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[Music] heat up [Music] here [Music] Heat Heat [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]
Howdy, howdy, howdy! And welcome to the Real Faith Live Show. While the world is getting darker, real faith is getting a little hotter and a little brighter. Welcome to the hundredth episode of the real live show.
Well, howdy and welcome to the Real Faith Live Show! I am Pastor Landon, and I'm so glad you're joining us. Over 120 countries are tuning in right now to hear this incredible sermon from Pastor Mark Driscoll. Um, thank you, thank you, thank you for tuning in! And if it's your first time tuning in, we wanted to welcome you. And uh, if you text "Howdy" to 99383 or visit realfaith.com/howdy, we wanted to give you Pastor Mark's book on manhood and a ton of other resources like a Bible and year plan and all kinds of other Bible teaching. But we want to get his book on manhood into your hands, whether you're a woman or a man. 'Cuz if you're a woman, you probably have a man in your life, and it's a helpful measuring stick to make sure they're measuring up to God's standard. And if you're a man, you for sure need to read this book to make sure that you are living up to the standards that God's put by his divine design for how you should live out your life, love and bless women and children, and be a godly man. So head over to realfaith.com/howdy for that free gift.
Guys, we have a special week. This is the week that Christians—this is our Super Bowl! Super Bowl time! It is Good Friday and Easter with Pastor Mark. This is going to be—I mean, it is gigantic for us! We've put hundreds of hours into what's coming this week, um, which is our Good Friday and Easter. You're going to want to check it out. Here's Pastor Mark to tell you more.
Well, we're heading into what Christians around the globe call Holy Week. It's where we stop and remember Good Friday, the death of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, in our place for our sins, and also his resurrection from death and our salvation being secured on Sunday. And so we're going to have uh, some special sermons for you.
In addition, uh, we're publishing my latest book, *King of Kings*, a book about Jesus. And it really cuts through all the nonsense and noise; a lot of the religious tradition, a lot of the occultic, cultic, and world religion misrepresentation of Christianity and Christ, and also the apostate progressive social justice misuse, misrepresentation, abuse of Jesus Christ. And so we're cutting through all of that. I'm answering 11 big questions. And I would ask you to partner with me in prayer and generosity to help get this message out so that people can know, love, serve the real Jesus. Uh, to do that, we've got a special matching gift up to $250,000. Every dollar that you give will be matched. That'll help us to get more Bible teaching out than ever. I'm not taking any royalties or percentage from the sale of the book; all the proceeds go to the ministry. And so you can go to realfaith.com/king. Give your best gift and help us tell others about Jesus Christ.
Thank you, Pastor Mark. We're really excited for Good Friday and Easter. We would say here at Real Faith, uh, Good Friday is one of our differentiators. So a lot of churches, if you notice their live streams, they're like pretty excited on Sundays, but you'll notice that almost no one is out there live streaming a Good Friday service because it's kind of depressing and heavy. Uh, but the reality is, you killed God. You—what—and your sin is what hung him on the cross. And we need to feel that and sit in that and mourn a little bit, uh, because you can't celebrate Easter without understanding Good Friday. You can't feel the full effect of the gift that is eternal salvation without understanding that he sent his son to die for our sins. So, um, you don't want to miss Good Friday. Get all of your family together, sit, watch the sermon, take communion together, pray together, and maybe mourn a little bit; feel the weight of our sin that we put on our savior, and we got a gift that we don't deserve. But um, if you've got kiddos, I would encourage you to watch it. I would encourage you to hear um, the whole story that is Jesus dying for our sins. Uh, he didn't only rise, he did die. Um, and we—we put him there. So, um, again guys, we're excited about this. This is something we put a ton of effort into, and we don't want you to miss it on Friday. We'll be streaming it quite a bit. So uh, the times will be right here. You don't want to miss it.
And guys, uh, we will also send you a gift if you partner with us: Pastor Mark's newest book. Probably the book I've seen him most excited about ever. And what do you think it's about? It's about Jesus! Uh, 'cuz as Pastor Mark says, it's all about Jesus! Uh, this is the new book, *King of Kings*, a book about Jesus. Uh, this book will dive into the God-man that is Jesus; the—he is coming back as king of kings and lord of lords. He is not coming back as a shepherd with baby sheep in his arms. He's coming back with a bloody sword and uh, riding on a white horse called "Faithful and True." If you've ever Googled books on Jesus, I encourage you to do it right now. Uh, every single one of them is super feminine. Looks like it belongs at a women's bookstore and has Jesus holding a sheep, which is cool. Like, he is definitely our savior, a shepherd. But I believe shepherd is a lot more like cowboy. When Jesus is coming back, he is coming back more like a cowboy, but more like a king of kings. And we are going to show you all about that through this book. So hop over to realfaith.com/king or text "king" to 999383.
