A Better Price - July 19, 2026

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast. I have made the

Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6, 19, pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

I once heard about this mom who gave all she had for her son,

much like many of us would do for our children.

Even when her son had made a horrendous choice, she still gave all that she had for him.

You see, this mom, this was many, many years ago, all the way back in Virginia.

Her son committed a murder killed another human being I don't know the details

of the case I know some of you may search later on in Dateline or on the internet

or something to find out if you do let me know because I'll be curious.

But don't lose sight of the fact that this mom used all of her life savings,

everything she had, in the court case, trying to get the best lawyers for her son.

She used all of her money to go through appeal after appeal,

appealing to the judge, the appellate court, and so on, all down,

exhausted all of her legal remedies.

When it came time for her son to be executed, this mom appealed to the governor for a pardon.

Governor, would you please pardon my son?

She loved her son so much she wanted to go the distance to try to once prove

his innocence, but then to save his life.

The judge rejected that appeal for clemency.

And it came time for him to be executed, and he was, for the crime that he committed.

And even at that execution, his mom requested that his body be released to her

so he could be buried with the rest of the family.

But the prison system refused because it was the custom back then,

in those days in Virginia, that if you were accused of murder,

you had to be buried behind the prison walls in a section where all the other

prisoners were executed and buried.

This mom was heartbroken still. Tragedy after tragedy, after giving everything

she could, her final request was that her body, when she died,

be buried behind the prison wall next to her son.

I'm not told if that was ever granted or not, but when a son or a daughter goes

wrong, those who love them and who forgive them, really they suffer the most.

And I say that because forgiveness is costly. To forgive means it costs you something.

And as parents, we know sometimes our kids do right, and sometimes they don't.

And there's forgiveness that takes place, and there's also discipline that takes place.

But if a mother will go that far for a guilty son, can you imagine how far God goes for us?

When the Scripture says, for all have sin, that means every one of us are guilty

of sin and fallen short of what God expects, fallen short of the glory of God.

And I know maybe it's this morning, many of you are in here,

and you're kind of feeling like you're carrying the weight of your mistakes,

whether they're past or present.

You're not sure if you're truly forgiven, and I want you to have that assurance this morning.

Because, yes, forgiveness is costly, but I can tell you that in Jesus Christ,

that forgiveness has already been taken care of for you.

The weight of those mistakes can be lifted.

Are you trusting in the Lord? Well, we've talked about this mother's sacrifice,

the depth of her love, and the forgiveness that she had for this guilty son.

But we find a greater picture of God's love for us and God's forgiveness for

us, God's grace for us, that costly love of God.

When we look to the scripture this morning, to the book of Hebrews,

you see, eternal life, it is a free gift, but it costs everything.

This morning, what I'd like to do is to read the scripture, a passage from Hebrews chapter nine.

I'm not going to read the whole thing, but we are going to cover the whole thing.

But I'd like to read verses 15 through 22 this morning, and it will be from

the paraphrase for readability this morning.

And so if you'd like to stand and as we read the word of the Lord,

I just invite you to do that now.

Hebrews chapter nine, verse 15 through 22.

Through the Spirit, Christ offered Himself as an unblemished sacrifice,

freeing us from all those dead-end efforts to make ourselves respectable,

so we can live all out for God.

Like a will that takes effect when someone dies, the new covenant was put into action at Jesus' death.

His death marked the transition from the old plan to the new one,

canceling the old obligations and accompanying sins, and summoning the heirs

to receive the eternal inheritance that was promised them.

He brought together God and his people in this new way.

Even the first plan required death to set it in motion.

After Moses had read out all the terms of the plan of the law,

God's will, he took the blood of sacrificed animals and, in solemn ritual,

sprinkled the document and the people who were its beneficiaries,

and then attested to its validity with the words, this is the blood of the covenant commanded by God.

He did the same thing with the place of worship and its furniture.

Moses said to the people, this is the blood of the covenant God has established with you.

Practically everything in a will hinges on a death.

That's why blood, the evidence of death, is used so much in our tradition,

especially regarding the forgiveness of sin.

Let's pray. Father, it is in the name of Jesus that we come before you this morning.

