Good morning and happy Easter. It's so good to see everybody. Thank you for joining us online. It's good to see a good crowd and Easter colors. I love Easter. It's my favorite day of the year. I love everything that it celebrates. It's such a victorious day. It celebrates not only the greatest victory ever won, but the greatest one to come. It gives us hope for a future. My favorite quote about Easter is actually from Pope John Paul II. He said, we do not give over, give ourselves over to despair. We are the Easter people and Alleluia is our song. And what a day to come together and celebrate our risen Savior and all that he won for us. As we do that, we are in the middle of our series called Greater, going through the book of Hebrews together, and we're going to continue right on with that here on Easter. So hopefully you've been able to follow along and you have kind of a loose awareness of what we've been talking about, but for the uninitiated, for those that got drugged here by friends or are watching in somebody's living room, just so that we all are caught up together. The book of Hebrews is a letter. We don't know who wrote it, but we do know that it was written to Jewish people who lived outside of Israel in a Greek context who had at some point in their life converted to Christianity. So they grew up as practicing Jews, practicing the faith of Judaism, and then at some point received the news about Jesus and his resurrection and placed their faith in Jesus and converted to Christianity. Because of that conversion, they faced persecution from within and without, from the Roman government and from their own community, both of whom were trying to encourage them in various ways to walk away from their newfound faith and to embrace their old way of life. And so the author of Hebrews writes this letter to those people, those converted Jews into Christians, to compel them to stay the course in their faith. And he chooses to try to compel them by painting this lofty, soaring picture of Jesus and who he is. And he paints this picture by way of comparison. He compares Jesus to different facets of the Hebrew faith, which is why we're calling the series Greater, because he was greater than the angels and the other messengers. He was greater than Moses and the law. We see that he's the great high priest we talked about a couple weeks ago. And this week, we see that he's the greatest sacrifice. Now, to appreciate the fact that Jesus is the greatest sacrifice, we need to understand a little bit about how the sacrificial system in the Old Testament worked. And I know that you might think to yourself, boy, this is a weird place to go on Easter, but hang with me, okay? We're going to get to where we're going, but we've got to move through here first. In the Old Testament, the way that you would be right with God, the way that you would have a good standing before God, in our New Testament vernacular, most of us probably think of it as being saved. So in the Old Testament, the way that you were saved, or really the way that you had right standing before God, is through the sacrificial system. In Leviticus, we're given 630 some odd laws, and you had to live your life trying to follow those as best you could. If you could follow them perfectly, then good news, God is happy with you. But just in case you fall short, which everyone but Jesus did, then there were sacrifices that you could make. So once a week, once a month, whatever your rhythm allowed, whatever your wealth allowed, the head of the household, the dad or the grandfather, would take a bull or a lamb or a goat or whatever the sins of that household required based on different parameters of sacrifices that we're not going to get into. But he would take an appropriate sacrifice to the local temple, and the priest would sacrifice this animal on your family's behalf. And as the animal was sacrificed, the father would lay his hands on the head of the bull or the lamb or the goat or whatever it was, and the sins of the family are symbolically transferred onto this animal that is now paying the penalty for your sins. And once you go through this ritual of sacrifice, now you're good. You and God are squared away. You're fine. All your past sins are forgiven. The problem with the animal sacrifice is it only covered your past sins. So if you planned on screwing up in the future, well, then you better plan on making some more sacrifices. And you would. So every week or month you had to go back and you had to make a new sacrifice for the fresh sins. And then once a year on the greatest day in the Hebrew calendar, on the day of atonement, the high priest would go into the tabernacle or into the temple, into the Holy of Holies in the very presence of God, offer a sacrifice for himself and for his sins, and then a sacrifice for the nation of Israel. And it was this system of sacrifices of sinning and repenting and offering sacrifice to give yourself right standing before God. It