Perfected Forever

The pastor's message is titled "Perfected Forever" and is based on verse 14 of chapter 10. He challenges the belief that the cross begins something that the Spirit of God then completes. He argues that we are either holy or profane, saved or unsaved, and that the work of Jesus is sufficient for our sanctification. He emphasizes that we are not in the process of becoming more holy, but rather we grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. The pastor also refutes the idea that we need to add our own sacrifices to the finished work of Christ. He highlights the importance of full assurance in Christ and reminds us that our sins have been accounted for through His sacrifice. The sermon concludes with the reminder that the great redeeming work is finished and we are pardoned through the work of Jesus. The following message is brought to you by the people of Redeemer Church of Piketon, Ohio. For more information, please visit RedeemerPiketon.org. And now here's Pastor Jason Booth with the message. The title of the message this morning is Perfected Forever. Perfected Forever. And I have a single verse of emphasis. And we're going to consider other verses as well, I'm sure. But the verse that I really want to focus on this morning is verse 14 of chapter 10. And that is the word of the Lord. Let's read it together. For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And I know the Lord will bless His spoken word today for our good and for His glory. Amen. The common belief amongst professing Christians is that the cross begins something that the Spirit of God then completes. And what I mean by that is to say that we are counted holy through Christ. But we are being made holy by the Spirit. Now, many of you have heard ideas like this. We see it in modern evangelicalism expressed in several ways. There are those who go on to say, even in more emphatic terms, Jesus begins by saving you, but the real down and dirty work comes with the fire of the Holy Spirit and the second blessing, sometimes referred to as the second work of grace, or sometimes referred to as the work of sanctification. And so, there are those who call themselves Christians who would denigrate the finished work of Christ by considering it nothing more than an entry-level status. Some sort of starting point whereby God's people are saved, but not yet sanctified. Somehow just in the club, but not holy. And I'm not just talking about rank Arminian heretics. There are those who call themselves reformed, who constantly berate their people and say things like, you better be growing in holiness. You better be growing in worthiness. Well, let me tell you, and this may be controversial, and I hope that it isn't controversial to you who hear gospel preaching on the regular, but for those listening out and about, this might even be jarring to you. And it's sad that it's such a controversial statement, but listen to me. We are not in the process of becoming more and more sanctified. We are not in the process of becoming more and more holy. Now, people would look at me at first glance that believe otherwise and say, hold on preacher, what do you mean? And I can explain myself with the Word of the Lord. We are not growing in holiness because you are either holy or you are profane. You are either saved or you are unsaved. You have either been perfected forever by the once for all work of Jesus Christ, or you are as yet undone in your sins. To hell with the idea that you can grow in holiness. For the holiness bestowed upon you, imputed to you through the perfect work of Jesus Christ was in fact a perfect and completed holiness. He did the work, beloved. So be gone with this notion that you can grow in holiness. And yet, Christians are called to grow. How do we grow if He's given us all things? Beloved, if I showed you an infinite room, a room that goes on for eternity, and in this room there were wrapped presents, they all belong to you freely, given to you by someone else. Someone else paid the price for each and every one of these precious gifts. And each of these gifts might be more precious than the next as you go down the aisles and the rows. And the infinite room is filled with all of these good things. And your task is to but unwrap them and enjoy them forever. Don't you see? When the Lord saves us, He has perfected us forever. He has saved us. The work is done. And so how do we grow today? The Bible teaches us that we grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. Beloved, we get to know Him more and more in the full pardon of our sins each and every day. We get to unwrap the goodness of His mercies that are new each and every day. You are not more holy because you've known the Lord for more years than another brother. You are not somehow more sanctified. The very notion that the blood of Jesus can be applied to your account and you not already possess the full righteous robes of another is awful blasphemy. It shouldn't even be named among those who call themselves Christian. To think that the work of Jesus is somehow insufficient in such a way that now we require something to add to it. We've got to add our own sacrifices and our own things to it. Listen to me. We've been perfected forever by the blood or we are as yet in our sin. Now, why is this important? It's important for a number of reasons. There's no intermediate state between saved and unsaved, between salvation and the state of sin. There is no growth in your level of salvation. Remember, come work in my fields and I'll give you a penny, said the Master in the earliest mornings of the day. In the midday, He says, come and work in my fields and I'll give you a penny. He says of the evening hours, late into the evening, come work in my fields and I'll give you a penny. It's the Master's prerogative. And He calls His people and He saves His people by His blood. There isn't a single scripture that explicitly teaches different kinds or types of sanctification wrought by the gospel or as a consequence of the gospel. Not a one. So, for the camps that say you can be saved and then sometime, maybe even years later, go back to the Lord to reconsecrate yourself to a second work of grace and sanctification. There isn't one example of that in the entire Bible. Of a man being born again and then going, as it were, back to some altar, back to some prayer