Robert Jeffress - Sanctified, Sealed, and Delivered - Part 1
Hi, I'm Robert Jeffress, and welcome again to "Pathway to Victory". In the Old Testament, God established a long and complicated set of rules for the Israelites to follow. So complicated, in fact, that the rules were impossible to abide by. So why did God establish his law in the first place? And why don't we still follow these Old Testament rules? Today, I'm going to explain why Christ is superior to the old covenant. My message is titled, "Sanctified, Sealed, and Delivered," on today's edition of "Pathway to Victory".
Popular Christian writer Max Lucado confesses that he's been a slob most of his life. His reasoning: why make up a bed if you're gonna sleep in it again the next night? Why wash a dish after just one meal? Why not leave your clothes beside the bed so that they're ready for you when you wake up the next morning? That had been his attitude, but then something changed. He got married. He said suddenly he discovered the joys of hanging up his shirts on a hanger, of putting the toilet paper actually on the toilet paper dispenser in the bathroom. He said he started these new habits.
But then the moment of truth came: his wife went out of town for a week. He said the first day he reverted back to his old habits, but something was different. He no longer felt comfortable in his old way of living. He couldn't even stand to see an empty potato chip bag on the floor. What had happened? What had changed? "Easy," Max says. He had been introduced to a new standard of living. You know, that's what makes Christianity different from any other religion in the world, including Judaism, as the writer of Hebrew says. You know, the fact is the Old Testament system, it could only reveal sin, but it could never remove our sin and it certainly could never remove our desire to sin.
What was needed was a way that would provide for the elimination of our sins, the eradication of our guilt, and the transformation of our hearts. And that's exactly what Jesus Christ offers. The whole theme of the book of Hebrews is that Christ alone can do what we need most: The elimination of our sins, the eradication of our guilt, and the transformation of our hearts. Today, we have come to the final message in these three months of messages that we've been in, in Hebrews 5 through 10. Remember, Hebrews 5 to 10 is the heart of the message of the book of Hebrews about the superiority of Jesus Christ. And we've seen in chapters 5 to 7 that Jesus is a superior priest. He was superior to the Old Testament priest in so many ways.
Secondly, chapter 8, he has a superior ministry. He has a better covenant, a better promise for us. And finally, Jesus Christ has offered a superior sacrifice and that's what chapters 9 and 10 are all about. When we come to chapter 10, remember there were no chapter divisions in the original text, the first 18 verses represent the author's closing arguments about the superiority of Jesus Christ. And let me explain what he's doing, this way with this illustration. Let's suppose you're a small business owner. And for years, you had been using Verizon as your telephone carrier. But a few years ago, you decided to make a switch to AT&T because of the what you felt like were better promises AT&T offered. You've been using AT&T for several years and it's the end of the year.
So the AT&T salesman comes by to get you to renew your contract. And before you sign on the dotted line, you tell him, "You know, I'm really thinking about going back to Verizon". What is that salesman going to do? Well, if he's a good salesman, at all, first of all, he's going to remind you of the limitations of Verizon. And then secondly, he's going to point out the benefits, the superiority, of AT&T. Well, that's exactly what the writer of Hebrews is doing. Remember this audience was a group of Jewish Christians. They had left Judaism because they believed that Jesus Christ offered a better system, a better way to have a relationship with God. But because of persecution they were going through, both from the Romans as well as even their own family members, they were considering switching back to Judaism.
And the writer says, "Before you do that, remember the limitations of the old covenant, Judaism, and remember the superiority of the new covenant". What are the limitations of the old covenant? Well, he talks about that in verses 1 to 4. First of all, the old covenant, the old arrangement, the old agreement, was a shadow and not the substance. Look at verse 1: "For the law..." Now let me stop there. I promise not to stop at every word, but the word "law," it doesn't just refer to the Ten Commandments. In the Bible, the law refers to the whole Old Testament system of laws and sacrifices. Remember, the Old Testament was based on laws we could never fully keep and it was based on sacrifices for the laws we broke, and those sacrifices were not complete either.
So it was an imperfect system of law and sacrifices. He says, "For the law, since it has only a shadow of the good tidings to come and not the very form of things, can never, be by the same sacrifices year by year which they offer continually, it can never make perfect those who draw near". Notice how he describes the Old Testament. He says, "It is a shadow of the good things to come". That Greek word "skia" literally means a pale outline. A pale outline.
This week, Amy and I were at a special event and we were all dressed up for it and we arrived at the event and we decided we wanted to have our picture taken. And the person behind us said, "Pastor, let me take the picture for you". It happened to be the governor of Mississippi. He is a very nice man, a very great governor. He said, "Now, Pastor, I have to warn you. I'm not a very good picture-taker," and he was right about that. Great guy, lousy picture-taker. So, he took our iPhone and he took the picture, but he moved the camera and when we looked at the image, it was fuzzy. I mean, you could barely make us out but not too clearly. It was a pale outline. It was a fuzzy outline of who we are. That's the word he uses here. That's what the Old Testament law was. It was just an outline, a fuzzy outline, of the promise of Jesus Christ. It wasn't the very form of things.
