http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15591797/god-destined-your-afflictions-dont-be-shaken

The phrase “Ten Commandments” does not appear in the New Testament. Not once. Which might be surprising for Gentile believers today who have been steeped in a Judeo-Christian heritage, and have come to adopt a distinctively Judeo way of thinking.

Travel through all the precious words and teachings we have in the New Testament — through the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles, addressing such a variety of circumstances and needs — and Jesus and his inspired spokesmen never make the appeal that’s become instinctive for some Christians today: keep the Ten Commandments. If “obeying the Ten” were essential to Christian morality, or even an expressly important component of it, then Jesus and his men seem to have done us a great disservice. Imagine how differently the whole New Testament would read, beginning with the Sermon on the Mount, if the Ten Commandments, as they appear in Exodus 20 (or Deuteronomy 5), were to be adopted as is into the lives of new-covenant Christians.

Moreover, the phrase “Ten Commandments” (or “Ten Words”) appears just three times in the Old Testament (Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 4:13; 10:4), which might clue us in that the Ten have assumed a place in the minds of some that is not only foreign to the Christian aspect of our heritage but even the Judeo part.

Perfect Ten

In the Hebrew Scriptures, we find a few further references to the two “tablets” on which the Ten were written, but not much more — and not at the level of hermeneutical prominence we might assume. And when we turn to the New Testament, we find Paul stating, in very clear terms, that Christians as Christians do not live by these tablets, carved in letters on stone, but by the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:3, 6–7; also Romans 2:27–29). He could hardly speak plainer than he does in Romans 7:6: “We serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”

In such passages, the contrast between old and new appears so stark that we might ask, How could such a dramatic shift happen from Moses and the letter, to Christ and the Spirit? The short answer is that the climax of history came. Messiah himself, not only David’s son but the divine Son, came among us in fully human flesh and blood, taught and discipled, and died and rose again.

Jesus came to fulfill what “the old” anticipated and to usher in a new covenant and fundamentally new era of history. His followers would not be under the previous administration that had guarded God’s people since Moses. Jesus himself says he did not come to destroy the Law and Prophets, but to do something even more striking: fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). That is, fulfill like prophecy. Not simply keep the Ten in place, or remain under them, or leave them untouched, but fulfill them — first in his own person, and then by his Spirit in his church. He came not to cast off Moses, but to fulfill Jeremiah, and in doing so, he accomplished what is even more radical: establishing himself as the supreme authority, putting God’s law within his people (rather than on tablets), writing it on their hearts (rather than stone), and making all his people to know him (Jeremiah 31:31–34).

Because Jesus lived and taught at the climax of history, in this once-for-all transition from old to new, from the age of Israel to the age of the church, we need to carefully observe the fresh and sometimes subtle differences in emphasis in his ministry and teaching, and confirm our readings in the teachings of his apostles.

As a piece of this larger picture, let’s here take up the limited focus of how Jesus handles the Ten Commandments. Granted, he does not refer to them as a package called “the Ten Commandments,” but he does, at various key points in his teaching, refer to individual commands from the Ten, and so we get a sense of his larger orientation through pondering his various treatments.

1. But I Say to You (Commands 6, 7, and 9)

We turn first to the Sermon on the Mount and the so-called “six antitheses” of Matthew 5:21–48. This is Jesus’s most programmatic teaching related to commandments from the Ten, in the sweeping context of “the Law and the Prophets.”

Doubtlessly, Jesus’s early listeners could sense the winds of change in his message, as he taught “as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Matthew 7:28–29). So, in his most celebrated sermon, Jesus clarifies that he has not come to destroy the old or jettison the commandments, per se. Rather, he has come to fulfill what the Law and Prophets have long anticipated, and that fulfillment in himself (as we’ll see) will bring a salvation-historical maturation and completion, not devolution.

In fact, Jesus’s new-covenant people will come to live with the help of such spiritual power that they all will surpass those who were considered the elites of the previous era: “I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). Jesus echoes this epochal development in the concluding claim of the antitheses: “You therefore must be perfect [complete, teleioi], as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). The previous era embodied a real but modulated expression of God’s standards; the new will, in some sense, raise the standards (Matthew 5:31–32; 19:7–9; Mark 10:4–9; Luke 16:18) and provide far greater Help (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7).

