WEBVTT 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:04.160 So last week we talked about God's heart for orphans. 00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:06.320 The week before that, we talked about politics. 00:00:06.559 --> 00:00:08.800 We're jumping back into the book of Hebrews today. 00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:11.119 We've been going through the book of Hebrews this fall. 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:16.239 After today, we're going to jump into next week, talking about gratitude in the light of thanksgiving to come. 00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:20.320 And then we'll be in Advent through the end of the year, and then we'll come back to Hebrews in the new year. 00:00:20.399 --> 00:00:21.839 So that's that's the plan. 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:25.039 If you're keeping track, you're not keeping track, but I thought I would let you know. 00:00:25.199 --> 00:00:28.640 Here's our text for this morning, Hebrews 9, 11 through 14. 00:00:29.359 --> 00:00:49.520 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 the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 00:00:49.840 --> 00:01:11.680 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 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. 00:01:12.319 --> 00:01:18.799 So there's a lot of Old Testament imagery through there, and we're going to get into that, but we're going to hold on to that all the way until January. 00:01:18.959 --> 00:01:29.120 This morning we're going to focus on this idea of a pure conscience that is made and given to us by Jesus once and for all. 00:01:29.359 --> 00:01:39.120 So point number one is this the cross of Jesus gives us a pure conscience, redeeming us from the guilt trip. 00:01:40.560 --> 00:01:43.840 Maybe you heard about this trip made by a group of Americans. 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:53.760 It was back on March 5th of this year, not a great time to take a trip, and they got on a cruise ship in Fort Lauderdale, 235 of them on March 5th. 00:01:54.079 --> 00:01:57.840 And they're gonna sail from Fort Lauderdale across the Atlantic to Europe. 00:01:58.159 --> 00:02:02.159 That sounds like a nightmare to me, even if a pandemic doesn't break out. 00:02:02.319 --> 00:02:03.519 That's not my gym. 00:02:03.599 --> 00:02:05.760 I have too many control issues for that. 00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:12.319 Passengers start getting sick, and then sure enough, they all get quarantined to their cabins. 00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:17.919 If you've been on a cruise ship, you know there's about eight good rooms on the whole ship, and everybody else is in a closet. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:24.639 So everybody is quarantined in their little closet room for the rest of this trip. 00:02:25.439 --> 00:02:27.199 No country will let them in. 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:28.560 No country wants to take them. 00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:31.360 No country wants to take this ship full of sick people. 00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:33.039 Nobody knows what's going on. 00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:35.199 Finally, France lets them port. 00:02:35.439 --> 00:02:45.599 They're taken off the ship, they're put on buses, locked on the buses for five hours before they're let back off, put back on planes to come back to the United States. 00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:48.639 It was a trip that wouldn't end. 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:54.960 They get on the plane, everybody's coughing, people are getting sick, people are collapsing. 00:02:55.199 --> 00:02:58.319 Finally, they get back to the U.S., to Atlanta. 00:02:58.479 --> 00:03:03.199 Thank you, France, for that gift, a great gift that they gave to us, this plane full of sick people. 00:03:03.360 --> 00:03:11.039 And they get to Atlanta, they land, they sit on the tarmac for three hours, nobody knows what to do with these people before they receive some help. 00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:14.639 One person said it was a trip from hell. 00:03:15.759 --> 00:03:20.159 And maybe you know what a trip from hell feels like as you went on it. 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:24.879 Maybe it wasn't that bad, but maybe it felt like that, where it just won't end, right? 00:03:25.039 --> 00:03:30.400 Like you're never safe, you're never relieved, you're never at home. 00:03:31.199 --> 00:03:36.479 Or maybe you know this other trip, the guilt trip, which can feel exactly the same way. 00:03:36.639 --> 00:03:43.840 It's the same feeling that this will never end, I'll never be relieved, I'll never be safe, I'll never be at home. 00:03:44.080 --> 00:03:50.479 And it's not whether you're guilty or not, because we all have guilt because we all do things, say things, think things we should not. 00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:52.319 So we all have guilt. 