The Perfect Sacrifice | Christology

and get you to grab your Bibles if you would, and let's go to Matthew chapter one. Matthew chapter one, we're continuing in our Christology series, we're studying the nature and identity of Jesus. Week one, we talked about Jesus as the eternal God. Week two, we saw him as the sinless Savior. And then today, we're gonna see him as the perfect sacrifice and we're gonna see what Jesus ultimately has done for us and then we're gonna have the Lord's Supper where we remember his broken body and his shed blood. So Matthew chapter one, we're gonna start reading in verse 18, if you're there, say the Bible is true. It says, now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way, that when his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary to be your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. Now verse 21 is really where we're gonna have our jumping off point today. Verse 21, lean into this and we're gonna unpack it in some other verses. Listen to what he says, and she shall bear a son

and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Now, we see something here about the purpose of Jesus's arrival, even before he was born. We see this in just the announcement that he is going to be conceived in Mary's womb, and we find this in the name that he is to be given. The angel tells Joseph, we're gonna call his name Jesus. Now, the name Jesus was a common name in this particular day and time. It'd be like John or Jim in our day and time. Like, it's just a common, everyday name. In Hebrew, this name would've been pronounced most likely Yeshua, and it would've been a form of the name Joshua. Joshua in the Old Testament, we get this name. And in the name Joshua or Yeshua that we translate here, Jesus, is a name that literally means Yahweh saves, or the Lord saves. That's the meaning of the name. And so, just like Joshua was a deliverer for God's people who went with Moses and helped them overcome and conquer the enemy and delivered them from their enemy and to the promised land, what we're seeing is is that Jesus is another deliverer. Salvation from the Lord has arrived, but the angel does something. He's gonna show us that he's a greater savior than Joshua, a greater deliverer than Joshua, because of the type of salvation he's going to bring.

Look what it says here. And you will give him the name Jesus for, this is or because, he will save his people from their sins. And so what we're learning here from the very beginning, this announcement from the angel, is that Jesus is salvation from the Lord and the salvation that he has come to bring is a salvation from the greatest enemy of humanity, which is sin. The Bible teaches us that that's the condition of every single person, that we are dead in our trespasses and sin. The Bible says, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That's the condition of humanity. We saw this last week. We are born under the sin nature of Adam and therefore we are held captive by the greatest enemy, which is sin. And the Bible says the consequence of this condition is death. The Bible says the wages of our sin or what we've earned because of our sin is death. So we have to understand that Jesus came to deliver us from our greatest enemy and our deepest, darkest issue, which is our issue with sin. Now, why is this the case? Well, without going to several passages, the Bible teaches us something very consistently.

The Bible teaches us that God is holy, which means that God is perfect. He has set apart. There is no evil. There is no sin. There is no darkness in him at all. And that he is not only holy, but he is a God of justice, which means that he has to do what is right all of the time. And so because he is holy, anything that violates his holiness has to be dealt with justly. And the Bible tells us that our sin, the just response of God because of our sin is for his wrath to be given to us, for us to experience eternal separation, eternal death because of the consequence of our sin. That's what it means when he says the wages of sin is death. It's not just physical death. It is spiritual death. We are all born separated from God, spiritually dead, and we are all born under the weight of God's wrath, which will be given to us when we stand before him in judgment. Now, God does this because he's a good God. A good God has to deal with evil. And because sin is evil. and we are sinners, a good God, even though he is full of love, because he is full of love,

he has to execute justice on all that is evil, which means that's the rightful position we hold. Now, why is all of this important to understand this phrase? Listen to it again. And you should call his name Jesus, deliverer, savior, who will save his people from their sin. So what he's talking about is Jesus's mission, his sole primary purpose for coming is to be the one who would save us from the penalty and the weight of our sin, the consequences of our sin. Now, watch this. This is one of those aha moments. Our sin's consequence is God's wrath and justice being rightfully poured out upon us. So watch this. God sends Jesus. Jesus is God in the flesh. So God enters into humanity so that he might deliver us from himself. God's wrath is coming for us, the wages of our sin, and so God in his infinite love and mercy sent Christ, God in the flesh, so that sinful humanity might be rescued from God's wrath. Jesus is God and he has come to deliver us from himself. That is the power of the gospel. I mean, what other religion do you think of on planet Earth that has that as the storyline?

