Good morning church. How are we doing? It’s good to be with you all. I know it’s probably confusing that you get two weeks in a row of someone bald being on stage and going to share God’s word. Pastor John’s let a couple people take his place this month. And I’m excited to share God’s word with you this morning. I’m student pastor here. My name is Colby Flowers, and we’re going to be in Hebrews chapter ten. If you want to turn there, Hebrews chapter ten. And before I jump into that, I want to say a quick thank you to everyone who, gives to this church, who helps contribute financially. We just got back from camp a couple weeks ago, and because of your financial giving, it allows us to take these students to camp each year. And specifically for people who were giving above and beyond that and giving towards scholarships, allowing kids who needed a little extra money to go to camp on top of that. And thank you for giving to that and thank you for your prayers. We had an amazing camp. We had a student come and confess Christ. We had one who is prepped for baptism and now she is ready. We will be baptizing two students at the end of this month, so we’re excited for that. To see God move in that way. Praise God for that. And to see God move through prayer among our students has been incredible to even see this morning. In the past couple of weeks, students have been coming up and praying unprovoked. I promise you, I’m not paying them. I’m not paying them to do that, that they are coming because they want to see God move. And it’s good when you see young people that you start leading the church in that capacity. And I pray that that would continue. But thank you for your support in that way. But we’re going to be Hebrews chapter ten this morning. And as I was preparing the message, it reminded me a little bit of a moment that my wife and I had when we first got married. We took a trip on our honeymoon to Nashville, and we went to Centennial Park. And for the first time, we went to this Parthenon Museum. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this in Nashville or if you’ve been there before. That’s great, but we’ve got some pictures I want to show. This is the Parthenon. It is a built to to size replica of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. And so it’s built with the same size, obviously not the same materials. But it was built and put together in Nashville. It’s been there for quite a while. And so going into it, there’s this center focus, the centerpiece inside of the temple. It is a 42ft statue of the goddess Athena. So Maggie and I had to take our, you know, our photo there. Look at our young little kids. They’re all young. I still look the same. I don’t have any hair, but, we had a great time, and it’s kind of fascinating to see this large statue and you kind of feel really small next to it, and it’s kind of similar. If you’ve been to the Creation Museum, when you see the Ark, how it’s built, tried to be built to scale and to to kind of give us a picture of what it is. But in my mind, all the time when I see these things, I’m thinking, I really wonder what the original looked like. I get this replica and what it’s supposed to represent, but I always think back, what does the original look like? It was actually casted with pure gold and ivory, and that thing wasn’t cast with pure gold and ivory. It’s not that valuable, but I always thought, what would the original look like? Well, this morning we’re to look at something in God’s Word in which we see this picture that the Old Testament should actually be pointing to something better and truer. And as we think about this idea, we think about this reality. We’re going to see that the Old Testament, the Old Testament law, was not given to us to save us, but instead it was given to us to point to a true and better sacrifice. That’s where we’re headed this morning in Hebrews chapter ten, we’re going to talk about this idea that the Old Testament law had a point and purpose, but it wasn’t to save us, it was meant to point to something else. So look here with me, Hebrews chapter ten, verse one. It says this for since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come, instead of the true form of these realities, it can never– note the word never– by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year make perfect those who draw near. So here the author of Hebrews is building off his argument. He starts with the verse with for he’s building up what he just said in the last chapter, because he’s dealing with this tension of this Old Testament and its purpose and how it really can’t save you. In fact, in verse 22 of Hebrews chapter nine, it says, there is a requirement that that without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness of sins. And so there has to be blood that is shed for us to be forgiven of our sins. But here’s the problem that he brings up. These Old Testament sacrifices can never perfect us. They can’t save us. In fact, he uses the word here for shadow. Think of the the thing you maybe have done with shadow puppets. You know, you got a flashlight, you turn it on, darken the room, you put your hands up and make some type of shape, and it casts something up on the wall or on the ceiling. And it has this shadow, right? Was the imagery is here is that this shadow is not the real object, it’s just this outline of it. Right. But the hands are what is really, truly the true object behind this shadow. And so what he’s saying here is, is this Old Testament, this law is just shadow. It’s not the real thing. It’s not the true thing. It’s not the better thing. In fact, all it can do is provide these these rituals and things that help us appease God’s wrath. But it can’t save us and perfect us. So understand, Old Testament sacrifices were a shadow. They were a shadow for something greater and more true. The Bible provides us with these rules and regulations and the mosaic covenant and all these things that do give us some morality and remind us that we are broken and sinners. But those things can’t save us. And here’s why. You and I are imperfect. We can’t keep the law perfectly, and so as a