Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.citygracechurch.com/sermons/69840/jesus-is-the-better-redeemer/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] All right, thank you, Alan. Hey, good morning, everybody. Good, sweet. Everyone's alive. Good, really good to see you. Really good to be here with you today. Those who will be listening to this, catching this online later on this week, thanks for keeping up with us. So we are, like Alan said, continuing in this Hebrew series we are in, and we're going to be in Hebrews chapter nine. If you're old school, you've got your Bible with you, you could start flipping there. If you're new school, you've got your phone and your Bible app, you could start going there. If you don't have any of those things, don't worry. We're going to have the verses up on the screens behind us.

[0:34] And so just by way of reminder, this is a serious pastoral letter. In fact, most people are convinced this was a sermon delivered at some point to a church, right? And if that is true, if this is one sermon, like, man, this dude was on fire, right? I mean, he was like going for it. You think how big the book of Hebrews is and all the truth he's like dumping in. I mean, there's moments of just like mic dropping things where it's like, if I had said that, I would have just boom, walked off the stage. That was good enough. But this dude is like, he is going for it, which I have to be honest, yes, you can say thank you for not preaching for three hours straight. We do 30 minutes kind of at the most. And so that's good enough, I think. But what the preacher is doing here in Hebrews is he's calling them, he's calling us to watch out for the faith drift that we are all in danger of. If you're a Christian, you're here, there is this thing about, we believe, but then there's all these influences around us that can actually get our eyes off of Jesus. And we kind of drift away from the faith and holding on to him. And the thing is, is our faith is, it's countercultural. At its core, it is countercultural. Whatever the prevailing culture is, in any time of history, in every geography, the gospel is different. And the gospel's values cut against the grain of what any society and culture believes in. And the thing is, is because we grow up in our cultures, those things, the values that they hold, it begins to creep into our hearts, right? Very slowly, very gradually, and sometimes it's impossible to detect. Like some of those things that we just assume is like, oh yeah, the culture says this, so it must be true. Like Elliot was talking about in his call to worship, it's like, some of the hardest things to do as a follower of Christ is to recognize and reject the lies for the truth of the gospel. And so, that's a big danger. But there's another dangerous drift, and that is, our hearts can like just grow cold to the things that we know about the gospel. You know, the things that once excited our hearts, and just like, man, inflamed us to want to worship God and leverage our lives for him, they can become stale, a little bit vanilla. And the temptation then is to go and look for the next best thing. Like, what's the latest spiritual fad I can jump onto and follow?

[2:59] What's the like superior program I can get involved with that can really just ignite my passion again for Jesus. But Hebrews is here, it's reminding us, actually, none of those things. It's all about Jesus.

[3:11] Like, he just brings us back to Jesus. Look at Jesus. Look how amazing he is. Look at what he's done. And it's saying, over and over again, nothing is better than him. Nothing is superior to him.

[3:23] And so, this particular passage that we're going to look at today, it's about this foundational truth that is the gospel. It's central to our understanding of our salvation and what Christianity is built on.

[3:35] Now, if you're here, and you're just exploring the faith, you're just like, I'm still checking this thing out. I don't know about this Jesus. Man, we are so glad you're here, and we want you to keep coming back. And this is a great place to explore your faith. And I think today is actually going to be really helpful for you. So, Hebrews 9, we're reading a big section of this, and so just hang in there.

[3:56] It'll be really good. So, let's start in verse 1. Now, even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was prepared, the first section, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the presence. It is called the holy place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the most holy place, having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna and Aaron's staff that budded and the tablets of the covenant. Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat.

[4:34] And like, in case you're wondering, are we going to unpackage all that stuff right now? No, we're not. He says, of these things, we cannot now speak in detail. So, collective sigh of relief. Ah. So, these preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. By this, the Holy Spirit indicates the way into the holy places is not yet opened, as long as the first section is still standing, which is symbolic for the present age. According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Therefore, he, Jesus, is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.

[6:49] For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, this is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.

[7:08] And in the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. We're almost there. A few more verses.

[7:29] Thus, it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites. But the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own. For then, he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

[8:16] And just as it is appointed for a man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. This is God's word.

[8:36] So, these Hebrew Christians are getting a reminder in something they would have been pretty familiar with, right? He talks a lot about the old covenant sacrificial system. I mean, he gets into details.

[8:48] And as he's talking, I'm sure the Hebrew Christians in their minds were like finishing his sentence before he got there. They were so immersed in that. They understood this stuff backwards and forwards.

[9:00] And so, for them, the notion of blood sacrifice in these places, in the tent, the holy place, and the most holy place, and all these artifacts that belong there, it's normal to them.

