And Paul is writing to his fellow
Jews who are believers in Christ and teaching them what the entirety
of their religion was supposed to show them. It was supposed
to point to the finished work of Jesus. It was supposed to
point to Him ultimately and perfectly. And that's what we've learned
thus far. And I will say this, that I believe that the good
news of Jesus, I don't wanna use the word gospel all the time,
because it is the good news of Jesus, is our confident assurance
before God. It's our confident assurance
before God. And so in this text, there are many, many, many things.
And the way I teach normally, you know how I could just go
and we could have 40 or 50 points. But today, I want to focus on
two primary things, that this text gives us the understanding
that we have an assurance of eternal life. And because of
that, we have an intimate relationship with each other in Christ. Those
are the two specific things that these few verses will show us.
So let's get started to that end. When he says, therefore,
brothers, what in the world is the therefore, therefore? Therefore
is looking forward. because of what was previously
said. So that is there so that we can be reminded of what we've
just learned. And what is it that we've just
learned? We've just learned over a series of 18, 19, 20 weeks
that Jesus Christ is the great high priest. He is the exalted
one. He is God. He is the supreme
creator of the world. He is greater than Moses. He's
greater than the law. He's greater than the angels.
He's greater than Melchizedek. And we've seen all of these different
pictures that Judaism held tightly to. that Jesus is the fulfillment
of them all, that all of those were the small, remember what
I said, the small commercials or the previews of the true who
is Jesus Christ. And so the first thing that we
see here is that we have confidence to enter into the holy places
by the blood of Jesus, then by the new and living way that he
opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh. So in that phrase, in those phrases,
there's a lot there. The first thing we need to see
is that we can have confident assurance. We talked about that
last week. We talked about assurance the
week before. Assurance is eternal life. Now I know that might be
playing with words for you, but if you have, matter of fact,
I think I asked and Noah and some of you even answered, what are
we sure of? What do we have assurance of?
And you said what? death. We are sure that we will all
die. We have confident assurance that we are breathing in lung.
It is a guarantee, is something that we can, as people like to
say, take to the bank. There's nothing that can stop
that which is certain. And so in this text, We learn
that we have assurance in Christ. But assurance in what? Assurance
for what? And how do we have assurance?
Because a lot of people can say, well, I'm certain that I have
eternal life. But then what do they do? How do you know? You have to define what they
mean by that assurance. Where does their faith lie? How
is it that they are able to come to the table of confidence and
rest without any fear, knowing that they do indeed have eternal
life? And this is what Paul is doing
here, is he's just reiterating or recapitulating everything
that he said thus far. And if we look, And we see this
confidence. What does it say in this imagery? There's a picture here of the
holy of holies. The presence of God is what it
symbolized. Do you remember that? And as
the presence of God is something that cannot be just flippantly
approached, we cannot just jump into the presence of God and
say, hey God, here I am, deal with me. Oh, I know I'm a sinner.
What does the scripture teach? That God is just and righteous.
That His justice and His wrath and His perfection And holiness
requires dealing with sin. And the scripture thus far has
taught us that Christ has dealt with sin. In the days of the
high priests, as we'll see, even beyond, but as we've already
seen and as we see today, that Jesus is the mediator over the
house of God. We'll understand that in a little
bit of a bigger picture. But we can and do have absolute
confident assurance of eternal life because Christ has opened
up access to God. We can be in his presence. We
can come bold before the throne of grace. For those of you who
didn't get the news, my father has announced his retirement.
And when he goes out next January, whoever the new sheriff is, he's
no longer my father. So it would be a little odd if
I just bounced up into the sheriff's department unannounced. So chances
are now after 44 years, I'll have to go through the front
door ring the buzzer, and state my business, rather than just
having the access code to go in. Friends, we don't have to
have an access code or we don't have to have the front door buzzer
and state our business to approach God because Christ is our access
code. He is the one who opened it.
So therefore, we have confidence. But how can we have confidence?
