Let's read from Matthew chapter
10, starting at verse 37. I'm just going to read through
verse 39. It says in Matthew 10, 37. He that loveth father
or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he that loveth
son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that
taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me.
He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his
life for my sake shall find it." And I've entitled this message,
First Things First. First Things First. And there's
two reasons why I've given it that title, because in this text
of Scripture it's clear that the Lord is speaking about what
ought to be first for His disciples, the Kingdom of God. If you find
your life, you're going to lose it. He said, but if you lose
your life for my sake, you're going to find it. And so let's
pray and ask the Lord to give us understanding. Dear Lord,
thank you for your taking the side of your people against their
enemies. Thank you that you have all power
and that you do all the fighting. You do the whole work. And in
this work, Lord, we stand still and see your salvation. Let this
so enthrall our hearts and overwhelm us with wonder of thanksgiving
at your love for us and your care and your provision and your
accomplishments that the Lord Jesus Christ will be all to us.
And we will be like these people who were terrified by their physical
enemies. We will be like those who stand
fast in the trust we have in our Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus'
name we pray, Amen. Now, throughout Scripture, we
see something about the reproach of the people of God. You find this throughout scripture.
I've given you two chapters in Isaiah, chapters 36 and 37, that
show the reproach of Christ. The reproach of Christ. And I'm
using this word, reproach, for a good reason. Because here in
Matthew chapter 10, the Lord Jesus says, if you find your
life, you're going to lose it. And if you lose your life for
my sake, you're going to find it. And it troubles us at first
when we hear those things. I know it troubles me because
it sounds to me at first like there's a condition that the
Lord Jesus Christ puts on our salvation. You give up everything
and you'll be saved, basically. That's the way you first interpret
this, right? And that's why I've entitled this message, First
Things First. Because it's easy for us to be
confused by our sin and our weakness and our first inclination, which
is to try to do the will of God in order that we might be saved.
And not see that in ourselves we have no power in this thing. We need a principle within, as
the song, as the hymn says. And that principle is the gospel. The gospel. You see, everything
that we do as Christians is an effect, is a result, is a consequence
of something that came before. So when we read these words of
our Lord Jesus Christ, He that findeth his life shall lose it,
but he that loses his life for my sake shall find it. This is the effect. This is the result and the consequence
of a prior work that has already occurred. And without the foundation
of that work, we're going to get entirely off base. We're
going to go charging off with our swords, swinging them, trying
to kill our enemies, or with this confidence in our determination
and our resolve, rather than looking to Christ. It's so important
that we understand this. This is a principle in Scripture
that's repeated over and over. The Gospel, it says in Romans
1.16, it says, is the power of God unto salvation. The power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth. Now, we normally read that verse,
and what's the first thing we think of? We think of the gospel
as the power of God to salvation when we first believe, don't
we? We think, well, I was lost, I
was in darkness, I didn't know anything about Christ, I thought
God was only my enemy, and He was. In my mind, and my wicked
works, and my hostility towards God, I couldn't keep God's law.
And I knew I was under the wrath of God, and there was nothing
I could do about it. And yet God required of me things like
repentance, and faith, and turning from my sins, and all these things.
And I couldn't produce one of them, and so I just gave up.
And it became a guilt trip for me. I was always under this dark
cloud of guilt. And then the gospel came, I believed
it, and I was saved. And then, that was the power
of God to my salvation. And there's nothing wrong with
that. That's true. But it's also true that the gospel is the power
of God to salvation, that to everyone that believeth, Not
only when we first believed, but even now as we believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said it this way, I am crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I. It's not me that's living this
life to God. It's Christ that lives in me. And then he says this thing,
And the life that I now live in the flesh, The Spirit of God,
the Spirit of Christ in me. Living in me. Christ Himself.
One with me. What is He doing? How do I live?
