The author of Hebrews has been talking about the old temple as a shadow of heavenly realities and that we can, in the new covenant, come into this great presence of God called the Holy Place, the ultimate Holy of Holies, drawing near into God’s presence. Now, we have confidence to do this. Confidence is not arrogance, such that we just stroll into God’s presence now and pat him on the back. No, the idea of the words here is that we now have access in the sense that we now have security clearance into the very presence of God. One thing that makes it hard, I think, to grasp the blessing of this is the fact that we don’t tend to be as schooled in the Old Testament. The fact that we come to this passage after coming through Hebrews helps us because we’ve been setting this background. Nonetheless, typically in today’s church, we tend to think if we read this that we have access into God’s very presence, and if we are honest, we may say, “Yeah, I know that. They taught me that in Sunday School. We come into the presence of God. That’s a good thing, but I’m used to it. It’s common. It’s ordinary.” We’re too good as church people to say that, but the fact of the matter is, sometimes I think that. I fail to see the incredible privilege that it is. The Old Testament helps so much to realize this. This is part of the point of the ceremonies, to show that it is a serious thing to come into the presence of God.

You remember Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10. As sons of Aaron, they are supposed to be doing the ceremonies. They come in, and Scripture says simply that they offered strange fire. It doesn’t say exactly what they did. I wonder if, having done this a few times, they thought, “This is dull. Let’s do this a little differently.” Whatever they did, they did not follow God’s prescriptions. And, as you know, fire came out from the presence of God and consumed them. The people are appalled, Aaron especially. Moses goes to God. God speaks to Moses and says, “You tell the people I will be considered holy by those who draw near to me.” What is he saying? Don’t just waltz into the presence of a holy God. God will be taken seriously. It is a serious thing then, to be able to come into his presence and to be told that, whereas Nadab and Abihu were consumed, a new and living way has been opened up. He says, “You have access. You have security clearance with which you can come into the presence of God.” What an incredible privilege. And, yet, to ponder this – I have to ponder things to get them into my thick skull and into my heart, especially the wording here, which I think warrants the idea of security clearance, that you can enter something that other people cannot and that you could not on your own. Somehow you have been granted access.

And so, for example, by analogy in the government, what is it like to get security clearance? I don’t know. I have never had it. But, what do you have to have to have such clearance. It seems to me that you have to be somebody important and you have to have a clean record. In my mind’s eye, I ponder myself outside of Christ, before Christ, in my own self, coming to the gates, if you will, of the presence of God and requesting access. Since it is an analogy, there are people there to check me out to see if I have clearance, to see if I am somebody important enough and to do my background check. They ask me my name. I tell them. They punch it up, and the screen says, “Rebel. Nobody.” It’s not looking good. Then, they run the background check to see if there are any wrongs or evils in my past, and the screen begins to roll. It may not say murder or rape or robbery, but it says, “Seditious acts. Conspiracy with the archenemy. Refusal to submit to the King of Heaven. Enemy of God.” And, I am thrown out on my ear. There is no chance for me to receive security clearance, access into the very presence of God. But, then if I come back, now in Christ, cleansed by him and in the robes of his righteousness, and they punch in my name, again in my mind’s eye, the person has this sort of doubtful look. Then, instead of “Rebel” and “Nobody,” it says “Child of the King.” Then, they remember, yeah but what about all those deeds. They punch it up, and all the screen says is, “All files erased.” Stamped, “Washed in the blood of the Lamb. Access granted.” This is what he is saying. Now, in spite of ourselves, we have security clearance into the very presence of God. Because of what he has done, because of the blood of Jesus, he has opened up this new and living way. He has inaugurated it for us through his own death. (That is what it is talking about when it says “his own flesh.”) What an incredible privilege that he opens up for us to have.

