The Complete Sacrifice
Hebrews 9:1-22 ·June 8, 2025· Joel Passmore
Part of: Hebrews, Toward an Enduring Faith
Pastor Joel Passmore continues a sermon series titled "Toward an Enduring Faith" in which he reminds us that Jesus' sacrifice was so perfect it only had to be done once.
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My name is Joel, in case you don't know that, and I'm happy to be serving you all, serving this church as pastor, and serving you in the pulpit today. So, Edgar Allen Poe has a short story called The Telltale Heart. You've probably heard of it. Here's the gist. Spoiler alert. A man commits murder and then hides the body under the floorboards of his house, and then when the police come to investigate, he's at first calm and collected, but then he starts hearing the victim's heart from underneath the floorboards. It gets louder and louder and louder until he finally confesses to the crime. He just can't take it anymore.
This story is in curriculums all over, I think all over the English-speaking world probably. Students read this at some point in school. It's usually middle school, from my own experience, from what I look up, it's middle school. I'm sure there's all kinds of reasons for that, but I think one of them is to remind students at this crucial point in their life, hey, you know that feeling inside you that kind of bothers you when you do something wrong?
That's your conscience, and you should pay attention to that. I don't know. Maybe some educators here can tell me later whether or not that's really the reason why it gets taught to middle schoolers, but I was one of those kids in middle school. I needed to hear that feeling is something to pay attention to. After doing something wrong, we are all caught in a very familiar dilemma, aren't we? If we confess, there's going to be consequences. But if we hide it, we have that gnawing feeling inside of us. Now, what should we do about a guilty conscience?
What is there to do about a guilty conscience? It's the universal question. And I'm here to tell you that God has an answer for that. God has an answer for the guilty conscience. It's a way to free sinners from their guilt, real freedom from guilt. Can you imagine? The work of Jesus for us, that's God's solution for our guilt. A work that is so sufficient, he only had to do it one time. One time, and it was done. So we're going to continue in our sermon series on Hebrews. It's called Toward an Enduring Faith. I'd love for you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 9. It's chapter 9, right? Okay, yeah. Chapter 9. And let's read this together. Let's kneel before God's word.
Let's come and come quickly because God has good news for us here. And let's come quickly, not just because of the good news, but because he is the Lord. And he speaks infallibly through his word. His word is infallible. And we should attend to it with every bit of seriousness and hope and hunger and thirst. Every bit of it. Let's bring it to the Lord today as we come before his word. Now, even the first covenant had regulations for worship in an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was prepared, the first section in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the presence. It is called the holy place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the most holy place, having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold in which was a golden urn holding the manna and Aaron's staff that budded and the tablets of the covenant. Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail. These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section performing their ritual duties, but into the second only the high priest goes. And he but once a year and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. By this, the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing, which is symbolic for the present age. According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper,
but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation, the time of reformation. 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 an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer 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 to serve the living God.
Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore, under not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.
For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of the calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, this is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you. And in the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Pray with me. Lord God, come near to us now. Give us an attentiveness to your word, open ears and open hearts that come from the working of your spirit. Because you tell us, not by might, not by power, but by my spirit. So Lord, by your spirit, we want to be shaped and formed by your word.
Lord, we want to see the hope that we have in Christ. We want to exalt him more, more fully in our own lives. We want to understand the salvation that we have in him and we want to hold onto it more dearly and give thanks for it with a, with a, with a warmer heart, Lord. And most of all, Lord, we ask you to remind us of the purified conscience we have in Christ Jesus, our Lord. It's in his name we pray. Amen. Jesus is the complete sacrifice. The only way to a purified conscience is through Jesus who offered himself. So we're in the book, we're in the heart of the book of Hebrews, the dead center. It's from seven chapter seven through chapter 10, verse 18. And I'm trying to condense it down. It's a lot there.
I want to try to condense it down into four parts. This is the third part. Here's the roadmap for this. We talked about the greatest intercessor, Jesus, the final priest. We talked about his better ministry last week. Today is the complete sacrifice. And next week we'll talk about the eternal outcome. So go back to the previous slot, actually, because I didn't read this. Jesus is the complete sacrifice. He's the only way to a purified conscience is through Jesus who offered himself.
The only way. So let's start talking about our problem with guilt. We've all been there before when your conscience is bothering you. And when your conscience is bothering you, it comes out sideways. You act jumpy. You get irritable. You tear up your floorboards and hide things under them. Or you just plain old avoid the person that you've wronged, even when it's really difficult to do. Have you ever tried to avoid someone that you live with because you feel guilty about something that you've done? It is really awkward to try to avoid someone that you live with.
