Very exciting sermon titles. Next week, take a guess. Part
3. Hebrews chapter 10, part 3. Why do I even care about what
chapter it is? So that you know where I am. So you can remember
if you want to go look. I want to emphasize again, as
I've done many times before, that there is no need for chapter
verse divisions in the Bible. I want you to hear that, and
I want you to put that in the depths of your soul, and I want
you to remember it. Because if we aren't careful,
we will think that these chapter headings mean something in the
context of interpreting the Bible. They do not. They are not inspired. God the Spirit did not cause
them to be put in place and they have nothing to do with anything
related to the context of scripture. Paul wrote a letter and he wrote
the letter from start to finish. He did not divide it because
if we get into chapter 10 We are thoroughly continuing from
chapter 9, because we see the word FOR. Chapter 9, the very
first word there is NOW. Chapter 8 is NOW. Chapter 7,
FOR. Chapter 6, THEREFORE. And we
can go on back. It's one complete thought, an
argument that He wants to show that Jesus IS OUR. redemption. Jesus is our righteousness. Jesus is our High Priest and
that every aspect of worship, every aspect of any type of services,
any aspect of the temple or the tabernacle that has ever existed
in the world have all been shadows of the fulfillment of the person
and the work of Jesus Christ. Because if we aren't careful,
we may think that chapter 10 of Hebrews is teaching something
different than chapters 1 through 9. Or that it's topical. And it's not topical. And I'll
be honest with you, in all the different homiletics and hermeneutic
courses that I've taken through the years, and all the books
that I've read, and all the different types of experts, supposed experts
in the field, it's very difficult to find someone who will actually,
or read curriculum that actually teach you what I'm saying. As
a matter of fact, it is a very unpopular idea. And it's so unpopular
that even in certain seminaries, in my experience, they will teach
you to topically derive a sermon idea from the context of particular
verses without even subjecting them to the rest of the letter.
For example, let's talk about love. Love is a good word. Love is a good topic. Everybody
wants love. Everybody needs love. Everybody
wants to give love. Love is what makes the world
go round. Where do we go? John 3? 1 John? For God is love? Do we
go to Paul's writing that I live by faith because he gave his
life for me? He loved me. He died for me.
What do we do? We don't want to teach love.
And if we do teach love, are we to teach love from a humanistic
or philosophical point of view? Are we to teach love in a way
that helps us live out our daily lives as we rake the yards and
mow the grass and shop for groceries and wash the clothes and do the
job at the office or make sales calls or repair automobiles? Nah. If we're going to teach
the Word of God, it's not in its pages, it's not found, life's
lessons. Nowhere to be found in the Bible
are life's lessons. Yet it's very easy to find a
way to manipulate the text with pretext to teach life's lessons,
then say, thus saith the Lord, hallelujah, pass the plate. Because
there's always a lesson in tithing. I'm glad y'all got the joke.
Nobody's frowning. No, the opposite is true. Paul
wrote these letters. John wrote these letters. James
wrote these letters. And in doing so, they had a point,
a point. A purpose, an occasion, and a
people who received these writings and these apostles, these authors,
intended for these recipients to understand the central point
of the letter. Yes, there may be other things.
For example, next week we will get to the therefore of chapter
10, verse 19. This week we're not going to
get there. Therefore, the only reason we
understand what is taught there, because how many of you have
ever been taught horrifically the warnings of Hebrews chapter
10? And if you ask most pastors, where are the warning passages
of scripture? They'll tell you. They'll tell you. And you ask
what Hebrews is about, they can tell you about Hebrews 1 because
it secures the divine nature of Jesus, it secures the divine
person of God the Father, and it secures the reality of the
eternal Godhead, including the Holy Spirit. And then they'll
know about chapter 6. And then they'll know about chapter
10. And then they'll go, yeah, but chapter 11 is the faith chapter. That's where Paul teaches about
faith. You want to know about faith? You've got to go to chapter
11. No, you can't go to chapter 11 because chapter 11 is an explanation
of chapters 1 through 10. But most pastors can say, well,
I know what chapter 13 says. Submit to me. Do what I tell
you to do and listen to what I say and agree with what I'm
talking about. Amen? Amen. Don't agree with
what I'm saying. Don't agree with what I'm saying
at all. Agree with what God, the Holy Spirit, is saying through
the context of His holistic Word from beginning to end, from Genesis
to Matthew. Understand that everybody who's
ever spoken from a lectern, whatever the thing, pulpit, podium, Holding
a Bible, they have all said, I believe in the full counsel
of the Word of God. They've all said, this is it.