He says, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave Himself for me. So Paul was saying that his entire
living, his life, in his own experience, was living in the
power of the Gospel. In the faith of the Son of God
who loved me and gave Himself for me. So, Paul, how did he
have this strength? How did he have this ability
to stand against all enemies and to go forward in the battle
against everything? Everything opposed to the gospel,
especially his own inner corruption. How could he do this? How could
he not faint? Well, he says in 2 Corinthians
chapter 1, And verse 9, we had the sentence of death in ourselves
that we should not trust in ourselves. The sentence of death was in
us, that in order that we might not trust in ourselves, but in
God, which raiseth the dead, who delivered us from so great
a death, and doth deliver, in whom we trust that he will yet
deliver us." Those two verses explain how Paul survived, how
he was able to do this. It's because by faith, he lived
by the faith of the Son of God. He looked to Christ in what he
did. So, I want to help you understand how is it that we can count our
life as a loss in this world in order to have Christ. How
can we bear, because that's what the Lord is talking about here,
the disciples were sent out to preach the gospel, and the Lord
warns them, He tells them ahead of time, these men are going
to come against you, wolves in sheep's clothing, they're going
to persecute you, they're going to take you before governors,
they're going to put you to death, all these things. He said, but
I want you to understand, even the hairs of your head are numbered.
A sparrow will not fall without your father. The Lord's going
to take care of you, provide for you, and all that I've sent
you to do. Now if you try to hang on to
your life, if you try to preserve it through all this, you're going
to lose it. But if you lose your life for my sake, then you'll
find it. But in saying this, the Lord
is saying that what's happening is that the reproach of Christ
is what you're going to experience. And experiencing that reproach,
something's going to happen. Something's going to happen.
The work of God in you is going to cause you to stand fast in
what Christ has done for you. And you're going to willingly
bear His reproach. I want to bring a couple of examples
from Scripture to your mind. Remember what Ruth said? Ruth,
when she was asked by her mother-in-law, just return to your family, return. Yet Ruth was steadfastly minded
to go with Naomi. She wouldn't leave her. Remember
what Jesus said? If you lose your life, If you
try to find it, you're going to lose it. But if you lose it
for my sake, Ruth was steadfastly minded to go with Naomi, to forget
everything that she had in the land of her nativity. Because
what? Because she loved Naomi more
than that. She was willing to give up her
family, her friends, her home, her nation, the way of life under
which she grew up. in order to be with Naomi. Not just live with her, but to
be with her. To live in her house. To follow
her wherever she went. That her God would be her God.
Her people would be her people. That she would die where Naomi
died and be buried where Naomi was buried. Now this is given
to us, it is a beautiful picture of the love of God's people for
one another, but it's more than that. It's teaching us the love
of God's people for the Lord Jesus Christ. Like Ruth, we are
born in the land of our nativity. We walked according to the course
of this world. Born of the flesh, we are nothing
but flesh. And yet, We love the Lord Jesus
Christ because God in His mercy has shown Christ to us. And we
are willing and we trust in Him so much so that everything else
that we grew up with, everything else, we abhor it. We abhor it. We find it doesn't satisfy. It doesn't give us peace. We
would rather be with Christ than anything. And so we count the
things of Christ to be a greater treasure. And then look at Hebrews
chapter 11. This is one of those places in
scripture that every time I read it, it floors me. How could this be? But this is
true. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 24. Speaking about Moses, he
says, "...by faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused
to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter." Sounds like Naomi,
I mean Ruth, in some sense, right? She says, "...no, I'd rather
be with Naomi, my mother-in-law, have her people as my people,
her God as my God. I'd rather die and be buried
with her than be with my own former nation and people and land. And
so Moses says, when he comes to years, he refuses to be called
the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction
with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for
a season. And look at verse 26, esteeming
the reproach of Christ greater riches. than the treasures in
Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward."
What is the reproach of Christ? I think as you read through Isaiah
36 and 37, you see something about the reproach of Christ.
