The following is a sermon transcript from our Sunday Service at The Rock Church in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Each week, we gather to worship, learn from God’s Word, and grow together. This transcript is provided as a free resource to encourage and equip you in your walk with Christ. While you’re welcome to read and share this content for personal use, we kindly ask that it not be redistributed or published elsewhere without prior written consent from The Rock Church.
Introduction
Happy fall, y’all. Although for some of us, it hasn’t been so happy. The summer was great, but man, things have really ramped up. School starts, practices are happening, you’re driving everywhere. Work hasn’t slowed down. Someone in the family is sick. Doctor’s appointments seem to multiply. Church responsibilities continue. And that calendar, man, that thing keeps filling up. The result is you’re tired.
And after a while, you start noticing something else. You’re not just tired. You start thinking about all the ways that you fall short when you’re tired. You’re impatient with the kids. You snap at the spouse. You haven’t prayed much. You haven’t opened your Bible much. Missed an opportunity to care for someone. And now here you are on a Sunday morning and your mind is distracted. Someone needs you and you think, man, I don’t have anything left to give.
And that’s exactly when the conscience starts getting really loud. You should be doing better than this. You’re supposed to be a Christian. Why are you still struggling with that same sin? God can’t be pleased with you now. And so what do we do next? Well, we start thinking about what I need to do to fix it. Lord, I’ll do better this week. I’ll pray more. I promise. I’ll get back into the Word. I’ll be more patient. I’ll get myself together. In other words, the troubled conscience starts saying, but I… But I need to do more. But I need to be better. But I need to make up for what I’ve done.
And that’s why the opening words of this passage are so incredible. Hebrews doesn’t answer your conscience by saying, but I. It’s not with more things for us to do. It’s those two words. They’re right on the screen. Shout them out. But Christ.
Last week we saw the limitations of the old covenant. There was a tabernacle. There were priests. There were sacrifices offered. Blood was shed. Worshippers could be made only ceremonially clean. But the reality is that none of it could cleanse the conscience. But Christ has come. He has done what no priest, no sacrifice, religious ritual, or human effort could ever do.
So here’s what I want you to see this morning. The big idea: Our works can never accomplish what Christ’s finished work secured.
And we’re going to see that throughout these four verses. The first, you’ll see that we cannot secure our salvation, but Christ has secured it once and for all and forever. We’re also going to see that we cannot work our way into a clean conscience, but Christ’s blood gives us a clean conscience. Third, we cannot work our way into God’s favor, but Christ frees us to worship from God’s favor.
So look at how verse 11 begins: “But when Christ appeared.” There it is again, but Christ. And here’s the first thing that I want you to see this morning.
1. We Cannot Secure Our Own Salvation — But Christ Secured It Once for All and Forever
(Hebrews 9:11–12)
Let’s read again verses 11 to 12, Hebrews chapter 9.
“But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing himself an eternal redemption.”
This is the great turning point, I would argue, in this chapter. But Christ appeared. In verses 1 to 10, we saw all the details of the furnishings of the tabernacle, but it was never meant to be permanent. It could never cleanse the conscience from the guilt of sin before a holy God. It was always pointing forward to someone, and we know that someone is Jesus Christ. He’s appeared. He’s come. He’s our great and glorious Savior, the eternal Son of God who took on flesh to dwell among us, suffer, die, rise from the grave, and then appear, as it says here.
Listen, our faith does not begin with what we do. It begins with what God has done for us. Christ is the subject here. He has appeared, and he has accomplished fully what the old priestly system could only anticipate. No human being ever found their way to God. No lasting cleansing of the conscience was available. But Christ came for us. He came to seek and to save the lost. He came for the broken and the weak. He came for weary sinners like you and me. Jesus didn’t simply appear by chance. He is the promised Messiah. And Hebrews doesn’t begin by asking, hey, what now needs to come from you? No, it announces who has come for you. But Christ.
And notice how he appeared. The author calls him our high priest. Why? Why? Because as sinners, we need someone who can truly represent us before God. He must be truly man to represent us. He must be truly God for his saving work to have infinite worth and power. And in Jesus Christ, we got both. Truly God, truly man, one person, our perfect mediator.
