Doctrine of the Past - Repentance

The author of the passage is addressing Hebrews who are facing challenges in their Christian lives and considering returning to Judaism. The author emphasizes that Jesus Christ is superior to anything man can come up with and explains his work in the past, present, and future. Jesus Christ is seen as a prophet in the past for redemption, a priest in the present for representation, and a future king for renewal. Salvation involves being saved from the penalty, power, and presence of sin. The author encourages the Hebrews to move beyond the basics and grow in their understanding of Jesus Christ's work. of messages last week, and we're going to be here for the next at least six weeks, probably, here in this passage of Scripture, really just basically looking at one, two verses there in chapter 6. But last week, we kind of saw the fact that Paul was writing to, or I say Paul, we don't know really who the writer of Hebrews is, it doesn't say. I personally feel like it's Paul, but I personally could be wrong, since the Bible does not say. There's several arguments for several different individuals that it could be, but to be honest, we really don't know, and it's great speculation at most. But anyway, when we look at this passage of Scripture, the author was writing to Hebrews, to all of these Jewish people that had accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, but then all of a sudden, turmoil, distress, perils, tribulation, all this stuff begins to happen in their lives, and things are not going according to the Christian life that they thought it was going to be, and so they were deciding, you know what, maybe we'll go back to Judaism. You know, if God is not blessing us and giving us life, doing what we're supposed to do, then what in the world are we, what do we need to do? Let's go back to the sacrifices and what we do know about Jesus Christ. So the author sets out to try to explain that Jesus Christ is better than anything that man can come up with. Anything that has ever happened in the past. And so when we look at that, it comes down to the settling point in chapter 6, and we saw last week in chapter 5 that he said, you simply are immature, you lack discernment. And I think we see a lot of Christians today that lack discernment. We know a lot of facts, we know a lot of religious stuff, but yet when it comes to actually to be able to discern right and wrong and what we should do and what we shouldn't do, we come up lacking. And he says a lot of that is because we are dull of hearing. We're not studying the Word of God, we're not applying the Word of God, and it seems like we're constantly going back and repeating and reviewing things that we should have already settled in our life. And so he comes to chapter 6 and he keeps talking about in chapter 5, he's mentioned it a couple of times, these oracles of the principles of God. And when we think about God, I want us to understand in the biblical sense, in understanding God, God is holy. Man is a sinner. God created man and God is good. God decided that He would bless man and build a relationship, but man sinned, and because of that sin we have been divided. But praise God, God sent Jesus Christ His Son to come and die on the cross of Calvary to become sin for us, not that He committed any sin, but He became sin for us in order that we might become holy as He is holy, so we can have a relationship with God. That's the entire gospel. That's the entire message of the Bible all summed up into one short little bow. The problem is, is there's a lot of little facets to that. And when we look at the work of Jesus Christ, as we pointed out at Christmastime, Christ did not begin as a babe. That is not the beginning of Christ. Christ has always existed with the Father. He said, if you've seen the Father, you've seen Me. I've been the Father of one. We have always been. And so understanding that, when we look at the work of Christ, and I kind of want to introduce this, and I probably should have done this as a sermon and then started the actual stuff next week, but I'm going to try to hurry through all of this real quick this morning. If you go on the website and look, there's some discipleship material that will kind of go a little bit more in what we're talking about. But when we look at this passage of Scripture in verse 6, he says, therefore, leaving the principles of God, the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection. And so when we're talking about leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, in other words, the only way that we can have a relationship with God is because of Jesus Christ and the teachings of Jesus Christ. But we ought to get past that. And so what I want to talk to you about first of all this morning, kind of in way of introduction, when we look at the teaching of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of Jesus Christ, we have to see how Jesus Christ has worked in the past, present, and future to bring us to a relationship with God. The Father spoke. The Father is in control. He is the Supreme. But Jesus Christ is the Godhead that enacted, that did what needed to be done. He's the human form of God. And so we see that this