Christ's Person - Mike Berry - Session 6 - 8. To The Uttermost, 9. An Advocate

As you guys know, the, the focus this year is Christ in your weakness. we're focused on Christ being strong on our behalf. it's not very hard to identify our own weakness if the Holy Spirit has given us the eyes of humility to see it. We are weak.

That is an observable fact, but we lose touch of Christ's strength and so that's really the theme of everything that we're doing this year. And, last week, Alvin talked about what our sins evoke and just one portion that he covered, Ortland says he sides with you against your sin, not against you because of your sin. really appreciate that quote and the, and the job that Alvin did. But let's go ahead and pray and then we'll, we'll jump into our time, this morning.

Lord, we thank you so much that we have been made through your spirit a part of your own body. And that you have great compassion and pity on us and we thank you Lord that you stand with us against the sins that hamper us and you're not against us because of those sins you hate the sin and we pray Lord that we would hate our sins more but we thank you that you love us. we ask Lord that you would help us to really get our minds around the way that you view us. The world does not think this way, about us, and we, our own hearts condemn us, but you are greater than our hearts.

And so we ask Lord that you would help us to let you set the terms, by which you love us. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Right, this morning we're gonna cover two different topics.

One is, the doctrine of intercession, the intercessory work of Christ, and then one is the doctrine of his advocacy. And so if you look at the top of the second page, the title of Ortland's chapters to the uttermost, which comes right out of Hebrews 7:25. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him. Since he always lives to make intercession for them, which raises the question, what is Christ doing now?

As we're sitting here in this room. And what is Christ? doing well, this text tells us that he always lives to make intercession. For them and so we're gonna frame this chapter with with basically talking about the past aspect of our salvation and a present aspect of our salvation.

These aren't real super firm lines, but we're gonna categorize it that way to help us think through these, these issues. So Roman numeral one, past assurance through Christ's atonement that there's something that has happened in the historic past called the atonement. And where we see that Christ, he, he lived the perfect life, he was fully human and walked around on the earth. He died and was raised from the dead, resulting in our justification as Romans 4:25 says Jesus our Lord was delivered up.

Why? Because of our offenses, our sins, and was raised, why? Because of our justification, because we had been counted right. There was no reason for Christ to stay in the grave anymore and so he came up from the grave, which was a demonstration that we had indeed been justified.

Ortland says this, I love this quote, to be justified is to be declared righteous in the sight of God. Fully legally exonerated in the divine court based entirely on what another Jesus has done in our place, it is the most counterintuitive aspect of Christianity that we are declared right with God, not once we begin to get our act together, but, once we collapse into honest acknowledgement that we never will. This is just a very, really excellent concise statement of what we mean by justification.

The justification is Martin Luther, postulated and really he's getting it from Augustine, who's getting it from Paul is justification is passive.

We become righteous before God in a passive way. It's completely by faith. The world is always pushing us towards active righteousness. But one of the burdens of Galatians is to demonstrate that our righteousness is actually achieved passively by simple faith in Christ.

And so let's talk about a second thing here. So that's the past, it's justification in the past with really present results. We live in, in, in light of our justification, but there's a present assurance that comes to us through Christ's intercessory work or his intercession. Ortland says this, whereas the doctrine of the atonement reassures us with what Christ has done in the past, the doctrine of his intercession reassures us with what he is doing in the present.

And so let's, let's try to unwrap this idea or present of intercession with several questions. there's several questions that we can ask that can untangle if you think about it very deeply, what seems to be some problems with the doctrine of intercession. first of all, let's just ask the question, what is intercession and, just taking it as a, just a word to define out the dictionary. intercession is when a third party comes between two parties and makes a case, to one on behalf of the other, like, a sports agent, Scott Boris.

I was talking to Alvin yesterday, texted him, asked him a little bit about his agent. It wasn't Scott Boris, but he said this, his name is Jim Crivis. he's a dear brother in the Lord. One distinct memory was that when we were, went through an arbitration hearing.

Jim's job was to convince the arbitrator that I was worth the value, that we were asking for. He built a case based on comparable players and presented it on my behalf. I didn't say a word. He also offered rebuttal, to the case presented by the Mariners representative.

At that point in my life, 26 years old, there was no possible way I could have represented myself in such a proceeding. I was totally unqualified and experienced, I needed someone to intercede for me. So that's part of the sports world and you can just imagine that there's so many of these people that you're watching on TV even right now, these are kids and, and they need someone to come in and, and be an intercessor, for them. You can ask Alvin whether they won or lost that arbitration.

