Higher Hope

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning. I am not Drew. I make them surprised to you. My name is Daniel Oster, and I'm a deacon here at South Burleson Baptist Church, and it's my honor to be here with you guys. It's real encouraging. I received some texts. I received some, you know, don't break a leg type things this week, and real encouragement from the church. It's great to get up here and not feel like everybody's got a page that's entitled all the things Daniel said wrong Okay, because thank you for not doing that but um, I'm happy to be here this morning And it my family and I got to go to the nation's capital, Washington, DC this year and that is a picture of us in front of the White House and The reason I show this is because we actually were hoping to go inside the White House And I quickly found out what a process that was. When the week before we went, I got on to see what we needed to do to do a tour.

And the first thing it said I needed to do was submit a request through the member of Congress that represents you. And I was like, oh no, I don't even know who that is. And then they said then their congressional tour coordinator will email you a link. and that link will have, and there's this list of, they'll run a background check on you and your family, and then you will be sent times that are available for us that hopefully works for you, and you could pick a time frame in there. So instead, we stood thousands of feet away on the other side of the fence and took this picture, and the reason we did is because we weren't granted access to the White House that day. And but today in Hebrews we're going to look at this access that is granted to us that's that's both mind-blowing to the Jews that are reading this at the time and should be mind-blowing to us today.

So we're gonna be in Hebrews 10 starting in 19. Last week we started our third part of a four-part series. This year our church is going through Hebrews and we're breaking it up in chunks and this is the third of those and the theme throughout is higher. And this session, these next four or five weeks are on a higher hope. We're going to be looking at a higher hope. And last week we spent some time in chapter nine of Hebrews and the first part of ten. And we talked about, kind of summed it up that there was a lot of blood and a lot of holiness. And that really sounds weird together. And we're going to kind of walk through that a little bit today as well. But the simple fact that no longer do we need to have temporary sacrifices for atonement of our sin that Jesus Christ is the ultimate and that sacrifice is eternal and for all. So let's begin by looking in chapter 10 and we're going to

start in verses 19 and 20. It says, therefore brothers and sisters since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way opened up for us through the curtain that is his body and since we have a great priest over the house of God. So our church, when we see the word therefore we ask ourselves why is it therefore? Awesome, that's sticking. That's sticking. Alright, the author has laid down some sound doctrine of who Christ is throughout the whole book so far. We've looked at Christ higher than the angels. We've looked at Christ the Son of God. He's higher than Moses. He's our great high priest. He's fulfilling prophecy. And then we get to this point in chapter 10 where we look at these sense statements, sense we, since these things have happened. And so the first one there is since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and

living way that's been opened up through the curtain that is his body. And so to really understand the impact of what it's talking about when we're talking about the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy Place, we really need to kind of spend just a little bit of time there. The Jews, however, in the Old Testament were extremely familiar. When we hear things like blood and sacrifices, that's not something that we see that's weird to us. However, the Jews understood well in context, the high priest, the blood sacrifices, this cleansing that took place. It was something that was really familiar to them. It would be similar to how like driving is familiar to us because we grow up around it even before you get your driver's license you probably have an idea that it's stop signs you're supposed to stop but there's speed limits you're supposed to adhere to when the red light says red you stop when it's green you go when

it's yellow you floor it right but you have to understand that the Jews had context of these of these rituals a because they've read them and be because they've been part of them and witnessed them. And so it's hard for us to have it, but I want to lay out just a few things I think will help us today to understand what the Holy of Holies was, what also called the most holy of places. And it was a section in the tabernacle in the back that was concealed by a curtain or a veil. And once a year, the one high priest on the day of atonement would go back there and make sacrifices. Before he did, he had to ceremony wash himself clean and he had to wash garments that he would put on that were clean and then he would get a goat, he would get two goats and a bull and the bull was for his own sacrifice and the goats they would get cast lots and one goat would be the