Did Jesus just give us a pass? Did Jesus just give us the password? Did Jesus create in us some kind
of righteousness that we're getting better and good enough to stand
in the presence of God? Not at all. We have been given
access to God through what? Through the blood of Jesus. Through
the blood of Jesus. Now this access is not something
that we have to go get. This access is something that
has been given. Because if we are on the hook
for getting it, guess what happens? What happens if we forget? What
happens if we don't take it seriously? What happens if we have a lack
of sincerity? I'll tell you what happens. We're banging on the
door and we're not getting in. Because if we're not in through
Christ and His death, His propitiatory substitutionary atonement, if
He is not the satisfaction of God's wrath for us, guys, the
only way that door will be open is if we step into the wrath
and the judgment of God. But because of the blood of Christ.
and the explanation of what that blood did. Look at verse 20.
By the new and living way, He opened for us through the curtain.
Now when it says curtain, a whole lot of things come to mind. I
mean, what does a curtain do? A curtain separates something. In the Holy of Holies, in the
temple, in the tabernacle, the curtain separated that intimate
place, the mercy seat where the Ark of the Covenant and all those
things and the blood was poured and the sacrifices were offered
because not everybody could go there. Remember Sana'a? As we'll
see here in chapter 12, we will really get a good picture of
the contrast between Sana'a the judgment, the wrath, the law,
the shadow of God's righteousness, and Zion, who is Jesus Christ,
the new and better covenant. But what does a curtain do? A
curtain blocks something. I mean, if we put curtains on
the window, we do it for what? To keep the light out so we can
sleep? Sometimes you can buy thick enough curtains to keep
some noise out. But sometimes maybe you're getting dressed
and you want to keep the peeping eyes out. A shower curtain keeps
the water off the floor and so on. So the curtain in the worship
of Israel was to keep people who were not prepared in a sacramental
way from being in that holy place where God was. Christ has torn
that curtain down. Christ's body is the curtain
and he ripped it down. That is through his flesh. So
we can have confidence. And not just that we can have
confidence. We should have confidence because we have been given assurance
of our access to God. The assurance of eternal life.
Not just that we're with God. but that we are righteous before
God once and for all. But how does that really work?
Well, you see this idea of Jesus being the high priest. Jesus
being the sacrifice. Remember, we just learned this
last week and the week before, that the high priest daily, always,
continually prepared himself, gave a sacrifice for himself,
gave a sacrifice for the people, and then got out of there. Got
out of the area that symbolized the presence of God. Jesus went
into that place and saved to the uttermost. And when he was
done being the sacrifice and done mediating the sacrifice
as the high priest, what did he do? The scripture gives the
picture of Jesus sitting down at the right hand of God the
Father. the place of preeminence, the place of supremacy, because
He is God. And He's not like all of the
shadows of the worship of men throughout all the ages, all
the sacrifices that were shadows, all the priesthood work that
was shadows. He is the ultimate and true high priest. He's the
ultimate and true mediator. And better yet, He is our advocate. He's our advocate. So that if
there ever was, remember that little scene that I played out
some weeks ago where if we walked in and God were to actually ask,
how is it that you can stand in my presence? What offering
do you bring for your sin? What do we say? We can plead
nothing. We can plead nothing but that
Christ has brought us into righteousness because he satisfied God's wrath
for us. And that's what verse 21 teaches.
since we have a great high priest over the house of God. Now, I
want you to think about something for a second. How many of you,
just by a show of hands, have ever had your mom or dad say,
this is my house, and emphasize this is not your house? Okay,
good, so maybe everyone but one. And it was always my house, I
pay for it, I pay for the lights, I pay for the food, I pay for
all this. So if someone has bought it, paid for it, and continues
to operate it, it really is their house, right? Until they get
married, and then it's not their house anymore. It's y'all's house,
or what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine. That's how it
works, depending on who's saying it. But if it's your house, I
mean, how about your neighbor? How many of you have ever busted
into your neighbor's house unannounced and just plundered through their
stuff? That's called burglary. You just admitted to a crime.
All right, so if it's your house, it's your house. It's your business.
