your Bibles or you want to turn in the Bulletin to Hebrews chapter 9 verse 23. So you know what I'm doing. We're going to look at the passage in the sermon and then I'm going to read the sermon text at the end of the sermon after you've heard it opened up and tied together because it is a passage that the more I studied it and looked at it, the more I realized how much it wove itself together but yet how sometimes just one small word could just open up a whole new area of understanding for this passage. A lot of you remember several Sunday nights ago when the President of the United States announced that Navy Seals had finally found Ben Laden but one of the things that we found out about was that they had been practicing in a mock makeup a copy of what they were going to face in Pakistan. Now we know in television shows like 24 of the West Wing you see again a copy of the Oval Office. It's not the real Oval Office with the President of the United States works. I remember the first time that in the Air Force where I saw a machine that could look at the tech manual and then go to work to create a park that would then be put on an airplane. And then when I was a shepherd air force space I saw machines that would create out of plastic or you know that's more than plastic but we'll call it plastic. Training things that different pieces of equipment parts that would be cheaper than the real thing but would help them understand the shape and things like that. I remember I was going on a tour with some VIPs when we were showing them all the kind of whistles and bells that we had to support the training became and they were making an artificial replica model. In other words it was a scale model of a 500 pound bomb that was about five feet tall. The Wing Commander was so impressed that he had them get one and he literally walked into an important staff meeting with a bomb on his shoulder but it was that lightweight. And you know we know that people copy things. Unfortunately one night in Arizona a friend of mine was on a helicopter and a training mission when a copy of a rotor blade came apart and the helicopter came down. It was the wrong kind of metals, substandard cheap metals. It turned out to be a whole batch of rotor blades. Unfortunately or unfortunately for him and his family those copies brought destruction.
You know some things are copies or fakes. There are copies that teach you how to do things. I remember when my youngest daughter was learning how to be a babysitter and to be a babysitter you had to do certain kinds of first aid like turn people over do chest compressions and things like that but fortunately she was I think in the seventh or eighth grade and literally the teacher was about six foot tall weight about 300 pounds and there was no way she could roll him and she said but I'm never gonna babysit a 300 pound baby. The teacher gave her the point and she passed the class. We oftentimes use copies or models of things before we do the real thing. I remember in a very dramatic way the first time when I was practicing because I've never done it for real but I have practiced it. They teach you in first aid and buddy care how to put inner you know IVs in and I hit the plastic tube the right way. I got the red fluid going the right way and so I felt confident hoping that I would never ever have to do that and that is one of the training things that I did that I never had to do. I always used to wonder when I was brand new why do I have to learn about loading people into helicopters and then over the years in different places for different reasons I loaded and unloaded people from helicopters. Just that simple skill that there are some things that everybody in an organization has to know how to do because you never know when it's gonna be your turn to do it. The writer of Hebrews 9 talks about copies about things that are real. Now David and putting together the worship service has used a large part of the passage that follows the passage we're gonna look at tonight at the end of Hebrews 9. We've used Hebrews 10 which we's together many of the ideas that are in the end of chapter 9. The writer of Hebrews wrote about Jesus being a better priest, a better sanctuary about how there was a better covenant and now he's talking about a better sacrifice. When I think about preaching before the celebration of the Lord's Supper it's needed to get you ready to experience the Lord's Supper that you can't have the liturgy of the Word without the liturgy of the table you can't have this service without that service they are bound together to enrich each other otherwise they both can become just rituals or things that you go through but when you marry them up when you tie them together when you use the Word of God to stretch your imagination to help you understand what God is saying he is doing and when we look at a passage like this a passage that in some ways there are some places that are hard to preach about but yet the goal of the sermon on a night like this is to enrich your experience your communion with God you're living in the presence of God tonight as you partake as you lift up the bread as you take from the cup because this passage reminds us that that Jesus Christ goes into the very presence of God on our behalf that's why he came and why he was willing to offer himself up as a sacrifice for our sin to do away with our sins and the judgment that comes because of sin and so as you're getting ready for communion the simple little takeaway in a short sentence from this short passage would be that Jesus offered himself as an atoning sacrifice to a null our sins taking us with him into the real presence of God our created purpose you see sin separated us from the presence of God back in the garden that was our created place death is the definition of the separation from God disorder in the creation there's two main ideas that I want us to think about and the first one has to do with the creation copies of heavenly places when you look at verse 26 it says otherwise Christ would have suffered many times since the creation of the world by slipping that little word into that passage he reminds us of the whole history of all of humanity and all of space in time he slips in that world little word because he says since the creation Jesus Christ would have had to do this over and over and over again oftentimes when we read passages we can slip over a single word that gives us a large context we remember back to the creation to Adam and Eve and how they were created to walk with God and how when they disobeyed and they ate of the apple and they hid and all that went on and what we think of as the fall they were separated from God death was introduced but we think about the copies in the heavenly places look here in the passage and he brews 9 verse 23 it was necessary then for the copy of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices but when the heavenly things themselves but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these for Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one he entered heaven and self now to appear for us before God's presence when you go back to the past chapter before in Hebrews chapter 8 looking