sacrificial goat the other one would be the scapegoat and he would burn incense and this is all laid out in Leviticus I'm summarizing in a great deal but there's a ton of detail and he would burn incense and it would say that so the aroma would cover so that he might not die. So I mean this was a dangerous, dangerous process to be happened that only happened once a year. He would, when he sacrificed the animals he would take his finger and he would sprinkle seven times on the Ark of the Covenant, the atonement cover, to represent. So the bull was for his sins and the goats were for the sins of the people and that's what would take place in behind this veil once a year. And so what I want us to try to understand is how difficult and limiting that access was. Right? It was one high priest, it was once a year, and it was sacrificing animals to forgiveness of the sins, and all of which were temporary. So then you can imagine,

as we read in verse 19, when it talks about to have the confidence to enter this place, sounded very odd. That we can essentially walk in through what the way Jesus provide into this place that would been restricted that we have been granted access but we on the other side of the New Covenant can understand this a little better when we hear remember what Jesus said he says I am the way and this is in John 14 6 the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except through me so when you read Exodus I mean when you read Hebrews verse 10 verse 20 again it says by a new and living way opened up through the curtain that is his body, through Jesus. So we see only through Jesus are we able to have access to the Father. And so the next sense since we statement says since we have a great high priest over the house of God and so Jesus is that high priest in which we can use his credentials to enter this

place. It has nothing to do with what we've done. And so you can imagine how mind-blowing this was to Jews for them to think and it should be mind-blowing for us today. So it essentially would be like me saying, hey, you can go onto the White House lawn. You can just go right on in to the White House. Just knock on the door. Just go in and make yourself comfortable. That would seem odd. You would think that I'm crazy. You would ask questions like, who are you to give me that authorization? You know, that's dangerous. There's trigger-happy snipers waiting nearby, you know that there's no way that you have the authority. And so that's what they were wrestling with there, is this access that was given to them and by who. So now that we can kind of see this through the lens of how crazy this sounds, they give us three directives that we can do with this access. So let's read in verse 21. It says, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart

and with full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from guilty conscious, and having our bodies washed with pure water. So the first thing we see that we do with this access is we draw near to God. Look at the condition in which we're able to do that. It says, we have hearts sprinkled clean from guilt, and we have bodies washed, cleansed with pure water. And so we see that pointing back to the process that the high priest had to do in the Old Testament. and saying Jesus has now accomplished that on our behalf. Because of him, we are now able to approach God. And so, unlike the priests of the Old Testament, we don't have to take a bath. Well, we do have to encourage everybody to take a bath, but not to approach God. We, but we have the access to approach God based on Christ's blood, which sprinkles our hearts free from guilt.

And this is guilt like in a courtroom, guilt, found guilty. And, but Jesus has made us now acceptable and grants us access to approach God. But we have to be clear, just because you have access to something, doesn't mean you use that access, right? Just because you're able to do something doesn't mean you do it. So, for instance, I have a coworker of mine years ago. He went to go buy a suit, a suit store. And some of these suit stores, they throw out the whole like buy one, get too free or you know some ridiculous sale and he went in to buy a suit and he gets up to the counter and he puts the suit on the counter and she says sir you you have the opportunity to buy you know you bought this one but you get two free ones you can go get two free suits and he says I just need one suit and she's like well yeah I understand but because you buy this one suit now you have you

can go get two free ones and he says I just came for one suit and that's all And we look at that and we go, like, he left that, like, I wish I would have been standing in line with that guy going, I'll take his free two suits, right? Like, there's just some value there. So we see that just because we have the access to do something, we don't always utilize it. And we have to understand that we have access to God all the time, 24, seven, 365. And so essentially what it's saying is we have the ability to jump the fence. We can jump the fence and go see God. We can draw near to Him. And so when we follow Jesus, we can approach God with this confidence that we don't have to Cleanse ourselves or do these things right that Jesus has done that on our behalf And so essentially we can jump the fence and have full access to God and draw near to him So why then do we sometimes not utilize this access?