Some people look at this building, like this building, this Baptist
facility here. It's been here a long time. When
I was a child, my grandfather pastored this church, and it
was his first pastorate, as a matter of fact. And I remember sitting
over there, and then sung in the choir. We didn't have these
nice padded things. The pews were a little bit older,
and there was no carpet on the floor that looked good. Either
way. People have always called buildings
like this what? The house of God. It's the house
of God. When I pastored in California
in First Baptist Newark, we had a building that was really old. It was the building in itself
and the plat had been there since the 30s, but the construction
in the front where we worshiped had only been there since the
50s. And I began to look at it and our social hall was very
thin and very long. like a single-wide, triple-long
trailer. It was just very small, and I
always wondered, why is this thing so weirdly shaped? Who would have built this? Come
to find out, it was the original foundation of a chicken house.
They cut it in half and made a fellowship hall out of it.
And as people would talk to me sometimes, the kids would get
a little too rowdy in the building, you know, and the old guys, you
know, the old ex-Marines from World War I, from the Revolutionary
War and all those other, you know, get out of here, you're
tearing up the house of God. And I would remind them, I'd
say, wait a minute now, before it was God's house, it was a chicken house.
So it's really the house of chicken. And they would laugh thinking
I was joking, but I was emphasizing something to try to teach them.
Though we should be good stewards of our building, it's not the
house. The house are the people. We are the body of Christ. We
are the temple. We are the church. We are the
assembled ones, the gathered ones. And the building where
we meet is irrelevant. Yet we have in our culture this
mindset that the house is the property, but the house of God
are the people whom Christ has saved. So we have confidence
because Jesus not only finished the work of redemption, offered
himself as a sacrifice, that his blood and his body tore away
the curtain, giving us access to God so that we can have absolute
assurance of eternal life. But he also oversees it. He manages
it. He takes care of it. He tends
it. On Sunday mornings, I'm preaching through John 17. And in John
17, Jesus is praying for the house. In John 5, when Jesus
was debating, if you can say that, he was destroying the Pharisees. And he talks about Moses being
a servant over the house of God. Paul deals with the same thing
here that we've already learned months ago. Moses was a steward
over the house of God, but he was not a son. It wasn't Moses'
house. Jesus deals with that in John
chapter 10 when he talks about the hired hand who runs away
when the wolves come. but that the true shepherd, Jesus
Christ, he takes care of the sheep and the sheep hear his
voice and they follow him. Friends, we are not going to be misled,
led astray or forgotten for Christ is the great high priest. He
is the one through whom we can approach God and God is satisfied
because Christ his son is the final and true mediator and priest
over the house of God. You are safe in the Lord Jesus. So that's the first thing that
we learn from this text. The second thing that we learn
here is not only do we have confident assurance of eternal life because
of who Christ is, because he is the priest over the house
of God and he's given us access to God through his death and
resurrection, but because of that we can have intimate life
together as God's house. Intimate life together as God's
house, as God's people. Now, the New Testament in itself
is written in letter form. Aside of the Gospels, which are
still letters if you can say that, all the rest of them are
letters. They're written to send to specific
people groups, specifically sometimes, all the time, about certain occasions,
certain reasons that Paul had to write, or James had to write,
or Peter had to write, or John had to write, etc. of things
that might be going on. But were these letters ever written
from a political point of view? Were they ever written to a government
seat? Were they ever written to an institution or an organization? No. They were written to a people
that we improperly call the church. The word in itself is historically
inaccurate. But we are the house of God.
We are the people of God. So that every New Testament letter
is written for the sake of us who have confidence of our eternal
life in Christ to live together in a manner worthy of His glory.
Now, we should not conflate the two. The way we're qualified
to have eternal life is through Christ alone. But because we
are together in Christ, there are certain rules and manners
and details that are given to us through the scripture to help
us live at peace with one another. And so that's where Paul goes
next. In verse 22, he gives three let us. He gives three. The first
one is let us draw near. The second one is let us hold
fast. And the third is let us consider. So let's look at these
three things. Because we are confidently secure
in Christ, we have intimate life together as Christ's people,
as the house of God. How is that so? Because first,
we have intimacy with God. We have intimacy with God. Now,
the word intimacy scares us. We don't know what it means.
