You can turn your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 2. Let's pray. Oh, dear Father in heaven, I pray. God, please, would you move in our hearts today. God, sin has done horrifying, terrifying things in us, God. We don't even realize it. Oh, God, please have mercy on us. Help us this morning, God. Open our eyes, Lord, to the truth, the truth of spiritual things. God, deliver us from evaluating things naturally and evaluating things with our own human understanding. God, I pray that your spirit would move, that our lives would be radically altered by your word today. that we could not live the same after hearing what we hear today, God, through your word, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. There's a fallacy today that says that you can be a Christian without living at the cross, without having the cross being a part of your salvation. And I want to make this point very clear today, and this being the emphasizing point of the whole sermon, as we're going to see is what he's saying here, also in Hebrews 2, that if you have not had an experience at the cross, an experience with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, you are not a Christian. That's what it means to be a Christian. That's the very essence of what it means to be a Christian. is to have an experience and to be in union with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This whole fallacy of just, well, I can agree with the doctrine, I can agree with what somebody says, I can raise a hand, I can walk an aisle, and this is what makes me a Christian, is a mockery to God. It is a mockery to God's Word. And the Bible strongly speaks against it. If you have not had a life-changing, radical experience at the cross, you are not a Christian. It's just that simple. The Bible lays it out so clearly. If your life is not about Jesus Christ and what He has done for you on the cross, and your life does not revolve around that, you know nothing about the cross. You know nothing about the cross, because when a man has an experience of the cross, his life is radically altered. And that's what it means to be a Christian, as we're going to see in these verses. In these verses in Hebrews, it's hard to separate this portion, because there's one flowing thought going from verse 5 to verse 18. So what we're going to do is, some of these verses are overlapping. And so we're going to read verses 7-15 as the text we're going to go through today. Although this is all one portion, verses 5-18. So we're going to mainly focus on verses 11-15, but you can't really go to those verses without reading 7. Let's look at 7. Thou madest Him a little lower than the angels. Thou crownest Him with glory and honor, and had set Him over the work of thine hands. Thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet, for in that He put all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that was not put under Him, but now we see not yet all things put under Him." That's speaking of man. Verse 7 and 8, speaking of the redemption of man. It's not speaking of Christ, it's speaking of men who are redeemed. Verse 9 shows us how it's possible. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor. That he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man. For it became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation, perfect through sufferings. for both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all one." That's the key statement. "...for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church while I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, behold, I and the children which God hath given me For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." If you go back to verse 7 and 8, he's speaking of man. Verse 7, man crowned with glory and honor. Man, in verse 8, having all things put in subjection under His feet. But we don't see that. We can't see that with our physical eyes. God has given His redeemed people all things, and all things are in subjection to them. But what do we see? Verse 9, but we see Jesus. We see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels. For what reason? for the suffering of death, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man. And as we read these verses, we see this common theme of death. In verse 9, it says that the Lord Jesus was made lower than the angels. For what reason? For the suffering of death. Do you see that? For the suffering of death. But the suffering of death was not the end. It was simply a means to get to the end. The end was that he would be crowned with glory and honor through death. For we also read in verse 14, if you look at verse 14, that statement in verse 9 that says for the suffering of death is directly connected to verse 14 at the end of the verse where it says that through death he might destroy him that has the power of death. That is the devil. The end was that he would be crowned with glory and honor through death. We also read that in verse 14. It is interesting that God declares in Genesis 2.17, But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou shalt eat thereof thou shalt surely die. Sin has incurred suffering and death upon the human race by the decree of God. And now, at the same time, God in His sovereign providence uses suffering and death to be the means by which men and women would be saved. And as we read earlier in the song in Romans chapter 6, if