Understanding The Value Of Jesus' Blood

Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of

Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.

I hope the following message challenges and courages and

ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.

If you on your way in, hopefully you grabbed some communion

elements here. If you did not we will have some

some ushers here before the end of the service go around and and

a hand some other. You could just step out one of

these side doors. There's some at the welcome desk

and right in the back there in front of the offering box back

there. But So what I want to do is I

want to teach on this concept to communion.

So what what I want to do over the next few months is we take

receive communion once a month. I want to, I want to begin to

teach on this because we can just go through this formality

and the danger is, is that we don't really get what we need to

get out of the Lord's Supper. And I have been guilty of not

not serving the Lord's Supper, not not serving Communion

enough, precisely because I don't want people to take it for

granted, which means that we need to teach on it more.

And so usually what I want to do is I want to teach on it when we

do it. And there's always other things

we want to teach on. So we're going to be making some

deposits over the next few months about the Lord's Supper.

This is such a crucial thing. And So what I really want to

focus on this morning is the cup.

I want to focus on the blood of Jesus and what that means to us.

If we don't understand the blood, we will.

We're forced to come down to a lower level in our Christian

life. The blood of Jesus will

actually, when you understand the significance of the blood,

it'll provide stability and a foundation in your life to go

deeper in the things of God. It'll enable you to stand in the

onslaught of the enemy. So what we're going to look at,

we're going to look at the blood of Jesus.

There is an application for heaven, earth, and how there's

an application where we offer it to God.

There's an application where we apply it to our own hearts, and

there's an application when we use it against the enemy and

when we really understand. Those are progressive if you

don't understand the significance of the blood before

the Father. You'll never be able to use it

in your own heart. And then it's interesting if you

get into the New Testament. There is a even in the Old

Testament, but it it comes in the New Testament.

We begin to see this very, very clearly.

There's a difference between the shed blood and the sprinkled

blood. Same blood but different

utilization of the blood. The shed blood is for the

Father. We offer the shed blood of

Christ to the Father. But we sprinkle the blood of

Christ on our hearts, and, and this is the phrase, it's in the

New Testament. In the book of Hebrews, we we

cleanse our hearts of a guilty, or a ESV even calls it an evil

conscience. We cleanse our hearts of an evil

conscience by the blood. But if you don't understand why

it's significant to the Father, if you don't have a grid work

for that, you're not going to be able to use it in your own

heart. And if you can't use it in your

own heart, you are susceptible to the primary weapon of the

enemy. The enemy is known as the

accuser of the brethren, and the accusation of the enemy were

made susceptible to accusation. If we don't understand how to

apply the blood to our heart, and we don't understand how to

apply the blood to our heart unless we understand why it's

valuable to the Father. So there's a progression.

We first understand why heaven values it, then we can.

Apply it to our own hearts, and then we can stand against the

enemy. Makes sense.

All right. So, Father, we thank you for

your word this morning. And, Lord, I ask that your

teaching would fall like rain. Lord, I'm asking God that the

very heir would be pregnant with Revelation this morning.

Lord, that you, the great Teacher, would enter the room by

your spirit, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of wisdom and

revelation. And Lord, that you would

permeate the atmosphere, and Lord, that people would catch

things. I'm not saying.

Lord that they would. They would catch what you're

saying this morning and I would simply be an aid in that

endeavor. In Jesus name.

Amen. I really do believe that there's

a place in God, a place where there's a spirit of wisdom and

revelation that can permeate the atmosphere.

I've been in meetings where there's been people that that

carry that on their life and I would be taking notes on the

next thing they were going to say.

And it's not because I'm a smart guy, but it's because there was

such a spirit of wisdom and revelation.

They were just giving words to what was already in the air.

And I would write things down and then they would say him and

it freaked me out. But it's it's a matter of a

spirit of wisdom and revelation. So that's why John says you have

not need of a teacher. Do you know that?

Because there's an anointing within you that teaches you.

Now I'm here to give words to what God is saying, but every

one of us can tap into what the Spirit is saying.