I'll let him answer that. let's ask another question at the top of the next page. What does it mean for Christ to intercede? What does it mean for Christ to intercede?

And we're gonna answer that question with a bunch of other questions. why does Christ need to intercede if we have been justified if Christ is interceding, doesn't mean that our atonement is unfinished. That's an excellent question. We, we sing about the finished work of Christ and yet we talk about Christ interceding for us.

What does that even mean? And I love Ortland's reply to that. He says intercession applies what the atonement accomplished. The atonement accomplished our salvation.

Intercession is the moment by moment application of that atonement. In the past, Jesus did what he now talks about in the present Jesus talks about what he then did. This guy's just a great writer and whenever you see this good writing, that he didn't get it all by himself. He's drinking deep from the well of these Puritans and and just really helping us understand these distinctions.

So justification and intercession are wed together as we see in Romans 8, where Paul says, who shall bring any charge against God's elect, it is God who justifies. who is to condemn Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, and who indeed is interceding for us. So Paul puts these right next to each other, you have justification and you have intercession right in the same paragraph, and I, this has been a quote that I've been reciting to myself.

a lot since I've read it, and I think I've used it in a sermon where Ortland says intercession is the constant hitting refresh of our justification in the court of heaven.

that's just a great visual for me to get my mind around, using a computer terminology what intercession is. Another question we can ask is who are the parties involved. or in other words, is the Father at odds with the son in the, in the work of intercession? Do you have Christ pleading with us before the Father and the Father's got his, his arms folded, just shaking his head, like, what are you talking about?

There is no way. I'm going to listen to these pleas for that person or those people. No, that is not, what is going. Intercession doesn't reflect the coolness of the Father, but the warmth of the Son, and they are one in heart, and the Father's delighted to say yes to the Son, and we see this in many different places in the scripture.

I was thinking of just John 10, 1 of my favorite passages. Where Jesus says, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of, my Father's hand. I and my Father are one, so they're, they're together in this.

They're together in our salvation and all that's involved in it. And then in 2 Corinthians 1. Paul says for all the promises of God in Christ, that's what the, the pronoun him is pointing back to are yes and in him, amen to the glory of God through us. So there's always this yes in Christ.

Father Jesus comes to the Father and says, let's cause these folks to persevere. Yes. Let's, they've they've sinned again. Here is my blood, Father.

Here, here, here is my righteousness. Let's remember what has been accomplished on their behalf. The father says, yes. Again, these are spiritual realities that have been laid out for us in scripture.

So as Calvin has said, like when we, when we read the Bible, it's almost like a, a father on bent knee just speaking very simple terms to a child. So it'd be very difficult for us to understand what's the spiritual realities of of what's going on between Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and this eternal nature of God but God has chosen to speak to us in very, very simple terms that we can understand in the Bible so that we can get our minds around what's going on in this relationship within the Trinity.

so that, that brings us to, a book that Ortland, talks about Christ, a complete savior by John Bunyan. I don't know if has anybody read this book.

there's a lot of Bunyan I like, but I, I haven't read this one. Anything you want from Bunyan, you can get in the public domain. but Bunyan talks about an objective, and I don't know if he uses the exact terms, but, but he does talk about an objective and subjective aspect of our salvation. The objective side, this is a quote from, from the text, but it's Bunyan, God justifies us not either by giving laws unto us or by becoming our example or by our following of him in any sense.

But by his blood shed for us he justifies by bestowing upon us, not by expecting from us Bunyan and Bunyan is very, very good at crystallizing what justification really is of the passive nature of justification if you guys maybe remember when we were going through. The Pilgrim's Progress, he has this whole dialogue where a guy comes up and starts talking about justification and he sounds right, but he's actually trying to sneak his works in the back door and Bunyan sets up this dialogue so that we can see what true justification is and isn't and it's not us just following Christ as our example it's not us trying to do the Thomas Okempis it's all granted to us.

through Christ. There's, but there's a subjective reality of our salvation.

That Bunyan also mentions Christ intercession demonstrates that Christ is not loath to save us. It'd be one thing for him to, for the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit to work together for our justification, but then to be loathe the fact that that we come into their presence, I have to make an admission, there's, there's times where I've already put my youngest child to bed at night and I've gone into bed myself, my wife and I were ready to. Maybe relax for the evening and then my youngest child will come into the bedroom with some request and I just can't tell you that I'm always excited to have him come into my presence at the end of a long day.