you remember Romans chapter 6, In verse 5 it reads, For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection. The likeness of His resurrection is the likeness of His eternal body that He's in right now. And those believers, those who have been regenerated, born again by the power of the Spirit of God, have been planted in the death of Jesus Christ. That word planted means permanently united in His death. For what reason? Death is not the end either. That we would be brought into His resurrection. That we would have the resurrected bodies. That's our ultimate hope. That's our ultimate salvation. That's ultimately what we're hoping for. And not a hope that's a blind hope, or a negative hope, but it's a hope with great confidence that we have. But those who are not planted in his death will not experience the ultimate resurrection or the ultimate point of our salvation, which is the resurrection of our bodies, to be in the same resurrected body that Christ is in. It's what it means to be in union with Christ. It's what it means to be saved. There's nothing else. There's nothing else that means to be saved other than to be in union with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's what it means to be saved. It doesn't mean to repeat a prayer. It doesn't mean to have an experience. It doesn't mean Any of that. It doesn't mean to agree with the Bible. It doesn't mean to say, well, the Bible says it, therefore I'm putting my confidence in the Bible, therefore I'm saved. What it means is to have an experience with Jesus Christ at the cross, and to be permanently united in His death, and to be permanently united in His resurrection. That's what it means to be saved. And if we have not had that experience, we are not saved. Mark it down. That's what it means to be saved. That's what it means to believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This whole fallacy that you can just agree and just live your life some other way outside of the cross and outside of the power of the resurrection is what's bringing millions of people to hell. what's bringing millions to hell. And it's no different than what the Catholic Church is doing. Anybody that preaches that is not preaching anything different than what the Roman Catholics are telling people. They're okay because you did this, you did that, you did that, you're okay, you're saved. Anybody that's preaching that type of message is leading people to hell. The only salvation there is in the the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. And it's in that union. Look in verse 11. It says, For both he that sanctifies and they that are sanctified are all one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them his brethren. To call them his brethren. We see that the that he is not afraid to call them his brethren. This all of one, what is this all of one pointing back to? What is the context of this all of one? Look in verse 9, For it became him who by all things, and by whom all things, in burning many sons into glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through prosperity? Perfect through making everything in your life better? No, perfect through suffering. We are one with Christ in His sufferings. Look at verse 9. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor. We are one with Christ, how? In the suffering of death. We are one with Christ in suffering. There is no Christianity without suffering, without suffering, Without suffering with Christ, there is no bodily resurrection for the believer. There is none. Those who are one with Christ, suffer with Christ. They have had an experience at the cross where their life is over. Their life is over. My life is done. My desires, my rights, my wants, my comfortability is over at the cross. That's where it ends. And if you have not had that experience in your life, and if those you know have not had that experience, they don't know anything about the cross. The cross puts an end to your life. It's a sham that says that the cross is a free ticket to heaven without losing your life. It's just that. It's a sham. It's making market. It's making merchandise out of the cross of Jesus Christ. That's what it is. To say that you can have a free ticket to heaven through what Jesus Christ has done on the cross and not have an experience where you die with Him is marketing. It's making money. It's making merchandise. out of what Jesus Christ has done. And I'm not going to sit here and stand here and not speak against it, because it's everywhere. It's everywhere. It's in almost every church, in almost every one. And I'm very moved today by it, because it's taking what Jesus Christ has done, what my Savior has done, and it's making merchandise out of it. If you tell people they can have a free ticket to heaven, without identifying with Christ at the cross. But there is no resurrection without death. This resurrection, also speaking of our glorified bodies in eternity, which is again evidenced in our resurrection in the life we live now, through regeneration, through being new creatures. Therefore, as we get into verse 11 of Hebrews 2, we see that this all of one which he speaks of, the believers' union with Christ, For this is salvation. And outside of the union with Jesus Christ, there is no true salvation. For the very salvation that we look forward to is the resurrection of these bodies. In 1 Corinthians 15, it tells us this corruption must