This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to our look at Hebrews, chapter
10. This is day one and with our look at this chapter, we're going to look at
verses 1 to 9 today. We're continuing in this long section of Hebrews, started
way back in chapter 4 actually.

This long section that talks about what it means for Jesus to be a better
priest, our high priest. We've learned that he comes from a better order of
priests, he serves in a better tabernacle and starting last week and into this
week, we're looking at the fact that he made a better sacrifice. Now, one of the
questions we have is, if Jesus was to make a better sacrifice, why all the other
sacrifices?

The law set out this system of sacrifices that had to be made. They were all
looking forward to what Jesus was one day going to do, but why all those other
sacrifices? And it's a reminder to us, as we read today, we're going to read
about the law being a shadow.

It's a reminder that the law is good. It's good because it looks forward to what
Jesus is going to do. So you never call the law bad, the law of the Old
Testament, but the law is also a shadow.

It's not complete. It's good, but it's not complete. It's a shadow of the good
things that are coming.

So you never trust the law for everything because it's pointing to something
else. Now with that in mind, let me read for you verses 1 to 9. The law is only
a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the realities themselves.

For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year
after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they
not have stopped being offered? For the worshippers would have been cleansed
once for all and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins.

But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. Because it is impossible
for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when Christ came
into the world, he said, "Sacrifice an offering you did not desire, but a body
you prepared for me.

With burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. " And then I said,
"Here I am. It is written about me in the scroll, 'I have come to do your will,
O God.

'" First, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings
you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them, although the law required
that those be made. " And then he said, "Here I am. I have come to do your will.

" He sets aside the first to establish the second. Now notice once again we get
the writer of Hebrews using great teaching technique. He repeats.

He not only quotes a verse, but then he goes back and he says, "Here's the two
things that this verse said. " And he brings out from the Old Testament these
statements of Jesus, statements of who Jesus would be when he came into this
world. And he says to us that they say that Jesus set aside the first, the
sacrifices and offerings that were not really what God was looking for, for the
second, which is God's will being accomplished, to do your will.

What was God's will? Jesus going to the cross. Jesus giving his life on a cross.

And so out of that we learned that the law in essence is also a shadow. Last
week we talked about the fact that the tabernacle was a shadow. The law also is
a shadow, a shadow of the good things that are to come.

The directions for the tabernacle are in the law, so you could say that all of
it is about the law. And we've talked a lot about the law in Hebrews, and it
keeps bringing us back to what our relationship to the law is to be now as
believers, as followers of Christ. A few weeks ago we talked about the fact that
the law is not abolished, it's fulfilled by Jesus.

Another expression of that is that we are no longer under the law, but we are
now free from the law. That's the idea of this shadow. And let me just walk
through this with us together for a few minutes.

What it means that we're now free from the law. If you look at the New
Testament, there are four pictures of our relationship to the law, and the last
of them is here in this passage that we're looking at now. Four pictures of our
relationship to the law that we've now been set free from.

The first picture is the picture that the law is a guardian, a guardian over us.
Like you'd have a guardian over a child. You can read this in Galatians 4, 1
through 5 for instance.

The law was a guardian for an immature Israel. Small children need rules. I
mean, who would think of leaving a bunch of kindergartners in a room alone all
by themselves?

You figure out the rules, you'll be fine. No, you've got to have some rules. And
the point is, the law is for immature people.

The law is to control immature people who do not yet have God's Spirit in their
lives. But now we've been set free from the law. We've been set free from this
guardianship because now we live under grace.

The grace that God has given us. Grace has set you free. Grace has set me free.

And people who put themselves back under the law as Christians are actually
revealing their immaturity. I have to have a law. I have to have a rule.

Now, God has direction for us, no doubt about it. But running your life based on
rules rather than letting the Spirit empower your life so that you can fulfill
God's directions, those are two different ways of living. The more mature the
relationship, you might notice, the less the need for rules.

This is true in a marriage. Oftentimes in a marriage when a couple is first
married, they'll have a lot of rules. Here's how you fold the towels.

You do this. You do this. The longer you're married, the less rules you have.

You just know what to do because you're in relationship with each other. This is
true as a parent with children. When they're very small, they have to have a lot
of rules.

