Confidence in Christ

As Christians, we come to church to worship God in our singing, in our fellowship, and in our hearing of His word. But God is not pleased simply because we’ve heard His word read or preached. Like with any other message we hear, there is a process that needs to take place.

First, we need to hear the message. Typically, we hear with our ears, although, if it’s a written message, it would be our eyes that receive it. After hearing the message, we need to understand the message. This happens in the mind. Your brain needs to interpret the message. It does us no good to hear a message if we can’t understand it, right? So, we hear it with our ears, then we understand it with our minds.

Third, we need to believe the message, and I think we can say that this happens with our heart. If we let it, the message goes from our ears to our minds to our hearts.

So, for example, if someone were to tell you they went to a brand-new restaurant in the area, and the food tasted amazing, and you would like it, and the prices and the service were great, you would go through this messaging process immediately. You hear the message with your ear. You understand it mind, and then, in your heart, you might think, “Wow! That’s amazing. I’m so glad my friend found a restaurant he really loves! I’m happy for him!” That went from your ear to your mind to your heart.

As special as that might be, it’s not the end of the process. Because what goes from through your ear and your mind and your heart is supposed to take one final step into your life. You hear, you understand, you believe, and finally, you need to respond. You need to take the appropriate action.

Easter Sunday is a special focus on the greatest news that has ever been delivered. Jesus rose from the dead! And while it’s good to hear and understand and believe that message, at the end of it all, this is a message we all need to respond to appropriately. This is a message that is supposed to affect our everyday life.

Beginning in Hebrews 10:19, we are coming to the heart of the message of Hebrews because we are coming to the response that God intends us to have to the truth we have been learning.

There’s a lot of theology, and a lot of biblical background that we’ve covered up to this point, but now the message of the book shifts to direct applications. Jesus died and rose again, so notice the response that is required.

Verse 22—Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Verse 23—Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. And verse 24—Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.

Let us draw near. Let us hold fast. Let us consider. And in these commands, we see a familiar trio of the Christian life. We draw near in faith, it says. We hold fast to the hope. And we stir up one another to love. Faith, hope, and love.

We’re going to be looking at these commands one at a time, beginning today. The first command is the most foundational; it’s rooted in faith. We are commanded to draw near to God in faith.

But what exactly does that mean? How do we “draw near” to God? Isn’t God everywhere? How do you get closer to someone who is everywhere?

We need to understand that this isn’t talking about physical proximity; this is talking about relational proximity.

You can share a house, or even a bedroom, with someone and yet feel distant from them, right? You might not even know the person sitting next to you very well. We understand that physical proximity doesn’t immediately translate into relational nearness.

Drawing near to God relationally means that, by faith in His Son, who died and rose again, you cultivate a friendship with Him. We draw near to God in prayer, and there are two main expressions of how this happens in someone’s life.

The most foundational way this happens is through salvation. We draw near to God in prayer, first of all, at the moment of salvation.

We were created to live in perfect communion with God, but because of the curse on this world, we come into this world as sinners. Our hearts are turned away from God. We deserve His judgment because of all the ways we rebel against Him. We are enemies of God, the Bible says. We fail to love Him and to love others in the perfect way He requires.

But when we accept that Jesus died to pay the penalty of our sins—when we trust in His death and in His Resurrection—our relationship with God is restored. Our sins are forgiven, and we become sons and daughters of God. The true gift of salvation is not being forgiven; it is that being forgiven, we can begin to know and enjoy God more.

Hebrews 7:25 says Jesus “is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” The risen Lord Jesus enables you to draw near to God in salvation.

A second expression of drawing near to God is in sanctification. This is talking about Christian growth. Through prayer, we draw near to God in salvation, but we also do that in sanctification.

The Christian life is not primarily about behaving better; it is about being transformed as a result of knowing God more and more. The more you know God through Jesus Christ, the more you are transformed into His likeness.

First Peter 2, verses 4 and 5 talk about this, saying—As you come [or draw near] to him [Jesus] … you yourselves… are being built up as a spiritual house. That’s talking about sanctification, spiritual maturity, spiritual growth. We draw near to God in faith, and that happens in salvation and in sanctification.

The point in Hebrews 10, however, isn’t on the mechanism of drawing near; it’s on the manner. The focus is on the heart, or the attitude. And the key word here is confidence.

That’s the command of Hebrews 10:22, and it’s a beautiful reminder of the privilege and the obligation we have because Jesus died and rose again. We are all called to draw near to God with confidence.

Look back with me at verses 19 and 20, and we’ll see the kind of confidence God wants us to have. This is the basis, or the reason, we can and must draw near to God. Verse 19—Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, [20] by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh

Beginning here, God gives us three descriptions of the kind of confidence we should have in drawing near to God. The first description is this: Number one, we are to draw near to God with confidence in Jesus’ death—confidence in Jesus’ death.

The Old Testament tells us the story of Job. And when his children died, his friends came to his house and for seven days, they said nothing. Sometimes, the grief that death brings makes it hard to speak, doesn’t it?

But that’s not how it works with God. The death of His Son isn’t supposed to lead us away from Him. It’s supposed to bring us closer. The death of Jesus gives us confidence. Why? Because it is the death of Jesus Christ that gave us access to the Father.

In the Old Testament, covenants, or formal agreements between two parties, were inaugurated with a sacrifice. Well, the inauguration of God’s promises to us in the New Covenant was the death of His Son.

Look again at the end of verse 19. Our confidence to go into the very presence of God comes “by the blood of Jesus.”

Verse 20 says Jesus opened, or inaugurated, a way for us to God. Have you ever seen a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new business? I’ve never seen one in person, but I’ve seen it in the news. Cutting that ribbon is like saying, “The doors are now open! Come on in!”

