Hebrews 11:1-3 | Faith

It is a great pleasure to stand before you again. And again,

I want to thank Josh for speaking last week. Such a good word.

If you were unable to hear it, it will be posted on YouTube this week. Last week was a little chaotic, so we weren't able to get it on YouTube.

But thank you, Josh, for that word. If you would turn to your

Bibles, it will be in Hebrews chapter 11. We will consider verses one through three,

Hebrews chapter 11, one through three. Father, please, in the name of Jesus, the power of your

Holy Spirit, speak to me, speak through me to your people.

Today we pray in his name, amen. So our theme for this

Lord's Day and will continue to be our theme through the rest of this chapter, chapter 11 will be faith.

So the theme is faith, and we all know this. This book is called many things. One is the hall of faith, right?

As you go through this, we'll see the great man of the Old Testament, and it will be proclaiming their faith.

Before we get into all that, I want to kind of look back at why I think their faith is being proclaimed to us in this way, and it's taken from Hebrews 10, beginning in verse 37.

And we saw last week that verse 37 is a quotation from Isaiah chapter 26 that speaks about the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment.

So beginning in verse 37, it says, for yet in a little while, and the coming one will come and not delay.

So this is speaking about the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment. Verse 38, but my righteous shall live by faith.

And that's what we see taking place in chapter 11. It's going to be showing us his righteous that lives by faith.

Verse 38, but my righteous shall live by faith. And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their soul.

So not only is the book of Hebrews about the supremacy and the sufficiency of Jesus Christ, it is also a book about faith.

Not only faith in the sense of justification, meaning our resting in Christ, our being right before God because of what

Christ has done, but also are the faith in one's life. As Hebrews 11 will go on to show us.

The quotation here from verse 38 of chapter 10 of Hebrews is taken from the book of Habakkuk.

As we read, it says, but my righteous one shall live by faith.

In Habakkuk chapter two, we read in verse four, it says, behold, my soul is puffed up.

It is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by faith.

We see that it's speaking about a man whose soul is puffed up, that it's not right within him, but the righteous shall live by faith.

It's not by what it looks like, not by law, but by faith. We also see this many other times in scripture.

One in particular we'll look at today before we read our main text, we'll read from Romans.

So if you turn to Romans chapter one, Romans chapter one, look at verse 16, a declaration of the gospel.

For I am not ashamed, Paul is saying, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the

Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, speaking of the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written, the quotation from Habakkuk, the righteous shall live by faith.

So in it, speaking of the gospel, speaking of Jesus coming after, according to the, according to the flesh after David, the son of God, according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead, and again, this quotation from Romans is in the context of verses one through six.

If you look back at Romans one, one through six, so we see here that Paul is the one who penned the letter.

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets and the holy scriptures concerning his son, who was a descendant of David, according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness by the, by his resurrection from the dead,

Jesus Christ, our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

So Paul is saying that he was to bring about the obedience of faith, the message of the gospel, him being the one proclaiming this gospel, his mission is to bring about the obedience of faith.

We also see the obedience of faith mentioned again in Romans, but this time and at the end of Romans, Romans chapter 16, verses 25 through 27,

Paul ends this book with a doxology similar to the way that he began it.

Now to him who was able to strengthen you, according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages has now been disclosed to the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations.

According to the command of the eternal God, listen to bring about the obedience of faith to the only wise

God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen. So Paul was to bring about the obedience of faith and we see here that the command of the eternal

God is to bring about the obedience of faith. The obedience of faith bookends the book of Romans.

It's at the very beginning and he closes with it. And the implications of it is a life lived in faith.

Now most Christians throughout Christendom can pinpoint a time in their life where they were given faith to believe.

But the question is, is are we as Christians living out this faith that we have been given?

Are we living a life that is through the obedience of faith? Turn with me to Galatians chapter two,

Galatians chapter two, verse 20. Paul again is our writer, says verse 20,

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

Here it is. Don't don't miss it. In the life I now live in the flesh,

I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Speaking about the obedience of faith, the life that he lives, he lives by faith in faith in Christ.

