Blessed Assurance

Good to be with you guys this morning.

And if you are visiting with us, maybe for the first time, guys, welcome.

We're so glad that you are here.

You chose an interesting day to join us for the first time.

But my name is Ryan, one of the pastors here at Impact, and we are going to be continuing our study today through the book of Hebrews.

We're going to be in Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

If you have your Bibles, you can turn there.

I do want to kind of just give us a little bit of an update about Hebrews, just so you get caught up and that the rest of us can be reminded of what we have been studying together, because we're going to need that diving in to the end of chapter 10 today.

The last few weeks, we've been listening to the author encourage us not to fall away from the grace and the gospel that we have received, right?

This good news that you and I do not need to earn God's acceptance.

We don't have to prove ourselves, to perform for him, to be really good people, in fact, such good people, morally standing, that God says, okay, you're good enough, you can come into my holy presence.

What we've been reminded of is the only access that we have as sinful people, the only access we have, the only hope that we have is that we have been given grace by God through his son Jesus Christ.

And that as Jesus is righteous, when we place our trust in him, we are righteous as well.

So the exhortation is not to fall back into a religious performance, legalistic mindset, but to cling to the hope of the gospel.

Jesus brought in a new covenant.

So the last couple of weeks we've looked at the whole old covenant and the sacrifices and the high priests and all the things that the Jewish people had to do in order to remain right with God.

And yet Jesus came and fulfilled all of these things.

It still has a purpose.

And he didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

Can we read those words of Jesus here?

Matthew 5, verse 17.

Matthew 5:17

Jesus says, Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.

I have not come to abolish them, but to what, guys?

Fulfill them.

For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, not the smallest little mark or detail will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

So what Jesus came to say is look, I didn't come to say, yeah, do away with the old covenant.

I came to accomplish the old covenant, to fulfill it perfectly.

We fall short, he never did.

And so now his perfection, his righteousness belongs to us.

He brought a greater, a new covenant, one of grace.

Let me give us an example of this.

So if I have a piece of paper here, right, got our bulletin from today.

Uh, and please don't do this.

But for the sake of the illustration, if I have paper and I just kind of do this and I go like this, what did we just see in action?

What law?

Gravity.

You guys remember science?

Good job.

Good job.

Gravity, right?

We know gravity took effect.

Thank you.

She's picking up the trash.

She's the best, Mama G.

Thank you.

Right.

You've got this paper that just falls to the ground because of the law of gravity.

What come what goes up must come down.

That's what we know.

Now there is a different piece of paper that I had to dust off my eight-year-old Ryan skills and make it into a little paper airplane.

And I folded the tip in because I don't want to take anybody's eye out.

Right?

And now if we take uh almost the exact same kind of paper, another bulletin, and we do that.

Yes, I was hoping it would work.

We do that, we have some spin.

But what law did we just kind of see a little bit of a demonstration of there?

Aerodynamics.

All you guys were like, gravity, you're like, uh aerodynamics.

You got you've got thrust, you've got lift, you got other things going on, these principles of physics.

Right?

So we didn't do away with gravity.

Gravity still exists, does it not?

And yet we see a different law in effect, a transcendent or greater law that almost seems to defy the law of gravity, even though it's very much in place.

In fact, for aerodynamics to take effect, gravity has to be a part of that equation.

So Jesus came to bring this new covenant, this transcendent covenant, where he fulfills the old covenant law perfectly, and now his righteousness becomes our own.

So at the end of Hebrews 10, as the author's talking about all of this and helping them understand this, challenging them, don't go back to religious performance.

Having begun by the Spirit of God, don't go back to the flesh and your own effort, your own earning, your own merit.

He says, in light of this and what God has done in Christ, here's what we're to do.

So let's start reading.

Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19.

Hebrews 10:19

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh.

You guys remember this conversation a couple weeks ago?

That when Jesus died, this veil in the temple of God, where God's people would come to worship, there is this thick curtain that was floor to floor to ceiling.

I'm all floor to ceiling, or vice versa.

This huge curtain that no one could go in except for the high priest once a year.

