The Better Covenant - Hebrews 9:1-10 - June 21, 2026 - Don Windmiller
/Don Windmiller opens Hebrews 9:1-10 by reminding us that the entire book of Hebrews is built around one great theme: the supremacy of Christ. Jesus is better than the prophets, the angels, Moses, Joshua, the high priests, Abraham, Melchizedek, and now — in chapter nine — better than the old earthly sanctuary itself. The Mosaic covenant, with all of its regulations, sacrifices, and priestly rituals, was never meant to be the final word. It was a conditional covenant that exposed the people's sin and their desperate need for something — Someone — greater.
Every piece of furniture in the tabernacle was a carefully crafted shadow of Christ. The golden lampstand pointed to Jesus, the light of the world (John 8:12). The bread of presence pointed to Jesus, the bread of life (John 6:35). The ark of the covenant, with its contents of manna, Aaron's budded rod, and the tablets of the law, pointed to Christ as God's provision, his chosen high priest, and the fulfillment of the law. And the mercy seat, where the blood of sacrifice was sprinkled once a year, pointed to Christ as the ultimate propitiation — the one who satisfied the wrath of God once and for all, as Romans 3:25 makes clear.
Don brings it all home with the tearing of the veil. When Jesus cried "It is finished" and gave up his spirit, that thick curtain — the one that said you are not welcome here — was ripped in two from top to bottom, from heaven to earth. The old system, practiced for 1,400 years, was made obsolete in a single moment. Now, as Hebrews 4:16 says, we can "draw near with confidence to the throne of grace." The shadows have given way to the substance. Christ is our lampstand, our bread, our ark, our mercy seat, our high priest — and he is in the heavenly sanctuary right now, interceding for us.
Transcript
We're going to talk about a tent and furniture today. It was furniture that was handcrafted by the Israelites by the direction of God, beautifully crafted to the glory of God. And I'm calling this in Hebrews 9:1-10, "From shadows to Fulfillment." If you've got your Bibles turned to chapter nine of Hebrews.
"Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was prepared, the first section, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence. It is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place, having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding manna, and Aaron's staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail. These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing (which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings and regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation."
— Hebrews 9:1-10
Let's pray together. Father, in heaven, we love you, we adore you, we worship you. And as we open your word this morning, I pray, Father, that your Holy Spirit would speak to us, that we would hear from you, that you would minister to our needs, Lord, that you would bring us closer to yourself. And we will thank you for your blessing. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
Hebrews is all about the supremacy of Christ. We've talked about that as we have been studying this book. That Jesus is the better—that he is in chapter one, better than the prophets; in chapter two, he's better than the angels; in chapter three, he's better than Moses; in chapter four, he's better than Joshua, better than the high priest in chapters four, five and six, better than Abraham in chapter six, better than Melchizedek in chapter seven, better than the priests in seven and eight, better than the sacrifices in chapter eight. And now here in chapter nine, better than the old sanctuary here where he is right now, in the new sanctuary in heaven, interceding for us.
Verses 1 to 5, I've called the shadows of earthly sanctuary. It's a continuation of chapter 8 that J so wonderfully shared with us last week. And in verse 13 of chapter 8, it says, in speaking of the new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. The new covenant, Jesus Christ, death on the cross, his shed blood, is the new covenant that has invited us into the presence of God as we know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
So now in chapter nine, he's reminding these young Jewish converts that he's speaking to how the first covenant, the covenant given to Moses with its sacrifices, its regulations, were a shadow of this new covenant, the blood of Jesus Christ, verse one, he says even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. A first covenant he's talking about here. He's talking about the covenant that he gave to Moses called the Sinai Covenant. It was an agreement between God and the people of Israel, different than the Abrahamic covenant, the Noah covenant, the Adamic covenant. Those covenants were unconditional. They were given by God. God gave them to Abraham, to Noah, to Adam. And they were unconditional. They were just something that God gave to them. Abraham didn't have to do anything.