result, we can’t be perfected by it. So understand the law itself. It wasn’t pointless, It wasn’t unprofitable. The law was good. But because we couldn’t keep it, it can’t save us. Does that make sense? So we’re given a law that can’t save us. And yet the Jews at this time, we’re still trying to keep it. So this letter was written to Jewish Christians, that is, people who were Jewish that had come to follow Christ, and they were tempted by something. They were tempted to go back to the vanilla Old Testament law, the basic Old Testament law, and saying, listen, if we go back to their sacrifices, that’s how we can be right with God again, they were tempted that their religion could save them, their sacrifices could save them. But all we know in the Old Testament we have been shown that is only through Christ. Look here in verse two. Otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers or those who were offering up these sacrifices, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins. So his point was, these can’t save you. They never can. And he makes the point. If they did, why do they keep offering them? If the sacrifices did save you, if they did cleanse you, if they did perfect you, what was the purpose of continuously offering them up over and over and over again? So his point is clear –they can not do it. But look here in verse three he continues his argument, but in the sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. Every year during the Passover festival, they would get together and sacrifice this lamb, and they would be reminded that they need a sacrifice for their sins. But if it worked, why do they got to do it the next year and the next year and the next year? The point is that it doesn’t work. Go back to this verse though. Put that verse, there we go. But the second part of this, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. This is his point. These sacrifices can’t take away your sins, my sins, anyone sins because they it was never meant to. So here’s our problem, folks. Here’s our problem. If we can’t have our sins forgiven without the shedding of blood and these sacrifices don’t work, what are we going to do? Look at this in Leviticus 17. This is pulling from the Old Testament itself, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I’ve given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. In other words, it’s the blood of the sacrifices that makes atonement. But if these bulls and goats and these animals, they don’t work, what are we going to do? You know, I have a daily or a weekly occurrence in my house when I go to do the laundry, because I have a sweet but clumsy and messy four year old. Okay. And every time I run a load through the washer and get it out of the dryer and start folding up the clothes, it’s inevitable that I find a stain that did not come out in her clothes, and every time I’m reminded I’ve got a messy, clumsy four year old. So I start scheming, right? I get the shout out parents best friend, throw the throw the clothes down, spray it with shout, throw it back in another wash. And inevitably it’s still there because I washed it already and dried it. And so it didn’t work. It’s a funny little way of me being reminded that I have a messy four year old. Well, listen, we are reminded through this old Testament that we are sinners and we can’t fix it. And I can tell you this morning, right now, you can’t do enough to cleanse your life and fix your life. You may have come in here thinking, if I can go to church today, that’ll that’ll fix what I’m going through. If I can get in my Bibles, that’ll fix what I’m going through. But here’s the truth. Those things can not cleanse you and take away your sins. So understand. Here’s what if I can bring this to a point. Old Testament sacrifices were not meant to perfect us, but to remind us that we need a true and better sacrifice. We need something better. We need the true thing, not the shadowy replica. We need a true and better sacrifice. So my first point for us this morning don’t trust in religion to save you. Don’t trust in religion to save you. We can easily fall into the trap and thinking, I can go through the rituals, go through the righteous deeds, go through the motions, and I can somehow earn my way into God’s good grace. And we see this all across the spectrum. With Catholics, they believe going to mass and going to a confession or to a priest can get them absolved for their sins. And if they sin that where do they go? They go back to the confessional. If they sin, they go back. The Muslim faith holds this, this view that Allah will be merciful to me if I keep the five pillars of faith, if I fast, if I go to the Mecca, to the black Rock, if I do all of these things, then I can be ushered into Allah’s mercy. But before we can go to these groups and think, okay, they’ve got it wrong, we got it right, we got to be very careful because we’re a Protestant church or Baptist church. We’ve got some people from different denominations, but we’re all Protestant, and in this idea we can very easily fall into this trap. Let me paint it for you. Sometimes we think if I read my Bible, I’ll be in good grace with God. If I attend church three times out of the month, I can check that box and I’m in good place with God. If I am baptized, I’m saved. If I am better and live better and more righteously than the people next to me, God ain’t going to judge me. He’ll worry about them. It’s the comparative game. Or even I can have this emotionalism where if I come to God and I cry and I shed tears, and I have this big emotional moment and I let my emotions carry me, that that means I’m saved. But listen, there is no deed or or act that you can do to save yourself. Which is why I say don’t trust in religion to save you. Does religion have its place? Yes. Does it have its purpose? Yes. But it was never meant to save you, but only point you to the one who can. So we’re going to see in verse five he’s going to continue his argument here, Hebrews ten verse five. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, now notice here he’s going to reference Christ, and Jesus is speaking here. Jesus is quoting Scripture, which is pretty cool. Jesus is quoting Psalm 40 and he says, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. So Jesus recognizes from the Psalms God was not concerned more about these sacrifices and offerings. He doesn’t desire them, nor is he pleased by them. Instead what Jesus recognizes is that he prepared a body for him. And he goes on in verse seven, then I said, behold, I’ve come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. So understand Jesus recognized this, that the focus shouldn’t be on these animal sacrifices. It should be on something truer and better. So hear me this morning, church Christ came to shift our focus away from these imperfect animals to the body that God prepared for him. It’s no longer about these bulls and goats. It’s about his body that God gave him. That God in his will, in his perfect plan, sent His Son Jesus to live this earth, to be born of a, of a virgin, to walk live perfectly so that his body ultimately can take the place. So he goes and explains this in verse eight, when he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings. This is. These are offered according to the law. These are the Old Testament. This is the old way of doing things. But verse nine then he added, behold, I have come to do your will. He does away with these first this Old Testament, and he established the second. In verse ten he brings it to this point and this helps us understand this Psalm very well. And by that will God’s will. We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. So Jesus understands the Psalm perfectly, that he was sent with a purpose. He was taking the place of what the Old Testament was just a shadow of that Jesus is the true and better sacrifice to go to the cross, to die on it, than to be raised in the third day. And by that sacrifice we have been sanctified once for all. We get this picture one sacrifice sanctifies all as opposed to what we’ve been seeing. They sacrifice every year, every year, every year, every year. And they don’t work. Hear me church, by faith Christ sanctifies all who believe through his one sacrifice. This morning your sins are removed and taken away because the blood of Jesus was spilled. Not the Old Testament law, not the religious works that we can come up with, not the manmade traditions that we can evaluate our life by. It’s by one thing and one thing alone. The blood of Jesus was spilled on your behalf Church. So we have to get this in our head that it is only one thing, one sacrifice. And this is what the author of Hebrews continues to push here. He says, in every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifice which can never take away sins. You see the monotonous, mundane thing here. It can’t take away sins. But what does he keep doing? Keeps sacrificing. If I could be honest with us today, some of you may be in this place now. Your methods to save yourself. You’ve been trying for years and over and over and over again. But you’ve still got a lot of guilt in your life. You thought, if I can just live my life the best way that I can, if I can do these righteous deeds, if I can keep these religious rules, if I can have this own manmade tradition that I come up with that I can keep, then I can be right with God. But you’re still here, and you may have guilt in your life, still. It’s because maybe you’re going about it the wrong way. But this is the beautiful part of what he gets to right here. Verse 12. But when Christ had offered for all time eternity a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. He brings in the Old Testament again. Psalm 110:1- that Jesus died on the cross was raised, and now he’s sitting at the right hand of God on the throne with his feet up, waiting for his enemies to be finally ripped and removed. Now we have a God who’s already victorious over our sin, over the difficulties that we have. And you can have that in Christ. Church, Christ defeated sin, he defeated Satan, he defeated death, and he sits on his throne waiting for that victory to be fully realized when he comes back. We have a God who’s already won the victory for us. But here’s the temptation. We think I’ve got to keep working to save myself. I’ve got to add on to it. I’ve got to do something more. Look at verse 14. He says again, for by a single offering he has perfected -past tense- all those or sorry perfected for all time, those who are being sanctified. Did you catch that? Did you catch that? You. If you have accepted Christ, God sees you as perfect. But you don’t have to add to it. And another part of this you can’t take from it. God sees you as perfect because Jesus was perfect on your behalf, and he says that you are becoming more like Jesus, sanctified, being sanctified. Do you get the picture? You’re perfect, but also you’re in the process. You’re perfect in Christ and Jesus or God sees you that way. But now you are growing to be more like him in your life. In Christ you are gradually becoming what God already sees in you. You are becoming the perfection that God sees in you because of what Christ has done. Understand that you have a sanctified position in Jesus. So at the cross, Christ achieved a perfect, eternal sanctification for all those who would trust in him. So the question is, have you trusted in Jesus? Have you received this sacrifice? The only one that can save you, the only one that can remove your guilt, the only one that can set you before a holy God and sanctify you. So my second point for you this morning is that we need to trust Christ and His sacrifice. Trust Christ and his sacrifice. You see, this is really where we would separate ourselves from our our Catholic friends. So in Catholicism, there is this practice of penance in which you would go to a confessional and you would confess your sins and the priest would absolve you, or you would go and partake of communion. And they believe in there being a literal transfer of God or Christ’s body into the bread and Christ’s blood into the wine. And so as you’re eating the bread and drinking the wine, you’re literally sacrificing Christ over again. But here’s the picture that we get from God’s Word is that Jesus died once, and that is for eternity. Your past and your future. Eternity has set you free from sin. So understand this morning that you and I need to trust in Christ, not in our religion, not in our traditions, but in Christ. Let’s go on in verse 15. Excuse me for coughing. I’m still getting over little sickness. Cough drop. We’ve been joking because I was patient zero and I gave it to a few people. So they’ve been holding me, holding that over my head. But you gotta do what you gotta do, right? Anyway, so verse 15, final four verses here, it says and the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us. For after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws on their heart and write them on their minds. Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. So he adds here another Old Testament passage, Jeremiah 31, the promise of the New covenant that not only will Jesus die for your sins and take him away, he also promises this that he’ll send His Holy Spirit to dwell in you, to live in you, to empower you. And he gives you literally the law of God on your hearts, on your minds. It’s not on this external thing, but it’s in an internal reality that the Holy Spirit places on your heart, enabling you, empowering you. So on top of all this, God promises to put His Spirit in you to walk in his ways, and you will no longer, or God will no longer hold your past sins over you. Your sins are no longer remembered. You are forgiven forever, and you’ve been given the presence of God in your life and wrapped up with our last verse in this passage is so beautiful church, hear this– where there’s forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. Because Christ and his sacrifice was sufficient and your sins have been removed, there is no need for you to continue offering up things. There is no need for you to go to God and say, God, here are my works, here are my deeds. Here are the things that I’ve done this week. It’s a trap and a temptation to go back to the Old Testament. Listen, you have been set free from your sin. So my last point for us this morning. Stop working for God’s forgiveness and rest in it. Some of you this morning are walking around with guilt in your heart, in your mind, thinking I have to live better. I have to be better, or God’s not going to love me. God’s not going to forgive me. I was saved back then, but I haven’t been living great lately. I’ve fallen short. Well, look, you’re in a room with people who are all falling short. I’m falling short. But the reality is, is that sacrifice on the cross took away my sins for eternity in the past and in the future. And God sees you as perfect in Christ. Now, I don’t want to take away from the importance that we need to live and follow Jesus and obey God. That is important, but that is not how you earn God’s love. That is not how you earn God’s forgiveness. It’s already been given to you in Jesus. So if I can comfort you with a couple verses that Jesus spoke to us that are going to be familiar, but sometimes we need to be reminded. Matthew 11 verse 28, come to me, all, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Jesus says, take my yoke, my teaching, my ways upon you, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find what? Rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. So here’s the picture. You don’t have to work for God’s forgiveness anymore. You simply live from God’s forgiveness. So if I can challenge you this morning, I’d ask you a question, and I think this helps us analyze what Hebrews ten is saying. Here’s what, here’s what your, what your challenges this morning. When you doubt your salvation, do you run to religion or to the cross? When you have struggled with this thought, am I really saved? Or maybe you haven’t been living your life perfectly the way that you’ve seen it lately? Do you go back to okay, how can I fix it? Or do you go back to the cross and realize that Jesus already did? There’s two ways you can go. Is it my religion that saves me? Or is it the cross that saves me? Is it what Jesus did on the cross in paying for my sins? Is that what saves me? Or do I need to keep on working? This morning I encourage you, if you haven’t come to Christ and accepted Jesus to be your one sacrifice, I would encourage you to come and talk to one of us. If you are. You are a Christian. You’ve accepted Christ, you’ve been baptized, but you’ve been struggling with guilt. You need to rethink. I can’t go back to religion. It’s not about what I can’t or need to do. It’s about what Jesus has already done. So I would encourage you in this time, respond and come to the cross. Come to Christ and stop trying to earn. But rest in God’s forgiveness. Let’s pray. God, thank you for the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus that takes away sins, that God. There is nothing, nothing in this world. There is nothing we can do that can save us from our sins. Your word is clear. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. And these Old Testament sacrifices weren’t enough. And that’s why in your will, your plan, you sent your son Jesus with a body to this earth so that he could be sacrificed. Thank you, God, for sending Jesus to take our place. Thank you for his blood that sanctifies us, that perfects us, so that no longer do we walk with shame and guilt, but we walk in the victory of the cross. And you see us is perfect because Christ is perfect on our behalf. So this morning I pray for anyone in this room, father, that has not accepted Christ, that they would take a step of faith today and realize I’m done trying to do it myself and I want Jesus, his sacrifice for me. I pray too father for the Christians, for the believers who have fallen off, and they’ve been tempted to go back to religion. It’s not their attendance that keeps them closer to you. It’s not their Bible reading necessarily that fixes their life. It’s not their amount of prayers they say that makes them close to you. Although prayer is good, but God, it is you that came to us. We didn’t come to you. You came to us. And I pray this morning we would glory in that in all praise and glory. Honor to Jesus Christ and His blood alone. Amen.