Look at that phrase. That word, Greek word, is eikon. Exactly the word that we use today. An icon is a perfect representation of something else. That's what the law was. Well, Pastor, are you saying the law was evil? No, not at all. The law served two very distinct purposes for the Old Testament. First of all, the law was a reflection of a future promise. It was a shadow of a future promise, something better that was yet to come. Remember the apostle Paul uses that same imagery in Colossians 2:16-17. He says, "Therefore, let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect of festival or a new moon or a Sabbath Day. Things which are a mere shadow of what is to come. But the substance belongs to Christ". He said: Don't get hung up on Judaism and the Old Testament.
There were Christians in Paul's day who wanted to go back and go under the dietary restrictions of the Old Testament. They wanted to go under the Sabbath restrictions. They wanted to celebrate all the Jewish holidays. And Paul, who was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, said, "Forget all that stuff. That's old. That is ancient. It is a shadow of what was better yet to come, Jesus. Those things are the shadow. Jesus is the substance". I mean, just imagine, you come home from work one day and your kids are out playing in the front lawn and as you walk up the sidewalk, the setting sun casts a shadow of you onto the sidewalk. Your kids see the shadow and they see you. Which do you want them to hug: the concrete or you? Obviously, they're not gonna go hug the concrete. That's a shadow. That's not the real you. You are the real you.
It's the same thing with the Old Testament. The Old Testament was just a shadow of Jesus Christ who is to come. And now that Jesus is here, we don't need the shadows any longer. Now, that brings up an interesting question. Okay, I understand Jesus is the substance. He's the promise. Well then, how about people in the Old Testament? How much did they know about Jesus? How much did they have to know about Jesus, in order to be saved? Have you ever wondered that? How much did the Old Testament people really know about Jesus? The answer is not that much. Not that much. And you have to be honest, people like Noah and Moses and Abraham, they understood a lot more than the average Israelite out there.
So then, how could they be saved if they really didn't know the name of Jesus, they didn't understand that much about Jesus? How could they be saved? I gave you one illustration last week, about credit. Let me give you another illustration this week that I hope will help you understand how we are saved today and how people in the past have been saved as well. They are all saved the same way: by the blood of Jesus Christ. Everybody is saved through the blood of Jesus Christ, even those in the Old Testament who didn't have a complete understanding.
Let me illustrate it for you this way. Let's just imagine you're having severe financial problems, you're near bankruptcy. You don't know what you're gonna do. And one day you get a letter in the mail, you open it up, and it's from Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. And Jeff Bezos writes you a letter and he says, "I've heard about your financial difficulty and I want you to know I've set up a bank account with your name on it. It has all of the money you could possibly ever want. Now, enclosed in the letter is an ATM card and here's the pin number for your ATM card. Anytime you need some money, you just go to the bank, you can get the cash transferred into your account. Here's the ATM card and the pin number".
And so you decide you believe the letter's for real. You believe it's from Jeff Bezos. And furthermore, you need the money enough that you want to do something about it. So you take that ATM card to the bank and you put in the pin number and that cash comes flowing out. Now, if somebody were to see you now in a brand-new house and driving a Lamborghini and say to you, "What happened to you? How do you account for your newfound wealth"? Would you take credit for that yourself? Would you point to the fact that you had a lot of faith and that's what made you rich? Or would you say, "You know, I really worked for my wealth".
You say, "What do you mean you worked"? "Well, I had to type in a pin number on the ATM machine". No, you wouldn't give credit to yourself. You would say it was through the generosity of Jeff Bezos that your bank account was filled up. Now, that's an illustration of what God has done for us. The Bible says we are all spiritually bankrupt. We have a zero balance in our righteousness account. The only people who can enter into heaven are those who are completely righteous, perfect. We have zero perfection, zero righteousness. That's the bad news. The good news is God has more than enough righteousness for all of us.
In fact, God has set up a spiritual bank account for every human being who has ever lived or ever will live. And their name is on that account. And when Jesus died on the cross and took the punishment that we deserve, God took all of the righteousness of Christ and poured it into our individual spiritual bank account. It is full and overrunning with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. However, we have to access that wealth for it to become ours. We have to do two things. We have to, first of all, believe that that wealth is there, that God really has told us in his letter, his Bible, we have to believe what it said, that Christ really offers us that righteousness. We have to believe and then we have to receive it.
There's a process just like you go to the bank and type in your code to get money. There's a little pin number we have to type in in order to receive God's wealth into our life. It's spelled J-E-S-U-S. We have to believe on the name of Jesus. We have to say, "God, I know I'm spiritually bankrupt. I believe Jesus died for my sins. And I want his righteousness to be put to my account". And the moment we say that to God, we put our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior, we receive the gift of eternal life. We must believe and we must receive. But it's all of God. It's all of God. It's what he's done for us.