So let he who has ears hear what the Spirit would say to the

church. The church is.

And so, oh man, I just pulled up some notes about something else

I want to teach you on some day. Oh man, I've been.

I've been. I got immersed in this study the

last few days, and I'm going to move it aside.

Okay. In handling the word, we want to

be able to think Biblically. It's not just that we compare it

what the Bible says. I remember when I was in Bible

school, there'd be guys that memorized toll passages, and

there's some real value to that, but they would say.

You know, they would paired out these verses and I'd say what

does that mean? And they just requote it.

But what does that mean? They'd requote it.

They had no idea what it said, what it meant.

They just knew what it said. And hey, you got to know what it

says before you know what it meant.

But we don't want to stop there. We want to drill down and

there's there's some grid work or some maybe you could say

lenses or paradigms through which we need to to look at the

word. And one of them is this that.

In order to really understand any subject in scripture, you

need to understand it through three, if not four lenses.

Okay any subject matter. You've got to look at it through

three and even 4 lenses. What I mean by that is it's the

first lenses. What was God's original

intention? You want to start with where God

started? I was asking my my 17 year old

on the way to church more. I said what does this mean?

Nathaniel Origin determines destiny and he was giving me his

He had some good stuff. Origin determines destiny.

And what I was talking to him about is this principle that

your where you begin will determine where you end.

You where if you are an atheist and you begin as a biological

accident, the trajectory of your life will crash very early.

Where you will end is you will be a biological accident.

But if you began in the heart of God as a Creator who created you

with great purpose, all of a sudden, that changes your

destination. Too much of theology, too much

of our cosmology and our theology and our view of

everything starts with the fall A lot of people start their

theological thinking. From the perspective of the

Fall, and if you start with the Fall, then the ultimate

destination is salvation and God is exalted primarily as the

Savior. And although those are great

things, you better get that one down and none of the others

matter. There's something greater than

knowing him as Savior and simply breaking into the new birth and

being saved. And so origins determine

destiny. So we want to, we want to go

back. You could say, oh, let's start

back in the garden, Okay, Let's start with God as creator.

And then the trajectory becomes this, the the reconciliation of

all things, that God's going to reconcile all things to himself.

That's a grand theme. That's an amazing theme.

But there's something greater than that.

What we want to do is we want to start way back.

And the eternal heart of God that had a dream for many sons.

Scripture says that God wanted many sons and daughters.

And so that was his original dream.

And he put it this way. He said let us make man in our

own image. God dreamt of a human creation,

someone he would make that would represent him well.

And if we don't understand that if we reduce everything to

salvation, as if the Great Commission is go out and make

converts, it's not what it says. It says go out and make

disciples. We want to raise up people that

look like him, that act like him and think like him and operate

like him. So that if people wonder what is

God like, you can say, hey, just go check out his children.

They're a lot like him. They'll they'll be a great

representation, a great representation of who he is.

And so any study that we study, anything that we try to grasp,

we want to start with original intention.

The second lens through which we need to study any subject we

really want to know from a biblical perspective is not just

what it got originally intend, but how did sin affected?

How did the fall reshape that subject?

That's where a lot of people start.

We want to start with the original intention, but we've

got to take into consideration how did the fall affected then

third, how does the cross affect it?

What does redemption do to that? What does the redemption of

original intention look like? And the 4th lens, I I alluded to

a possible 4th lens and that is the process of redemption

because there is the the event and then there's the process of

redemption. And when we really want to

understand the subject, we want to begin to think through all

three to four of those those elements what what was God's

original intention for mankind? Because unless we understand

that, we're never really going to understand redemption and

we're never going to really understand where this thing is

going. And I would propose to you, out

of that understanding comes a clear understanding of the value

of the blood of Jesus. When we don't deal with things

at that level, we we end up with a very shallow theology and we

don't understand the value of the blood.

The reason the blood is valuable to the Father was because of his

original intention for man. God says my word will not return

void and when God said let us make man in our own image.

And the image of God, He created him, male and female.

