Magnificent Privileges, Sacred Duties

I want you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10, Hebrews chapter 10. Something that we continue to learn decade after decade is that the abuse of privilege is a grave danger that many people fall into. James, the brother of Jesus said in his epistle, let not many of you become teachers, my brother, knowing that as such, we shall incur a stricter judgment, in other words, the greater the privilege, the greater the responsibility. And sometimes privilege makes us like spoil brats instead of sacrificial servants. If you listen to any of these congressional hearings of regarding the in-rod in-ron scandal, at least it sounds like a scandal, you know that this is something that people easily fall into.

As Christians, we can be guilty of a far greater abuse of privilege. I don't mean by that the privilege of being what has been referred to as a favorite child status in the United States. It's something far worse. I'm talking about our privilege position as the household of God and having Jesus Christ as our great priest over this household. Our privilege as a kingdom of priests, as those who have access to God, as those who have freedom of speech before the God of the universe. Listen to the words of Hebrews chapter 10. If you'll turn there, Hebrews chapter 10 beginning in verse 19. The writer of Hebrews says, since therefore brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil, that is his flesh.

And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having 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 stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another in all the more as you see the day drawing near. These words in this passage, God's word is saying to us, since you possess these great and magnificent privileges, then live accordingly. That you have a responsibility to live up to the privilege that you have as the people of God, you've been given these awesome treasures, these possessions that he mentions here.

And therefore with them comes some sacred duties. Some have called this passage here, a lettuce patch because in verse 22, verse 23 and verse 24, he tells us what we ought to do. Let us do this. Let us do this. Let us do this. And it's all based upon these magnificent promises and magnificent possessions that we have privileges as the people of God in the world today. And I want to look at these and then look at our duties as those who have these privileges. Notice first of all, there are two magnificent privileges that he speaks of. It's in the flow of the context of Hebrews, and you really don't get the impact of it, unless you study this book all the way back from chapter 9, as the writer of Hebrews begins to compare the superiority of Jesus over the Levitical priesthood.

And he explains that the priesthood in the Old Testament was pointing ultimately to Christ, who was a fulfillment of all those shadows and all those types they point to the Lord Jesus Christ, he is the ultimate priest, towards which all of that is revealed in the Old Testament about the Levitical priesthood points. The first thing he says is that we have a free access into the presence of God. Notice this. And this is a literal translation of these words. Therefore, brothers, since we have authorization for free access to the heavenly sanctuary by means of the bread of Jesus, a way which is new and which leads to life, which he made available for us through the curtain, that is to say by means of his flesh.

Think about this for a moment, that we have this great privilege of access into the very presence of God. This possession that he speaks of here, this confidence as the new American standard translates it is literally, quite literally, authorization. You have a warrant to come into the presence of the living God, the God of this universe. Imagine that as a believer in Jesus Christ, you've been given a warrant to come into God's presence. The Jerusalem Bible translates it this way, we have the right to enter the sanctuary. You have the right to come into the presence of God that has been given to you by Jesus Christ. So there is this new and objective reality that has been obtained by the death of Christ for us.

And that is that we have the right to free access to God, free access to the heavenly sanctuary. In fact, notice in those verses there, in verses 19 and 20, you have a parallelism. He speaks in verse 19 of this free access in verse 20, he calls it a way which is new and which leads to life. In verse 19, he says, this is to the heavenly sanctuary. In verse 20, he describes it as through the curtain. In verse 19, he says, by means of the blood of Jesus. In verse 20, he describes that as by means of his flesh. What kind of access is this anyway that he gives us? Well, he says it is free access that is a way which is new and which leads to life. Free access. Now, in the book of Hebrews, the way he develops this and unveils this to us is that it is both an objective access and a subjective response.

That is that he has paved this way for us. He has given us this want so that we can enter into the presence of God. And therefore, we ought to have confidence to come before the living God. But he also says in verse 20, as he describes this free access, that it is a new way. Now, this means two things. It means it is new in time. In other words, the saints before the coming of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the birth of the church didn't have this kind of access into the Holy of Holies in the third heaven. This had not existed in fact back in chapter 9. He says the Holy Spirit is signifying this that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing.

In other words, he said as long as the God was present in the worship and the tabernacle and the temple in Jerusalem, the way into the presence of God had not yet been made clear. But now it has. This is a brand new thing that we have begun to experience since the coming of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit. It is new. It is not what Abraham experienced. It is not what Moses experienced. It is not what David experienced. It is something brand new. That we experience under the new covenant. But it is also a new and quality. That is there is a freshness to it. There is always a freshness to this approach to God. If you have lived the Christian life very long, you have experienced that. That it is brand new every day.

