Here's the final sermon in this series on the letter to the Hebrews. On the technical end, this is recorded on an iPhone, and the sound is much different than the previous recordings. On the content end, I pray that this sermon will prove to be edifying listening!
Last night I returned from balmy Hamilton, Ontario, where I spent the last few days participating in a conference at our seminary, on evangelism and church planting.
When I arrived in Hamilton, it was actually raining; but as I write this, it's -23 in Prince George, and we're looking at lows of -37 over the next three days. It's on days like today that I'm particularly thankful for the practicalities of my work - mainly the fact that it takes place, for the most part, indoors!
The conference was excellent. There were over 120 registered participants, and we got to hear some great presentations by Rev. Henk Drost, who works as a missionary in Ukraine; by Rev. Ted Van Raalte, who is part of a group that is working on developing ideas for a church plant in the Greater Vancouver area; and by Rev. Ross W. Graham, who is the general secretary for the Committee on Home Missions and Church Extension in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
On Saturday, we broke into smaller groups, and four concurrent sessions were held, dealing with different issues in evangelism and church planting. I hosted two presentations on our work in Prince George, which was a lot of fun, but which also meant that I unfortunately couldn't participate in the other sessions, which I did hear very good things about.
All in all, the conference was great. I got to meet a number of people I haven't seen in a while, as well as several whom I hadn't met before, and we had time to share notes and learn from one another, and just to enjoy some good conversation.
It was encouraging and exciting to see the level of interest and commitment that our churches have for outreach. We may have our struggles, and we will face difficulties, but there was a great deal of enthusiasm and willingness to learn how we can best go about spreading the Good News faithfully. It is a blessing for all of us to have been entrusted with the task of working as God's ambassadors in a world that desperately needs what we too often take for granted - the good news of Jesus Christ!
I was also able to go back to the church where we worshipped for a year while living in Hamilton - Streetlight Christian Church in downtown Hamilton. It was great to see a lot of familiar faces, and it's always a joy to be able to participate in this important work of outreach in one of Canada's most needy neighbourhoods.
But after a few days away, it's great to be home. I had wonderful hosts in Hamilton, but there really is no place like home!
Beloved Brothers and Sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ,
The time of transition from one year to the next is often a time for reflection, for looking back on year just past, and anticipation - looking forward to the year that lies ahead. When we reflect on the year gone by, we may do that with a sense of regret - regret for things that we haven't accomplished that we had thought we would, or had planned on - or we may look back with a sense of accomplishment - a feeling of satisfaction about a successful year, a year of progress. Most likely when we look back on the year 2011, we do so with mixed emotions - because no matter how successful we may have been, our successes in this fallen world are always tinged with failure; and because no matter how difficult 2011 may have been, there are, for everyone, things that bring joy, even in the darkest hours of our lives.
And when we look forward, when we look at the year to come, the year of our Lord 2012, we may do so with anticipation - looking forward to joyful things to come - new additions to families, new jobs, plans and dreams and hopes, new year's resolutions that we have every intention of keeping. But on the other hand, we may look forward with a sense of fear and trepidation - what's going to happen in this new year? Will I be successful? How will my family do? What about my health? What about my life of faith? What if my work doesn't succeed, what if I can't keep that new year's resolution I'm making? After all, I've never kept one yet, so why would this year be any different?
But once again, just like when we look back, when we look ahead, it's most likely with mixed emotions. Even the most optimistic person, if you have a true understanding, an understanding shaped by God's Word, even the most optimistic Christian knows that life in 2012 is not going to be all joyfulness and light. None of us knows what God has in store for us in the coming year. But one thing we are assured of is that there will be struggle. There will be pain. There will be sin to deal with - the sins of others, and the sins of ourselves. There will be difficulties in relationships - family relationships, relationships with friends, with co-workers, with brothers and sisters in the church. There will be challenges, and those challenges will be hard to face. But in that, there will be joy.
Brothers and sisters, as we look back on 2011, and as we look forward to 2012, we need to do so with the eye of faith. We need to look back, giving thanks to the God who gave us another year of life. And we need to look forward in hope, in the knowledge that whatever happens, the Lord will be with us. I think it's particularly on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day when the difference between us, as God's people, and the world, becomes the most apparent. It's not so much Christmas, and the Christmas season, that marks out God's people as being unique, as much as it's the turn of the calendar, the transition from one year to the next. Because God has given us a perspective that allows us to be honest with ourselves, that allows us to look back with honesty, and allows us to look ahead without having to fool ourselves.
And it's appropriate that on this first day of a new year we find ourselves right in the middle of the "faith hall of fame" in Hebrews 11. Because faith is what gives us the right perspective. Faith gives us a reason to go on. Faith gives us a reason to face the challenges that lie ahead, and faith is what makes the year behind something meaningful, something important. Because apart from faith, none of this means anything.
Apart from faith, people can fool themselves into thinking that 2011 was a good year, they can fool themselves into thinking that 2012 will be an important year, but ultimately, without faith, all of this is vanity. Last night, people without faith celebrated a completely meaningless event. Last night, people without faith drank way too much, either in some semblance of celebration, or else to drown their sorrows. And this morning, people without faith may be working hard to convince themselves that 2012 means something, but only through faith can we understand the preacher's words in the first chapter of Ecclesiastes:
"Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, 'See, this is new'? It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after" (Ecclesiastes 1:2-11).
