Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The sermon text is from Hebrews 10:11-25 (excerpt): Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when This Priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. This is our text.
The priests who served in God’s temple must have gotten sick of their work. Every day with the burning of incense, the thank offerings and sin offerings and guilt offerings and purification sacrifices. Once a year on the Day of Atonement, the sins of God’s people were confessed and symbolically placed on the scapegoat who was led out into the wilderness. A bull was killed and its blood mingled with the blood of a goat and taken into the Most Holy Place to atone for the sins of the High Priest and the Children of Israel. Year after year, it never stopped.
Those animal sacrifices were ordained by God. They were the Divine Service by which God put away the sins of His people, but they had no real power to remove the sins of God’s people – their only power lay in the promise that those sacrifices pointed forward and appropriated the forgiveness that could only come from one, perfect sacrifice – and until that last, perfect sacrifice was made – it never stopped. The animal sacrifices constantly reminded of their sin and guilt and their need for repentance, but here at the temple they were also reminded that God promised to make the final, perfect sacrifice for them.
Talk about job security – the priests who sacrificed for the sins of God’s people would never be out of a job. No economic downturn could render their jobs unnecessary. You couldn’t ship their job off to some foreign country. There wasn’t any way of shifting their burden to someone else. As long as there were people, there would be sins, and as long as there were sins, there would need to be atonement for sins.
Are you sick of things that never get done? Does it drive you nuts to have something hanging over your head day after day? One day you have the leaves almost completely blown into piles and burned or hauled away, and the next day another tree starts shedding leaves till you don’t know you even did anything. My wife keeps a nice tidy house so don’t take this the wrong way, but at night you put the kids to bed and get the toys put away and the next morning they’re pulled down and spread in every direction. One diaper gets changed and pretty soon the next diaper needs changed. Kids catch up on homework and another mess of assignments get heaped up. Farmers wait day after drizzly day to get into the fields, machinery breaks, harvest goes slowly. Teachers plan lessons ad nauseam. Aren’t you sick of things that never get done?
There’s only one thing in the world that’s every really, and I mean really, been done. Day after day, God’s priests made their sacrifices, but only one Priest named Jesus could honestly say, “It is finished.” There on the terrible timbers of Golgatha, Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest, laid His Divine and human flesh on the altar of the cross to be the final – once and for all – sacrifice for sins. All the High Priests who served in God’s temple before Him… All the animals which were killed… They all pointed forward to Jesus the Great High Priest who offered Himself – His life was the ransom price to redeem us, buying us back from the certain death we deserve. And only Jesus could say, “It’s done.”
We live the daily cycle of incompletion, one job is finished and here comes a new one. One meeting and two more pop up on the schedule. One practice for the kids, one game, another practice. Drop ‘em off. Pick ‘em up. Eat in the car while you hurry to the next thing. Even retired people tell me their retirement is so busy they don’t know how they ever found time to work. It never stops.
Something else never stops. Our big mouths say stuff we shouldn’t say. Our gossip and gabbing. Our short-tempers and caustic comments to spouse or child. Our sin-filled thoughts, cursing and complaining the problems of the day. It never stops. No matter how we strive toward self-improvement… No matter how we take pride in our goodness… no matter how we long for respectability and admiration. It’s never done. Even our spiritual lives are one step forward and two steps back.
Listen closely to the words of your Great High Priest Jesus: “It is finished.” If you’re sick of a life of incompletion, believe the words of our text: “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” As true God, Jesus took human flesh to offer the final, perfect sacrifice. As true man, Jesus lived a sinless life of perfect obedience and completion. Christ our High Priest is the “new and living way” into the heavenly presence of God the Father. Through Spirit-given faith we “draw near to God in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience.” By the command and promise of your great High Priest your bodies were washed in the pure waters of Holy Baptism. This is the hope we profess – to which we hold unswervingly – because God is faithful. Jesus said, “It’s finished.” Your sin and mine was paid for once and for all. No priest offers any sacrifice before God. Ours is simply to receive in faith what is done – perfect and free – God’s grace and forgiveness and everlasting love is yours. It’s a done deal.
So sin sacrifices are done – finished! Jesus paid the price – forgiveness has been won. God doesn’t need you to do something to buy Him off. God doesn’t need you to atone for your sins. God doesn’t need you to make things right with Him. You couldn’t anyway, but thank God, Jesus did it for you! It’s free!
But there is a sacrifice for God’s people – not to pay for sins – but we offer sacrifices of thanksgiving. Hebrews 13 says, “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that confess His name.” Because Jesus the Great High Priest offered the “once for all” sacrifice, God calls our entire lives to become a never-ending thank you. Our text says, “Consider how you may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the day approaching.”
Look at your life as a child of God with a heavenly home in your future. Consider how your life can become a never-ending praise to God as you serve Him, loving your neighbor and serving those around you. Notice how connected God’s people are – how God uses us to encourage each other as we worship together. Our text says don’t stop meeting together as some are in the habit of doing but encourage each other all the more.
Two facts here change our perspective: 1) You and I are God’s forgiven people by grace for Jesus’ sake – It’s finished! 2) “Encourage one another and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” God’s got big things for us to do and the time’s short. People don’t know Jesus. People are hurting and hungry, without help and without hope in this world. We know the Great High Priest. We know it’s finished. We know the devil is damned and defeated and Christ sits at God’s right hand and one day He will take His Church home to heaven. The Bible tells us: “God is not slow in keeping His promises as some understand slowness – He is patient with us, not wanting anyone to perish but all to come to repentance.”
Too many people – probably all of us – spend too much time thinking about tomorrow and unfinished jobs piling up to the sky. God’s given us today, and the most important thing – your eternal salvation – is finished. Let the joy of Christ’s completed work move you into your home and marriage, into your neighborhood and community, into your church and prayer family. Let Christ’s completed work propel you to lives of thanksgiving and praise. “Fix your eyes on Jesus,” Hebrews 12 says. That’s where rest and refreshment and peace come from. Look at the cross. It’s done. And I think you’ll find the more you live in that finished guarantee, the more your thankfulness spills over in a never-ending stream. Amen.
And now may the peace of God which surpasses human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.