We don't use it like it's supposed to be used. As a matter of fact,
many of you probably think when somebody says, well, that was
an intimate moment, somebody's kissing or making out, right?
Like at some soap opera or something. Or maybe it was some sweet exchange
or a romantic parting on a movie. Yeah? Oh, wasn't that intimate? Or maybe some of us who are animal
lovers and our little puppies wake us up by licking us on the
face because they need to go poo. And we think, oh, that was
so sweet. You know, so, I mean, depending
on who you ask, you could have a lot of different explanations
of what it means to be intimate. But ultimately, intimacy is an
exchange of proximity, it's a detail of how we are relating together,
and it's a depth of how we're relating together. And the scripture
uses the creation of man and wife, marriage, and the marriage
bed, which has to do with sexual relations, as an image, picture,
yep, I said it, y'all are in trouble now, as a picture of
intimacy with God through Christ. Now, we can't play that out in
such a literal way, but we're supposed to understand that the
most intimate moments of our human existence are nothing compared
to the true reality of our intimacy with Christ. So much so that
the Bible teaches us that the most important relationships
in this life are considered to be our brothers and sisters in
Christ, for we, as brothers and sisters in this room, have an
eternal relationship. One that my wife and I will not
have. For when we die or the Lord returns, I will no longer
be a husband. As a matter of fact, according
to the scripture, I'm a fake husband. Christ is the true husband.
I'm actually a bride. So marriage is a symbol. As a
friend of mine told me one time many, many years ago, it's a
microscopic picture of the macrocosmic reality of Christ in the church.
Ephesians 5, Colossians 3. We're supposed to have true spiritual
intimacy with the house of God. And what does that look like?
What does it mean to have intimacy? I'll tell you what it's not.
It's not about feelings. It's not about emotions. It's not
about fun times and good opportunities. It's not about common ground
or affinity or habits and hobbies and interests that just keep
on going. And we just really everything's
good. And when those things go away, we're just really not close
anymore. It affects a closeness. So we have closeness with Christ
and all who are in Christ are his body. Should we not be close
to our body? I mean, how many of you are really intimate with
your eyes? Yes you are. Throw some sand
in there, some salt in there. Poke it out and throw it on the
ground. It's going to hurt. You're going to be in very bad pain
and you're going to have an opportunity to experience separation. It's not that we're dreaming
about our eyes. I just love my eyes. They're so pretty. And
you sleep with your eyes open with a mirror in front of you. But you have
an intimate relationship with your eyes because they're part
of your body. They're necessary. You use them all the time without
even thinking about it. And when something, when you
get my age, and you know, for the last 10 years, I've really
been suffering with eyes. They get worse and worse and
worse, and sometimes I have two or three pairs on, trying to get
the right prescription. If I just go to the doctor and
get the new ones. You know, get the right prescription so I can
do what I'm trying to do. We have intimacy with each other
that's more important than anything else. Because we have intimacy
with God. Let us draw near. Let's draw
near to God. Not that we're just saved and
that's the end of it. But there is an effort on our
part as we grow in the knowledge of grace where we're supposed
to strive to be closer to God. This is not a feeling. Though
David, if we see in the Psalms, he exalts, he has joy in the
Lord. And we see that. We see he has
agony. We see he has depression. We see sometimes that he feels
like the Lord has abandoned him. But those things do not measure
our assurance. What measures our assurance is
the faithfulness of Christ, the finished work of Jesus. The confidence
that we have is that we have been brought near to God and
we are forgiven and we have eternal life and we can have life together
because of that. So that our, I say it this way,
our relationship with Jesus, which is an extremely bad term. Our relationship with Jesus is
His finished work for us. But our salvation, our spiritual
journey is personal. We must believe Christ saved
you on the cross. But it is not private. It is
not private just for me. It is for the rest of my brothers
and sisters. My faith is to be shared with
you. And your faith is to be shared
with me. And in order for that to be effectual, we must learn
to draw near with a true heart. And how do we draw near with
a true heart? Look at that, in full assurance of faith. So if
we don't get, like I told y'all last week, if we don't get this
text down, the rest of this letter is going to be very difficult. You're going to stumble over