Now let's go to our main text, Hebrews chapter 11, verses one through three.

The text says,

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

For by it, speaking of faith, the people of Ode received their commendation.

By faith, we understand that the universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

In our outline today, we'll see three, we'll see three ways to look at faith. So I want us to observe these three ways to look at faith.

The first point is going to be the longest one. The last two are fairly short.

The first point is the assurance of faith. Point number two, the conviction of faith.

Point number three, the revealing of faith, the assurance of faith, the conviction of faith and the revealing of faith.

And as we transition, this portion of the book of Hebrews is not, listen to me, it's not speaking about how we have come to faith.

Not Hebrews 11. We read about that in chapter one and forward.

Hebrews 11 is not speaking about how we have come to faith, but rather the evidence that we have come to faith.

First point, the assurance of faith, and we'll just look at verse 1A, 1A.

Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for.

So we have now faith, or you can replace it with trusting or believing. Now, faith or trusting or believing is the assurance of things hoped for.

So let's just focus on the word assurance. The Greek word here for assurance can also be translated as foundation or substance.

And if you look at it in the sense of foundation, a foundation is something that you can stand on and it's something that you can build upon.

Right. Your faith is something that's built upon.

It's something that you stand on and build upon. If you look at it in the lenses of substance, remember, as we've been going through Hebrews, this should make a lot of sense to you.

As we've been going through Hebrews, we've been looking at the shadow versus the substance.

And it's saying that this faith, now the faith is our assurance.

The assurance of our faith is the substance. So it's kind of looking at it from a saving faith to a living faith.

Your saving faith is pointing, should be pointing to a living faith.

If you say you believe, there's fruit. We have this argument constantly when it comes to the book of James.

I was witnessing with a, I told y 'all about it at Seventh Day Adventist who was talking about, well, faith without works is dead.

And I was like, I absolutely agree. I said, I just believe that your context of this is false. I said, would you say that an apple produces limbs that produces a tree which produces a root?

And he said, no. I said, of course not. I said, but the root produces the tree which produces the limbs that produces the fruit.

He said, yeah. I said, well, that's what we teach. Your church teaches the opposite.

If you truly have faith, there is substance. Right? And I pointed to the fact, yeah,

I know there's people that profess faith that don't have a heart of faith.

Right? We've been talking about this as we've been going through the book of Hebrews that there's people who intellectually have faith.

They believe intellectually, but their heart is not in it. They do not truly believe that Jesus Christ died for their sins, was buried, and rose again.

They believe it intellectually. They have a shadow, but there's no substance.

And what we're saying is, is that true saving faith produces a life lived in faith.

It produces a man or a woman that has a heart of faith.

And we are told in verse 22 of chapter 10 to draw near with a true heart full of assurance.

I know we've been touching on this for a few weeks, but I want to read that verse again.

Hebrews chapter 10, verse 22. I do not want to let this escape us because this is the context.

This is what it's speaking about. Corporately it says, let us draw near with a true heart full of assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Essentially, we are given faith the moment our hearts are sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.

When you hear the gospel and God regenerates you, you are being born again. So, we have our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.

And we would pinpoint this, we would point to this as being the new birth, as our being born again.

We have been given faith to believe. We went from not believing to believing. In our first act of obedience, our living by faith, we have our bodies washed with pure water.

This is something that God has told us to do. This is not something we do to be saved. This is something that we do because we're saved.

We take upon ourselves the sign. This is speaking of the new covenant baptism.

So our being baptized points to the information of the gospel. The gospel being that God is reconciling the world to Himself and He is reconciling the world to Himself by and in and through His Son, Jesus Christ, whom

He sent to take on a human nature and to live the life we couldn't live and to take the punishment we deserve, was dead, buried, rose from the grave on the third day, and He is now at the right hand of the

Father, interceding for those that draw near to Him in faith. Our baptism points to His death, burial, and resurrection.

So the question is, in that context, are you drawing near to Christ in faith?

Is that something you believe? And it's something that you believe, and because you believe it, your life has substance.

