Sunday, December 16, 2007

Redeemed to Serve (Hebrews 9:11-14)

As I was studying for this weeks sermon on Hebrews 9:11-14 I was struck by the end of V14. As Hebrews begins to expound more on the atonement we are told in V14 that Christ blood in the sacrifice of Himself would “purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t to simply bring us a better life now or prosperity in the cross but was so that we could serve the living God. How different this is from the usual Gospel that is proclaimed by many that is man centered rather than the biblical God centered Gospel. Let us keep the Gospel God centered instead of proclaiming a man centered Gospel.

Christ came as the Great High Priest to make it possible for a people to be worthy to serve the living God. It takes the blood of Christ, which represents all of Christ’s redemptive work, to redeem a people to serve God. When was the last time you heard a “Saved to Serve” message as what one usually hears is a “Saved from _______ (put your problem here)” sermon.

Hebrews makes it clear that the Old Covenant sacrificial system was a shadow (Heb 8:5) of the true High Priest and sacrifice to come in Christ. We see that the Old Covenant system could only clean the external but it is the blood of Christ that cleans the conscience, the internal, and truly redeems. To deny the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ is then to deny God’s design for redemption. To deny that the blood of Christ is required to make one worthy to serve and worship God is to deny God’s plan for people worshiping Him.

There is so much more that could be said but I would just encourage you to spend time in Hebrews. If you would like to hear this weeks sermon on Hebrews you can either download or listen here: Redeemed to Serve. You can also listen to other sermons on Hebrews on the sermon page of Sovereign Grace Christian Fellowship, here.

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