And the high priest has to go through all this ritualistic ceremonial cleansing to make sure he was okay and there was no sin and he was right with God.

And then he would go and offer sacrifices for the sin of the people.

And now all of a sudden, Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice, hangs on the cross.

He dies on that cross for us to pay the penalty that our sin deserves.

And in that moment, what happens?

The curtain that separated sinful man from the holy presence of God is ripped in two.

But it's not ripped from the bottom to the top because it wasn't man that did the ripping, it was God.

And it tore from the top to the bottom.

And so we now have access into the holy presence of God.

This is what he's reminding us of.

Verse 21 And since we have a great priest over the house of God, that's referring to Jesus, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

This is the day of Christ's return, the day of judgment.

So the author here says, because of Jesus and everything that he's done, this new covenant of grace that gives us access to God.

What are the things that we are called to do?

How do we respond?

And there's three exhortations maybe you picked up on here.

And they all start with let us, not let us, right?

No vegetarians here.

Let us.

The first is what?

Let us draw near.

Because we've been given access, let us draw near and use that access.

Guys, it is tragic how many of us, even as Christians, have been given access to the presence of God and all of his holiness, all of his greatness, all of his power, all of his compassion, all of his love, and yet we still stand from a distance far off, and we don't want to draw near.

We're afraid to draw near.

I mean, imagine me coming to your house.

You invite me to your home, and you you hear the doorbell ring, and and you open the door, and there I am, but I'm standing at a distance on the curb on the sidewalk, and I'm like, hi.

And you're like, hey, what are you doing?

I just just wanted to talk to you a little bit.

Great, come on in.

I'm good here.

Right?

How how confused would you be?

You you gave an invitation, you gave permission, come in.

It was it was enter the house, draw near, and yet I'm still insisting I need to stand at a distance.

Guys, there's so many of us here today that still keep ourselves at a distance from God.

And the reasons I know there's different reasons for this.

One of the most common is because there was something that maybe you you've done in your past.

Maybe a struggle you're still currently having today with sin.

Something that maybe happened to you that made you feel so used, so objectified, so disgusting, so useless in that moment.

And we still, because of our sin, because of the sin of others, we carry with us guilt and shame.

And maybe even though we've talked ourselves through it and we've moved on and try to do different things with our lives and feel better about our situation right now, we still are not drawing near to God in his holiness because there's still a part of us that feels like we've got to pay penance.

We still have to atone for this.

I mean, I know Jesus said on the cross it is finished, but there's still more I gotta do.

And so I need more time because I don't feel worthy and I feel dirty and I still feel like this is something that he's upset with me about.

And so I'm gonna stand back here and I'm not gonna draw near, even though he calls me and beckons me to draw near.

Guys, if any of this resonates with you today, please understand this has been the sin-shame cycle we have experienced as human beings from the very beginning.

Genesis chapter 3, after God creates everything.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

He makes man, makes woman, and they're perfect, they're they're his perfect image bearers, and he puts them in the garden of Eden, and he's like, Look, all these trees, all of this fruit, yours.

Tend it, cultivate it, take care of it, eat from all of it.

Just don't eat from that tree.

And Eve is tempted by the serpent by the devil, and he lies to her, deceives her.

She takes and she eats of the fruit God said, Don't eat of it, and then she gives it to her husband, and her husband's like, okay, and then he eats it because we do everything our wives tell us to do.

And then sin enters the world.

And what is the result?

Genesis 3, verse 7.

Genesis 3:7

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.

Do you guys ever think about that statement?

They've been naked this whole time.

And it wasn't until they disobeyed God and sin and its curse entered the world and their heart that they finally became aware of it.

They were walking around with such perfect innocence and purity that they didn't even know they were naked, or they weren't ashamed of it at the very least.

They were like, you know, little toddlers walking around.

Think about their innocence.

They don't know any better.

And they can be just completely naked and they're just like out there like, ta-da! They don't care.

And it's not that they're not aware, it's just not something that they're even processing or care about.

There's such innocence.

But as we get older and as we become more exposed to the brokenness of sin in this world and in our own lives, and we start feeling what shame feels like, suddenly we hide and we conceal, don't we?

