please turn with me to page 243 in our Blue Confession books. And we'll be continuing in our study of Christ as our Redeemer with this morning's topic being Jesus our priest. Jesus serves as our Redeemer, as our prophet, as our priest, and as our king. And so far we've looked into his work as a prophet in some detail. And we've seen how Jesus actually serves us or ministers to us in the office of a prophet. Now, the prophet is one who proclaims the word of God to men. And we saw that Jesus accomplished that by the spoken word, by the written word, and as the word of God himself. The office of prophet has to do with proclaiming the will of God to mankind. And that's something Jesus did perfectly for us. And he did it for the purpose of bringing mankind into a saving relationship with the Father by explaining and proclaiming truth and justice and mercy and grace. That's the role of a prophet. But Jesus is more than a prophet, isn't he? He's also a priest. He's actually our high priest. meaning that he is the highest of all religious leaders. The high priest in some religions is almost synonymous with a ruler or a king, which of course we know Jesus is both of those things also. But he is a religious king, and so in his case as our mediator, everything religious that happens between man and God happens through Jesus Christ. Just like the Word of God passes from God to Jesus and then to us, everything we do with our religion and our worship toward the Father also passes from us to Jesus and then to the Father. Whatever we bring to Him, whether it's our prayers, or our tithes and our offerings, or our service, or even our broken and contrite hearts, all of these things must pass through Christ on their way to the Father. And all of our study of Jesus as our priest is once again in the greater context of our study of God's decrees. It is God's decree that He would gather all things together in one in Christ as our priest. That's what God wanted from the beginning. He wanted a people who would be joined to Him as Father through Christ the Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit. That was his desire. And so none of this plan of redemption is a plan B. This was his plan A from the start. God would provide eternal life to his children. He would gather them to himself through Christ and by the power of his Spirit. That was the purpose in God creating all things. And that was the purpose in God providing for all of those things. The decrees of God are accomplished, we saw, through creation and providence. He created all things so that He might gather His people to Himself, and He carefully provides for all things so that He might gather His people to Himself. Jesus and His ministry are the most central part of the providence of God in saving sinners. which is why Jesus Christ, our mediator, the prophet, priest, and king, is such an important study in the light of God's decrees. Jesus is at the very center of redemption, and redemption is at the very center of God's decree to gather all things together in him. A question we sometimes hear asked is why did God have to allow the fall and sin and suffering in order to accomplish this redemption? Why was sin needed in God's plan to have a people of his own? And I want to think about that for a moment as an introduction to today's message. Without sin and death, there's no telling if we could ever truly understand God's justice, could we? Or how about his mercy? Without sin and death, how could we experience God's power in restoring us to Himself? If we had never known sin and its power, certainly the power of God would be something merely hypothetical, at least as it relates to our own experiences. But instead, we have experienced the power of sin to rule over us like a master, And we've experienced the power of God overcoming our flesh and our sin and remaking us from within. As born-again believers, we have experienced life from death and light from darkness, and we understand the power of the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. And we know that experience firsthand, don't we? We have experienced mercy and justice and power and new life. Without living in the depths of our own depravity, full of hate and discontentment, how could we experience joy and contentment that can only be found in the Lord? How could we truly understand it? The same goes with love. Unless we understand the hate that Satan has for human souls, and the hate that this world and its systems have for its people, how could we even lay hold of God as the lover of our souls? God's plan then, His plan A, included sin and death because of what He will save us from and what He plans to save us to. He will save us to eternal life, which is a place without sin and death. He's saving us from everything wicked, and into a place where everything is pure. God is not just calling people to himself and gathering people to himself. He's calling and gathering undeserving people to himself. Wicked and unworthy people. People who were enemies and people who were serving his enemies. People who were as much unwilling to serve him as