thing is created. And now I want you to understand that God is omniscient, right? He's omnipotent. He's all-powerful. He's omniscient. He's all-knowing. He is omnipresent. He can be anywhere and everywhere. And so when I start giving you these three areas of the work of Jesus Christ, understand we cannot tie Jesus Christ into one of these areas. We're going to talk about the work of Jesus Christ. And if you'll look, there's six things that he mentions in verse 1 and verse 2. They're paired up into twos. And we're going to look at them. The first two, he says right there, are laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith toward God. This is talking about the work of Jesus Christ in the past. And then he says of the doctrine of baptisms, and notice it's plural and we'll deal with that in a few weeks, and the laying on of hands, plural, these two go together and they're the present work of Jesus Christ. And then you look, he says, and of the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. That is the future work of Jesus Christ. And so he's saying here, you Hebrew people are immature. You don't understand the basic things about the work of Jesus Christ in the past, present, and future. The Bible gives us three terms for Jesus Christ and how He's represented in these three areas. But know that Jesus Christ always has been, He is, and He always will be. And so when we think about past, present, and future in our time zone, we know that we had a past. Anything before this exact moment is past. In this exact moment, we're living in the present, right? And we know everything about the past because we went through it. We've experienced it. We know what's happening in the present because of our interpretation of the past. The problem is, is there's a part of the future. And none of us know what's going to happen in two hours, two days, or two weeks from now. And so Jesus Christ is there. But Christ is in the past. Christ is in the present. And Christ is in the future. And He's always present in every one of them. Because He's God. So understand that even though I'm fixing to make these lines and these distinctions, don't hold this down and try to confine Jesus Christ into our human three-dimensional world. Because Christ is beyond that. And so He uses three terms. The three offices of Jesus Christ. First of all, Jesus Christ in the past was a prophet. Jesus Christ in the present is a priest. And Jesus Christ in the future will be a king. Three different offices that are there. When you think about these three different offices, a prophet is one that speaks for God. A prophet is one that speaks to the people for God. A priest would mediate between God and man. And then you have the king who rules in people's lives. And so you see these three different areas that's there. And you break it down into three different terms that we use all of the time. When we talk about Christ as the prophet, we're talking about redemption. Everything that Christ did to bring us to the point of salvation, that's in the past. That has to do with redemption. When we talk about repentance of dead works, to faith toward God, we're talking about redemption. We're talking about salvation. When we're talking about in the present, the baptisms and the laying on of hands, we are looking at Jesus Christ as the priest, and He is our representative. He is representing us. Christ is where? Seated at the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession on our behalf. And so Christ is there representing us before God. That's why when God looks at me, He doesn't see a sinner, but what does He see? He sees someone that has been redeemed in the past by Jesus Christ, so therefore He represents me, and God sees me through the lens of Jesus Christ, therefore I'm holy as God is holy. And so that is my representative. In the future, He's going to be dealing with our renewal, our new bodies, and when we see Him, we shall be like Him. And so when you look at this act of salvation in the past, redemption, representation today and renewal in the future, what you are looking at is this work of salvation. Salvation, we are saved from the penalty of sin. When we are redeemed, what happens? Christ paid that price for us. Then we move to His priestly aspect of representation. We are being saved from the power of sin. We should be being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ at this moment. In the present, we should be starting to look more and more like Jesus Christ. We were saved in the past from the works of sin, but now we are being saved from the power of sin. The sin should not have any power over you, because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Jesus Christ said, I have overcome the world, and I am in you. So we have the power to say no to sin. In the future, we shall be saved from the presence of sin. When He wipes away all of the tears, He makes it He could find Satan for eternity, then there will be no more sin. There will be no more presence of sin. Remember we read at the candlelight service that the glory of Jesus Christ is going to light that city. There's going to be no sin. There's no shadows, no shadows of turning. And so the biblical terms that we use for these