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East Ridge SDA Church

Incarnation

Steven Grabiner

Incarnation: The Reality

Incarnation: The Revealing

Incarnation: The Reunion

Incarnation: The Regeneration

My title this morning is Incarnation, the Reunion.

And most of you know that for my work, I travel occasionally.

And there are times when you go to some place, and someone's supposed to pick you up at the air, you come to a different country, and you go to the airport, and someone's supposed to pick you up and then they're not there.

It happened on my recent trip to Cuba, it's happened different times.

And so my rule is walk out of, where you have to get your luggage, walk out and stop and just stay there.

And so sometimes, you know, it's 05:10 minutes, whatever it is.

Sometimes it's longer, and so then I sit on my luggage or I find a place to sit, and in those odd occasions where an hour or 2 or 3 has passed where I've been waiting for somebody, I start watching.

And of course at that juncture, it's a great place to watch people because there's people streaming out, either coming back home or coming on vacation.

And then there are those people meeting them.

And sometimes there's balloons and sometimes there's flowers and sometimes there's really, you know, excited extrovert signs and occasionally singing, happiness, occasionally tears, but watching reunions is an interesting event at an airport, because people are really happy to be reunited.

And do we have the same kind of anticipation and hunger for being reunited with our Creator as He has for being reunited with us.

All heaven is kind of standing outside the luggage counter waiting for us to arrive.

And when that happens, it's going to be an amazing reunion.

Over the past couple of weeks, again, as I said, we've looked at the Incarnation, and we started by looking at the risk, how real the risk was, that all heaven was imperiled in the Incarnation.

That although from our point of view it looks like how could this have failed from a heavenly perspective There was a real risk.

It was not a given that Jesus would succeed in the incarnation and of course what that means for us.

We will be studying throughout eternity Then the week after that we looked at the idea of the incarnation and how it reveals God to us.

Great heart of the incarnation is showing us God's great desire which is to be with us throughout eternity.

And then last week we looked at the reality of the incarnation and what that means for Jesus in his humanity in terms of temptations.

And that he was tempted, that he did in reality unite our offending nature with his sinless nature.

We looked at these different aspects and again this morning, I want to look at the reunion.

So If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Hebrews 10, and verse 19, Hebrews 10, starting in verse 19.

And I'm gonna be reading from the New American Standard.

For those of you that have the King James, it'll read slightly differently, but again, in verse 19, therefore brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, I believe the King James says, having confidence, and then skipping down a little bit into verse 21, and since We have a great high priest, or again the King James, and we have our high priest, or having a great high priest, over the house of God.

So in verse 19, there's a statement, because we have this, or since we have this, or having this.

Well, what is it that we have, back in verse 19?

Confidence, or boldness, assurance to do something, to enter into the holy place, to enter into God's presence by the blood of Jesus.

Just as the song was sung earlier, you know, being washed as white as snow.

But we should really, in our Christian experience, have confidence.

Having confidence because of the blood of Jesus, we can enter into the presence of God.

Then skipping verse 20 for a moment, then into verse 21.

And since we have something else here, and what's that?

We have someone that's living and interceding for us.

Many months ago we talked about 2 truths that Satan hates more than any others.

And those 2 truths that come out in scripture are an Atoning sacrifice and an all-powerful mediator.

And Satan knows that everything depends on taking your attention and mine away from those 2 truths.

We have the blood of Jesus, the atoning sacrifice, and we have an all-powerful mediator.

Since we have an atoning sacrifice, since your sins have been washed away through the blood of Christ, have boldness, have assurance, have confidence to come into the presence of God.

Of course, there is a natural timidity because we see ourselves, but where are we looking?

Having confidence because of the blood of Jesus.

And also because we have this great high priest over the house of God.

And this theme runs all the way through the book of Hebrews, chapter 4, verse 16.

You know, we're told to draw near to the throne of grace.

Hebrews 7.25, we have a high priest who's able to save completely those who draw near unto God.

Hebrews 10 in verse 1, it tells us that the blood of sacrifices aren't going to change those who draw near, but the blood of Christ will change those who draw near.

We have the blood of Jesus Christ and we have an all-powerful mediator.

That really should be our decision for this year, amen?

Main 1 should be, yeah, I need to be responding to the Holy Spirit and drawing closer to Him, drawing near to God.

But let's look a little bit more detail at the verse we passed over, verse 20, Hebrews 10 in verse 20.

We can enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, verse 20, by a new and living way, which he, I think the King James says, consecrated for us.

The New American Standard here says, which he inaugurated for us.

This new and living way which he brought, excuse me, which he inaugurated for us Through the veil, that is his flesh.

Well, it's interesting, the word new is, really could be translated fresh or relevant or exciting.

You know, I have this new way, It's always fresh that we are able to come to God.

And that new way Christ has consecrated, inaugurated for us, he says here, through his veil, that is his flesh, his humanity.

Let me give you an illustration, if I can.

This is a schematic diagram of the Old Testament sanctuary.

And there's the main courtyard around it, which would have been a very tall white wall made of white linen.

Of course, there's the place of burnt offering, the atoning sacrifice, first thing you would see.

And then in the second part of the sanctuary was what we would call the tabernacle proper.

We have the first, we often call it the holy place.

And then the second room called the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy.

And it's important for us to just keep in mind that the 2 centers of that sanctuary are the sacrifice and the place of intercession, an atoning sacrifice, and an all-powerful mediator.

That is what you and I need to depend on.

But there's a veil here and there was a veil there.

And it's very interesting, these veils were made of thick material.

They were woven and there were different colors woven into these veils.

And for example, there was blue, and there were purple, and there was red, and there was white from linen, all these different colors in there.

And ancient Jewish thought indicated that the colors in the veil represented this world, this part of creation.

And that when the high priest moved from here and into here and then ultimately into here, they were moving from the realms of this world into a heavenly realm.

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Series

Incarnation

Incarnation: The Reunion

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

One Thoughtful Hour

43m

You Are What You Eat

18m

Meeting Jesus

24m

The Book Of Revelation

Revelation 21-22

27m

Delicious Grape Juice

36m

Take Heed

19m

The Humble King: From Heaven to the Cross

35m

No Greater Love- Communion Message

15m

Through the Sanctuary by Sean Brizendine

05 The Table of Shewbread

30m

Bible’s Love Stories- Part 3

36m

Living the Life of Enoch

51m

The Unveiling

The Abyss and the Forever

31m

Sound Doctrine