Purchased with Blood

I'm either, some deacons and leaders. Over our men's ministry is Ron Workington, who's in the foyer right there. In our men's ministry, the goal is to equip our men, to be able to lead their families and to lead the culture towards the gospel, towards their experience of the gospel. And, we've got lots of different things we're doing with our men's ministry.

Our Thursday night, Bible study, and, which is led by Mike Martinez is going great. And, we also have our men's retreat coming up. I encourage you guys all to get signed up last week to sign up for our men's retreat. Also, within the context of our care groups, we meet for accountability at least once a month, and we're hoping that our care group leaders are also encouraging you guys to, pair up for accountability throughout the, the month.

Our women's ministry, there's so much going on. Lynette, Kummoto and, Kim Davis are the deaconesses that are over that, currently. And, the women's ministry, they've got like Thursday morning studies, women's enrichment, Thursday evening women's enrichment. They've got precept, they've got biblical womanhood, discipleship.

They're going to the Women's Discipling Women's conference here, soon in July out at Grace Community Church, I believe it is. lots of stuff going on with the women's ministry and then the adult equipment school is basically what goes on. for our Sunday school classes for adults. We've got classes that go on in the 9 o'clock hour and some classes are going on right now.

And basically over a two year period, if you were to say, hey, I want to take this Sunday school thing seriously, over a two year period, you would get theology, a full round of theology classes, Bible survey, Old Testament, New. biblical counseling, discipleship, and evangelism, as well as, parenting and marriage, classes. And so, I would encourage you guys to participate in that. Actually, we've only got one more week for this year, but then we start back up in September with a new round of classes.

And so, and we're hoping to have a new round of teachers as well. So, that is the adult ministry, and if you guys have any questions, you can talk to myself or give us a call at the office. We'd love to talk with you about it. Yeah.

Thank you, Mike. Wonderful job as usual. Today is, or not today, tomorrow is Memorial Day. Mother's Day, Memorial Day, and, I hope you guys know what Memorial Day is, is all about.

It's not just a day off of school or, a day off of work, but it is a day in which we, remember those who have given their lives, for the freedoms that we enjoy as a country. There's Veterans Day. There's a day where we just remember all those that served in the armed forces, but then there is Memorial Day where we focus on, on those that have shed their blood, on behalf of our country that we might enjoy the blessings of, freedom. And I hope you'll take the time, tomorrow to To do that, Memorial Day is a day in which we remind ourselves that the freedoms we enjoy, the blessings we enjoy in this land of ours are purchased.

It is a purchased freedom. It is purchased blessings that have been purchased by the shed blood of many, many thousands of people that have fought and have died on behalf of all of us who live in this country. In fact, let me just take a minute if we could. I want to recognize any that are in our service that either are now or have in the past.

serving in, our military. If you are or have, could you just stand so we can express our appreciation to you? Well, praise God. Thank you very much for your service and that also goes to your families.

my dad was a career Marine and, we, I went about 4 years of my life growing up without him because of, various locations where he had to serve away from the family in Vietnam and the Mediterranean. So, there's a price that the families, pay, also. But we thank you, for your service to our country. And hopefully again all of us tomorrow will just seize the day and the opportunity to, to reflect upon the price that has been paid for these blessings we enjoy as a nation, and then that we'll turn from that price and take another look at those blessings and the freedoms and to allow those things to become more precious to us in light of the price that has been paid.

What I want to do with the time that we have, this morning is I want to reflect on the fact that we as Christians have even more reason to be sobered and to be excited, to be challenged and moved by, remembering the price that has been paid for the freedoms that we enjoy and the blessings that we enjoy in Christ. In fact, if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be the blood of Christ, the purchase price of all that we enjoy. The freedom we have in Christ is a purchased freedom.

the blessings that we enjoy in Christ, from the forgiveness of sins to a close relationship with our Creator, God, let's see, freedom from the power of sin, having God's Holy Spirit inside of us, and having, eternity awaiting us in a heaven that we do not deserve.

