Some time ago, I began blogging on our Sunday sermons to help myself review; today, I’m continuing that by covering our Aug. 16 sermon, on Hebrews 10:1-7. I’ve again missed posting about several sermons because of deadlines and a short vacation, but hopefully I can get more consistent again.

As usual, I won’t summarize the sermon, since you can stream it if you want to hear yourself, but will focus on what I take away from it. One key verse for today, though, was Hebrews 10:1:

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves

The sermon addressed this, in large part – why did God give just a shadow of Christ who was to come, rather than communicating fully or completely? P Peter laid out several key reasons:

  1. God used the shadow to cause us to long for the reality.
  2. God used the shadow to cause us to long for true forgiveness.
  3. God used the shadow to cause us to long for true worship.

These all challenge and encourage me. The shadow in the Old Testament was to bring us to long for the true, full revelation – first in Christ when he came, but even now that he has come, still to be revealed fully only when he comes again and we see him face to face. So there is still a longing, a looking forward to what is promised and what is to come. And that longing is something I still experience even today, because God has something better yet planned.

In terms of true forgiveness, sacrifices in the tabernacle were only temporary, offered again and again – but we needed, and long for, forgiveness once for all, for our sins to be truly gone forever. And that is exactly what we have in Christ.

Finally, we long for true worship. God wanted not sacrifices, but true, heartfelt worship. In Christ, now, we are able to offer worship not out of obligation but, because Christ has already paid in full, out of gratitude and delight in what God has done for us. I’m someone who, at times, can get caught up with duty – thinking that I NEED to do X or Y. But God has already done it all in Christ, so now I worship (and serve out of worship) not out of duty but out of thankfulness. The great poem “In the bleak midwinter” ends:

What can I give Him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

And that is what God desires of me – not that I complete a giant set of tasks, do all that he requires, etc. (1 Cor. 13:3) – but that I give him my heart in worship. And for that I’m immensely grateful, as it means peace and joy – which is already mine in Christ.