That it is brand new experience as you come into its presence and it will never grow old. In that song that you sang, it says that we will never know the cost that was paid to redeem us from our sins. And you know there is truth to that because Ephesians chapter 2 verse 7 says that throughout all the ages to come, in fact the picture there is like waves washing up against the shore. Age after age, he says God will continue through all the ages to reveal to us his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. That means we haven't even got an inkling of the greatness of his grace yet. And he is going to reveal more and more. It is new and fresh. But he also noticed, he calls it a living way. In other words, this way, this access into the presence of God is a living way.

That is it is a way that leads to life. At least a real life. Once you experience this real life that changes you forever, Jesus said in his parents on 17 that this is what eternal life is. It is knowing God and Jesus Christ. It is experiencing fellowship with him. And that is what the right of Hebrews says that we have access to. We have access to the living God, to his ear, to fellowship with him, to a personal knowledge and relationship with him. That is what our access is to. It is not to help care, our insider information, our education or power. No, it is a free access into the sanctuary in heaven where Christ appears in the presence of God for us. We can enter right into his presence, to the heavenly sanctuary, he says, through the curtain.

Through the curtain. And that is great significance because as the readers of this book, especially because these were Jewish believers new. And when this was written, the temple in Jerusalem was probably still standing. This was written probably before 70 AD. And so as he is writing this, the temple in Jerusalem is standing, the holy place is there, the curtain in front of the holy place that separated the holy place, where the chicana glory of God had dwelt in ages past, where God himself was present, that holy of holies and the holy place was just which was just outside of it. There was a curtain in between. And that curtain was there because no one could go through the curtain except under very special circumstances.

In fact, look back at chapter 9. As he begins this whole section, he says in verse 1 of chapter 9, now even the first covenant, that is the mosaic covenant, had regulations of divine worship in the earthly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle prepared, the hour one in which were the lampstand and the table and the sacred bread. This is called a holy place. This is where the priests could go. All the priests could go into the holy place, but you had to be a priest to go there. And he says, and behind the second veil, this is the curtain. Behind the second veil, there was a tabernacle, which is called the holy of holies. Having a golden altar of incense in the ark of the covenant, covered on all sides with gold was a box covered with gold in which was a golden jar holding the mana.

And this mana was preserved to remind them that God had fed them in the wilderness with heavenly bread, which pointed to Christ. And with Aaron's rod, which butted, and if you remember the incident, when Aaron's rod butted his staff, there were those who spoke against Aaron as God's chosen one to be the priest and the head of the priesthood. And so God says, get the staff of the head of it and put it in the tent, in the tent of meaning. And the one that buds, the one that grows branches and fruit, bears fruit, bears almonds, is the one who is the chosen, the one who's chosen by me. Now that was a supernatural, miraculous thing. And so all those twelve staffs were put in there. And the eleven remained the same, but Aaron's staff butted.

It had green branches on it, and it brought fruit, and it was to say, God is saying to them, this is my chosen line, which is to point ultimately to the Lord Jesus Christ. And also in the ark of the covenant was the table of the covenant, the law of Moses, in the holy of Holies. And he says, in above it were the cherubim, these spirit beings that had three, six wings, above it were the cherubim of glory, overshadowing the mercy seat. But of these things we cannot now speak in detail. That was worship in the Old Testament. There was a curtain between the holy place and the holy of Holies. The priests could go into the holy place. The people were in the court. The priests, this one tribe, who were set apart, and who were qualified could go into the holy place.

But only the high priest, once a year, could go into the holy of Holies, where God actually dwelt. And now, the writer of Hebrew says, since Christ was ascended to the Father and entered into the holy of Holies, he's gone through the curtain. The curtain in the tabernacle was a constant reminder of the hiddenness and the inaccessibility of God, who can ever approach the living God. First Timothy chapter 6 says that he dwells in light, which no man can approach. It's an awesome thing. But now he says this curtain is gone. It's been removed. What happened to it? Well, we're told in Matthew 27, while Jesus was on the cross when he said it is finished, that this curtain, which was about four inches thick, was torn from top to bottom.

Not from the bottom to the top. No man did this, but God did it. In fact, in the book of Acts, it tells us that there were many priests who came to faith in Jesus Christ early on. And it was primarily because of this manifestation of God's affirming miracle that Jesus truly was the Messiah, God's Lamb, in our substitute. Well, the curtain's been removed. You think about that, that the curtains removed, that you can enter into the presence of God, that no longer are you like the people of the Old Testament, where you have to keep your distance, and you have to stay out in the courtyard, and you have representatives for you, the clergy, who go into the presence of God and represent you before God.