Apart from the true understanding of the world that comes from faith - apart from what Scripture calls "wisdom," New Year's Day is nothing more than just another day. And in reality, it's actually worse than any other day, because it is a day where self-deception reigns even more than it does on every other day of the year. Apart from faith, there is nothing but weariness filling all things. You may plan on a nice vacation this year - but it won't satisfy you. You may have your eye on a new house - but it's not going to make you happy. You may plan on getting married - but that marriage isn't going to give you what you think it will. You may look forward to having children - but those children will not give your life meaning. You may want to drown out all the noise of life with stuff, with activity, with work, with music and movies and sports and sex - but none of that is going to make one bit of difference, because in 2012, there will be nothing new under the sun.
And if that's a depressing picture, a depressing look at things on this first day of the new year, it's because it's meant to be. Because apart from faith in Christ, that's what life is - it's just one day after another, just one thing after another, until you die. If this life is all there is, if what matters most in this life is what you accomplish, the seventy or eighty years you have to live on this earth are nothing more than an exercise in futility.
But in the midst of the meaninglessness that surrounds us, brothers and sisters, we've been given the stories of the fathers of our faith to teach us what it means to persevere - what it means to have a real meaning in our life - what it means to really celebrate, in a real, meaningful way. We have the example of Abraham - Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his son, his only son, the son he loved, because He knew that God was faithful, and that God had a plan. And so, trusting in the God of the covenant, who had made such a great covenant promise concerning his child, Abraham was willing to tie his son to an altar and obey God's command.
God had made a promise, and God had also made a demand. Abraham didn't know how the promise and the commandment were going to be reconciled - how the promise that Isaac would be the covenant seed would line up with God's command to stick a knife in him on an altar on a mountain. But Abraham knew that it was up to God to reconcile the promise and the commandment, not him - and so when God gave the command, Abraham obeyed. He knew what he had to do, and he knew that God would work it out.
By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau - even though God worked things out in a way that Isaac had never planned, Isaac still blessed both of his sons - Jacob as the seed of the covenant, Esau being blessed only about future things, outside of the covenant. And by faith Jacob blessed Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph - once again, like his father Isaac, trusting in God's faithfulness as he neared the end of his life. Same with Joseph - when he was about to die, by faith he told his brothers to bring his bones back to the Promised Land - because he knew, he trusted, he had a sure knowledge, he had faith - that God would fulfil His promises to His covenant people.
And then we see the faith of Moses, faith that works itself out in action. Moses' parents had faith, and so they hid their child and then entrusted him to Pharaoh's daughter. They knew the boy was special, and they trusted that God would work things out - so they disobeyed the edict of Pharaoh that said that all the Hebrew boys must be killed. And that act of faith led to the great life of faith of Moses. And this life of faith is what the original readers of Hebrews were called to emulate in their circumstances, and it's also what we are called to live out in our circumstances.
Because Moses' faith led to him separating himself from a life of power and luxury in the King's court. Moses' faith led to him abandoning every earthly attachment that he had, every promise of wealth and influence in the home of the king of Egypt, and it led to him identifying himself with a nation of slaves, a nation to which he really belonged. He realized that it was better for him to bear the reproach that went along with being a part of the despised and oppressed people of God than it would be for him to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
And his faith was rewarded. Imagine for a moment that Moses had remained where he was instead of leaving the treasures of Egypt behind. He may have become a powerful man in the kingdom. He may have had slaves at his beck and call, wealth and influence, fame and adulation, throughout the land of Egypt. He may have become someone revered in his own day, and maybe even for a couple of generations thereafter.
But ultimately, he would have been forgotten. If you ever study the history of Egypt, you'll find out that it's not that clear - who reigned when, how long they reigned, what the kingdom was like, what the individual Pharaohs were like. A whole lot of information about the history of Egypt has been absolutely and completely lost. There are whole periods in the history of Egypt that we know next to nothing about, and large parts of Egyptian history remain a mystery. If Moses would have remained in his position as the adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter, we probably wouldn't know much more about him than his name.
But as it is, Moses is remembered, and honoured, far more than any Pharaoh of Egypt ever will be. Moses is renowned as a man of faith, as the man who delivered the people of Israel, as the man God used to divide the Red Sea, as the mediator of his people, as the man God used to give His people His perfect law. Moses, if he had chosen the pleasures of this life, would be a forgotten footnote in the annals of history. But he made his choices by faith. And he has received his reward.
And that reward doesn't consist in him being remembered. It's not about immortality in the sense of being remembered and revered by future generations. There are many thousands and millions of men and women of faith who have been forgotten - they lived anonymous lives, but they lived faithfully and died faithfully, were buried, and ultimately forgotten. And chances are pretty good that no matter how faithful we are, exactly the same thing is going to happen to us.
But Moses' reward is an eternal reward - the reward of a lasting city, the city whose foundations are built by God. He was looking forward to a reward that he could not see, and because of this, he lived a life that was meant to bring glory to the Giver of that reward. His faith led him to refuse to be identified with the royal family of Egypt; His faith led him to choose the reproach of Christ over the adulation of man. And that faith made his life meaningful, because it led him to do what all of us were created to do - to serve his God faithfully, to trust in Him, and to be obedient to His call.
It may seem strange to us to think about Moses "considering the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt" - how could Moses be considering anything about Christ two thousand years before Jesus came into the world? But we can see here what this "reproach of Christ" is - it's the reproach that belongs to Christ's people. The LORD had told the Pharaoh, "Israel is my son, my first-born" (Exodus 4:22). Israel was the Lord's son, and the Lord Jesus became the true Israel - He identified Himself with His people, He became one of them. Their reproach was His reproach. Their suffering was His suffering.
As slaves in Egypt, they were despised and humiliated - but He suffered the ultimate rejection, the ultimate humiliation, for the sake of the people that He was a part of, the people He represented, the people who by and large would reject Him. So when the author of Hebrews says that Moses considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, he's equating that reproach with the reproach of belonging to the bride of Christ, God's people, His church.