He said, "I'm going to make you into a great nation and all the nations of the world will be blessed through you." So that was an unconditional covenant. We Talked about this in the men's group yesterday. Steve brought it to our attention, that this Mosaic covenant is a conditional covenant. It is an agreement between two people, between God and the people of Israel. And of course, Jay laid that out for us last week. This conditional covenant related to the fact that God would bless them if what? They would obey him. And the problem was, Jay said they didn't obey him. Right. They were sinful. Why? Because they had a sin nature. Thank you, Adam and Eve. We are all born with a sin nature. All of us are sinful. That's our problem as well. That's the whole world's problem.
In Romans chapter 3:10 through 12, it says, now is righteous. Now none is righteous. No, not one. Not one. Not one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together. They have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one.
"None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one."
— Romans 3:10-12
Well, there is one, right? There's one that did good. That's Jesus Christ. Jesus in Hebrews 4:15 says that in every respect he was tempted as we were. Yet What? Without sin? 2nd Corinthians 5:21 says, God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
— 2 Corinthians 5:21
Jesus Christ, who was perfect, sinless, knew no sin. God made him sin. He gave him our sin on the cross of Calvary so that we could have a righteousness that would bring us into the throne room and the friendship and the forgiveness of God. The law is good, isn't it? The law is not bad. The law is good. The law is perfect. The law shows us that we are sinful people and that we need to deal with our sin. It says here in verse one, it says, even the first covenant had regulation for worship and an earthly place.
God met his people at Mount Sinai. He said, "come. Come up here, if you would. "He said, "come and meet me." And the people said, "we're not going to come up to the mountain. We come up to the mountain, we're going to die. We're going to send Moses. We'll send Moses. You deal with Moses. You tell him what you want us to do." God desired to dwell with his people. These were his people. He loved them even though they were sinful. He desired to be with them. So he created a system on earth in which he could be among them and they could be with Him. And there was a system of sacrifice. That they could be accepted by him for a time, for a covering of their sin. He would build this earthly tabernacle and the holy of holies, the holy place and all of the things in it to represent his goodness, his perfection and how he wanted them to live. But it was a temporary thing.
Being temporary, it was made from earthly things. Gold, silver, beautiful wood tapestry given by the people, given by the Israelites, freely given, not demanded to be given, but they freely gave of everything that they had. And they had a lot of stuff that they had taken with them from Egypt. The Egyptians gave them gold and silver and tapestries and dyes and all of these kinds of things. And God gave them the skill to build it because they had 430 years of slavery, learning a lot of skill. They probably weren't thinking at the time that this is a skill that I can use later. But God had given them these skills so that they could handcraft these beautiful, wonderful, ornate things that were made of gold and silver and be a picture of God's glory and, and a picture, a shadow of the things to come in Christ.
The author here in verse two moves right into the tabernacle, the tent of meetings. He doesn't mention the outer court, but let me just mention the outer court a minute to you. The outer court was a wall that surrounded the tabernacle, was 150ft long, 75ft wide and 7 1/2ft tall. 60 acacia wood poles with silver brackets and attached to these white linens that encircled the whole tabernacle. Now the Israelites encircled this tabernacle, approximately some 2 million of them. And this was the center of worship for them, the center place where they could meet God. In it was the brazen altar of sacrifice. It was the largest altar item in the entire tabernacle. It was seven and a half feet square. It was four and a half feet tall. And it was the place where all the sacrifices were made, the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, the fellowship offerings, the peace offerings, the sin offerings, the guilt offerings. And they offered the sacrifices there daily throughout the day. Then there was the bronze basin or laver, and it was full of pure water, clean water. And the priests would go there to wash themselves before every sacrifice.
He Brazen Alter was a type of the Cross. Luke 1:69. The Bronze Basen was a type of Christ cleansing
I John 1:7.
And then in chapter verse 2, he gets into the tent of meetings. He says, for a tent was prepared, the first section, in which there were the lampstand, the table, the bread of presence, it is called the holy place. The holy Place. Here's a picture of it. Holy meaning set apart. God is set apart from sin. This holy place was the first chamber as you entered the tabernacle. It was a sacred place where the priests would go to perform daily rituals and prayers for the people. The holy place was 30ft by 15ft by 15ft. It was relatively small. The tabernacle itself was relatively small. The whole tabernacle, the whole thing could fit into a. Into the Carolina Hurricanes hockey rink. That's how small it was. And of course, I mentioned Carolina because they just won the Stanley Cup. But anyway, so it's a relatively small place. But this holy place. The holy place was a picture, a type of Christ. It was the foreshadow of the heavenly sanctuary where Christ is right now interceding for us. We read it in scripture today, John 1:14. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. That word dwelt is to tabernacle Christ, tabernacled among us. He brought himself to us, and he now is in the holy sanctuary in heaven, interceding for us.