God said it, that settles it. But yet you will know what they
think concerning the revelation of God the Spirit, the testimony
of God the Spirit through the Scripture by how they handle
the Word. And Paul tells Timothy that young
pastor brothers must be taught to handle the Word. to handle
it. I remember when, as a child,
when I shot my first gun, I pulled the trigger and my daddy held
the rifle. And it was a shotgun and a few weeks later he let
me shoot it and I fell down. The gun flies off. Everybody
laughs. There was no camera phones. Every
camera was this big and every phone was tied to a wall. So
there wasn't anything we could do to tell everybody. We just
had to tell the story like human beings. And then I remember later, a
few years later, I shot my first fully automatic rifle, an M16A2
Colt. Three shot burst. Into the pond. It's exhilarating. In my early
teen years, I got to shoot my first M60. Chain fed with tracers
going over the, it was exhilarating. But in every one of those times,
the expert was there. They were holding the gun. They
were telling me what to do. They were making sure. Have you
ever shot anything like this? No, sir, I haven't. Well, do
this. Don't do this. Be sure you stand this way. And
by all things holy, if this happens, run! I mean, you know. Same thing
driving a car, driving a bulldozer, using a backhoe, putting up scaffolding. Well, Daddy, I've been playing
with Legos since I was six. I'll put the scaffolding up.
No, son. I'm gonna show you how to properly adjust scaffolding.
I'm gonna show you that you put the pins all the same way so
you don't find yourself hanging by your toenails because you
slipped pulling the pin out the other side. I'm gonna show you
how many times you have to lay certain boards and how to secure
them. You got on a boat, there's a list. You file your taxes, there are
rules. Beloved, you got to learn to
handle the Bible. And the first step in handling
the Bible is to know its authority. And to know that its authority
is derived from its context in its fullness, not its pretexts. Yes, everything written in scripture,
if I close my eyes and I just flip and I go boom, I'm at Chronicles
chapter 4 verse 13. The sons of Canaan, Othniel and
Saraiah, the sons of Othniel, Hathath and Mehonathai, and Mehonathai
fathered Ophrah, And Seraphi father Joab, the father of Jeharashim,
so-called because they were craftsmen, the sons of Caleb, the sons of
Jephunneh, Eru, Elah, Naam, and all these different names. And
like, my goodness, why did I pick this? And you just quit? That
isn't inspired by the Lord. The sons of Gad lived over against
them in the land of Bashan. And we just could go on and on
and on. And although those words are inspired without its context,
they're absolutely worthless. And I'm being honest with you.
That's a good example the Lord gave me right there. Because
where is there a sermon in the genealogy outside of its context? I don't even know these people
are unless I understand where it's going. Unless I've read
the entire book of 1 Chronicles so that I know the story, the
picture, the purpose. You can't preach through Hebrews
by studying chapter one for three weeks. You got to read it every
day for three weeks to preach chapter one. You got to read
it today twice before you can pick up where you left off last
week. And if you're anything like me, you better listen to
the sermon that you preached last week because you probably
forget exactly where you left off. Otherwise, you might think
sometimes, didn't he preach that last week? Yes, I did. Because
I started off in the wrong verse and I kept going. The authority of the word of
God is found in its context. And if I take a line or a verse
and I bring it outside of its context, we call that a pretext.
Then I can manipulate it to say what I think I wanted to say. because it doesn't have the boundaries
of its authoritative whole. We have to be careful. That's
why I am huge. You know I love theological studies. I've studied it a lot. You know
I love historical theology. You know I love church history,
specifically American church history, European church history,
Western migration. I love that stuff. It's amazing.
