Eternal Redemption & A Clear Conscience (part 2) - [Hebrews 9:11-14]

If you met someone who was discouraged and tired, what would you tell them?

Maybe they were spiritually discouraged. How would you encourage them? Let me read a portion of a letter from one pastor to another.

I'll just give the first names. It's from Pastor William to Pastor Jim. Dear Jim, I'm through.

Yesterday I handed in my resignation to take effect at once, and this morning I began work for the land company.

I will not return to the pastorate. I think I can see into your heart as you read these words, and behold, not a little disappointment, if not disgust.

I don't blame you at all. I'm somewhat disgusted with myself. Do you recall the days in the seminary when we talked of the future and painted pictures of what we were to do for the kingdom of God?

We saw the boundless need for unselfish Christian service and longed to be out among the men doing our part toward the world's redemption.

I'll never forget that last night before graduation. You were going to the mission field and I went to the church and we had brave dreams of usefulness.

You've realized yours. As I look back over these years, I can see some lives that I've helped and some things which

I've been permitted to do, and some of them worthwhile. But sitting here tonight, I am more than half convinced that God probably never intended me to be a minister.

If He did, I'm not big enough and brave enough to pay the price. I'm tired. I'm tired of being the only one in the church for whom real sacrifice is expected.

I'm tired of straining and tugging to get Christian people to live like Christians. I'm tired of planning work for my people and then being compelled to do it myself or see it left undone.

I'm tired of dodging my creditors when I wouldn't need to if I had what was due me. I'm tired of the vision of a penniless old age.

I'm not leaving Christ. I love Him and I still try to serve Him. Judge me leniently, my old friend.

I certainly can't bear to lose your friendship. Yours, William." What would you say to that man?

What would you say to him while he was going through this? The book of Hebrews says this, which

I think is apropos. Consider Jesus who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself so that you might not grow weary or faint -hearted.

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

William, I want to lift your eyes via the Scriptures to the person and work of the

Lord Jesus Christ, the antidote for discouragement, the antidote for being spiritually tired, the antidote for blaming other people in ministry as a pastor, is to once again have a good look at the object of your faith, the

Lord Jesus Christ. And if you're tired or if you're discouraged or maybe you've been there or maybe you know other people who are that, are in that condition, let's now as a congregation reopen our

Bibles to Hebrews chapter nine and see the cure for spiritual discouragement.

And His name is the Lord Jesus Christ. I love this book. It really is, it's like a,

I don't know how to describe it in any other way except some kind of protein shake for the soul. It's like, you know, vitamin

C for spiritual rickets. It just gives you that oomph again where maybe nothing in your situation, in your circumstances change, but your view changes, your perspective changes, and you're reminded again of who the

Lord Jesus Christ is. As you know, this book is a sermon.

It's in written form, but it's really a sermon. And you sense that when you read it.

You feel that as you go through it. And what I love about the book of Hebrews, besides exalting

Christ, He exalts, this writer does, Christ in a way that is elegantly done with great rhetorical flair, with sophistication.

The most important thing when it comes to preaching or teaching children the Bible, or VBS or anything else is what you say.

That's the most important thing. But since that is so important, how you say something about that important thing matters.

And the book of Hebrews in this sermon, He doesn't just back the truck up and tell you this is who Jesus is, but He does it with flair.

He does it with style. He does it with an art and never loses the core doctrines of the

Lord Jesus. The way the Puritans used to talk about preaching, they talked about it with, preach with light and preach with heat.

Now, what do they mean? Preach with light, that is show the people from the text what the

Bible says. Through your preaching, as it were, shine a light on the text so they can see that better.

That's light. And what's heat? Heat is preach with enthusiasm and passion and preach like it might be the last time you ever have the privilege to preach the

Bible. And whether it's from this pulpit, our dads at home, our moms and everything in between, we wanna preach with light and heat.

What do these discouraged people need? They need a good message with light and heat when it comes to the person and work of the

Lord Jesus. J. Gresham Machen said, vastly more important than all questions with regard to methods of preaching is the root question as to what is said.

That is the key issue. But since it is so important what we say, how we say it matters.

Besides light and heat, some of the Puritans also talked about preaching as logic on fire.

And that's true. You have the logic of scripture through a frail man preaching the word of God.

