Conclusion of a Masterpiece (Part B)

We have to be able to preach this. There's no peace without Him. Romans, again, chapter 8, verse 7.

Paul says, Because the carnal mind, the natural man, the man untouched by the grace of God, the carnal mind is at enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be. If you have not been born again, you can't get it. You don't get it.

You won't get it. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Hebrews.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Conclusion of a Masterpiece is Pastor Rick's message titled today. He'll be teaching in Hebrews chapter 13. Paul said it this way, Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, just, pure, lovely, of good report, if there is anything praiseworthy, if there is anything virtuous, meditate, think on, develop in your head, in your lives, these things. When the Bible says meditate, it does not mean go into some corner and go um, or try to contact some spiritual you.

It is to put concentrated energy into what has been preached, to think about what God has said, to consume it, to eat it, to devour it, to get it inside of us, so that we can do something with it. And so he says, I'm in the will of God, pray for me. He's not saying I'm perfect, but he's saying I deal with my shortcomings, my sin, the way God would have me deal with it, I'm striving for perfection with every step I take, please pray for me.

I'm not hounded by guilt. So many Christians are hounded by guilt, one, because they're guilty of something they're not dealing with, impenitent sin, blatant sin, and they want to sing it away often at times, or get somebody else to just wink at it, or support them nonetheless, but don't you hold them accountable. And then there are other Christians, some, and they're guilty and they don't know why they're guilty, because they don't understand the grace of God is the touch of God on sinners, as sinners. He doesn't say I will touch you, I will love you, I will be your savior once you clean up your act.

He says I won't wait, I'll do it right away, instantly I'll put my hands on you if you will repent and own the sin that you're born into. A good conscience. It's honorable conscience. Elsewhere translated godly, that word. If you refuse to deal with your sin, to face it, to bring it before the Lord, you will clog the lines of prayer.

That's why he's connecting to the Holy Spirit through the writer. Pray for us. We have a good conscience. We're not up to no good.

Our motives are pure. And if you don't have pure motives and clean up through repentance, that which is wrong before God, you clog up the prayer line. Proverbs 28, 9. One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer, is an abomination. Those who say, I don't want to hear the word of God, they have no prayer life. God said, well, you don't want to hear my word, I won't hear your prayers.

It goes both ways, a double-edged sword. Ungodly motives deflate prayer, but God is looking for those who are genuinely interested in everything that he has to say. So Jesus said to the woman, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth, not lies. What should Jesus have said? It's okay to have lies about Christ?

Of course not. He says here in verse 1, in all things desiring to live honorably. There's that word, honorably. How many Christians live comfortably without honor?

How many? Honor is lost when truth is ignored, vilified. Dishonesty is not honorable.

We know that, but how many of us think about that? Some behave as though dishonesty is an honorable thing. It is not a virtue, nor is it an asset. When honesty is cast away, the control of good is compromised, and we need, we don't need that.

We do not need good compromised. It's hard, you young Christians. It's hard, but it is worth it, and the way without the hard way of truth is even harder. The way of the transgressor is hard, says the proverb, because it is true. All life is difficult, because there are resisting forces, and as you grow, as you mature, you're going to find drives and desires pressing upon you to go the opposite way of Christ, and you must fight against it. You are expected to fight against it.

You're expected to win. You're not expected to excuse these things any more than the adults, and if you saw mom and dad give up on their faith, you'd be disgusted. Why should you be allowed to give up on your faith? Simply because you're facing temptations in life, so be ready for those things as you're maturing.

If you are 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 years old, you'll be ready for these things. They're coming for you, but you should prevail. You should give those temptations a beat down, but you've got to do certain things to win. You cannot expect to win just because you are adored by your parents. You're going to have to get involved. You want to be treated like an adult, and you're going to have to start fighting like one. There are many adults, however. They do not fight as though they are mature in faith.

They don't fight at all. In verse 13, he says, but I especially urge you to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner. So he believed prayer yields victories, and he emphasizes his prayer requests, I want to be back with you wherever they were.

We have some hints. This church is a Jewish church for sure, but it's more than likely in a Gentile environment, say Antioch or Galatia, region like that. We'll come back to that towards the end of the letter, but he's eager to see them. He wrote this to the church in Rome also. That church in Rome, before he had visited them, and he writes the Roman letter to them, years later, when he arrives in Rome in shackles to stand before Caesar, the Christians come out over 40 miles to greet him, no doubt carrying flowers and fruit and vegetables and water just to love on the apostle Paul as they marched him towards Rome. So when he wrote to that Roman letter, the Christians in Rome, they knew he loved them, and that everything that he said to them was right spot on.