The older they get, the less rules they should have, except maybe in teenage
years you add a few more in. But the idea is that one day they're ready to go
out and live on their own because they don't have to live under your rules
anymore. God wants to have a deep relationship with us.

So by grace, He has set aside the guardianship of the law and given us the
freedom of grace. The second picture of the law in the Bible is that it is a
debt. You see this in Colossians 2.

14. It's an obligation to be paid. We are in debt to the law.

Because all of us have broken the law of God, none of us are perfect, it feels
like a weight on all of us. It feels like a weight, a debt that you just
couldn't repay. The good news is, not by my work, not by your work, but by
Jesus' work, the good news is the weight has been lifted and the freedom we have
in Christ is the debt has been paid.

Jesus paid the debt on the cross. So I am free from that debt of the law. I live
in freedom.

That's my relationship to the law now. Third picture of the law is that the law
is a prison. Galatians 3.

23 says, "Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up
until faith should be revealed. " So now we have faith. So as the writer of
Hebrews is saying again and again to those who are first listening to this, to
try to go back to the law would be putting yourself back in prison.

It's a picture somewhat of what happened to the Israelites when they were set
free from slavery in Egypt and they went out and God had them heading towards
the promised land, heading towards freedom. A lot of them wanted to go back to
Egypt, to what was familiar. Even though it was a torturous slavery, they wanted
to go back because they were starving, because they couldn't see how God was
going to work his miracles.

But the freedom we have now in Christ is that I've been set free from that
prison. I've been set free. And any believer, any follower of Jesus who is
allowing the law, the rules of God to become a prison in their lives, who's
living imprisoned under a list of rules and regulations, in one sense, here's
the picture.

Jesus has already come and set you free. He's already unlocked the prison door.
He's already opened it up.

So if you're sitting in that place of slavery, which is indicated by excessive
fear in your life and your relationship with God, excessive rules in your life
that you have to impose on you and other people, legalism in your life, if
you're sitting in that place of slavery, of being a prisoner, the truth is Jesus
has unlocked the door. He's opened it up and you're still sitting in the prison
cell when all you have to do is stand up and walk out because you've been set
free. The law is a prison, but the good news is my relationship with the law now
is a relationship of freedom.

I've been set free from that prison. And then here's where we've been heading in
these verses. The fourth picture of the law in the New Testament is here.

The law is a shadow. It's a shadow of the things that are to come. And the
freedom that we have now is Jesus is the light.

When you walk by the light, the shadow fades away. When you have the reality,
who needs a shadow? Who needs to look at the shadow?

The reality of the life of Christ, of the Christian life, is found in a person,
in Jesus, not in a list of rules, in a relationship, not in a bunch of
regulations. In fact, what these scriptures are teaching us is an overemphasis
on rules is like moving back into the shadows. Now notice throughout these
verses we're told that God does not desire burnt offerings or sin offerings.

And then you think, well then why did he write them into the law? He required
them, but he did not desire them. He desired what they were looking forward to.

He desired what the requirements of the law were looking forward to. You see, we
make a mistake when we think what God desired was the law. That was never his
desire.

What he desires is our hearts. And the only way to capture our hearts is through
what Jesus did for us. And so he desired Jesus coming to this world, and as
we've just read in these verses, doing God's will, going to the cross and dying
for us.

He desired that his son would make an offering of himself so that you and I
could be brought back into relationship with him. Because of what Jesus did, you
and I can live in that relationship of freedom, that place of grace, that place
of being set free from the prison, that place of being brought into the light.
Let's pray together.

Jesus, help us to live in your freedom today, the freedom of grace, the freedom
of our debt being paid, the freedom of your light. It's so easy to want to step
back into the shadows from time to time. It seems more safe and more secure
because it's about us and our rules and things we can more easily see and get
our hands on.

But the truth is, rules never created a relationship with you. It comes because
of your love, your sacrifice. So we pray that your desire would come about in
our lives today, the desire of our hearts given to you, the desire of living in
that sense of freedom in your presence.

And we ask this in your name, Jesus, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to look
together at one of the most important truths about how we grow that's seen in
all of the Bible.