This week I was studying for the Bible study in Psalm 95, and as I mentioned on Thursday, since that psalm is explained in Hebrews, the book of Hebrews, I have been going over and over the book of Hebrews this last week, and I couldn't help myself, but I just had to have Brad read that. It goes perfectly along with everything we need, everything that glorifies God. and is the revelation of all of God's word and all of his will accomplished in his son for his people. It is the book of Hebrews I consider to be one of the most, if you could measure it, I don't know, perhaps it's wrong to say it, but it seems like one of the most powerful explanations of scripture in all of the word of God.

And I think it's interesting if I was thinking as I was going through it this last week that if you were to compare it to a sermon, the text of the sermon would be Psalm 110 verse 1. And he said, sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

That's a simple way of scripture to read, but the book of Hebrews expounds it. And it's so powerfully expounded that It's surprising. It's amazingly surprising. It's staggering, really, that what God has given throughout the Old Testament, everything he said to the fathers, everything he said in the law, and everything he said in the prophets came to his culmination in what he said in his son. The Son is the message of the Old Testament, and the Son came, and when he spoke, in him God has revealed himself fully. And so that's the way Hebrews opens up. It's not a new revelation in the sense that it was not there before, but it was there, but it was hidden, and God unfolded it in the New Testament. So the New Testament comes to us at a time in history that makes us really the most privileged people on earth because we have it explained to us by God himself.

What an amazing gift that is. God has spoken to us. God has spoken to us, that's the opening part of this text of scripture. God spoke at sundry times and in diverse manners in time past to the fathers by the prophets. But in these last days he's spoken to us by his son or in son, literally, whom he hath appointed heir of all things by whom also he made the worlds. So we see right away who the one he's speaking of is.

He's the creator of everything. Everything is his. And that is what the book of Colossians begins with. All things were made by him. Without him was not anything made that was made. He made all things by him and for him and for his pleasure because he's the creator, because he's the firstborn. because he's the image of the invisible God, and that's what Hebrews says also. He's the one who reveals God. In fact, he's the only one who reveals God in himself and in his word and in his work. But the prophets and the fathers and the law in the Old Testament were sent by him, and now he himself has come. And this is the one who, the creator of all things, the one who upholds everything, sustains everything by his almighty word.

He says he is the brightness of God's glory. To see God in the brightness of his glory, you only see him in the Lord Jesus Christ. But what is this brightness? What is this bright glory of God? He goes on and tells us plainly, and this is the staggering part of it all. It says, when he who upholds all things by the word of his power and is the brightness of God's glory, this is it, when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down. You see, God exalted him because of what he did. And in exalting him because of what he did, he's showing his bright glory in what he did.

Jeffrey Thomas preached a sermon on this. It's one of my favorite sermons of all time. You can find it on Sermon Audio. It's on our website, too. But in that sermon, Jeffrey said something that I think has been one of the most endearing statements I've ever heard.

And in explaining what this means when he says that Christ is the brightness of God's glory, he says the most God-like thing that God ever did is Calvary and the broken body of Jesus. Now if you're a sinner, you resonate with that statement, don't you? You can say, oh yes, oh yes. The greatest thing, the most glorious thing that God ever did was the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who is God, who upholds all things by the word of his power and who created all things when he stepped as God and laid aside his glory and took the place of a servant and as a servant took the nature of his people and in that nature, in obedience of love, gave his life He took their sins and gave his life in answer to God and in fulfillment of all righteousness. And this is the revelation of the glory of God. When we read Psalm 95, the opening words are, oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. This is the one, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's the maker. He's the sustainer of all things. He's the one through whom God has made himself known. And in seeing him in his humility and his love and his grace and his self-sacrifice, we're seeing the glory of God. He didn't do this for great people. He did this for sinful people, for sinful people. And that's the revelation of scripture.