We deserve hell for our sins, but instead, we get to spend eternity with God in heaven. The blessings of fellowship with brothers and sisters, the opportunity to be here today, to worship God in His presence, all of those things are not free. All of these blessings are purchased blessings that have been purchased for us by the shed blood of Jesus that one act 2000 years ago, has purchased all of these blessings that will resound throughout the eons of eternity. Today, what I want to do is focus on at least 7 blessings, that we can savor as believers precisely because those blessings have been purchased by the blood of Jesus.

Listen to what John Piper says in his book, Don't Waste Your Life. He says, Christ is the glory of God. his blood soaked cross is the blazing center of that glory. By it, he bought for us every blessing, temporal and eternal, and we don't deserve any.

He bought them all. All of these blessings that are ours have been purchased by the shed blood of Jesus. in our culture, we've talked about this before, in various settings, but, but in our culture, when we purchase something for somebody, And give them a gift. It's just normal that we remove the price tag, right?

I don't know exactly why that is. Maybe we don't even think about it, but it's like it's just a courteous thing to do to remove the price tag so that they don't know how much we paid for that. Maybe we are being kind. We don't want them to know how much we paid, or maybe we don't want them to know how little we may have paid for for that item.

I remember when my wife and I were dating. before we got married, whenever she would give me a card for like Valentine's Day or whatever, she would scribble out, on the back of the card where in the lower right hand corner, it's got the price of the card, she would scribble that out and ink it over to where I couldn't even see how much she spent on the card. and I remember it got to a point where whenever I got a card from her, that was the first thing I'd do. I'd go to the back to see, yup, sure enough, she Blotted that out, so I never knew how much she spent on the cards that, that she gave me.

And there's just something in all of us that has that sensibility. We want to just conceal the price that we may have paid for a gift for somebody. However, God is not that way. God throughout the pages of the New Testament says, here's the blessings that are yours.

And God makes sure over and over and over and over again throughout the New Testament to include the price tag. By the way, here's what it costs me the blood of Jesus Christ. Now why does God want us to know? The price that has been paid for these blessings, is it to intimidate us to where we look at that and go, Whoa, what a gift, what a price.

What can I give you in return? No, he's not trying to intimidate us. God wants us to know how much he loves us. That's why he tells us the price.

And also, God wants us to appreciate the value of the blessings he's purchased for us. And he wants us to look at the price tag, the shed blood of Jesus, and then look back at the blessing and say, Whoa. I guess that's more valuable than I even thought. God knows that we're all prone to undervalue.

And neglect and fail to appreciate and take for granted blessings that are ours as believers every day. And so he reminds us of the price that he paid the blood of Jesus so that we would not let that happen, but realize how valuable and how precious these blessings are that he has purchased for us. And so. Let's do this this morning.

there's not going to be anything earth shatteringly new in this message, but just on this Memorial Day weekend, let's take some time to remember, to remember the cost, the price that has been paid, and let's remember some of the blessings that have been purchased for us by the shed blood. Of Jesus, ultimately we've recognized this morning those who are serving our country. I want to recognize Jesus. Who paid the ultimate price for the blessings we enjoy.

Let's look at these blessings. blessing number 1 that Christ shed blood has purchased for us is the forgiveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins in Ephesians 1:7. Paul says, in Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.

You think about the quantity of sins that we have committed throughout our life. You think about the quality of them, every single one of those hundreds of thousands of sins are infinitely as bad as God is infinitely great and good. Every sin in our thoughts and our words, In our actions, every sin of omission and commission, we're talking literally, guys, about millions and millions of sins throughout our lifetime. Who in this room wants to stand before God on Judgment Day, and for God to remember all of those sins against him or her.