There are a lot of times I'm loath to receive him into my presence what do you want now?

Sometimes is is the question. but when we come into his presence and, and when there's this, this movement of intercession, it's, it's full and free as Bunyan says. Nothing pleases him better than to give what he has away than to bestow it upon the poor and needy, and this really hits at one of the big themes of, of all of the Bible. God gives, we receive, we really have nothing that we can give to God.

He has everything to give to us. And from Genesis to Revelation, one of the big themes is you see God giving and giving and giving, and we're just constantly receiving for God so loved the world that he gave, and that's just a big theme all throughout the Bible. And so let, let's delve into a couple of the phrases that are in this verse in, Hebrews 7, particularly the phrase to the uttermost. What does that mean?

He is able to save to the uttermost what's comprehensively or completeness, exhaustive wholeness, Ortland says we are to the uttermost sinners. We need a to the uttermost savior. and I love the emphasis that, our author puts on these two aspects of our theology. we have to remember that if, if you look at, if you do, a broad swath of scripture, what you have is what we would call a very low anthropology.

Anthropology is the study of what? Man and the Bible comes along and puts together an anthropology and says man is not good and every time man has an opportunity to he sins and he he makes a mess of everything so biblically we should have a low anthropology and then when we we talk about Christians we think OK now we're gonna have a high anthropology and it just doesn't happen that way because in dwelling sin still remains. And so there's still a low anthropology even when we're talking about Christians, but what's different from that or opposed to that is a high Christology, low anthropology, high Christology, and as we are placed into Christ, now we can view ourselves with a higher, a high identity because we're in Christ.

And so this really runs all throughout the Bible.

We are to the uttermost sinners we need to the uttermost savior. Ortland goes on to say on page 81, do you not find within yourself an unceasing low grade impulse to strengthen his saving work through your own contribution? My answer is yes, just about every day. we tend to operate as if Hebrews 7:25 says that Jesus is able to save for the most part those who draw near to God through him, but.

The salvation Christ brings is Pontalla comprehensive. That's the Greek word for to the uttermost. It's not just for the most part, or maybe he'll get it done in the lives of his sheep. No, it's to the uttermost.

And so let's ask a couple other questions here. Is, is Christ able to save you from your deepest sins? Our text says he is able to save to the uttermost. But let's ask another question, is he willing?

It'd be one thing for Christ to be able, but is he willing to save you from all of your sins, even as a Christian? And Christ's intercessory work answers that question affirmatively that because he is continuing to intercede for you and for me, he is willing, Hebrews 7:25 again says he is able to save the uttermost as intercession communicates that he's willing, and then Orland says we cannot send our way out of his tender care. And these are actually the types of thoughts that seem so contradictory to us.

We think that if we, if we meditate too much on his tender care, then surely we're gonna start sinning more.

The Bible argues it's exactly the opposite is the more we understand our security in Christ's love, the more fuel that gives us to actually say no to sin and to understand where we stand. it's actually the law that causes sin to rise up and it agitates our flesh, not the other way around. so notice also he saves the utmost, but he, letter E, he always lives to make intercession for them. the divine Son Ortlin says, never ceases to bring his atoning life, death, and resurrection before the Father in a moment by moment way.

And then Calvin says it this way, Christ turns the Father's eyes to his own righteousness to avert his gaze from our sins. He so reconciles the Father's heart to us that by his intercession, he prepares a way and access for us to the Father's throne. Just love the way Calvin says that and just notice right here the realism of the Bible, Christ Ortland says continues to intercede on our behalf in heaven because we continue to fail here on earth. Again, this is a high Christology, a low anthropology.

And you don't need to look very far in the Bible to see this exemplified all over scripture. You look at Noah, Noah is saved through the ark. he's the most righteous guy on the planet. He gets out of the ark.

There's rainbows and bunnies and probably unicorns and dolphins, right? Everything's dandy. And then what do you see? Noah planted a vineyard, got drunk and naked in his tent.

It's like, what? What is going on here? You got right off the arc, you've got sin again. You got David, who is a type of Christ.

he is, he's a man after God's own heart. I've been listening, to a podcast, 40 minutes in the Old Testament, really highly recommend it, listening to what he did. In 2 Samuel 11 and 12. And if you really start to investigate the details, this guy was a scum bucket.