And that was Moses' ultimate act of faith - faith meant choosing to reject the pleasures of the world, the "fleeting pleasures of sin," which were, ultimately, for Moses and for us, the pleasures that come from choosing the fake fellowship that the world has to offer over the true fellowship that can only be found among God's people. It meant that Moses chose to identify himself as a covenant child, not as a child of Pharaoh's daughter. It meant that Moses looked to God as his father, and not to the king of Egypt. It meant that Moses chose to regard his fellow Hebrews as brothers and sisters, not the Egyptians in the court. It meant that he would suffer. It meant that he would have to flee for his life. It meant that he would have to give up everything in this life, every pleasure that this life has to offer, for the sake of a life of pain, a life of suffering, a life of rejection, a life of constantly battling against the unbelief and rejection and stubbornness of the people of God - and it meant doing that with joy, with the realization that it was all for a purpose, and that it would all result in a great reward - the reward of eternal life in the lasting city.
And ultimately Moses was just another human being. Read the story of the Exodus and the wilderness wandering and you'll see Moses' failings and shortcomings in black and white. His faith is only meaningful because of the One in whom he trusted. We look to Moses as a hero of faith, but ultimately we need to look to the One who is the object of that faith, the One to whom Moses pointed - that's why we read the first three verses of Hebrews 12 along with this section of the faith hall of fame.
Because faith is only as good as its object. And our faith means that in all things, we look "to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame." We look to the one who "is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." We "consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself," so that we might "not grow weary or faint-hearted."
Moses bore the reproach of Christ, looking for a great reward. But Moses was just a man, like you, and like me. Our Lord and Saviour bore the reproach of His people, the perfect man, the perfect God-man. In the end, Moses got what he didn't deserve, of himself - eternal life in God's presence. But he only got that reward, and we can only look forward to receiving that reward, because the perfect Mediator, the perfect first-born Son of the Father, also got what He didn't deserve, in the slightest - the cross, the shame, the hostility of sinners, rejection, suffering, and death - all because He chose to identify Himself with His people, to bring salvation, and life, and meaning.
Brothers and sisters, that's what it's all about. When we look back at 2011, we look back at a year of our Lord. We look back in regret, because we have sinned and fallen short, because we haven't done all that we could do to serve the Lord. But we can also look back in joy, because we can see the evidence of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives - the beginning of obedience that God has allowed us, the perseverance in the faith that God has granted us - the fact that He has not left us alone, that He has been with us, that He has provided!
And as we look forward to 2012, we look ahead with hope, knowing that everything we do is meaningful, if we do it in faith. We can really celebrate - not by drowning our sorrows or by pretending they don't exist, not by fooling ourselves, not by self-deception - but we can celebrate in suffering, in reproach, in our identity as people who are different from the world, in our identity as people who do not belong, who do not want to belong, to an evil world system. But we can celebrate that we too can bear the reproach of Christ, by identifying ourselves with the people of God, with the Bride of Christ - and thereby identifying ourselves with Christ Himself.
We know that this life isn't all there is. Like Moses, we know that the pleasures of sin are fleeting. We know that the sun rises and the sun sets, the waters keep flowing in a great cycle, that there is nothing new under the sun, but we also know that, in Christ, all of this, everything, every bit of it, has meaning. And because of this, we can endure. In Christ, we can persevere. We can bear with suffering without despairing. We can rejoice, no matter what our situation is. We can move forward in confidence, because by faith, like Moses, we see Him who is invisible.
And so we look forward - not just to another year of life, but to eternal life. We look forward - not to building our own earthly city, our own monument to ourselves, but to living in the city that has foundations, the city whose architect and builder is the Lord. And we look forward to the day when our Lord returns - not with fear, but with hope - not with despair and anxiety, but with confidence. Because He who testified to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon." Come, Lord Jesus! Amen.
I just realized that the previous post was post #500 on this blog! With that milestone, I want to thank my gracious hosts for this website, Compass Creative Studio in Burlington, Ontario. They have been hosting my blog since June of 2006, and I do appreciate it! Thanks Jason and Jonathan!
This past Sunday I preached on some of the miraculous births in the history of redemption, focusing especially on the births of Samson and Samuel, and their connection with the births of John the Baptist and our Saviour. Scripture readings were Judges 13 (the announcement of Samson's birth) and Luke 1. I also referred to the birth of Samuel, which is recorded in 1 Samuel 1 and 2. Here's the sermon:
Alright, so the official statistics have come in for my "Getting Lighter for the Children of Light" effort. Here are the details:
I started out, way back when, at 281 lbs. My plan was to lose 28 lbs... and as I foretold in a previous post, I didn't achieve that goal [insert depressing musical interlude here].
However, I did manage to lose ten pounds, which is a lot better than gaining! And because of that ten pounds, $285.00 will be donated to the Children of Light, thanks to my generous sponsors.
So if you sponsored me, way back when (and even if you didn't), here's where you should send your money. And for everyone out there, they will put your donation to good use:
Children of Light
#37 - 51214 Range Road 260
Spruce Grove, Alberta
T7Y 1B1
Here's the website for more information on Children of Light:
Here are the donors - you know who you are, and thanks for your support!
J. and J.B. - $5/lb
C.N. - $1/lb
E. and C.H. - $2/lb
J.D.H. - $5/lb
H. and G.P. - $1/lb
T. and A.L. - $5/lb
J.K. - $1/lb
G.V. - $1/lb
T. and N.W. - $2.50/lb
R.S. - $5/lb
This past Sunday was a special one for the P.G. Mission Congregation, as our sister Melissa Grounds made a public profession of her faith, and we could celebrate a joyful occasion with a large number of guests. I've been preaching through the book of Hebrews, and it just so happened that we had reached Hebrews 11 - the "Faith Hall of Fame" - this past Sunday. An appropriate passage, providentially arranged! So without further ado, here's the sermon I preached on Sunday, December 18th, "What is faith?"
