Transcript

Good morning, church. We're continuing our series through the book of Hebrews. We've entitled this series, “Jesus is Greater” and that's the truth. Jesus is greater than anything you're facing today - any problem, any shortcoming, anything that you're facing today.

He's greater. That's what the book of Hebrews is about. And when we look at the very first chapter, we see the keys under the doormat, if you will, of the theme of this book. It says in Hebrews 1:4 (NLT) “This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as the name God gave him is greater than their names.”

That's what we've been talking about these past few weeks, going verse by verse through the book of Hebrews. Jesus is greater. And every week, we consider a new aspect of His greatness, of His superiority. This week, we've entitled our message, “A Greater Offering.” Jesus offers a greater offering.

I wonder, have you ever run up a debt on a credit card? Maybe, when you were younger and you got that first piece of plastic, you're just like, Cool, man. I can just get stuff.

I can go to the restaurant. I can go to the store. I can just buy stuff. And before you knew it, you had $5,000 and, all of a sudden, you owe $5,000.

Then you notice, there's this thing. You only have to pay this minimum payment. That's no big deal. So, you start paying the minimum payment. Have you ever thought about how long it takes to pay off a debt when you only pay the minimum payment?

The credit card companies know what they're doing. 21% interest. Pay the minimum payment on a $5,000 credit card debt and it takes thirty years to pay it back. When you finish, you will pay over $26,000. Yeah, minimum payment.

That's a problem right there. All you're doing is paying the minimum payment. That's probably what the Jews felt like every year when they were going to the temple for Yom Kippur, for the Day of Atonement, to pay for their sins.

It just felt like they were never going to get our sins paid off. They just keep paying the minimum payment through sacrifices. When is God going to do something to actually make these sacrifices good, so that our sin debt is paid for? It must have been what they felt like, continually trying to deal with their sin. And many of us feel like that; many of us,

Even after we hear the message of the gospel, we still struggle with what to do with a feeling of past guilt or shame. Because, you know, guilt and shame, they go hand in hand. Have you ever noticed that, when you feel guilty about something you did and you're ashamed of it, here's what your flesh will do, and here's what the evil one will do. He'll bring it back to your memory and you'll think about it.

Even after you hear the gospel, sometimes you haven't fully understood how to apply the gospel to every area of your heart. And there are those little places, those dark corners of your soul, where you still don't like to think about it. Those previous sin areas. Or maybe there's a sin area that you keep stumbling back into, like an addiction or some other bad habit. And you've asked God to forgive you, and you feel His forgiveness, and then you do it again.

The shame just increases even more. And you start wondering, is God's payment through Jesus sufficient for me? Why do I still feel this guilt and shame? What do I do about this guilt and shame?

There's this ditch that's the shame and the guilt. Then, there's this other ditch, where maybe you're like a firstborn child and you grew up always trying to please your parents and you transferred that way of thinking about God. You're always thinking, ‘I want God to be proud of me.’

So, you're kind of a perfectionist. You're always thinking, ‘I know Jesus died for me. I believe that, but I want to be His star.’

So, you think your relationship with God is about earning instead of receiving. That's the other ditch. That's the other place of misunderstanding in your relationship with the Father. That's what we're talking about today, that Jesus has given us the perfect offering, a greater offering so that we can rest from our labor. God doesn't care about our religiosity.

He cares about our relationship with a person named Jesus. We're going to be looking at the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, the first 18 verses. In these verses, the author told the Hebrew background believers that had come to Jesus that the offering that Jesus had given on the cross was greater than all the offerings of the old covenant. I believe that today we can see how this is so; how the offering of Christ is greater. As we look at the text today, we'll see four reasons why this is so.

So, put your seatbelts on. I didn't say three, right? I said four reasons. So, we're going to go fast. You better hang on.

Here we go. Hebrews 10:1-18 (ESV) 1 “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.

4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; 6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. 7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’” 8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law),

9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.

14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. 15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” 17 then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” 18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”

This is God's word. Amen. So we're digging into these 18 verses today. We're looking for four reasons that the offering of Christ is greater. Here's the first reason:

1. The old offerings could never perfectly cleanse us.

It's because the old offerings could never perfectly cleanse us. The old offerings could never perfectly cleanse us. These 18 verses just kind of break naturally into these four reasons. We're going to look at the first four verses to see our first reason. First, look at verse one.

It starts off by talking about the law. It says, “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.” “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come, of the true form of these realities, it can never”…never what? … “by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.” Right out of the gate, he says something to us.

