Tana City Church Preaching
Kim Midgley | Hebrews 10v19-22
Last Sunday, I went off to Yvonne Street to go and serve another church there where they need some extra help because the pastor was overseas. And they don't have a very strong base of preachers or anything, so I just went to go and help to cover for that guy. Really good guy, his name is Yandri, and he's doing a great job in Yvonne Street. They've just tiled their venue and it was looking beautiful. And I just had a sense of a word that I wanted to share with that congregation and I got up and I preached. I hadn't discussed with anyone what I was going to share. I didn't get given the topic. I just prayed and then went and prepared and then preached. Then I heard that Yandri, a different Yandri, who is, you know, every other guy's Yandri, but in this case it's our Yandri. Yandri, from our French meeting, he was covering for me. So he preached last week here and he preached the message that I had no clue what he had decided to preach. And I hadn't vetted or pre-screened or anything like that because, you know, sometimes I just want to believe the priests and trust that God is in control. And he got up and he preached and hopefully didn't offend too many people unnecessarily. Sometimes necessary, a face, sometimes necessary, but I hope no one was offended unnecessarily. Anyway, I decided at this time I would really listen to his message and I listened, start to finish to his sermon. And I was so blown away by how God spoke the same message to the two congregations where I went and preached, where Yandri stood here and preached. We have literally got about 80% overlap in the key points that we made in our messages. And I came away thinking this overwhelming sense of being humbled and grateful that, wow, God, you are doing something. God, you care for your people, you send them your word, you bring a message through some, I want to say two donkeys, me and Yandri, but I don't know if I can bring him into that. Like really imperfect human beings. And God speaks something that's got such cohesion between the two messages, it can only be miraculous. So you walk away, like from, like I literally ran out of my room where I was listening to the sermon and took it and started playing some of it to sue because she had heard me preach. I said listen to what Yandri's saying and it's like, for 15 minutes he just went on making the same points using different same scripture and different scriptures but two of the scriptures of the key ones were also identical. I was just a sermon and so why did I start with that? Well, it's got very little to do with me but everything to do with God. There's almost no greater feeling that we as believers can have than to know that we're being used by God. That God would even give us such an honor that he would even notice us. But then to discover that he actually did notice you and used you. It's overwhelming. I mean, I'm looking at Tonya. She's had that feeling because she built a hospital and done ministry to hundreds and hundreds of people in a community, bringing like medical help through the skills God's given her as a midwife but going way beyond her own skill set and seeing God doing miracles and then realizing God knows where I am and he's using me. Suddenly your life has meaning and purpose and all the other stuff you have to face, all the other battles, all the disappointments and frustrations. They just pale. They just become irrelevant. You're thinking God is doing something and he's involved in me in it. That's an incredible privilege but also it gives you this overwhelming sense of purpose. Like, this is what I want for my life. I want to be used by God. Sometimes we see that that's possible and we try to take a shortcut. I mean, it can be that people want just to look involved and they want to feel important and then they grab full ministry or they arrive one day and the next day they're saying I want to be in the vent and that never works out very well. This is the opposite thing. It's like one is waiting and then you surprise that God used you. The other is like trying to grab something for yourself because you want to appear useful, important or honorable. And we as a church, we tend to get nervous when someone offers us their gift. Like, why would we not want someone to come and play the piano? Well, we really would want someone to come and play the piano. But we don't want someone to come and play the piano unless they belong here, unless they've become part of the family, unless they are known. We want to know you before we use you. You get it? Because if you use someone that you don't know, it's called prostitution. So I wanted that to sink in because there is within the body of Christ a fair amount of ministry prostitution where people offer their gifts but not their selves. They say, I can do this for you but their heart isn't really with you. And that's shocking but that happens. So we often say to someone, we want you, not your gift, which doesn't mean we don't want the gift. We desperately want more musicians to help us. We want people to serve. We want you to use your gifts within this body to strengthen this body but that's all secondary. What's primary is we want you. We want to know you. We want to get to know you. We want to have a relationship. And so we used to be part of a big church ministry years