This week is a perfect lead-in to Good Friday and Easter, as Pastor Mark's jumping into Hebrews, talking about the new covenant, eternal salvation, and the God-man that is a savior and a king. This will tee us up perfectly for Easter weekend with Good Friday and Easter. This is a sermon that you're going to want to grab your notepad and get ready for. And if you've missed any of Hebrews, it was all incredible. So go to realfaith.com/sermons. You can catch up on all the last like 32 sermons on Hebrews, uh, because Pastor Mark goes verse by verse, which is very important in understanding the Bible. Um, and with that, grab your notepads, grab your nachos, and get ready for an incredible sermon.
[Music] Heat Heat [Music] [Music]
For the Christian church, this is the most significant sacred week of the year. We call it Holy Week. This is the week that is set aside globally every year to remember on Friday the death, the murder, the execution, and the persecution of Jesus Christ in anticipation and expectation for the celebration of his resurrection on Easter Sunday. Uh, today I have the great honor of teaching God's word, and we will continue in our study of the book of Hebrews, answering the question, "What is a covenant relationship with God?" in Hebrews chapter 8, verses 1-13. Uh, if you've got your Bibles, you're welcome to find that place in the scriptures. I'll read them over you in just a moment. But this sermon and this service will be a bit different, a bit more distinct and dark as we're looking at the most devastating, uh, despicable act in the history of the world that led to the outpouring of grace and the salvation of sinners through the execution of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And so today we will take a look at his cross. I would ask, out of honor for the Lord Jesus and his word which reveals him, would you please stand, and I'll read God's word over you to prepare us for our time together.
Hebrews 8:1-13: "Now the point in what we are saying is this: We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices. Thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, 'See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.' But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says," and then he quotes Jeremiah 31, written roughly 600 years prior: "'Behold, the days are coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will establish a covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them,' declares the Lord. 'For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,' declares the Lord, 'I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people, and they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brothers, saying, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.'" And speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away."
You may take your seat, and I'll pray for you. Holy Spirit, as you inspired the divine writing of scripture, we invite you. We desperately need you now to illuminate our understanding, to soften our hearts, to change our minds, to reveal to us the significance of our sin and the salvation of Jesus. God, as we examine what this sacred text has to say, I pray that we would see Jesus, that we would love Jesus, that we would turn to Jesus, that we would trust in Jesus, and that we would enjoy the full blessings of what herein is called the new covenant relationship with him. And I thank you now that I get to explain that in Jesus' name. Amen.
So our theme today from Hebrews chapter 8 is one of the mega themes of the whole Bible, and it is a simple word called "covenant." This word appears hundreds of times in the Bible, but just in these 13 verses that we just read in Hebrews, it appears seven times in 13 scriptures. And when we're talking about covenant, this is the Bible's unique language for how we can have a relationship with God. And a few sort of cursory points: First, our God is a relational God. The Bible teaches that there is one God, three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Christians have historically called this the Trinity, and that is in fact the name of our church because we believe this as a fundamental core conviction of Christian faith. Our God is relational, and our God made us in his image to be in relationship with him and with each other. Even before sin entered the world, the first thing that God declared was not good is that it is not good for us to be alone. God is relational; God made us to have a relationship with him and one another. How that is possible though we are sinners is what the Bible means by the word "covenant." Our sin has severed and separated that relationship with God, and God makes a way to have a covenant relationship with him.