None of us want that. You also think of the sins that you have committed in your lifetime, the ones about which you feel especially ashamed and, And guilty, the ones that maybe there's, there's ongoing consequences in your life, as a result of sins that you've committed in your past. And whenever you, you experience ongoing consequences of just the reality of, of that sin you committed and you're reminded of it, you feel shame, you feel regret, you feel remorse. Sin is a real pain to us and it will be a great pain, to people on Judgment Day.

And yet, Paul says that through the shed blood of Jesus, Christ purchased forgiveness. He purchased forgiveness, meaning that all of the sins that we have committed, once we believe in Jesus are erased from the record books of heaven, to where on Judgment Day, and even now, God does not hold those sins against us. And so now we have freedom. By having believed in Jesus, a blood bought freedom and forgiveness of sins.

And deliverance even from guilt. Listen to what one psychiatrist says. Carl Meninger says this, if I could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75% of them could walk out the next day. Just in the mind of this, this man, he understands from dealing with people that guilt is a major Problem in the human race.

And as he deals with people in these psychiatric hospitals, he realizes that, that most of them are afflicted by guilt over deeds that they have done in their past. And he's like, if, if somehow we could just wave a wand and convince them that their sins that they have committed are forgiven, 75% of them would be able to go home. And yet so many labor under the pangs of a guilty conscience. I was saddened a couple of years ago, to read in the news about an artist named Emma Beck lived in England.

And she, had conceived out of wedlock and had conceived twins in her womb. But her boyfriend, pressured her to abort those babies, and so she made that decision to abort and to take the lives of the babies that were in her womb. And once that decision was made, the guilt of that act so overwhelmed her that she hung herself. Finding no release from the guilt and from the remorse.

There are many others who may not kill themselves, but they labor day after day under the guilt of the sins that they have committed, and to such people, and maybe, maybe, maybe that's you and to you, I've got really good news. And that is that somebody died, so that you could be free of that guilt. Somebody died so that all of the horrific acts, all of the sins that you have ever committed, could be forgiven and erased from the record books of heaven. Those of us who are believers in Jesus, we walk daily in this forgiveness, but it is a blood bought forgiveness, and a forgiveness that we should not take for granted.

Even when past sins come to haunt us, we can take the blood of Jesus and apply that to our conscience when our conscience condemns us. There are times in, in my life where I'll do something and suddenly my conscience, I'm just seized with, with condemnation as my conscience is condemning me. And then there are other times where I'm just going along and things are great, and I'll remember something I did 5 or 10 years ago, and my conscience begins to, condemn me. It's in those moments that we need to take our conscience and walk our conscience to the foot of the cross, and allow the blood of Jesus to be applied to our conscience to silence and educate and train our consciences by the blood of Jesus.

The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 9:14, how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience? God wants us to be free, to be forgiven, to be free of condemnation. He wants that so bad for all of us in this room. that He sent His Son into the world, and Jesus shed his blood on the cross and died so that we could enjoy the blessing of forgiveness.

There's a second blessing that has been purchased for us by the blood of Jesus. And that is freedom from sin, emerges from the first one. Yes, we have forgiveness of sin, but, but we want more than forgiveness, don't we? we don't want to say, well, thank you, Lord, for the forgiveness.

But then we turn around and we're just doomed to keep repeating the sin over and over again. And we're bound to that sin. We're addicted to that sin. And we can't be liberated from it.

No, God tells us, hey, got some good news for you. I have purchased through the shed blood of Jesus, the forgiveness of all of your sins. I've also purchased through the shed blood of Jesus deliverance from sin, freedom from sin, so that you don't have to sin anymore. Jesus has purchased that freedom for you.

Through his blood. And Revelation 1:5, the apostle John is speaking about Jesus, and he says to him who loves us and released us from our sins. How? By his blood.

By the shedding of His blood, he broke the power of sin in our lives. In First Peter chapter one, the apostle Peter says, you were not redeemed. And that word redeemed means to be liberated, to be delivered, to be made free by the paying of a price. You were not delivered with perishable things from your feudal way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, you've been made free from sin.