Beloved Brothers and Sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ,
This morning we've gathered together in an act of faith. We worship our God, the God of the universe - the Creator, the Redeemer, the One who upholds all things. We don't see this God. We believe that He exists, that He created us for a purpose, and that by worshipping Him we are fulfilling that purpose.
There are many in our culture who deny the existence of this God, and they think what we do here every week is, at the very least, somewhat strange. But we have faith. Faith is central to the message of Christianity, and without faith, the Christian religion would not exist.
But this morning we are also gathered to witness a public profession of faith - many of you have come here this morning particularly to witness Melissa's public profession of faith, to act as witnesses to a public declaration that Melissa is making in response to her baptism. After this sermon, she is going to stand up and answer some questions, and publicly acknowledge her faith in the Triune God, and her determination to live out that faith.
So our worship this morning is an act of faith. And this morning Melissa is publicly professing her faith. We take this word "faith" for granted - as if it's something that's perfectly clear and understandable, as if it's something that we don't even need to define. But the question that we need to answer is this: What is faith? If we are saved by God's grace, through faith, we need to know what faith is. If we are justified by faith, we need to understand what it is that justifies us. If we walk by faith, and not by sight, we need to know why these two things are different. And if we are going to profess that we have faith, we need to be sure that we know exactly what it is that we say that we have.
We live in a materialistic world - a world in which people, by and large, believe only what they see. If it's tangible - if you can touch it, see it, taste it, hear it - then you can know that it's true. In a materialistic world, faith is viewed as a suspension of disbelief. Faith is contrasted with knowledge. Faith is a matter of feelings, and faith can only be something fickle, something that comes and goes, something that you can't base anything on. Stuff that you can touch and taste and see and smell - that's real. Faith is imaginary. It may be useful, in giving you purpose in life, or giving you a reason to live in a certain way, or just to live, period, but when it comes right down to it, many people believe that faith is kids' stuff - when you grow up, you put faith away. When you abandon belief in Santa Claus, in the tooth fairy, in the Easter bunny, you're maturing. For many people, that's what faith is - something you put aside, something you abandon, when you finally wise up.
Other people believe that faith isn't the opposite of knowledge, but it's the opposite of reason. In other words, faith is something that, by its very nature, is irrational. For them, faith is a suspension of disbelief. In this understanding of faith, anything can be an object of faith, however unreasonable it may be. My faith may tell me that there are many gods, or that there are no gods, or that god exists in the form of a snake or a monster or some kind of superhuman being, and given this understanding of faith, there's no arguing against that. My faith is right for me, your faith is right for you, and you can't use logic or reason to argue against it. It doesn't have to make sense. It doesn't have to be coherent. But in this way of thinking, you have to believe in something, and whatever you believe in, that's right for you.
Finally, there are others who believe that faith is a power, or a force. They may think of Jesus' words in Matthew 17:20 - "For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you," and they may imply from this one statement that faith is a kind of a force that we can use to accomplish things - whether it's healing, or miracles of some other kind, or personal success, or wealth or health or good relationships - if you understand faith as being a kind of force or power that you can channel in order to make things happen, all of these things can be done, if only we have enough power in our faith to accomplish them.
And I know there are more definitions of faith out there, but these three examples that I've given are more than enough to show us that "faith" is not something that is easily defined, and it's definitely not something that's universally understood. So we need to go to the source - we need to look to the only place where true wisdom is found. What does God's Word have to say about faith? If God has told us what faith is, we should use His definition, not our own.
And He has told us what faith is. Hebrews 11 is a very well-known chapter in the Bible - it's often called the "Hall of Fame" of faith. Those of us who were here last week read the verses that led up to this chapter, the final verses of Hebrews 10 - "My righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls." We were called to live by faith. We were called to be of those who have faith and preserve their souls - to move forward by faith, not to retreat, to shrink back. And now, here in Hebrews 11, the author goes into great detail in explaining what faith is, by using a long list of famous examples of men and women of faith. We are called to emulate these people, to imitate them. Faith is what we need in order to live; faith is what we need in order to persevere; faith is what we need in order to keep on pressing forward toward the goal. So what is faith?
"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
So faith is, most assuredly, not something unstable and shaky. We're not talking about "blind faith" here - we're not talking about turning our brains off, about putting aside reason, about abandoning truth for the sake of fantasy. We're talking about assurance. We're talking about conviction. We're talking about something solid, something you can hang on to. Having faith means being certain of what we do not see; it means being sure of what we hope for. Having faith is understanding that something exists beyond our field of vision, beyond what we can see with our physical eyes. And that "something" that exists beyond the realm of human experience isn't just something we make up, as if the object of my faith doesn't really exist, and the object of your faith doesn't really exist, and so we can believe in two completely different things and still both be right, for ourselves. No, there is certainty. There is an objective, real content to our faith.
And the author explains that in verse 3, in terms that make our faith look to history - "By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." Who was there to witness this creation, creation of the universe from nothing? There were no human witnesses to God's amazing act of creation. No human eye saw the planets and the stars and the galaxies come together. No human ear heard God's voice as He called all things into existence. No human eye saw the Spirit, as He hovered over the waters when the earth was still without form. No one was there when God separated the waters below from the waters above, when He separated the seas from the dry land, when he filled the seas with fish and the skies with birds and the land with animals. No one saw him form the man from the dust of the ground.
