Restoring Hope - Keep Out Or Come In

KEEP OUT       OR     COME IN

 Hebrews 10:19-31

Introduction:

The time that I grounded Jordan and Ryan for fooling around at Communion.  After I left the bedroom I went out to the rocking chair and Jordan came and climbed up into my lap, without asking.

It reminded me of the openness we now have to enter into the throne room of God.

Stay out – or Come In

Rom 5:5 – the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy spirit

Romans 8:15 (ESV)  - For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

Romans 5:1–2 (ESV) -  Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Galatians 4:6 (ESV) - And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

This access is available to us – in fact we are invited to draw near to God who is now our father.

LET US DRAW NEAR TO GOD

Because we CAN

Let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace

Since we have confidence to enter the holy place – let us draw near

Because we SHOULD

This completes what the writer of Hebrews has been talking about.  We have a sacrifice for sins that is once for all and very sufficient

That’s what we see in verses 19-21

            The Basis for the Exhortation

What Jesus DID

He entered into the holy place (the opposite Heb 9:8-9,14) through the veil

His blood –

Now a new way – New (means freshly slain – as applied to flowers, an animal, oil)

Who Jesus IS

A great priest – over the house of God

Hebrews 3:6 (NASB95)

   6    but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.

The priest would take the blood of something else and offer it to expiate our sins – Jesus offers himself

The Way We are to Come

With  CONFIDENCE

With a SINCERE HEART

Jeremiah 24:7 (NASB95)

         7    ‘I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.

With the FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH

To carry to the full

With RECOGNITION

Sprinkled clean from an evil conscience – from relying on dead works

The whole idea here is that the worshipper is made ready for worship – not longer just ceremony

What not to do:

Willful sinning is the rejection of the means of expiation since it is stated that there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins

Trampled the Son of God underfoot

Treated as unholy the blood of the covenant

Insulted the Spirit of Grace

Thinking we can add something to salvation