Sennacherib sent his captain, Rapshika, to cause the people
of Israel and Judah to doubt The Lord, their God. He said
that the one you're trusting in cannot deliver you. The one
you've been told to trust by Hezekiah, your king, cannot deliver
you. He hasn't saved all the other
nations from the power of the king of Assyria. How is he going
to save you from me? And so he tries to get them to
doubt. In other words, he reproached the trust of God's people. He took a shot at the foundation
of their heart, their confidence, and their trust, and their hope.
All that they had was that God had promised to be their God.
God had given an oath to Abraham that He would, in Christ, give
them all spiritual blessings. The land of Canaan is a picture
of that. The land of Canaan points to the land of salvation in Christ. In Christ we have all spiritual
blessings. And so Rabshika comes and he
tries to assault the trust, the confidence of the people of God,
their hope. And Isaiah, and the Lord speaks
through him, says, you have reproached the God of Israel. You have reproached
Him. In reproaching His people. In
attacking their one trust, you've reproached Him. Just like David
told Goliath, you have defied the armies of the living God.
And now I'm going to take your head off. And that's what the
Lord Jesus Christ did, didn't He? You've defied my people. Zechariah says it this way, He
that touches you, touches the apple of mine eye. And so, to
reproach God's people is to reproach Christ. To love God's people
is to love Christ. To trust, to trust in the Lord
Jesus Christ and have someone tell you that your trust is vain,
is to reproach the Lord they trust. And so Moses, he considers
all of this. He sees the children of Israel.
They're under affliction. They're in bondage. What are
the Egyptians doing to them? Treating them cruelly. Holding
them as slaves in bondage. And it says in Isaiah 63, God
says, in all their affliction, He was afflicted. The Lord Jesus
Christ was afflicted. He himself bore our sicknesses
and our sorrows and our griefs. You see, God made the Lord Jesus Christ one
with His people in eternal election. He chose us in Him. He gave us
to Him. And then He made us, He made
the Lord Jesus Christ our surety. So that He placed upon Him the
obligations of His people. And He accepted them. He took
them as His own. And He was made of a woman, born
in our nature. And then made under the law and
in our nature. And under that law, God made
Him to be sin. And making Him our sin, God brought
the all-consuming fire of His wrath upon Him. And He bore that
wrath. And the fire of God's wrath purified
our sins in putting Him to death. And so, our Lord Jesus Christ
is our hope. He's our surety. God has made
Him so. And this is what you see. So
Moses sees this pictured in the children of Israel, in the land
of Egypt, under affliction, and he says, I would rather suffer
reproach, the reproach of Christ, with them than to enjoy all the
treasures of Egypt. Because to the heart of the believer,
he says the same thing. He says, I would rather trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ. All my salvation is in Him. I
have nowhere else to go. It's not really a choice. I've
been put in a corner, hedged up. I can't do anything else.
I would rather trust Him. Then to have all the riches of
this world, all the fame that it could give, all the praise
and the accolades and everything. This is what you say in your
heart, don't you? You find yourself completely out of place. except
when you find yourself in the Lord Jesus Christ in this world.
And so, everything else, it's like, who cares? Who cares? You're
speaking against my Master, like Ruth. I don't care. I would rather
live and die and be buried there with my beloved Naomi. And we
say the same thing of our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Moses
said the same thing. Now, what causes this? This is
the effect. This is the effect of the gospel.
But the gospel itself is the power of God unto salvation.
It's the gospel that does this. So I ask this question. What
is the gospel? What is the gospel? Driving back
and forth to Sonoma yesterday, the last two days, a couple of
times was giving me a lot of time to sort of think this through.
