The Only Reasonable Response to Christ Finished Work.

Take full advantage of all that we have in Christ.

Christ finished work demands a response of faith that is fully assured.

John 3:13 ESV

No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

Think about this the curtain in the old temple. On one side stood men, and on the other side dwelt the Shekinah Glory. Once Christ came the veil was torn and Jesus became the curtain though which we enter into the Holy Place. Jesus being the God/man laid hold of both. In His divinity He laid hold of God, and in his humanity he lays hold of His brothers and He brings the two together.

Christ as the God/man has whose body was torn like the temple veil, has both laid hold of God by His divinity and laid hold of man by taking our nature. And now he has removed the wall of hostility between us.

Ephesians 2:13–16 ESV

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Do you remember last time we spoke of the Roman Catholic council of Trent (1545-1563) that anathematized made accursed anyone who did not hold to mass as the propitiatory re-sacrifice of Christ. That same council declared that "believer's assurance of the pardon of his sins is a vain and ungodly confidence".

Cardinal Robert Bellarmine perhaps the most predominate Catholic theologians of the 17th century called assurance of the believer "a prime error of heretics."

1. Quoted in J.C.Ryle, Holiness (Banner of Truth Trust ed., Edinburgh, 2014), 139

If our confidence and assurance is in our self, that is our own merit or in anything else for that matter then we have every reason to doubt, but if our confidence and assurance is in Christ, then we have every reason to boast not in our selves but in the one who promised and is faithful.

“I once over heard someone say out loud. I just want to go to church when I want to go.” The problem with that statement is that there are too many “I’s” and not enough “we’s”.

Christs finished work demands a hope that is unwavering.

Hope, as Calvin says, is the child of faith and “it is fed and sustained by faith to the end.”

Since our hearts have been purged of our sin, and it no longer clings to us as it did before, we are free to cling on to and hold fast to hope.

Think about this hope, it is not a private, hope, it is not a hope that is silent, it is a hope that is confessed. This is a stark contrast to those who say that you can have your religion just don’t bring it into the public square. You can worship all you want at home, but don’t bring it into your politics or into the public square.

Romans 10:9–10 ESV

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

Think about it the world is not silent about their religion of death. If their hope is in their sexual liberation and their ability to chose their reproductive rights, Their mantra is sexual liberation and freedom to slaughter your offspring at will. They offer their children as sacrifices at the temple of Sexual Autonomy. This is their mantra their hope of freedom and hope of being authentically human as Carl Truman describes it, in his book “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.”

But our hope our is not in such things but in Christ who dies and lives for us that we might be set free and liberated from such an evil conscience.

BUT we must CONFESS it, and this more and more in our culture will land you into trouble. Think about it in the context the Hebrew believers here were under tremendous pressure, to keep quiet about their faith. Maybe I will skip the meeting this Sunday. I might get into trouble just best not to make any waves or draw attention. It would definitely be easier to get along if we did. You wont run into trouble, the authorities wont bug you. But the moment you identify with those Christians there, the moment you confess your faith in Christ is the moment you have a target on your back.

Certainly this passage has illusions to baptism the inward sprinkling of the heart and the outward washing of the body.

1 Peter 3:21 ESV

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

This verse does not mean that Baptism saves us. Its not the washing away of dirt that saves us but rather such is an answer to God (that’s what appeal means) for a good conscience. In other words it exactly like our text in Hebrews what is the response of Faith, the removal of sins and the cleansing of the conscience the answer is obedience the public profession and association with these people the church. We are basically saying I belong to God and therefore with these people.

For some Muslim countries where Christians are persecuted, they say that Baptism is the point of no return. That is the moment you have left the Muslim faith and belong to the Christians.

When we neglect the meeting with God’s people, we are guilty of at the very least the sin of neglect of the Lord’s Supper, and participation in baptism whether our own or others. These are are called ordinances for a reason they are not optional for the true genuine believer. If we as individuals neglect these things we do so to our own harm and the to the larger body.

What is the hope that we look the hope that we are to encourage one another with? The hope of Christ’s return. Every day that passes we are one day closer to the hope that we look to, and we have no time to loose. There are no shortage of things to get discourage by, and depressed about, no shortage of things to keep us mindlessly entertained, and distracted from what is really important.

Christs finished work demands a love that stirs others up.

We pay attention to people who are a thousand miles across the continent, and neglect the people who are right in front of us. I remember years ago I was so saddened. We sat down at a restaurant, and I was watching this one family a father, mother and 2 kids. Every single on of them was on their phone, and did not speak one word to the other the entire meal as far as I could tell.

I really doubt that any of us are going to get to heaven one day and say, I wish I would have spent just a little more time on my phone or watched one more episode or played 5 more minutes of that game. But one thing we might say… I wish I would have payed more attention to my brothers and sisters in Christ.

I wish that I could tell you that I have got this thing figured out, that I never get distracted and that I never struggle with the same things. But I cant.

“Technology is a great servant but a cruel master.” Doug Wilson

To think hard, to consider, these things don't help us do that they do the opposite. We need to use our mental capacity to contemplate and think hard for more than 5 min about how we can serve the body and encourage those who are struggling, and those who are weak, to help them to keep on in the faith.

Just about everything in our culture today tries to keep us apart. But we will never fulfill the thing written here is we keep our distance from oneanother.

1 John 5:1 ESV

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.