they were unable to serve him. It's that kind of person that is able to experience God completely, right? Only a lost person can experience being found, just as only a totally depraved person can experience holiness and a new heart. God's purpose in gathering people to himself is that they might have a knowledge of God, a complete knowledge of God. a knowledge of justice and mercy and righteousness and holiness and life and truth and light. Everything good that God represents perfectly is experienced by God's people because they come out of something bad. That's grace. We must, as Adam and Eve did, experience good and evil before we are ready to spend eternity in the presence of the Lord. That's why the message of the gospel over and over again points us to people who were a mess before they were saved, right? It's actually central to Jesus' message. He came not to save the righteous, but sinners. And by sinners, He meant people who knew they were sinners, really knew they were sinners. And why is that? Because only sinners can come to the Father prepared for a true knowledge of Him. Only a wretch can know God as the lover of his soul because only a wretch experiences the darkness and then sees the light. That person is able to love God back because he now knows what God has done to love him, the unlovable. If God's plan A was for Adam to earn his own place in heaven, would Adam know justice or mercy? He wouldn't. And I'm not even sure he could know righteousness or love. He would have righteousness, but a righteousness without a knowledge of evil is not the same as the righteousness that we will experience because of our experience of sin. We're saved from spiritual darkness and death and into light and life. That's something Adam couldn't have known without the fall. And so imagine eternity in the presence of God as someone who earned his way there. compared to eternity and the presence of God as someone plucked from hell. Even our physical suffering in this life is preparing us for eternity. Every pain will be gone in heaven. We will probably experience such a weightlessness in heaven that we can't even imagine here. That's a contrast from the burdens of sin and the aches and pains of the body that we have here, right? And all of this isn't just so God can seem clever or wise. It's so that we can know His love. It's so that we can know God's love for us and in turn love Him back. His gathering us in Christ is all about revealing Himself to us. He gave His Son to die for us. That's love. And that prepares us for eternity in the presence of the Lord. If we are truly born again, we will enter eternal life loving God. And yet our love for Him will be ever greater day by day as we experience the absence of all the evil that we were once submersed in. And I remind us of this as an introduction to our study of Jesus as our priest. God has gathered us into His love by the priestly work of Jesus at the cross. And we have a priest whose job is to reconcile sinners to the Father. He has come to gather a people and prepare a people to spend eternity loving and worshiping the Lord. That's why God's plan A included a fall into sin. And that's why Jesus came to be our priest, to redeem us from that fall. Question 28 this morning asks, how does Christ execute the office of a priest? And the answer is Christ executes the office of priest in his once offering up himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God and in making continual intercession for us. He offers himself as a sacrifice to satisfy justice and reconcile us to God, and he makes continual intercession for us. That's what Jesus does as a priest. He brings gifts to God on our behalf, and he prays for us. Now, this is our God of love acting as our high priest before the Father. And that's the topic of our study this morning. Jesus, our priest. All right, now before we begin, let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you once again that we have Christ who stands between us and you, that all of our sins, all of our spots and blemishes might be overlooked and covered in the perfect robes of Christ as we stand before you. We thank you that we have Him as our advocate who stands and pleads on our behalf before you, who takes the arrows from the enemy and shields us from them. Lord, we thank you that the consequences of our sin can be redeemed through Christ and in his blood. We thank you that we have hope and we thank you, Lord, for the time that we have in your word to study these things and think deeply upon these things. We thank you, Lord, that you've given us this Holy Bible that we can study you and understand you, that we might be prepared when we come before you face to face in eternity, that we might truly know who it is that we are spending eternity with, that we might enjoy you forever. And so we just thank you, Lord, that you are our God. We thank you for the ways that you minister to us. As backward as that seems, Lord, we thank you that you are a servant to your sinful enemies. And so, we come to you not as enemies, but as children, as those who have embraced your mercy, and