Of the six antitheses that follow, the first four are tied to one of the Ten Commandments. First is command 6, “You shall not murder” (Matthew 5:21). The note Jesus strikes is not continuity but completion: “But I say to you [the I is emphatic] that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” (Matthew 5:22). Here, we might say, he escalates, deepens, or draws out of the negative command (“you shall not”) a timeless moral entailment that God’s own character enjoins on his creatures. Previously, God had expressed in a more accommodated form the moral implications of his character; now, with the coming of Christ, the standards of righteousness, anticipated by the law, come into full flower. And critically, Jesus does not draw it out by appealing to previous Scripture, but he declares it on his own authority: “I say to you.”

“Jesus neither bows to the law, nor burns it down, but draws attention to himself as the surpassing authority.”

Similarly, the second antithesis begins with command 7: “You shall not commit adultery.” Again, Jesus says, “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). It may seem at this point that Jesus is simply “deepening” the law, but the remaining antitheses do not fit so easily into this pattern. In the third, he expounds the law: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you . . .” (Matthew 5:31–32).

Both “deepening” and “expounding” are inadequate descriptions of the fourth antithesis, which summarizes several Old Testament texts that expand command 9. Again he says, “But I say to you . . .” and in doing so, he “simply sweeps away the whole system of vows and oaths that was described and regulated in the Old Testament” (Douglas Moo, “The Law of Christ as the Fulfillment of the Law of Moses,” 349). The fifth and sixth antitheses cast the net even wider, showing that Jesus is prepared to speak with authority over a mixture of old-covenant law and popular interpretation in his day.

What emerges, then, is not a common principle for what Jesus is doing to old-covenant commands to put his followers under them, but the radical authority he claims for himself over both human traditions and old-covenant commandments alike. This is, after all, what Matthew reports (and teaches us) at the close of the Sermon:

When Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. (7:28–29)

The scribes appeal to the authority of Scripture, but Jesus, daringly, asserts his own authority again and again. The key assertion is “I say to you.” The prevailing effect is Jesus’s new supremacy over all other commandments (“you have heard that it was said of old”), be they the seemingly authoritative maxims of the day or even the genuinely authoritative commands of God as expressed in the previous era.

By no means does the rise of Jesus’s authority mean the destruction of the old, such that Jesus’s followers are now turned loose to murder, commit adultery, and bear false witness. Rather, now, with the coming of Christ, he surpasses Moses and becomes the personal channel of God’s moral authority for his people in the new era and covenant. This he will declare climactically in the Great Commission, on the basis of his having “all authority,” and the standard of worldwide disciple-making being “all that I [not Moses!] have commanded you” (Matthew 28:18–20).

2. Out of the Heart (Commands 8 and 10)

In Mark 7, Jesus makes passing reference to commands 8 and 10 (along with 6, 7, and 9). In verses 1–13, he answers the challenge of the scribes about his disciples eating with unwashed hands and so not living “according to the tradition of the elders” (verse 5). After rebuking their “fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish [their] tradition” (verse 9), he gathers a wider audience to speak with his authority to a related issue:

Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. (Mark 7:14–15)

Related to the Ten, this is a double-edged sword. First, as Mark comments, Jesus thus “declared all foods clean” (verse 19), another astounding revelation of his authority, which, as the God-man’s, surpasses even the divine commands issued in the previous era. Second, Jesus clarifies, “From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting [that is, commands 6, 7, 8, and 10], wickedness, deceit [command 9], sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness” (verses 21–22). Disobedience to commandments 6 through 10 — and eight other sins besides — reveals the unseen heart, which Jesus comes to address, convict, and transform.

The coming of Christ, with his supreme authority, brings the end of Israel’s peculiar food laws, but it does not undo the timeless standards of morality based on the character of God. In fact, now the inner person, “the heart of man,” comes more clearly in view as the source of full obedience to commandments 6 through 10, as well as in areas unaddressed by the Ten. And all this with Christ himself in the position of supreme Lawgiver, not as mere teacher of Moses.

