How can I approach God?

Good morning We could not have opened this service with a more appropriate hymn to the Text I want us to look at if you open your Bibles with me to Hebrews chapter 4 Hebrews chapter 4 Verse 16 Let us Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father. What great hope we have in thy precious promises. All fulfilled. In the person of thy dear son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Who opened up the way for us? Our high priest. Who has ascended into heaven?

And seated at thy right hand. were able to come before your throne of grace, confident, boldly, knowing that you are completely satisfied with him and us in him. Lord, we ask that your Holy Spirit would speak hope and comfort and truth and peace to our hearts as we seek to lift up Christ, thy dear son. Or that our hearts would be drawn to him. That you would be glorified. And that we might be saved. Lord, our needs are great. We think of our brethren in Venezuela. And the suffering that they are experiencing.

Lord, we pray that you would help them, comfort them, provide for their needs. Lord, we think about those in our own church family and in our families and in our our friends that suffer in this life and Lord, we pray for your hand of comfort and grace to be upon them in their time of need. Lord, we thank you that the gospel is for the poor and needy, for we come before thee, Lord. Poverty stricken, we have nothing that we can purchase from you, our salvation, we thank you. that the Lord Jesus has done that for us with his precious blood. And we are needy. We need your Holy Spirit. We need Christ. We need for you to look to his blood for our salvation. And we need for you to give us the faith that we might rest in him. For it's in his name we pray, amen.

Some of the Pharisees, the self-righteous ones, asked the disciples why their master ate with publicans and sinners. And the Lord answered that question. when he said, the well need not a physician, but them that are sick. We teach our children to be strong and independent, but that's only in their relationships with their world and with men. We want them to be responsible and independent. and strong.

We'll grow up to be babies. But when we find ourselves in the presence of God, we are babies. Except you become as a little child, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Suffer the little children to come unto me. We're poor and we're needy. We're weak.

And we have these precious promises that the Lord Jesus fulfilled that comfort our hearts in our time of need. Let us, let us therefore come boldly, and that word means confidently. We're not confident in ourselves. Our confidence is in Christ. Our confidence is in the fact that the Lord is faithful. to his promises. And he's commanded us to come before the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help, to help in time of need.

Oh, how much help we need, how needy we are. We have We have a sin burden that we can't lift. We cry with cane, my punishment is too great for me to bear. But oh, how hopeful we are that we have a sin bearer. We have a substitute, we have one who bore in his body all the sins of all of God's people, and he put them away once and for all by the sacrifice of himself. That's what our Lord is telling us. Sinners, sinners, you've got a problem.

And it's not just our sin, it's our temptations to sin. The Lord told us when we pray that we are to pray, Lord, deliver us from temptation. Lead us not into temptation, deliver us from the evil one. Lord, I've had enough experience with the weakness of my flesh to know that if I'm tempted, I'm going to sin. And even in my temptations, I have a sin problem.

Lord, so oftentimes, though I know the truth about who I am and about who you are, I find myself indifferent, cold, spiritually numb. Lord, I have a need for you to awaken me, for you to revive me again and again and again. I have a need. I need help. Lord, have circumstances in my life that I know you've ordained and purposed for my good and for your glory, and yet I struggle. I struggle with my unbelief. I struggle with my fear. I struggle with all these things. Lord, I need help. I need help. Afflictions of the flesh. whether they be physical in sickness or whether they be emotional in sadness and sorrow and stress, Lord, these things are too great for me.

I'm needy. That's who the gospel's for. If you can't relate to what I'm saying right now, then I would just have to say to you, I've really got nothing for you. But if you can identify, with being poor and being needy and being weak, then there's hope. There's hope. We have a savior.

Lord, I'm called on things to do that I'm not able to do. Something as simple as raising children in the admonition, the nurture and admonition of the Lord. This is a task, Lord, that is beyond my ability, and I find myself so often failing. Lord, help me. Lord, loving my wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. Lord, help me. Lives submitted unto your husbands. Lord, help me. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, if I'm gonna believe, you're gonna have to give me faith to believe. If I'm gonna come, you're gonna have to bid me to come. You're gonna have to enable me.

