Glorious gift of life, Lord,
for the mercy that is ours in Christ Jesus above all things,
the life that is ours in him who is our life. Father, the
privilege and the honor and the freedom to be able to just gather
together in your name, hold your word in our hands, talk about
it in the public square, proclaim it everywhere we go, and to share
the faith in such a way that we can spend literally our entire
lives just learning and growing and being your people. Father,
help us not to take that for granted, but Lord, to take full
advantage of that freedom. And I pray as we learn your word
tonight, Lord, as we continue in the writing that Paul wrote
to the Hebrew saints, that we might learn more and more about
the depths of just the mercy that you've given, the depths
of your grace, of your love, And Father, I pray for us. I
pray for our families. I pray for those who are considering
moving here. I pray for those who cannot attend
a fellowship elsewhere. I pray for those who long for
the intimacy that's been taken away because of COVID and other
things. But Lord, though you may rearrange
our lives and rearrange our location and rearrange our schedules and
uproot the things that may take place from day to day, our normality
sometimes our foundation, you will never uproot our faith.
You will never change, and your son will never change, and that
which he has accomplished shall never fade away. And so, Father,
as I preach this scripture tonight, as we read through this letter
and continue to learn, I pray that above all things we would
be amazed at this truth, that our Lord, our King, our Savior,
your Son, Jesus Christ, the God of creation, is our eternal hope. And it is in his name that we
pray these things to your ears, our Father. Amen. Hebrews chapter
10. I want to revisit a little bit
from last week, starting in verse 11, and read down through verse
18. And if we have time, I will get into the therefore of 19,
but probably next week. Let's read. Verse 10, 11, And
every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly
the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when
Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins,
he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time
until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For
by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those
who are being set apart. And the Holy Spirit also bears
witness to us. For after saying, this is the
covenant that I will make with them, after those days, declares
the Lord, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them
on their minds. He then adds, I will remember their sins and
their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of
these, there is no longer any offering for sin. Now, it may
feel, and I think I said this last week, midweek, it may feel
as though this is the most redundant letter in the Bible. And if you
feel that way, just read Romans or read Galatians. Paul restates
over and over again his singular argument which is that Jesus
Christ is the righteousness of the elect. Because of his finished
work, God is just and justifying them as innocent, as forgiven. And he compares all of the shadows,
the shadow of the garden, the shadow of the promise, the shadow
of creation, the shadow of the angelic hosts, the shadows of
all of the promises of antiquity, the shadows of Melchizedek, the
shadow of the high priest, the shadow of Aaron, the shadow of
Moses, the shadow of the law, the shadow of the Decalogue,
all of it is indeed fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And we need to learn this and
learn this and learn this and learn this and learn this so
that when we are tempted in our flesh to turn from this eternal
hope, that we are reminded by the constant and redundant learning
of the gospel, that we are reminded that there is no condition that
we must meet, that Christ is not already fulfilled. That even
our faith in an effectual way is not what saves us, but it
is the one who is faithful that has saved us from which our faith
or to which our faith looks. Sometimes in our culture, we
have seen a mass movement through centuries even, where faith in
and of itself becomes a promise of life. That we could create
this idea of faith in one's own faith and thus I know that I
know that I know because I know that I have knowledge of the
knowing that I have life. And it could go on and we kick
the can down the road to infinity and we can never land on anything
solid. Christ is the rock that does
not shake. Christ is the foundation that
does not move. Christ is the life that is eternal
and imperishable. Matter of fact, that's what Paul
has already said over in chapter nine. The imperishable life of
Christ, the imperishable priesthood of Christ, the imperishable blood
of Christ that does the true work that cries out better than
Abel's blood. For Abel was just a shadow. of
what Christ would do. And so with this idea of the
high priest in verse 11, we've already learned this. We'll just
move right into the other verses from this. Paul reminds his readers
that all these things that you hoped in and all these things
that gave you some sense of temporal confidence, these things have
passed away. And John's about to get there
in his first epistle in a couple of weeks too. When he says that
the things of the world are passing away. to the shadow of Christ
are passing away and have passed away. For the true has come. The true has arrived. There is
nothing that any earthly religion can do. There is nothing that
any earthly sacrifice can accomplish. There is nothing that any devotion any devotion whatsoever that
we could muster to present before God in our dress, in our actions,
in our affections. Now don't get me wrong, I love,
I bought and started three new books last week and I've read
them and I'm going to read them again this week. And what are
they? One of my favorite subjects, historical writings, historical
theology. I enjoy reading the annals of
how men and women of old, of antiquity, of history, whether
it be last week or a thousand years ago, I love the way people
interact with the faith. I don't learn from them, I don't
subject the Word of God to what they think it might be saying,
but I enjoy reading other people's views about anything. There are
many subjects that I've never really approached in my life,
but if you brought it up to me, I would research it. I would
learn it. And if I find it interesting,
I might go down the rabbit hole of not going to bed for two days
and just dig and dig and dig, only to come to the end of my
coffee pot and say, I need sleep. And this is worthless. But wasn't
it fun? You ever fished all day and not
caught a thing? Run out of gas, have to paddle back up the river?
