All right, we're gonna look at
Hebrews 13 there. You know, in the past few weeks,
I've been doing messages centered around the issue of the good
works of God's children, true believers, justified by His grace
through the blood and righteousness of Christ, and those who are
regenerated, converted, born again by the Spirit, brought
out from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, the
kingdom of God's dear Son. And I've been looking at several
passages where by inspiration of the Spirit, the writer of
these epistles have been dealing with such things. And actually,
if you look at Hebrews 13, look at verse 15. where he says, and
this is the main focus of where I want to go with this, but I
want to go back to some of the verses that Mark read before
this and afterward. He says, by Him, who's the Him
there? Well, that's Christ. Everything
that we have in a right relationship with God is by Him. Isn't that
right? It's not by our works or our
efforts. It's not by our sincerity, our
determination. All of those things accompany
salvation. We determine in our minds. We
focus. We determine to walk in the honorable
ways of God. But the only foundation And the
only ground and cause of a right relationship with God in any
capacity for sinners like us is in these two words, by Him,
by Jesus Christ, accepted in the beloved. We have no merit
as far as our efforts and our works Not even what we call the
good works, what the Bible calls the good works. Acts of, I mentioned
last week, acts of devotion, acts of self-denial, acts of
charity. Seeking to keep the word of God,
to walk according to his word. In our warfare against the flesh. And that's what we're all, if
we're believers now, we're engaged in a warfare daily. And now,
understand now the battle, the warfare has already been won
by our Savior. We don't win it, He won it for
us. And the scripture talks about
that. Paul spoke of that in Romans chapter 7 when he spoke of his
own inner struggle between doing what's right with God and what
the flesh, our sinful nature in that sense, draws us to. There's a fight, a warfare with
Him. And he said, he concluded that
by saying, who shall deliver me from this body of death? It's almost like he's saying,
when will I within my, I know right now that I'm perfect in
Christ, I'm righteous in him. That's right. Oh, don't ever
get your eyes off that. We have a perfect righteousness
before a holy God by him. by Christ. And it's nothing we
did or try to do or want to do or seek to do. But within ourselves,
we are still sinful. We're still inadequate. That's
why Paul said, when I'm weak, I'm strong. What does he mean
by that? Well, when I see my weakness, that's when I depend
on Christ even more in my mind and my heart. And that's strength. You know what our strength is?
It's depending upon, resting and trusting in Jesus Christ,
the Lord, our righteousness. Knowing that I cannot be charged
before God in his court of justice with my sins. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. I cannot
be condemned. Now, men and women will condemn
me. They'll condemn you. but God will not and cannot because
he's condemned Christ in my place. It's all by Him. So you see those
two words, by Him, are so important, aren't they? To understand what
they mean. And so I have a perfect righteousness. My sins are forgiven.
And my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
So he says, by Him, therefore, verse 15, Therefore, because we are accepted
in the beloved, let us offer the sacrifices, the sacrifice
of praise to God continually. Now that's a good work. It's
a sacrifice, it's not a blood atonement like the sacrifice
of the lambs. And Christ is our only sacrifice
as far as the atonement, reconciliation. It's by the blood of Jesus. that
we're saved. What can wash away my sin? But
the sacrifice of praise to God continually is the fruit of a
right relationship with God that comes to sinners like us who
deserve nothing but death and hell, who have earned nothing
but death and hell, but it's the fruit of what comes to God
by Him. And that's what we're doing this
morning. We're offering the sacrifice of praise. We're praising God.
That's what we're here for. You're not praising me. I don't
mind being thanked for a good message. Jim, when you preach
a good message, I thank the Lord and thank you. Randy and others,
Robert, when you preach and remark, when you preach or teach a lesson,
thank you. But we're thanking God. We know
where it comes from, don't we? But we're not here to praise
you or praise me, we're here to praise God. That's the sacrifice
of praise. And it's only accepted by Him. By the Lord Jesus Christ. Continually. And He says in verse 15, that
is the fruit of our lips, what we pray, what we preach, what
you hear, what we sing, You know, I've been taken to task over
some of the hymns that we sing. And I'm going to tell you something.
There's a lot of not so good hymns in this book. I've told people, I said, will
you show me a hymn book that every hymn is honoring to God?
You know, I find it. But there's some bad hymns here.
We don't sing them. And I know when you get into,
you know, people can define words however they want to define them,
you know, and all of that. Some people say, well, we should
only sing the Psalms. Well, have you ever tried that? Man, I've tried it. And I don't
get anything out of it. I mean, I read the Psalms and
I love them. And I know David, King David,
sung those Psalms, but he sung them in the Hebrew. And you know,
if you translate songs, you know, they'll sound a little different.
