All right, let's turn to Hebrews
chapter five. We're going to start slowing
down a little bit in chapter five. And then as we move forward through
the book, it'll probably take a couple of weeks each chapter. When we get to chapter seven,
we probably will take a couple of longer weeks and then it'll
speed back up after chapter 11. But just don't think we're gonna
be here 12 weeks, 13 weeks and be done. Chapter five, let's
read the word of the Lord together. Well, start in chapter 4, verse
14. Since then we have a great high
priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of
God. Let us hold fast our confession,
for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with
our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted
as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw
near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and
find grace to help in time of need. For every high priest chosen
from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation
to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently
with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with
weakness. Because of this, he is obligated to offer sacrifice
for his own sins, just as he does for those of the people.
And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called
by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not exalt
himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who
said to him, You are my son, today I have begotten you. As
he also said someplace else, You are a priest forever, after
the order of Melchizedek. In the days of his flesh, Jesus
offered up prayers and supplication with loud cries and tears to
him, who was able to save him from death, and he was heard
because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned
obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became
the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated
by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek." Now, I
know I talked through that rapidly in the close of last week, but
I wanted to approach it specifically this evening. The pattern that
Paul has in this letter is he's showing an Old Testament reference
to Moses or to the temple or to the priesthood or to the law
or to the sacrifices or to worship of Judaism. He's doing so again
by way of reminder because these Christian Jewish people were
being tempted and drawn to the possibility of falling back into
the practices of Judaism. for their assurance because of
the persecution, because of the other things that, you know,
economically and socially and relationally, it was just easier
to fall back into this. And so Paul is helping them understand
to not be tempted in this way because Christ is greater than
these things. Christ is greater than these
things. And so he's shown that Christ is greater than creation
as the creator. He's shown that Christ is God.
He's shown that Christ is greater than the angels. He's shown that
Christ is the Word of God to whom we should pay attention.
He's shown that Christ is our sanctification and our propitiation. He's shown already that Christ
substituted himself for the elect in the flesh of humanity. So
here is God who is merciful to take on the sins of his people
in the flesh, he's greater than Moses, he's greater than Moses
as a servant because he is the son, and then he's greater than
the promise that was given to Moses and to Joshua because the
promise of rest is truly found in Jesus Christ alone, not in
the temporary picture of the promised land. And so now he's
moving into the office, into the person of high priests. Let's
start for a moment and think, and for those of you, well, Ben
and Hannah, maybe, would know that as I taught this this past
school year, I kept a constant theme pressing on our minds and
in our ears, and that theme is, we are all going to stand before
God the Father, and we are all going to stand before Him either
in one of two positions. We are going to stand before
God either in Christ through the sufficient work and blood
of Christ or we're going to stand before God with our efforts and
if we stand before God with our efforts we are going to be counted
guilty and we are going to be condemned. But if we stand before
God in Christ alone there is no condemnation for us. And when
we think of Jesus as a high priest, we need to understand just for
a moment, as Paul explains, what a high priest does. And a high
priest intercedes on behalf of the people. But just as God called
Moses as a servant for his house, so did God the Father send the
Son to be a servant in the house as a son. Just as God chose all
of the prophets to speak, now God has chosen His Son to speak. Just as God has promised and
chosen through Moses to give a promised land, now has God
chosen to give the promised land who is Jesus Christ. And nothing
changes. As all these things were shadows
of the true Christ, now we get to see how they play out. The
high priest in chapter 5 is chosen from among men. and is appointed
to act on behalf of men in relation to God. What did the high priest
do? The high priest were intermediaries
or intercessoraries. They would come in and speak,
or not speak, but they would represent man and they would
do the things that were required of God in order to appease the
wrath of God. Specifically, prayers and offerings. The offerings, of course, were
symbolic. They were blood offerings. There
were also drink offerings and bread offerings and wine offerings
and and all sorts of other things, but they represented sacrificing
something to appease the wrath of God. And in that representation,
they had no real efficacy. In other words, they did not
do anything. They were just a picture of what God has promised to do. And what God has promised to
do is to take His lamb, the one that He chose himself and he
would sacrifice this lamb and the lamb's purity would satisfy
his righteousness and his justice and whoever this lamb represented
in his death would be free from the wrath of God. So as the shadow
of Jesus as a high priest was played out for millennia, the
high priest every year, during every feast, during every season,
would offer prayers and sacrifices over and over and over again. We've already learned, as we
see in chapter 2, 14 through the end, that Jesus Christ sympathizes
with us in our weaknesses because He took on flesh and was tempted
as we were tempted, yet He never sinned. He never took on guilt. in His person. He never was a
sinner. He just took on the imputed guilt
of sinners from the elect. And so in that, his sacrifice
was sufficient. He passed through the heavens.