put on incorruption. And this mortality must put on immortality. This happens because of our union with Jesus Christ. And because we Those who have repented and believed and been filled by the Spirit are united with Christ. We will be raised with Christ in our new heavenly bodies that will be like His. And the work of the Holy Spirit in time and space is that we are now raised with Christ in the sense that we have been filled with His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and made new regenerated creatures new spiritual creatures. But let's take a step back before we get too far ahead of ourselves. What does all of this, like I've already been over, what does it point to? It's pointing to the suffering. It's pointing to the suffering. Here you see in verses 9 and 10 as we went over. And it just reminds me of the verses in Philippians 2, 8 and 9 and being found in fashion as a man. Jesus humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore, God also has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name. If our precious Lord had to suffer to go through to resurrection, what makes us exempt from suffering the same suffering that he suffered? Nothing. How can I say that, oh, Jesus suffered for me, I could just have my life and be saved and have my free ticket to heaven. It's just not in the Bible. Go to John chapter 12 and we're going to see that Jesus makes this point very clear in John chapter 12. Jesus on a few different occasions spoke of Him going to the cross as Him being glorified. To us, it's hard to see how that fits. How is Him going to the cross? How is He being glorified in that? It's a horrible, terrible death. Let's see, John chapter 12, verses 23. I want to read verses 23 through 28. Excuse me. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. There it is. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it, and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life." There it is! There is no eternal life! There's no heaven! There's no salvation! Unless you hate your life. If any man serve me, let him follow me, and where I am, there shall also my servant be. If any man serve me, him will my father honor. Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came a voice from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. But there it is in verse 26 and verse 25. There is no eternal life to anybody who does not hate their life in this world. Who has not turned from this life. Who has not forsaken it through the cross. You can only do that through the cross. This is the key to Christian life. It is death to self. Who in the natural man would ever think this way? That the way to eternal life is through death. Even Jesus says in verse 27 of John 12, My soul is troubled. But he says, Father, glorify thy name. Jesus is not primarily concerned with his troubled way. He knows the pain, the suffering, and the torment that he is about to go through. But he is not concerned with escaping it. But he is concerned with what? That his father's name would be glorified. And the suffering that Jesus suffered was real bodily suffering. He was bruised for our iniquities. And that he would die and lose. Think of it though. Think that he died. He lost. eternity. He regained it, but He came down from heaven. He came down from heaven. And when we die with Him, what do we lose? What do we lose? We lose nothing, really. We lose this dead bag of rotting flesh that is our flesh, that is rotting away, that is sinful. He lost and gave up all the glory of heaven. And now we, being in Him, lose our lives. But it's really no loss at all. Sin is a lie. It promises us happiness, but it brings pain and sorrow. It promises prosperity, but it brings destruction. His loss to provide salvation was a great loss and a real loss. And now our loss is nothing more than a great gain. Oh, but how many today, and how many even profess to be true Christians are walking around hugging a dead corpse. G. Kemp L. Morgan gives the analogy of a man having a dead corpse tied to his back. And this is what people do. We call them to Christ and we say, come to Christ, have eternal life, lose your life, repent, turn, And you know what they say? I don't want to give up my life. What about my career? What about my school? What about what I want to do? And really, what they're doing is they're saying, look at my dead corpse. This is what I want. I'm going to hold on to this. This is what I want. It's foolishness. It's craziness. But it's what men and women are doing. They're holding on to a dead corpse. While Jesus Christ says, come to me. Lose your life and you'll have eternal life. Drop the corpse. Drop what you think. What you think is comfortability. What you think happiness is. What you think fulfillment is. What you think prosperity is. Drop it. Leave it. He says, and I will give you eternal life. This is eternal life. to be in union with Jesus Christ. There is no eternal life outside of union with Christ. There is no salvation outside of being one with Christ in His death, in His burial, and in His resurrection. And I'm just so moved today that so many are still holding on to the corpse while they claim to be Christian. They're still holding on to the corpse and they're using God as merchandise. They don't see the terrible things that sin has done to them. It's the primary problem. We don't understand what sin has done to us. It's done horrible things. If we were