Our first parents did that. After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they heard him coming and they hid in the bushes. What did they think was going to happen, I wonder? That he would walk around and be like, hmm, I guess they moved out. Can't find them. Hope they sent me a postcard. But we do the same thing when we feel guilty. We not only do we avoid the person that we have done something wrong against, but we avoid God. We try to avoid him as if we can actually avoid him, as if he's not actually everywhere. Trying to figure out what we do with our guilt is the original human problem. This is the first problem that Adam and Eve face after they sinned. What do we do now?
What do we do with our guilty conscience? We come up with all kinds of strategies to deal with our guilt, to deal with this problem. We label the guilt as something psychological. We call it a lack of self-esteem. We say to ourselves and we say to each other, you just need to accept yourself, warts and all. Just accept yourself as you are. Just feel better about yourself. Another approach is to find someone else to blame. Whatever we did, it's not our fault.
Whatever happened to us, whatever state we're in, it's not our fault. It's our parents' fault. Or our grandparents' fault. Or our boss's fault. Or our boss's parents' fault. Or our parents' boss's fault. Or the culture's fault. Or maybe it's God's fault. We look around for someone to blame. These are two modern strategies for dealing with our guilt. But there are another two that are timeless. One is just deny it altogether. This is different than the self-esteem one. The self-esteem one acknowledges it and says, but I'm fine. The denial says, there is nothing wrong with me.
Push it away until you don't feel it anymore. I've seen a bumper sticker, you know, we talk about, because Jesus talks about this, the need to be born again. Have you ever seen that bumper sticker that says, born right the first time? That's denial.
Plain old denial. I don't need to be born again. I was born right the first time. Or finally, we try really hard to be good. We just clean ourselves up. We do lots of good deeds. Maybe some of them are in church. Maybe church participation is one of the things that we put on that list. I'm going to do a lot of good things. I'm going to be nice. I'm going to hold the door open for people when I go to the gas station. Is anyone noticing? Look how many people I held the door for? I'm going to wave people into traffic. Yeah, go on in. Go on in. You can merge in front of me. What a good person I am. Surely we think if we do enough of this, the scales will tip in our favor. I won't be judged for the bad if I do a whole bunch of good things. If I just get those scales pointed in my direction, that's going to deal with my guilt problem. All of these four things, this is what we do so that we can look at ourselves in the mirror and say, you know what? I think I'm going to be okay. I bet that's what Adam and Eve did to each other when they sewed those fig leaves on.
Adam stands back and is like, Eve, how do I look? She's like, yeah, I think he's going to buy it. All of these strategies are fig leaves. Flimsy coverage that is not fooling anyone, especially God. And in these quiet moments in our life, these strategies, they don't even fool us. We know that they're not working. We feel it inside of us. And we feel it because it's real. There is a problem. And yes, it is us. Sin does not just make a relational break between us and God.
God, we are personally and truly defiled by sin. That's why Adam, when he was called out, said to God, I was afraid because I was naked and I hid. That's a statement about who he was. I was naked.
Note that this was after they made the fig leaves. He knows. He knows those things aren't doing anything. When the prophet Isaiah saw the Lord in a vision, he said, woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips. Not I told a lie yesterday or one time a long time ago, but I am a man of unclean lips. That defines who I am. Woe is me. And when Peter recognized for the first time, the divinity of Jesus, he said, depart from me for I am a sinful man. Oh Lord, not depart from me. I did something bad yesterday. I am a sinful man. I just want you to stare at those things and acknowledge that we all get deeply uncomfortable with these responses. When we hear people doing this, this in the same way that Adam and Isaiah and Peter did, we go running for the fig leaves and try to put it on them. No, no, no, no, no. Don't, don't say that. But these responses are actually healthy because they're honest. There are no fig leaves here. There's no strategies. There's no attempts to appear put together and fine. Just raw honesty from someone who is guilty standing next to someone who is holy.
Raw honesty from someone who is guilty next to someone who is holy. They're honest, but honesty does not solve the problem. Fortunately, praise God, he provides a solution. God provides a solution. Man created the problem. God provides a solution. That's the pattern. God comes to the rescue. It starts with Adam and Eve. Let's rewind again back to them. God said, take off those stupid fig leaves. They're barely covering anything. You look ridiculous. I've got something better.
And he hands them animal skins. The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Now this is very important. The first death in all of creation was done by God to help people with their guilt. This tells us two really important things. First of all, to deal with sin, death is required. God told them the penalty for disobeying him would be death. And they feel guilty because they are guilty. Guilty of high-handed treason. Do you know treason? In almost every country, treason against the country, it's a capital offense. They committed high-handed treason, disregarding God's command, and death is the punishment. But second, this shows us that God is merciful to provide a substitute. It was grace to spare them from immediate death and instead to cover them. He gave them something to deal with their guilt. Adam and Eve walked away saying, you know what? We messed up big time. We lost it. We lost the garden. We lost the kind of relationship we have with God. There are now curses on us. But instead of giving us the full punishment that we deserve, he let us live. And he addressed our guilt. They walked away saying, our God is merciful.