three different works is the terms justification, what God has done. Remember the easy, short answer to that is just as if I'd never sinned. That happens at redemption. Then we're going through the sanctification process. We are being conformed into the image. We are set apart for a purpose. In the future, we're talking about glorification. We're talking about when we see Him, we shall be like Him and glorified. Hebrews 9, a few chapters later, the author says this, For Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Notice where is God right now? It's Jesus Christ in the present. He is there with God. In the presence of God for who? For us. So there He is our mediator. He is our priest right now. And then he goes on and he says, verse 25, Nor yet that you should offer Himself often as the high priest entered into the holy place every year with the blood of others. For then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared, notice that's past tense, He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And so He is seated at the Father right now as a priest, but in the past what did He do? He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself as a prophet. Verse 27, And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this what? The judgment. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for Him, notice what it says, shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation. So in these four verses right here, we have the work of Christ in the past, we have the work of Christ in the present, and we have the work of Christ in the future. This whole process is salvation. If you look at Revelation 1 and verse 8, when the angel comes and talks to John, he tells us there, Jesus said, I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, sayeth the Lord, and then He gives three terms. He says, which is, which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. So He says, I've always been God from the very beginning. I will always be God till the very end. But I'm also, when it comes to you, I was, I am, and I will come. And so this gives us this landscape for the work of Jesus Christ. And so real briefly, I want to give you some Scriptures to this because all of this is foundation as we begin to study the doctrine of Christ. As prophet, Christ speaks to the people for God. That's what a prophet does. As a matter of fact, let's go all the way back to Deuteronomy 18. And Moses says, I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee, Moses, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them. That's what a prophet does. A prophet speaks on behalf of God the words of God to the people of God. That's the prophet's job. That's why in the Old Testament, if a prophet predicted one thing or told the people one thing and it did not come to pass, that prophet was to be killed because that prophet was not of God because God cannot lie and God will always tell the truth. So when the prophet spoke on behalf of God, when you read Isaiah and Jeremiah and these others, Ezekiel and Daniel, and they would say what? Repent and God will save you. Guess what? When they repented, God had to do what He commanded His prophet to share. That's why we study these prophets and we talk about future events that are going to happen that will take place, and because they are prophets of God, God never changes, so they're going to happen if they haven't already happened. And so that's what a prophet does. If God puts the words in his mouth and he speaks the words to the people. In the New Testament in Luke 17, 6, it says there came a fear on all and they glorified God saying that a great prophet is risen up among us. Moses was told there would be a prophet that would rise up from among the people. Now we see Jesus Christ in Luke 7, 16 where the people are saying, guess what? A great prophet is risen up among us. And so they have recognized Jesus Christ as the prophet that Moses spoke about way back under in Deuteronomy 18. When you come to Acts 3, Peter quotes this in his message to the Jews. He says, For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me. He's going to be like Moses, a speaker on the behalf of God. Do you remember what happened to Moses? Moses would go before God. He went before Him on Mount Sinai. God gave him the law. God gave him everything. And then what did he do? He went down and gave it to the people. And so he said he's going to be like me, but he's going to be different because he's going to be God. He's not going to be a messenger of God. He's going to be God. And then he also says in Acts 7, again, this is that Moses. If you're having problems understanding who that prophet is going to be, then he tells us in Acts 7, this is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up. He's referring to Jesus Christ. You have seen that prophet. That prophet has come and spoken to you. And what did they do to that prophet? Did they hear his message and repent and do what they were supposed to do? No, they crucified Him. They didn't like to hear the words of God. And so Matthew 21 and verse 11 says, the multitude said, this is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. Again, recognizing Him. Luke 10 and 22, and I'm not going to read