And then there was the golden lampstand, the menorah. The lampstand was made of one piece of solid gold, handcrafted, had six stems and then a center stem. They all had flower buds on them in the middle stem representing God himself. The seven stems were a picture of perfection. Seven is a number of perfection, right? It also represented 7 days of creation. This menorah was also a picture of the tree of life in the Garden of Eden. Gold cups filled with Olive oil daily and wicks trimmed daily. They would burn morning and night so that they could work by the light of the lampstand. The type of Christ, obviously, it's light. Christ is the light of the world. So that lampstand was a shadow of Christ and him being the light of the world. In John 8:12 it says again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, for but we'll have the light of life.
And so it is a type of Christ being the light of the world. Across the room was the table of showbread, or bread of presence that was in the face of God. It was a picture of fellowship with God. On this table are 12 loaves of unleavened bread, representing the 12 tribes of Israel, right? And once a week on Sabbath, the priest would come in with a fresh batch of 12 unleavened loaves of bread and place them on the table. And Then they would take the old bread and they would eat it so it wasn't wasted. There's a picture and a type of Christ being the bread of Life, right. John 6:35. Jesus said to them, I'm the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
And if we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, by faith we have fellowship with God. We eat of the table, the body and the blood of Christ, having fellowship with Christ because of what he has done on the cross of Calvary for us.
And then we move into the Holy of Holies. In verse three, behind the second curtain was a second section called the most Holy place, having the golden altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant, covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna and Aaron's staff that that budded and the tablets of the covenant. And above it were the cherubim’s of glory, overshadowing the mercy seat of these things. We cannot speak in detail, he said. So behind the veil is the Holy of holies. It is the holiest place on earth. As far as this temporary tabernacle is concerned. It is 15 by 15 by 15 square, very small. And in it is the Ark of the Covenant. Separated by this thick veil, this beautiful tapestry of blue and purple and scarlet. Embroidered on it are cherubim’s. Cherubim’s were the only living thing that God allowed the Israelites to make an image of because they were a picture of the protection of the throne room of God.
Scholars having different ideas of the thickness but was probably about 4 inches thick, all woven together. Realizing that it was one big piece of tapestry that covered the entire front of the Holy of Holies, the high priest would only enter there once a year. And the veil. The veil meant you're not welcome. You can't come in here. Only the high priest, God, allowed to come in. And that was once a year. And that was for a short time. And that was in fear and trembling and bringing blood. But for us, for the Israelites, they weren't welcome. Why? Because they were sinful. Sin could not come into the presence of God. The veil represents Christ. It is the type of Christ we'll see here in a minute again about the veil. But from the moment that Christ died on the cross, when he said, "it is finished" and he gave up the ghost, that thick veil was ripped in two. From top to bottom, from heaven to earth. And the graves were opened and dead men started walking. And they weren't zombies. They were believers and followers of God by faith looking forward to God’s promise. It meant that everyone that follows Jesus Christ now can approach the throne room of God.
"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."
— 1 Peter 2:9
When we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we become priests ourselves. That means we can come into the presence of God. Hebrews 4:16 says, Let us then with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace, and we may receive mercy and find grace in help of time of need.
That torn veil, now ripped in two from heaven to earth, says, you're welcomed, you're welcomed. You can come now into the presence of God.
And there behind that veil, in the holy of holies, was the ark of the covenant. The ark was a box. It was a chest, a place of refuge that represented the presence of God. Made of acacia wood, covered completely in gold. It was about three and a quarter feet long, about two and a quarter feet high and. Or wide and about two and a quarter feet high. Again, very small. That's by the measurements, if a cubic being 18 inches, that would be roughly the size of it. It had gold rings on the side that they could put acacia wood poles through so they could carry it. And when they carried it, they wouldn't be able to touch it.
