WEBVTT 00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:02.720 We are back in Hebrews chapter 10 this morning. 00:00:02.799 --> 00:00:07.040 So grab your Bible and open to Hebrews 10, or you can look at the screens as we make our way through. 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:07.919 It's quite a passage. 00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:11.359 It's a lot to cover, to be honest, but I'm excited about it. 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:15.839 I'm ready to share it with you and be in it with you this morning. 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:17.839 I think it has so much for us. 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:19.519 We're going to jump in at verse 19. 00:00:19.679 --> 00:00:33.280 Therefore, brothers, we say brothers and sisters, of course, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opens for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh. 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:36.640 And since we have a great priest over the house of God. 00:00:36.799 --> 00:00:46.640 Now that's a lot coming off of chapters and sermons for us about the new covenant, the covenant of grace, the sufficiency of Jesus as our final sacrifice and final priest. 00:00:46.719 --> 00:00:51.280 So that's a lot to say, but all that content is there for you, leading up to these verses. 00:00:51.439 --> 00:00:52.159 Verse 22. 00:01:04.319 --> 00:01:11.439 So point number one to make sense of this is this In Christ we learn to walk shame free with bold joy. 00:01:11.680 --> 00:01:14.719 Now, as soon as I say that, you're gonna like, I don't always feel like that. 00:01:14.879 --> 00:01:16.480 And of course you don't, neither do I. 00:01:16.719 --> 00:01:21.840 That's why this is what we learn to walk in as a person of faith. 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:24.560 The key word here is confidence in verse 19. 00:01:24.719 --> 00:01:29.439 Now that word means boldness, courage, joy. 00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:34.239 So this is about our secure standing with God, which gives us that. 00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:48.480 It gives us that kind of courageous, bold joy to walk around in this world, to certainly have with God on a day in and day out basis, but then also to walk in that identity on just like a Tuesday morning or a Friday night. 00:01:49.760 --> 00:01:57.680 Tuesday night, actually, I I went and I watched my daughter cheer at a seventh grade boys' basketball game in the old gym at the old Marietta High School. 00:01:57.760 --> 00:01:59.120 I don't know if you've ever been in that gym. 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:04.719 And that gym is like every gym I grew up in as like a 12-year-old seventh-grade boy. 00:02:04.799 --> 00:02:10.560 And I I walked in, and it's just like every time I walk in that gym, it's just like all the memories flood back. 00:02:11.039 --> 00:02:12.960 I I love old gyms. 00:02:13.039 --> 00:02:15.680 Like I love the smell, I love the sounds. 00:02:15.759 --> 00:02:19.039 I mean, I just sit there and I just relive everything. 00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:25.599 And what I would do is on Friday nights, I would watch my highlight reel that I'd put together of Larry Bird, because that was my guy. 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:27.599 Here's what Larry Bird looked like. 00:02:27.759 --> 00:02:32.080 Now I kind of grew up to kind of have his amazing body and skin tone, right? 00:02:32.159 --> 00:02:34.639 Like I ended up with that amazing physique there. 00:02:34.719 --> 00:02:37.599 Um, but I didn't learn to shoot like him, but but I thought I did. 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:41.360 I watched all those clips on Friday night, and I would get to the gym on Saturday morning. 00:02:41.599 --> 00:02:46.319 I walked around, strutted around that gym like I owned it. 00:02:46.479 --> 00:02:49.199 Confident, courage, bold joy. 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:51.199 And half the time it worked. 00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:56.400 Like I walked, played the game, hit a few threes, and after the game, I'm still walking around. 00:02:56.560 --> 00:02:58.240 Bold, confident joy. 00:02:58.319 --> 00:02:59.280 And you knew what happened there. 00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:01.199 You know what happened the other half of the time. 00:03:01.439 --> 00:03:02.960 I missed the shots. 