we ask for more of your mercy and your grace today. Teach us, we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen. Okay, Jesus the High Priest. The Catechism, once again, says Christ executes the office of priest, and is once offering up himself a sacrifice. And that's the first thing we see. Jesus does his work as priest in offering himself as a sacrifice for sin on our behalf. And that's the most foundational aspect of Jesus' ministry, even more foundational than his work as prophet or as king. He is a priest who offers a sacrifice. Every Old Testament priest offered sacrifices before God, and Jesus is no exception to that. Sin requires death, and in God's providence, we see that the death we owe can actually be paid by another person. Now that's what we see in the Old Testament types and shadows, also with the priests and their sacrifices. We see someone else, another person acting as a priest, taking the life of another being, and offering it up to God on our behalf. That was typological of Jesus. But let's think about those old sacrifices. Those sacrifices had to be without blemish, didn't they? They had to be a clean animal and without spot or blemish. This was pointing to the one true sacrifice for sin that would be offered up to God on behalf of the people of God which would be the basis for the forgiveness of all sin. But do you remember those Old Testament priests? They slaughtered animals over and over and six days a week. Sin was never done being dealt with by those priests and their sacrifices because sacrifices never truly dealt with sin. The temple was a slaughterhouse with blood being shed almost constantly. And this allows us to see the significance and the difference in the once for all sacrifice of Jesus. Now remember that a type is something that points to its fulfillment. And because of that, the fulfillment is always a better version of the type. So when we see priests and sacrifices in the Old Testament, they are lesser versions of the priest and sacrifice that they're pointing to, which of course is Jesus. That's why the catechism makes the point that Jesus offered himself once. The reason is because he is the anti-type, or the better version of the priest, and he is the anti-type, or the better version of the sacrifice. He's a better, perfect version of both of those things. And Jesus wasn't like the type of priest who would find himself covered in the blood of bulls and goats days in, day in, and day out for his entire career, was he? No, he was the kind of priest who could offer himself once, and then he could retire to other duties. He's a very different kind of priest. He brought his sacrifice once to the Father, and it was finished. Turn with me, if you would, to Hebrews 9, starting in verse 13. We'll spend most of our message in Hebrews 9, by the way. Hebrews 9 and verse 14 and 28 are our proof texts, but I like to read all the way from 13 to 28 because it's so important to us. And this passage is so helpful to today's topic. So verse 13 begins, for if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean satisfies for the purifying of the flesh, How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Let's just stop there for a moment. The apostle is comparing and contrasting the blood sacrifices of bulls and goats with the blood sacrifice of Jesus. Again, we see the type and the anti-type being compared and contrasted, and we see the anti-type being superior all the way around. First, notice that the blood of the clean animals sprinkled on an unclean sinful person sanctifies or makes holy or purifies the flesh. The flesh. This is evidence that the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, and its sacrificial system was never intended to save souls. It was never intended to be a spiritual covenant. It pointed to our sinful spiritual condition in Adam, and it pointed to the spiritual holiness that we could find in Jesus Christ. But in and of itself, the old covenant was not spiritual. It was earthly, and it was fleshly, as it says. And so when the old covenant people were sprinkled with the blood of bulls and goats, it wasn't saving them spiritually from their sins, it was only saving them in an earthly sense. It was allowing them to participate in the outward worship of God, and it was sanctifying them as the earthly people of God to be under the earthly covenant protection of God as a nation. But none of this actually secured relief from the threat of sin and death and hell. It just maintained their position as the earthly people of God under a covenant of works whereby they would either obey and remain the recipients of God's earthly blessings, or they would disobey and forfeit their position and God's earthly blessings. And of course, ultimately, we know that they would play the harlot and violate God's covenant. And what would happen then? God said to them, you are not my people anymore. And that's the danger of the old covenant. The sacrifices were temporary, And the sacrifices were not spiritually saving. They cleansed the flesh and reconciled them to God so that they could serve God in the flesh. But