Lindsey Blair and Bobby Gilles recap and discuss Bobby's sermon from Hebrew 10:1-19
Lindsey Blair and Bobby Gilles recap and discuss Bobby's sermon from Hebrew 10:1-19
Lindsey: Welcome to the Midweek Checkup. My name is Lindsey Blair and I’m joined by Bobby Gilles, the guy who preached Hebrews ten, verses one through eighteen this past Sunday.
Bobby: We learned that because of the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ for our sin, we can experience God’s presence as the Spirit instills a love for God and people within us. If you missed the sermon or need help remembering, it’s time for a Midweek Checkup.
Lindsey: Bobby began by looking at an ancient prayer in the language of Babylon called the “Prayer to Any God.” Even today, the prayer reminds us how often we go through life feeling adrift from God and others, not knowing where we stand or what we’re lacking. But God began a plan to make a different kind of life possible for us two thousand years before Christ, when he chose a tribe who would bless the whole world. He gave them a divine law to follow, like “family rules” from a good parent.
Bobby: The law was an early part of the story of God working within culture, condescending to our level to lift us out despite ourselves. It's a minimum standard of behavior for sinful people, but they couldn’t even keep that. And we wouldn’t have, either. But God, in grace, gave them a sacrificial system to restore their relationship with God when they broke the law.
Lindsey: But there were limitations with this system, including imperfect priests and imperfect sacrifices. Also, even though the sacrificial system enabled the forgiveness of sins, the prophets called out God’s people for working the system but not living in heartfelt obedience. They needed new hearts with God’s laws upon them. Only then could they become living illustrations of the goal of human life: to be priestly image bearers, governing as God’s vice-regents on earth.
Bobby: Jesus ratified the new covenant with his own sacrifice on the cross. It was a perfect, once-for-all time sacrifice. When we accept this sacrifice of Christ on our behalf, the Holy Spirit gives us a new heart posture, an inner drive to love God and people. Because of Jesus, we aren’t grasping in the dark. We know who we are, whose we are, and where we stand. We know when we’re not living into all God created us to be, but God forgives us every time we ask because of Christ.
Lindsey: As we pour out our hearts in repentance, we experience God’s presence. As we spend time alone with God, listening for the Spirit’s whisper on a dusty trail or in a cozy den, we experience God’s presence. As we love our neighbor, we experience and share God’s presence. As we read, interpret, and apply the Scriptures in community with each other, teaching and admonishing each other to gain wisdom, we experience God’s presence.
Bobby: So my Monday Challenge to you was simple: ask yourself where you see an open door to experiencing God’s presence. Then walk through the door. Little by little, like a mustard seed that grows so gradually that we can only realize what happened in hindsight, when we press into relationship we grow more like Jesus, our great high priest and perfect image of God. And this is the way that God begins to stoke and satisfy the divine desire within us.
Lindsey: Next Sunday is Palm Sunday! We’ll begin a brand new sermon series called A Life Worth Living. And in Sunday Bible Fellowship, we’ll discuss Psalm One hundred and Eighteen, which may have been the last hymn Jesus and the disciples sang together before his arrest and crucifixion.
Join us and bring a friend.