That's the ministry of the Holy Spirit given to us also. In Romans chapter five it says, in verse five, hope makes not ashamed. We're not ashamed of our hope because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. This is God's love that just comes abundantly like a river of life to us through the Holy Spirit. And here's what he says. This is the witness of the Spirit of God.

For when we were yet without strength, we had no interest in God. We couldn't help ourselves. We in our minds were hostile towards him. You know why? Because in our hearts we understood that God cannot accept a sinner. God cannot look upon sin, cannot have fellowship with sin, must separate sinners from himself. And so we knew that God couldn't be happy with us as we were. And even though we knew that only subconsciously, innately, because God made it known to us, He wrote the effects of his law, the work of his law in our heart. We knew that we were wrong. And yet when the law came, we had this attitude towards God that he is wrong if he gives me an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

If he comes against me and gives me a just recompense for what I am and what I've done, And so we judge ourselves to be better, and we think, well, God's not happy with me, so we live at a distance from Him. Our hearts are cold, and we cannot come to Him. And when we do attempt to come to Him, it's always with the fruit basket of our own works from the sweat of the ground. And then God alone can fix us. He alone can change our hearts. And this is the way he does it. He does it by declaring to us the Lord Jesus Christ. He does it by declaring to us his powerful work for sinners to the glory of God. He doesn't tell us what we need to do to measure up.

We've already failed. The law proves us guilty. The law proves us helpless. We're without strength. This is the ministry of the Spirit of God. We are without strength. We have no mind, no heart, no strength to do the will of God to remove our sins. We're helpless, have no power. But when we were without strength, when, that's our condition, in that, at that time, Christ died for the ungodly.

The ungodly are those who are against God, have no interest, no knowledge of God. They're ignorant of God and they're happy that way. In the misery, the ruin of their sin, they prefer their own thoughts and ways to the Lord's grace. He goes on in verse 7 of Romans 5, for scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.

But God commendeth his love toward us. This is the love of God. This is the glory of God. In that while we were yet sinners, so we're without strength, we're ungodly, we're sinners, then Christ died for us. You see how we brought nothing to the table? You see how we were living in, if you could call it living, the Bible doesn't even call it living. It calls us when we were dead in sins, in the uncircumcision of our heart, when we were hardened, stiff-necked, without faith, without God, without hope in the world, then God lavished his love upon us.

He sent his son. Christ died for us. Now, this is beyond all comprehension in wonder. And that's what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. He's accomplished this. Turn to the book of Colossians now in chapter one. And I want to see how these things are given to us there because this is so significant. We need to be absolutely clear about this.

We need to stand upon it and put our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to be completely satisfied with Him alone and never think of any contribution that we need to make because we will not make it, we cannot make it, we have no heart to make it and God cannot accept it from us.

And God gave the law to prove that to us. It describes the heart of our Savior, not our heart. But in contrast, it shows our utter wickedness. And so in Colossians in chapter two, as we've been going through this, we see in verse nine, the same thing that we read in Hebrews, in Christ, in Him, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He who is God had to take our nature. He took on In Hebrews 2, it says in verse 16, the nature, he took on the seed of Abraham. He who sanctifies is Christ, the Lord, God, the mediator, the high priest. He who sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one.

Therefore, he took on them, the seed of Abraham, their nature, and brought them, the many sons, given to him. He brought them to glory. That's what Hebrews 2 says, and here he says, this is who he is now. The one who came in a body prepared for him by his father. A body he took on, a nature he took into union with his divine nature forever. Identifying himself and taking to himself the nature of his people because they were his, he would bring them to glory as his brethren. As children of God given to him, he would be both a brother to them and a father to them.

And it says, in him therefore dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Because the fullness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily, therefore that fullness that dwells in him bodily was in him for us. He didn't just take on a body in order to have some abstract detachment from everyone, but because he was brought into union with us in an eternal covenant of grace and by his own love bound us to himself in that everlasting love. And he says, therefore, in verse 10 of Colossians 2, therefore, we are complete in him.

