Hebrews 10:19-25 // From Creed to Conduct (Part 1)

0:00Today on Growing Through Grace, the work of Jesus at the cross and beyond allowed him to enter the presence of God, or the holy of Holies in heaven, but he did what no priest would be allowed to do. He brought us with him. He became the access point. The high priest would go alone, Jesus went, come with me, what did he say to the fellow on the cross today? He can be with me in paradise. Come with me and he showed us the way and then took us along. You're listening to Growing Through Grace with Pastor Jacobalyn of Morningstar Christian

1:07Chapel in Whittier, California. It's good to be with you again. We certainly appreciate you tuning in. Now we're going to continue through our series of Faith Defined, taken from the Book of Hebrews. And today we'll pick it up in chapter 10 verses 19 through 25, where the writer encourages us to hold fast to all those things we've learned so far in this book and begin now to apply them. Pastor Jacobal examined this passage in a study titled, From Creed to Conduct. Here's our teacher with today's lesson. Let's turn in our Bible to Hebrews chapter 10 verse 19, as we continue our journey through the Book of Hebrews, a letter that I believe Paul wrote, but it was written to a group of Jewish believers meeting somewhere in Italy before 70 AD in the fall of Jerusalem. And these saints we know from the letter themselves had suffered much for their faith and they

2:07had even had their possessions taken from them for standing with some of the believers who had been imprisoned. Nero had recently come to the throne which meant that now not your possessions were in danger, but you were. And so some had quit attending church altogether as we will read tonight. They didn't want to be seen with those who were kind of under the gun. Others contemplated going back to the world or at least their old religious system to try to find some relief from this vicious kind of constant pressure. And so Paul writes to them with both an intimate knowledge of their walks and also of the Jewish culture. And he covers most of the religious activities of their long held beliefs and sets about to show them that Jesus was not only the Messiah, but he was that promised fulfillment of the law, the sacrifice, the priesthood, and you couldn't find a better teacher when it comes to those things being applied than this book.

3:11And one chapter to the next he takes what they had clearly known and clearly shows them Jesus. And we come tonight, I guess, to the turning point of the book where the doctrines and the creeds and the explanations of all of the superiority of the person and of the work of Jesus are now applied to the life. And this little storm-tossed church has to apply what they know. In every book in the Bible, the doctrinal lessons at some point have to become more than just musings of the intellect or brain candy. You've got to take what you learn and apply it. And if it isn't applied, then do you really believe it or do you really know it? Belief has to turn into behavior or lifestyle or decision-making. Jesus said, the truth would make you free, but it isn't just the truth hidden in the heart, it is the truth and the lifestyle. And so doctrine becomes duty and creed becomes conduct and precept, turns into practice and

4:14instruction becomes exhortation and explanation becomes the reality of your life. And the rubber meets the road where you translate truth into life. So for ten and a half chapters, we've had doctrine. Beginning tonight and for the next couple of chapters, we get application. So the presumption of the application chapters of every epistle is that you believe and have embraced and you have learned and you have trusted in that which you have learned from a doctrinal standpoint. If so, then those confidences can lead you into your daily life, victorious life. So tonight we begin the application process as the Lord colors in all that He has drawn out for us. And verse 19 starts with the transition word in every book from doctrine to practical application, the word therefore. You find it in Robins chapter 12 verse 1, after 11 chapters of doctrine, therefore you

5:16find it in Ephesians chapter 4, after three chapters of doctrine, therefore you find it in Hebrews 10, 19, therefore a word of application, therefore brethren. Having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He has consecrated for us, through the veil that is His flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, and let us hold fast the confession of our faith without wavering because or for He who is promised is faithful and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another in so much the more as you see the day approaching.

6:18Therefore brethren come and this section that we are looking at tonight is one of those welcome words that are based on faith, knowing what we have learned and that Jesus had given man what the Levites and the Levitical practices never could and what the shadows never could access to God's throne, the invitation of the application begins with the so come on. We now have the privilege of access by faith in Christ. You have boldness, verse 19. The word means to be free from fear or unreserved in your action. It doesn't speak at all of arrogance, but it speaks of confidence. I'm welcome here. I'm supposed to be here, I've come in Christ and I have this boldness now because of what I have learned to come and to notice the holiest or to the holy of holies by Jesus's blood.

7:18That place that we've studied now for months was only accessible for a few minutes a year by a priest in fear with much blood and for the sake of others after having given a sacrifice for his own sins and now coming to sacrifice for the sins of the people. But he was the only one that went in and he didn't always come out, but that was the extent of our access until Jesus came now, you come boldly. And you can just write the words, come on, all over these verses. A sureness of step now, I come before the Lord, I come to worship tonight, we worship God in his presence, welcome there. We didn't sneak in, we didn't hide, we came boldly, welcomed by the Lord because of the blood of his son. Therefore, brethren, boldness to come to Jesus or come through Jesus into the presence of God by this new, interesting word because this word new in Hebrew means freshly slaughtered.