In regards to our covenant relationship with God, it is a little bit like marriage. And in Christianity, marriage is a covenant. It's where two people come together and they have vows or promises to one another to have a unique and sacred relationship that is unlike any other. The Bible uses the marriage covenant as illustrative of our covenant relationship with God through Christ. It's that kind of sacred, loving, intimate, private, devoted, exclusive relationship that is inferred and referred by the word "covenant." Now, that being said, the terms of the covenant relationship with God are always established by God. As you read the Bible and you read the word "covenant," God often says, "I will establish my covenant with you." This is important. We do not worship God the way that we like, but the way that he likes. We don't come to God and tell him the terms by which we would like to have a relationship with him. He gives those terms, and those terms are non-negotiable. For some of us, we want to have our own relationship with God on our own terms. That is impossible. Some want to negotiate parts of God's word away, and they want to negotiate the covenant terms, and that is impossible. God makes one way that is a covenant. He determines the path by which we can have relation with him, and there is no other way and there is no negotiating his only way.
When a covenant is established, it is often called in the Bible the "cutting of a covenant." When there is a covenant, there is a sacrifice that is made, and it is showing that if someone fails to adhere to the terms of the covenant, they are incurring upon themselves the death penalty. It's a sacred oath, and it results in death if it is broken. And so it shows that without this shedding of blood, there can't be this reconciling of relationship. Uh, for those who were Jewish and know the ancient Hebrew scriptures, uh, the Jewish people had 11 different sacrifices in four different categories. Every single one included the sacrifice of an animal as a substitute and the shedding of blood. So there isn't a covenant without some death occurring and some blood being shed. Furthermore, 362 times in the Old Testament, blood is mentioned; 92 times in the New Testament—all showing the seriousness of a covenant relationship and the need for a sacrifice for sin to have a covenant relationship.
In the Old Testament, there are four covenants: There's one with Noah, the Noeic covenant; then one with Moses, the Mosaic covenant. In addition, there's one with Abraham, uh, the Abrahamic covenant, and also the Davidic covenant. So to get it historically right, it goes from the Noaic covenant to the Abrahamic covenant to the Mosaic covenant to the Davidic covenant. These are four covenants that God has with his covenant people. In addition, it says here in Hebrews 8, they are a shadow, and they're a shadow, and ultimately their fulfillment is in the new covenant. That's what we're going to learn today. A shadow is cast by something that is bigger. Well, the new covenant of Jesus Christ is bigger than all of the old covenants together, and they are shadows of the new covenant. The new covenant is spoken here in Hebrews 8:18 and 8:13. And what it is showing and saying is that all of the old covenants are fulfilled and exceeded in Jesus Christ and him being the sacrifice and the substitute and the savior for the new covenant. And so this idea of a covenant needing a mediator, and every covenant had a mediator; there was some human leader that was chosen to sort of intercede and mediate between God and the sinful people. As I said, that was Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, for example. They were mediators, intercessors for the covenant relationship between the sinful people and their holy God. This culminated in a formal intercessory ministry, a mediatorial ministry called the priesthood. This originated during the days of the Mosaic covenant with Moses in the Old Testament; his brother Aaron was a priest, and then after him there was a succession of priests through that family line. And so the priest was central to the covenant relationship with God. And it was the priest's job to mediate between the holy God and the sinful people. And a priest had three primary duties: They would teach the word of God; they would pray for the needs of the people; and they would sacrifice for the sins of the people. And that's essentially what a priest would do. They would teach you the scriptures; they would pray for you; and then they would sacrifice for your sins. So that through the shedding of blood, the cutting of a covenant, your sins could be atoned for, forgiven through the substitution, and ultimately then you could have a relationship with God despite your sinful condition. And what it's saying here in Hebrews is that these four covenants lead to the new covenant, and the priesthood leads to Jesus Christ as the great high priest. And so he gives us here in Hebrews 8 uh, three aspects of Jesus as our new covenant priest.
Number one: Jesus alone has perfect authority. It says that he is, quote, "seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven," Hebrews chapter 8:1. "Of all the thrones on the earth, of all of the places of power and rule and leadership and dominion, there is in the unseen realm, in the kingdom of heaven, in the presence of God, one throne that has only been occupied by one person forever and ever." And it says that on that throne is God the Father, and seated at his right hand is God the Son, who became our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ when he entered into human history and God became a man. There is no authority that could ever be equal to the authority that is held by Jesus Christ. For us, I just want to say this: This means if we're going to worship Jesus Christ, we must first humble ourselves. We must be willing to give away whatever authority we would have and surrender to his authority humbly. I just feel inclined in the spirit to say this: For some of you, the reason you've not yet received Jesus Christ is because you're arrogant and proud. You're independent and autonomous. You like to have authority over your own life, and you don't think there should be a God who has authority over you. And there is, whether you accept, receive, and like that or not. When Jesus rose from the dead, he said, and I quote, "All authority has been given unto me." All authority has been given unto him, which means no authority is given to you. The only way to rightfully worship Jesus Christ is to humbly accept his authority. And for some people, they will say that Christianity is easy because all you've got to do is repent and receive Jesus. It's very hard because it requires humility. And it is an acknowledgment that we are the problem and not the solution; that we are under authority, not in authority; that we need to bend our knee and we need to bow our head, and we no longer can stiffen our neck. Jesus has all authority.
