I love that line, power and glory unto the Lord belong. It's just a simple statement. And it's completely true in the fact that all power and glory belong to our Lord. And no power and glory belongs to anyone else. I mean, we all think we have power. People in this world think they have power. We have none. We have only what's given to us. All power and all glory belong, are owned by the Lord. That is such a comfort. I don't want anyone else to have power. I certainly don't want anybody else to get the glory for it.

This thing we had issues with last week, so if it sounds really bad, someone tell me and we'll switch. So we'll go back to Hebrews chapter nine. and we will be focusing on verses 13 and 14, and I'm gonna read them again just before we get started. Now, I actually read 11 and 12 was part of the sermon last week. We talked about how Christ, I'm having some issues. If I back it off a little. Is that me making that noise? Okay. We'll keep trying.

Verse 11 and 12, talks about how Christ came through the more perfect tabernacle that was not man-made. And they're talking about the place where men, the temple, the tabernacle back of the Old Covenant, the Old Testament is where all the sacrifices were made in the most holy place. All the blood sacrifices. They're talking about the sacrifice of Christ. And that was not done in our temple, a man-made temple. It was done in the temple of God. He went into God's presence to offer that sacrifice. So we talked about that last week and then I read 13 and 14, it talks about, it says, the blood of goats and bulls and ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean, sanctify them that they are outwardly clean. How much more then will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished, to God. Cleanse us from our consciousness. Just cleanse us, period. And that really caught my attention.

The sacrifice of Christ is something that we talk about quite often, as we should. The sacrificial work of Christ on the cross is the central point of any gospel message. So much so that the Apostle Paul wrote in Corinthians, I am determined to know nothing other than Christ and Him crucified. This is Paul who wrote some of my favorite books in the Bible and some very important scripture. And all he says, all I want to know, matter of fact, I want to know nothing other than Christ and Him crucified.

Until that event, some 2,000 years ago, everything God said was pointing forward to that event. Everything. And since then, everything is pointed back to that event. That event is the pinnacle of the world's existence. Christ and Him crucified. The sacrifice of Christ is the theme. Am I still having problems? It's so important.

The sacrifice of Christ is actually the theme in heaven. The glorified church, the people that are there, that have made to be glorified, are there singing praises for eternity about Christ and Him crucified. You look at Revelations 5, 9, it says, and they sang a new song. This is the inhabitants of glory saying, you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain. And with your blood, you purchase for God persons from every tribe, language, people, and nation. So they're not only just singing, you are worthy, You are glorious, you are worthy, and you are glorious because you were slain. That's how important the sacrifice of Christ is. That's the song we will sing for eternity. A few verses later, Revelations 5, 12, in a loud voice they were saying, is the lamb who was slain? it's obviously important to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise because worthy is the lamb who was slain.

With such emphasis in the scriptures from the apostles and even from the angels and glorified church in heaven, one wonders how can so little time on earth How can so little time in the modern church be concerned about the sacrifice of Christ? It is literally the only job of the church. We are here to talk about Christ and Him crucified.

In the United States and all over the world, quite often the church is occupied with social topics, political topics even. I'm not saying always, but quite often. Issues of marriage, issues of family. In short, they're very concerned about health and wealth and emotional happiness, which is really, as humans, what we are most focused on, right? Emotional happiness. How can we become happy? How can we stay happy? And that's what a lot of churches have become. Coaches on how to stay happy. That is not our job. It's actually not even our job to focus on how to stay happy because that is not why we are here either. None of these things are necessarily bad. But they are simply not the issue of the church. The issue of the church in this world and in the next is Christ and Him crucified.

Joe used to say that is our singular face to the world. I love the way he put that. That is what we are. That is what we present. When people look at the church of God, they should only see Christ and Him crucified. It is our singular face to the world. The singular subject of our praise. And the singular occupation of our message.

Now it seems from a worldly perspective, from a human perspective, to think, well that's all you talk about. Aren't you missing a bunch of stuff? Aren't you, with such a restriction, wouldn't you leave the church without some necessary instruction? on how to navigate this place or each other, lacking direction and other aspects of life, I can tell you with certainty the message of Christ and him crucified is sufficient to find, to save, to keep, and to guide his sheep throughout their life. It is the only food we need. Christ and Him crucified.

