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We're we're in a new series called All Things New. And I was thinking about our fascination, maybe even you might say obsession with newness in our world. We like new things. Just take uh a trip into the grocery store or to a store like Walmart or wherever you shop and go walk around Costco and see how many products you'll see this tag on that says new and improved. You ever notice that? It's everywhere. And they know it's like this is their way to say, uh, we're working on it, it's getting better, you should like this thing, right? So we like that. That's one way I see us being a little bit intrigued and obsessed with new, and so we pick it up, it's like, oh, it's new, better try that. You know? Uh there's also the fact that uh in our lives uh we get something, and within a short little amount of time, uh we're already ready for the new version. So, you know, this little thing called an iPhone. Some of you guys don't like these things, but I really don't like one, but I have one. Um because the fact is that you're always lured into the new version, the new, the new improved. It's like they release one, and the next day on BuzzFeed, they're already talking about the next one, right? That's just how it works because they're always trying to get us to upgrade and to get the new thing. Um and sometimes it's not always new stuff. Like I'm cracking up that all of the uh the youth, the students, the young people, uh, there's been a resurgence in turn to going back to the old things and making them new. And so, like this year, uh more vinyl were sold than CDs. So everybody's going to record players. Like my 14-year-old daughter has a record player, and I'm like, what is going on? Like, what we can go eight-track next and cassette, you know, we're gonna go back through it. I don't know, but it's about having something new and different, right? And we're intrigued by that. We like that. What's interesting about that is that with all of the interest and obsession we have with newness, in our spiritual lives, many times we try to go back to the old ways and to live in the old way. And in this series, we're saying we are called to be a new creature, a new creation in Christ. Not to go back to the old things, to the slavery and to the law, but to go into what's new and what's different and what's way, way, way by the way, better. Okay? And I want to explain to you what I mean by that this morning because for some of you you're like, yeah, yeah, I can see some head nods, and some of you are like, I don't know what you're talking about. And that's okay, because this is a safe place for us all to learn, to grow, to be on this journey together. But my hope is to paint a little bit of a picture that we're not just new creatures, but we live under a new covenant. Now, when you hear the word covenant in church, again, because it's not a word we use in our culture today, very often, it's very rare you would hear that, um, you might not really get what that means, and that's okay. Some of you are more familiar with your Bible than others. But let me just simply say that the way that we interact with God is different than the way that we used to interact with God, or humanity used to interact with God, before Jesus comes. Okay? And so it's for all of you that are a part of this church family, and maybe, again, if you're if you're guests and you just want to take a step of growth here, uh, we've challenged you to memorize a verse from 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Now I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hands, but how many of you actually memorized 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17 this week?

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Okay?

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If you weren't here last week, you get a free pass. But if you were here, let me challenge you again. You got three more weeks to do it. Let's memorize it, okay? Uh our kids and I have been working at it at the breakfast table in the morning. It's a simple little verse that says this. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. Okay? That's what we're looking at. We're saying, Lord, help us to live as a new creature, a new creature, a new creation. Okay? We want to be that. And so we know that that's what you've declared that we are, we know that's what the Bible says that we are. How do we actually experience that? How do we actually live that out? And for many of us, as I said, we may understand that we've been told we're a new creature, a new creation, but we still continue to try to live in an old system, an old way. And as I said a while ago, um, because we are new in Christ, as we're a new creature in Christ, we approach God in a new way. If you have your worship guide, that's your first blank, we're gonna uh encourage you to pull that out and to follow along, write some notes down. Uh there's gonna be some things I'm gonna share uh in a minute you might want to follow up on this week. But if we are a new creature, we now operate, we interact with, we approach, we connect with God in a new way. And we call that the new covenant. So, in order to help us understand what that means, I want you guys to jump into the text with me. Hebrews chapter 9. We go to the Bible, we're gonna look at what the Bible has to say, we're gonna learn from the