No longer do we have that, no clergy lady under the New Covenant, that every single believer has access to the living God, that you can speak to Him. In fact, in the right of Hebrews says that we can use freedom of speech, that I can enter into the presence of God with confidence and speak to Him. I can bear my heart to Him. How was this kind of access obtained? In the Old Testament, the Old Testament saint understood that God was at a distance from them, that only one man, one time a year for a brief time, could go into the very presence of God, but you have been given this privilege to enter into the presence of the living God. Notice what he says in verse 19, he says, this free access was obtained by means of the blood of Jesus, and then in verse 20, he says it was by means of his flesh.

Well, throughout the book of Hebrews, this expression, the blood of Jesus is used over and over and over again, as an expression for Jesus' violent death under the judgment of God as our substitute, as our curse bear. And it's also by means of his flesh, which emphasizes the fact that Jesus became flesh, so that he might be able to be our substitute in God's Lamb. He had to become flesh, he had to take on a body in order to be the Lamb of God. When you read the book of Revelation, you may not understand much about it. But one thing is clear in that book is that the sinner of everything is the Lamb of God, the one who was slain before the foundation of the world. The infinite became an infant so that he could purchase our salvation.

When we come to the table the day, we are remembering that deity took on humanity so that he could secure access into this heavenly tabernacle. We look at this loaf, which has already been broken for us, for our convenience, but this one loaf is a picture of the body of Jesus Christ, that God became man. That's the greatest miracle in all Christianity, that God became man. And we remember this. Every time we come to the Lord's table, it's to remind us and to remove this covenant in our hearts. God has entered into this world, but he has become man so that he could rescue us and so that he could pave a way for us, that we could enter into the presence of God. You know, we have something better than the Garden of Eden.

When Adam used to walk in the evening with God, you can come into his presence at any moment at any time. Now it's going to be better in the future. When Jesus comes back and we actually live in the physical presence of the living Christ, the God of the universe, but it's pretty good now. Because you can enter into his presence at any time because Jesus has paved the way for us. Now there's another magnificent promise and that is a great priest who's in charge of God's household and listen to these words. And since we have a great priest in charge of God's household, back in chapter three, he compares Moses and Christ. And he says that Moses was a servant in his household, but that Jesus Christ is a son in his household and his privileges are much greater.

And this household is the community of faith. It's believers. It's all those who come to bow the need of Christ and believe upon Him. He's the priest over this household. The Old Testament, before the giving of the law, in fact, the head of the house was the priest of that house, which his responsibility, as it is in the recent today, was the responsibility of the head of the household to represent that family before God to teach the family about God and to represent the family to God. So we have a priest who represents us before the father and it's Jesus Christ, he's the head of this household. And that's why we are so confident about our access. It's not because of our sinless life. It's not because of our spirituality.

It's not because of our experience. It's because of who Christ is. That Christ has paved the way into the presence of God. But he is the great priest over this house. It's so wonderful that we have been given this access into the very presence of God, but many of us, many of you, and often myself, I experience the same thing where we're terrified to actually enter in and rest in the presence of Almighty God, to actually live a life and fellowship with Him, to take Him seriously in this relationship seriously. But we have this desperate need for someone to take us by the hand and bring us in and bring us before the father. And we have someone like that. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, he hasn't just died on the cross two thousand years ago.

It isn't just that he was racing the dead and he ascended to the father, but the Bible says that he is there now representing everyone for whom he died to the father. He's there representing us. He's there as our high priest. And the church is the sphere of the activity of this high priest, we are told. The one who came into the world became flesh for us, who died on the cross for us, who was raised for us, who poured out his spirit for us. He also intercedes for us. Now that has significance if you're a real sinner like me. If you're not just a painted sinner needing a painted Savior, but I mean you are really a sinner and you know it. And you come to understand that there is this great gulf between you and God, then the good news is there is someone who can bring you right into the presence of a holy God without you being destroyed.

And that's Jesus Christ. This is our assurance that our worshipful approach to God will be welcomed. A lot of Christians you know they never really think about it that we gather like this in the name of Jesus and we sing these songs. And we sing songs. We sing words of great intimacy. Vance Adner used to say there are more lies told in a song, service, and church in any other place in the world. You know what he meant by that is we sing about our deep love and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ how we would give our all for him, how we would follow him anywhere that he's more precious to us than anything else in all of life. And many times that's no more the truth in our present every day life than anything.

And yet we can sing these words of intimacy and actually mean them. We can actually draw near with our heart because we have someone who takes us by the hand and he brings us into the presence of his father. And there we have this free access. And that's why Paul says in Romans 8 who can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing, not tribulation, not trouble, not sin, not failure. Nothing can separate us if we're in Christ Jesus. Those are great privileges. You know those are marvelous possessions that we have. We have this free access before God and we have a great priest over the house of God. We have a priest that can't fail. You know sometimes it's an embarrassment to be a Christian in a particular group of Christians maybe in a denomination or some group.