The types of things that he did in his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah and the cover-up and the pride and the arrogance, the deception. It, it makes a lot of people. I can remember as a, a younger Christian looking at, at, at the works of David and saying man after whose own heart? Why is this in the Bible and being mad at David.

I wasn't a big David fan when I was younger, but it's like. Nathan comes. Nathan, his name means gift. God sends Nathan to confront him on his sin and, and then what does David do right away?

He doesn't immediately repent. He wants to stone or kill the person in the story, right? Legalism, judgmentalism. This person's sins are much bigger than David's, but finally Nathan says, you are the man and what does David say?

Forgive me, he repents. And what does Nathan say? Forget you, bro. You blew it.

There is absolutely no way. You're the worst sinner I've ever met. Plus you're the king. You should set an example.

Plus, I happen to know through the spirit that you're supposed to be a type of Christ, type of who? No way. You're getting the nadab Abayohu treatment. Boom, you're dead.

That's not what happens. What happens is scandalous is that David is forgiven of his sins and then he has a baby named Solomon. And that baby's name is changed. The name is changed to Jedediah, which means beloved.

And the name was changed by Yahweh himself because it says that God loved the child. Now were there consequences for his sin? We know there were, there were consequences. But did David send himself out of the Davidic covenant, out of the new covenant, out of the intercessory work of Christ that was going to be prayed for him on his behalf, looking backwards?

No, his sins, the wrath was propitiated. That's part of the scandal of the gospel and we have to, we have to, we have to really work hard to keep in mind that we've got this low anthropology, high Christology, lest we find ourselves in despair on the one hand and forget that we do have someone pleading for us at the right hand of the Father or we fall into judgmentalism and, and start thinking that we are nailing it and, we end up in the category of the of the Pharisees. So let's, let's finish up this, this section here.

By just considering the fact that Jesus is praying for you and he's praying for me right now.

He's your MVP. He's the most valuable prayer. And you can get an idea of what that some of those prayers may look like by looking at John 17. that's what he, the high priestly prayer on earth, which probably gives us a little bit of a flavor of the, the types of intercessory work that Christ does, for us.

So in summary, if you are in Christ, you have an intercessor, a present day mediator. One who is happily celebrating with his father the abundant reason for both to embrace you into their deepest heart and then Richard Sibb says this we go to God in the name of one that he loves the one that he loves in this paragraph is Christ. We go to God in the name of Christ and the Father loves Christ. In whom his soul delights, we have a friend in court.

God looks upon us lovely in him and delights in us. As we are members of him, that's what older theologians called the doctrine of the complacency of God, that God's love is so complacent for his son and we're placed inside of the son. He has a complacent love for us, which means his love can never get greater, it can never change. And so that's the interstry work of Christ, which is meant to, to give us sinners great comfort, that he is not loath to do this work, he happily does it.

Let's now move to his work of advocacy where we see in First John 2:1, John says, my little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ. The righteous. So with intercession, we're talking about mediation between two parties with advocacy, you have one person is aligning themselves with the other.

seems to be. The difference, notice in our text that it's clear that John is writing his book because he's hoping that he can prevent them from sin, right? He wants to prevent them from ongoing habitual life destroying sins. In no way is he thinking that we're not going to sin.

In fact, he's just said in verse 8, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, the truth's not in us, and we're liars if we think that we don't have sin. but he's still writing this book to prevent us from sins that will destroy and harm and, and, and bring about consequences in our lives and touch the lives of others. But notice he says, if anyone does sin, or the idea probably here is if any of you do sin, or when you sin, here's what you have, you have an advocate.

And so what does that mean, advocate?

Well, the, the Greek term Platos is used 5 times in the New Testament. This is the only place where it's used exclusively of Christ. The other 4 times it's used of the Holy Spirit in that John 14 to 16 section, which would be in the upper room. And so that partly demonstrates the the unity again between the son and the spirit in their work it gets translated so many different ways because the Greek term is actually hard for us to there's no one English word that seems to totally nail it helper comforter, counselor, and, and I agree with Ortland I think, advocate really does probably probably is the best word.

It seems to express deep solidarity. By the way, this passage is in the context of also propitiation in verse two. So you have this advocacy, within the, within the idea that wrath has already been propitiated. So wrath has been assuaged, but there's still a need for an advocate even though wrath has been set aside if that makes sense.

