Based on His Ultimate Sacrifice, Part 1

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. If a single drop of poison falls into a gallon of water, the whole gallon becomes deadly. Likewise, sin is not just a small part of us.

It has infiltrated and polluted humanity. God opposes that which destroys good, just as doctors will try to eliminate cancerous cells that destroy the body. In the Old Testament, animal blood made atonement for sin so that God could draw near to His people. But this was a temporary covering, a shadow pointing to the One who would come. Hebrews 9 26 says that Christ has appeared to put away sin.

How? By the sacrifice of Himself. Only Jesus could fully and permanently atone for our sin, eradicating the poison, transforming hearts. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Thank you, Jesus. Let's listen in on this sermon from Hebrews 9, titled, Based on His Ultimate Sacrifice. Now I want to begin today with a little bit of review, and that is the question, what is a covenant? Because this section of scripture is talking very much about a covenant. We're talking about that last time, what is a covenant? And it is to place the word covenant comes from the meaning to place between two, to place between two, two parties. Therefore, there is relationship.

There is the need, the desire for relationship. And a covenant is something that is placed between two. So it's kind of like a contract or a will. It also has the idea of an arrangement to behave in a certain manner. A good word for this is disposition.

With that arrangement between two, it is the agreement saying, this is how I will be towards you. This is how I will behave towards you. This is my disposition towards you. And so we've been talking about how God had a change in disposition. God's disposition toward us has changed.

Here's the problem. Some people might think, well, God just changed His mind. God didn't just change His mind and say, OK, now I have a new disposition towards you. There is a basis to this new disposition that He has toward us. Remember, in the Old Testament, a major emphasis of the Old Testament was separation between a holy God and sinful man. Whereas in the New Testament, the major emphasis is reconciliation between holy God and sinful man. That God has done the work to redeem us, to bring us back to Himself.

What is the basis for the change in this disposition? Well, it's what we find in verse 26. At the end of verse 26, Christ, the word He is a reference to Christ, has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Now, what the writer of Hebrews is offering us here in this section, particularly chapter 7, 8, and 9, and particularly here in chapter 9, is a historical context. Clear that even the readers of his day didn't have a full grasp with the significance of all the sacrifices that were offered in the Old Testament.

Because when you look at the Levitical sacrificial system, the Levitical priesthood, and the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, lots of sacrifices, lots of rituals, massive amounts of blood shed in these sacrifices. And we can sit here today having experienced and having had the benefits of grace for all of these years, almost 2,000 years now, and we're so far removed from that, and that seems like such ancient history. And we can think, why do we need all this history? Why do I even need to bother to read the Old Testament? It's just so old and it's so far removed from me.

What does this have to do with me? Let me encourage you to understand the Old Testament in this way. If there's two things that we learned from the Old Testament, one is the holiness of God, and number two is the sinfulness of man. The holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. Now, in the New Testament, now being under this age of grace after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, if we take grace for granted, if we just become so used to it and so complacent in it, if we take it for granted, then we have the tendency to diminish the holiness of God and to minimize the vile destructiveness of sin.

How many people today say, well, you know, I'm not that bad of a person. That is exactly what the Old Testament teaches us is not true. Sin is vile and it is destructive and we cannot forget that. A couple of things here to just illustrate this, the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. If God is a gallon jug of pure, distilled water, nothing impure at all. Scriptures tell us that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. God dwells in unapproachable light, it says. If you were to take that gallon of distilled, pure water and you were to take one little drop of a very, very powerful poison called ricin, take one tiny little drop and just drop it in that gallon of water, is that water pure anymore?

It's not. You see, you cannot take absolute purity and the most minuscule amount of impurity and maintain purity. But see, the problem is God made us so that we can enjoy him, so that we can be with him and fellowship with him.

There's the problem. His holiness can also be seen in this sense. God is a consuming fire. This is what Hebrews tells us in chapter 12. God is a consuming fire. His holiness consumes everything that is contrary to his character and his purpose, which are both perfect, absolutely perfect.

And his holiness is such that he will consume anything that is contrary to it. It's like somebody deciding to travel to the sun, supposing we could. Supposing we could discover a way to travel faster than the speed of light and we can get to the sun in, let's say, a week.

Okay? It takes eight months just to get to Mars right now, you understand, right? But let's say we can get to the sun and somebody says, I'm going to travel to the sun. How close do you think they'd be able to get?

Not very close at all. They would be absolutely consumed by the heat of the sun and so is the holiness of God. If we are going to be anywhere near him and be able to enjoy him, then the essence of our nature needs to be of the same purity as his so that we can commune with him and fellowship with him. Do you see the problem there? And the Old Testament teaches us and reminds us of how absolutely holy and pure God is, but it also teaches us and reminds us of our own sinfulness. And the two can't mix.

There's the problem. And that's why in the Old Testament, a major emphasis was separation, the necessary separation between holy God and sinful man. This is why we have this historical context. This is why the Leviticus, the Old Testament, the biblical context, this is why the Levitical sacrificial system. This is how we need to understand the Old Testament. So let's make sure that one, we don't take grace for granted. Two, we do not diminish the holiness of God. And three, we don't minimize our own sinfulness. We have lots of different words and names and titles and labels for sin today, don't we?

But the Bible just simply calls it that, sin. Genesis chapter 2 17, as God was talking to Adam and Eve in the garden, he says, you can have everything in this garden, but you see that tree of evil, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? He says, you can't touch that. Stay away from that tree. You can't have it. I don't want that for you.

Adam and Eve can have everything else. And God says, in the day that you eat of it, finish it with me. You shall surely die. You shall surely die.

Why? Because eating that would mean that they then would rebel against thinking they know better. And they then would do something that is contrary to the character and purpose of God.

And God would necessarily have to remove them from himself. When God said, in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. It's not just a vengeful attitude. God was saying, you must, this is something that must happen. If you do anything that is contrary to my character and purpose, I can't have you near me because God has absolute perfect holiness and purity. So we need to define sin because that's exactly what they did.

That was the beginning of it there. And that sin passed on to you and me. And we're born with that. So let's be careful to decide, define sin here. So many people have a whole list of all these things are all sins and everybody has a different list. What we need to do is just give it a very simple definition.

So understand this. OK, what is sin? Sin is any thought or behavior, any thought or behavior. You see, sin isn't just behavior.

It starts in the mind. Sin originates in the mind of the created being. Sin is any thought or behavior that is contrary to the perfect character and purpose of God. Any thought or behavior that is contrary to the perfect character and purpose of God. And what we need to understand about ourselves is that sin isn't just something that has infected me and therefore there's a part of me that's sick. Sin isn't just a part of who we are. Every aspect of my being and of your being has been marred and poisoned by this vileness.

Every aspect. Not just physically, intellectually. Your mind has been affected, infected, by the vile destructiveness of sin. And therefore your thought patterns, your emotions, your intellect, all of that poisoned by the vileness of sin. Particularly spiritually, we have the problem of death, spiritual death, being separated from God.

Look at it this way. If life is a computer, then sin is a virus that destroys the hard drive. The whole computer is affected by it.

Every function of the computer is affected by it. Every function that you and I can do, beginning with thought and desire and emotion, every function is impacted by sin. Sin is vile. We're so glad you've joined us for Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. You can hear this message and others anytime by visiting our website, www.delightingrace.com. You can also check out our website at www.delightingrace.com. You can also check out Pastor Rich's book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life, where he unpacks from God's Word the very purpose for which you were designed. Seven Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace, weekdays at 10 a.m.