And that's what we have here in the book of Hebrews. This is a great sermon. Hebrews 13 .22,

it says, I appeal to you brothers, bear with my word of exhortation for I have written to you briefly.

It's a sermon written down. And he wants his listeners to pay close attention.

And you can hear it's sermonic form with things like this chapter two verse five, which we are speaking.

Chapter five, we have much to say. Chapter eight, in what has been said. Chapter nine, we cannot now speak in detail.

Chapter 11, and what more can I say? You can hear this oral delivery of this pastor, this preacher, wanting to remind these dear people who have gone through all kinds of persecution and more is coming tomorrow.

How do you bolster their soul? Do you just say, well, come what may, do you act stoically?

Or do you tell them again through the scriptures in an elegant way, in a sophisticated way, in an erudite way that Jesus Christ is

Lord and friend. No matter what your eyes see, you can trust him.

The old philosophy saying is not correct. Seeing is believing. No, believing is seeing according to Hebrew.

So chapter nine, verses 11 through 14 is our passage for today.

Part two, as my wife says, and she's not here, so I don't owe her the dollar. She's serving in nursery.

She's preaching with light and heat back in the nursery or junior church. This is the church of the two -parter.

So this is part two. But I don't know about you, but sometimes I get discouraged and sometimes

I get down and sometimes I look at things and I think, you know what, I just can't like re -motivate myself and just say, well, you know,

I'm gonna just watch Jocko videos and Marine videos and they'll tell me, you know, get out of bed, set your alarm earlier, et cetera, et cetera.

That might work short term, but it's not a spiritual solution. So our outline last week that will continue this week, six reasons you can be thankful for Jesus Christ, the work of the high priest that you might endure even though you're tired, even though your circumstances are horrible.

We saw last week, did we not, number one, that everything changes when Jesus shows up.

Here we have this first sentence in verse 11 and 12, one single Greek sentence, which some people call the heart of all of the book of Hebrews.

But when Christ appeared, verse 11, verse 12, he entered, he is the one that the spotlight is upon and it is his work.

And he has earned and he has merited and he has garnered for his people all kinds of good things.

And he just uses that in a loose sense, does he not here? When Christ appeared as a high priest, verse 11, of the good things that have come.

Everything that Jesus has earned for you, Christian, is one of these good things, from forgiveness to redemption, from praying for you, from making intercession on your behalf.

The Messiah has come, the old system with its bells and smells and knives and blood is all gone.

And Jesus has these good things that last eternally for his Christian people. And you can begin to see what he's already doing in this sermon.

Remember Grandma Evie, Kim's grandmother who raised her. And she would always say, Mike, when your gaze is on the

Lord and your glance is on your problems, you are thinking rightly. But when your gaze is on your problem and you just glance at the

Lord, there's going to be trouble in your life. It's a matter of perspective. And here, he's wanting to have

Jesus here and you see your problems in light of who Jesus is versus the other way around.

You don't just say, well, my focal point is Jesus. He's here, he saved me from my sins.

I think he's coming back someday. He said he was. But I've got all these issues right here glaringly, but this writer won't let you make this wrong perspective.

And Jesus did this by what's the text say, through the greater and more perfect tent. If you'd like to know what that means and how it's not the

Lord Jesus's body, verse 24 gives you the answer. It's just his entry into heaven for Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God.

Can you believe it? On our behalf. He dies on the cross for sinners.

He triumphs over the grave. And then now he has a ministry, an ongoing ministry of prayer and intercession for people.

Not only that, we saw the second reason to be thankful found in verse 12, eternal redemption was secured for you by Jesus.

No matter how bad your problems are, you have eternal heaven waiting for you. Verse 12, do you see it at the end?

Securing eternal redemption. Now, some people think Jesus took his own blood with him up to heaven.

And even people like the Revised Standard Version would translate it that way. He's not making a one -to -one correspondence that the priest would go into the holy places with blood and now

Jesus has to take his own blood. He's not saying that, but it was through his blood. It was by his blood, by his vicious death that included bloodshed,

Jesus makes it to heaven. The holy place used to be on earth.

Now it's in heaven. And this cannot be undone. I mean, who can say to God, what you've done,

I'll undo. You ever read Job chapter 38 through 42? Sometimes when

I think I'm getting too big for my britches, I like to read Job 38 through 42.