He created them. When he said that, I would

propose that that image was potential and that making was a

process. What do I mean by that?

Adam and Eve in the garden were not the finished product.

That wasn't the ultimate gods at home.

Now we've reached the ultimate goal.

Adam and Eve in the garden. No.

What God was going to do is he stamped his image on these human

beings he created. And then through testing and

through opportunity, they would unfold the image of God within

them and they would become mature.

The New Testament calls that discipleship or maturity or

moving towards holiness or perfection.

Even that word sums up that idea.

Perfection is not being flawless, but it's being

complete in the New Testament. And so all of these these ideas

have to do with what was God's original intention.

Jesus becoming a man. Jesus taking on human flesh was

God stubbornly pursuing that original word.

God bound himself to that thing and he said I will have a man in

my own image. He created Adam and Eve and they

derailed this thing. So what did God do?

He said I'm going to have to take it over and do it myself.

And Jesus put on an earth suit, stepped into human history.

And fulfilled his own plan to have a man in his own image.

Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 2, Hebrews chapter two.

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

Really the book of Hebrews itself is the book to study if

you want to understand the blood and Hebrews chapter 2.

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

Provides the foundation, really the theological foundation of

those lenses we want to look at. Look at Hebrews chapter 2, Lego

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

verse 5. For it was not to angels that

God subjected the world to come of which we are speaking.

It has been testified somewhere. What is man that you are mindful

of him or the Son of man that you care for him?

So the Psalmist is he's quoting Psalm Chapter 8, and he's he's

Psalms 8 · chapter mention

asking God, what's the deal with humankind?

What is your obsession with us? We're so puny down here.

We're we're these weak, puny, you know, making these puny

attempts at serving you, and yet you're obsessed with us.

You, you're, you're fixated on humanity.

What's the deal with that? You made him a a little for a

little while lower than the angels and have crowned him with

glory and honor, putting everything under his feet.

What he's dealing with here is original intention.

Psalm Chapter 8 frames that first scenario, that first lens.

Psalms 8 · chapter mention

He's saying what's man? What is man?

That you are mindful of him that that you would visit him.

You made him a little lower the angels and put everything under

his feet. You gave him dominion over over

the earth. That's original intention.

And then he veers off of the text in Psalm chapter 8 and he

Psalms 8 · chapter mention

introduces the second lens. He says, now putting everything

subject to him. He left nothing outside of his

control. Halfway.

Right at the end of verse eight, he introduces the second one.

At present we do not see everything subject to him.

Why? Because he's now introducing the

effects of the fall. God delegated the earth to man.

And man abdicated that delegation.

Man abdicated that God-given authority and gave it to the

enemy through his disobedience to whom you obey.

To him you were a slave. And man essentially gave the

deed to the enemy, and he became a slave of the enemy.

So it goes on, he says. Verse 9.

Now he's going to introduce the third lens, that of redemption.

But we see him who was for a little while made lower than the

angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of

the suffering of death. So by the grace of God he might

taste death for everyone. So God delegated the earth to

man, put everything under his feet.

Man abdicated that through sin became a prisoner in his own

house. And then Jesus took on human

flesh to seize control back and to win back that authority.

Now this passage, we we've looked at this passage in years

past as a outline to understand prayer.

And I'm telling you this. You cannot understand the

subject of prayer without looking through these lenses.

The authority that you have as a believer, the authority that you

have as a human being. The warfare that goes on in the

heavenlies and the necessity of us having to pray, not just

understanding why we pray, but why we have to continue to pray.

All is within this, this little outline that the writer of

Hebrews gives to us. But it also gives us insight

into why the blood of Jesus is valuable.

God's dream was to have a man made in his own image.

That's what God longed for. He had He was a father with an

only begotten son, but he wanted many begottens.

You cannot understand God without understanding his

fatherhood. The lens of fatherhood is the

ultimate lens to understand who he is.

It is the essence of his nature. The Triune God is a father and a

son and a spirit. Who have a relationship within

the Godhead and it's the pattern by which God operates and he

wants to bring many sons to glory, Romans 8 says.