able to see it, it would be ten times worse than any horror movie that could ever be seen. The horrifyingness of sin. but it is through death and resurrection with Jesus Christ that we are brought into the family of God. Look at this section that we just read and you'll see many family terms used. In verse 11 you see brethren. Verse 12 you see brethren. Verse 13 you see children. Verse 14 you see the word children. You start to see this principle of adoption. through death in this section, just as the Lord Jesus on earth was not ashamed of his Father, and as he speaks of his Father over a hundred times in the Gospel of John, and how we just read in John 12, Jesus put the Father's will above his own. Therefore, the Father is not ashamed to exalt him, and he actually does it with great pleasure. Now, if we are one with Christ in His death and sufferings, in the mortification of sin, and in the relinquishing of our wills to His, because of our identification or baptism, as we read in Romans 6, into Christ through the indwelling Spirit, Jesus Christ is now not ashamed to call us His brethren. In verse 11, it would be more than enough if He could just call us His humble servants, or even His slaves, but He calls those who I have identified with His sufferings and death, His brethren. Do you realize what that means? Do you realize that Christ is calling me and His brothers and sisters in the Lord His equals? asking of me, that Christ would call us his brethren. And those who suffer with Christ, those who have had this experience at the cross with Christ, that has radically altered their life in every way, they are his brethren. And Christ calls us his brethren. If you look in Romans 8, you see this principle of adoption. in Romans 8. Verse 13, for if we live after the flesh, what happens? You shall die. But if through the Spirit you do mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live. I don't think you can be more blind than that. Anybody that lives after the flesh, will die. Death means eternal death. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. You have not received the spirit of adoption again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And the children then heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ. So be that we suffer with Him that we may be also glorified together. There it is. If we suffer with Him, what's that suffering talking about? It's talking about mortification. It's talking about the cross. It's talking about being in union with Christ in His death. And in this section we see that those are the children of God clearly here in Romans 8. This is amazing and at the same time shocking. Amazing in the fact that God offers us so much in Jesus Christ to even share in His eternal inheritance. It's shocking that people will week after week and day after day reject the offer and prefer to hold on to nothing more than rotting flesh. So here's Jesus offering everything, all the spiritual blessings of life, and people will hear it day after day and week after week, and they choose to hold on to a bag of rotting flesh. They choose to hold on and say, no, I don't want to give up my life. And Jesus says, I'll offer you my inheritance. I'll share my inheritance with you. I'll give you the same thing that I have as the child, as the one who inherits, if you'll give up that dead bag of flesh. If you'll just lay it aside and follow me and follow Jesus. It's through death. It's through death to self. It's through death to self. His salvation, Philippians 3, 10 says, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death. When a man or woman is born again, he looks forward to killing sin in his life because of the great reward of knowing Christ. It's like the treasure in the field or the pearl of great price in Matthew 13. He knows the great reward of knowing Christ. And the man who knows that sees his own life as the vanity that it is. The total vanity. If I was to ascend to be the greatest king on this earth that is ever known, it would be nothing. It would be vanity if I did not know Christ. If I was a beggar on the street with sores on my body every day of my life, And I knew Christ, I would be in a million times better position than the greatest king in all the world history. And that is the facts. That's what we must deal with in our own life. Why are we continuing to hold on to a bag of rotting flesh when Christ has offered us everything It offered us this very inheritance and yet men and women choose to continue to hold on to what they think will bring them happiness and it will bring you nothing but destruction and misery and ultimately hell forever. That's what it will bring you. It will not bring you even happiness on this world. may bring you happiness for a few short years or a few short moments and then it will bring you misery and ultimately it will bring you to hell unless you turn unless you turn for Christ offers you everything he offers you eternal life and how shall we escape if we neglect what Christ has so freely offered us and so graciously offered us how shall we escape as we read two weeks ago in the beginning of Hebrews chapter 2 to know Jesus Christ is everything and all blessings are found in Him for everything is in Him and everything is by Him. As we look at the remaining verses in our text today, I see three things that Jesus Christ does for His brethren, for those who have identified with His