Here I Am

The passage in Hebrews 10 that I'll be looking at tonight is part of this great book That in some ways is baffling but yet in other ways it is a Letter that the writer who does not claim to have been with Christ But yet it is a passionate love letter about Christ Because Christ is better than than Moses Christ is better than Aaron a better covenant a better tabernacle And now tonight we're going to look at Indeed a better sacrifice and When he wants to put words into Christ's mouth he reaches back into the Old Testament to a short Psalm of his ancestor David and One of the things about the Psalms and about poetry is that it It can gather so much in the richness of the words That Sometimes we will just overlook them and we will not see the clusters of ideas We will not see the impact of the words we can slip through things because there is a negative that we don't pay attention Say, oh, what's behind why it's it's that way and so is I read this passage and

It's interesting because you know how sometimes I tell you it depends upon how you Read it how you hear it and There is a passage here at the end of verse seven which Martin Luther instructs you to read with great boldness and declaration That this was the words of Christ and this was his Almost like it was a war cry to him Therefore it says beginning in verse five when Christ came into the world. He said Sacrifices and offering you did not desire but a body you prepared for me With burn offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased and then he said Here I am It is written about me in the scroll. I have come to do your will. Oh God First he said sacrifices offerings burn offerings and sin offerings you did not desire nor were you pleased with them although the law required them to be made Then he said here I am I have come to do your will He sets aside the first to establish the second and By that will we have been made holy The sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all Now in the poetry of Psalm 40 It uses the negative you did not desire but yet when you look at it and you see in the interpretation the second part of the passage about what God did desire and what I want us to think about is What is God's desire In sending a son To be a voluntary sacrifice a willing sacrifice Is this passage says to make us holy That's what God desires Now we oftentimes I think are not willing to Put any passion into God into what what God says but but here we see Christ These words from Psalm 40 being put into his mouth in the incarnation But yet it's there because God desired this is what God wanted to do even though he had revealed other things This is what God really wanted to do what he was doing in Jesus Christ And so part of what we're going to see tonight as we celebrate and as we remember God is that indeed God desired in That word that he uses there In verse five is is the verb form that is used in the noun form in verses seven nine and ten Is this if he takes a word and he wants us to be an action but then he turns it into something else because it's what Christ is doing what he I believe wants us to be doing and so you think in a short passage like this If you take a word and you turn it several times, it's like God really wants us to pay attention to that If you're writing something and you want people to think about something to create a memory for them And for you to walk away tonight and say you know I learned about what God really wants what his desire is what is on his heart and That was to make us holy through the sacrifice the willing sacrifice of Christ Now Jesus carous came to complete what I call the providing will of God When you look at this passage therefore when Christ came into the world it says in the first part of verse five He is creating This image of Christ coming in Christ declaring hey here is what I am all about But you see him and and I think using the word deconstructing is probably too strong But you see him making a major shift Because he realizes it yes God had commanded all of these sacrifices God had commanded all of these things But they really weren't what he desired because they had to be done again and again and again So he came to complete what God was providing because he provided us Jesus Christ that he was a gift and that's part of what grace is all about is that it is a gift It is God's provision that is a gift provided by God So we again look at verse five the first part that Christ came into the world and then he says later on that a body you prepared for me Think about what Jesus Christ is saying a body you prepared for me the incarnation The fact that we're reminded of in Hebrews chapter two that he became like us Except without sin he became like us in terms of our bodies Now one of the things I as I was reading and thinking about this Because you know how how we want to imitate Christ right we want to imitate Jesus If you ever thought about the body that he's given you is a gift Did he gave you that particular body For service That you are who you are I remember when I was growing up I struggled for a long time because I always thought of myself was short because for Variety reasons I I hung around with kids who were always taller than I I just couldn't believe that I was short and that was my image And I saw a dentist a menace cartoon that basically gave me a humorous perspective on it in in Joey in Dennis or standing in the waiting pool and he says What do you mean? I'm short my legs touch the ground? You know so if your legs touch the ground God has given you your body For better or for worse Think about what Christ body was given to him for his body was specifically given so that he could die I mean think about that That he understood that he was that prepared sacrifice now when we look at this and I use the word that Jesus came to complete the providing will of God because From this passage we see and from the passage that we read earlier That the repetitive reminders of animal sacrifices were that they weren't good enough