So let's ask some other questions to get our minds around this doctrine. Who is this advocate for? Who is this advocacy for? Well, the text tells us it's, little children who sin any one of his sinning little children, that's who need an advocate and I love what John Gill, this is not in your book but.

John Gills is one of my favorite theologians. he preached, at the same, church that Spurgeon would later preach at. He's, he's writing and preaching in. The 1700s at that time it was called Horse Lie Down Baptist Church.

This is a great name, Horse Lie Down Baptist Church, and was just an eminent scholar. In fact, if you, if you go online and you you use things like Blue Letter Bible or, some of those online programs and you start looking at some of the other commentators that come just a little bit after Gill, you'll find a lot of them are just quoting him. Everybody drinks from Gill. And anyway, this is what he has to say about this text, Christ being our advocate, he says Christ is not an advocate for sin.

Though for sinners he does not vindicate the commission of sin or plead for the performance of it, he is not a patron of iniquity, nor does he deny that his clients have sinned or affirm that their actions are not sins. He allows in court all their sins with all their aggravated circumstances, nor does he go about to excuse or extenuate them. So he doesn't walk in in his advocacy and say, well, they really didn't mean it. Or it wasn't really that bad.

Or did you see what she did to him? That's why this happened. No, he just brings it all in. and allows it all right there, but then Gil goes on, but he is an advocate for the non-imputation of them, the sins, and for the application of pardon to them, he pleads in their favor that these sins have been laid upon him and he has bore them.

And his blood has been shed for the remission of them and that he has made full satisfaction for them. This is a very important distinction to keep in mind whenever we're thinking about the gospel is if we're not careful, we can minimize sin and not talk seriously enough about the law and what they deserve, which will actually minimize Christ's glory in his atonement. Christ thinks of all of our sins as bad as they are, and yet he advocates for them by imputing his own blood and righteousness.

Gil goes on and says, therefore, in justice they ought to be laid to their charge, so we, we deserve to be charged guilty, but that the forgiveness of them should be applied unto them for the relief and comfort of their burden and distressed conscious consciences.

And for this, he is an advocate for this poor and sinning people with the father. I, I should just finish. I, I, I should just say amen right now and just sit down. John Gill just knows how to lay it out there.

Look at the next question on the next page. When, when will we receive this advocacy? The text doesn't say we one day will have an advocate. It says that we have it.

It's a present tense idea. Again, back to the verse, if any of you sin, we have an advocate with the Father. All those in Christ have right now someone speaking on their behalf. If you're in Christ, which just simply means you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ, that he died for you, and he was raised from the dead, you're in Christ, then you right now have an advocate.

Why is this advocate able to help us? What makes him so qualified to come along and help us and to save us? Well, the text tells us he is righteous, Jesus Christ, the righteous. You're not gonna see, you don't see, at least outside of Christ.

You don't see people called this if they're outside of Christ, but Jesus is called the righteous. Again, John Gill says this. And he every way fit for such a work, for he is righteous not only in his natures, both divine and human, but in his office as mediator, which he faithfully and righteously performs. He is a very proper person to plead for guilty persons, which he could not do if he himself was guilty, but he is so holy and righteous that nothing can be objected to him by God.

And it need not be doubted by men that he will act the faithful part to them and righteously serve them in their cause and it is moreover, his righteousness which he has wrought out and is imputed to them that carries the cause for them. Again, this is passive righteousness. Who's doing all the work here? Jesus, who's doing all the receiving here?

Us, he is doing the work. Let's look at another question, Roman numeral 5. What is the difference between Christ's intercession and his advocacy? And I think I love what Bunyan does here, and I've put it into a little chart, but the way he helps us see the difference.

Christ is priest, that was his work of intercession, and Christ's advocate, as priest, he goes before. In other words, he's constantly interceding for us as advocate, he comes after. So after we've sinned some particular sin. he continually intercedes as priest, but as an advocate in case of great transgressions, he pleads.

