I'm coming now to the preaching of God's Holy Word. Our text this evening comes from Hebrews 10, verses 19 through 25. I'm going to read from verse 1 for context sake, but the exposition itself will come from verse 19 through 25. You can find this in page 1283 in your pew Bible. This is the Word of our living God. Chapter 10 from verse 1 of Hebrews. For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, He said, Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. When he said above, You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings. These are offered according to the law. Then he added, Behold, I have come to do your will. He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until His enemies should be made a footstool for His feet. For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us, for after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds. Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. where there is forgiveness of this, there is no longer any offering for sin. And then our text for this evening, verse 19, 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. And since we have a great 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 works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more, as you see the day drawing near." Thus far, the reading of God's Holy Word. Let's pray for a blessing. O Holy Spirit, we ask Your power to come to us this evening as we meditate on the Scriptures, the truths of Your Word, of the Gospel, We ask that You might enlighten our hearts and eyes and minds and hands, not only to see and understand, but also to practice and to do Your will. We ask all of this in Jesus' name. Amen. As I was preparing for this sermon, and I was back there in New Jersey as I was preparing for this sermon, I was struggling to write a good introduction. And while I was struggling to write a good introduction for this sermon, in the office there, in the house that we were living, in the parsonage, my son John came in. He entered through the door, he asked some questions, he wanted to play, he wanted something, he went to the bathroom, and then he stayed there for a while. And then I get really mad at him because I was really focusing in my job, and then he comes to bother me. And because of him, I was not concentrated anymore. So I grabbed him, and I took him upstairs and put him there in the main floor of the house. And I told my wife, please don't let him come in again. I really need to focus. And then I asked her to lock the door because there, the door is locked from the outside. So no one can enter. And then when I came down to study with the door locked, God just opened my eyes to see what a good introduction for this sermon. I'm here in my sanctuary studying, trying to prepare for a sermon, but my door is closed to my son, to my own son. He cannot enter. And this is what we're going to see in these verses, verses 19 through 25, that there is a door for us to enter. It's a new and living way that we can enter. We have freedom to come to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. And this door is never locked. It's not locked anymore after Jesus died and rose again from the dead. So the title of this sermon is A Resolution of Confidence, and as we think about this new year and many resolutions that we have, I want you to think about confidence to draw near to God as one of the resolutions for this new year. What we're going to see in these verses is that the priestly work of Jesus is the foundation of our confidence. And as we enter into His presence, we can be confident also to live the Christian life. We're going to see this in two main points. First of all, the basis of our confidence, and secondly, the practice of our confidence. So a little bit of context, it's important here. The letter to the Hebrews was mainly and primarily written to the Jewish Christian at this time, probably in Rome, who has endured some level of hardship and persecution. Because previously they were Jewish people going to the temple to worship once a year, doing all the religious activities that the Jewish people had, And then Jesus came, He died on the cross, He rose again from the dead, and now all those things are done with. The Jewish people don't need to do those things anymore. They worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. But some Jews, those who denied that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, they kept on doing those rituals because they didn't believe that the Lord Jesus Christ was the one who was about to come, who was coming, and would be done with all those ritual things. So the Jewish people who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and now we're acting out of this faith and living the Christian life, worshiping in His Spirit and in truth, they were marginalized in their Jewish communities, and they were in this temptation to go back to the old way of worship, the old way they live. So the purpose of this letter is just also to exhort those Jewish Christians to resist the temptation to go back to the Old Covenant and to its practices. And it is hard. It might be hard for them, right, to live by faith? Because previously in their lives, their religion was dealing with all what they see, what they smell, with the senses. And now, all of a sudden, these are all gone, and they have to worship in the Spirit and in truth, so it might be hard. It may be hard for them. And then, the exposition of the book, it's all about showing that Christ is better, that to worship in the Spirit and in truth is better than to worship with the shadows, with the Old Testament rituals. So we see in chapters one and two that the author of Hebrews argumenting that Christ is greater than the angels. Chapter three, that Christ is greater than Moses himself. Chapter, the beginning of chapter four saying that Christ gives a better rest than Joshua. And then in chapters four through 10, the end of chapter four through chapter 10, The writer of Hebrews starts to talk about the superiority of Christ's priesthood. How He is a better priest than all those priests from the Levite line and even of Melchizedek. So this is the flow of the argument of the letter. He always brings some doctrinal statements. And then he brings a therefore later, and a practice. We see this over and over in chapters one, two, and three, and also in chapter four, as he starts to develop the doctrine of Christ, of his person, of his divinity, and then there's always a therefore. And this is how we should read not only