Praise God for his mercy. Man created the problem and God provided the solution. The next level of that solution was the sacrificial system in the laws that God gave Moses. This is what is described in verses 1 through 10 of this verse, of this passage. It's describing the sacrificial system. The people and the priests were doing this constantly, all the time. Again, to give them this was God's mercy to give them a way to deal with their guilt. The blood of animals was shed every day.
Every day in Israel. Every day on the way to what became Israel. Blood was shed every day and it was sprinkled on people to make them symbolically clean. The blood was put on the altar for their ongoing sin. Verse 22 says, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood. Now this seems really strange to us, right? If we see blood on something, we're going to think that it's unclean. We want to clean that up. Blood is a contaminant to us. In this system, blood symbolized the giving of a life for the penalty of sin. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.
There has to be death for there to be atonement and forgiveness. And the blood symbolized the giving of a life. Animals' lives in place of people. It wasn't the blood itself that was how it's magical for some reason. It was a sacrifice behind it, given according to God's instruction that the people trusted in. The highest level of sacrifice happened on the day of atonement. This is the once per year ritual mentioned in verse 7. It's done by the high priest all by himself. The whole week leading up to the day of atonement, the priest, the high priest is in the temple, day and night, all the time. He sleeps there. He stays there. He's staying clean. He's practicing every day the ritual that he will do on the day of atonement so he doesn't mess it up. The morning of the day, he bathes his entire body. And then he sacrifices first a bull for his own sins. He puts incense on a heap of burning coals, and it creates a cloud that fills the place. And then he opens the curtain, and he goes into the most holy place.
And he takes the bull's blood for his own sins, and he sprinkles it on the mercy seat, the place where God's glory dwelt, in between the cherubim. He sprinkles it on that, and then he walks out again. And he does the next thing, the goat, which is sacrificed for the sins of all the people. And he repeats the whole process again. He sacrifices that goat, and he takes the blood, and he puts on more incense, and he walks back into the most holy place, and he sprinkles it on the mercy seat for the people's sins, and seven times in front of it. And then he comes out, and he puts it on the altar that's outside the most holy place, seven times. When the day of atonement was finished, there was a huge feast, a celebration. Because once again, their guilt had been dealt with, their sins had been covered, and taken away from them. And yet, they did it again the next year.
It was not a complete solution. It never could be. The barriers were still there. The curtain separated God's presence from the rest of the temple. The temple walls separated the temple grounds from the people. The restrictions were still in place. It was only the high priest who could enter and him only one time a year. And even worse, even worse, the people still did not have a totally clean conscience. How could they? The sacrifices were just going on and on. They saw blood shed over and over. I read that there was a channel cut, a sluice cut, going away from the tabernacle so that all the blood could be drained away. Because there was so much blood. All the time. How could you have a clean conscience if you're seeing this keep going over and over and over? Day after day, year after year, according to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the conscience of the worshiper. They just can't do it. They can never perfect the conscience of the worshiper. God had graciously provided this elaborate system for people to deal with their guilt. A place to do it. People to do it for them. With all kinds of special clothing and equipment. And yet, it still wasn't enough. But God wasn't finished. All of this was preparing and pointing forward to the once for all offering. Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come. The good things that are true today. He entered not some earthly tabernacle or tent or sanctuary, but through the greater and more perfect tent. He entered into the holy places. And friends,
he did it once for all. I hardly do anything once. Anything around the house. Anything for work. It's all has to be done over and over. He did this once for all. And the reason why he did it once is because every year those priests offered other people's blood. Animals blood. But he came in not by the means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood. He came in with a better sacrifice. Instead of an animal substitute, a person has stepped in. Voluntarily, I will remind you, and he put himself up as a sacrifice for sins. That's of infinitely higher value.
More appropriate for redemption considering it was people that sinned, right? Of course, it should be a person that provides atonement. But of course, Jesus was no ordinary person, was he? Because he was fully God, his innocence and his righteousness was infinite. His blood could save an immeasurable multitude of people. And each one of them atoned for completely from sins past, present, and future. You could think of when he fed the 5,000, right? There could have been 50,000 people there, 50 million people there.
That bread and that fish would have kept going and everyone would have been full. His blood is immeasurably valuable because his sacrifice is immeasurably valuable. It covers the sins completely of as many people as come to him in repentance and faith. The earlier solutions provided a temporary cover for guilt, but now how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, how much more will that purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Through his sacrifice, his blood shed for sinners, it is finally possible to have a clean conscience because his solution is the final one for guilt. Friends, which strategies are you using to cover your guilt instead of Christ's? What are your fig leaves? What are your fig leaves?