As priest, he, has, has a need to act always, but as advocate, sometimes only. As priest he acts in time of peace, as advocate in times of broils, turmoils, and sharp contentions. Then Bunyan concludes this way Christ as advocate is, as I may call him, a reserve, and his time is then to arise to stand up and plead when His own are clothed with some filthy sin that of late they have fallen into. And this really this really is the testimony of all of, in our opinion here at Cornerstone, the best teachers in in the age of the church is that real Christians who have placed their faith in Christ, who have seen the fruit of repentance that they've they've come and and received Christ for forgiveness of sins, they've been regenerated will still fall into filthy sins, and you don't have to be a pastor very long to know that about yourself.

And, and then about people that you are shepherding, we get caught up if anyone is overtaken and trespassed Galatians 6, let those who are spiritual come alongside and restore such one in the spirit of gentleness watching out for yourself. Why? lest you also be overtaken. So the Christians are all over that verse.

This isn't talking about unbelievers. It's talking about believers. And Christ, the point is, is that when we fall in, when real Christians fall in and are caught up with filthy sins, what does Christ do? He advocates.

That's his work. He begins to advocate. I, I can remember years ago there was a person, that I was acquainted with that was involved in an illustrious, is that the right word but in a relationship they should not been involved in and, they thought that they were in secret they thought they were able to hide their tracks and then somebody from this manager from this apartment complex, who was attending a church. saw this couple going in and out of apartments, her apartment, and shouldn't have been doing that.

And this particular manager contacted the Christian ministers and the person was found out. And this was God's mercy. This was Christ's advocacy on behalf of this believer who had got themselves caught up in fornication. this is how God loves his children is He doesn't let us go on in our sin, but he advocates for us and sometimes that advocacy results in us getting caught.

Sometimes it results in, sickness, sometimes it results in just a brother sister coming and, and ministering to us, but the Lord goes about his business. Sometimes it just results in us being overwhelmed with our own conscience. We find ourselves repenting, confessing our sins to brothers as we and sisters as we see in James. so note the personal, the personal nature of Christ's advocacy.

Your salvation is not merely a matter of a saving formula. It's a saving person. It's Jesus who is not loath to advocate for you, but who desires to advocate for you. And Ortland says that one of the, the encouragements for his advocacy is it's God's way of encouraging, encouraging us not to throw in the towel., just think about it that, that we have a devil who's always nipping at our heels.

He's a, is an accuser of the brethren. we've got our own hearts that, as, as Romans 2 says, we're excusing or accusing just by nature something happens and what do we, what do we immediately wanna do? We either wanna make excuses for our sins or we start accusing other people. And Christ comes into all of that and he advocates on our behalf so that we don't have to self advocate.

look at the next page. How, how do? or how do you think about Jesus' attitude towards that dark pocket of your life that only? I'll just speak in general terms here that.

As as we come here every, every Sunday, we have people in this church who have struggled or continue to struggle with alcoholism drunkenness lust, pornography, bitterness, accusing people falsely, pointing fingers at people. and it's not like our pastors are excluded. if you were to talk to each one of our pastors, all of us at one time or another have had to go to one or the other pastors to ask for forgiveness, ask for counsel, ask for help, confess sins. So when we, when we gather together on Sunday, while we are, we have a high Christology and we acknowledge that we are righteous in Christ, let me just tell you a dirty little secret.

that we have a low anthropology and all the people that you're sitting around are sinners. And be careful who you sit next to because you are liable to be sitting next to someone who at some point in their life has been overtaken by a filthy sin. And guess what? They're sitting next to someone just like that.

every one of us, from the person who thinks they're goody two shoes and they're judging other people to the person who feels overwhelmed, like how could I fall into this sin and do this again? I must be the worst scum bucket at a cornerstone, and Christ rises up and says I'll advocate for that. I'll intercede for that. I'm gonna move that person towards repentance.

I'm gonna move them towards a change of mind to where they'll confess their sins and receive the forgiveness that I've already provided for them. The devil wants to accuse you and get you to think that Christ's, death, burial and resurrection can't apply to that sin. You should have gotten over that sin a long time ago. You've been a Christian for how many years now?

And you're still struggling with that sin. You're still getting angry at your children. You're still carrying around bitterness in your heart towards somebody that sinned against you 10 years ago. You haven't been able to let that go yet.

Surely God's grace does not extend to you. You should have gotten over this by now. That's the accuser. Christ advocates on your behalf, and he comes alongside of you and he sends other sinners to come alongside of you to help you in your sin.

Well, that, that's basically the lesson. I, I wanted to leave more time for questions. I've got basically 4 minutes, for any questions you guys might have. I've had so many great questions that people have come up to after class.