bench, back to some crisis experience to become further or even more sanctified. It's just aliens in the scripture. Because when Jesus said it is finished on the cross of Calvary, He did not say, okay, Holy Spirit, now come and do the second work of grace. That's not at all how this works. The work was finished on Calvary Street. Beloved, you can grow in that knowledge, but you cannot become more holy than the day the Lord of glory put upon you His righteous rose. That should make us thank the Lord for His grace and His mercy. That should cause us to seek, to study the Word, to learn even more about this gift of grace. The work of God in Christ. To unwrap, as it were, these gifts each and every day. To learn more and more. Faith comes by hearing. And how our faith can be strengthened for the journey. By remembering the old, old story. By looking to Christ. Not looking within, but looking to Christ from whence comes our help. God loves His people, having saved them through the finished work of Christ. It is within the context of this blessed new covenant in Christ's blood that God's people reply to Him in love. The scripture says, faith worketh by love. And so, where is the place for the Christian imperative? Now, the next attack on this blessed doctrine of full assurance in Christ is, well, you just preach that you can go do whatever you want. If Jesus did all this work, then you're not even trying to work to be holy. Let me tell you something. If I could work to be holy, I could have done it before Jesus ever came. But I have sins. And they have to be accounted for. I have broken God's law. You have broken God's law. It's not good enough just to turn a corner and say, well, I'm not going to go doing those things anymore. No, the sins you've committed must be accounted for, must be atoned. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He didn't die like the shadows of the good things to come died. I'm talking about the sacrifices of the Old Testament. The Bible says in chapter 10, for since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near. Why is that? The Scripture says in verse 2 of chapter 10. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? Verse 3. But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sin every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. So how many sins were taken away by the blood of bulls and goats? None. And yet, if the blood of bulls and goats could have taken away sins, the Bible says here, they would have been offered once. Verse 2 says they would not have ceased to be offered since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin. So there's a once for all aspect to the cleansing of sin that the writer of Hebrews teaches us plainly. Once a real sacrifice was offered, there was no more need for the shadows of the good things to come. There was no more need to be reminded of sin year after year. When you gather into this place, yes, I remind you that we are sinners. But what is it about coming to church on Sundays that should excite our souls? It's this. We are also reminded that the great redeeming work is finished. It's accomplished. We are sinners. We confess our sins to the Lord. We confess our sins. And then we are reminded of pardon, full and free by the work of Jesus. The sermon He gave in those last words on the cross when He said, it is finished, is a powerful one indeed. For it, beloved, is our spoken word of pardon. It is finished. And you know you've failed miserably this week. And you know that you've dropped the ball. And the Spirit of God then checks your heart because the Lord loves you. And whom He loves, He chastens. And He holds a titleship to your heart. He holds ownership to who you are. For you are not your own. You have been bought with a price. You gather into this place downtrodden, beaten down with the world, beaten down with the cares of this life, all the anxieties, all of the things that pile on hard, thick and heavy. And then we come here and we remind one another through the preaching of the Gospel that the great work of redemption is done. Oh, people of God, weary, wounded, wearisome, tired, the Lord reminds us that we have come to Him for the Sabbath rest. That He will abide through the storms of this life. That we will make it through the waters, through the floods, through the fires, through the winds, through the rains, through the terrible seasons of this life. Why? Because the work is done! We are His people. We are sanctified wholly under the Lord. And we have all of this by imputation of Christ's righteousness. And no, we do not have license to go live like animals. But we know better as to where the righteousness comes from. Thank God you're not a pack of lying thieves. Thank God you're not going out murdering people and pillaging and burning people's homes down. But there isn't any righteousness to be found whether or not you do or not do those things for a time of eternity. Righteousness comes only through Jesus Christ and His finished work. And so, what are the imperatives? The imperatives are completed in Christ. He's done the work. The work is done. You are either sanctified wholly or you are not. Salvation and sanctification are two sides of the exact same coin. You cannot have one without the other. The silly notion that you can be saved and not sanctified is alien to the Scripture. It's an affront to the majesty of our God and to the work that Jesus Christ completed on the cross. Hallelujah, we are sanctified. And how is this? All by the imputed righteousness of another. Here's where the modern evangelical church gets the cart before the horse. They have conflated glorification with the Christian life today. Beloved, there is a day coming maybe sooner than we realize. Who knows? Only God knows. That we will live in a state of absolute sinlessness. There's coming a day when we'll not have disease. We'll not have to worry about war. People on this earth won't have to worry about famine. Won't have to worry about the selfish desires of their brothers. They won't have to worry about any of that. A day coming where there will be no more night. For Jesus Himself will be the light of that city. There's coming a day when we're not going to have the aches and the pains of these old bodies in this mortal frame. There's coming a day when all things are going to be made right. All things are