00:03:53.439 --> 00:03:57.039 The guilt trip is about keeping you in your guilt. 00:03:58.479 --> 00:04:00.080 Feeling condemned. 00:04:01.039 --> 00:04:04.000 And you can never do enough or be good enough. 00:04:04.319 --> 00:04:07.199 There's not enough self-pity to get yourself out of it. 00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:16.319 There's not enough self-pity that you won't pile on yourself or self-belittling that you won't do to yourself while you're on the guilt trip, and you're just stuck. 00:04:16.480 --> 00:04:19.120 Now, the feeling of guilt is legitimate. 00:04:19.199 --> 00:04:26.720 We have legitimate guilt, and godly sorrow can lead us to really good places confession, repentance, growth, health, restoration. 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:33.279 But the guilt trip is different because it's a sorrow that doesn't drive us to those places of confession, repentance. 00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:36.399 It's a sorrow that drives us toward condemnation. 00:04:36.560 --> 00:04:41.040 And it's so wonderful that the Bible has something to say to us. 00:04:41.199 --> 00:04:42.319 Because we all know that. 00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:48.079 Some of us live on a guilt trip, like it was a cruise ship you got on a long time ago and you hadn't gotten off of it. 00:04:48.240 --> 00:04:50.800 Others of us visit the guilt trip. 00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:53.839 But we all know the feelings. 00:04:54.800 --> 00:05:00.160 In verse 14, we read that in Jesus God purifies our conscience. 00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:02.079 So two words there to define. 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:03.439 The first is conscience. 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:14.079 So this is the part of your soul, your inner being, that knows the difference between right and wrong, the part of your inner self that distinguishes right and wrong. 00:05:14.160 --> 00:05:20.319 And therefore it's the part of the inner self that feels the weight and the burden when you do wrong. 00:05:20.639 --> 00:05:23.279 Okay, so that's what conscious is in this in this verse. 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:24.959 And then it says purify. 00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:27.120 Another way to say that is purge. 00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:32.240 So it means to cleanse or consecrate with more than enough power. 00:05:33.360 --> 00:05:39.360 So our conscience is purified, not by us and our work, but by the work of Jesus. 00:05:39.839 --> 00:05:53.120 So if you've ever been on a guilt trip and you know the feelings of self pity, self-belitting, beating yourself down, the way in which the conscience is purified is not by you doing enough or being enough. 00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:57.279 It's about resting and knowing the work of Jesus for you. 00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:04.639 You can rest and grow in a pure conscience by gift alone, even while not being perfect. 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:09.759 In 1955, Billy Graham was invited to speak at the University of Cambridge. 00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:14.240 So he was 36 years old, not well educated, but he was well known. 00:06:14.399 --> 00:06:17.839 So he gets this invite to go over to Britain to preach. 00:06:18.319 --> 00:06:42.000 University of Cambridge is full of the brightest minds of the entire world, and the press gets a hold of the fact that Billy Graham, this Southern preacher, is coming over to preach the brightest minds in the world, and the press and the academics just start to work him over, labeling him a fundamentalist because he believes the blood of Jesus is the path for forgiveness of sins. 00:06:43.199 --> 00:06:44.720 And he's intimidated. 00:06:44.959 --> 00:06:46.800 He said he was intimidated. 00:06:47.600 --> 00:06:52.879 But the first night he gets there, and one-fourth of the school shoves themselves into a building. 00:06:53.040 --> 00:06:57.360 2,000 students and teachers and faculty are there to hear him. 00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:00.399 The first two nights, nothing happens, nothing resonates. 00:07:00.560 --> 00:07:04.319 He preaches his sermons and he's trying to meet them intellectually on their level. 00:07:04.480 --> 00:07:07.279 He's trying to quote the right people and say all the right things. 00:07:07.360 --> 00:07:19.600 And then Wednesday night, he just sort of has nothing left of his own intellect to offer, and he sets aside his lecture, and he says, Let me tell you what I know about the cross of Jesus Christ. 