And that's what happens here.

They become aware that they are naked.

And what's the result?

They sewed fig leaves together and they made themselves loincloths.

So, what do they do?

First thing, they hide from each other, they cover up from one another so that they're not seen and exposed by each other.

But that's not enough, verse 8.

And then they hear the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

Guys, why was God walking in the garden in the cool of the day?

He wasn't just admiring the beauty of the foliage.

He came to walk in the cool of the garden in the cool of the morning to be with Adam and Eve.

He wanted fellowship, relationship, intimacy with them.

This is what he did.

And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

You see the sequence?

Sin brought guilt.

And guilt led to shame.

And that shame caused them to hide from each other and even to hide from God.

To blame, to do whatever they could trying to pacify that guilt and shame.

And guys, today, still, you and I are controlled by that guilt and shame.

We are controlled just as Adam and Eve were.

I feel guilt because of what I did.

And I feel shame because of who I'm afraid that I am because of what I did.

And so I hide from other people.

I don't want them to really know me.

I mean, I want them to know me and I want them to love me and I want them to accept me, but I don't really open myself up and let them in to the dirty dark parts.

Because if they saw those parts, they want nothing to do with me.

And so we hide that part of ourselves from each other.

If I told you guys right now, if I started a sermon today, I said, hey, would you turn and just tell somebody right now?

What is the worst, most vile thing you have ever done?

Talk amongst yourselves.

You all would stare at me like, Are you serious right now?

How about this too?

Why don't we turn and tell somebody, what's the worst sin you're dealing with currently?

Go ahead.

We don't want nothing to do with that.

Now we're gonna feel the pressure, so we'll turn to somebody and be like, uh, you know, maybe it's me.

And I'll I'll tell you, you know, I remember when I was eight, I was at my neighbor's house, my friend, and he had a little ewok toy, you know, wicket from Star Wars, and I didn't have one, and I was kind of coveting, and so I just I just stole it.

I took it, and I ran back to my house.

And suddenly I started realizing, oh no, I'm gonna get in trouble.

So instead of just taking it back and and and confessing, I got a shovel and I tried to bury it in my backyard.

Which we still do with our sin today, do we not?

But I could tell you that, and and that's an easy thing to say because we kind of go, oh, little eight-year-old Ryan, what an evil, wicked kid you were.

And there's a reason for it.

There's a way to excuse it.

I was young, I didn't know what I was doing.

But man, when we get older and we start making grown-up decisions to rebel against God, to live for ourselves and the ugliness of our sin and our selfishness at the expense of others that we profess to love and care about.

How could you?

That hits different, doesn't it?

And we don't want to disclose that.

We want to be able to blame my age or blame other people or blame God instead of taking that ownership and allowing the nakedness of our sin to be exposed and what it is.

So we we don't want people to know that.

And so we have mastered the art of self-presentation, portraying to others what we want them to see and what we want them to believe about us.

So they don't know us for who we are, they know a version of ourselves we're showing them.

This is why we love social media so much.

Because I can self-present.

Look at my life, look at my beautiful family and our family photos, and you see how the sun is just glowing golden upon all of us.

It's the Shekinah glory of God, and we live with it every moment of every day.

Guys, please.

Social media is just post after post of lies, right?

If you really want the behind the scenes, what you see, your kids screaming and you're bribing them, shoving lollipops into their mouth, just even threatening them at times.

Smile or you're going into a timeout.

It's not fun at all, but we don't want to show that.

We show what we want people to see, what we want people to envy.

And the result of this is that many people know us, but we're never truly known.

And we wonder why we live surrounded by people and yet constantly feeling alone.

It's because all people see, all that they know and love is the mask.

Because we have to be willing to remove the fig leaves, to peel off the loincloth and say, This is who I am.

I know I'm a work in progress and God is changing me, but I need you to pray for me because it's not even just what I did, it's it's what I still struggle with today.

But it's not just each other that we hide from, right?

Adam and Eve, they hid from God.

They tried to keep God at a distance.

They didn't want him to come near, they didn't want to be seen by him.

