five through chapter seven. He’s talked extensively already about this. He says in verse eight, this powerful statement, he says

“By these things, the Holy Spirit indicates.”

Saying, remember all that stuff that happened back then? Through all that stuff, the Tabernacle, the showbread, the sacrifices, the priests, all the stuff that God did back with the Israelites, all of that indicates something. It wasn’t just done by accident. The Holy Spirit was doing that stuff to indicate or teach some specific things. So we should look back on the Old Covenant and allow it to teach us some things about the New Covenant. In verse 9, he will say those things symbolize the present age.

So when we look back on the events of the Old Testament and the structures of the Old Covenant, they give us insights into things about the present age after the Cross, right in the post-Cross era. Then he’s going to highlight one specific major difference between the Old and the New. Look at verse nine. The latter section of verse nine says this, speaking of the Old Covenant, that

“It cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper.”

Other translations would say cleanse or make whole the conscience of the worshiper. The word perfect in the Greek there refers to something that is broken or lacking. Saying that the conscience of the worshiper is broken, it’s lacking, it’s inadequate. The Old Covenant could not fill in the gaps, could not make it whole, implying that the New Covenant can. This is a huge difference between these two. Through the rest of the passage, all the way through chapter nine and into chapter ten, he’s going to be alluding to the fact that the Old Covenant was useful in some ways, but was lacking in one major way.

There’s one specific thing that the Old Covenant could not do, and that is it can’t take the conscience of the worshiper that is already broken and inadequate, and it can’t make it whole, it can’t perfect it, it can’t complete the conscience, it can’t cleanse the conscience. In essence, the Old Covenant can’t actually remove sin from a person. Only the New Covenant can do that.

 

Purposes of the Old Covenant

Now, before we kind of unpack that a little bit more, he does allude to the fact that the Old Covenant was useful in some ways. We’ve seen this throughout the Book of Hebrews already. We’ll continue to see it as we go into chapters 11 and 12. He will allude to the fact that the Old Covenant did have some good value. We talked about this in a sermon a few weeks ago, that the Old Covenant has tremendous value for us. But what I did in previous sermons is that I talked about how the Old Covenant was helpful to us today. I never specifically said what the Old Covenant did for the Israelites in the Old Testament era.

So I’m gonna give you three. There are three things that the Old Covenant did for them.

1. It gave one person access to God one day a year.

That may not seem like a big deal, but no one could enter the presence of God. On one day a year, one person, the high priest, could enter into the Holy of Holies and experience the fullness of the presence of God, the representative of the people. One person could go in and experience the presence of God where the maximum amount of joy, the maximum amount of love, the maximum amount of power and glory, and beauty resting in this one place. One day a year, one person could go in and enjoy that, and then come out and tell the people about it. The Old Covenant accomplished that.

2. It brought temporary reconciliation between God and Israel.

God, because of human sin, was determined to be just against all of humanity. I’m going to treat you justly. But there’s one group of people, the Israelites, who are treated very differently. They have this special relationship with God, this special covenant relationship. Temporarily they are reconciled to God. Temporarily. For a period of time, Israel, the entire nation, is treated as if they were not sinful. They were treated as if they had been cleansed of their sin. There’s a temporary reconciliation to.

3. Protection and Blessings.

God promised them as a part of this covenant, I’m going to offer you special protection that I’m not offering any other nation. I’m going to offer you special blessings and provisions that I’m also not providing to any other nations. So the Old Covenant actually was quite substantial. It was very helpful to the Israelites. It gives them blessings. It gives them protection, provisions, and temporary reconciliation between them and God. The high priest gets to experience the presence of God once a year. This is a big deal.

 

To the Moon in a Minivan

But the writer of Hebrews is going to hone in. It could not accomplish the one thing we want most, permanent forgiveness of our sin. Skip ahead to chapter 10 in Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 1, the last clause of that, Hebrews 10:1 says this, speaking of the Old Covenant. It says that:

“He could never make perfect those who draw near.”

So any person in the Old Covenant who would try to draw near to God, the Old Covenant was incapable of perfecting them. In verse 4, Hebrews 10:4, he says this.