And so you can't understand God. And like we were talking a few

weeks ago, if you have father issues that make you stumble

over interacting with God as a father, you need to deal with

that because that will keep you from your destiny because your

ultimate identity is as a son and a daughter.

It's not apostleship. It's not a bunch of other ships.

It's son ship. Your ultimate identity is.

It's not. It's not your assignment or your

fivefold title or whatever. It's not whether you're an elder

or you're a teacher or whatever, your ultimate identity is being

a son and a daughter of God. But if we can't relate with him

as father, we're kept from our. Identity and therefore our

destiny. And if we don't understand that

God is ultimate, he's, it's not just that he's savior.

He became savior out of necessity because of our the

Fall. But he was originally a father

wanting many sons and we need to get back to the beginning and

see that the hit him being savior was a necessity.

But his identity is he's a father and so the father wanted

many sons. But Adam and Eve, So what?

You can put it this way, what God's desire was, is he was

going to call out the image, the potential within them.

God breathed into Adam and Eve the breath.

The Hebrew is the breath of lives, plural.

There was the natural life, the souke, the soul, and then there

was the higher life that the. The life of the spirit, that

breath of life. So they became living souls,

with living spirits that could interact with their Creator,

their Father. When God told them the day that

you eat of that fruit, you shall surely die, there was a twofold

death that came. There was.

Their physical death, this slow expiration that began to set in.

But there was the immediate death of their spirit.

Their spirit died. And they they were cut off from

that communication and that relationship with God and got

what God's plan was. And in this passage in Hebrews,

it says, well, well, let's read it here, see, look at look at

verse 10. For it was fitting that he for

whom and through whom everything exists.

In bringing many sons to glory, that's what we're talking about.

Let me read it again, verse 10. For it was fitting that he

Speaking of Jesus, for whom and by whom everything exists in

bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their

salvation perfect through suffering.

That word founder is an interesting word.

It's translated captain of their salvation.

The author of their salvation, the Nas, that New American

Standard Translation translates that word, The pioneer of their

salvation. That's the one I prefer.

I like the picture of that because what God did is God

created them with potential. The image of God was stamped

upon their nature, but Adam and Eve were not the finished

product. So how was God going to draw

this nature out of them and unfold them so they could become

all that God intended? He was going to do it through

choices. That's why he put the forbidden

fruit that hung on the tree in the middle of the garden.

He didn't put it on the edge of the garden.

He didn't put it where it was inaccessible.

He didn't put razor wire around it.

And you know, angels with AK-40 sevens, He put it right smack

dab in the middle of the garden so that they could access it.

And he said don't eat of it. You're going to have to trust

me. Because only by trusting him,

only through testing can you grow.

I know this is not a good news sermon, yet it's going to get

good, OK? The reason the author says it

was fitting that he, for whom and through whom everything

exists should be made perfect through suffering.

The reason it was fitting that he is made perfect through

suffering because that's how you're going to be perfected.

So what he's saying. I mean it's all over the word

Romans chapter 5. Suffering produces perseverance

Romans 5 · chapter mention

and perseverance. Character and that passage is

framed as character. James chapter one.

Think it not strange my brothers, when you go through

trials of many kind, for if you patiently endure you will become

mature, not lacking anything. And where Roman says character,

James says maturity. Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Think it not strange, brother. When you go through trials, the

Lord disciplines those He loves and disciplines everybody he

treats as a son endure hardship as discipline.

Therefore you may be sharers in His Holiness.

Do you see an equation here? You see a pattern throughout

Scripture. Romans 5 Suffering character.

James Trials, Maturity, Hebrews 12.

Hardship, holiness. They're saying the same thing,

different terminology. I know there's there's no

shouting going on in here this morning, but what we need to do

is we need to have a lens for this because what God is doing

is he's inviting us to come higher.

He's saying I've got so much more for you.

You don't realize what I put in you as potential that I want to

bring out of you as character, holiness and maturity.

And so if we begin to understand that, then when we go through

these trials, we cooperate with him.