8:22It's the word for killing an animal to send him to market. But the Lord applies it to his life, freshly slaughtered, a living way which he has consecrated or set apart for us and it comes through the veil that his flesh. Consecrated is the word for initiated here or to be set apart, opened through the veil. You remember in Matthew, chapter 27, when Jesus gave his life and it was 3 pm and he declared loudly, it is finished, that the tearing of Jesus is flesh upon the cross that brought his death, simultaneously brought the tearing of this 18-inch thick veil from top to bottom there in the very temple, where up until this time, the Old Testament practices had brought man that closer, no closer. And from top to bottom, the curtain was torn in what had barred men, sinned for so long, it was now opened by the tearing of Jesus's flesh.

9:23And you can read in Matthew, chapter 27, that as Jesus cried out with a loud voice and he yielded up the ghosts that behold the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom as the earthquake and the rock split and I suspect the priests ran for their lives. And the graves of many were opened in the bodies of those saints who had fallen asleep were raised and they came out of the grave after the resurrection, they were seen in the holiest city, they appeared to many, all these one-time circumstances to say Jesus has opened the door, access is available. So therefore, brethren, you got boldness, great assurance, great confidence. You can draw near. You know, the veil, if you look at it in the Old Testament, was made of blue and scarlet and purple threads. And the blue spoke of heaven and Jesus as being the Son of God and the red spoke of the earth. In fact, Adam's name means just that scarlet. But Jesus as the Son of Man represented the purple, it was the mixing of the two divinity

10:28or deity and humanity and where one stops and the other begins, you can't almost discern or try to separate. But the veil that had separated man from God, even good men, committed men, couldn't go in. Jesus now in his death, torn as the veil, becomes our access point. And so you read the words, come in, let us. Notice verse 22, 23, 24, let us, let us, let us, why? Because we can boldly come. Back in chapter four, Paul had said, let us come boldly to the throne of grace to find mercy and grace in time of need. But here's the application, let us, let us come. We have a weigh-in through the body of Jesus, torn, the blood that was shed and we have a high priest over the house of God. The high priest in the Old Testament, boy, we've gone over it plenty, haven't we? Went in by himself, bells ringing, rope around his legs, hoping he'd done the right thing.

11:31The people would give a party when he came out alive, crew, you did it. You're good for another year, you know. But the work of Jesus at the cross and beyond allowed him to enter the presence of God or the holy of Holies in heaven, but he did what no priest would be allowed to do. He brought us with him. He became the access point. The high priest would go alone, Jesus went, come with me. What did he say to the fellow on the cross today? You can be with me in paradise. Come with me. And he showed us the way and then took us along and he sits down at the right hand of the Father, having offered himself once and for all, and the work is permanent and it is always now accessible to you. No service times, no locked doors, no office hours, come, 24-7. What needs to have taken place for you to enter has taken place because he is there, you're welcome. The Lord is the veil, but he's also the door.

12:31He's the way in, he's also the way that you can find your way to stay, he's your intercessor and the priest. So we have boldness to enter before God's throne through the sacrifice of Jesus. We can come on in. And notice again in verse 22 and 23 and 24, it is the cry of the author to us as the people to be responsible to act upon what we know. And I think that's always where the application is, isn't it? You do what you know. You act upon what you have learned. Let us draw near. Let us come to the Lord. Let us now come and seek Him and come with a heart-true heart that is filled with an assurance of faith in what we know God has accomplished, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, having our bodies washed with pure water, we now get to come. When we finished verse 18 last week of chapter 10, Paul, in going over the thing for the

13:33one last time, all of the comparison said, you know, the Old Testament shadows couldn't provide access to God, nor could it provide a cleansed heart. No clear conscience, no assurance that you were in a good place now with God that everything that had needed to be done was done. And yet with Jesus we can come. We can draw near to God and our hearts can be assured in faith knowing what we know that our place with Him is secure. What about if the Lord brings up that last cinnamon? He says he's forgiven and forgotten, and the blood of Jesus cleanses me from all sin. Not most, not some, not many, but all. So I come with a heart that is completely committed, the word true there is the one that modifies the word heart. So the idea is, as I come with a sincereness in faith with a heart that's desiring to know the Lord, when I come to Jesus, learn all that I've learned, my evil guilty conscience

14:35is pacified, it is cleansed, and my life, my body, my ways have been washed and are being washed in God's word. So come, come based upon the evidence, come based upon the knowledge of what you know, you know that you might be sanctified and cleansed constantly by the washing of God's word. You know, for the first time in our lives, the guilt over sin and what it might do between us and God is completely gone when you come to Jesus. And your conscience for the first time says, oh, that's good. I grew up in a pretty religious household, and we were religious like worldly religious people are, you know, but you could honestly say you never were sure, you hoped for the best. You made mental arguments that things will be all right. You found people that were more rotten than you, and you went, well, if they, you know, make it, then I'll make it. If there's a judgment, I'm going to get ahead of them. And then you try to find more people below you than above you. And then that's your relative piece right there, you know. You want rotten people around, you know, if he makes it, everyone's going to go, you know.