going to be made new. And beloved, that day will come when the Lord returns and we receive glorified bodies. Right now, we see through a glass darkly, the Bible says, but then face to face. And so we long for that day. We thank God for that day and for that precious promise that He's coming with life and liberty for all who believe. We thank God for that. But let us not conflate the coming glorification with the Christian walk right now. Right now, we are walking in a world that has fallen, that is sin-cursed, and we're doing it in sin-cursed bodies. And so what in whom, rather, do we rest? Do we rest on all of the doings that we're trying to drum up? Because some preacher said we needed a second dipping, a second work of grace. We needed to be somehow entirely sanctified. These same people that preach entire sanctification also preach that you could lose your soul any time you feel like it and go off and be lost again. It's a completely foreign and heretical idea. And I'll call it what it is. If you believe in a second work of grace, you do not understand the Gospel and you are as yet in your sin. How could you bastardize the precious blood of Jesus by saying that God divvies it up in membership levels? Come get more. How can you get more when the Scripture says, of His fullness, we have all received? It's a hellish doctrine. Maybe not enough people count it out anymore. Because so many people have believed this craziness that you can get more of God. Has He not freely given us all things? Then we ought to call out these false doctrines. Why are they so important to be called out? Because I believe that the holiness doctrines, as they're called, have done more harm in the church world than just about anything else. They've caused poor souls who've simply heard about Jesus and desire to serve Him and to be with Him. They sense the need by the Spirit of God's conviction for their soul to be saved and they cry out to Christ and then some slick-talking preacher blows their head full of nonsense. And people are left discouraged and in a shipwreck of a state. And they never have assurance. Oh, you ask any of them from the Jehovah's Witnesses all the way down to the Nazarene. You corner them and you say, do you know that you know that you know that you're a Christian? And they'll look at you and say, well, I just hope I make it in. What a sad, sorry state. Jesus didn't promise that wishy-washy mess. He looked right at that old thief right on the cross as he hanged there and He said, this day, you shall be with Me in paradise. The writers of the Gospel said, these things I write unto you that you may know you have eternal life. Let the diagnosis come that will take you out of this world. And let Me remind you that your Lord will see you through because you can know in whom you have believed. The Apostle says, I know in whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. Hallelujah forevermore. He who beginneth a good work in you shall be able to perform it until the day of redemption. So let the world throw its best at us. Let us buckle in unbelief and failure and watch the Lord of glory pick up His beloved people right out of the ashes and save them anyhow. Hallelujah forevermore. His keeping hand is strong. His keeping hand will never fail. And for anyone to come preaching anything else, they ought to be drummed on out of here. Because I have no use for a God who can't save and I have even less use for a God who cannot keep. Because I know what manner of man I am. And if He's not a keeping Savior, then I'm toast. If He's not a keeping God with absolute assurance of hope, then what do I have but a lie? But something that I'm deceiving myself with even now. No, the Scripture is clear. All that the Father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. Hallelujah! This is the Gospel of grace. The Gospel that says it's all the work of God. This is the work of God that you believe on Him whom He has sent. This is the love of God that all the believing ones will never perish, but have everlasting life. Hallelujah forevermore! We have a hope that endures. A shelter in the time of storm. And He's perfected His people forever. All those who are being sanctified are being perfected forever. And who are these people? They're the ones whom His blood avails. The real sacrifice that takes away sins once for all. Beloved, the old priests in the Old Testament days stood in that temple and they killed animals by the thousands. They were killing animals. They were neck deep in blood and gore. And these sacrifices could never take away sins. Let's say it's chapter 10, verse 11. Verse 12, But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down on the right hand of God. It's over. The work is accomplished. That's why we preach the finished work of Christ. Perfected forever. What a holy condition this is. And one day we're going to see in fullness exactly what this means when the Lord of Glory returns and we meet Him. And we are glorified in the fullness of this promise that He's made. Right now we have the earnest of this inheritance. The Spirit of God abiding with us, reminding us that the work is done. And how is it that we grow? We grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord. We're not made more holy, but His Word definitely makes us more aware of the depth of His love. Oh, it also reminds us of the depth of our sinfulness. But my, my, does that not seem, at least in Scripture and for me, and I hope for you too, when you realize the depth of your sin, does it not make His grace even more amazing? We don't continue in sin that grace may abound more. We don't think we're going to get more grace because we sin even more. No, we hate our sin. But we also freely confess it. And when we do strive to do the right, we're not doing those things to earn righteousness before God. We're doing those things because He has made us righteous. He's made us acceptable in the Beloved. And like children drawing cartoons for the refrigerator, we offer our Lord these meager offerings of gratitude and thanks. The sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit of our lips, that acknowledge Jesus Christ. This shouldn't even be controversial. Where did we ever get this idea that you can grow in holiness? That you can get more of Christ's sacrificial work applied to your heart? There'll be very learned