Confidence in Christ: Entering God's Presence

The passage I want to use this morning is one that those of you in the Bible study time earlier have been looking at, Hebrews chapter 10 beginning with verse 19. You don't have to look very far around you to see that there is conflict everywhere in the world. You open the newspaper, you turn on the television, you see that an airplane was shot down, 296 people dead. Conflict is around us everywhere we go. We know that there is conflict not only on the world scene, it's because people have chosen to refuse submission and obedience to what God wants for them. That's the source of all the conflict. It's also conflict on the side of people who are in homes, individuals. You don't have to live in this world very long before your friend tells you the things that they've gone on in their lives. The conflict with their family, conflict with their neighbors, conflict at work. Everywhere in the world there is conflict. People are not together as one. Neither with God nor with each other. This is not really what God intended when the world was created. He created a place where people could live together in harmony, both with Him and with each other. That was His intention. All of the conflict that you see is a result of one thing. People have chosen to say, I will not do what God wants me to do. The result of this is overwhelming to us. We see it everywhere around us. But God's effort in trying to be able to change this is what we call His act of atonement. His work of bringing the separated people from Him to Him. And not only that, but to bring together people in oneness. God's goal is exactly what it was in the Garden of Eden. I want you to be close to me and I want you to live together in harmony and in relationship with each other. That is God's goal. He said if you learn to love me with all your heart, your soul and your strength, then you will learn how to love each other. If you love me, then you will love my children. This is God's great plan. It's true that the majority of the people in the world are not headed where God wants them to go. Jesus said the way is narrow that leads to life. The gate is wide that leads to destruction. So we know that most of the people in the world around us on the final day of their life when they open their eyes are going to hear God say, I don't know you. That's true for most of the world. It's true for people that don't go to church. It's also true for people who claim to be a part of a church. God has let us know that his plan for us is different than what you see in the world around you. God wants us to find two things. He wants us to find a way in which our lives are at one with him and to find a way in which our lives are at one with each other. That's his goal. And you can look around you and see that it's far from accomplished. For what we really see around us are conflicts everywhere. Not only people who are outside the church but people who are inside the church too. It's not uncommon to hear people that get mad at church, that get upset about church, that leave churches, go somewhere else, drop out of church. It's true here too. For the job of reconciling people one to another is a very difficult job. No, I suppose that's not quite correct. It's an impossible task for us. That's why the work of Christ is so important to us. Because what he's done is provided a means whereby we might become one with him and one with each other. As difficult as that seems, impossible as it seems, it is the work that God claims to be able to do. The passage in Hebrews is addressed at people who are struggling with some issue with God. They become followers of Christ, which meant they left their Jewish community, the synagogues, had become meeting with the small groups of believers in the towns where they were. Oftentimes they would be able to stay in the synagogues for a while, but because of their commitment to Christ, they were oftentimes seen as enemies of the Jewish nation. And so the many synagogues actually kicked them out, which means it's no longer possible for them to sit with the people they'd grown up with. Most people lived in the same communities, never left their hometowns, never traveled more than 10-15 miles from home. They were kicked out of their own churches that they'd been a part of since they were small children. And then the Roman government saw the Christian movement as a dangerous thing to itself and started making it illegal for them to meet. So the believers who were here, to whom this was written, were facing a tremendous difficulty. We started following Christ, but look at the difficulty it's brought to us. What are we going to do about it? Can we continue in this? This letter was written to say, no, it is the truth. Christ has come, and the way of life has been given to you. Through this book, the writer points out that if they went back into this Jewish religion, what would they be facing? Would they look at Christ and say he was less than the angels? No, he was greater than the angels. Would they look at the law of Moses, which was the backbone of the Jewish religion? No, he was greater than Moses. There was no one in all the world who was greater than Christ. Why would they ever want to turn their back on him? So all the way through the book of Hebrews, he's focusing on the reality that Christ is greater than anyone spiritually who's ever lived in the world. Now he comes in this passage to draw a conclusion to what takes place. He's very concerned about writing the practical dimensions about how you put into practice the faith that you have in Christ. So chapter 10 of the book of Hebrews, beginning with verse 19. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the most high place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain that is his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in a full assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience, and having our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold unswerving to the hope that we profess. For he who promised is faithful, and let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approaching. The writer begins by talking about what has taken place. What Christ has done because of his death has given us a new confidence in our relationship with God. The Hebrew people had to offer sacrifices to be able to express their commitment to God. The animal was slain, they would lay their hand on its head saying, I am like this animal given completely and totally to you, and that sacrifice was an expression of their total surrender and commitment to God. On the day of atonement, that one time in the year when all the sins of the people of Israel, whether they had sacrificed for them or even knew that they had them, they were offered a sacrifice for those sins. On that day, the chief priest, the one chosen by God to be the spiritual leader of the nation, would prepare himself for the day of sacrifice. He would have to move from his home into the temple. He would have a room in the temple where he lived by himself. He was to read the scriptures. He was to pray all the time for that day, the next day, the next day until the day of atonement came. He had special food that was prepared for him so that he could be sure that nothing he ate was unclean in the presence of God. He had to keep his body clean and his clothes clean. Every day he waited for this special day he could go into the Holy of Holies where he could be in the presence of God. When the day came for him to go, he had special clothes that he wore. The clothes had to be clean, spotless. He had to take a bath so he was clean himself. Because if he went into the temple in the Holy of Holies and he wasn't clean, both spiritually and physically, then he would die. It was not a small matter to enter the Holy of Holies in the presence of God. So he waited every day, praying, reading the scripture, preparing himself for the one day he might go in the presence of God. On that day, as he got ready to go in, he had bells on the bottom of his robe so that people could hear him walking around inside of the Holy of Holies. When the animal was killed, he would take some of the blood, this blood that was an evidence of the life of the animal, saying this animal's life has been given for the forgiveness of the sins of people. He would take the blood, go in and sprinkle some on the altar, on the Ark of the Covenant, sprinkle some on the wall behind him so that the blood had a cleansing effect. The life of this animal is given in behalf of the sins of people. Before the priest was to go in, a rope would be tied around his leg. If they heard him not moving, the bells not ringing, someone would be able to pull him out because no one ever dared go in the place of the Holy of Holies. Unprepared, they would die. Now the writer of Hebrews is writing to people who knew all about this. Not a one of them who ever read this would ever have dared to enter the Holy of Holies, to go into the very presence of God himself. For they knew themselves to be unworthy of such a thing. They were not a high priest, they were not even a priest. They knew their life of sinfulness would deserve the death from God. He is writing to them about what has happened that makes everything different for them. This is his message. Because of the fact that Christ is greater than all of Moses, all of the law, all of the prophets, all of the people in the past, he has done something extraordinary for us. Therefore, because of that, we have confidence to enter the Most High Place, which is just a word for the Holy of Holies. We have confidence or boldness to be able to enter into the very presence of God because this confidence has come from Christ. The blood of Christ has given us this confidence. What he is talking about is that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, his blood shed for us, did something wonderful. It paid the price for the sin of all mankind. The priest would take the blood, he would make a sacrifice for himself, the high priest, before he went in there to make sure his own sins were forgiven. Then he took the blood of an animal to represent the blood of all the people and he would sprinkle it on the altar and he would sprinkle it on the wall as a way of saying, may this gift of a pure animal represent the gift of our lives to you. Now he is saying what Christ has done is what nothing else in all history could do. He died on the cross and his own blood of a person who was sinless has paid the price for our sins. We don't understand exactly how all this takes place in heaven. How it is that God looks at us and says, here are people who have done nothing to deserve my kindness, my grace, or my mercy. But Christ has given himself in their place. They deserved to die. They deserved to be rejected. But