Are you trusting? Are you believing? If you really want to know, if you really want to know how to have assurance of your salvation, just ask yourself, are you drawing near to God with a true heart full of assurance of faith?

Now, I'm trying to build tension, if you can't tell. I warned the guys this past week.

They were over at my house, around a fire, talking theology.

I told them I was going to build some tension. I said, why? Because the Bible's clear that the righteous shall live by works?

No, by faith. And so the hope is, is as we're going through this, we can understand what it means to live by faith.

So first I would ask someone, first thing I would ask is, do you believe?

Now I get more specific. Do you believe in the supremacy and the sufficiency of Jesus Christ? Is He greater than all things?

And is His sacrifice greater than every other sacrifice? Is Jesus Christ the

Son of the living God? I would ask, did the eternal

Son of God, like personally, I want to know what you believe.

Did the eternal Son of God take on a human nature? Jesus being truly

God and truly man, yet one Christ. Like, is that something that you really believe?

Did He, Jesus, as God, live the life that you could not live and as a man take the punishment that you deserve?

So this would be as substitutes. A lot of people, they talk about substitutionary atonement, dealing with the death of Christ.

They don't talk about the substitutionary life of Christ. Because in order to be justified, you need someone to live the life that you could not live.

I know a lot of our kids here, most of them don't go to public school, but some of them do. And I know

I grew up in public school. And in public school, if your teacher was absent, they would send another teacher who would teach in place of the teacher.

And that's what God has done. He has sent His Son to do what you could not do, keep the law, keep the covenant, and to take upon Himself the punishment you deserve because you could not keep the law and you could not keep the covenant.

Do you believe this? Did Jesus die on a cross?

Was He buried? And did God the Father raise Him from the dead three days later? You hear me proclaim it, but do you believe it?

Do you believe this? And second, I would ask, are you living by faith?

Are you living in such a way that your life points to Christ? As your baptism points to Christ, does your life point to Christ?

Remember Galatians 2 .20, I have been crucified. When He died, I died.

I have been crucified in the life that I live. I live by faith. Do your friends know that you're a

Christian? Does your in -group know that there's something different about you?

Now what you should be asking yourself is what does it mean to live by faith?

And again we've got to go to where it originated, Habakkuk 2 .4.

Habakkuk says, Behold His soul. It's puffed up. It's proud.

It's not upright. It is not upright within Him, but the righteous shall live by faith.

Now who in here is not puffed up in some way?

Let me ask you this. Any of you, you're so right within Him. If that's what it takes, we're all in big trouble.

But God, through the prophet Habakkuk, said, But my righteous shall live by faith.

So living by faith is not being in yourself perfectly moral.

Right? If that's what it is, then we fail.

You get in line right behind me. We fail. We're unable to do this.

If we claim to be righteous, and that's how the righteous is to live.

Again, this is how we are to live, but the standard is so high that we have to live by faith.

The book of Romans lays it out clearly that both the Jew, God's earthly covenant people, and the

Gentiles, those who are far off, are under the judgment of God because of sin, because of the law.

If you break the law, that is sin. The Bible is clear that all have sin, and because all have sin, and God is calling those who are far off to Himself, all need a

Redeemer. All have sin, all need a Redeemer. As we've been walking through Hebrews, I think it's been very clear that salvificly we cannot perform these good deeds to be justified before God.

And I would argue, nor can we perform these good deeds to further our justification. So there is no future justification.

If you're not justified now by faith, there is no future justification. There is no greater work that you can do to make yourself more justified.

You're justified by believing, by trusting in Jesus Christ. Salvificly we cannot do a good deed to be justified, nor can we perform good deeds to further our justification.

In order to be justified before God, you need your sins atoned for, and you need to be credited with a righteousness that you didn't perform.

And that's where the gospel comes in. We spoke about that a few minutes ago. Because through the work of Jesus, you and I are made right before God, and this takes us into how we can understand living by faith.

Being right before God means that you are positionally righteous before God.

So when you're justified, that means that you have been given righteousness because the substitute has come who kept the law and took your punishment in your place.

When you believe in him, you are positionally where you stand righteous before God.