Number two: He not only has perfect authority, he has perfect access. He is, quote, "a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man," that's a quote from Hebrews 8:2. So in the old covenant, there was the temple. The temple was the meeting place and the mediatorial place between the seen and the unseen realms, between heaven and earth, between the spiritual and the physical. The center of the temple was the holy of holies where the presence of God, the Holy Spirit, dwelt. Once a year, one person in the entire nation would enter and venture into the holy of holies. This was the high priest on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. He would have to prepare himself to go into God's presence, or he himself would die. What he's saying here is that Jesus is greater than that; that Jesus rules not just the earthly but also the heavenly; that he doesn't just enter into the holy of holies, that he is the holy of holies. Furthermore, he doesn't enter in just one day a year; that is where he dwells forever and ever as holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty. In addition, the old covenant priest would have to offer a sacrifice for their sin before they entered the holy place. Jesus never had to offer any sacrifice for his sin because he was sinless, perfect, and without any sin, and came not to die for his sin because he had none, but for ours because we have many. Jesus is a greater priest and a greater high priest because of his perfect authority, his perfect access, and also his perfect atonement. And this brings me to the theme of the sermon and the subject today: His death is better than other, quote, "gifts and sacrifices," Hebrews chapter 8:3. The way it worked in the old covenant, there would be a priest and a sacrifice. And so the priest would then intercede on behalf of the people, confessing their sins to God. And then the sins of the people would be imputed, imparted, reckoned to a substitute, that being an animal. And then that animal would be slaughtered, and their blood would be shed. So the entire covenantal system, it really was essentially held together by priests offering sacrifices on behalf of sinners. That leads us to the new covenant. And here in Hebrews 8, he's pointing us to the new covenant. And what he's going to teach us is two things, and these are essential: Jesus is the priest, and Jesus is the sacrifice. That's the point. He is the high priest who comes between us as God and man. He can mediate and intercede between us and God. The Apostle Paul declares there's one mediator between us and God; that's the man Christ Jesus. So he is our high priest, and he offered a sacrifice just once for all. And he did so through the cross, dying in our place for our sins as our substitute. So I want to get into the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and I want to examine new covenant sacrifice. And some of you may wonder why in the Old Testament they—they offer sacrifices, and we don't do that today because Jesus is the once-for-all new covenant sacrifice. And so we'll look at crucifixion. So my question is, in regards to new covenant sacrifice, what is crucifixion? And I want to explain this to you because too often times Christians simply state it without explaining it: "Jesus died on the cross for all your sins." No, stop. Learn, listen, ponder, consider, wonder. What exactly did he endure, and why did he endure it? Crucifixion is state-sponsored terror. It always has been, is in our day, and will always be. When there's a leader that the state, the government, is threatened by or afraid of, they want to cease anyone from following them, they want to kill the movement by killing the leader. And so they will, in a very public and shameful and awful way, execute, murder, torture the leader, telling anyone and everyone who would follow them, "Don't believe what they believe and don't behave or they be as they behave, or you will suffer as they suffer." Crucifixion started with the Persians around 800 years BC. It began with impaling. They would take a large stake, they would hue it to sort of a point at the end, and they would run it through a man's midsection, literally through his body, and then they would drop—they would drop that pole into a hole, and that man would be convulsing and bleeding and screaming and dying while everyone else was watching. This was trauma and terror. In the days of Alexander, they added the crossbar to maximize the pain. And so suddenly that post included a crossbar, and then men were nailed through the most sensitive nerve centers, the hands and the feet, to the crossbar. The Romans really perfected crucifixion. Each soldier had a particularly, um, sadistic way of executing criminals, and they would find different ways to prolong death and to extend pain. It was a bit of a—bit of a gamesmanship between these—these twisted men. And often times when men were crucified, they were crucified at eye level. If you've seen a lot of the artist renderings of crucifixion where they're very tall, that's probably inaccurate. Um, they probably were crucified at eye level, according to archaeological and historical records. So that as you were suffering and bleeding and dying, your enemies could look you in the eye. They could curse you; they could yell at you; they could demean you; and they could place bets on the time of your death. And they would do this in front of your wife, your children, your mother, your family, your friends, to enact as much horror and terror on the whole family as possible. Sometimes they would even take your wife and children, and they would slaughter them in front of you while you were crucified, and they would look you in the eye while they murdered your own family. What we learn at the cross of Jesus Christ is that humanity is not good. Jesus Christ comes to the earth, and this is what we do to him.