This is, this is not. It's not that God is the

killjoy. He's not saying what if you're

going to. A lot of us see God as this

demented little boy up. You know, we're like an insect,

and he's pulling our wings off. I wonder if they can fly without

this one. Now try.

You know? And there people have that view

of God. That's not God.

He's a good father. He's got good things for you.

But because he's a good father, he will not allow you to step

into things before you can handle him.

The enemy is just the opposite. He loves to get you promoted

beyond your maturity and watch you crash and burn.

He loves to give you under knowledge of things that you

can't yet handle. You think about how the the

world operates, trying to expose children to things they don't

have the capacity, emotional capacity to handle and it

shipwrecks them. But a good father says no, not

my children, not on my watch. I'm going to protect my God's

the same way I was talking to a an old friend that got got it.

Guy reached out to me, hadn't talked to him in years.

Good friend of mine from Teen Challenge, and we just were

visiting on the phone and got to talking about this principle.

I remember sitting with some guys in Teen Challenge one time

and I was telling them that principle, no pain, no gain.

We just saw it in scripture. That's scriptural.

No pain, no gain. But as I'm telling him that the

Lord spoke to me and he told me to tell him this, there's a flip

side that's just as true. No gain, no pain.

God is a good father. He is only he is only willing to

introduce you to the pain the Max the the, the minimum pain

necessary to get you where you need to go.

Now, that's not to say we can't bring it on ourself.

Believe me, I've been through enough trials.

I've been through hardship, trials and you know, the

hardship, those those kind of things in my life that I brought

on myself, had nothing to do with God.

Now, God's very practical. He'll still use that.

He'll redeem it. Thank you Jesus, but God will

only allow the suffering that is absolutely necessary to get you

where you need to go. Kathy and I have a daughter, 31,

she mouthed it. 31 year old daughter and Lisa's had a lot of

surgeries and there have been surgeries we put off until the

pain of not having it outweighed the pain of having it because we

love our daughter. God loves us so far beyond our

human capacity to love our own children.

And so he's going to guard you and you can trust him.

So when you're going through things you need to look at every

heart what it what is, Hebrews say it said consider hardship,

discipline, endure hardship as discipline you going through a

hard time consider it's discipline from the Lord.

And the discipline of the Lord, we think a discipline from a

parental perspective that we're going to discipline our kids

when they do wrong. No, it's more of the the

military mindset. The military doesn't put their

soldiers under discipline because they've been bad.

They put them under discipline precisely because they see more

good in them than that soldier season himself.

And so they know the only way to draw that man or that woman out

of herself is to brick create a discipline environment to call

that greatness out. And that's the type that's the

idea behind the discipline of the Lord.

So if you're going through a hard time, don't waste your

sorrows. Milk it, grab the udders and

milk it. Get it all.

You can get a bucket full. If you're going to go through

it, get something out of it and surrender to the Lord and say

God, Lord, help me to learn something by this.

Lord, I want to know you better through this hardship, Lord,

this deprivation. I'm going through this, this

heartbreak, I'm going through this hardship, whatever it is,

Lord, I want to see you through this and teach me and milk it

for all it's worth. Don't waste your sorrows.

So God took Adam and Eve, and he formed them in his image, and

they were full of potential. And then he allowed their will

to be confronted. Because you cannot grow morally.

You can never grow in character without being faced with moral

choices. You've got to be able to choose,

and we've got to choose. The higher good.

And that's what creates character.

And our human nature wants to take the easy route.

I want. I want the goods now and I'll

pay later. That's why in scripture, again

and again, sin is framed as debt, because debt is.

I want the enjoyment of the purchase now and I'll pay later.

And you know what? You always pay more than you

intended to pay. But in Scripture, God, God

doesn't seduce you by some pleasure.

And then there's paid a Later on, God comes to you and says,

count the cost. Here's the contract.

Read through, understand, Don't sign, don't commit until you've

counted the cost. And we surrendered him out of

trust and God grows us up into him.