Lord, we come before you to receive from your word, God, what you have planned for us today.

And we ask, God, that you would speak to each and every one of us personally,

but, Lord, also to all of us as a group.

God, thank you for Jesus. Thank you for his death for us. Thank you for his

blood that was shed on our behalf. We ask this in his name.

Amen. You can be seated. Thank you.

We all need forgiveness, and that is the gift that we need, forgiveness,

each and every single one of us.

We definitely need it from God, but a lot of times, and if you're married,

you know this, there's a lot of forgiveness that has to happen for relationships to succeed.

And I think we can all share in stories and be here a long time,

and we can kind of get the idea that forgiveness is costly love.

When you can forgive someone it means there's some kind of love in your heart

to overlook some things or to just take the hit,

and put it behind you so you can move on with the relationship forgiveness always

comes at a cost to the one who loves if you love someone you're willing to overlook

some things you're willing to excuse some things you're willing,

to take some of the hurt upon yourself.

You see, it costs tears when you forgive.

Sometimes it costs reputation. Sometimes when you forgive, your heart is just in anguish.

And sometimes when you forgive it, it costs you just about everything that you've worked for.

Everything, relationally speaking, that you've strived for.

I know some of you in here, you have forgiven when your child was guilty of something.

Not necessarily a capital crime like we talked about with murder.

But sometimes the words that are spoken.

And we're warned about our words, that it can be as serious as a dagger to the

heart, that our words can kill no matter what song we sing about sticks and

stones and broken bones.

We know that forgiveness goes a long way. And not just in our own personal relationships,

but our relationship with God.

God forgives us, and God's forgiveness of us costs Him the life of His own Son.

We started out this morning by reading John 3.16. For God so loved the world,

that he gave his only begotten Son, his only one-of-a-kind Son,

that whosoever, that means anybody, believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

The gospel in a nutshell as it's been described. Describing God giving up his

one-of-a-kind Son. there is none other like Jesus.

There never has been, there never will be, only Jesus.

And when God forgave us, it cost Jesus his life, the life of his own son.

Our forgiveness is forgiveness before a holy God.

And because of that, we can't be sentimental or just casual about it.

We've got to understand the weight of that which we carry.

It's not just something flippant. Oh yeah, I asked Jesus to forgive me one time.

Did you really mean it when you asked?

Is your life evidenced by things that happen in a life when you are truly forgiven?

You see, there are times when someone will receive forgiveness,

but then continue to do the thing that they've been forgiven for.

They didn't take seriously the forgiveness they received.

I might mention a spouse that has cheated on another spouse and received forgiveness.

Well, when that spouse continues to cheat and to deny the marriage vows that

were said at an altar before God and witnesses, they didn't do something in

their heart to really receive that forgiveness.

I mean, there's other sins we could highlight, other things we could say,

but do you get what I'm saying, the gravity of it?

If you really accept that you are forgiven, it changes who you are.

It changes who you are on the inside, and that changes the pattern of behavior on the outside.

I told you before about this guy I used to know. Their family lived with us,

when I was a kid, a teenager, and he had a cussing problem.

But he also had a problem because he was supposed to be a Christian too.

And so every time he would say a cuss word, he would bow his heads and pray

right there for forgiveness.

But it wasn't five minutes later, he was cussing again and then praying again.

And it was cussing and praying, cussing and praying.

And I always thought, boy, I hope the last time you ever cuss,

you have a chance to pray for forgiveness again.

Because I don't know how many times a day he did that, but he had a problem

controlling his tongue. And the book of James says, the tongue can no man tame.

Well, yeah, that's right, because God has to change it. he's got to change your heart.

But when we think about this gift that we've received in forgiveness,

it's got to be not taken for granted, but we've got to cherish it.

We've got to let this forgiveness and the gratitude that we have for it transform

who we are and live as people that have been forgiven.

You see, if forgiveness is this costly, even in human relationships,

how much more costly is the forgiveness that we've received because of our sin

from a holy God, a sinless God.

You see, we've got to understand that the cost that God required was a death.

What did I say earlier in Romans 3.23? The wages of sin is death.

That's what is required by the law that God has set forth, that sin needs a

death to bring redemption.