And the thing that has made you free is the precious blood of Jesus Christ. And so Often, we're faced with temptation and we're like, man, I got to give into this. Look at my history, my history says I need to give into this. I've given into this thousands of times and I've never been free.

So I must be bound to this or we even look at our family history, and it's like, man, I see the same stuff in me that I saw in my mom or my dad and my grandparents. This is the cycle of sin that's now in my life as well. And I'm never going to break free of even these generational sins. Peter says, hey, I've got some news for you.

Jesus died to break the chain of those generational sins. He died to break those patterns of sin so that you can now be free, not to sin anymore. In a future day, we will observe that the saints will overcome the devil because of the blood of the Lamb. They will overcome him by means of the blood of the Lamb that was shed, and that is a good paradigm for us today that in our moments of temptation, we defeat the evil one through that same shed blood of Jesus.

By the way, if you ever want to get The devil to flee from you, began to speak aloud of the blood of Jesus. He doesn't like that. He hates the blood of Jesus because of all that it means. So memorize passages about the blood.

There's so much power in the blood of Jesus, and then contemplate those things in moments of temptation to sin, speak those things aloud, and he, the devil will flee from you. But Christ through his blood has purchased for his forgiveness of our sins, freedom from sin, but there's also something else that he has purchased for us, and that is perfect righteousness. This is a great deal, guys. Come to Jesus, admit you're bankrupt, all right?

And admit that you can't contribute anything to your own salvation, and realize that if you're going to be saved, it's got to be totally him. And Jesus says, through my blood, I will purchase for you forgiveness for your sins, freedom from sin. I will also purchase for you perfect righteousness. We all need righteousness, do we not?

We need a perfect Righteousness. There's a lot of people in our society today who, they say, yeah, I've sinned, who hasn't? I've blown it, I've messed up. I'm not perfect.

No one's perfect. But then, they, they try to compensate for their sins and run ahead of their sins. They try to compensate by being as righteous as they can. But to such people, if you're here today, I would just say, do you really want to stand before God with your own righteousness?

Do you really, you think that's going to be good enough? Do you realize that to get into heaven, not only do your sins need to be forgiven, but you need to be perfectly righteous? That's actually taught in the Bible. That's what God says, I'm only going to let perfect righteousness get into heaven.

Listen to Paul. You see this at the bottom of the screen. Paul was a Jew among the Jews, a Hebrew of Hebrews, the guy very likely had the 1st 5 books of the Bible memorized from beginning to end. He was a rabbi, very highly esteemed, studied the law, followed the law, ate only kosher foods.

He fasted two days a week, he tied his, all of his income and gave that away to charity. if anyone lived a righteous life outside of Christ, it would have been the apostle Paul. And yet this guy that would have blown us all away, and impressed all of us with his human righteousness. Look at the conclusion he came to in Philippians 3:9.

I want to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law. It's like when I think ahead to Judgment Day, I do not want to be dressed in my own righteousness. How could a guy who was this righteous, this religious, how could he be terrified of being found clothed in his own righteousness? Why does he not want that?

why? Because Paul met somebody else. Whose righteousness exceeded his own And that is Jesus and His righteousness. And Paul, who all his life was so impressed with his own righteousness, once he encountered Jesus, and saw perfect righteousness for what it really looks like, he then looked back at his own righteousness and said, this is bad.

And I do not want to get caught on Judgment Day dressed in this righteousness. I need a perfect righteousness, he says, and that's why he says, I want to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that righteousness, which is obtained through faith in Christ Jesus. Charles Spurgeon, the preacher of the last century, said, I must have a righteousness, perfect and divine. Yet it is beyond my own power to create.

I find it. In Christ. And what? This righteousness.

I purchased for us through the blood of Jesus. Romans 5:9, Paul says much more than having been justified through his blood. That word justified is the Greek word for righteous. We were made righteous, the idea is we were declared righteous.