As we saw last week, we don’t just casually stroll into the presence of a living God. His holiness is beyond our comprehension. He dwells in unapproachable light. In him there is no darkness at all. His glory so weighty and pure that sin cannot stand in his presence. This is the holy God through which Jesus has brought us near. He is able to save to the uttermost. He is both the priest and the sacrifice.
And notice what kind of high priest he is. He’s the high priest of the good things that have come. That doesn’t mean that Christ has come to give you good things. Man, do you want a comfortable, enjoyable life? Christ has come to give you the good things. That’s not it at all. He has come with the good things of his kingdom. He has freely granted us access to God. He has cleansed us. He has washed us. We have been redeemed. We have been paid for. We’ve been forgiven, conscience cleansed. And now true worship comes.
Some of you came this morning thinking, man, I need to pray more. I need to get my life together. But again, Hebrews doesn’t begin with what you need to accomplish. It begins with what Christ has accomplished for you.
Notice that. Where does our high priest go? He goes into the greater sanctuary. The earthly high priest, they would disappear behind that curtain into the Holy of Holies, all made with human hands. But Christ entered heaven itself. The greater and more perfect tent points us to the true heavenly sanctuary. All of these types and shadows, beginning in the Garden of Eden and the temple that was proper there, and all the way through, and now realized: heaven itself, the very presence of God. Christ appears in the true presence of God on our behalf.
That’s why we sang that hymn, “Before the Throne of God Above.” I want you to think about that for a moment. There is a throne above. And before that throne is our great high priest. Not another son of Aaron. Not a sinful priest carrying the blood of another sacrifice. No, Christ himself.
So what does that mean for you? When your conscience says, look at your sin, faith will tell you then, look at my Savior. When your conscience says, how could God ever possibly receive you? Faith looks toward heaven and sees Christ before the throne of God above. When you wonder whether your salvation is secure, don’t begin by looking at how well you performed this last week. I want you to look up. Your salvation is secure because your high priest is there now. His sacrifice has been offered. His blood has been shed. Redemption has been secured. And Christ is before the throne of God above for you.
How did he do that? By his own blood. Verse 12 tells us, “not by means of blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood.” Remember, the old high priest had to enter with someone or something else, blood there. Christ entered by virtue of his own blood. Again, he’s both priest and the sacrifice. On the Day of Atonement, you got the goat slain. Another goat symbolically carried the people’s sins away. One pictured the payment and the other pictured the removal. Listen, Christ fulfills both realities. He pays for our guilt and carries it away outside the camp.
Why? Because look at those next words: once for all. Once for all. Not for a little while. Not until you sinned again. Not until you’ve had a bad week. Not until your faith grows weak. Not until your conscience starts accusing you again. Once for all. No more sacrifice. No more blood to be shed. No more payment to be made. No more priest to return year after year after year. Christ entered once for all. The sacrifice has been offered. The price has been paid. Redemption is secured. It is finished.
And yet, for some reason, we keep saying, but I… But I failed again. But I sinned again. But I haven’t done enough. Christ, Christian, your hope was never that you would finally do enough. That’s not your hope. But Christ, he did enough. He offered himself once for all.
And look what he obtained: eternal redemption. Christ secured our eternal redemption. He purchased our freedom from the penalty of sin. Secured it. Forever. Don’t rush past that word. It says eternal. It’s not without end. It does not expire. It doesn’t have to be renewed after your next failure. Christ does not redeem you today and then reconsider tomorrow. This is eternal redemption. We cannot secure this. This is not upon us. Christ has secured it once and for all and forever. I want you to rest in that, dear Christian.
2. We Cannot Work Our Way into a Clean Conscience — But Christ’s Blood Gives Us a Clean Conscience
(Hebrews 9:13–14a)
And that leads us to our next question. If Christ has taken the guilt away, why do I try to carry what he has already carried? That’s where the author is going to take us, because it’s possible for the sacrifice to be finished and for your conscience to feel, well, rather unfinished. And that’s where we’re going to read verses 13 to 14a as we consider the next point: that we cannot work our way into a clean conscience.
“…sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer. Man, if they can sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works.”
Let’s stop right there. What’s the author doing here? He’s arguing from the lesser to the greater. Notice that conditional statement in verse 13: “For if the blood of goats and bulls.” But the author also mentions the ashes of a heifer. This cow. Go back to Numbers 19, you’ll see there, if someone came in contact with a dead body, they became ceremonially unclean. God provided a way for them to be cleansed through the ashes of a red heifer mixed with water. And once cleansed, then they could return back into the worshiping community.
