By
Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.
Flat
Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership,
Sunday
July 5thth, 2020 (10/10. How Jesus Saves.)
In
a few shocking moments, he made a bold announcement that he was an atheist
against the ‘intrusion’ of religion into our secular government.
Reagan
also made it clear that he wholeheartedly agreed with the separation of church
and state as our forefathers had intended.
But it was how he ended that was really the
attention-getter. In a rather brass and bragging
way he finished with,, “Please support the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I’m
Ron Reagan, life-long atheist, and not afraid of burning in hell.”
There
was a lot of ‘googling’ going on after Reagan made that statement. It was indeed bold, even for an increasingly
secular world like ours. So, how did Ron, the son of the late
President, known to be a person of faith, get to be such an unabashed atheist?
Mark
Tooley, writing for the Christian Post, wrote that as a child, “Ron Jr.
asked his father why church was necessary if God was everywhere. His father answered: “Well, you know, God
says, wherever two or more shall gather, there shall I be.” Reagan Jr. was
unimpressed by the answer. He also had unanswerable questions about the
sequence of cavemen versus Adam and Eve. So at age 12 he announced to his
father he didn’t believe in God and would no longer attend church. His father
was surprised but didn’t argue...”
“Later
Reagan Sr. tried “quiet persuasion” at “some length” but failed to persuade his
son about God or church. So he asked Bel
Air Pastor Don Moomaw, a formidable former UCLA football player and large
personality, to visit the Reagan home and persuade his son, also without
success.
Reagan
Jr. has ever since been a firm atheist, ostensibly respecting others’ religious
beliefs but opposing their political application. “Religion may indeed inspire acts of great
kindness and courage,” he said back in 2009. “But it also trains people to
believe things for which there is no evidence ... Reagan Jr. expressed
confidence that atheism would eventually prevail over religion: “Religions may persist, but they come and
they go. Where are the old Norse gods today? Where are the worshippers of
Amon-Ra today? A thousand years from
now, what will people make of a man tortured to death on a cross, of a prophet
who was said to ride a white horse up to a mythical heaven?”
“Faith
will fade, religions will flower and vanish, but reason remains,” Reagan Jr.
concluded. “Reason is where I put my faith, if you will. Reason is where I
stand, and I am happy to stand there with you.”
Did
you catch Ron Jr.’s conclusion: ‘Reason is where I put my faith....’? Doesn’t that sound contradictory? Even an atheist makes a faith statement when
they say there is no God, just like a believer makes a faith statement to
express faith in God. Since human knowledge
is always partial, we ALL must have some kind of faith. Just like you can’t live by ‘bread alone’, human’s
can’t live by the facts alone either. As
a song says, ‘You’ve gotta have faith.’
We
must have faith, but faith is always on the move too. This
is what people, like Ron Jr., who struggle with religion miss. He thought you couldn’t have Cave men and the
Bible. He thought that we Christians only
read history through the Bible. But the
Bible is not scientific history, it’s ‘Faith’ history. The Bible tells us about how God works to
save throughout history, but the Bible doesn’t tell us how history works. It tells us about faith, and unlike history, faith
is a moving target. If you aim at it,
either to deny or destroy it, you’re normally aiming at what it was, not what
it is or will be. This is why true faith
is indestructible. Our God is a living
God who is on the move, just as we are a people who on the move.
And
no book in the Bible shows how God is a loving, living and eternal God, better than
the book of Hebrews. While Hebrews clearly declares that Jesus
Christ is the same, yesterday, and forever (13:8), it also says that in through
the ‘blood’ of Jesus God has opened up a ‘new an living way’
(10:20), making the old way ‘obsolete’ (8:13).
God is the same, Jesus is the same, but how God works can change, and is
always on the move, with us, and for us, just as we are on the move.
In
this, the final message about God’s saving work through Jesus Christ, we can
see exactly how Israel’s God was moving from an Old Testament way of doing
things to a New Testament way. In Jesus,
God was doing a new thing, but what does this mean for us? How is this God’s saving work in Jesus still the
same ‘yesterday, today, and tomorrow’ in our ever-changing world?
WHEN CHRIST CAME AS A HIGH PRIEST… (11)**
For
example, looking directly at our text, when was the last time you had a need of
a ‘high priest?
Recently
in England, the BBC ran a special program about the 10 commandments in England
today. Before the program aired, they
polled to ask which of the 10 Commandments people thought were still
relevant. Only 2 made the cut: Don’t
Kill. Don’t steal. Honor Your father and mother and don’t
commit adultery didn’t make it into the top ten, but they were, at least
still in the top twenty. The British poll
came up with a whole new set of top ten rules for modern life.
Starting
with 10 and counting down, they were: (10) Protect your family. (9) Don’t be violent. (8) Look after the vulnerable. (7) Protect the environment. (6) Protect and nurture children. (5) Don’t steal. (4) Be honest. (3) Don’t kill. (2) Take responsibility for your actions. And number one: (1)Treat others as you want to be treated.