As we say we want to be close with the Lord, and yet we don't draw near.

James chapter 4 tells us that we draw near to the Lord, we draw near to God, he draws near to us, but we don't want to draw near because there's still a part of us that kind of hides this little thing in shame.

James 4 · chapter mention

You guys ever had a blemish, maybe a big zit somewhere on your face, and you go throughout the day and you're trying to like stay at a certain angle where they can't see it on this side?

You wear your baseball hat, you know, you do whatever you can do to conceal and hide.

And we do the same with the Lord.

We just try to approach him from a certain angle where he can't see this thing that I'm still feeling so ashamed about.

And we miss out on intimacy with our Creator.

And we miss what he has told us about who we are in Christ.

If there's anything we walk out of here with today, guys, this is my prayer that each of you understands, as followers of Jesus, those who have been redeemed and forgiven, who have placed it, your placed your trust in our great high priest, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, your sin and mine.

That we can leave here with confidence and full assurance and faith of our standing before God, even in his holiness.

That we have been made holy.

We have been perfected because of Jesus.

And if we're still living with guilt, if we're still living with shame, it means you don't yet understand the power of the blood of Christ.

You don't get it.

Did you catch here those of us who have been sprinkled with his blood?

Man, most of us feel like if it's gonna be the blood of Jesus that's gonna forgive my sin, I need a power wash.

Right?

Isn't that how we feel?

Just let me stand there and hose me down and keep scrubbing with the steel wool and keep hosing me down.

And it's like the sprinkling of the blood of Christ.

That's it.

That's all it takes.

There is more saving power in a drop of the blood of our Savior than the worst, most vile, rebellious sin you and I could ever commit.

That's who Jesus is, and it changes us and it transforms us, and it means we have a new identity, regardless of what the enemy may tell us, regardless of what the accuser of the brethren may tell us, and that's what the devil's called in scripture.

He's our accuser.

But Jesus is never our accuser, Jesus is called our advocate, he's our defense attorney.

And when he's our defense, we got nothing to worry about, guys.

Nothing.

Because no matter what the accuser may throw at us, that's even true.

Yeah, well, Ryan did this.

And Ryan said this the other day, and he thought this, and people don't know this about him, but this is what he did.

And he accuses and hurls the accusations, and then our advocate comes in and says, I know, but I died.

But my blood, but my righteousness, it's his.

I already paid the penalty he deserved because of what you're accusing him of.

It's already been paid, and so there's no penalty left, it's been satisfied completely, there's no double jeopardy, and so we can walk in confidence and even approach the holy presence of God because we have been fully changed and forgiven.

2 Corinthians 5, verse 17.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away.

Behold, the new has come.

Guys, the shame you feel that you're still holding on to, or better yet, that is still holding on to you.

The guilt that you carry around in that burden, still trying to prove yourself to God, still trying to earn what He has freely given to you.

Right, we're doing these things because we're listening to the voice of the accuser, not the voice of our advocates.

We're still believing the lies and the deception.

When you go back to Genesis 3, it's not a coincidence that Eve had a conversation with the devil about God and what he said.

And never once did Eve just ask God directly what he had to say.

And we do the same thing.

We listen to the accuser, we listen to our own feelings, we listen to the shame that we feel, and we believe those lies over the truth of what God has revealed.

This doesn't mean that we don't feel conviction as children of God.

But conviction isn't saturated with condemnation.

There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

But we still experience conviction when we sin, right?

When we do fall short of God's glory, when we mess up and are less than what God has has for us in his plan, we're gonna feel conviction.

That's a good and a healthy thing.

It reminds us, oop, I'm off the path.

I need to get back on the path.

You know, my mom, I just got through driving with her recently, and I was driving her car, and she's got one of those vehicles with like the self-correct things.

And I'm like, what is happening to the vehicle right now?

Because if there's a car coming up, you know, I signal as the car's coming, because I'm not gonna just whip over, but I'm just letting people know, right?

I'm gonna change lanes.

And it's like beep, beep, beep, beep, and like pushes me back over here.

And if it feels like I'm veering off course, it'll like start shaking like this.