Then, there is a second privilege in verse 21. “Since we have a great priest over the house of God…” Not only access, but a priest to stand there in our place, Christ himself. Indeed, much of what has gone before has been setting up the priesthood of Christ, speaking of Melchizidek and all that means. But, he says realize what a great priest you have. It is hard for us to grasp sometimes because we do not tend to have priests, but a priest of course is our representative who goes to God on our behalf and comes to us with the word of God – the intermediary. Now, he says, “You have a great priest over the house of God.” Since I don’t ponder priests in everyday life, I latched onto the idea of representative. That is what the priestly language is. So, what is required for one to be a great representative in this way? It seems to me, in the earthly realm, for someone to be a representative of mine in government, I am thinking of two things. They have to be somebody important, that can get things done. They speak, and people listen. They are able to champion my cause because they have some sort of clout. Then, secondly, it doesn’t do any good if they have all this clout but don’t know what life is like where I live. If they are up there and everybody listens to them, but they don’t understand what life is like on Bells Highway, it doesn’t do me any good. Well, our great priest is first of all somebody important. This is what the whole book has been saying. He is greater than Moses. He is greater than angels. To whom else did God say, “Today, you are my son. I have begotten you.” The Almighty himself, and he is my priest. Not only is he my priest, but “We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.” There can be no greater representative, the one who has all the clout of heaven and yet has lived where I live and knows about this life. This one has made himself my representative. If we think in lawyer terms, if I were in trouble and needed a lawyer, I don’t know what I could afford. I might have to take the low man on the totem pole to get someone to represent me. But, here in the spiritual realm, I have a great high priest who has attached himself to my cause. What confidence is that! The first blessing is that the door has been opened to the access of God. The second blessing is that this priest, Christ himself, has stuck his foot in the door to ensure that it does not close on me because if access has been granted to me and it is up to me to keep the door open, I am hopeless. So, I have not only access, but I have a great high priest. In the old covenant, you don’t have that. In the old covenant, there is only one person who can go in. You now can go in. In the old covenant, the priest is a man who must sacrifice for himself and then for you. Here, you have the great high priest. How could you ever go back? How could you ever find this anywhere else?

These are the blessings of the new covenant. If we appreciate those, then we should respond in the way described here. The first one is in verse 22: “Let us draw near.” This language “draw near” shows up several times throughout Hebrews, and it is the language of worship. It talks about us drawing near to the throne of grace to receive help in time of need. If we appreciate what God has done, we should draw near to him. In essence, if we realize what a privilege it is that God has opened up access to the very presence of God, then use it! You can’t say, “That is an incredible thing. Look, I have the opportunity to go into the presence of God.” Then, go! It’s the Nike doctrine: “Just do it.” Make use of what God has given you. Otherwise, in spite of what you said about appreciating it, it’s not true. It is a fraud. It says, “Draw near to God.” Come up close to him. To fail to make use of the blessing is to despise it. We know that in our earthly relationships. If someone gives you a gift or an opportunity and you don’t make use of it, you don’t receive it, that is to despise it. No matter what we say about appreciating the new covenant, if we do not regularly make use of it to draw near to God in person, in corporate worship, in reading the Word and in prayer, then we despise the work of Christ. No matter what else we say, this is what it is. He says, “Draw near to God.” Come close. Look how he says to do it: “Draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.” The sincerity, the purity. The sense is we don’t play games when we come into the presence of God. We come with sincerity, with full assurance, trusting. The only way we can come is by faith, trusting that the way is open, trusting that as we do draw near, God receives.

