Would you take your Bibles, please? Turn to Hebrews chapter one. Now, I know the notes say one through 14, but I don't want to do that. I want to just read one through four. One through four. This is the continuation of something we did last week. We didn't even say part two on there, but it's finishing, hopefully, what I started. And I mentioned it was a big task. Basically, I'm taking one of the great themes of Hebrews, and there's many of them, and trying to summarize from many places in the book of Hebrews this great theme about better things. Better things. So when the title says things are better, I'm not talking about world events as we see them. I'm not talking about prevailing attitudes today amongst the majority of people. I'm talking about from God's perspective what this world was like after Adam and Eve sinned, and when Noah got the job of building an ark, and surviving a worldwide flood, After the scattering of the Tower of Babel and the nation Israel and its many ups and downs, they were given the law. It kept them between ditches, but if you have a few moments sometime, just read the whole Old Testament and you'll find out Israel was forever failing as a nation. Some individuals didn't even know the Lord. They were just doing what they had to do because they're citizens, they had to. And other people really did love the Lord, but their service to him was broken offerings, failure and success, faith and doubt, struggles that I think we can relate to. But when Jesus came, things got better. We have a situation now with the New Covenant. And what I want to do here is I want to talk lightly, maybe, over a few things that were already said, but just from the book of Hebrews here. So that first page, I'm not going to repeat all that. I hope you'll read it if you hadn't seen it. And if you have, you might look at it a little more. But I'm going to read from Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 through 4. God who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets. hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. being made so much better than the angels, as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they." Boy, I love that. I love that. It's like looking at a kaleidoscope. You know, you turn those things and everything changes colors and shapes. Every time I look at this, I see more about this. This is an extremely timely statement. for young Christians, for Jewish people, particularly the believing ones. But in the past, God spoke to the fathers, and you get the idea of the old covenant, because that's, you know, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the 12 tribes, and all of that, and he used prophets. And he had a way of calling people prophets. I mean, even David, the king, was called a prophet. But that's how he spoke. And he spoke through human beings. And while they used their minds and their personalities, they were guided exactly and precisely by the Holy Spirit to say what they said. And Peter tells us that sometimes they didn't really understand what they were saying and writing. But I'll get to that later. Half in these last days, That's where our gong needs to go off. These last days. We're not talking about like recent headlines and Jesus is coming soon so these are the last days. It's been the last days since Jesus came. It's how momentous that he would come and satisfy the law and open up a kingdom with a gospel that pertains to both Jew and Gentile and makes them one. That's huge. That's huge. These are the last days, the age of grace, the church age. And after the church age, there's still some more things gonna happen on this earth. And again, I hope I can get to that too yet this morning, because I'm attempting to look at a huge picture on God's timeline, not the small timeline of our lives, but the last day since Jesus came, died for us, purged himself, for our sins and rose from the dead and sat down at the majesty on high." You know, that coincides with what Jesus said on the cross, it is finished. Something, a transaction between the Father and the Son was settled. And I'm going to borrow that phrase, we just got done singing, once for all. Now because of that, which is settled once for all, we have a lot of thinking to do. We have decisions to make, and I mean daily. There's initial decision to choose to believe and follow Christ, but every day you're challenged whether to follow Him or not, whether to make Him a priority or not. And so these are momentous times we're in. And so we know who we're talking about. We know he's appointed to be the heir of all things. It's all going to end with Jesus. He's going to subdue all enemies, subdue all kingdoms. Death itself will be subdued. And then we're told, and we looked at this, I think in December, 1 Corinthians 15, when he has put all things under him, then he presents the kingdom to the father and God is now all in all. And I don't know how much you think about it, but one day we're going to stand and see God. Our Bible tells us presently no man shall see God and live. No man has seen God at any time. And anytime you think somebody's seeing God, what they're seeing is the Son of God. in his preexistent state, and we call that a Christophany or a Theophany, but now he came in an actual human body. Previously when he showed up, and I know I said this, but get used to me repeating myself a little, but he wouldn't let people see his face. He put his hand over Moses' face and showed him only his back parts. Jacob is wrestling with the Lord. As the sun's coming up, he says, I gotta