Confidently Confessing Christ

INTRODUCTION

A famous Methodist evangelist named Peter Cartwright was known for his uncompromising preaching. However, one day when the President of the United States, Andrew Jackson came to Cartwright’s church, the elders warned the Pastor not to offend the President. When Cartwright got up to speak, the first words out of his mouth were, “I understand that President Andrew Jackson is here this morning. I have been requested to be very guarded in my remarks. Let me say this: “Andrew Jackson will go to hell if he doesn’t repent of his sin!” The entire congregation gasped with shock at Cartwright’s boldness. How could this young preacher dare to offend the President of the United States in public. After the service, when Andrew Jackson met the preacher at the door he looked at him in the eye and said, “Sir, If I had a regiment of men like you, I could conquer the world!”

For hundreds of years, the Jewish people followed the dictates of the Law as handed down by Moses. They commemorated different events with feasts and festivals. They journeyed to the temple for various sacrifices, with the greatest being the Day of Atonement.

For hundreds of years, the Jewish people lived in fear and uncertainty.

They did not perfectly keep the Law. When they were unfaithful to it, God punished them.

And when they did keep it, their heart was far from the Lord.

Jeremiah 2:5 NASB95

Thus says the Lord, “What injustice did your fathers find in Me, That they went far from Me And walked after emptiness and became empty?

Jeremiah 3:10 NASB95

“Yet in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in deception,” declares the Lord.

Yet, after hundreds of years, God took on human flesh and was born in Bethlehem.

Jesus the Christ. The Light of the World. The Bread of Life. The Good Shepherd. The one and only to keep the entirety of the Law, in perfect obedience. The one given a body to be the final sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Read Hebrews 10:14-18

Some individuals have sought to rid Christianity of blood language, speaking only about Jesus’s love instead. However, the blood of Christ is integral to Christian theology. His blood divides the sheep from the goats, but unites those it saves. If we lose the language of blood, we lose the gospel.

The hymn “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood” by William Cowper states beautifully:

There is a fountain filled with blood

drawn from Immanuel’s veins,

and sinners plunged beneath that flood

lose all their guilty stains.

That is exactly what the author of Hebrews was communicating in chapter 10, verse

18. The stain of sin has been removed because of the blood of Jesus.

It is this fact that ought to bring boldness to our preaching. It is this fact that ought to cause us to preach Christ crucified.

As we continue in chapter 10, we come across three expressions that, if followed, will help us to Confidently Confess Christ.

Each of these expressions is bolstered by what we see in Hebrews 10:19-21.

Read Hebrews 10:19-21

The word new in verse 20 is used only once in the New Testament. Its original meaning alludes to something “freshly slaughtered.” Jesus is the new way, the freshly slaughtered sacrifice, who opens the way to God. Jesus’ death conquered death and gives life. His death is the only way to life that is everlasting.

Since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, and He is our great high priest…

LET US DRAW NEAR (v. 22)

Read Hebrews 10:22

Unlike those who partook in the Tabernacle/Temple worship in the Law, we who are in Christ can boldly come near to God.

Yet, we can only do so with a true heart in full assurance of faith. That is to have a bold confidence that God has provided full access to His presence through Christ alone. It is a genuine, without hypocrisy or ulterior motive, faith.

That is to say, we do not simply confess or “believe” for the sake of “fire insurance” or the “get out of jail free” card. There is no prayer of words that you repeat that activates this ability in your life.

Rather, it is about believing and confessing the gospel.

Romans 10:9 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.

We have confidence to approach the Lord because of what we believe and in whom we trust.

When we come to God in faith, our hearts should not only be sincere but also sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

This imagery is taken from the sacrificial ceremonies of the Old Covenant. The priests were continually washing themselves and the sacred vessels in the basins of clear water, and blood was continually being sprinkled as a sign of cleansing. But all the cleansing, whether with water or blood, was external. Only Jesus can cleanse a man’s heart. By His Spirit He cleanses the innermost thoughts and desires.

James 4:8 ESV

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Spurgeon

Is this not a delightful thought: that when I come before the throne of God, I feel myself a sinner, but God does not look upon me as one? When I approach Him to offer my thanksgiving, I feel that I am unworthy in myself, but I am not unworthy in that official standing in which He has placed me. As a sanctified and perfected thing in Christ, I have the blood upon me; God regards me in my sacrifice, in my worship, and in myself as being perfect.

LET US HOLD FAST (v. 23)

Read Hebrews 10:23

To hold fast the confession of our hope is the human side of salvation and sanctification. It is not something we do to keep ourselves saved, but it is evidence that we are saved.

We are to lay hold of Christ and never let go, even in the slightest. No persecution, real or feared, ought to lessen the passion we have for Christ.

God is faithful to provide strength and stamina for endurance. In His strength, we hold fast.

Hebrews 10:23 (Amplified)

Hebrews 10:23 AMP

So let us seize and hold fast and retain without wavering the hope we cherish and confess and our acknowledgement of it, for He Who promised is reliable (sure) and faithful to His word.

One way that we can do this well is to keep in mind what Jeremiah writes in the book of Lamentations:

Lamentations 3:22-24 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

The Christian holds on not by his own tenacity, but by God’s faithfulness. We will persevere until the end because God does not abandon his children. God has proved faithful to his promises throughout Scripture

LET US BUILD UP (v. 24)

Read Hebrews 10:24-25

We cannot have confidence and full assurance of faith apart from the church. We cannot endure in isolation. Each Christian desperately needs the body of believers for encouragement.

Every opportunity of coming together and enjoying fellowship in faith and hope must be welcomed and used for mutual encouragement.

Unfortunately, sinful tendencies have infiltrated the walls of the church building. Every Sunday morning, the Gossip Train chugs in, delivering its passengers for the next wave of judgmental glances and opinions, and faithfully delivers them home or to the next stop for further evaluation of those thoughts.

It’s no wonder that churches, for years, have been best known for their hurtful/hateful attitudes, instead of their gracious/merciful outstretched hands. The reality is that we are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world,

choosing to be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

The way that we do this is both by assembling together and encouraging one another in our testimony to the world.

Let us gather together on Sunday morning. Let us meet together at Aroma Joe’s or Local 130.

Let us talk to or text one another words of encouragement and affirmation.

Those who neglect assembling together cut themselves off from the very means whereby Christ feeds, assures, and protects his people. To say, “I can do this alone,” is to defy the very command of Christ

CONCLUSION

We have confidence to approach God through Jesus Christ’s priestly work. Because of this confidence, we can encourage one another to grow in assurance as we anticipate Christ’s return.

Let us draw near to God and be cleansed.

Let us hold fast to our confession of faith.

Let us build up each other through our gathering.

Read 2 Peter 3:8-11