Nothing but the Blood of Jesus - Hebrews 9:15-22 - August 9, 2026 - Jay Rabon

Jay Rabon opens by setting the stage for Hebrews 9, reminding the congregation of the ground already covered — that Jesus is greater than the angels, the prophets, Moses, and Aaron, and that he serves as the great high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. He traces the contrast between the Old Covenant, where the law was written on tablets of stone and man bore the burden of performance, and the New Covenant, founded on better promises — God writing his law of love on our hearts, direct access to the Father through the torn veil, and the complete forgiveness of sins. All of this sets the table for chapter nine, where the author makes a direct link between the covenant and Christ as the atoning sacrifice that inaugurates it.

Drawing from Hebrews 9:15-22, Jay identifies three things the blood of Christ accomplishes. First, it makes possible an eternal inheritance — not just a future hope, but a "heaven now and heaven to come," where God watches over his children with loving care, sends his Holy Spirit to empower godliness, and molds believers toward a harvest of righteousness. Remarkably, Jay highlights that this inheritance, because of the perfect tense of "those who are called," reaches backward to include faithful Old Testament saints as well, so that all the redeemed are perfected together in Christ. Second, the blood is the inauguration sign of the New Covenant, functioning like a last will and testament — its benefits are only dispersed upon the death of the one who made it, and Christ's death is exactly that. Third, and most sobering, the blood is required for the remission of sins, because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22).

Jay closes with a call to respond to this priceless, freely given gift with overwhelming gratitude — singing "How Great Is Our God" not just on Sunday mornings but all week long — and with holy zeal, rising up in the power of the Holy Spirit to drive sin outside the limits of our lives. Because if we have inherited Christ the King of Kings, we are princes and princesses of the King, and as Isaac Watts so beautifully put it, a love so amazing, so divine, demands our soul, our life, our all.

Transcript

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we just thank you for your mercy, Lord. We thank you for your grace, Lord, we thank you for the comfort that you surround us with, especially in times of trouble, Lord. Again, we lift up Anthony to you. We just lift up your goodness, though, to Connie and Gary as you surround them, Lord, as we learn this morning that dear Saint Ricky has gone ahead, Lord, I lift up Tony to you and their whole family, Lord, I think about Caroline and her travels and all those beautiful children, Lord, we lift them up to you for safe travels, Lord. We see that beautiful shine on Libby's face and we just look forward to little James David's arrival.

Not only that, Lord, there's other moms to be here and we just pray that you would hold them close. We look forward to their arrivals. We lift up all the children in our church as well, Lord, as we continue to do almost weekly. We lift up Kate and Frank to you corporately. We just pray for strength for Kate.

Most of all, we pray for your comfort and presence to be with her and Frank. Such dear saints, Lord, we also lift up the Franklins to you, lift up Craig to you. Oh, Lord, I saw a video recently where Craig was able to sit and eat some of the table. So we just praise you for that. We praise you even in the smallest steps, as we do for our little John in Texas who was holding a spoon the other day.

Lord, you are the great miracle work worker and you work miracles in our souls. We're so grateful for that, Lord. Now as we open up your word and we open it together, we come to you together, Lord, I just pray that you would challenge us, that you would encourage us, Lord, that you would stretch us and, Lord, that you would show us how much you love us. And that each one of us when we leave this place today, that we will know that we have a loving Lord and Savior who is on our side. So in all these things, we give you thanks and praise. Amen.

Well, long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers and our mothers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He, his son, Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to the angels as his name has been inherited. In a More excellent way than theirs. And thus begins, brothers and sisters, the most old. Listen, Testament book in the New Testament. Thus begins by.

Believe it or not, the Old Testament is important. The most Old Testament book in the New Testament. The author, and we have some noted, noted scholars here like Rick and others very noted theologians and the author, possibly Paul. But let me tell you, go to Acts 18. Make a note of this in your notes. Go to Acts 18. When? Maybe later, maybe now, verses 24 through 28. And check out my man Apollos. Apollos.

After you read about Apollos, then you might say, hey, maybe Apollos is the author of Hebrews. Well, I was laying awake one night at 2am in the morning thinking about this sermon and I said, could Apollos be the author of Hebrews? And of course, you know what I did? I went straight to AI because AI can tell you everything, right, David?