So being positionally righteous means that you are in Christ. Now if you turn your attention to Colossians chapter 2, and hopefully

I can make this make sense to you. Look at verse 11, and we just want to focus on the in hims.

Verse 11, in him. So if you just stop right there and look at verse 9, it says, for in him, speaking of Jesus, look at the nearest sentence seated taken from verse 8, the last word is according to Christ, for in him,

Christ, Jesus Christ, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, speaking of him being truly

God and truly man. And you have been filled in him who is the head and the ruler of all authorities.

Now verse 11, in him also you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands.

So I believe that through this context that's speaking about the circumcision is his being crucified, dead and buried and risen from the dead.

By putting off the body of flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

And you, when you were dead in your trespasses and uncircumcision of the flesh, God made a life together with him, having forgiven us of our trespass and by counseling the record of death that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailed it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and the authorities by putting them to shame, by triumphing over them in him.

The righteous living by faith means that you are living in light of your being in him, in Christ.

Does your friends know that you're a Christian? Is there something different about you?

Galatians 2 .20, again, Paul says,

I have been crucified with Christ. I'm not the same. I've been crucified. When he died,

I died. It is no longer I who live. Paul says, Paul, it's no longer me that lives.

It's Christ living in me. And then he finally declares that the life that he lives in the flesh, knowing that he's still in this garment of flesh, that he lives by faith in the son of God who loved him and gave himself for him.

The obedience of faith is being in him, living your life in him, trusting in him, looking to him.

We're speaking about this after the meeting. It's how it is that we love our neighbor.

God gave us two ways. He gave us the fruit of the spirit and he has told us to forgive one another.

We are obligated to love one another, love, joy, peace, patience, the fruits of the spirit, and we're obligated to forgive one another.

If you wrong me, I am to forgive you. Guess what that is? That's the obedience of faith. That's the obedience of faith.

It's living as Christ has taught us to live. But it's not something that you can't.

It's just like the faith that you were given to believe. It's not something that you conjure up within yourself.

And hopefully you'll see it. I want to read to you from our confession.

This is speaking about chapter 16, good works.

And I just want to read chapter 16. So this will be page 34.

For those of you that want to look, I want to look at paragraph 2, 3, and 6 for the sake of time.

I think this is going to highlight what

I've been talking about. Paragraph 2, these good works done in obedience to God's commandments are the fruit and evidence of a true and living faith.

Through good works, believers express their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, and build up their brothers and sisters, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouth of opponents, and glorify

God. Believers are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, so they bear fruit, leading to holiness, having the outcome of eternal life.

Paragraph 3, their ability to do good works does not arise at all from themselves.

I'm going to read that again. Their ability to do good works does not arise from themselves, but entirely from the

Spirit of Christ. To enable them to do good works, they need in addition to the grace they have already received an active influence of the

Holy Spirit to work in them to will and to do His pleasure.

Yet this reason, yet this, excuse me, yet this is no reason for them to grow, hold on,

I lost my place. Okay, here it is.

Yet this is no reason for them to grow negligent, that word's hard for me to say, negligent, my stuttering, excuse me.

This is no reason for them to grow and negligent as if they were not required to perform the duties without a special mention of Spirit.

Instead, they should be diligent to stir one another up in grace of God that is in them.

Okay, paragraph 6, nevertheless, the believers are accepted through Christ and thus their good works are also accepted in Him.

So, your good works are not accepted because of you, they are accepted in Him. This acceptance does not mean our good works are completely blameless and irreproachable in God's sight.

Instead, God views them in His Son and so He is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, even though it is accompanied with weakness and imperfection.

So, your good works, my good works, my not being able to get that G word out, my tongue couldn't stick to the root of my mouth correctly, a stutter problem that I have, even that, in that weakness,

God uses it to build the body. Like, I have to believe that, right? You have to understand that no matter what it is, like the best work that we can ever accomplish is weakened by our flesh.

Your greatest work is a filthy rag, it's a garment of blood.

And if God does not see this work as being in His Son, being in Christ, He cannot accept it.

There's nothing good in us that we can please God. It has to come from faith.