“For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”

So these blood and these bulls and goats, they’re being sacrificed as a part of these rituals in the Old Covenant. But they could not actually remove the stain of sin. That was actually by design. That’s not a flaw of the Old Covenant. It was the design of the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was never designed to do that. Let me give you a silly example.

Let’s say you bought a car. Buying a new minivan for the Ortiz home. As we have a third baby coming, we are looking to upgrade to the ultimate status symbol, the minivan. I think we’ve narrowed it down to the Chrysler Pacifica. I think that’s the one. Okay, I really want the Toyota Sienna, but I can’t afford it. We’re gonna have to go with the Pacifica. Anyway, if you have any minivan advice, I’m all ears.

So let’s say I buy a minivan, and someone comes to me and says, Hey, Kenny, can you give me a ride over to Sanford, to the other side of town, you know, 40, 45 minutes away to the east side of town? Sure, I’ll give you a ride in my new minivan. I drive you over to Sanford, and then I drop you off, and all is well. The minivan is designed to take you across town. That’s what it does. It can drive. Let’s say two weeks go by, and the same person comes to me and says, Hey, Kenny, I need a ride again. Can you give me another ride? Sure. Absolutely. Where do you need to go? Okay, this time I need to go to the moon.

What? Yeah. Can you take me to the moon in your new minivan? No, I can’t. Well, why not? You said the minivan was valuable. You said it was good. You said it was helpful to you for a season. Wasn’t it? Yeah, but it was never designed to do that. To get to the moon, you need a much more robust vehicle. You need a rocket ship. You’ve got to call Elon.

In the same way as a car was never designed to get you to the moon. The Old Covenant was never designed to get you into heaven. That was never its goal. The Old Covenant was valuable. It was useful to the Israelites for a season, but it could not actually accomplish the ultimate goal that they wanted, and that is to remove the stain of sin permanently. It couldn’t do that. It can accomplish lots of stuff, but it could not accomplish that.

Only the New Covenant can take you into the presence of God. Now, there’s some continuity between a minivan and a rocket ship. Similarly, there’s some continuity between the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, and the New Covenant. There’s some similarities between a minivan and a rocket ship. There are some similar materials.

There are some similar elements, but ultimately one is far bigger and better, and more robust, and it actually can accomplish the grander task. Similarly, the Old and New Covenants have some similarities. They were established by the same God, but the old is rendered obsolete and the new is established.  It can actually do what we want it to accomplish, that is, permanently remove the stain of sin. It can actually perfect the conscience of the worshiper.

 

How Were People in the Old Testament Saved?

Three side notes. As we’re going through this passage and thinking about these things, there are three side notes, three questions that might pop up. We’re gonna throw them on the screen for you there. This first side note is, how were Old Testament believers saved? This is a question people ask all the time.

Wait a minute. If they’re a part of the Old, like David, Moses, Abraham, these people who followed God in the Old Testament, they obeyed the laws that were given to them. You’re saying that couldn’t get them into heaven. How did they get to heaven then? How were they saved? It’s a great question, and here’s the answer. The Old Testament believers are saved the same way you are saved, by looking to the Messiah. It’s the same way the sacrifice of bulls and goats never rescued anyone from the tyranny of sin. The Messiah does that. Adam and Eve sin in the garden, and moments later, God promises he’s going to send a savior, a Messiah.

He tells Eve, from your lineage, from your womb, from your descendants, will come a Savior. Genesis 3:15. Scholars call this the Proto-Evangelium. Proto, first or earlier evangelium. The declaration of the Gospel, the good news. So, Proto Evangelium, the first time the Gospel is declared is in Genesis 3:15. I always think to myself, this is such a remarkable thing. From the time humans sinned, how long does it take before God promises to send the Savior? You can’t even turn the page.

Humans sin, and God’s immediate response is, I’m going to send someone to rescue you from your own sin. This shouts to us the mercy of our God. And God says, I’m going to send you a Savior. That promise the Savior would come through Eve gets passed down generation to generation to generation. Any person in the Old Testament who would hear that promise and believe it. So when Abraham hears there’s a Savior coming to save me, it assumes that he recognizes he needs a Savior.