Because I couldn't write it down, I had to put it in words in my
mind over and over. So I've captured these points
about the Gospel that I hope that you will find helpful in
understanding. Not only understanding what the
Gospel is, but believing it firmly. Making the Lord Jesus Christ
all your hope. Because remember, the Gospel
is the power of God to salvation. So what is the gospel? Well,
you know the word gospel means good news. But the gospel is
not about what you can do to get into heaven. And this is
something I think where we make a huge mistake in gospel preaching
throughout the world today. You'll hear people say, I'm going
to go preach the gospel. And what are they doing? I'm
going to preach how you can get into heaven. Isn't that what
the gospel is? How you can be born again. How
you can improve your life. How you can raise your self-esteem
or raise your children or raise something else. But the gospel
is none of those things. The gospel is not about your
improvement. The gospel is not what you can
do to enter heaven or to please God. The gospel has nothing to
do at all with what you do. In fact, the gospel has nothing
at all to do with your experience. And this is the first surprising
thing we learn about the gospel. Look at 1 Corinthians. I'll give
you two places in scripture to show you some of these things.
I've already made mention of Galatians 2.20, and I'll refer
to that later. But 1 Corinthians 15, he says
this. Paul, writing to the Corinthians,
and I was talking to Denise this week, you know, isn't it interesting
in Scripture that the greatest blunders, the greatest ignorance,
the greatest unbelief, and sometimes the greatest disobedience serves
as the context and the platform on which we learn the greatest
truth? The Corinthians, some at least, denied that there was
a resurrection. Because of that, God wrote through
Paul 1 Corinthians 15. Which is the clearest explanation
of the resurrection and what it means to us in all of scripture.
Aren't you glad the Corinthians were such bumbling people like
us? The same thing happened with
Thomas, remember? I will not believe. Then he says
later, my Lord, my God. And we find out the greatest
declaration of the deity of Christ and what it means to God's people.
So many things we learn in scripture by the foolishness of us. And this happens over and over.
I mean throughout scripture. Psalm 80, turn us again Lord
God. And the whole book of Hosea is
about the adultery, the spiritual adultery of God's people, and
yet it's the greatest and most precious display of God's love
for His people, that it's unstoppable and can't be resisted, that the
Lord's going to save His people. So, here we have 1 Corinthians
15. Look at verse 3. Paul says, "...I
delivered unto you first of all..." I'm sorry, verse 1. I've got to read verse 1. "...Moreover,
brethren, I declare unto you..." What? "...the gospel." which
I preached unto you, which also you have received and wherein
you stand, by which also you are saved." How are we saved? The Gospel. What did we receive? The Gospel. What do we stand
in? The Gospel. If you keep in memory what I
preach to you, unless you've believed in vain. For I delivered
unto you, first of all, how that, I'm sorry, that which I also
receive, how that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third
day according to the Scriptures. Alright, keep those words firmly
in your mind, because that's the Gospel. What is the Gospel? It's how that Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that
He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. That's what
Paul says. And it's by believing, receiving,
and holding to that, that we are saved. We stand. Now, what
is this Gospel? Well, I'm going to point out
a few things about it. First of all, It's a historical account
of glad tidings. A historical account. It happened
before you were born. Before I was born. To the disciples
it was going to happen. It happened while they were living.
But to all the men who came before in the Old Testament time, the
Gospel was yet to be actualized. It was foretold, it was promised,
but God hadn't fulfilled it yet in history. And when the Gospel
came, when the Lord Jesus Christ came, He fulfilled the Gospel. The Gospel is what Jesus did. It's not what He's going to do. It's what He accomplished. And
this is so important. Because We think about sometimes
the preaching of the gospel is what God is going to do in you. God is going to do things in
you, but only because Christ has done something for you. And
we don't want to underestimate that. Because the second part
of the gospel, before I get too far ahead of my points here,
the second part of the gospel is who did this? That makes it
all important, doesn't it? But the first point is this.
It's historical. It's outside of my personal experience. It's outside of your personal
experience. And yet it's declared to us. So what can you do? What can you do then to contribute
to the good news? You can't do anything to contribute
to it. It's good news delivered and declared and proclaimed to
you and brought to you. It's telling you about the mighty
triumphs of the Almighty Son of God in your nature. It's not
talking about what you've done at all. It's not talking about
the work God is doing in your life. Sometimes the disciples
made that mistake. Remember in Luke chapter 10?
