The Exclusive and Superior Priesthood of Jesus Christ - Part 2 of 2

The Baptist Bible Hour now comes to you under the direction of Elder LeSaire Bradley, Jr. O for a thousand tongues to sing, my great Redeemer's praise! The praise of my God and King, the triumphs of His grace!

This is LeSaire Bradley, Jr. inviting you to stay tuned for another message of God's sovereign grace. Awake, my soul, to joyful ache, and sing, my great Redeemer's praise! He just reclaims a song from me, His loving kindness, O thou free! Loving kindness, loving kindness, His loving kindness, O thou free!

He saw me ruin my love for death of me not, withstanding all. He saved me from my lost estate, His loving kindness, O thou free! Loving kindness, loving kindness, His loving kindness, O thou free!

O numerous souls of my devote, O earth and heaven my way oppose! He safely leads my soul along, His loving kindness, O thou strong! Loving kindness, loving kindness, His loving kindness, O thou strong! When trouble like a blooming cloud has gathered thick and thunder cloud, Me dear, my soul has always stood, His loving kindness, O thou good!

Loving kindness, loving kindness, His loving kindness, O thou good! Well, I'm glad to have you with us for the broadcast today and hope that the message will be a blessing to you. We would appreciate it if you would write and let us know you've listened, and if you can help with the support of the program, we would greatly appreciate it.

The need is especially great right at this time. Our address is Baptist Bible Hour, Box 17037, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. And I encourage you to visit our website at BaptistBibleHour.org.

Our guest speaker again today is Elder Jeremiah Bass, Senior Pastor of Cincinnati Promotive Baptist Church. He continues his message from the book of Hebrews. So how then can people be rescued from the eternal consequences of their sins?

Now my friends, if we will just hear this, there is nothing more important to be talking about than this right now. Well, the Apostle Paul tells us, so thank the Lord he doesn't leave us in Galatians 3, 10. He goes on to say in Galatians 3, 13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. What that verse is saying is that the curse will come.

It must come. The wrath of God will be poured out on sin. It will either be poured out on you in eternity, or it'll be poured out on God's son. And Paul says, this is the way people escape the wrath of God.

It came, Jesus took the curse. He suffered the curse of the law in the place of his people, the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God, as Peter puts it. He is the fulfillment of the day of atonement. He's the sin offering. He is the one upon whom the sins of his people are transferred. His blood is taken into the holy place.

His blood is sprinkled on the mercy seat. He is the sacrifice. He's the one who endures the punishment for our sins so that we might be released from the penalty of our sins. Paul says in St. Corinthians 5, 21, God the father made God the son to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Or in terms of our text, he sanctifies the people with his own blood. Verse 12.

Now why go through all this? Well, for one thing, it's the good news of the gospel. But you need to understand this if you really want to understand what grace from God really is. Because biblical grace is gospel grace. There's another type of grace. And what grace means is not just that God goes easy on you. It's not just that you don't get what you deserve. It is much, much more than that.

And sometimes the more I think about this, the more it's just, it's almost unbelievable. If it weren't for the Bible telling us about this. Now to have God's grace because it's gospel grace, you must belong to God's son, to Jesus Christ. You think the high priest didn't just represent anybody, did he? The high priest stood in for God's people. And if you belong to him, what that means is that he took all your sin. And it means that you get his perfect righteousness credited to your account. Now if you ask the question, how do I know I belong to him?

The answer to that question is the answer to this question. Do you believe in his son? Do you trust in him? Have you received him as Lord and Savior?

That's the test. Now if that's true of you, please listen to this. It means that there is nothing for you to do to merit God's favor. Nothing. It means that there is no sin that threatens your relationship with the father. There is no good work that you need to do to keep that relationship with the father. And if you really grasp that, it will take your breath away. The child of God doesn't work for God's favor.

We work from it. We only fight forgiven sins. He breaks the power of what? Canceled sin.