They loved him back. The same thing's happening to these Jewish Hebrews, believe it or not. I'll save that for the end, but Romans 15, he wrote to them, he says, now I ask you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, through the love of the Spirit that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me. It was a man of God saying as much as God has used me, all the revelations he's given me, the scripture he's allowed me to write, I need prayer from you.

I need you to pray for me. We're part of a brotherhood, the brotherhood of faith, those who believe in Christ, not a universal brotherhood where everybody is God's child. Everybody is not God's child because they don't want to be God's child. You can only be his child on his terms.

You cannot live in his house as a rebel. That's why Satan was booted. In verse 20, he says, having made his prayer request to them, he's closing up this Hebrew document, and then he says, now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant. Now we'll stop midway through this benediction, this closing prayer on the people that is every bit as valid as Moses being told to tell Aaron when you dismiss the people, bless them this way, the Lord bless you, the Lord keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you. This New Testament blessing is just as valid. I used to use this as a closing blessing. I'm a little rusty on it.

I might try it before we end. I don't know. Adam, he placed peace with his wife above peace with God. The story of Eden. So when the writer now says, may the God of peace, God is also a warrior. He's a warrior against his enemies and that which would hurt his people, his children, but he wants peace. But the peace is disturbed by created beings, first by Satan and those who followed him, and then by his beloved Adam. Whatever peace Adam thought he was preserving fell to pieces.

See, he put his wife ahead of God and the outcome was awful, terrible, beyond words. God wants peace, but it comes only through belief and submission to him, through the realization of him. Again, John chapter four, the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth for the Father is seeking such to worship him. Who does God want to worship him?

Those who are interested in truth in the spirit. The world by definition is close to that. You know, the world sings songs with equal enthusiasm and passion on a philo level, on a created level that we sing. But they sing about life, they celebrate life. Just listen to country western. They're singing about, you know, things that break your heart. Man, you have to have a rough life to be able to write a song like that.

I was listening one to one the other day. The green, green grass, and just, you know, the guy on death row having a dream about being, you don't know this, and the dream he's talking about, he's going to be home, he's going to touch the green, green grass again, mom and dad is at the train station, and then he wakes up and he's in jail on his way to execution. And the world, that was number one. Tom Jones' number one song.

Why is that? Because the world understands pain, it just doesn't understand the solution, or rejects the solution in Christ. So they can sing with their hearts fully invested in these things about life, but not eternal life. It's closer to creature worshiping the created thing versus creature worshiping the creator, which Paul wrote to the Romans, that very line. And so when he says, may the God of peace, they don't know him. 1 Timothy, God our savior, 1 Timothy 2 verses 3 and 4, who desires all men to be saved, to come to the knowledge of truth. And yet how many Christians could care less about truth? They cherry pick, I'll take the truth concerning salvation.

I'm not interested in anything else. Without Jesus Christ, people are at war with God, and there is no exception to this. And we have to be able to preach this. There's no peace without him. Romans, again, chapter 8 verse 7, Paul says, because the carnal mind, the natural man, the man untouched by the grace of God, the carnal mind is at enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be. If you have not been born again, you can't get it. You don't get it.

You won't get it. You must be born again. Jesus didn't say, well, I have a suggestion for you. It would be good if you were born again.

He said you must be. You have to see that there is no life without God, and there is no God for you without Jesus Christ, savior of the world. Now I know we can hear the silent objections of those who don't know him, but what about the people who never heard the gospel of Christ? Well, why don't you become a Christian and go preach it to them if you're so interested? There's an answer. There's other answers for that, but I like that one because usually the question is dishonest. It's a dishonest question. It's not what I really want to know because I want to be part of the solution.

That's not where the question is coming from. It is more like you Christians. You think you've got the way to salvation. What about those who don't get your way? Are they doomed? And so God is unjust.

That's what they're suggesting. And so this war that is between sinners and God, where did it start? It started in a perfect environment in Eden, a paradise.

So man's problems are deeper than his environment. They're in his heart. He says, who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead here in Hebrews 13 verse 20. That name Jesus speaks to us of his humanity. It is Jesus of Nazareth to separate him from Jesus of Brooklyn or anywhere else. Jesus of Nazareth is narrowing it down. They knew who he was.

If you lived in this world during the apostles, they knew who Jesus of Nazareth was even if they did not embrace him. And that name speaks of his humanity to us. Did God became a human being and took on the name Jesus? And his name shall be called Jesus.

Mary was told point blank by Gabriel. And in obedience, that was his human name. Christ, that's a distinction that separates him from everyone else. He is the Holy One, the Christ of God. That speaks of his divinity.

He's more than human. And then, of course, Lord. We'll get Christ later in the verse, but I'm putting it all here. Lord, his title. It is a title that says he's active in our lives. That's why he's master. That's why he's Lord.