And I know Catholics have been embarrassed by the great failure of priests who are supposed to represent people before God and God before people and you discover. But there he is. They've been living in immorality, gross immorality and pretending to be a priest that could lead you into the presence of God. I want to tell you priests may fail on this earth. Preachers may fail. Men who call themselves Reverend may fail but there is a high priest that we have that will never fail. And he is the priest that's over this great house. It's no mere mortal man in this world. It's the living Christ. And he has the ability to take real sinners real honest to goodness failures lawbreakers people who deserve the wrath of God.

People who deserve to stand before the judgment of God and be banished from his presence for all eternity. He has the ability to take people like that. And bring them into the presence of the living God and them be embraced by a holy God. Does that still amaze you that the God of the universe who is so holy he can't look upon sin that favor can embrace you and love you and welcome you into his presence? Isn't that amazing? These are great privileges. With every great privilege that comes great responsibility. Doctrine always leads to duty. The more you know, the more you are responsible for. The more you understand the gospel, the more responsibility you have, the more exposition of scripture, there is the more appeal to our wills.

There always is. The greater the privilege, the greater the responsibility. The doctrinal always leads to the experiential. I love this expression, the Heidelberg confession. It says after a long doctrinal section, it says this. But what does it help you now if you believe all this? That's a good question to ask yourself when you load yourself up on truth. Someone asked every theology class every teach after we get through, but what does it help you now if you believe all this? What responsibilities are there where there are some sacred duties that we are told about in this text and these sacred duties begin with this to continually draw near to God. Listen to these words. Let us continue to draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.

Seeing that our hearts have been sprinkled clean from a burdened conscience and the body washed with clean water. You see what our duty is here? It is to continually draw near to God. That's talking about worship. This expression is used throughout the word of God to describe worship that is drawing near to God. That's the amazing thing about Christianity. The Christianity says worship is coming close to God. It's coming near to Him. That's what worship is. It's coming near to God. And that is our first duty. It is the aim and end of redemption. It is why we were redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ if so we could be worshipers. Jesus told the woman at the well in John 4, God seeks those who will worship Him and spirit it in truth.

He seeks and saves people so that they will worship Him in spirit and truth in the Christian life. I have to tell you. Being a Christian, being called a disciple of Jesus and living as though your Christian is absolutely silly and trivial and meaningless if your life is not worship. If your daily life is not worship and if it doesn't flow out of a life of worship of this living God, if you don't do what you do as a Christian as worship to the living God then it's a bunch of foolishness. It's just a bunch of religious foolishness. But if we live our lives as an expression of our devotion and our worship of the living God then everything we do as a believer has great significance. In March 3, there's an account of the disciples, listen to this, it says that he went up to the mountain and he summoned those whom he himself wanted, that is his apostles, and they came to him and listened to this.

And he appointed 12. Why? That they might be with him, that they might be with him. He appointed 12 that they might be with him. And then he might send them out to preach. You see, you can't preach, you can't proclaim, you can't be a witness of this Christ unless you've been with this Christ. What a shame it is to be a proclaimer, a preacher, a believer who is a witness for Christ who never spends any time with Christ. Jesus brought his apostles to be with him for three and a half years and many sent him out. And we're only going to be effective as proclaimers of the gospel if we have a relationship with the center of the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ. In Matthew 14, Jesus walks on the water and when the disciples see him they are absolutely stunned by it.

He says in verse 33 of Matthew 14, and those who were in the boat worshiped him saying, you are certainly God's son. See what they saw convinced them and this kept happening to them that this one deserved worship. You need to know Christ well enough to know that you should worship him. If your life does not worship of Jesus Christ then you don't know him well enough, you need to know him better. The amazing thing is that he makes himself known through his word in the Spirit. He wants you to know him because he wants you to worship. You'll never be what you ought to be until you become a worshiper of Jesus Christ. That's what you were made for. That's what you were created for. And that's when you find what true fulfillment as a human being is is to be a worshiper of the living Christ.

But notice what the prerequisite is. He says it must be with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. Worship of Christ has to be with a sincere heart which means an undivided genuine engaged heart. That's the only time worship is really worship is when it comes from our heart. When you sing these words in your heart it's totally disengaged and just malding the words. It really is an abomination to God. I can tell you that based upon the witness of Scripture because that's what God said through their prophet Isaiah. He said because this people draw near me with their words and on me with their lip service. But they remove their heart spark from me and their reverence from me consists of tradition learned by wrote.