the book of Hebrews, but the whole Bible. That all that we read here, all the doctrines, They're supposed to influence us and to push us to Christian practice, to practice those things that we read in our lives. And this is what is happening here in the book of Hebrews as well. After a long teaching about Christ's priesthood, from the end of chapter 4 to chapter 10, we read now in verse 19, the therefore. What does it mean in our lives and practice that Christ is the great High Priest? That His offering was an offering that was offered once and for all before God. We have this in verses 19 through actually the very last verse of the book of Hebrews. This is where we come to our first point, the basis of our confidence. We read in verses 19-21 that we have two reasons for our confidence, for our resolution. One, it deals with the offering, and the other deals with the offerer. We read in verse 19 the following, 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. We read here that because of the blood of Jesus, we can be 100% sure that we will be accepted by God in His presence. The offering in our behalf was perfect. It was the blood of Jesus Christ Himself, the God-man. Not the blood of goats and bulls, that those type of offerings, they don't have any power against sin. They don't have any power to cleanse us from our sins. But the blood of Jesus, a perfect offering. And this verse is filled with Old Testament language, right? It says, it's talking about entering, entering to a holy place or a holy of holies. It talks about a new way, it talks about a curtain. And the reference here is a clear reference to the tabernacle, the way the people of God worshiped God in the Old Covenant. So we need to understand a little bit on the reason why the tabernacle was unnecessary. And we have to go all the way back to Genesis 1, 2, and 3 to understand this, right? Because in the beginning of the Bible, we read about the beginning of the world, how God created man perfectly, with knowledge and holiness, with dominion over the creatures. He gave him a rule. He gave him his law, a covenant of works, we say. But he disobeyed. There was sin in the garden. So this means that God and man that were once connected and bonded to each other are now separated because of sin. Man cannot go into the presence of God anymore because of sin, but God makes a way to make things right, to have God himself to dwell with his people again. And this is pictured in the tabernacle. The tabernacle is God saying to his people that I want to be your people, I want to dwell in your midst. I want you to draw near to me. But it was a hard way to access God. It was not every single person in the people of God who could enter in the presence of God. If you remember the tabernacle, there were actually three sections, right? Separated sections. So the first one, the people of God could come, the altar court, they could come with their sacrifices. And then the priests would work on the sacrifices there. Some of the priests, actually all the priests could come into the holy place, the second part of the tabernacle that the people were not allowed to come in. And then the third and last part of the tabernacle, the holy of holies, the holy place that we see here in verse 19. Only the high priest could enter. And once a year. And this place was divided with a curtain. showing that it must have separation between men and God, and only through a mediator, they can have a relationship again. But the problem is that the sacrifices are unable to atone fully for sin. They have no value, they have no worth. And why is that? We see this in verse one, because they were only shadows of the reality of Jesus. They were pointing, the blood of bulls and goats were pointing to the blood, a perfect blood of Jesus, the perfect offering. His own blood, His own body, His own sacrifice. And then through Christ, we can enter into the very presence of God, through His blood, through His sacrifice. It's not only for priests anymore, the high priests, but it's for every single person who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ to enter in the presence of God the Father. It is described as a new way, a new and living way. Now we have full access to God because of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, because of His blood, because of His sacrifice. We don't need a human teacher anymore, as we see in many other religions, right? We don't need a priest. We don't need a mass. We don't need the saints. We don't need Mary. We don't need a pastor. We have a free access to the living God through the work of Jesus Christ. And this is the basis of our confidence in this offering that Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice to God to appease His wrath so we can come into the Holy of Holies. Dear brothers and sisters, this should change the way we approach God completely. Right? Think about the Old Covenant, how hard it was to enter the presence of God. It was an opportunity that only one person had, the high priest, to enter in the presence of God. But now because of Jesus, we are all allowed to enter in his presence. My question is, are you taking advantage of this? Are you entering in the presence of the living God constantly in prayer? and worship. And I know that in many ways our tendency is to be performance-focused, right? So if you're doing good in our Christian walk, we are really bold to enter into the presence of God. But if we are doing badly or poorly in our Christian walk, we feel ashamed, right? We feel guilty, and sometimes we separate ourselves from God. But you should be thinking about the offering, that because of this offering, this perfect offering, we can be sure that we will be accepted, that we can come in to His holy presence. But secondly, the basis of our confidence lies also in the offerer, right? Verse 21 reads, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, Jesus Christ is the priest par excellence. There's none like him. He is the only mediator between God and men because he is both God and men. All other Old Testament priests, they were all sinners. Before they act as a mediator between the people and God, they themselves need to be cleansed. They themselves need to offer a sacrifice for their own sins because they were not perfect. But we have a great high priest over the house of God. A one who does not need to come every single year and to sacrifice himself every single year because he did it once and for all in the cross. But his work of priest is also seen in