Any person in the Old Testament who would say to themselves, I recognize I need a Savior, and God has promised he will send one. I believe he will do what he said he would do. Any person in the Old Testament who believed that they would be saved, their conscience would be perfected, would be cleansed. The Old Covenant was established to accomplish various things. But do not confuse the Old Covenant with that which actually saves. Well, people would ask, how are their sins cleansed if Jesus hasn’t died yet? Well, it’s quite simple. Jesus’ death is retroactive and proactive because God is outside of the bounds of time.

So Jesus dies on the cross. His sacrifice covers the sins of everyone living in his era. And then it goes backwards in time, and it covers the sin of all that was believed in him before. All those who believed they didn’t know his name was Jesus, but they believed the Messiah would come. The sin retroactively goes back and cleanses their sin. Then it goes into the future from the cross 2000 years till today and cleanses my sin and your sin if you would believe on him. The death of Christ is what covers those in the Old Testament who were saved by looking to the Messiah, and we are saved by looking back at the Messiah. You are saved by looking to the Messiah, faith in him. In Romans, chapter 4, the apostle Paul is talking about Abraham, and he says

“Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

What did Abraham have to do to be considered righteous before God? Believe. That’s it. Circumcision and the elements of the Old Covenant were valuable for other purposes. It was Abraham’s belief that rendered him righteous before a Holy God. That’s how Old Testament saints were saved. The same way you were saved. That’s side note number one.

 

Why Do We Confess Our Sins?

Side note number two. People ask this all the time. Well, this doesn’t make sense. People ask all the time, if Christ’s sin has already forgiven us, then why do we confess our sins to Him?

This is a good question. I’ve been asked this multiple times. There are people sitting in this room who asked me this question. Why do we have to confess our sins? We do this every single week as a part of our liturgy here. I say that we pause and we confess our sins. Why do we do this? Why do we confess our sins? Well, there are three reasons why we confess our sins. If Christ has already forgiven us, if the ultimate mission is already accomplished on our behalf, why do we confess our forgiveness?

1. Confession keeps us humble. It cultivates in us humility.

Humility, the reminder. Each time we confess, we’re reminding ourselves that we’re not actually all that good at being good Christians. We actually fail a lot. It cultivates in us humility that is much needed and very valuable to us in various ways in our lives. Confession, it stokes this contrition, this desire to have a contrite heart. In Psalm 51, the Holy Spirit, speaking through King David, says this: Psalm 51, speaking to God:

“You take no pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart.”

God’s not looking at bulls being sacrificed and somehow taking pleasure in that. No, the thing that God takes pleasure in is when we have a broken spirit before him. Because we’re broken over how sinful we are and we have a contrite heart, we come to God. I’m so sorry. I recognize that I have failed you over and over again. Yet you have been so merciful and kind to me. That’s what God takes pleasure in, not in the killing of some bulls. Confession cultivates in us much-needed humility.

2. Confession brings healing to us.

You see this all through the Psalms over and over again. The prophet Jeremiah talks about this multiple times. The apostle Paul alludes to this multiple times in Colossians. James, the little brother of Jesus, in his Epistle, alludes to confession leading to healing. There’s this idea that when we bring our sins to God, it does something in us. There’s an emotional or spiritual healing that takes place that frees us to experience the grace and kindness of God. Confessing our sin does something in us. If your sins have been forgiven the moment you believed on Christ, all of your sins, past, present, and future, are totally forgiven and wiped clean. Absolutely.

We know that to be true. He says that here in Hebrews 9 and Hebrews 10. But we confess to bringing that to him so that we can experience God’s grace. So many people who are Christians, who are probably headed for heaven, live far beneath what God has promised or made available to them because they’re not experiencing the fullness of God’s grace in their lives. Confession ushers us into that.

3. Prepares our heart for communion.

There are different theological positions on communion. Most American Christians today believe that communion is merely a symbol or memorialistic meaning. You grab the bread, the wine, it’s just this symbol, and you’re remembering Jesus. That is not what most Christians throughout Christian history have believed. Up until about the 1800s, very few people took a memorialistic view. Even in the 1500s, the few who did champion a memorialistic idea eventually came around to a different view of communion.