Bible, and by God's Spirit, we're gonna ask Him to speak to us what He wants us to hear today. Okay? So, Hebrews chapter 9. We don't know who the writer of Hebrews is in terms of the man who pinned the words. Uh, there's some different thoughts on it. Uh, was it Paul? Uh he just seems to be a little bit different than the way Paul would typically write. Maybe it was one of his uh his partners, companions in the ministry, but we do know this that God inspired these words to be written, and then we can learn more about who we are, who God is, and we can be pointed to the person of Jesus through this text. And so, as we read from Hebrews chapter 9, I'm gonna read the first 10 verses, then we're gonna pause, talk a little bit about that, and then we're gonna read the second part, which is verses 11 through 15, and talk about the new way. So, hang with me, and let's read this together. It's on the screen if you need it. There's also some Bibles under the chairs around you. Now the first covenant also had regulations for ministry and an earthly sanctuary. For a tabernacle was set up, and in the first room, which is called the holy place, were the lampstand, the table, and the presentation loaves. Behind the second curtain, the tabernacle was called the most holy place. It contained the gold altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant, covered with gold on all of its sides, in which there was a gold jar containing the manna, Aaron's staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. The cherubim of glory were above it, overshadowing the mercy seat. It is not possible to speak about these things in detail right now. I'm gonna try to do a little bit of detail for you, but the writer says he couldn't do that. With these things set up in this way, the priests enter the first room repeatedly, performing their ministry. But the high priest alone enters the second room, and he does that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people committed in ignorance. The Holy Spirit was making it clear that the way into the most holy place had not yet been disclosed while the first tabernacle was still standing. This is a symbol for the present time during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the worshipper's conscience. Make note of that. They are physical regulations and only deal with food, drink, and various washings imposed until the time of restoration. Now, how many of you guys made it all the way through that with me? How many of you are like, what in the world did I just read? Okay, let's be really honest. Some of you are more familiar with the Bible, as I said earlier than others, but when I read that, I can I can tell you, I understand why some people who come to the Bible and they read it say, These people are crazy. Like, what is this Bible? Like, what is this who who who talks like this? Who does this kind of stuff? Bulls and goats and blood and sprinkling and all these regulations? Like, what is this all about? I mean, I get it. I understand why people would say that the Bible's archaic and it's outdated, it's and it's irrelevant. Because the question is, when I read that, I'm like, how does this actually mean something for me today? That's what I'm looking for. I'm like, how does that mean something to me right now in the 21st century? Not back then when they, you know, had camels and they had all the life that was very different from mine. I mean, what about today when I've got an iPhone, you know? What about today when I drive a car down the road and I've got all of the creature comforts that I have? How does that relate to my life today? Right? That's the question we want to know. And for some of us, when we read that, it just seems like checkout, done. I don't know where we're going with this, but I don't get it. And that's okay. So that's why we're here today to talk about this, because this is the old covenant. In a very, very brief, high-level summary. This is what God has set into motion for his people to practice in order to interact with him, to approach him. It was the way that he called them to while they were out in the wilderness. Uh they'd gotten out of slavery in Egypt. They're roaming around with Moses in the desert, headed to the promised land, headed to this place God had for them. And while they're doing that, God said, Here's what I want you to do to worship me. He said, I want you to make this thing called the tabernacle, which was basically a mobile tent. And it could be set up anywhere and everywhere. And by the way, these were not the only people that had a tabernacle. You might not know that, but the other people groups, other peoples and nations, tribes had tabernacle type things where they would worship their gods. But God's people were given the specific instructions that this is the kind of tabernacle they were to build, and they were to take it with them wherever they went. Wherever they would go as they wandered through the desert, they would have this place where they could worship God. They can meet with God. And so in this, you'll notice some things, um, and I thought it would be helpful. I'm gonna geek out for a second, okay? So for those of you that have seen this before or know this, just kind of you can just hang with me for a sec. For those of you that might be new, I want to show you what the tabernacle looked like briefly. We're not gonna get into a lot of