it. So when I'm done today, I'm going to have another opportunity
for you to ask questions, for clarifying, because I want you
to understand this. But we have full assurance of
faith. In other words, we're not lacking in our confidence. We're not putting Christ, adding
to Christ, or putting Christ a little bit to the left so we
can put our toe on another ledge to keep us from falling. I remember
when I used to boulder, and I used to boulder, and I'd go a little
higher than I should. And bouldering, if you don't
know, is climbing rocks without restraints. And you typically,
you know, you're about that high, you fall, oh well. You rehabilitate
and you do it again. You know, rock climbing, you
could be hundreds of feet. You harness yourself. But bouldering,
you just sort of do it. And there are many times where
I'm like, I'm going to slip and fall. I am worn out. I can't
do this. But I'm a little higher than
I want to be, or I'm just not dumb enough to land on my head
from 28 feet. And I just find a little spot
with my foot, and I just put it there, and I just sort of
rest. It's like when you're qualifying sometimes for scuba, in order
to be a licensed scuba. Not that I've done this, but
friends that have told me, my father, even when he was qualified
for that, to search for dead bodies, that was the reason,
in the ponds. You had to tread water for like
15 minutes. And he said he'd find that little
jet, and the instructor would walk by, he'd stick his toe in
it. Stick his toe in the little jet, you know, and the instructor
would come back, Just that little bit would let us hang on just
a little bit more. Friends, we can't have a toehold
and say we have confident assurance in our faith. Faith alone in
Jesus Christ is faith alone in Jesus Christ forsaking everything
else, forsaking all others forever. And because we can have that
type of assurance, Believing in the finished work of Christ,
we have hearts that are clean. We have a conscience that has
been cleansed. Our bodies in this picture and
all of these are images of the preparation for the presence
of God in temple worship. But Jesus has done it all. He's
done it all. Confident assurance. is drawing
near to God or allows us to draw near to God because we have access
to life through grace. It is by the mercy of God. And
so we have assurance in the finished redemption of Christ with a clean
conscience. We see our sin, we know our sin,
we engage in sin at times, God forbid, but we do. And we don't
judge our hope, Based on that, we judge our hope based on Christ
took care of that. He offered himself as a sacrifice
for that. So we have intimacy with God.
That's the first thing that we need to understand in having
intimate life together. The second thing, let us then hold fast
the confession of our hope without wavering. for he who promises
faithful." And I'm going to be honest with you, I think Paul
is just redundant. He's over and over and over again
the same thing. We have intimacy together as
Christ's people with assurance in His work. You notice that
that's what Paul is teaching? You notice that this letter here
is helping you recognize that the foundation on which you stand,
the rock, is Jesus and His righteousness. It's not your righteousness.
It's not my righteousness. None of us can ever be good enough,
even with God's power, to stand before Him and not be judged
guilty. But by God's mercy, we will not
be judged guilty because Christ took our sin and His righteousness
is given to our account. Let us hold fast the confession
of our hope without wavering. How do we do that? I mean, do
you not doubt? I doubt. I have seasons. And
when I say seasons, I mean, there are times where I just think,
even if it's a fleeting second or two, am I lost? You ever felt that way? You ever been in that place where
you start measuring yourself by the world standards or worse,
by the law? And you go, there's no way possible.
Woe be to the one who measures himself by the law of God and
finds no fault. For that man is condemned. But
we get to that place and we thought, am I truly saved? Well, what
is this teaching us? We do not waver with the confession
of our hope that is in Christ. That means when we start looking
in the mirror and figuring that maybe we're just not quite as
saved as we ought to be, and we start shaking and we think
our intimacy with Christ and our relationship with Christ
and our approach to God has to do with our working, we are failing
to see what Paul is teaching here. He who promised is faithful. The promises of God, as the scripture
says, are yea and amen. It is done. They're yes. So it
is. And Christ promised eternal life
for those for whom He died, and they will see and trust fully. If you trust in the finished
work of Jesus, you have a certain assurance. It's really interesting
here. This is the pragmatism of Christianity. This is the practical approach
of what the Bible would teach us as living out the faith. Trusting
in Jesus continually, continually, continually. How can we do that?