The crucifixion of Jesus Christ reveals how bad we are and how good our God is.
In the days that there was crucifixion in the Roman Empire, they would not even crucify the women facing the crowd. They would turn the woman around so that she was facing the cross. They couldn't bear to see a woman in that much pain and horror. And it was very, very common. In uh, 71 BC, the gladiator Spartacus died in battle. And they then took 6,000 of his combatants and they crucified them in one day along a 120-mile stretch of highway. Imagine you're walking or riding on the back of a beast 120 miles, and there's 6,000 men crucified on the shoulder of the road. They're bleeding. They're weeping. They're sweating. They're dying. They're crying. Their families are mourning and shrieking, and their enemies are howling and bedding. This was the ancient world. And it was so painful to die by crucifixion that they actually created a word that we use to this day. And the word excruciating literally means from the cross. The pain was so great that a word had to be invented to encapsulate it.
What's really surprising is, um, most churches like ours, what's on the top, a cross? And it's very interesting because around the second and third century, there was an early church father named Tertullian. And the Christians were trying to determine what would the symbol of our faith be, sort of our brand or icon to denote, you know, who we were committed to, and lots were considered. But in the end, the emblem of suffering and shame, to quote an old hymn, was chosen, and it was the sign of the cross. It was a horrific thing to die by crucifixion. Nonetheless, God's people started making the sign of the cross. We started wearing the cross. We started putting the cross on our homes and on our churches. And suddenly, the most shameful, awful death became the most wonderful way that God demonstrated his love for us.
That leads to the covenant, the new covenant sacrifice. And I want to talk about not just crucifixion, but in new covenant sacrifice. I want to answer this question: How was Christ crucified? Well, the timing of Jesus' death is quite interesting because back in the days of the Mosaic covenant, in the book of Exodus, God's people were held in slavery and bondage in Egypt. And then God told the Pharaoh to let his people go, otherwise there would be a succession of divine judgments in the form of plagues. And so the plagues culminated with the killing of the firstborn. God said, "You release my children, or I will take your children." Pharaoh refused to let God's people go. And Passover was inaugurated. And God told his people through his mediator Moses, who was functioning as that intercessor between the holy God and the sinful people, said on Passover, each male needs to lead his family in worship. This is significant, man. If you're going to worship at this house, you should also worship at your house. If we're going to be praying for people in this house, I need you to be praying for the people in your house. You're the intercessor. You're the priest. You're the mediator in your home. And so in Passover, the fathers were given this divine assignment: Um, take your family, bring them together, pray and worship God, take a lamb without spot or blemish, denoting a sinless substitute, and sacrifice it. Confess the sins of your family as head of household over the animal. Slaughter the animal. Take the blood of the animal and bring it outside and then paint the doorposts of your home. And then death will come to every home except those homes that are covered by the blood of the lamb. That's Passover. For over a thousand years, God's people celebrated Passover every year. And the time that Jesus was crucified was the time of Passover. And all of Passover, like all of the old covenant sacrifices, they were all pointing to Jesus Christ. When he came, his cousin John the Baptizer said, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Paul tells the Corinthians, "Christ our Passover lamb has been slain." Again, all covenants find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ in the new covenant. So it was time for Jesus to celebrate the Passover. So he gathered his friends together for the Passover meal. We now call that the Last Supper. If you've seen the legendary painting of Jesus with his disciples, that's Passover. That's Passover. And he was celebrating it at that time because he was coming to die as the Passover lamb and the substitute sacrifice. He even denotes this at communion as he's partaking with his disciples. He says, "This is my body. This is my blood for the new covenant." He tells us exactly why he's going to die.