00:07:20.079 --> 00:07:23.279 Here's what Anglican minister Dick Lucas says about that night. 00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:24.959 He was sitting there on the floor. 00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:25.920 He was sitting there. 00:07:26.079 --> 00:07:27.040 Here's what he says. 00:07:27.279 --> 00:07:29.439 I'll never forget that night. 00:07:29.759 --> 00:07:40.240 I was sitting in the totally packed chancel, sitting on the floor with the Regis professor of divinity sitting on one leg and the chaplain of a college who was a future bishop on the other. 00:07:40.480 --> 00:07:49.279 Both of these were very good men, but completely against the idea that you needed salvation from sin by the blood of Jesus Christ. 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:59.920 So dear Billy got up that night and he began at Genesis, and he went right through the whole Bible and talked about every single sacrifice you can imagine. 00:08:00.079 --> 00:08:05.279 The blood was just flowing all over the place, everywhere for three-fourths of an hour. 00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:11.920 And both my neighbors were terribly embarrassed by this crude proclamation of the blood of Christ. 00:08:12.160 --> 00:08:16.079 It was everything they disliked and everything they dreaded. 00:08:16.480 --> 00:08:24.480 But at the end of the sermon, Billy Graham dismissed the audience and invited anyone who wanted to stay behind and make a commitment to Christ to stay. 00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:30.639 And that night, to everyone's shock, 400 young women and men stayed. 00:08:31.839 --> 00:08:38.480 You see, the blood of Christ resonates for people who are at the end of themselves. 00:08:38.799 --> 00:09:05.759 And it doesn't matter how wealthy you are or how intellectual you are, your IQ, your net worth, how put together you appear to be, because if you are the end of yourself and you don't have anything to offer to make yourself right with God, to be forgiven, to feel forgiven, to feel pure, to be pure, and you're just into self-pity, you can't beat yourself up enough because you've let yourself down. 00:09:06.480 --> 00:09:12.399 You've hurt someone, you've said something, you've lived in disobedience, all these things. 00:09:12.799 --> 00:09:21.039 There is no better news than to hear that God loves you enough while you're a sinner to sacrifice himself in order to love you. 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:25.440 That's the good news we have in Jesus. 00:09:26.240 --> 00:09:27.919 Verse 12, we can reread it. 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:30.320 He, Jesus, entered once for all. 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:40.399 So final, nothing else to add to that, into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, securing eternal redemption. 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:49.360 So point number two is this because God shed his own blood for us, we don't have to sacrifice ourselves when we feel guilty. 00:09:50.639 --> 00:09:53.440 So the Hebrews believe that blood was life. 00:09:53.600 --> 00:09:54.559 Life was in the blood. 00:09:54.639 --> 00:09:55.840 And of course they believe that, right? 00:09:55.919 --> 00:09:59.840 Because you have an animal, the animal gets hurt, blood comes out of the animal, the animal dies. 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:03.120 So therefore, life must be in blood. 00:10:05.039 --> 00:10:10.000 So we can think about that as we read Leviticus 17, verse 11. 00:10:10.879 --> 00:10:14.240 For the life of a creature is in the blood. 00:10:15.279 --> 00:10:19.440 And I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar. 00:10:19.679 --> 00:10:23.759 It is the blood that makes atonement for one's life. 00:10:24.159 --> 00:10:28.559 So the animal's life for the person's life. 00:10:29.679 --> 00:10:31.360 It's a gift of forgiveness. 00:10:31.519 --> 00:10:41.600 But what we often do, and you know it because you do it and I do it, what we often do is we sacrifice ourselves to make up for our mistakes and our sin. 00:10:42.559 --> 00:10:43.919 Try to earn our way back with God. 00:10:44.080 --> 00:10:47.600 We feel like we're in a debt, we're in a hole, we're losing on the scoreboard. 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:50.639 Score a little bit more, climb our way out. 00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:55.120 But how much self-pity is needed before you feel welcomed by God again? 00:10:55.440 --> 00:10:57.120 Like how much it how much is it? 00:10:58.559 --> 00:11:01.519 One day, two days, three days, three months, three years? 00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:07.360 How much religiosity is needed after you really screw up, you really hurt someone? 