Why are we sometimes like the guy at the counter at the suit store who don't always use the access that's given to us? And I think one of those reasons is that we miss the true value in what we have access to. You know, like the coworker at the store, he really, the two free suits didn't move the needle much for him. But if they would have said something like, hey, you get to buy one free suit and you get a billion dollars, I'm sure he would not have left that on the counter, right? Because that had value, more value to him. And so essentially, when we don't utilize our access to draw near to God into prayer, into time in the Word, we're essentially saying it's just not worth it. It's just not worth my time. It's not worth my attention. And when you put it in that perspective, it sounds worse, right? I'm busy or some other excuses sound a lot better. But essentially, by saying that we don't, when we don't spend time with God, it's essentially

saying because he's just not worth it. And so we miss the value and to being able to spend time with the creator of the universe. Like he wants us to draw near to him and that should be incredibly encouraging to us and we should see the value in that. One other reason we miss drawing near to God is we don't feel qualified. This happens a lot. feel like you need to get things in order before you go to the throne of God, before you pray to Him, before you go to church, before you do all these things, you got to get things right. You know, essentially like before I have to get healthy, before I go see the doctor kind of attitude. Or maybe you think that you need to kind of earn it. You know, you want the fence to be in your way. You want to have to go through the trouble of getting access because it it just wouldn't be right for you to just kind of put everything out in front of God.

You need to do some work. And essentially, by doing that, we're diminishing what Christ did on the cross. We're saying it's not enough. We're saying we're going to have to do something more in order to access God. Like I have to get my life in order. I have to do these things. And then I will go to God. And God's saying, no, draw to me. You have the access, draw near to me. And so when we realize that it doesn't have anything to do with our ability or our condition at the time, it really should break down some pressures that we put on ourselves to really just be vulnerable in front of the Lord. And the good news is we can't out sin the credentials that Christ gives us. Okay, we're able to approach the throne of God because of who Christ is and the sin in our life either past or present or future isn't changing that. I think the Lord that when God sees us, he sees what Christ did. And so we must constantly jump that fence to run

to Him. And we use that terminology and what Jesus did doesn't really even require us jumping a fence. He's taking that fence down. He's just asking us to draw near to the Father. And so, by doing so, we can hear from God, we can allow him to continue to shape us in the followers who point others to his glory. The only way to know to do that is to spend time with him in prayer. It's also reading his word and just allowing our thoughts to gravitate who he is. So now that we've jumped the fence and draw near to God, what are we supposed to do? So let's look in verse 23, it says, let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. So that word unswervingly, some may say hold fast

to the hope and the promise, this terminology was used to describe something that was truly like upright, never leaning firm. So it's saying to hold on to that. When my family, we got to go to Zion National Park, Obviously, we like to travel. And when you start this, there's a famous trail that's called Angel's Landing. And when you start the trail, there's a sign that says, how many people have died on the trail? And they keep an updated count. Okay, so it's really motivating, right? When you start the trail. But the reason being it's dangerous is because the last quarter mile to get to like the peak of this amazing view is you have to hang on to these chains and poles. And it's real sketchy. and you have to hang on to these things that are fixed into the mountain to get to the peak. And so the reason people have fallen have never been because the chains have broken,

because the poles have leaned, or there's been some faulty. It's because people have loosened their grip, they've let go, they haven't used the chains, and they've essentially fallen. And what this scripture is reminding us to do is to hold on, and it's to hold on to the one true thing that never gives way or breaks. Notice that we're holding on to the hope that we profess. We talked about this a little bit last week, but when you talk about hope in the Bible, it's not the same hope that we use today. There may be a lot of you guys that are hoping that the Cowboys win today, right? Thank God he's more steadfast than your Dallas Cowboys. Dad, that was for you. But the fact is, God is saying, I am true, I am upright, I am firm, and I will never fail you. And there's no reason to hold on to anything else but for me all the time. And so, it's not dependent on our faith.