We read in Hebrews today, in Hebrews chapter 9, the old covenant required a death.

Hebrews 9 · chapter mention

Now, people would bring lambs and they would bring different animals forth to

be sacrificed so that their sins would be covered over and pushed forward to

the next year, and then it would be taken care of again and rinse and,

repeat, kind of like my friend who would cuss and then pray God to forgive him.

And then something would happen. He smashed his finger again.

Oh, and he would cuss and then he would ask for forgiveness again.

On and on and on within a 24-hour period, there was at least 24 times he cussed

and asked for forgiveness.

But in the Old Testament way of doing it, the old way of doing it kept having

to be rolled forward. And we've talked about that already in the sermon series.

But one of the things that this passage in Hebrews 9 brings out is that a last

will covenant—well, you've heard of last will in Testament, right?

When someone dies, then you have

a document that lists out kind of who receives what, what's to happen.

This is kind of my will. It's blank, because that's exactly probably what I'll

receive as an inheritance from my family.

I think my parents, when I was younger, must have had that bumper sticker that

says, we're spending our kids' inheritance now. Right?

And what kind of car was that bumper sticker on? It was on an old blue Ford Pinto.

So you could tell that we're not a very wealthy family from my line, my bloodline.

But when we think about this last will and testament, wills only go into effect when the person dies.

That's why when you watch these murder mysteries, you know, Dateline or 2020,

you know, all of a sudden this big life insurance policy is taken out.

And then all of a sudden, mysteriously, the spouse dies.

Well, who do they look to first? They look to the one who took out the insurance

policy, a surviving spouse, perhaps.

That insurance policy won't go into effect until that person is dead and someone

else can claim that in their will.

Well, this brings out that the old will, the old covenant, and there's kind

of a play on words here in Hebrews because a covenant is the same word for will or testament.

It only goes into effect when somebody dies. Well, the animals that were sacrificed,

the lambs and the bulls, the heifers, all of that, it would only push the sin

forward but not take care of it completely.

The author of Hebrews here uses this idea of a will, something that you will inherit.

And it's not just the old covenant. As we read, that was instituted when Moses,

received the words from the Lord.

And if we looked at that and we see, wow, look at what happened here.

There was this agreement made between Moses as representative and God.

And then everyone was in on this. The animals were sacrificed and the hyssop

branches were dipped in blood. and they're sprinkled on all the people to say, you are all part of this.

This blood is on you. You're part of this agreement here.

And not only that, but on the covenant documents themselves,

on overall the furniture that was going to be in the temple,

or excuse me, the tabernacle, there wasn't a temple yet.

But all of this going into place, this blood was part of that.

I don't know about you, but that's kind of grisly.

What would you feel like in church this morning if when you walked in,

I had the ushers there sprinkling you with blood.

Man, what kind of sick cult is this? If you're a visitor, you'd be like,

I'm out of here. I've heard about these places.

But it's the seriousness of this idea.

And we know that a new covenant could not be enacted. A new will could not come

into place unless the old one was taken care of first.

And the new covenant could only be activated by the death of Jesus,

and the new covenant, the new will, the new testament coming into place could

only happen if all the requirements of the old one were fulfilled.

If every box was checked, every T crossed, every I dotted.

And that's what Jesus did to fulfill the old covenant, the Old Testament,

to take care of that once and for all.

And that's a powerful statement.

See, under the old covenant, Moses sealed the people, like I said,

with blood, showing that sin can't just be brushed aside.

It has to be dealt with through sacrifice.

And I think so often we live in this age of grace that we begin just to not think twice about sin.

But if we really look at the Scripture, sin can't be brushed aside. It has to be dealt with.

When you sin against one another, you just can't push it to the side and say,

oh, they'll get over it, or I'll get over it, we'll move on.

No, you've got to deal with it.

If not, it becomes a sore that festers and grows and gets yucky and needs greater

attention for it to be dealt with.

That's why I say sometimes when we have an altar of prayer, if there is a disagreement

you have with someone in the church, come to the altar, both of you, and pray about it.

Deal with it right then. Find forgiveness right then. Don't wait until it festers

and becomes gross and ugly, and then everyone can see it.