I
don’t think Jesus would have any real problems with this new top 10, except for
one thing? Do you see what’s
missing? There is no mention of the
first commandment of Moses: I am the
Lord, your God. Have no other gods before me. The foundation
of faith in God in Moses and Jesus’ commandments, were replaced with another
commandment found in the top twenty: ‘Be true to your own god’’ however,
or whoever, your god might be.
So,
in a world where we,
Write
our own commandments,
Make our own rules,
Chose our own gods,
Who needs a high priest?
While
people aren’t thinking about High Priests these days, people still need help, and are still going
somewhere for help. Interestingly as
fewer and fewer people go to church, require services of a priest, or need a
pastor, more and more people are turning to psychiatrists, psychologists,
counselors, therapists, spiritual guru’s and life coaches.
And
why are people still needing professionals who sound very much like
priests? Maybe
it’s because it’s one thing to come up with new commandments and new ways for
living, but it’s quite another thing to be able to put these rules into
practice.
It’s
one thing to have new rules and ways to follow, but it’s quite another thing to
handle the frustration, disappointment and pain that comes from when you fail
to live up to your own expectations or when you can’t get others to see things
like you do.
Might
it also be that while it sounds good to have your own god, but what if you
discover that deep down inside you are still restless and dissatisfied?
What
if, in spite of our own attempts to:
Write
our own commandments,
Make
our own rules,
Choose
our own gods,
We
still have this nagging sense that things are not as they should be and people
are still looking for someone, some guru or expert, who will tell them how they
should live or give them some advise that will make life better.
HOW
MUCH MORE WILL THE BLOOD OF CHRIST...(14)
It
was into a world where people were still seeking healing and wholeness, even
after Moses, Elijah and John the Baptist,
and even after the apostle Paul too, that the book of Hebrews first
announced that Jesus is the one they should still be looking to.
Hebrews
is saying that Jesus is the one who still ‘fits the bill’ of healer, messiah,
and Savior. He’s the one we should
still be looking to, as well. He’s the
one we should be looking to because he is ‘the High Priest (11) who has
offered the final sacrifice to deal with sin and its terrible consequences. Through Jesus, God has done a new thing, that
is ‘greater’ (11) than what God did before with ‘goats and calves’ (12)
and this sacrifice is perfect (11), complete, and obtains ‘eternal
redemption’ (12). Listen to how the
writer of Hebrews explains this in his own words, contrasting the way God used
to save from sin, and how God saves now:
For
if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer,
sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified,
14 how much more will the blood of
Christ, who through the eternal Spirit1 offered himself without
blemish to God, purify our2 conscience from dead works to worship
the living God! (Heb.
9:13-14 NRS).
Of
course, this may have meant a lot to Jews becoming Christians, but what does all
this ‘blood’ sprinkling language mean for us?
How
many of you have been to the doctor for a ‘blood test’? I have elevated cholesterol and because of
being adopted and not knowing my family history, I’ve had to take cholesterol
medicine and I have to have regular blood tests. No one
gets to take much of any kind of new medicine without a blood tests.
When
we talk about ‘blood’ in our culture today, it touches a nerve. Some people even feel faint at seeing
blood. Even today, our culture makes
many references to blood. We talk about ‘cold-blooded
murder’. We talk about paying ‘blood-money’. We talk about ‘blood brothers’ and ‘blood-relatives’. We
talk about things that make your ‘blood boil’, and people who are ‘hot-blooded’.
And
when we talk about ‘blood’ in these ways, it’s a way of saying that:
This
thing is serious.
This
this is important, and
This
is thing is a matter of life and death.
And
when the book of Hebrews talks about ‘the blood of Christ’ (14) it’s pointing
to something serious; something that has life and death importance.
In
many churches today, both in the preaching, the music, and the religious
conversations have gotten away from language like being ‘washed in the blood of
the lamb’. I recall having a college
professor who said that language like this didn’t belong in the church anymore. It wasn’t that he was against Jesus or didn’t
believe that Jesus died for us, but he just didn’t think the Bible’s ‘bloody’ sacrificial
language had anything to say to our modern world.
But
before we think that all this ‘blood’ and ‘sacrifice’ language has become
irrelevant, we need to understand that this language was indeed the
life-and-death language of the ancient world, and it is still a very dramatic
way of describing the way and reason Jesus died on the cross in a sacrificial way.
When
you scan Hebrews, there’s a lot being described about Jesus. Jesus is portrayed as the one:
Who has shared our human
existence,
Who has faced the full force of
temptation,
Who, in the power of the Spirit,
has resisted temptation and remained obedient to
God.
Who has offered himself to God
in both life and death through the power of theHoly Spirit.
Who is the perfect sacrifice
to repair the damage done to us by sin.
Who removes the sin which
separates us from God,
And who reunites fallible,
flawed, sinful people like us to the living, holy God.
In
our text, and in many other places in Hebrews,
we are told that God once provided a system of sacrifices to keep sin
under control; but now in Christ, the final, ‘once and for all’, most
costly sacrifice has been offered through the eternal Spirit (14).
And it is by the power of the Spirit that
the benefits of Christ’s sacrificial death are applied to our lives today, by
grace, through faith, which is the gift of God’s love to us, even while
we are still sinners. This is the language
of the Bible that still works. This is
the language of the Bible that points to how God still saves. This is the language of the Spirit that has
changed how faith works, from a temporary form into a final, eternal form that
will is the same ‘yesterday, today, and forever’.