3. The First and a Second (Commands 1 and 2)

We will look in vain for precisely commands 1 and 2 (Exodus 20:3–6) in the ministry of Jesus; however, we find him mentioning a “great and first commandment” and a “second.” Yet remarkably, Jesus goes outside the Ten when he makes such superlative claims.

During his Passion week, when a lawyer from among the Pharisees asks him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” Jesus replies not with Exodus 20 but Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:37–40)

Relevant to our focus, Jesus does not elevate the Ten above the larger Torah, but actually, he elevates other parts of the Torah over the Ten! Jesus dares to make the interpretive judgment that Deuteronomy 6:5 represents God’s first and foremost requirement of his people, even better than the first commandment of the Ten. Then, on his own authority, to name the second as an obscurely placed Leviticus 19:18 really should make us shake our heads. Jesus thus demonstrates (1) a wholeness in his approach to the Torah, which does not elevate the Ten above the rest of Scripture, but actually (2) identifies the defining realities as best expressed elsewhere, and all this (3) on the basis of his own authority, not an exegetical argument based on Moses’s authority.

4. Live Long in the Land (Command 5)

Now we come to the first of the three individual commands that remain: command 5, “honor your father and your mother” — which comes not only with a promise, but also a specific context: “that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12).

This gives us an opportunity to recognize how plainly the Ten are embedded in a particular historical moment and generation: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). The Ten go on to mention male and female servants, livestock, sojourners, city gates, and your neighbor’s ox or donkey. Command 5 refers to “the land” to which these newly liberated slaves in the wilderness are heading: Canaan. To be sure, the applications to later periods of history are intuitive enough (as Paul demonstrates in Ephesians 6:1–3), but we still note that Exodus 20 is unapologetically embedded in a certain moment and does not pretend to be otherwise.

Command 5 also gives us the chance to revisit Jesus’s exchange with one of his most famous interlocutors: the rich young ruler. He approaches Jesus and asks, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16). We expect Jesus to quickly correct the obvious error: a sinful human cannot secure eternal life with any good deed! Yet, like the antitheses in Matthew 5, Jesus turns the encounter masterfully toward his own person. First, explicitly: “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Then, implicitly: “There is only one who is good” (verse 17).

Then Jesus comes at the man’s error through commands 6, 7, 8, 9, and 5 — and through Leviticus 19:18 (verses 18–19). With shocking presumption, and perhaps endearing honesty, the man answers, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” (verse 20). Now Jesus circles back to where the exchange began, and the prevailing lesson of his Sermon on the Mount: me. “If you would be perfect [complete, teleios, same as 5:48], go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (verse 21). Jesus is the first and final answer to the man’s query, and to open his hand to take hold of Jesus, the rich young man must release his grasp on his many possessions.

Here Jesus shows the inadequacy of the commandments to save. The man claims to have kept all the commandments, but that is not sufficient. One thing he lacks: Jesus himself.

5. Hallowed Be His Name (Command 3)

Finding command 3 (“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” Exodus 20:7) in Jesus’s teaching seems difficult at first. No exact quotation appears, though we might see a connection to the fourth antithesis. But when we broaden our lens to Jesus’s concern with “the name of the Lord,” we find the associations pervasive. We are hard pressed to find many words more frequently on the lips of Jesus than name. Most memorable of all is the opening request of Jesus’s model prayer: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (Matthew 6:9).

Jesus clearly reverences the divine name, and in his life and ministry he not only “takes the name of the Lord” without vanity, but even fills it up completely in his own person. On Jesus, “the name” is not received as an empty shell, but filled with all the fullness of deity in full humanity. He is the first to take up the name without any vanity or lack whatsoever, and so, remarkably, he speaks not only of his Father’s name but also, inimitably, and even more often, of his own. He warns his disciples that they will leave “houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake” (19:29) and “will be hated by all for my name’s sake” (10:22; 24:9). “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me” (18:5), and “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (18:20). Examples could be multiplied from the Gospels, especially John.