That's nasty, right? Boy, Pastor, you should have put a disclaimer.

It's going to be a nasty sermon, blood and guts and pus. I mean,

what are you talking about all this stuff today.

I'm talking about the serious effect that sin can have in relationships with people.

We've got to deal with sin because sin is costly.

Forgiveness is costly. The cost God required was death.

We know that as we read through this and as the questions maybe come up several

times in your own mind, what's all this blood stuff about?

We know in the Scripture says today that blood is the evidence of death.

When people will go to a crime scene and they'll examine blood spatter,

I've learned that's a term.

My wife, she's not in here today, so I got to be careful. She's probably listening in the nursery.

They examine. She watches all these shows. That's how I know about it.

If someone's shot or cut and blood goes everywhere, the guy's laying down there,

they don't have to come up and say, Are you alive?

No, they can tell the guy's dead because he's bleeding out and there's blood everywhere.

Blood's the evidence that a crime or that someone died, especially in the ancient days.

They didn't have EKG machines or EEGs or any of that stuff to read brain waves or your heart patterns.

If they saw blood, they would assume that you were dead.

If they saw you bleeding out from the orifices of your body,

they would assume, and there's no movement, this person is dead.

Well, this idea of blood being the evidence that someone has died,

the proof of someone has died,

it started way back in Genesis after Adam and Eve sinned against God,

and then they ran off and they hid because they realized they were naked and they were ashamed.

Not necessarily because they were naked, but because of the sin that they had

just committed against God.

And it says through there, God starts giving these amazing things. He starts prophesying.

God says, hey, this is going to be taken care of, Genesis 3.

When he gets down to verse 21 of Genesis 3, it says that God made Adam and Eve,

our first peoples some garments out of skin.

Well, how did he make garments out of skin?

The logical conclusion was that there was an animal there that was killed to

provide clothing for Adam and for Eve.

The first sign we see that blood was spilled because of sin.

Not the animal's sin. The animal was just being the animal.

But the animal gave his life to cover Adam and Eve.

Blood is the evidence of death the blood of christ brings true forgiveness and

that true forgiveness that we receive from god it comes at an unimaginable cost,

and it forces you and it forces me to grapple with the gravity of our own shortcomings our own sin.

To understand that it costs somebody else because of something we did because

of something that we thought because of something that we orchestrated put together,

that hurt us or hurt other people The blood of Christ was given for us.

And so don't miss the point here. The point here is that God is both holy,

God is both loving at the same time. As much as God...

For lack of a better term, says gets angry because of our sin,

he also loves us to that same degree.

Because yes, he's holy. He's without sin. Sin is disgusting toward God.

But he also loves us. And he wants to do everything for us, even if we're in our guilty state of sin.

God sees us and he loves us. Kind of like if you've ever gone to the pound and you saw this ugly dog.

I mean, you don't even know if it's a dog. It looks like some hideous creature.

And in your heart of hearts, you're like, put that thing down.

That's not humane of seeing this thing walking around, this poor dog.

It probably even had a cloud like Eeyore following it around.

But you've got people that will look at that thing and say, oh,

how adorable. I love that. I want that. I want to take care of that.

Folks, sometimes in our sin and our trespasses, we're the ugly dog,

the disgusting, maybe even three-legged dog. It's not even complete.

Stinks. Has drool coming out. Has other stuff from other bodily orifices coming out.

It's just gross, but someone will love that.

Someone loves us, and that is God. He is holy. Okay.

And he is loving. And because he is both holy and loving, he can't just say

to us, oh, you sinned? It doesn't matter. You're forgiven anyway. Don't worry about it.

Hey, you caused all this gossip to start and it split the church?

Don't worry about it. I forgive you.

Oh, you hurt your wife with those words that you said? Don't worry about it.

I forgive you. Your wife might not, but I do.

It could go the other way around too.

You see, God is holy, And so if sin is there, it has to be dealt with.

It has to be taken care of. It just can't be brushed aside.

But since God is both holy and loving, sin has to be judged.

But guess what? Jesus Christ chose to bear your judgment, chose to take on your

punishment, to satisfy that holy requirement that God had.

