Introduction
Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, was born of a woman, lived a perfect life on behalf of his people, who could not live perfectly before God. He died on the cross as a punishment for the sins of his people at which time God the Father poured on him the infinite weight of his wrath. On the third day, he was risen from the dead, securing by his resurrection new life for all his people. All of this so that those who believe that Jesus Christ did all these things for them may not perish but have everlasting life in fellowship and harmony with God. That is the Gospel. Without a firm belief in what I just described there is no hope of relationship with God as a loving God or eternal life. All that is necessary for what Christ accomplished in his life, death, and resurrection to be applied to you is faith in him and nothing else.
Yet the transforming effect of the Gospel, the result of faith in Christ, is never a static person. The Gospel compels people into action. Our passage today summarizes the Gospel and then gives us three actions, GOSPEL ACTIONS, that we must whole-heartedly do.
I. The Gospel, 19-21
A. The author of Hebrews follows a Pauline pattern of spending the last few chapters of his letter applying all the teaching that we find in the first two-thirds of the letter (therefore in v. 19).
B. In these three verses he is especially summarizing and applying the teaching of the last three chapters about the priesthood of Jesus.
C. There are two Gospel truths that must compel us into the three "let us's" of the following verse: we have bold access to God through the blood of Jesus and we have a high priest over us.
1. These two havingsare stated in present tense which expresses continuity.
a. Jesus's blood wasn't effective in the past only, it continues to be effective.
b. His priesthood was not something of the past, he is our priest now.
1 Jn. 2:1-2 – My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
2. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross gives us bold (confident) access to God, 19-20.
a. Earlier in 4:16, he exhorted all who trust in Christ to come boldly (with confident) before the throne of grace with our prayers and petitions.
b. Here he simply states that we have that Gospel confidence through faith (implied) in what the blood of Christ represents and accomplished.
c. The Holiest is the very presence of God.
d. Notice that there is really one way to have that confidence that God has accepted us, 20.
1) Though verse 19 speaks of blood and by implication death, verse 20 speaks of a living way because of the resurrection of Christ.
2) It is also a new way because it is no longer through the sacrifices of animals that one seeks access to God, but through the living Savior Jesus Christ.
3) Doesn't this verse bring to your mind thoughts of John 14:6?
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
4) The new and living way is through his body that was broken for you just like the veil that was torn in half at his crucifixion and opened up access to God to all who trust in Jesus.
5) This new and living way is not like the First Covenant with its restrictions as to whom and when somebody could come into the holiest place.
6) We can confidently come before God at anytime in Jesus's name and know that we are going to be received.
3. Not only the blood of Christ gives us confidence, but the fact that he is standing the before the presence of God as our high priest, interceding for us day and night, 21.
1 Jn. 2:1-2 – My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
D. Because they have this common faith in Jesus Christ, he can call them brethren, 19.
1. Through faith in Christ we are adopted into this cosmic family.
2. We are united to one another by a common Head, the Lord Jesus Christ.
E. The confidence we have in the Gospel of Jesus Christ must compel us into Gospel action, particularly the three actions of verses 22-25.
II. The Action, 22-25
A. Come close to God because he is going to accept you, 22.
1. It is true that the verse doesn't explicitly mention God, but the reference to entering the holiest in verse 19 governs this verse.
2. We are to draw near to the holiest place, which is the very presence of God.
3. So in the book of Hebrews, the first Gospel action, the first thing that the Gospel compels us to do, has a Godward orientation.
a. The first thing is not witnessing to the lost or reforming your life or feeding the hungry and providing for the poor.
b. The first thing is getting close to God and that is going to be foundational to all the other areas of Gospel actions.
c. If we forget this most important area of Gospel action we might tend to look at the other actions as self-righteous actions, not Gospel actions.
4. Notice again the confidence that God is going to accept us in his presence represented by the full assurance of faith, 22a.
a. There is no doubt that in Christ, God accepts us.
b. And we have two evidences of that:
1) Our hearts have been sprinkled from an evil conscience, that is, the guilt of sin has been removed from us and placed on Christ and we have a new heart (chpt. 8 and the new Covenant).
a) Reference to true heart in beginning of verse.
b) A true heart is a sincere heart = honest, genuine, committed, dependable, and without deceit.
c) True heart is what is real as opposed to what is only apparent.
Mt. 5:8 – Blessed arethe pure in heart, for they shall see God.
d) This contrast is well illustrated by a parable Jesus taught in Luke 18:9-14.
Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.' And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
2) We have been identified with Christ through the waters of baptism to be part of his Church whom he loves.
c. You might say, "Pastor, I have done so many things in the past that I don't think God will even let me within a thousand miles from him."
1) If access to God was on the basis of what you had done, then you should fear, we all should fear, that God was going to deny us any access to him.