his own blood was shed for them, like the animal sacrificed that the high priest would take the blood and sprinkle it on the altar. This blood of Christ now is sprinkled on the altar of God. He receives it as a gift from us in our behalf from Christ. Because of his death on the cross, we have been purified by our faith and trust in him. He's not talking about everyone in the world being purified. He's talking about people who've had the act of trust or faith on their part. Jesus defined it this way, to have the kind of faith you need to receive forgiveness, you must choose to live your life in self-denial. I know what I would like to do, but I'm not going to do anything that is contrary to what God wants me to do. So I set aside my own will and my own wish and say, I will live the way you want me to the rest of my life. I'll live that way regardless of how difficult it becomes. So he's addressing people who are faced with very difficult choices. Am I going to keep following Christ with my family and friends and the community turns against me? Am I going to keep following Christ when the Roman government says they will kill anyone who's a follower of Christ? For me, the real sane thing would be to say, okay, I'm going to go back and be a Jew again. But Jesus said to his disciples, you must say, I'm not going to do what I want and you must do what I ask you to do regardless of the cost that it is to you. And then you must shape your life after my own life. Begin to live and think and act the way I lived and the way I thought and the way I acted. This is the call that you have. The blood of Christ for those people who have made this promise to him and devoted their life to him, they have been given access to the very presence of God. So when he talks to them, he says, we have the boldness to be able to enter the Holy of Holies. The people who read this for years have heard, you go into the presence of God, you die. Now he says, set aside those thoughts, those fears, because you have been given a privilege that no high priest ever has received. It's not yours by what you've earned. It's given to you by the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross for you. So when you think of God, far, distant, and remote, and unapproachable, set it aside. Think instead that you are more than the high priest, that you could walk into the very Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant is, into the presence of God, and you can speak to him. Unbelievable in their eyes, their minds, and their hearts. But it is not because of your goodness or your righteousness, but it is because instead of the blood of Christ shed for you. He has given us, he says, a new and a living way. In the Old Testament, the way that you could get your sins forgiven was the high priest went into the Holy of Holies, but now there's a different way. Now the new way, unseen before, never practiced before, is that you go directly into the presence of God. This opening you have, this new and living way open to you because of what Christ has done. It is a present, ongoing, living event. The Day of Atonement was one day out of the year when the people of Israel could count on the fact that all of their sins had been removed. You had to wait another year before you could feel that your sins were again complete and completely wiped away. Now you have access every single instant of your life to the very presence of God. You stop and you remember a new way has been opened for you, a new way of God's forgiveness and the means by which he's done this. But your new way is not the result of what you have done. The body of Christ has been the veil that we've been able to break through. He's talking about what happened on the day when Christ died in the temple. The veil that kept the Holy of Holies separated from the people in the temple was torn from the top to the bottom. Jesus Christ is like that veil and he's made a hole through it. And we can walk into the presence of God because he has opened the way for us. You can't stop and pray just because you're a person. You couldn't do that. In the Old Testament, it was not possible for people to pray like you have the opportunity to pray. You can simply stop and say, God, and immediately you're in the very presence of God, the creator of the universe. You have an audience with him. Try to get an audience with your senator outside of election year. Try to get an audience with the president. You can't get to those people. They're too significant. But the creator of this world who holds everything in his hands is now open to you. So don't worry about this. Be bold. Be ready at any moment at any time to come to the presence of him. But don't forget that it is Christ and his death for you that has allowed this to take place. You have something that no Jew ever imagined. Why would you go back to that? When now you have the place of one greater than the high priest. Because you can go every day, every moment, whenever the need arises. For he has opened the way through the curtain by his own death on the cross. Now, what are the consequences of this? Since we have a great priest, Christ, over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. The great high priest he's talking about, of course, is Christ. He is the one that gives us entrance into the presence of God himself. And he's over all the people of God. The Jewish high priest was simply over