He says that the old covenant, the old law, cannot perfectly cleanse us. It can't make us perfect. It's unable to do that.

Indeed, that's not why God gave it to us. It was always meant to point us to the One who could make perfect. But, at this point, he's teaching those Jewish background believers why the covenant, the old covenant, could not save them and why it's replaced and fulfilled by the second. So it helped them, but it also helped us, as believers, to understand why we have the Old Testament and how to read the Old Testament. We read the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament.

We read it through the lens of Jesus, so we're looking here and we're seeing that His sacrifice, His offering is greater. First of all, because theirs was unable to make us perfect, it could not cleanse us. Notice, it says in verse one, that it was just a shadow. It says, “For since the Law has but a shadow…” If I stand here on the stage, you might not be able to see it, but as the spotlight hits me, my shadow goes all the way across the stage.

And as I move my hand, the shadow's hand is moving. As I turn, it bears the resemblance of me, but it's not me. Here's the reality that's the shadow. That's what he says about the Old Testament. That's what he says about the tabernacle, about the sacrifices, about all of those details, that it was a shadow, a reflection of the reality in heaven; that it's a mere shadow of that which was real.

You see it, “For since the Law has but a shadow of the good things to come….” Well, the good things have come. They came when Jesus came. The good things have come.

He says, “the true form of these realities.” Well, the true form has come. It came when Jesus came. It can never by the same sacrifices that are continually offered. They're offered every year on what day? On the day of atonement,

Yom Kippur, in the Hebrew, that they would offer the lamb's blood, that the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies, and he would offer the blood of the lamb for his own sins and also as a representative of the sins of all the people. Then, when he would come back out, the people would rejoice. They'd say, ‘okay, we've paid the minimum payment again for one year.’ But they still accumulate sin as soon as they walk out of the temple.

As soon as that start living again. They know that they will be back here again next year. They know that they will continually need this. Indeed, as we go on to read this, it seems like if it really worked, in verse two, they would have been able to cease offering, because after once being cleansed, they would no longer have consciousness of sins, like God would clean their conscience. But they kept feeling guilty.

In fact, the sacrificial system had the opposite result. Instead of cleansing their conscience, it became a reminder, verse three, “But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.”

So every time they would offer a sacrifice, it would remind them that they were falling short of God's glory. It had the net result of not only being an annual, because they offered sacrifices daily - thanksgiving sacrifices, sacrifices for known sins and for unknown sins. There's a whole category.

Read the book of Leviticus; it's exhausting the amount of sacrifice that took place. It doesn't give them rest. They continually are reminded of their sins. And then he makes this conclusion in verse four

and it had to be startling to hear from Jewish ears, but if they really thought about it; they know it's true. “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Why? Because it was only a preparation for Jesus.

Those bulls, those goats, those little lambs, all of those were like checks written on a future deposit. If God doesn't make the deposit of sending His son, Jesus, then all of this was for naught. So they're placing their faith in this, believing that one day God will provide a Lamb, as He told Abraham, as He took Isaac up on the mount called Moriah. God has provided a lamb. The time has come.

This is what we're speaking of here. He was not able, through these offerings, to make them perfect. But One has come that is able. Look at Hebrews, chapter nine; we preached on this just a while ago.

Hebrews 9:9-10 (HCSB) “This is a symbol for the present time, during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the worshiper’s conscience.” So we see the word shadow here, that the Old Testament, the old covenant, is like a shadow here in Hebrews 9. It's a symbol for the reality in heaven. So if it's only a shadow and a symbol,

why did God give us the law? Just touch on that for a second. I want to give some thought to that, because you might be asking, as we've been going through the book of Hebrews, ‘Okay, so why did God give us the Old Testament? Why did he give us the sacrificial system and so forth?’ Let me give you three good purposes for the law.

I have it in your notes there. Here's the first good purpose and we just saw it in verse three: (1) It reminds us of our guilty condition. It tells us that we're sinners.

Our own hearts tell us this, but the law clearly tells us that we've all fallen short. It reminds us. In fact, the book of James, chapter one says that the word of God is like a mirror. When you look in it, it reflects back to you. It reminds you of who you are.

Here's the second reason: (2) It restrains our sinful behavior. The book of Galatians, chapter three talks about how it's like a guard rail. It keeps you from running over the cliff, just because of the fear of the law.

