Living From Forgiveness

0:00Good morning.

0:01Amen.

0:03Praise the Lord. So good to see you all. Somebody's uh got a notification. Um go ahead and turn to turn to the book of Hebrews. You know that's where we are. We've turned a corner, as I mentioned, last week, with uh the title of our sermon. Last week was, for those of you who remember or don't remember, uh, a fitting conclusion, I think is what I called it. And then last week we discussed the fact that we kind of closed out that theological section, which was really started in the beginning of chapter seven, chapter six really, also, um, through through this section here. Uh and now we've turned a corner and we're moving into very practical uh life kind of knowledge now, as a result of that theology that we've gotten. Uh so this one, uh, this sermon this morning is titled Living from Forgiveness. So we're going to be talking a lot about how we live. Living from forgiveness. And uh we're in verses 19 through 25 of chapter 10. Doug Wilson, uh, if those of you who know uh Douglas Wilson has a famous-ish saying that he says uh something like, Theology comes out of our fingertips, or our theology comes out of uh our fingertips. Uh such a thought or such an idea is really not original uh to him, and I wouldn't think that he would claim that it is original to him. Uh it's probably not original to Francis Schaefer either, but Francis Schaefer has a book that he wrote uh titled, How Shall We Then Live? And in this book by Francis Schaefer, he says the following quote, what people are in their thought world determines how they act. The result of their thought world flows through their fingers or from their tongues into the external world. This is true of Michelangelo's chisel, and it is true of a dictator's sword. End quote. What we believe, then, determines how we act. This is clear all throughout Scripture. What we believe determines how we act. Jesus in Matthew 15 demonstrates this as well. What comes out of us, he says, is what defiles us. And that's not what we eat, not what we consume physically, but it is the condition of our heart. This is what comes out of us, what defiles us. The Bible is committed to doctrine, right? Committed to theology, committed to truth, because that is what shapes our life. What we ingest biblically, doctrinally, theologically. This is what comes out of us. Or as Wilson and Schaefer says, that is what comes out of our fingertips, our theology. Brother Kinney, I wish he was here, because I think he's the originally one that said this analogy to me, but I've heard it since then from various other places, so I'm not going to attribute to him. But uh, this is the analogy of a spilled cup. The quickest way to know what someone consumes and where their heart is, is to observe what spills out of them when they are bumped, right? Like as if you were holding a cup that's overflowed and you bump somebody and it spills, right? What spills out of somebody when they are bumped, prodded, pushed, poked. This is how we know what someone consumes, where their heart is. And often in our culture, sincerity of beliefs trumps the content of that belief, right? So it doesn't matter what you believe or what you consume, as long as you're sincere, as long as you're passionate behind it, but rather the content of that belief is minimized. This is true of the atheist and the Christian, right? What the atheist consumes in content, knowledge, what they believe, what their worldview is, what their theology is, this is inevitably going to drive their actions. Same for the Christian. Same for the weak Christian versus the assured Christian. And I don't mean weak as in a negative light, but just someone whose conscience is still weakened, right? This is the weaker brother. Naturally, what they consume, their past experiences are going to influence them and how they live. Okay, so for the past however many chapters over however many weeks, we have had our theology formed through the various warnings, through these gospel encouragements, through all of those assurances that we get with respect to the blood of Christ and his intercession for us as our high priest, all of that has now formed us, hopefully, prayerfully, and will continue to form us. Now we live. From this week on, really through the rest of Hebrews, now we go and we live. How then do we live? This is what the Hebrews, the writer to the Hebrews, focuses on. And we'll see as we get into it, we focus on the gospel. And how does we live as a result of that? We focus on God's beauty, his truth, his goodness, and how that changes our lives and changes how we live. Of course, Philippians 4, 8 comes to mind, and I will read. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Think about these things. Our lives are affected, changed, and moved by the reality of who we are in Christ, of his truth, his beauty, and his goodness. So again, we're living from forgiveness this morning and those taking notes. Assurance, we're gonna look at assurance this morning, assurance from our reconciliation to God. And then from that we focus on our relationship. How does that affect our relationship to God? And how does that affect our relationship to others? So that's where we're going. Stand with me then as we read. Hebrews 10, starting in verse 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. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised his faithful. And let us consider how to stir one another up, stir 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 word of the Lord. Lord, as always, we thank you for your word. Lord, please now speak for Christ's sake. It is in his name that I pray. You notice those astute among us, which are everyone in this room at this point, and every morning, actually, that our text began with the word, therefore. Right? Therefore brothers. What is the therefore, therefore, now we're moving to application, right? Therefore, because of the reality that we've been talking about, right? Because of the reconciliation that we have now as a result of Christ and his blood and his sacrifice, because of the confidence that we have now through the blood of Christ, now we live. Now we live. This is the central message of Christianity, that through Christ and because of Christ, we now have access to the living God. And this is what the writer of Hebrews says in verse 20, by this new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh. This new and living way. What is this new and living way, and what does that mean? Well, we have access now that no one under the new covenant or the old covenant, the old testament had. We have access