In other words they don't have to think about it. They can go through the motions. They can engage in the practice of worship and never ever engage their hearts. It's one of the greatest dangers of growing up in the church. You notice that people come to faith in Christ after they lived the life of alienation from God and then God captures their heart and gives them salvation. It's easier for them. When you grow up in the church one of the greatest temptations and I grew up in the church. The greatest temptation is that you learn how to go through the motions with an unengaged heart. But look at what he says. He says it must be in the full assurance of faith. There's an incredibly powerful word for assurance of faith.

The full assurance that faith produces the idea. It comes in fact as a similar word that we have in English. Euphoria. Euphoria is when you're full of this good feelings. Euphoria is when faith produces in you such a full conviction that it captures your heart. I mean you are so convinced of a truth that this truth drives your life. It's the word that Paul used in first Thessalonians when he said when he's describing to the Thessalonikans when he came to them in the police of the gospel. He said the word didn't come into you and word only. The gospel didn't come to you and word only but in power and in the spirit and with much full conviction. In other words he says God was working in me and he produced in my heart such a conviction of the gospel that when I proclaim it to you you knew that this gospel had captured my heart.

And that what I was proclaiming to you was something that I embraced with all of my being. For assurance of faith, for conviction it's what Romans forces about Abraham. He had full conviction. Faith produced in him a conviction that captured his heart he was absolutely convinced. I am absolutely convinced about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm working this with that in anything else in life. I believe it's true with all my heart. It's why there have been so many who died for the gospel because faith produces full conviction in our hearts. We believe it's true and we can be as folk as I'll get out but it's amazing when it comes down to it. The true believer can't help but stand for the gospel. We had this little guy about 4.11 who came to our church one time a valley by a year ago.

And he had been in the United States before World War II he came here from China. He came here and went to Moody Vital Institute but he got trapped here in the United States when the war broke out. And so he didn't go back home which was his plan to go back and preach the gospel in China after the war. And when he finally went back after the war and he began to preach the gospel and after just a few years he was thrown into prison. He spent 20 solid years in prison for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he said that they kept telling him if you'll just repent, if you will repudiate the gospel you can do set free. And he said I wanted to so bad I'm so ashamed to say it but I wanted to so bad.

They tortured him, they beat him. He said there were times that he felt so ashamed because he wanted to say whatever they wanted in space so he could be set free but he couldn't bring himself to do it because he had full conviction. Obviously this faith in Jesus Christ brings full conviction about the gospel of Jesus Christ. And notice this seeing that our hearts have been sprinkled clean from a burdened conscience and the body washed with clean water. This is a picture of the Old Testament priest. The Old Testament priest was washed with water, he was sprinkled and then he was washed his body was washed with water before he put on the garments to act as a priest. And these two things, the sprinkling and the washing deal with two things, they deal with our guilt and our shame.

The first, the sprinkling deals with our guilt, it's what I've done, I've sinned. And he says those who believe the gospel have had their conscience sprinkled. He says seeing that our hearts have been sprinkled clean from a burdened conscience, an evil conscience, a conscience that knows something against you. The conscience is that judge that lives in sight of you and it keeps raising its ugly head and telling you that you sinned. We all have it, we can pretend we don't, but we have it. And we know we're sinners. And he says this decisive and deep cleansing is affected by the blood of Jesus Christ, it's removed this barrier of a smiting conscience. That's a hard lesson to learn in the Christian life, a lot of times we think the spirit's convicting us and it's Satan attacking us and we are afraid to approach the living God until we get our lives together.

Jesus says I want you to come as a broken person. I don't want you to try to get your life together, you'll never get your life together, you must come as a sinner, you must come as someone who needs cleansing, you must come as someone who knows there's a verdict against you. And there's only one way of escape and that's to have your conscience sprinkled clean. This condition of the burdened heart belongs to the past and we're not supposed to live with that as a believer. You know why people are bothered by an evil burdened conscience? It's people who believe that acceptance with God is based upon Jesus plus anything. First John 1.7 says this, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with another and the blood of Jesus is continually cleansing us from all sin.

In other words, even when you walk in the light, you're going to have sin and the joy of walking in the light is I don't try to hide it. He goes on to say we don't deny it, we don't minimize it, we don't pretend that it's not we confess it. And we experience the fact that he is continually cleansing us so that we can live in the presence of God. And then he says that the body, a body wash with clean water, that is dealing with the problem of shame, this is what I am. It's one thing to deal with guilt as it's what I've done and that's dealt with through the blood of Christ. But what about my shame, what I am and sometimes this causes us more trouble than anything else? I know what I'm capable of.