In addition, then Jesus was up all night, and he was in anguish in a garden called Gethsemane. He was crying out to God, and he was sweating like drops of blood. Tremendous anxiety, knowing that he was going to the cross and he would endure the wrath of God and substitute himself for us. Medical doctors would call this condition hemotyrosis. It is only diagnosable with people who have unspeakable anxiety, and their capillaries begin to bleed. That was the beginning of the shedding of the blood of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. He was up all night in prayer, and he was crying out, "If there be any other way, take this cup of wrath from me. Not my will be done, your will be done." And then Jesus went forth. Jesus was then betrayed. He also was arrested. He was beaten and flogged and scourged all night. And the scourging is quite horrifying. The Bible simply says, "They took him and had him scourged." That's all that it says. Because you and I haven't seen a scourging, we can't fully understand or appreciate a scourging. Once you've seen it, you'll never forget it. But I'll explain it to you. So this is a historically accurate cat of ninetails. And the way it would work for a Roman soldier, they would take it in their hand. It had it had a wood handle. It had metal straps, excuse me, uh, leather straps that proceeded at the end of which there would be a ball, either made out of metal or perhaps stone. The point of which was to tenderize the flesh on a man's back. And then there were large hooks that would sink deeply into the deep tissue and the bone and the vital organs of a man. They would strip a man nearly naked. They would tie him oftentimes over a large stone in this fashion with his hands tied to a post, literally a whipping post. And then a soldier would stand one on each side, and they would whip the man across the back. The flesh would be tenderized. The hooks would sink in. They would grab the deep tissue, the organs, and history outside of the Bible records occasionally even a rib. And then when they ripped the flesh off a man's body, sometimes a rib would even come flying off of his frame. They did this to Jesus. Many men simply died from the scourging. Medical doctors explained this. I've got this in a new book out, King of Kings, on the life of Jesus. But the Journal for the American Medical Association did an examination of all of this from a medical perspective. They said it was the equivalent of a shotgun blast to the body at close range. That's scourging. That's scourging. At this point, Jesus is bleeding. The heart is straining, trying to get blood out to the extremities. He's dehydrated. He's been up all night. He's beaten. And he is in the process of dying. And then the Bible says they took Jesus and they they took a carpenter who had driven a number of nails and they drove large nails through the most sensitive nerve centers on the body, through the wrist and the feet. At this point, the body is twitching and convulsing involuntarily. It's in inexplicable shock and trauma. And then they took Jesus and they raised him up and they dropped his cross into that hole. Well, now his body is twitching and convulsing and sweating and bleeding and traumatized and dying. There were four primary causes for death by crucifixion: Shock, the body would undergo so much that it was simply shut down; heart failure, as the body is trying to pump um blood to the vital organs, it is under such strain that eventually you die of a heart attack; number three, a man could die by dehydration. We live in the kind of climate that you understand as your body is sweating and bleeding for days in the sun. Eventually, you just dehydrate. But the most common means of death for crucifixion was asphyxiation. As you hung on the cross, your body would slouch, and then you couldn't get air into your lungs. Instead, you would have carbon monoxide. So you would push yourself up on your crucified feet. The pain had to be inexplicable to get a little air into your lungs so you could live just a few moments longer. And then eventually you would slouch and eventually you would die by asphyxiation. Sometimes a man would push himself up and down for a number of days, and they'd want to hasten his death. So what they would do is they would break his legs. Jesus' legs weren't broken. He died in three hours in the fulfillment of the psalm which said none of his bones would be broken.
