What Boldness Looks Like, Part 1

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. On the cross, as Jesus completed the great sacrifice on behalf of our sins, the curtain of the temple that separated the Holy of Holies was torn from top to bottom. Now, through the blood of Christ, we can enter the holy place and come before God the Father, not just as His servants, but as daughter and son.

Everything has changed. Our life objective has a name. Our source of life has a name. His name is Jesus. Our beautiful confidence and safety in our relationship with God flows out in streams of living water through our outward expression. It looks like boldness in the way we live and love.

Listen as Pastor Rich unpacks Hebrews 10 19-25 in this message titled, What Boldness Looks Like. You ever come to a door that you're not sure it's the door you should be going into? And you reach out and touch the knob and turn it and then somebody says, You can't go in there.

I've done that a time or two. Sometimes you might even be in an office where somebody says to somebody else, You can't go in there. Some of us have gatekeepers.

I have an excellent gatekeeper. My mornings are protected, by the way. That's why I don't answer the church phone in the morning, just in case you're wondering about that. But that time is devoted to study. And so, you know, Rich is locked in his pastor's cave kind of thing.

You know, no interruptions, that sort of stuff. But, you know, you can't go in there. It's like, you know, think consider somebody in an executive office on the 25th floor in the corner. And, you know, somebody just you can't just barge past the gatekeeper and just walk in and say, Hey, how you doing, pal? You know, just know there's a gatekeeper for a reason. You can't go in there. You have to have authorization to go in there. You have to have an invitation.

You have to have an appointment or something like that. Or it could be a restricted area. But what we have before us is an open door. We have an open door because what we have here is a contrast between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Covenant and the New Covenant. In the Old Testament, the emphasis was separation between holy God and unholy man, sinful man. In the New Testament, that emphasis changes to reconciliation, where holy God is brought together with that which has been made holy.

That is a very, very important distinction. Same God, but now he has revealed himself more fully in the person of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the ladies presented to us this morning. What we have before us then is an open door. Look with me at verse 19 again. Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus.

This is an open door. What the author of Hebrews is doing here is providing us with an encapsulated form of review of everything that he's already covered. Beginning at chapter seven, all the way back to chapters three and four, he mentions the high priestly function of Jesus Christ. And now he's encapsulating all of that and its implications for you and me. But the high priestly function of Jesus Christ is that he sits at the right hand of the Father. He intercedes for me at the right hand of the Father to guarantee the ultimate promise based on his ultimate sacrifice. And that is what he's doing for me now.

And because he does that, we have an open door. Now, very important for us to understand here. This is an indicative of scripture. These are the indicative. This is something we must know. I've not mentioned the command yet.

There's no command here given yet. This is a, since this is true, we have to know what is true, because if you just come to the imperatives of scripture, the commands, the precepts, and you don't know the indicative of scripture, the commands are going to be confusing. They won't make a bit of sense to you. I think there's too many Christians who suffer from that plight today. We think the Bible is just a bunch of commands and God's up there keeping score.

Are they keeping my commands or not? No, we need to know the indicative of scripture. Do we know that we have an open door? What makes that door open? So this message here today, verses 19 to 25, is to the one who has surrendered himself in faith to Jesus Christ, because if you have surrendered yourself in faith to Jesus Christ, you have an open door to the holiest of all, which means the very presence of infinite holy God into his very presence. And so we have what the writer of Hebrews says, boldness to enter the holiest, boldness to enter the holiest. That is God's presence. Now that word boldness, don't confuse it with arrogance, okay?

Boldness is a word that means confidence, to speak confidently or freedom of speech, to speak freely. It's the idea that goes like this. If we're in a big crowd or something like that and I see a familiar face, somebody that I know well, and we're friends, I just go right up to that person and say, how are you doing? Here's what's going on.

How's it going on in your life? You just engage in a conversation. You talk with each other. That's this kind of boldness.

You're open to engage in conversation, open to conversation at any time. And so you see, that's the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the Old Testament, separation was emphasized because God is absolutely holy and man can't just come to God anytime he wants in any way he wants. He must be separate from God.