Do you call your guilt a self-esteem problem and just demand that God accept you as you are? Do you avoid responsibility and blame other people? Do you deny that there is anything at all to be guilty about or do you just work really hard to be a good person? Hoping that it will outweigh your sins? None of these strategies will work. And I stand before you as an ambassador of Christ pleading with you to lay those flimsy fig leaves down and hide yourself in Christ completely and fully. The only way to a clean conscience is through the blood of Christ because that's the only way your sins will be completely atoned for. As long as you avoid this solution, you will never rest easy. But if you come to him in repentance and faith, if you surrender to him and say, yes, I need to be cleansed.
I'm a man of unclean lips. I'm a woman of unclean lips. I know I'm naked. I am a sinful man. I'm a sinful woman, O Lord. If you come to him in that way and you say, I need your sacrifice for me. I'm yours and you are mine. Then you will be forgiven and made clean. It's true. And when that happens, you can begin living with a clean conscience. If you're in Christ by faith, your conscience has been purified. So why don't we feel like it? Why don't we feel like it? I want this purified conscience to be an ongoing experience for you. An ongoing experience for me. So I want to give you to close here three practical things to do. Three practical ways to walk forward in a clean conscience so that you can experience it for yourself in a more consistent way in your life. Because I know that you struggle with it. I do too. It's ours in Christ, but we want to live in that reality more. Don't we?
Don't you? Church, do you? Yes, you do. So here's the first one. Take sin seriously. God tells us to flee from temptation. To run away from it. Yet too often we keep it close at hand. You know, sure I can watch this movie. I can use this app. I can be around this person. Sure, I may be tempted, but you know, I can handle it. You need to recognize when that is foolish. It's impossible to completely avoid temptation, but don't, can't you admit with me that there's so many times when it is under our control, how much temptation we're around. You won't experience a purified conscience if you keep flirting with sin.
Because you know, sin's flirting with you. And when you do sin, take sin seriously by not hiding. Don't hide. Repent. We heard earlier from 1 John, a beautiful passage from 1 John. Very practical. He's saying, confess your sins. If we hide it, we waste away. We call God a liar. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and confess your sins specifically. I find that the more generic and nebulous the repentance is, the less helpful it is for cleansing you, cleansing your conscience and sanctifying your character.
If you repent in a nebulous way, you're not going to feel it quite as thoroughly. But when you're specific, when you go to the depths of naming, not just, Lord, this is what I did, but this is why I did it. This is who I hurt. This is what I was chasing after. And this is how you're better. When you confess specifically, it is more helpful for your restoration. You're going to walk away with a more keener sense of your purified conscience.
Second is this. Trust Jesus alone. Jesus alone saves, right? Amen? Hallelujah? So many Christians, including me, testify to that loudly and proudly. Jesus alone saves. Hallelujah. But then some of those same Christians privately worry, have I done enough? But wait a minute, I thought Jesus alone saves. See, our old self is always inclined to sneak in the back door a little bit of our own work and add it to the mix. Add it to the mix. Because what we want really in our old self, our old flesh, what we want is Jesus saves. And I helped a little bit too. That's what we want.
Jesus saves. And let me tell you about the thing that I did to help. Because then some of the glory is ours is ours, right? Does Jesus need your help to save you? No, he does not. Can you add anything to the infinite value of the blood of Christ? No, you cannot. No, you cannot. But if you try to, your conscience will never feel clean. If you think about your virtue or your charity or your good works and you think that they play any part in making you righteous before God, you will never rest easy.
Do you know why? Because those things are not good enough. And your heart knows it. Your heart knows it. Your conscience is telling you something. The spirit is telling you something. You're trying to add to Jesus's work as if it's not enough to save you. And you feel ill at ease. It doesn't matter if you believe it's 75% Jesus and 25% you or 90% Jesus and 10% you or 99.9% Jesus and 0.1% you. If there's any part of your works that you think makes you righteous before God, you won't rest easy. Trust Jesus alone. It is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It's not your own doing. It is a gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. What he has offered is enough. Trust it. Here's the last one. Serve him. Verse 14 says, our consciences are purified to serve the living God. God did not save you so that you could follow your dreams. When you live like that, you will not live in it with a purified conscience. God did not save you to chart your own course. If you live that way, you are just going against the grain, the grain of his design, his purpose for you. If you're still the king or queen of your life, your conscience will be troubled. On the other hand, on the other hand, few things assure our hearts like obeying God in humble reliance on the grace of the Holy Spirit. He is the king and we're citizens of his kingdom. That's true whether we like it or not. But when we go along with it, when we follow him, we begin to see it is exactly what we were made for. You're doing the thing that
you were made to do. And boy, it feels good. A purified conscience is for his purpose. And his purpose is complete in him.