That that was the plan. That's why it was fitting that

God for whom and through whom everything exists.

Jesus, for whom and through whom everything exists, should be

made perfect to suffer, because that's how we're going to be

made perfect. So what happened?

Adam and Eve. They blew it and they derailed

the plan of God. So what did Jesus do?

He came on, and he was the first Adam derailed the plan, the last

Adam got it back on track. He came in and as the pioneer of

our salvation, forged away back for humanity.

But even Jesus in the Manger was not the finished product.

You understand that. It says in Hebrews chapter 2.

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

It says once made perfect he became the source of eternal

salvation. I used to read that thing.

What does that mean? That Jesus wasn't born perfect?

Hebrews 5 says that Jesus was perfected.

By the things he suffered, I, I, I.

What does that mean? Years ago I picked up a book by

Oswald Chambers. He's the one that wrote my

utmost for his highest great, great author.

He had some tremendous revelation, and he talked about

this principle. And he he said something to this

effect. The innocence of Jesus was not

the innocence of our order of things.

He said our innocence. He went on to say this.

He said innocence is nothing to be bragged about.

It's never been confronted with an opportunity.

I mean, it's something to be guarded when it when a child

doesn't have the capacity to deal with the choice.

But innocence is not something to be bragged about, he said.

Purity. Innocence has never been

confronted with the opportunity. It's it's just been shielded.

But Purity has been confronted, gone through the fire of

temptation and coming out the other side, holding to its

integrity. It did the right thing.

That's what God is after in our lives, Purity.

He's not just meaning to keep us innocent, He wants to make us

pure. And so when he allowed the

enemy. To to come and confront Adam and

Eve. And they made the wrong choice.

They fell. So what did God do?

Did he say I wash my hands of humanity?

He said no, I will have a man in my own image.

And he sent Jesus. But Jesus came as an innocent

child. He wasn't born perfect.

In other words, he wasn't born completed.

He had to. What did he say to his cousin

John the Southern baptizer? He said I must fulfill all of

righteousness. Why?

Because that was God's plan. God had a plan for man.

His heart had a dream. I want to see a man that will go

through everything and out of trust for me will unfold that

character I put within him. So I can say, if you want to

know what I'm like, look at my son.

And that's what how Jesus lived. So Jesus fulfilled all of

righteousness every time he was confronted with the temptation

he chose, right? It wouldn't have been good

enough had. Remember when Herod tried to

have Jesus killed while he was in the Manger?

It would not. He could not have purchased OK,

Theologically he may have been able to purchase part of your

salvation, but not the fullness. One of the things we need to

understand is that what we needed for salvation is not just

a sinless life. I mean that.

We must have said God. But God desired more than

innocence, sinlessness. He wanted perfection.

Somebody who not only didn't do the wrong things, but someone

who fulfilled all of righteousness, did all the right

things. So this is not just something

we're we're passive. I'm just not going to sin, not

going to do anything, not going to sin.

No. God wants you to engage and do

the things of the Father. Do His work, do what you see the

Father doing, say what you hear the Father saying, walk and

unfold that character and become all that he intended you to be.

That's God's plan. And so that was the the

objective of Jesus, even to the point where, hanging on the

cross, it says he was obedient, Philippians too, He was obedient

unto death, even the death of the cross.

He had to fulfill all of righteousness.

And then what did he say? Hanging on the cross.

It is finished. What was finished?

I personally believe that what was finished was God's dream for

man, that God could finally say, I have a man made in my own

image. He has fulfilled every purpose.

He has fulfilled all of righteousness.

My heart is satisfied with that man.

It's such an amazing thing. Hebrews Chapter 9.

Hebrews 9 · chapter mention

It says that OK, so Jesus dies, gives his life, he resurrects.

And it says that he went into the holy, the holiest place, not

by the blood of goats and not by the blood of bulls and lambs,

but he entered the most holy place by his own precious blood.

Now you need to catch this. What he was saying is that Jesus

earned the right to walk in. He could come in, He was holy,

and he could step into the Father boldly and say I'm here

and there could be there was nothing between them.