[9:10] They get it. But, man, for us, it's probably not as normal, right? This notion of blood might even alarm us a little bit. But here's what the Bible, it says. Here's what he's saying again about the importance of blood. Verse 22, indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. This is a foundational truth to Christianity. It's like learning addition, right? You won't be able to do any other kind of math until you get that down. You have to understand that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. But still, we look at that, and it just sounds very extreme, right? Like, shedding blood, really? I mean, that seems pretty hectic. Why would a gracious, loving God demand blood sacrifices? Why does he demand that something be killed? And I would agree with you that it is extreme. And I think God is trying to make us understand that, because sin is more serious than we realize. So, we get the concept of justice in our day, like bad things deserve punishment, and the badder thing that you do, the bigger the punishment, the worse the crime, the longer the time.

[10:27] But the difference between our legal system and God's justice is that we have gradations of justice, and it really depends on the law that was broken, right? And to be honest, like, even those things are ever-changing. Those penalties are ever-changing. So, man, if you lived in 18th century France and stole a loaf of bread, you got 20 years hard time. I mean, that was normal, all right? The whole Les Miserables was kind of like, that's the opening thing, this Jean Valjean character, it has coming to the end of his 20 years of breaking rocks day in and day out because he stole a loaf of bread once. Now, today, obviously, we don't do that. Like, you steal a loaf of bread, you're not going to the chain gang. You maybe get a finger wagged at you and say, hey, please don't do that again, or a small little fine as you return it, but that's it, no jail time. It used to be that punishment for murder was death, life for life. That was very normal, but society has evolved from that, right?

[11:37] Now, there's life in prison if you've killed someone, and in many cases, chance of parole. And here's the thing about crime and punishment. The punishment for a crime tells us how severe the crime is. And stealing a candy bar from a liquor store, right, is not the same as being a serial killer. We get that. We understand that. They don't deserve the same kind of punishment. But God's justice over sin is totally different than ours. We can't project our ever-changing standard and understanding of justice onto God's. God's penalty for sin has never, ever, ever changed, and it will never, ever, ever, ever change. Think about this. The first sin was breaking his first law, which was, don't eat fruit from that one tree. That was it. Sounds kind of like, don't steal a loaf of bread, right? What was God's penalty for that? Death. Seems really severe, right? Well, it is if you consider it from man's perspective. If you are looking up and saying, like, based on what I know, God, you should behave like this, it is too severe. We see punishment as the appropriate response to a particular law being broken. And so, sin and transgression, as far as we're concerned, it is breaking a law. It is breaking a rule that somebody has written down on a piece of paper and everybody has agreed with saying, like, you shall follow this. But God says sin is so much different. It's not just about breaking rules. It's not just about breaking his law. Actually, more so, it's about rejecting him as God. It's about breaking relationship with him, which is what we covered in last week's sermon about covenant, right? God enters into covenant relationships with people, and those covenants comes with demands on us. And so, if you weren't here and you want to learn more about that, I would encourage you to go and listen to that online or on our app. But that's the difference between our understanding of justice and what God's justice is. It's really about covenant relationship. And from the very beginning, he said disobedient, breaking the covenant demands, rejecting him as God, always deserves death. And in case you think that's too harsh, think about this, right? Simple sin always leads to sinning in greater severity.

[14:16] After Adam and Eve's simple sin of eating a forbidden fruit, what was the very next sin we see in the Bible? Cain kills Abel. Man, from eating a little fruit, taking what you shouldn't have taken, boom.

[14:30] All of a sudden, there's murder. Murder enters in the world, and that's what happens once we've been corrupted by sin. Once we've opened that door, the opportunities are endless for how we can hurt each other and ourselves. And guess what? God is a loving God, and he loves his creatures that he made. We are made in his image, and he knows that sin has one end goal, to destroy you and those around you. And that's why God takes sin as seriously as he does. But thanks be to God. Thankfully, at the same time, he is also merciful and gracious. Because he loves his creatures, even when we sin, he made a way around the death penalty. Not by doing away with it, that would be unjust, but he allowed for a substitute on our behalf. Which means another death must happen in our place, in the place of the sinner. And right from the beginning, this happened. God covered Adam and Eve with animal skins after their original sin.