We have all these questions for God. What about this? What about this? Why, why, why, why, why are these things happening?

And God lets Job run for quite a while before he says, Job, I'd like you to sit down and now

I'm gonna ask you some questions. If Jesus has paid for your redemption, he's obtained it.

Remember the English word Eureka? I found it, I discovered it. By the way, that is the

California motto, Mr. Cooley, Eureka. Did you know that? Okay, I've found it.

We didn't find our salvation, he found you. It seems like from our perspective, oh, I believed and I trusted and I read the

Bible and I got down on my knees and I said a prayer and I got convicted. That's all true, but he secured it.

And then that happened to you, not as the cause, but as the result, as the effect.

He obtained eternal salvation. Aaron's blood wouldn't work. It had to be

Jesus' blood. Revelation 1 .5, to him who loves us and released us from our sins by his blood.

The finality of Christ's death, the supremacy of Christ's death. And see, for me, as I'm preaching and I already think about this,

I'm not thinking about all my problems anymore. But now you say, but now, Mike, that you said that, now

I'm back to thinking about them again. So let's get back to the text. He entered once and he obtains eternal redemption by the eternal spirit, verse 14, by and with an eternal inheritance, verse 15.

Eternal, eternal, eternal. Not only that Christian, number three, as we saw last week, that even defiled people can be washed and cleansed by the

Lord Jesus. That's how great his work is. You see the language in verse 13, the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer.

Do you see verse 14, how much more? You can hear a preacher say that. Well, if the ashes of the heifer took care of defiled people, how much more does the blood of Christ?

And what they would do back in Numbers, this isn't Day of Atonement stuff. If you ever touched a dead body back in Israel's day, you'd have to have a heifer, you would burn the heifer, have some ashes with the heifer's ashes, and then some water, and you kind of create a paste and you would become ceremonially cleansed.

It says in Numbers 19, and a man who was clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place.

That's where you store them. For what? And they shall be kept for the water, for impurity, for the congregation of the people.

It is a sin offering. You touch a dead bone. Well, most bones are dead.

You touch a bone of a dead animal. Some bones are dead.

Some bones are really dead. Let me just read the text. That makes it better. Then the clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on the furnishings and on the persons who were there and whoever touched the bone or the slain or the dead or the grave.

And the clean person shall sprinkle it on the unclean. So here's what he's saying.

In the old days, if you wanted to be clean, you needed a heifer, you needed the ashes, you needed the hyssop, you needed the sprinkling.

You think we want to kind of go back there? I mean, people think it's weird that we have tape on the floor of this congregational auditorium.

How about the heifer blood, bones, ashes and hyssop?

Why go back? Because the next time I accidentally touched a bone of a dead thing,

I'd have to redo it. And so the writer is saying, listen, if that took care of ceremonial uncleanliness, you

Christian, if you trust in Christ, you're clean. The worst thing you ever did is forgiven.

The worst thing that you did and you want to forget about, but you can't, forgiven. Is there any sin that can't be forgiven by the blood of Christ?

That puts too much weight on how bad the sin is and not how great the Lord Jesus' death is for sinners.

The vilest offender who truly believes is forgiven, true or false? That's true.

Not just because it's in a hymn. And all those lies that people hear as they're contemplating

Christ, lies from their own flesh and Satan, God could never forgive you for that, aren't true.

No wonder Jerry Bridges said, even for Christians, preach the gospel to yourself. And it means that you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood for righteous life.

It means that you appropriate again by faith the fact that Jesus fully satisfied the law of God and that He is your propitiation and that God's holy wrath is no longer directed toward you.

That is good news. Number four. The fourth reason found in verse 14.

The eternal Spirit of God confirms and equips Jesus for this offering.

This is a Trinitarian idea here. Verse 14, do you see it? How much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal

Spirit, capital S, different name for the Holy Spirit here, He's called the eternal Spirit, which

He is, offered Himself, this is Jesus offering Himself at Calvary, through the

Spirit's power and anointing and direction without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living

God. The Father, the Son, and the

Spirit, three Persons, one God, are all involved in creation, are all involved in the consummation of the world, are all involved at Calvary, are all involved at the resurrection.