The most famous is a guy named Zwingli, who, late in his life, was like, actually, I was wrong. Communion is much more than just a memorial, a symbol. In communion, when we come to the Lord’s Supper, we participate in it. There’s actually a supernatural grace that’s bestowed upon you. There’s nothing supernatural about the juice or the wine itself, but the act of taking it and remembering it. In that moment, when you do it in the context of a congregation and we do it together, through that act, the Holy Spirit bestows a grace to you which strengthens your soul. There’s a supernatural thing happening there, and it has the ability to either harden your heart or soften your heart.

If you have unrepentant sin in your life, if there’s sin in your life that you’ve just continued to sin and not dealt with it, and you take communion, the supernatural grace, the supernatural thing that happens in communion, it will happen to you, and it will take your hard heart and make it harder. But when you confess to God and you bring a soft heart, the grace bestowed upon you makes your heart even softer. It’s like the same sun that can harden a piece of clay can melt wax. The sun is the supernatural power coming to you through communion. It has the power to either harden your heart or soften your heart.

So we confess our sins to prepare ourselves to experience the supernatural grace that comes through communion. The Apostle Paul alludes to this in 1 Corinthians 11. In 1 Corinthians 11, the apostle Paul tells him, Listen, some of you guys in the church, you’ve gotten sick, and some of you have even died. Because you took communion wrongly. That’s a scary proposition. This is a scary reality that if you take communion wrongly, it literally can make you physically sick and maybe even die. We should take that very seriously.

For most of church history, Christians have taken that very seriously. It’s a very recent phenomenon and mostly almost American evangelicals, where communion has been viewed as this sort of low, simple thing that’s not made, that’s sort of. Sort of flippant about just this random little thing we do

For most of church history, coming to the Lord’s Supper was a monumental thing, and it was often at the center of the worship gathering, which is why we do it every single week here at Horizon City. We think it’s a big deal. So we confess our sins to God. God, would you forgive me? There’s this disobedience in my life. Would you forgive me? I bring that to him in confession so that when I experience his supernatural grace in communion, it will soften me and cultivate the contrite spirit that he takes pleasure in. So those are the three things that confession does. It cultivates humility. It brings healing to our own souls, and it prepares our hearts for communion.

 

The Law and The Gospel

The third side note this morning: if the Old Covenant couldn’t actually save. As we study and understand this, we begin to ask ourselves, well, what about the law and expectations that might have been in the Old Covenant?

A lot of American Christians today think about the law and the gospel, like the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, was the law. The New Covenant is the Gospel. There are some Christians, that’s how they teach. The New Covenant has no expectations on you. God loves you no matter what you do, and you can live however you please. There are no expectations on the believer.

That’s how some churches preach the gospel. That’s not what we see in the Bible. Law in the gospel is not the Old Covenant/New Covenant. Law in the gospel is found in both covenants. There was law and gospel in the Old Covenant, and there was law and gospel in the New Covenant. Law is, anytime God says, this is what I require of you. Gospel is that which is given to us freely by faith.

The law is, here’s what God expects of you as a Christian. The gospel is the free grace given to you, knowing that you will not meet the requirements of the law. We want to preach both of those. Daniel, brother, great exhortation today. The exhortation that God expects things of us, that what God commands of us, we must always do, and what God prohibits, we must never do. But we have the gospel. The good news is that, when we fail, because we will, he freely gives us his grace and mercy. We praise God for that. But we want to be very careful that we don’t preach like God has no expectations of us.

I think, frankly, I try not to be condescending from the pulpit, so this is going to come across more condescending than I wanted to be. But I hope my intention is noble. I think American evangelicalism is weak sauce. Like across the board, the North American church is weak. Because we don’t actually get up and preach to people, saying God expects some things from you, and you better obey him or it will not go well for you. We’re afraid to say that kind of thing.

I have law and gospel in my house with my 3-year-old daughter. I have expectations of my 3-year-old. Don’t hit your brother. Be nice to your mother. Don’t leave a dirty pull-up on the floor of the bathroom. Eat your eggies. We have expectations of her, and there’s gospel because I know she’s going to blow it and she’s going to fail. Is there anything she could possibly do that would cause me to stop providing for her? Absolutely not. That room is hers. That food in the fridge is hers. All that I have is hers. Is there anything she could ever possibly do that would cause me to stop loving her? Absolutely not. Is there anything she could ever do to cause her to stop being my daughter? No.