[15:30] Sent them out of the garden covered in animal skin. So an animal was sacrificed in their place. They were literally covered in the death of that animal. So Adam and Eve, through sin, brought death into the world. God, through grace, saved them from death by the death of another creature. And God didn't just do that and just kind of leave them alone. And Adam and Eve weren't like, okay, God, thanks for not killing us. Can we just get on with life and just, you know, let's get past this. We're going to do our thing. You do your thing. No big deal. No, no. The blood sacrifice, God did that as a way back into relationship with himself. He didn't just ditch Adam and Eve. And that's the thing we have to realize is because of sin, we need blood to approach a holy God. That is what the tabernacle is teaching us in the Old Covenant. See, remember at the beginning of the chapter, that long chapter we just read, at the very beginning, it's talking about these two compartments. It talks about this holy place where priests would come in and perform the ritual duties of worship. And then that was kind of a degree of drawing a little bit closer to God's presence, right? Not quite there in the same, not quite that close, but a little bit closer. And then there was a second section divided by a thick veil. And this was called the most holy place. God gave it that title. What is he telling us? What is he saying by saying this is the most holy place? Well, he's saying and he's communicating to Israel and for us to look at and understand that there was not a more holy place on the whole earth than that little room in the tabernacle. He would come and he would meet with Israel there. His presence would come over that mercy seat in that room. And no one got to go in there except the high priest once a year.

[17:21] Verse 7 in Hebrews 9 says it, but in the second, the most holy place it's talking about, only the high priest goes. And he but once a year and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. That one little verse that he talks about right there is a summary, a beautiful summary of Leviticus 16. So let's read the amplified version, going to Leviticus 16 and get some more details here.

[17:49] In verse 2 it says, and the Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron your brother, Aaron was the high priest at that time, very first high priest, not to come at any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die.

[18:06] For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. So lesson, like Aaron, Moses, pay attention to this, the rest of Israel for the rest of your lives. No one can stand before God and live. You just don't get to walk into the holy place, most holy place willy-nilly, just like, hey, you know what? It seems like a good day to just go hang out in the most holy place. Man, death. But God made a way.

[18:33] But in this way, it says, Aaron shall come into the holy place with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. God makes a way. A bull was sacrificed for Aaron's sins, sins. The high priest sins, and then a ram was sacrificed for the sins of Israel.

[18:50] And here is what the high priest must do with the blood from both of them, to be able to meet with God and not die. It says this, he, Aaron, the high priest, shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy seat on the east side. And in front of the mercy seat, he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is before the people, that is for the people, and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. Thus he shall make atonement for the holy place because of the uncleannesses of the people of Israel and because of their transgressions, all their sins. And so he shall do for the tent of meeting which dwells with them in the midst of their uncleannesses.

[19:44] The high priest can only come into God's presence with blood. And he had to sprinkle that blood between him and God's mercy seat, which shows us an important thing. The blood of a sacrifice must stand between us and God in order for us to be able to draw near to him.

[20:03] So how does this work today? Thankfully, you don't have to go and join the 4-H club, buy a bunch of livestock, raise animals, you know, and bring blood with you to church. Like, we don't have to do that. Verse 24 tells us how that works for us today.

[20:22] For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own.

[20:42] For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

[20:58] We still need blood today, just like they did back then. To be able to draw near to a holy God, we need blood between us and him. But thankfully, we have Jesus' blood, which is superior in every way to the old sacrifices, right? He sacrificed himself once for all. He doesn't need to keep repeating that sacrifice. He did it once. It's good. It's finished, which means Jesus' blood redeems you and me from sin. We just don't have to hope it does. No, it does. In verse 26, it says he came to put away sin.

[21:35] That doesn't mean he's ignoring it. That Greek word here for put away sin, it's kind of an interesting one because it's only used twice in the whole Bible and both times here in Hebrews. And the closest English word we have for this that we can translate it to is abolition. That's the idea that put away is getting at. Now, let's think of America's abolition of slavery. What did that mean? It meant the institution, the practice, the cultural values and laws that allowed for, that upheld and perpetuated slavery were annulled and voided. They became powerless. They became nothing. They were brought to nothing. And what did that mean? Those things no longer had power over slaves anymore. Slaves no longer had to submit to their slave masters. They were redeemed. They were set free. And this is what Jesus did for us. He abolished sin. That's what he did. He put away sin. He abolished sin. He nullified and voided its power and consequences that it held us under. And in so doing, Jesus redeemed us from our slavery to sin. Romans 6, Paul talks about this. Man, because we are in Christ, joined him in his death, resurrected into new life, we are no longer slaves to sin anymore. We are slaves to righteousness.

[22:59] Sin is dead. He said, consider yourself dead to sin. That is what's true. It is null and voided, guys. Sin over your life and over my life is null and voided. It has no power to control you. It has no power to compel you or force you to do anything. It has no power to keep you under condemnation. It is null and voided by Jesus' sacrifice. That is what's true. We are no longer under sin's mastery.