they couldn't give the people new hearts or cleanse the conscience. Only Jesus would do that. And that's why the blood of Jesus is used by the apostle to contrast this earthly sanctification. He says again, how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. We are saved to serve and we're saved to serve spiritually, in spirit and in truth. So those old covenant examples did at least point to Christ, didn't they? They still taught us something about Jesus. He would be a spotless sacrifice. He would be sinless and pure and holy. That's the kind of sacrifice was needed for sin. And that's the kind of sacrifice those spotless lambs were helping to reveal to us. They were perfect. But there's more, isn't there? Jesus' sacrifice also did more than just cleanse the flesh for some kind of outward earthly worship of God. Because the true church, the true Israel, is more than just an earthly people of God. They are the spiritual people of God. So Jesus' sacrifice actually cleansed the conscience, it says. The conscience is the part of us that knows that it has violated and compromised our relationship with God. And Jesus' sacrifice actually cleanses our souls. so that we can come to God once again as people who can love God and be loved by God. That's the contrast we see from old and new covenants and that's the contrast we see between the blood of bulls and goats and the blood of Christ. The Old Testament sacrifices were never intended to purify or cleanse the soul. They cleansed a person for an outward relationship with the Lord, with outward blessings of land, and providence, but not for an inward relationship with the Lord, and not with a new heart. Those Old Covenant saints, the true believers in the Old Covenant, understood that. They knew that they needed a sacrifice that would cleanse the soul, and that's why they were looking forward, in faith, to the coming of the Messiah who would be the eternal High Priest of their souls. That's why Hebrews 9, in verse 15, goes on to say, and for this reason, he is the mediator of the new covenant. By means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance. There was no eternal inheritance in the old covenant. And what that does mean, is that all those earlier sacrifices, all the way from Adam, those sacrifices didn't accomplish the forgiveness of sin, and they didn't accomplish the spiritual redemption that was so needed for salvation. They remembered a promise, a promise of Genesis 3.15 and others, of that kind of sacrifice, but they weren't able to accomplish forgiveness. And the reason is because that system was never intended to do the work that only the blood of Christ could do. Instead, they pointed ahead to another sacrifice, and that sacrifice, of course, is the blood of Christ. The Old Testament served to reveal heavenly things for us, and it illustrated it in real life pictures, and yet it was never the heavenly thing itself. It was just a type. That's a really important distinction to remember as we think about the Old Covenant people and the temple and the sacrificial system with all its ceremonies. It points to the heavenly reality, but it doesn't accomplish what the heavenly reality accomplishes. It points to redemption. And it does it with an earthly calling and election and redemption without ever being the true spiritual calling and election and redemption that it points to. And that's why Hebrews 9 and verse 23 says, therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. So the altar and the temple and the priest and the sinner alike were all purified in the blood of animals. This only cleansed them for the outward earthly worship of the old covenant system. It pointed to the temple in heaven, but it was an earthly temple made with hands. And so its worship and its sacrificial system could never purify the conscience for eternal life. On the other hand, in the new covenant, we are the temple. And the blood of Christ doesn't purify us for outward worship, it purifies us for spiritual worship in spirit and in truth. God dwells in us and he works in us to make us pure and clean and holy. spotless like he was as we are constantly washed in his blood and made new in his image. That's a contrast with the Old Covenant that only produced an outward righteousness which Jesus actually compared to a whitewashed tomb full of dead men's bones. That's all the Old Covenant could accomplish. The New Covenant comes with a new creation and the once dead man becomes a living spiritual member of the kingdom of God. That's the work of Jesus as the priest. That's the work he's doing for us at the cross, and in the resurrection, and at the right hand of the Father. And so our priest is something much greater than the types and shadows that pointed to him. Hebrews 9 and verse 25 says, for Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us. This is the very heart of the ministry of priest. Yes, he was the perfect sacrifice, and he's much, much more than that. He is also able to take His own blood and His own death on our behalf as that perfect sacrifice, and He's able to bring it to the Father in