They came back after preaching and they said, Lord, even the
devils are subject to us. That's amazing! And Jesus told
them, I'm telling you, look, do not rejoice because the devils
are subject to you, but rather rejoice that your names are written
in heaven. Something that happened before
you were born, an eternal transaction between God the Father and God
the Son, which Christ is going to bring about by His death,
burial and resurrection. That is what you need to rejoice
in. 1 Peter 1.18, knowing that you
were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from
your vain conversation, but with the precious blood of Christ
as of a lamb who was foreordained from the foundation of the world
for you, but now is manifest in these last times. You see,
it's about what God did in Christ for His people. from the foundation
of the world and which the Lord Jesus Christ did when he went
to the cross. And the Lord tells him, He's
not saying that you shouldn't be glad about your experiences. But they were rejoicing over
them and He wants them to know that you're setting aside what's
the most important thing. What God has done. What God thinks
about what Christ has done. That's what's important. That's
what you need to rejoice in. Because that is what, remember,
I live by what? The faith. of the Son of God
who loved me and gave himself for me. The Gospel. It's historical.
Secondly, the Gospel is about Christ. It's Christ who died.
And how often have you... Have we quoted that verse in
Romans 8? But let's read it together. Turn
over there to Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8, he says
this. In verse 28, we know that all
things work together for good to them that love God, to them
who are the called according to His purpose, for whom He did
foreknow love beforehand. He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn
among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate,
them He also called. And whom He called, them He also
justified. And whom He justified, them He
also glorified. There's no disconnect between
the beginning and the end of our salvation. The end is as
sure as the beginning, and the middle ensures the whole. It
says, verse 31, "...what shall we then say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us?" He that spared not
his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather,
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also makes intercession for us. You see, what the argument here
is, is that God is for us, therefore no one can be against us. Our
sin is viewed as our enemy. The thing that we, that lay within
our own heart, what is sin? It comes from within, out of
the heart of man. And God says in His mercy, He
views our sin as His enemy. He says here that our sin is,
it can't condemn us because Christ died for us. God predestined
us to be conformed to the image of His Son. And the argument
is this, if He didn't spare Christ, but delivered Him up for us all,
then there's no possibility that He won't give us all things with
Him. This is one of the strongest
statements in all of Scripture, of the certainty that all for
whom Christ died must and shall be saved. There's no uncertainty
in this thing. And that's part of what I'm getting
to here. It's the Son of God in our nature,
the Lord Jesus Christ who died. The gospel is about who died. Historically, the Son of God
in our nature came from heaven to earth. He was made under the
law. Now, the third point in the Gospel
is about a substitute. Remember what it says in 1 Corinthians
15.3? Christ died for our sins. A substitute. Historical, Christ that died
the Son of God in our nature under the law made sin, but He
was a substitute. This is such an important part
of the Gospel. But when I say the word substitute,
sometimes we think of like a pinch hitter in baseball. I need someone
to come in and pinch hit for this guy. Whack! He hits the
ball. He stands down. Somebody runs.
That guy's gone. That's not the substitute that
Jesus was. He didn't just come on the scene
one time and substitute himself for his people. In eternity,
he stood up and said, I will be surety for them. I will bring
them to you. How? By my own blood. 1 Peter 3.18. The just for the
unjust to bring us to God. It became Him for whom are all
things in bringing many sons to glory. The Lord Jesus Christ
stood up as our surety. And as our surety, He stood before
God's law as Judah before Joseph in Egypt. And He says, I stood
with my Father and agreed with Him that I would be surety for
Benjamin. And my Father loves Him and I
will put myself in His place. Now take me instead of the lad.
That's what the Lord Jesus Christ did. All throughout time and
eternity He stood for His people. So that when God looks at His
people, He only sees His Son. He's a substitute, a surety,
a mediator, a high priest. This is what the gospel is about.