But notice something interesting here. The heifer was taken outside the camp, slaughtered there. Later in Hebrews 13, the author tells us that Jesus also suffered outside the gate. The one who cleanses the unclean suffered outside the city. Christ went outside so that sinners like you and I could come inside.
But here’s the limitation of those Old Testament sacrifices. They could make someone ceremonially clean. Great. But they could not cleanse the conscience from the guilt of sin. And that leaves us with a much deeper question: what can cleanse my conscience?
That’s why the next phrase is so important. How much more? Focus your attention right there. Don’t leave that spot. How much more? If the ashes of a heifer could restore someone who had been defiled by contact with the dead, how much more can the sacrifice of Christ cleanse the conscience from the guilt of sin? If the shadow could do what God appointed the shadow to do, namely the heifer and the bulls, how much more the substance, Christ.
And yet some of us live as though our sin is greater than Christ’s blood. We look at what we’ve done and we think to ourselves, surely this is too much. Too many times, too ugly, too deliberate. I’ve known better for too long. But listen to the logic of Hebrews. How much more? Your sin is great, but Christ is greater. Your guilt is real, but Christ’s blood is sufficient. Your conscience may accuse you loudly, but Christ’s sacrifice speaks a better word.
Why is Christ’s blood so much greater? Look at verse 14. The author says, Christ, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without blemish to God. Through the eternal Spirit. Christ’s offering was no ordinary sacrifice. His self-offering had eternal power and effectiveness that the old sacrifices could never have. And notice what he offered. He offered life. It’s not another animal. It’s not another temporary cleansing. Not another sinner offering a sacrifice. But Christ offering himself.
The animals of the old covenant, they didn’t offer themselves willingly. They didn’t offer themselves willingly. They didn’t say, I’ll throw in for the sacrifices of the people. But Christ willingly, voluntarily, condescended, went to the cross. It was His blood. It was His life. It was His suffering. Himself. And He offered Himself without blemish. He is the spotless Lamb of God. There is no sin in him. There’s no stain. There’s no guilt. There’s nothing in him that needs to be cleansed. The one who offered himself without blemish now appears before God on behalf of sinners who have no righteousness of their own. Brothers and sisters, this is the gospel.
Notice what the sacrifice does. Verse 14 says this, that his blood cleanses our conscience from dead works. Dead works? Simply put, works that are belonging to the realm of sin and death, attached to this body of corruption that is, apart from the Spirit’s life, dead. Dead. And all those works that arise from the natural man are empty and powerless and fruitless. They cannot cleanse the guilt. They cannot reconcile us to God. They do not give us life. But that’s exactly what we keep trying to do with our own works, isn’t it?
So what does a guilty conscience look like? Well, sometimes it says, why did I say that? Okay. I knew better. Sure. I can’t believe I did that again. What would people think if they only knew what I really struggle with? How can I pray after what I just did? God is surely just tired of hearing me confessing the same thing again and again and again.
See, guilt begins to shape and change how we imagine our Heavenly Father looking toward us, His disposition toward us. Instead of seeing His fatherly pleasure and disposition toward us through the finished work of Christ, we begin to remove that work and only look through the filter of our performance. And then we start trying to cleanse our own conscience. Some of us punish ourselves. I deserve to feel terrible for a while. I’ll just crawl up in my little cave and just weep and mourn. Some withdraw from God. I’ll start praying once I get everything straightened out. Others perform. I’ll read more. I’ll pray more. I’ll serve more. I’m going to do better for you, God. But all are different strategies with the same problem. We’re trying to cleanse our own conscience.
Sometimes we even begin to think that feeling guilty is part of our payment for our sin. I can’t receive peace yet. I need to feel miserable for a while. Listen, if Christ has already paid for your sin, what exactly are you still trying to pay? You’re not honoring the sacrifice of Christ by adding your misery to payment, his payment.
Now, listen, that doesn’t mean that Christians never experience conviction — the Spirit working, how much we can grieve the Spirit for the offense of our sin. Godly conviction exposes our sin, leads us to Christ. It says, that was sin. You better confess that. You better turn from it. But remember that Christ is sufficient. But an accusing conscience keeps us looking at our sin rather than Christ. It says, that was sin. You better go, run, hide. Stay away. God doesn’t want to hear from you right now. One leads us to Christ, and the other one keeps us looking at ourselves.
