Well, good morning to everyone. Another beautiful day in the UP this morning on the farm. There’s a little rain and spit and snow, but this is the day the Lord has made and we will rejoice and be glad in it. 

We're going to be continuing our study of the book of Hebrews this morning in chapter 5, and we're really moving into some heavy sections coming here in the next several chapters. We come to a very interesting passage this morning in Hebrews chapter 5, and this section is going to run us all the way through chapter 10 as the author gets kind of to the meat of the book and the great doctrinal and warning section concerning the great high priest of the new covenant, Jesus Christ. 

I was thinking about the whole context of the book of Hebrews and the author's intent and the methods that he employs in this book. The main issue in this community was that there were those who had made a profession of faith in Christ who were part of the fellowship but were considering going back, leaving the church, going back to the temple worship and Judaism. 

And also maybe for the believers to give them assurance that they'd done the right thing in coming to faith in Christ. So what we had here is really not a lot different than the problems that we see in the church today. We read continually about the crisis in the Christian Church and how so many, especially the young people, are leaving the church. 

And it struck me during the course of my studies that the answer that the church is employing for this problem, or perhaps I should say the answers, are not God's answers—are not God's way. The church has gone the way of the world with worldly entertainment, philosophy, psychology, and all of this is coupled with a dumbing down, a de-emphasizing of doctrine. 

An overzealous putting the cookies on the bottom shelf, or better yet, who needs cookies at all because we have pizza? The book of Hebrews is dealing with a leaving the church problem—a draw to the world, to the community, and succumbing to the pressures of culture and society problem. So what method does the Holy Spirit use in this epistle? 

How does he seek to remedy this problem, to shore up the faith of the believers, to call those who have come up to the point of faith in Christ to go on to perfection? Well, he uses only perhaps the deepest, most mind-stretching heavily doctrinal epistle in the whole Bible. He goes to doctrine, to warning, to exhortation to believe Jesus, who He is, what He has accomplished. 

This section we are about to study over the next several months is as deep as any doctrine you will find anywhere concerning the high priestly position of Jesus after the order of Melchizedek, the one-time sufficient sacrifice of Christ on the cross, the end of the old covenant system, and the dawning of the new. We will never plumb the depths of these things. 

Yet God's answer for bringing men to faith, for keeping them in the church, continuing in their faith in Jesus, and holding fast to Him, my friends, is doctrine, is truth, is deep teaching about who Jesus is, what He has done, and all the promises that are yes in Him. Vance Havner said, "What you win them with, you win them to," and God intends to win them with and to Jesus, our great and merciful high priest. 

Well, let's look at our text and then we'll look together at another important text for our understanding in Hebrews 8. Let's begin with Hebrews 5 at verse 1: 

"For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness. Because of this, he is required, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer sacrifices for sins. And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was."

So also Christ did not glorify himself to become high priest, but it was he who said to Him, "You are my Son, today I have begotten You." As he also says in another place, "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." 

Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save him from death, and was heard because of his godly fear, though he was a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, called by God as high priest according to the order of Melchizedek, of whom we have much to say and hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing.

Well, I've given you four points on your outline this morning for our text. First, we're going to see chosen for men. Second, compassion for men. The third, called by God. And fourth, complete salvation. 

Well, I'd like to begin our message this morning by asking you first to turn to Hebrews chapter 8, and we're gonna read that chapter just to set a little context here and for our understanding. 

Hebrews 8:1 — The author says, "Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected and not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; therefore it is necessary that this one also have something to offer. For if he were on earth, he would not be a priest since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law, who served the copy and shadow of the heavenly things as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For he said, 'See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.' But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry inasmuch as he is also mediator of a better covenant which was established on better promises." 

For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, he says: "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord." 

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: "I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for all shall know Me from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." 

In that He says a new covenant, He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. 

Well, it's important for us to remember that the book of Hebrews is specifically directed to, and applicable to, this group of Jews in this community to which the author writes. They were a unique people in a unique time with specific problems and struggles which do not exist in the same way today. Yet bearing this in mind, I am amazed as I continue to study that not only are the doctrinal truths written here about Jesus and the new covenant so amazingly rich and encouraging for us, but also how applicable some of the principles are that we're studying for the church today. 

And the major theme, as we just read in Hebrews 8, is that we have a great high priest in Jesus who has sat down at the right hand of God, having completed, accomplished the work of salvation. And the major application of this truth is that the old covenant has become obsolete, being fulfilled in Christ, and that now the new covenant has fully and completely replaced the old. 

Now this chapter is written specifically to these Jews of the first century and deals with the central figure of their entire religious system: the high priest of God. But what a tremendous need in the church today for us to understand the significance of the new covenant and how it has replaced the old. 