It is necessary according to the righteous requirement of the law and of God's holiness. But God now is open to conversation at any time with me because I am in Christ. I don't need another human priest to usher me into the presence of God because I am in Christ.

Christ is seated next to the throne of the majesty on high and if I am in Christ, I am seated there with him. He has already ushered me into the presence of God. I don't need another human priest to help usher me in.

Why? Because that human priest also needs to be ushered into the presence of God. Jesus Christ does that. And so we have this open door. Now, let's be very, very careful here to understand this as we read this and the writer of Hebrews tells us about our boldness. Make sure you understand that there is no sense in this that I can come to God because I have the right to come to God. Or I deserve to be able to get to talk to God. Too many people that think that way and we have marginalized the holiness of God and his grace. We are only granted access to God by the grace of God. By the grace of God, I'm invited in to fellowship with him because that's what I was designed for. You were designed for the same thing, to love God and enjoy him. And when we can do that, then we are successful.

We're living according to our design. And so a son would go up to the 25th floor, the elevator opens, he walks right past the gatekeeper and the gatekeeper says, Where do you think you're going, young man? And the young man looks at her and says, He's my dad. He's my dad. And dad hears his son's voice and opens the door and says, Come here son, talk to me.

It's your father. And the Bible calls it, the writer of Hebrews calls it a new and living way. Look at verse 20. Boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he consecrated for us.

Through the veil, that is, his flesh. Christ's death, burial and resurrection inaugurated the new covenant. That word consecrated is like the word inaugurated. He launched it. It's inaugurated. It is now in place. It is plugged in. It is operational.

It is now off the launching pad. Christ's death, burial and resurrection inaugurated the new covenant. Again, the high priestly function of Jesus Christ. He intercedes for me at the right hand of the father, guaranteeing the ultimate promise based on his ultimate sacrifice. What is that ultimate promise? That ultimate promise is the new covenant. And the major elements of that new covenant from which you and I benefit are these four. Forgiveness, presence, relationship and transformation. God promises that to you and me, those of us who are in Christ. He promises forgiveness, relationship, presence and transformation.

All four of those. That is the new covenant. And Christ's death, burial and resurrection inaugurated that for me and for us. And so this is the veil when he speaks of the veil here. Verse 20, having consecrated for us through the veil, that is, his flesh.

The flesh is Jesus being God in the form of man. The Old Testament, there was the separation, the veil between the holy place and the holiest place, meaning you can't go in there. And Jesus came to us in that light saying, you can't just go in there. And he forfeited his life so that by faith I can go in there. Because when he died, the veil was torn in two from top to bottom. And so Jesus then is that veil so that I can go from where I am into the presence of God. Only through Jesus Christ. The important thing to understand there is that Jesus came to be our savior and there's one reason and one reason only that he was given a body of flesh.

Why is that? So that he could die and rise again. You see, because an unsacrificed savior is no savior at all. If he came and claimed to be our savior and no sacrifice was ever made, we wouldn't be saved. So he guarantees the ultimate promise based on his ultimate sacrifice. Here then is the gospel of grace.

And it is encapsulated in this way. If you've never heard the gospel of grace before, this is it. This is the encapsulated message of the whole Bible.

That God is a holy God and he created you to love him and enjoy him. But our first parents chose to walk away from God. It's like the branch cutting itself off from the tree. And God in his justice requires wrath against that which is unholy.

So you and I have this problem. We are separated from God. Now God has given us his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he forfeited his life absorbing in himself the wrath of God that you and I deserve so that by faith you and I can be reconciled back to God. There is the gospel. If you have not responded to the gospel, you must respond to the gospel if you want to be reconciled to God.

Otherwise you will have to spend an eternity alienated from him and living only for yourself which means abject despair. We're so glad you've joined us for Delight in Grace. The teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. You can hear this message and others anytime by visiting our website www.delightingrace.com You can also check out Pastor Rich's book, 7 Words That Can Change Your Life, where he unpacks from God's Word the very purpose for which you were designed. 7 Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace, weekdays at 10am.