pictures, okay? But just give you a little bit of sense of what was going on in this tabernacle. So you can notice there's a tent, a fence around. It's about seven and a half feet tall, so only the tallest basketball players in our day could see over. Um, but back then they were pretty short, so nobody could see in what was happening inside there. And you have the entrance curtain on this end. Now, the length of this whole thing, this is about 150 feet long and about 75 feet wide. Okay? Gives you an idea of how big this tabernacle was. And this this outside area is called the courtyard. All right? And that cool, that whole thing 150 by 75. And the first thing you would come to is you notice there's this man standing with a bull here, if you can see that far. My wife would get onto me for that, but I could see it. So the there's a brazen altar, uh, and they would actually uh kill animals and they would burn them on the altar. So basically, if I were a priest back in the day, um, you show up to the tabernacle, and I don't mean this to be sacrilegious, but it probably smelled a lot like Franklin's, okay? And so it smelled like there was a lot of meat being killed, there was a lot of burning of meat. All right? So so priests were a lot like butchers. All right? There was a lot of that going on as they would come to these places, then they would sacrifice. And as you get to that altar, they would then move past that altar to the brazen labor, which is actually a bowl, and in it was water, and they would wash themselves. They would cleanse themselves, they had to go through ceremonial cleansings, and they would wash their hands, they wash their bodies, they wash themselves in order to be ready and prepared to go into the actual tabernacle itself. So that's what you see in the kind of the outer courts of this area out here, and then you go into the tabernacle. Now, when you get to the tabernacle area, uh it was 45 feet long by 15 feet wide by 15 feet high. And there were three items that we find inside the tabernacle. It was listed in the text that we just read, so I'm just kind of rehashing these with you. One is the golden lampstand. The golden lampstand, uh, because there was no windows in the tabernacle, uh, there were four layers of cloth and animal skins that would cover that up, so it was dark in there. So every day, the priests, certain of the priests, were given the task of going in and lighting the lampstand so that you could see inside the tabernacle. And so they would go in and they would perform that part of the ceremony of lighting the uh the lampstand. The second thing you would find is a table with bread. It was called the bread of the presence. And there were twelve loaves on this table. Okay? And so on this table, they would they would replace that bread every Sabbath day, and whatever was left at the end of the week, the priests had to eat. So they had to bring their appetite on the Sabbath day, because on that day, whatever bread was there, it was holy bread, they had to eat it. And some people would say that this points to the fact that Jesus is the bread of life. Okay? This was in the tabernacle as well. The third thing that you would find is you would find the golden altar of incense. And this was where incense was burned 24-7. It would fill the place with an aroma, a smell. Now, I don't know what that smell was like, but if you've ever been around incense, it's very strong, right? And you you some of you like burn little mini incenses in your house, but but you'd have this incense going, and it would continuously fill the place with this aroma. And so those are the three things you would find. But then you notice that he says that there's another place behind the curtain, and it's called the most holy place. And inside the most holy place, you would find, which also could be called the Holy of Holies, you'd find the Ark of the Covenant. Now, I know all of you guys are Indiana Jones fans, so you know what the Ark of the Covenant is, right? Even if you haven't read your Bible, you've seen that. And there was this thing called the Ark of the Covenant. Now, it was a box that God had told them again to put together, and he designed it a specific way with specific dimensions, specific materials and instructions, and you'll notice there's like these little loops, and they would put rods through it because they were un, they were uh told, do not touch the ark. In fact, there's a story in scripture where the guys were carrying the ark. It's such a cool story where David says they they would take six steps, then they would set the ark down, and then they would praise and worship God, and then they take six more steps, and then they stop, and then they praise and worship God. It was it took them a long time to get to where they were going, but they literally worshiped God each step of the way. And at one point, the ark kind of they stumbled and it about spilled out, and somebody reaches out and grabs it, and you know what happened? They died. Okay, that's what the Bible says. They died because it was a holy, they were told not to touch. All right? Um, and so that's that's what was, and you'll notice the top of it was made of gold, and then you have these two funky looking angel things called the cherubim, and they were there again, and in the middle of that, uh, that's called the mercy seat. That's the place where God's glory was