go. You can't see my face. Well, He came in a body, and we could see His face. As John would say in 1 John 1, our eyes saw Him, and we heard Him. Our hands handled the Word of Life. We could hold His hand, hug Him, or whatever. And He walked with them, and He ate with them, and He slept with them, and He did His ministry before them, and He counseled them. But it's very real. The way it's described to us, and I have to borrow from chapter 2, verse 9 a little bit, but he was made a little lower than the angels. Here he is, the Son of God. Matter of fact, verse 3 says, he's the brightness of his glory. If you think the sun's bright, then you're getting a confirmation when the sunlight travels to you. warms you and enlightens you and provides things for you. And just think, you know, how much power is there at the root source. And it's been able to be brought to us in a cooled down version that we can behold and benefit from it. And it says he's the express image of his person. There's different ways it's worded, but it all comes out the same. The exact expression of his substance, he is the representation of his nature. Jesus is the essence of God put in a human body. And you can't have all the attributes of God and not be God. So we're just not going to waste time trying to make Jesus less than who he is. But he lowered himself. Philippians says, he humbled himself. I'm told the Greek there means he emptied himself. I got my own little way of saying it, that he hung up his glory on the hall tree when he came to earth. And he subdued that. And he made himself a servant, a slave. And he submitted even to the point of dying on the cross. at the hands of his creatures, but by the will of God, he took our sins. And this makes this more amazing. And that's what I needed to hear when I was a teenager. I kept hearing all the time about Jesus dying and everybody's worshiping Jesus, but I didn't get the significance of that death because I didn't get the significance of who he is. So he was made a little lower than the angels so that he could suffer. And that suffering, we're told, completed the qualifications. See, Jesus is the God-man. Just pure God couldn't atone for sins, so just pure man couldn't atone for sins, but the God-man could. And the angels watched. One minute they're worshiping their creator, and the next minute they're saying, now he's a little baby, floating around in a womb for nine months. And look at that, they have to change his diapers. And that king wants to kill him, and they had jobs to do. And every now and then, the Gospels will tell you, angels ministered to him. But the amazing thing, we're told by Peter, the angels desire to inquire, to look into these things. Because their God became a man, and he was made less than the angels. He was vulnerable, but that's the path to a greater exaltation. Because as the God-man, He's been given a name that's above every name. At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow. Isaiah says, I am God and there is none else, and at my name they will bow. Well, guess what? He's just shared his glory with the second person of that trinity. It may be mysterious, but just take it for what it says. And Acts 4.12 says, there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. But the exalted God-man now lives forevermore, never to die again. He's at the right hand of the Father. He's coming to claim his kingdom on earth. He's coming to claim his own and gather them. We have so much to look forward to. But this is why it says Jesus was made better than the angels. He was not a created being that had to be made something. He is one who descended down, lowered himself, and matched all the qualifications needed to be the one who could take on our sins and replace us by He suffering for them instead. He paid a debt He did not owe because I owed a debt I could not pay. Okay, so that's very glorious. And Hebrews 2, 9, and 10, and Hebrews 5, 7, through 9, you come up with a couple phrases here. The captain of our salvation. Now in this case, Captain's referring to the highest rank. And he is the perfect author of eternal salvation. So we know who we're dealing with, or should I say who's dealing with us. Whatever Jesus is doing, it's come at a climatic time called the last days, the gospel age, the gospel's going forth, a kingdom is being caused to grow. It's a spiritual kingdom now, it'll be an earthly kingdom later, and after that it'll be an eternal heavenly kingdom on earth. Again, I defer to the sermons from last month in December. But then, The theme has so much to do with better, and I know some translations, they changed the word to superior, and I don't care. I'm gonna say better because for 47 years, that's what I've had to read, and that's what I believe. So, Jesus as a better high priest provided a better hope, a better covenant with better promises. Now, I just got a whole lot of the betters all lumped in one statement like that, but if you notice what I did, Last week, I basically started from Hebrews 2, and I went as far as Hebrews 12, and I spot-checked all these better things. The better priesthood, you see all those references there. Our better hope, which is an anchor for the soul, an anchor for the soul. I can get blown about by every wind of doctrine. I can get pushed by the waves of movement in society and what the pressures of life can do to me. The anchor holds me firm. And I told you about ships having four anchors. They throw off in the front each side and in the back each side. I get my starboards and my cupboards all mixed up here. But