Eric Hayes (0:00)

You guys can have a seat. Bless your name, God. Bless your name. Bless your name, God. Hey, y', all, give it up for my elder right here, man. That's my elder. Yeah, yeah. Let me tell you something. To run it church, you need a team. You need people willing to put their hand to the plow, and we have leaders to do that. I. He ain't going. Well, I'm gonna do it anyway, man. I just want to take some time out to honor Pastor Kenn, and I'm gonna tell you why. I've been in church a long time. Not all leaders really want you to meet Jesus. Too many church leaders don't really care if you actually meet Jesus. And Pastor Kenny cares. He cares, and we are blessed to. All right, so welcome to 2019 church beloved. My name is Eric Hayes. I'm one of two elders. God bless you. Amen. We are a church that is indeed a house of prayer, presence and proclamation. So welcome my online community, digital disciples streaming in from all over the world, just want to acknowledge you. We love you. We playing for you. We pray for you. And also, last but not least, I want to welcome the unbeliever. Yeah. If it's your first time here, you're an unbeliever. And why they clapping for me? Because we actually care. Like, we actually. This whole 2819 thing, we keep plastering everywhere, it's actually a great commission to preach the gospel to the unbeliever because all of us at one time were unbelievers. We were like, man, I don't know about this God stuff. At one time, you would have never guessed it. But it's true. And I pray our aim, our intentionality is set at preaching the gospel so that the Holy Spirit will prick your heart and you actually, God gives you a measure of faith to believe in him. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that an amazing plan? He comes to help from all these angles because he desires a relationship with you so much. So welcome. You can absolutely belong before you believe. Okay? And as customary, and I will continue to do this, I want to honor the pastor of this ecclesia, Philip Anthony Mitchell. Amen. Amen. Amen. Gonna give honor where honor is due, right? Again, it's not easy to be the leader of what many are calling a revival, right? Logistics, spiritual matters, church things, attacks from the enemy. It's all a part of the position. And one that has put his hand to the plow. And however many days he's been tempted to take it off, he's kept it on And I think for that, he deserves honor. Right? And as a church, we are continuing to walk through the Book of Matthew in a series we title entry and End Times. However, I've been given another assignment to deliver a standalone message today, and it's been titled Perfected by the Blood. Perfected by the Blood. Please bow your head, allow me to pray for us, because we need his help. Holy, Holy Father, I pray that you would use this vessel. Being me, flawed, weak at times, but still chosen by you. I thank you for your holy Scriptures, which we're about to jump into God that are already breathed upon by you, inspired by the Holy Spirit. That's why we want to give them honor. God, continue to work in the hearts of men. Those that are seated here, those that are streaming in to glorify you through the Son, have your way. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. All right, so if you know anything about the Old Testament, the children of Israel, they were very, very used to sinning, having to come up with some type of offering of some sort, goat, lamb, doves, whatever. The prescription was in the old system that the Lord had commanded, right? So they would sin, they would do wrong. And they would go to many times Levitical priests, right? Because you just couldn't run up in the temple yourself. They knew not to do that, right? So the Levitical priesthood, they actually acted as a mediator, mediator between man and God. So man would sin, they would bring what was to be offered unto God, they would hand it off, and then the priests would go to work, and they would just keep working and working because there was a lot of sin that should encourage us. God is used to dealing with the sins of man. He's been doing it for a long time. Okay. And they would keep working, and they would keep ministering. And this is like the backdrop of us jumping into the scriptures today. We're going through Hebrews 10, 11 through 25th verse, and we're going to jump in at 11. And it starts with this. It says, and every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins, right? So really just kind of repeating what I was saying, right? So there would be offerings for sin, and there will be work from the priesthood, and they would give the offering, and in a way, it would appease God, but it wouldn't, like, take care of the total of sin debt. Like, you ever been, like, in an argument with somebody, y' all got beef, and they try to squash it with you real quick. And they try to End it, but you ain't really ready for it. Like, you just like, don't look at me like that. Like y' all always want peace. That's not true. That's not true. You talking about somebody. Y' all got a little beef, whatever. Relationship, friend, it doesn't matter. It's like, yo, man, I'm sorry. And you like, all right, man. They try to give you, like a handshake to dap you up, and you give them, like, weak little. You just like, all right, now, I'll holler at you, man. Go on, man. It's like you ain't done with them, but you ain't really feeling them either. It's still beef there. And now we're going to make a comparison to that Levitical priesthood to when Christ comes on the scene. Verse 12, it says, but when Christ had offered for all time, say all time, a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. All right, so there's a comparison. There was Levitical priesthood, the priests, and it was given like the bulls and goats. It was like a temporary appeasement, but it had not been completely dealt with. There wasn't