Most provocatively, Jesus puts himself, as Son, alongside his Father and the Spirit, as sharing in the singular divine name in his Great Commission: “Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).

6. Lord of the Sabbath (Command 4)

Finally, and most scandalously, is command 4: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8, including verses 9–11). Of the Ten, this one is most conspicuous in the tenor of its New Testament handling, including in the ministry of Jesus, as well as in the wrestling of the church for twenty centuries. Essentially, you will not find careful, reasonable Christian arguments in such tension with any of the other Ten in their central moral thrust. Many of us are eager to affirm a six-and-one principle in creation, even if command 4, in its Mosaic expression, is not binding on the new-covenant believer.

Here, we need not tackle the question “Should Christians Keep the Sabbath?,” addressed ably elsewhere. Instead, we emphasize the astonishing way in which Jesus handles command 4 and, like the antitheses and the Great Commission, freshly declares his supremacy over all that came before — and in the strongest terms of all.

Having just captured the beloved invitation, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden” (11:28), Matthew reports, “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath . . .” (12:1). As Scott Hubbard observes, “The seventh day marks the setting of so many clashes between Jesus and the Pharisees that when we read something like, ‘Now it was a Sabbath day . . .’ (John 9:14), we expect trouble.” And so it begins.

The hungry disciples pluck and eat some heads of grain, and true to form, the Pharisees, while somehow keeping Sabbath themselves, are right there on the spot to register their disapproval: “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath” (12:2). Jesus replies magnificently at multiple levels. David’s men were exempt on the basis of their being with God’s anointed. So too, in the law itself (Numbers 28:9–10), “the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath” — performing a burnt offering every Saturday — “and are guiltless” (Matthew 12:5).

“Jesus is indeed Lord — Lord of the Sabbath, Lord of the Ten, and Lord of all.”

Jesus then does what we now might have come to expect: he neither bows to the law, nor burns it down, but draws attention to himself as the surpassing authority. And he does so twice. Both are partially veiled expressions in the moment, and boldly conspicuous in retrospect. Verse 6: “I tell you [note that language again], something greater than the temple is here.” Verse 8: “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

Far from Sabbath’s servant, or its saboteur, Jesus is its Lord. He is Lord of the temple, Lord of the Ten, and Lord of all that came before (whether divine commands or human traditions), and all that will follow. And so, we see how his invitation in Matthew 11:28–30 leads smoothly into this episode “at that time” (12:1):

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Christ himself is and gives the climactic rest. Command 4, and commands 1 through 10, indeed all the Law and Prophets, prophesied (Matthew 11:13) of this greater one to come — greater than the temple, than David, than Solomon, than Jonah, and greater than Moses, the Sabbath, and the Ten.

Lord of All

Those of us raised with a heightened appreciation for the Ten, or perhaps with a diminished view of the rest of Scripture, and even Christ himself, may feel ourselves in moral freefall to first ponder the implications of Jesus’s lordship over the Ten. But the unsettled feeling passes quickly, and soon we find our feet, and moral stability, on even firmer ground, and our admiration for Jesus increased besides. And in that increase is our appreciation for Jesus’s authority and his words.

Jesus not only outshone the Pharisees in his understanding of Moses, but he himself generously issued commands, and commissioned his church “to observe all that I have commanded you.”

He is indeed Lord — Lord of the Sabbath, Lord of the Ten, and Lord of all.

How do you feel when you see the word prayer in a sermon title, or when the preacher announces that today’s sermon is about prayer? Oh no. Here we go.

Not many of us feel like we pray enough. We might even pray a good deal, and even earnestly, and still feel a gnawing sense of guilt when the topic comes up, just like when the subject of evangelism comes up. Preachers know this. Do you want to make people feel guilty? Talk about prayer and evangelism. Few of us feel instinctively like we do enough of either.

Added to this, we have the pervasive secular assumptions of modern life — that all that matters is the seeable, hearable, touchable, tastable. The otherworldly, especially the divine, is unwelcome and even out of bounds in polite company. We’re bombarded with the secular vision and its effects daily, through screens and through relationships with people influenced by screens, and through people influenced by other people who have screens. You can’t escape the influence of secularism without totally withdrawing. The question is not whether you’re being influenced, but whether some other, greater influence is getting and keeping traction in your soul.