You ever gone on a trip and forgot your wallet or lost it or had
an accident? These aren't fun things, but
my goodness, we didn't keep us from going on other experiences. It also didn't interrupt our
faith. It may have been a time of temptation, a time of testing,
but it didn't stop us from being found in Christ. The same thing
is true with any experience. It's okay to read. It's okay
to study. It's okay to be an anthropologist
every now and then. But remember that our foundation
is being found in Christ as the elect of God. That our hope and
the eternal glory that is ours is a promise of God our Father
found through Jesus Christ and that truth can only be found
in scripture. So while I love to read about
the affections of other people concerning the Lord Jesus, while
I enjoy peering like a fly on the wall in the autobiographies
of pastors of old and theologians of history, I find them interesting
at best, but in the comparison of the pages that I've just read
and the sentences that I've just read this very night, they pale
in comparison to the point of being dry and barren and boring. Now, I've never been bored a
moment in my life. Never. I don't understand it. I don't grasp it. If I had nothing
to do, a nap shall come. That's not boring. It doesn't
matter. There is never a time where there's
not something to ponder or to gaze upon or to consider or to
engage in. Never been bored. Never wanted
more experience because I know that just outside this minute
there will be something else for me to see and I don't need
to go looking for it. It is there. But who cares about the craziness
in my own heart? The point is this, is that none
of those things, no matter how hard I look at your life or the
lives of those heroes of old, whether they be in the faith
or not, no matter how much incredible literature that I can soak up
or music that I can absorb or things that I might create with
my own mind and hands, none of those things will prepare me
to stand before my father. I will not grow fonder of my
Lord Jesus by hearing your love for him. At best, if I do that
and compare yourself, if I compare me to you, then I will grow guilty. If you wish that you had come
with your theses or with your religious affections or with
your canons of exposition and commentary when you were in your
childhood. Don't wish those things for that
which you are this very moment is the very thing that God has
eternally prepared for you until this very moment. And there you
are, and this is where we are, and this is a gift of God, this
very second, the breath that you just took, the blinking that
just happened in your eyes involuntarily, the diaphragm that moved up and
down to bring your air full of lungs and out because of the
synapses of the electronics of your brain is what God has intended
to take place this very day, and everything that you've ever
experienced in life, good, bad, or indifferent, has brought you
to this moment. And when we look back with regret
or wishes, or we look forward to what we hope to accomplish
or hope to be, we're not living. We're longing for something that
isn't real. We're longing for something that
no longer exists or has not yet come. And we're not promised tomorrow.
So when we look to the future, beyond what God's word tells
us to do, we are running a fool's errand. And at the end of our
days, whether we be 100 or 20, we are a wasted life. But we who are the elect of God
are not a wasted life. Neither are the reprobate for
in God's infinite wisdom, he has purposed each individual
according to his will, after his own counsel, either to be
his or his in glory or his in justice. And so my encouragement to you
is, as Paul is writing to these Christians who are kin to him
by blood and now kin to him by the blood of Christ. Today, in
this moment alone, is all that we have. Glory in the Lord Jesus. Your journey is only as deep
as you have gone into the Word of God itself, that God the Spirit
will teach you that which you need to know in the time in which
you need to know it. It's sophistry at best when we
see so many people with zeal. They want to have all the data.
They want to have all the resources. They want to have all the indices. And they want to know that they
have a handle on the information so that they may regurgitate
it in sound intellectual. Friends, Christ is our wisdom. And it is foolishness to the
wise of the world. Christ is our righteousness,
and that is blasphemous to the self-righteous and the religious
of the world. The same is true if we continue
to look to that which we have done, whether good or bad, and
cause it in any way, even our faith, to give us assurance today. just like those priests and they
stood and they worked and they stood and they worked and they
could have been rolling biscuits and had the same efficacy. The phylacteries, the word of
God held in high esteem so much so that the literal interpretation
of holding the word of God before your eyes and near your heart,
they wore it. Tiny little scrolls. They wore
it. I'm obedient to the Lord. Look at me. I have the Word near
my heart. I have the Word in front of my
face. Yet none of those things matter.