As the priest would go into the work of the temple, he would
go symbolically in through the curtain that separated the outer
courts and the inner courts from the Holy of Holies. And in this
curtain, he would go in and he would see the relic where the
mercy seat sat. And under the mercy seat where
the angels formed the lid of the Ark of the Covenant was the
law. And that law represents the perfection of Jesus. The
perfection of Jesus not only in his humanity, the perfection
of Jesus in his deity, and the perfection of Jesus in his sacrifice,
the perfection of Jesus in his priestly duties, and the list
goes on and on. So, as Jesus was chosen by God,
it is symbolically played out throughout history as every high
priest was chosen from among men. And they would go into the
Holy of Holies, and what he says there is that the priest was
always fearful because though he was appointed by God, he was
appointed by God to demonstrate the picture of judgment through
the killing of an animal and the pouring of the blood of that
dead animal over the mercy seat where God meets with man. And only God's representative
could do that. Only the man that God chose through
the means that he purposed to be high priest. And in that moment,
There was a reminder of just what the wage of sin really was.
And there was a reminder to that high priest that in order for
him to stand before God that blood had to be shed. But it's different than Jesus.
Though Jesus definitely understood and sympathized with our weakness
because he had been tempted, he never sinned. So Jesus did
not have to go into any place of cleansing or perfecting in
a standing of righteousness because He is the righteousness of God.
And so just like Moses was not anything but a shadow, so the
high priest was nothing but a shadow. Yet the high priest would be
appointed and then he would do his job and then another high
priest would be appointed and then he would do his job and
then another prized priest would be appointed and he would do
his job and so as long as the temple stood the perpetuation
of the priestly duties of the symbol of God's mercy for the
wages of sin is death and that blood offers a remission of sin
is repeated over and over again. But it wasn't just done in a
way of sacrificing as the high priest would go in and say, okay,
now I'm pouring this blood for the sake of the people. Lord,
have mercy on the people. No, because this high priest
who is born into this world of a mother and a father, who is
not the Lord Jesus Christ, was guilty equally as the people
were before God. So he had to be reminded of the
cleansing and the working of the preparation to walk into
the temporary picture of the temporary presence of the symbolic
presence of God. And he had to take the temporary
blood of this temporary sacrifice that showed just the picture
of what the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ would do. And
he had to walk in there in full preparation and offer a sacrifice
for himself before he would leave and come back to offer a sacrifice
for his people. Because he was weak in sin. In verse 4, as I've already stated,
no one decided they would be the high priest. God, through
lottery, showed who would be the priest any particular time
a priest was needed. Just as Aaron was called by God
to be the lineage of the priesthood, so every priest that has ever
stood in the temple, in the Holy of Holies, pouring the blood
of animals, goats and bulls, they were appointed by God In
the same way, Christ did not exalt himself. Christ did not
exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by
him who said to him, Today I have begotten you, and you are a priest
forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now over in chapter 7, we will
deal with Melchizedek at length and we'll talk about him historically
and biblically. But in this particular portion
of Scripture, Paul is about to warn them again from falling
away from the grace of God and the person of Jesus Christ. And
so in doing this, he wants to remind them that if they go back
to Judaism, they are falling back into the shadow of something
that cannot help them. They're falling back into a temporary
picture. a forthcoming example and they're
leaving the true to go to the shadow rather than stepping out
of the shadow into the light of who Christ is. The same thing
is true for many of us, beloved, if we stay into a place of constant
turmoil. If we come all the time to a
place where we think that our works are going to justify us
or even if we think our works and the maturity of our spiritual
lives set us in a better place of assurance, we in fact are
also walking back into Judaism for the precepts of following
the rituals. is just like we see over and
over again throughout the history of Christianity, where we see
group after group after group, cult after cult after cult, church
after church after church, theology after theology, and so on, constantly
going back to what man can do. And this passage of scripture
here is to show these people who esteemed the high priest
during their day as the mediator between them and God's judgment.