He says also, “Having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” He is picking up there on old covenant imagery, how the temple was cleansed. I think he is referring to baptism, our bodies being cleansed, that being a picture of the spiritual cleansing that is going on. I want to pick up for a minute where he says, “having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.” The author here is being very pastoral in applying this. He knows that as he commands us, “Draw near to God. Come into his presence,” one thing that happens to us when we are real with ourselves as we begin to come into God’s presence, the evil conscience, what the puritans call the smiting conscience, comes into play. “Who are you to pray? Don’t you remember what you were thinking of five minutes ago? I know you. Don’t you remember that? Don’t you remember what you did, what you said, what you thought, where you were?” The recounting of our past evil deeds, to try to hinder us from coming into the presence of God gives the opportunity for us to say, “Well, that’s right. Who am I to draw near to God? I should just back away.” That guilt which keeps us from drawing near to God. What can we say? Those things are true. Yet, this is what he is saying, that we are to draw near with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. It is the gospel that washes those things away so that when the smiting conscience arises and says, “What about this?” we say, “Yes, those things are true, but they are washed in the blood of the Lamb.” We are to have our evil conscience washed away. The Scripture talks about the accuser of the brethren. The devil himself will accuse and point out our sins, and yet, we do not battle him in our own devices. When he accuses us of being less than worthy, we simply say, “Couldn’t agree with you more, but look at Christ.” This is why the song we sing “Before the Throne of God Above” says, “When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there who made an end to all my sin.” So long as our priest is there and it is his righteousness, then my evil conscience can be washed away. All barriers are removed. If God has granted access, who am I to say that I should not have access, and who is anyone else to put a barrier in the way? Because the great high priest himself has opened the door and invites me. If the master of the house says come in, no servant or anyone else can forbid. So he says, draw near, having your heart sprinkled clean in this way.

In this whole context, though, how do we respond appropriately? I have touched on that, but how do you keep from being sucked in by the world? How do you keep from going back to the old ways? He will talk about that more in the verses that follow, but certainly this is part of it. How do you keep from being sucked into the world? By drawing near to God. This is what James says when he says, “Resist the devil and draw near to God.” You can’t do one without the other. The alternative to apostasy is worship. The alternative to worship is apostasy. You will do one or the other. You will either draw near to God, or you will be sucked in by the world, and there is no in between. What a privilege! It is like saying, “You will either eat this chocolate, or you will eat that broccoli.” My goodness! (Sorry to those who like broccoli.) What a horrendous choice! This is what he is saying to us. You will either get sucked into the world, or you will draw near to God, for whom your souls were designed, the one who is that for which your soul longs, even when you don’t understand it. Draw near to God. What a command and a privilege. These responsibilities that come out, the responsibilities themselves are privileges. Hold fast to God. So, draw near first of all. If we appreciate, if we understand the gospel, we will draw near to God.

The second response is in verse 23: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.” There are strong terms here. Hold fast to the hope. Again, writing to the people who are under persecution and other things. If you believe in the gospel, hold on tightly and do not let go because if you believe it, you hold fast. When we were in Scotland, we had the opportunity to go to Edinburgh, and I wanted to go into In burgh Castle, this great castle. Nobody else wanted to, so I just went in and wandered through there alone. It had military museums, and in one of the museums, in one of the displays, there was a battle in the past. (It would be hard to have battles of the future.) But, there was this display to a certain soldier. He wasn’t a general, but he was the man who carried the flag. He carried the banner. Of course, that’s an important thing. If the banner goes down, then there’s chaos, and things are bad. So, typically if the man with the banner goes down, someone else takes it up. In this battle, this man was shot, and he went down with the banner in his hand. Other guys tried to rally around to get the banner, and they could not, even in his death, pry his fingers loose. Chaos was going around them, and they are trying to pry this man’s hands loose from the banner, and they can’t. Eventually, they simply pick up the dead man in order to carry the banner forward. Every time I read, “Hold fast the confession of your hope,” that’s the picture that comes to my mind. Hold fast. I will die with my grip on this hope, no matter what. That is the picture. He is saying hold fast. Don’t give up, no matter what it looks like. Look what God has done. You have access. You have a great priest. Because of the truths of who God is, you can hold fast no matter what happens. You do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize. You don’t have a high priest who sits there, alleviated from any kind of suffering, untouched by human hands and saying, hold on. No, you have a high priest who has gone before you, who has suffered at the hands of sinful men, and it is he who says to you, hold fast.