00:11:07.600 --> 00:11:08.480 How do you measure that? 00:11:08.559 --> 00:11:10.000 How do you determine it? 00:11:11.279 --> 00:11:12.559 How many good deeds? 00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:14.159 How much spirituality? 00:11:14.399 --> 00:11:19.600 How many moralistic notions do you need to get off the guilt trip? 00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:27.440 All of that is the shedding of your own blood, sacrificing yourself over and over and over again. 00:11:28.399 --> 00:11:31.360 Rather than trusting in God's sacrifice for you. 00:11:31.440 --> 00:11:32.720 It's an act of love. 00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:41.200 Point number three is this your guilt trip can transform to a gospel journey of relief, gratitude, and joy in Christ. 00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:50.879 That's the transformation that can occur as we learn to rest and trust over and over again in the blood of Jesus for us, that we don't have to sacrifice ourselves. 00:11:51.039 --> 00:11:57.360 That we can move from a guilt trip to relief, gratitude, and joy in Christ as a way of life. 00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:02.720 The gospel implication here leads us to the idea of a confessional life. 00:12:03.919 --> 00:12:14.240 Confession becomes our avenue of repentance, that godly sorrow would be taken to God sufficiently because we know our conscience has been purged as a gift. 00:12:14.399 --> 00:12:15.679 We're purified. 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:21.120 And confession becomes a gift toward healing rather than a dread toward more guilt. 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:23.360 Because that's what I thought it was for a long time. 00:12:23.600 --> 00:12:26.799 The idea of to live confessional or to confess to God. 00:12:26.879 --> 00:12:37.679 That was me filling God in, and I will feel more dreadful and in fear of God until I do enough good, and then all of a sudden I'm back into the good graces of God. 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:40.159 That's what I thought confession was. 00:12:40.960 --> 00:12:54.559 But if our consciences are already purged, cleansed, and consecrated, then confession is us coming before God as a path of healing and health and growth and grace. 00:12:55.600 --> 00:12:58.240 Late pastor and author Jack Miller said this. 00:13:04.639 --> 00:13:06.720 Eliot called hollow men. 00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:11.840 Ask the Holy Spirit to make you willing to be searched by God. 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:15.679 And in turn, you will realize you are truly known by Him. 00:13:15.919 --> 00:13:20.960 Do not expect the process of searching to be always painless and pleasant, no, hardly. 00:13:21.120 --> 00:13:37.679 But you will begin to have the joy of a clear conscience and a deepening fellowship with Christ as you realize he is unafraid of what he exposes, willing to heal, awaiting your return to him. 00:13:38.399 --> 00:13:45.600 As you learn to thirst after Christ and drink of him, you will find the living waters of the Holy Spirit flowing through you. 00:13:45.840 --> 00:13:57.120 No longer will you be the shiny appearance of something good, but you will be really living, and from you waters will overflow into others' lives. 00:13:57.679 --> 00:14:07.440 So Jack Miller was saying we don't have to live as hollow people, hollow in the soul, building up a shiny exterior, performing or pretending. 00:14:08.720 --> 00:14:11.759 We don't have to live as a guilt-ridden people on a guilt trip. 00:14:13.600 --> 00:14:22.000 But as a grace-rescued people with pure consciences, purged or purified by the blood of Jesus. 00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:30.480 My brothers and sisters, rest and delight and savor, and be more astonished this morning by the sufficient blood of Jesus for you. 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:35.519 Sufficient for your sin, sufficient for your guilt, and sufficient for your purity. 00:14:36.559 --> 00:14:37.519 Let's pray to God. 00:14:38.720 --> 00:15:00.480 God, thank you for a few minutes here just to contemplate how sufficient and astonishing your blood for us is, that we no longer have to sacrifice ourselves either in a belittling of the self or in some performance before you. 00:15:01.759 --> 00:15:20.000 God, thank you that you find us in our brokenness, that you came to the cross while we were sinners, that you traded your life for our death, that we have the substitutionary atonement of Jesus for our hearts. 00:15:26.480 --> 00:15:31.440 That can sound crude and yet it resonates for all the guilt that we've ever felt. 00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:41.279 To know that a God loves us so much that He would sacrifice for us and find the way to forgive us apart from our works, but as a gift of grace. 00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:44.159 Amen.