She’s always going to be my daughter. She’s three years old. There’s nothing she could do to undo our relationship. That’s gospel. There are free things given to her, and there’s a law. There are expectations of her. God has the same in his family. For those of us who are in his family. We enjoy his grace and mercy, and kindness. There are also some expectations. There’s law and there’s gospel. God has commanded some things of us. God has commanded that we believe on Jesus. God has commanded that we be baptized. God has commanded that we gather with other believers on the Lord’s Day.

God has commanded that we take communion together. God has commanded that we be holy in our thoughts and our behavior. That we use our money and our sexuality, and our recreational time to honor him. He has commanded that we pay our taxes and be good citizens. God has certain expectations of us, and it’s unacceptable to be flippant or apathetic.

There’s law and there’s gospel because we will fail. We are sinners. By nature and by choice, we will not meet the expectations that he has set for us. That will not undo the perfecting of the conscience that he has done on our behalf. That is a work of grace that we receive through faith, not of works of our own accord. We cannot boast of that. We follow his law because we love Him. We receive that which we could not earn through faith in Him. There’s law and Gospel, and we esteem both.

 

Practical Application: Looking for the Second Coming

Those are our three side notes. So our first part was that the Old Covenant can never save. We need a rocket ship for that. We need a New Covenant. Last thing is, I want to give you one practical implication. But we’re going to go through some of the chapter together. Just briefly. As we get to the practical application, as you go through the latter part of chapter nine, Hebrews chapter nine, and into chapter 10, he’s going to talk more and more about what the goats accomplished versus what Christ accomplished. Mainly, that Christ could actually accomplish something great. Hebrews 9, 13, and 14. Ryan read it for us earlier. Hebrews 9, 13, and 14 says this,

“For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled purses with ashes of heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit, offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

If blood and goats could sanctify a little bit, how much more will the blood of Christ sanctify? If a sinful priest could show up and do some stuff and accomplish some stuff for Israel, how much more valuable and helpful would the perfect high priest be to those who believe in him? If the sinful high priest could accomplish some stuff, how much more will the perfect high priest accomplish through his willingness to shed his blood on our behalf, his willingness to die? In verse 15, it says that

“He purchased for us an eternal inheritance.”

Eternal inheritance. We’re going to inherit some stuff from God that we will own eternally. The bulls and goats purchased some stuff for Israel, but it was temporary. What Jesus accomplishes is forever. And in verse 22, he says this,

“That without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.”

If Christ had not stepped in and shed his blood, there would be no way for our sins to be forgiven. If Christ had not stepped in and died in our place, we would be left with bulls and goats that could not save us. If we had not been given the rocket ship, we would be stuck with a minivan trying to get to the moon, and it would be useless. The Apostle Peter put it this way. Lisa read it for us earlier. He says,

“that we were ransomed not with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.”

In the book of Colossians, the Apostle Paul says that,

“We were hostile in our minds toward God, but that because Christ shed his blood, we now have peace with God.”

In Romans 5, the apostle Paul says that,

“We were enemies of God, but now, because of Christ, we have peace with God, peace that we will enjoy forever and ever and ever.”

This should stoke in us some affection for Christ. This should cause us to go, He did that for me. The writer of Hebrews will allude to the fact as he goes through the end of this chapter, that it should cause us to long to want to see him. He says at the very end of chapter nine, verse 28, he’s saying Jesus is going to come back.

“Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time. Not to deal with sin.”

He’s already dealt with sin. That’s ultimately done. That’s definitive. No, He’s going to come back a second time. Here’s why:

“To save those who eagerly wait for him.”

Another translation says, those who are eagerly waiting upon him, those who are eagerly seeking his return. The sentiment we get that’s through this chapter. He’s explaining the Old Covenant. Valuable, but couldn’t accomplish the ultimate thing, the New Covenant. It could accomplish the ultimate thing, the removal of your sin. Permanently allowing you to experience the presence of God forever and ever. Not just one day, a year, but forever and ever and forever. That was accomplished. That covenant was sealed and inaugurated because Christ was willing to die in your place.