It restrains sin. Then finally, and this is the most important one, (3) It reveals our need for a Savior. It shows you your desperate situation and how you can't keep the law. I'm reminded of Jesus preaching in the Sermon on the Mount. He starts preaching through some of those

Old Testament laws. He says, ‘You've heard it said, thou shall not kill. But I tell you, if you've called your brother an empty head (the Aramaic word was Raca), if you've called your brother Raca, which means empty head, then you've committed murder already.’ People were like, Oh, man, I thought I was keeping that one.

I guess I've done that. ‘You've heard it said, thou shall not commit adultery. But I say if a man looks at a woman with lust in his heart, he's committed adultery in his heart.’ He destroys any sense of anyone being able to keep the law. We're all sinners, and we all need a Savior.

So, that's a good purpose of the law. You see, as I said before, the way to read the scripture is to read and look for Jesus on every page, to look for Jesus on every page, because Christ is predicted in the Old Testament. He's revealed in the gospels. He's preached in the book of Acts, he's explained in the Epistles and He's

announced and anticipated in the book of Revelation. He's on every page. That's the way to read the Bible. Look for Jesus.

That's what he says to the Hebrew background believers - your rituals and your sacrificial system cannot cleanse you of sin. It can't make you perfect before God. So, he sets up the problem. Now we're waiting for the solution, so, let's move to the second reason:

2. He offered His own sinless body once for all.

He offered his own sinless body once for all. We're at verses 5 through 10 now. He offered his own sinless body once for all. This is God's solution for man's predicament, that man couldn't save himself.

Even through religion and ritual, he still couldn't get right with God. Because the blood of bulls and goats do not take away sin, it's impossible for them. Then, we come to verse five. He says, “Consequently, when Christ came into the world…” Well, that's already happened.

Consequently, Christ came.God saw this problem, this predicament, and He came. Now, I was reading this this week. I was studying this. I have never preached verses five through ten at Christmas before. This week I thought, Wait a minute, I've got a new home text.

I don't know if I'll do it this year or not, but I could preach this at Christmas. Y'all mark my words. Now, if the Lord delays His coming, I'm going to preach this at Christmas one of these years, because we have Christ coming. It says, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me;”

That's the incarnation. That's the Son of God, born into the body of this little baby on Christmas Day. That's God Who had said He was going to do this long before He did it. Notice the unusual language here in verse 5 - “ he said,” speaking of Christ. Christ said this.

Now, if you look this up, this is the Hebrews author once again, preaching from the Old Testament. And here his text is Psalm 40. He's preaching from Psalm 40 right here, but it says that it was Christ doing the talking. Now, we know that Psalm 40 has an inscription at the top that says “A Psalm of David.” Well, it was a psalm of David, but it was the Spirit of Christ, the Son of David, the Son of God, who said this through him so that the Hebrews would recognize Him when he came.

What did he say of himself? Sacrifices and offerings won't get it done. In fact, they don't really even please the Lord. They're only a shadow, a symbol of that which is to come. Now, what is to come?

Verse 5, “... a body have you prepared for me;” Oh, my goodness. A body you've prepared for me. Then verse six says,”in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.” You take no pleasure in these things.

It doesn't please God. Verse 7 says, Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’” This is Jesus talking, “...as it was written of me…” This whole book was written about me.

You were going to prepare a body for me and that I'm going to come and do all Your will. I'm going to obey everything; everything You've ever said, I will fulfill. No man has been able to do what I will do. I will come and fulfill obedience.

Obedience is what pleases God. I'm going to come and do that. Then, we have our preacher here, the preacher of Hebrews. He's going to now preach from his text, from Psalm 40, starting at verse 8, When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” .

(these are offered according to the law) verse 9, Then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” Why did he add that? It's just as he said, ‘What is God's will?

That you obey Him. That you believe in Him. That you do as He says.’ “If you love me,” Jesus said, “you'll keep my commandments.”

That's what He came to do. It says, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” In verse 9, he does away with the first in order to establish the second. What's the first?

The old covenant. He does away with the old covenant. How? By fulfilling it. He brings us the second.

What's the second? It's the New Testament. It's the new covenant. So he does away with the old to bring us the first in order to bring us the second. Then, in verse 10, ”And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

“And by that will,” by the will of God, that we would be obedient. He came and we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. Once for all. He offered His body.

His body that was prepared for Him. That little Lamb that was born in that stable came to die. He is the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. He came to die once for all. Once.