MEDIATOR
OF A NEW COVENANT...(15)
What
is it that could ‘change’ your perspective ‘forever’?
Often
we receive or hear an advertisement saying that we need to have something
new. We need a new car, a new insurance
policy, a new medicine, or we need to try a new fast food? It’s better than what you have now, so you need
it, right? And you don’t just need it,
but when you get this or that, it will change and transform your life FOREVER! We’re
used to that kind of hype, and we’re not easily fooled by it
But
here, the letter of Hebrews IS, in fact, making a claim like that. Should we dare believe it? We’re heard it so many times before. We live in a world that is full of ‘snake oil
salesmen’ too. And we all know that religious
claims get exaggerated, right? Some of
the things we heard, have even been down right lies. We think of Earnest Angsley, Jim Baker, or
some other ‘false’ healing preacher.
How do we know what Hebrews says is true? How
do we know that Jesus is the ‘High Priest of good things that have come’
that are not of ‘this creation’ (11)?
How do we know that Jesus has
acted as our representative, our attorney, counsel before God? How do
we know that through his life, death, and resurrection something distinctive, decisive
and pivotal has happened ‘once and for all’?
Can
we know that through Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection that:
We have been set free from the burden
of failure?
Our troubled consciences can be
cleansed and healed.
We have been released from sin’s
power so we can serve the living God.
We can move from ‘dead works’ to
worship this God who lives! (9:14).
At
a time when so many people are looking for something, and for someone who will
bring them hope, healing, and wholeness, the Church is called to point people
to this Savior who is the true Savior, and is uniquely qualified to act as a
reliable life coach both in this world and in the next.
How
we know this is not something that I can make you know, convince you of, or
argue you into, but the only way to ‘know’ that this Jesus is for real is in
the same way Jesus offered himself, through ‘the eternal Spirit’
(14). It only through God’s Holy Spirit
that you or I can be convinced of what matters most and who makes a the difference.
And
while there is no doubt that Jesus has been preached as a new and living way
to offer God’s mercy and hope, whether or not Jesus is the way YOU receive God’s
eternal hope in this very temporary life is up to you. Hebrews
clearly says, Jesus is the ‘mediator of a new covenant’ so that ‘those
who are called may receive an eternal inheritance’ (15). The question is not whether Jesus brings the ‘new
covenant’ of promise. He did. The question is also not whether Jesus offers
us an ‘eternal inheritance (gift). He
does. No, the only question is whether
you have been ‘called’ to receive Him. ‘Many
are called, but few are chosen’, Scripture says.
Mikey
Anders compares how God works with people through Jesus Christ like a jeweler who works with gems. In the natural state,
diamonds appear as hard, irregular lumps that shine only with a greasy luster
and not at all with their finished brilliance. Their beauty is given them by
the skill of the stonecutter, who grinds and polishes their surfaces so that
they sparkle.
It
is not the size of a diamond, but the light reflected that gives the stone its
value. The Tiffany diamond, now valued at $2,000,000, was cut from 287.42
carats to 128.51 carats, with 90 facets. When displayed in the Fifth Avenue
store window, it could be seen all the way across the avenue. The only way the value of a diamond can be
increased is by cutting. Experts in Paris studied the Tiffany diamond for one
year before a single blow was struck in the cutting.
A
diamond is said to be the hardest substance in existence, and all because it
has been through the fire. The diamonds that reflect the most light have
received the roughest treatment. Yet the greatest care is taken by the jeweler
not to damage the stone in any way. Every flaw must be cut out, even a
microscopic flaw. (
As quoted Mickey Anders from Lois Hoadley Dick, Amy Carmichael, Let the Little
Children Come, Chicago: Moody Press, 1984, p. 149).
We
can be compared to diamonds because something or someone must take care of our
flaws before we can shine with the brightness God intended. It is through the perfect sacrifice and
example of Jesus Christ that God takes care of our flaws.
For Jesus is not just a superior life coach who
makes us look better or a therapist who makes us feel better. No, Jesus is the ‘high priest’ of a whole
new promise. Jesus came to directly deal
with the mess and muddle of our lives.
He came to offer his life as the perfect sacrifice ‘without
blemish’ so that God’s redeeming love can ‘cut out our flaws’ and set
us free to shine in freedom and to live by faith. Jesus came not only to forgive us, but so that God can give his love and live his life through us. Or to
put it as Hebrews does, as the perfect, final, ‘once and for all sacrifice,
Jesus ‘offered
himself without blemish to God, to purify our conscience from dead works to
worship the living God! (Heb. 9:14 NRS).
There
is no doubt to me, that this is what God was doing in Jesus.
Why else would we still be talking about Jesus
today?
Jesus offered his life as a
sacrifice for sin.
The only thing that
is still left open is this: whether or not we offer ourselves, and our lives to him? Amen.
**Based
upon a sermon by Peter Stevenson in Preaching the Atonement, WJK, 2009,
pp. 166-170.
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