15:40But then you get saved. And for the first time in my life, I remember when I got saved on a Thursday night in a home Bible study in Belflar. I went home and I laid my head on the pill and I went, you know, I'm going to make it. I'm going to heaven. My sins are forgiven. And I hadn't done anything for it other than believe in what God had said. But that under the blood thing made a lot of sense to me. I was under the blood. I was forgiven and for it. And God had forgotten. And as I learned of his word, it brought that realization, you know, so look, come, let us draw near. You have boldness to doors open. Jesus gave his life, his blood shed, the high priest has done his work. Come on in and come with a heart that's totally committed and come with an assurance of faith in your heart that God will welcome you and genuinely trust him because he has made you acceptable in his side. Now for this young church under this great pressure and tremendous persecution, knowing that they could come and the Lord would accept them and had provided a place for them and

16:44would embrace them ought to keep them going. Come towards the Lord, come. Verse 23 said, and let us secondly hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who has promised his faithful towards God. We come with much assurance based on what Jesus has done for ourselves. We have to hang on to hope that faith has produced knowing from all that we've learned if we will hang on to Jesus, we're going to make it just fine, aren't we? Hopelessness is the lot of the, I think, secular man. They did a study a couple years ago at NYU, a professor marched and asked 3,000 folks on campus what they had to live for and write down what you have to live for. 94% of these 3,000 folks checked a box that literally said, I'm waiting for something

17:44in the future and it is usually 1 or 2 years out after I graduate when I'm getting married. And their short term hopes were about all that they could express. There weren't really any long term reasons to live. It was next week, next month, next year. It was as shallow as life could be. And yet you and I as believers have something to live for far beyond tomorrow. Our lives are lived in such a way that the hope of the believer has tremendous substance. Jesus went on ahead. In fact, I think it was in Hebrews 6 that we read, you can have this hope as an anchor for your souls that Jesus went ahead as the forerunner opened the door. And we belong to him. And he's the anchor. So let us hold fast. Don't let go. The words literally mean to squeeze. Coming on with all you got to the confession of your hope without wavering. In verse 22, full assurance of faith, in verse 23, hope that doesn't waver or doesn't bend

18:51or doesn't change. When we get challenged, we just hang on. When we're under trials, we hang on. When we don't get what God is up to, we hang on. When we're prospering, we hang on. And when we're broke, we hang on. And when we're sick, we hang on. Let us hang on. Because it is our conviction and hope that God's promises won't fail, isn't that what that says? I read a story a few years ago. I remember looking at this verse of a fourth grade boy who dad had dropped him off at school in the morning and he said, now look, at three o'clock when the class gets out, you sit right here on the curb and I'm going to come pick you up. And he said, all right. But he was kind of a flighty kid, so dad wanted to worry and all day, you know. And then when he went to pick him up, they had a traffic jam or some kind and he got to

19:52the school at 4.15. And the little boy was sitting right on the curb, exactly where dad had told him, oh, good. And he said to him, were you worried? He said, no, you said you'd come get me. Now that's the way the Lord wants us to be, isn't it? We don't always know what he's up to, but I can hang on. And sometimes that's all you can do. You know, the kind of tenacity that weather's any storm and that won't turn your back, but it is produced by a hope in God's word because we see it as faithful because he's promised. There's no thought of going back because Jesus won't go back. He knows our need. He understands our prayers before we pray to them. He's not leaving or forsaking us. He ever lives to make intercession for us. You can hold on. Let us come with a full assurance of faith. Let us hang on with a hope that says he doesn't lie. I can make this. He will work this out. I can stand the test and for this young church, I can make it through the persecution.

20:59And don't waver a word that means to flutter in the wind. You may be no people that waver. They're up one day and down the other and they're faithful one day and they're not so faithful the next. The solution to most of that is find out what God has said and believe him because it is your conviction over God's faithfulness of His promise that we'll keep you holding on tight. Let us draw near. Let us hold fast. And thirdly verse 24, let us consider one another so that we might stir up love and good works and not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some. But rather exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. The verse 1 says come in and verse 2, the second one says hold on. Then the third one says look around, you can't do this alone.

22:01And I think that there is much to be said for the understanding of these three verses. Our spiritual life as Christians is challenging enough for each of us that our faith is constantly under attack and the strength that God has provided is oftentimes found right around you. God's choice in strengthening the people, His people, is the invention of the church. That's God's pick, isn't it? I'll give them a church to plant themselves in and people that will bear them up and folks who will be concerned for their well-being. As we told you before, there were already some who were unwilling to show up because it seemed to make life easier in reality spiritually could only make life far more difficult. And I don't know that the church really views itself as that place of tremendous strength. I don't know how you view the body as a whole.

23:02People seem to have a thousand reasons to not go to church from unfaithful people to boring sermons, to busy schedules, to holding grudges. There's a reason why I'm not going, but I'll tell you what, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Because we read, let us consider one another. We need to be loved and have good works and not forsake gathering, and especially as we need the exhortation, as life just gets worse in the world, and things aren't getting gathered before the Lord comes. We need to be planted in the bottom.