heaven and present it to Him on the heavenly altar. No earthly priest can do that. No Old Covenant high priest could do that, and neither could Melchizedek. So when the Catechism says that Jesus offered Himself up as a sacrifice, it's saying that He was not only the Lamb, But he was the priest. And that's exactly what's being taught here in the book of Hebrews. No other sacrifice can offer itself because it's dead. No priest can offer himself. Only the Son of God can do that, and it requires the resurrection. That's why Paul makes it so clear, 1 Corinthians 15, in verse 14, when he says, if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. And then he says, and if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins. Why? Because without a resurrection, there is no priest to bring that sacrifice to the Father in the heavenly places. The resurrection of Christ is the very foundation of our faith. If there's no resurrection for Jesus, then there's no new life in Christ for us. If He's not made alive to live for us, then we are not made alive to live for Him. It's that simple. Our faith is in His resurrection from the dead, because in the resurrection, He shows us that He has broken the dominion of sin and death by His sacrifice. See how connected the resurrection is to the priestly work of Christ? And we partake of his victory by faith in his resurrection. The resurrection shows us that the father has accepted his sacrifice. It shows us that we have hope in him. And that's what he did as a priest. It is finished. He was the sacrificial lamb. And He is the priest who sprinkles His own blood onto the consciences of men, purifying them and justifying them and sanctifying them for spiritual work. The Old Covenant never accomplished that. Another thing we see in the Catechism is that there is just one sacrifice for all of mankind forever. The Catechism says He offered Himself once. And once again, if you're still following along in Hebrews 9, Verse 25 teaches this. It says, not that he should offer himself often as the high priest enters the most holy place every year with the blood of another. He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world. But now, once at the end of the ages, he has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. So Jesus Christ, the Son of God incarnate, came to earth to be our High Priest and to offer himself as a sacrifice once. He is the Lamb and He is the High Priest all in one. And his one sacrifice saves all of the elect in all times and forever. Now, what is it exactly that this sacrifice was needed for? What did Jesus accomplish in his priestly work? The old covenant high priest offered a sacrifice for forgiveness for sins for the people. He was the highest religious official and his ministry was the broadest of all the priests. He stood as a mediator between God and the entire nation of Israel. And once a year, he would enter into the Holy of Holies and offer a blood sacrifice to the Lord on behalf of the people. First for himself, we read, and then for the nation. This high priest was a sinner who stood between the people and God and offered the blood of bulls and goats. Again, there's nothing truly spiritual or saving here. The forgiveness being sought after and the forgiveness being given was temporary. The conscience isn't being cleansed and the soul isn't being prepared for eternal life. Sin is not conquered in the blood of bulls and goats. And yet this is the most important sacrifice that's done in the old covenant system of worship. Now there's a word that's used to describe this sacrifice. It's called propitiation. The high priest offered his sacrifice for the propitiation of the sins of the nation. This word means to atone or to appease God or to make amends with God. It reconciles people to God. It's actually a transaction though. The high priest is giving something valuable because sin has taken something valuable from God. So what's going on here is that the priest is purchasing forgiveness by the blood of the sacrifice of another being. What that really points us to is the penalty of sin and the justice that's required. Sacrifice of Jesus, as the catechism points out, was to satisfy the justice of God. And so what does that mean exactly? Why do we need that? Well, we need it because our sins are infinite. and they're evil towards God. And so we need to pay an infinite price to God in order to restore our relationship with Him. That makes good sense, right? We sin against an infinite God who deserves our infinite love and respect and adoration. And so the penalty for that sin must be infinite as well. Justice must be served and the wages must be paid to God for our sins. Jesus accomplished that in his priestly work. As a prophet, he declares the Word of God. As a king, he rules and protects. And as a priest, he offers himself as a sacrifice in order to satisfy God's justice upon sin. Hebrews 2, verse 17 is one of our proof texts, and it says, Therefore, in all things, he had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation, there's that word again, for the sins of the people. So what