And AI said, you know what? Apollos could have been the author of Hebrews. Possible. How about Clopas? He was on the street with Jesus all the way to Emmaus. He could have been the author. We don't know the author. We know he wrote on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But think about Apollos.

Well, listen, the author skillfully uses the Old Testament scriptures, the Hebrew Bible, that's what. He uses some 100 references from the Hebrew Bible to show that Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah. The. The Christ, the Son of God, the Lord and Savior of the universe. And in doing this, he, as we've seen, the writer is exhorting his listeners. You remember, and at the time, those first listeners were Jewish Christians. He's exhorting them to what? Stand firm in their faith. Hey, stand firm, do not drift. You remember we talked about that in chapter two. And hold fast to their confession. Rick's wonderful sermon in chapter 4. Hold fast, verse 4:14. Because why do we hold fast? Because we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are and is yet without sin. Let us then, that's us together with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time or need.

He says, hold fast. Well, so many years later, another great preacher by the name of Charles Spurgeon said we should take our Bibles and we should write on the front of our Bibles. Hold fast. He said, write that on the front of your Bibles. And this is a quote from Spurgeon talking about Hebrews and this idea of holding fast. Listen to what Spurgeon said when he lived. And is this not completely applicable for us now when we live?

"We live in such a changeful age that we need all to be exhorted, to be rooted and grounded, confirmed and established in the truth."
— Charles Spurgeon

And where do we find truth? The Bible is where we turn for truth.

Well, he said, hold fast. In chapters one through three, that preacher said to those Jewish Christians and us, he said, hey, Jesus is greater than the angels and he's greater than the prophets. In chapter four, believe it or not, he said that Jesus is greater than Moses. Wow, that's pretty good. Greater than Moses. In chapter five, he said that Jesus is greater than Aaron and the Levitical priesthood. In fact, he introduced something in chapter five where he said, Jesus is not only greater, but he's the great high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Well, you come to a church like Gateway Bible, we learn about stuff. Old Testament. Listen, in chapter seven, so that he introduced it in chapter five, Then he goes forward to chapter seven and he compares Jesus to Melchizedek. And you remember the Bible. You know the Bible has whole chapters written about Melchizedek, right? Chapter after chapter, after chapter two verses. Genesis 14, 8, 3, 22 verses, but two important verses. Who was Melchizedek? Remember, he was the king of Salem, and Salem was ancient Jerusalem. Wow. He was the king of Salem. And not only was the king, Melchizedek was also a priest. Whoa. That didn't happen in the Old Testament.

Remember we talked about that two times a king tried to act like a priest in the Old Testament. And you know what happened to him? Bad things. Bad, bad, bad things. That's not the way God set it up. But apparently this Melchizedek, he was king and priest. The thing is, he lived about 600 years before the law was even established. Isn't that something?

In fact, the preacher says, how great was this Melchizedek? He said he was so great that even Abraham bowed down to him. By inference, the preacher is saying that Jesus is greater than Abraham. Wow. Greater than Abraham. In fact, the preacher said this about Melchizedek. I think we might have it. Chapter seven, verses two and three. I'll read it.

"He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever."
— Hebrews 7:2-3

So that's Melchizedek, what the author said about him. So what is he doing? He's comparing the Levitical priesthood to Christ's priesthood. He's saying the Levitical priesthood that's Aaron is. It's temporary. It's based off bodily descent. It's from the tribe of Levi and the clan of Aaron. That's how you can become the high priest. Well, Christ's priesthood is eternal. It's based on the power of an indestructible life.

"who has become a priest not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life."
— Hebrews 7:16

But what tribe did Jesus come from? He came from the tribe of Judah. And what is the problem for Christ? And Rick talked about this. What is the problem for Christ under the Old covenant? Since he came from the tribe of Judah, He can't mediate that old covenant because God is the one who set that. It said, hey, look, the priests under the old covenant come from the tribe of Levi. So Christ's will mediate a different covenant. A new covenant is what he mediates.

And the author introduced that in chapter 8, verses 8, 6. He said that Christ is the mediator of a covenant founded on better promises. And you remember we talked about the old covenant. In the Old Covenant, where did God write His law? Where did he write his law in the Old Covenant? On tablets of stone. Who was responsible for performance in the old covenant? Man. He was the one that was responsible for what? Keeping the covenant. Because the tablet, this law was written on tablets of stone. Those sacrifices could not purify the flesh. They were just temporary in nature.