And that because what this man did there was this peace that
came upon the recipients of this sacrifice so that they would
know that because of the shedding of the blood of these animals
that there was hope that they would live without the judgment
of God. Yet none of these practices ever
promised life. None of these practices ever
promised life. Just as the scripture has already told us over in chapter
2 that Jesus is the one who founds us in the faith, he is also the
one who keeps us in the faith. And that Jesus' high priestly
office, that his high priestly work is not like the men who've
done it for years before because not only was Jesus sinless and
these men were not, their work was just temporal. And when we
get to Melchizedek, I'll go ahead and give you the allusion here
so you'll understand it. Melchizedek in history is not
recorded to have been born nor recorded to have died. So just in the historical record,
Melchizedek never died. But he surely did die and he
surely was born. Jesus in the same way as far
as a high priest. His priestly work has no end. His priestly work will not cease.
He has not finished his work waiting for another to come.
His work has been finished. So the efficacy of Jesus Christ
as the high priest is finished. This is where we need to focus
on for just a few minutes. When we think about the work
of Jesus, and as we see in verse 7 here, let's read again. In
the days of his flesh, in the days of his humanity, in the
days of his earthly ministry, Jesus offered up prayers and
supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able
to save him from death. Now think about that for a second.
Where do we see in the scripture where Jesus ever entered the
Holy of Holies and did the work of a priest? Never, he never
did. Because why would He go as the true High Priest to the
place of shadows and do the shadow work? Why would He mimic in practice
like rehearsing for a play when He was the real deal? He wouldn't. So when Jesus did all the work
of His life, when Jesus prayed, when Jesus cried out to the Father
on behalf of His people, When Jesus prayed and cried out in
tears to the Father to save Him, He trusted in the promises of
God. Remember what we've already learned. We've already learned
that the disobedience of the Jews in the Exodus was that they
did not believe in the promise of God for eternal life. They
did not believe and trust in even the physical representation
of the promise of God before them. Jesus, however, trusted
in the Lord. He trusted in God the Father.
He knew who to put his hope in and he knew where his life lay
in the promises of the Father, in the power of the Father, and
in the perfect work that he would do by the will of the Father.
And so we need to emphasize the humanity of Jesus, but we do
not de-emphasize the divine nature of Jesus in this. We've started
out with knowing that He is God, but He has truly taken on humanity,
and He has truly substituted Himself for a particular people. So let's ask ourselves the question,
if there is a transaction, if there is a cost to be paid, if
there is a price, on a particular item and we walk in with whatever
currency is established for that transaction and we pay in full
for that object for someone not to give us what we purchased
would be criminal. Just as if we had a debt. and
we walk in with the amount due for the debt and we pay it in
full, and we even have a receipt, but then the debtor, the collector,
or the person who owns the note comes back and says, nah, I changed
my mind, there's more to pay. There's more to do, there's more
that I want. Well, that wouldn't hold up in
a court of law because the note would be paid, the deed would
be returned to its owner, and the debt would be settled Though
I guess there could be a way that someone could compromise
that process and pretend and lie and bear false witness and
thus cheat people out of what doesn't belong to them. But does
that sound like God? No. And so when God sent His
Son into the world, when God the Son came into the world and
He did the work of redemption, He legally and spiritually and
fully purchased His people. They belong to Him and no one
can snatch them out of His hand. The keeper of the debt, God the
Father, took the payment of His flesh. and in turn gave Him the
freedom of all for whom He died. And as Jesus trusted the Father
to save Him from death, the scripture says He was heard because of
His reverence. In other words, Jesus truly believed God. He truly believed God. And God has truly done the work
of redeeming His people. And when we think of his sonship
in his divine way, we need to also think of his sonship in
an earthly way. Verse 8, although he was a son,
although he was a son, the scripture says he learned obedience through
what he suffered. Now remember, we're reading through
Hebrews. We're not taking all the time.