It's not a future. It's not a progress, it's not a process, it's not a stepwise coming to something. This is where it begins. This is where we start and this is where we end because in Christ we are fully, complete, perfectly, lacking nothing in Him. Now the consequence of this should have a great consequence on us. We should never begin to think at this point, what do I do in order to be in Him?

That's not the right response. Of course, we say that, what should I do that I might be saved? Sirs, what should I do? What must I do to be saved? But the answer given, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, is what we are to do, which is to sit down and look and not lift a finger, but to admire him and to see when I was ruined and without strength and ungodly and sinful.

He Himself took my cause by the will of God, and pleaded Himself, and answered God in fulfillment of His law, in magnifying His glory, and in His justice, and establishing an everlasting righteousness. He did that by Himself when in our nature He obeyed in love unto death.

His own blood, therefore we're complete in Him. And he is the head of all principality and power, all devils, all angels, all men on earth. He's the head. He rules over all. Verse 11 says, in whom also you are circumcised. What the Lord is doing here is he's exploding this little statement, you are complete in him, to show us what's important What's necessary? What God has given us in Him. How are we complete in Him? These are the things that are important to God. God has put it in His law, and now He tells us, this is how it happens.

In the law, you must, if you were a male child, be circumcised, or you were not allowed to be part of anything having to do with Abraham. You were cast out and cut off from the covenant. But in the Lord Jesus Christ, he says, in whom also you are circumcised. Again, this is something done with the circumcision made without hands, without your contribution, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.

Not his circumcision at eight days old in his physical body, the circumcision of Christ on the cross in his death, when our sins were cut off. This is the fulfillment of that sign. And because our sins were cut off at the cross in Him, in His circumcision, in death, therefore that circumcision is applied to our hearts. The Spirit of God is given to us in order that we might be enabled by faith now to see our sins have been severed, cast away from us.

They're no longer there. They can't be found. And God has given us a new heart to see it's all been done in Christ. And then in verse 12, he gives us another point. Here's another way we're completing him. Buried. with him in baptism. What was cut off was buried. And burial in scripture, you can read this in Psalm 88 and other places, it means being put out of mind, being forgotten. And so Hebrews 10 tells us that because a full remission was made, our sins and iniquities are remembered no more. They're not there. Christ took them away. That's what he's saying, buried with him in baptism. The body of our sins died in the death of Christ and was buried with him in his baptism, not our water baptism.

Jesus told his disciples when James and John, the sons of thunder, their mother asked him, could my son sit at your right hand and your left hand when you come in your kingdom? And Jesus asked them, are you able to be baptized with the baptism which I will be baptized with? They said, oh yes, we're able. Oh, you shall be.

Because this is how, buried with Him in His baptism under the floods of God's wrath and vengeance poured out upon Him as the ark in which we were by God's putting. And our sins are therefore buried in Him, never to be raised again, our sinful flesh buried. But, We were raised, we didn't have a spiritual life until then, but we were raised with Him, wherein also He says, here's another point, not only were our sins cut off in His death and buried with Him in His baptism, but in His resurrection, you are risen with Him, risen with Him. You see how everything is in Him? Everything is by Him, everything is with Him.

God's people are in Christ. God put them there. God made Christ everything that He is as God for His people so that in Him they are complete. Their circumcision has occurred in His death. Their baptism, burial in their sins has been accomplished in His baptism. And then they rose with Him when He rose.

But then it says here, through the faith of the operation of God. Here's the application. The application of the circumcision and the burial and the resurrection is that the Spirit of God now operates in us. enabling us to see that in Christ we are complete. Our sins have been removed.

As we sit, as we look and see our salvation in the Passover lamb, through the Red Sea, in the overthrow of our enemies, the Egyptian armies and Pharaoh and the whole nation of the Egyptians, destroyed, and Israel redeemed by the blood of the Passover lamb. And Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us.