He came the first time to deal with your sin. It has been dealt with. He did this amazing thing. Because we recognize how beautiful he is and how amazing what he did is on our behalf, it causes us to want to see him face to face. He’s going to come back and he’s going to save those who eagerly wait for him. That’s the sentiment we see here.

So I asked you this morning, a practical application question. How often do you think about the return of Christ? I think for some of us, we go days, weeks, maybe months at a time. Doesn’t even cross our minds. The writer of Hebrews is saying he’s implying, this should be on our minds all the time. Every day you wake up, you go, Is today the day he comes back? Maybe today is the day. Are you eagerly waiting for him? In the moments when you face hardship, you go, This was hard, but I know I’m gonna see his face and he’s gonna make it right.  When we’re facing ailments, difficulties.

Some of you know, my mother has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in her late 50s. So she was diagnosed. She’s now in her early 60s. The woman who raised me, whom I love, is pretty much gone at this point. Multiple of her siblings and her mom and some aunts and uncles have all experienced early onset Alzheimer’s. It appears that in the Ortiz family, we hit the genetic lottery. I have about a 10 times higher probability of getting early-onset dementia than the general population.

I’m 42, and I think to myself, that’s not that far away. Late 50s are not far away. I think to myself, Lord, if that’s me, it’s a scary proposition for my family, for my children. Think about my mother. How many years is she gonna live in this? I think to myself, does she have five years, 10? She’s relatively healthy. Her mother lived 17 years after being diagnosed. One day I’m going to see his face, and he’s going to make it all right. He’s going to reconcile every ailment, every bad back, every hurting heart, every broken thing in this world.

Every wrong that has seemingly gone unpunished or unaccounted for will be accounted for when I see him face to face. I eagerly await that day. Do you eagerly await that day? The writer of Hebrews seems to be connecting, eagerly awaiting him, and understanding what Jesus did. There’s this connection there. If you do not eagerly wait to see Jesus again, it is probably because you don’t really understand or appreciate what he did the first time he came. There’s a connection there, and the more you understand and appreciate what he did in his first coming, the more it will cultivate in you a desire for his second coming.

So it’s a good diagnostic tool for us. If you would say, Kenny, I don’t know that I really think about the second coming much. I’m not eagerly awaiting. Then I would encourage you in your prayer time, go to him individually and say, Lord, help me understand what you did at your first coming. May that stoke in me, cultivate in me a grander desire for your second coming. Because he’s going to come back to save those who eagerly wait for him.

 

Closing: Box Seats

Many years ago, about 10 years ago, 11 years ago, I went to an Orlando Magic game, and I sat in the cheap seats because that’s what I could afford. Me and some buddies of mine sat up there. Then, about a week later, there’s a man in our church, an affluent family, who came to me and said, Hey, we got box seats for the Orlando Magic game. Do you want to go to the game? We’re not going to go to the game tonight. So myself and two buddies, we went to the Orlando Magic game a week later, and we sat in the box seats this time. We had special parking just for us. It was great. We could get in and out with minimal traffic, and we’re in the box; it’s unlimited food. You just press a button to bring nachos or steak or an adult beverage, whatever it may be.

We had the perfect mid-court seat. I mean, it was a phenomenal experience! I’m going home and I’m thinking to myself, we’re driving home, going, that was way better than the cheap seats, man. That was way better, man. I was kind of spoiled. I don’t think I ever want to sit up there ever again. I was just loving it. I thought to myself, you know, I don’t know what those box seats cost, but man, they had to be very expensive because I enjoyed an incredible experience.

Sort of a silly comparison, but similarly, with the death of Christ, we don’t fully grasp how expensive it was for God to become a man and shed his blood on our behalf. I think we don’t fully recognize how precious the blood of Jesus actually was when it was shed on our behalf. But we can experience what he purchased. We’re sitting in a spiritual box seat called Being in the Family of God.

We will experience that in grander fashion with him forever and ever and ever. Because of what Christ did on our behalf, the Old Covenant could not accomplish it. So Christ came to inaugurate the New Covenant that Christ could accomplish. Because of what he did on our behalf, we will be with him forever and ever and ever. And I eagerly await the day he comes and gets us to enjoy him face to face.