Now, many will need more than that. Many will need less. They are not the sheep of God. The Bible calls them goats. The goats will need more than that. Some goats will want less than that. Some goats will want something different altogether. But what But the simple diet of God's sheep is Christ and Him crucified.

So when I read this, I thought, well, what was the crucifixion of Christ about? What did it mean? What was this sacrifice of Christ? To the people who witnessed it, it meant a lot of different things. You think about the Roman soldiers and the religious leaders of the day. They actually thought of it and saw it happening and assumed this is a victory on our part. We have gotten rid of this, getting rid of this rebel. This radical reformer. Come to flip everything that we believe in upside down and we successfully got rid of him. That's what they saw happening. To Pilate, it looked to him like something regrettable, but also unavoidable. Politically, he had to keep the people happy. Christ's disciples, they saw it as a disappointment of all of their hopes. They did not understand, even though they were plainly told. an end to the dreams that they had hung upon Christ. A terrifying moment for them. But one man who was there, one man, out of all the men involved, was watching this happen and saw it for what it was, the victorious work of a king on behalf of his ungodly people.

Now what the thief might not have realized is just how that victory would be won. The Jews had been waiting for a Messiah for a really, really long time. And the reason that the Jews had a big problem with Christ is he was not the Messiah they expected or wanted. You can see that they expected a Messiah to be this political, military liberator of the actual Israel people, the country of Israel. He was going to show up, sword in hand, and smite down their enemies and raise them back up to prominence. That's what they expected. That was the victory that they were looking for.

The sacrifice, the victory that would be won through Christ was won by sacrifice. That is not how human minds work. We don't think of a victory as a sacrifice. But that's how God orchestrated it, which is why it was so hard for man to grasp. The free offering of himself, and that's key. Christ offered himself to God as a substitute for his people.

The passage from Hebrews in which we read at the beginning gives a good summary of the nature of this work, the nature of the sacrifice of God. It says once again, this is 13 and 14, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean, sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more then will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciousness from acts that lead to death?

It was a work of sacrifice. It says he offered himself without spot. This matches up perfectly with every sacrifice that happened throughout the history of the Old Testament. And there were, I don't even know, I don't even have to say millions or more. There were countless sacrifices. What the Lord Jesus did on Calvary was the reality of the sacrifice. All the Old Testament sacrifices were just a shadow, just a picture of what was to come. Those sacrifices never did take away any sin, but Christ's sacrifice did. It was effective. In fact, his sacrifice put away every sin that he bore so that it will never be brought up again.

So what is a sacrifice? Most of us would use the word sacrifice to describe voluntary loss, giving up of something. We consider anything that we give up to be a sacrifice. But that's too broad of a meaning for the work that Christ did on Calvary. Since the Lord work was a fulfillment of the sacrifices of the Old Testament, because we just said that, they're all a picture of what he was about to do. So his was a fulfillment of those Old Testament sacrifices. We must go there to find out what sacrifice is.

Only one offering in the Old Testament was bloodless. There was a grain offering. But the grain offering, even though it was a voluntary act of worship to show the worshippers thanks and devotion, even that offering was always made in conjunction with the blood offering of some sort. There was always blood. You see, we can do nothing by way of worship to God apart from the blood offering.

Now Christ's offering was a blood offering. What was a blood offering for? What does blood pay for? Blood offerings were made solely to pay for sin. In the Bible, guilt is sometimes pictured as a debt. When we incur a financial debt, the proper currency for that is money. When we incur a debt of sin against God's law, the proper payment is death. It says the wages of sin are death. And the cost of sin is paid in blood. The currency of death is the shedding of blood. Blood is not required for any other debt except for the debt of sin. Since our Lord's sacrifice was in blood, we know that His sacrifice was for our sin.

It's written in Corinthians, Christ died for our sin, according to the scripture. Though Christ's death was a demonstration, and it truly is a demonstration, of His love for His people. The Father's love for His people as well. But it was primarily not just a demonstration of love. There would have been other ways to demonstrate love that would not carry such a big price. There were other less agonizing ways to simply show his love. The necessity of his death lies in the fact that it was the only way that he could save his people from their sins. It was not simply a showing of love. It was the only way to remove the sins from His people and pay for them in a way that they would never be brought up again. It was the only thing He could do to assure His people to be saved.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord pled with His Father, if there be any other way This cup can pass from me, then I drink it." And effectively God answered him saying, no. If there was another way, they would have taken it. There was no other way. He said, no, there is no other way you can accomplish the redemption of my people. You may refuse to drink this cup, but in doing so, you will doom all of them. The doom is either yours or theirs. There was no other option.