This is what the death of Jesus did for us. It says there He opened a new and living way. In the Greek, that word for “new” is a different word. It’s only used here in the New Testament, and the picture is of something that is fresh and good. It was used for an animal that was recently killed.

Two thousand years have passed, but the way Jesus has provided is still fresh, and it is still alive. It’s a living way calling every single one us to enter.

Every Jew understood that he was cut off from God. And one clear expression of that was the inner room of the Temple known as The Most Holy Place. Only one man could go in there one day out of the year. That room was sectioned off by a thick curtain.

But verse 20 says Jesus opened that curtain through His flesh. When His body was broken in death, the dividing wall between God and man was broken as well. When Jesus died, the gospels tell us, that veil was torn from top to bottom. Now, everyone had access.

Hebrews 6:19 says we have a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, [20] where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever.

Jesus went, in His humanity, and by His death, into the very presence of God, so that we could do the very same thing. You need to remind yourself about that every day. Jesus died so that we would have total, confident access to God, and so that we would use it. Go to God with the confident faith of what Jesus’ death has accomplished.

A second description of our confident faith comes in verse 21. Number two, we draw near to God with confidence in Jesus’ resurrection—confidence in His resurrection.

Verse 21 says we draw near since we have a great priest over the house of God. You don’t see an explicit mention of the Resurrection there, but it’s a key part of the argument. If Jesus would have stayed dead, it would say “we HAD a great priest,” but that’s not what it says, right? What does it say? “We HAVE a great priest”—present tense.

As our great and perfect High Priest, Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice to inaugurate the covenant, but that wasn’t the end of His priestly role. Jesus rose again, and Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father, where He continues forever to intercede for us. Jesus, the eternal and living Son of God ministers to us.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was the affirmation of God that the New Covenant had begun. The way to God is alive because Jesus is alive. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the way to God. He is the truth of God incarnate. And to know Him is to have eternal life.

No matter how ugly our life has been in the past decade, or this past week, why is it that we can go to God with confidence? Because Jesus died and rose again. Jesus died and rose again, inaugurating the New Covenant and now interceding for all His people.

Jesus is still pleading on our behalf. Before you’ve even knocked on God’s door, Jesus is already inside saying, “Open the door. Let him in. I died and rose again for this one.”

The third and final description of our confidence comes in verse 22. Number three, we draw near to God with confidence in Jesus’ forgiveness—confidence in His forgiveness.

Because of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, all the external barriers between us and God have been removed; we have the right to come. But a lot of times, the greatest barrier isn’t external, it’s internal. We feel guilty. We feel unworthy.

And the message of God for us today is this: Through the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. That’s why we come to Him with confidence.

Look at verse 22—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.

Twice there, you see the word “heart.” Coming to God is all about the kind of heart we have. One the one hand, we should come with a humble, dependent heart. We come depending on the death and Resurrection of Christ. But at the same time, we should come with a confidence knowing God will hear and accept us.

Coming to God with a true heart, or with a sincere heart, means coming with that confidence, with no doubting in the promises of God. We don’t come to God thinking, “Ah, I don’t know about this. I don’t know if He’s going to let me in. I don’t know if He’s going to listen to me this time.” No, we are commanded to come absolutely convinced that God will hear us and accept us—not because of who we are or what we’ve done, but because of who Jesus is and what He has done. That’s our confidence.

It says there, we come in full assurance of faith. Full assurance of what? That our sins have been forgiven, and that God accepts us.

When verse 22 says we come with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, it’s not talking about something we do; it’s talking about something God has done to us. The death and Resurrection of Jesus opened a way, but it also was the payment of our sins and the guarantee of eternal victory and eternal life with God.

The Jews understood the significance and the symbolism of purification by blood and by water. But all the sacrifices and rituals of the Old Testament system were pointing to the true cleansing and forgiveness that only comes through Jesus Christ.

Back in verse 18, we were told that Where there is forgiveness of [sin], there is no longer any offering for sin. The one-for-all sacrifice of Jesus was enough. We don’t need anything else.

Since Jesus died, since Jesus rose again, since Jesus has forgiven and cleansed us, we can and must come to God with confidence. Whether it’s the first time, or the millionth time. Draw near to God, either for salvation or for sanctification.

When life feels easy, draw near to God. When life feels hard, draw near to God. When you think you’re doing great, draw near to God. When you know you’ve seriously messed up, draw near to God.

This message was originally given to Jews who were tempted to abandon Christianity because of persecution. But for us today, I don’t think our temptation is to deny the Christian faith altogether. I don’t think we’re predominantly dealing with a denial of the heart, or a denial of the mind. The temptation you and I are faced with is a denial of Christ at the level of our daily lives. That’s where the drifting starts.

A man does not wake up one morning and say to himself, “I don’t believe in Jesus anymore. I’m going to abandon my wife, abandon my family, and just live however it is I want to live.” No, that abandonment starts in small ways.

Someone doesn’t just wake up one day and say, “I have decided that I will no longer be a Christian. I am going to live life my own way, pursuing whatever it is this world can offer me.” No, walking away from Christ starts in small ways.

When we begin to turn away from Christ at the level of our daily responses, then we begin to turn away with our hearts and our minds, and eventually, even our ears. If the rejection goes far enough, we don’t even want to hear the message anymore.

We’ve seen warnings against that already in Hebrews, and we’re going to see it again, starting in verse 26, once we finish this series on the proper responses to the truth of Christ. God says it is a fearful and terrifying place to be. How do you keep yourself from going that far? By drawing near to God with confidence in Jesus Christ.

We’re all sinners. We all have, and we all will, sin grievously and repeatedly. And we all face the daily temptation of sin. But listen closely to the exhortation of Hebrews 4:16. I’ll close with this. Hebrews 4:16—Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.