You cannot keep the law to please God. Obedience must come from faith.

Believing in Jesus Christ, believing that all that you do, you're doing it by looking to Him.

I come boldly to God's throne of grace because I believe that I am in Christ.

If I did not believe that I was in Christ, we read it two weeks ago, I have to,

I cannot come because I fear, I should fear God in such a way because my body and my soul are going to be cast into hell.

We cannot approach God. I think it's 2

Thessalonians, or 2 Timothy 1, I can't recall, but it says that God dwells in unapproachable light.

You cannot approach God. Jesus says that no one can come to the Father unless they go through Him.

And then He also says that no one can come to Him unless they are drawn by the Father. We can't get to the

Father unless we go through Jesus, and we can't get to Jesus unless we're drawn by the Father. And we cannot approach

God because He dwells in unapproachable light. And so for you and I to think that we can come boldly before the throne of grace in and of ourself, we are stupid.

We're ignorant. We don't know any better. But yet we do.

Why? Because of the obedience of faith. He has told us we could. Whenever we pray, what is that?

That's the obedience of faith. We're praying to God because Jesus said, when you pray, pray like this, our

Father. That's the obedience of faith. We're approaching

God in faith. We're drawing near in faith. And that's why that verse

I read earlier from chapter 10, verse 22, where we spoke about the assurance of faith a few weeks ago, that the obedience of faith that we see in this book stems from the faith, hope, and love, that those who are positionally righteous before God, what they...for

those that are positionally righteous before God, what they do is they draw near to God with a heart full of assurance of faith.

They hold fast to the confession, to their confession without wavering. So you're drawing near to God because of your faith in Jesus Christ, because of what

Christ has done to you. You're holding to the confession that you have been born again and that you have taken the sign, that you are identified with Him.

And then they consider how to stir one another up to love and good works. So when we're gathered here today and we're considering how to stir one another up to love and good works, guess what that is?

The obedience of faith. Why? Because the Bible says not to neglect meeting together.

We do this because we are in Christ. And our doing this gives us assurance of faith that we are in Christ.

So we have the... Remember the thing where I did my hand, had a light, my hand projects a shadow.

I cannot grab my shadow. Like I can tell you that I have faith, but you can't grab my faith.

But you can see my life. You can see that tree that bears fruit.

And even that is the work of God. It's the obedience of faith. Point number two, the conviction of faith.

I said earlier, these two are going to go pretty fast. The word conviction can also be translated as evidence.

And we'll look at that real quick. So all of verse one, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction, the evidence of things not seen.

So that word conviction, again, can be translated as evidence of things not seen.

So your assurance, your being righteous, your living by faith is the conviction, is the evidence of things not seen.

Remember, I cannot see your faith, but I can see your life. You cannot see my faith, but you can see my life.

And my life is the evidence of what I say is true about me.

And the third point rose over into this point. So they're kind of mixed together. Point number three, the revealing of faith.

And we'll go ahead and read verse one all the way through three this time.

Now, faith is the assurance, is the substance, is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction, the evidence of things not seen.

For by it, speaking of faith, the people of Ode receive accommodation.

Remember, after we get through this, we're going to see the people of Ode. For by faith, we understand that the universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

So saying that what we see here was not made, you and I, trees, animals, creation was not made out of something visible.

The writer is telling us that what we see is the evidence of things that are not seen.

It's the same thing with our faith, our living our life with faith. It's all pointing back, stemming from creation.

Just like in creation, the things that are made, the things that you see, it comes from something that you cannot see.

Same way with your faith that you say you believe, and that's what

James 2 is about. Show me, you say you have faith,

I'll show you mine by what I do. There's no contradictory contradiction statements in the text.

It's living a life in faith. If you see a man lacking in food and daily clothing, what do you do?

Ho, go, be on your way, I'll pray for you. You say, hold on. You take off your shirt and you give it to him.

I mean, not literally, but you clothe him. You feed him. These are things that we're called to do.

And notice it's not the other way around. Notice that our, he says, the things that are seen,

I mean, the things that are not seen are evident of the things that are seen. That's what it's speaking about.