I love to read the annals of historical theology. I love to
read the Puritans. I love to read the sermons. of
dead men. I love to read the journals of
pastors from today or a hundred years ago. I love to see the
anthropological mix of how God has used heretics and saints
alike to come to conclude certain things in life. But those things
are not authoritative. I love the confessions, but they
are not authoritative. The Bible in its whole is the
Word of God and God speaks through it. You can tell an unskilled
handler of the Word by the fact that he does not reach into the
context but rather segments the scripture so that he can teach
what now is next, what now is next, what now is next. Like if we go to James, we're
going to teach about favoritism. We're going to teach about keeping
a tongue under control. We're going to teach about being
loving. We're going to teach about prayer
and pride and prejudice. There you go. The three Ps. You
can do them all in one sermon or you could do the Ps, the Pandora's
box of the American church. There's the three Ps. And you
can go, it doesn't take much. I am extremely creative in this
silliness. I could probably make a small
mint writing sermon outlines for men to buy because they can't
read the Bible. Why? Because they haven't been
taught by someone who has been taught by God. And outside of that, understanding
the authority and its context, then as you begin to hold it
and yield it and teach it and study it, I promise you all that
historical stuff, whether it be a thousand years ago or last
week, whatever the source is, it's going to invade your brain. It's going to invade your thoughts
as you handle the Word of God. And it's going to begin to overlap
and interweave into the teaching, into the exposition, and into
the interpretation of the scripture that interprets itself word by
word easily, so simply, that if it's written in a common tongue,
you can get it. And so that is where the elders
who are approved workmen are slow to put hands on someone
else who is also helping and learning to divide the word of
truth so that when they finally say, yes, we affirm this brother,
that that brother has shown and proven himself to be trustworthy
with the word of God, not trying to tickle the ears of his audience
through any historical precept or any pretext or any rationalism
or philosophy whatsoever. And it's very easy, beloved.
I could turn these very thoughts into a philosophical mindset,
into a philosophical idea, into a philosophical mantra to the
point that it could be my platform. James Tippins could be known
as the guy that believes in the authority of Scripture, having
never taught anything from it. So to that end, let's get in
it. The Word of God continues. Last week, we saw Paul argue. that the shadow of Christ is
seen in the law, in the Ten Commandments, in the Holy of Holies, in the
Ark of the Covenant, in the manna, in the living water from the
rock, in the staff of Moses, in the budding staff of Aaron,
in the priesthood. that Christ is the fulfillment
of it all, that everything that ever had to do with anything
spiritual related to the promise of the covenant of God is fulfilled
in Jesus Christ. Everything else is just a commercial
pointing to him. And when the real came, we don't
watch the trailer anymore. The law is a shadow. Verse 8. Paul's arguing that the worshipers
of old have ceased because they did nothing for the worshiper
except to give a temporary hope in the permanent cleansing that
came through Jesus Christ and His blood. And Jesus Christ came
to do the will of God. We see In verses 5, 6, and 7,
that quotation there. And then in verse 8, when he
said above, above meaning right before what I just wrote, you
have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings
and burnt offerings and sin offerings. Why? These are offered according
to the law. Then he added, behold, this is
Jesus speaking. I have come to do your will. When he says this, what is he
doing? When he says this, he does away
with the first covenant, with the first shadow. He does away
with the shadow because the light comes on the scene and the shadows
dissipate. So he does away with the first
in order to establish the second. And by that will, look at verse
10, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. And then we got to end in verse
11. 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 sin, this
is a recapitulation of chapter one, verses one and two. He sat
down at the right hand of God. waiting from that time until
his enemies should be made a footstool under his feet. And if we go
on, verse 14, for by a single offering he has perfected for
all time those who are being sanctified. And we're going to
stop. We're not going to get any further
than that tonight. So what is he doing? He's repeating himself
over and over again because he does well to teach the repetition. People always said, well, how
do you memorize large passages of scripture like that? How are
you so familiar with the Bible in so many areas? And the answer
is, I'm really not, but I am familiar with it because I spend
time with it all the time. Not all the time, but a lot of
the time. I don't want to, it's just hyperbole when I say all
the time. Just like there are songs that I know I can play
from memory, large pieces of classical music that I could
probably sit over there and muscle memory, it just comes back to
you after a few minutes. Same thing with songs, lyrics,
poems, stories. We don't memorize a story. We
just hear it told and we go, I like that. We visualize it,
we digest it, we internalize it, and we tell it again. And
sometimes it's a little bit different. Sometimes the stories are different.
Sometimes the song lyrics are a little bit different. Sometimes
the chord progressions are a little bit different. Sometimes the
dance has a little bit different interpretation. But for the most
part, it's the same thing. The same thing is true with Scripture.