the Jewish people. Now this high priest, Christ, is over all the people of God, wherever they are, whatever they're doing. Let us draw near to God is a way of describing what prayer is. When you address God, you call your attention to him and his attention to you. It's like you walk up to someone in a group and you would say to them, Debbie, immediately she would hear you and turn to you and begin to engage you in conversation. So when you enter the presence of God, you draw near to him by saying, Our Father. And the moment he hears those words from you, he draws near you, inside of you, with you. The presence of God is immediate for us. He's drawn near to us as we draw near to him. Now what is it that causes God to be able to do this? Sometimes you'll experience that you talk to God and it doesn't seem to have any meaning to you or doesn't seem to give any benefit to you. There are conditions that are set up for us to be able to enter the presence of God, like the high priest. They're not simply those things that one person can do, but this is true for everyone. You draw near to God with a heart that is sincere. It means that you say what you mean and you live what you say. What your heart is, is consistent with your life and lifestyle. Remember what Jesus said, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow my example in your life. So you say, Jesus Christ is my Lord. That's what we say at the time of baptism or confession of faith. Jesus Christ is my Lord. He is going to rule my life. Everything you do or think outside of that is rebellion against God. The sincere heart is one who says what they mean and live what they say. It doesn't mean that you live a perfect life, but when you've crossed over the line and stepped apart from God, immediately the Holy Spirit tells you you have, you stop, you apologize, you ask for forgiveness and for the strength to continue to live for God. It is that presence with Him that allows us to be in His presence. The sincere heart. The sincere heart and a heart full of assurance of faith. Knowing that we've made, that we really are trusting God, that we've depended on Him, that we're living by the guidelines that He set for us. And our lives are made this way in two ways, He says. First the sprinkling of blood that cleanses us, that is the blood of Christ on us. When you say to God, I give my life to you, it's like in the Old Testament when you take the blood and you sprinkle it on the altar. That's what it's like. It's a purifying, cleansing thing for you. But whenever you say to God, I give my life to you, He takes the blood of Christ and sprinkles it on you and you are changed. The water He's talking about here I don't think is baptism, for the Holy Spirit is described as the cleansing power of God. It is the Holy Spirit that purifies us. When He comes into our life, He changes our thoughts and our direction and our mind. He removes the sin and self-centeredness in our lives and replaces inside of us a passion for obedience to God. So He forgives our sins and gives us the Spirit that prepares us to be able to stand in the presence of God. You see, there's not a lot of difference between what happened with the high priest and us. You can't come into the presence of God and get an audience with Him just when you're ready in any kind of condition. There has to be inside of you a trust and faith in God, a transformation of your life, so that your life now is His and then you can live in His presence and you get audience with Him. This great presence that God gives us, the assurance of our faith, it cleanses us from a guilty conscience and our bodies are washed in the pure water. Now, this is what happens on God's side. What are we to do to maintain this closeness to God? He says, Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful, unswerving, not turning to the side, not going a different direction, but aiming one single direction. This is what I'm going to do and this is how I'm going to live. Christ is the Lord of my life. Never turn away from that. These people were considering going back to the Jewish faith. Don't turn away from Christ, for the very access you have to God needs you to live the promise you've made to Him without fail, so that your life does what you said it was going to do, an unswerving commitment for obedience and faithfulness to God and to the hope that we have from Christ. When the Bible uses the word hope, it doesn't mean like I hope it's going to rain tomorrow. What it means is that the promises God makes, I will guide you, I will provide for you, I will protect you, and I will make your life meaningful and valuable, those promises He make will not always seem apparent to you that they're going to happen. You'll struggle and struggle and struggle sometimes for His direction and not know that you're getting it. Sometimes you'll feel like God is not listening to you. You'll ask for His provision and it won't come and it won't come and it won't come and sometimes it doesn't show up the way you want it to. So in all of these things, your trust is in the promise God made. I will provide for you, I will guide you, I will protect you, I will make your life everything it's supposed to be. So you look at those promises God makes and because of His faithfulness, you can believe them and live as if they were true. So never swerve from your faithful commitment that you've made to God and in all the