was this system of sacrifices, of sinning and repenting and offering sacrifice to make yourself, give yourself right standing before God. It was this system of sacrifices that kept you right before God, that kept you saved, right? And so in the Old Testament, they really focused a lot on doing the rituals the right way, on offering the sacrifice in the right way, of putting our hands in the right place. If you were here a few falls ago, we did a series called Feast, where we went through the Jewish festivals, and the biggest one is the Day of Atonement. We spent a whole Sunday morning on the pomp and the circumstance in the Day of Atonement, and when things are supposed to happen, and the ceremonial bath, and the robe that you're supposed to wear, and when this sacrifice happens, and who's allowed in this room, in this space, and it was all very choreographed and nuanced and detailed. And you see, that led them to this assumption in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, they thought the rituals were the point. They thought the rituals were the point. If we can do everything just right, if I offer the sacrifice in the right way, if my priest is a good priest and he's doing it right, if the day of atonement goes well and that high priest performs his sacerdotal duties in the right way, then we're good. In the Old Testament, they thought that the rituals that they were following were the point. The problem is there's a little bit of Mr. Miyagi going on in these rituals. Now, I wanted to show you guys a clip from the 80s smash hit Karate Kid, but we can't. We're fancy now and we stream on YouTube and they would shut down our channel if we showed it, so we decided not to chance it. And now you'll be subjected to me describing to you a movie scene. So let's do this together. For those that don't know, Karate Kid is the predecessor to the really cruddy Cobra Kai that's on Netflix now and is a shadow of the former realities. But in Karate Kid, there's this great scene. There's a guy named, there's a little kid, or he's a teenager named Daniel, and he's getting bullied, okay? The kids are picking on him and he can't fend for himself and whatever, whatever. And so he finds this karate master named Mr. Miyagi. And he goes to Mr. Miyagi, and he says, will you train me? Teach me to do karate like you do karate. And Mr. Miyagi says, okay. But if you do karate, you got to do it all the way. You can't waver. If you do it, we'll squish you, he says. And Daniel's like, I'm in. And he goes, okay, great. And he puts a sponge in his hand and a rag in his hand, and he says, here's my cars. Wax on, wax off. Clean my cars. And he's like, what? And he goes, ah, no questions. You clean my cars. Daniel's like, all right, fine. So he starts cleaning the cars, right? And then the next scene over, he's like washing the car like this, and Miyagi sees him, and he's like, no, what are you doing? Wax on, and he takes his hand, and then wax off. And he moves it really intentionally. And he's like, what's the big deal with the waxing on and the waxing off? I'm cleaning the cars, right? And then he does this series of chores. He paints the fence, and he sands the floor, and he does all these repetitive motions. And it feels, for the first several weeks of of his training that Mr. Miyagi is really just using him for free labor, right? That he's just taking advantage of this kid's desire to learn karate and he's not actually learning anything. And then there's this great scene when Daniel gets ticked and he kind of confronts him. He's like, what's the deal? I want to learn karate and you're just making me do chores. And Mr. Miyagi's like, all right, wax on. And he's like, and he goes, no. And he takes his hand and he does it really intentionally. He goes, wax on. And then you hear Mr. Miyagi scream, hi, and he goes to punch him, right? And Daniel blocks the punch. And then he tries to punch him again and Daniel blocks the punch. And he's like, sand the floor and he blocks the kick. You know, paint the fence and he blocks the punch. And he's like, sand the floor, and he blocks the kick. You know, paint the fence, and he blocks the punch. And you realize in this moment, oh man, Mr. Miyagi really knows what he's doing. This is amazing. I'm all in on the karate master. This is like the smartest thing that happened in the 80s. And you can't believe it. And you're like, oh my gosh, all the things that he was doing, he was teaching him muscle memory. He was teaching him karate. Those were a form of what was to come. The waxing the floor wasn't the point. Waxing on wasn't the point. Sanding the fence wasn't the point. All the chores weren't the point. He was getting them to the point that he didn't understand yet. This is what's happening with the Old Testament rituals. They thought that the rituals were the point, that the cleaning of the actual floor, that the sanding the floor, the painting the fence, that that was the point. But they were