Again and again every day morning evening weekly monthly yearly All the cycles of things that God had given us that he had built into the calendar into the calendar that was around harvest and other events Redemptive events But see in obedience to God's revelatory covenant and His saying to them. This is what I want you to do You're gonna shed blood you're gonna give it now when we look at this passage The words that he used is sacrifice offering burned offering sin offering in Those four words he he wraps up almost every kind of offering in the physical code in Those simple words in those words of poetry. He says first of all you didn't desire it. It wasn't your completed idea My body was Burn offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased

If we back up and we look at the passage just above the one that we read going back to verse three For the worshipers would have had them in cleanse once and for all and would no longer without guilty for the sins But those sacrifices are annual reminders of sins because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins

Even though they did it in faith that they trusted God They said the reason we do this over and over and over and over again year after year and how costly it is Think about that. You know you have all your animals you line them up and every 10th one goes to the temple every 10th one goes to the temple You line up your apples and every 10th bushel goes to the temple grain Pigeons, you know you think about all the things that went and there was a free will offerings in the sin offerings You have all of those things lined up here and There was never good enough It wasn't ultimately what God desired and So in just some simple words of poetry He is turning the whole Hebrew world the whole covenant revelatory system upside down Because God the Father provided the incarnation for the one-time sacrifice Verse five again, but a body you prepared for me

verse 10 We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all This body that God gave to Jesus this body that was created and we celebrated Christmas time It was created for sacrifice It was got part of God's grace It was part of God the Father's provision for us It was the once for all obedient sacrifice of Christ according to verse 10 Now let's go back and take a look at Psalm 40 which is what This passage is rooted in which are the words that the writer of Hebrews puts into the mouth of Jesus Christ Now let me read you Psalm 40 in the NIV as opposed to what we're reading here Then we'll talk about the shift Psalm 40 verse six Sacrifice an offering you did not desire But my ears you have opened Bird offerings and sin offerings you did not require Then I said here I am I have come it is written about me in the skull scroll I desire to do your will my God your law is within my heart Now how do you get from that to what we read? well, you get there through the Septuagin the Greek translation that was made about 200 Years before Christ in Alexandria and why do you have a Greek translation in in Egypt? Well because the Tholames had been there for about a hundred years already the Tholames were Greeks who came down and ruled Egypt until

Augustus came and So it wasn't caused it was called a cave in Winniebeat Mark Anthony and Cleopatra But it was a Greek speaking conquered empire But yet there were Jews there and so they decided to translate it into Greek We think of it, you know mark alluded to another translation in the air make but this was Before that and so we see how God even before Christ was taking the word of God and putting it into local language now When we look again at this we say well, that's not exactly what the Greek translation is there is the translation in terms of But a body you prepared for me is different from But my ears you have opened you know, you you have a shift there and so you have all this I won't go into the technical Greek about how you can have the image shift and and try to say the same thing because when you Move from one language to another it can be very difficult to get the sense of the exact interpretation But what you also see here is what you and I and our Cultural translations might think of as a paraphrase But it might even be more of a paraphrase because it's taking part of it and it's using those ideas to jump off to put into the words of the mouth of Christ saying This is what I'm doing because he roots is his his you know the right of Hebrews roots his idea of Christ in the Old Testament But brings it forward and gives it that uniqueness of who he is and so when Jesus says as we look at again in verse 9 Here I am he takes it out the writer of Hebrews takes it out of the the quotation and moves it now into what we might think of is the Explanation the application of that. I won't say that this is a Textbook on preaching, but you see something where you have a text where you have it opened up translated Turned around and applied to the person of Christ