when each anchor is doing its job, that ship shouldn't go anywhere. And Satan wants to sift you like wheat. He wants to blow the daylights out of you. He wants to push and shove you. But the hope that Jesus has given us is not wishful thinking. It's an absolute surety. It's a knowledge that you can cling to and rely upon. It's an anchor for the soul. And when we look at the Old Covenant, and like I said, take a little time, read things in the Old Testament. But the writer of Hebrews is going to give you the benefit of a lot of things that take on new meaning. He doesn't tell all the stories like Psalm 106 will give you a real rundown on how Israel failed on and on and on and how God was patient and so forth. But the things about the priesthood, the sacrifices, things like this all take on new meaning. Compared to what we see today, the Old Testament's full of shadows. It's not crisp and sharp like today it is. We get a good idea of what is important today based on how important some things were made then. Hebrews is showing us the better meaning, the better fulfillment, I think it's Plato that described a man being chained in a cave, and above him was a parapet, okay? There's a little wall, and there was a source of light back there, and items were carried across the parapet, and the person chained to the wall could see across from him the shadows of those things. And that's all he ever saw, because he's been there all the time. One day they unchained him. They take him out of the cave and they show him the objects of which he had been seeing the shadows. And his first reaction is, these aren't real. Back there, back there's real. Now, I don't believe Plato was a believer, but Plato was given a certain kind of wisdom here. And you see the shock we're in today is people are used to religion. and all of its paraphernalia, its rituals, its forms, its buildings, and all of this, and human instrumentation. We're so used to that. Now we're dealing with Jesus in spirit and in truth. And to some people, it's not real. They want to cling to ritual and form and rites and patterns and traditions to see Jesus. As Hebrews 2 says, we see Jesus. Do we see Jesus? Do we see how much better everything He is? Things in the Old Testament were shadowy. Things in the Old Testament were full of promises. What I hope to get to today is that there are some of those promises that people of the Old Covenant never got to see fulfilled. But they believed anyways. Like using the North Star to guide your ship. You never get to the North Star. You'd be in trouble if you did, I guess. But you're heading the right way because the North Star is keeping you going the right direction. That's what this is all about. Looking unto Jesus, lest we become weary and faint in our minds. Okay. Behold the better transforming power of the New Covenant. We're going to talk about that a little better in a minute. But the old covenant, it only helped in so far as people walked by faith. Hebrews 11 is dedicated to that. But to actually have something new on the inside, a changed heart, a changed mind, this is the better covenant because it has power. John says it like this in John 1.17. The law came by Moses. For the law came by Moses. And that's fine. Moses didn't do anything wrong. He did what he was supposed to do. But grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And that's what we need desperately. And that's what we need to rely upon so much. The law is like a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. It can show us our failures. It can show us what God's like. It can show us what God wants. But it can't help us to satisfy God. But the grace of Jesus, grace and truth, has a transforming power. And that's what we have to rely upon. Many times, Christians falter and flounder because they have Old Testament mentality. They're trying to go backwards instead of forward. And so, in Hebrews 12, we were told to trust the blood that speaks better things than that of Abel. Cain, his brother, killed Abel, buried him, and God walked in the cool of the morning and called for Cain. And he said, where's your brother? And Abel said, am I my brother's keeper? Cain said, am I my brother's keeper? And God used a metaphor on him. The blood of your brother cries from the ground. There wasn't literally a physical voice. So God's showing how to use metaphor here. That blood is crying out, injustice has been done! Justice must be fulfilled. Unrighteousness needs to be condemned. And God dealt with Cain because of what the blood of Abel was crying out. But Jesus' blood speaks better things than that of Abel. Yes, he was wrongfully killed. An injustice happened. But instead, this is a time for forgiveness to those who repent. Forgiveness and mercy. That's where you want to linger. You don't want just what's fair. You want God's mercy or you and I will never make it. Okay. That is my semi-long introduction and review of some very important highlights. There's lots of references there if you feel like studying it more deeply. But today, we touch the subject, Jesus is a better sacrifice to God for us. One of the unique things of the priesthood of Christ is, Christ as a priest offers himself. There's two aspects of the priesthood in Hebrews. One is the one who counsels you, ministers to you, mediates for you. And in chapters 2 and 4, you have that mentioned. But then by the time you get later on in the book, now you've got him making the offering, but the offering is himself. Now, the old priesthood couldn't survive that one. They can't be your priest and die for you, but Jesus could. As we said last week, he wrote a will, he died, made the will in effect, and then he rose from the dead and was the executor of his own will, and that means everything is going to happen the way he wants, the way the Father wants. But in the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, the sacrifices were repeated over and over and over. Jesus, once for all. Let's go to Hebrews chapter 9. Read verses 22 to 28. Hebrews chapter 9, verses 22 to 28. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission. Remission is the opposite of admission. If you pay admission, they let you in. Free admission, they let you in. Admit. Remission means to send away. And so, our sins are sent away by the blood of Jesus. It was, verse 23, it was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. So in other words, animal blood, repetitiously sacrificed, a postponing of God's judgment of sins for those who were faithful. God was officially giving them a reminder, but it wasn't the actual cleansing that lasts. That's why they had to do it often. This is all a pattern of something that's heavenly, something that has eternal effect. And so a better sacrifice, guess who that is? Yes, for Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. You know, maybe you never thought about this, but Jesus didn't go to the temple to be sacrificed. They wouldn't have done it. Human sacrifice? That would be an abomination. God sacrificed His Son, and He used a lot of worldly people to do it, and He hung Him on a tree or a cross. The Old Temple couldn't handle the sacrifice. It wouldn't have been right. And so, this is a pattern of heavenly, eternal things. He now can appear in the presence of God for us. And verse 25 says, Not yet, nor yet that he should be offered himself often as the high priest enters into the holy place every year with blood of others. For then he must have suffered since the foundation of the world. Can you imagine every day Jesus having to die for people if that's all this death means? No, this death means much more. So for that he must often have suffered since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Emphasize that word once. Verse 27, and as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for him, shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Transaction settled. Again, from the cross, Jesus said, it is finished. The business that the father had for his son to do, that is settled. Reconciliation. Technically, the word atonement is not in the New Testament. The word reconciliation replaces it. Those who were enemies are now made friends. able to accept us as friends, members of his family. In his holiness, he couldn't have done that before. But we are made accepted in the beloved, Ephesians chapter 1 tells us. And so, we take a peek at Hebrews chapter 10. I've been advertising chapter 10 for quite a while this morning. About time I get to it. Okay, verse 1. For the law having a shadow of good things to come, That shadow business being mentioned again. And not the very image of the things can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered, because the alt-worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore, when he comes into the world, he says, Sacrifice an offering thou would not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure." In other words, God's not satisfied fully by these things. Then said I, as if Jesus himself were speaking through the Psalms here, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Above when he said sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou would not, neither had pleasure therein, which are offered by the law, Then said he, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He takes away the first that he may establish the second. Okay, the Old Testament system is going out the door. And that would make the Jewish people very angry. But that is fading away. That's done away. But you see, it's about that body. Forget all the goats and bulls now. Then said I, Lo, I come to do thy will. He takes away the first that he may establish the second by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." Okay, that's where I got all my wind from. If I had nothing else but Hebrews 10, 1 through 14, I guess I could have preached this message. But God has a way of saying things over and over, and if you notice, so do I. This is more like a summary, a cliff's notes for the book of Hebrews. Many other themes in the book of Hebrews, but this is one of the greatest. The acceptable sacrifice of Jesus Christ once for all. And I have a whole bunch of other wonderful verses that back it up, which I'll let you study. I hope you will. But I will make note, if I hadn't done it recently, I'll do it again here. John 129, John the Baptist says, Behold, the Lamb of God, and he was pointing at a man, not a real lamb, the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. Which means it's not going to be done over and over and over this time. Those sins are actually taken away. We're not just remembering them again and again and getting our consciences mindful. This is going to be taken away. What good news? And just in case you've never caught me explaining the word propitiation, but 1 John 4 10 will mention again, as Romans 3 does, that he is the propitiation for our sins. And even newer translations, a lot of them use the word, but it has the idea of taking away God's wrath, satisfying God's righteous demand. His wrath has been turned away. Reconciliation has been accomplished. We now can be friends. we now can be