Yet, it is important to notice the last part of the verse. “Hold fast without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” He does not say, “Hold fast without wavering, for you have the strength to do it.” No, hold fast, and what is the ground of our holding? It is the faithfulness of God. Matthew Henry said, “We trust more in God’s promises to us than in our promises to God.” It is he who is faithful. Why can we hold fast? Because God is faithful. When we were living here in Jackson before going to Scotland, we lived in Cherry Grove Apartments. So, we had a lovely front yard of asphalt and parking places, and the dumpster was across the parking lot. So, I would gather the garbage, as all good husbands ought to do, and I would take the garbage out. Nathan at this time was a year old, and he wanted to take the garbage with me. So, we got him a little Wal-Mart bag and tie him up some garbage, and I sort of liked that, taking him alongside me. But, we had to cross the parking lot. When we got there, I would exhort him, “Nathan, there are cars going through here. See that one? See this person speeding through here like they’re crazy? All right, this happens a lot, doesn’t it? As we cross this parking lot, hold fast to my hand. Do not let go. If you let go and wander off, you may be struck by a car and die.” I was very straightforward. This is serious stuff. Hold fast. I put my hand down, and the little hand reaches up and grabs onto mine. “Son, don’t let go.” He was pretty good at it, but as that little hand reached up, my much larger hand enveloped his, and as we would go across the parking lot, from time to time, the little hand would let go. He would not live up to his end of the bargain. But, even though he let go, he never went anywhere. I exhorted the small hand, “Hold fast,” but the ground of it was that the larger hand was holding fast in spite of him. So it is with us and the Father. He exhorts us, “Hold fast. Don’t you let go.” And, yet the ground of our hope is that it is the omnipotent God who holds fast to us. That is why we have any hope. Hold fast the confession of your hope. Don’t let go, and may the ground of it be that you know that your almighty Father holds you fast.

Then, there is another one. In verse 24, “Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” So, draw near to God. Hold fast to your hope, and don’t waver. And, then, consider one another. The first two are largely individualistic, and there is an individual side to the faith. But, the third one moves to the corporate side. Consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. This has already been seen a little bit, this corporate nature, because it says we have access and then says we have a great priest over the “house” of God. Not just over you, but over the house, the family of God. So, if we are going to respond to the new covenant appropriately, we must also pay attention to the house of God. So, he says, “Consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” These two verses are full of very interesting words. Indeed, from this comes some language that we use commonly amongst us, even if we are not aware this is where it comes from. First of all, “Let us consider one another.” Let us watch one another. The word here is usually a negative word, to peer upon closely. To translate into the vernacular, it might be something like this: “I am going to watch you like a hawk.” Typically, if a boss says that to you, it is not a good thing. But, the picture here, he says watch one another like a hawk, so that the first chance you get, you can encourage them. Let’s consider, watch over carefully, so that we can find a way to stimulate to love and good works. There is nothing here that suggests or supports that lackadaisical view of church, which is so common, that says that we kind of meet and bump into each other, and if somewhere along the way I notice there is a need or someone missing, we’ll do something about it. No. That is not the right response to the new covenant. The right response to the new covenant is carefully watching over one another. As Nathan suggested earlier, this is not directed to the elders here. There are other places that tell the elders to do that, but this is directed to the community, that we are watching over one another carefully, looking for the slightest opening and opportunity to bless, encourage, help. The text suggests this is the right response to the gospel. To do something less is to fail to appreciate the gospel.