He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the phallus clean, his blood availed for me. That's what it means to be a recipient of God's grace. Again, grace doesn't mean that Christ did most of the work of salvation.

Now the rest is up to you. It means that all the righteousness needed for the everlasting favor of God is found in Christ. Not in us. So you see that grace is not just God looking the other way. It doesn't mean that God just goes easy on us.

It means that all the demands and requirements of justice have been fully satisfied in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And this is grace from him who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The grace of our Lord doesn't wear out, doesn't grow old.

He doesn't change, which means that he is always gracious towards his people. It's the backdrop to such passages like this in Hebrews 4. Seeing then that we have a great high priest who's passed into the heavens. Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was at all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace. That we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Now these verses also show us that grace doesn't just mean that God is favorably disposed towards us, but that he moves to our help.

That's the sense of our text. God's grace establishes our hearts. He cleanses and purifies them.

He unites our hearts to fear his name. But the fact that God calls the help he gives us grace, is a reminder that the help we ask for is not help we get because we deserve it. But it's help we get because we're in Christ. So go to Christ for grace.

And go and go and go. Because his grace is an unchangeable grace. It is a never ending grace.

This is a bank from which you can make as many withdrawals as you want. And you will never get an overdraft. Now you will not find this grace anywhere else. I mean, really look out into the world. Is there grace out there? There is no grace there. You won't find it in people.

You won't find it in any religion apart from Christ. He is superior to every competitor. His grace is greater than all of our sin. He is superior in his grace. He is unchanging in the grace he gives. Secondly, he is unchanging in the atonement he provides.

He sanctifies, verse 12, the people with his own blood by suffering without the gate. He is the altar at which we find redemption and peace with God. By him, we can be released from the penalty and power of sin. By him, the guilt of our sin is fully dealt with. By him, we can be reconciled to God so that we who are once enemies are now the friends of God. By him, we can be released from the holy wrath of God against our sin. And we need to remember that this atonement that our Lord provides is not something that has to be achieved over and over and over again.

Remember what our Lord said, what the author said back in chapter 10, verse 10. By God's will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this man, after he'd offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God from henceforth expecting kills enemies and be made his footstool. For by one offering he is perfected forever, then that are sanctified. In other words, the atonement is unchanging in its effectiveness. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever in terms of his ability to save all who come to him. There's no need to add to his work. There's no need to contribute to our redemption. Thirdly, Jesus is unchanging in the city he builds.

I love verse 14. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. This is the city that Abraham sought. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed.

And he went out not knowing where he went. By faith he sojourned in the lane of promises in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

But now they desire a better country that is a heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. But brothers and sisters, we may be strangers in this world, but we have an eternal home. It is an inheritance which is both imperishable and unchanging, reserved in heaven for those who belong to Jesus. The greatest inheritance in this earth will be taken away. Death allows us to take nothing with us. As the Apostle Paul put it, we came into this world with nothing, we'll go out with nothing. But for the Christian, death is the door to glory.

It's the entrance into our eternal home. And I think it's also important for us to remember the first part of this verse, for here we have no continuing city. You see, God has not promised that if we have enough faith and keep our noses clean, that we'll have a nice life or achieve the American dream. Our Lord's life wasn't like that. Paul's life wasn't like that.

The Apostle's lives weren't like that. So you shouldn't get upset with God if your dreams for this life aren't coming true. He hasn't promised you a nice ride this side of heaven. But what he has promised is infinitely better. He's promised an eternal city in the presence of God forever.

So there's no bait and switch here. He hasn't promised us earthly wealth, health, fame, comfort. So if we don't have that, it's not because God's unfaithful.

He is faithful. If you belong to Jesus, you have a city, a home, a place in heaven prepared for you. In these three ways, our Lord demonstrates his superiority over all of his competitors. No one gives you grace like Jesus. No one provides atonement like Jesus. No one builds a city like Jesus.