Remember that definition of grace? G-R-A-C-E: God's Riches At Christ's Expense. It was through Christ's death that we receive the riches of righteousness. God's riches at Christ's expense. But we must believe and receive. Isn't that what Paul said in Ephesians 2:8-9? "For by grace, you have been saved through faith". We're not saved by faith. It's not what we do. Faith is the channel through which we receive God's grace in our life. Yes, we have to do something. We have to believe and receive it. But it's all of God. By grace, you have been saved through faith. You say, "Okay, I understand that. I understand my pin number is J-E-S-U-S, Jesus. But what about those who lived before Jesus? What did they do? How were they saved"?
Listen to me. Every person who's ever lived has a spiritual bank account that has the righteousness of God in it. You say, "Wait a minute, Adam, Noah, Moses, they lived before Jesus. How could they have that bank account with the righteousness of Christ in there if he hadn't died yet"? Remember, you and I are caught in time. God is not bound by time. He lives above time. Everything is already seen as complete in God's eyes. Think about the Lamb of God. What does the Bible say? Jesus was slain when? Before the foundation of the world. In God's eyes, it's all taken place.
So since the beginning of time, that righteousness was available. But Adam and Eve and Moses, they all had to receive God's grace through Jesus Christ. They had to believe and receive it in their life. The only thing was their ATM card had a different pin number on it. They had a different code they had to type in, in order to receive God's righteousness in their life. For Adam and Eve, it was the animal skins they had to put on. When they put on those animal skins in the garden after they sinned against God, and depending on those animal skins to cover their sin, they were given access to the wealth of Jesus Christ, his righteousness into their life. They got credited with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
That was their pin number, the animal skins. For Noah, it was building the ark, when he had faith in God's grace. When he built that ark and entered into it, he received access to the righteousness of Christ. For the Israelites in Egypt, it's when they put that blood on the door post that they received God's grace, his righteousness, into their life. For those living during the time of Moses, it was the animal sacrifice. It was different pin numbers, but it was all based on the death of Christ, the righteousness he offers. And today, today we type in the pin number, J-E-S-U-S. It is through believing in the name of Jesus and let me make this very clear.
There is not one example in the New Testament of anybody ever typing in a different pin number to receive salvation. It is only through the name of Jesus. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father, but by me". The apostle Peter said, "There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved other than the name of Jesus Christ". Does that make sense to you? We are all saved the same way: It is by grace, God's grace, through Christ, we receive by faith. That's how the Old Testament saints were saved. And that was one of the limitations, though, of the Old Testament. It was simply a shadow of something that was yet to come.
A second purpose of the old covenant was, it was a reminder of a present problem. Why did he have them, God have them go through those continual sacrifices that were never effective? Well, it was a reminder of their need for a permanent sacrifice. Look at verse 3: "But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins year by year". Every year that they offered a sacrifice, every day that they offered a sacrifice, it was a reminder that this isn't working because if it worked, they'd only have to offer them one time.
I remember a couple of years ago when I had all this junk in my chest that everybody seems to have right now, this time of the year, somebody said to me, "Oh, Pastor, you know what you need? It will clear it up right away". I said, "What's that"? They said, "Mucinex. It is a wonder medicine. It will take away all that chest", I said, "That sounds so great". So I went to the store and got some Mucinex. Zilch is what it did for me. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You know what? Every time I go into the pharmacy today and I look at that display of Mucinex, you know what my first thought is? That stuff doesn't work. It doesn't work.
Those displays, every time I see it, are a reminder of what doesn't work. It's the same way with the Old Testament sacrifices. The fact that they had to offer those sacrifices over and over again, every time they put an animal up there, it was a reminder that they needed something better. And that was the purpose of the Old Testament sacrifices. What was the limitation of the old covenant? Well, it was based on shadows, not the substance. Secondly, the old covenant could not relieve guilt.
Look at verse 2: "Otherwise they would not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers having once been cleansed would no longer have had a consciousness of sins". I mean, if the old covenant was effective then people in the old covenant wouldn't have had a continued consciousness of their sin. That word "consciousness" is a word that we get our word "conscience" from. You know what it is to have a conscience. You know what your conscience is. Somebody defined a conscience as that still small voice that makes you feel smaller still.
That's the conscience that we all have. We all have that sense that we have wronged God. And under the old covenant, even though those sacrifices provided a temporary covering for their sin, it never relieved the guilt of their sin. They came to the altar feeling dirty inside and they left feeling dirty inside. David said it this way: "My sin is ever before me". He could fool other people, but he couldn't fool God and he couldn't fool his own conscience. There are some of you who feel that way. You go through religious ritual, you come to church, maybe you've gotten baptized, but you still feel guilty inside.
The reason we feel guilty is because we are guilty. The old covenant, religious rituals, tradition, will never take away that guilt. That was another limitation of the Old Testament, the old covenant. Thirdly, the old covenant could not perfect the sinner. Look at verse 1: "It could not make perfect those who draw near". It could temporarily cover the sin, but it didn't eliminate their desire to sin. Have you ever been walking in the park, seen the sign on the grass that says, "Stay off the grass"? What's the first thing you want to do? I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm telling too much about myself. The first thing I want to do is go over there and jump up and down on that grass.