But by faith, we understand that these things happened. Faith is trust - it's trusting that what God's Word says is true. It's trusting an account that cannot be verified apart from God's special revelation in the Bible. It's being certain of what no human eye had seen - that God, by His powerful word, created this world out of nothing. We know this to be true, even though we haven't seen it - and we know it to be true because God tells us that it's true.
So we trust God's Word as a reliable report of the story of the creation of the universe. Faith means trusting in God's Word when He tells us about what He has done in the past - not in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, but because the ultimate evidence is right here in front of us, in God's Word. And we build on that, along with the author of Hebrews, by moving forward. Faith means trusting God's own report of what He has already done, but it also means trusting in God's promises about what He is going to do.
And here we enter into the first room in the Faith Hall of Fame - the room dedicated to members from before the Flood. First we have Abel. We know the story of Cain and Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain was a horticulturist. He offered a sacrifice of the products of his labours - an offering of the fruit of the ground. Abel was a herdsman, and he too offered a sacrifice - the first-born of his flock, and the fat portions. Two sacrifices were offered - they were different in their composition, but each offering suited the work of the person doing the offering. But the LORD accepted Abel's sacrifice, and rejected Cain's.
By faith Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice than his brother. What made the offering acceptable was not the content of the offering, but the spirit in which it was offered. And through his faith, though Abel died, yet he still speaks! Abel trusted in the Lord. Abel trusted in the Lord's promises. Abel lived by faith, and his faith made his offering acceptable. And because Abel trusted the Lord, he lives, and will live forever.
That brings us to the second member in the first room of the Hall of Fame - Enoch. Enoch was the father of Methuselah, but other than that we know only one thing: "Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him" (Genesis 5:24). "Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God," the author of Hebrews tells us. And the only way to please God is by responding to Him and His Word and His promise with trust and hope, trust and hope that lead inevitably to leading a life that pleases the God who gives life.
And the final member of the Faith Hall of Fame from before the flood is Noah. Here we see even more clearly how faith is understanding the reality of unseen things, and living in that understanding. Noah didn't see any evidence that a flood was coming that would destroy the world. The only thing Noah had to go by was God's Word. God had warned Noah, and Noah listened. He trusted God, and he lived out that trust by building a giant boat in a place where there was no water. His faith worked itself out in his obedience to the Lord's call. He knew that God's Word about what was coming up in the future was much more reliable than what he could see with his eyes. Noah trusted in God's Word, and so he became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith, while the world was condemned for its unbelief.
And so we leave the first room of the Faith Hall of Fame, and move into the second room - the Patriarchs' room. From the time he was called by the Lord to leave his home and head to Canaan, Abraham exemplified faith in action. Abraham's life stands as proof that faith is more than an idea, or a feeling. Abraham was driven by his faith. He made his choices by faith, he took action because of his faith - his faith defined his life. By faith he left his home and his extended family behind to go to a land he had never seen, a land he didn't know - even before the Lord had told him what his destination was, Abraham was obedient. He trusted the Lord, and so he packed up his belongings and headed west, for the Promised Land.
And then, once he arrived in Canaan, he embraced the life of an alien in the land, living in tents, moving from place to place, living as a stranger and a sojourner in the midst of the native Canaanites - "I am a sojourner and a foreigner among you," he said in Genesis 23:4 - except for a single burial plot in a field near Hebron Abraham never owned even a square foot of the land that he had been promised. And despite that fact, despite the fact that it would take hundreds of years after his death for his descendants to receive the land of the promise, he never complained, he never grew impatient - he trusted in the Lord and in His promises, and his faith was made evident to everyone around him by the way he lived his life.
He was sure of what he hoped for. He was certain of what he did not, and could not see. He trusted in the Lord, and his way of life showed that his trust was real. He lived in tents - not because he was too poor to afford a real house - Abraham was a wealthy man, and his tents were a lot more like Bedouin tents than pup tents. But his earthly home never had a foundation; he could never truly be at home in one place. He was a stranger and an alien in the land that had been promised to him, and he was okay with that, because "he was looking forward to a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God."
Abraham was in the world, but he was not of the world. He was heavenly-minded - he was looking forward to his everlasting home, the city with foundations, God's city. But being heavenly-minded didn't mean that the life he lived in his earthly tent had no meaning, that he was just sitting around waiting until this life could be over so he could get to heaven where things would really mean something. His faith made his life meaningful. His faith made him a practical man. His faith motivated him to help his neighbours in battle, to help his neighbours to fight against their enemies. He knew he was a sojourner and a stranger, but it was exactly that knowledge that gave him the proper perspective on this life and what it means. He knew that this world is not all there is - and that made him able to live in this world in the proper way. He knew that the land of Canaan was not the be-all and the end-all - and so he had a perspective that allowed him to live in Canaan with real purpose, with a real goal, for a real reason. His life in Canaan had meaning because he knew that Canaan was not all there is!
The Lord would later promise His people rest in the land of Canaan; but earlier on in the letter to the Hebrews we learned that this rest was not the final rest that God had planned - "for if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on - and so there remains an eternal rest yet to come for God's people" (Hebrews 4:8,9). God provided his people with an earthly city, the earthly Jerusalem, the city that the Psalmists sung about, the city "which God will establish forever" (Psalm 48:8); "the city He founded" (Psalm 87:1); the city about which "glorious things are spoken" (Psalm 87). But the earthly Jerusalem was just a shadow of the heavenly Jerusalem. The earthly Jerusalem and the earthly temple were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 B.C. The original readers of Hebrews lived before the time when the city and the temple would be destroyed again, this time by the Romans. And in the times between destructions, Jerusalem was filled with sin, with rebellion, with violence, with corruption - the hearts of God's people were never meant to be set on the earthly Jerusalem. We are meant to live, looking forward - looking forward to something we can't see, but something we know is real - the New Jerusalem, eternal, unshakeable, established by God, the city with foundations.