Through the blood of Jesus that purchase that declaration of righteousness for us. And so here's the unbelievable deal that we get. We come to God with our sinful selves. And We look to him and believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

The moment we do that, all of the sins we have committed throughout our life are instantly forgiven. And the perfect spotless righteousness of Jesus is then draped around us. And God says, I will always hold you in my favor. I will always view you with grace, you will always have a gracious, favorable standing with me every single day, all throughout eternity.

Because whenever I see you, I will credit to you all of the righteousness of Jesus. Forgive you of your sins, and credit to you, the very righteousness of Jesus. So we can walk around. With these righteous clothes on us.

I don't know about you. Do you guys have power clothes? You, I've got some clothes that I wear that, it's like, man, I feel blah, but there's nothing else to wear, so you got to wear something. And then there's some clothes that you wear and it's like, man, you, you feel pretty good in those clothes and feel like you can take on the world and, Maybe, maybe you feel that way.

what, we've got the ultimate power close every day, and that is the righteousness of Jesus. We can look in the mirror and actually say, I am the righteousness of God in the sense that God's righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus has been draped around me. And whenever God looks upon me, that's what he sees. And this righteousness that is attributed to me, the righteousness of Jesus has been purchased by his shed blood.

He died so that I could be dressed. In His righteousness There's another blessing that Christ's blood has purchased, and that is peace with God. Peace with God. See, up to this point, it's just, forgiveness of sins, freedom from sin, dressed in Christ's righteousness.

But now we get In some relational aspects. God didn't just Christ didn't just shed his blood so we can walk around and say, man, my sins are forgiven. And look at this, I'm dressed in God's righteousness, and, and that that's our focus. No, all of that is a means to a greater end and that is to bring us into relationship with God.

And so one of the things he purchased for us is peace, peace with God. Colossians 1, Paul says it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Christ and through him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood. Of His cross. God has Through the giving of His Son and the shedding of His Son's blood purchased for us peace between us and God.

Outside of Christ, man has enmity against God, living in rebellion against God. Those who are outside of Christ are children of wrath. God's wrath is upon them. So there is anything but peace between us and God before we come to Jesus.

But through the shed blood of Jesus, Jesus brings peace, where there was once enmity. So now the enmity is gone. And that leads to the 5th blessing. And that is through his shed blood, Christ purchased for us closeness to God, or nearness to God.

See, it's one thing to be at peace with someone where, OK, we're not fighting. But you can be at peace and yet be distant from somebody. But Christ did not just give his blood so that we could be at peace with God. He shed his blood so that we, having now had peace with God, could be brought into closeness with God.

Ephesians 2, Paul says, having, before we were saved, we had no hope, We were without God in this world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. So we were far away from God. And through the blood of Jesus, we have been brought near to God, for through Him, we have our access in one spirit to, the Father.

In fact, let me have you guys turn to Ephesians one. Let me just show you God's commitment to us being close to Him. And verse 5 is on the screen, but let me start in Ephesians 1 verse 4. Paul is saying, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who's blessed us with every spiritual blessing and the heavenly places in Christ.

Look at verse 4, just as he chose us and Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless. What's the next two words? Before him. God doesn't want us to just be holy and blameless.

He wants us to be holy and blameless, literally in front of him. in other words, he's like, I want you in front of my face. I want you looking at me and me looking at you. I want us to have a love relationship.

Look at verse 5. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, literally in the Greek text into himself. The idea is that God has predestined us to be brought into the closest relationship with him, not just to be beside him, but literally into him. And the picture literally is gathered into his embrace.

Gathered into God's embrace. God would say, listen, Jesus shed his blood so that you could be close to me, so close that you're not 100 ft away, not even 5 ft away, not even 2 ft away, but you are gathered in. To my bosom you are inside of my embrace. Through the shed blood of Jesus, what was purchased for us is this intimacy with God, that we could walk in the embrace of God, enjoying intimacy with him.