You see, these Jews were having an awful time letting go of the old covenant law and sacrifice, and you can understand why. It was given by God. It was commanded to be practiced for the entire history of their nation. It was their government, it was their culture, it was their religion, it was their all-in-all. And now they were to forsake it, to move on, to leave it completely behind, and for what? A man who was crucified? This was a big pill for Israel to swallow. 

And what they needed to understand, what they needed to see, is that Jesus was the fulfillment, the substance of all that was foreshadowed and pictured in that old covenant, that He is the perfect and final high priest, offering Himself as a sufficient sacrifice to God and now is seated, having completed the work. They needed to grasp the truths of the new covenant and see that they are so much better—better promises, better fulfillment, and a better covenant than the old. 

Again, I say we still need this today in the church because there's a great lack of understanding of the distinctions between the old and the new and a great reluctance to let go of the old, to let go of the law for a work sanctification, a holiness by means of the law, and a myriad of other things. We often see a bizarre mixing of the old and the new in the church today as well. 

We learn so much about Jesus in this book. It's so rich, instructional, and applicable for us. And although we recognize that much of this applies directly to these Hebrews and we must be careful in our exegesis and application, there are rich truths here that need to be understood and heeded by the church today. 

Let's dig into our text as we begin to strive to understand the great high priest of the new covenant, Jesus. In verse 1, we find our first point that He was chosen for men. 

Hebrews 5:1 — "For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins." I just want to make a note about that word gifts. It probably refers to the meal offering. It was the only non-bloody sacrifice or offering that was given in the system, so I think that that refers to the meal offering, and then sacrifices would refer to the letting of blood, those animal sacrifices that were performed. 

The biblical definition and role of a priest is to bring men to God. The priests of God have always been appointed for men. The issue is that all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and when Adam sinned in the garden, God cursed this world, and one direct result was that all men born in the lineage of Adam are born sinners, separated from a holy God. 

Now we will see that from the beginning, God's answer for this separation—for the need of reconciliation, you could say, the result of sin is death—and the need for the shedding of blood for the remission of sins. In other words, the only answer for the sin that separated man from God was a sacrifice. 

And this began with Adam and Eve. We see that Abel offered a sacrifice that was acceptable to God. We see this all the way through the Old Testament. We will meet an amazing character in this chapter for the first time named Melchizedek. 

Hebrews 7 tells us, along with Genesis 14, that he was the king of Salem, king of peace, or was another name for Jerusalem, but he was also the high priest of God. This was long before the law covenant. This was in the time of Abraham. So sacrifice was always the answer for atonement for sin. 

But remember, the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sins. They were only a picture. They were only a foreshadowing, an example, an instruction of the need of a perfect sacrifice, a Savior—the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. 

But there was always the need for a priest to stand as a mediator, to bring men to God, to perform sacrifices to atone for the sins of men. And we see that this was codified distinctly in the law system given to Moses with all of its form and function, and rules and systems prescribing all the roles of the priest and sacrifices. If you aren't familiar with that, you could read through Leviticus and enjoy that time. 

But the point we need to understand is that the priests were all chosen to be mediators between men and God. He was chosen for men, and Jesus chose God as a mediator between God and man to be a priest to bring a sacrifice, to bring reconciliation. 

Now next, we see in our text that the priest of God had to be a man in order to have compassion for men. Look at verse 2. It says, "He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray since he himself is also subject to weakness." Because of this, he is required, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer sacrifices for sins. 

We saw this vividly concerning Jesus in chapter 2 and in chapter 4, the truth that Jesus had to become a man. He had to take on flesh in order to be our high priest, to bring us to God, to make reconciliation. And this was true for the effectiveness, for the completeness, the finality of His sacrifice and atonement, but it was also necessary that He be a merciful high priest, one who could sympathize with our weaknesses, could empathize with our plight and aid us in temptation. 

And this is a simple point, a true point. If you've been through something, if you've suffered something, if you've had a hardship, you've had an illness, you've gone through something, you deal with a problem, then you are able in a unique way to help others who experience the same thing. You see, God knows man, God created man. He's omniscient, knowing all things, but before God became a man, before He walked on this earth, before He suffered temptations, loneliness, pain, hunger—all the things that a man endures and experiences—until Jesus came and lived and died and rose again, God knew man in an intellectual way, we could say. 

But here's the key: He now knows us in an experiential way. He has suffered as we suffer, and even to a greater degree, having been tempted beyond our temptations and never succumbing to the wiles of the devil. It's a trivial thing, but I was thinking about this because last night I got home late and I had to go over the sermon one more time and work through that, and Ashley called me from Virginia and I said, “I really gotta go, it’s like 10:39.” She’s like, “You never wanna talk to me.” 