Lord, I'm weak, I'm poor, I'm needy. All the things that you've called upon me, Lord, if you don't provide them, I'll not be able to do them. Lord, the older we get, the weaker we get, the more we realize that there's still one final enemy that must be faced. Lord, I can't face that. I can't face death.

Lord, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to conquer that for me. You're gonna have to, you're gonna have to deliver me. Let us, let us, who? They that are poor and needy, those that have a need. Let us come, come boldly. That woman of Canaan who had a daughter that was possessed with a demon and came to the Lord and she said, Lord, help me. It's not right that I should give the children's bread to dogs. In truth, Lord, that's what I am. I'm a dog, but oh, I still need help. The dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table.

Lord, would you have mercy upon me? David said in Psalm 38 verse 21, forsake me not, O Lord, O my God, be not far from me. Make haste, make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation. This message is not for the independent, the strong, the self-righteous. No, it's for the sick. They're the ones that need a physician. David went on to say in Psalm 40, be pleased, oh Lord, to deliver me. Oh Lord, make haste to help me. I need help right now. It's the only time to cry for help is when we need it now, right now. Turn with me to Psalm 40, just quoted verse 12 from that Psalm.

Verse one, I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a miry pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet on a rock and established my goings. Lord, if you don't help me, I'm going to sink in this quicksand. Lord, Peter's drowning. He's looking at the waves, and he's sinking. And he cries, Lord, save me. Lord, save me. What's such a simple prayer? Prayer's not complicated. Not if it comes from the heart of a needy person. It's just very simple. Lord, save me. Lord, help me. Lord, deliver me.

And he knows the cries of his children, just as you know the cries of your children. Children often feign crying, don't they, when they just want their way. But every parent knows a sincere cry. And when that cry comes, unfeigned, sincere desperation, that parent will drop everything to be there to do whatever is necessary to deliver their child. And if you being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more, how much more will your heavenly father give good gifts to them that ask him, ask him.

In verse three of Psalm 40, he hath put a new song in my heart, even praise unto our God, many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord. Now David's writing prophetically of Christ. And the Lord cried out to him, to his father and waited patiently for him and he delivered him. And the Lord said, My people will hear what you did for me, and they will believe you to do the same for them. Verse four, blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.

Oh, the lies of religion, the lies of We hear them so often in the false gospel. God can't help you unless you first help yourself. We've heard it said many times, God helps those who help themselves. Well, that may be true in some respects as far as being responsible for the things that you have in this world. But when it comes to our salvation, God helps those who cannot help themselves.

They have no ability. Verse 5, Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to usward. They cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than could be numbered. Sacrifice and offerings thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened. Burnt offerings and sin offerings hast thou not required. Then said I, lo, I come. In the volume of the book, it is written of me. David said in Psalm 51, if sacrifice and offerings is what you would desire, I would bring them.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. That he will not despise. Why? Because only God can give a broken spirit, a broken contrite heart. Only God can break us. Go back with me to our text in Hebrews. Let us who, the poor and the needy, the ones who have trouble and enemies and problems they cannot solve, let us therefore come boldly. confident that we have acceptance before God in the beloved, confident that we are not under the condemnation of the law, confident that he satisfied all the demands of God's holy law.

He established a perfect righteousness. I come before the throne of grace to find grace and mercy in my time of need. Why? Because I know that the Lord Jesus has gone before me. I have a righteousness before God in Christ. I'm not confident in my faith. I'm not confident in my repentance. My faith is so weak and there's so much unbelief that remains in me. My repentance is so insincere. I get over my guilty conscience pretty quick. I'm not confident in my love.

Herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us. Oh, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. Our confidence is not in us. We are the true circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

There's nothing in me that I can find confident in so that I can boldly come. But in Christ, I can come boldly. I can come confident. Ephesians chapter 3 verse 12 says, in whom, speaking of Christ, we have boldness and we have access by the faith of Him.

By the faith of Him. Lord, I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ was faithful. His name is called faithful. He was perfectly obedient and faithful to obey your law in heart, in mind, in spirit, in body, in actions, in motives. He was perfect. He was sinless before thee. And I believe that he was faithful in bearing the sins of his people and that he was faithful in putting them away by the sacrifice of himself. I believe that.