ago, my wife and I and various of us here know this history. The church also used to partner with this global ministry. One of their very helpful phrases was friendship before function. Friendship before function. Like we had posters that literally said friendship to remind us friendship comes before function. And so this is the same heart. It's basically there's no shortcut and there's no other greater purpose than actually enjoying one another. In eternity that's what we're going to be doing. On earth we're working in all kinds of different fields and projects and frantically rushing around it even within the church. Sometimes that's the case but we shouldn't let the church model that. What we should model rather is family friendship because in eternity that's what we're going to be a family of friends. And many of you who have been wrapped up the wrong way by me and some of my personality will actually have got over that in heaven. You'll actually be past that and we'll still be together. So that's why we should put some of those offenses behind us on earth. That's why we should become a relational people who's not easily offended, who's not picking and scrutinizing and judging. I'd rather say how can we be one? How can we enjoy each other? And I've shifted now from wanting to be seen by God, used by God, but actually one of the key things, the deep roots of this is that we want to know that we're accepted by God. We want to know that He wants us. We want to know that God embraces us, He accepts us. And when I was younger, I often considered this passage. In 2 Timothy 2 verse 20, I'm going to read through it, 2 Timothy 2 verse 20, reading to verse 22. Now in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of house, ready for every good work. So, flee youthful passions, that's the lusts of youth, the distractions towards sin, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. So, when I was younger, I read that many times I was asking God, what do I have to do in order to be useful to you? And I focused on getting my life cleaned up, cleaning up my act, because I couldn't understand that if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, and so I looked at my life and I saw many dishonorable things. And I thought, God, I've got to get that habit out of my life, and I've got to get this habit into my life, and I've got to get a routine established that I do my quiet time every single day, and I can't be distracted by this or that. I flee the youthful passions, pursue righteousness, faith and love and peace, and I jumped straight to verse 22, and I just made this assumption that I assumed that to be cleaned, I had to clean myself up, I had to just, you know, do everything right, everything that I should be doing. But actually, none of that works if you skip over the truths of what I want to share from Hebrews today. None of that works out because you end up not finding the peace and the acceptance with God, and you end up staying as a believer, but more conscious of your issues than you are of God. And so today, if I could achieve anything I'd want you to realize that the root is actually not putting the focus on cleaning up yourself, but on the one who can clean you, and celebrating what he has done, and putting God in a sense as the one who fills your view and your vision and your windscreen of your life, rather than yourself. So the passage for today is Hebrews 10 verse 19 to 25, let's read it. Hebrews 10 verse 19 to 25, "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh." That's how he did it. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good words, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day growing near. Day with the capital D is the day of Jesus' second Advent, the appearing of God in glory when he comes back. So this passage is actually telling us how we should be until Jesus comes back. So wonderful passage because it tells us in view of something that's been done in the past, Jesus work on the cross, this is what we should do until Jesus comes back. So this is actually kind of a quick summary the writer to the Hebrews is doing and he's making a conclusion. Therefore, in the light of all the points that have been made before about the better priest, the better covenant, the better promises, the better tabernacle, the new covenant, the new that replaces the law, fulfills it. Therefore, in the light of all of that and since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the new and living way, so the writer is drawing them now to the point, it's a new and living way that he opened up for us through the curtain that is through his flesh, it's new. This was never possible in the old covenant, it's never been available to people before this time that Jesus came and died and rose again. So he's writing to Jews who have lived under a ceremonial system and a sacrificial system and the law that was given to Moses and they have never, ever had the opportunity that has now presented to them. All along Israel couldn't have what we now have. You need to think about this. There was a people that followed God for centuries and they couldn't draw near to him. There was a people that followed God for thousands of years, but they still had to face a barrier. You know, it's also true that they didn't necessarily want to draw near to God. When Moses was going to deal with God, the