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:04.879 And all the confidence is gone. 00:03:04.960 --> 00:03:08.000 There's no joy, there's no boldness, there's no courage, right? 00:03:08.159 --> 00:03:11.599 Not until the next game, and I watch my next highlight of Larry Bird, right? 00:03:11.680 --> 00:03:12.319 Like you know that. 00:03:12.479 --> 00:03:14.159 This is how the world works, right? 00:03:14.639 --> 00:03:16.400 It works for a while. 00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:18.800 It works while you maintain it. 00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:21.599 So you can have confidence while you maintain it. 00:03:21.759 --> 00:03:25.919 Or while you're looking forward to it, you project onto it until it lets you down. 00:03:26.159 --> 00:03:27.280 It lets me down. 00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:29.680 It's just how it works. 00:03:29.919 --> 00:03:36.800 But the context of this passage, the promise it gives to us, the context here would have been to the Roman Empire. 00:03:37.199 --> 00:03:44.560 Only if people were walking around with this amount of confidence in the Roman Empire, would have been a citizen of the Roman Empire. 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:45.520 A free citizen. 00:03:45.919 --> 00:03:51.039 They wouldn't have been able to walk around with their head up without shame or without fear. 00:03:51.599 --> 00:03:55.919 And Roman society's slaves did not have this sort of confidence to live like this. 00:03:56.080 --> 00:03:57.759 Only free members in a household. 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:06.560 And what this passage is saying to us, to anybody who is in Jesus, is you're a free member in the household, in the house of God. 00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:12.800 What a promise this is to us, and at the same time, we know we don't always feel like this, right? 00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:15.680 So this is one of those already but not yet. 00:04:15.919 --> 00:04:22.319 Like we already have this, and yet we're also learning what it is that we have in Jesus in its fullness. 00:04:22.639 --> 00:04:24.160 That's what we're growing in. 00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:37.759 Verse 22 says this let us draw near with a true, true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. 00:04:39.040 --> 00:04:44.319 In the old covenant, only a high priest could go into the very presence of God. 00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:48.000 Everybody else stood outside, scared for him. 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:57.920 Like this guy's going into the holiness of God and the justice of God, and he's carrying a sacrifice to make a sacrifice on behalf of himself and for the people. 00:04:58.720 --> 00:05:00.720 And they are scared to death for him. 00:05:00.959 --> 00:05:02.160 Is he gonna come back out? 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:04.560 Is this sacrifice gonna be enough? 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:16.399 And this verse 22 is stepping into that scene, into that posture of fear, to say, Jesus is the final sacrifice, and he's more than enough. 00:05:16.639 --> 00:05:18.639 He is the grace of God to us. 00:05:18.720 --> 00:05:21.120 And so our posture can change. 00:05:21.680 --> 00:05:27.279 When we're in Jesus, we don't have to live afraid of how God feels about us day in and day out. 00:05:27.680 --> 00:05:39.839 Our posture with God and in this world can transform our growth in grace, and what the Holy Spirit wants to be doing in us day in and day out is to be transforming us from postures of fear to postures of confidence. 00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:46.480 And that's not arrogance, but it's but it's a courage, it's a joy, it's a boldness. 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:48.720 Verse 23. 00:05:49.120 --> 00:05:55.680 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 00:05:56.000 --> 00:06:10.720 So that's how we can do this, for he who has promised is faithful, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 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. 00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:12.879 So point number two is this. 00:06:13.439 --> 00:06:17.839 As the beloved, we are called into practices of grace. 00:06:18.560 --> 00:06:27.120 Verse 23 builds off of 22 and then reiterates at the end of 23, we're doing all this because he's faithful. 00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:30.079 So there's some lovely applications here for us. 00:06:30.160 --> 00:06:31.839 They're just laid out for us, like a buffet. 