And they went through the Red Sea. They were baptized into Moses in the sea. So we're baptized with Christ in his burial, in the body of our sins. And they came through the sea, and they looked back, and there their enemies were, dead on the seashore, never to be seen again or heard from again. And so Christ is telling us in His burial, in His baptism, our sins were put to death and buried and our enemies, the enemies of our sins have been cast into the depths of the sea. God's judgment has passed upon them. They cannot be heard anymore. They cannot hurt you anymore. They're gone. They're cut off. They're buried. They're drowned.

Micah 7, verse 18 and 19 tells us this. Take a look at that. Let's take a look at Micah, chapter 7. I can find it here. It's always a challenge. Find these things, it's before Nahum. It's after Jonah, which is after Obadiah. So Micah, but in chapter seven, look at this. He says, in verse seven, I will look unto him, I will look unto the Lord.

Isn't that what we do? when we hear the gospel. We are to be so overwhelmed with the fullness of Christ that everything else is squeezed out. Out of the room, out of our minds, all we see is the Lord God himself has become our salvation. He has undertaken by himself. He engaged with our sins and he took our sins in his own body up to the tree.

He says in verse 7 of Micah 7, I will look unto the Lord. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Rejoice not against me, O my enemy. When I fall, I shall rise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light to me. I will bear. the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him until he plead my cause and execute judgment for me. He will bring me forth to the light and I shall behold his righteousness.

You see, the putting away of our sins was the righteousness of God. Look at verse 18. He says, who is a God? Sounds like Psalm 95. Oh come, let us sing unto the Lord. Who is a God like unto thee, Lord Jesus, that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever because he delights in mercy. We are reluctant to confess our sins, aren't we? We're reluctant to even entertain the possibility in our minds that we can come to God and have open, free fellowship with Him. And so we stay away, don't we? This attitude of tit for tat or eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, it leaves us thinking about others that way and about God. Someone crosses me, well, they need to get something in consequence for that, that they would offend me.

I didn't do anything wrong. And so we have the same attitude towards God. And we think that, well, just as I deal with others in my mind, or even by what I do, that's the way God deals with me. When things are going good, it's because I was good. When things are bad, he's getting me. It's the eye for eye, tooth for tooth principle. It's in us by nature.

And so when we think of our sin and we can't come to God, we think, well, he's going to get me for it. Unless I can clean up somehow, unless I can turn his mind towards me and change the way he thinks about me. This is all blindness. This is spiritual deadness. The only way that God is going to give us to circumcise these thoughts and mind, this stiff neck heart, is to declare to us Christ only and what he did by himself when we were ungodly and without strength and sinners. So he says this.

He retaineth not his anger forever because he delights in mercy. Remember Psalm 51? Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness, according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies, blot out my sins. According to You, He will turn again. He will have compassion upon us.

He will subdue our inequities, our enemies that will cast all their sins They're sins, not the Egyptians, not Pharaoh, but they're sins into the depths of the sea. Thou will perform the truth to Jacob. This was the truth, this was the covenant. Listen, the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, which thou has sworn unto our fathers from the days of old. This is the message of the fathers, you see, and the prophets, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord, our great God and savior. He is a great God, isn't he?

Buried with him in baptism, in his baptism, our sins were put to death and buried. And we are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God. God gives us this faith in Christ to see it's done in him who hath raised him from the dead. The same power exerted by God to raise Christ from the dead is exerted because of his righteousness. to give us faith in Him. The same merit, the same purpose of God and the same work of Christ that cut our sins off in His death is the same purpose of God and grace of God that raised us again with Him and then gives us His Spirit with life and faith in Christ.

That's what he's saying here. And then in verse 13, I'm sorry, in verse 12 to go on, through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead. That's the resurrection. The resurrection is required for us to live to God, for us to believe Christ. How does God do this? How does he raise sinners from the dead?

Well, the basis is the blood of Christ. We were buried with him and risen with him. We were justified. And therefore, because of our justification, we're raised with him and in spirit when the gospel is preached and applied. You see, God raises the dead through his word that the day comes, Jesus said, when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God and they that hear shall live.