Remember one time it was touched. David was bringing it to Jerusalem. They're dancing and singing and praising God, and all of a sudden the ox stumbles and Uzziah reaches out, tries to steady the ark. I mean, that's a good thing, right? And God. God killed him right on the spot. Because sin could not come in to the presence of God, not without the blood of the sacrifice and ultimately the blood of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord.
And inside the ark were the tablets that Moses had brought down from the mountain that God had written the law on. In it was a golden urn of manna representing God's provision in the wilderness. And then Aaron's rod, Aaron's rod, his staff that had budded. Now, what does that mean, a rod in the ark that's got flowers on it? Well, if you recall in Numbers 17, the people had rebelled against Moses. And Aaron saying "what gives you this authority for leading us? And we don't like the way you're leading us." God wants to destroy them. Moses pleads with God, "no, no, don't destroy them." He Said, "you know, we need to let them know that, that this is of you." And so God says, "okay, fine, I want you to have every tribe to bring their own staff, put their name on that staff." Aaron puts his name on his staff. Bring it into the holy place and leave it there overnight and see what I will do. Of course, they brought all of the staffs into the holy place. And overnight, Aaron's rod had budded and it had blossomed and it had produced almonds to prove his authority that God had chosen Aaron to be the priest, the one that would offer sacrifices to him. And of course, the people kind of fell in line at that point.
So the ark is a picture, is a shadow, is a type of Christ himself. And in the ark, Christ is the fulfillment of the law. In the Ark, Christ is the bread of life. In the Ark, Christ is our high priest, the ultimate high priest, greater than Melchizedek. And as that staff had budded, a dead stick came to life. That's what Christ does for us, that we are dead in our trespasses and sins. And Christ makes us alive as we trust him as our Lord and Savior and brings us into fellowship with God.
And at the top of the ark was the mercy seat. Verse 5 says, above it were the cherubim’s of glory, overshadowing the mercy seat of these things. We cannot speak in detail. In other words, not speak in detail. Don't need to go into all of the details of this because you know it. He's speaking to Jewish people who had come to know Christ as savior. They knew all the details of what he was talking about. He was just bringing all of it forward to them to let them know that's the old covenant. You don't need to go back to that anymore.
Mercy seat kind of looked like a throne. You have the two cherubim’s facing each other with their wings pointing towards each other. A picture of protection guarding the throne of God. A solid piece of gold that it was made from. And visibly a symbolic picture of the earthly sanctuary to the heavenly throne of God, as these cherubim’s overshadowed it. And the mercy seat is a picture of God's judgment. That's why they had to put the blood on it. That's why they had to come in and sprinkle blood on it. It was the holiest place on the earth. The blood of sacrifice was sprinkled upon it for the forgiveness of the sins of the people on the day of atonement once a year. And Christ is our ultimate atonement for our sin. Romans 5 or Romans 3:25 said, whom God has put forward as a propitiation for his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he has passed over the former sin propitiation. He satisfied the wrath of God, Jesus Christ by shedding his blood on the cross. So God's wrath against our sin was carried by Christ on the cross, satisfied God's wrath so that we could come into the presence of God.
In verse 6 and 7 we see the shadows of the priest. These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section performing their ritual duties. But into the second the high priest goes, and only but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offered for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. The priests daily would go into the holy place and do all of their rituals that they needed to do and offering prayers. But the holy of holies, the high priest could only enter once a year. We've talked about this, you know about this doing on the day of atonement and offering the sacrifices for his sin and his family sin, as well as the sins of the people. And he would enter this place with smoke from the altar of incense.
And why blood? Why did he have to do it with blood? Well, the payment for sin is death, right? Because the wages of sin is death. So the blood had to be shed for God to be satisfied. The high priest would kill a bull, would bring that blood into the holy place to the ark of the covenant, on the mercy seat and sprinkle that blood for his sin. Then he would go back and get two goats. He'd kill one of those goats. He would bring the blood of the goat and sprinkle that on the mercy seat for the unintentional sins of the people. Now, deliberate sins were covered on a regular daily basis. But these were for the unintentional sins, the sins that were done by accident or even sins you don't know. We sin every day, right? Lots of times during the day. A lot of times we don't even know we're doing it. And so there had to be a sacrifice for those sins, even though they didn't even know they were doing it or if they did it unintentionally. So these were for the unintentional sins of the people.