00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:33.199 Like we don't have to work to get them. 00:06:33.279 --> 00:06:35.600 They're just super, super clear for our lives. 00:06:35.680 --> 00:06:36.240 And here they are. 00:06:36.399 --> 00:06:41.040 Number one is this because he is faithful, hold fast the confession of our hope. 00:06:41.199 --> 00:06:42.560 That's verse 23. 00:06:42.959 --> 00:06:44.399 See, we're a confessional people. 00:06:44.560 --> 00:06:53.759 Not only do we live confessionally in terms of we're going to confess our sin and our mistakes and our failures to God, and as it's a healthy thing, the grace of God, we get to do that freely in his kindness. 00:06:53.920 --> 00:07:00.319 He draws us into that process, but we're also confessional people in that we get to confess that which is true. 00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:08.079 Theologian David Wells, he said it this way: confession is the watchboard by which the church is known. 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:18.959 Without this knowledge, it is bereft of what defines the church as the people of God, bereft of what of the means of belief, worship, sustenance, proclamation, and service. 00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:25.839 Confession must be at the center of every theology that wants to be seen as the knowledge of God. 00:07:26.160 --> 00:07:29.360 A knowledge given in and for the people of God. 00:07:29.519 --> 00:07:32.160 Now, what in the world, what in the world does that mean for you, right? 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:36.800 Well, that means how do you know how God feels about you? 00:07:37.040 --> 00:07:44.879 Like on just like a Wednesday afternoon when you're not feeling good about yourself, or on a on a Saturday morning when you're not feeling good about something you said or did. 00:07:45.040 --> 00:07:46.319 Like, how do you know? 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:50.639 I I wake up every morning, this is my normal daily process. 00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:52.480 I wake up every morning knowing the gospel. 00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:53.839 The morning's not the problem for me. 00:07:53.920 --> 00:08:00.879 I wake up, I'm in the grace of God, I'm fully accepted, you know, Jesus is fully sufficient, and I can conquer the world in the morning, by the way. 00:08:00.959 --> 00:08:04.000 I mean, these two things are true for me in the morning. 00:08:04.959 --> 00:08:08.240 Fully accepted, fully loved, everything's good. 00:08:08.399 --> 00:08:14.160 I'm at peace with the Lord and with the world, and I can conquer the world, I can do great things. 00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:17.199 All this is true until about 1.30 in the afternoon. 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:19.360 And at 1.30, everything falls apart. 00:08:19.519 --> 00:08:29.279 I fall apart, I start hearing things from my heart, telling me stories, shame can come up, I can feel condemnation, I question everything from like 1.30 to bedtime, right? 00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:33.039 Then from 1.30 to bedtime, I better be a confessional person. 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:38.080 Because I'm gonna have a lot of moodiness, a lot of emotional volatility. 00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:41.840 And that's why I have to be a confessional person. 00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:43.679 And we need to be confessional people. 00:08:43.919 --> 00:08:49.919 Our subjectivity and moodiness is rooted in objective confession of the gospel. 00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:55.279 This is why we preach the gospel to ourselves over and over and over again. 00:08:55.919 --> 00:09:03.519 Number two, because he is faithful, let us encourage each other toward love and goodness. 00:09:04.399 --> 00:09:06.480 Because encouragement is powerful. 00:09:06.799 --> 00:09:09.679 Tomorrow we're gonna celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. 00:09:09.919 --> 00:09:10.399 This week. 00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:12.399 I just got curious. 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:15.919 You keep seeing clips of him preaching, right? 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:21.360 Like he's just over and over clips of him preaching, or little, you know, you see a quote of a sermon and a speech. 00:09:21.440 --> 00:09:23.519 I'm like, how many times did he do this? 