heaven. Right now, he's still a priest over the house of God. He's interceding for you and I. Every single tick of the clock, He's there in heaven, in flesh and blood, before the Father, continually interceding for you. It's a perpetual, unceasing, relentless, persistent, ongoing intercession in your behalf. So as long as we cling to this priest, to this high priest, there is nothing to fear. There's nothing to fear, for He's the only one who is worthy. His sacrifice is perfect and has already been accepted by God. So if you are in this solid rock, you can be confident that He is your God, that His sacrifice applies to you. And once we understand this truth, we will be able to live in light of this confidence. And this is our second point, the practice of our confidence. So because of what we read in verses 19 through 21, we have a shifting in the argument here. Because we can enter in the presence of God, by the blood of Jesus, because God has provided Christ as the new and living way, verse 22 reads, let us draw near to God. That's the obvious conclusion, right? That should be the obvious conclusion. Since now the door is completely open for us to enter in, what should we do? To draw near to Him. Where else can we go? But draw near, this word drawing near, this sentence appears over and over again in the book of Hebrews. But it's not only because through Jesus Christ we have free access to God and the certainty and the assurance of this free access to God, but because he is also approachable. Our God is approachable. Jesus Christ is approachable. We see this in chapter four, verse 15. It is the same. encouraging words to draw near to him with a different reasoning. Chapter 4 verses 15 and 16 says this, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Verse 16, "'Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need.'" He is calling you and I this evening to draw near to Him, to trust in Him, to be confident that if we use this new and living way, we will be accepted. My question to you is, what hinders you from coming to Him, from drawing near to Him? Maybe it's your sins. Maybe your doubt, your past, the things that keep bothering your conscience in many ways. But instead of letting those sins and those transgressions and those remembrances of the past to bother you and to point you and to label you as a guilty person, for this very reason, you should draw near to Him. Because He is the one who can sympathize with our weaknesses. Because He was also tempted, yes, without sin. He was also in this flesh. He's still in this flesh. And He knows how hard it is, the life here. So instead of thinking about your past and your sins as a hindrance for you to come to Him, think that because of this, you need all the more to come to Him, to draw near and to draw closer to Him. Verse 22 explains further what this drawing here look like. It 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." What we see here in this verse is that we have both a condition and a description of those who draw near to Him. And at a first glance, it's kind of hard to understand that there's a condition to draw near to Christ, right? But this is exactly what we read in chapter 11, verse six. It says, and without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. That's the same reference. This is what he's talking about in verse 22, that we should draw near to Him with a true heart, with a sincere heart, with an honest heart and full assurance of faith. He's talking about faith. And we know that those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are those who will be saved, are those who will be called His own people. So in a way, faith is a condition, it's not a work, because faith is a gift from God, it's grace in itself. But if we want to draw near to Christ, to God, we need to have faith. And to think about a sincere heart, as the text explains, it's pretty easy for us, right? Almost every believer, even those who have a lot of struggles with their sins and with their past, they can tell that they have a sincere heart. But what about a full assurance of faith? That's harder, right? The truth of the matter is, many of us here struggle with assurance of faith. How can we approach heart with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith? Remember that for assurance, you need to look outside of you. The way to have assurance of faith is not looking at yourself. It is looking to Christ, to His sacrifice, to His person. Because this sacrifice is certain, is sure, And God has already accepted the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. So as long as we cling to His sacrifice, we can draw near to Him in full assurance, not because of ourselves, not because the way we feel, but because we know that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was truly accepted by God. But also there's a description also in verse 22 about those who draw near to Him. It says, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. This is not a condition that you need to come to Christ with your heart clean. But this is actually a description that everyone who puts their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ are transformed and have their hearts cleansed. And this is the way they come to Christ. It is actually a description of those who have faith. And also there's an Old Testament ritual language here, right? So this is a reference to the cleansing of the soul by the blood of Christ and the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit. As soon as we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. But verse 23 also brings another exhortation based in verses 19 to 21. So again, because we can enter in the presence of God by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way, because he is a high priest, a great high priest, and we have a great high priest over the house of God. Verse 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Again, he's calling us to trust and leave upon the promises of God. And it is the same as the full assurance of faith, not that we have in ourselves, not that we have this confidence in ourselves, but we trust on the God of the promises, the God who made the promises, and the God who keeps His promises. Because Christ was bold enough to claim us to Himself, We should be bold enough to profess and confess our faith in Him to this world. But verse 24, there's another exhortation also based in verses 19 through 21. We read this in verse 24, And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. this doctrine of