A clean conscience doesn’t mean your conscience stops calling sin what it is. It means your conscience knows sin where that sin has ultimately, objectively been answered for. And a clean conscience doesn’t mean that there are no consequences to our sin. To apologize, you may need to make something right, but you do those things as a forgiven sinner, not as someone who’s trying to purchase forgiveness.
And maybe your conscience brought something with you here today. Something from last night, something from 10 years ago, something you’ve confessed a hundred times, something that nobody else knows. And your conscience keeps saying, look at what you did. Don’t answer. Don’t answer this way. Look what I’ve done since. Don’t do that. Stop. Answer, look at what Christ has done.
And the Apostle John reminds us that those who walk in the light, rather than hiding their sins, they have this wonderful promise: the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. All sin. The sin you remember. The sin that you wish you could forget. The sin that nobody knows about. All sin.
Thomas Watson puts it beautifully: No balm to cure a wounded conscience but the blood of Christ. It’s the balm, man. Not your promises, not your performance, not your punishment of yourself. The blood of Christ. We cannot work our way into a clean conscience. But Christ’s blood guarantees it, gives it, freely makes it clean.
Notice something important. Christ doesn’t cleanse our conscience so that we can just feel better about ourselves. We are not moral therapeutic deists here. We don’t subscribe to that. But I want you to look at the end of verse 14: to serve the living God. You see, Christ doesn’t just cleanse us from something. He cleanses us for something. We don’t serve God to earn his favor. We serve God because we’ve already received his favor in Christ.
3. We Cannot Work Our Way into God’s Favor — But Christ Frees Us to Worship from God’s Favor
(Hebrews 9:14b)
And that brings us to the third point. We cannot work our way into God’s favor. But Christ frees us to worship from God’s favor. That’s the 14b. It’s just the three words. Five, sorry. To serve the living God. And that is what Christ has cleansed us to do: to serve the living God.
Some of you, you see that phrase and you immediately think, okay, to serve the living God, I hear you. What else do I have to do now? What are you telling me that I must do since Christ has cleansed me? Well, there’s a church work day coming up. There’s needs in children’s ministry. And you’re already exhausted. And now you feel the weight of the law crushing you.
But listen, Hebrews isn’t giving us another assignment to earn God’s approval. The word translated serve, notice, describes worshipful service offered to God. Christ hasn’t cleansed you so that you can now start paying him back. You better show up to that event. You better do this or the other thing. You better give that amount. He’s cleansed you so that you can freely serve and worship the living God. And that worship includes certainly serving one another. But again, our service is not the price we pay for God’s favor. It’s the grateful response of those who have already received his favor in Christ.
Romans 12:1 calls us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is what? Our spiritual worship. And this has always been God’s plan for God’s people, that we would live in fellowship with him. Freedom, joy, glorifying God and enjoying him forever. It’s not some emotional state that we have to work ourselves into. It’s the privilege of living before the living God. Even when you rise in the morning and you’re exhausted, you can remind yourself, I was made to worship the living God. Psalm 73:26 says this, “My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” In other words, the privilege of worshiping God doesn’t depend upon how you’re feeling. It rests upon what Christ has accomplished.
So what does that look like, to serve the living God? Well, it begins right here. You gather to hear his word. You pray. Your voices lifted high. Praise to God and coming to the table. But it doesn’t end when we leave this building. It continues tomorrow morning when you’re packing those lunches, you’re driving the kids to practice, sitting in another doctor’s office, caring for someone who’s sick, trying to be patient with that difficult co-worker. And even when you’re exhausted and you just need to take a nap, just remember this. Just set it into your mind: my whole life belongs to God.
And here’s what’s changed here. You’re not doing those things to make God love you. You’re doing them because Christ has loved you. God has loved you in Christ. You’re not trying to earn your place in his family. You’re living as someone who already belongs to his family. You’re not working your way into God’s favor — Lord, if I do enough, you’ll just bless me. You’re worshiping from God’s favor. You see the difference?