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:34.159 And so during those crucial years of protesting for civil rights for African Americans, he preached around 450 times a year. 00:09:35.039 --> 00:09:48.559 I won't let you calculate how many times I preach a year, because I mean that comparison of how many times I'm preaching a year, probably like 45, 450 times a year. 00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:52.879 He preached around 2,500 messages. 00:09:53.919 --> 00:10:08.399 And he did all of that at that pace to a people being beat up and beaten down wrongfully to tell them and encourage them to do the right thing in the right way. 00:10:08.639 --> 00:10:10.960 And he just kept doing it over and over and over again. 00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:11.759 Why? 00:10:11.919 --> 00:10:12.399 Why? 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:15.039 Because encouragement's powerful. 00:10:15.519 --> 00:10:19.600 He just needed to keep saying it to these people that we gotta do the right thing in the right way. 00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:22.240 And he just kept encouraging them. 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:25.120 Number three. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:31.440 Because he is faithful, continue to meet together as a church family. 00:10:32.320 --> 00:10:33.759 That's verse 25. 00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:35.919 Well, that's a tricky one, isn't it? 00:10:36.240 --> 00:10:38.720 Over the course of the last year. 00:10:39.600 --> 00:10:40.879 Maybe you're still online. 00:10:40.960 --> 00:10:43.679 We read that, you're like, uh-oh, there, you know, what does that mean? 00:10:43.759 --> 00:10:46.960 For I mean, only 50% of our church has returned in person. 00:10:47.279 --> 00:10:52.320 Now we're not gonna shame everybody who has not returned, and we're also not gonna scare them back into church. 00:10:52.399 --> 00:10:53.919 None of that will be helpful. 00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:59.120 We're gonna patiently walk with everybody to return to church in time. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:02.399 But we're not gonna dismiss verse 25. 00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:05.840 The goodness verse 25 has for us. 00:11:05.919 --> 00:11:11.840 It's not a scare tactic, it's a promise of grace, it's a practice of grace for us to meet together. 00:11:12.080 --> 00:11:28.720 It's a vital part of my faith journey and your faith journey for us to be in a community, a gospel community that helps your soul grow and gives you rest, declares and dispenses forgiveness over you on a weekly basis. 00:11:29.759 --> 00:11:32.559 Paul Tripp writes about the goodness of Christian community. 00:11:32.720 --> 00:11:38.159 Here's what he writes Christian community doesn't allow me to parade my righteousness. 00:11:39.279 --> 00:11:45.200 If I'm in a healthy community where honesty and grace are prioritarized, I won't be able to show off how good I am. 00:11:45.919 --> 00:11:48.559 I'll have my sinful and selfish heart exposed. 00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:51.279 And I'll have to admit to who I really am. 00:11:51.840 --> 00:11:54.960 Brothers and sisters, don't argue for your independence. 00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:59.360 There's no safer place than to be a helpless child in the arms of the God of the universe. 00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:08.399 I would encourage you to immerse yourself in an intentionally intrusive, Christ-centered, grace-driven, and redemptive community. 00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:12.879 You see, I need to hear, and you need to hear, we need to hear over and over again. 00:12:13.039 --> 00:12:14.639 We're not independent people. 00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:17.279 That's not a safe place to live. 00:12:17.519 --> 00:12:22.960 We actually need to come face to face over and over again with our selfishness and our sin. 00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:29.679 That's a healthy process, especially in a gospel community that is loving you in that, right? 00:12:29.759 --> 00:12:34.000 So, like in the same moment, you are humbled and you're loved. 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:37.919 And that's that's the healthy part of the Christian life and Christian community. 00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:39.200 And we need that. 00:12:39.279 --> 00:12:44.480 And we need to meet together to have that going on in our lives over and over and over again. 