Because of his love, because the love Jesus has for you, he takes on your sin.

And on a cross, he took on the sin of the whole world, past, present, and future,

to pour out his blood, to show evidence of death once and for all,

the blood of an innocent man, killed for you, killed for me.

The covenant, the scripture says, required a death. What did that death actually

accomplish for those before Christ and for us today?

Well, the third point I want to make this morning is this.

The price Christ paid was once and for all. Isn't that awesome?

I am about sick of these subscriptions that you have just to watch sports on

TV or just to watch your favorite television station online that you can't get over the air.

It's like, what was it? I was looking at our bank statement,

man. $6.99 a month for PBS.

Where did that come from? Who started that?

More than that, who subscribed to it in my household?

Public broadcasting system that means it's supposed to be free because my taxes

already paid some for it right,

but here it was 6.99 on my bank statement i won't tell you who in our household,

did that but she's probably in the nursery right now,

caring for the children of the church not watching pbs while we're at church

because that subscription has been canceled but you pay this price month after

month to watch maybe one or two hours of a program that you really want to see.

Not I want to see. I can get it for free over the antenna, but that someone

in my household wants to see.

It wasn't a once and for all price that we paid for that television subscription,

but the price Jesus paid for our sin was once and for all.

It means that Jesus doesn't have to go to a temple year after year and be crucified again.

As a matter of fact, as we get to other passages in the New Testament,

there's that reminder that says, hey, Christian, stop sinning.

Because when you continue to sin after receiving Christ as your Savior,

it's like you're crucifying Jesus on the cross all over again.

And we know that doesn't happen. It can't happen because Jesus died once and for all.

With his death, and his words on the cross, he says, it is finished.

The work that he's done is finished. But another phrase that that means,

it is finished, means paid in full.

What I have just done, it is finished, it is paid in full completely.

The penalty for your sin, the penalty for my sin, the penalty for the sin of

all humanity has been paid.

That's a great thing because it tells us that Christ's sacrifice worked backwards.

It gave meaning now to the sacrifices of the Old Testament, that all those sins

that were pushed forward and pushed forward, they were finally taken care of

and paid once and for all when Jesus died on the cross.

It means that his final perfect offering as the Lamb of God took away the sin of the world.

Remember when John the baptizer told his disciples, hey, look,

there's Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

The final Lamb of God was sacrificed in Jesus, and his blood that was poured

out, his death completed the Old Testament and all of the laws that were there.

He fulfilled the Ten Commandments perfectly, and even all 630-something other

laws that human beings had made up to try to keep the Ten Commandments.

And then Jesus told his disciples earlier before he died, hey,

love the Lord God with all that your heart, mind, soul, and strength,

and love your neighbor as yourself. That's what you got to do.

And then he sealed that with his death on the cross.

Christ's sacrifice worked backwards. But thankfully for you and me,

Christ's sacrifice works forward as well, forward from the cross.

It doesn't need to be repeated. As a matter of fact, 1 John 1.7 says that his

blood continues to cleanse us from every sin as we walk in the light.

Walk in the light with God. Whatever sin tries to stick to you,

boy, it just brushes off, right?

It just rolls off. What's the old saying? Like water off a duck's back?

Blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin, from all unrighteousness as we walk in fellowship.

How does that work? Well, if you're walking in the light, it means you're not

trying to be sneaky and hide anything.

And it also means everyone else can see what you're up to. And so as I'm walking

and living in accountability with my brothers and my sisters,

if I start to get an attitude that seems sinful, someone could call me out on

it and say, Mike, do you need a Snickers bar?

Mike, did you need more sleep last night? You're kind of getting a little snippy.

You're kind of developing a poor attitude toward these people.

You see, Christ's sacrifice continues to work forward for us.

1 John 1.9, in the same passage of 1 John 1.7, of course,

says that if we confess our sin, when we see it on us because we're walking

in light, if we confess that sin, God is faithful and just and will forgive

us of that sin and cleanse us from all that unrighteousness.

So even as believers, when sin starts to try to creep in and drag us into the

darkness, no, we stay in the light and we clean it off. We let God clean it off of us.

Christ's sacrifice works forward.