back in verses 2 and 5 he says he who serves in the sanctuary the true sac shawary the timbre d'acca set up by the Lord not a mere human being one verse 5 of chapter 8 they serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and a shadow of what is in heaven this is why Moses warned them when he was about to build the tabernacle see that you make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain oftentimes they would forget that they were working with a shadow copy of what was in heaven it was a shadow copy because the shadow you know for a shadow you have to have a bright light that bright light of the glory of God and that shadow of the tabernacle and then the two temples that God gave them they were copies of what was shown to them on the mountain they were copies of things from heaven so every time they looked hopefully in faith they would look and realize that's a copy of what's really there and we're using the copy to get to the presence of God the God uses creation uses copies of things in heaven now what stretches our mind is that when we think about heaven and being in the presence of God being in a place that is not created which this Francis Schaeffer taught me you cannot think of not created because every time you try to imagine something you've just created it so it is an concept of just saying in faith we accept that God has given us copies which are shadows of the reality of where he is he's used form he's used function he's used in the Old Testament in the tabernacle use fabric and then he used stone and wood and gold and all those different kinds of things to be copies but he created a temple now the temple is kind of the middle image because you've got the tabernacle that portable tent that place were that 10 by 10 by 10 that 10 cubit cube as an interesting way of saying it the 10 cubit cube of the holy of holies that tenth space where the arch of the covenant was where the the mercy seat was and the tabernacle that was portable they could go but where that was that was the center of the life of God's covenant people and then they built the temple and they brought the ark with the smirksy seed in and they put it in there and once a year and when you look at all of that you can understand all that they looked at because year after year because month after months because week after week because day after day there were sacrifices that had to be done they were reminded every day that what they were doing was not enough it couldn't be stopped that the cycles in creation of days of weeks of months of years that drove the sacrificial cycle the God had given them that was centered in the temple now there's something else in this in terms of the creation copying the heavens the kind of is slipped in there in in verse 27 and you wonder why did he say that just as people are destined to die once and after that to face judgment do you understand how death is a copy of what's going on in heaven if death represents separation from God some of you have heard me tell the story when my father died I remembered the quote from CS Lewis about how he said that that death particularly of a loved one is like a taste of hell because you understand the separation in a very poignant way in those first days after a death but that's what death is all about but we look at this passage and one of the things when I was reading and thinking about communion in this passage was the old Puritans used to say that communion should repair us for our death they would talk about a good death that that was one of the jobs of a pastor was to repair their congregation for a good death now we usually have grieving ceremony things like that which are necessary but to prepare people to die to be willing to say that we understand that when we pray for people to be healed it is but a postponement unless it is until Christ comes back we don't talk about death very much in our culture but in this passage it's almost as if it's a it's a kind of an aside comment just as people are destined to die once and after that the face judgment then he goes on and talks about Christ facing his death and what his death meant but we live in a culture that does not want people to get ready to die that does not recognize that if we are united with Christ in the creation we will be united with Christ in our death that though we are separated from our loved ones we are not separated from our creator and our redeemer and so when we celebrate this this wonderful meal that proclaims his death until we come again we recognize that indeed we are all destined to die once it sometimes can be hard but we need to realize as we look at this passage that in our lives the story will always be incomplete until he comes back when you come to the end of that passage look at the end of verse 28 he will appear a second time not to bear sin but to bring salvation those who are waiting for him and so in a sense our story will always be incomplete until we are with him that our death has to be a part of our story unless he comes back and even though we love our loved ones who we lose we also are tempered by the fact that he is part of the story got his written for us is sad as that may be but yet to look at this passage and say that's in the word of God that's what he's teaching me about life but what I want us to end on and to look at is that Jesus is the real substitute who is also the representative one of the things that when you muck around in the words and you look at it and you wonder why did the NIV translate it this way and ESV translate that and we King James chose a different set of words and what did the real word meant or what does it mean and why did we use it when you look at Hebrews 9.25 it says nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again the way the high priest who enters the most holy place every year with blood that is not his own otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world the word that is used there in that passage means a null now when I was growing up and then I actually in the Air Force worked with Catholic priest you know I always thought of the annulment of marriages that was a Catholic thing now I know it is actually a legal thing because I remember an Air Force officer that I know had her marriage annul legally by a court in Arizona that that is something you can do through the civil courts but it means to legally do away is if it never happened and that's what Christ by offering himself up what he did now when you look at the middle of that passage in verse 25 the way the high priest enters the most holy place every year with blood that is not his own he's talking about Yom Kapoor this morning we talked about Passover then we talked about Pentecost Yom Kapoor is that day it means Yom day of atonement it's something that Leviticus 16 and 23 spend a lot of time on can you imagine that just for a short time maybe one hour a year the priest would take the blood and go into the holy of holies perform the prayers sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat now think about when this passage in Hebrews was written the temple still existed but where was the ark where was the mercy seat where were the copies of what was in heaven