SPEAKER_02: Hello, I'm Pastor Creighton, and thank you for tuning in to New Sun Churches Podcast.
SPEAKER_02: We're a gospel centered church in Port Perry, Ontario, proclaiming the true and life-giving word of Jesus as we love and serve our neighbors.
SPEAKER_02: May God bless you today through his life-giving word.
SPEAKER_01: Our first reading this morning is taken from Leviticus chapter 16.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died, and the Lord said to Moses, Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die.
SPEAKER_01: For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.
SPEAKER_01: But in this way Aaron shall come into the holy place, with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.
SPEAKER_01: He shall put on the holy linen coat, and shall have the linen undergarment on his body, and he shall tie the linen sash around his waist, and wear the linen turban.
SPEAKER_01: These are the holy garments.
SPEAKER_01: Heath he shall bathe his body in water and then put them on, and he shall take from the congregation of the people of Israel two male goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.
SPEAKER_01: Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself, and shall make atonement for himself and for his house.
SPEAKER_01: Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting.
SPEAKER_01: And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for Azazel.
SPEAKER_01: And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord, and use it as a sin offering.
SPEAKER_01: But the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.
SPEAKER_01: And it shall be a statute to you for ever, that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns with you.
SPEAKER_01: For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you.
SPEAKER_01: You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins.
SPEAKER_01: It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict yourselves.
SPEAKER_01: It is a statute forever.
SPEAKER_01: And the priest who is anointed and consecrated as priest in his father's place shall make atonement, wearing the holy linen garments.
SPEAKER_01: He shall make atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting and for the altar, and he shall make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly.
SPEAKER_01: And this shall be a statute forever for you, that atonement may be made for the people of Israel once in the year because of all their sins.
SPEAKER_01: And Aaron did as the Lord commanded Moses.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The second lesson is from Hebrews chapter 9, starting at the 11th verse.
SPEAKER_00: But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
SPEAKER_00: For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a 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.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: Since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord, Christ is God.
SPEAKER_02: Lord Jesus Christ, great high priest, we come to you with nothing to offer but our guilt and our burdens, our sins and offenses, and you, Lord, are delighted to bear those away and bring us to the very heart of our Heavenly Father, and so reconcile us.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, through the ministry of your word and Holy Spirit, would we rest secure in your eternal redemption?
SPEAKER_02: In your name we pray.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I don't know about you, but I have a mixed relationship at best with Dr.
SPEAKER_02: Google.
SPEAKER_02: Do you ever consult Dr.
SPEAKER_02: Google?
SPEAKER_02: Dr.
SPEAKER_02: Google is who you consult when you've got a slight headache and your stomach kind of hurts and your eyes are a little red and you decide to type in your symptoms and it's a terminal diagnosis every time.
SPEAKER_02: You know, Dr.
SPEAKER_02: Google's gonna give you the worst possible diagnosis every single time.
SPEAKER_02: And probably that's true for a lot of areas of my life.
SPEAKER_02: When I, you know, think I can do carpentry and I go onto YouTube, that never seems to work out for me either.
SPEAKER_02: If I decide I'm gonna, you know, I've watched enough Law and Order, I could probably be my own lawyer, so to speak.
SPEAKER_02: Then uh again, I'd probably just as helpless.
SPEAKER_02: Dr.
SPEAKER_02: Google convinces me that I know things I don't know, and therefore I can have a confidence I really have no right to have.
SPEAKER_02: Now, like I say, this could be, you fill in the blank.
SPEAKER_02: It could be medical knowledge, it could be law, it could be carpentry, it could be whatever.
SPEAKER_02: The fact is, I need, when I'm in need, I need to go to someone who knows what they're talking about, right?
SPEAKER_02: When I'm when when my when I'm feeling ill, I need to go to my GP, and I love my GP, I really like my GP, and she is so knowledgeable.