Not many sacrifices, as the priest had to do continually, but one sacrifice, one perfect sacrifice. His sinless body offered once for all, one time for all time, one time for all people that would believe once for all. It says in 2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV) “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The sinless body of Christ was offered.

The Lamb without spot or blemish was given on that cross. As He hung on the cross, He took my separation from God. He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He took my separation from God and He offers His relationship with God, His sonship, so that I can become a child of God.

He took my sin upon Him so that the Father turned His back from His Son and He that knew no sin became sin so that I might become His righteousness. He took the death that I deserved. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

He offered His eternal life. Oh, what a great exchange. He gave His body. I was thinking, what would be a good way to illustrate this point to my church. I was studying it this week, and then I thought, Wait a minute.

We give them an illustration every Sunday at the four tables down front. This was the illustration that Jesus gave to His disciples. The Passover meal before His crucifixion. He said as he broke the bread, and he prayed the Jewish prayer that they were used to hearing, I'm sure, “Baruch atah adonai el hanumalako elam amatsi lechem min haaretz amin.”

He prays this, “Blessed art Thou, O God, King of the universe, who bringeth forth bread from the earth” and He says, “Do you see this bread? This is my body, which is broken for you. whenever you eat it. Do it in remembrance of me. Do you see this cup?

It's the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, you proclaim my death until I return.” He gave us the illustration to constantly remind us that it's not something that we could do. No sacrifice could do it. It's impossible for any other one or any other way to approach God.

He has done what we needed to solve this problem that we had and He's brought us to the Father. He's finished it. He is the one. He offered his body and so there's no need to add to His work.

We're invited to trust in His perfect offering. We have a third reason:

3. His single offering perfects us completely.

Look at verse 14 and then we'll back up and get 11 through 13. Look at verse 14, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” Now that is a deep verse right there, boy.

That verse is jam packed with interesting things to understand. First, he makes this huge point once again. He's been making this point, “by a single offering.”

Not repeated offerings, not continual offerings, but by one offering, His offering on the cross. He's done it. He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. That word perfected is of interest. It's the Greek word τελειόω, teleioō.

We get the word telescope from that Greek word teleios. It means to see a thing from afar. If you're using a telescope, it means something that was far off has been brought near. That's how they use the word in telescope. But the idea really is to go to the finish of a thing, to perfect a thing to complete or bring something to maturity, to bring, to make something whole.

It says that, with this one sacrifice, He has perfected those who are being sanctified. He has done it. Now, may I say just a little bit more about this Greek word, because it's so, so jammed with information that it's important.

We don't have a word like this in the English language. It's in the Greek perfect tense. We don't have that in our language. I still remember in seminary, my Greek professor saying, “The Greek perfect has peculiar action with continuous result.” Now that makes sense, right?

Punctilious your action with continuous results. That's what the perfect means. Okay, help me out, people. Help me out. Who took math class

and remember this thing called a ray? It's a dot with a line and an arrow on the end. Do you remember that? You didn’t want to remember that, right? Some of you didn't appreciate math.

Some of you loved math. A ray has a dot, a line, and an arrow on the end, right? That's what a Greek perfect is; it's a ray.

It means that something happened in the past that was a complete action. It needed no further action. That's the dot and then the arrow. The line with the arrow says it has continuous results.

He has already, on that one offering on the cross, done all that was necessary. It was a complete action. No other action needed to take place. It has continuous results for eternity in the Bible. Amazing.

Isn't it wonderful? You dig in here and he says, in verse 14, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” For a single offering, He has perfected back there at the cross all the way, for all time, for all eternity, those who are being sanctified. So now, he says something very unique here. He says, now this thing that He's done, this dying for us on the cross, offering His body, the perfect sinless sacrifice that has ongoing results. Then, he has this present tense participle going on, “those who are being sanctified.”

He's already done all that's necessary, but it's still working itself out in the present. So this is the tension, okay? Some of y'all are going to get this. Between the already and the not yet of our reality as we stand before the Father. The book of Colossians, chapter three says to set our minds and our hearts on heaven, at the right hand of the Father, where Christ is, that we are already there.

Now, I feel like I'm standing right here. Y'all look at me. Does it look like I'm standing right here? But, the scripture says I'm already there. So that's a positional truth.

Positionally, I'm in Christ and He's in me. It's a spiritual truth. We believe it by faith. It's been revealed to us. Our eyes don't see it, but we don't walk by sight.

We walk by faith, right? And so, positionally, I'm already there. But experientially, I am being sanctified. I'm already perfected. It's done before the Father.