friends. I don't know if there's any Chronicles of Narnia fans here. You don't have to read those books if you don't want, but if you like literature and you like to see things in allegory and parallelism, it can be fascinating. And there's this little dwarf-like creature who's heard about Aslan. Aslan is a lion that represents Christ, and he's heard about him, doesn't believe in him. To him, it's like the tooth fairy or something. And the children who had been transported out of our world to help in Narnia come face to face with Aslan, and they were hoping to. And here's this dwarf-like guy, bemuddled, and the lion just blows a breath, and this dwarf goes up in the air, and he's twirling him around. And he's yelling and yelling. He says, do you believe in Aslan now? I think I do. And then the next question is why I even said this. Do you want to be friends? He said, let's. So he put him down gently and he had another follower now. But that just makes me think about people who spend so much energy fighting the idea of God. They fight something they don't believe in. And then when God makes himself real to you, the first thing you want is to be friends. And Jesus died on the cross and rose again to reconcile you so you indeed can be friends. Okay. Now we have the subject of Jesus has brought us something better. Something better. Sounds a little vague, doesn't it? Well, let's go to Hebrews chapter 11. And it's really hard not to highlight all these great stories, these biographical sketches of different people from the Old Testament who exhibited what faith looks like. They're commended for their faith. And yet, there seems to be something missing that is now being fulfilled. So, I get to the summary statement at the end. Hebrews 11, verses 39 to 40. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise. God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. Now let me explain a little and then I'm going to read to you from the NIV. I checked a lot of translations on this, and the NIV was especially touching to me. But let's just look at this. God, of course, gave lots of promises, and God kept His promises, and people were encouraged to trust Him. And because of their faith, they did great things, amazing things. And they didn't have all this Bible to go back to. Their ability to trust the Lord was truly a grace of God. but they didn't always, well, they hardly ever got the big picture. And there were things mentioned that project to a future where there's a glorious great kingdom. It's described in one place in Hebrews 11 as Abraham looked for a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And good Christian people, Intelligent Christian people differ so much on the nature of some of these promises. Some have supposed that now that the gospel is to the Jew and the Gentile, that a whole host of promises about Israel specifically are now canceled or transferred over and adapted to the church, and that basically this is it. And I really believe, along with many others, that the destiny of Israel and the church are intertwined They have uniqueness, and yet they have something very similar. And that as much as God has plans for us in the future, He has also plans for our future Israel. Now, some very dear people don't agree with me, and I would like to be nice about it, and I hope they will too, but sometimes people really get upset on this subject. But what we're saying here is that they got a taste in their mouth for something that they never got to bite into. I mean, all that time Abraham wandered around trusting God, believing God, the friend of God, he never got any more land than just place to bury his relatives. But he walked all over it and believed by faith. And how it looked for Isaac and Jacob, I mean, it didn't look good. Eventually they get into that land and things don't go well either. Like I said, you need a few more minutes than what I've got to look at Israel's story and see why it's so much better today. There is a particular promise. One of them could be found with what I think we read last week in Genesis 12, that Abraham's seed would multiply like the stars of the heaven and the sands of the sea, and all the families of the earth would be blessed by him. That's a great promise. And there's been fulfillment of that to some degree, but it's not done yet. It's absolutely not done. But we have this in Jeremiah 31. Last week I read it to you from Hebrews 8, 10 through 12. This time, let's go back to the original statement, just so you can see how the writer of Hebrews is absolutely quoting the Bible. Jeremiah chapter 31, or I'll read real carefully for you if you don't wish to turn there. Jeremiah 31, verses 31 through 34. Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. And here I say that covenant has not been canceled. The house of Israel, the house of Judah, they have something to look forward here that hasn't happened for them yet. A portion of Jewish people in the last 2,000 years have tapped in on it, and Gentiles with them. We are like an early fulfillment of something that's yet to be completely fulfilled. Prophecy does that a lot. There's a near and a far fulfillment. But let me get back to what it is, not just who it's to. Verse 32, "'Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break. Although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts. and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Now this is amazing. I told you before that in Israel of old times, some were believers and some weren't. And you actually would find yourself evangelizing your