That is faith. We live by faith - we can only truly live by faith. By faith, we experience that New Jerusalem now, because God has begun to build it, in His church, the Bride of Christ. In the church we have fellowship with God, and with one another. We have been washed clean by the blood of the lamb. But in order to be in this life what God wants us to be, in order for us to live the brief life that God gives to us as He wants us to live, we need to always be looking forward. And we know what we're looking forward to, and we know it's real, because God has told us what's coming. He's told us in Revelation 21, where one of the seven angels carried John
"away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed [him] the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed - on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb... The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel... And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass. And [John] saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day - and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and honour of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life."
Brothers and sisters, by faith we experience the foundation of this city. By faith we know this as a present reality, a reality that has already begun, but a reality that awaits its final fulfilment. By faith we know that this picture is more real, and more meaningful, than any earthly goal or earthly pleasure. Knowing that this is true puts the 70 or 80 years we have to live in this life in their proper perspective.
That is faith. It's not a force, it's not a power, it's not a means of getting stuff. It's not self-confidence. It's not a suspension of disbelief, shutting your brain off and giving yourself over to your emotions. It's not just assenting to the fact that something is true. Faith means trusting what God has said, and living in the light of that trust. Faith means accepting that God's promises are real, and living in the light of those promises.
When Melissa was baptised as a child of the covenant, she became the recipient of God's great promises. Now, when she makes a public profession of her faith, she is declaring, in front of all of us, and even more importantly, before God, that she believes that those promises are true and real, and that they apply to her. Her faith, our faith, unites us to Christ. And all the promises of God, the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 1:20, find their "yes" in Him. Faith is our lifeline. Faith is the rope that keeps us attached to the Saviour. Our faith means that our life has a real meaning, and a real purpose, because by faith we look forward. And we look forward to the city, the City of God, the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God Almighty, our Lord, and our Saviour.
I've had a couple of people ask me about my "Getting Lighter for the Children of Light" fundraising effort, and here's the update. The closing date was to be December 1st, and I have not yet had the opportunity to get back to the doctor's office for an "official" final weigh-in so I can announce my progress (or lack thereof) to a waiting world (so to speak).
To those who made pledges, don't worry, the extra days aren't going to break the bank. After an impressive start (if I must say so myself), my journey to a thinner me hit something of a snag (involving 2 1/2 weeks of vacation and meals at Mo's Seafood Restaurant in Newport, Oregon, and Lil' Sambo's in Lincoln City, Oregon, and Papa Pete's Pizza in Castle Rock, Washington, among other places), and things have been pretty much at a standstill since then. I'm hoping to get into the doctor's office for my official weigh-in this week, and then I'll tally up the totals. I'm hoping for good news... stay tuned!
Once again, technical difficulties resulted in no recording of Sunday's sermon. Batteries appear to be the key to the operation of a recorder, for some reason. And without working batteries, there is no recording. I thought the batteries were okay, but obviously they weren't. So here's Sunday's sermon, the old-fashioned way:
Sermon: Hebrews 9:1-28
Sermon Text: Hebrews 9:22
Beloved Brothers and Sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ,
So far in our study of the letter to the Hebrews, we've seen how he author of Hebrews has been building his case for Christ's supremacy, leading up to the exhortations and warnings that are coming. As we look this morning specifically at what Hebrews 9 has to teach us, we first need to understand the direction that the author is taking here. Last week we saw how Hebrews 8 painted a beautiful picture of the supremacy of the New Covenant. And we can look at Hebrews 9 as a kind of subset to that argument. The New Covenant is better than the Old Covenant, because it fulfils the Old Covenant - that's the broad outline. Now we get some details on why the New Covenant is superior - and we learn that the New Covenant is superior to the old because of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Death and bloodshed inaugurated the old, Mosaic covenant; the story is told in Exodus 24:4-8:
"And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, 'All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.' And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, 'Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words."
So blood had to be spilled in order for the Old Covenant to begin. But the shedding of blood was also central to the continuation of the Old Covenant - blood was used to cleanse the tabernacle, to cleanse the implements that were used in the tabernacle, to cleanse the priests, and to cleanse the people. Almost everything that needed purification had to be cleansed with blood. And the uncleanness that could be removed by other means - by water, or by fire - could only be removed by virtue of that sacrificial blood that had been shed to make people right with God in the first place.
The centre of Old Covenant worship was the Day of Atonement - Yom Kippur, which is still the highest holy day for practising Jews. In the central chapter in the book of Leviticus, the Lord outlined the procedure for this special day:
"Aaron shall present the bull as a sin offering for himself, and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. He shall kill the bull as a sin offering for himself. And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the LORD, and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small, and he shall bring it inside the veil and put the incense on the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony, so that he does not die. And he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy seat on the east side, and in front of the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat" (Leviticus 16:11-15).
In order for one man to enter into the presence of the Lord, into the most holy place, as a representative of his people, there had to be death. A bull had to die. A goat had to die. The priests would have to collect the blood from these slaughtered animals, and that blood opened up the path to the presence of the Lord. Without the presence of that blood, there was no entrance into the Holy Place. If any person, even a High Priest, would try to enter into the High Priest without that blood, he would be struck down by the Lord. Without the blood, there was only danger. Unless the blood of the spotless sacrifice had been shed, and unless the High Priest presented that blood to the Lord, there was no opportunity for anyone under the Old Covenant to have communion with God.