I'm like, what is happening to your car, mom?

She's like, it's trying to get you back on course.

I'm like, I've never been off course.

But man, in my life, I have been off course far too many times.

And it's the conviction of God's word, the conviction of his spirit that brings that realignment.

But guys, here's the difference conviction is not the same as accusation.

Right?

So conviction says, hey, you did this, and it's not okay, but it's not who you are.

Accusation says you did this because it's exactly who you are.

And that's where our advocate comes in to remind us of who we are and why what we do at times, it doesn't match up, it doesn't fit.

And isn't that a significant difference?

Parents, you can imagine disciplining your kids and they do something just terribly wrong.

And when you look at them and say, I knew you were gonna do that.

I knew you were gonna do that.

Of course you did that.

That's who you are, of course you're gonna lie to me because you're a liar.

Versus looking at your child and saying, Hey, you lied to me.

Help me understand why you you made a decision to do that because I know you did that and it's wrong, it's not okay, but that's not who you are.

You you you you're you're a person of truth, of integrity.

That's who God has made you, and you need to walk in that.

Guys, the power of that contrast, you see it?

To say, no, no, no, my identity is firmly established in Christ.

I'm not a sinner still trying to be a saint and struggle to be a good person.

No, I am a saint in the household of God.

I am a child of His.

I've been made holy and righteous.

That is who I am.

So when I mess up, man, what am I doing?

That's not my identity.

That's not who I am.

I want to get back to living out this identity in Christ.

I know the objection is I've done terrible things you don't even know about.

I don't feel clean at all.

I don't feel cleansed and forgiven.

Guys, this is why we draw near, if you catch this, in full assurance of faith.

Right?

Not full assurance of our own goodness, of our own feelings, but full assurance of faith.

And even if we object saying, yeah, but I still sin, I still mess up, I still struggle.

If we go back to Hebrews 10, 14, let's back up a few verses.

Listen to this statement.

For by a single offering, speaking of Christ's sacrifice, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

The tenses here are key.

He has perfected for all time.

It's done.

It's already been accomplished.

He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

So, yes, we're still in this process of the Holy Spirit changing us and transforming us.

We're not gonna be the same, hopefully, because of that work.

We're not gonna be the same people a month from now that we are today.

We're gonna be more like Jesus then than we are even now.

But in terms of our identity, our position before God, we have been made perfect already.

And so we have nothing to prove to him.

We can be vulnerable and who we are.

Let us draw near.

The second let us is in light of what God has done in Christ, let us hold fast the confession of our hope.

Right?

Clinging to the grace that we have been given from God, by God in His Son Jesus Christ.

Our hope is not how good of a person we are, how good of a Christian we are, how good of a Christian we convince everybody else that we are.

Our hope is not our own earning.

We don't have access to God because I'm a super good person and human being.

The hope that we have, the confession of our hope is Jesus.

It's his love and grace and his forgiveness.

That's it.

Even when we are not faithful to him, because our the condition of our acceptance by God, as you see here, it is for he who promised is faithful.

He knows we're not faithful.

But it's because he remains faithful even when we are faithless.

And he gives what we cannot earn for ourselves.

Because we naturally pull away from grace.

We have this natural pull away from it.

We want to fall back into this mindset of legalism, of earning, of religious performance.

We do.

We just go there.

Think about how many areas of our lives where we're still trying to prove ourselves and earn.

Think about this.

Parents, anybody here have kids?

Yep.

Okay?

Anyone still have small children?

Anyone here?

Praying for all of you.

Right?

When we're raising our kids, it is crazy to me as I look back at raising my children, how my natural tendency was to gravitate back toward the law in my parenting.

So I wanted to raise them with grace.

I wanted to raise them to understand the gospel, but I kept going back to the law.

And so I would set a very rigid standard of behavioral metrics that they needed to comply with.

This is what you're supposed to do and what you're not supposed to do.

And I wanted them to conform to that.

Now here's the thing: there were times where I failed as a parent.

I know I'm probably the only one that's ever happened to.

Right, where my kids may do something for the 101st time that I've already told them a hundred times not to do.