And I got up early this morning and the cows were all out, and we were running around chasing them and the chickens were underwater and Bobby was running wet and covered in straw, and I’m looking and I said, “Is this just too hard? Is this just too hard? Lord, I just need a break here, you know? Just worn out.” He knows what it is to be worn out. He knows what it is to struggle. 

And I just had a very encouraging thought that He knows. He knows me; He knows me better than I know myself. And He’s able to aid me, He’s able to help me, He’s able to strengthen me and encourage me. Jesus understands us because He is one of us. He’s a man in the flesh. Jesus, He can now sympathize with us. He knows us, He’s able to aid us. 

The Old Testament priests were men. They could sympathize with men, but they were also sinners. And that always taints it, doesn’t it? Sin taints everything. They even had to make sacrifices for themselves and their own sin before the sins of the people. But Jesus never had to offer a sacrifice for Himself. He never knew any sin. And because He is sinless, He could offer Himself in my place for my sins as the perfect sacrifice. 

And now He’s become the perfect high priest, ever living to make intercession for us. Every priest is chosen for men. Every priest must have compassion for men. And next, we see every priest must be called by God. Hebrews 5:4 — "And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was." So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become high priest, but it was He who said to Him, "You are my Son; today I have begotten You." 

As He also says in another place, "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." Well, here’s where things start to get interesting. At first, we see that Jesus was called by God just as Aaron called God as his high priest of Israel. 

So Jesus was called by God, given this unique mission to fully and finally accomplish salvation by the sacrifice of Himself. And the author gives us a couple of Old Testament quotes here to support his assertion. First, he quotes from Psalm 2:7. Now you're familiar with Psalm 2. This is a great messianic psalm, which promises the rule and reign of Messiah, God’s King, which He has set on His holy hill of Zion. 

And in this verse, God calls Jesus His Son. We see that the author here applies this directly to Jesus of Nazareth, calling him the Christ. Jesus is the Son of God. He is the appointed King, the heir of all things. And then he quotes from Psalm 110:4. In this passage, speaking again of Messiah, God says, "You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek." 

These words would have been a bombshell to the Jewish mind because you see, in the old covenant economy, a king could not be a priest. But here we see that in their scriptures, referring clearly to the promised Messiah, God says that He would be a king and a priest. And here the author applies these things to Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment of these promises. Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the king-priest of the most high God. What profound truths these are, and what amazing revelations they would be to these Jewish people. 

But the question comes, as we read this text, "Who is this Melchizedek?" Well, we don't have time to really go into this in full detail now, and we're gonna study Melchizedek quite a bit in the coming chapters. But I'd like for you to turn back to Genesis 14 with me, and we're going to meet this amazing man for the first time in Genesis 14 at verse 18. 

Genesis 14:18 — "Then Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was the priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, 'Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.' And he gave him a tithe of all." This is speaking of Abraham paying tithes to Melchizedek. So this is where we meet Melchizedek. 

Now go back to Hebrews 7, and we're going to see a little more information about him in Hebrews chapter 7, beginning at verse 1. 

"For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, meaning king of peace, without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually. Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils." 

"And indeed those who are the sons of Levi, who received the priesthood, have a commandment to receive tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have come from the loins of Abraham. But he whose genealogy is not derived from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. Now beyond all contradiction, the lesser is blessed by the better." 

What the author of Hebrews there is saying is that this priesthood after the order of Melchizedek is better than the Levitical or Aaronic priesthood. That’s the point of that. But this Melchizedek is an interesting man. He’s a bit of a mystery to us. We have very little revelation about him other than here in the book of Hebrews. He’s introduced in Genesis 14 there, mentioned in Psalm 110, but really only minimally developed here in Hebrews for the purpose—and this is how to understand this—of a type of a picture of Christ who would be the eternal king-priest of God. 

The author uses Melchizedek and Abraham to prove his point that the new covenant is better than the old, that Melchizedek, the type of Christ, was even greater than Father Abraham. And no one was greater than the father of the nation to the Jews, Abraham. But we know very little about this great man, no record of his beginning or his end, and this again is a typology—a type of Christ. 

The main point is that he was a king and a priest, not like the law system, not according to the Aaronic priesthood where kings and priests were necessarily separate. He was a picture of Christ who would be both king and priest called by God, and that’s what we see here in this brief view, introduction to Melchizedek. 

Now our last point this morning is that the high priest of God would provide a complete salvation. We see that beginning in verse 7. It says, "Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered." 