really peace. But here in verse 12, it says, but Christ made one sacrifice for all time and sat down at the right hand side of God. One sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. Everybody that had ever lived, everybody that is living now, everybody that will live on this earth. All of those sins piled on to Christ Jesus. This is the gospel, once and for all. All time, all people heavily sat down at the right hand seat. The Father sin, debt paid. But you don't feel like that. So do you. Many of you. Many of us. Well, he didn't. I have a special sin. No, you don't. I've done it so many times. So do you think that God did a whole plan and calculation for the plan of salvation and didn't calculate your sin in there? Isn't that functionally what you're saying? Oh, God missed this one. Really? You want to say that out loud? One time after he sat down at the right hand side of the Father. Actually, let me give you the amplified version 4:12. It says, whereas Christ having offered the one sacrifice, the all sufficient sacrifice of himself, all sufficient, everything that was needed, he gave it to us in one package, one time on the cross done. And it was himself all sufficient for all time, it says, he sat down signifying the completion of atonement for sin. So, you know, we were talking about the appeasement, but it was still Beef, clean slate. Well, you don't know how serious my sin was. Yes, he does. That's why he sent his son to die. He is absolutely aware of how serious it was. That's why Calvary was so gruesome. It was the sins of the whole world on Christ at that time. All of them. Then it said he sat down because his work was finished. Otherwise known as the finished work of Christ. I want to say, even in another place in Hebrews it says, when he come back, he's not coming to deal with sins again. He's already done that. Why don't you feel that way in your soul? Some of y', all, if Christ were to come back right now, some of y' all will be scared. Jesus 1 hey, if you can lay sin down, do it right, I get it right? But you're expecting judgment. Because the King of Kings and all of his glory is coming. You're expecting judgment. But if you understand the gospel, he already took the judgment on himself. I says again, he sat down at the right hand side of the Father. The position of honor. Can I tell you something else? Where are we seated in Christ, also at the position of honor. So you're expecting judgment when he placed you in honor. You see why we can't neglect the salvation of Jesus? You want to get some crystals? You want some sage? Nothing else will encompass your sin except the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, our King. It all will fail you. And why are you looking for that anyway? The lover of your soul has already done it in an all sufficient way. Verse 13, it says, waiting from that time after he sat down. Waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. Now when you hear footstool in the American sense, in the west, you think like furniture, right? You can get like a loveseat, whatever, and get a footstool. No, right? It's actually speaking more of like in war times. Like you ever heard of the term, like foot, like foot on their neck. Everybody play sports, keep your foot on their neck, fam. Let them come back. What you doing? Right, right. It's really like get the imagery of like a military, like vanquished foes, like, like, I got some thugs in the building, you hear that over there, they need to get on the street. Think that verse 14 again, man. For by a single offering I'm gonna spend a little time here, so give me some grace. For by a single offering he has perfected. Say perfected for all time, say all time. Those who are being sanctified, wait A minute. Now, wait a minute. You can say, I ain't been in church all my life, but been perfected is past tense. Those who are being sanctified, present tense. That's what it says, right? Sanctified. Sanctification is something that everybody goes through. The highest bishop, the person that just got saved. On the other side of the world. Right now, you start the process of sanctification, which is, if I can give you a working definition, being transformed and shaped and molded into the image of the Son, Jesus Christ, the perfect one. But we all know we're not there yet, are we? Raise your hand if you're there. Okay? So no delusional people here, all right? We all know we're not there. But if you come back to the first part of the scripture and it says that we have been perfected as a believer, when you mess up and you win some, you lose some. And you're still pressing into the gospel, you're pressing into Christ, you're still praying. You win some, you lose some. You are being sanctified. But Christ already sees you as perfected. The Father already sees you as perfected. Let me nail it home some more. You'll never look more cleaner to God than right now. Never. Why? We've been perfected, that's why. Sin ain't the devil's business. Do you understand what I'm saying? When you sin, it ain't got nothing to do with him. In the sense of, you don't report to him. You're dealing with the accuser of the brethren. No, no, no. Okay. But I don't talk to you about my sins. I've already been perfected, and now I'm being sanctified. I don't report to you no more. I'm not a part of your kingdom. I'll read it. In the amplified version 14, he says, by, for by the one offering he has perfected forever, completely cleansed those who are being sanctified, bringing each believer to spiritual completion and maturity. So check me out. Baked into the plan of salvation is grace for you to get it together. Isn't that what it says? Right, Right. Bring it to completion, maturity, spiritually, that means you start here and you progress this way. Our problem is some of us, we feel as though because we're dealing with temptation, that we're not progressing. You ever felt that way? I'm