If we can memorize thousands of words of songs, we can memorize
passages of Scripture. And the difference maker is,
are we hearing it over and over again? Is it repetitive in our
hearts and minds? I thought this week, as I was
preparing for Sunday, that it's often frustrating to see so many
young pastors in the ministry, as I once was years ago, in my
early beginning days. So I say young, I'm not talking
about age, I'm talking about time in the work, in the labor. where they get to the point where
they feel, and I felt like this at a certain season of my life
until an older man put me in my place, I felt like I knew
enough. You've been there, right? My
theological knowledge was sufficient. I didn't need someone to parse
out with me the justification of Christ from Galatians and
Hebrews and Romans. I didn't need to go back in and
deal with the problematic verses in the original languages. I
didn't need to deal with the authorship of Isaiah. I didn't
need somebody to tell me about faith. I didn't need to hear
again and again and again and again the eschatological views
of John. Because I felt like I knew all
those things because I had learned those things. But in reality,
I had absorbed the words, but not learned the truth. And any of us who have ever spent
time in the word of God, if we have come to that conclusion,
we've been taught very quickly that it's not a reality. And
it frightens me when someone says to me, you know, well, I
know all of that. I have justification down. You do not have justification.
You may have your understanding of that doctrine and you may
be able to regurgitate it or you may be able to copy my words. But if you haven't learned it
from the scripture, if you're not able to go and say Paul's
letter to the Romans teaches the doctrine of justification
in this way, you don't know it. I don't care how many definitions
you have or how many historical pastors you can quote in agreement
with you. And it scares me when pastors
or brothers or sisters think, well, I've already learned this.
Like I've had sometimes people say, we know the gospel. Get
on with something else. You know, as a shepherd, you
know what that makes me think? That's not a sheep. That's my first thought. That's
not a sheep. It's a sheep wanting to know
more. about the same truth of their
eternal God, who is Jesus Christ, the Son, who is their shepherd.
So Paul repeats himself over and over again so that the readers
of this letter don't forget the 11 minutes before what was already
read to them. And just some, you know, seven
to 11 minutes later, he repeats himself again. He reiterates,
he recapitulates the idea that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment
of all things promised by God. And that the reason that it's
important that we know that is because the ultimate living out
as a Christian, living out as a believer is not about our moral
compass and our moral alignment to some way of cultural righteousness. Our living out is by confidence. Our living the life as believers
is. Has everything to do with our
assurance. With our hope. so that I don't
have to go into the tabernacle or into the temple anymore and
take the best of what I could not afford to give, so that a
priest could cut it and burn it and pour the blood into the
Holy of Holies, so that I could be reminded that the wages of
sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through
the blood of the Lamb. And then for that moment, for
that week at Passover, for that week at this festival, for that
week at this worship, for that week at vacation Bible school
or whatever it might be, I might feel on top of the world spiritually
and I have great confidence. Then I have to go home and I
have to face the music of the mundane life that we all are
going to live. Our lives are not exciting, y'all.
Except that Christ is alive in us. And we no longer have to go to
the temple. We no longer have to look at
the shadows of the mediator. But some people who have not
seen the grace of God love the pomp and the circumstance. They
love the liturgy of religious experience. They love the garb
and the robes and the coverings and the scarves and the incense
and the wines and the cups and the loaves. They love the fires. They love the singing. They love
the mantras. They love the groaning and the
laments. It's too laid back. When you
see grace, it's just too laid back. So an unconverted person
must go the extra mile, must find something else. That's not
freedom, beloved. And because that's not freedom,
that's not joy. And it's not joy because our
conscience is still bound to the law of God. And we know that
we're guilty before him. Christ is the fulfillment of
that law. And the righteous justice and wrath of God is fulfilled
in the death of Christ. And we know that we can repeat
that everyone in the sound of my voice knows it. But the reason
Paul continues to say it over and over again so that we can
live it. Because I don't know about you, beloved, but before
we go to bed tonight, we will sin in our hearts. And I pray
that we don't. Paul writes these things to us
that we may not sin, as John would say. But if we sin, we
have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous,
who is the satisfaction of God for himself. So the daily doing that verse
11 through 13 is just a. Addendum to this truth. The heart
and the meat of it comes is that Jesus has come to do the will
of God. And this is where our assurance is undergirded with
some great power. Behold, I have come to do your
will. Now, what is Paul just taught
for nine chapters? He is taught that the finished
work of redemption, that the penalty of sin is paid in the
blood of Jesus for all eternity, for the elect of God, for those
God has loved before he created them, their sins are paid for. So the will of God is to justify
his people through the blood of his son, and it is a finished
work. The will of God is done, the
will of God has come to pass. Christ has died in our place
and God is at peace with us. God does not have peace when
bulls and calves and doves and lambs and flour is poured over
the Holy of Holies. God did not have peace when prayers
were offered. God did not have peace when sacrifices
were burned. God has peace in His heart toward
His people because He burned His Son on the cross. He shed
the blood of the righteousness of God. And this is the will of God.