Everything's right between me and God because of Jesus, but it's being worked out in my daily life. He is sanctifying me, which means He's making me holy, which means He's making me like Jesus. What's God's will for you? Well, that's what I've been wondering.

Here's His will for you. That you would become like Jesus. That's what it means to be perfected. That you would become like His Son in every way. And that's what Jesus has done for us and is doing for us that believe in Him.

It says in Romans 6:10-11 (ESV) 10 “For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. And so we count his death as our death and his life as our life.

So, we are being sanctified. It says in 1 Peter 2:24 (ESV) “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” What were the last words of Jesus on the cross? There were seven last sayings.

If you study all four Gospels, there are seven last sayings. I preached a series some years ago called, “The Last Seven Sayings of Jesus.” What is the very last one? What was saying number seven? Do you know?

“It is finished.” It is finished. I heard different ones because they're all the last words, but the very last words recorded in John were, “It is finished.” The Greek word is tetelestai. It's connected to that “tele” word again.

He says, “It is finished.” He came and obeyed the will of the Father. He said, “Not my will, but Yours be done.” He did it all. “It is finished.” Paid in full.

These are the last words of Jesus. If you will remember, He refused the wine mixed with gall, which had kind of an analgesic effect. He refused it on the first offering. But here He accepted it right at the end because He wanted to declare one last thing. He accepted a little bit to moisten His lips.

I believe He pulled up on those nails. It was the only way He could breathe. He pulled up and says, “It is finished.” He came and it was mission accomplished; paid in full. He gave His body, and His offering is perfect. It perfectly pays for our sin.

This leads to our fourth reason. We've said that the rituals of offerings do not take away sin. We've said that He offered His body as a perfect sacrifice. And we've said that His sacrifice was so perfect that it made us perfect that believe in Him. And then, finally, we see this:

4. His offering bears the Spirit’s assurance of forgiveness.

We're in our final verses now - verses 15 through the end. Verse 15, “And the Holy Spirit also bears witness…” What do you mean “also?” He's referring to how Jesus was talking earlier.

Remember how Jesus preached to us from Psalm 40, right. He preached from Psalm 40. Now he says, ‘let's hear some encouragement and a testimony from the Holy Spirit from Jeremiah 31. Well, I thought Jeremiah wrote chapter 31.

Well, he did, but he did it inspired by the Holy Spirit. And here the Holy Spirit is speaking afresh through our preacher, our author of the book of Hebrews. He says, “And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, 16 “This is the covenant…” speaking of the new covenant.

He's already speaking of the new covenant. See, the Old Testament's already talking about the New Testament. 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” There's coming a day where it won't be on stone tablets anymore.

He says that there's one who's coming and when He comes and pays the perfect sacrifice, then the Holy Spirit will come and dwell in us. He will write his law and his word on our hearts and on our minds so that it's internalized. This was something that the old covenant was unable to do. But, in Christ, we have this new way of living and we have the Holy Spirit.

He's assuring us that Christ is in us. He speaks to us and he reveals His word. Then, in verse 17, he's still quoting from Jeremiah 31, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” No more

reminders, no more minimum payments, no more sin debt. I'm going to set you free. In fact, verse 18 says, “Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.” Of what? Of those sins and lawless deeds.

There's no longer any offering for sin. You don't need any. You don't need to make any more offerings. He's paid it in full. It's all done.

It's all paid for. You're free. Those who believe in Jesus are free. This is why His offering is greater. We see that word offering in these 18 verses 14 times.

The offering of Jesus is greater and His Holy Spirit bears witness. He lives inside of you, and He tells you that you are His and that He is yours. Oh, he's mine and I am His. The Holy Spirit within reveals this to us. He's that inner voice that makes us sure.

He's that deposit on that future that we have with the Lord. Oh, it's a wonderful thing. Wouldn't it be great?

I look around the room and some of you have gray hair like mine. Maybe, you've paid off your mortgage. Boy, wasn't it a great thing when you got that deed of trust in the mail and it said “paid in full” on it? Or maybe you're

gray like me and you've had so many kids and grandkids and refined the thing so many times, trying to take care of everybody. You're still paying on it and wish somebody would come along and just pay it off. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Well, that's what Jesus did. That's what Jesus did. He paid in full. And there's nothing to be added to it. There's no earning with the Father.