Well, then the Author in chapter eight introduces the new covenant, right from Jeremiah 31. And in the new covenant, there's three great promises. Do you remember those three great promises? That first great promise is what? That God will write his law of love on our hearts. That's that first great promise. Now, all this is inside of Christ's sacrifice. So that's what we're under. We're New Covenant people, Believers. So he writes his law of love on our hearts.

That second great promise, you remember that is we no longer have to have a mediator or a teacher to come between us and the Holy of holies. Because when Christ died on the cross, what happened to the veil? What happened to the veil? It was rent. From what? And, you know, it's pretty tall. It was taller than me. That's pretty tall. It was. I mean, it might be taller than that and taller than that ceiling. So God is the one who rent the veil when Christ died on the cross.

And what's that last? That. That third promise, which is just. Just the best promise of all. What he will forgive, remember our sins, he will remember them no more. Christ has settled the debt. If you are in Christ. He has settled the debt. In fact, in chapter 8, verse 13, he said the new covenant makes the old covenant in its sacrificial system obsolete, ready to vanish away.

Well, now we get to chapter nine. And if you've got your reservations for 11:15 for lunch, you're still good. My introduction is kind of part of my sermon today. I stick to about 3,000 words. You can count on it. Chapter nine. Now, he's going to make a direct link between the covenant and Christ as the atoning sacrifice for the initiation of the covenant. So far he hasn't done that, but now he's going to do that. And that's what we're going to look at. We are going to continue to look at the precious blood of Jesus Christ and what it has accomplished on our behalf. Last week, Rick talked about that. It secures our eternal redemption, Praise the lord in verse 12, and it purifies our conscience in verse 14. And today we're going to talk about three additional things that the blood, the precious blood of Christ does for that. And the first one of those is it makes possible an eternal inheritance for us.

And so let's look at that. We're going to look at verse chapter nine, verse 15. Now, chapter nine, verse 15, it starts with that word, therefore. And whenever we as Bible study or see that word, what are we asking ourselves? Well, what is it, therefore? Now I can tell you, it points all the way back to chapter eight, verse six. But in the near, in the near term, it points back to Hebrews 9, 11 and 12. So let's look at that. I don't know if Charlotte, we got Hebrews 9, 11 and 12, but when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, he entered once for all the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by the means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. This is what he has done.

Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant. And that comes from Hebrews 8, 8, 12, Jeremiah 31. So that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under this first covenant. This one verse is chalked so full of theological implications, it will probably be where we spend most of our time. So if you're taking notes, though, there's lot of stuff here. And the first thing is this, is that the author does call Out Christ as what? The mediator of the New Covenant. Right. A mediator is one who stands between two parties to bring reconciliation. And who was the mediator on the Old covenant? Or who were the mediators under the Old Covenant? The priests. And you remember, one died and another one was born. You know, died, died, born. Yeah, but Christ is the one and only mediator under the New Covenant. In fact, we see that in First Timothy 2, 5 and 6, where Paul said,

"For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time."
— 1 Timothy 2:5-6

So Christ is the mediator of this new covenant. Now, this next little words, those who are called. This is an interesting. These are interesting words in the Greek, in this chapter, those who are called. Now, this is God's gracious initiative, right? In salvation, his call, his effective call to salvation. But this word, if you're taking notes, is in the perfect passive tense. It's not in the present tense, it's not in the future tense. It's in the perfect tense. And what is the perfect tense? The perfect tense is actually a past action with continuing, I would say consequences or continuing actions along with it. So what, its action has happened in the past, that has a lasting result.

So what he's saying here, capture this. He's saying here that those who are called include the Jews and Gentiles, saints in the Old Testament who accepted God's call to faith. He's actually calling out that it also includes the Jews and Gentiles in the Old Testament who were faithful Israelites. So just keep that in mind. It's not only his effectual call on your life, and many of you can remember when his call was on your life. But he's also pointing back. The author is pointing back. And his audience would hear that because of the tense of those word, those who are called. So those who are called may receive this eternal inheritance, promised eternal inheritance. And so what he's talking about in the context of Hebrews here is eternal salvation, everlasting life, a permanent home in God's presence, made possible by the death of Jesus Christ.