suffering and death. I hesitate to even go into this because I don't want to lose what we've already had, but I think we can relate it to it. Let's look in verse 12. I see three things that are a result of Christ's death and the beneficial to those who identify with his death. And there are three D's to maybe make it easy for you, but there are D's in the text. Look in verse 12. It says, I will declare. So Jesus will declare is the first one. Number two is he will destroy, in verse 14. He will destroy, verse 14. And number 15, he will deliver. He will declare, he will destroy, and he will deliver those who have identified with his death and his sufferings and have been brought to new life in him. Verses 12 and 13 read as follows, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church while I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, behold, I and the children which God has given me. This is Jesus speaking of his Father. Those who identify with Christ know God. Jesus Christ is the express image of the Father. What we need today is a revelation of who God is. If we could just have a small glimpse of Him, we would fall prostrate on the floor and worship Him for His holiness, His majesty, His awesomeness, and for His goodness. That's what we need. What we need this morning is a glimpse of God. A glimpse of who He is. And Jesus said, I will declare that to you. I will declare God unto you. I will declare unto you, we will see God, we will see Christ, and we will bow down and worship Him. I think the worst thing that sin has done to us is that it has given us a distorted view of God. But praise the Lord through the Scriptures, through the working of the Holy Spirit, we can see Jesus Christ, and through knowing Christ we know the Father. Jesus shows us the Father, and this is the infinite, almighty, and eternal God that is beyond our grasp in every way because of His immensity. But He has shown us Him, and He brings us into fellowship with God. Outside of the work of the Holy Spirit, my friends, you cannot know God. Who can know God? We can think we know God. We can make up a God. But until God, through His Holy Spirit, reveals Himself to you, you will not know Him. You cannot know Him. He's beyond our grasp. He's higher than the heavens. He created the very heavens. But Jesus Christ will declare Him to us. We will know Him. We will see Him. And you know what that will cause us to do? Everything else will be rubbish. We'll forsake it. We'll go to the cross. We'll see that my life is over. who identify with Christ's death. But Jesus will declare God's name to us. To those who have identified with Him. To those that are one with Him. And they are brought into the church. You see that. What does it say in verse 12? In the midst of the church I will sing praise unto thee. You see, first they are brought into the church to know God, is to know God's people. Listen to me on this. Listen to me. There is a very mysterious bond that goes beyond sentimentality and beyond human rapport and bonds Christians. It is the love of Christ. Two people that are totally opposite, that would never be friends, that would never have anything in common, are brought together in Christ in this eternal bond. This is one of the identifications of a believer. There's this bond. And my brother, he wrongs me. And I somehow love him, even though he wrongs me. I wrong him. And somehow there's a bond between believers that is mysterious. I say it's mysterious because it goes beyond sentimentality. It goes beyond the bond we have in our natural families. It goes beyond the natural rapport that we have in our friends. It's the bond of the believers. It's the bond of the love of Christ. And Jesus Christ reveals it in the church. In the church, amongst God's people. Amongst God's people it's revealed. And I will sing praise unto thee. He says at the end of verse 12, it causes praise when God revealed to men. When God has revealed to men, it causes praise, joy, thanksgiving, hearts of giving, lies laid down, Lives turned around because of Christ. And then thirdly, look in verse 13, and again, I will put my trust in Him. And again, behold, I will declare unto God that hath given me. I and the children which God hath given me. It puts great trust. We have great trust in God. So what we see is the three points I'm making here, are not the three D's, but it all falls under number one. When God declares himself to us, when Jesus Christ declares the Father to us, when we know God through Christ, three things happen. It happens in the midst of the church. That happens in the midst of the church. And it causes praise, it causes thanksgiving, a life laid down. And thirdly, it causes us to trust Him in the midst of the most terrible situations. It makes me think of Philippians 4, 12 and 13. I'll just read it for you real quick. It says, 11, 12, and 13 of Philippians 4 says, Now I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased and how to abound And everywhere in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me." To trust God, the ability to trust God in the midst of suffering when He's declared unto us. When God is declared unto us, Our problems, what I thought I wanted God to fix in my life, it's nothing when I see God. When I see Him, I say, this is what it's about. I thought it was about me. I thought it was about my problems. But when Jesus Christ reveals God to you, you just fall on