do we see here? We see that the Son of God had to be a man in order to be our high priest, didn't he? In order to be merciful and faithful as our high priest, he needed to know by experience the nature of mankind and their weaknesses and their struggles and their limitations. He had to know the condition of man, the pain of suffering and illness and death in order to serve us and weep with us and minister to us as high priest. That's a beautiful truth. That's part of what makes him a perfect high priest. He is a man who knows our suffering. But the other thing is that this high priest of ours is more than just a man. He is also the infinite sacrifice to pay the infinite wages of our sin because he is God. Romans 6 in verse 23 says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus' gift is to pay the wages of sin. He does that as our sacrifice and as our priest. The wages are infinite. That's why hell is eternal. Dying the most painful death we can imagine is not enough to pay the wages of sin that we have earned because our life and even our death are finite. We owe God something infinite and that can never be paid apart from an infinite sacrifice on our behalf and in our place. That's what Jesus, the infinite, eternal Son of God, accomplished. And so in God's infinite wisdom, we have a high priest who is the infinite, eternal Son of God. When he died for us, it was the infinite wage paid for us. That's the only way that justice can be served apart from eternal death in hell. There's no other way. You and I cannot earn our heavenly hope, and you and I cannot pay the wages of our sin. We need an eternal, infinite Lamb of God, and that's exactly what we see in our high priest. His sacrifice is a propitiation for our sins. And it's not only satisfied, it not only satisfies God's justice, we also see that it reconciles us to God. We see both of those things in Hebrews 2 in that word propitiation. We see two things happen in the resurrection. God accepts Jesus in two ways. He is accepted as a sacrifice and he is accepted as a priest. The lamb of God and his blood are taken to the father's altar and the father accepts him. He has earned the righteousness that his people needed in his living. He has paid the wages of sin that his people earned by his death. Justice is completely satisfied in Jesus Christ. You and I can now be considered innocent in the court of justice. And that's what it took to reconcile us to God. We need our debt paid, and we need a righteousness that we can never earn. Jesus gives us both, and God accepts them both in his high priestly work. So that's our first point, and that's Jesus' priestly work. But Jesus has another work as our priest, and this work is eternal. And that's His heavenly duty, which is to make continual intercession for us. So Jesus does more in His role as High Priest than just be our sacrifice and then present it to the Father. He also intercedes for us. This word means he is our mediator. That's really the topic of this whole study we're doing, right? Jesus is standing between us and God, and he's negotiating for us to God and praying for us to God. He's literally our advocate. He's our lawyer, in a sense. That's what a priest does. He negotiates on the behalf of his people before God. Now, we always envision the courtroom scene with Satan accusing us of our sins. But it's important that we also envision Jesus as our lawyer. He is our advocate. We're not arguing with Satan. Christ is. Hebrews 7 and verses 24 and 25 are our next proof text and it says, but he, Jesus, because he continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. This is in contrast to the old covenant priests who all died. Therefore, he is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. So what this means is that his duties aren't over when he offers himself as a sacrifice and delivers his blood to the Father. His priestly work is more than that of the lamb of God and the high priest of God offering that sacrifice in heaven. When he started in heaven 2,000 years ago in his ascension, he continues forever. His sacrifice isn't being administered by someone else because he died, because he didn't die or he did die, but he rose again and is the eternal high priest. And so he lives to be our advocate even today. He is risen. He lives. He lives to stand with us in that courtroom and advocate for us in heaven. And he will be our advocate and our teacher in all of eternity. If you or I were sued, none of us here would probably be confident in representing ourselves before even the lower county court systems, right? There are laws we don't know and procedures we don't know. And it would be a huge mistake to try to navigate that system without an expert to walk beside us. We're also not trained communicators who are able to argue and negotiate and articulate our case before a jury or a judge. Same situation occurs right this moment in heaven. Satan is quite possibly standing before God right at this moment questioning the righteousness of you and me, just like he did with Job. Think about that. And God said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? And