really, through those rituals, getting in a much deeper reality. And the author of Hebrews actually writes about this reality and lays it out for them almost. I'm not willing to call it sarcastic and joking, but man what he's saying. He's saying, you guys went through these rituals all this time ago. And then he even comes out and he overtly says it. Those were shadows of the reality that was to come. Those rituals that you were doing that day of atonement was a shadow of the reality that was to come. It's not here yet. And then I love the way that he ends it. This is almost the sarcastic part for me. Maybe I just read my own personality into it. But it's like he leans in and he's like, did you really think the blood of bulls and goats is doing anything? Do you think there's anything magical going on in their blood? It's a symbol, guys. It doesn't make a difference. The ritual's not the point. And then he says this about Jesus. He says, those things weren't the point. They were a shadow of the realities to come. It's the reality of the ritual. And then he goes on and he says, and this is really the fulfillment of those rituals. This is why we did that. And he talks about Jesus in verses 11 through 14, when he writes, He says, that the high priest was pointing to our great high priest in Christ. You watched the sacrifices happen. You didn't realize that the sacrifice was a shadow of the reality that was going to come in Christ as he offered the ultimate sacrifices. And we've already acknowledged that the limited ability of the sacrifice of the animals was that they only covered the things that had happened in the past. But with the eternal sacrifice of Christ, you're not only forgiven for all the things you did up until the moment that you accept that sacrifice, but all the things that God knows you're going to do in the future, which is the remarkable thing about salvation. So he's saying that Jesus is the fulfillment of all of the rituals. And what we need to see is what he was trying to get them to see is that the real point of the rituals was to point to the point. Do you get the point? The real point of the rituals was to point to the point. Think about it. The point is Jesus. The law that they give him in the Old Testament, follow these rules and you can be okay with God. The point of those rules was never to make them okay with God. It was to show them their inability to ever earn their way into God's favor and so surrender to their need for God. The law was given so that we would acknowledge our need for Jesus. The sacrifices that he gives in the Old Testament, those point to the sacrifice of Christ one day. The role of the high priest, the imperfect high priest going into the Holy of Holies is a picture of Jesus as your high priest dying on the cross and then going to heaven and sitting at the right hand of God where we talked about a couple of weeks ago. He prays for you. He intercesses for you. He goes to the creator of the universe and he says, I have him. I have her. They're good. They can approach. He goes, he not only wins our salvation, but then he goes and he sits at the right hand of the throne of God and he ushers in our presence into the throne room so that anytime we want to, anywhere we are, we bow our heads and we say, dear God, and we are rushed right into the very throne room of God, into his presence, which is not a place that we would dare tread if we were not going in the name of Christ. That's what our high priest does for us. And what he wants them to see is that everything in the Old Testament, everything in your old way of life, the point of it is to point to the point. It's all pointing to Jesus. The prophets pointed to Jesus. The kingship of David points to Jesus. The priesthood of Melchizedek points to Jesus. All streams are running to Jesus. The point of everything is to point to Christ. And it would make sense to me if now you were thinking, okay, Nate, that's neat, but we don't live in the Old Testament. We don't do those rituals. So I'm glad I understand that, but what does that mean for me? I'm glad you asked. Don't you understand that we're still just waxing on and waxing off? Don't you understand that we're still just being Miyagi'd? That everything we do as a church is designed to point ourselves and others to the point? Don't you understand that everything we do as a church, as a church, everything we do is designed to point ourselves and others to the point. We come here and we gather together and we worship corporately. We sing praises to our God. Do you understand that that's a picture of heaven? That that's just this glimpse, just this sliver of our ability, the grace that God gives us to gather together with other people who are united in faith and come together as a body of faith and praise God to his throne. That that's a picture of what we're going to be doing in heaven. So that when we come and we praise God together, the point isn't to worship and be moved in