[23:26] We belong to Jesus because he's our greater redeemer. And we aren't under the old covenant anymore where sin reigns. We are under the new covenant where freedom in Jesus reigns.

[23:39] But this also means something for us. Our eyes are open to see sin for what it is. Right before, we were blind. We didn't know. We were ignorant to what sin was. We lived without understanding.

[23:52] We wouldn't have called our choices or actions sinful, even though they were. But in Jesus, that changes. By his blood, that changes because it says Jesus' blood corrects our corrupted consciousness. That's what Hebrews 9.14 is getting at here. How much more will the blood of Christ purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? So it's telling us, guys, your conscience gets a bloodbath. But what does that mean? What does that mean? Well, the conscience is that part of us, right? That tells us what's right and wrong. Y'all remember Pinocchio, that old cartoon?

[24:25] Jiminy Cricket, he's meant to be like this personification of a conscience for Pinocchio because he's not a real boy yet. So he needs someone's help. And what is the song he sings? Take the straight and narrow path. And if you start to slide, give a little whistle.

[24:40] Yeah, very good. That was a pathetic whistle. No, thank you. That was good. So at least I know people are tracking with me. I was like, man, if I bring a Pinocchio, I don't know how many people have watched that. Like, what's going on? But remember, he ends that song with this or that chorus with this, and always let your conscience be your guide. That's what we grow up in. Man, you grow up, man, always let your conscience be your guide. And we think that is such good truth, and it's not. It's a fallacy. Because prevailing culture tells us that our conscience is that one part of us that always gets it right. It always gets right and wrong just perfectly, right? Like an umpire calling balls and strikes. It knows what's up. But nothing could be further from the truth. Our conscience is actually a malleable thing. It's shaped by the values of the community we're immersed in.

[25:34] So here's the thing. If you grow up in a tribe of cannibals in the Amazon jungle, your conscience would be shaped to believe that killing your enemies and eating them is okay. That's a good thing. If you grew up in America in the last 50 or so years, your conscience would be led to believe that the ultimate good for you to pursue is whatever makes you happiest. See, our conscience is trained by the collective social conscience that we live in.

[26:01] That's the reality of it. But Jesus' blood comes, and it purifies our conscience. It brings us into a true understanding of what is and isn't sin. So it's kind of like resetting the strike zone back to where it should be, where we start calling balls and strikes the right way. So between our clean conscious, purified conscious, and the Holy Spirit's conviction, we are without excuse to go on sinning.

[26:30] A pastor named Matt Smithhurst, he tweeted this the other day, and I think this really like gets at what I'm talking about here in a much succinct and simple tweetable way. It says, fake grace is this, all is forgiven so you can flirt with sin. No big deal. Real grace is all is forgiven so you can flee sin. See, we are called to live in a new way, to serve God. But even if we fail to do that, which we will, you and I will fail, we need not despair because Jesus' blood seals us for redemption. See, the Hebrews had this word for all this atoning sacrifice we were reading about in this chapter. And so they kind of understood this a little bit better than we do. And here's the Hebrew word, and I really want you to like practice and have fun with this throughout the rest of your week. So it's this word that gets at this idea of atonement and redemption through atonement. It's kafar. You really have to roll that R. That's really important. Kafar. Yeah. All through Leviticus, when it talked about sin offerings and guilt offerings as atonement, the word kafar was most often used. And it was a verb. And this verb was actually an ancient construction term that meant to cover a surface with this sealant called pitch. So literally,

[27:56] God like borrows this construction word for his own purposes to help us understand something. So to kafar something is to completely cover or seal it. And so a sacrifice of atonement was to perform kafar, to cover something, to cover someone impure and sinful under the blood of that sacrifice.

[28:18] The blood from atonement sacrifice was put on everything in the old covenant to purify it. The tabernacle, the high priest, priests, all the Israelites, they had to be covered in the blood of atonement. And this is what Jesus' blood, his atonement does for us in the new covenant. We are completely covered, not like an umbrella. We are completely covered and sealed in his blood.

[28:46] Like, how does that, what is a sealant's purpose, right? A sealant's purpose is to protect from the influence of harmful outside elements. It keeps out the bad. It seals you in. But it also fuses, right? Pitch was like, it was like a glue thing. And so that sealant, that blood, it fuses us to Christ.

[29:05] And this is what happens when you and I are saved by faith in Jesus. That's the only way it comes. His sacrifice, his blood, it covers you. It seals you. And you are fused with his blood so that God only ever sees you covered in the blood of Jesus. The blood that is necessary to draw near to a holy God. The blood that takes away our sin. The blood that corrects and protects our conscience. And guys, when we really get this, as Christians, when we really get this, it shifts where we put our hope.