all of these verses. I've highlighted some there, parts of it on the screen. All things are delivered to me of my Father. Where did the words that Jesus spoke come from? He got them from God. And then He passed them on to the people. Hebrews 1 says, Hebrews 1 says, hath in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things. And so the writer of Hebrews is writing this to these Jews, telling them that Jesus Christ has given you all of this. Jesus Christ has spoken. We're not sharing what we are writing. We're sharing what Jesus has told us. And I really think that's a whole lot to do with why He didn't name Himself as the author of Hebrews. Because He wanted them to understand this is from God. God is the One. Jesus Christ Himself delivered this. Now how do we see, because this is the area that we're going to talk about this week and next week, notice how do we see this present work of this prophetic ministry? How is He working in the past, but in the present? Well, John 16 and verse 13 tells us. It says, Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth, for He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak. And He will show you things to come, and He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine, therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine and shall show it unto you. And so notice that Jesus Christ says, I'm going to leave you the Spirit to do what? To guide you into all truth. In other words, what did Jesus Christ do? He came to die. And so now He has died. He has fulfilled His obligation. And now He is sending the Holy Spirit to have each and every one of us in the present to look back at the past work of Jesus Christ, what He did on the cross of Calvary when He died for our sins. And so the Holy Spirit is there to do that. You cannot be saved. You cannot recognize your sins unless the Holy Spirit points it to you and shows it to you. And so that's how He's working in profit. And so that's what we'll deal with when it's repentance from dead works and faith toward God. We're dealing with Christ and what did He say about Himself and the fulfillment of our relationship and our separation from God. That's what we'll be looking at when we look at Him as a prophet. But real briefly, the next two that we look at is as a priest. And as a priest, Christ speaks to God for the people. And so as a prophet, God speaks through that individual to the people. Now the priest is speaking to God on our behalf. You go through the whole Old Testament. What did the priest do? He met the individual out at the gate of the tabernacle. There at the gate they would sacrifice the animal. And then what would the priest do? He would take that animal from that point on after the individual that brought that sacrifice, that individual killed that sacrifice their self, then the priest took it and what did he do? He offered it to God. And so he was the mediator between man and God. It tells us in Hebrews 4, and I'm giving you all of this around Hebrews because this sets in to these two verses that we're going to deal with. Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession, for we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the filling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. And he's saying we have a high priest. We have someone that will go to God on our behalf. And it's not just any high priest. The priest in the Old Testament had to do it every single day. They had to cleanse their self. They had to make sacrifices for their self before they could make sacrifices for you. But guess what? Jesus Christ didn't make a sacrifice on your behalf. Jesus Christ is the sacrifice. He sacrificed Himself for you and I. You jump over to Hebrews 7 and verse 17 and they testify, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And we mentioned that last week because this is what he was starting to talk about when he all of a sudden realized their immaturity because they're wanting to go back to the law. But he says Jesus Christ is not a priest after the order of the Levites. You remember the Levites was Aaron and his sons. It was an entire tribe. A group of people. And they were the ones that did all of the priestly duties. But he said Jesus is not from the line of Levi. Who was Jesus from? He was of the tribe of Judah, right? So he wasn't a priest after the priestly tribe. He was of the kingly tribe. But he said, guess what? He was still a priest because he was after the order of Melchizedek. Who was the one that appointed Melchizedek to be the mediator between man and God? God did. God did. And so this was before the law. And so now he is telling us that Jesus Christ is a priest not after the Levitical tribes, but he was before a priest. He says in verse 22, But so much Jesus made a surety of a better testament. And they truly were many priests because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death. But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. How did the priesthood change in the Old Testament? When the father died, the oldest son would take over as the high priest. And so it was always changing because guess what? For the wages of sin is death. Therefore, everyone is going to die. But guess what? You do not