God will not have the prevailing influence in your life if his practical means of influence mainly feel obligatory. But God himself doesn’t intend for his means to be obligations. They are not means of duty but means of grace. As J.C. Ryle says,

The “means of grace” . . . such as Bible reading, private prayer, and regularly worshiping God in Church . . . are appointed channels through which the Holy Spirit conveys fresh supplies of grace to the soul.

I did not come to Oakhurst this weekend to make you feel guilty, nor did I come just to visit family (nice as that is); I came mainly because I want you to enjoy “fresh supplies of grace to your soul” through hearing God’s voice in his word, having his ear in prayer, and belonging to the covenant fellowship of the local church. In the Sunday school hour, we focused on God’s word; tonight, we’ll focus on fellowship. Now in these moments, we turn our attention to prayer.

Three Wonders of Prayer

My specific prayer this morning is that the Spirit of God, dwelling in you, might be pleased to begin or renew a shift in your perspective on prayer — a shift in your mind and in your heart from prayer as obligation to prayer as opportunity, from prayer as duty to prayer as delight, from prayer as burden and dread to prayer as blessing and joy.

In that hope, I’d like for us to linger over three wonders of Christian prayer, and close with a few ideas for practical prayer habits in our lives.

1. Our Father Not Only Speaks But Listens

We start here with a summary of our focus in the Sunday school hour: our God is a speaking God. The preamble to Christian prayer is that God speaks. Prayer is responsive. Prayer is talking to God, but it’s not a conversation we start. God initiates. He is communicative. He is talkative. He speaks first, and oh does he love to speak!

He reveals himself in his creation (Romans 1:19–20).
He reveals himself climactically in his Son (Hebrews 1:1–2; John 1:1, 14).
He reveals himself in the God-breathed words of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20–21).

Then, amazingly, this Great Speaker himself stops and stoops. He cups his ear, and motions to us to speak. “What do you think? What do you feel? What do you need?” Our Father wants to hear from his children. He wants us to pray to him in view of who he’s revealed himself to be.

So, in prayer, we his creatures and his children respond to our Father’s words in our own words. Prayer is speaking to the God who has spoken first, responding to the God who has initiated the relationship and conversation. And we pray to God as our Father. The true God is not a distant, distracted deity. We don’t need cheat codes, flailing arms, or repeated phrases to seize his attention.

Amazingly, God himself loves his people, smiles on us, and is gladly attentive to our needs. He wants to hear from his children and make them happy forever in him. He wants us to pray to him as “our Father” — which is an especially Christlike way to pray.

Call Him ‘Father’

Ancient Israelites knew God’s covenant name (Yahweh) and approached him in worship and prayer in view of his covenant love and faithfulness, but they did not dare to call him “Father.” Calling God “Father” is new in the human life and ministry of Jesus. And when Jesus taught his disciples (and us) to pray, he began with “Our Father . . .” Repeatedly, particularly in the Gospel of John, Jesus calls the God of Israel “Father.” Especially memorable is his own extended prayer to his Father in John 17, on the night before he died:

Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. . . . And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. . . . Holy Father, keep [the people you have given me] in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one . . . just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. . . . Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. (John 17:1, 5, 11, 21, 24, 25)

Jesus calling God “Father” is not only modeling for us how to pray, but this is also an invitation for how to draw near to God — as our loving, gracious, generous heavenly Father.

However, we sinners need more than Jesus’s example and invitation. Being sinners, rebels, undeserving of God’s riches — in fact, deserving of his punishments — how can we, in honesty and not utter naivety, call the living God “Father”? God may indeed speak to sinners like us, but does he listen? And listen as a Father? That leads to a second wonder.

2. God’s Son Secures and Certifies Our Access to God’s Ear

Now let’s go to two passages in Hebrews: Hebrews 4:14–16 and 10:19–23. Perhaps you looked at these this week, or even this morning, and thought, Huh, these seem very similar. They are. And they are structurally and conceptually central for the epistle to the Hebrews.