This would take months and months and months to go through in deep
exposition, but we are reading and learning as the Lord teaches
us through the hearing of the scripture. He says he learned
obedience through what he suffered. Why? What is it that Jesus needed
to learn that he didn't already know if he was God? Well, it
points to the humanity of his death. Jesus truly was human
and he did die in his flesh. He ceased to live in his body
and his spirit went to be with the Father. Now that is beyond
our comprehension and the Bible does not give us the details
of either the science or the mystery of how that can be. It
is something that we take by faith because it is what Scripture
teaches to us of Christ. But we need to really hone in
on that focus that if Jesus exited glory, took on humanity, substituted
himself for humanity, then went to be with the Father and in
that humanity he learned There is something, as Paul would tell
us over in Philippians, he emptied himself of his divine prerogative
by taking on humanity. So I like to say it this way,
and it's not as theologically thick and rich as most people
would like it to be, but the divine nature of Jesus informed
the human nature of Jesus as the human nature of Jesus needed
to know. So that there wasn't a mingling
of these natures. These are two distinct natures
in one person. It's a mystery and it'll never
happen again. For Christ is the only one and
He's the only Son of God and that He is in every way and all
things and at all times God. and the exact imprint of the
nature of God, the essence ontologically as God eternal, He is, and all
the prerogatives of God are His. Yet He learned. He learned through
His suffering. And I may pick up a little bit
there in the weeks to come when we move into that same conversation
soon. But verse 9 I want to focus on
very clearly here for a moment. And it says, and being made perfect,
he became the source of eternal salvation. Now let's just stop
there. So, though he was a son, he learned
obedience through what he suffered. He learned to trust and believe
in God through what he suffered. And in that, being made perfect,
He became the source of eternal salvation. Who? To whom? To all who obey Him. So let's
keep in context what we're seeing here. The question could be asked
this, well, what must I do to obey the Lord? And then we must
go through every jot and tittle of everything that's ever been
written down in the Bible from Genesis to Maps, and we must
find every opportunity to see every command that's ever been
there. And then we could say we could
follow all of those and we have obeyed Christ. But yet scripture
says we can't. Scripture says that Jesus fulfilled
the law in our place. Scripture says that Jesus has
become the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.