SPEAKER_02: And I go and I tell my GP the symptoms, and she tells me, you need to stop worrying about it.
SPEAKER_02: That's probably why your stomach hurts so much, you know?
SPEAKER_02: In other words, we know we need something more than just Dr.
SPEAKER_02: Google, which is really just looking in a mirror and convincing ourselves we know what we're doing, right?
SPEAKER_02: I know what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_02: We need to go and consult with someone who has the access, the knowledge, the uh participates in this world of medical knowledge in a way that I don't, but yet can communicate that knowledge to me, right?
SPEAKER_02: In other words, I need someone who mediates the knowledge that I wouldn't otherwise have.
SPEAKER_02: I need some, I need someone who can stand in the gap between me and what I don't know and point me in the right direction.
SPEAKER_02: We need a mediator, is what we need.
SPEAKER_02: And what's true for our medical knowledge, what's true for perhaps any number of those disciplines or crafts that we have very little knowledge of, we need a mediator between us and ultimate knowledge in God.
SPEAKER_02: We've been going through this series beginning last week on prophet, Christ is prophet, priest, and king, and we're reminded by the Church Reformer John Calvin that in order that faith, our faith, may have a firm basis for salvation in Christ, if we want a firm and unshakable faith, this principle must be laid down, he said.
SPEAKER_02: The office enjoined upon Christ by the Father consists of prophet, king, and priest.
SPEAKER_02: In other words, if we want to understand the significance of who Jesus is and what he's accomplished on our behalf as mediator, we need to understand Jesus as fulfilling the office of prophet, priest, and king that we find in the Old Testament scriptures.
SPEAKER_02: We need Christ to be our mediator.
SPEAKER_02: We need Christ to stand in the gap between us and God.
SPEAKER_02: And that's exactly who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_02: We can understand his work through the lens of the Old Testament as the great high priest.
SPEAKER_02: As the great high priest, Jesus Christ reconciles us to God.
SPEAKER_02: He does for us what we cannot do for ourselves, no matter how confident I may be.
SPEAKER_02: As the great high priest, Jesus Christ reconciles me, he reconciles you, he reconciles us, his people, to our holy God.
SPEAKER_02: So as we look at part two in this series, Prophet, Priest, and King, and understand Jesus' significance and his work, I hope that we are today going to arrive at a greater sense of assurance of what Christ has accomplished.
SPEAKER_02: And I hope we have a better sense of how it is that we are called to participate in this ongoing work of his priesthood.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I'll make no apologies for it.
SPEAKER_02: This is a bit more of a theological series, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we were looking at some heavy texts last week, and we're going to be looking at some heavy texts this week, too.
SPEAKER_02: But number one, I'm convinced y'all are ready for it.
SPEAKER_02: Y'all are good for it.
SPEAKER_02: And number two, I think it's just too important to overlook.
SPEAKER_02: And maybe I'll add a third one.
SPEAKER_02: It is just too beautiful to overlook.
SPEAKER_02: So let's catch a glimpse of all of this.
SPEAKER_02: I want us to interrogate that main idea.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is the great high priest, reconciles us to God.
SPEAKER_02: I want us to interrogate that idea with three questions, much like we did last week.
SPEAKER_02: Number one, what is a priest?
SPEAKER_02: Number two, how is Jesus Christ the great high priest?
SPEAKER_02: And then number three, what does that reconciliation mean for me, right?
SPEAKER_02: So let's ask question number one, what is a priest?
SPEAKER_02: Let's get a sense of our bearings here.
SPEAKER_02: A general definition of what a priest is might be something like this.
SPEAKER_02: A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and the divine, be it one or more deities.
SPEAKER_02: And yes, that comes from Dr.
SPEAKER_02: Google.
SPEAKER_02: So there you go.
SPEAKER_02: The interesting thing about priests, and I'm just talking in the biggest generalities we can right now.