dealing with temptation. Can I free you just a little bit? Right. So along the ministry of Jesus Christ, he was actually led by the spirit into the wilderness to be what? Tempted? Sounds like in that sense, you're like Jesus. Being tempted is a part of the believer's experience. Now when tempted, we have a choice. Do I want to walk in the flesh and satisfy my fleshly desires, or do I choose to, by the grace of God and the Holy Spirit, choose the Spirit, even though I very much feel like doing something else and go with God. The more we do this, the more we go towards spiritual maturity. But too many of us fall and give up, or fall and take a six month break, add them six months up, you to stay with the Lord another 10 years, you got a 10 year old, you sitting here over on the bench, you see how many people need to be saved. We can't afford to have no soldiers on the bench. If you sin, face your sin, confess your sin, get back on the battlefield. Because he baked into salvation that you are already perfected as you are being sanctified. Y' all with me, beloved. Verse 15. And it says, and the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us. For after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them. Verse 16. After those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds. Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. But sometimes it's easier to believe a lie than the truth. Isn't that inspired by the Holy Spirit? Didn't it say the Holy Spirit, the covenant was made that he would remember our sins. So who's bringing them back up? And I find myself like, I feel this assignment. Can I work it out in front of you? I feel like I'm assigned to preach the gospel to believers, right? Because I think as I'm going around and hear me out, right? I think one of the majors strategies of Satan is to break up the marriage. You ever been in a relationship situation where like you really love the person, like you really love them, right? Y' all were together, y' all would look at each other, make cute eyes, all that good stuff, right? Even dudes. Y' all been in love too. I get it, right? And, and especially dudes. You loved her so much and she was so fine that she was wrong in the argument, but you still just wanted to get over it. You've been there. I know you tough. Hey, listen, I've been there too. Listen, she was dead wrong. She was so fine. You just wanted to get. You didn't want to fight no more. Like, I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna hug you. I just, I just wanna, I just wanna it. And I find Myself saying, nah, let's just get over it. He loves you. He loves you. He's always saying, I love you. No, he will never agree with sin. Never. But it never. It. It never trounces his love. It says, where, where, where sin abounds. Grace. Super ab. I think it's the strategy of Satan to have you do the Christian life apart from unity in Christ, to have you try to get blessings from God. Favor, grace, all things from God apart from unity in Christ. And we all know apart from Christ, we can do nothing. So I don't think he's necessarily even trying to take you out of the church. He just don't want you to get that. Revelation, verse 18. Where there is forgiveness of these. These sins, there is no longer any offering for sin. Let me read it to you in the amplified. It says now, where there is absolute forgiveness and complete cancellation of the penalty of these things, there is no longer any offering to be made to atone for sin. Check me out. Like any of y', all, like, ever. You got a car and you didn't get it repossessed and you paid it all the way off. Some repossessions in the house. Some people. Some people was paying 575 for a Ford Taurus a month. Right? Right. But you got all the way through it. Right? And what happens is, if you've been there, you actually get the deed from the bank, it's yours, it's paid off. What if next month you were just like, I just feel like paying my 575. You got any real friends? Hey, yo, fam. That's $575. Why are you doing that? The deed is here. It's saying paid off. I don't know. I'm just so used to paying 575 on the 20th. I'm gonna. I'm gonna send it in next month. Amen. If they love you, that's. Ayo, my man. Let me holler at you. It's paid. It's paid. Well, somebody with credit like mine, it's just, you know, it's 575. You see how insane that sounds? Look at the insanity in our walk when we read that the price has been paid, but yet we're expecting judgment for sins that he has made a covenant to remember no more. Whose idea was it to make that covenant? Did you beg him to make that covenant and he relented? No, it was his idea baked into the plan of salvation. Those that belong to Christ Jesus have been perfected. Raise your hands if you Belong to Christ Jesus. So repeat after me. Say, I've been perfected for all time. Verse 19. He says, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence, say confidence to enter holy places. Say holy by the blood of Jesus. All right, now there's a comma there. That's not the end of the thought, but I want to stop there. You can now have confidence to go into holy places. That was not always the case. There were. There were only, like, certain consecrated people that can go into the holy of holies. Everybody else knew what the deal was. Even, like, Old School, like Old Testament. When Moses, he would go up the mountain, spend time with God, so much so that his face would shine. I don't say it scared the people. That said he actually wore a veil because people knew. Check me out, Sephora. All these lights and flashlights and cell phones, there was, like, no electricity. His face is shining. I don't know if I want none of that. And they would actually say, moses, you go hear from the Lord, we'll stay here, and you come back down and tell us what he said. Because he's so holy, I don't know if I can face him or I can't face him. But why do we have confidence