Scripture Reading: Hebrews 10:1-25
Topic: What About Jesus?
What about Jesus? That's the question on the marque outside and that's the question that all of us have to answer for ourselves. What about Jesus?
What about Jesus? What's all the commotion about? What's all the fuss and ruckus about? What's the point to all the nativities and decorations that are erected on lawns, in houses, and attached to poles? What about Jesus?
Jesus Is About Out With The Old
By this I'm referring to The Insufficiency Of The Old Covenant that we read about in Hebrews 10:1-4.
The Old Covenant was a good covenant. It was good because God made it. It was good because it disclosed and revealed, and still discloses and reveals, to mankind the reality and nature of sin. The Old Covenant is sufficient to disclose and reveal sin but it is insufficient to do anything about sin.
Year by year and offering by offering for some twenty centuries the flames consumed sin offerings on the brazen altar outside the Holy Place as a reminder of sins committed in the lives of the ones bringing the offerings and in the lives of the ones making the offerings and, though their sins were forgiven because of their obedience to do the righteous commandments of God, the people under the Old Covenant were never, and will never be, loosed and freed from the captivity of their sins.
As good as the Old Covenant was and is in disclosing and revealing sin, there is nothing regenerative in the blood of bulls and goats offered as sin offerings. And year after year from the time of Moses until the first coming of Christ, God's people were continually required to lead animals to the slaughtering place to be burned on the altar of sacrifice as both a reminder of their sins and as a pointer pointing to the one who would come to take away the sins of the world. And while the Old Covenant was sufficient to disclose and reveal sin it was insufficient to take away sins.
Jesus is about out with the old. John baptized Jesus and the next day as Jesus approached he declared, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). The Old Covenant was insufficient to do this and all that we see in the ritual sacrifices under the Old Covenant are symbols and types of the offering of the Lamb of God whom we know as Jesus Christ.
Jesus Is About In With The New
By this I'm referring to The Sufficiency Of Christ that we read about in Hebrews 10:5-18.
There's something here that we need to think about to keep us on an even keel concerning the Old Covenant given by God through Moses and the New Covenant given by God through Jesus Christ.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill." Jesus Christ fulfilled all the righteous requirements of the Old Covenant Law that was handed down through Moses. While living He satisfied all the moral and social obligations set forth in the Law and in dying He satisfied all the ritualistic sacrificial requirements that were necessary to remove sin.
Jesus didn't come to set aside the moral and social requirements found in the commandments and precepts of the Law of God. He lived them and fulfilled them. But He did come to set aside the ritual sacrifices required in the Law of God and He did this by dying a physical death for sin.
Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "For He (God the Father) made Him (God the Son) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
Our sufficiency is no longer found in the ritualistic works of the Law. Our sufficiency is in Christ who fulfilled all the righteous requirements of the Law and is now seated at the right hand of the Father where "He is able also to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He ever lives to make intercession for them." (Hebrews 7:25)
Jesus is the something new that God promised through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 43:19 and in Him we have the opportunity to become new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17) with our sins forgiven where God can do new works in our lives to accomplish His will in the earth.
Jesus is about out with the Old. Jesus is about in with the New. But He doesn't stop with these two. Jesus also addresses the here and now as it concerns me and you.
Jesus Is About On With The Renewed
By this I'm referring to The Commitment Of Christ's Followers that we read about in Hebrews 10:19-25.
Because the Old is out and the New is in, and because of our personal acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, we, those who have been regenerated spiritually by the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives, born again by the power of God, renewed in the spirits of our minds, press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14), seeking not our own but rather seeking the things of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:21), pouring ourselves out as drink offerings in service to God and His people (Philippians 2:17), counting all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:8) desiring to be found in Him, not having our own righteousness but rather the righteousness of Christ (Philippians 3:9), longing to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings while we are being conformed to His own death (Philippians 3:10), and all this while we ourselves look forward to our own resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:11).
And how do we make a successful journey from the point of our conversion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ all the way to the moment we breath our last physical breath and step through the transparent veil? How do we accomplish all that we are assigned to accomplish in our tasks and callings as believers individually and as the church collectively?
Here's some pointers right from the heart of God and printed in the Word of God.
1. Stay in the Holy Place with the Lord. Don't stay in the dimension of the outer court looking in now that Jesus has opened the veil so that we can personally enter into the Holy Place where we can know God intimately and receive from God the gifts and the giftings that He has for us to bless our lives and the life of the church.
2. Keep "faith - full". Don't let the enemy, or circumstances, or anything else dilute and destroy the faith that's been planted in you by the Holy Spirit. The only biblical way to grow in faith is to feed faith with the Word of God (Romans 10:17) and as faith grows by the Word of God working in us we find less doubt and unbelief in our hearts hindering us from believing against all the plans and powers of the enemy.
3. Remain actively involved in fellowship with the saints and in the ongoing work of the church. Don't fall into the devil's trap by separating yourself from the safe place of personal accountability and personal service to the Body of Christ. When we do we endanger ourselves and we also rob God of resources that He could and would otherwise use to benefit the Body of Christ and to build His church.
Out with the old, in with the new, and on with the renewed. That's what Jesus is about.
Copyright Dave Kralik - 2000
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