have Melchizedek's death recorded in the Bible. Jesus Christ did not stay dead. He is risen. And so he tells us there that he is an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore, he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such a high priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, who needeth not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins, and then for the people's. For this he did once when he offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity. But the word of the oath which is since the law maketh the Son who is consecrated forevermore." Paul told Timothy, he said, there is one God and one mediator between God and men. The man, Christ Jesus. In other words, Peter refers to us that have been saved as priests. But we are not mediators between man and God. Understand that. There's only one mediator that gets us to God. What we are is a mediator to Jesus Christ. It is our job and our responsibility to bring men to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ then mediates with the Father. And so we have to be really careful when we tell people, and I hear preachers say it all the time, that I am a mediator between man and God. No, we are not. You are a mediator between you and Jesus Christ. You cannot get into the present priestly work without accepting Christ of the past and His prophetic work. You have to accept what Christ said before you can go to God on behalf. So we're just mediators with Christ. The last one, as King, Christ reigns over the people as God. We see this in Matthew 21. Tell the daughters of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee. Meek and sitting upon a donkey, a colt of a foal of a donkey. Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, thy King cometh. Therefore, Hebrews 6, verse 1, all through the Gospels, the King is coming. You remember what they did on Palm Sunday? When Jesus Christ come in, you remember, you go back to the feast of Passover? And what are they supposed to do on the tenth day of Nisan of their first religious month? They were to pick them out a lamb out of all of the field that was going to be the sacrifice. It wasn't the sacrifice yet. It had to go through a process. On the 10th, the 11th, the 12th, the 13th, and then it was to be sacrificed on the 14th. That's when it became the lamb. By the 13th, it became your lamb. Because by the 13th day, guess what? You have watched this lamb. You've noticed that it is without spot, without blemish. This is the one that is going to die. But until they took the knife to that lamb's throat, it was just the one that you chose. And once you chose it, then it became the lamb when you sacrificed it. Now when you go to Jesus Christ, on the 10th day on Palm Sunday, what did He do? He entered Jerusalem. What did the people say? This is our lamb. Behold, our King. This is the Messiah. This is the One. And then what did He do? He was viewed. He was watched. He was picked over. He went before Pilate. He went before Herod. He went before the people. And nobody could find any fault or any blemish with Jesus Christ. And so all of a sudden, they picked their man. This was the One. This is it. And when it came time to die, what did they say? All of the people said crucify Him. This is going to be the Lamb. And when Jesus Christ was there on the cross of Calvary, He cried, It is finished. And the minute He cried, It is finished, the Bible says that there was a great earthquake. And all of a sudden, there in Herod's temple, the veil that separated the priest from God, all of a sudden was ripped wide open from the top to the bottom. And guess what? Jesus Christ became our priest. And He took the blood, the job of the high priest, and He took that blood and He went and He put it at the throne of God. And it wasn't just the Lamb's blood. It was His blood that He gave. And so as priest, guess what? That has given Him the right to be our King and to rule and to reign. And guess what? We have a lot of people today that want to hear the words of Jesus Christ. We want to talk about Jesus Christ and what Jesus Christ is doing, but there's very few of us that want to allow Christ to be our priest and to be our relationship with Jesus Christ. And guess what? If we don't accept Him as our priest and our mediator between us and God, then guess what? He'll be really messed up when He comes back as King. And He's going to say, there are many to Me that will say in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Thy name? What are they doing? They're calling Him Lord. They're recognizing His authority, but guess what? They never accepted His mediation. They never accepted Him as prophet. And they tried to do their own thing. And so you see how it's kind of important when we look at the work of Jesus Christ in the past and the present and the future. And so we come to chapter 6, and we're going to save this for next week, but I want you to see this. Look at what He says in chapter 6 and verse 1. Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection. What were we before we knew Jesus Christ? We were sinners. Paul told the church at Rome, there is none that seeketh after God. No, not one. But what happened? The Word of God came to our heart. Jesus Christ applied the blood to the throne of God. And what happens? Now we can be able to stand before Him. And so we ought to be going on to perfection. We won't reach it in this lifetime, but it says in 1 John, when we see Him, we shall be like Him. Well, how can we be like Him? Because just like Barbara this morning, her spirit went to be with Jesus Christ, but that old sinful fleshly body, guess what? Continued to lay there on that bed. And it will continue to be cremated or placed down into the ground, and it will be there awaiting the day when God is going to give her a new body without sin, without any problems, without any aches, without anything, and all of a sudden reunite that with her spirit and her soul, and for the first time ever, her body is going to be free from any sin. And so that is the work of Jesus Christ. And so we need to go on to glorification. We need to quit worrying about what Jesus Christ has spoken to us. How many times did Jesus Christ say, Jesus Christ said, you that have ears to hear, let them hear. Jesus has spoken as the prophet. You need to listen. You need to respond. Salvation has already been paid for. That's a past event. It's not going to ever happen again. Jesus Christ will never come and die on the cross again for our sins. It's already taken care of. But how we accept and live that sacrifice before God, guess what? Is what we go through each and every day. And we should be getting more and more pleasing to God. When God looks at me in heaven, God sees a perfect individual through the blood of Jesus Christ. But when God sees me here on earth, guess what? He ought to be seeing me being conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. So that way, when I stand before God at the judgment seat of Christ or the great white throne judgment, there's going to be two judgments at the end of the world. One for the saved. One for the lost. But both of judgments are going to be there. And we're going to wrap things up, but turn with me because I didn't make a slide because I wasn't planning on cutting off here, but I'm going to cut off here. Look at 2 Timothy. I want you to see this. And I started to share it in class this morning because our question this morning is what are we supposed to be doing? And are we doing it? And Paul, you remember when he wrote 2 Timothy? It was the last letter the apostle Paul wrote to young Timothy. He is now back in Rome awaiting his death. He knows his days are going to be short. His days on this earth are over with. And I want to start in chapter 4, verse 5. But watch thou in all things. Be alert. Be listening to what Christ is telling us. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing what? By the Word of God. That is, our faith in the present is affected by the Word in the past. And so he says, watch. Endure afflictions. Guess what? We were having a discussion yesterday. How do you explain to a 4-year-old about why somebody dies? I said, you just be open and honest. We die because we're sinners. Right? This body is not getting better. This body is getting worse. It's deteriorating. It's going down. And so, yeah, be honest. And then according to their understanding, then you begin to explain. No, it was not because they did something bad. It was because they are bad. But this body has to die, but that Spirit is with Jesus Christ if they trusted in Him. See? And so then you go in and you explain as their level of faith, as they begin to understand, then you tell them the truth. We dodge around things and try to make up things to comfort and stuff that they don't even understand or comprehend. And so that's just leaving the principles. What did He say? You've got to start with milk. You can't change and make bad milk or imitation milk. It's got to be the real thing. It's got to be the truth before it can ever go to strong meat. But then look what He says. It's going into perfection. Not laying again the foundation. What is the foundation? The very bottom that everything else is built upon. Everything in our Christian life. How in the world do we know when the Bible was written 2,000 years ago, how do we know what we are supposed to be doing right now in the present day to be in the will of God? That's the $100 million question, isn't it? And that's what a lot of Christians say. Well, that was written 2,000 years ago. How does that deal with me? Well, guess what? If you know Jesus Christ and you've heard Him as a prophet and accepted Him as a priest, then guess what? You're able to discern what is right and what is wrong. That's what we saw last week in chapter 5. Not everything is going to be spelled out. Not everything is listed in the Bible, hey, if it snows three inches, you need to dismiss church. If it snows six inches, you need to dismiss. It's not laid out there. There's nowhere in the Bible that says what are we supposed to do when it's dangerous tonight with church services? It's not there. But you know what? I can say let's be safe and come back Wednesday night and lay my head down and rest tonight because why? The Gospel has been preached. And the Gospel is continuing to be preached in my life to individuals whether I'm here in this pulpit or whether I'm not. You see there? That's