SPEAKER_02: The interesting thing about priests and priesthood to me is that they are ubiquitous across time and culture.
SPEAKER_02: It's not just like an oddity that you find in this one particular culture in the ancient Near East or something like that.
SPEAKER_02: Across time and across cultures, you find people acting as priests, as mediators between humanity and the divine, understood in whatever sense.
SPEAKER_02: In some sense, across time and cultures, there's a gap between where we are and where God or the divine is.
SPEAKER_02: And someone needs to be appointed to stand in that gap to give us the access we wouldn't otherwise have.
SPEAKER_02: Now, that religious intuition takes on a particular clarity as we look at the Old Testament scriptures.
SPEAKER_02: We look at priesthood in the Bible, especially in passages like Exodus 28 and 29 or Leviticus 7, the priesthood in the Bible is God's answer to the question of how can sinful humanity enter into God's holy presence?
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: How can a sinful, wayward, estranged, transgressing humanity enter into full fellowship on right terms with a holy and just God?
SPEAKER_02: The priesthood is the answer here.
SPEAKER_02: The role of priesthood was to mediate God's presence to the people, to offer sacrifices, to reveal God's will.
SPEAKER_02: That's what theologian Elizabeth Mbaru writes.
SPEAKER_02: So as here's what's really interesting to me.
SPEAKER_02: Do you ever notice this?
SPEAKER_02: So Book of Genesis, first book in the Bible, right, ends with the people of Israel, right, refugee as refugees in Egypt, and now by the time the next book starts in Exodus, right, they're under oppression in Egypt and they need to be led into freedom by God by way of Moses, right?
SPEAKER_02: We talked about Moses last week as kind of the archetypical prophet.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so they get freed from Egypt, and now they're, you know, at Mount Sinai, and Moses delivers the Ten Commandments, God's great law to his people.
SPEAKER_02: And that's Exodus chapter 20, and there's 20 more chapters to go.
SPEAKER_02: And do you know what those 20 chapters are?
SPEAKER_02: It's everybody's favorite part of Exodus.
SPEAKER_02: It's endless laws about, you know, tabernacle and purity and you know, crafting ornaments and all these things, and we think, boy, the narrative really ground to a halt here, didn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Those are everybody's favorite passages, aren't they?
SPEAKER_02: But here's the significance of those things.
SPEAKER_02: Here is God sharing with Moses and sharing with the people of Israel by way of Moses.
SPEAKER_02: Here's the basis on which I am going to dwell with you, my people.
SPEAKER_02: Because there is a serious issue between us, and that issue is transgression.
SPEAKER_02: That issue is sin.
SPEAKER_02: But by way of my own gracious condescension, I am going to make my presence known among you as the holy God who sanctifies you.
SPEAKER_02: And all of these laws, all of these ornaments, all of these details are meant to focus Israel's attention on this God who chooses to dwell with them by way of grace.
SPEAKER_02: And so by the end of Exodus, you've got the tabernacle where God is going to meet with his people established.
SPEAKER_02: But did you notice this?
SPEAKER_02: Moses couldn't enter into the tabernacle because there was too much glory radiating from it.
SPEAKER_02: And that lead that that leaves us with a problem, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Well, we've got the tabernacle set up, but how are we supposed to commune with this holy God?
SPEAKER_02: Now you get the book of Leviticus, everybody's favorite book, right?
SPEAKER_02: If you liked, you know, purity laws, boy, you're in for a treat with Leviticus.
SPEAKER_02: But again, the point is the same thing.
SPEAKER_02: How can we commune with this holy God?
SPEAKER_02: By God's way.
SPEAKER_02: That's the bottom line for Leviticus.
SPEAKER_02: By God's way, we have fellowship with this holy God.
SPEAKER_02: And the office he established to be an intermediary, to mediate or oversee all of these ritual ways of proclaiming God's grace in forgiving our sins and in drawing us near to himself, this office that he establishes is the priesthood, right?