Lord, the only way that I'm going to be saved is if you look to Christ for me. It must be a throne of grace If God requires me to satisfy any part of his law, I will have no hope and I cannot come. I cannot bring my good intentions. I cannot bring my experiences. I cannot bring anything before God.

It must be a free gift, a throne of grace. And it must be my mercy. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy. What is the difference between grace and mercy? Grace is God giving to us what we cannot deserve. Grace is the gift of God.

What can we not deserve? We cannot deserve salvation. We cannot deserve forgiveness of sin. We cannot deserve standing in the presence of God. God must give us that. We cannot deserve righteousness. We cannot deserve justification. God must give me that freely. And if he's going to give it to me freely, it can only be given in Christ Jesus. That's grace. But what is mercy? God withholding from me what I do deserve. What do I deserve? Judgment, condemnation, wrath, eternal separation from God. That's what I deserve. They go together. Can't have one without the other.

But it's acknowledging before a holy God that, Lord, I have no claim on you because there's nothing I can offer you to obligate you or to satisfy you. And if I got what I deserve, I'd spend eternity separated from you in your wrath and judgment. Lord, I need grace and I need mercy. How can I approach God?

Look at verse 14. Seeing then, seeing then that we have a great high priest. I've got to have a priest. I've got to have one who is able to intercede for me. I've got to have one who's able to make a sacrifice on my behalf that's acceptable to God. That's what the priest did.

The first reference we have to priests in the Old Testament is in Genesis chapter 14. After Abraham came back from the destruction of the Kings in chapter 14, he meets Melchizedek, the King of Salem and the Prince of Peace. the one who was without father, without mother, without descent, the one that blessed Abraham and the greater always blesses the lesser, and the one to whom Abraham paid tithes. It was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, appearing for the first time as the priest of God. The only way that Abraham could find acceptance before God Almighty was to have his priest, Melchizedek. And then we have the priesthood, and the Levites, and Aaron, the brother of Moses, and all of those Old Testament priests making sacrifices.

But the blood of bulls and goats, for all those many years that they sacrificed, never put away sin. They never put away sin. They were done in faith, believing that there would come a day when God would send his lamb, a perfect lamb. We look at these lambs that we sacrifice and we see that they're without spot and without blemish, but we need a lamb that's perfect in the sight of God.

And these Old Testament sacrifices 1500 years from the time of Moses to the time of Christ. Sacrifice upon sacrifice, a bloody religion. And yet they all pointed in faith to the one who would come and fulfill the promise that was made by those sacrifices. Those priests of the Old Testament had to make sacrifices for their own sin first before they could make sacrifices for the sins of the people. This priest must be able to make an offering to God that will be acceptable for my sins. The Lord Jesus did not go to the cross to make himself an offer to us to be saved.

He made himself an offering to his heavenly father, and the father saw the sacrifice that he made. The father accepted that sacrifice. We have that picture of Abraham taking Isaac up on Mount Moriah to, in obedience to what God had commanded, sacrifice his son. Abraham, take thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest." Here we have a picture of God the Father taking his son, his only son, whom he loved, and sacrificed him. And on the way up the mountain, Isaac said, Father, here is the fire. Isaac must have been carrying a pail of some sort with coals in it. Father, where's the, and here's the wood. He must have been carrying a bundle of wood to build the altar and make a, make a, make a burnt offering. But where's the sacrifice?

And what did Abraham say to Isaac? He had already told his servants, you wait here and me and the lad will return. So though Abraham was obeying the voice of God in being willing to sacrifice his son, he believed that God would resurrect Isaac from the dead. And that's our belief. That's our belief.

And Abraham said to his son, God will provide himself a sacrifice. God will do the providing. God will provide the sacrifice to himself, and God will be the sacrifice that he provides. God will provide himself. Poor and needy sinners need a God who provides everything that they need. How am I gonna come boldly before the throne of grace? I've got to have a great, a great high priest.

In the Old Testament, there was three offices that were anointed with oil. It was the prophet, the priest, and the king, and never was one man allowed to serve in all three places. The prophet was the one who brought the word of God to man, the priest was the one who brought the sacrifice to God, and the king was the one who served as the commander of the people. And all three of those offices picture what was fulfilled in Christ as our prophet, our priest, and our king.