maturity and discernment. Now if I'm sitting there at the house and there's somebody on my mind and I'm about the Holy Spirit and I'm not willing to pick up the phone or call or share, then that goes to a whole other different deal. So he says repentance. And he said here's the foundation. Repentance from dead works and of faith toward God. So now look, let's go back to 2 Timothy. Look at what Paul says. He says, Endure inflictions. Do the work of an evangelist. What is an evangelist? Someone that evangelizes. What is the word evangelism? The good news. What is the good news? That Jesus Christ died for my sins and was buried, but He didn't stay dead. He rose again on the third day. That's the evangelism. That's the good news. It's not just that Jesus Christ died. Death is not good. What makes it good is that when Jesus Christ was buried, He didn't stay buried. He rose again on the third day. And He lives to ever make intercession on my behalf. Do the work of the evangelism. He didn't say memorize the Roman road. He didn't say memorize some salvation tract. He said do the work of the evangelist. All you are required as a Christian to do is to share that Jesus Christ died, but He didn't stay dead. He rose again on the third day. Why didn't He stay dead? Because He was perfect. And the wages of sin is dead. Jesus Christ gave up His life so that we could have eternal life. And then look what He says. If we're doing the work of evangelism, then He says make full proof of your ministry. How do I know I was doing what God wanted me to do yesterday? Was I doing the work of evangelist? That may mean I have to talk to somebody that I'm uncomfortable talking to. That may mean at my job, I may have to stop at the matter at hand and deal with evangelism. What's the most important thing? Their life and their soul and their eternity. So make full proof of your ministry. And then look at what Paul says. This is pretty cool. He's fixing to die. He hasn't died yet. But he's fixing to. He says, for I am now ready to be offered. And the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Notice, every one of these is in past tense. I've fought a good fight. Where do you fight a fight? Do you fight a fight in the past or do you fight a fight in the present? You fight it in the present. Right? When they take them boxers and stuff, they do a weigh-in the day before, right? But they still haven't had the fight. They may jaw with each other. They may talk with each other. They may say big words. But guess what? The fight doesn't happen until they step into the ring. And Paul says, guess what? I have stepped into the ring. I have fought a fight. He's fought it all the way to Rome to the known king of the entire world. He says, I've finished my course. See, the ruler of Rome heard the Gospel from Paul. Go back to the end of Acts. Felix and Agrippa said, almost thou persuadest me. And Paul said, I don't want to almost persuade you. I want you to be convinced. I want you to accept. He said, I've finished my course. I have kept the faith. What is faith? Trusting God enough to obey. Everything that Paul said that I've done, and there's arguments, and I argued in my Acts class that Paul shouldn't have. The Holy Spirit told him twice not to go back to Jerusalem. Then when he gets to Jerusalem, he thinks he's going to be released according to Acts. But Felix and Agrippa didn't have nothing on them. But then what did he do? Because of some Jewish guys there, he said, I want to appeal to Caesar. And I can argue that, guess what? Paul could have started more missions and done more work if he wouldn't have appealed to Caesar. But right here he says, guess what? I've kept the faith. So obviously Paul was doing something that God wanted him to do because guess what? He got all the way to Caesar with the Gospel. Many guys were saved that were chained to guards. Now he goes to the future. That was in the present. Now he goes into the future. Verse 4, There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day. And not to me only. There's the good news for you and me. But unto all them also that what? Say it with me. All those that what? Love His appearing. Love His appearing. Guess what he said? These foundations, guess where it ends up? With the resurrection and the judgment. There's going to be a resurrection for those that are saved at the rapture. There's going to be a resurrection for those that are lost at the end of the world. But guess what? Depending on what you believe here and now with the message that Jesus Christ presented, with the sacrifice that He made, will tell you where your result's going to be in the future. And it all says to love His appearing. In other words, I am looking forward when my King comes. You go back to the parable. You remember what happened? To the one that He gave five talents? What did He do? He went out and He worked hard. He did what He was supposed to do and He made five more talents. Do you remember the guy that only had one talent? See, God has not blessed me with the talents that Billy Graham had. I will probably never speak to a stadium of people. Right? But I think we can all say that Billy Graham, to the crowd that he preached in, he reaped the results of what God