And here the focus is, this Spirit, the Holy Spirit, He, the third Person of the

Trinity, helped Jesus offer Himself at Calvary as a sin offering.

The Spirit of God anoints Jesus when the dove comes down at baptism.

And He continues to help Jesus, the man, God -man, yes, but the man, through His temptations, through the transfiguration, through the death of Christ, through the resurrection, every aspect of His ministry as High Priest, the

Spirit has anointed the Lord Jesus. That's what He's talking about here. God, one in essence, yet in three

Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And of course, the greatest thing that could ever happen is

Jesus dies on the cross and the Spirit of God is helping Him, not just in the temptation in the wilderness account, but also at Calvary.

That shouldn't surprise us. The co -eternal God, the

Father and the Son, the Spirit is involved with offering Jesus.

Now, take a look at the text again. Sometimes I think we read the Bible too fast. It says He offered

Himself. Every other sacrificial animal, did it offer itself? Oh, by the way, here's my neck, go ahead.

Every other animal was dragged in. And I've told you before about my school trips when

I was a kid in Nebraska and we would go on field trips and we would go to the Jocelyn Art Museum and we would go to,

I don't know, where do kids go? Here in Lemon Street, you go to the plastic factory, I guess, plastic museum,

Johnny Appleseed Museum. Well, they took us in the 60s to the stockyard and animals know what's going to happen to them and they are pulled in to get slaughtered by force.

They just don't go, well, okay, I think I'll just meander on in. Of course, you're thinking now,

I now understand Abendroth's psych profile. You're exactly right.

And he knew it wasn't just a death. This isn't just another

Jew gets crucified, 10 ,000 Jews get crucified. He offers Himself knowing that for the first time ever,

He doesn't call God His Father because the Father, as the language tries to help us preserve this mysterious event, the

Father turns His back on the Son and the Son says, as He's assuaging the wrath of God, my God, my

God, not my Father, why have you forsaken me? He knew that was coming and still

He offered Himself. How could a man do that?

Jesus was a man. How could a man yield Himself and offer Himself up to that?

It had to be through the Holy Spirit's power. The Eternal Spirit, what a great name for the

Spirit of God, the Eternal Spirit helps Jesus, the spotless victim, become the offering.

No wonder His sacrifice was so great. He offers Himself. Does this sound familiar to you?

I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. Just as the

Father knows me and I know the Father, I laid down my life for the sheep. For this reason, the

Father loves me because I laid down my life that I may take it up again. He's not just giving

Himself, thinking I'm gonna die, He gives Himself knowing that He's going to die a sacrificial death, assuaging the wrath of God.

He offers Himself willingly. Spurgeon said, what a splendid word. Did He offer

His blood? Yes, but He offered Himself. Did He offer His life? Yes, but He specifically offered

Himself. The entire Christ was offered by Christ. He offered Himself.

Spurgeon said, you cannot put it so strongly by the use of any other word. Paul says that, does he not?

Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. Peter says that He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree.

He offered Himself to give His life a ransom for many by the

Eternal Spirit. Now, no matter what's happening in your life, the Trinitarian God is going to keep you to the end.

And if He starts a good work, He'll be faithful to finish it. Not only that, number five, you have a conscience that's cleansed or exonerated.

This is the fifth reason you can be thankful. Do you see what's happening down in verse 14? Purify your conscience.

Now, I don't know if you know this or not, but there's something in America called the conscience fund. Have you ever contributed to the conscience fund?

The conscience fund was created in 1811 for people who cheated on their taxes and cheated the government for money.

And you could just send in the money anonymously to clear your conscience. Someone asked, was it tax deductible?

The answer's no. But they have a conscience fund. Did you know in 1884, the

New York Times talked about a person from Massachusetts who reused a 3 -cent stamp.

So they sent in 9 cents to the donation. Sometimes pastors receive deathbed confessions and then out of the money that that person has, the pastor helps facilitate money to the

IRS. Sometimes that happens. Some ladies, to assuage their consciences, have made handmade quilts in order to settle their tax bills.

But the most interesting one to me is about sincerity and the importance of a clean conscience.

Real letter. Dear Eternal Revenue Service, I have not been able to sleep at night because I cheated on last year's income tax.