You know what I hate about sin more than anything else? You know what I load about sin? I load about seeing the manifestation of sin. I load about the publication of sinful things, movies and TV and everything else that is filled with manifestations of sin. You know what I heard about it the most is because I know I can love sin. I know I can be tempted by sin because I'm still a sinner. How can God have anything to do with somebody who's still a sinner like me? There's probably a couple of years here like me. How can he have a relationship with me? He deals with my shame by this washing of the body with clean water. This is a beautiful picture. I believe this is an illusion to water baptism for this reason.

The water baptism is a part of the new covenant and because in Scripture always when it speaks of water baptism it speaks of the reality behind water baptism. That is that we are cleansed and we are clean in the eyes of God. You know when you look at the life of Jesus the thing that made the Pharisee so angry was that Jesus hung out with sinners. Jesus was constantly around people who were the drugs of that culture. And the religious leaders hated this. But it gives us a picture that he's the source of cleansing. He's the source of making us clean enough that we can live in the presence of God. The Apostle Paul says to all of us, the chief of sinners has already been saved. He can save me, Paul says.

He can save you. How many of you have sought to illuminate Christianity and kill Christians? That's what Paul did. You are highly privileged as a worshiper. You'll testament you had the people and you had the priesthood and you had the high priest. Today we have the new covenant and all believers are priests who can enter into the presence of God. And that's why in the New Testament what it talks about the pouring out of the spirits of fulfilling the Old Testament promise. God says, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. The sons and daughters, your old men, your old women, your servants. Every single person in the household of faith has been given the Holy Spirit. You've been anointed as a priest.

That's the significance of you having a spirit. And you can enter into the presence of God because that spirit has anointed you. In the Old Testament there was a court yard where the normal people of God were. And then there was the holy place where the priesthood could go. And then there was the Holy of Holies where only the high priest could go. What do you want to live? What do you want to live? Do you want to live in the court yard? There's a lot of Christians like that. You know, they want to be a Christian and they want to go to heaven but they don't want to get too serious about this thing. I don't want to become a fanatic. I don't want to get carried away. I want to go to church once in a while.

And then there are those who actually enter into the Holy of Holies and they experience this. And they say like, David, I don't want to live anywhere else anymore. I want to live in this presence. It's the best place to be. It's the place that you can enter into because Christ has died for sinners, like us, to cleanse us. And he's been raised to be our great high priest over the house of God. But look at it at the second privilege. The second responsibility, the second duty that we have, is to continually hold fast to our hope. Verse 23, let us continue to hold fast the hope. We profess without wavering for the one who gave the promise is faithful. Isn't that the key? Have people made promises to you in your life that filled your heart with hope and then your hopes were dashed because they didn't fulfill their promises?

Some of you fathers are like me and my father was that you were tempted at different times because you wanted to delight the heart of your children and you made them promises. You could get a smile on their face. Maybe it was subtle like, well maybe we can, but then the hope is dashed because never carried through. But here he says the one who promised is faithful. What does that mean? That we should hold fast to this hope that we profess. It means to testify to the world. To enter into the presence of God and live in His presence, but we are to live in the world and testify to the world. To hold fast this confession that we have confessed to the world that we are strangers and pilgrims here.

That we have forsaken the pleasures of sin and we rejoice in the tribulation that God allows to come into our lives. How do you do that? How do you live in the promises? Let me tell you, it is really simple. It is not easy, but it is simple. It is so simple. The way that you live in the promises of God, the way that you hold fast to the hope, is that you connect the promises with the promiseor. You have to get this. You have to connect the promises with the promiseor. The promiseor, God Himself who has given the promises, is trustworthy. You can trust Him. He is going to fulfill his promises. The promises, as you begin to believe them, Romans 5 says when the gospel first came to you. You first heard this message that you could be free from sin and guilt and shame and alienation from God.

You could be a child of God by believing on Jesus Christ and hope fills your heart. You believed on Christ. Paul says in Romans 5.5, that heart didn't make you ashamed. It didn't shame you down because the love of God was shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Spirit. He filled your heart with a sense that you were really loved by God. Remember that? When that first happened to you, when you first experienced the reality that God loved you in a very special and unique and wonderful way. You see, you believe the promise and believing the promises of God will never shame you down. And then He goes on and He says, the last duty is this, to continually care for one another. Verse 24 and 25, He says, and let us keep on caring for one another.

That's quite literally what it says. Let us keep on caring for one another for this stimulation of love and good works. Not discontinuing our meeting together, some people are regularly doing, but rather encouraging one another. And all in all, since you see the day of the Lord approaching. You see what your duty is there? Because of these great privileges? Because Christ is our high priest and because He has given free access to God. Your duty is to be very mindful of one another. This one is very strong. Be very attentive to one another. Be very attentive to what's happening in one another's lives. Care about each other. In other words, if you're drawn to God, you're drawn to His people. And we're going to be concerned about His people, the way we treat one another, we deal with the really dwelling in the whole way of Holies.