We've already heard that. We've already heard that. Now, in putting everything in
subjection to Him, He left nothing outside of His control. At present,
we do not see it all in subjection to Him, but we see Him who, for
a little while, was made lower than the angels. He became a
human. Namely, Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because
of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God, He
might taste death for His people. for all of them. For it was fitting
that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing
many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation
perfect through suffering." Here we are there, perfect. And so
if we don't read it in the context of Hebrews, it's very simple
for us to impose our definitions of words on the text pretext,
instead of keeping them in context. So if we understand that Christ
was already sinless, there's no way that He could be made
sinless. If we understand that Christ was righteous, there's
no way that He could be made righteous. If we understand that
Christ in His humanity was lacking in nothing, and in every way,
visible, physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, displays the
fullness of everything that God is in His humanity, then there
is nothing left for Him to be perfected in. So what does it
mean? Well, you need to read it this
way. And I'm not translating. I'm imposing a paraphrase to
catch the meaning. Although he was a son, he learned
to believe, to trust in the Father through what he suffered because
God sent him to die for his people. To pay for their sins. That's
what Christ obeyed. To die in the place of his people. He paid the price. That is the
obedience of Christ. And having finished that work,
Having been made perfect as a sacrifice, He became the perfect one. How? Through obedience, by shedding
His blood, laying down His life, dying in our place. So He's being
made perfect. He finished the work. And because
He did that, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who
believe in Him. For He says to not, what? Do not harden your hearts. as they did in the rebellion,
take care and exhort each other to believe in the promise of
God concerning the Lord Jesus. That's what's at stake here. Believe. People will argue against
that. And they argue against that in
blind rebellion. of the very thing that we've
learned already in these five and a half chapters. Four and
a half chapters. They do so in rebellion. When people try to impart some
type of conditional, substantial, pragmatic action of the creature
or of the elect to follow certain standards of life, rule, regulations,
maturity, growing, so-called practical sanctification, they
rebel against the Lord's work. They're saying it's not enough,
it's offered. Jesus does never and has never
offered salvation to anyone. He secured salvation for everyone
who were given to Him by the Father. Period. Period. All who believe in his high priestly
work are those who obey him. Obeying him is to believe in
his high priestly work, and here is a qualifier, if I can say
it that way, here is something to think about concerning his
high priestly work. He was designated by God a high
priest to die in the place of his people. He did it. He was
perfected in that work, in that obedience, and because of that,
he is the source of eternal salvation for them. The allusion to Melchizedek
rings in the ears of a Jew in the first century because they
were very, very familiar with the story or the legend of Melchizedek,
the priest who never died. and whose priesthood in an ethereal
way is still lingering. Melchizedek is not Jesus. Do
not listen to that, beloved. People get upset. Read the Bible
where it is, not on Google. Melchizedek is not Jesus. Melchizedek is just like Moses,
a picture. Now, I'm going to continue there
in chapter 5, and we're going to come back in next week and
look at it again. But I'm going to continue here
in chapter 5, verse 11, because I've already said these things.
If you'll notice, sometimes when I do these read-throughs, I basically
give an overbearing freight train commentary on the teaching, then
I catch up with the reading. But some people would say, James,
you're very dogmatic. And I know I've given these examples
often during the reading of Hebrews. You're very dogmatic and you're
overcharged in the way you present people who would respond negatively
to what you are teaching. But I'm not teaching this from
my own commentary. I'm using Paul's. And he says
in verse 11, about this we have much to say. about the work of Jesus as High
Priest, and He will say much about it in a few words. And it is hard to explain, but
why is it hard to explain? He says, since you have become
dull of hearing. That's what He's saying. The
reason that you're not tracking with this truth is because you've
become dull of hearing. You've put your fingers in your
proverbial ears spiritually, and you've yelled out loud like
when they stoned Stephen because they didn't want to hear the
Word of God. And you've stuck yourselves, is what he's saying
here, in the traditions of your childhood and your life, and
you refuse to hear the clear, direct orders of God Almighty,
and instead of receiving them, You refuse them and you cannot
hear them. So you argue. You say, this man
knows not what he speaks of. This is just ridiculous. I've
never heard this. None of my commentaries say this.
Praise God your commentaries aren't the source of your eternal
life. But this Bible is. And this Bible testifies concerning
Jesus, the Son who perfected His sacrifice in the obedience
to the Father. He laid down His life and He
paid for His people and His people will not, listen to this, His
people will not see death. They will not see death. When
we refuse that as the only hope, we were refusing the grace of
God. Sunday night I had the question from last week about what it
means to spurn the Son of God, and I thought to myself, I'm
going to answer what assurance is out of chapter 10 of Hebrews,
and if you didn't catch that, go back and listen to it. It's
the first 22 minutes of Theology on Call from last week, May 10th. When I was a kid, I don't know
if it was junior high or whatever, but there was this Saturday morning
thing that would come on the the television, and it would
be in between certain types of cartoons, and there would be
like a little public service announcement about not flying
kites around power lines, or not running out in front of traffic,
or not throwing yourself in front of a train, or it might even
be more philosophical, or it might be about staying in school,
or it might be about eating well, and then it would say something
like, you know, and now you know, and then it would say knowing
is half the battle. Knowing Christ is not half the
battle. Knowing Christ is the whole battle.