your soul right now. The point is to understand that one day we will do this for all of eternity, that one day I won't just be singing next to the people I go to church with, but I will be singing with all saints for all of history. I will be praising next to Moses and David and my grandparents and Esther and Ruth and Naomi and all the heroes of our faith. We will come together and we will praise before the throne together. And what we do on Sunday morning is a shadow, a glimpse of the reality that is to come in heaven. We're pointing to the point. Don't you understand that when we take communion, it's not about the ritual? It's not about how we do it. It's not about if we dip it right or if we use the right bread. It's pointing to the point. As a matter of fact, I just heard before the service started, and I said, oh, that's great. I'm going to use it in the sermon. We did communion two weeks ago, and a single guy was watching online, and he wanted to participate in communion, and the best he could muster up was a tortilla chip and a glass of wine. Great. He participated in communion with his family. I would lean into that like the author of Hebrews did and say, do you really think there's anything magical going on in the bread? I think it matters whether you use Welch's or like whatever, Summer Home. It doesn't matter. I don't even know if that's a wine. I'm a bourbon guy. Somebody in between services, somebody tell me a good wine to use there, and I'll see if I can remember it in the second service. There's nothing special going on in those elements. It's a sign of the things to come. It's pointing to the point that one day we will be gathered around the table of God, of the King of the universe, and we are adopted sons and daughters of the King, and we are invited into that fellowship with Jesus. It is a reminder of what Jesus did 2,000 years ago, and it's a reminder of what he will do, what he has promised to do in the future. Do you understand that even the behaviors that Scripture admonishes in you are designed to point to the point? That faithfulness and goodness and kindness and gentleness and meekness, that God doesn't implore you to be gentle for gentleness' sake. He implores you to be gentle because when you are different from the world that we live in, when you are so gentle that it's noticeable, it orients your heart towards Christ and other people who watch you walk in your gentleness are oriented towards Christ as well. That he asks you to be forgiving, not for the sake of being forgiving, not for forgiveness's sake, but for the sake that with radical forgiveness, we mirror Christ and orients our heart to him and other people are pointed to Jesus as a result of our forgiveness. Go down the list. Goodness, love, mercy, charity. All those behaviors that are prescribed in the New Testament, we're not prescribed them for the sake of the behavior, but so that our hearts would be oriented towards Jesus and other people would see that in us and want to know our Savior as well. Even our marriages, these things that we go through for our lives, we choose a life partner, we stay married, we love them, and even the most holy of marriages, it's a ritual to point to the point. The marriage is used over and over and over again in scripture as a picture of the way that Christ loves the church, that we are the bride of Christ. Pure, unadulterated, marital love between the most holy of people who love Christ only serves to show the world around them how Christ loves the church. Marriage itself is designed to point us to the point. We're still just waxing on and waxing off. Even, I would say to you, fighting your own sin nature within yourself, striving and failing and striving and failing and feeling never good enough is intentional to point you to the point so that you'll come to the end of yourself and admit, I need Christ. Even our striving against ourselves in sin is serving to point us to the point. Not to mention baptism, what we just did. People get concerned about the ritual. Did we do it right? We were in the bathroom changing afterwards and Kyle said, did my head go all the way under? And I said, you're good, man. It took. That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. That's not the point. Whether or not we did the baptism right is not the point. The point is that it points to Christ. In Romans 6 it says in baptism we are buried with Christ in death and we are raised to walk in newness of life. That's why the early church did it on Easter because it's a symbol of Jesus being put in the grave and when Kyle Kyle goes under the water, he's being put in the grave too. And his former self is passing away. And when he rises up out of the water, he is washed clean. He is sprinkled pure by the blood of Christ. He raises to walk in newness of life in eternity with Jesus. It's a picture of Easter. It doesn't matter if we do it right. The point is not the ritual. The point is to point us to Christ. And