according to the verse, by the blood of Jesus, you can't earn it, you can't conjure it up, you can't manufacture it. There's nothing in your power that can really give you real confidence in a holy place of God, except the blood. Now, verse 20. And I'll be honest with you, family, I've been saved for some time here. I don't know if I've ever read this or if I read it. It didn't. It didn't hit me in the same place. Right. So it's a continuation of verse 19 or same thought. Now we have confidence to enter into the holy places by the blood of Jesus, comma, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh. All right, so this new way of boldness, it's new because you didn't have access before, right? And it was the blood of Jesus. But it also says he opened it up through the curtain, that is through his flesh. And I thought about how on Calvary, his flesh was cut on the whipping post. Cat, O, nine, tails, cross his backs, pull it off, cut nails in his hand, nails in his feet, cut the curtain was the flesh of Christ. Without that sacrifice on Calvary, we have no access. You know, we call our prayer experience access. No, not welcome. We just kind of Roll out of bed and just pray to God. God, I thank you. No, that's not for you anymore. Without that sacrifice, without the curtain being cut, which is the flesh of Christ, you see why we just can't bypass Him. You see why we just can't preach about him on Easter and Christmas. You see how we get into trouble and we always end up in religion. If we try to have a relationship with God without Him, we end up in a system that he's left the curtain his flesh. You with me, beloved? Verse 21. We'll do 21 and 22 together. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, Christ Jesus, it says, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance. Say full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. When I looked up what that. Sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. One of the things said when we're bringing sin and shame in our conscience into the presence of God, those things should not reside in the heart of a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's pressing into him. Now, again, if you hear this and your first thought is just, oh, man, he forgave me. I'm just seeing. I'm going to Miami this weekend. This is what we're doing. I'm going to question whether you're saved. I don't know. God does. But if you hear the goodness of the good news, the goodness of Jesus doing everything that he needed in an all sufficient way to rescue you, and you go head the other direction, something is off. So I can't declare that you're not saved. I think it calls for a conversation, though. But disciples, now, we can come into his presence, full assurance of faith that God ain't about to switch up on us. You've been in relationships. I've been in them too, man. Business, personal, don't matter. You put your trust in somebody and they switched up on you. You put all your trust out there. You don't put them on. You know what I'm saying? What they say, like little soft launch of a boyfriend or girlfriend. They show like a hand soft launch. It ain't even a husband or a wife. It's a boyfriend. We soft launching. That's real wild to me. But I'm gonna let y' all have it right? They do the soft launch. If you. You put somebody out there now, you look crazy. If they switch up on you so they show a hand, hopefully they ain't got no tattoos on it, any identifying Features. God don't treat us like that. God don't switch up on us. He didn't do all that was necessary on the cross to get us and then switch up on us. Now we can have full assurance of faith to boldly enter holy places, man. Like my baby girl, so I got. I got twins. I got four in all. Twins. The baby girl, the youngest of the family, like, she's two and some change. And like, just recently, she just started saying like, daddy, Daddy. And she'll go like four or five times in a row. Like, I'm like, give me a chance to respond. No. She's like, daddy, Daddy. I'll be like, hey, hey, how you doing? Right? But she's looking for me and she wants to see me. She'll find herself wherever I am. She will come and see about her dad. You know why? She is convinced that if I'm in there, she should be in there too. It don't matter what. I can be somewhere trying to counsel on YouTube. I'll be on Zoom or something like that. I could be in the restaurant. I could be anywhere. She's like, hey, Daddy, Daddy, just come. She just want to come in there and just. I want a better view. She'll get in my arms boldly now. Check me out. She gets disciplined. She gets in trouble, but she no longer has any consciousness of that. She's not thinking about what she did yesterday. All she know is she want to see her daddy. And guess what? Her daddy is ready to receive her. Guess what? I don't bring up her sins from yesterday. All we talking about is what we doing right now. Sin conscious, Christ conscious, iniquity conscious, blood conscious. We got to grow into that. Verse 23. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. For he who promised is faithful. I'm gonna give it to you in the amplified. Let us seize and hold tightly the confession of our hope without wavering. For he who promised is reliable and trustworthy and faithful to his Word. He is reliable and trustworthy and faithful to his Word. He is dependable. You know why it's so important to not be sin conscious and Christ conscious? You put it in between you and God. Listen, if you just go on a pornography binge, how many just want to run into the presence of God? Or do you run the other way? And don't get quiet on me. I know that one, statistically, one out of every two men is dealing with it in here. And one out of every three women. Jesus. So I don't need. I understand Why? I got quiet just by math, okay? But I could talk about that struggle. I know how nasty it makes you feel after you're done. And