This is summed up in Leviticus 17:11, and this is probably the verse that the writer of Hebrews is referring to in v.22, where he says, "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins" - "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life."
The Old Covenant rituals were, in large part, all about bloodshed. Looking at it from a distance, as we do, the Old Testament sacrificial system was a brutal, bloody, gory, experience. And that's just thinking about what people would see - think about the noise of the animals that were led to the slaughter and killed. Think about the smell - the smell of the freshly shed blood and the animal carcases, and the burning flesh on the altars. If that organization PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, had existed four thousand years ago, the tabernacle would have been the site of one never-ending protest.
Secular historians and evolutionist anthropologists and sociologists have their explanations for all of this, of course. They'll trace the evolution of religion, from this supposedly primitive form of religion, with its bloody sacrifices and gory show of blood and guts, to the superior, "spiritual" forms of religion that don't involve sacrifice. They'll compare Israel's sacrificial system with the sacrifices of other cultures around them, and they'll argue that all of these things were meant to placate angry and hostile deities, to provide food for the gods, to punish animals in place of human worshippers.
And the idea of sacrifice, the idea that sins had to be paid for, that the wrath of God had to be turned away from people, that death had to occur to open up the way to fellowship with God, that idea was pretty much universal in the ancient world. But rather than Israel's system being just one more example of a primitive, simple-minded religious practice of ancient undeveloped people, Israel's sacrificial system was the true, God-ordained system, a practice that went back to the earliest days after our first parents fell into sin, a practice that God had put into writing in the Mosaic law. It was a practice that was misused and that degenerated in the nations around Israel, when they left the worship of the One True God behind, and chose to worship gods of their own making. They had an idea of the truth, they had an idea that sacrifice was necessary, but they perverted that idea for their own purposes. Instead of the evolution of religion that modern academics talk about, there was a devolution, a deterioration, a straying from the truth.
Blood had to be shed. Animals had to be sacrificed. In order for the Old Covenant to be inaugurated, death had to occur. In order for God's people to live in fellowship with Him, many, many deaths had to occur. But those deaths were symbolic of something far greater. Those deaths had no efficacy in and of themselves - we can see that in passages like Isaiah 1:11 - "What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? Says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats." In Psalm 50:12,13, the LORD says this: "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?"
The prophets spoke to this issue again and again - the sacrifices in and of themselves had no meaning. They weren't God's food, as if He couldn't survive without them. As slaughtered animals, as simple flesh and blood, they had no meaning, apart from what they stood for, and what they pointed to. When the people of Israel forgot that, when they began to think that the sacrifices did something, affected something, in and of themselves, the LORD got angry. When the people forgot that true worship was worship that came from the heart, when they forgot that faith and repentance and obedience that comes from faith were what God wanted, God spoke words of judgement, like He did through Jeremiah (Jeremiah 6:20; 7:21-23):
"What use to me is frankincense that comes from Sheba, or sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing to me... Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: 'Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them: Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.'"
The evolutionary theorists are dead wrong; Scripture shows us that the Israelite religion was not based on placating an angry god with bloody sacrifices that appealed to His brutality; neither was it based on feeding a hungry god who needed the sacrifices of His people in order to survive. The sacrifices of the Old Covenant pointed forward to the superior sacrifice, the final sacrifice, the sacrifice that fulfilled the Day of Atonement, the sacrifice that inaugurate the New Covenant.
And that sacrifice was the sacrifice of Christ. And the authors of Scripture speak of that sacrifice in a kind of shorthand. The message of the gospel is called "the message of the cross" - not because it speaks about 2 pieces of wood that have power in themselves, but because the cross stands as a stark symbol of our Saviour's suffering and death on behalf of His people. The cross is spoken of as having power - not because this instrument of torture and death has any power in itself, but because it speaks to the final sacrifice that was offered upon it.
In the same way, Scripture speaks about the blood of Christ:
"But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near, by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:13).
"You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot" (1 Peter 1:18,19).
"To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen" (Revelation 1:5,6).
We have been brought near - allowed to enter into the presence of God, because of the blood of Christ. We have been ransomed, delivered from our slavery to sin, with the precious blood of our Saviour. We have been freed from our sins, and made into a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, by His blood.
And just as many people in our society choose to misunderstand and misinterpret the Old Testament shedding of blood, Scripture's message of the blood of Christ has also been misunderstood and misinterpreted, by Christians and non-Christians.
Among some Christians, there's almost a magical power imputed to the blood of Christ, as if the fluid itself has magical properties. The Revised Standard Version of Hebrews 9:12 says this:
"He entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption."
Many fundamentalists, reading Scripture in a woodenly literal way, have interpreted this as if Jesus entered into heaven, with a literal collection of His blood, which He presents to the Father as a token of His sacrifice. Our translation, "He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of His own blood," is much better. His shed blood, and that means His sacrificial death, His life given for His people, was the means by which He could enter into the Holy Place, into the presence of the Father. It's not the literal blood, with its corpuscles, its red and white cells, and plasma and platelets and haemoglobin, that means anything - it's what that blood stands for - the perfect, once for all sacrifice of the Son of God, the perfect fulfilment of the Old Covenant sacrificial system - that's what allowed Jesus Christ to enter into the holy place in glory.
Some of you may be familiar with a hymn called "There is power in blood." I won't sing it, but it goes like this:
"Would you be free from the burden of sin?
There's power in the blood, power in the blood;
Would you o'er evil a victory win?
There's wonderful power in the blood.
There is power, power, wonder-working power
In the blood of the Lamb;
There is power, power, wonder-working power
In the precious blood of the Lamb."