He is the word that came down from heaven. He is the one who went back up into heaven and offered himself to God. And he is our reigning king. Those who are poor and needy know that they can't trust themselves. They can't depend upon, Lord, I need you to take control of me. I need you to be my king. You who established the law, I need you to keep the law. And I need you to keep me.

Seeing then that we have a great high priest, Men, every religion in the world practices priestcraft. I grew up in the Catholic Church, believing that somehow confessing my sins to that priest. Yeah, Catholics really do that. They go into a confessional, and they divulge their sins to another man, believing that that man is somehow going to be able to absolve them of their sins and intercede for them to God. And they're taught that from young, from a baby, and they don't, I've shared this experience with those who raised up under the gospel and say, how stupid and ridiculous is that?

Yeah, it was, but that's all we knew. And there are a billion people on this planet doing that right now. And the Hindus have their shamans and the, and the Muslims have their Imams, and the Jews have their rabbis, and the Reforms have their elders, setting up a man that you have to go through in order to get to God.

And the New Testament calls the church a kingdom of priests. We're not looking to a man on earth. We have a man in heaven. And the Lord enables each of us through faith in him to come boldly before the throne of grace without the need of another man. And God raises up men to preach the gospel.

We rejoice in that. We're thankful for that. Thank God for that. esteem them highly for their work's sake, but they are sinners and they've got no ability to come before God for you any better than you can come. Christ is our access before God. Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens. Sit thou here at my right hand until I make all thine enemies thy footstool. The Father gave him his rightful place on his throne in heaven. His works, the works of the Lord Jesus, went before him and recommended him to God.

And he's the only man that's ever been able to do that or ever will be able to do that. We cannot send our good intentions, our experiences, our feelings, our works, Our faith, our repentance, our love before us to recommend us to God, it never worked. God's not pleased with him. He won't accept us based on that.

But he accepted his son because his son did all those things perfectly. And so when we come before the throne of grace, we come boldly. to find mercy and grace in our time of need because we're confident that we have a high priest in the heavens. He has passed into the heavens and he has taken his rightful place and he ever lives to make intercession for us.

We're able to come before him, Jesus, Jehovah saves the Son of God. He's the Son of God. He's the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He's the God-Man. He's the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and full of truth. The Son of God. God despised his son. So many precious promises God promises to reward his son. And he rewarded him with the resurrection.

And that's our sign. You looking for something else? Don't do it. wicked and a perverse generation seeketh after a sign. No sign will be given unto it except for the sign of Jonah who spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale and then he was vomited forth onto dry land. That's the sign that the Lord said we have.

And the cross is so much more than just a historical event. It's so much more than a fundamental doctrine to the Christian faith. The resurrection, I meant to say. The resurrection is more than just a historical event. The resurrection is more than just a necessary fundamental doctrine to the Christian faith. The resurrection is a clear and loud message from God Almighty.

And here's the message. I am satisfied. I could not allow my holy one to see corruption. I raised him from the dead because I'm satisfied with what he did. Oh, if the message of the cross spoken by the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, is it is finished, then the message of the open tomb is I am satisfied. That's the message.

And faith is being satisfied with what God's satisfied with. The self-righteous Pharisee, the unbeliever, will be satisfied with their good works. They'll be satisfied with their good intentions. They'll be satisfied with their experiences and with their feelings and with their whatever.

You hear it all the time. Lord, I can't find anything in my life, any experience that I've had, that I can be satisfied with. You said that you were satisfied with Christ and you proved it by raising him from the dead. Lord, I've got no place else to go. And that's what the last phrase of verse 14 is.

Let us hold our profession. Christ is our profession. It is finished, is our profession. I am satisfied, is our profession. Christ is all, that is our profession. Salvation is of the Lord, that is our profession. Let us hold fast to our profession. Let us not add to our profession. Let us not waver in our profession. Let us hold fast to Christ.

Believing that he is able, he's able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. to the Jew first and also to the Greek. And then he said, I know whom I have believed. Not I know what I believe, not I know what I've experienced, not I know what I felt, I know whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that he is able. To keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. That's what faith is. Believing that he is able. Believing that he is the son of God and that he alone has the words of eternal life and we've got no place else to go.