SPEAKER_02: A hereditary priesthood, descending from Aaron, right?
SPEAKER_02: Bearing ongoing witness to God's word amongst his people and God's acts of redemption amongst his people.
SPEAKER_02: Functioning to help God's people discern what God's will is and instruct them in the scriptures, but also to oversee sacrifices that would propitiate sin.
SPEAKER_02: And propitiate is a fancy word that we use in our communion prayers, and it means to send away.
SPEAKER_02: This is what the priests are entrusted to oversee: a living, vivid, bloody witness that God sends away sin and puts it to death.
SPEAKER_02: That's what priests are meant to do.
SPEAKER_02: And so in the book of Exodus and Leviticus, as we see this office as being established and practiced, this is what we're seeing.
SPEAKER_02: We're seeing priests act as mediators, intermediaries, I should say, between God and his people, offering sacrifices, revealing God's will.
SPEAKER_02: And all of this culminates in the kind of climax of the sacred calendar, which is the Day of Atonement that we read about in Leviticus 16.
SPEAKER_02: And Leviticus 15 and 16 are well worth the read if it's been a while since you've been in Leviticus.
SPEAKER_02: The Day of Atonement is called by one commentator.
SPEAKER_02: It's uh, pardon me, all the other purificatory rituals hinge on this day.
SPEAKER_02: That's how one commentator describes the Day of Atonement.
SPEAKER_02: It is the day of days.
SPEAKER_02: So let me just read some of what we read in Leviticus 16 and offer some commentary here.
SPEAKER_02: So in this way, Aaron, so functioning as the high priest, right, shall come into the holy place.
SPEAKER_02: That's where God's presence is made most manifest amongst his people, right?
SPEAKER_02: He'll come into the holy place with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.
SPEAKER_02: So two offerings, right?
SPEAKER_02: Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself, and shall make atonement for himself and his house.
SPEAKER_02: That's interesting.
SPEAKER_02: Aaron's still a sinner.
SPEAKER_02: Aaron still needs to offer sacrifice for himself and for his household before he's ready to perform any further duties.
SPEAKER_02: And he shall then take two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting, continuing verse 9.
SPEAKER_02: And Aaron shall present the goat on which a lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering.
SPEAKER_02: But on the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel, which is a little unclear in translation, but I would suggest it means something like the scapegoat.
SPEAKER_02: It's going to be the goat who is going to be sent away.
SPEAKER_02: On the goat that which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it that it may be sent away into the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02: On this day, verse 30, shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you.
SPEAKER_02: You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 32, the priest shall make atonement.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so first thing Aaron does is sacrifice for the sake of his own sin, the sin of his household, and then he's ready to perform the rest of his high priestly duties.
SPEAKER_02: He sacrifices one goat as a sacrifice as a as an offering as propitiation for the sins of the whole people, Israel.
SPEAKER_02: And then the other goat, it's very interesting to me.
SPEAKER_02: He would place his hands and confess all of the sins of Israel, as if to transmit those to the goat, and then he would lead it away into the wilderness, never to be seen again.
SPEAKER_02: Two very vivid illustrations of how God deals with sin.
SPEAKER_02: God puts our sin to death, and God sends our sin away, never to be seen again.
SPEAKER_02: That's what the people are meant to see in this ritual.
SPEAKER_02: Are we starting to see gospel in the Old Testament, by the way?
SPEAKER_02: Because we have this idea that gospel belongs to the New Testament and law belongs to the Old Testament, but it's not true, is it?
SPEAKER_02: We're starting to see how God vividly portrays how he deals with our sin right here in the Old Testament, right in the middle of the book of Leviticus of all places.
SPEAKER_02: So the priest sacrificed for his own sins, he sacrifices for the sins of the people, and symbolically he removes Israel's guilt via this scapegoat.
SPEAKER_02: But notice this, and this is key, it's temporary.