That's why the contrast there. These are not two ambiguous statements. These are two related statements.
God, you are not pleased in the sacrifices and the worship of
man. I think I said last week that the whole nature of human
religion as it relates to being justified before God is equally
effectual as Aaron's worship at Sinai. When he got all their gold and
he melted into the calf and they worshiped. But Jesus comes to do the will
of God, the Father. And the will of the Father is
that he does away with the first. I want you to hear this. You
know it. I want you to see it. Simple sentence. He does away
with the first in order to establish the second. Now, we've already
learned that the eternal covenant of God, the eternal contract,
the eternal point, the eternal promise is life in Jesus Christ.
There are no other ways to life. There is no obedience. There
is no law keeping. There is no religion. There are
no statutes. There are no precepts that we
follow that could have given us life. We are guilty in Adam.
And this is the plan of God before the foundations of the world.
So the will of God is that the second one is actually established. We know what the first one was,
a shadow. The light who is Christ has entered the world, the shadows
are gone. So those who stay in the shadow stay in the shadow
because they don't want people to see that their shadow work
is worthless. That's John 3, by the way. That
is the argument of John 3. It's not about God's love for
the world. It's about the light. overcoming the darkness of man's
self-righteous religion. And that the light who is Christ
is coming to the world, but that people love the darkness. Why?
Because their sacrifices, their prayers, their service, their
ministry was dark. The second covenant is the true
promise, verse 10, and by that will. Interesting, he doesn't
say. Covenant. Because the covenant of God is
the will of God, God does not change. He does away with the
first and will establish the second, and by that will what
the will of God that Jesus came to fulfill, he fulfilled it,
the second has now been established, as we already seen, we will now
see for the fourth time it is completed. And by that will,
by the will of God through the death of Christ, we have been
set apart through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ forever,
forevermore, once and for all. And the word there in your English
Bible have been sanctified or have been made holy. We have been sanctified, we've
been set apart, we've been given by the Father to the Son, and
the Son was crushed by the will of the Father. Now we're justified. How do I know I'm justified?
You believe in the proclamation by the gift and the mercy of
God. That's how you know. And that's what chapter 11 is
all about. That's the lead-in. Is Christ's death effectual for
me? Isn't that the question we get?
Well, we're not there yet. Verse 11, he goes on and on and
on to say again and again and again what he's already been
saying, the daily ritual of service, offering sacrifices over and
over and over and over, which he can never Please, God, and
can never fulfill the will of God, because the only thing that
fulfills the will of God is the death of Christ. And the will
of God is that none of his people would perish. And it's done. Can never take away sins. And when we think of salvation,
sometimes we think about it in such systematic ways. Even lives, as you know, and
I'm not saying it's not a good way to look at Romans 8, but
the Ordo Salutis, the order of salvation. I don't think God
has orders. I'm going to do this, and then
this, and then this, and then this, and then this. God is immutable and
timeless. God is eternal. God doesn't learn,
think in sequence. God is not trying to articulate
something in some way that if I can get this done, then I can
do this thing. God doesn't learn. God does not
look at you today and go, well, you know, that's a reprobate
person. Oh, he believed, now he's saved. It doesn't work that
way. God isn't changing how He looks
at us. But the Bible doesn't give us
the insight of the mind of God and the Bible doesn't reveal
to us the realities of the love of God except by the Spirit of
God who causes our minds to change so that we may see the truth
of that proclamation. Chapter 11. We hold fast to the promise
that God has said, this is my will that you will live. How
am I going to live? Through the blood of my Son you
will live. You will not die. Yet, he has said numerous times,