Unlike the temporary physical promises or animal sacrifices of the old covenant, this gift is permanent and guaranteed through Christ. Now he references it some in Hebrews, and I think we have a slide there, says he identifies kind of this internal inheritance with glory, the resurrection of the dead, a better and lasting possession, a city without foundations, the city of the living God, a heavenly Jerusalem, a kingdom that cannot be shaken and the city that is to come. So you see how he kind of references it. But I want to talk about eternal inheritance for us as new covenant believers who are living in today, today's Biblical times and what it includes. It's salvation, but it's salvation in its fullest form.

So when you think about this eternal inheritance that you have, if you love the Lord Jesus Christ, this is salvation in its fullest form. And I call it heaven now. You have heaven now, and you have heaven to come. Heaven now and heaven to come. It means this. It means that God is watching over you with loving care. Think about that a second. He's watching over you with love and care. It means that he sends His Holy Spirit to empower you in godliness. So it's the Holy Spirit that is enabling you and empowering you toward godliness. It means that we have eternal life, the life of heaven, working within this, that we are being motivated by a new and holy power. That's what he's doing in us through the Holy Spirit. It means that God has become our Father and we are his children. And he takes a fatherly interest in us. He's molding us, challenging us, teaching us, and, yes, discipline, disciplining us toward a harvest of righteousness that he desires.

"For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."
— Hebrews 12:11

So as great as this inheritance is now, this heaven now we know, it waits us. We know what Ricky has now, Tony. We know what our loved ones have now. And that's Christ's resurrection life right in heaven, a place in heaven, a home with God forever and ever. Indeed, we will all inherit this perfect holiness. We will inherit Christ Himself in heaven. See what the apostle John said in First John 3:1, 2.

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is."
— 1 John 3:1-2

Get this based off of what the authors already said about those who are called, this may be the most striking part of this verse. And this verse is telling us that it's not just saved saints on this side of the cross who receive the eternal inheritance. But the preacher, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is making a striking claim that saints under the former covenant, the old covenant, will share with new covenant believers in the perfection of God's new creation because of the death of Jesus. That's what he says. He says since a death has occurred, that Redeems them. A death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenants. Think about that a second.

Christ's death not only reaches forward to redeem and forgive the sins of thousands of new Christians every day across the world. You know, I went back to AI, I googled AI. I said, how many new Christians are there every day across the world? And you won't believe. I thought maybe 500, you know, 750, 900. About 90,000. 90,000 new brothers and sisters across the world every single day. 30 million new brothers and sisters. That's a praise God to me. That many.

And we've already heard it. We heard Mark and Chris and Houston talk about how many new saved believers when they weren't to Cuba. Last time. I was reading the letter of our missionary who does work in Pakistan. He's up in Boone, and he was talking about the new church plant and how well that's going, how new Christians are coming there. But here's the beautiful part. If you're, if you're a love gateway Bible church, this is your church home and this is where you give your tithe or your giving. If you look out on the wall, how many missionaries do we support? And we're looking to add another missionary next year. And all of those missionaries are out sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and lives are being changed. So thank you for all of your giving that supports that.

So not only does Christ's sacrifice reach forward, but his sacrifice also reaches backwards. And it settled the transgressions of all who turned to God in faith during the times of the first covenant, that they with us together might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. Listen. The blood of Christ is efficacious for all time. It's efficacious for all time. Old Testament believers clung to the promises of God even when they could not see how these promises would be fulfilled by faith. They trusted in the blood of the sacrifices, and through them, they trusted in the blood of Jesus Christ. That's what they did. And we'll get to chapter 11. But if you want to go look at chapter 11, 39 and 40, that's exactly what the preacher is talking about. He's gone through this whole chapter of all these heroes of the faith, Moses and all. And then he talks about how they're to be commended for their faith, yet they couldn't see the promise. They didn't receive the promise that was for us. But in that promise, he says it in the negative. But in the positive, it Means that we're all perfected together in Christ.

Is that not good news, that we're all perfected together in Christ? In Christ, all the promises of old have been brought to completion. And all the faithful, the hoped for in the old covenant has been realized. This eternal inheritance. And I hope it's an inheritance that you have.

So what's the second thing that this blood has done for us? Well, this is the inauguration sign of the new covenant. It's verses 16 through 21. And if Charlotte's okay, I'd like for us all to read that together. So the inauguration sign of the new covenant. Let's start with verse six. Sixteen, let's read together. For where a will is involved, be established, Therefore, without blood, the law to all the people. He took the blood. Little people saying, this is the blood in the same way.