men who will challenge this message. And they will say things like, well, our confession says, and this and that in our catechism. I don't care. Jesus' blood avails for me. I will grow in that knowledge, but I cannot grow in holiness. I'm perfected forever. Now, do I understand what that means? Of course I don't. I've got an apprehension of the grace of God, and I know one day I will have a full comprehension of the grace of God. But right now I'm in the big room full of gifts, as it were, opening one each and every day. I know they're all mine. So I'm not getting more. He's given me all things. Every day is an unfolding of the depth of His grace, the depth of His mercy. And I unwrap the bow each and every day. Some days this old fallen critter will not go into that big room, and I'll go try to do my own thing. And life starts to really get dark and awful. And the loving God does what the loving God does to His own. He grabs the old shepherd's crook, and He walks out leaving the ninety and nine to go get His child. And He'll grab ahold of you, throw you over His shoulders, grab you both by the feet, and just walk you right back in. Because you are not your own. Thank God you're not. So be stubborn, Jonah. Go ahead. Be stubborn, David. See what happens to you. Be stubborn, Moses. Smite the rock when you wasn't supposed to. Remember that? Yeah. Every one of our heroes were sinners. We call them the heroes of faith. And everyone fails. But you know who didn't fail them? The Lord of glory. Hallelujah. The new covenant imperatives are real. We ought to love one another. And how else can we do it? But by a gospel that levels the playing field. There are no big I's and little u's. There's just a whole lot of sinner you's and me's. How can we love one another? Through the gospel of grace. He calls us to love the brothers. And how can we do it? He's forgiven me! How can I not love my neighbor? Knowing what He's forgiven me of. We ought to be compassionate and giving. We ought to praise and worship the God who bought us in Christ. These are beautiful things. And yet, sanctification is not to be found in the keeping of these imperatives. Sanctified people seek, however imperfectly, to live the life that they live in the light of God's grace. We falter, we fail, but we are sanctified wholly by the righteousness of another. And we do these things, these Christian good deeds, these good works that the Father has prepared for us beforehand that we should walk therein. We do these things not to be saved or be sanctified or grow in holiness. But we do these things because of the love with which God has loved us in Christ. So do I believe the Holy Spirit has a work in our heart to make us more and more holy? No, I do not. You can't be more holy than the moment the Lord of glory saves you. Can you learn and understand it more and more deeply? Can you fall in love with God more and more as the years go on? Absolutely. You can know more about God. You should know more about your wife today than you did when you first met her. You should. So there's absolute room for your relationship with God to grow. There's a dynamic aspect here. But not when it comes to brass tacks. You are either His or you are not. And so the Lord doesn't have a big scale in heaven of the holiest of His people and the unholiest of His people. Because when He sees us, He sees us through the blood of Jesus Christ. So do I believe the Holy Spirit testifies of Christ in the preaching of the word to encourage God's people to love the brethren and to do acceptable work as we are the people who are sanctified? Absolutely. So simple doctrinal statement today. You are perfect in Christ. Do you feel perfect in this old world? You better not. That's the groaning. All creation groans for the redemption, for that recreation. That's part of being saved. It's the already there, not yet aspect of this salvation. We long for a kingdom whose builder and maker is God. We long for a city. Oh, I'm looking for that city where we'll never die. I was looking at some pictures the other night and I noticed in the picture, like everybody in the picture was dead. You go to the graveyard and all of your fun family members are there. And the longer you live, the more headstones you have to remember. And you find yourself talking every day more and more in the past tense. Because everybody you know is gone. But aren't we looking for that city whose builder and maker is God? But I want you to know whether you live to be eight years old or 800 years old in this old world, if the Lord has saved you, the work is done. And now you have the divine privilege, every minute He gives you in this world, to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. To love Him each and every day. To praise His name. To share this gospel with your friends and your family. What a high and holy privilege you have. To praise His name. To count His name among the heathens. To remind people that there is a God in heaven who lives and who reigns. And there is salvation in no other name but Jesus Christ. But those who call on His name do so because they've been given to Him by the Father. And whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Beloved, then He has perfected forever. For by single offer He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And remember this Old Testament prophecy Hebrews alludes to right here. This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put My laws on their hearts and write them down on their minds. And I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. For where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. Perfected forever by the blood. Hallelujah forevermore. We can enjoy this message, but more importantly, we can live in the light of this gospel truth. Do you know it? If you do, then you are perfected forever. Trust the Lord alone for all righteousness. And because He loves you, you can love the brothers. You can do that which God would call you to do. You don't have to go out stealing. You don't have to go out causing havoc in this world. You can live in light of the grace wherein God has bought you. Hallelujah, we've been perfected forever. Thanks be to God. You have just heard a message from Pastor Jason Booth of Redeemer Church of Piketon, Ohio. To learn more about the good news of Jesus, please visit RedeemerPiketon.org.