circumstances you're in, hold on to the reality that God has made a promise to you. And that promise, even as impossible as it might seem at this stage in your life, will come to pass. For our hope is not in what we see, but in the promise of God. Now this is what the prayer is. You can enter into the presence of God, but your part of it is you have to make that promise to God and live without swerving and holding on to the promises God has made for you. For you live by the promises He's made, not by what you can see. For what you can often see is disaster ahead of you, but what God promises is different than that. Your prayer life and your closeness to God will never be very good until you learn to live with that kind of confidence in Him. That's what takes place. What God has done on the cross in Christ and what we have done with the promise of ourselves. But He doesn't end with that. God and the person are now one. There's nothing between them. The atonement is worked, but that's just the beginning of it. For what God intends with this great act is to change the way we relate to each other. Remember the great commandment, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. What God's intention is, is that His oneness, the oneness that we have with Him will also affect the relationships we have with people around us. This is the second great part of the atonement that God brings. He wants every one of His children to be at one with each other. That's His goal. If you just are at one with God, and you've made your peace with Him, and you feel really close to Him, but you're at odds with the people around you, you haven't made it yet. You don't know what it means yet. For when Christ is in control of our life, He changes our relationships. That's what this is about. He says, now this unswerving goal that you have has something else to it. Let us consider how we may spur one another toward love and good deeds. You know what the word spur means. Spur is on a cowboy, and when you get ready to make the horse go, you stick the spur in the horse's flank. It hurts the horse, doesn't it? Let us spur one another. How do you do that? Well, when you see a brother or sister who's acting in a way they shouldn't act, you stop and say, my friend, God is not happy with that. That's our job with each other. That's why you really can't be a good Christian watching television or listening to the radio. Because you can hate everybody in the world and still enjoy the TV show or what's on the radio. But God's intention is to change the way we deal with each other. That we might be one in Him, and we do that because we sit in groups together and talk about the Scriptures. We sit in groups together and we talk about what it is God wants for us. We hold up before each other the standards that God expects of us. Remember, he's saying, just being at one with God is only the beginning. Let us consider how we may encourage or spur or force other people or encourage other people to love toward love and good deeds. That's our job. Our job is to help each other learn how to do the good things God wants us to do. Now he's not just talking about going out and helping someone across the street. He's talking about the things that Christ himself did. How he brought the message of God into the world. And by his own life, he did the things to show the love and power of God. That's what our purpose is. How is it in our life that we can show other people what God wants to do for them? How can we exemplify in our life the spirit and character and nature of God? So we are to hold each other account. Who is it that you're praying for? Who is it that you're witnessing for? Who is it that you know needs to know God? What good deed can you do for the people around you to show them that God loves them and cares for them? Everything we do that's an act of goodness, we ought to reflect back to God so that they can see that the good deeds that we've done are really the work of God. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing. Now he's not talking about people that on the weekend wanted to go see the Chiefs play or the Royals play or go to the lake. He was talking about people who were saying, if I keep going to that Christian group over there I might die. Should I go or not? He's talking about people who say, my family won't let me come to the family reunions anymore because I'm a follower of Christ. Should I quit going so that I can have a family again? Here were people who on one side were abandoned by their family and in the small communities that they lived in, everyone knew them, they were just anathema. They were someone we don't want to have here. How can I get back in the world and still have my family and friends that I grew up with? How can I be sure that I won't be killed by the Romans? And so some of them began to quit going to the meetings with their fellow believers. It's a serious thing to go to a meeting when you think you might die. It's a serious thing to become a part of a group when you think your family and friends will turn against you. It's powerful pressure to change your behavior. Let us not give up meeting together as the habit of some are doing. Let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approaching. We come together to encourage each other to faithfulness, to do the things that God wants us to do and live as he wants us to live. We are constantly aware