There's receiving and there's rest and there's joy. And then out of this joy, we live for Him. Not in earning, but in love. Because “If you love me,” He says, “You'll keep my commandments” because you want to show that you love Him. It says in the book of Romans.

Romans 8:1-2, 16 (ESV) “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death… The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Oh, He's the one who lives in us that gives us this assurance of salvation.

Do you have that assurance today that you know, that you know, that you know? We learned last week that the Bible says Hebrews 9: (ESV) 27 “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 “so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” There's two appointments given unto man.

There's the day of death appointed unto man and after that, the judgment. We just studied that last week.

Two appointments that God has on the calendar for each of us. Are you aware of that? There's a day you'll stand before God and perhaps He'll ask a question, ‘Why should I let you into My holy heaven?” I hope you don't answer in the first person.

I hope you don't answer with the word, “I.” I tried to be good. I went to church. Maybe somebody like me might say, I planted a church and I preached for over 33 years.

I was faithful to my wife for over 45 years. I'd be like Paul if I started doing that. I'd be foolishly making known my pedigree. But I would say with Paul, ‘I've counted all of that as dung.

I've counted all of that as nothing in order to know Jesus.’ I will not answer when God asks me, “Why should I let you into My holy heaven?” by saying, “I.”I'll start out with “He,” because He died for me.

He said that if I received Him, I could come. You see, there's nothing I can add to that. And perhaps today you say, ‘Well, Gary, it just seems like week after week all you do is talk about how great Jesus is.’ Well, you're right. That's all I do, because that's who He is.

Less of me, more of Him and He's working in my life and He's working in your life too, believer, to make you more like Jesus. As we go through the book of Hebrews, you perhaps have been saying, ‘Man, I get it. He's greater.

How much more are you going to tell me?’ I'm going to keep on telling you how much greater Jesus is until you finally get it. And even then, when you get it, perhaps you'll be like that old hymn where you just love to hear it over and over again. You know that old hymn; it was written back in 1866.

Perhaps you might remember some of these lyrics if I were to recite them to you. “I love to tell the story of unseen things above Of Jesus and his glory Of Jesus and his love I love to tell the story Because I know tis true it satisfies my longings as nothing else can do I love to tell the story More wonderful it seems Than all the golden fancies of all my golden dreams I love to tell the story it did so much for me and that is just the reason I tell it now to thee I love to tell the story Tis pleasant to repeat what seems each time I tell it More wonderfully sweet I love to tell the story for some have never heard the message of salvation From God's holy word I love to tell the story for those who know it best Seem hungering and thirsty to hear it Just like the rest and when in scenes of glory I sing the new, new song Twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long I love to tell the story Twill be my theme in glory to tell the old, old Jesus and His love.” Oh, I'm not gonna get tired of that story. So, come back next week, same story. He's the greatest. He's the greatest and His offering is greater than all and so we can rest, we can trust, we can believe.

There's nothing to add to it. It's all love and joy from here on. Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, thank You. Thank You that You gave Your body and Your blood that we might be made whole once for all. Once for eternity.

You have perfected us and you are sanctifying us even now. I pray for that one that's here this morning; you've never given your life to Jesus. Oh, He's knocking at your heart's door right now. He is.

That uncomfortable feeling you're feeling right now is that He's drawing you. He's touching your heart. That's the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Christ knocking at your heart's door.

I pray right now that you would say “yes.” That you would open the door and invite Him to come in. You can do it right now by prayer. Pray with me, ‘Dear Lord Jesus, I repent of my sin.

I turn from my sin and I turn to You. I believe You died on the cross for my sin and that You were raised from the grave and that You live today. Come and live in me. Forgive me of my sin. Make me the person You want me to be.

I want to be a child of God. I want to follow You as my Lord and Savior for the rest of my life.’ If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, He'll save you. Others are here. You're a believer.

You're a follower of Jesus, but you've stumbled into one of those two ditches. You're hanging on to some guilt or shame from the past. You haven't fully applied the blood, you haven't fully applied the sacrifice to your conscience, so that your conscience is clear. Even now, say, ‘Lord, cleanse me.

You said in your word, if we confess our sins, that You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Even now, Lord, do it.’ Others are here and you've fallen in the other place and you're still trying to earn His favor. Would you rest? Jesus says, “Come unto me, you that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy, my burden is light.” Would you say “yes” to that right now?Oh Lord, I just want to rest in you. Thank you for dying for me and for being raised from the grave and living in me so that I'm prepared and made perfect for heaven. In Jesus’ name, Amen.