“God will not have the prevailing influence in your life if his practical means of influence mainly feel obligatory.”

You could see all of Hebrews 1–4 as an extended introduction, chapters 11–13 as the extended conclusion, and chapters 5–10 as the heart, the main body and message. And of those middle chapters, 5–7 portray Jesus as the great and final high priest, and 8–10 show him to be the great and final sacrifice. That’s the heart of Hebrews: the person of Christ as our priest, and the work of Christ as our sacrifice.

These two parallel passages in chapters 4 and 10 are like the entrance and exit to the heart of the letter, and they express the main pastoral burden of the letter: Draw near to God, hold fast to Jesus. Don’t coast, don’t drift, don’t fall away. Don’t stop believin’, but cling to Jesus, and draw near to God in him.

So, I want to read both passages to you, back to back, and as I do, listen for six emphases they have in common:

the mention of the great high priest,
whose personal name is Jesus,
who has passed through the heavens (the curtain) into the very presence of God, and therefore
the call to hold fast our faith in him,
to draw near to God through him, and
to do so with confidence

And to be clear, this relates to more than prayer, but no less than prayer — and for now, prayer is perhaps the signature expression of our drawing near. Hebrews 4:14–16 says,

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Now, here’s Hebrews 10:19–23:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the first note struck here is that we have the great and final high priest! We have him already, right now. He has come at long last. He died as the great and final sacrifice for our sin. He rose in triumph over sin and death, and he ascended, going through the heavens, through the curtain, into the very presence of God Almighty, where he sat down, his work complete, at the right hand of Majesty.

We have him. This is no longer a future promise. This is a present reality! So, hold fast your trust in him, and your confession of him as Lord. And with confidence, with boldness, with surety, draw near — with your whole life, drawing near to him through his word, and drawing near to him with his church, and in particular drawing near to him in prayer. That’s the joint message of the two passages.

Boldness to Approach

Now, there are a couple of additions in Hebrew 10. The first is in Hebrews 10:19–20:

We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us.

This is new with the coming and ascending of Jesus. The old way of the temple and its priests and rituals and escalating spaces of holiness, from the court of the Gentiles to the common Jews, to the Holy Place, to the Holy of Holies — that whole temple cultus — wasn’t the real thing. It was symbolic (Hebrews 9:9); it anticipated the real thing, which didn’t come until Jesus came and rose and went into heaven as our pioneer. In Jesus, we have a new and living way into the very presence of God that was not available to Abraham, not available to Moses, not available to David, not available to Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, but now new to us who are in Christ. What an opportunity!

A second added detail is Hebrews 10:22:

let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

What does Hebrews mean by “our hearts sprinkled clean” and “our bodies washed with pure water”? And how does that lead to our being able to draw near to God with confidence, especially in prayer?

This mention of sprinkling goes back to Moses and the people of Israel who had escaped slavery in Egypt. At Mount Sinai, God makes his covenant with them, and to enter the covenant, the people offer sacrifices in Exodus 24, and Moses takes the blood (“the blood of the covenant”) and throws half against the altar, representing God. The other half, he throws — that is, he sprinkles — on the people.

In this physical act of flinging animal blood on the people, something more than the mere physical is happening. In and of itself, the sprinkled blood doesn’t do anything to change the people or deal finally with their sins. But by this act, this memorable act, the people enter into covenant with God.

And if you were to ask an Israelite a few months later, “Hey, how do you know you’re in covenant with God?” one answer he might give is, “I remember the blood sprinkled on us. A drop landed on my left shoulder. It was real; it happened. I can assure you I’m part of the people in covenant with God. I had the blood of the covenant on me.”

Washed and Sprinkled

But now Hebrews 10 takes this to a new-covenant level. Hebrews 10:22 says that in Christ we have had “our hearts sprinkled clean.” How did that happen? Through faith. Faith in the heart trusts that when Jesus died on the cross, and shed his blood — objectively, publicly, unquestionably, indisputably — his life was standing in for mine. His death was the death I deserved.