Because unlike me, and my promises even with good intention, this
morning, Abby comes to me. Now, she's going to turn seven
this year, and she's tearing up, and she goes, Dad, when I
was five, Mom said she'd take me to the bakery, and she lied.
You know. She didn't keep her promise.
I said, well, sometimes things just don't work out. Well, she
promised. I'm like, Abigail, sometimes
things just don't work out. So even with the best intentions,
we are not able to always keep our promises. With the deepest
of sincerity, see the difference? God cannot lie. Where did I get
that? Well, all over the place, but
we've already seen it here in Hebrews. God cannot lie, so when
he says he will do something, when he says he has forgiven
our sins in Christ, it is finished. It is finished. His promises stand. Why is this
important? Because as we hold fast to our
assurance, as we hold fast with our intimacy with God, because
we have confidence of eternal life in Christ, we are living
together with all the saints. We have intimate life together
with all the saints. Verse 24, and let us consider,
let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good
works. Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another, encouraging one another, and
all the more as you see the day drawing near. What does it mean? What does
it mean to consider? Well, it means to think about it, to approach
it, to look, to stir each other toward love,
to stir each other toward good deeds. You know what a good deed
is? Serving each other. That's not about obedience to
a set of laws. It's about serving one another,
serving each other in a way that the scripture shows us. the discipline
for what we call the means of grace, like how God works in
our lives to show us the truth. And what is this grace? How is
this grace obtained? By not neglecting to be together. That's what he says. Do not neglect
to be together. And there's a lot I could teach.
I could teach an entire message on this. But friends, how are
we going to serve one another if we're not together? You ever
been to a restaurant and had a terrible server? You ever waited
like 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes on your drinks and
nobody's ordered and the food comes out wrong? I mean, you
spend an hour at a Hardee's? I mean, something's wrong. That's
fast food. I mean, I wouldn't spend an hour
in a five-star restaurant unless I'm done eating. It's difficult
when we have all of these things that take place and when we experience
people who are supposed to serve us and they fall down on the
job. But, you know, the worst way to not serve is to not be
there at all. If you own the business and your
employees who are supposed to serve and you pay them and they
serve others, no matter what kind of business it is, if they
don't show up, it ruins everything. It demotes your opportunity. It removes your opportunity to
serve somebody. Well, friends, if you're not living together,
if you're not living together, If you're not working together,
if you're not with the body of Christ and other Christians intentionally,
holding fast together to the confidence that you have in Christ,
holding fast together to the work of the gospel, to the work
of God, then you can't serve one another. And if you're not
serving one another, then you are literally eliminating 50%
of your Christian life. There is not one thing in the
New Testament letters that you can apply to your life if you're
not with other Christians. When should you apply those things?
Well, you need to encourage people to act in love. You need to encourage
yourself to act in love. Why? Because of God's love for
us in Christ. And to serve one another. Think
about what that looks like. It doesn't just mean taking care
of the needs, or sometimes it's just living in a way of serving
each other for the sake of Christ, reading the Bible, praying for
one another, and being an ear to listen. How long do we do that? How should
we do it and why? Well, there's a lot here in this
last little phrase. We should not be in the habit of neglecting
to be together, but be together so that we might encourage one
another and do it more and more and more as we see the day of
Christ approaching. That means there will come a day where Christ
will come and take us all and every enemy of his will be under
his feet. And at the end of it all, we will not have to worry
about how we're supposed to serve. Christ served us by dying for
us. We then in turn can serve one
another. And it is all for the day of Christ, for the glory
of Christ. Our full and confident hope of
eternal life and life together is for the glory of Christ. When
Paul says, do everything for the glory of Christ, this is
the primary point that he's trying to make. Whether you eat or drink
or talk or speak or write or do, whatever you do, do it for
the glory of Christ. Because when we do it for the glory of
Christ, It means we're doing it for someone else, for the
sake of their joy, for the sake of their understanding of the
gospel of grace, for the sake of their application of this
new life, this new covenant, this finished work of Jesus.
Because without Christ, everything we do, even the greatest service
is.