We're shut up to him. We didn't choose this. We didn't decide to do this. God shut us up. He made us weak. He made us needy. He brought us to the end of ourselves. He caused us to see that we have no place else. to go and no one else to help us. We look to the right, we look to the left. We, like the woman with the issue of blood, spent all that we had on physicians only to be worse off than where we were to start with. We only, in trying to use religion to solve our sin problem, we only added sin to sin. We added a worse sin of self-righteousness to our sins of the flesh.

But if I could just touch the hem of his garment, I'll be made whole. I need a high priest that sympathizes with me. I don't just need the Son of God. I don't just need Jesus to reign as my As my Savior, I do, I do, I do, but I need to know that He sympathizes with me because if He doesn't sympathize with me, He will give up on me. He'll quit. If He can't identify with me and cannot sympathize with my daily struggles and with my daily weaknesses and my daily need and my daily sin and my daily fears, He will give up on me. And that's why we have verse 15.

For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. When the Lord Jesus came into this world, he did not live his life in a monastery. He did not seclude himself on a mountaintop. No, he suffered the contradiction of sinners. He was tempted in all ways that we are. yet without sin.

What does that mean? Well, first thing I want to say about temptation, I think I already said it earlier on, that when the Bible says that he was tempted in all ways that we are, in all points like as we are, don't think that his temptations are the same as yours because you know in your heart The temptation never comes without sin in it. Say, well, I was tempted, but I didn't follow through. The Lord's clear on that, isn't he?

You have heard that it's been said that thou shalt not. What? commit murder, but I say unto you that if you have ought in your heart toward your brethren without a cause, in other words, you're mad at somebody just because they didn't please you. It wasn't that they did something wrong. It's that they, you didn't, you weren't happy with, they didn't give you what you wanted.

You have ought in your heart without a cause. You've already committed murder in your heart. God knows our heart. Man looks at the outward appearance. God's looking at the heart. You've heard that it says, old thou shalt not commit adultery. I say unto you, if you have lust in your heart toward a woman, you've already committed adultery.

So our temptations are not like his. And when we're tempted, even if we don't follow through physically with those temptations, and may God enable us not to, we've already sinned. So what does the Bible mean when it says that he was tempted in all points as we are? Well, he was subject to all the things that cause us to sin. He was surrounded by a sinful world. He suffered the contradiction of other men, much worse than we ever did. And let me say this, when the Lord Jesus Christ was tempted in all points as we are, his temptations living in this fallen, sinful world, we can't even begin to imagine. We're so anesthetized by the sin of this world. We're so numb to it. We live in it. We see it all around us. Occasionally, it'll become so grievous that our hearts will be grieved by it. But generally, the Lord Jesus saw it in every place, everywhere.

He was grieved by the sin of this world in ways that you and I could never know. He suffered the contradiction of sinners. He suffered the assaults of other men in ways that you and I could never know. He lived in a body that was subject to all the frailties that our bodies are subject to. Weakness, hunger, death. And he was confronted face on with the devil himself. Yes, when he went 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness and fasted, and at the end of that time, the devil came to him and tempted him straight on.

I doubt that Satan himself ever worries about any of us. He just sends his minions out. The Lord Jesus dealt directly with him. I say, well, yet without sin, don't forget that. And the thought that I have is that if he suffered all of these temptations and all these things and did not sin, then what about the shame and the sorrow and the separation and the guilt that sin causes for us? Did he know anything about that? Absolutely. Absolutely. When?

When he bore our sins in his body on that tree. He suffered sorrow for sin like you and I have never suffered. He suffered separation from his father. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He suffered the shame. He could not so much as lift up his head. He despised the shame. He's touched with the feelings of our infirmities. How can I come before the throne of grace? How can I approach God? How can I, as weak and needy and poor as I am, find grace to help in my time of need? How can I find mercy? How can I come boldly before the throne of grace?

Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, we have a great high priest who has passed into the heavens. And he is seated at the right hand of God. And not only that, but he is touched by the feelings of our infirmities. When we cry out to him, he says, I understand. I know. I know what you're going through. I have felt what you are feeling. infinitely more than you could ever feel it. I sympathize with you. And I will continue to sympathize with you until I deliver you from that body of death that you're in. Come boldly. Bye!

How can I approach God?

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How can I approach God?

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