speaking of Easter, Easter, more than any other day, points us to the point. Easter, more than any other day, points us to Christ. It is amazing to me, the victory that was won on Easter. It is amazing to me that when Mary went and she found the tomb and she heard the greatest line in the Bible from the angel, why do you search for the living among the dead? He is not living. Or he is not here, he is living just as he said. In that victory, Jesus conquered hell and Satan. Jesus conquered death for us. Jesus conquered disease for us. When we gather on Easter, we remember those of us who have lost loved ones in the last year or even further away than that. We are reminded that the last time we said goodbye to them was not goodbye forever. It was goodbye for now. Easter reminds us of that reality. Easter reminds us of the hope that we have. Because Scripture says, death, where are your shackles? Sin, where is your sting? Like it's been defeated. Jesus won that for us because Jesus died on the cross and left the tomb empty and went to heaven as our high priest and now prays for us because he won us that salvation. We get together on Easter and we remember that reality. And because he did that, my friend Kyle, his father watched him from heaven get baptized with his little granddaughter and with his wife sitting on the row and his daughter-in-law that he loved so much. He watched that and participated in that. And when Kyle goes to heaven one day, he's going to hug him. That was one on Easter. Do you understand? We don't have to fear what everybody else fears. We have a tremendous hope. That's why Pope John Paul II said, we do not give way to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. We praise God no matter what. It's an amazing thing that was won on Easter. And here's the bigger deal. Not only on Easter do we remember the victory that Jesus won and be grateful for what it did to us and ushering us into heaven and uniting us with him for all of eternity? But his victory over death is the greatest victory that's ever been won, but it's not the greatest one that will be won because Revelation tells us that Jesus is coming back on a white horse and he's coming back to wreck shop and he's gonna set up his new kingdom and his new earth where there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things have passed away. Jesus is going to come back and win that victory. One day when we don't have to ask why do shootings happen and why do bad things happen to good people and why do bad people seem to thrive? Jesus is going to come back and he's going to make all that make sense. As Christians, that is the promise that we cling to. That is our hope that will not put us to shame. That is what we usher others to. So even Easter, as we celebrate it, the point is not only the resurrection of Christ, but also the greatest victory that he will win. It's his seal on his promise. I kept that promise. I sent my son. He died for you. He conquered death. He resurrected. He ascended to the right hand of the Father. He prays for you. And one day he's coming back and he's going to make everything right. And so on Easter, we celebrate the promise that we remember that has been kept and we celebrate the promise that we look forward to him keeping. It's still pointing us to the point. As we celebrate Easter with our families, and we do all the things that we do, let us remember the victory that Christ won for us. Let us acknowledge that just like the Old Testament church, they were simply waxing on and waxing off, that the rituals and the things they did were simply designed to point them to Christ, that so it is with us as we exist as the New Testament church, that all the things he asks us to do and all the rituals he's installed and all the behaviors in our life and all the faith that he asks from us is really designed to point us to the point. And let us remember that on Easter, we don't just celebrate a victory won, but one that we know will be won in the future. Let's pray, and we'll continue to worship together. Father, we are so grateful to you. We're so grateful for your son. Thank you for sending him to pay the penalty for our sins. Lord, I pray that if there is somebody who doesn't know you, that this would be the morning when they decide that they want to. If there's someone who hasn't felt your forgiveness, let this be the day that they feel it. God, let us accept more and more that everything in our life is simply designed to point us back to Jesus. That everything we do at the church, everything that you encourage us to do together, all the ways that you encourage us to love, all the ways that you love us, all the things that you let us struggle with are designed, Father, to point us to our need for your Son. God, I pray that we would have the best Easter, not only reflecting on the victory that you've won, but on the one that you promised to win too. And it's in that returning Savior's name that we pray. Amen.