He had fulfilled all of righteousness.

He entered by his own righteous life.

That's what God was longing for. And when God had that, God could

say, I'm satisfied, rent the veil, come in.

So what does all that have to do with you and I?

Well, that's the back story. When you and I use the phrase,

we enter by the blood, we come before him out of the blood, I

plead the blood. What do we really mean by that?

By these Christian phrases, when God began to teach me about

this, I was a young believer. I got saved.

At 18 years old, I've been living on the streets for a

couple years. Some people hear my testimony

and think I was in my 30s when I would God say I was.

I was 18. I've been an alcoholic for a

number of years, living on the streets for two years, and I was

a demonized young man. And when I got saved, I got

saved. I mean, God, I was broken and I

knew God. I don't want to touch my life.

It's yours. You you tell me to jump.

I'm just saying how high. You and And when I had authority

figures in my life, they say jump.

I'd say how high. I mean.

I was a broken person. I was sincere.

The problem is my sincerity was uninformed.

I did not understand the gospel when you are very sincere, but

you have a misunderstanding of the gospel.

You will burn up like a crispy critter and trying to please

God, the enemy will leverage your own sincerity against you.

Now there are other people who they don't understand the

gospel, but they're not sincere. Their failures won't bother

them. The enemy can't leverage them

because they don't really care. But if you're sincere and you

don't have an accurate understanding of the gospel, the

enemy will use his. His primary weapon of accusation

and condemnation? To drive you into the ground and

to cause you to just work and work, to please God, to purchase

something you already have for free.

So as a young man, I I got saved and I went off to Bible school

and I was about five years into my walk with God.

I was in Bible school and I remember just crashing and

burning I was, I was in my my Bible school dorm room.

Laying on the floor for a couple hours, just weeping and saying,

God, I'm done, I can't serve you.

I I can't do this thing. I don't have it in me.

And I I remember telling Lord this, this is an indication that

I did not understand Christianity.

I said I guess I only had five years in me.

Other people, I don't know how they have 20 years of

Christianity in them. That was telling.

And I was laying there crying, just saying, God, I can't do

this thing. And I heard an audible voice say

there is therefore now no condemnation for those who in

Christ Jesus. It wasn't God.

It was my My best friend had snuck in through the bathroom.

Seriously, I didn't know he was there.

It freaked me out. And I don't know.

Yeah, I know I had you for there, you guys.

It was my friend Richard Green. Some of you made rich pastors

over in Coralville, got a great church life church over there,

and it rocked me. But that one word began to be

the foundation through which God began to build something in my

life. And over the next three years,

God began to teach me about the blood of Jesus.

And everything I've told you this morning and everything I'm

about to tell you came out of that three years.

But God began to set me free, and I began to understand.

That the Father is satisfied with Jesus life.

What God wanted was a perfect life.

One person, a man made in his own image, A man who would

cooperate with him and out of faith in his character, yield to

him and allow him to develop him.

And he had that in Jesus. What does that have to do with

the blood? Leviticus.

I want to say it's chapter 16. Don't quote me.

Ask Bill Culver. It but Leviticus says the life

is in the blood. That's a very, very important

principle because the life that is in Jesus blood is a life that

has fulfilled every righteous requirement the Father ever had

for man. He fulfilled all of

righteousness. It's a perfected life.

And so when Jesus offered that to the Father.

The Father could say, I'm satisfied.

I received, He received. Jesus was not only the Lamb that

was slain, he was the priest who carried his own blood, the high

priest. And he came not in a tent made

by men, not in a holy of holies made by men, but in the the true

holy of Holies in heaven, the throne room of God.

And he walked in and He said, Father, I want to present to you

your dream, what you've longed for a man.

That perfectly exemplifies you. And the Father said, I am

satisfied. That is why the blood of Jesus

is so valuable to God. It's not a sentimentality that

oh, he's my he's, he's close to me.

He's my boy. And that's why it makes, you

know, I'm I'm have an affinity for his blood knowing it's that

his blood fulfilled all of righteousness.