to God unlike anyone in human history has had up to this point, meaning Christ's death and resurrection. We're going through 1 Samuel in the morning, and I'm reminded now of the Ark of the Covenant. The idea that God's presence was locally. God was always omnipotent and that he was present everywhere all the time, but for the Old Testament, his presence was locally confined to that ark of the covenant. But now that this new and living way has been opened to us, where does the locally secured or the local presence of God dwell now? Is it in an ark? It's in us. This is the new and living way. This is the access that has been opened to us that we don't have to go to an ark. The ark is us. We are the new and living way. We are the now, now the dwelling place, the habitation of God. And we can enter into his presence then at will, whenever we want, all the time. And even more by his spirit, he has made his home forever in us. We are the house of God. That is a new and living way that has been opened for us through this curtain that Hebrew says was the Christ's flesh, that that was the tearing of Christ's flesh, was the opening of this curtain. So that now Christ dwells, God dwells in us. Verse 21 says, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, we have a high priest over the house of God. Richard Phillips says this, quote, he is there as our high priest, representing us and pleading effectually for our acceptance, securing and sending to us the Holy Spirit so that we are fitted and empowered to be worshipers and priests before his throne. Because our high priest is there, we can know that we belong there too. And can thus approach him with confidence. Okay? And that is ultimately how we really concluded last week. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. Therefore, we can enter confidently into the presence of God, having this new and living way opened to us, having him dwelling with us, him being a high priest for us, interceding for us, that we will be accepted and secured, cared for. Now we can go to him with confidence. That's the truth. Now, how does that truth cause us to live? Verse 22. Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. We live with confidence with God. We draw near to God, our text says. Let us draw near to God. How do we do that? How do we draw near to God? I'll tell you first what it probably doesn't mean. It doesn't mean some emotional experience only. I know many of us have had this time. I'm not even ashamed to admit it because I think we've all gone through these times. We put on some Chris Tomlin music. Stephen mentioned this music this morning. We put on some Chris Tomlin music, we close our eyes, and we just draw near to God, right? We have these emotional experiences. Anybody? And maybe there's something to that in the grand scheme of things. But ultimately, that is not how we draw near to God. That's not how the word tells us that we draw near to God. The command is certainly to draw near, but the question is, how? How do I do that then? We do it with a true heart. A true heart. It demands a life of prayer, of meditation, specifically meditation on truth. It demands receipt of forgiveness. And this is why we confess our sins weekly here. Because the reminder that we are forgiven allows us to draw near to him with a true heart, right? Confessing our sins. We're receiving his forgiveness, and we are drawing near with a true heart. This is not an emotional experience, although it is often emotional. It demands prayer. As I said. Drawing near changes your life. Because when we draw near to him in that way, with a true and sincere heart, being assured of our faith, he draws near to us. That certainly changes our lives. The other thing that it does is it calls us to worship. We are to worship God. We are to draw near to him, and we are to worship him. We're called to live a life of worship. Martin Lloyd-Jones says this. This is the last quote I'll give you this morning. He says this quote It is only when I am near to God in Christ that I know that my sins are forgiven. I feel his love. I know I am his child, and I enjoy the priceless blessing of peace with God and peace within and peace with others. I am aware of his love, and I am given a joy that the world can neither give nor take away. We've experienced this. If you've drawn near to God with a true heart, you have experienced that joy, and that manifests itself in worship to Him, always. We are called to a life of worship. We'll talk more specifically about that in a minute. And in context, the writer is really talking about worship in context of corporate worship, but certainly a whole life of worship is in view here as well. Romans 12, 1. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable. Perfect. So let us draw near then with a true heart full of what? Assurance of faith. Sincere assurance of faith. Free of guilt. Forgiven. Cleansed. Washed with pure water, our text says in the last section there, last part of verse 22. Washed with pure water. Many have claimed that this text is supports the idea that you can't even worship unless you're baptized. Unless you've been washed with pure water, you cannot be worship, we cannot even worship, cannot even draw near to God. Reading that very literally. But then how do we also literally have our hearts sprinkled clean? I think context here, although baptism certainly is a requirement, in context here, we're talking about having our hearts sprinkled clean, our bodies washed with pure water, that is, by and through the Spirit. By and through the Spirit specifically. In context here. So we draw near to God with a true heart, full assurance of faith, hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. The next things that we do, it says, is we hold fast the confession. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. It's an interesting thing in the text here. And I know on Wednesday nights, Brother Stephen is teaching through confessions, right? Corporate and public confessions, certainly the historical confessions of faith, but I want to point out here this idea of confession, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. This word confession in the Greek is homologia. Homologia, sorry. Homo meaning same, and lego meaning lay to rest. And yes, as far as I can tell, and I've done a fair amount of research, lego is the same Latin word lego, which means to gather or to collect. That was pushed into Danish, which is the Lego, you know, you know Legos, which means play well, but this idea of stacking or laying, right? Laying, gathering, collecting. This is the same word we have here, which is Confession. So the principle there is that we always mean a shared confession. A same confession, right? Shared, same confession on which we lay to rest and which we do not waver from. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. Let us gather and collect these truths about the word. Let us agree that these are the same, the shared confessional truths on which we gather and collect from God's Word. We lay them down and we do not waver from them. This is what it means to hold fast the confession of our hope. A shared confession. We lay it to rest and we do not waver from it. And the basis of that confession, holding fast to that confession, is what? Second half of 23, for he who promised is faithful. We do this on the basis of God's promise, on the basis of his faithfulness to us. So we share a confession and we do not waver from it. Now we move into, I know I'm running out of time, I'm won't get through it. We move to the last practical steps of life with one another. It says, let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works. Again, going to the Greek, this word stir up means to incite, to provoke one another. To stir one another up, to incite one another to love and good works. I was thinking about it this week, how often it is that we incite or we provoke one another to things like anger and fear. How often have we heard some bit of bad news on Fox News or wherever? And we are so quick to desire to go tell somebody about that, to incite them in that work, provoke them in that fear, share that bit of bad news. We're so good at that. How good are we, though, at provoking one another to love, to good works? How good are we about inciting one another to love one another, to be good to one another, to obey God. So that's what it means then. Let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works. Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. There's always a reason not to meet. There just is. We're tired, we're busy, don't feel good often. Maybe even we realize that we have the freedom not to, right? All these are true. And there's always a reason not to meet together. But our text calls us then not to judge one another as a result of these things, but what? Encouraging one another. The reality is our tendency is, our habits of some is. We're always going to have this pull to not be together. But let us encourage one another. Encourage one another all the more as we see the day drawing near. What is that day? In your Bible, I'm sure it's capitalized, the word day, right? What is the day? It's the final day, the eternal day. As we see that day drawing near, we should encourage, not judge, but encourage one another to say, let us meet together. Let us love one another. Let us incite and provoke one another to love and good works, because the day is coming. The eternal day is coming when that's all we will do is love and encourage one another. Worship God with a true heart, with assurance of faith. So until then, let us encourage one another all the more. As we conclude then this morning, I'll say a couple things, a couple more things. It's very practical, so it's all application generally, but here's a few more points for you. Our lives are not our own any longer. We've mentioned that many times now. Our lives are not our own any longer. They never were. They're certainly not now. Living from forgiveness, then, is a life dedicated to serve Christ through the service of others. Living from forgiveness is a life dedicated to the service of Christ through the service of others. I know I've mentioned this before. I get so frustrated when I hear people say things like, don't make your family an idol, don't make your wife an idol, don't make your kids an idol, don't make your friends an idol. This is what we're called to do, church. To serve our families, to serve our wives. That's how we serve Christ. To serve our church, to serve our friends. And living from forgiveness, then, is a life dedicated to serving God through the people in which He's put in our lives. That's how we do it. We serve others. If you want to serve God faithfully, serve others in your life. This is how we do it. The other thing I'll note is that when it says to consider how to stir up one another in love and good works, that word consider means we consider how to stir them up. This involves thoughts followed by actions. To consider how to stir one another up in love and good works is thoughts followed by actions. This requires us, each of us, individually, to think about the people in our lives. Are they doubting for some reason? Are they struggling for some reason? Are they discouraged? Are they tempted? Are they fearful? What's going on with them? And then now, knowing that or contemplating that or considering that, how then can I stir them up to love and good works? How then can I provoke them to love and good works? We have to consider people. Such things are not just the pastor's or the elders' role. It's all of our roles. To consider how to stir one another up. Finally, we love. We love. We must love. 1 Corinthians 13, right? 13. Faith, hope, and love. Faith, as we have talked so much now, secures our relationship with God. Faith secures our relationship with God. Hope gives us the stability, the stability in life as we look forward to that eternal day. And because of our faith, empowered by our hope, commit ourselves to love. These three must always abide in the Christian life. Faith, hope, but the greatest of these is love. And living from forgiveness, then. Secured by faith, empowered by hope, and walks in love. And that will carry us until the great day when we see these three, and when they find their eternal union in the presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray. We thank you for the wisdom of your word, Lord. We pray and ask, Lord, that you would help us to continue to meditate on the truth of your word, Lord. By your Spirit, help us to discern, Lord, to gather and collect and lay your truths, Lord, in our hearts. And then we pray and ask, Lord, would that come out of our fingertips and the way that we live our lives, Lord? May we be assured of our faith and our reconciliation with you, Lord, confident to draw near to you. According to that forgiveness, according to the love that you have shown us, Lord, the forgiveness that you have given us, Lord, may we walk in that. May we stir one another up, Lord. May we incite one another to love and good works. May we be a people of faith, of hope, and of love, Lord. Help us. Help me, Lord. Thank you for your word. Ask all these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.