the priesthood of Christ, because Jesus Christ is the perfect offering, and He's the perfect offerer, and because He opened a new and living way, we should not only draw near to Him, which is an obvious conclusion, but we should also steer one another up in love and good works. And this word, consider, is a heavy word. It means to think carefully. to pay attention, to be sensitive, to be intentional, to do what the text is telling us to do. That we should steer up, we should encourage, we should provoke in a good sense our brothers and sisters, we should stimulate and influence them, to motivate them in love and good works. And there is a variety of good works described in the Bible, right? Service, hospitality, obedience to parents, gentleness, kindness, endurance, patience, faith in Christ itself, prayer, reading our Bibles, evangelizing. Those all are good things that we do in obedience to God. Those all are good works, good deeds. And what this doctrine of the priesthood of Christ should do to us is that we should provoke one another to do those things. We should influence one another to do those good works. And we should question ourselves, are we being a blessing to others in their church, in our church community? What are the things that you are steering up others to do? Are those things good according to The Word of God? Are you a good encouragement for other brothers and sisters who are going through hard times? Are you a good influence to others as you live your lives so that they can look at you and look also at Christ and see how much you live your life according to Christ's commands? And by the way, doing nothing is also a way of influencing others. And when we influence others in nothing at all, we are also influencing them in their Christian life. But the author of Hebrews, he gets a little bit more specific here on those acts of love and good works. In verse 25 says, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day coming." Now he gives a practical example of what it looks like to steer one another up in doing good things and in love. It is to encourage one another to go to church. It's very simple. To not neglect the assembly of the saints. And why so? Why do we need to go to church? Why is that important? First of all, it is pretty connected to what we read in verses 19 through 21. Because when we come to church, we come to the very presence of the living God, to worship Him, to be in the presence of this God with our brothers and sisters. He opened this new and living way, and one of the ways we can draw near to Him is going to church. Not only watching the service, but participating in the service, praising the Lord, praying as the pastor prays, hearing the Word. So what He's saying here is that since He opened this new and living way for you to come and to access Him, You should draw near and one of the ways you draw near to Him is going to church. The gathering of the church is not a social gathering, something that we need to do or that we do because of our tradition. What we are doing here is entering in the very presence of God Himself through the blood of Christ. It is in the church that we receive the means of grace, the preaching of word, of God's holy word, the sacraments, prayer. This is where, when and where God strengthens his people, when he rebukes his people, and he gives grace and encouragement to others. And when we do this, and we are here, we encourage each other as well. God uses other brothers and sisters as instruments for our sanctification, for us to not be drawn near to sin, but instead drawn near to God Himself. And this is exactly what he goes on to say in verse 26, the continuation of this chapter, that not going to church, not entering into this new and living way, It is despising the very sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you ever thought about not going to church like this? It's not only that you prefer to stay at home, but you're saying, yes, I know that God opened a new and living way. I don't care this morning. I don't care tonight. This is very serious. This is one of the ways God uses to build up His church, to build up Christians, and encourage Christians. Build them up in faith and holiness, and in confidence in Himself. So if you say that you love Christ, but you don't love the church, there's something wrong with you. But if you don't want to draw near to God, He will draw near to you anyway." But not in a good sense. This is what we read in the last verse. "...not neglecting to meet together as a habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near." The same words. The same words that the writer of Hebrews is exhorting us, let us draw near. He's saying the day is drawing near. The last day, the final day is drawing near. The day that Christ will return, that Christ will gather His people to live with Him forever and ever. The question is, are you a part of His people? Dear brothers and sisters, friends, as you enter in this new year, I would like to challenge you to commit yourself to draw near to God even more than last year. Draw near to Him through worship, through gatherings with the people of God, in prayer, in your devotions, Make this the resolution of this year, to draw nearer and nearer to God. Commit yourself to be confident that for the right reasons, right? Not because of your own faith, the quality of your own faith, but the object of faith, who is Jesus Christ. Commit yourself not to neglect the means of grace. but to use all of them for your own service, your spiritual service, for your spiritual growth and the growth of others too. And I challenge you in this new year to draw near to God through Jesus Christ because of Him the way is already open. All you need to do is to enter in through this new and living way. Let us pray. Oh God, we thank you for this new and living way that you planned, that you prepared, that you make it happen in the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh Lord, help us to have confidence in this work, not in the strength of our faith, not in the strength of ourselves, but to have confidence in the object of our faith, in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us, O Lord, to draw near to you. We know that we lack sometimes even motivation, but help us, O Lord, to see the gospel as the most important and effective motivation for us to draw near to you. And help us, O Lord, that this might overflow, and that we may help others to draw near to You as well. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.