As Jesus is sweating and bleeding and and dying as he's crucified, what he does is high priestly ministry. This is this is really stunning. This is quite something. While Jesus is dying, he's functioning both as high priest and sacrifice. He is dying in our place for our sins. That's what the word of God says. And he is interceding as our great high priest. Last week in Hebrews 7, we looked at the priestly ministry of intercession. In chapter eight, he shows us Jesus as our great high priest with an intercession ministry. There are seven words that Jesus speaks from the cross. I will look at five of them. And I just want to examine now Jesus' high priestly ministry from the cross. Number one, Luke 23:34, Jesus says, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Jesus, in the moment that he is dying, he's interceding for you and I. And he's doing the mediatorial work of a great high priest. He is bringing the sins of the people into the presence of God. And he is interceding and offering himself as the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. He is praying for you. He is praying for me. And in a moment he's going to die, and he's going to answer his own prayer. You're not a good person. You're a sinner. You have no right to be in God's presence. You will never stand before God and have him be pleased with who you are, what you've done. And if you think otherwise, you're an arrogant, proud person, and that means that you are the worst of all. Jesus prayed that we would be forgiven because we need to be forgiven. Number two, Jesus says in John 19:28, he says, "I thirst." At this moment, the historical record of the scripture says that a soldier took a sponge, put it on the end of a stick, so stopped it in wine vinegar as a disinfectant and shoved it in his mouth. Some of you have heard me teach this, but if you have not, this will be quite shocking. When a Roman soldier would get their field kit and be deployed into battle, obviously they're off in the wilderness or the desert, and when you need to relieve yourself, there's no facility. So you would bring a sponge. It's the lightest thing you could bring in your pack. You would soap it in wine vinegar as a disinfectant. You would put it on the end of a stick, and you would use it as toilet paper to scrub yourself after you went to the restroom. A soldier took that sponge when Jesus as our great high priest was interceding and praying and suffering and dying so that we could be saved from the wrath of God that he was in the process of enduring the wrath of God for us. One of the soldiers didn't want to hear that kind of love and grace and mercy. So he shoved his sponge into Jesus' mouth. That means what Jesus tastes as he dies is the bowel movement of an enemy that he is interceding and praying for. I I I can't even fathom how there are still human beings that say that we're good people with good hearts. Matthew 27:46, Jesus says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" As a Bible teacher, he quotes Psalm 22:1. In that moment, uh, Jesus took our place and put us in his place. Jesus died so we could live. He endured the wrath of God so we could enjoy the grace of God. He took upon himself our sin and put upon us his righteousness. In this moment, the apostle Paul says, "God made him who knew no sin to become sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Jesus was the high priest interceding for us, and Jesus was the sacrifice that was offered for us. I just feel inclined in the spirit to say this: Our sin is so great that it took the death of God to buy us back. Next time you wonder how deep our sin is and how holy our God is, recognize this fact: There's only one way that a sinner could be forgiven, and that is that God would become a man and substitute himself and pay the penalty for us. And then Jesus says in a loud voice, John 19:30, "It is finished." And then he says, Luke 23:46, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." And Jesus died. He was declared dead on the cross by a soldier. To ensure that he was dead, they took a spear. They ran it under his rib cage into his heart sack. Water and blood flowed from his side. Jesus literally and figuratively died of a broken heart. At that moment, the curtain that was in the temple in the holy of holies that separated the presence of God from the people of God, the place that a high priest could only go one day a year on Yom Kippur, it was torn from top to bottom, from God to us. And then the spirit of God was about to be unleashed to be with God's people everywhere. Darkness came over the land. Jesus was then buried in the tomb of a man named Joseph of Arimathea. I'll pick up the story on this point next Sunday. Joseph of Arimathea was prophesied 700 years prior in the book of Isaiah, where it says in Isaiah 52 and 53 that he was, quote, "buried with the rich in his death." We know Jesus was in fact poor. He didn't have a rich man's tomb. But upon death, Joseph of Arimathea, who was an affluent man and a more quiet disciple and follower of Jesus, gifted to Jesus postmortem his tomb. So this establishes that Jesus died, and we know exactly where he's buried because Joseph knows where his tomb is. It's legally registered property. The Roman government put their seal on it. It is now the property of the state. Soldiers were put on guard to guard Jesus' dead body. He's wrapped in upwards of 100 pounds of burial linens and spices. His dead body is put in a tomb that is cold and hewned out of rock. And there he lays for days without any water, food, or medical attention being guarded by soldiers. By establishing the absolute certainty of the death of Jesus Christ, it then prepares us next weekend to examine the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