But I don't want us to forget the weight of this. You see, because it bankrupted

heaven to save your soul.

It was very costly, the death of Jesus for you. It's very costly the death of Jesus for me.

Heaven paid the highest price possible in the death of God's own Son, one of a kind.

I think we understand the reality that your sin broke God's heart.

Time you lied, that time you schemed, that time you lashed out in anger,

the time you had that poor attitude toward the other person,

even go so far as to hate them.

That sin broke God's heart. Why?

Because we said before, He is holy and He's loving. And it's the combination

of that love and that holiness that wants to go the distance for us.

But even though His heart was broken because of our sin, he was willing to pay

that cost so that we could live.

No matter if it cost him everything. Remember what I said before that eternal life is free.

It's free to us. It's free to you. It's free to me because Christ paid the high

cost in full once and for all.

You got to trust him in that. Remember what we said.

There's one will that was taken care of. It was ripped up. It was completed.

There was a death on account of the old will, the old will and testament.

In this new will and testament, it is already being fulfilled and been fulfilled in Jesus.

He died for the new testament as well.

And what we get to inherit, you and me, if we are trusting Jesus is just what

we've been talking about, eternal life with God, freedom from sin.

I don't mean just in heaven, but I mean now to be freed up from that,

forgiven, to be able to serve and to love others as God intended for us to love,

with the purity of heart, with the gifts and the talents and the strengths that he's given us,

to live as if we were above sin and out of the way of sin, because that forgiveness

that Christ brings us is complete.

As we said earlier in his earlier sermon, we're able to be saved to the uttermost.

And if Christ's sacrifice was the ultimate price for our freedom,

that redemption, that ransom, then how do we respond to that gift every single day of our life?

How do you respond to that gift?

When I was younger, there used to be this TV show with this character named Urkel.

Anyone remember that character?

His pants were way up here and you could see his socks and he walked funny.

And if he knocked something over, he would always look and say, did I do that?

He would come over here and he would trip or knock someone down. Did I do that?

Like he kept that phrase up over and over again. I said it twice and that is enough.

That's one of those earworms that It sticks in your head the rest of the day.

He would take no responsibility, just, oops, did I do that?

And when we think about Urkel, sometimes we're like Urkel. Yeah.

You see, sometimes we don't recognize that our sin has caused someone else that we love to suffer.

People in our own human relationships, but also God.

And we try to make excuses for that sin. Kind of like the first excuse that

was ever offered in the Bible.

It's that woman you gave me, Lord.

That's an, did I do that moment?

Okay, I said I wasn't going to do that anymore.

But there's nothing that brings a person to their senses more when they begin

to really realize that they've hurt somebody else, that what they've done is,

cause harm to another person.

When you look at Jesus on the cross, you might say, did my sins do that? Yes.

Does God really love me that much that he would pay the price for my sin? Yeah.

So what do I want you to do today? or what should be our response?

If you're someone that doesn't believe in Jesus, you're not just quite there.

You've never asked him to be your savior. You've never stepped in and received

the life that he wants you to live.

I've got to tell you, don't walk away from such a gift of eternal life that

God has already paid for. He's just waiting for you to receive it.

Don't neglect that. Don't push that away. Boy, it's time to tear that baby open and see.

How do you do that? Well, first of all, you turn from your sin.

You stop doing that which hurts the heart of God.

Stop sinning. Well, it's hard to. Yeah, it's hard to, but the first time is

the hardest to stop sinning.

Then God comes in and he helps you not to do that again.

If you do the second part, and that is trust in Christ's finished work.

So if you've turned from your sin, are you trusting in Christ that what he did

to pay for your sin was enough?

You don't have to keep trying to make up for your past sins.

Jesus has taken care of all that, but you've got to trust in his finished work.

That when you get the bill for your sin and it's stamped paid in full,

that it really means it's been paid in full.

The third thing that you need to do is just to receive the forgiveness that he paid.

We do this in prayer. Lord, I confess that I'm a sinner.

I confess that I'm in need of the salvation that you bring.

And I confess that I want to turn away from my sin and that I want to trust Christ.

Christ, I receive you into my life. Would you be my Lord? That means would you

take the steering wheel and would you drive this life for me?