Christ has already secured our reconciliation. That’s why this is exactly what our confession teaches. Listen to the words of the 1689 London Baptist Confession. This is chapter 8, paragraph 5:
“The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal Spirit once offered up to God, has fully satisfied the justice of God. He’s procured reconciliation, purchased an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for all those whom the Father has given him.”
Do you hear that? I mean, they’re pulling this right out of Hebrews 9. Christ offered himself through the eternal Spirit once for all. And notice what the confession says about what he accomplished. He satisfied God’s justice. He procured our reconciliation. He purchased our everlasting inheritance. Who did those things again? Christ. Not you, not me. It’s Christ. And because he’s reconciled us to God, we are now free to worship him. We don’t serve God hoping that one day he’ll finally accept us. We serve him because through Christ he already has.
And that’s why Calvin could say, The beginning of acceptable service is reconciliation. Listen, do you see that order? That matters a ton. Christ reconciles us first. The beginning of accepted service is — acceptable service is reconciliation. Because we’ve been reconciled, and now we worship.
And here’s something wonderful about the freedom Christ has given us. We don’t come before God as strangers, trying to earn a place in his house. We come as his beloved children. Romans 8:15 tells us that we have not received the spirit of fear, of slavery, to fall back into fear, but the spirit of adoption by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.” Think about that. The God whose holiness is beyond our imagination, we could never approach on our own, is now our Father. And Christ has opened the way for us to draw near. We don’t have to earn our audience with our Father. Christ has already brought us near.
Think about a little child coming to his father. He doesn’t stand outside the door rehearsing, thinking about everything he’s accomplished that day. He doesn’t present a list of chores that he’s completed, hoping that his father will finally let him in. He comes because he’s his father’s child. And that’s the freedom that Christ has purchased for us.
We open our Bibles not to earn God’s favor, but because our Father speaks to us through his word. We pray not to convince God to love us, but because our Father already loves us in Christ. We gather with God’s people not to prove our devotion, but because we have the privilege of worshiping the one who has redeemed us. And when we sin, we don’t run away from our Father. We run to Him. We confess our sin. We know that Christ has already secured our forgiveness. And even when our prayers feel weak, when our worship is distracted and our obedience is imperfect, we have a perfect high priest who represents us before God.
Brothers and sisters, that is freedom. Not freedom from obeying God, freedom to love and obey him without trying to earn his acceptance. We can’t work our way into God’s favor, but Christ frees us to worship from God’s favor.
And do you realize that the worship Christ has freed us for will never end? Hebrews 9:14 says he cleanses our conscience to serve the living God. And then when we reach the final chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22:3 tells us this: “His servants will worship him.” It’s the same word. We worship him now by grace through faith in the midst of our weakness. But one day, we will worship him face to face. No more sin, no more guilt, no more curse. The same Christ who cleanses us for worship now will bring us into perfect worship forever.
Conclusion
So as we bring all this together, I want you to remember the two words that we started with this morning. And how often do we come before God saying, but I. But I haven’t prayed enough. But I keep falling into the same sin. But I should be further along by now. And dear Christians, some of those things may be true. But Christ, he entered once for all. He obtained eternal redemption. He offered himself without blemish. He cleanses our guilty conscience, and he has brought us near to the living God.
Our works can never accomplish what Christ’s finished work secured. So stop looking to yourself for what can only be found in Christ. And I want you to rest in his finished work and draw near to your Father and worship freely. But Christ.
As we respond to God’s word, it seems fitting that we would confess our sins and trust Christ. Confess the ways that we’ve trusted our own efforts rather than resting in Christ. And let’s come before our Father. Let’s know that our hope rests in the finished work of the Son. Let’s pray together.
Closing Prayer
Merciful Father, We confess that we have sinned against You in our thoughts, in our words, in our deeds. We’ve trusted our own efforts rather than resting in the finished work of Your Son. We’ve tried to earn Your favor through our own obedience, and we’ve allowed our failures to keep us from drawing near to You. We do confess we’ve neglected prayer. We’ve wandered from Your word. We’ve failed to love You and our neighbors as we should. Lord, forgive us for keep looking to ourselves instead of looking to Christ.
Oh God, we thank You for sending Your Son, who offered Himself without blemish and secured for us eternal redemption. Lord, continue to cleanse our conscience through Your precious blood, Jesus. Teach us to rest in Your finished work and to serve You with grateful hearts.
We ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our great high priest. Amen.
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