In order for someone to say they have faith, there has to be a life lived in faith.

It all stems from creation. Let's go back to Romans chapter 1. Let's go back to verse 16.

Romans 1, 16. Paul says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel.

For it, the gospel, is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

This is faith to the Jew first and also to the Greek. The gospel is power for salvation.

Power for salvation. For in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed.

Right here, I don't think a lot of people understand this part. From faith for faith.

From faith for faith. You have faith, you live your life in faith.

For faith, for it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

You say you believe, you prove it with your life. Right here, verse 18.

For the righteousness of God is revealed. Again, it's talking about our faith is being revealed. And it goes into the righteousness of God stemming from creation.

For the righteousness of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.

For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and His divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made so that they are without excuse.

He's linking our living our life in faith with creation. Now, let me ask you this.

Have you seen God? Don't say yet.

Have you seen Jesus? How about His death, burial, and resurrection?

Were you there? Kyle, were you there? Robert, was you there?

And yet you believe. You believe something scientifically impossible.

Right? We all do, right? How do we know this is true?

How do we know this is true? You know this is true. How do you know? You know that there's a God because creation declares

His glory. The things that are seen give evidence to the things that are not seen.

Right now, speaking about creation, Hebrews is saying this about our faith. There's no such thing as an atheist, only those that suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

I know there's a lot of people that give the illustration of a beach ball. When you hold a beach ball underwater, all you're doing is suppressing the beach ball.

Guess what? Eventually, that beach ball is popping out the water. You can't hold it under forever. There's no such thing as an atheist, just those that suppress the truth of God and unrighteousness.

Why? Because the things that are seen reveal the one who is unseen. Creation declares

His glory. Buildings declare the glory of builders. What is seen declares the glory of what is unseen.

We've never seen the man who built this building, but yet we know that there was a man who built this building because of the building.

And the writer, which I believe is Paul, writing in Hebrews, is saying the same thing with your faith.

You say you believe, your life will prove it. And what

I'm trying to let you understand is that if you're truly in Christ, you don't even have to try.

It's the Spirit that works in you. If the Spirit is in you, He who gave you faith gives you faith.

He who repented you repents you. The Spirit of God is in you.

If the Spirit of God is in you, you will live a life of faith. Now, we know that there's a

God because of creation, but there's no way to know this

God personally outside of Jesus. We spoke about that earlier. Jesus says no one can come to the

Father unless they come through Him. Now, today, if you are a

Christian, every one of us in here, we have the same experience. I mean, look at all of us.

We're all different. Outside of Christ, none of us would hang out. None of y 'all would hang out with me outside of Christ.

Let's be honest. I probably wouldn't even be on your

Facebook friends list. Like, it's that bad, right? Much less in your inner circle.

And yet, if we're in Christ, every one of us have had the same experience, and that same experience is what draws us together.

That we heard the gospel, and we went from not believing to believing. We've had that same experience.

That we were made right before God by what Christ done, and He gave us faith.

And so, to boil down this message in a sentence, your faith is the assurance.

And your assurance, your living your life in faith, is the evidence to others that there is a

God. Just like creation declares His glory, your life is to declare the glory of God, if you're a

Christian. And we'll pick back up on that next week. But if you're not, you know there's a

God. Creation declares His glory. And He has sent

His Son to reconcile the world to Himself. And if you die without being in Christ, there is no reconciliation.

The book of Hebrew declares in chapter 3 that today is the day of salvation. I would encourage you to put your faith in Christ and turn from your sins.

I'm available to anyone who wants to talk. After the service, Pastor Cal, Josh, we'd love nothing more to have a conversation with you.

Please join me in prayer. Father, Lord, we love you. Lord, we thank you for your grace and your mercy.

And we pray that you will continue to show us grace and mercy. Lord, help us to live what we profess.

We know that you have outlined that for us, that our life is to be one that draws near to you in faith, one that holds firmly to our confession, and one that gathers together to stir one another up in love.

Lord, I pray right now as you're preparing the hearts of your people to partake in the Lord's Supper, Lord, that you use this, even this, to grow us in grace.