And when we really begin to understand that, it gives us

confidence before God. First John has it says this.

If your heart condemns you, you do not have confidence before

God. There are a lot of believers

that do not have confidence to go into the presence of God.

They they dwell on the outside at best in the holy place, not

the holy of holies. They stand on the outside as

kind of a they they feel like they're a kind of a second class

citizen that God, God's disappointed Jesus bought you,

you know, and. Man, Jesus, every time you go

out, you bring back something. And now I'm stuck with him, you

know, and okay, he's mine and you bought them and I'll, I'll

put up with them. But it's more toleration than

celebration. It's a lot of people have that

view of God because they're so in tune with their own failures,

and the precise reason they're so in tune is because of their

sincerity. They want to please God, and

they are painfully aware of their own failings and their own

weaknesses. And the more sincere you are,

the more susceptible you are to condemnation until you

understand the blood. And so we've got to understand

how the blood satisfies the Father.

And when God began to teach me this, I remember I was standing.

I was, I went, went to Berean Assembly of God over on

university, we were in worship. Those mob chairs, it those pink

mob chairs, we were in worship. And those were the days.

And I was, I was worshiping all of a sudden I I saw this picture

and I didn't know it was a vision.

I just saw this picture of this huge gymnasium like room but it

had this polished glass floor and I was looking in and it was

like the floor went on forever. I couldn't see the full expanse

but I knew it was the throne room and my heart I wanted to go

in and I'm like, Lord, I want to come in but I knew I'm not

worthy. I Lord, you don't want me in

there. I I, I I'm not worried to go in

there. And the Lord called my attention

to the threshold of that big huge room, which was the throne

room. And there was blood all over the

threshold. And he simply said to me, you

have to enter through the blood, the only way in.

God loves you enough that He will never allow you to rest in

your own works, because if you have confidence.

To approach him based on your own works, You are living

deceived. You can never be good enough.

You can never earn the right. You're made good enough through

the blood of Christ. During that season of my life, I

would picture myself standing outside the throne and I'd want

to go in and worship. And I would picture this big

Angel like he's the bouncer, you know, like he's carding

everybody. You got what you need, buddy.

And I'd, I'd, he'd say, do you have a perfect life?

And I would say, no, not enough of myself.

I know who I am and what I've done in the past.

But I do have this, and I would pull out the blood.

I have the perfect life of Jesus.

I have a life that is fulfilled every righteous requirement.

I present this blood to you, this life to you.

And the Angel would grin and say, go on in and worship.

And I would go and I had to do those mental gymnastics.

I had to retrain my mind. Hebrews, there's, there's a

number of passages. Let me, let me read a couple

verses to you and we're going to land this.

We'll have to get into this again later because I want to

teach you how to use this against the enemy.

Hebrews 10 verse one you have the worship team could come up

here and you guys, if you guys could come on up, we're going to

receive communion. For since the law was but a,

this is 10/1. For since the law was but a

shadow of good things to come, instead of a true form of these

realities, it can never by the same sacrifices that are

continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw

near. Otherwise would they not have

ceased to be offered, since worshippers have once been

cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin but

these sacrifices? In these sacrifices, all the

reminder of sin every year, he said.

If you're really cleansed, you don't have the consciousness of

sin. He goes on to say Hebrews 10,

verse nine. So being cleansed a racist sin

consciousness. If you're living in sin

consciousness, it's because you're not yet cleansed.

Now pause there. Cleanse Cleansing your heart is

not the same as being forgiven. Being forgiven is the Ledger in

heaven that's taken care of. The shed blood of Jesus has

already been presented to the Father on your behalf and as a

born again believer, God opens the books and says forgiven.

You're righteous. But if in your mind your heart

is not cleansed, you don't take advantage of that.

You've got a check you won't cash.

You stand on the outside because you have a defiled identity,

because you've never learned to apply the blood to the doorposts

of your own heart. Thanks for listening to our

podcast. If you'd like to help more

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you can do so at Heartland Church online.com/give.