They could have had comic books there to the same effect. Living the Christian life is
looking at Christ and loving people as Christ loves you. And
it doesn't get much simpler than that. These sacrifices can never take
away sin. But Christ, this is where we
left off last week. Christ, once and for all, satisfied
the sin-debt of His people. And He has perfected forever
all those who are set apart by God for Himself. Verse 15, that
was a rerun, verse 15. And the Holy Spirit also bears
witness to us for after saying, and then he goes to Jeremiah
31. Matter of fact, go to Jeremiah 31. Verse 31. Behold, the days are coming,
declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the
covenant that I made with their fathers on the day that I took
them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my
covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares
the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house
of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within
them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God
And they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one
teach his neighbor, and each his brother, saying, Know the
LORD, for they will all know me, from the least of them to
the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity,
and I will remember their sin no more." Now, there's a lot
there, and I think it's in the context of – specifically, it's literally
in the context of Hebrews 10, verse 15 and following. Because
that is where Paul is quoting. He is quoting that, and I'm going
to flip back into there. So look at what he says there.
He just says two short things out of that whole text. This
is the promise, this is the contract that I will make with them after
those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws on their hearts
and I will write them on their minds. Now this is one in the
same thing. Go back to Jeremiah 31. I'm not going to make a covenant
like I made with them that they broke, but see, there was a condition
they had to keep. So it wasn't an eternal promise.
It wasn't a promise that God had to keep, period. It was a
shadow of the true promise that God could not break because what
has Paul already said, chapter four and five, God cannot lie. I took them out of the land of
Egypt by my hand, and the promise and the contract that I had with
them, they broke, though I was their andros, though I was their
husband. I was their head. I was their
Lord. I was their master, but they
broke my contract. For this is the covenant that
I will make after those days." And then Paul quotes it. But he doesn't give it all, does
he? I'll put my laws on their hearts
and write them on their minds. Now why would Paul use that language
in the context of the writing to the Hebrews? Because that
was their focus. Their focus was on how they lived,
how they appropriated the relationship between them and God through
the religion that they exercised by going into the worship as
they were prescribed, as was prescribed. So that if they did
the right things and approached the right way, then they were
worthy to stand in the presence of God. But we know that the
only thing that establishes the ability to stand in the presence
of God is one of two things. Either you were going to receive
His wrath, or you were going to receive His mercy. And the difference between the
two is that if God has loved you eternally, His mercy is yours
because His wrath was poured out on Jesus for you. But if
not, justice awaits. And so as we look to the doing,
as we look to the living, as we look to the walking, as we
look to the attitudes, as we look to the affections, and we
constantly, and not that we shouldn't, there are some instructions here.
We'll see that as we get on down to verse 26 or verse 25. But there is not room for this
mixture of doing and being when we're proclaiming the solidity
of the gospel of free grace and sovereign grace. We cannot mix
the two. So as God says through Jeremiah, I will be their God and they
shall be my people. That's it. But you cannot be
the people of God unless you are righteous. And no amount
of work can make you righteous, no amount of favor toward God,
no amount of promises to God. I thought about that today as
I read out of Psalms on Sunday, and I thought about how the Lord
knows me. The Lord knows the intricate
realities of my thoughts from afar. God has never looked at
me and watched what I was doing to figure out what I was up to.
God has never had to perceive who I am. He's known me before
I was. You too, beloved. We can't put one over on God
like we can Grandpa. We can't clip our nails and slick
our hair and put on our belt and go in and put on the part
in the show so our grandparents go, look at that fine young man.
Be a hell raiser on Saturday and be Grandpa's boy on Sunday.
We can't fake God out by showing the part. We can't lie to ourselves
and say, I am resolved. I shall have religious affections
forever for the things of God. In doing so, no more sugar. No
more caffeine. No more short-sleeved shirts. No more sleeping past 3 a.m. Carry my Bible in my pocket,
staple one to my head. I will never hurt the world that
God has made. I will produce no garbage. I
will recycle my own feces that I might feed it to my children.