shown. Now, what's interesting is that only one man once a year went into this place. One man once a year, he would go into this part of the Holy of Holies for one purpose. To sacrifice to atone, to put blood on the mercy seat, and to, on behalf of all the people, say, God, would you deal with our sin? Would you remove our guilt? Okay? For one, once a year uh on the Day of Atonement. That's that's when that would happen. All right? And so that gives you a little bit of sense. And by the way, if you if you would like to know more, you can read the book of Leviticus, because it's a really fun book to read. Um, a lot of things about holiness and blood and sacrifices and the whole system. You can read the whole thing. Chapter 16 specifically speaks to this issue of the Day of Atonement. And you can read that this week if you'd like to and learn more about that. But here's the problem all of this stuff, all of this stuff, right, couldn't actually fix the problem that we have and the problem that they have. I'm gonna get that into that in a minute. To summarize this sort of brief overview of the tabernacle, we find that these tabernacle elements and these tabernacle practices they foreshadow something and they symbolize something, don't they? If you're a Christ's follower, you've been around the church long enough, you've probably heard parts of this, but I want to just give three ways that we see how this symbolizes something that's meaningful to us today. Because you may still be asking the question, well, how does this relate to me? I came in this week, I'm struggling with depression, I'm struggling with fear, I'm struggling with anxiety, I'm struggling with my bank account not having enough money in it, I'm struggling with work people at my workplace. How does this have anything to do with any of that? Just hang with me. See, first off, the tabernacle was a visual sermon showing the beauty and the holiness of God. One thing I didn't tell you is that when you were in the outer courts and you worked your way in, it started with bronze. But as you got closer and closer to the Holy of Holies, it went to gold. And it went to precious jewels. Why? Because it was showing that as you get closer to God's presence, it becomes more and more important. It's more and more significant. And so there was a sense in which the tabernacle, this mobile worship place, was a visual illustration, sermon of the beauty and the glory and the grandeur of our awesome God. And so the people would see that and they would see and be reminded of how significant the presence of God was and how important God was, and how holy He was. The second thing he says is that the tabernacle was not only a reminder of God's holiness, it was a reminder of man's sinfulness. It was a reminder of man's brokenness. It was a reminder of man's problem, the rebellion. And that when you see the tabernacle, you're reminded what? Only a few people actually ever got to go in there. If that's where God's presence is, don't you want to be in God's presence? Don't you want to be with God? Don't you want to know God and be able to connect with God? Absolutely. We take this so for granted today. But when they saw it, they saw it that only the Levites, only this select group of priests could go in and actually perform the sacrifices on behalf of the people, and only one man annually got to go into the Holy of Holies where God's glory resided. And it reminds us that people were sinful. It reminded them of that. And the third thing, and I think this is the most significant thing, is that the tabernacle and the practices that were taking place there point us to Jesus. They symbolize the coming, the forthcoming of Jesus. And so they tell us through these things that Jesus is coming and that there is a greater sacrifice, there is a greater system, a greater way, which we call the new covenant, that now humankind gets to live in. In fact, John chapter 1, if you know the book of John well, it's a great book of the Bible to tell people to start in if they've never read the Bible before. But John chapter 1, the first 18 verses describe Jesus' incarnation, his coming to the earth as a man. And one of the phrases in there, it says that Jesus came and he dwelled among us. You heard that before? That word dwelled actually can be interchanged with the word tabernacled. Jesus came and tabernacled among us. Now, if we heard that, we'd be like, I don't know what that means. So the translators use the word dwelled. Makes a lot more sense to us. Point is this that when Jesus comes, he is now fellowshipping, he is now with us, he is Emmanuel, God with us, right? We call him that, we talk that about that at Christmas, that Jesus is now God made flesh among us. He tabernacled with us. So what is this new way? And what is the connection between all these Old Testament practices and the relevance for our life today? Well, that's the old way that people connected with God. They dealt with their sin. And I want you to notice in the text as we turn the corner, verse 9, it says this. I'm gonna read it again. This is a symbol for the present time during which gifts and sacrifices are offered. And notice this phrase that cannot perfect the worshipper's conscience. Here's something I know about you, and without even knowing one name or face or person back in that time, I could tell you without exception. Every human being who's ever walked