Feeling his heartbeat is our ear, as it were, presses against his bosom, feeling his love for us. Christ purchased this blessing for us. I would ask you, how closely have you walked with God. This week.

Where's your mindset been? I'm a Christian, so I just, I'll just try not to mess up too badly. Say a prayer now and then. Often, Often that's what our weeks can end up looking like.

We need to remind ourselves that somebody died so that we would be in the embrace of God and live in the experience of that embrace, enjoying intimacy with God. Christ through his blood purchased for us forgiveness and freedom from sin. He purchased the righteousness of God that is now credited to our account. He purchased peace with God, so we're not at enmity anymore.

And then closeness to God so that we can live inside of the embrace of God. But there's a 6th thing that Christ's blood has purchased, and that is the privilege of prayer. The privilege of prayer. it's one thing to be close to, to somebody like physically, for example, you're in close proximity to each other, but there's no communication going on, right?

In fact, one of the things that that I've observed in my marriage is that I don't, I don't know, I, I know from the first service I'm not the only one like this. For me, when I get in a car and I start driving, I just zone out. I just get lost in a world of thought and And at times, my wife is like, Milton, do you hear what the kids just said? they may be fighting in the back seat.

I didn't even hear it. but anyway, I'm like zoned out, but my wife is in the car and she's like, now it's time to talk. And there have been times where I've hurt her feelings by just being off in my own world. We're physically close to each other, but I'm not talking to her.

And even the physical closeness makes worse the situation. Because I'm so close, but I'm not communicating, with her. Any of you in your marriages, is that, does that, has that happened to any of you? I got to tell my wife about this.

OK. Thank you. If I can get your names afterwards. Here's the deal, guys, God, God wants us so badly to be close to him that he, he's purchased for us through the shed blood of Jesus peace with him so that now we can approach and then closeness to him so we can live in his embrace.

And now that we're in the embrace of God, he says, I bought something else for you. And that is the privilege of speaking to me. look at this in Hebrews 10:19. Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence, and literally that means freedom of speech, to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near.

God has purchased for us through the shed blood of Jesus, the right and the opportunity and the privilege to open our mouths and to speak our hearts to Him. A lot of times we look at commands to pray and scripture like, oh man, how can I do that? Pray without ceasing and everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. Wow, that's how can a person do that all the time?

And what a, what a huge duty this is. I got to pray all the time. No, we actually need to see it more from the heart of God. than the way we often God loves us so much that he purchased this.

God is saying, I want to be your friend. I want to have a relationship with you. I, I want, I want you to talk to me and everything. I want our relationship to go there.

I want us to have that type of relationship with each other, to where, in good times where you're experiencing blessing, I want to be the one you come to and say thanks to because you realize that that is from my hand and And in addition to that, when things are, are maybe not going so well, and you've got some burning needs in your life, I want to be the one you come to and, and express your heart and the burdens of your heart and express, articulate your needs to me and ask me to be the meter.

of your needs. God is saying, I want to be your friend. All the time so badly.

that I laid down my life. Jesus would say, I died so that you could come to God and And have this privilege of prayer. He goes on to say in this very passage, it's not on the screen, I don't believe, but that we have access to God through the veil, which is the flesh of Jesus. The idea is literally that God ripped his son apart so that through the torn flesh of Jesus, we can come into God's presence and speak to him.

What unbelievable love, and I, I would just ask, How's your prayer life been? Have you seen it as the, the unbelievably loving opportunity that it is? Have you seen it as a blood bought privilege? It has been purchased for you from a God who obviously wants to hear from you.

That amazes me. He wants to hear from us, to commune with us, and to have us share our hearts and our burdens with him. And he wants that so badly, he laid down his life for it. I don't know where you're getting love from, but you're never going to find a better love than this.