And instead of in that moment recognizing they are still kids, and this is what the gospel would do, and how the gospel would handle it, what Jesus has called me to, that yes, I discipline, yes, there are the consequences that naturally happens, but there's also love and there's patience and compassion, and I walk them through and I love them in that.

No, no, none of those things.

I'm just mad.

And so what do I do?

And when I'm mad, I get angry, maybe I yell, I scream, I intimidate, I try to threaten them to the point where they're just like and they're never gonna do that thing again.

That's the law.

That's the law.

That's the old covenant.

Keep the law or you will face judgment, right?

But that's what we slip back into.

And then to compound this, I make that mistake.

I yell, I scream, I'm wrong.

But as a parent, I can't tell my kids I'm wrong.

No, no, no, no.

I'm gonna make sure.

I may make a statement like hey, I shouldn't have lost my temper, but you, and we go right back into law.

It's still your fault.

You're the one to be judged here, even though I failed.

And we feel like I can't let my guard down.

If I give them an inch, they're gonna take a mile.

And we miss our greatest opportunities, parents, hear me, to show our kids, to model to our children what the gospel looks like, where we can sit before them, and before we continue to lay into them with their punishment and what they did, if we stop and say, hey, but before I say anything else, I lost my temper and I yelled and I was angry and I was wrong.

And I've already prayed and asked the Lord if he would forgive me, and I know he has, but I want to ask you, will you forgive me for yelling at you?

Will you forgive me that wasn't okay?

And give our kids a chance to show us grace.

Guys, here's the power of the gospel.

I was thinking back on this.

There wasn't a single time that I did not do this with my kids where they did not go from still upset and digging their heels in and prideful and stubborn.

They just get it all from their mom, you know.

But they didn't go from that place and that disposition to everything changing.

And usually with tears in their eyes, they say, Yeah, dad, I of course I forgive you, and I'm so sorry.

I was wrong.

I did this, and you told me not to, and I did it anyway.

I'm really sorry.

It changes the whole dynamic.

The gospel changes everything.

There's no more guilt and fear and shame and condemnation.

There's grace.

And it's the kindness of God that even brings us to repentance.

It is grace that changes and transforms us at the heart level, where it's the blood of Christ that cleanses us from our evil conscience.

Right?

The deepest part, the deepest core of who we are.

The final let us is let us consider how to stir up one another.

Guys, my question for us today, in light of drawing near in confidence to the Lord.

Do we draw near to one another as well?

Because that's the exhortation here.

That grace means we were called to draw together, to gather together, and to stir up one another to love and to good works.

My question for us is why are you here today?

Maybe somebody dragged you.

Maybe you came because it's just what you do.

It's Sunday, and we have to check that box.

Maybe you came because you love the music.

Maybe you came to hear some teaching.

Maybe you came because you didn't want to make your own coffee.

Did any of us gather together with a mindset saying, we get to gather together, not just to worship and hear from the Lord and all these things, which is incredible, but we get to gather so that I can be stirred up and stir other people up to love and good works.

Why?

Why do we need to be stirred up?

Because our tendency is to settle down, to become comfortable, to become complacent, to not want to do anything that requires any amount of effort on our part.

We leave that to the young folk.

Right?

Oh, these teenagers, they're really on fire in love with Jesus.

Let them go share their faith.

Right?

We don't want to do anything that compromises our time, our schedule, and our comfort, our leisure.

And so we need to be stirred up as the church, as the body of Christ, as the people of God.

Because what do you need to be stirred up to?

What love and good works?

Because our tendency, even here as a church community, we need to be stirred up to love because our tendency is criticism and judgment.

Our tendency is to put people down, to hate on people.

It's that self-righteous, religious mindset when we feel like we've really become a good Christian.

Now we have earned the right to look at all these little peons down here and say, look at them.

They're nothing like me and how good I am.

And so we need to be stirred up to love one another the way we've been loved in Christ.

We need to be stirred up to good works.

Ephesians 2, verse 10.

Ephesians 2:10

For we are his workmanship.

Created in Christ Jesus for good songs.

Did I read that wrong?

I'm sorry.