But faith like this isn’t quite as cut-and-dried for the Christian as blood on the shoulder was for the ancient Israelite. There’s still some subjectivity here with faith. Jesus’s sacrifice is objective, but how do I know I’m included? My heart was sprinkled, not my shirt. And so, Hebrews draws in the new-covenant inauguration ritual, baptism, to help: “. . . and our bodies washed with pure water.” Baptism represents the washing away of sin in our hearts, in the inner person, but baptism is also external and objective and memorable. If you were baptized as a believer, and baptized in a faithful church community of reasonably diligent and discerning Christians (who were saying, in effect, through baptizing you, “We believe you truly believe and Jesus’s blood covers you”), then remember that baptism as support for your assurance, and pray with confidence.

Baptism is not just a drop on your shirt, but your whole body submerged in water, saying, “This one belongs to Jesus. This one has saving faith.” Remember that event, and draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. How precious is a good believer-baptism! It didn’t save you, but God means for it to help assure you that you’re saved through faith in Jesus — and help you to come confidently in prayer.

So, the Father not only speaks but listens. And the Son secures and certifies our access to God’s ear in prayer. That’s it, right? Should we pray to close?

Well, not so fast. If only our lives were so simple! They are not. We have our ups and downs, our seasons of dullness and doubt, our struggles, our indwelling sin, our weaknesses — oh so many weaknesses, no matter how much we try to project ourselves as strong. And so, there is one more critical wonder of Christian prayer.

3. God’s Spirit Helps Us in Our Weakness

Let’s finish with Romans 8:26–27, and this is so precious for the wonder and power of prayer, and it is perhaps often overlooked in our day. Romans 8:26–27 says,

The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, when you pray, you pray as one who has the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in you. God himself has taken up residence in you. This is almost too good to be true. In a way that was not part and parcel of God’s first covenant with Israel, the risen and glorified Christ has poured out and given his Spirit to dwell in new-covenant Christians (John 7:38–39).

Now, our having the Spirit (Romans 8:9, 23) does not mean we own or control him. He also has us too. He is in us, and we are in him (Romans 8:5, 9). He is “sent into our hearts” (Galatians 4:6), given to us (Romans 5:5; etc), supplied to us (Galatians 3:5), and not just once but ongoingly (Ephesians 1:17; 1 Thessalonians 4:8). Through faith, we receive him (Romans 8:15; etc). And so, as the New Testament makes plain in several places, the Spirit dwells in us (Romans 8:9–11; etc) and prompts, empowers, and guides our prayers (Romans 8:26–27; Ephesians 6:18; Jude 20).

For Christians, there is a special relationship between our prayers and our having the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 6:17–18 says to “take . . . the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.” And Jude 20–21 says, “You, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God.” God doesn’t just want to hear from us and open the way to him, leaving it in our court. He gives us his own Spirit, in us, to prompt our hearts to pray, to enable us to pray, and as Romans 8 says, to pray for us when we don’t know what to pray.

Getting Practical

So, as men and women of the gospel, fed by God’s word, flanked by our fellows in Christ, we cultivate habits of prayer in three main spheres: secret (Matthew 6:5–6), with company in our marriages, families, and churches, and as regular anchor points in our lives (1 Thessalonians 5:17; Romans 12:12; Colossians 4:2). We have the opportunity to punctuate our lives with prayer and take the seams of our days as prompts to pray.

We turn general intentions into specific plans. We find our regular times and places. Our prayers are scheduled and spontaneous — in the car, at the table, in bed. We pray through Scripture, in response to God’s word. We adore, confess, give thanks, and petition. We learn to pray by praying, and by praying with others.

And we end on this note. Lest you think of prayer as simply asking God for things, let’s clarify what is the great purpose of Christian prayer: that God himself would be our joy. C.S. Lewis says this so memorably:

Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine. (“The Efficacy of Prayer,” 7)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in light of the Father’s listening ear, the Son’s securing and certifying achievement, and the Spirit’s amazing indwelling and prompting and help, I hope that you would not leave here this morning feeling guilty or under obligation, but that a shift might begin or continue in you — from obligation to opportunity.

Prayer is an opportunity to enjoy “fresh supplies of grace” to your soul, the best of which is the enjoyment of God himself.