There's a 7th and a final thing that has been purchased for us by the blood of Jesus, and that is the privilege of serving God, the privilege of serving God. Hebrews 9:14, The writer says, how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve. The living God To serve the living God. Again, we look at commands like, oh, I got to serve God, and I got to do this, and I got to do that.

You, we actually need to realize that those, just the opportunity to serve God is a blood bought privilege. To serve the King of kings. That's an amazing thing. Think of the person in this world that maybe you respect more than any other.

maybe a world leader, political leader or whatever, just someone that, man, you just look up to them and, and hold them in high esteem. Imagine that you got a phone call from that person. And they said, hey, I, I, I need to ask some favors of you. I would like for you to serve me in some way.

what a blessing would that be. to be asked. you would probably want to brag about that. Yes, I'm, I'm working with so and so and serving them.

Yes, they, they actually called. People would be like, what? You're doing what? Oh, yes, they, they called me.

They have my number and we're on a first name basis and, it's no biggie, but here, here's what they've asked me to, to do. we would be really thrilled about that, would we not? Well, think about it. Christ through his shed blood has purchased for us the privilege of being in the employment of God, to being one of his employees, as it were, one of his servants, we get to serve the King of kings, who created the heavens and the earth.

He shed his blood so that we would now be in the employ of this King of kings. God could have easily said, listen, I I'm being good enough to you to save you, forgive you of your sins. but what, don't, don't even try to serve me. God, God would have every reason to do that, right?

Because even now that we're believers, do we ever do it right? Do we ever do it perfectly? there's always something wrong with even the best righteous acts that we do. And even if we do nail it, and man, we're doing something we do it exactly right, then pride creeps in.

And we, we always end up doing something, thinking something that makes it less than perfect. God is Every reason to say, don't even try to serve me, you're going to hurt yourself. You're not going to do nearly as well as the angels could do who are perfect. I'll let them do all of the service.

No, he doesn't do that. He purchased for us the privilege of actually serving his interests on this earth. Now we get to be Working for him. The works that we do.

Our purchased privileges by the shed blood of Jesus., along this line, let me deepen this thought a little more. Revelation 5:9, Christ, you were slain and purchased for God with your blood, people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. 1 Corinthians 6, do you not know, Paul says that you're not your own. You've been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.

So, I just want to add one thought here. Not only have these seven blessings been purchased for you by the blood of Jesus, but you yourself have been purchased by the blood of Jesus. So, you're not your own anymore. And that ties into The privilege of serving God because, think about it.

How does a slave operate? When a slave gets up in the morning, is the slave like, well, what do I want to do today? I'd like to do this, I'd like to do that. And then after that, I'll do this.

And, oh, at some point today, I need to take 5 minutes to spend with my master and just ask my master what he would like for me to do. Is that how a slave operates? No, the day from beginning to end is him. He's owned by his master, and the slave seeks to serve his master.

And sadly, there are, there are people in the church and, and especially young people who, when they're, when they're planning their future, their only thought is, what do I want to do? what are my gifts? What are my abilities? What are my passions?

And that's huge. You want to look at that. I'm not saying don't look at that. But it seems like it doesn't cross their mind that wait a minute, I am owned by somebody else here.

I've been created by God. God could not imagine his world without me being in it. So he thought me up and he created me and he sustains my life from from day to day. And not only that, but I am doubly owned by God.

Because Jesus shed his blood and purchased me for God. So I am doubly owned by him. And so he's my master. He's my Lord.

He is the owner of me. I am bought and paid for by God, owned and operated by the sovereign King of kings and Lord of Lords. And so as someone completely owned by him, my fundamental question is first and foremost, what does he want? Of me.

What does he want with my life? And whatever it is, what an unbelievable privilege it is. To serve him. all of these blessings, the blood of Jesus has purchased for us.