Now, this is those verses 18 through 21. His initial readers, they would, you know, that would have been very familiar to them, right? That would have been something that they would have been intimate with when he says, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. This. This actual, I guess, episode comes from Exodus 24, 4 through 8, which was the covenant initiation ceremony for the old Covenant. And I think we have that on the board. So let's just read. This was the covenation initiation ceremony that is referenced by the preacher here, one of those Old Testament references. And he said, and read with me.

"And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, 'All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.' And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, 'Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.'"
— Exodus 24:4-8

So now the preacher's sharing with them something they knew about, right? Something that reminded them of how that Old Testament covenant was initiated. But if you look there in verses 16 and 17, kind of an interesting little word play he's going to use there in 16 and 17 in verse 15. And up until verse 15, he's used this word covenant. This word diatheke, is covenant. And if you Go back to chapter eight. He uses diatheke as covenant, but then this. In verses 16, he changes the meaning of diatheke to will. Now he's using a wordplay. It actually can mean will. But this is the only time in the New Covenant where diatheke is referred to as a will, like a last will and testament. So what is he trying to emphasize with this wordplay? What he's trying to point out is that it's like the New Covenant is like a last will and testament, particularly in that its benefits are dispersed. Only the event of death of the one who made it.

Verse 17. A will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is still alive.

So here's the thing. As men and women, upon their death, give inheritance to those whom they love and care for, so God, upon the death of his Son, gives his inheritance to those whom he loves and cares for. That is the inauguration sign of the New Covenant. And he's reminding those, those Jewish Christians that Christ is the inauguration sign of the New Covenant, and it operates like a last will and testament.

Well, this final thing we'll talk about today, because I know David will continue. This preciousness of the blood of Christ is. It's required for the remission of sins. It is required for the remission of sins. Hebrews 9:22.

"Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins."
— Hebrews 9:22

So if you're taking notes, you're saying, well, what is this? He says, almost everything. Almost everything is purified with blood. Again, he's talking to that. That Jewish audience. There were some things that were purified by water. There were some things that were purified by fire. You can find Those in Numbers 31 in some of other places. But with the exception to the general rule, almost everything in the tabernacle and temple service was consecra or purified by blood. And the shedding of blood is required for the forgiveness of sins.

So here's where it gets real for us. I got about seven more minutes, so come back. If you've gone away, come back. Just come back. I've been there. I've gone away. The pastors need to call me back, Rick. Next time you call me back.

Death was the penalty for breaking the covenant. Death was the penalty for breaking the covenant. Pastor Ray Steadman writes of this blood that was shed, that was used to Purify. It was meant to impress on them that sin cannot be set aside even by a loving God, without a death occurring. His judicial Sentence from Ezekiel 18:4.

"Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die."
— Ezekiel 18:4

must be carried out. It has to be carried out for God to be just. If it's not carried out, he's not just. It has to be carried out. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. And this, brothers and sisters, is the uniform testimony of scripture. All the way back to the beginning. It goes all the way back. You remember Adam and Eve in the garden. You remember their sin. You remember they couldn't stay in the garden. They couldn't because. Because they had to pay for their sin. So what is it? And we saw this at Creation Museum. So what is it that God did for them because they couldn't stay in the garden? What did he do for them? What did he clothe them with? Animal skins. Not sheep's hair, animal skins. And for him to clothe them with animal skins, what had to happen to those animals? They had to die.

He clothed them with animals skins to cover their sin. What about Abel's sacrifice and Cain's sacrifice? Which one did God accept? He accepted Abel's. And Abel's was a sacrifice of animals. Blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Here's the thing for us. Once we have sinned against a holy God, there is no way for the sin to be put away except by the shedding of blood. But the price for our redemption is one that we cannot pay for ourselves to survive. We cannot pay the price for our sin. What we need is somebody else to pay it for us. A substitute. In whom is the power of eternal life. This is what theologian Andrew Murray wrote about this.