Enclosed, find a cashier's check for $1 ,000. If I can't sleep after that,

I'll send you the balance. If you've got to go kill animals every year, what's your conscience going to be like?

How about if Jesus pays for every one of your sins? They're blotted out, they're remembered no more, they're forgiven.

They're as far as the east is from the west, cast in the bottom of the sea, thrown behind God's back. You are forgiven.

Christian, I don't care what you've done in your life or yesterday or this second. Christian, you're forgiven.

God holds nothing against you. There's no wrath for you, Christian. Wrath should only motivate you that the wrath is going to your unbelieving friends so you'll evangelize.

Never for you, because Jesus the high priest took your place. He was your advocate.

He was your mediator. And no matter what happens to you, you have no wrath. You say, well,

I can't unforget what I already know. That's true, but the guilt, the stain has been forgiven by the

Lord. He doesn't see it. So why go back? I mean,

Judaism was made by God, ordained by God as a temporary kind of stepping stone to get here.

What if you come from a religion that's not even biblical, not even Judaism, that says all these things that you have to do to get your conscience cleansed?

Why are you running back there just because you've got problems? You know, if I'm not a Christian, maybe if I went back to my old ways,

I'd have fewer problems. Don't do it. Don't quit the ministry.

Don't get so tired. Whatever the case is for discouragement, when you have this kind of high priest and mediator, he's doing the how much more again.

Luther said this, this means that a man is not bitten by the recollection of his sins and is not disquieted by the fear of future punishment.

And even if your conscience is still bugging you when it should be cleared, you don't have to pay for what your conscience thinks it owes.

Why go back to the old system? Clean conscience. That word cleanse there,

I think you'll find it interesting. It'll help you understand the text better. It's where we get our word catharsis, to purge, to be clean.

If there's filth, it's cleansed. It's used of the

Lord Jesus' account with the leper. And behold, a leper came to Jesus and bowed down to him saying,

Lord, if you're willing, you can make me clean. That's the word. It's used in 1

John. If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

Two verses later, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and what? Cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So we have this conscience that God has given to us and it's the second highest court in the land. Highest court in the land, the

Bible. Second highest court in the land, a conscience. And he says the Lord Jesus offers clear, clean consciences for people, no matter what they've done.

Some people call the conscience the principle within. Some call it the rudder of the soul.

On a more humorous note, conscience, someone said, is what makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does.

I thought that was interesting. It doesn't stop you from sinning, but it doesn't let you have fun when you do.

I mean, if you've got a still small voice that talks to you, it's named conscience. John Trapp said, conscience is

God's spy and man's overseer. I like that. But how can you get a clean conscience?

You have a high mediator that should clear your conscience and it's one and done, not over and over and over and over.

And then lastly, number six, because of the Lord Jesus, now you can eagerly serve him.

Do you see it in verse 19? There's lots of reasons we should be faithful and continue to the end and strive as we focus on the

Lord Jesus. But in light of his high priestly work here, we're able to serve the living God.

Verse 14, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. It's not like, hey,

I've got a pure conscience, I'm done. No, I have a pure conscience and now I can serve. I can serve the

Lord. I can serve his people. Cleansing isn't the end, service is. And that word service there, it doesn't just mean kind of grunt work service.

It means priestly service. It means ministry service. It means Christian service. Man's chief end is to glorify

God and enjoy him forever. And this is part of it, serving the Lord. Now think about this for a second.

What does the text say as I look at it again? Purify your conscience from dead works.

Did you know everything that I did before I was a Christian and everything you did before you were a Christian and everything that all the unbelievers do, no matter how good they are for humanity, they're called what?

According to this passage, dead works.

They're not with the right motive. They're not for the right reasons. Everything they do.

And I'm glad because of common grace that some people who are bad really do good things. Remember, I think it was

R .C. Sproul. I wish I had a chalkboard up here. I can remember him writing down bad good, good good, good bad, and bad bad.

That's a good sermon right there, isn't it? What's good good?

It's a person who's good in God's eyes, justified, who does good deeds.

Bad good is somebody who's a Christian and they do deeds that aren't good. They're bad. That's easy for me to say.

Bad bad is wicked, unregenerate people who do awful things. And good bad is when unregenerate people who aren't believers still do things for other people.

But do they count one iota for any kind of credit in God's eyes?