your face in shock and It's about Him, His majesty, His power. All things are for Him and by Him in verse 10. All things are by Him and for Him when Christ reveals who God is to us. He's not this little genie that we like to control. so that we can have our way. This is who we thought God was. But when God is revealed to us in His power and majesty through Christ, we fall on our faces and praise Him and worship Him. And there's this bond between believers, this mysterious We know what it is. It's not mysterious in the sense that we know it's Christ. But it's mysterious in the way that it's not a sentimentality. It's not natural. It's not of this world. It's a different kind of love. What kind of love is this in 1 John 3.1? It's a different kind. It's a love of a different kind. We're brought into fellowship with God's people, and praising His name, praising Him, is the mode of our life. We praise Him when God is declared unto us and we trust Him. We trust Him at all times for all things. We lack. Don't get me wrong. At times we lack love. At times we lack faith as believers even. But God is increasing us in those things as true believers. And then go to verse 13. We'll be closing here in a few minutes. In verse 13 it says, And again I will put my trust in Him. And again, behold I and the children which God has given me. And go to verse 14, it says, For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that has the power of death, that is, the devil. That's our second D. He came to destroy. Those who are in fellowshipping with Christ's sufferings, those who have had an experience at the cross, We say, oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, grave, where is your sting? The devil had the power to take every man to hell. But through Jesus Christ and what he has done in his life, suffering death and resurrection, he has taken that power from him and he has destroyed him. He has destroyed what the devil's very thing he wanted to do was to bring every man to hell, but Jesus has destroyed that. Without Christ, we were hopeless. We were hopelessly heading for eternal doom. But Jesus Christ, through death, through putting on of humanity, has destroyed death. He has destroyed death. and given us life in himself. Do we realize what that means? If you are not born again, if a person is not born again, they will experience an eternal death. The scriptures speak in Galatians, I believe it's chapter 5, of hell as eternal death. Eternal death. You will be dying forever. And that is the direction of every human being except for Christ those who are in Christ those who have been brought into his death and his resurrection you know what we will experience the opposite eternal life not eternal death but eternal life in resurrected bodies with Christ and that's what it means to be saved to be saved And then the third D is to deliver in verse 15, look at as we close here, and deliver them who through the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. John 8.32 says, the truth shall set you free and you shall be free indeed. Luke chapter 4, Jesus said one of his first things he said when he came preaching in Luke 4, what did he say? I came to set the captives free. Jesus Christ came to set us free, to deliver us from the power and the bondage of death. Without Him, death has a hold on every one of us. People say the only thing you can be sure of is death and taxes. But some people don't pay taxes. I thought, hey, if you don't have a job, you don't have to pay taxes, right? So some people never pay taxes. But everybody will die. Everybody is bound to death. There's no one that escapes physical death. And those who are not in Christ will experience eternal death. Will experience eternal death. But those who are outside of Christ will experience eternal death. But those who are in Christ will have eternal life. I propose that we make Galatians 2.20 our new memory verse. That's what I propose because And let's close by reading it. Let's close by reading it. It's really the great statement of the Apostle. The Apostles, they found something. And it was revealed to them through the Spirit of God. They found a mystery. And this mystery is that there's life through death. The very thing that the consequences of sin, which was death, Jesus Christ came and died and conquered, conquered death. He conquered death. Look at Galatians 2.20, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. We have been delivered Praise the Lord Jesus. We have been delivered from death. We've been delivered from sin. Those who are justified are sanctified. Those who have been... Christ has paid for their sins. We have been delivered. Sin has been destroyed. We are delivered from sin. It is to be crucified with Christ. This is not something that we can do, but is the work of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, it is a reality in the true believer to live in the power of the cross. Self has no more reign in that person's life. I have been purchased with a price, the blood of Jesus Christ, and have been risen to new life and will ultimately be risen to new life with Jesus Christ forever. It's what it means to be saved. And anything outside of death with Christ in order that we might be raised with Him is simply not the gospel. It's not the gospel. And to say that I believe in Jesus Christ's death and not having that experience with his death, is just as much not the gospel, because