SPEAKER_02: It's got to be performed every single year as an ongoing witness, as ongoing dependence.
SPEAKER_02: This isn't the final full act.
SPEAKER_02: This is an anticipation of greater things to come.
SPEAKER_02: So maybe let's sum it up this way: a priest under the old covenant is a mediator through whom God has graciously chosen to make manifest his ministry of reconciliation, right?
SPEAKER_02: Of restoring us to right relationship with himself.
SPEAKER_02: So a couple of things.
SPEAKER_02: Let's just pull a couple of significances out of this.
SPEAKER_02: Significance number one, probably this, this seems obvious, but I think it's worth stating.
SPEAKER_02: We need reconciliation with God.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: That's what we need, more than anything else.
SPEAKER_02: If we're going to relate ourselves rightly to God, we sinners need to be reconciled with our holy God.
SPEAKER_02: We don't need more moralism.
SPEAKER_02: We don't need to be nicer people.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, maybe some of us should be nicer people, but that's not gonna do it for us.
SPEAKER_02: That's not gonna placate God.
SPEAKER_02: That's not gonna restore us to full fellowship of Him.
SPEAKER_02: We don't need to be more spiritual people, just more enlightened people, more well-read people.
SPEAKER_02: What we need is we need our sins sent away.
SPEAKER_02: And there's no way we can do that for ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: We need God to do it for us.
SPEAKER_02: We need reconciliation with God, significance number one, significance number two, reconciliation is principally God's ministry to us, not ours towards God.
SPEAKER_02: Did you notice that?
SPEAKER_02: Who's establishing these rituals?
SPEAKER_02: It's God.
SPEAKER_02: Communicating his gospel, his good news to his people.
SPEAKER_02: Reconciliation is God's ministry towards us.
SPEAKER_02: We are recipients of it.
SPEAKER_02: And so what we should see in all of these Day of Atonement rituals is what the people of Israel would be meant to see.
SPEAKER_02: It's the gracious heart of God the Father on display.
SPEAKER_02: He loves his people too much to overlook their sin.
SPEAKER_02: He loves his people too much to just pretend like it's not there, but he also loves his people too much not to deal with it.
SPEAKER_02: And deal with it he shall.
SPEAKER_02: All of this is putting God's gracious, generate, abundant, generous, abundant heart towards his people on display because God will be the one to deal with sin conclusively.
SPEAKER_02: That's what he's saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_02: All of this is an anticipation of greater things to come, because over and over and over the Day of Atonement would have to be performed.
SPEAKER_02: But there's an anticipation here.
SPEAKER_02: There's something off just across the horizon here.
SPEAKER_02: We start to catch glimpses of it as the Old Testament story develops, but we catch an especially brilliant glimpse.
SPEAKER_02: Flash of light here in Psalm 110.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord has sworn and will not recant.
SPEAKER_02: Speaking of the anticipated Messiah, right?
SPEAKER_02: God's chosen one, you are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_02: A priest forever.
SPEAKER_02: Not a priest for your lifetime, right?
SPEAKER_02: The priesthood was hereditary in the Old Testament because priests died and their sons took over.
SPEAKER_02: This priest lasts forever and has an eternal priesthood after the order of Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_02: Now Melchizedek deserves a sermon all his own.
SPEAKER_02: You can read about Melchizedek in Genesis chapter 14 and how he and Abraham relate to one another, but it's understood that the Messiah is going to fulfill an eternal and everlasting and superior priesthood to the priesthood we see here in Exodus and Leviticus.
SPEAKER_02: There's going to be a greater one to come.
SPEAKER_02: All of this is just like signposts pointing forward.
SPEAKER_02: And now the real deal, at some point, Psalm 110 says, the real deal is going to show up.
SPEAKER_02: And guess who the real deal is?