No, they're dead works. This was our life, dead works. And the problem is they're dead works for a living

God. The world is running around doing all kinds of things that from the perspective of eternal life mean nothing.

Think about how they're running, running, running. Think about how I was running, doing all these things, and they don't just count for nothing.

They count for less than nothing. I mean, that's why it's so hard for an unbeliever when you talk to an unbeliever, for you to say, you know what?

I was right where you are, and I'm actually not any better than you are or anything like that. But just for you now to think about you and your

God and your maker, everything that you've done in your entire life has counted for nothing but sin.

Isn't that hard to take? That's hard to take. But I've been helpful, but I've gone to church, but I've done this, but I've done that.

And I've done this with my wife and the kid. It's dead works. But once you trust in this high priest, what you do for him, even though they might be small things, even though they might not be with totally great motivation, they're good works done to the

Lord. And you can be busy about those things with the attitude of ministry like a priest would have in the

Old Testament, except now it counts. Everything the unbeliever does without Christ in mind, trusting

Him counts for nothing. It does not serve the living God, but everything on the flip side that does reference

Christ counts. Friends, if you've got a conscience that's getting you, it's hard to go serve.

But if your conscience is clear, then you say, you know what? I'm gonna have to walk by faith because even though I might think about this residually,

God says, I'm cleansed. I can have a free conscience, a clear conscience, and now I'm just gonna go serve other people.

That's the idea. In the middle of all their persecution, he was trying to tell them that to serve. Bondage is over, go serve people.

I think that was Luther's problem when he was working through all this as a Roman Catholic. Can I find the grace of God or do

I just have to keep doing things? I have to just keep taking care of my own conscience.

It won't let up. So this is a good opportunity for me to talk about service as a

Christian. Since your justification is secure, serve.

Since you can't lose your salvation, serve. Since you're secured and you have a conscience that's clear, serve.

Not because you'll earn your salvation, but because you're saved. I read a while ago that there's some evangelical exercises that the church jumps through.

And then they give the kind of calories that are commensurate with what these

Christians do. Jumping to conclusions, that's 200 calories according to this little chart here.

Dragging your heels, 175. Making mountains out of molehills, that's worse, 500.

Adding fuel to the fire, 150. Tooting your own horn, 25. And this one

I thought was the most amazing kind of evangelical exercise with calories included. Throwing your weight around.

50 to 500, depending on how much of your weight you throw. When you look at Jesus, the high priest, you see a servant, do you not?

And then you watch Him serve, and then now He says, because I've saved you, I'd like you to serve

Me. Not because you keep your salvation that way, not because you earn your salvation, not because that will please

Me more, but because you're My son, I would like you to act like My son and serve. You can just see it everywhere in the

Bible, in light of our salvation, serve. 1 Thessalonians 4, finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the

Lord Jesus that as you have received from us instruction as how you ought to walk and please God, just as you actually do walk, that you may excel still more.

Since you've been saved, serve. And if you're serving, keep serving. What would

I tell this pastor who had enough of the people and had enough of himself? It certainly wouldn't be quit.

I'd remind him of the Lord Jesus. I'd remind him of serving the living God. Paul said,

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me because He considered me faithful, putting me into service.

I would remind him of the commands to Israel. It is the Lord your God you must follow and Him you must revere.

Keep His commands and obey Him. Serve Him and hold fast to Him. I would remind him of the

Scripture that says, worship the Lord your God and serve Him only. I mean, if you're not okay with God, I can see how service won't work because I'm not gonna serve other people when what if I die and go to hell?

That's the point. If I'm gonna die and I will, and there's an afterlife and God takes account of my iniquity and He counts what

I've done against Him and He's seen if I don't love Him properly and love my neighbor and I've gotta settle the score one day,

I'm gonna spend all my time and focus on how do I settle the score. Hey, two sacraments aren't good enough.

Let's have seven. Going up my knees on glass, maybe that will help. Is there anything a person wouldn't do not to go to hell?

This is how religions are born. But since that's all taken care of, I now can turn from the one side of the commandment table, the 10 commandments that talk about how

I worship God to the other side that talks about, I can serve other people because I have no fear of going to hell.

I have a divine example, the Lord Jesus, who said in John four, my work is to do the will of Him who sent me and finish

His work. And you look at Jesus. He falls asleep in a boat serving people.