He is active. He's not inactive as the deists would have taught. Well, God created the universe and walked away. That makes him deadbeat. Do that with your children.

Procreate and then walk away. There's nothing honorable about that. Who's the numbskull that thought that was worthy of divinity? And so, who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead? Where did Jesus die? Physically, of course, he died on Golgotha, Calvary. Spiritually, he died in the will of his father.

The perfect will of his father. Where did he rise again? Well, physically in the wine press just next to the Calvary, the place where he was crucified.

The wine press of Joseph of Arimathea. Spiritually and physically, he rose to the right hand of the throne of God where he is now. There's nothing about him that's common or average or can be duplicated. He's in a class all by himself and we want it that way and we want the lost to see it because it is true. It is true spiritually. It is true any other way. Far too often, we have regarded the resurrection as a closing part of the story, an epilogue.

It is the story. Paul said, if you have no resurrection, you have no faith. Your faith is for nothing.

It's everything. The whole Bible speaks of the resurrection, the victory over sin and death, which is the consequence. The wages of sin is death. The only person that could destroy death, that could kill death is Jesus Christ.

You've got to die in most cases to enter into it. God locked it down. He locked down the road to salvation. There's two ways to salvation. Death and translation. To be translated, to be taken up like Elijah, like Enoch, or like the church will be when she can do no more work here.

And that day is coming. So, running throughout the New Testament is this emphasis running throughout the Bible. The anointed one would be the conqueror of God, high above sin and anything that it could do. Otherwise, there would never have been a New Testament, and that's not all. This blazing certainty that was in the hearts of those who wrote the New Testament, who penned it for us.

That was the blazing certainty. Thomas said, I don't believe it. Peter was devastated. I don't know the man. It's all unraveling.

It's all falling apart. And then they saw him risen, and he went to Peter. He sought Peter out. James, James, his brother, son of Mary and Joseph. He was raised in the same house of Jesus Christ, and he didn't believe.

That is amazing, and it's encouraging. You all know people raised in the house with Christians exposed to the word, and yet they don't believe. When Jesus rose again, he sought James out. James became a believer.

We're going to be analyzing the letter he penned to the Jews. And so the mighty words and deeds of Christ are recorded that he conquered death forever and ever, and thus who brought up the Lord Jesus from the dead. The resurrection is everything to us.

Take it away, and you have nothing, but you can't take it away. Those apostles died saying, we saw him die. We saw him rise, and we are not going to lie to you no matter what you do to us. And they did no matter to them. And they still went out confessing that they were witnesses. They were martyrs.

They were believers because they were seers of the Lord Jesus Christ risen. He says, the blood of the everlasting covenant. Our salvation cannot be stolen from us. It's an everlasting covenant.

No one can snatch you out of his hands. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, speaking of the work of Christ who also has sealed us and given us the spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. John says, I've written these things that you may know that you have eternal life. Stop doubting it. You believe in Christ? Yes. You believe in any other on his level?

Absolutely not. I believe in Jesus Christ, and with that comes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. Listen, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. It ties right into the Shema of the Jews in Deuteronomy 6.4.

It's prophetic and fulfilled, or at least announced as fulfilled. Death, the wage of sin, our last enemy. He took the penalty of sin for sinners, for us.

It's incredible that sinners mock, that they mock Christ in boasting about, oh, well, I'm just a sinner. You see, Hollywood productions put that out there just because, understand, the entertainment industry, at least from the Second World War, is a propaganda machine. So let the viewer beware of whose propaganda is being broadcast when you watch whatever the, just anything you watch, there's something in it that will strike a nerve with the Christian, with perhaps except those Christian productions. And that is, of course, the broadcast, rebroadcast of the gospel in media form. Well, I know we've got to get moving, so the blood of the everlasting covenant, Christ's killing the power of death to kill us forever, to separate us from ever. He killed that, which would have kept us separate from God. Second Timothy chapter 1 verse 10, our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Paul wrote that on death row, knowing that Christ abolished the death that he was about to die. There's no contradiction, it's a paradox. There's more that can happen to a human being than die.

That's what he is saying. There's something else behind or after this life, after death. Man can give you a certificate of death for those who are still living, but the one who has gone on, where are they now? And why are they where they are? Hebrews 2.14, and as much then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, that would be us, we are flesh and blood, children of God, he himself likewise shared in the same.

He took on the name Jesus because he took on humanity, that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil. We believe it, we know it's true, and many have gone on before us doing the same thing. We look at their lives versus the lives of those who are against Christ, and we say, I choose the righteous.

I'll be with them any day, not with the unrighteous. You've been listening to Cross-Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply log on to crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross-Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross-Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Hebrews right here on Cross-Reference Radio.