It's about our Savior, as our surety, standing in history,
at a place in time, in a place on the earth, making atonement
for our sins. And that's the next point I want
you to understand. The gospel is about an accomplished,
an accomplishment, a finished salvation. This is quite amazing
if you think about it. This is quite amazing. that the Lord Jesus Christ stood
at one time and he made a full atonement for all the sins of
all of his people. Now, if we think about the gospel
as something that is going to happen to us, or something that
we need to include ourselves contributing to, or something
like that. If we start focusing on ourselves
in any way, we lose sight of the gospel. The gospel is not
about you looking at yourself at all. Even in the new birth,
what did Jesus tell Nicodemus? As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that
whosoever believeth in Him. He pointed Him away from the
experience of the new birth to Christ, by whom the new birth
came to Him. Christ crucified. Now look at
Zechariah chapter 3. I want you to see a couple of
verses from the Old Testament. Zechariah chapter 3. I want to underscore and emphasize
that what Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ, did in the Gospel, He
actually finished and accomplished. He actually finished. Zechariah
chapter 3, verse 9. We can read verse 8 as well.
Here now, O Joshua the high priest, thou and thy fellows that sit
before thee, for they are men wondered at, for behold, I will
bring forth my servant the branch. The branch is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's called a branch because he was a descendant from
David, and because the Lord laid on him all the iniquities of
his people. And He would be the one who would
grow up out of the, like Isaiah 52 says, He would grow up before
Him as a tender plant. Anyway, verse 9. For behold,
the stone that I have laid before Joshua, upon one stone shall
be seven eyes. Behold, I want you to listen
carefully to the next few words. Behold, I will engrave the engraving
thereof, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity
of that land in one day." You see that? I think that's one
of the most powerful words in all of scripture. God removed
the iniquity of that land in one day. Now turn to Leviticus
16. Leviticus 16, sometimes I'll
just quote these and I won't make you turn there, but I want
you to put these together. You know, it says in Psalm 119,
it says, I will never forget thy precepts, for with them thou
hast quickened me. And I want each one of you to
be able to open your Bible, and I want you to turn to Scriptures,
and I want you to see the truth, the very truth of heaven, and
stand upon it. Leviticus 16, verse 30. For on
that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse
you, that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord."
On that day. Now, I told you that the gospel
is an account, a glad tidings of an account that happened in
history at a place On a hill, outside the walls of Jerusalem,
in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, standing as a substitute and
surety for His people. On that day, He died for our
sins, according to the Scriptures. We just read it in two places.
Leviticus 16.30, Zechariah 3.9. On that day, the Lord Jesus Christ
stood for His people. It was because of what? our sins. That's the next point. Assurity. Accomplish something on that
day for our sins. He purged our sins. When He had
by Himself purged our sins. What does it mean to purge? It
means to cleanse it out. So that when God looks at the
place where the sins were defiling us, and making us filthy, and
foul, and unclean, and guilty, and the hostility of them, and
the cause of our separation from God. Everything that our sin
does, demanding God's punishment, the Lord Jesus Christ on one
day washed it all away. So that when God looks, He sees
nothing. He has not seen perversity in
Israel. He has not found iniquity in
Jacob. Numbers 23-21. And look at Jeremiah. Also, 5020. These are verses
I want you to just burn into your conscience, if they're not
even in your memory. But look at Jeremiah 5020. I always have trouble finding
this one. He says, "...in those days and at that time, saith
the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for." On what
day, what time? When the Lord Jesus Christ hung
on the cross and cried, it is finished. When he by himself
purged our sins. The iniquity of Israel shall
be sought for, and there shall be none. And the sins of Judah,
and they shall not be found, for I will pardon whom I reserve.
What is this? This is the gospel. This is the
good news, the glad tidings about what Christ would do as our surety
on a day finishing our reconciliation, our redemption. Purging our sins. Making a full remission. Establishing
eternal righteousness. Making us perfect before God.