He goes without food. It cost Him His life. He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross.

No wonder that's the launching point for Paul when he said, each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interest of others.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Harkens back to the days when the coolies were in the

Bible study. And I remember this quote that someone once told me. If the Lord Jesus Christ was physically right in front of you now, would you serve

Him? Response, with all my energy and heart. Jesus said,

I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. Service.

So many of you congregation serve each other. You don't just do it underneath this roof. Would I say roof?

Roof? Underneath these roofs? You do it elsewhere.

You don't have to do it here. But if you're a Christian, you serve. I'll tell you what not to do.

I'll tell you, you don't just show up last second on Sunday. I mean, maybe some of you have to work or you have to drive this out the other.

I know there are exceptions. But if you show up last second and leave the second the church is over and you don't do anything else for the body of Christ for the rest of the week, you don't understand this.

And by the way, repentance is for you. And you can begin to do this right away to serve people.

And you go, well, I wish it was Jesus in front of me because at least he's sinless. The people I have to serve now at church give me problems.

I get it. But this is what our Lord says. Even in heaven, there's work and service.

It says the lamb will be in the city and his servants will serve him. No wonder

Paul said, I urge you therefore brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

Dear congregation, so many of you serve. Thank you for that. It shows.

Remember this one? Thomas Platter was a follower of Zwingli and he wanted to learn

Bible languages so much. The problem was he was a blue collar worker and he had to work all day.

So how do you study Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek at night if you work all day? You know what

Platter did? Thomas Platter, he put sand in his mouth and kind of chewed it at night when he studied because if you chew it too hard, it's the dentist.

If you chew it too soft, I don't know what happens. One of the reasons why

I like to have Evan and the Bowmans and the Smiths and some of our missionaries here because I think about what would

I do to serve the Lord? An African missionary asked if he liked his missionary assignment.

He said, and I read it in light of this letter by that pastor, do I like my work? No. My wife and I do not like the dirt.

We have refused. We have a reasonable refined sensibilities. We do not like crawling into vile huts through goat refuse.

But it is for a man to do nothing for Christ. God pity him if not.

Liking or disliking has nothing to do with it. We have orders to go and we go. Love constrains us.

That's the idea. You're forgiven. So you can serve. First Corinthians 15 58.

Therefore, my dear brother, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the

Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in. When the

Lord has graced you, even though you're guilty, the response is gratitude.

God, thank you. And I want to serve the people. So you dear saints who serve, thank you.

Excel more. You dear saints who haven't figured it out yet. There's plenty to do because there are a lot of hurting people and things that need to be done for the sake of the

Lord. Isn't this why you're made? Why did we not hold

Alyssa and Trey underwater last week when they made their baptismal profession? Well, Scott didn't do it because A, it's his daughter and B, he's not strong enough to keep

Trey down. We are his workmanship created in Christ to do what?

Good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. They're ready and waiting for you to do.

I think a good response to this sermon should be, God, thank you. I don't have to pay for my sins. Thank you for the

Lord Jesus Christ securing my eternal redemption. Thank you he offered up himself for me. Thank you that he prays for me.

Would you help me have a better attitude as I serve? And would you, if I don't have a ministry, give me a ministry, help me to be motivated to serve you.

That's a good response. And I think those kinds of people will then see the

Lord Jesus and not have to write a sad letter like this. Let's pray.

I thank you Father for our time and your word. The Lord Jesus, the greatest example of service.

I think of the Lord bending down and washing feet. Father, help us at this church, not to be busy just to serve, not to just have things to do, but it's an honor to serve you.

It's a privilege to serve you. Thank you for letting us do that. I pray for our dear church.

While you've proven here that it doesn't mean a church is a building or a parking lot, there are people and so help us to love one another.

I pray if there are issues between people, that there might be lavish forgiveness. I pray if there's issues in marriage, that there would be sacrificial love.

I pray that if there's issues with people in the church and leadership or with me, we would have those things resolved.

We are so insignificant. Our world is so insignificant in light of eternity and in light of your glory, help us to bow our knee and to humble ourselves and realize there's something so much more greater than our lives.

And that is serving the Lord Jesus with our lives. And I pray this in Christ's name, amen.