no one can see me and live. But John says, we have seen God,
the Father, if we have seen God, the Son. The God who is at God's
side has made Him known. The finished work of Jesus Christ
is the will of God for His people. It is not the will of God for
all people. It is the will of God for all His people. Christ had offered for all time
a single sacrifice. What did He do? He sat down at
the right hand of God. You've already heard that. You've already heard that in
verse 3 of chapter 1. He's the radiance of the glory of God,
the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by
the word of his power. After making purification for
sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Listen to this message, do not
neglect such a great salvation, Paul says, everything is under
the feet of Christ and there is nothing outside his control,
namely your salvation and the judgment of unbelievers, for
he tasted death for us all by mercy and by grace. And he has
set us apart. And he who sanctifies and those
who are sanctified all have one source. And the source is the
mercy, the love and the kindness of the will of God. This is chapter
two. And Paul goes on to say that we share in this heavenly
calling. So if you hear what I'm saying,
he writes, don't harden your voice as those who were in the
wilderness, who saw the power of God, who understood the presence
of majesty, who were at the tempest of Sinai, who heard the righteousness
of God come down in shadow on tablets of stone. And yet they
defied him anyway. And what did God do? He told
them that they who would not listen to His promise, they who
would not understand the promises of His contract with Himself,
His will for His people, were not His people and He would let
them perish, never seeing the truth of eternal life. This is
the shadow of the promised land and Moses and Joshua. All these
things have passed away. Haven't we already seen that
Jesus is greater than Moses? Haven't we already seen that
the greatest myth of the priesthood in Melchizedek is subservient
to the Lordship the supremacy of Jesus Christ. And he says
over and over and over, the promise of entering the rest of Jesus
Christ stands because my people will hear my voice and they will
come in and go with me in and out. They will eat green pastures,
they will drink living water, they will eat the bread of life
who is the one who comes down from heaven. Jesus says in John
6, I am that bread and I alone give life. The promise of God
and the proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ is that
through Jesus Christ, His body and blood would pay for the sins
of His people and that the only way The only way that is effectual
for you is if God the Father gave you to Jesus Christ before
the foundations of the world. And the question then is, how
do I know that it is my gospel? Because you believe and you rest
in the sufficiency of the death of Jesus Christ alone. And you
don't stick your toes or your safety net or your belt or your
tether or your rope or your mind or your focus on anything else
but his blood. And his cross. Because the true covenant of
life. Is the will of God through Christ Jesus. And he has sat
down. Entered through the holy places
and that we go to the father through him alone. In the last. Few hundred years,
we've seen a lot of. Baloney and foolishness and silliness. where man has come to a place
of helping humanity accept this truth. Acceptance of that truth. In
the context of some logical, yep, I believe that is not faith. And you know. The spirit of God
testifies to your spirit that you as a child. You know that
you can call dad, you can call God your dad. You can bow your head, you can
look to the heavens, you can call out as you're driving, you
can stand in your shower, you can be sitting on the toilet,
you can lay in your bed, you'll be walking in the shopping mall
and you can say, my dear heavenly daddy. You don't have to cower. You
don't have to worry. And even then, when your faith is waning,
the Spirit of God will sustain you to know that Christ is your
righteousness, that even when you feel like you are sinning
in your lack of faith, God, your Daddy, will hold you together
by the Spirit to keep you remembering that Christ saved you. And this world will tear us apart. Story Jesus tells the parable
of the sower. Jesse preached on that a month
or so ago. And how there are a lot of people who go, yeah,
I believe the gospel and they put their faith back in works.