I summarize verse 24 and 25 as actively and aggressively care for one another. Doesn’t that make sense? As I said, this comes out of an appreciation for the gospel. Someone might say, “Okay, maybe you overstated the point there.” I think the structure of the sentence suggests that, but just consider for a moment. What is it that Christ has done for his church? Is it not actively and aggressively caring for us, pursuing us at great cost to himself? He did not sit in heaven and say, “If you find me, I’ll accept you.” He chased us down. How then should I respond to individuals whom Christ has chased down? If Christ loves them so, how can I not love them in the same way? This is what he is getting at. So, what do we do? Consider, watch over closely, how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. Again, the word stimulate is normally a negative term. It is used in some other texts to talk about inciting a riot, stirring up trouble. So, this is overdone, but just to catch the point. It is the idea of watching each other closely so as to incite a riot of love and good deeds. That is a great picture. What we should be doing is trying to stir up love and good deeds so much that it just gets out of hand. You can imagine Lee giving the announcements next week, saying, “Okay, people, this love and good deeds thing has gotten out of hand. The deacons are unable now to keep up with all the love and good deeds that are going on. Would you please register in the back that we might keep up with all …” Of course, they would never do that. But, this is the picture. Love and good deeds within the community ought not be something that we are wishing would happen, but it ought to go on as we stimulate one another informally. As just a regular part of life, love and good deeds are the overflow because we understand the gospel and the privileges, and we are drawing near to God. The more you draw near to God, the more you know his face, and therefore, the more likely you are to hold fast. The more you draw near and the more you hold fast, the more you will be watching over one another and stirring up one another to love and good deeds. This indeed is at the core of what we are trying to do here at Cornerstone, to be that kind of community.

Then, he will tell us in verse 25, how to do that and how not to do that. The way you don’t do it is the first part of verse 25, “…not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some.” Amazingly, at this time, as this author was writing, there were some people who were neglecting the assembly. Aren’t you glad it doesn’t happen today? But, it does, of course. This is not how you watch over one another. How are you going to watch over one another if you forsake the assembly? I think again the whole flow of the passage suggests if you properly understand the gospel, you will not forsake the assembling together of the believers. How could you? So many times when this passage is taken up, it sounds like this – not here, but I’ve heard it in some places – “That’s right, we need to make sure we’re in church on Sunday. I mean, after all, Preacher works hard during the week to get a sermon together. We ought to be there to hear it. I mean, it’s hard to study and prepare a sermon without many people being there to preach to.” That’s the poor-preacher syndrome. I remember hearing that when I was pastoring. People say, “Well, there ought to be more people here…” That’s not it. I hope you hear how lame that sounds. When I hear that, I picture a Precious Moments picture of the pastor. It’s just so sad that no one was there to hear him. It’s not about the pastor or the other person preaching. It’s about God and his people. Don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together because we need to be watching over one another. We need to be stimulating one another to love and good deeds because we understand the gospel, because we have the privilege to gather together and corporately to come into the presence of God because we have a great high priest. That’s what it’s about. To fail to do that says something desperately bad about your spiritual condition. If you can forsake the assembling together with other believers regularly and have nothing to do with the people of God suggests you are not part of the people of God. You are still in your sins and under the wrath of God and in need of salvation, and yet salvation is offered full and free for all who would repent and believe. You can receive a new heart and therefore love the people of God and not forsake the assembling together. This is what he tells us. But instead of that, we should be encouraging one another on, exhorting, rebuking, helping one another. John Wesley said, “The Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.” He is right there. Or, to quote from the other side, Calvin said, “There is so much peevishness in almost everyone…” The honesty of Calvin is one of the things I like. “… that individuals, if they could, would gladly make their own churches for themselves.” This morning is, therefore, needed by all of us, that we should be encouraged to love rather than hate, and that we should not separate ourselves from those who have joined to us by a common faith. So, gather, encourage, invest significantly in the lives of one another. And, all the more as you see the day drawing near. This is, then, how we stay the course, by the involvement of one another. It is never assumed that any believer can persevere in the faith alone. We need one another. We talk about this a lot, but here it is right here in this text. We need one another to persevere in these ways. This is then this key passage, summarizing what’s gone before. What is the gospel? How do you respond? We must be people who draw near, regularly spending time in the presence of the Lord, individually and corporately. We must hold fast. We must watch over one another when we gather together.

May the Lord grant us grace to this end. Amen.

THE LIFESTYLE OF THE FORGIVEN AND BLESSED