I mean, the list goes on and on. And all it is is just people
standing in line with razors trying to circumcise the church
and people behind them on whetstones sharpening the blades as they
pass them back. You've got to get right with
God. You've got to get right with God. Folks, if you want
to get right with God, the only way you're going to get right
with God is eternally be damned by Him. Or Jesus was condemned in your
place. Which is it? You either believe
that Christ stood in place of you, or you are condemned already,
waiting judgment. I would say like a doctor's waiting
room, but you've got to wait in the car now. I am their God, they are my people,
says the Lord. And because of that, I will put
my laws on their hearts and minds. This isn't a two-fold theology
about the doing and knowing of the law of God. This isn't about
knowing right from wrong. This isn't this psychological,
philosophical garbage where people say, well, you know, the Lord
wrote his law in our hearts, so we know that this is wrong
and that's wrong and the other's wrong. And then he prepares us
to walk in a manner worthy of all these laws and obey these
laws. We obey the law by faith in Christ. And in the context of what Paul
has been teaching is that all these things have passed away
and they are shadows of the one to come. And in Romans chapter
three, he says very clearly, and I quote, the righteousness
of God that has been what displayed apart from the law, although
the law and the prophets bear witness to it. What Moses wrote on stone bears
witness to the righteousness of God, but it is not the righteousness
of God. It does not teach us about the
countenance of God. It doesn't teach us about the
holiness of God. It shows us the true God, Jesus
Christ, the Son. How can we see that? How come
that is not popular? Why is that antinomian? Because
there are more unconverted souls in Christendom than there will
ever be saved people in eternity. I want you to hear that. There
is nowhere in the Bible that says that the majority of people
will know the truth. The scripture clearly shows in
context the truth that the law of God in all of it is Jesus
and that it was never intended to cause you to live. You know
what I was taught in middle school? Son? Every man calls a boy son
in this area. Son? If you could have been born
and never sinned, you could have had eternal life. But you did. Too bad for you, but now you've
got to do something about it. Is that good news? No, that's
garbage. Well, you've heard what Jesus
did. Will you accept it or not? Well, what if I do accept it
and then I unaccept it? What is faith anyway? What have I done? What can I
come to see? What can I accomplish? How can I believe? But it is
not about that. It is about what Christ has done.
Saving faith, as we'll soon see in the weeks to come, is what
Christ has finished. It is finished. He is our God. We are His people. And you will
not escape Him. You will not escape the blood
of Christ. You will not escape The mercy of God. You will not
escape the love that God has had for you before the foundations
of the world. You will not escape the will of the foreknowledge
of God for your sake. You won't escape it. You can't
escape it. That's Romans 8 right there,
by the way. The whole thing. That's Romans 1 through 8. That's what
it leads up to. And it just, it's a breakdance moment. Long
for a breakdance, and Paul was breakdancing. I promise you.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus. There is no love apart from the
finished work of Christ. There may be providence, there
may be patience, but there is not love apart from Christ. And they know me, God says. They know me. Nobody's got to
teach them anymore. Why? Because I wrote my laws on their
hearts and minds. That means they're not have to
seek after me. They're not going to have to
inquire of me. They're going to know me. And how do we know? How do we know? I think I quoted
this last week. How do we know the father through
Jesus Christ, the son? That which was veiled, that which
has blinded us, that sin and depravity and justice, Christ
has wiped away. Christ has removed the veil,
beloved. He has removed the offense by
becoming the offense. And Christ is not just the offense
of those who hate, religion, Christ is the offense of those
who are religious in their righteousness. Because to say that grace is
free is awful for people who have
worked so hard to get it. So when God's word says he will
put his law in their hearts and minds, It means that they will
know who he is and they will long for the day when they will
be with him because he is their God and they are his people. And they shall all know me from
the least of the greatest. And for further explanation of
what I mean, God says, I will remember their sins no more. I will forgive their iniquity. What have they done to earn that
status? Nothing but rebel. Nothing. Nothing. But what about my sacrifices,
though? My phylacteries, bro? How about my festivals? My prayers? All the don't do's. You know
how many don't do's I got? I don't do this and I don't do
that. I don't do this and I don't do that. Why don't you go brush
your teeth? You're too close. I will remember their sins no
more. Verse 18, where there is forgiveness
of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. I want
you to think about this as we close out. I want you to think
just logically, just think logically for a minute. If you have a debt
to pay God, when shall you restart that note? What will the payments
be? What are the terms? What is the
frequency? What happens if you're late?
What happens if you get in a bind and can't pay? What does a forbearance
look like? Is there a deferment option?
Is there any collateral? Now it may be absurd to some
of us to think that way and say, what's this got to do with the
gospel? Everything. Because false teachers will paint
a pure picture of grace and then put a contract of terms of the
debt all around it. If you really are in the grace
of God, these terms shall accompany your salvation. Folks, I don't know about you,
but as long as I've been alive, I have paid Appalachian power.
I have paid PG&E. I paid PG&E $1,280 a month on
average when I lived in California. And that was with no central
air condition. That's the cost of power. And Georgia Power is
about my second highest bill, second to my mortgage. And I
think to myself, when am I ever going to pay them off? I'm never
going to pay them off. Because you know what I'm not
going to do standing up here? Drip sweat into this luxury Bible.