"God is willing to receive man back again in his fellowship, to admit him to his heart and his love, to make a covenant with him, to give full assurance of all this. But not without blood. Even his own Son, the Almighty and all perfect One, the gift of his eternal love, even he could only redeem us and enter the Father's presence in the submission to the Word. Not without blood. But blessed be God. The blood of the Son of God, which has been given and has wrought an eternal redemption. He did indeed bear our sins and take them away. He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. There can be no fellowship with God but in the blood and the death. His blessed Son."
— Andrew Murray

This is simply the truth of the Bible. And the Bible is where we turn for the truth without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Without the application of that blood to our souls by faith alone, there is no cleansing for our sins or our guilty conscience, brothers and sisters, unless we obey God without sin. And who can raise their hand? You know, wouldn't that be great if we could obey God without sin? Who can? None of us and none of us has within. We require this very blood if we're to be forgiven and loved by God.

Well, these are the verses 15 through 22. I've got just three quick applications that just come to mind that you know when reading these, these, these verses. And I think first is a reminder for all of us, and I hope it is for you, but it's certainly a reminder for me that salvation and this promised eternal inheritance made possible by the sacrifice of Christ is a gift from God.

Salvation and this eternal inheritance is a gift from God. It's a gift that's freely given. It's a freely given gift. Why? Because an inheritance cannot be earned. You can't earn an inheritance. It is the free gift of a loving benefactor. Some of you may have served as the executor of an estate or you may have been involved in a will in the past. But when my aunt died, she had named me as the executor of her estate. And so when I got the will, the last will and testament, it showed in there who the beneficiaries were. And so I was the one to call them up and tell them that they had received a gift from their aunt. And you know what? All they had to do accept it. That's all they had to do is accept it. And that's what this gift is for us. Salvation, eternal inheritance. It's a gift. You can't earn it. You can't do anything to earn it. You just accept it.

But indeed, this eternal inheritance, it's a gift like no other, right? Is there any more valuable gift that you have ever received in your life? Could there ever be a more valuable gift that you could ever receive in your life than salvation and internal inheritance? Nothing. It is a gift like none other. It is a priceless gift. And so I say because of that, it's priceless. And there's no other gift like it. That our reaction to it should be overwhelming gratitude. I mean, not just on Sunday mornings, but I mean, you should. Overwhelming gratitude. Surely this inheritance purchased by the freely offered blood of Jesus Christ, God's only son and spotless lamb, ought to lift our voices with hearts aglow and praise.

This past week we sang How Great Is our God at community group. Let's sing it. How great is our God. Sing with me. How great is our God and all. We'll see. How great, how great is our God. These. These Psalms or songs or choruses. And Frank, if you're watching out there, Brother Frank talks about that. Just singing choruses of songs all day long. How about this one? Praise God, from whom all. Creatures. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Just sing that all day long. When times are going tough, start singing that. How great is our God. Majesty. I know Rick likes majesty. The goodness of God. Your favorite psalm. Let it be in your heart. Let it raise in your heart.

And listen. Not only that, we ought to rise up. Now listen, brothers and sisters. We ought to rise up against the enemies that put Christ to death. Mainly our sins. And in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are to drive them with holy zeal beyond the gates of our hearts, outside the limits of our lives. We are to rise up and drive sins outside the limits of our lives. And I ask you this morning, what sin do you need to rise up against?

Rise up indeed. If we've inherited Christ the King of Kings, we have become the children of a king. That means you are a prince or princess of the king. And as you grow in Mercy and Grace, 2nd Peter 3:18, in knowledge of this great king, he will transform you into his likeness.

"But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen."
— 2 Peter 3:18

And we will worship him with everything that we have, even our very lives. As Isaac Watts put it in his wonderful hymn,

"Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all."
— Isaac Watts ("When I Survey the Wondrous Cross")

Oh, heavenly Father, we just. Lord, we just give you thanks today. We give you thanks for our great Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, our great high priest, the shepherd of the sheep. We're just so grateful for what he did for us. That precious blood, Lord, that has wrought eternal redemption for us. It has cleansed our consciences, Lord, that has purchased an internal inheritance for us that is permanent and can never be taken away. Lord, we just thank you that he is the mediator of this new covenant that we live under and we prosper under. Lord, we thank you that he has forgiven our sins, that he has removed our sins from us. Lord, I'm most grateful that his blood is efficacious for all time. He made one sacrifice for all time. And, Lord, I read that all time to me, all the time, in Hebrews 10:12. I read that as meaning all time. That it not only reaches forward, but it also reaches back. And it settles the transgressions of those Old Testament saints who loved you so. So that we all now together can be perfected in Christ Jesus, our Lord and our Savior. Amen.