2) But the full assurance of faith is in what Christ has done on the behalf of his Church.
3) So, he is not going to deny access to his Son and those who come to him in his Son.
5. At this point, you may be asking the following questions: What does it mean to draw near to God? Isn't God everywhere? How can I get closer to someone who is already here?
a. The drawing near to God is a relational expression, not a spatial one.
1) Most of us have experienced being physically close to someone, but miles apart as far the relationship was concerned.
2) On the other hand, we have friends who may be thousands of miles away and who we don't see for years, yet when we get to see them it feels as if we had been together all along.
b. So the exhortation to come close to God is an exhortation to have a relational closeness with the one who has created you, saved you, and keeps you till the day when you are going to see him face to face in Jesus Christ.
6. The next obvious question is, how do we achieve this relational closeness with God?
a. First and foremost, we must be united with Christ by faith – remember that it is the Gospel that compels us into Gospel action.
b. Corporate and private worship
1) We tend to think that the corporate flows from the private, but the Scriptures teach that it is the other way around.
2) That's why in our vision for this church, corporate worship is so important.
c. Prayer
1) Thanksgiving
2) Repentance
3) Petition
d. Bible reading and meditation
e. Obedience to what God says in his Word.
f. Serving others
7. As we come close to God, we are strengthened to do the next Gospel action.
B. Hold on to what is true because that is where hope is, 23.
1. Did you notice another Pauline pattern with the triad of faith in v. 22, hope in v. 23, and love in v. 24.
2. The word translated hold fast is a wrestling word used for the pinning down of the adversary and not letting him go as if your life depended on it because in the ancient world it did depend on it!
a. So, you can see that this holding is not something done lightly like a dead-fish handshake.
b. It is a holding on to it as if your life depended on it because it does.
3. What is it that we are to hold on so strongly? The confession of our hope.
a. The confession that gives us hope, the anchor of our hope.
b. Paul describes this confession in 1 Cor. 12:3.
Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.
Phil. 2:10-11 – … that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
c. The confession is that Jesus is Lord.
1) Not myself.
2) Not the president
3) Not the stock market
4) Not Satan
5) Not circumstance
6) Not cancer, diabetes, or emphysema
7) Not sin in my life
8) Not an abuser in my life
9) But Jesus, he is Lord!
4. Do you see how that is the Christian source of hope?
a. If Christ is Lord, not only of me, but of the whole world, who can really be against me?
b. If Christ is Lord and he promised me eternal life, he is going to do it.
c. If Christ is Lord and he promised me to be a very present help in time of need, he will do it.
d. That's the point of that last clause in the verse, for he is faithful.
1) Our faith is not blind faith.
2) When we trust in God we don't take leap in the dark.
3) God has shown himself in his Word and in our experience to be faithful.
5. And we are not to waver in this holding on the confession of our hope.
a. Remember that the people to whom this letter was initially written were wavering in their confession because they had been told that they can have it better without Christ.
b. And we look at them and think, "How could you have fallen for that?"
c. Then we turn around and waver in our own confession by letting the way we think, behave, speak, etc. be dominated by things other than Christ and his Word.
d. So this exhortation to hold on to the confession that Christ is Lord without wavering is as much for us as it was for that original group.
e. The word translated as without wavering has the meaning of a pin or a stake standing at exactly 90 degree angle without moving not even a degree in any direction.
1) In order to do that, that stake or pole has to have a strong foundation.
2) And our foundation to stand straight and not waver is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
3) So you can see that makes sense that this is the second Gospel action in this context.
a) First we draw near to God, we get to know him better, in this subjective way the cement of our foundation cures and gets stronger.
b) As we do that, God enables us to hold on even tighter to him without wavering because he is not going to let you go either.
6. As we hold fast to our confession that Jesus is Lord, we act on that confession by considering our brothers and sisters in Christ.
C. Think about ways in which you can irritate them unto love and good works, 24-25.
1. Notice that the third Gospel action is others-oriented.
a. The first is God-oriented.
b. The second is self-oriented.
c. And now perhaps the hardest one – think of others.
2. Because of all its implications and the close tie with the severe warning to follow, we will consider this Gospel action by itself nest Lord's Day.
3. For now it will suffice to say that Gospel actions on our part will cause others in God's Church to be closer to God, hold fast to their confession, and consider others.
4. This cycle continues till the Day of our Lord's return.
Conclusion
So we have the Gospel, the sure word of salvation in Jesus Christ. But the Gospel is not to lay dormant in us. It compels us to Gospel action, to draw near to God, to hold tight to the truth that Jesus is Lord, and to consider one another. http://olympiabp.blogspot.com/2015/08/believing-unto-doing-heb-1019-25.html
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