Spiritually, they were dead. They had no life. They couldn't contribute. They were blind. And the Lord Jesus Christ speaks, and they see, and they live, and they see Him, and they see clearly that He did everything they could never do or were interested in.

But now they find all of their satisfaction in Him alone. And this is precisely what God finds. So they're aligned. And verse 13 of Colossians 2, and you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened, made alive together with him. Notice, here's why. Having forgiven you all trespasses. Because our sins were forgiven, Therefore, he raises us from the dead.

The sin problem had to be dealt with. You see what's important to God here and what's important to us? To every believing sinner, this is critical. This is crucial. This is central. Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord. Let us sing unto the rock of our salvation, you see. having forgiven you all trespasses. That's what Hebrews is saying. Look back at Hebrews 1 where we were.

He says, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he, you see, everything else drops into the darkness and Christ the light shines alone. when He by Himself had purged our sins.

No one was with Him. He needed no helper. He looked and there was none to help. He wondered that there was no intercessor. So His own arm brought salvation to Him. He Himself purged our sins. He removed the filth and the defilement of our sins from us. He purged our sins.

In Psalm 65 and verse, I want to turn to that and read that to you. It's in verse three, but let me read it to you so we get it just right. I want you to see how these things are compared here or explained. He says in Psalm 65, and this is a prayer of a sinner.

Iniquities prevail against me. They're stronger than me. They're winning. As for our transgressions, this is what God's going to do. Thou shalt purge them away. Who did this? The Lord. Who is He? The Lord Jesus. How did He do it? Well, He did it in His death. He took our sins in His own body up to the tree, and He put them there to death, and they were buried in His burial, in His baptism on the cross, and in His body, they were buried in the tomb. He did it alone. Our sins have been removed from us.

And this is something that we cannot believe unless God gives us faith. But He tells us, stop looking for a reason. Stop looking for a way. Just be absorbed with and be satisfied with and be taken up with. Only this, that the Lord Jesus Christ has done this. You might not be able to explain the Old Testament, how it all unfolds, but here it's given to us. Everything that's important is stated here. We don't have to, like I used to do when I was in college, try to rederive these equations so that I'd really burn them in. You don't have to do that.

Albert Einstein is considered, or was considered a genius. In his life, he spent a great deal of his lifetime, this is a genius now, applying himself, to try to describe the physics of the universe with a single equation. He labored hard to do this. And he came up with one. But he missed the equation. God has one equation.

And if you know anything about algebra, when you have an equation, there's two sides, the left side and the right side. And between them is an equal sign. If I told you a simple equation, x equals 0, that's an equation, isn't it? And you would say, well, I know what x is. It's 0. What about Y? It doesn't matter. X is zero. That's all we have here in this equation. The fact is that if X is zero, this equation is satisfied.

Albert Einstein's equation wasn't that simple. It had a few other terms in it. Hard to solve. But God has an equation, and it's so simple. You know what it is? Christ equals all. Albert Einstein spent his life as a genius searching for that equation, and God has given it to us. Because not many wise are called, not many noble, not many mighty, God has chosen the foolish things and the weak things and the despised things of this world to confound the wisdom and the strength of those kinds of people, of us, And he tells us this, Christ is all. How can I come to God?

Christ is all. He's all in life. He's all in salvation. He's all in the forgiveness of sins. He's all in the putting away of the sins. He's all in righteousness. He's all in God's promises. He's all in God's inheritance. He's all in glory. He's all in the revelation of God. He's all in the glory of God. He's everything. Christ is all. Just one factor in this equation. He's everything. And we are to behold this as kindergartners looking at this equation and say, I understand that. I understand that because God has revealed it.