Not all the Psalms were intended to be sung with a harp like David
did. And we do sing some of the Psalms
that are translated in hymns into the English, but this is an English Bible. It's
been translated from the Hebrew. So when these people say, well,
we only sing the Psalms, well, if you're going to sing them,
if you're going to be that strict, you need to sing them in Hebrew.
So go, go to school and learn Hebrew. All right. But anyway,
I try to pick the hymns out of this book that are honoring to
Christ. And we sing these hymns. So when
we sing a hymn, it's the fruit of our lips giving, look at it,
verse 15, giving thanks to His name. Now His name is who He
is, not a label now. It's not just magic words. Just
like that false religious program that was on during the 70s called
Praise the Lord, and they call it PTL. They didn't know the
Lord. How do I know that? Because I
heard them preach. And they preach things that are dishonoring to
the Lord God of Heaven. It was nothing but free will
conditional salvation. And that's not thanking the Lord,
and that's not giving praise to His name now. It's not. And
again, I know people don't like to hear that, but it's the truth. You remember Paul told the Galatians,
he said, am I your enemy because I tell you the truth? We preach
the gospel and we want to sing songs that are consistent with
the gospel of God's grace. And grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. And that's how we conduct
ourselves. So we pray, we praise, we sing,
we preach, we hear. And so that's a good work, not
because we do it perfectly, but because it is accepted as our
persons are accepted. And how am I accepted? By Him. By Him. And so these are, as
the title of this message suggests, sacrifices pleasing to God. Now over in Hebrews 11, back a few pages in your Bible,
in verse 6 it says this, But without faith, this is Hebrews
11, 6, but without faith it is impossible to please Him. It's
impossible to please God. Now we're talking about sacrifices
pleasing to God. Talking about the good works
which are the fruit of His grace that are accepted by God from
us by Him. Alright, do you understand that? Well, without faith, it's impossible
to please Him. Now, what does that mean? Well,
faith involves several things. Number one, faith involves a
revealed knowledge that God gives you by His Word in the power
of the Holy Spirit. Now, that's the gospel. Stay right there at Hebrews 11,
6. Paul wrote in Romans 116, for
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first
and the Greek or the Gentile also. For therein is the righteousness
of God, verse 17, revealed from faith. Now what is that first
faith there? That's knowledge, the knowledge
of God and salvation in Christ by His grace revealed to us. from faith to faith. That's the gift of faith whereby
we receive and believe and trust Christ. For as it is written,
the just, the justified shall live by faith. Well, verse six
of Hebrews 11 says, without faith it is impossible to please God.
That is without knowing and trusting and realizing salvation, that's
all by him in Christ. That's what he's talking about.
You could say it this way, but without Christ, without his blood
to wash away my sins, without his righteousness imputed to
me, It's impossible to please God. I don't care where you are,
how you try to do, or how you try to be, you cannot please
God apart from Him, apart from Christ, His merits, His obedience
unto death, the qualities that He brought forth in the glory
of His person, God manifest in the flesh. How could you not
please God in somebody like that? in the merit of His obedience
unto death as my surety, my substitute, my redeemer, my life giver, my
protector and preserver. What is He doing? Where is Christ
now? The Bible says He is seated at
the right hand of the Father as God-man, glorified in heaven,
Remember after his death and his burial and his resurrection,
he ascended unto the Father, and he is right now at the right
hand of the Father, doing what? Just looking down to see who's
going to get elected Tuesday? No. He already knows who's going
to be elected. You know why? Because he's already
cast his vote, and his vote is the only one that really counts.
as far as determining the outcome. I'm not saying your vote don't
count. You go vote. I'm gonna vote. I'll never use
this pulpit as a political tool, but I'm gonna vote, and you vote,
too. But we know who's determining
the outcome, don't we? I mean, he's not worried. He doesn't have to wait till
Tuesday night to see who wins the election. But my point is, this is the
God with whom we have to do. And look at verse six again,
Hebrews, it says, for he that cometh to God, now how do we
come to God? Through Jesus Christ, by him. He that cometh to God must believe
that he is, that God is. Now that's more than just saying
God exists, because even the devils will say that. The devils
believe God exists. So it's, you know, somebody says,
well, I just have to know there is a God. Well, you gotta know
more than that. Because the God that is says
you gotta know more than that. What this means is this, now
listen to it. He that cometh to God must believe that God
is who he says he is. Does that make sense to you?