It says it's for He who promised is faithful. who's making these promises are hope that rests in God that he is faithful. And so I would venture to say that most of us would agree that God is faithful, amen, that he doesn't go back on his word, amen. So then why do we feel like we sometimes have to we loosen our grip or maybe grab on to something else? And there's two things I want to just quickly lay out. One is one reason we would not hold on to God, one reason we would let go is because we have confidence in ourselves. And this happens when things start going right in the world for you, things are going well. You start feeling like you're really clicking, like you're doing the things that you're supposed to be doing, and it kind of becomes like look at me kind of thing. And so that may cause us to let go of what the Lord is doing. But then our faith of holding on comes on our own ability, which certainly

gives way. Because when things are going bad, a lot of times we try to deflect anything that's going bad, right? But when things are going good, look at me, fucked up, chest kind of feeling, and then we get kind of this this confidence in our own ability and we let go of God. We let go saying, I have this, and then when life kind of hits you sideways, you fall. You're caught off guard. You're off balance. And so we must remember that the things that God does through us, it should be for His glory and we should really just look at it as Him working through us and not look at me type moments. Another reason we don't hang on to God is because we're easily fooled that other things give us support. So maybe you find confidence in your 401k plan or how people perceive you or just kind of your thoughts on something and you say, you know what, I'm going to hang on to this over here and that's good for

a while until that gives way. And then here you are in a freefall looking for something firm to grab onto. The good thing is God never changes. He's steadfast and true from the beginning of time and will always be. And so it's crazy for us to think reasons why we tend to let go and put confidence in so many other things that are fragile, that are weak, don't stand up to what God's promises are. And so we must understand though that we're always holding on to something. If you think about that, you're always holding on to something, whether that's your own ability or something else or God. And so just as we kind of go into this morning, just be thinking about what that might be. And so the good news is even though we have tendencies to let go or put confidence in ourselves and it may cause us to fall. Unlike angels landing you will not be a number on the sign. Unlike angels landing if you

had to start you don't have to start from the bottom. There's 42 switchbacks all the way up. You don't have to work your way back up to God's grace. He is there in your life for you to draw near to and hold firm to all the time. No matter your condition, no matter how much you've turned your back away from him. And there's beautiful scripture, because this is not, there's beautiful Old Testament scriptures that the Jews can reference to this and that we can hear today. And some of those are Deuteronomy 10:20 says, fear the Lord your God and serve him, hold fast to him and take your oaks in his name. Deuteronomy 13:4 says, it is the Lord your God you must follow and in him you must revere, keep his commands and obey him, serve and hold fast to him. Joshua 23 8, but you are to hold fast to the Lord your God. And then in Psalm, David, when kind of being hunted down

in Psalm 63 8 says, I cling to you, your right hand upholds me. And what a beautiful picture, what a great opportunity we have to hang on to something that never fails and loves us and calls us to him. All right, so the last one it says in verses, let's look at the last one, Let Us statement here in verses 24 and 25. It says, and let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, not neglecting the meat, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, all the more as the day drawing near. So, so far we've jumped the fence, we've held on to God and his promises, and now we're told to stir each other up in meetings. And it gives us two things to do and one thing not to do. So we're to stir each other up, we're supposed to encourage, or the don't is the neglect to meet. So let's take the two do's first.

The meaning of this word stirrup can also mean things like rouse, stimulate, provoke, incite, all of which is grounded in the love and good works. And so when we meet as a community of believers, also known as the body of Christ, also known as the church, We should be looking at ways to motivate and incite and provoke each other in our relationships with the Lord. In order to do this, we need to show up in people's lives. And let me give you some examples. So these are just made up examples. And in spending time with Lisa and her family at church, you quickly realize how great she is with children. You can tell she has a heart and a great gifting and you ask her, has she ever thought about serving in the children's ministry? And her answer is no, because I don't know a lot about the Bible. The kids are going to ask me questions I don't know. So I'll wait to the point where I can answer questions and then I'll serve.