now as far as we know they never came back from the Babylonian captivity if that's when they were lost we know from the descriptions the Bible that you know the menorah the lights the incense that the things for the the holy place that is outside the most holy place the holy of holies and so they would go into this empty room and perform the prayers and sprinkle the blood believing in faith that what they were doing in that room related to what was in heaven and now here the writer of Hebrews says that's what Jesus was all about everything we do in the temple everything we did in the tabernacle was always going to be incomplete because it was but a shadow of what was in heaven looking forward to when Christ would come because we know from Hebrews 9 verse 22 in fact the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness so that we come in to take up the cup of the covenant which is shed for the forgiveness of sins for many this passage the covenant passages all tied together and so we know that our sins are forgiven that they really are unknown sometimes I think it takes a twisting and a turning of a different word to bring it back to us because we use the word forgiven a lot don't we in Christianity but how if you start saying okay what are some of the other words that we can use that the Bible uses they're not words that say Fred says hey this would be a great alternative user words that the Bible uses to describe that that legal transaction that transaction that when Christ paid for our sins with his blood the Bible says our sins were null as if they never happened they've been paid for they've been done away because we know that one of the things our sin does to us is that it scars our memory in our hearts and our souls so they become the shadows we can say yes I know the blood of Christ cleanses me from all I said I know I'm going to heaven I know that he died in the cross for my sins but we've got these shadows of doubt from the scars in our heart in our lives that we need a word like a nod to come to us and say Christian God looks at you in a brand new way he sees you through the blood of Christ as if your sins never happened look again at chapter 9 verse 26 the second half he appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away to a null by the sacrifice of himself verse 28 so Christ was sacrificed once take away the sins of many he will appear a second time not to bear but to bring salvation I want to talk about three parts of that see he brings up time again does he talks about the culmination of the ages you'll wait a minute did you tell me in history that you know it's by my calendar it's 2011 I mean that's a long culmination isn't it it's God's time he has started something new he's beginning to finish what he started in the garden in terms of our salvation our redemption what we are going to celebrate tonight is this idea of by the sacrifice himself and then in verse 28 Christ was sacrifice once and for all to take away the sins of many he was a voluntary substitute of a sacrifice who represented his people now that's a lot to tie up into the actions of one person but yet it is so important for us to realize that he offered himself up freely that he was both the high priest and the Lamb of God that he laid down his life for us because of who he was as truly God and truly a man that he was fully God who became like us except without our sins why did he do that why did the incarnation happen why did the reality come into the creation to take upon our likeness except so that he could become our substitute he could be our representative on the cross but notice what it says Christ was sacrifice once that is something that the writer of Hebrews hammers away again and again so that we can know that he died once and that's all he had to do because people had been looking every day morning and evening every week every month every year all those cycles of sacrifice all those the blood of goats and sheep bulls birds grain offerings fruit offerings all of them pointed to Christ so that the shedding of blood stopped and that our sins really were taken away sometimes I wonder as a pastor as I listen and look at my own life and life of others are we more amazed when we realize God has forgiven us or when he has forgiven someone else because oftentimes we can act as if oh I don't deserve to be forgiven is if my sin is too large for Christ's cross or we can judge someone else and say their sin is too big or don't be so fast about that forgiveness because somehow we believe that through separation or anxiety or shunning or guilt or shame that that would somehow atone for their sin all of that takes away from the glory of Christ of what he has done of what we celebrate here the last thing I want us to bring out and to think about is in Hebrews 9 verse 24 the second part when he entered heaven itself notice that it says now to appear for us in God's presence when we think about Jesus Christ being in the presence of God do you think about the fact that you are united to him that you pray in his name that he is there for you that you are in the very presence of God because of your faith because of your communion because of your union with Jesus Christ all of those words that we use to talk about our faith and what it means to be united to Jesus Christ that brings us into the very presence of God all the time because that is where he is that is where he is now in the presence of God and that's where this meal is supposed to take us this is my body this is my blood do this in remembrance of me
let me now read you the passage beginning to read at verse 23 it was necessary then for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these for Christ did not enter a man-made sacrifice sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one he entered heaven itself now to appear for us in God's presence nor did he enter to offer himself again and again the way a high priest enters the most holy place every year with blood that he is not his own then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world but now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself just as a man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people and he will appear a second time not to bear sin but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him let us pray
Father Father in heaven we pray that you would send your spirit to take the word of God and to open it up into our lives father you know where this word needs to land in the hearts and minds of the people who have come together together around the table we pray whether there needs to be encouragement that there would be encouragement where people need to be challenged we pray that you would challenge them but father for all of us we pray that the clarity of Christ death in the cross so that our sins might be forgiven we pray that that clarity would go into our hearts into our memories into our judgments
we are amazed at one death the death of the Son of God who is the Son of Man could pay for so much because of its infinite value and now we ask that you would prepare our hearts in our minds as we come to the table of our Lord we pray these things Jesus in your most holy name