Are you? If I had to, yes. I don't think
twice about it. My electric bill's on auto pay. It just comes out. Electricity
comes in. Money disappears. Electricity
comes in. It's a debt that's never paid. It's never paid. Because the
minute you stop paying, the power goes off. Is that the gospel? You might think, well, where's
the analogy here? How's this parsing out? Where are you going
with this? You know I'm half crazy anyway, so don't worry
about it. Just know this. If there is something
that you owe God, you're in trouble because the disconnect notice
is already in the mail. If there's something that you need to be
doing with your life to secure your eternal salvation or to
prove it, you're condemned and you're going to be in collections
and you're going to stand before God and He's going to reap the
full harvest of His justice against you and it is an eternal payment
because we ain't got enough life in us to pay God back. We believe what he has said concerning
his son, and he doesn't lie, who says, they're my people and
I am their God and I have shown them my righteousness through
the mercy of their justification. And how's that affected? We've
already been learning it for 17, 18, 19 weeks now in Hebrews
through Jesus Christ. That's the point. That's the
point. And before you get all excited
and think, well, I hear you, but there's no but. Cause look,
let's read ahead. Let's read the next. Let's read
through verse 25 in close. Therefore, I love those things.
I love that therefore is there when they're an encouragement
to me because of the payment that has been made through Christ
Jesus, because there is nothing that God requires of me. I don't
hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that there are
some things that we ought to be doing. There are a lot of
things we ought to be doing. There are a lot of commands we
need to pay attention to. There's a way of life and a way
of love. that we should follow. But that's
not what Paul's writing about here. He's giving hope in the
midst of a people who have been working hard without a day off
for thousands of years. And he's telling them now, Jesus
finished the construction. Just sit down. The job is done. Therefore, brothers, since we
have confidence to enter into the holy places by the blood
of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through
the curtain. It 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. And let us consider how to stir
up one another to love and to good works, not neglecting to
meet together as some of you are in the habit of doing, but
encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day of
Christ appear, getting near. See that? So everything that
I've said tonight unfolded in that huge sentence right there,
or two sentences maybe. It just unfolded. We don't hide
before God. We don't come to God with regal
attire and with regal speech. We don't speak King James when
we pray. You ever heard somebody do that? It's interesting. And I know
why it happens because you read the Bible, you read the prayers
of the Bible, you use the language of the Bible. The King James sounds
amazing. But it's different. When someone says the word Lordeth,
I mean, you know what? Is that a man's name? I mean, it's just different.
This is South Georgia. We don't have a handle on English
as it is. Don't use words I don't know. The point I'm making is
I'm being funny, I'm making a joke. We don't have to put on airs
before God. Christ put his body on the cross. His blood has satisfied the wrath
of God. We are saved. And there is no
more requirements for entering into the assembly. If you need to go to the bathroom,
you go to the bathroom. If you need something to eat, you eat.
If you've got hypoglycemia or whatever it might is, you get
what you need to get. If you're thirsty, if you're
thirsty, if you get upset, you need to cry, go cry. If you want
to say amen, you can say amen. It doesn't matter. Just keep
it orderly. And if we screw it up, we'll
work on it. But there's no requirements here, except that we proclaim
this true and precious gospel of Jesus Christ. And so when
we start laying conditions on people, no matter what our motives
are, we are putting laws on their hearts that God has not said,
let's do. And we get to come before the
throne of God, not cowering and humming You know what I mean? Not putting on our best, as some
people are arguing right now, but putting on the righteousness
of Christ and tugging him on the hem of his robe and saying,
hey, Papa. And he's a better father than
me, because if my children enter the room with their mouths, they're
in trouble. You enter a room with your ears. But God doesn't
treat me that way. Because when I enter the room,
the blood that cries better than the blood of Abel is the blood
of Jesus that cries forgiven. That cries delivered. That cries,
that is your child, Father. And you are their God. Which relationship do you want?
If you are in Christ, that's the one you have. Let's pray. Temper me, Father, for I get
honestly angry when people hurt your sheep. I thank you, Lord, for the mercy
you've given us to hear and to understand this truth and to
see Christ. Lord, help us to put away all
this weird, spiritualized, false philosophy of being godly and
teach us straight from your word who we are. Teach us straight
from your word by your spirit whose we are. And teach us how
to have wisdom in Christ that we may live in a manner worthy
of your name. And as we do that, Lord, help
us to never give up, to never give up the faith that you've
granted. And we can't. But encourage us
in that. To know that we know that Christ
and his blood has satisfied you. And in his name we pray and rejoice. Amen. Thank you, Church.