And so your encouragement, your way to provoke would be to say, hey, I think God uses a lot of people that would consider themselves unqualified. and I would even serve alongside you the first few weeks. And so that would be a way. Derek knows he should be sharing the gospel with people, but he works at a Christian-based company and feels he never has the opportunity. Over coffee, he confides in you and says, look, I don't know lost people, I really think that I'm letting down the call of the gospel. And so you ask him, what are some things you like to do? And you find out he likes to bowl. And so you help, you give him an idea to start a bowling team and a bowling league, and that you'll be on that bowling team. And the sole purpose is to meet people that may not know the Lord, people out of your Christian circle. Maybe this has happened to you. Maybe you've shown up to church Sunday morning

and you walk in here and the music starts playing and you're just not feeling it. I mean, you just, you see the words on the screen, you know the song, your lips are singing them, but you're just, your heart's not in it. But then you look over and you see somebody next to you with like a hand raised or eyes closed that are just truly worshiping the Lord. And that is motivating to you, that's encouraging to you. Those are ways where people are showing up and it's provoking people to a calling of God or to worship of God. This last one actually happened a few weeks ago. This is a real life example. We circle up at 8.30 morning in prayer. And that morning, the way we do prayer at 8.30, the more we pray for the church and the way that we do, is when we start to stop, we call it popcorn prayer, I don't know if better term, but the people get to pray in the middle. Well, this morning, about four weeks ago,

Bonnie Hay begins to pray. And let me tell you, she was praying for us to be kind to people, to read the Bible well. And I mean, when we said amen, I was ready to start a revival. Like I was ready to go. I was charged. And all Bonnie Hay did was obedient to the Lord. Bonnie Hay's like six, I think, five? Okay, it's five years old, give you some concept. And I mean, it was just like, everybody from the huddle was just like, let's go get them. I mean, like, and all she did was pray. And so it's those small things of showing up in people's lives, even if you don't even know what's happening, God uses you in ways that you don't even see or understand. Bonnie had no idea that she was encouraging a group of people. And so I'm sure you guys have a lot of stories. We hear them during our family meetings of ways that you've been blessed, people that we really need each other as a body.

And I think that's why we get the don't pretty, right in the middle of these verses about not neglecting to meet each other as a habit of some. A lot of times you hear this preached on why people should come to church on Sunday mornings. And I agree with that, but there's so much more to that. I mean, we live in a society where this communal thing, like we do as church, is harder. It's less and less important. You know, we got work from home now. We've got all these things where the idea of the need being in a community just seems to be less and less important to people. And actually what happens is we start building up walls around parts of our lives that we wanna kinda keep people out of. And that could be like your house. And that's why I'm glad I have the pulpit this morning because I wanted to share something that happened to my family.

A few weeks ago on a Thursday night, my kids were all bathed. We were playing a game as a family. And it was like 7.30 on a week night. And there was a knock at the door and it was that kind of knock at the door where it's like, you know, they're not leaving a package. You know, someone's standing at your front door. And so I looked at my calendar. No one had sent an invitation. I looked at all my socials, which if you know me, I don't have socials, so I'm obviously embellishing the story. No one had told me that they were coming over and I looked through the peephole and do you know who I saw? Drew and Riley Caperton. And they were on my front porch. Heath wasn't even wearing a shirt. We didn't have time to clean. If I knew the pastor was coming over, I would put out more Bibles and hit the beer. But there they were.

Some of y'all are like, yeah, I mean, let's bring them up for church discipline. I say that because that's kind of how we kind of feel about these little apartments of our lives where we build walls around and we really don't wanna let people in. And they came in, we had a great conversation. If you get any time with Raleigh, she's so much funnier than Drew. It's very pleasant. But all they did was show up on our doorstep. We had a great time. He's bringing me a book. I mean, it was totally, it was unintentional.

But just those little things on how we show up into each other's lives, I think are really important. I know it's important. The Hebrews writer is writing about how important it is for us not to neglect meeting together. And so, when I say show up, it's more than just showing up on a Sunday morning. And that's a good start, but if that's really where it stops for you, it's going to feel light. You're not going to have the relationships that you're going to really be able to allow people to pour in your life and you to do the same thing. And so there's a variety of ways to do that, that we've organized at our church. But these aren't the only ways. But I mean, we have Sunday morning Bible study at 9. We have gospel course and some other courses that will rotate that 9 o'clock hour that you're welcome to. We've got connect groups that happen in six to eight weeks,

us bi-annually in the spring and fall that we're about to start up. I mean what those are is just a time for you to connect people in the neighborhood. So one of which is we call Friday night free play where all you do is show up. You just bring your kids. If you don't have kids you're just sitting with parents watching kids play and neighborhood people show up and they just play soccer, or basketball, whatever. And that'll be a way for you to show up. We have life groups that are very important to the way that we disciple and pour into people that look at confession and direction and mission. And so I do encourage you this morning to look at ways that you can show up, look at ways that you can stir people up because it's more than just a Sunday morning for us morning for us if we're going to be a church that really connects and is able to point people to the glory of God. And so I would encourage you to show up on a