He's taken away all of the paraphernalia, if you will, of the confusion of our faces because of our sins. And he's cleared away like a cloud, a thick darkness. He says, I have blotted out your sins. I blotted them out. Christ, the Lord Jesus, purged those sins in his own body on the tree. And we know he did it. Because after he did it, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. He sat down because it was fully complete. The sins were removed from us. God sees them no more because they're not there. A full remission has been made.

And the rest of the book of Hebrews is expounding this verse. And so back in Colossians, when we're getting on through this same section, he says this in chapter two, verse 13, having forgiven you all trespasses, having forgiven you, having forgiven you.

Every day, amen, every day we go to our Father and say, give us this day our daily bread. This is it. our daily bread, Christ crucified for us, our sins forgiven by God for His sake alone. Therefore, we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus right now. God did this and we need this full assurance of faith that everything is in Him and in Him alone, fully.

He goes on in Colossians 2, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us. He took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. The law, like a document, was nailed to the cross by God. And the nails were the nails that pierced the hands and the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. The accusation against us was the reason he was crucified. Pilate had them put that on the cross. This is Jesus, King of the Jews.

And yet the nails that God drove into his hands and his feet through the wicked hands of those men for his people, those holes pierced God's holy law. And it was torn so that it has nothing, no claim on us, nothing to say to us. All has been answered on the cross. And then in the next verse, Colossians 2, having spoiled principalities and powers, the devil and his servants, whether they be in hell, whether they be the demons of hell, or whether they be the religious men on earth, the principalities and powers, what did he do?

Christ on his cross. Well, they meant the cross as the weapon they would use, the gallows they would hang him on. But the cross was like his chariot. He rode it in triumph against them and exposed them to their utter shame in the nakedness of their guilt and damnation before God and He took them away. They have nothing to say to His people and they have no power because He took from them their armor. He took from them their spoils, their goods, things they trusted in, things they boasted in, and He made an open and shameful display of them.

In it, in the cross, there's no one therefore that can judge us. See the next verse? Let no man therefore judge you in anything because Christ is all. Having forgiven you all trespasses. You're not allowed to think about your sins in any other way as a believer.

When you sin against God, and you do, and you feel estrangement from God, and you do, and you feel and you wonder, you lay down at night and you wonder, have I neglected again this day? to live to God, to open my heart, and to come into his presence with thanksgiving. Have I? Yes, you have. What am I to do?

You're to look to the Lord Jesus Christ, who by himself purged our sins. If you come any other way than you're trying to do what Cain did, mop up your sweat and bring it in a basket. But Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by the which he obtained witness that he was righteous. God testifying of his gifts. Christ and him crucified.

When he by himself purged our sins. That's our only hope in life and in death. The Lord makes this our hope. By the power exerted in the resurrection, He applies these things to us. And we hunger and thirst after this righteousness, don't we? And we're satisfied. We're satisfied that it's in Christ fully, and in Him we're complete. With Him, we were cut off, our sins were cut off, our sins were buried, and we rose to newness of life. to live to God, Christ living in us by His life, to know Him, to come to God. As the Apostle John said in 1 John 1, to walk in the light, confessing our sins. He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

We live this way. We walk by faith in Him. And we say, Lord, give us this day by day. I need it. I live upon Him. May we never think to do one thing but to hear his word of what Christ has done and to revel in him and say with the psalmist, oh Lord our God, how great thou art. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. that He is truly all. He's all to God for us in the matter of our sins and our death and the judgment that we deserve. He's all to God in the matter of the requirements of your holy law and the fulfillment of it too. All to God for us and all of God to us for life and riches and adoption and birth and to know the living God, and to come and be brought to Him, reconciled by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Help us, dear Lord, never to think of coming another way. Help us to rejoice in Him, and to see the glory of God, and so worship Him, and take no confidence in our flesh. Lord, circumcise our hearts in this way. Day by day, renew us. And as David prayed in Psalm 51, take not your Holy Spirit from us, blot out our sins for Christ's sake. And then we will sing of your righteousness. In his name we pray. Amen.