When God is having an effect on our lives, we love the people of God. When I went to the Philippines, that's the one thing I prayed, God, help me love these people. Give me a deep love for these people because I know this to be true. If you can love people, you can minister to them. And when you quit ministering, it's because you quit loving. It's always true. And He says the goal of this, attentiveness to each other, is for the stimulation of love and good works. How do you do that? Let me give you the method that He gives you right here. This is probably something I should, what we should do is pay this message and send it to everybody who's not here because they're probably the ones who need to hear it more than you because you're here.

But He says we fulfill this by meeting with the saints. Not discontinuing our meeting together. You know what that word means, discontinuing or forsaking the assembling? You know what the word forsaking means here? It's a very, it's a singularly strong expression in the original language. And it means to desert, to abandon, to leave someone in the lurch. I haven't seen the movie, but this movie about the helicopter down it was in Somalia. You remember when that happened? You remember when this thing kind of begin to be unveiled about all these events and how important it was that we not abandon our own and what a shame, what a curse it is when you abandon those that you're to be loyal to. Can you imagine abandoning your children?

I don't know how many children are abandoned in this country every year, but it's an astonishing number. In fact, we've had to structure things in such a way that people are free now. Young ladies are free to go to a hospital and leave a baby and walk away because that's better than leaving them in a garbage can. How can that happen? How can we leave in the lurch there's that we love and are to care for? And the right of Hebrew says, when you forsake the assembling of yourselves together, you are leaving fellow believers in the lurch. You're banning them. I know we don't think of it that way, but that's exactly what it is. We are abandoning one another. You know the reason we don't think that is because we don't think in terms of the fact that God says we would have come together in order to encourage one another and to instight one another to love and good deeds.

There's not one of you in this room that doesn't need to be encouraged on a regular basis as a disciple of Jesus Christ. And that's why we come together. On a regular basis, we're committed to it. What causes people to abandon this? What causes people to forsake the assembling of themselves together? Every once in a while I run into Christians that haven't seen a long time. There's a couple that I see often around here in town. And there have been disciples of Christ for years and years and they don't go anywhere to church. They're completely forsaken the assembling with fellow believers. And I wonder how in the world can you do this? How can you do this? How can you forsake your brothers and sisters in Christ and your responsibility to encourage them and cite them to love and good deeds?

You know that you can minister the people when you got it and when you have a headache and when you got gallbladder problems. One of the most encouraging brothers in the fair pains of that meeting was Exodus Mansoor. He came and treated this church and he came a four-day journey to this meeting to sit there for five days on the teaching of the word with a terrible kidney stone attack. This man was in pain for three of the first days he was there and he laid in a bed with a window open so he could hear the teaching. And if we get an in-grown toenail, we won't come to church. If the super goes on or if the all-star game is on, I mean it doesn't matter. There are so many things that we have a higher priority in our lives than meeting with the saints and coming prepared to encourage one another to love and good deeds.

It's amazing to me how soft we are. What causes that? Is it persecution? Not in our context. In fact persecution drives people to be with the saints. That's why the catacombs. Because I had a man tell me not too long ago he could just couldn't worship in this building. How can you worship in the cafeteria? How can you worship in the catacombs? How can you worship in a graveyard under underground in Rome? Well you can worship anywhere the saints meet. That's what Jesus said in John 4. You need to in this mountain or in Jerusalem. The God seeks those who will worship him in spirit or in truth. You can worship in a field. But it's when the saints come together. It's not persecution. Is it disappointment?

Have you been abused and misused and right about and hurt by believers? And so you're just not going to get around believers anymore? That's foolishness. That is ridiculous. I've been so hurt. I'm not going to get around Christians. If you haven't been hurt you haven't even been a Christian for a year. Absolutely Christians are going to hurt your feelings. That's the nature of the church where sinners say by grace and he's transforming us and we're none of us of there yet. You all recognize what real sin is. What is it? Well it's preoccupation with the affairs of life. It's self-absorption. I have other things. I have other things that are more important. It's just a higher priority. That's all.

I think what we're ashamed to admit is what is higher priority than meeting with the saints and encouraging them and fighting them to love and good deeds. What has a higher priority in your life? And if people would tell you the truth it would be shameful. Their faces would get red if they told you why they stay out of church and not encourage the saints. It would be embarrassing. That's how we do it by meeting with the saints. He says don't discontinue it. Don't abandon it. Don't forsake your brothers and sisters. Don't leave them in the air. It's completely prepared to encourage them by exhorting one another. Encouraging one another. This assumes encouraging. In fact in chapter 3 verse 13 he says that the encourage one another every day.