[29:40] So when you sin and guilt and shame come on you and you think, man, I can't draw near to God. I can't go to him. He's just going to reject me. That blood reminds you that, no, no, no, you have access. You can draw near. You can come and repent and the sins will be forgiven. And God always and ever accepts you.

[29:59] And if you don't do that, what do you end up doing? You try, well, let me make a, let me do some promises. Let me go out and do these things. Try to make up my bad works with some good works so God will accept me again. And man, if we go that route, what we end up doing is we either fall into pride because we think we're doing so awesome on our own strength, or we fall into despair because we're not doing it very well and we're failing. Our only hope for salvation is in Christ's blood.

[30:26] And that is the hope for you, but it's also the hope for others, which is why when we really get this, when we understand more fully the power of Jesus's blood, it changes how we treat each other.

[30:39] You'll have so much more grace and mercy for people because they are just like you in every single way. We are all the same. They need the blood of Jesus just as much as you and I do. So we don't hold on to bitterness. We don't hold on to anger. We don't nurse the hurt. We don't keep a list of people's sins and wrongs. Man, just as the blood sets you free and cleanses you, it does the same for them as well.

[31:09] And so with all of this, man, it creates this community of great assurance in Jesus Christ and what he has done, right? We stand shoulder to shoulder with each other because we're not offended.

[31:23] We're not like holding on to every offense. We could really love and care for one another. And what we come together and with assurance, we look forward to Jesus's return with eagerness and with confidence because why? We're sealed in his blood. Verse 27, and just as it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time. Not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. As I have the band come up, I want to invite us to respond to this truth. I want us to invite us to respond to the blood of Jesus and the truth of the blood of Jesus for us. And if you are here just checking out Christianity, wanting to know more, again, man, we are so glad you're here, but I want to draw to the fact that there is some real news. There is some real truth here, and some of it's hard truth to hear. That last verse says that we will all die one day. Every man, it's appointed for him to die once. And then what comes?

[32:33] Well, it's judgment. That judgment is you and I are going to stand before a holy God. And if you are not covered in the blood of Jesus, that only comes by faith. Judgment awaits you. And the Bible tells us what that is. It's eternal death. It's hell forever and ever. It's separation from God forever in a place of torment. But God is gracious. God is gracious and sent his only son to die.

[33:03] God is shedding his blood for you. And I invite you today, man, take hold of that truth. God is offering you grace right now. Take hold of that truth and that promise. And you do that by faith.

[33:14] You don't have to jump through 20,000 hoops. You just say, Lord, I believe you are who you are, that you died for my sin and I need your blood and I repent of my sin. It says by that we are saved. If you're a Christian, man, I just want you to search your heart. Are you nursing guilt and shame today? Have you come in with a sense of guilt and shame? Maybe it's something that happened a long time ago. Maybe it's something recent that you've done and you feel like, you know what? I don't know if God can forgive me for that. I don't know if I can approach God having this, having this on my resume. Are you holding on to any grudges, any bitterness, any hurt towards people? The blood of Jesus is saying, man, let it go. Let it go. There's grace and mercy for you being covered in his blood. There is grace and mercy for everyone covered in his blood.

[34:22] God. Let's pray. Father, I, yeah, you know where everyone's at. Holy Spirit, you're working in our hearts in different ways and I thank you for that. I thank you, you're all knowing and I'm not.

[34:46] Lord, I thank you for that. Continue to work what you started today. Continue to encourage, continue to admonish, continue to convict, continue to just woo us with your loving kindness and your goodness. Jesus, I thank you that your blood is sealed. It sealed us. It stands between us holiness and holiness, a holy God. Because of that, we can do that. We can draw near.

[35:24] And I pray, Lord, as we take the next part of the service and do communion, I pray, Lord, for your real presence to be with us as we do that. Amen. So we are going to take communion now.

[35:40] And I just want to encourage us not to think of like, oh, you know, this is like we're almost there. We can just do this and get up. Man, this is like, this is a beautiful moment. This is a sacred moment.

[35:53] This is an invitation to a meal with our Savior, Jesus Christ, which in those days in the ancient world to sit down and have a meal with someone was acceptance. It was to say we're family.

[36:07] It was to confirm and affirm relationship. And we're not just taking any meal. We're taking things that represent the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us. This is the most beautiful, the most intimate meal. And we're reminded as we take it, the new covenant that Christ created through his body broken, which is the bread and his blood shed for us. And so today, let's drink it with thanks that he has sealed us in his blood.