granted him. Take our one talent. The few numbers. If I've been faithful with what God has given me, do I preach the Word of God whether it's 100 of you that show up or whether it's 10 of you that show up? Am I going to tell you the truth out of the Word of God whether it's three? See, what God has gave you. You may not have the ministry that everybody else has, but God has given you people in your life. He's given you the job. He's given you what you're supposed to be doing. And he said what? That one that was given one was embarrassed. How many times have I said, boy, Lord, if You'd just let me preach before 10,000 people, surely I could get 100 of them to walk the aisle, right? I mean, the laws of the harvest, right? At least 10%. You give me 100 people, I ought to get 10 people that ought to get right, right? And we start putting it into our logical deal. But the guy that was given one, what did he do? He got embarrassed and he said, you know what? If I blow this one opportunity that I have, I'm going to be left with nothing when the Master returns. So what did he do? He took all of his opportunities and he played it safe. He said, I'm just going to go bury it and when the Master comes back, I'm just going to give right back what He gave me. How many Christians today live their entire life just holding on to what we have, waiting for Christ to return so we can just give back what He gave us? Paul said, I didn't wait. He said, I got in the ring and I fought. I did the work of an evangelist. I shared Jesus Christ with anyone and everyone. I did what I was supposed to do. Henceforth, I'm ready. I'm looking for my Master. Because what He gave me, the talents that He gave me, I've doubled. And He didn't double it. Who doubled it? God. Because God looked at the guy that had the one and He said, if you would have just went and put it in the bank, you would have earned interest. But He said, you didn't even put it in the bank. You buried it out there in the middle of the field where not even the world can help with what I gave you. See, the world will help you out if you let them. But when you let God and you listen to God and you follow God, God's the one that gives the results. Go back and read it this week. That guy said, Lord, I knew You as a hard guy. You reap what you do not sow. You do amazing things, God. But what He's doing is sitting there confessing, I didn't trust You enough with what You gave me to do great and mighty things. How many of us are attending church, are living the Christian life, but are not trusting God to do great things with what we have? And guess what? We're just like that guy. I hope he don't show up today. I hope he don't show up tomorrow. But if we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, then we're going to look for Him to return because He promises us those that are faithful over a few things, I will make rulers over many. See, God said if you'll just do with what I give you, then you won't even be able to handle what I'm going to give you later. And we take our Christianity and we bury it out in the field. And we come to church and we sneak out of the field. And we come to church and we sing songs, oh, I can't wait to get to heaven. I can't wait to see Jesus Christ. The whole entire time knowing that we have wasted our entire life in ministry that God has given us because we wouldn't even take a chance and risk it on God. And Paul says we need to leave that foundation. And we need to get to the end result and move on to perfection. We need to get out there and everybody has an opportunity for God to do something great. And He's not asking you to do nothing spectacular. Just do what He's already done in your life. Just share that. And see how God can work. That's the doctrine of Christ. Christ thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made of Himself of no reputation and took upon Himself the form of a man and endured the suffering, even the death on the cross. Christ said, I've been your example. Now you do it. And when God looked at His life, He said, this is My Son in Whom I am well pleased. When you get to heaven, is God going to look at you and say this is My Son or My Daughter that I'm well pleased? Or are we going to hang our heads in shame and watch as our entire life goes up with wood, hay, and stubble? And just smoke? And then this poor little old guy over here that we went around, we laughed, we ridiculed because everywhere he went he laid a track down or he said something. And we never did see a whole lot of fruit or anything from it, but all of a sudden he gets up there and his entire life, the whole time of the fire, there's just gold and silver and precious stones that start popping out that they didn't even know they had. God says, wow, I'm pleased with what you did. That's the doctrine of Christ. And guess what, next week we'll start because it starts with repentance. It starts with repentance as we stand and have a verse of invitation this morning. Now let's get the same question Brother Morris asked us in Sunday School this morning. Are you doing what you're supposed to be doing? Do you know what you're supposed to be doing? And are you doing it? Are you doing it? As we sing, what hymn? Verse 500.