Introduction:

What do you think of when you hear the word sacrifice? Every Friday nights, back in the 70’s you might have witnessed this scene of a familiar old man who lived on one particular part of the Florida coast. The sun is setting like a gigantic orange ball. It’s a cool evening on a vacant, isolated stretch of beach. The man takes out of his bucket handfuls of shrimp and tosses them onto the pier. Out of nowhere seagulls land all around and begin to eat the shrimp.

Many years before this man were on a mission to deliver an important message to General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea somewhere over the South Pacific Ocean in 1942. His airplane “the Flying Fortress” developed trouble and when down beyond the reach of radio. So he had to ditch the plane into the ocean. Fortunately he and his crew survived the crash landing. But for almost a month he and his companions battled weather, water and the scorching sun. Sleepless nights were spent battling sharks intent on ramming their life raft. But of all their enemies at sea, one proved most formidable: starvation. After eight days their food rations were gone. They need a miracle. In the diary of one of those men who survived we read’ “that afternoon we finished with a prayer for deliverance and a hymn of praise. There was some small talk, but it tapered off in the oppressive heat. With my hat pulled down over my eyes to keep out some of the glare, I dozed off. Something landed on my head. I knew that it was a sea gull. No one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at that sea gull. The gull meant food. The seagull was caught. Its flesh was eaten, its intestines were used for bait the men were nourished and were eventually saved.

All because a lone sea gull, uncharacteristically hundreds of miles from land, offered itself as a sacrifice. And the old man never forgot it. That is why you could find him every Friday evening, about sunset, on a lonely stretch along the eastern Florida seacoast with his bucket of shrimp to feed the gulls. Until his dying days Captain Eddie Rickenbacker never forgot that he had lived because that lone sea gull died.

I wonder if God’s angels tell such stories in heaven about Christians. How do we respond to the sacrifice of Christ for our eternal souls? Sacrifices, pale when compared to what our Savior did for us on the cross. His sacrifice was unique. In Hebrews 10, the Bible speaks about the animal offerings of the Old Testament and compares them to the death of Jesus. Verse 4 states, “It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.” Those sacrifices pointed to the need for Christ’s death.

I Jesus Brings us near to God. vv1-4
1. All throughout the Old Testament, God had ordained a sacrificial system that resulted in the continuous flow of sacrificial blood. All of it was looking forward to and depicting the ultimate ratification of the covenant that would come in the blood of Jesus Christ. And all of those pictures, of course, ceased after the death of Christ because there needed to be no more shadows. The substance had come, no more pictures the reality was there. The animal sacrifices and Levitical priesthood were also object lessons, and not until Christ came could they be fully understood. In this passage, we find three good things we have in Christ.

The Law was a shadow of good things to come, not the actual good things themselves. Therefore, the same sacrifices were repeated year after year, but they were not able to provide perfect cleansing for the worshippers. Christ’s was a once-for ¬all perfect sacrifice and priesthood. The law was not an image of heavenly things but a shadow.

2. Old Testament saints never experienced the Lord’s presence. Even on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) only the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies to be in God’s presence. So one of the good things Christ brings to us is he gave us access to God and we can draw near unto him according to James 4:8.

If the Old Testament sacrifices could have provided perfect cleansing, they would not have ceased to be offered because the worshippers would have been purged for all time and no longer have had any conscience of sins, or guilt (10:2). Old Testament worshippers still felt guilty for their sins be¬cause the sacrifices only covered their sins. The Old Testament sacrifices were a reminder of sins every year (10:3). According to verse four …

3. It never was intended to. It was simply a picture or a symbol of that ratification of the covenant made in eternity past between the Father and the Son which would take place on the cross when the Son died. The blood sacrifices of animals provided only a temporary covering for sin until the sacrifice of Christ’s blood that could take away sins. The word translated take away (APHAIREO, ah-fah-reh’-o) refers to complete re¬moval, or cutting off, of sin. It is the same Greek word used to record that Peter cut off the right ear of the servant of the high priest (Lk 22:50). First, Jesus brings us near to God. The next good thing is …

II. He Reveals what God wants from us (10:5-9).
1. Now, the writer of Hebrews quotes Psalm 40:6-8: Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: 6In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. 7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, 0 God (10:5-7).

Look at verse 5. “Therefore when He comes into the world,” now this assumes Christ’s preexistence, by the way. He’s was not born, He comes into the world. “When He comes into the world, He says, Sacrifice and offering Thou hast not desired.”

2. God has never desired offerings and sacrifices; He wants complete obedi¬ence. Therefore, He prepared a body for Jesus, and when in complete obedience, Jesus offered His own body, God was pleased. Jesus becomes for us the perfect high priest. His sacrifice is a perfect sacrifice because it absolutely and utterly fulfills God’s design. A design which verse 7 says was written in the role of the book and that has reference to the Old Testament.

David initially wrote those words 1,000 years before Christ. He wrote under the inspira¬tion of the Holy Spirit, not knowing he was describing a future dialogue between Jesus and God the Father just before Jesus came into the world. The “volume of the book” is the Old Testament. There are over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that refer to Jesus and His birth, life, and resurrection. There are another 300 that refer to His second coming. Jesus taught and demonstrated that the law is actually spiritual.

Secondly, Christ’s sacrifice was perfect, complete and sufficient because it replaced the old inadequate system. Jesus Christ is the ultimate example of what God wants from all of us…that is total obedience in love. Jesus came not only to give us an example but also to make us capa¬ble of doing God’s will. He gave Himself to redeem us from all iniquity, or wickedness (Tit. 2:14a).

3. God has always wanted a people zealous, or eager, to do good instead of what is sinful. All God wants us to be is just good. Being good is not just passively refraining from evil; it is actively showing the love and compas¬sion of Christ by doing good to others (Jam. 4:17).

When Jesus was above in heaven, He said to God the Father, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; 9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, 0 God. He taketh away the first, that he may estab¬lish the second (Heb. 10:8-9). When Christ came to offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice, He set aside the first covenant to establish the second. In other words, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ eliminates the old and provides the new.

4. The old is done away with there in verse 8 and the new comes in verse 9. The Law was given by Moses, says John 1:17, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The old covenant was never meant to be permanent; it was temporary be¬cause it was only a shadow of good things to come in Christ. Jesus did what God wants every worshipper to do. God has always wanted loving obedience. During the old covenant, many Old Testament worshippers who brought sacrifices for their sins had no desire to do. First, Jesus brings us near to God. The next good thing is and then we come to a third point.

III He makes us Holy in God sight vv.10-12.
1. Christ’s sacrifice is better because it sanctifies the believer, verse 10, “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
Now God’s will was that men be sanctified. That’s very clear in Scripture that means set apart from sin. Justification has a sanctifying component, hagiazo means to be set apart to God, to set apart from sin, to be made holy. And here it has to do with salvation. —II Tim. 2:20-21
We are made clean vessels for the master’s use. He cannot use us if we are not sanctified no more that you would eat out of a dirty dish.

2. The Greek text shows in the strongest way the permanent and continuous state of salvation in which the believer exists. And Jesus accomplished it once for all. And that is the remarkable reality of the sacrifice of Christ. But, on the other hand, it says in verse 12, Jesus offered one sacrifice one time for sins for all time and then sat down. This work was unrepeatable, absolutely unrepeatable.

Conclusion: It is finish! How about for you? — gospel