Look at Hebrews chapter 10. I'm taking you to these verses
again. I know you might have these places
in your Bible so that just open up and turn there. But I'm going
to open them up one more time and turn there. Hebrews chapter
10 verse 7. The Lord Jesus Christ had just
said in the verses that preceded this. This is all about Christ
and what He would do. It's written in the volume of
the book that he would come and do the
will of God. Do you see what the gospel is?
It's all written in the book. It's in the scriptures. And then
he says this, Above, when he said, Sacrifice and offering,
and burnt offerings, and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither
hadst pleasure therein which are offered by the law. Then
said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the
first, the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, the offerings and
sacrifices, the way we were to come to God then, and that He
may establish the second, by the which will, the will of God
to redeem His people in the death of Christ, by the which will
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. We're made holy! by what Christ
did in offering Himself. The sacrifice that the priest
would offer made the people holy, ceremonially. But Christ, by
His offering, made us holy. And so then he says in verse
11, And every priest standeth, daily ministering, and offering
oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
And now in contrast, but this man, after he had offered one
sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God.
Why did he sit down? Because he actually put away
sin by the sacrifice of himself. From henceforth expecting till
his enemies be made his footstool, for by one offering, He hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified. And the Holy Ghost
gives witness to this. He says, after that he had said
before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after
those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts
and in their minds will I write them. And their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Why? Because of the one offering.
I won't remember their sins anymore. I've removed your iniquities
as far as the east is from the west. Psalm 103.12 What happened on that day? Our
sins were purged. They were removed. Cleansed. Reconciliation. Redemption. Righteousness
established in His obedience unto death. Perfecting God's
people. What can be added to that? What
more needs to be done? Nothing. That's the Gospel. It's a completed,
perfect, finished work. Outside of your personal experience. It's not getting happy in the
Spirit of God. That's not the Gospel. It's not
the joy you feel. The Gospel is what you believe.
It's the Lord Jesus Christ crucified. That's the Gospel. Rising again. Now, the reproach of Christ is
bearing the attack of whoever brings the attack against us. That that, what Christ did for
us, is not enough. Taking away our trust. It says
in, I can't remember the verse, but it says in Isaiah 61 perhaps,
that Jerusalem's walls are walls of salvation. Every picture God gives is about
our salvation in Christ. And so the man, Rabbi Sheikha,
who came assaulting the people, trying to turn them from their
trust in the Lord, is just like everything in our lives that
come, as whether we're just living our lives, going about our daily
activities, or speaking for Christ, or whatever, assaulting the one
hope we have that Christ is everything to us. Christ is all. He's all
my salvation. I come to God by Him. He brought
me to God. The just for the unjust that
He might bring us to God. Everything is done by Him. And
the Lord tells us, rest in that. Look unto me and be ye saved
all the ends of the earth. Whoever believes on me, whoever
eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. Paul says,
this is how you're saved. This is what you stand in. This
is what you receive. What does it say? I am crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I was crucified
with Him. My death, the Lord Jesus Christ,
when He died, He was so much a substitute and surety for me
that I was with Him there. So that His death was my death. I am crucified with Him. And
nevertheless I live. Wow! Why? How? Because the Spirit
of Christ now lives in me. What is that? That's the effects
of the Gospel. That is the Lord Jesus Christ
as a conquering monarch. in conquest over his enemies,
triumphant over them with the spoils of war, laden with the
spoils of war, now enriching his people because he has conquered
sin and death and the devil and the world and their flesh and
all things. Look at Ephesians chapter 4. The Gospel is what
Christ did. We proclaim the Gospel and God's
Spirit is given to us in order that we might believe what the
Lord Jesus Christ had done for us. And in believing that we
stand. Stand fast, Paul said, in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath set us free. And don't be entangled
again with the yoke of bondage. Ephesians chapter 4. Verse 4, There is one body, one
spirit, even as you are called, and one hope of your calling,
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who
is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every
one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the gift of
Christ. Wherefore, he saith, when he ascended up on high,
he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. That's what
I was trying to say. Now that He ascended, what is
it? That He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth.