00:12:44.960 --> 00:12:50.720 The last section of this chapter, Hebrews 10, verses 26 through the end of the chapter, is all the way down to 39. 00:12:50.799 --> 00:12:51.840 It's a bit of a read here. 00:12:51.919 --> 00:12:52.960 I'm just going to warn you. 00:12:53.039 --> 00:12:54.000 And here's what's going to happen. 00:12:54.080 --> 00:12:57.440 This is a warning passage here that we're moving into, this part of the passage. 00:12:57.600 --> 00:12:59.360 You're going to feel it as I read, right? 00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:02.639 Like you're going to actually feel this warning hit you. 00:13:02.799 --> 00:13:07.120 And then as we progress through it, finally you're going to see where the author takes us. 00:13:07.200 --> 00:13:08.720 And I'm going to read it all at one time. 00:13:08.879 --> 00:13:09.840 Here we go. 00:13:10.399 --> 00:13:23.440 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:29.039 Anyone who set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 00:13:29.279 --> 00:13:42.159 How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, who has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 00:13:42.399 --> 00:13:49.039 For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, and again the Lord will judge his people. 00:13:49.600 --> 00:13:53.279 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 00:13:54.399 --> 00:14:06.320 But recall the former days when after you were enlightened you endured a hard struggle with suffering, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:15.279 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. 00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:19.919 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 00:14:21.039 --> 00:14:38.080 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised, for yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. 00:14:39.039 --> 00:14:48.720 But we are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. 00:14:49.039 --> 00:14:55.759 So point number three is this as the beloved, we are sobered by the warning, but not afraid of it. 00:14:56.799 --> 00:15:00.480 The key to the warning in this passage is there at the beginning. 00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:07.440 And it's about some willful, willful sinning after coming to the knowledge of the truth about Jesus. 00:15:07.600 --> 00:15:11.759 Now, if we take verse 26 as an absolute, we're all in trouble. 00:15:11.919 --> 00:15:16.799 Like all of us, none of us have hope of heaven if we take verse 26 as an absolute. 00:15:17.840 --> 00:15:23.360 Because we all willfully sin after knowing the knowledge of Jesus for us. 00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:25.679 So it has to mean something else. 00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:43.600 And so it seems like that perhaps some specific sin is thought of going on here, and then many think that that would be a sin called the blasphemy of the Spirit, and then some would say, well, that could be defined as Jesus claiming Jesus to be the devil, or you're not in need of Jesus. 00:15:44.240 --> 00:15:47.440 That all kind of feels still religious to me and out of touch. 00:15:47.519 --> 00:15:49.600 So I've just kind of kept like processing it. 00:15:49.679 --> 00:15:58.559 And for me, I'm sort of like pondering if this is someone who knows of Jesus as God's son, died on the cross, I get the story. 00:15:58.720 --> 00:15:59.840 Oh, I need forgiveness. 00:15:59.919 --> 00:16:01.120 Yeah, that's the story. 00:16:01.279 --> 00:16:02.080 But you know what? 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:02.879 No thanks. 00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:03.919 I don't really need it. 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:07.039 I'll continue to be my own savior. 00:16:09.919 --> 00:16:12.480 And in a way, that's unforgivable. 00:16:12.960 --> 00:16:15.840 Because they don't even desire forgiveness. 00:16:16.879 --> 00:16:18.480 Now, I don't have all that worked out. 00:16:18.559 --> 00:16:27.679 I'll just go ahead and say, like, I don't have all that worked out, and my theology of grace, where I actually believe the sufficiency of Jesus is even more than enough for my unbelief. 00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:30.320 I definitely don't have all that matched up. 00:16:30.639 --> 00:16:32.639 I don't have it all worked out. 00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:36.720 So some of this I have to file into the mystery of God. 00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:38.480 But it's here for us to wrestle with. 00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:39.200 It's here. 00:16:39.440 --> 00:16:40.720 So it's sobering. 