the face of this earth has dealt with a guilty conscience. Has dealt with a guilty conscience. A sense of unworthiness, a sense of falling short, a sense of not measuring up, a sense of desiring for acceptance and feeling unloved, of not being able to do enough. How do I know this? Because I've sat with countless human beings and talked with them about this and how much guilt they feel, but I've also dealt with my own heart. Even this week, my wife, she brought something to my attention that in my life God's working on. You know, the great thing about being married is you have the Holy Spirit and you have your wife, right? And so you can really grow and you can learn if you listen, if you be humble, you'll be teachable. And my wife brought something to my attention this week that I needed to work on. Something that that I didn't even see. I was a little bit blindsided by, and she brought it to my attention. And you know what my immediate response was? To sulk. Actually be a little bit angry, like, you can't talk to me like that. Don't tell me that. I don't want to know that. I mean, at least inside, and I was saying all those things. I was trying to be nice. But I was hurting, I was like, that that stinks. I don't want to hear that. Because that's the way our human nature is. We we have a guilty conscience, and we tend to be feeling shame, feel fear, anxiety, and all of us in this room have dealt with that. We are dealing with that on a daily basis because we have this part of us in our humanness, just like Adam from way back in the beginning, that is sinful, that's broken, that's fallen. And we know that something's not right. And I know also that many of us in this room are trying to find ways to fix that. If not all of us are trying to fix that, I believe that. And so here's here's what I want you to see that in verse 11 we get a transition. And here's the relevance because we now have a way to deal with that guilty conscience. You know what it is? It's not gonna be a surprise. If you've been here much, you know it's the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus is. Is the only way to actually fix that guilty conscience that is inside of you. When you said something you shouldn't have said, when you did something you shouldn't have done, when you lost your temper, when you lashed out at your spouse, when you got angry at your kids, when you said when you set told a lie at work to make yourself look better so that they didn't know what was really going on. Whatever you did in your life where you have sinned, there is one way to fix that guilty conscience that you now have. That's the blood of Jesus. How about this? When you didn't do the good things that you know you should do, when you didn't share the gospel with somebody, you miss that opportunity and you feel that guilt. That happened to me a couple weeks ago. I had the opportunity for my wife and I, we play golf once a year together. Just once. It's good for our spiritual growth, but um we play golf together, and we we got paired up with these two guys. And the whole time I'm I'm I'm saying, Lord, I know I should share the gospel with them. And I'm praying for that. I'm not always hyper spiritual. I'm just telling you, I felt that. And I and I missed the opportunity. In fact, the guy asked me point blank, so what do you do? And I said, I'm a pastor. And then his golf game got really bad, okay? But I didn't share the gospel, and I wish I would have, and I felt some remorse about that. What am I saying? We we we all carry around guilt for things that we have done and things that we haven't done that we know we should do. But thankfully, there is an antidote, there is a solution, and it's the blood of Jesus. You see, let's read verse 11 through 15 together. Says this. But the Messiah has appeared, that's Jesus, high priest of the good things that have come, in the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with human hands, that is, not of this creation, he entered the most holy place once for all, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of the Messiah, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to gl to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance, because a death has taken place for redemption from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. Now I know there's a lot of big words in there, but the point is this. First, we have a new, we have a new high priest. We have a new high priest, and his name is Jesus. Remember what I said earlier? Only once a year could the high priest go into the Holy of Holies and deal with the people's sin and present that blood on the mercy seat as an offering to God to say, God, would you take away our guilt? Would you take away the would you cleanse us externally? And so he would do that. But now we have a high priest, and he's not a human being alone. He was human, but he was but he was also fully God. And he is our high priest, and he is a better high priest. He is a perfect high priest. He was a sinless high priest. He didn't have to go through ceremonial washing and cleansing in order to go into the Holy Holies, right? Because he was perfect. He was sinless. He was without blemish, is what the writer of Hebrews just told us. So we have a new high priest. He was the mediator. He bridges the gap between God and man. You want to know how people get to God? You know how people get to heaven? Through Jesus. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. It's only through the person of Jesus that people can be saved. That's really, really huge that you hear that. Because there are a lot of people who will tell you there are other ways to get to God. The Bible clearly states that Jesus is the only mediator between God and man. If you don't hear anything else I say today, hear that God has made a way to himself and to his eternity that he wants for you to have through the person of Jesus, through our high priest. Secondly, we not only have a great, a new high priest, we have a new tabernacle. There's a new tabernacle. Notice what he says there. What? It's a more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands. What is he talking about? He's saying that Jesus didn't go into this little room that was set up by people. I mean, when Jesus was on the scene, they had the temple. It was much more elaborate than the tabernacle, but still had the same concept that there was a holy of holies, a place where they would go and pay the sins for the sins of the people through these sacrifices. But what about Jesus? Where did he go? He didn't go into the Holy of Holies on the earth. No, he went into the heavens. He went into the throne room of God. He went before the Father, and he was able to pay for the price of our sin forever and ever and ever. Not just for an annual redemption, but an eternal one. That's the Jesus that we serve. That's the Jesus that we trust in. He is our high priest. He's gone into the heavens, the new tabernacle, into the throne room of God, because he has access in his perfection. We don't, but he does. And then we have a new sacrifice. He didn't have to use blood of goats and bulls, did he? No, his own blood was spilled. Jesus was not only the priest, he was the sacrifice. He was our sacrifice for us to cover our sin, to clean our conscience. So he didn't just shed the blood of these animals, he shed his own blood. Now, some of you guys know that we went to Indonesia back in October and we took a team over there. It was the second time I've been there, and I love going to Indonesia. But one of the things that fascinates me is when you go to Indonesia, people that live there, specifically when we went to Bali and we were talking with Hindus, they still practice sacrifices. In fact, I'm wearing a bracelet. This is a reminder to me daily to pray for my friends in Indonesia, to pray for the folks that we met while we were there. And on it, you'll notice that there's three colors. They're kind of getting dingy, but there's red, black, and white. And the red on here represents for us when we talk to them about the gospel, the blood that Jesus spilled. Now, this is significant because my wife and I we were talking to this man who owned sort of a zoo. And don't think zoo like we think of zoos. Think like he had a few animals that were fun to play with, and they were out there and you could pet them, right? Think like little kitty petting zoo, but with um big bats and big snakes and uh big iguanas and some things like that. And so we went over there and we saw this man, we're talking to him, we're holding these different animals. I start sharing the gospel with him, and then through the process, my wife gets to start talking to his 17-year-old daughter. They're Hindu and they perform all the sacrifices. They go to the temple regularly. In fact, it keeps them impoverished in many ways because they have to pay so much money to keep these temples up and going so they can keep doing the sacrifices, so they can feel like their consciences are clean. Isn't that interesting? And so they feel like they have the blessings and they can keep away the bad spirits and invite the good spirits. So this is still going on in modern day. Sacrifices. But what was so fascinating is I was talking to the dad who owned this little petting zoo. I look over my the guy I'm talking to, I look over his shoulder, and my wife is talking to this 17-year-old, and I just see her face light up. I mean, I'm talking like just light up. I saw her eyes get bright, and I didn't know what she was saying. She spoke pretty good English, and she was trying to translate to her mom as Jada was talking. And in that moment, the one thing I heard her say is she said, So there's only one sacrifice? No, no need for more sacrifices? And I never thought about it in that way until I saw this girl explaining as a 17-year-old girl living in the 21st century who was still living in a system where they sacrificed animals to try to deal with their sin. And I want to say to you today that maybe you and I don't sacrifice animals, but many of us are still operating in the old system, trying to sacrifice in order to get God's love, to get God to forgive us, to get God to accept us, to get God's approval. And it was in that moment, even as I watched that young girl, I'm like, God, you set us free from that system. Jesus, you are the sacrifice. You were the one sacrifice once and for all to cleanse our guilty conscience, to fix the gap between God and man and to reconcile us, like we talked about last week, the relationship that we are supposed to have with God. You see, there's some results that the text gives us. The results are this. Verse 14. How much more will the blood of the Messiah, that's Jesus' blood, spilled, right? Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish, because he was perfect, cleanse our consciences from dead works to serve the living God. Two things I note there. A clean conscience and the end of dead religion. If you were going to just replace dead works there, you could just replace it with the word religion. Because religion is what people do to try to get God to accept them and to forgive them. You see, so many people in this world, and myself included many times, are going through life trying to do religious things in hopes that God will forgive them, and hopes that God will accept them. I see this so much to be true in my life. I see this so much to be true in the lives of many people around me. When I talk with men who are struggling with addiction, pornography, drugs, alcohol, when I think about women who are struggling with image or when they're struggling with anger at their kids, or whatever it is, I see how we try to make up for that. Let me tell you a quick story. I remember this has always been a part of my nature because when I was a child, I remember a time when my brother and I, we were told after school, I want you to go home and I want you to do your homework and wait for us and we'll be there. And this wasn't normal for us. Some of you guys may have grown up latch key kids. You guys even know what that term is? We've got so many young people in the room, like, I don't know what latch key is. That was a big deal back in my day, your latch key kids where kids would go home and they had a key somewhere, you know, and they'd get in their house, they would sit there, and they'd wait for their parents to get home who were at work. But that wasn't normal for me. But my brother and I, we went home one day after school, and my parents had said, you got two hours, roughly, about an hour and a half to two hours. And then whenever uh we get home, things be good. We hope you you have done what we've asked you to do. And that's exactly what we did, right? No, we get home, and to shorten this story, uh let me just tell you that really quickly, we we had gotten a brand new answering machine at our house, and uh it was one that had little tape in it, you know. Uh, and we didn't know how to use it yet, but but we were flashing at us when we got home, and so we we like pushed the button and nothing happened, so we thought, okay, oh well, we'll just move on. And then my brother and I proceeded for the next 90 minutes to have a war with whipped cream out of our uh fridge, and we were wrestling, we were being completely dumb, and uh just just ridiculous, right? And at the end of that time, we kind of cleaned things up, and my parents came home. And one of the first things they did is walked over to the new answering machine to see if anybody had left any messages. Well, there's a feature on those answering machines called memo, where basically it records everything that's going on. You know I'm going here. So after 30 minutes of rewinding that little tape, because it took forever to rewind it back to the first, then it begins to play. And you begin to hear the story unfold of me and my brother. And at first I see a puzzled look on my parents' face, and then I see them start to get red and angry. Because we had, you know, when they walked to the door, had all of our homework, we were just doing it. Hey, how are y'all doing? Thanks, it's been great. Man, we've been awesome. Needless to say, we were caught. And in that moment, I did what every human being does, right? First, we deny. What? I don't know. I don't know, man. I don't know. Somebody must have called and left us a weird message. That's just odd. That was our first attempt. And the second attempt, butter them up. Just be as sweet as we possibly can, right? Hey, you need me to do the dishes? I can go do the dishes for you while you're finishing listening to that. You know, you need me to sweep something, you clean something, organize something. So we begin to try to make up for it. You know, same thing is true for all of us in this room. We we usually try to make up for the things, even when we're caught, even when we know we are caught red-handed. Because the truth of the matter is that we don't like the guilt. We don't like the shame, and we don't like the consequences. But we're reminded that Jesus has cleared our conscience and he's ended our dead religion. What's dead works? Dead works are any things that we try to do to make up for our sin. Anything that we are trying and attempting to do to try to fix the gap on our own. For some people, they think, and I just hear me out. I love you. If this is you, I want you to know that all of us have different ways of doing this. Some people think if I go to church on Sunday, that'll make me feel better before God, it'll help my conscience. And that's the motivation. Some people say, well, if I just go on a mission trip, then that'll make me feel better. Or if I just put money in the offering plate, then that'll make me feel better. Listen, we don't believe in penance. We believe that Jesus Christ's blood takes care of our guilt, takes care of our sinfulness, our rebellion, and our shame. All the things that we try to do, for some, it may be even just try to be a good husband. If I'm a good enough husband, then God will forgive me for my bad stuff. Or if I'm a good enough dad, God will forgive me for my bad stuff. Listen, the only thing that's going to take care of the guilt and the