They put their faith back in their faith. They put their faith
back in just living a good life. They they do something different
and they escape the intimacy of the body of Christ who holds
together because of the promises and the power of God. in Christ. Or they try to usher in a new
reality, a new season, a new - what's the word I'm looking
for - expression of righteousness by molding people and manipulating
behavior so that we all look sort of the same and we all talk
sort of the same and we all live sort of the same. Some of them
can get a list of what is good and pleasing to the Lord that's
not even found in the Scripture. They make judgment. And then
they say, well, if we're really Christians, then we'll do these
things. But the Bible doesn't give us these things. And if
we are Christian, we ought to do these things is a different
story than saying if we are, we will. Big difference in that may seem
like a small and there's a big difference, one is a condemnation,
the other is just growing. But yet for the true for the
true believer, there is confidence. Verse 14, listen to it, for by
a single offering. He has perfected for all time. Those. Who are being set apart. For all time. And we already know that being
set apart, being sanctified holiness is not this progressive lifestyle. Is there some progression in
our lifestyle? Sure. We can put away some sins, we
can polish ourselves up, but so can every cult member in the
world throughout all of history. I know a lot of Buddhists, a
lot of Buddhists. When you work in martial arts
and stuff, you just, you learn a lot of people who are into
mysticism. and they are the greatest people
that ever lived. They're honorable and kind and
patient and gentle. You could spit at them and they'd
go, I'm so sorry my face was in the way of your spit. I mean,
you know, and they'd apologize to you for the, you know, and
of course that's an exaggeration, but that's their demeanor. What,
how, I'm not gonna be like that. Spit on me, I'll show you something. I'm just being honest. I got some buttons, I got two
or three buttons, and that's one of three. Spit on me. The Lord and His mercy and His
power can keep me from putting hands on you, but I will certainly
pray for you. By the laying on of hands, you
spit on me in anger. Some of you are going, I'm going
to get close to Him and stay six feet apart ten years from now when coronavirus
is over. I'll lose myself in that. We are not morally becoming
more set apart. We are set apart in Christ. And that's what this letter's
about. It's not about other stuff. Now, there's some therefores
there, but in the context, it's about laying down the gospel
for the sake of a false assurance. That's what chapter 10's pointing
to and pumping us up for to get away from Sinai so that we can
get to Zion. Because you can't stand between
the two. God, in His will, has perfected
all of us through the death of Jesus Christ, a single offering,
and there is nothing else required for us to live forever. Nothing.
Nothing. There is nothing else that you
ever have to do because Christ has done it all. Period. What about man's responsibility?
Wash your underwear. Go ahead, that's good. Brush
your teeth. Check the air in your tires.
Set your air condition at a reasonable temperature. And have a checkup every now
and then. I don't know. What is your responsibility?
Why in the world has the evangelical world come to that proposition? God's sovereignty, man's responsibility. God doesn't care about our responsibility. It's not our responsibility to
do something that He's accomplished in His sovereignty. Like He's
standing there with sovereign grace that is free and clear
and purchased. He said, Oh, I just wish somebody
would come here and take a dip in my sovereign pool. Hey, you
want to swim? You want a drink? And at the
end of the day, God's like the little old homeless man standing
on the corner in New Orleans, only selling three of his ten
keychains. That's pathetic. You haven't
been to New Orleans, you haven't seen those street vendors. They
sell everything out there. God has done the work. Christ
has finished the work. And that's what saving faith
believes. That's what it believes. And then because that is true,
there is a lot, there are a lot of their force that the apostles
have given us to live out and to love and to strive for in
the context of our lives together. And we do well and it is pleasing
to our daddy when we do them. And when we don't, the belt comes off. but it is
not the belt of wrath and condemnation and death, it is the belt of
love and discipline and grace and correction. Big difference. Verse 15, and the Holy Spirit
also bears witness to us, for after saying And this is, remember,
and I might have to deal with this section next week as I move
into verse 19. This is Jeremiah 31. This is
the promise that I will make with my people after those days,
declares the Lord. I will put my law laws on their
hearts and write them on their minds. And we know, as we've
already learned, that that is his righteousness. That's the
understanding of his righteousness. And we know that the understanding
of his righteousness and how it establishes justice in the
death of Christ, because that's the context, right? He's not
changing gears here. He's staying with the same reason
he started with. I will remember their sins no more. Where there is forgiveness of
these, there is no longer an offering for sin. How silly would
it be to bring a check to the bank that didn't even hold a
mortgage to your house? They'd call your family and they'd
say, James is trying to make a payment on a house that doesn't
have a debt. Somebody needs to come take his
check. I don't know who else he's paid today, but come get
the check. God is expecting nothing. in order to save you because
he's done the work already. Let's pray. Father, I could just
stand and glory and magnify this gospel for the rest of my life
and never stop, never eat, never rest, never have intimacy in
any way in fellowship with anybody else. But Lord, that is part
of your mercy and grace that you allow us to dig and to eat
and to enjoy the truth and then live together in it. So, Father,
that is the time that we've come to now. That we would live in
this comfort, that we would live in this promise, that we would
live in this life, that we would live in this glorious and beautiful
love, this free grace. that has already been purchased
through Jesus Christ in this sovereign grace that is administered
by your power and your power alone to your people alone, so
that they may be your righteousness, not in the reality of their flesh,
but Father, in the substance of their faith, who is Jesus
Christ, who is our righteousness imputed. to our account. And
in Him, Lord, we rejoice. And in Him, Father, we rest. And in Him, Lord, we exult. And in His name we pray. Amen. Thank you, beloved.