He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above
all heavens that He might fill all things. There you have it.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who was in heaven. First
He descended. That means He was God over all
in heaven. And He came to earth in our nature
and was born in our nature. And He was made under the law. And under the law He was made
with our sins. And with our sins He was cursed
and He bore the iniquity. of His people under the wrath
of God and purged us as God is an all-consuming fire. The fire
of God's wrath came upon Him and purged all sin from His people
in their substitute. And now we're purified. We're
perfected. And then He rose. He ascended.
And as He was ascending, when He ascended, He gave gifts to
men. He reigns as our King. And now He rewards His people
with all the spoils of His war. He conquered our enemies. He's
done it all. To be ashamed of Him, to seek to preserve our
life, is to seek to avoid the reproach of Christ, the very
thing that we trust. He says, whoever doesn't take
up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. You see, when
the Lord Jesus Christ carried His cross, it was like A story
I heard once where a man who was convicted of a crime had
to actually pay the one who beat him. Or the man who had his head
chopped off had to pay his executioner. What a humiliating thing to have
to do. The Romans did this. They would
make the one who was going to be hung on the cross, carry his
cross. It was the highest form of shame. Carry your cross. The Lord Jesus
Christ carried his cross, remember? And he says, whoever doesn't
take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Because
the cross of Christ is our glory. It's our boast. This is what
made us acceptable accepted to God. This is what purified us
of our sins. This is what gave us righteousness
and brought us to God and revealed to us who God is and showed us
His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. The cross is everything
to us. It's our boast, it's our banner,
it's all that we trust in. And so to not take up your cross
is to despise the shame of the cross. To seek to save your life
is to compromise the truth of the gospel in order to avoid
the reproach of the gospel. But we don't do that, do we?
We think, well, yeah, I think I've actually done that. And maybe we start to think,
no, no. God says, read chapter 11 of Hebrews again, by faith. By faith. And what is He saying
there? He's saying in Hebrews chapter
11 that we live by the faith of the Son of God. You see what
faith does? It conquers. He says in Hebrews chapter 11,
amazing things. He says in verse 32, what shall
I more say? The time would fail me to tell
of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and David also and
Samuel and the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought
righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword,
out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned
to flight the armies of the aliens, women received their dead raised
to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance
that they might obtain a better resurrection." You see, Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego, before Nebuchadnezzar, if you don't
bow down to this image, I'm going to throw you alive into the fiery
furnace. Hey, but Neb, we're not even
careful to answer you in this matter. Our God is able to deliver us
from this burning, fiery furnace. And if He doesn't deliver us
from the furnace, He will deliver us from your hand, O King. And
he was enraged. He got the strongest men. Heated
up seven times hotter. They threw him in. The men who
threw him in died. And there they stand. Not a hair
singed. Coats not even burned. And the
Son of God is with them in the fire. That's faith. That's what
faith does. Where does it come from? It comes
from the Spirit of Christ in us. Giving us faith in Christ
for us. And by that faith we stand in
life. There's nothing that can't be done by our Lord Jesus Christ. All things have been done for
us by Him in His death. He gives us His faith to hold
fast to Him. And in His faith we stand and
walk and live and we overcome. John 5, who is it that overcomes
the world? What overcomes the world, he
says there? Even our faith. Our faith. 1 Peter 5, 7-9, he
says, Whom resists the devil, resist him steadfast in the faith.
Faith in Christ is everything, isn't it? It's faith that works
by love. Our love for Christ comes because
we see what He's done for us. And that love for Him does what
faith prompts us to do. That's the effects of the gospel.
First things first. First Christ, and then us after
Him. We see Him as our all, and He
is our all. He's first in our lives. Let's
pray.