fellow Israelites. You could tell some that were drifters, some that were half-hearted, and others are full of enthusiasm. And they say the enthusiastic are always somewhat of a trial to those who are not. But they would say, no, you need to really believe this. You need to do this with your heart. You need to love the Lord. You need to trust the Lord, not just do the minimum to get by. And I could just see one Jew trying to reach another Jew. And I mean, even when Peter was talking to the Jewish people in the day of Pentecost, he called them brethren, men and brethren. This is what Joel has been talking about. And he talked to them in that brotherhood that Jews would have. But the covenant is now that instead of observing what's carved on a stone out there, it's now actually engraved in my heart. It's a part of me. James calls it the engrafted word. It's attached. It's a living relationship and it's fruitful. Well, this is something better. Israel as a nation has yet to see this happen. Israel is back in the land, but they're not back with the Lord. And any newscast will prove that, if you look at things. But the fact is, God's not done. Romans 11 says God has not cast off His people. And I asked you before that a study of Romans 9, 10, and 11 would be very profitable background to what I'm talking about here. Now, we as Gentiles, along with other Jews who believe the gospel today, are first fruits of this promise being fulfilled. But the kind of statements like Jeremiah made, and fully what God said to Abraham, these things were far off. They could see him maybe as a North Star. And as I already said too, Peter said that the writers, the prophets, didn't understand what they were saying. Not fully. They would have liked to have known. Even the angels are looking into what Peter says. But we're talking about a perfect relationship. If you walked up to me and said, how's your relationship with God? And I said, it's perfect. You might think I'm pretty smug. Who do you think you are? Because normally people say, oh, I need to pray more. And I don't go to church enough. I don't read my Bible enough. I don't witness enough. Woe is me. That's not what I'm talking about. Your relationship is perfect because Christ made it. He's perfect, and He's the perfect author of eternal salvation, and He established it, and He has perfected forever them that are sanctified by that once and for all offering. I mean, we're seeing this here, how much better things are. And we have a relationship with the Lord. He's established a perfect standing with God, so I'm not condemned, but He also remains in me. He lives in me to help me. He'll never leave me nor forsake me, so if I go astray, He tugs at me. You know how those dogs have to have those electric collars? You don't see anything, but all of a sudden the dog goes like that and comes back. It's kind of what I am. There's some electric collar inside me, and I get it once in a while. Okay. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens. So here we are having a perfect standing because of Jesus' payment on the cross, having an ongoing, fruitful, living, intimate relationship because Christ lives in me. I am crucified with Christ. The day I receive Christ, it's like I died with Jesus, but as He rose from the dead, I rise from the dead to walk in newness of life. And so, With that indwelling of Jesus, with that promise, the Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance. It's like the earnest money, the down payment. And you know, with a down payment or earnest money, you lose the money if you back off on the deal, which means the Holy Spirit would have to go to hell with us if we didn't get taken to our heavenly home. That's how serious God is about this. He wants us in heaven more than we do. He thinks about it a whole lot more. He paid a whole lot more price for it than you and I ever could pay. Now, the last statement I made here in this paragraph, it says, we need only Christ. We need only Christ. And I thought to myself, well, I could have said, we only need Christ. Sounds good. But I decided, no, this is better. We need only Christ. We don't need the religion that says Christ plus, Christ and, or Christ but. We need to cut the fluff and be in, our relationship depends on only Christ. And that's why we observe the Lord's table, because it's only Christ by which I stand. Only Christ who works in me to will and to do of His good pleasure. That's what we need. That's what we must preach. That's what we must breathe. You know, in John 4, 10 and 14, Jesus says, I give living water. If you take this water that I give you, you'll never thirst again. You'll never need anything else, anybody else. In John 6, 35, it says, I'm the bread of life. If you eat me, so to speak, you'll never hunger. And he mentions again, you'll never thirst. Jesus has thought of everything. Jesus has provided everything. He's God's perfect man and man's perfect God. Now, as much as I want to juicily tie into those last two bullet points, and I'm not going to make a third thing out of this, so I'm going to compromise. You read Colossians 2, 6 through 10, and you're going to come up with two very important things. Don't let anybody sidetrack you and divert you from Christ alone. And the second thing is, you're complete in Him. But let's go to 1 Corinthians 2. I'll go out on a bang here. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 9. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 9, quoting from Isaiah. Paul says, but as it is written, eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him. Now taking that just as it is and taking it how I would see it in the book of Isaiah, it would be very clear to me that there is such transcendent glory and pleasure and joy awaiting the saints of God that nobody could describe it. We don't even have a body that could handle it. We have to have a new body before we can even get there and appreciate this. And that's good. But Paul takes the liberty here to go on and make another application of this. And he says in verse 10, but God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit. Now, folks, what he's talking about is the new, better covenant things. Whether you believe Paul wrote Hebrews or not, I won't fault you, but the fact is he's totally in sync with everything Hebrews teaches, and he knew all about it. But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man can know the things of a man except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God, which is in us, I might add. You know, you may have a nice dog that will look at you sympathetically while you're talking to it and turn its head and lick your face and go, you know, and you really think you've got a bond there, and you do, but that dog didn't know a thing what you said. They can read your face, read your tone of voice, all that, and that's good, you know. And I was going to say you may have a cat, but I doubt it, that will look at you lovingly and sympathize with you and try to soothe you, but that's another issue. But the fact is, the dog doesn't have the spirit of a man to really get what makes a man agonize, a man or a woman agonize, be concerned, or feel loss. So yeah, the spirit of man within us, that's why little children from other nationalities could get together on a playground and have a good time. They have the same spirit as kids. And it's amazing what they can do. And even sometimes adults can get along. with people they don't understand and so forth. But to really know God and have that interaction, you've got to have God's spirit in you. That comes with salvation. And God's spirit searches all the things of God. God's spirit searches all the things of you. Romans 8, 26, again, fits in here. And it says, verse 12, now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. This is our job. As a pastor, my job is to help you discover fully who you are in Christ, and your spiritual gifts, and learn how to appropriate them, and apply them, and develop them, and use them. We're like a whole bunch of adults that got some piece of technology delivered, and we don't know what it is, and we're looking for a teenager to explain it to us. We don't understand the manual, and so we're fiddling around. And we may have a device that could do a hundred things, and we can only do two things. So great salvation. There's so much to it. Who are we in Christ? What do we have? Every good thing that's in us. Philemon 6 says we're to acknowledge every good thing that's in us in Christ. And the Spirit of God is there, and through the Word of God, is going to show you what you already have. What you may do. What you may develop and focus on. But you've got to quit focusing on other things. Okay, so verse 13, for which things we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Now, verse 14 says, the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." But, verse 15 says, he that is spiritual, that is, not Navy SEAL, higher level Christian. No, he that is born of the Spirit. If you're saved, you're spiritual. Trust me. And he that is spiritual, has the Spirit, can, my Bible says, judge all things. The idea is discern or understand. Yet he himself is understood, discerned by nobody else. We don't make sense to others. We look crazy. We're fools for Christ, yet wise in Christ. The world can't figure out what's making us go, and we're trying to tell them, right? But now, verse 16, who has known the mind of the Lord that we may instruct him? Which the answer is obvious. Nobody can instruct the Lord. He's got it all, yet. We are not sitting here dumbfounded with our hands in our pockets saying, oh, well, I guess I wasn't meant to know anything. Ignorance is bliss. Now, here's one of my favorite words, but, verse 16 in the middle of it there, but we have the mind of Christ. Okay, that is direct result of everything the book of Hebrews is trying to teach you. We don't just have access to a place where we can converge and have sacrifices done and do forms and rituals and festivals. We have the mind of Christ and it goes with us everywhere we are. It will stay with us till our last breath. Until the day in which we are brought before the Lord, we have the mind of Christ. Now the popular phrase is that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. I'm going to accentuate that. The mind of Christ is a terrible thing to waste. Let's use it. Let's use it. Let's take the pleasure and the benefits of Him residing within us and let Him teach us and mold us in this book till we become conformed to His image. Father, thank you so much for letting us have this time to evaluate the better things. Things are truly better than they've ever been before. Maybe not for everybody else in the world, but yet while they live, we offer them a gospel that offers these very things to them. Help us to realize how good we have it. Help us to realize the wonderful grace and power of God by having Jesus in our hearts and having his mind. Show us how to activate those things, Lord. And give faith where it's needed to everyone in this room right now. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.