Knowing Christ is everything. Knowing Christ as witness in
His Word is the only thing. And if you're going to win the
battle over sin, you must believe the witness of this Word. If
you're going to win the battle of eternal life, you must believe
the promise of this Word. You must have the knowledge of
Jesus Christ. So many people, I can't give
a percentage because I haven't done any work, but I can tell
you this, in 20 plus years of looking at Christians, and listening
to Christians, and reading books written by supposed Christians,
and seeing people teach from supposed scripture as a supposed
Christian, I can tell you this, it is far and few between that
I hear the true gospel of free and sovereign grace coming from
a pulpit or coming out of a book. It is often married with some
sort of condition that is required or necessary to prove or to function
in a way that security is drawn. The Scripture has already told
us, we come bold before the throne of grace. Let us draw with confidence. to the throne of grace, that
we may receive mercy and find grace and find help in our time
of need. Beloved, if we're not going before
the throne of grace with Jesus, we're going to the throne of
judgment. You cannot come before the Father
with anything but the blood of Christ on you. And I said that
last week, but I reiterate it here. And to the believers in
this group who are tempted, Paul says, this time you should be
teaching people. But you need milk, not solid
food. For those who live on milk are
unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he's a little child. But
solid food is for the mature. For those who have their powers
of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish what
is good from what is not good, from what is evil. And beloved,
in this context here, he's talking about doctrine. He's saying that
adding to the gospel of grace is evil. Adding to the teaching of the
gospel is evil. And that if we hold fast and
we continue to grow in it, we mature to be able to discern. There's two or three places in
Scripture that teach us that in the context of the assembly
of the body of Christ, that we're to excommunicate someone immediately. Without trial. counsel without Matthew 18 protocol
witnessed in the church. And that's when someone comes
to teach a doctrine other than that which has been taught. The
scripture says to warn them once and then have nothing else to
do with them. Sounds like the mantra of most
cults, doesn't it? But beloved, we cannot mix truth and lies. We cannot mix good and evil. We cannot mix the gospel with
man-centeredness. Beloved, we must wake up and
see truly the perfect and pure gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we must recognize that He
has made us perfect. And yes, There are many teachings,
even here. If we go over to chapter 13 and
we start seeing some instruction there, we see Paul telling these
Christians to love each other and show hospitality and to listen
to their leaders. and to be careful and to watch
out for falling prey to certain strange things where people will
argue over what you're supposed to touch and eat and wear and
look and all this kind of stuff. And people are so consumed by
that that they would rather just skip all the gospel and go straight
to the end and say, tell me what not to do. And tell me what to
do. Tell me where I can go and where
I can't go. Tell me what I'm supposed to look at and what
I can look at. Give me what I'm supposed to
eat and what I'm not supposed to eat. Tell me what I'm supposed
to taste and what I'm not supposed to taste and touch and what I'm
not supposed to... You do that, I'll be confident. Paul says,
no, no, no, no, no, no. That's a false gospel. So pulpits
that are afire, teaching the people of the congregation how
they should do and touch and not and what, out of the context
of the gospel, are really the devil's pulpiteers. I've had dear people who I thought
were my siblings in Christ semi-rebuke me for preaching through the
Bible the way I do, and the fact that they say the reason that
they rebuke me is that it wasn't sufficient for the church. That
the church knows the gospel. Move on to other things. The
gospel's for lost people. We got it. Jesus died. Hoo-yah! Now tell us how to live. That's
a lost person. You hear me? That is a lost person. It doesn't mean that everybody
who wants to know how to live according to Scripture is lost.