Now when we think about Jesus saying here I am in the way that it is written here We think of the long Hebrew memory of going all the way back to Exodus chapter 3 in the burning bush when God describes himself as I am we think about young Samuel being told to say to God hey, I'm here ready to serve We think about Isaiah being willing to say to God after he is exposed to God's holiness that he is the one who's willing to be sent Jesus himself use the I am's in John's gospel seven different times to describe who he was and here When we think about Christ he says here I am I have come to do your will So again when we think about being Christians being followers of Jesus Christ Well, we are not unique as he was but you can both fully God and fully man We can follow Christ and saying here I am I have come to do your will But yet when we look at this we see that the deliberate Taking the first and setting it aside for the second that deconstruction that reconstruction of what God is doing of what God desires And that's why he uses scripture that's why he roots it and translates it and amplifies it and applies it To who Jesus Christ is You notice that at least in my NIV you have this parenthesis Although the law required them to be made You see what do you do with all of that written revelation in the Old Testament? The Jesus seems to be turning upside down. What do you do with it? You realize that God is the one who's making a shift that God had given all of those Sacrifices those different categories different times of the year God had given them so that we could get ready for who Jesus Christ is And he is the one who is completing what David's words were and that's why I think he he changes David's words Because even the words of David in Psalm 40 are incomplete to describe the work of Jesus Christ But yet Jesus is willing to say in this passage is he leads up to being the perfect sacrifice Here I am I've come to do your will Now as we wrap up this passage I Was struck When I read that and saying where is that an echo from? Where in the life of Jesus The life of his passion did we hear that in the garden when he says it not my will, but your will be done and And to me when I look at this passage is if the writer of Hebrews is Reminding us having that echo of remembering what Jesus Christ had said in the garden The very powerful Commitment and statement that he had come to do God's will and again and again You go back in the book of the gospel of John and you see again and again I've come to do the will of him who sent me that is something that he reminds us of that here The writer of Hebrews and taking this poetry from Psalm 40 turns it again and Reminds us that that was the purpose of Christ here I am I have come to do your will And so I think if we seek to reflect Christ Knowing that we cannot provide a sacrifice But we can reflect him Can with the bodies that we prepared he's prepared for us whatever age or condition they are in To say here I am I Have come to do your will Thinking about the fact that he said that as he was getting ready to go not only to the cross But through all that he went through to get there The rejection by His disciples as they fled as they denied him as he was publicly humiliated As he was publicly Flogged As he walked and carried his own cross All of that was part of his obedient will to be the sacrifice and he says I've come to do your will And that is something that When you look again we look at verse seven. I've come to do your will verse nine Reminds us that I've read that again and again and then in verse 10 and says by that will we have become Made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all and

Remember that word to do your will is the noun of the verb to desire So that when we think about doing God's will we are doing what he desires us to do That he has that passion for us and that I think Luther is absolutely correct That Jesus would have shattered out. I have come to do your will God They have passion and a commitment about that. He was willing to give everything all of his body So that we as we look at this passage We are reminded as we get ready to come to this Notice what it says We have been made holy it's not our effort It's a gift because God prepared a body for Jesus. He came to do his will We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body

It's not just some abstract idea. It's something that happened in history It's something people watched that he felt that when they picked up his dead body they knew That it'd been a sacrifice of Jesus Christ And then that statement that turns the whole system upside down once for all The repetitive system of daily sacrifices in the morning and the evening every week and on special days and on all the Pilgrimages and all the sacrifices Because as we've read It's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins But this passage Gives us the assurance that we have been made holy Because of a sacrifice once for all that we are part of that all We are part of that community and that is something that I think sometimes We think of our salvation in terms of it being between me and God and there is that individual But yet there is that collective that it was one sacrifice for all of God's people So we are all bound together by the blood of Christ. We are all bound together by that one sacrifice The first thing we should see in each other is the sacrifice of Christ His willingness to do the will of God to do what God desired so that we would be holy That's what it's all about. That's the gift. That's the grace. I am not holy because of anything I have done I am holy only because of what Jesus Christ does and that humbles me That humbles me and I believe in as you read the saints and the writers that people who have a great sense of holiness Also have a great sense of humility because they know it is only because of that sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ That we read about in this passage I say all of this so that when I tell you in the celebration The words of Jesus when he says do this and remembrance of me you will remember that you were made holy by his once and for all sacrifice Let us pray Father we come into your presence only because of Jesus Jesus we come only because of your the sacrifice of your body

That one time event that we celebrate tonight

It is about grace It's about a gift that you chose to give to us through Jesus and Jesus you chose to give it to do the will of your Father

We pray Father that that grace that love that sacrifice would live itself out in our lives in our bodies however limited they might be but yet we are here to do your will

Part of that will is to partake of this simple meal that you give to us That proclaims his death until he comes again And so Father We ask You would be with us you would humble our hearts Help us to receive with gratitude the simple elements. We pray these things Jesus in your most holy name Amen