The unfortunate thing is that these words can be, and often are, misunderstood and misinterpreted. Now we have Christians who speak about "pleading the blood" of Jesus, which, according to one teacher, "simply means applying the blood to our life and circumstances just like the Israelites applied it to their door posts and were protected from the destroyer (Exodus 12). Pleading the blood is simply the taking hold of the authority and power available to us by the death and resurrection or Jesus."
Brothers and sisters, this kind of speaking is more like Wicca than it is Christian. We need to take care with how we use Scripture, and we need to understand what Scripture means when it speaks figuratively. The blood of the Old Covenant meant something because it stood for the life of the animal; the blood is the fluid of life, the fluid that sustains the working of the body. The blood had no magic power; the sacrifice had no magic power - it could only be effective because of its fulfilment, because of the One who would come later, to make the meaning of the sacrificial system clear.
And now we have the blood of Christ, through which we can enter into God's presence, through which He could enter into God's presence and open up the way for us. Is there power in the blood? Figuratively speaking, you could say that - Christ's blood was poured out for our sins; there is power and effectiveness in His sacrificial death. Those for whom Christ died will never face judgement. Those for whom Christ gave His life will never die. Those for whom Christ died die with Him, and rise with Him. In that way, as a figure for His atoning sacrifice, as a symbol of His suffering and death, Christ's blood is central to the message of the Christian faith.
But does Christ's blood have power as a kind of mystical fluid, kept in a container in heaven for all eternity? Absolutely not. Can we "plead the blood," and should we be "pleading the blood"? Absolutely not. The idea doesn't come from Scripture, it's open to all kinds of abuse and magical thinking, and we should avoid that kind of thinking at all costs. Our life comes from Christ's death. Our blood will never have to be shed for our sins, Jesus Christ, true God and true man, paid that price with His blood. Our Heidelberg Catechism puts it this way: "He must be a true man because the justice of God requires that the same human nature which has sinned should pay for sin. He must be a righteous man because one who himself is a sinner cannot pay for others. [And] He must be true God so that by the power of His divine nature He might bear in His human nature the burden of God's wrath, and might obtain for us and restore to us righteousness and life."
That's why His sacrifice means something so important. That's why His blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12:24). Because it represents the mercy and justice of God - mercy because He has applied that sacrifice to us as His people, so His righteousness becomes our righteousness; justice because He poured out His wrath on His Son, because He is just, and in His justice His wrath had to be satisfied.
And that brings us to another misunderstanding of Christ's sacrifice. Some people have said that this idea of Christ's propitiatory sacrifice, the idea that He had to suffer and die as a sacrifice for sins, is nothing more than what they call "cosmic child abuse" - a primitive, brutal idea that comes from the primitive religious impulses of humanity. The idea of the Father requiring the life of His Son as a sacrifice of atonement strikes some people, including men like Brian McLaren, who has been at the forefront of the "emergent church" movement, as barbaric. This is just the latest example of what the Apostle Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 1:17,18 - "For Christ did not send me to baptise but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
The cross of Christ, the shed blood of Christ, the sacrificial death of the Son of God on behalf of His people, is a foundational doctrine to the Christian faith. Without it, our faith is nothing. Without this truth, the death of Christ is meaningless, we are still dead in our transgressions and sins, and we are, of all people, most to be pitied. We can talk about the cross with all of its symbolic meaning, we can talk about the blood of Christ, and what it stands for, but all of what the cross and the blood represent, the focus of all this symbolic language, is the real thing. It's the real, perfect, atoning sacrifice of God's own Son, the sacrifice that gives life, the sacrifice that is the only thing that can give us real hope.
It's not a symbolic sacrifice, a sacrifice that we're called to imitate in sacrificial giving to make the world a better place. It's not an image of a man who gave His life in that we can use to encourage ourselves to give our lives in service to others, as if Jesus Christ is only important because He's a good example for us. God sent His Son to be the spotless lamb, to take away the sins of the world. This isn't a barbaric idea of cosmic child abuse - the Son gave Himself up. The Son lives forever in perfect unity with the Father. The Son gave up His life, and took it up again. God gave of Himself, so that His people might have life.
This is grace. This is love. This is God, providing a way for His people where His people had barred the way. This is God, providing the remedy for the problem that His people caused, and doing it without denying His character. This is God, making it possible for multitudes of people to be saved from eternal punishment, while still maintaining His holiness, still upholding His justice, while still being God. This is the most amazing miracle of all time, and it's cause for thanksgiving and rejoicing, not for grumbling and moaning and casting aspersions on the character of a God who would do something like this to His own Son. The message of the cross may be foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved - it's an overwhelming statement about God's goodness and kindness and love for sinners who deserve judgement.
So in conclusion, we don't minimize the importance of the blood of Christ, as if it's some kind of magic talisman that we can use to ward off evil spells, as if it's some kind of magic liquid that holds power in itself. We celebrate the fact that the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ was shed, not for no purpose, not as a great example, not as some kind of ancient primitive myth, but for the complete, absolute, total, utter, forgiveness of all of our sins. The sacrifice was necessary; there is no salvation without it.
And the sacrifice is a sacrifice made on our behalf, if only we believe. If only we trust in Him. If only we look to Him alone for our salvation. This one sacrifice put an end to the shedding of blood, because the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. And so the only sacrifices we offer are thank offerings - an offering of praise; the sweet-smelling incense of our prayers; the living sacrifice of our bodies that we offer in thankfulness to the One who gave Himself, so that we might live.
Without the shedding of blood, nothing is purified. The perfect blood has been shed, and by faith, we are made pure. So let us walk in purity. Let us live in thankfulness. And let us never be ashamed to proclaim the cross, to rejoice in the final sacrifice, to celebrate the way of salvation that our gracious God Himself has provided, for us.