We were talking this morning about this a little bit. Let's pause for a minute. So often, Christians are so proud of the fact that they're Christians. As though being a Christian is this virtuous thing that they almost bristle at the idea of you saying that they're not a Christian. What is it to be a Christian? What does being a Christian say about you? In reality, the confession of every Christian is that, I am so wicked Nothing less than the torture and death of the Son of God had to happen in order for me to become even acceptable. That's what being a Christian is. That's nothing less than that could save me. Confessing Christ is not a virtuous thing to do. It is not praiseworthy. Confessing Christ is confessing to the most horrible of crimes against God, crimes worthy of eternal death. And even more, it is a confession that I am willing to let someone else pay for the sins that I've committed. This does not sound praiseworthy. I sin, then I allow someone else to take the fall. But that is what it is to confess Christ. Confessing Christ doesn't make you praiseworthy. Confessing Christ is saying that He is praiseworthy.

Hebrews says a little bit farther down, it says, he offered himself unblemished to God. Hebrews teaches us that he was without sin of any kind, without spot, unblemished. The Old Testament law required that every sacrifice was without spot. Perfect specimens of whatever animal that happened to be. Jesus Christ was the perfect man. The only one. Having no sin in thought, word, or action. Paul describes him as one, as he who knew no sin. There are many aspects of the gospel that are beyond understanding. This is something we cannot understand. To not know sin. We are sin. Everything we do, every thought we have is permeated and tainted by sin. Christ literally knew no sin. It's far beyond what we can comprehend. But that's what it took. The perfect man who knew no sin had to suffer like he knew every sin in order to save his people.

Jesus Christ was the perfect man having no sin in thought, word, or action. Hebrews also teaches us that Christ's sacrifice was substitutionary. That is, he was dying in someone else's place to sanctify, to cleanse the unclean, it says. Since he had no sin, yet he died for sin, it must have belonged to someone else. It was someone else's sin that his death paid for.

Peter put it this way, he bore our sins on his body on the tree. And later he says, for Christ hath once suffered for sins, the righteous one, for the unrighteous. We throw those words around so often. But there was only one righteous one. No one else is close. And it took the perfect righteous one to save the absolute unrighteous.

In his very nature, it is the very nature of a sin offering to be a substitutionary offering in which a person who does not deserve death dies in the place for someone who does deserve death. Christ bore in his person all that the sinner deserved. Whatever hell is, Christ experienced it.

And then the other amazing part about what Hebrews tells us, it says, he offered himself. No sacrifice in the Old Testament offered themself. There was a high priest involved, and that animal had no idea what was going on. Christ was the high priest, offering himself on the altar. He was the sacrificial victim, and he was the high priest who offered the sacrifice.

Christ's sacrifice was made by himself alone. He says this. Christ's sacrifice was voluntary in that he submitted himself to be the sacrificial victim. We talked a little bit earlier about the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. He said, nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. Never was there so great of an act of submission. Then when our Lord relinquished his rights as God, as a righteous man, and bowed to the will of his Father.

Paul described it in Philippians 2, verses 6-8. He talks about that submission. Talking about Christ, he says, "...who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, something to be held on to, but made himself nothing Taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself. He became obedient to death, even death on the cross.

These words are easy to read and hear, but they're really hard to really soak in. In very nature, he was God. And he chose to become subservient to worldly death. That chasm is bigger than we can understand.

But our Lord was more than just submissive. He was not like, like if you are, if they're drafting for the war. He wasn't drafted. He enlisted. He stepped up. Our Lord was not submissive. Hebrews tell us, it says that he offered himself to God. He was purposeful in the decision. He wasn't forced to by his father. He offered himself to God, it says. It was his decision. That is active work, that is not a passive work.

In John it says, the reason my father loves me, this is Christ speaking, is that I lay down my life only to take it up again. No one takes it from me. No one. But I lay it down of my own accord. It says, I have the authority to lay it down and the authority to pick it up again. Before he was sacrificed, the Lord told his disciples that none could take his life from him, but that he, of his own will, would lay it down. He said, I have the authority. Christ had full authority over his own sacrifice. The Father would not take it. The Father would not take his life, for he was just and he would never deprive a righteous man of his life. No one else could obviously take his life from him because no one else had the power. Christ, with full authority, said he would lay down his life. It was an active sacrificing of himself.