We talked about this last week that in Jesus, God meets his own demands, and in the death of Jesus, Jesus meets the demands of sin himself so that Jesus, God in the flesh, saves us from the consequences of our sin, which is God's wrath. Jesus delivers us from the punishment of our sin. God saves us from himself. And there's no other religion on the planet that has this as its foundation, only Christianity. Now, there's a bit of mystery to this because, at least up to this point, if you don't read the rest of the Bible, if this is what you got, I mean, Joseph has to be wondering, okay, how is he gonna save us from our sins? And you really don't see this story unfold or an answer to that, really, for about 30 years. John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin, shows up on the scene. And John is the forerunner, the one who prepares the way for Jesus. And so we see here that the announcement, Jesus is gonna save us from our sins. Well, how is he going to do this? Well, if you fast forward 30 years later, this is what John says about Jesus when he points him out. John chapter one, verse 29 says this.

And the next day, he, John, saw Jesus coming toward him and he said, watch this, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. So, watch this, when the angel says, you shall give him the name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins, John is clarifying the mystery for us of how he was actually going to do that. And John says, Jesus is gonna do this by being the Lamb who comes from God who would ultimately take away the sin for us. Now, to understand this, we have to understand a little bit more about the storyline of the Bible. The Bible, and this would have been something that everyone in John's hearing when John announces this statement to the crowd, they would have understood what John implied where most of us probably miss it. You see, John is making this declaration in a day where there was what was called the sacrificial system. The sacrificial system is a system that God set up in the Old Testament, now listen to this, so that man's sin could be temporarily dealt with so that God and man could have fellowship with one another. The sacrificial system was a system where God was allowing an animal sacrifice, a spotless animal to be sacrificed

as a temporary atonement for the sins of the people. Now, eyes right here for a second, I'm gonna give you a phrase you may wanna write down. We've been throwing around some theological terms throughout the series, and we'll give you another one. Substitutionary atonement. Substitutionary atonement. Say, what in the world is substitutionary atonement? It's what the entire sacrificial system was built upon and ultimately what Jesus and the gospel is built upon. So what is atonement? Atonement is to cover, is to pay the price. Substitutionary is to have someone else pay the price for you or someone else to cover you. Does that make sense? So if you have a teacher who's gonna miss class, they bring a substitutionary. What is the substitute? Is standing in the place of the teacher, right? They're not the teacher, but they're standing there as if they are. That's what's substitutionary atonement. It is atonement being made because someone else is paying the price that we're supposed to pay. So the Old Testament system was built around the idea of substitutionary atonement. So what God said is your sin has a price, that price is death, blood has to be shed, but rather than your death and your blood being shed,

we're going to let you sacrifice a spotless animal, and that animal is gonna be a temporary substitute to atone your sin. And God in his grace and mercy made a way for his judgment and his justice to be pushed away and pushed back from us because it was temporarily placed upon another. So in the Bible you have a number of different sacrifices that were made and all of them had this idea in mind. The idea was is man's sin has a price, that price is death, and God is gonna temporarily let the death of another be a substitute for the death of those who deserve it. And that's the system. Now I wanna get you to grab your Bibles and go with me to Hebrews chapter nine. We're gonna peek into this and have our understanding broaden in how Christ is the ultimate sacrifice. So that's the sacrificial system. Substitutionary atonement, a temporary death as a temporary covering so that God and man could have fellowship with one another. The problem is is the sacrificial system and the temporary substitutionary atonement that God has created for his people was ultimately insufficient and we see that as insufficient because it was not permanent. It had to be repeated over and over and over and over again

and that is what we're gonna see in Hebrews. And Hebrews, by the way, is a great book of the Bible. Now it's hard to understand but the general summary of the book of Hebrews is this, Jesus is greater than everything. That's the point of Hebrews. He is the greater high priest, he is the greater sacrifice, he is the greater Moses, he is the fulfillment of the law. Jesus is greater than all of the old system that was set up because the entire Old Testament, and this is the point of the book of Hebrews, everything in the Old Testament is pointing to its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. When you get into the section we're in this morning in chapter nine and 10, you're gonna see that he is gonna point us to Jesus as the greater priest and the greater sacrifice. Jump in with me if you would. Hebrews chapter nine, start reading in verse 24. It says, for Christ has entered not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly

since the foundations of the world. But as it is, he, this is Jesus, has entered or has appeared once for all. Everybody say once. Everybody say for all. Jesus appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. So make the connection here. Call his name Jesus. He will save his people from their sins. Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And now the writer of Hebrews is helping us understand how Jesus does this. Now, he, the writer of Hebrews in chapter nine, he hones his attention into one particular sacrifice that was called for in the Old Testament. And it was called the day of atonement. The day of atonement. On the day of atonement, once a year, the high priest would prepare himself to offer a sacrifice on behalf of the sins of the people. He would purify himself and then he would offer a sacrifice for himself because as a high priest, he being a man was sinful, so he needed his sins atoned for. And then he would offer, he would go into the temple and to the Holy of Holies, and there he would make a sacrifice on behalf of the sins of the people.

And this would be a substitutionary atonement for the sins of the year. And the Bible tells us right here that every year he had to repeat this sacrifice over and over and over again. He would have to prepare himself, he would have to go to the temple, which by the way, the temple we see very clearly here is an earthly construction. that was meant to represent a heavenly reality. So everything in the temple represented heaven. So it was an earthly representation. He would go to the earthly representation and he would offer the blood of a spotless animal as a sacrifice that would cover the sins of the people for that year. And he would do it the next year, and the next year, and the next year, and the next year. And what the writer of Hebrews wants us to understand is that that was an insufficient offering. That it was an atonement that was temporary but not permanent. And he tells us why. Three observations about this. Number one, he wants us to understand that it was insufficient because the high priest was an insufficient high priest. That he had to prepare himself. He too was sinful, therefore he needed a sacrifice himself. And so the high priest could not offer

a permanent sacrifice because he was sinful and he needed a sacrifice. Number two, it was an insufficient sacrifice because the blood of bulls, or goats, or rams could never pay the full price for our sin. It could only delay sin's punishment by temporarily atoning for it. And the reason we know that it was insufficient is because once was not enough. It had to be done over, and over, and over, and over again. So you have an insufficient high priest offering an insufficient sacrifice in an insufficient place. The temple was only a replica of the greater glory of God in heaven. But what the writer of Hebrews then does, he says, but a greater high priest has come. Jesus himself. And Jesus has come to bring a greater sacrifice, his own life. And he does this in a greater temple. He doesn't go to an earthly temple. He goes right into the presence of God where he offers himself. So watch this. Jesus is, the point of the writer of Hebrews is that Jesus is the all-sufficient high priest who does not need atonement for his own sin because he is born of a virgin, our sinless savior, making him the perfect sacrifice,

which means he offers not an animal but himself. Jesus represents humanity by laying his own life down, which means he now is the all-sufficient sacrifice and he does so in the all-sufficient way by going right into the presence of God and laying his life down. Jesus is our substitute who has now provided permanent atonement for our sins. The price has been paid because of what Christ has accomplished for us. This is how he saves us from our sins. Jesus, watch this. Jesus is the great high priest who lays himself down. And the Bible says, look what it says again in verse number 26. He says, for then he would have to lay himself down and he would have to have suffered repeatedly since the foundations of the world, but as it is, he appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by sacrifice, the sacrifice of himself once and for all. Jesus in our place shedding his own blood to cover the sins of humanity. I was right here for a second. The baby in the manger was born to die. The blood on the cross would have been unmistakable for those who are watching,

especially the disciples who understood the things that Jesus said, that this is what he meant. This is what John meant when he declared, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That Jesus Christ would offer himself up as the sacrifice. Now the writer of Hebrews goes on to expound on this to give us even greater insight and really he repeats some of the things that he has already said, but he brings it to this finality and the evidence of the finished work of Christ. Look what happens in verse 11 of chapter 10. He says, and every high priest stands daily at his service. In other words, he stands at his post at the. What does he do in there? Offering repeatedly the same sacrifices. Watch this, which can never take away sins. It can only temporarily push back sin's consequences. Notice what he's saying. Every day, the priest is a stand, and he stands there. Why? The job isn't done. Every day, there's more sacrifices, and the next day, more sacrifices, and the next day, more sacrifices. Why? Because there's not a sacrifice that the high priest can give that fully atones the sins of the world. It is on repeat.