All of this is the new covenant. We don't go to the temple. We go to Jesus. We don't have a high priest. Jesus is our great high priest. We don't offer a sacrifice. Jesus sacrificed himself once for all. That all that was longed for in all covenants is satisfied and exceeded in the new covenant. Hebrews 8:10 through 13 gives us four blessings of the new covenant. Before I share them with you as I near my close, my question to you is this: Have you repented of your sin and received Jesus Christ as your God and Savior? Did he die for your sin, or are you determined to die and stand before him and then die for your own sin? What happened to Jesus will happen to you unless you receive Jesus. Make no mistake, when the Bible says that you are saved, you are saved from God. You are saved from God, Jesus Christ. You are saved from the wrath of God. If Jesus is willing to endure wrath for you and you reject him, he has no problem pouring out wrath on you. We think too much of ourselves. We think too little of our Savior. We presume on the grace of God rather than enjoying the grace of God. We nurture and defend our sins rather than repent of and grieve our sins. I love you. It's an honor to be your pastor. But the most serious thing in the world is whether or not you receive or reject Jesus Christ. And my job is to tell you the truth. And your job is to make the most important decision you will ever make. The decision that will determine your eternal destiny as blessing or cursing. Do you receive Jesus Christ, or do you reject Jesus Christ? If you receive Jesus, there are four blessings of the new covenant in Hebrews 8:10 through 13. You get a new nature. He's quoting Jeremiah where it says, "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts." If you receive Jesus Christ, you you you get a new nature. You get a new mind. You start to think differently and rightly. You get a new heart and new desires. You want to be like Jesus. You want to read the Bible. You want to pray. You want to become less like you are and more like he is. In addition, you get a new Lord. He says, "I will be their God, and they shall be my people." You'll no longer be the highest authority in your life. You'll get off the throne that you've built for yourself. And you'll stop having fear of man and living for the approval of others. Instead, you will want to live under the lordship of Jesus Christ. You want to honor Jesus. You want to serve Jesus. You want to be obedient to Jesus. You want to be devoted to Jesus. And at the end of the day, since he's above it all, his opinion of you, his commands for you, they exceed everyone and everything, including yourself. Number three, and this is what I love, new life. He says, "I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I'll remember their sins no more." Jesus Christ gave me a new life at the age of 19 in college. He forgave all my sins. He died for all my sins, past, present, and future. He doesn't shame me. He doesn't haunt me. He doesn't guilt me. He forgives me, and he loves me, and he blesses me. There's no one like Jesus. No one's ever treated me like Jesus. No one's ever loved me like Jesus. No one's ever served me like Jesus. No one's ever forgiven me like Jesus. And Jesus not only saved me from hell, Jesus saved me from me. He gave me a new life so that I could have a marriage. He gave me a new life so I could be a father. He gave me a new life so I could be a grandfather. Everything good in my life is because of Jesus Christ. He's given me a new life. God wants to not just improve your life, He wants to give you a brand new life. And lastly, new worship. And speaking of a new covenant, it says he makes the first one obsolete. Well, today, dear friends, we don't have a high priest. We have a great high priest. Today we don't come to offer a sacrifice, but to celebrate and remember the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made once and for all in our place for our sins as our substitute and our savior. And we come today to worship in the spirit. And we come today where God's spirit is put into God's children. The spirit of God used to just reside in the Holy of Holies. But now today, the spirit of God resides in the children of God. And God goes with you wherever you go. And you can sing, and you can pray, and you can hear, and you can love, and you can enjoy the presence of God continually in your life. It's a new way to worship because God has come to be with us, and he invites us to meet with him.
In closing, God works for you. Jesus Christ lived a life with no sin, and he died on the cross in your place for your sins. That's his work for you. God works in you. New heart, new nature, new mind, new desires. God works through you. New life, new worship. We're going to meet with him now. Some of you need to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Some of you need to return to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And we all need to repent of our sin. The good news that he died for it means we can be forgiven. But I'm telling you this, dear friend, if you don't give your sin to Jesus, it's going to damage your life, and it'll hinder your relationship with him.
Father, as we come on this sacred day to examine these perfect scriptures, Lord Jesus, I thank you that thousands of years of covenantal longing is satisfied, fulfilled, and exceeded in the new covenant sacrifice of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus, I thank you that you are our great high priest. I thank you that you interceded for us in prayer on the cross. I thank you that you are the substitutionary sacrifice and that you have shed your blood in our place for our sins. And Lord Jesus, I thank you that the story doesn't end there. I thank you that it's not just a dead body. Lord God, we've got so much more to celebrate. But let us today, in this moment, just sit in this place of suspended anticipation, expectation, and wondering. And God, this week, keep the cross of Jesus Christ before our eyes and on our heart and in our mind. So that next weekend when we reconvene for the greatest victory in the history of the world, that our hearts would be filled with an unprecedented joy, an exceeding certainty, and a great hope, in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat up here [Music]