conviction you feel is the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus. You see, we're no longer driven by guilt but grace. We're no longer driven by guilt but grace. Guilt is a powerful motivator. I watch it all the time. I watch moms who measure themselves against the Pinterest birthday parties. I watch them, watch the dads, you know, who measure themselves against certain things in their lives and that certain guy who has a particular job or particular car. I see people have certain things that they offer, I see, I see certain ways we compare ourselves, but guilt is a powerful motivator when we don't feel like we're good enough, we don't feel like we've done enough, we don't feel like we've we've been kind enough or provided enough or whatever it is. Guilt is a powerful motivator. And it would be easy for me on a Sunday morning, week after week, to just try to guilt you into following and obeying God, but that's religion. And we believe the gospel. We don't believe in dead religious works, we believe in the living work that Jesus Christ performed on our behalf. We believe that what Christ has done through going to the cross, through paying a price for our sin, once and for all, again, has dealt with the guilt. And now we are motivated and driven by grace. Religion seeks to motivate people on the basis of guilt, but the gospel, the new way, seeks to motivate people on the basis of forgiveness of guilt. Religion makes you feel guilty. The gospel says you are guilty, but in Christ you can be forgiven. Don't misunderstand. The reason we feel guilt is because we are wrong. But there's hope. There is restoration, there is redemption. There is in Christ forgiveness. The old way says do. Keep on doing religious things. Just keep doing, doing, doing, and maybe it'll match up, and maybe it'll add up, and maybe God will be okay with it. The gospel says done. Christ is sufficient. I mentioned it earlier, and I'll say it again. There's a day on the calendar that was more important than any other day for the people of Israel in the old covenant. It was the day of atonement. And on that day, that high priest would go into the Holy of Holies. But you know what else he would do? They'd take a goat, and the high priest would lay his hands on the head of the goat. And it was to symbolize the sin of the people being transferred to this goat. Sounds kind of odd, but it was a symbol for them, as a way for them to say, the sins of humanity, the sins of our people, they're now being transferred to this goat, and he was called the scapegoat. That's where you get that term that people still use today, the scapegoat. And there's a man I read about this week named Charles Simeon. He died back in 1836. And he was sharing some of the details of his conversion experience when he put his trust in Christ, when he came to faith, when he received forgiveness of his sin, for his sin. And it says this He said he was reading about the Day of Atonement and about the scapegoat. And in the moment, he thought to himself, Where can I transfer all of my guilt? Where can I put all this dirty conscience that I feel? What can I do with my sinfulness? And the Spirit of God, as clear as day, spoke to him and said, Jesus is your scapegoat. Jesus is the one who all of your sin and the rebellion and consequences can go on and take care of those guilty issues that you are dealing with. And so he chose to lay his sins on Jesus that day and he received the gift of salvation. Have you done this? Have you put your trust in Jesus and stopped trying to earn your way to God? Have you ended your dead works? Are you still just doing your dead works hoping? Praying that somehow it'll eliminate your guilty conscience. If you want to walk out of this room today with a burden lifted, with a guilty conscience removed, put it on Jesus. He can take it. In fact, he has. At the cross, he paid the price for your sin and for mine. If you are a Christ follower, stop going back to the old way. Stop trying to go back to the old way of dead works. No, you see, the fact is that in Ephesians 2.8, it says that we are saved by grace through faith, not from works, so that no one can boast. But we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. We are motivated no longer by guilt but by grace. And the things that we do now are now worshipful responses to what we have already received in Christ. Not making up for our mistakes. That's huge, isn't it? That's huge. Let me pray that for us this morning. God, I thank you for the time we've had together this morning, and I thank you for your word. I thank you that even though this passage is full of words and language and things that feel disconnected, they're actually pointing to something that we all can relate with. That we need your help. We need your forgiveness. We need your redemption. We need your restoration. We need your cleansing of our guilty conscience. So that we can serve you, bless you, live for you from a place of knowing we are forgiven, free, made new. We're under the new covenant. And we thank you for that. We praise you for that. Jesus, I just pray that you would speak to us even during this time. And if there are people in this room who've been sitting in church a long time, but they've never received that exchange of their guilt for your grace, that today might be that day, it might be that moment. And I pray that in your name, Jesus. Amen.