SPEAKER_02: The New Testament concludes Jesus Christ is the priest who is forever, after the order of Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_02: The New Testament quotes this Psalm 110 amongst, it's one of the most oft-quoted Psalms in the New Testament, precisely because the earliest Christians understood that Jesus is the fulfillment of what the priesthood has always anticipated: the final and full and conclusive dealing with sin and reconciliation with God.
SPEAKER_02: Let's look at Hebrews chapter 9, if we're going to answer how is Jesus Christ the great high priest.
SPEAKER_02: I'm just going to quote from a few of these verses here.
SPEAKER_02: When Christ appeared as a great high priest of the good things that have come, Christ entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, right?
SPEAKER_02: Remember Leviticus, that's what we're dealing with, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
SPEAKER_02: And the conclusion is this: therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus Christ is a superior priest to all the priests who've come before because his priesthood is eternal, it doesn't come to an end, and his redemption is eternal.
SPEAKER_02: It's once for all.
SPEAKER_02: But Jesus doesn't deal in sacrifice of blood and goats.
SPEAKER_02: He's got a far greater sacrifice to offer on our behalf.
SPEAKER_02: We see it in Matthew chapter 20 as Jesus addresses his disciples on the way to Jerusalem, right?
SPEAKER_02: Where the temple sacrifices would have taken place.
SPEAKER_02: The Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death.
SPEAKER_02: That's very interesting to me.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is saying, Much like the lamb on the Day of Atonement, so I'm going to be delivered over to the chief priests, and they're going to put me to death.
SPEAKER_02: And why?
SPEAKER_02: Well, he answers that a few verses later, so that the Son of Man may give his life as a ransom for many.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to be put to death by chief priests, so I can effect reconciliation, ultimate reconciliation between God's people and God, so that I can effect atonement, and sin can be no more.
SPEAKER_02: Paul puts it this way in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.
SPEAKER_02: For our sake, God the Father made Christ to be sin, made him to be no sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see the great exchange there?
SPEAKER_02: Do you see the exchange that's taking place?
SPEAKER_02: Christ, the sacrificial Lamb, who takes our sin on himself and bears it away on the cross, and yet doesn't just bear away our sin, but gives us his righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: Everything that allows Christ to be in right and full and intimate relationship with the Father is exactly what he attributes to us.
SPEAKER_02: That's the exchange that is taking place by way of the cross.
SPEAKER_02: Christ is the perfect priest, right?
SPEAKER_02: Because he's the perfect priest, he offers no sacrifice for himself like Aaron had to.
SPEAKER_02: Christ is fully obedient to God's will.
SPEAKER_02: He has no reason to offer sacrifice to himself.
SPEAKER_02: He's the only one who's ever fulfilled God's law fully.
SPEAKER_02: But nevertheless, he effects reconciliation through his own self-sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02: He gives himself to the Father as the sacrificial lamb and therefore bears our sins away in his body.
SPEAKER_02: And this is not temporary.
SPEAKER_02: This is not something that needs to be repeated year after year after year.
SPEAKER_02: This is once for all.
SPEAKER_02: It is an eternal redemption.
SPEAKER_02: It is finished.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus Christ is the great high priest who fulfills the purpose of the priesthood once for all, affecting reconciliation between sinful humanity and our holy God through his eternal and acceptable sacrifice himself.
SPEAKER_02: So let me pull one bit of significance out of this for us.
SPEAKER_02: There is now no need for any further atonement.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: To live in full fellowship, right relationship with God.
SPEAKER_02: It is not Christ plus anything else, it is Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And to Christ we run.
SPEAKER_02: And when we embrace Christ, he takes our sin from us and he gives us his righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: And we therefore have every right to come before the Father clothed in the goodness and glory of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Christ has secured our reconciliation with God once for all.
SPEAKER_02: There is nothing we can add to Christ's cross.
SPEAKER_02: We can rest secure in it.
SPEAKER_02: We don't have to sacrifice animals.