Now, how should we respond to these realities? So on the one hand, we shouldn't think that we relate to God and gain his favor through sacrifices that we make. But that doesn't mean there's no place for sacrifice in the Christian life.

There is a place. There is a kind of sacrifice that pleases God. The text says that, doesn't he? These are not sacrifices to gain God's favor. These are sacrifices in response to his grace. And there's three types of sacrifices mentioned here in verses 13 to 16. First of all is the sacrifice of the self.

Taking your cross to follow Jesus. You see this in verse 13. Jesus, like the bodies of the beast slain on the Day of Atonement, was taken outside the camp and burned. Jesus suffered outside the camp on Golgotha. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach. The language here carries the exact meaning of what our Lord said when he said, if any man will follow me, let him take up his cross and follow me. Our Lord took a cross. So must we.

Jesus endured their approach of sinners outside the city gates. So must we. We must be willing to be considered outsiders because we are.

We have no continuing city here. We seek one that is to come. But you know what? The way this ties in with what we've been looking at is that it is only when we're convinced of the exclusivity and the superiority of Jesus to everyone and everything else that we will take our crosses and follow him like this. I mean, why would you do otherwise? I mean, if there are other options out there, why would you follow Jesus? When he says take a cross, die to yourself.

I mean, if it doesn't matter if you follow him or not, why would you? But the exclusivity of Jesus as the only way to the father shows us this is not optional. There's only two ways, right?

This is what Jesus said in Matthew 7. There's only two ways. There's a narrow way and there's a broad way. So you're on one of those two ways. Everyone in this room is on one of those two ways. The narrow way leads to life. The broad way leads to death.

And there's only one door to the narrow way. That's Jesus. If there are other options, why would you? But Jesus is the only. But there are better options out there, why would you follow Jesus?

If something can give you something better, why not go for that? But my friends, as we've been arguing, no one can give you gospel grace. No one can give you salvation from sin that you didn't merit. Only Jesus can do that. No one can truly and fully atone for sins in your place.

You can't. No one else can give you an inheritance in heaven. Only Jesus Christ can do that. He is the exclusive and the superior way to the father. So there's the sacrifice of the self.

Again, there's an order here, isn't there? We don't sacrifice ourselves to get God's favor. We sacrifice ourselves because we have God's favor in Jesus. And then there's the sacrifice of praise.

You see this in verse 15. By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. Now, of course, the language of sacrifice here should not make us think that praising God is a hard thing. But the language of sacrifice here is used in the sense of something offered to God. And it's praise, not propitiation. Again, we don't offer praise to God to get his favor, to merit his love. We offer praise to God in response to his grace towards us in and through Jesus Christ. This is the only appropriate response to the gift of God, to us in Christ.

We receive it with thanksgiving. And I want you to notice that word continually. Paul wrote the Corinthians and warned them, in light of the example of the Israelites in the wilderness, neither murmur ye. As some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. 1st Corinthians 10.

Murmuring is never good, is it? Because it betrays a lack of contentment in God. It shows us that we do not believe the Lord has taken care of us.

It's evidence of a lack of faith and joy in him. So what should characterize us, therefore, is continual praise and ongoing recognition that God is good and God is faithful. And part of that continually means that our praises are not going to be determined by our emotions.

But that our hearts should be calibrated by the doctrines we believe. So if you believe that you are saved by grace through faith and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. If you believe that salvation from beginning to end is God's gift, how can you respond to that other than praise him? Let the fruit of your lips be praised to God continually. It doesn't, listen, it doesn't matter what you're going through right now, where you're at, think of what you have in Christ. All of your sins forgiven, past, present, future. No condemnation for all who are in Christ Jesus. Eternal security in him. A love that never fails, a city in heaven reserved for you. That's what you have right now if you're in Christ. How could we not, because I know that we go through hard things in life. But my friends, this is something that can never be taken away from you. Finally, there's the sacrifice of good works.

Again, the order here is important. We don't do good works to atone for our sins. We do good works because we have been atoned for our sins.