Well, there’s a mouthful here. Verse 9 goes on saying, "And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, called by God as high priest according to the order of Melchizedek." 

Well, here’s the main point of the things the author is saying in the book of Hebrews: We have such a high priest. You see, the concern of the Jew might have been that this new system was leaving them without a high priest. Who was going to mediate for them between God and man? Who was going to perform sacrifices? The author’s saying we have a high priest who fully accomplished salvation and sat down at the right hand of God. 

I want you to notice in verse 7 a phrase that says, "Save him from death." Jesus prayed, it says. He offered up tears and vehement cries, praying that God would save him from death. Now what does this mean? It does not mean that God would keep him from dying. The word is ek in the Greek. It means to save out from within. Jesus’ prayer was not to avoid the sacrifice, for He said, "It is for this very hour that I have come." 

And if this was His prayer, God did not answer it, right? Because Jesus died. But the text says He was heard. His prayer was answered. The prayer was to God to rescue Him, to raise Him out from among the dead. And God did answer that prayer on the third day. He raised Jesus from the dead, having been fully satisfied by the sacrifice that Jesus offered. 

Verse 8 says, "Though He was a Son, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered." This is an amazing truth and one that is emphasized throughout the Scriptures and especially here in the book of Hebrews. Jesus learned obedience, it says, by the things that He suffered. We’ve talked about this many times, but I always, when I see this kind of teaching in the Bible, this point, I always think of our wood stove, which runs about 10 months a year now. 

But that wood stove gets hot and you always have a little one running around there and you tell them, "Don’t touch the stove, don’t touch the stove, don’t touch the stove." But how did they learn obedience? They learn by suffering. When they touch the stove and they get burned, then they learn, then they know. 

The words here don’t mean that Jesus had an inclination to disobedience or that He needed discipline or correction, for He said, "I always do the things that please the Father." The idea here again is to learn in an experiential way. Vincent comments on this verse saying He required—I want you to listen to this—He required that special teaching of a severe human experience. You ever had one of those, a severe human experience? 

Not like Jesus has, but He required a special teaching of a severe human experience as a training for His office as high priest, who could be touched with the feeling of human infirmities. He understands; He knows. And not only does He understand, does He know, can He empathize with us, He has the resources and the power to aid us, to help us. 

It was through His suffering that He learned what obedience was. It was by this suffering, this experience in the flesh, that He became a merciful and faithful high priest, able to sympathize with our weaknesses. He’s one of us. It’s verse 9 in our text that brings all these things into focus, into completion and application. 

It says, "And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him." The word translated perfected is teleos; it means to bring a thing or a person to the goal fixed by God, to bring them to the goal, completion. 

The mission of Christ was His salvation He provided, He completed by His death, burial, and resurrection. His suffering was training, equipping Him for His high priestly work. His perfection, completion—coming to the goal—was attained through this suffering on the cross. And in this, He accomplished our salvation. That’s what the word author here means; that it’s accomplished. 

In His death, burial, and resurrection, our salvation is completed forever. And the word obedience, as is so often the case here, refers to faith—to those who obey Him. Those who obey Him are those who believe Him. John 6:28: They came to Jesus—remember, He’d fed the 5,000 the day before, and they came across the sea to meet Him, and He basically said to them, "You didn’t come to hear the truth; you came to get your belly filled." 

And they said, "What must we do to do the works of God?" What did Jesus say? "This is the work of God, that you believe on the one whom He sent." Romans 1:5 says, "Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith." Romans 6:17 says, "But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered." 

Romans 16:26 says, "But now made manifest and by the prophetic scriptures made known to all the nations according to the commandment of the everlasting God for obedience to the faith." Peter speaks of obedience to the gospel as faith. Obedience here speaks of faith in Jesus and His one-time death on the cross. 

So in this verse, we see the all-important truth that Jesus has accomplished our salvation. He’s met the goal that God has set for Him. And now, by faith, we can obtain this perfect salvation in the sacrifice of our great high priest. 

So let me ask you, how does this fit into the argument of the book of Hebrews, its purpose, and its goal? And how does this apply to us in our world, in the church today? Well, within the context of Hebrews, we have to remember that the main goal is to show Jesus is better, primarily as having established a better covenant built on better promises. 

And this with the purpose of spurring the Hebrews to go on to perfection through faith in Christ, or to hold fast to the faith that they had in Him, to be established in Him. So we see the Holy Spirit goes to great lengths over these next few chapters to show that God has not left Israel without a high priest, without an intercessor to bring men to God, but rather has accomplished salvation by fulfillment of the promises and pictures of the Old Testament in the perfect sacrifice by the perfect high priest, who is Jesus. 