SPEAKER_02: I heard once about a church that did barbecue and style of Leviticus, which is a little bit too vivid for me.
SPEAKER_02: And the idea is we're going to somehow, you know, lean into this kind of like sacrificial whatever, and I just kind of think, oh, we missed the point.
SPEAKER_02: We've completely missed the point if we go down that route.
SPEAKER_02: We have no need to offer for the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02: The sacrifice has been made for us.
SPEAKER_02: And not hesitantly, by the way, not an angry father with a son who's just saying, but dad, let me look.
SPEAKER_02: Can I just a father who is longs to have his wayward children come home.
SPEAKER_02: And Christ, our brother, who is eager to stand in our place and offers with a full heart a sacrifice to his father, which is acceptable, and it is received with a full and gracious heart.
SPEAKER_02: That's the heart we see put on display on the cross by Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Everything else that took place is just signposts pointing to him.
SPEAKER_02: There's no other need for pulling at God's forgiveness or offering him our merit.
SPEAKER_02: We just have to go to the cross and be reminded that God has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves, and he has done it conclusively.
SPEAKER_02: So there's one particular politician, I won't mention his name, but there's a steady drumbeat I hear in interviews of his lately, and it's something like this I really want to go to heaven, and therefore, dot, dot, dot.
SPEAKER_02: And he talks about whatever the latest goodwill project he's he's up to.
SPEAKER_02: And my heart just kind of sinks.
SPEAKER_02: Because I think that's that's often the question in my heart and our hearts, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: We want to be with God, we want to enjoy that fellowship with God, we want to be with God eternally.
SPEAKER_02: And so what do we do?
SPEAKER_02: We often go about all these little projects, we think we can accomplish something, and God will look at us and think favorably about us and our little project that we accomplished for Him.
SPEAKER_02: And we are anxious, aren't we?
SPEAKER_02: We are so anxious, and we are so burdened, and we have no assurance of whether or not these things are good enough.
SPEAKER_02: What do I have to do if I want to go to heaven?
SPEAKER_02: What do I have to do?
SPEAKER_02: What do I have to do if I want a relationship with God?
SPEAKER_02: Well, Jesus says, Come to me, all who are weary are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
SPEAKER_02: He's secured that by way of his cross.
SPEAKER_02: We have only to go to the cross, wrap ourselves in Jesus, and know that there is no more secure place that we can be.
SPEAKER_02: He has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: All we have to bring him is a praise is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, a response of gratitude for what he has accomplished for us, because Christ has done it.
SPEAKER_02: Christ is our great high priest who has secured our eternal redemption.
SPEAKER_02: So, question number three, let's land here.
SPEAKER_02: What difference does all this make to me?
SPEAKER_02: I want to offer at least two things.
SPEAKER_02: Number one, Christ's reconciliation, bringing us and God back together in right fellowship, means that we have full assurance in Christ's mediation, right?
SPEAKER_02: His resurrection and his ascension is a vindication of his sacrifice, that his sacrifice was found acceptable to God, and now he who has ascended into heaven lives to make intercession for us.
SPEAKER_02: That's what the author of Hebrews says in chapter 7.
SPEAKER_02: Think about that.
SPEAKER_02: What's Jesus doing right now?
SPEAKER_02: He is interceding for you and for me and for his people.
SPEAKER_02: He is lifting us up before the Father in prayer with fullness of heart.
SPEAKER_02: That's what Jesus is doing for us right now.
SPEAKER_02: The priestly mediation of the ascended Christ, one theologian writes, means he is interceding for us.
SPEAKER_02: He is creating and sustaining the church through the gospel of forgiveness in him.
SPEAKER_02: He is granting us his Holy Spirit, who convicts and assures us of this forgiveness through the gospel in preaching, in baptism, and in the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_02: And boy, it's the Lord's Supper, I'd just love to pause on for a moment if I can.
SPEAKER_02: I've got a picture to show.