So he goes on to say in verse 16, but to do good and to communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices, God is well pleased. So good works should be the outflow of grace in the life. Grace establishes the heart, grace changes the heart. Grace unites our hearts to fear his name and the life has changed.

And where there are no good works, you can guarantee it, there is no grace. And in particular, one good work that's mentioned here is that of sharing what you have. That's the idea here behind the word communicate.

It means to share, it's koinonia. If you're a recipient of God's free and sovereign grace, and if you know that you've received salvation this way, how can you not want to freely share what you have with others? Is it not incongruous for a person to say, I'm saved by grace and is selfish and stingy with the things they have? Sharing ought to be the natural outflow of God's grace in the life. In fact, this is how the apostle Paul sought to motivate the Corinthians to contribute to the poor saints in Jerusalem. In fact, he calls it a grace. Listen to this, 2 Corinthians 8 verse 1. He speaks to them of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. And he goes on to describe how that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. Paul is just astounded because these saints in Macedonia were dirt poor.

And yet in their dirt poor poverty and the affliction they were enduring, they were generous. I haven't been around the world that much. I've only been out of the country once, went to Mexico about 25, 30 years ago. And we went to a city called Cordoba. And part of the time was also spent in the mountains of Oaxaca near the border, the Central American border. And one of the things I was really surprised what hit me was just the incredible poverty of the believers there.

That was one thing that hit me. And I wasn't staying in any nice hotel. I was staying in the homes of believers. So I participated in some of the poverty. But one thing also that hit me was the generosity of the believers there.

This is only natural. Grace produces grace. God shares freely with us, we share freely with others. So therefore, Paul writes, as you abandon everything in faith and utterance and knowledge and all diligence and in your love to us, see that you abound in this grace also. But he not only motivates them by the example of the Macedonians, he also above all motivates them by the example of Christ.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, this is one of the most incredible passages in the New Testament. There is so much doctrine. This is just full of doctrine just bubbling over in this one verse. But it's interesting where this verse is placed. It's placed in a context where Paul is trying to motivate the Corinthians, give your material possessions for the poor saints of Jerusalem. And here's how he motivates us.

You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. So we show grace in concrete and specific ways because we've been given grace by Christ. So I'm thankful for this church and the way we're contributing to these holiday programs for city gospel mission and for valley interfaith.

This is a specific way to show grace. We're giving possessions for the material benefits of others. And this is right that we should do this. It's right that we should be generous this way. And not just with one or two programs of the year, but let our lives demonstrate this kind of communication.

Paul's the author here says, don't forget this. With such sacrifices, God is well pleased. So brothers and sisters, let's not just get by. Let's abound in grace and in the showing of grace. Let's let the praises of God be on our lips often and always in our hearts. Let's be willing to lay down our lives for the Lord and his kingdom.

And you know what? If you really believe that your salvation is totally secure in Jesus, the thing that should not lead to is, well, I've got that wrapped up. Now I can live to myself.

No, I mean, the kind of heart that produces is a life. I've got heaven. I've got eternal life. If that's wrapped up now, I want to give myself to others. I want to share the grace of Christ to the world.

Not to earn salvation, but because in Jesus is the gift of free and sovereign grace. Our guest speaker today has been Elder Jeremiah Bass, senior pastor of Cincinnati Promotive Baptist Church. We'd appreciate it if you'll take time to write. Let us know that you've listened, and I also encourage you to visit our website at BaptistBibleHour.org. Till next week at this same time, may the Lord richly bless you all. The Baptist Bible Hour has come to you under the direction of Elder LeSaire Bradley Jr. Address all mail to the Baptist Bible Hour, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217.

That's the Baptist Bible Hour, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. Wonderful, the massless grace of Jesus, deeper than the mighty rolling sea. Broader than the skull for my transgression. Pray before that all my sin and shame are sin and shame. O magnify the precious name of Jesus. Praise His name.