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:44.159 But the passage doesn't stop in the warning. 00:16:44.240 --> 00:16:46.480 The writer takes us somewhere, doesn't he? 00:16:46.639 --> 00:16:51.519 And you heard it and you felt it by the end of the end of the reading, verse 39. 00:16:54.000 --> 00:17:01.440 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. 00:17:02.320 --> 00:17:04.799 I love this image of preserve. 00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:08.720 My first thought was jellies, like you know, like a jelly, like a preserve. 00:17:08.799 --> 00:17:12.880 And I was like, well, I don't connect a lot with jellies in terms of giving like a really good sermon illustration. 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:14.880 So the second thought I went to is National Park. 00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:15.839 So that was my next thought. 00:17:15.920 --> 00:17:18.640 Because I'm a national park nerd, I'm in the community. 00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:19.519 I take the magazine. 00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:24.960 There is a community, and I'm in it. 00:17:25.119 --> 00:17:28.480 If anybody else, we can talk later because we're part of the same community. 00:17:29.119 --> 00:17:31.200 I visited Yellowstone National Park a few years ago. 00:17:31.279 --> 00:17:32.400 Here's a picture of me and my buddies. 00:17:32.480 --> 00:17:33.920 We went out there and we just explored. 00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:34.960 We were like explorers. 00:17:35.039 --> 00:17:36.960 I mean, we were all over this place. 00:17:37.119 --> 00:17:40.720 I mean, it's 2,500, no, 3,500 square miles. 00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:43.440 It's larger than Rhode Island, Delaware put together. 00:17:43.599 --> 00:17:44.640 Maybe you've been there. 00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:45.119 It's huge. 00:17:45.519 --> 00:17:47.440 I mean, it's hard to cover all of it, even on we. 00:17:48.799 --> 00:17:54.960 There's hot springs, there's geysers, there's mud pots, there's mountains, there's valleys, there's canyons, there's waterfalls, there's rivers. 00:17:55.119 --> 00:17:56.240 I mean, there's everything. 00:17:56.400 --> 00:17:57.200 It's incredible. 00:17:57.279 --> 00:17:58.559 It's amazing. 00:17:59.359 --> 00:18:04.480 In 1872, our country, our government saw this land. 00:18:05.680 --> 00:18:09.119 And they made a decision to preserve it and make it. 00:18:09.200 --> 00:18:11.759 This is the first, the world's first national park. 00:18:12.319 --> 00:18:14.400 Meaning they held it safe. 00:18:14.559 --> 00:18:14.880 Right? 00:18:14.960 --> 00:18:18.319 That's what it means to preserve, to be held safe. 00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:25.440 Now, if you go out to Yellowstone and you drive out the western entrance, you're gonna go into West Yellowstone. 00:18:25.519 --> 00:18:29.519 It's the junkiest little town you've ever seen in your entire life. 00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:37.599 It's amazing to go from the preservation of the beauty of that land, and in a 10-minute drive, you're in this junky town. 00:18:37.839 --> 00:18:43.200 But inside, inside, that land is held safe. 00:18:43.440 --> 00:18:49.440 What an image for our souls when it comes in Hebrews 10 and coming into this verse 39 by the end of this chapter. 00:18:49.680 --> 00:18:52.640 For us as followers of Jesus. 00:18:53.279 --> 00:18:54.480 This is the image for us. 00:18:54.720 --> 00:18:56.319 The world can soar all around us. 00:18:56.400 --> 00:18:59.440 There can be a warning for people who don't follow Jesus. 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:07.039 Our own hearts can tell us false stories and condemnation, but we are a preserved people in Jesus. 00:19:07.759 --> 00:19:09.680 We are held safe. 00:19:10.319 --> 00:19:19.759 And growing in that safety that we know in Jesus is about us growing in a shame-free, bold, courageous joy. 00:19:20.079 --> 00:19:21.039 Let's pray together. 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:27.359 God, thank you for the work of Jesus that is more than enough for us. 00:19:27.519 --> 00:19:30.559 Forgive us for all the ways that we try to add to it. 00:19:30.880 --> 00:19:33.440 Instead of live in response to it. 00:19:33.839 --> 00:19:40.880 Help us to rest and root even more into how sufficient Jesus is for us. 00:19:41.279 --> 00:19:41.920 Amen.