what did Satan say? He said, does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. That's what Satan thinks of Job. That's what he thinks of you and me. It's a terrible accusation. That's an accusation of hypocrisy and hypocrisy is the greatest sin that could possibly be committed against God. And that scene could be happening in heaven right now and you and I could be the topic of that conversation. Imagine facing that apart from the intercessory prayers of Jesus. That's what unbelievers will do. That's what hypocrites will do. They will stand alone and answer for every hypocrisy and every sin. But we have an advocate in heaven. We have a lawyer who stands beside us when Satan accuses us, and he strengthens us, and he leads us into holiness, and he teaches us, and he defends us when we're attacked, and he even fights our battles alongside of us. Again, we see our advocate is a prophet who teaches, a priest who intercedes, and a king who fights and protects. This is our Redeemer, and He lives to intercede for us. So when Satan comes and takes all that we have, including our families and our health, we have a Savior who will be there beside us, making sure that none of our suffering is wasted, ever. And all of it is used to accomplish his wonderful purpose, to gather us to himself. Those are the decrees of God, accomplished in the providence of Jesus as our Redeemer. So Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice, as both the Lamb of God and the Priest of God. And in that sacrifice, he satisfied the justice of God and reconciled us to him. And he now lives forever to make continual intercession for us as our advocate. Now what's our role in this transaction? How do we lay hold of this wonderful mercy and the grace of God? The Bible says our duty in response to this amazing work of Christ is to repent and believe in Him. Repentance and faith is our duty. I'd like to close with some last remarks. about repentance and faith and I'd like to quote from a book written by Thomas Watson called The Doctrine of Repentance. In it he wrote something profound about repentance. He wrote, first repentance is necessary. Luke 13 in verse 5 says, except you repent you shall all likewise perish. Then he says, there is no rowing to paradise except upon the stream of repenting tears. Repentance is required as a qualification. It is not so much to endear us to Christ as to endear Christ to us. Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet. This, I think, is one of the keys to the Christian life. Faith in Jesus is certainly to believe in what he's done for us as our priest and what he's doing for us, that's for sure. But faith is more than that. Faith is also believing that sin is evil and that righteousness is worthy of our pursuing it. This life needs to be a rowing upon the stream of repenting tears. And so if we're without sorrow for our sins, there is no stream for us to row upon. There is no way for us to truly lay hold of Jesus as the remedy. There's no sweetness in his sacrifice. Unless sin sorrows us and causes us to detest it, why would we repent of it? Sin must break our hearts if we're going to lay hold of Jesus, because Jesus conquered sin for us in that sacrifice. If we still lay hold of one secret sin, and we whisper to God, don't take it quite yet. If we're not willing to weep over its power over us, then we're not ready for Christ. And we have no stream to row upon toward heaven. Thomas Watson says, until sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet. I guess my question for all of us is this, does sin make us weep? Those tears are the stream to paradise. True faith in Christ and in his work means that our hatred for our sin has made us weep over it. And those bitter tears make him sweet to us. Repentance means we let go of our sin and our self-righteousness and our pride. We let go of them because we see the beauty in Christ and we see it in his priestly sacrificial work, the work that saved us from that sin. Ride the streams of repenting tears to heaven, because that's the kind of sorrow that brings a soul to righteousness and holiness. That's the kind of sorrow that finds Christ to be sweet. Again, Watson says, this isn't to endear us to Christ. Christ already has a great love for us. But it's for Christ to be endeared to us. Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet. And we can love these doctrines, and we do. And we can find our Savior to be amazing and worthy of praise, and we do. But until sin be bitter, our faith is not complete. We need a repentance to come alongside it. And those repenting tears will bring us to paradise, as Watson wrote so eloquently. And that's my prayer for all of us today. It's one thing to see the beauty of Christ in his priestly work. It's another thing to have a faith that causes us to turn from our sin and hate our sin, and finally bring us to a place that Christ truly becomes sweet in our eyes. And that should be the primary focus in this life, to find sin to be bitter so that Christ might grow sweeter and sweeter in our eyes. And with that, let's pray.