And would you forgive me? When you receive that forgiveness,

boy, your life begins to change.

Because you get in your heart and in your head that someone else paid for your

sin, and you don't have to do that anymore.

And now you're freed up to do what you've been called to do,

and that is to live a life, live an incredible life that God has planned for you.

If you're a believer here this morning, which I hope there's a couple of us in here.

If Christ has paid the price for you and your sin, how can you treat sin lightly?

Well, it's just a little white lie.

Well, they'll never find out. We can't treat sin lightly.

Yes, we live in the age of grace. Thanks be to God that if we do fall into sin,

a lightning bolt doesn't come down and strike us or not have a plague of leprosy

or many of the Old Testament judgments upon sin immediately.

But just because we don't have that means we can't just treat sin like it's nothing else.

We can't water down Scripture to say, oh, that's okay. Be how you want.

Do whatever you want to do. God will forgive you anyway.

No, that's called presumptuous sin, and I don't believe there's forgiveness

for presumptuous sin until your heart is broken and you repent from that.

Christian, Jesus has paid the price for you. Don't treat sin lightly.

Come back into the light. Come and walk into the light.

Let Christ's blood continue to cleanse you as you walk in fellowship with His

Holy Spirit, with other believers.

Live in grateful obedience, brothers and sisters.

Is there grace? Yeah. Is there forgiveness? Oh, yeah.

Is there also accountability? Yeah. Because what the Scripture says,

and I didn't read that section this morning, I did read it last week,

but it's the reminder at the end of Hebrews chapter 9,

Hebrews 9 · chapter mention

that says in verse 27, just as people are destined to die once and after that

face the judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many.

He will appear a second time, not only to bear or not to bear sin,

but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Each of us will give an account to God.

So let's be ready to give that account Believer or unbeliever So here's the

challenge for this week As I wrap this up.

One area of your life where you're struggling. Maybe there's a sin that just keeps tripping you up.

It's like having untied shoelaces. You keep stepping on them and tripping yourself.

Maybe it's something else that's external. It's not even sin,

but it's just a situation that you're in, something you're going through.

Pick that area of your life where you're struggling, their temptation to sin is there.

I just want you to write down sometime this week, Three ways,

three steps that you can take to turn back to God, to look toward God.

Maybe if there's a habit of lying that's entered into your life, it's just so easy to lie.

To the scripture and read what the scripture says about lying and think of three ways that you can,

you can stop doing that one of the ways of course is turning that over to god saying god help me here,

but but do that just find pick one thing i hope some of you have a hard time

finding one thing maybe you won't find anything at all but if there's that one

thing that you're struggling with and sin is somehow involved,

write down three ways pray to the lord see how you can take that step and.

Turn your life back to God, to walk in the light again.

What does this matter to you? Well, it matters because when you choose to confront

your struggles, especially struggle with sin, it gives you this peace of mind.

That peace of mind will spill over into restful nights, knowing that God has

taken care of it, that God has given you a plan and a way in which to move.

And instead of dreading the next day, because you know that struggle is coming

again, Instead, you can embrace the day knowing that you're not doing this alone,

that God is still with you, that God's blood is still sufficient for you.

God's grace is still sufficient for you.

For his power is made perfect in weakness.

That's what the Apostle Paul said was told to him by Jesus himself.

So, yeah, we continue to live in grace. And in our struggles, we trust the Lord.

So, close this. This week, I want to challenge you to confront that area of

struggle, Take those three steps and turn toward God every time that temptation is there,

because embracing the cost that Jesus paid means living in the peace that he offers.

Will you live in that peace today?

I want to invite you to stand this morning.

Team's going to come and we're going to sing one final song together.

But in the midst of singing this 10,000 reasons song, do you have that many

reasons for accepting the forgiveness and following Christ?

Do you have that praise the Lord? If you're struggling this morning,

I just want to invite you again, come forward. Let me pray with you.

Let me pray that God will bless you. If you've never received Christ before, this is a great time.

I invite you, just come forward. Let's have a conversation, and let's share

with you the forgiveness that you can receive in Jesus Christ.

Let's sing together.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon, as well as

other sermons, and the sermon outline from today on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.