But when we throw the gospel away just for the instruction
that has to do with our life together as a body, then we're
forsaking the Son of God. Because, beloved, I'm going to
tell you this, every one of us, if I could get the list I liked
and you could get the list you liked, if we went through here
and we got it, we could perfect ourselves to such a degree that
we would say, okay, we got it. We can walk the right way, and
talk the right way, sing the right songs, and speak in the
right tone, look the part, and we can sincerely be doing it,
so called out of our love and reverence for Christ, but it
won't save us. And in the end, we would transform
multiple lives into little puppets, little copycats of a systematized,
culturally non-biblical objects. And like the rich young ruler
who would say to Jesus, I have kept these laws since my youth. And Jesus tests him on one. He
tests him on the only law that Jesus ever gave. the two that
hinge together, to love the Lord your God with all your heart,
mind, soul, and strength, to love your neighbor as yourself.
And in Jesus' teaching of this rich young ruler, he says, you've
kept them all, then go and sell all that you have and give it
to the poor. In that moment, that man was
subject to his true condition. Thinking he was righteous, he
went away and dejected. This man just told me to do this.
I don't think I'm going to follow this guy. Who does he think he
is? He doesn't know me. I don't have
to give away all the stuff that I love and give it to people
that I don't love. You see, he loved everything
he was more than God and he hated everybody else but himself. So
there was no hope for him, just like there's no hope for anyone
who falls into that trap. It is the gospel of grace for
a reason. The good news of God's mercy.
You've been saved by the mercy of God, not anything else. Don't
ever forget it. You're not saved by faith, you
are saved through faith in the sense that you are aware of the
mercy of God and his promise to save his people through the
death of Jesus Christ. and the promise of giving us
life through the life of Jesus Christ. We are saved by grace. We are saved by Christ. And when
we find it in our hearts to argue that, we need to hear the warnings
of Hebrews. People always say, the warning
scriptures, chapter 6 and chapter 10, are the toughest ones, and
we're coming right to it. Matter of fact, this that I read
just now, verse 11, truly should be part categorically of chapter
6. The warnings are to the people
who can't get off the kick of their own work. Going back to
the things that they should and shouldn't do as their focus. Friends, that's not the focus
of the Christian life. I came that you may have life.
If the Son sets you free, you are free. And then we will work out things
that are not be together because we are in Christ. A terrible, terrible, non-loving
pastor has been quoted to me this week by saying that we need
more than just our love for Christ to motivate us. He even went
on to say we need a good dose of fear. That's a lie from hell. And I
know there is no lies and hell coming out of hell, but it sounds
good in a way of saying that's a really bad thing to say. It's
a lie. It's a lie. There is no other
motivator for the saint except the love that God has given us
through Christ Jesus. And if being free from death
through the person of Christ doesn't motivate us to want to
engage in a way that's glorious and honorable, what else will? Fear? There's a fearful expectation
to the one who doesn't trust in the Lord only by faith. There is a fearful expectation
of the one who continually models their life into a place of righteousness
by their own design. Beloved, we have to keep studying this
word that we may have and hone the skill of discernment. And
until then, know that Christ has you. He's purchased you. He's died for you. And there's
nothing you can do about it. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord,
for your grace and mercy, for saving us, for teaching us, and
for encouraging us. Lord, the reading of this letter,
let it do its full work in us. But we cannot hide from Christ. And Father, we don't want to.
But we are not scared to stand in your presence. Because we
know that the blood of Jesus is sufficient. So you were not
angry with us. You were not angry with your
people of this world. In them and with them you are
well pleased, for we have all the righteousness of Jesus to
our account. So Lord, because of this, help
us to live and to love in a manner worthy of this great calling.
For the sake of our witness and for the sake of our joy and our
service and love to you and to each other, as we continue to
grow in our knowledge of this grace. In Jesus' name, amen.