God is who He says He is. So when I read Genesis chapter
1 and verse 1, and I go all the way to Revelation 22, the end
of the book, and read everything in between, whatever God says
about Himself in those pages, the revealed Word of God, that's
what I'm required to believe. Now in salvation, God reveals
His effulgent glory. Now what I mean by effulgent
glory, that's the greatest revelation of God's nature and character
and honor, attributes, everything about God. Everything about God
in every attribute of His being is revealed in the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Second Corinthians 4.6 calls
it the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. In that light,
I see who God is in His sovereignty, in His omniscience, in His omnipotence,
in His mercy and grace, His justice, His glory, His love, all of it. And in that knowledge, I see
who I am, a sinner in need of mercy and grace, who deserves
damnation and hell. who cannot save myself, and who
am by nature unwilling to be saved God's way. I wrote an article years ago,
and I think I saw it on the internet. Somebody brought it back up.
It's called Not an Insult. And what got me to thinking about
this is I saw a little blurb on the internet where a man was
talking about he went to a church, and the pastor told him, he says,
I'm not here to tell you what you've done wrong. And the guy
perked up and he said, man, I've got a preacher that's going to
tell me not what I've done wrong. And I said, well, what's the
guy going to tell you, what you've done right? Could you imagine
that? Well, that'll draw a lot of people.
That's what they call the power of positive thinking. Listen,
it's not an insult for me to tell myself and you that by nature
we're totally depraved. That we don't have anything to
recommend us unto God. That's just like a doctor diagnosing
the disease. But that's not even an insult
in itself and not bad news because I can tell you the cure. And what is that cure? It's by
Him. Jesus Christ. So we believe that God is who
he says he is. And the greatest revelation of
who God is is in the salvation of sinners by his free and sovereign
grace through the glorious person and the finished work of Christ
as our surety, our substitute, our representative, and our redeemer,
and our keeper. Well, Hebrews 11.6 now. You don't
think I'll get through this verse? So for he that cometh to God
must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them
that diligently seek him. Now everyone who seeks the Lord
does so by the sovereign purpose and power and motivation of God
himself. Because without that, we won't
seek him. Read Romans 3, verses 10 through
12. There's none that seeketh after
God. No, not one. The true God. Now man seeks religion,
don't get me wrong. He seeks idols. But man by nature
will not seek the true and living God until God motivates him by
the power of the spirit through the preaching of the gospel to
seek the Lord. And those who seek him gain a reward. You say, well preacher, we don't
believe in rewards. Yes we do. It's just we don't
earn them. It's not like being a Boy Scout,
earning your merit badge or a Girl Scout. The reward that we have
is not earned by us, it's already been earned for us in Jesus Christ,
by Him. So go back to our text. That's
how we give thanks or confess, in verse 15, to His name. His name is His glory. Jesus
Christ, He shall save His people from their sins. Emmanuel, God
with us. We talk about Jehovah. Jehovah
is kind of like an English equivalent to an unpronounceable Hebrew
concoction of letters. But God who saves. And how does
He save? By His grace. Well, look at verse
16. But to do good and to communicate, the word communicate there means
to share. To do good and to share, forget
not. Share what? Well, we share our
material goods to those who are in need. We certainly share the
gospel, don't we? Aren't we to share the gospel?
You say, but they don't want what we share. That's not our
business. That's God's business. We share
it anyway. For with such sacrifices God
is well pleased. Now remember, without faith it's
impossible to please God. But this thing of sharing, this
thing of praising, this thing of giving thanks, that's the
good that we do as motivated by God's grace. And that's what
separates us from the world. Now go back to verse nine of
this passage. He says, be not carried about
with diverse, that's various, and strange or foreign doctrines. False doctrine. Don't be swayed. For it is a good thing that the
heart be established with grace. These good works are the product
of a heart established with grace. And what is that? A heart established
with grace is the assurance of salvation and reward that we
have by virtue of the merits of the glorious person and finished
work of Christ. Am I established, firmly established? David the psalmist said, my heart
is fixed. Immovable. What's it fixed on? What's your fixation? You know,
they talk about people having a fixation today in psychology.
Well, we who believe have a fixation. Under you, therefore, which believe,
He is precious. Our fixation is Jesus Christ,
crucified and risen from the dead. I can't get off of it. Somebody says, that's all you
preach. Thank you. And if I go beyond that, somebody
hit me in the head or something. It's a good thing that the heart
be established, not with meats. Mark said, I think your translator
said foods. Well, what it's talking about
is the abstention of meats that were brought up under the old
covenant. Taste not, touch not, handle not. Oh, I wouldn't eat
that. That would displease God, you know. You can eat rocks for
all I care. That has nothing to do with it.
If your heart is established because you don't eat certain
things, my friend, your heart is not established with grace.