of the reality that someday we will face Christ and he will look at us with judgment. How has your life been lived? This is what presses us. This is what reminds us of the task God has for us. The task God gives us with him is easier. He's given his life for us. We need his salvation. And so we say, okay, Christ, I give my life to you. The result that he has is harder for us. There are people that you know that you don't like who are professing Christians. There are people in meetings that you get in sometimes and you hear them talk that you don't want to be around them. God has given us the job of learning how to love each other as he loves us. Whatever the failures of other people around you are, they're not near as bad as yours, which resulted in the death of Christ. What God wants us to do is to learn to accept each other, to forgive each other, and to act in the best interest of other people, regardless of how difficult it is. God never asks us to like every person we know, not even every person in the church. It's insignificant to him as to whether or not you like each other, but it is very important to him that you love each other. That is, that the action and behavior that you have puts the interests and needs of others ahead of yourself. Living this standard in a body of people that God draws together is difficult. It's difficult because he puts together in the body of the church all people who are broken. The fact is that every person in a church has flaws, failures, and faults. And what God wants to do is to help us see them the way he sees them, as someone who needs changing, and someone we want to see changed, and someone we accept whether they change or not, someone we act in their behalf even though we know they don't deserve it. And so, in the church, God brings people that you won't like. They're not like you. You wish they were different, but he has a purpose in it. He wants you to learn how to live as Jesus lived. You think he liked every person he met, Jesus did? He saw them for what they were, but he acted in their behalf always. I don't think Jesus, with the woman he met at the well, who was an immoral person, would have wanted to spend a day or two with her in her environment, in her atmosphere. But he wanted to see her life changed. God's great purpose is to bring all people together so that they know how to love and care for each other. You know what this is for? It's practice. It's practice so when you get to heaven, you will know how to live there. You won't be able to segregate yourself from other people there. You'll have to accept everyone. I was talking to a lady one time, and she was complaining about things, and I said, well, you know, you need to change your attitude because when you get to heaven, things are going to be different. She said, I know it, but when I die and I go to heaven, God's going to change all of my wishes and my wants. See, she's counting on the fact that she doesn't have to learn how to live like God wants her to here in this world, but that isn't true. We not only are to draw near to God, but because we're near to God, we're to draw near to each other. And in this one great act of God, his death on the cross, he intends to bring us to him and all of us in oneness to each other. Are you willing to love people you don't like? Are you willing to accept people that are not acceptable to you or your standards? God wants to bring atonement to his people. That is, that we be at one with each other. The greatest miracle that could ever happen. Would you bow your heads, please, for a moment to pray? Has God said something to you today about yourself? Are you at one with him? What is it that holds you back? That's what God's talking to you about. What about other people around you? Are you at one with them? Your life marked by a lot of conflict? People you don't want to be around anymore? When you ask God, what is it that needs to change about me? How can I accept others the way you've accepted me? When you ask God what it is he wanted to change in you, you know what he told you. Are you ready to commit yourself to do those things that he wants you to do? Change those things he wants you to change? Start doing the things you haven't been doing. To be at one with God, you have to say, yes, I'll do those things. Listening to these things doesn't change you. But a change of your life and commitment does. It may be that God has revealed something to you he wants to be different. We're going to provide a time this morning in which you have a promise you want to make to God. You can come share that with me. We'll pray for you to be able to accept what God has asked and the power that he has to change you. Marla will be here. The music plays. God talks to you. You do what he wants. Draw near to him, and he will draw near to you. Would you stand, please, for a moment of prayer? We know the barriers between you and us are not on your side, Father. You've done everything in the world to provide a way for us to be at one with you and with each other. All we ask is you would show us those things that stand between us, that they might be removed and we would feel as such oneness with you that there's not any way we could imagine being separated again from you. Father, we ask in our relationships with each other that you would help us to learn to love as you have loved us. In the name of Christ, we ask for this ability. Amen.