Hebrews also tells us to whom Christ offered himself. He offered himself without spot to God, to his father. If you owe a debt, the debt must be paid to the one whom it's owed. Right? I mean, that's pretty simple. If I owe Bob 20 bucks and I give $20 to Oliver, is the debt paid? If you owe a debt, it must be paid to the one it is owed. Guilt is a debt owed only to God. The guilt of our sin is a debt only owed to God. When we sin, we aren't just sinning because it's bad. When we sin, we are sinning against God. He is the offended one. That's why it matters. So any payment of that debt must be rendered to God. And it's up to Him to accept or deny it.

This point is so very important. I mean, for many years, preachers have been telling sinners all over the world that Christ died for everyone. And what they must do in order for their sins to be put away is accept Christ's sacrifice. I can tell you, on the authority of the Word of God, it is clear that it is impossible for men to accept or reject the sacrifice of Christ, simply because it was never offered to them. Christ's work was offered to God, the Judge, and it is up to Him whether to accept it or reject it. It's amazing, amazing how men can be so arrogant. And I'm not setting us above them. Man in general is incredibly arrogant. Think about that. To think that we have the right to judge the sacrifice of Christ. That's what they're saying. that we should be the ones to decide whether the sacrifice of Christ is acceptable?

Christ offered himself to his Father, and by the way of the resurrection, God demonstrated complete acceptance of that sacrifice. Something I can't help but think about, and this is just popping in my head, when Christ offered that sacrifice, He didn't have this giant conglomeration or group of men and women in His head. I need to save this big old group. He knew you by name. It says, I know you by name, you are mine. That I knew you before the creation of the world. As Christ is on the cross. Now think about this. You are one of his people. You specifically were on the heart of Christ. You specifically. It's not too big for him. He knows you. You're his.

You specifically were on the heart of Christ as He hung on that cross. Christ went into the presence of God, bearing the sin of His people, with every single one of them on His mind and on His heart. And as with any person bearing sin before God, he was found guilty. And he was punished accordingly. Punished and killed for the sins of every one of those individuals upon the heart of Christ that day. But such is the indescribable glory of Christ and such was the perfection of his death that he put away those sins that he bore. And once again, became righteous in the sight of God. He put them away. He paid for them completely. They are gone. And once again, Christ is the righteous one. And that's when the resurrection happened because no righteous man belongs in a tomb. And that's exactly what God said. No tomb is a place for the righteous man. And Christ came out. He appeared in the presence of God once to bear sin. And having accomplished that, he appeared a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation. What is the result of this sacrifice? the plain truth of the gospel. All for whom Christ did this work are now without sin in the sight of God. If Christ bore your sin before God, you never will. If Christ paid your debt, you don't owe it. God laid out what he demanded in payment for sin, the sin or the death of a sinless substitute. Jesus Christ offered himself unto death to God. And God accepted his death as payment for every sin that he bore.

And for those that want to have a part in this, notice all of this is accomplished. All of it is completely finished without any action or even a response on our part. The sacrifice of Christ was offered, carried out, and accepted before we even knew what happened. That's exactly how it had to be. This proves that it is not our faith that makes Christ's work effective. It was effective long before we had any faith. It is Christ's sacrifice that makes our faith effective.

This is the nature of the sacrifice of Christ. He offered himself spotless, and it was fully accepted. And he did so for each and every one of God's chosen people, and every single one of them is now sinless in the eyes of God, and will someday join that beautiful chorus that it talks about in Revelation. We will sing, you are worthy. And we will sing because you were slain. Because never until that point will we truly understand what those words mean for us. You are worthy because you were slain.

I pray that God will give us the grace to see and believe this glorious truth. Our Father, we thank you for. Well, we thank you for Christ. We thank you, Jesus, for offering yourself. For becoming the sacrifice. For offering yourself. Because it was the only possible way for us to be saved. And you were the only one that could do it. And we are so grateful, Lord, and so thankful that you did. Now help us, Lord, to look to you for the rest of our days here and simply rest in this perfect sacrifice that has been carried out and accepted by our Father. We thank you, Jesus. We pray this in your name. Amen.

Take out your hymnals and we'll turn to number 667. Be the glory and we'll stand as we sing 667.