It implied and this was true in the early church. They met every single day. Can you imagine that? Scheduled. When I was a kid I remember we went to church four times a week. We went to church on Sunday morning, Sunday night. And then we went to church on Tuesday night and Thursday night. Of course there weren't as many good movies. We didn't have computers. So you go to church. Amazing how edifying it was. How uplifting it was to be with the saints on a regular basis. He says you're to encourage one another. Now the word encourage paracolato means that it means you come alongside someone in order to encourage them. You can't encourage somebody that you don't come alongside up. In other words encouragement takes concern and contact and commitment.

You've got to be with them. You have to be with people in order to be an encouragement to them. Right? Isn't that that's pretty simple isn't it? You're going to come alongside them. You actually have to see them or at least talk to them on the phone. But there's got to be personal contact in order to encourage. And he says finally that this is an urgent matter. Notice this. He says all the more. Quite literally all the more since you see the day approaching and the day there's no doubt what it is because down in verse 37 he basically explains it. It's the day of the Lord. The day of God's judgment is coming and we can see it. We can see it. You say well how can we see it? Well let me show you.

Here's what Paul said. But realize this second Timothy chapter three in the last days difficult times will come from men will be lovers of self lovers of money. Money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious, gossips without self control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. But holding to a form of Godliness although they have denies power and avoid such men as these for among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women way down with sins led by various symbols. See the last days are getting closer all the time. We are in the last days and the day of the Lord is approaching.

We can see the signs of it. And so he says it's more urgent than every every every day we live. It's more urgent in the year 2002 than it was in 60 AD. It's more urgent today than it was then. We have Christian kids growing up in a context where everything they're exposed to in this world system is anti God and you say, oh no that's not true. Yes, it is true. Everything they're exposed to is anti God in one way or another. It assumes that man is autonomous. The whole philosophy of this world system is telling them you are independent and autonomous. If you want to believe in God that's fine but don't let it impact your life, you'll never get anywhere in this life. Now what I'm saying is that your kids are growing up in a context in which they need more than ever before to be impacted and inundated with the truth of the word of God.

And the life of Jesus Christ seen in examples and people's lives. The greatest impact that the church has ever had in my family was on my two older children growing up in a church where they were constantly around young men and women who were so on fire for God that they couldn't talk about anything else. The best thing that ever happened. The effect on my children. This world wants to chew them up and spit them out. Satan wants to destroy their faith. The world system wants to offer them something other than God to love with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. And we can't bring ourselves to get disciplined enough in our own life to say, oh God, give me the wisdom to raise my children in a land that's worse than what he described in Deuteronomy when they went into the land of Canaan.

In Luke chapter 24, Jesus was walking on the road to mayor with those two disciples and after he left that group and he unveiled to them who he was. They were so thrilled with communion with the Lord that they immediately went to the brethren in Jerusalem because of their exposure to Jesus they wanted to get with some of his followers and when you are occupied with Christ, you want to be around the brethren. When you are witnessing for Christ in this world, when you see yourself as a disciple of Jesus and that your life is meant to live out this commitment, you're going to want to be around Christians. When you forget that and you simply see yourself as somebody else in the world like everybody around you is trying just to make it in this world, you want to avoid Christians and the assembling of the believers together to worship the living God.

Your heart will grow cold and so we have to kick ourselves in the rear end and say, I've got to do with the word of God says even when I don't feel like it because I need this. I need the word of God to penetrate my heart. I need to be flayed and laid open and I need to see my heart for what it really is. I need God to change me. We are highly privileged people. Our Lord wants us to live in light of those privileges that we have free access and we have a great high priest over the house of God. You are part of a small minority in this community who have authorization for access into the presence of the living God. Most of your neighbors around you do not have this access because the only way you can get to the living God is through Jesus Christ and faith in Him and you have it.

Are you living out your responsibilities? Don't fail to draw near. Don't fail to live up to those privileges. Let's pray. Father, as we would prefer now to come around your table, the table of the word Jesus Christ and in worship and in recommitment and renewing of this great covenant, the new covenant that we have entered into through faith in Christ. We pray that you have placed us in the world at a crucial time, a crucial place. You have equipped this old God to do something significant with our lives, to live out our lives in a way that would honor and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and actually touch lives both here and around the world. We pray, O God, that we would live up to the duties that you've given us because we are so highly privileged, help us to live like new covenant people.

And our prayers we come around the table, that we would come in a worthy manner, in humility, in repentance, in faith, in conviction, that what we do with the manifestation of what we truly believe we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.