I was hoping I could answer some of those for the whole class so that you guys could all benefit. Any questions that you guys have? Yeah, go for it. Yeah, go to, either Red Letter Bible.

Or the one that I use a lot is Bible Hub. I like Bible Hub. That's where you can find all of his stuff. I've got like his Old Old Testament, the Old Testament in my office.

I don't know if I would loan those out because they were expensive. they were like they're actually from the 1800s or something, but I'd let you borrow them if somebody wanted to come to the church. You want to sit down with them and read them here, totally, totally, but you can really get all of his stuff on, on Bible Hub or Blue Letter Bible. And he's one of my personal favorites out of all the commentators I go to, I probably go to him more than anybody else.

Any, any other questions? We do have a couple more. Couple more minutes, yes. Yeah, so the question is, there's a, you have Satan, there's an interaction between Satan as the accuser and Christ as the advocate.

And yeah, definitely, we see that in the book of Job, put on display, right? as he's accusing Job who's blameless upright, fears God and shuns evil and part of what you see in the book of Job is that Job is the only guy who uses Yahweh's covenant name and, and God uses his own covenant name. And and God will interact with Job at the end of the book, but it's in a it's in a way of chastisement and advocacy I would argue because at the very end of the book, who is God telling what is he saying to the friends?

He says you have not spoken rightly as my servant Job has you better get him to offer some sacrifices for you.

And so actually what we see in the book of Job is Job, a historical figure, actually becomes a type of Christ. And so Job becomes an advocate for his friends and his friends actually come underneath that covenant because of his own advocacy and the devil's completely left out of the picture. You don't even hear anything about the devil after those first few chapters. So while he's bringing accusations, he's like he gets the hand from the Lord.

So that's just 11 place where I think we see that in scripture. Yeah, Rebecca. You're a Houston fan. Yes.

Right. Right. Yes, that's good. Yeah, so Rebecca's question in a nutshell is, how is it that we just need an advocate some of the time if we sin all of the time, even our repentance is, is marred by sin.

And I, that's a great question. I think what Bunyan's trying to do there, and he's drawn off of Bunyan is, is Bunyan's just trying to deal with the grammar of First John 2 that, that we would agree that his intercessory work is, is always from Hebrews 7. But in First John he says I'm writing that you may not sin, so whatever he's talking about, he's clearly not saying that you may not have a sin nature or that you may never commit any sins. What it seems like John's saying is I'm writing that you may not fall into the trap of sins that just are gonna do some serious long term damage if you don't repent of these guys and so but he then he says if you sin, I think.

In this way, right, if you sin, then we have an advocate with the father. So I think Bunyan's going off of that thought that that John's clearly not saying that, that, we only sin once in a while. We get that from the previous chapter, but he seems to be talking about a certain category and weight of sin and that Christ, when we fall into maybe some of the weightier sins like David and what he did, that Christ is there to advocate even for that. Because I think the temptation could be, and I'll have to end it with this, but.

If, if we understand Christ generally speaking as our intercessor for sins, the temptation can be that, well, yeah, he intercedes for my eating, I, I ate too much last night and I got a little out of hand. I got, I flew off the cuff a little bit or got a little bit angry, no, that, or, the daily things that we just we're always picking weeds with our husband or wife, we step on each other's toes. No, there are big sins that Christians fall into both in scripture and in life, and what do we do with those?

Well, we either say, well, I don't know if you're saved.

That's one way to roll or you go back and say you've placed your faith in Christ and I've seen that, but right now you are clearly not behaving like a Christian and you approach them to confront them their sin, but then you remind them of their advocate advocate at the right hand of the Father and a true Christian, someone who's a a little child, the Holy Spirit will break their heart with that sense of advocacy I think is part of what's going on there. But that's a great question, but let's go ahead and pray and then I'll, I'll be up here for more.

Lord, thank you so much for the, just the, the beautiful reminders of your intercessory work and advocacy and. And some of these things are mysterious.

we thank you, Lord, for the instruction of of people like Bunyan and Gil, but we pray, Father, that we would study it out for ourselves. We pray, Father, that you'd be with us this week as we struggle daily with our own sins, but also that you would protect us from falling into great sin, Lord, that you would, as, as you're, you tell us how to pray, Lord, that we would, that you would forgive us of our sins and, Lord, that you would, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one and, for Christ's sake we pray.

Amen.