people were very glad to stay at their tents and watch from a distance. Moses went to the tent of meeting and the pillow of cloud came down and God was there and they were like, "Yeah, you go Moses. You deal with God. We're afraid." Moses could go up the mountain and receive the law. The people said, "We're not going anywhere near." And God said, "You're right. You're not." But what if some of us are still doing that today? There's a new and living way. Jesus said, "I'm the way the truth in the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. He has become the way to access the Father and this way is now open because of the work of the cross." And even when the people of Israel had the opportunity to seek God to go near, they stood at their tent entrance and looked from a distance. But Joshua went to the tent of meeting. He didn't necessarily meet with God the way Moses did, but he went. So what was different at Joshua? Joshua wanted to seek God. But some of us are still like the Israelites. We actually want someone else to go to God for us. The way is open. God beckons us. Do you disqualify yourself? For some of us, we're always thinking there must be something that I have to still sort out. There's another sacrifice to make. No, there isn't. I still have to repent of whatever. I drink too much or I smoke. I can't. No one knows this, but I can't get over this habit of smoking. I have to sort it out before I can come to God. It grieved me so deeply once when I tried to share my faith with someone years ago in Pretoria in South Africa. And I explained to this guy the gospel and I urged him to come to God to receive Jesus as his Lord and Savior. And he said, "No, I can't because I've got to go. At first I need to sort out some things in my life." Some of us think like that. You think, "I can't come to God because I've got issues to sort out in my life." No one knows this, but I still do this, so I still do that. Yes, you should repent of sin. But no, there is no sacrifice that needs to be made. Jesus is the final sacrifice. Some of us think we need a special formula or some way to pray, like for some ceremony we have to follow. So you keep God and your relationship with God to those moments where you can be spiritual, like when you say grace at the dinner table. Then suddenly on comes your religious voice. You don't need a ceremony. You don't need a special moment when you say grace to draw near to God. Is there a special time and a place? No, this is a school hall. This is not a holy building. There is no more holy building. There is no more tabernacle. There is no more temple. The Romans took care of it. It's gone. Can we build it? God's presence isn't going to fill it. Because your body is now the temple of the Holy Spirit and he indwells you, so God is in the house and the house is you. This is not the house of God. This is the church, the ecclesia, the called out ones, gathering together as the saints of God gathered together at a certain time. But there isn't a special time. There are no more holy days. It's not Saturday or Sunday that matters. It's your heart. That is the place the temple where God dwells. It matters. And there is no proxy. There is only Jesus as the mediator between us and God. There is no other priest. So, you know, some people come to me and they say, "Poster, pray for me." Like, if you knew me, you wouldn't be asking me. It's like, "I'm just like you." If you think you can put hope in my prayer being more effective than your prayer, then you don't really understand. You see, what you're saying is, "Poster, be by proxy. I don't want to draw near to God for myself." Listen, you can come and ask me to pray for you. I will pray for you, glad. It's my delight to pray for someone who's in, who wants someone to stand with them and pray. But what I want for you is that you boldly draw near to God, that you go to the throne of grace, the throne of mercy. Find God's, receive mercy, find God's grace for your life. You go out the mountain in the place of Moses. You go to the tent of meeting. It's you now. And some of us are still living like Israelites thinking we don't have access to God. We're looking at our son, we're looking at others, and we're saying somebody else must do that. And it's not what Jesus died for. Jesus died for you to have access to the Father there. So the writer is saying, "In the light of what Jesus has done," that's what verse 19 to 21 tells us. "In the light of what Jesus has done, how ought we to respond." Hebrews 10 verse 22 says, "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." When you're a Christian, God has given you a new heart, a true heart, not a false heart, not the old fleshly sinful heart, but a new heart. Our hearts have been sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. It's incredible. What he's saying is, this is new, the old covenant never offered you hearts that could get sprinkled clean. That's on the inside of a man. The law and all the ceremonies were all external, the washing of hands, the washing of bowls, the washing of utensils. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You are like white wash tubes, you're all clean on the outside, but you're dead on the inside." Now everything has changed. God reaches to the inside and he cleanses our hearts. Clean inside and out. God, the Father, through Christ the Son, makes us acceptable to him. God does it. Look at the action. Where is the action in that verse? Let us draw near. So we draw near. Why? Because we've been given a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean. Who does the sprinkling? Well I've watched those videos. I was an Anglican once. I've seen the priest go to the bowl and take the holy water. And as a killer was like, wow, that water. I wonder, I can't read. I walk past that bowl. I want to stick my finger in there. See if there's something special about that water. Do you ever feel like that when you're in a really ceremonial religious church and you see the altar and you look at the priest moving around in those robes that's impressive? It's doing stuff you know nothing of. It's mysterious. It's pouring wine. I wonder where that came from. It's never got the label on the bottle. It's not bottle. It's been decanted into another container so that it looks more impressive than it was bought at Super You. But it was bought somewhere. Anyway, so this, but what I'm trying to tell you is yes, we should be wow at the mystery of what's being done when it's being simulated by the priest. It's being emulated. It's a tub and a foreshadow of the real thing who is Christ who has sprinkled our hearts. That's the real wow Jesus has come and cleansed me. Doesn't mean I'll never sin again. It means my hope of being clean as Jesus and he has cleansed me. Clean from an evil conscience. Our bodies washed with pure water. What is an evil conscience? I Googled that just yesterday because I want to know. What's an evil conscience? I've heard of a bad conscience. Turns out it is a bad conscience. So an evil conscience or a bad conscience are the same thing. It's where you are feeling cut off by your son. Your conscience is tainted, guilty conscience, a condemning conscience. A conscience that says to you, you cannot come close to God. Now it's useful at times to feel conviction and guilt. But a bad conscience, and this is what we mustn't have as believers because our hearts have been sprinkled from an evil conscience to cleanse us. An evil conscience, bad conscience is a conscience that is always preoccupied with sin. Always preoccupied with sin, meaning stressive about sin, worrying about its state. Let's see someone in that position. Psalm 51 verse 1 to the choir master, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. David the adulterer, David the murderer, he says, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your state, false love, according to your abandon mercy, block out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me." I can relate to David soon after I've sinned, but that's not where I live 95% of my life as a Christian. If you are living as a believer and yet you are constantly only focusing on your sin, you preoccupied with your failure. I know my transgressions, my sin is ever before me. The Israelites were always concerned about guilt and offerings for sin. Always one more thing they felt they had to do for God. But the writer to the Hebrews explains that by Jesus' sacrifice we move into a new position. That's why in Hebrews 10, he said, otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, the offering, since the worship is having once been cleansed would no longer have any consciousness of sins. So in Hebrews 10, he says, that's the state that you're supposed to move into, it's like being less conscious of sins. Not saying my sin is ever before me, but when you sin, of course now, if you've been tensed, you know, wait a minute, I've gone back to the mud, turned back to God swiftly. But our sins should not be the first thing we're concerned about. If we have responded to the conviction of the Holy Spirit and set our minds on Christ, there is something else we should now be primarily concerned with. And that is this "let us draw near". You see, since the way has been made open, since our true hearts can come in full assurance of faith, our hearts are sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, our bodies washed with pure water, let us draw near. We are to come near to God. Salvation is not primarily about avoiding hell or becoming moral or going to heaven. It is about restored access to and relationship with God. And so if you're sitting here today and you want to know what does a Christian do, the Christian, what he does is he believes in Jesus and he goes back to his Father. He goes to God, he draws near to God. He does what no Israelite could ever do, he goes into the presence of God, he goes into the holy places, he goes near to God and he says, I'm here and full of faith that you will receive me, that you will accept me. Now as I do that with God, when I come knowing Jesus has a tone for my son, it's not enough to just live my life, I must come to God. So I come to God and say, here I am. God says, here I am. There should be a verse in the Bible for the Black men. It says, draw near to me and I will draw near to you. It's very simple. It's not easy for us though, because our minds come up with infinite reasons why we disqualified him. But there's one reason why we qualified in Jesus, and Jesus beats all those other reasons there. Psalm 105 verse 4 says, seek the Lord and his strength, seek his presence continually, seek his presence continually, not on Sunday at 9.35 when we start. We actually started at 9.30, not 9.35, 9.30 but we always get a little bit wrong just to prove we always need grace. Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his presence continually. Colossians 3 verse 1 and 2 says, if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seek to let the right hand of God set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. We need to learn to enter into the presence of God, to seek God's face to a Hebrew meant to seek his presence, to be with him, to be in his presence. So I would put it to you, we as God's people. And if you want to live as a Christian, you've received Jesus as your Savior. What you have to do is, by effort and experiment, learn to draw near to God and to be in his presence. Many of us don't take the time out to do that. We might think we can't. You're wrong. The very thing you're supposed to do is draw near to God. Each and every one of us who believes in Christ has the full right to draw near to God. This is why we can boldly enter the throne room. We can come into God's presence with boldness, like a little kid with cookies that you weren't supposed to eat. The chocolates are still on your face. You run to your father. You're not ashamed because you're expecting to be embraced. You're not perfect, but he loves you. This is the gospel. You're not ashamed. You should be ashamed of your sudden turn away from it, but at a deeper heart level, it should simply be, "I'm coming, God. I'm coming to you. I'm not perfect. I know I can't be perfect. I know I've missed that, but I'm coming to you." And then you come to God, not just when you mess up and all the time, every day. And when you become continually someone who seeks God's face, continually, every day, you're like, "Every time your mind is bored, let it gravitate to God." You start thinking about God having conversations with them outside of your quiet time. Not saying you shouldn't have a quiet time, have a daily devotion, but if it stops there, it's tragic because we should be continually seeking the presence of God. We should want to live our lives in his presence. That's a conscious thing. You can actually feel his presence. And if you've been raised in such a way that you were never taught by your church or your parents to experience the presence of God, I dare you. I challenge you to go and seek his presence that you can feel his presence. When you get somewhere and you think these truths that this writer is writing and you hold them before God and say, "God, you did this for me. I want to know you more. I want to feel your peace." And need you God. His peace comes into your soul, his love comes and embraces you. You can consciously and tangibly experience the presence of God in your life. And we need to live looking for that. And our spirit's crying out for that. So we can do this at set times we choose, but we can also do it continually. We can set our thoughts, our hearts, our minds towards God. James 4 verse 5, "Would you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us?" God's put his holy spirit in you and he's yearning for the communion, the covenantal love, the relationship, the closeness, the intimacy. But he gives more grace. Therefore, it says God opposes the proud that gives grace to the humble. "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, use sinners and purify your hearts. You double-minded." So again, James brings it to make sure you clean. The thing I would say is when I looked at prepare yourself to be a holy vessel used by God, a vessel of honor that God would use for his holy spirit. I always started by thinking I had to do it. But now that I'm older, I realize Jesus is the one that cleanses me. That's changed everything because now when I'm feeling a little bit of my sin, I take it to Jesus. When I'm feeling a lot of my sin, I take it to Jesus. When I'm feeling a little bit far from him, I go to him because I expect to be accepted. When I learn to enjoy the presence of God, the more I spend my thoughts on him, the less interesting the world becomes. Someone wrote a song about that, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus." That's why it's a classic. That's why people still sing it because it's so true. When you look at Jesus, when you let your thoughts go to heaven, when you seek to be in living God's presence, the things of this world become dimmer. They become less appealing. And then when you find yourself really tempted and joined your life towards something that you know affects God, suddenly your relationship with God is worth so much to you. Your intimacy with him that you've been enjoying is precious so you guide it. So you don't sin, not because you're afraid of judgment, but because you don't want to lose intimacy with God. There's a different motivation. We should live in that. We should live looking forward to heaven, not because we escape the pain and the sorrow of earth, but because we see the face of Jesus, because we get to be with our Savior, because we stand Him in the presence of our loving God. And so my encouragement to you as I close is let us draw near all of us. All of us should be those people who draw near to God. And you can draw near to God because Jesus, if you come to Him as the way to the Father, He will sprinkle your conscience, purify your heart, wash you clean. He is the way. Why don't you stand with the spirit? The worship came from the Lord.