it eliminates the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation. When the Holy Spirit saves a person, it says that we're new creatures in Christ. Old things pass away, behold, all things have become new. All things have become new. Why are they new? They're new because I'm dead to my old life. I'm dead to my old life and I'm dying to my old life. Don't get me wrong, none of us are perfect. We're dead and we're dying as Christians. We're dead to our old life and we're dying to our old life. We are risen in Christ through being regenerated and we will ultimately be risen with Christ in our new bodies forever. This is what salvation is. And it's amazing in Hebrews chapter 1 It tells us the greatness and the majesty and the glory of God, right? And then in chapter 2, it tells us how we partake in that and how we know who God is and how we partake in Him. And praise His name. So let's pray. Dear Father God, we just pray, God, please, that these things would be real in our hearts, God, and for those that are here, God, that are still hanging on to the dead, rotting flesh. I pray, Lord, work in their hearts, and I want to speak to them. I pray, if you are here, and you're still holding on to the dead bag of flesh, you can let it go today. You can let it go today and say, I'm letting it go. I'm going to Christ. He's my all in all. He came to save me. He is Lord of all. And I'm trusting Him. I'm letting go of the dead bag. And I pray that you would do that today. That you would trust Christ. That you would see the foolishness of doing... the foolishness of not doing that. The foolishness of doing anything else but trusting Him. I pray, God, please work it in our hearts. I pray for those here, Lord, please save today. Please deliver today, God, through the cross, through your resurrection, Lord Jesus, please deliver us. Send us forth from here filled with the power of the resurrection of Christ that we would live in it and exemplify who you are, Lord, in our lives for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand and sing Psalm number 14. It is so sweet to trust in Jesus. Praise the Lord, I'm so wound up today in a good way because I've just been thinking about what it means to be in Christ. It's just so, boy, when you read through these verses in Hebrews 2, to see what it really means to be called Christ's brother, See, Christ would call me His brother is astounding to me. He's calling me like His, and I dare not even say it, but He said it, He's like calling me His equal. To me that's like, like how is that true? I'm, you know, so sinful, but yet Christ, because of Him, because of what He has done, because of who He is, He calls those who identify with His sufferings, with His death and with His resurrection, His brothers and sisters. And that is just, that's just shocking to me. And I'm so excited about it, though, too. And I also, though, at the same time, I want to stand against this false gospel. It gives people a false hope, and then they go along in their life and they have no real hope! They're still living the same lives! Because they're not really in union with Christ. They just did the thing, you know? And they're not really in union with Christ. If they were in union with Christ, their lives would be radically altered, obviously. You can't be in union with Christ and live the same life. And so, it's like, I'll just give this last illustration. It's like Paul Washer says, he was late for a meeting, about 20 minutes late, and the pastor said, well, why were you late? And he said, well, I got out of my car on the highway, and I walked in the middle of the highway, and a logging truck going 80 miles an hour hit me. And that's why I'm late. And the guy said, well, there's only two options. Either you're lying, or you're crazy. And he said, well that's how people relate salvation. They say that someone's been born again, they've been saved, but there's no change in their life. So to say someone's saved and there's no change in their life, you're saying that the logging truck has more power than God. Because obviously, if you got hit by a logging truck, I think going 80 miles an hour, I think it would make a difference. But people supposedly get hit by the Holy Spirit and there's no change. They have the same old life as they've always had. So it's just a... when God comes in and we see the cross and we're at the cross, we have that experience with Christ at the cross, our lives are radically altered. Because we just see... we see the dead bag of bones. We see everything that we were holding was just nothing. It's just gone. It's just like, this is what I want. And our lives are, because we see the great value in Christ, and our lives are altered radically. And it's an amazing thing, and I thank God for it, and that's the hope we have as Christians. And that's an amazing hope that we can give people. Not that you're just going to do this little thing, and you're going to have the same old life, and hopefully go to heaven. No. God's going to come in, He's going to radically change your life, He's going to give you new life, He's going to give you hope, you're going to be praising His name because of what He's done for you, and you're going to have eternal life in Him. And praise His name. It's all in Christ, and being one with Christ. So let's stand and sing. Song number 14, "'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus." So.