Sunday morning. I would encourage you to show up in life groups, to show up in lives of people around you, your neighbors, to show up on each other's front porch. I mean, that would be my challenge to you this morning. It would be this This week I would challenge you to show up on somebody's porch unannounced, preferably in here. You're welcome to test my open door policy. You're welcome to show up, but it's just for the intention of getting out of a comfort zone, breaking down these social barriers that we have to have all this stuff planned, and just go see how somebody is doing. It's that simple. So what a mind-blowing concept that Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, Jesus who's resurrected and at the right hand of God invites us into a relationship with God the Father. And because of Jesus, we can walk into that relationship with confidence.

We can hold on to God and the promises he guarantees. And we can show up in people's lives being empowered by the Holy Spirit. We don't have to have any type of crazy plan on how to incite or provoke people. We're just showing up in people's lives. So you may be a believer for a long time, and this is a good reminder for you. I would just encourage you to think about ways that you could maybe break down some barriers in your life or things that are causing you not to hold on to God. But ways that you could show up in people's lives in this church or even in the neighborhood around you, maybe consider a life group or being part of a connect group and encouraging others to do the same. Maybe you are fully aware of who Jesus is, but, and you kind of understand what I'm saying to a point, but you're comfortable hanging on the outside of the fence. It's just kind of a comfortable space for you, which means

you're putting some trust in some other things, and maybe you believe what God, you know, God is good in these things, but you're not ready to commit your life to Him. I would just, I would just encourage you to continue to explore what a relationship with Christ looks like and how it is just a transforming thing for you and that everything else that we try to put our trust in fails. And so I'd encourage you to see what it looks like to draw near, what it would look like to put your trust and your faith in God in everything and what that would look like different for your life. So with that let's go ahead and close in prayer. Father God, I thank you that you give us the word that teaches and instructs and encourages us Lord and I thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that allows us to approach God in a relationship. Lord, to draw near to him and to hold fast to his promises and with that Lord we can have the

actions to show up in people's lives. We can minister, we can pray, we can serve, we could unannounced, show up on each other's doorsteps and just see how we're doing. I just pray that we be a church that reaches out beyond these walls, that we can point people to your glory and how we act and teach, how we talk in in our conversations to others, Lord. Just help us in our reading, Lord, just help us to seek you well and to see your value is good. That's your name I pray. We're gonna continue our worship. Feel free to stand, sit, pray, whatever you feel like.

So do it this time. God of Abraham, the God of covenant, The faithful promise is, time and time again, you have proven, I do just what you say, Though the storms may come and the wind may blow The mains did fast And my heart learned with me as we go When you come to pass Great is all faithfulness to me Great is all faithfulness to me The rising sun to setting same I will praise your name Great is your faithfulness to me God from age to age Will the earth may pass away Your word remains the same Your history can true, there's nothing you can't do Faithful and true, though the storms may come And the winds may blow, pain stay fast I let my heart learn when you speak of me to pass. Praise and faithfulness to me. The grave is of faithfulness From the rising sun to the steady sand The grave is your name It is of faithfulness to me And I put my faith in Jesus, my anchor to the ground,

My hope and profound descent, I'll never let you down, Oh, I put my faith in Jesus, my anchor to you, My hope and firm foundation You'll never let me know, sit up I put my faith in Jesus My anchor to the ground My hope and firm foundation You'll never let me down Oh, I put my faith in Jesus, my anchor to the ground, my hope and from five days, he'll never let me down. And great is of faith for me Of faith for raising some to the setting same But praise you Sing it out loud to the Cause I put my faith in Jesus My anchor to the ground My open foundation