SPEAKER_02: It's a little bit of a show-and-tell situation.
SPEAKER_02: Let's see if we can get it up there.
SPEAKER_02: Can you see that?
SPEAKER_02: That might be a little obscure, but you can check it out afterwards, maybe.
SPEAKER_02: This is an English Reformation uh sketch of the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_02: And it's meant to communicate theology at the time of the Reformation, right?
SPEAKER_02: So maybe you can see the congregation gathered in the lower part of the picture there.
SPEAKER_02: And then maybe you can see the Anglican priest, you know, in his nice robes, uh, celebrating the Lord's Supper at the Lord's table.
SPEAKER_02: But the picture is meant to be suggestive.
SPEAKER_02: There's more going on than meets the eye when we come to the Lord's table.
SPEAKER_02: What's going on?
SPEAKER_02: What's at the very top there?
SPEAKER_02: We're seeing Christ in the heavenly throne room making intercession for his people at God's altar.
SPEAKER_02: The whole idea is this: when we come to the Lord's Supper, we are coming to participate in the ongoing work of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: We are coming to participate in Christ Himself, who lifts us up before the Father.
SPEAKER_02: When we say as a congregation, lift up your hearts, and we say, we lift them up to the Lord, this is the spiritual dynamic we are entering into.
SPEAKER_02: We are coming prepared to receive heavenly gifts, gifts that assure us of God's salvation in Christ, that our redemption is eternal, and that he has borne away our sins, and he has given us his righteousness, and there is no more secure a place than we can be than where Christ is, because his body has been broken for us and his blood has been shed for us.
SPEAKER_02: We are coming to appropriate Christ's righteousness as we receive this gift by faith.
SPEAKER_02: So thanks for that picture there.
SPEAKER_02: In other words, don't worry about how God thinks or feels about you.
SPEAKER_02: Do you ever worry about that?
SPEAKER_02: But what does God think about me really?
SPEAKER_02: When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there, who made an end to all my sin.
SPEAKER_02: The theologian T.
SPEAKER_02: F.
SPEAKER_02: Torrance writes, In Jesus, God Himself descended to the very bottom of human existence, where we are alienated and antagonistic, into the very hell of our godlessness and despair, laying fast hold of us and taking our cursed condition upon himself in order to embrace us forever in his reconciling love.
SPEAKER_02: There is no length to which Christ has not gone to secure your redemption.
SPEAKER_02: And therefore, in Christ we participate in his priesthood, as a priesthood of all believers.
SPEAKER_02: You are a chosen race, writes Peter, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you, church, may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
SPEAKER_02: We serve as priests together in Christ, when we offer prayers to Christ, when we intercede for one another, when we offer one another assurance of Christ's forgiveness, because faith seems shaky sometimes.
SPEAKER_02: When we come together to worship and offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, when we evangelize and share the gospel and make known the excellencies who've called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light, we are serving as Christ's priest in a world that desperately needs reconciliation with God.
SPEAKER_02: We need a mediator, friends.
SPEAKER_02: And that mediator is Christ, the great high priest who reconciles us with God.
SPEAKER_02: So come to the cross.
SPEAKER_02: Come and know that Christ has reconciled you with your Heavenly Father and has withheld nothing.
SPEAKER_02: And share in his priesthood with confidence.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: We hope that you've been blessed by God's Word today.
SPEAKER_02: If you live in the Port Perry area, we hope that you'll come and worship with us in person on Sunday at 10 a.m.
SPEAKER_02: If you'd like to learn more about Newsong Church, we'd love to connect with you.
SPEAKER_02: Please find our contact information at newsongportperry.ca and reach out to us.
SPEAKER_02: Newsong's ministry is entirely funded by the generous giving of those who worship and journey with us.
SPEAKER_02: If you feel called to support our ministry with a financial gift, please go to newsongportperry.ca slash giving to make your contribution.
SPEAKER_02: Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.