So now there is complete, full salvation in Him alone, by faith alone. That’s the message for the Hebrews. The application for them and for us, for the church today, is really the same. We must understand that the old covenant has been fulfilled. It has been replaced by the new, and that now the old is obsolete. 

And we must come fully into the person and work of the high priest of the new covenant and all of its promises and all of its provisions, utterly forsaking and leaving the old. Well, you might ask, "Well, where's the problem in the church? Where is this an issue in my life?" Well, I would say it’s a major issue in the church, and very often it’s a major issue for us individually. 

I see this kind of in concentric circles in the broader Christendom today. When we look at the broadest view of Christianity, we see in the outer circles false churches. They call themselves Christian, but they don’t teach the gospel, like the Roman Church. Here we have perhaps the clearest example of an attempt to mix the old with the new. It’s quite an illustration. 

The Roman Catholic Church still has a mediating priesthood. It still has a real and true sacrifice offered in an unbloody manner for the propitiation of sins, even though Hebrews says there is no remission of sins without the shedding of blood. They teach the resurrection of Christ, but they kill Him again, every mass, to propitiate sins. 

They have a works-righteous salvation where the grace of God is earned piecemeal through sacraments. It’s really a bizarre creation of men which teaches a false way of salvation, but it’s a good example of what happens when we mix the old with the new. As we come into the next circle, we come to some more gray areas where churches seem to preach the true gospel and way of salvation, but they mix in some law for the Christian life. 

It leads to an unclear gospel and, in many cases certainly, a misunderstanding of what the new covenant life is in Christ and how God intends to work it out. We see this in the Reformed churches, which teach specifically that the law is still binding on believers as a rule of life. 

But the law was never meant to be a means to holiness. And then we come into the true gospel-preaching biblical churches where men are clear about the gospel, they’re clear about salvation, yet there’s still this fog, this grayness about how the law relates to the believer, about—and here’s really the key—why we can live a new life in Christ. 

Why can we live a new life? Why should we live a new life? And then how does God intend to produce fruit and holiness in our lives? We see doctrines such as the two natures of the believer, the law-preaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and the gospels as applying directly to how a believer should live a holy life, missing the intent in the context of the passages. 

We see confusion about regeneration and the new covenant promises and the great truths of John 15, the branch abiding in the vine of Colossians 1:27, Christ in you, the hope of glory. In Galatians 2, perhaps succinctly framed by Paul most clearly in Galatians 2:20 when he says, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live, in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." 

And don’t forget verse 21, "I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain." Men, even believers, even we, my friends, have a tendency to want to stand on our own two feet, to make our own way, rather than to recognize our total inability and utter dependence on God and His power and grace in our lives. 

And this confusion, this lack of clarity concerning the distinction between the old covenant and the new is a major issue in the church today as it was in the day of these Hebrews. And that’s why it’s such an important, rich book for the church today, for you and for me, because it shows us that Jesus is better. 

It encourages us to hold fast to Him, to look to Him, believe Him, to depend totally on Him and His power and His life in us to pursue Him, to seek Him, to know Him through the word. Paul said, "One thing I do, one thing I do is to seek to know Jesus, to know His power, the power of His resurrection in me." 

And my brothers and sisters, this is precisely what we need. This is what we must renew our minds to continually in order to stop being conformed by this world and to be transformed by the renewing of our mind to Christ-likeness in our lives. What a blessing it is to live in this new covenant time, to experience these blessings and promises in Christ. 

And my prayer is that we will come to understand these truths about our great high priest, and that we will learn to abide in Jesus one day at a time. It’s not that we don’t want to live a holy life; we want more than anything to produce fruit, to lead men to Christ, to live holy lives, to glorify God. 

The question is, where is the battle? How do we fight the battle? What are the truths that undergird, underlie the reason we can live a new life? And how does God intend that fruit be produced through us? That’s what we want. That’s what we want to know; we want to understand, and we want to be that branch that abides in the vine every day, bearing fruit. 

Let’s close in prayer. 

Father, we’re so thankful that You teach us these wonderfully deep truths about Jesus and who He is and what He’s done, the salvation You’ve designed and implemented and brought to pass and made effective in our lives. All the glory is Yours, Lord. 

And at the end of the day, when we lay our head on the pillow, we can't say, "I've done this and I've done that," but we can only say, "Thank You, Lord." Thank You, Lord, for working in my life by Your grace, by Your mercy, by Jesus’ life in us. Thank You for these truths. Thank You for what You’re doing in this church, in this place, and these people. Thank You that You’re faithful, that we can believe You and trust You as our Abba, our Papa. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.