And then he talks about which have not profited them that have
been occupied therein. Verse 10, we have an altar where
they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. You remember
the tabernacle under the old covenant? That was a type and
a picture. There was no salvation in that
earthly building, the earthly temple. That was a picture and
a type given for a temporary period of time to the Jews, and
it was a picture of Christ and His church and salvation by God's
grace, even though the majority of them who were under it for
those 1500 years didn't see it, and refused to see it. So what
he's saying is, what is our altar? Who is our altar? Christ is.
Who is our high priest? Christ is. Who is our sacrifice? Christ, the one sacrifice. By
one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified.
Who is our hope, our salvation, our acceptance? By Him. Christ
is. That's our fixation. Now if your
heart is fixed on anything else, you don't have any right to claim
to be saved the way we are. If you're going back to an earthly
tabernacle, If you're going to taste not, touch not, handle
not, if you're looking to other things to establish your heart
so that you can say, I'm saved, you don't have any right to eat
at our altar, which is Christ. Christ is our high priest, our
altar, our sacrifice. He's all. And it says in verse
11, for the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the
sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned without the
camp. They took the entrails and all that, took them outside
the camp of Jerusalem and burned them on that fire called Gehenna. And he's using that to show us
a picture of how God brings His people outside the confines of
false religion to Christ. Verse 12, Wherefore Jesus also,
that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered
without the gate. Where did Christ suffer for the
sins of his people? On Golgotha's hill, outside their
holy place. He wasn't even worthy in their
eyes to be executed inside, where the sacrifices were laid in the
altar. Take him outside on the, what
is that, the hill of the skull they called it? So he says in verse 13, let us
go forth therefore unto, now notice this. Let us go forth
therefore unto him. There it is again, that's our
fixation. Without or outside the camp, outside of the confines
of false religion and professions and legalism, self-righteousness,
free willism, all of that. Go outside of that, bearing his
reproach. In other words, you're not going
to make yourself popular by doing that. You're going to bear his
reproach. And what was Christ's reproach?
They hated him without a cause. A man of sorrows. acquainted
with grief. And he says, here's the reason,
verse 14, for here we have no continuing city, but we seek
one to come. Our hope is not in the earth.
It's like I tell people about our country. Now I'm going to
tell you something. I love our country. I love America. And I'm a patriot. But America is not my salvation. It's not. And America is not
going to last forever. This world is going to be burned
up. You think that the United States of America is going to
remain? No. No. America is not our hope. I thank
God that we've lived in a country where we have freedom. to do
what we're doing right here without any interference or hindrance
from the government. And I want it to stay that way.
And many times I look around, see what's going on in our country,
I fear for my grandchildren. But I know this, they're in God's
hands too, just like me and you. We have no continuing city here,
but we seek one to come. And so he says, by him therefore. Do good. Verse 17, obey them
that have the rule over you and submit yourself. What he's talking
about there is pastors and elders who preach the word of God to
you. If I'm preaching God's word to you, then you are obligated
to obey it. Not in order to be saved, but
because you already are. Not because I say it. But because
it's God's work. If Brother Jim or Mark or Robert
or Randy get up here and preach God's word, you're obligated
to obey it. Because it's God's word. For
they watch for your souls as they that must give account,
and we must, that they may do it with joy and not with grief,
for that is unprofitable for you. Pray for us. That's a good
work. For we must trust we have a good
conscience. I wanna do what's right. I've
messed up. I've hurt your feelings before.
I've done some people wrong. And when I realize it, I try
to apologize. And I try to ask forgiveness.
Shouldn't you? Well, sure. We're not perfect. This church is a hospital for
what? Sinners. But I want to know that
I've tried to do what's right in all things, willing to live
honestly, but I beseech you, though rather to do this, that
I may be restored to you the sooner that is come to you. Now
let me read these last two verses and this will conclude the message.
This is kind of like a benediction. It kind of summarizes all of
it. Verse 20, now the God of peace Peace made between God
and His people by the cross. That brought again from the dead
our Lord Jesus, He is our peace. That great shepherd of the sheep,
that's who God saves, His elect, His sheep laid down. That great
shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting
covenant, that's the covenant of grace that was conditioned
on Christ and accomplished and finished and sealed by His blood,
which resulted in the righteousness by which God justifies us, the
imputed righteousness of Christ. And then verse 21, make you perfect
in every good work. That word perfect means complete.
The Bible says that in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of
the Godhead bodily and you are complete in Him. Now as far as
our situations here on earth, we've got a long way to go, but
we're complete in Christ. So make you complete in every
good work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing
in His sight. Remember I said that good works,
we're not the source or the cause or the power of good work, God
is. And it's through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and
ever, amen. May the Lord bless His word to
our hearts.