Hebrews 10:11-18
Song: God of Wonders
Prayers of Adoration, Confession and Thanks
Lord we thank you for this new day, a day full of wonders and hope. WE praise you for your goodness and faithfulness and for who you are. You are almighty God who knows when we sit or when we stand, who knows our every thought and hears every heartbeat, for we know we are wonderfully made and made complete in you.
We thank you for Jesus for his gift of forgiveness, everlasting life and for the things he did and stories he told about you and your Kingdom. We acknowledge that we are not perfect, but are reliant upon your grace and forgiveness and so we thank you. We thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit, who enables us to do immeasurably more that we could ever imagine, who shows us the possibility of what can be. Who guides us and encourages us along the path of life and who brings wisdom and compassion.
So we thank you in the name of Jesus Amen.
Lord’s Prayer
Song: STF 89 Everlasting God (Hope will rise)
Prayers of Intercession: Bring to mind the thoughts you have and place them into the depth of God’s presence.
Song: Here is love vast as the ocean
Reading Hebrews 10:11-18
11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. 14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: 16 “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”[ 17 Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.” 18 And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
Message
To put the reading we have just heard into some kind of context the writer of Hebrews was predominantly writing to a Jewish audience.
Just for clarification a Hebrew isn’t a male teabag.
Basically, the writer is saying that because of Jesus there is no need for the priest to continually be making sacrifices on behalf of the people, as this will not put them back in a right place with God.
For centuries priests had been making sacrifices on behalf of the people so that their sins could be forgiven.
The people would have to pay something, or bring along their own animals or birds to be sacrificed each time they needed forgiveness.
Through the fulfilment of the prophecies concerning Jesus all this gets turned upside down.
So, Jesus becomes the sacrifice and his life is the price paid in order for humanity (you and me) to become right once more with God with no cost in monetary terms or in animals needing to be given.
It is a gift of sacrificial love given by God through his son Jesus dying and being raised back to life.
Due to the sin of the world (or our wrongdoing) payment needed to be made.
There was once a judge who was really well off had his house broken into, a lot of his prize possessions like family photo’s stored on his laptop had been stolen.
A watch brought for him by his late wife had also been stolen as well as other valuable items that could not be replaced.
The thieves were caught and somehow ended up in front of the judge.
The judge looked at the thieves and wondered what drove them to do what they did.
What had gone so wrong in their lives that they needed to go to such extremes to take something that belonged to someone else.
As the judge looked deep into their eyes, he had compassion on them, he didn’t want to imprison them.
He wanted them to turn their lives around and so he ordered them to pay costs of £50,000 each.
Knowing they couldn’t afford to pay the judge took out his credit card and paid off the debt there and then enabling the thieves to go free and receiving something of the generosity, forgiveness and grace offered by the one they had greatly offended.
The thieves, after being shown such forgiveness, compassion and freedom by the judge decided to live their lives in a better way by helping others and showing love and compassion as they had been shown.
So here we see a parallel to the forgiveness, compassion and love of God offered to us.
We all make mistakes and make wrong choices in life; the good news is that we don’t have to pay anyone to make a ritual sacrifice on our behalf.
The price has already been made through Jesus. When his blood was shed on the cross and just before he took his last breath he said these words, “It is finished”.
In other words, the sacrifice was complete he paid the price of all our wrong doing and the things that we do that separate us from God.
The writer of Hebrews quotes from the Old Testament book of Jeremiah who was a prophet, which basically sums up what we have been thinking about.
“Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.”[c]
18 And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
In other words, Jesus has made the ultimate sacrifice once and for all.
I would like us to be quiet for a few moments and think about our own position before God. Is our relationship right with him? Are there things we need forgiveness for?
Silence
When we come before God and say sorry for those things that get in the way, we can hold onto those words we have recently heard.
“Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more”.
In other words, God has wiped the slate clean through Jesus.
Further sacrifices are not required because Jesus has paid the ultimate sacrifice for each of us.
Like those thieves in our story, we are free to go and live and live life differently and in a better way.
Perhaps today you might recognise that you are forgiven and loved by God and that you want to live life differently.
AMEN
Song: One thing Remains
Blessing. Now may the peace and love of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit continue with you always as you continue your journey through life. Amen