Why? Because it's insufficient. But notice what he says about Jesus. He says, but when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, watch the posture of Jesus. He sat down at the right hand of God. Notice the posture change. Under the old sacrificial system, the priest never sat down. Why? Because the job was never over. He stood there every day, sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice. Why? Because it wasn't enough to atone the sin of humanity, so it had to be repeated over and over and over again. So the high priest was always on guard, always standing, always ready, always waiting for the next sacrifice over and over and over again. But Christ, the great high priest, when he went in and offered himself once and for all, it says afterwards, his resurrection, he sat down at the right hand of the Father. Why did he sit down? You know why he sat down? Because the job has been completed. The payment has been made. There's no longer a reason for Jesus to stand. He can now sit.

The posture of him sitting is a declaration, paid in full. It is finished. The final sacrifice has been made. And I love this. Not only does it tell us that he's sitting, but he's telling us how he's sitting. Look at verse 13. Waiting from that time until his enemies shall be made a footstool under his feet. This is a declaration about the absolute victory that Jesus has secured. Remember, the greatest enemy of humanity is sin and death. But because Jesus offered the great final sacrifice and has been seated at the right hand of the Father, it says he's waiting until the day that his enemy has made his footstool. Say, what in the world is a footstool? Well, you should know this. You're from East Texas. Most of you have grown up in homes with recliners, right? In our house, we don't have that. We have a chair with an ottoman, which is a mechanically insufficient recliner. And so we sit down. I love this. This is one of my favorite parts of the afternoon for me. After a long day's work, getting in, sitting down, sinking low in the chair, and man, put my feet up.

Why? Man, because the day's over. Complete rest. Put your feet up, why? Because you don't plan on being on them again. This idea of just rest. I love what the writer of Hebrews says, is that Jesus's posture right now is that of sitting, and you know what he's waiting on? He's waiting until the ottoman is brought out. And what is the ottoman for Jesus? It is the enemies that he has already defeated on the cross. The enemy of sin and death, the evil one who has caused so much wickedness and corruption. Everyone who has been opposed to the name of Jesus Christ, who has stood in opposition to his rule and reign. One of these days, this king is gonna have his feet propped up, and his feet are gonna be propped up on the heads of his enemy. You see, here is the thing. You and I, man, we sit around, and we look at the news and the conditions of the world, and we wring our hands, and we're like, man, what's gonna happen? And so we go to a news station, a news station, and we're wondering, man, where is this thing heading? Let me tell you where it's heading, because Jesus Christ, the great high priest, has offered the great sacrifice, and he has ultimately defeated the enemy. Here is the future.

It's King Jesus with the enemies under his feet, and we reigning alongside of him for all eternity because of what he has accomplished on the cross for our sins, amen? This is what is in our future. So we don't have to worry about the world. We don't sit around and go, man, what's gonna happen? We can put our head up and our shoulders back and face the enemy and say, you know what? We got a message, and we want the world to hear it. King Jesus, our great redeemer, died, and he rose again. Sitting on his throne and all the enemies of him one day will be under his feet and we will reign forever and we declare to a world come in and join but we don't have to wring our hands we don't have to live in fear we don't live in anxiety we know in the end Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection has already secured for us our eternity is anybody thankful for that this Christmas this is what we're celebrating King Jesus ruling and reigning I love what he says here the evidence of this he says for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified this is a huge statement here he has perfected you know what that means so watch this this is the way substitutionary atonement works our sin is transferred to Jesus his righteousness is transferred to us so that if you are in Christ you have already been perfected you carry the righteousness of Christ it's as if you've never sinned when you stand before God if you are in Christ now watch what he says here he says offering has perfected for all times those who are being sanctified now we have been perfected because we've received his righteousness and now here's the beauty of the gospel the life of a Christian is us working out the perfection that we've already received it's becoming like Christ more and more and more so both the righteousness that we have received and the righteousness that we're learning to walk in listen both of that both of those things are a byproduct of what Christ has done for us in his death and resurrection and this is the this is the evidence that this has happened in our life look what he goes on to say in verse 15 he says for the holy spirit also bears witness to us for after saying