First John 1:7 says, but if we walk in the light, as he is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. So not only our unintentional sin, but our deliberate sin, all sin Christ took care of when he died on the cross for us.
And so the people then awaited for the high priest to come back to make sure that his sacrifice was accepted. Remember, the high priest goes into the Holy of Holies, with bells on the bottom of his garment, making sure that they could hear him as he's working in there. Because if it stopped jingling, that would be trouble. And so they needed to know that the sacrifice was done, that it was accepted by God. And when it was, then the high priest would take that other goat and they would lay their hands on that goat for their sins and send that goat away into the wilderness as a scapegoat and sending their sin away for another year because it continued over and over again. The problem was that they had to do these sacrifices over and over and over again. This system was pointing to the better, we are talking about Christ, the better sacrifice.
Our eternal high priest, Jesus Christ, who has already forever entered the sanctuary for us. Hebrews 10:12 says, but when Christ has offered for all time a single sacrifice for sin, he sat down at the right hand of God in the sanctuary of God now and forever, and he offered all time a single sacrifice.
So there needs to be no more sacrifices. The old system is passed away. Hebrews 9:24 says, For Christ has entered not into the holy place made with hands, not the temporary, not the tabernacle, which was a copy of true things, but into heaven itself. Now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf, Christ is there, interceding to God for our sin, for our daily lives.
Remember when he said to Peter, when Peter said, "I'll go to prison and death with you, when Jesus said, that all's going to desert him. I'm not going to desert you. I'm going to go to prison and death." And Jesus said, "Peter, Satan wants to sift you like wheat, but I will pray for you and when you return." So even Peter, Jesus would pray and His is also praying for us when we're struggling and going through problems and trials, even when there's sin that we need to deal with in our life, Jesus is praying for us. He's interceding for us. We belong to Him. He's already died for those sins. A single sacrifice, and he's there in heaven right now, praying for us.
And then verses eight to 10, we see the shadow to reformation. “By this holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy place is not yet open. And as long as the first section is still standing, which is symbolic for the present age, according to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered and cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings and regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.”
Let me back up a second, To address the altar of incense, 11/2 feet square and 3 feet tall offering daily incense of prayers to God. The writer here in Hebrews is placing it in the holy of holies, but in Exodus 40:26, it places it in the holy place in front of the vail. In the King James Version in verse 4, calls it a “Censer” which held the burning coals from the altar of incense. And so the picture is that symbolically, as it sits in the holy place, in front of the curtain we see the high priest takes those coals form the Holy Place and brings them into the Holy of Holies. If the altar of incense has to burn morning and night, it couldn't be inside the holy of holies because only the high priest can go in there once a year. But If the high priest takes the coals with a censor from the coals of the altar of incense into the holy of holies, it's as if the altar of incense is in the holy of holies , see Leviticus 16:12-13. It is the one item in the holy place that is most connected to the Ark of the Covenant, to the mercy seat, connecting them together. It also provides light into the Holy of Holies and the smoke to cover the mercy seat. They are the prayers of the people going up to God. And so, symbolically, even though it's physically right in front of the veil and right behind the veil is the Ark of the Covenant, they are connected together. The Altar of Incense is a The type of Christ praying for us Hebrews 7:7:25.
Now coming back now to verses 8 through 10, we see the shadow of the Reformation. This word reformation means to transform something right. It means to pick something up and to put it in a right place. When we are not connected to God, when we are lost, we need to know the way. God has the way for us. He knows how to find that way. Right now, while the author of Hebrews is speaking to these young Jewish Christians, it's about 64 A.D. the temple is still there. All the things that the authority is reminding them that they were a part of is now obsolete, even though it's still being practiced for another few years. Before the temple is destroyed in AD 70, the priests are still offering these sacrifices. These young Christians are concerned about maybe going back to this old system. And it was a system that had been practiced for 1400 years, from the time of giving the law at Mount Sinai to now the time of the writing here of Hebrews. They have been practicing this for centuries.
But Christ had now come. He had died, he had risen. Pentecost had come. The church was born. The old way could not cleanse them, it couldn't cleanse their conscience. It could only temporarily cover their sin. But Jesus came and he cleanses us from the inside out. A sacrifice done once for all. Hebrews 9:14 says, for how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offers himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serving the living God?
That Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross, cleanses us by his shed blood, cleanses our conscience from the inside out. He takes care of our guilt. All these old sacrifices now the author is saying, are obsolete. The old tabernacle, the temple, the sacrifices were the symbols for a moment in time, all pointing to this permanent sacrifice of Christ which has already taken place. And he says that it is a symbol for the present age. This word symbol in the Greek is parabola and it means we get our word parable from it. It is placing something side by side and comparing it the old covenant to the new covenant, the tabernacle to the heavenly sanctuary, from a sacrifices that cover sin, to sacrifice permanent once for all by Christ, who takes away sin.
All these things we've been talking about, the tabernacle, the lampstand, the bread of presence, the incense, the, the veil, the ark, the contents of the ark, the sacrifices, the mercy seat, all of these were shadows of the better, the perfect, the once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ. His shed blood on Calvary. He now is savior. He is prophet, priest, king forever. According to these arrangements of the Old Testament, all of these symbols, all these gifts, all these sacrifices could never perfect the conscience, could never wipe sin away, could never take sin away. But the new is now here. Christ has now come.
"So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian"
— Galatians 3:24-25
We had the guardian, we had the law. They had the Old Testament sacrifices and system, but it is now gone. There's no longer a need for these drinks and washings and regulations. They were all external things that didn't take away Sin didn't cover the conscience. They had no power to change the human heart. They pointed to Christ. And when Christ died on the cross. There are three gospels that mention the veil rent in two from top to bottom, symbolizing that now the throne room of God is open to us. Because of Christ, blood of animals are no longer necessary.
In chapter 10, verses 19 to 22, it says, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus Christ, by the new and living way open to us through the curtain that is his body, and since we have this great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with a full assurance that faith and the full assurance that faith brings.”
So how do we pick up our life? How do we find this hope? How do we turn our life around? It says here in Hebrews 10:22, he says with a sincere heart that we give our heart to Christ. Matthew 15:8 says, Jesus said, the people honor me with their lips, but they're far from me with their heart, far from me with their heart.
David in Psalm 51 says, the sacrifice of God, the sacrifices that he accepts are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. John 6:29. Jesus said to them, he said, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.
That we believe in Jesus Christ, that we give Christ our heart. Ephesians 2:8 9 says, for by grace are we saved through faith, that it's not of our own doing. It's a gift of God, not a result of work, so no one can boast about it.
It's a gift that God gives me. God's grace. He gives me the gift of eternal life. Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for my sin.
"because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved."
— Romans 10:9-10
God's wrath is satisfied because of the shed blood of Christ on the cross. If you don't know Christ, if you don't have that hope, you can have it today. You can invite Christ into your life. You can pick your life up and turn it around by faith in Jesus Christ. I don't earn it. I don't pay for it. I can't do anything to get it. It's a gift that God gives me. He gives me this gift of grace, of eternal life in Jesus Christ. Calvary covers it all.
I had a pastor mentor in my life who would often say to me, "Don, we need to many times daily weep our way back to the cross." We don't have to accept Christ again. Once you accept Christ as Lord and Savior, he did a work once for all. It's finished, it's complete. When I reach out and accept that. And when I do, then my desire is to be obedient to him, to love him, to serve him. But because we still are sinful people still have this sin nature. We talked about that when we studied Romans. I need to sometimes just weep my way back to the cross. But he's always there. I'm a believer. I know him, he's my Lord and Savior when I accept him. But I want to walk with him and I want to know his joy and his blessing in my life.
And so what the author is saying here to these young Christians, he's saying, don't be satisfied with the symbols. Don't go back to the symbols. And we don't need to go back to things that are comfortable. We need to embrace the substance. From symbol to substance, from old practices to Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. We need to embrace Jesus.
Pray with me, Father in heaven. We pray that you would take your word and Lord, you would make it live in our hearts, Father, for those that may be here or online, that haven't trusted you and know that you died on the cross for our sin once for all, and that we can ask for your forgiveness, repent of our sin. Believe by faith that you did this. Trusting you as our Lord and Savior. And Lord, you giving us that hope of eternal life. We thank you that you are constantly interceding and advocating and praying for us. And Lord, we want to embrace you, Lord Jesus, in our daily lives, in our daily walk. And we pray this in Jesus name, Amen.