Created in Christ Jesus for good sermons.

Try that again.

Created in Christ Jesus for good what, church?

Works.

Which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

You know, you heard the announcement here for our big serve.

Yeah, that's what this is all about.

It's a stirring up.

Some of you hear that and go, Yeah, that's not my thing.

It's not your thing to do good.

Shouldn't that be all of our thing?

And things like this that we try to organize is so we can gather as the church and we can stir one another up to those kinds of love and good works.

To demonstrate to people, this is what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

We want to love you and we don't even know you.

We want to show you the care and compassion of Christ, and we don't even know who you are.

We just know there's a need.

And we have heard from many people in the community where there are needs.

The Sun City Civic Association reached out to us, heard what we were doing, and said, hey, can we put word out for many of our elderly and disabled and vets that cannot take care of even their homes?

And they're being fined on a monthly basis because their yards are a disaster, because of uh their houses that are just falling apart.

Can you guys help?

We said, absolutely we can help.

So I think at last count we had something like 18 homes.

I don't have the number here.

Something something to that effect in the Sun City area that we're wanting to go and just be the hands and feet of Jesus to.

We have the Boys and Girls Club that we've always partnered with, helping them with upkeep and take care of the kids in our community.

We we have the the alternatives to demet alternative to domestic violence shelter here in town that we come alongside and work with to support them, love them, care for them, and help with whatever their needs are.

Being Jesus to this community.

Guys, we need you to be those hands and feet, the body of Christ, right?

And so I'm hoping you're hearing this as a stirring up, whatever your reason of get over it.

And may we love people and may we do good so people give glory to our Father who is in heaven.

You can use that little tap thing on the chair in front of you, by the way.

If you can register right now, I won't be offended if you're not listening to me from here on out.

Let me wrap this up.

To make sure that none of us can hear any of this today and say, Oh.

Alright, well, I prayed that prayer, so I'm saved.

I'm good, so I can now, I'm good, so I can just live how I want to.

I can keep sinning, I can keep doing my thing.

I want to close with this.

Verse 26.

For if we go on sinning deliberately, the word thereby the mean, by the way, means intentionally, willfully, with full knowledge of what we are doing, and yet we just continue to do it blatantly.

If we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.

Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the spirit of grace.

For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay.

And again the Lord will judge his people.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

In other words, do not for a moment mistake God's grace and mercy for apathy or indifference.

It's not that God doesn't care, it's that he cared so much that he sent his son to be our only hope.

Otherwise, we remain in our own merit and goodness, which is despicable, broken, and evil.

We remain in that place to stand before God and his holiness and his judgment against sin.

And that's why he says, all the more encourage one another to love and good works as you see the day, the day of Christ's return of that judgment coming near.

I wanted to close.

Can we stand together?

I'm gonna invite our few of our worship team members back up, and I've asked them to just close us a little differently today, but to end our time together by just singing through the old hymn, Blessed Assurance.

Because that's what we have in Christ, don't we?

And I want to celebrate that today.

Guys, can we pray together?

Father, thank you for giving us access.

Thank you for sending your son so that we don't have to earn or make our own way.

God, we just in faith come and say, Lord, I know who I am, and you know who I am, but Lord, I want to draw near.

I want to come near.

Guys, if you're here today and you have never placed your faith in Christ, and you're still standing on your own merit, and you know it is not even close to being good enough, and you still have been living with guilt and shame, would you join me and just talk to the Lord to say, Jesus, I need you in my life.

You know why I'm so ashamed.

But today I ask that you will come into my heart and change me.

Today I choose to believe that my sin has been forgiven.

And so I approach your presence today with confidence because of what you've done for me, Jesus.

Save me and change me.

Bring me in.

And Father, as we pray that prayer, and Lord, as some today, I'm trusting have had that conversation with you for the first time.

But I do pray that your spirit will fall upon them and bring the freedom that only you can.

And Lord, today we recognize all of us who have been saved and redeemed, who have been given access through the blood of Christ.

We we say thank you.

Thank you for the blessed assurance that we have all because Jesus is ours and we are his, and we are known by our Savior.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.