this is the covenant that i am making with them after those days declares the lord i will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds then he adds i will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more if you are in Christ your sins and lawless deeds he doesn't remember them any longer as far as the east is from the west so far as he's moved our transgressions from us this is what Christ has done and where there is forgiveness of these there is no longer any offering for sin you know he's saying here he's saying now through the work of the holy spirit this perfection that we have received is working itself out of us slowly we are becoming more and more and more and more like Christ and we can live with a clear conscience because we know that the entire debt of our sin has been eliminated it's been nailed to a cross there's some of you in this room this morning and i just want to love you enough to say stop trying to make sacrifices stop trying to make sacrifices to reconcile your relationship with God there's so many in the church that gather every week and we say amen to the cross we don't realize the sufficiency of the cross and so therefore we're trying to make continual sacrifices going man if i go to church more maybe God will love me or if i stop doing this maybe God will love me if i become a better person maybe God will have approval of my life and maybe if i go on mission trip then maybe i can earn some favor with God and there's never peace or rest in your heart because you're trying to earn favor that's already been freely given ultimate peace comes from when you exhale and rest in Christ and you fully put the weight of your eternity on him and him alone you see we make different types of sacrifices but there's only one sacrifice that's sufficient and that's the one that Jesus has made on your behalf so what i want to do this morning i want i want to say there are some of you this morning and maybe for you it's like the gospel you always heard finally makes sense and you're at a place where you're ready to stop trusting in anything else you've been trusting in and say you know what if that's what Christ has done then i want to rest fully in him i want to be perfected by his sacrifice and there's some of you that this is what you desperately need and some of you right now that you're sensing in your heart that's stirring and going math because he's talking to me and i'll just remind you like i do often if you're sensing that it is not me it is the holy spirit bringing it to your heart is the holy spirit

to understanding, for some of you, it's like, all of a sudden, the lights are going off, going, that's what it's all about. That is the Holy Spirit giving you eyes to see. So we're gonna respond in two ways. One is gonna be for those who need to respond in salvation, and the other is for those who have to remember what we've just studied through the receiving of the Lord's Supper. So I'm gonna ask you to bow your heads if you would, and for those in the room who are sensing a need for this, as you're like, I don't know that I know Christ. Maybe I've been trying to earn my own favor or do a little bit of good, and I believe in Him, but I've never trusted in Him and Him alone. And I wanna say to those of you in this room, this is where I feel like the many are in this room. Jesus is a supplement in your life, but He's not the Savior of your life. And you're trying to supplement your good works and your self-effort with a little bit of Jesus, and I'm here to tell you, it is not enough. The Bible calls you to surrender completely to Christ. And if that is where you are, and you're like, I need to trust Christ as my Lord and Savior today, I'm sensing the Lord telling me I need to trust Him, then here's what I want you to do. Right now, where you are, in your own words, you can pray a prayer that sounds something like this. Jesus, God, I'm a sinner, and I need a Savior.

I believe that you died for my sins, and I believe you're the only hope for eternal life. Jesus, I wanna repent. I wanna relinquish control of my life, and I want to be made new. Jesus, thank you for being the sacrifice. Come and live inside of me. For those of you who prayed that prayer just a moment ago, or you wanna receive Christ, and you wanna talk to somebody about that, I'm gonna ask you to do something right now, just with no one looking around, I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand if that's you. If this morning, you just prayed to receive Christ, raise your hand really high and look up at me. I wanna be able to pray for you today. Just raise your hand really high if that's you. Say, Pastor, I just prayed to receive Christ, or I want a relationship with Him. Just raise your hand really high, and look up at me, just keep it up. It takes courage. It takes faith. From the confession of everyone in the room, at least to what I've seen, if I miss someone, then I encourage you to let one of our encouragers know. But from the confession of what I'm seeing in the room, either everyone in this room is a believer, or some of you are saying no to Jesus today.

And I wanna speak to those who know Him. In a moment, we're gonna take the bread, and we're gonna take the cup, and we're gonna remember what we just talked about. You're gonna hold the bread, and you're gonna remember Jesus' body broken for your sins. This is what brings about salvation. The bread only represents what Jesus has accomplished for us. And then we're gonna take the cup, and we're gonna remember without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin, and we're gonna drink of the cup, and we're gonna remember that it was the blood spilled out of the body of Jesus that has covered and atoned the sin of humanity. Prepare your hearts. Let this be an act of worship. We're gonna sing during this time. I encourage you to sing, pray. Thank the Lord for His work. Father, I love you, and I thank you, Lord, that as we now prepare to receive the table, Lord, we are asking that you would allow our hearts to be overwhelmed with your grace and your goodness, that we remember you rightly, that we are able to, with pure hearts and a clear conscience, commemorate your broken body and your shed blood. Jesus, we are asking, Lord, for you to

Deepen our love and understanding for what you've done.