I know you don't want to run into the presence of God and take that with any other sin. If you're just going off and you're losing, you're losing your self control all the time. Or you are, you are, you are indulging in sin because you let your sin nature win. It doesn't make you want to run into his presence right now. I need you to deal with it and also realize that it's already been dealt with. It's been dealt with on the cross. Confess it with the Lord, move on. What are you saying, man? I think you're trying to take sin lightly. No, I'm not. I realized how serious God dealt with it on the cross so much that he sent his son to die on the cross. That's how serious it is. What I'm saying is the sin debt has been paid. So for you, sitting in shame and guilt for another six months only benefits Satan. See how his strategy is against you. Because Satan is not omnipresent. He's not. God is right. But what he has done has studied. He studied humanity for millennia. He knows that. Check it out. Look at how devious it is. He will literally know what you're going to want with your flesh. Put it in front of you, reel you in, reel you in, entice you to take it. Then you take the bite and then accuse you and say you don't even love God. And then he moves on. Because he knows if you don't know the gospel, you can stay in sin and shame for years. Does anybody hear me saying it's okay to just go in sin? You don't hear me saying that, do you? I'm just saying deal with it. Biblically, we were purchased with a price. We do not give ourselves over to idolatry. That is not what we've been made for. But if you do, you have an advocate with the Father and I'll close here. Verse 24. Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Verse 25. Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. And all the more, as you see the day drawing near. Leave 25 up. Right? Most of the time in the Christian context, when we talk about meeting more, we primarily are just talking about experiences like this, right? This is good and necessary and keep coming, but don't limit it to this, all right? You need to get up with your sisters during the midweek or something like that. We have squads now. We're trying to grow so we can get more of you guys in there, right? But I think, man, I was saying in the other experiences, man, I think there needs to be more sanctified girls trips, right? When you go to another city and you're with your sisters in Christ and you encourage one another and you hold each other accountable and you stir each other up to good work and you pray for one another and you share your testimony about how the Lord is bringing you over, or you share your testimony. Man, I'm getting beat out here, man. How'd you get over this? How are you dealing with this? You know what's beautiful about that? You can, if you say that, you can open up three other people like, yo, man, I'm. I'm getting, I'm getting hit by that too. We all need to go to the feet of Jesus. Same with the fellas, man. I want to say multiple times we've had some guys from our church that go to the mountains, encourage each other, like have fun. I said it last experience. Listen man, Satan doesn't have a lock on fun. Satan does not have a lock on fun, right? And the fun that, that you'll get in his kingdom, you got to come back and repent from. Or worse, you'll be in bondage after it. Is that really fun? The church is salt and light. And although we're not always supposed to stay together in a huddle, it is good for us to come together to strengthen each other, to help each other, to love on each other, to do the one another's, get some strength, then call break and go back into the world. Because they need the salt and light too. We need more of that, especially as the day approaches. Right, so I'll read 25. Right. If you notice something here in verse 25, I'll read it again. It says, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day drawing near. I don't think I've ever seen this either. Right. Lord showing us a lot of stuff that day. Day is capitalized. Isn't that weird? Used to a Tuesday being capitalized or Wednesday or Friday being capitalized. You never seen day capitalized like that. That day is referring to the day of Christ's return. Oh, he's coming back. And you better be found faithful and righteous in Christ. Can I tell you something that'll help you walk the narrow way. If you stay conscious of there's a day coming yet, though he may tarry, he's still coming and he's coming back to get his church. Those that belong to Christ Jesus. That's one of the goals. Beloved, check me out. Pastor's gonna come back. You know all that wrath he was talking about beforehand? If you don't make that day, that wrath is for you. Some other motivations won't throw out there, but family. If we don't come together and encourage each other in that, you can start falling to the left. Even leaders, man. I talked to Elder Milton, I've talked to Pastor Kent, I've talked to Rhonda. We're together in the office at times and we're encouraging each other in an unofficial setting. When you see people praying, you see people reading the Word of God, you see people serious about the things of God, it can encourage you. Likewise, if you're around somebody that never prays all the time, that's your primary setting. In many ways, that's going to strip away from you. You see the importance of us coming together. We all need community because we've been perfected by the blood. Bow your head. Let me pray for us. Holy Father, I just thank you for being good to us, for being good to me, for being faithful, reliable and true, dependable, true to your character. Thank you for being good to us. God, I pray you would take the seed of this word and water it in the hearts of your people that we would continue to press into Christ as we are perfected, as we are being sanctified. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.