I would strongly urge you tomorrow, as you rightfully, Reflect upon our history as a nation and rightfully. Allow yourself to remember the blood that has been shed so that we might enjoy freedoms and blessings that we often unthinkingly. Enjoy and take for granted as you do all of that and are instructed and sobered and blessed by that, may you also remember. that somebody else died.

Jesus Christ died and shed his blood. So that you might enjoy blessings, not only in this life, but also for eternity and the life to come. And may you then turn your eyes from that purchase price, which is the blood of Jesus and look back at these blessings and say, wow, these blessings must really be significant. And I don't want to take them for granted, and I want to enjoy them to their absolute fullest.

And may you also Thank God. For the shed blood of Jesus. Charles Spurgeon, the pastor of the last century, and I'll close with this, as he was thinking back to his day of conversion when he looked to Christ, just sitting in a chair in a service, he looked to Christ, and immediately he felt the burden of his sin rolling away. He says as he looked back, he says, then and there, when he looked at Jesus, the cloud was gone.

The darkness had rolled away and that moment I saw the sun, and I could have risen that instant and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the precious blood of Christ, and of the simple faith, which looks alone to him. So as he looked back on that day, it was the blood of Christ that was prominent. Charles Spurgeon also spent time anticipating heaven as he looked towards his dying day, and his eternity in heaven. And listen to what he anticipates.

He says, I would like to rise from my bed during the last 5 minutes of my life to bear witness to the divine sacrifice and the sin atoning blood. I don't know if you guys have made plans about what you're going to do when you get to heaven. What the first thing you're going to do is, Charles Spurgeon already had that mapped out. He says, in heaven, my first words will be to ascribe my salvation to my master's blood.

And I would imagine Charles Spurgeon is still doing that. Over 100 years later, and may we every day remember and be thankful for the shed blood of Jesus, so that we might be saved and enjoy the blessings that are ours in Christ. I want to ask you to bow your heads this morning. people that are in the military who have served now or in the past, I've heard them.

Speak of how irritating it is. To see people in this country so oblivious to the price that has been paid for the freedoms that they take so lightly. Soldiers coming back and having seen the things they've seen and experienced the things they've experienced and they come back to A nation of people who are, who just don't appreciate. You don't appreciate.

The sacrifice, the price paid. And anyone who knows anything of that feeling, having served our country would know, I think, what Jesus, what God must feel. When God looks Upon mankind and God knows the price he paid so that they might be saved. So that they might enjoy his blessings.

They would know something of the heart of God as he looks upon believers and who take so lightly and take for granted the blessings that are theirs in Christ. But what? Here's the good news, we failed. I have failed to appreciate these blessings to the degree that I should.

But forgiveness for our failure to appreciate these things has also been purchased. Christ died so that we could be forgiven. And receive grace for not having appreciated these things, as we should. So let us drink deeply of the grace of God and let that grace just Fill us and transform us, and may we go forth from here just more committed than ever to this friendship with this, with Jesus, serving him, walking in his embrace, and walking in the good of the gospel.

Lord, as I come to you right now, I just pray for any that are here in this room that maybe have never seen their bankruptcy and put their trust in Christ. I pray that even now where they're seated, they would do what Charles Spurgeon did and just look to you, Jesus. is help them to lift up their eyes and look to you and say, I see what you've done, and I receive it. I receive you as my Lord and as my Savior.

Forgive me of my sins and give me your righteousness. I don't want my own anymore. And for those of us that, that do know you, Lord, we don't know you like we should. We don't savor these blessings, these blood bought blessings to the degree that we should.

Forgive us, cleanse us, and renew our passion for these blessings, but ultimately for the God from whom these blessings come. In doing this, Lord, we know that you will be glorified. Which is why you have accomplished all of these things for us. And so, we, Commit ourselves to You, Lord.

We also thank you for the opportunity to give of our offerings to you. And we ask that you would receive of the offering that we are about to give. As an expression of your love for you, our love for you, Lord, we, even the ability to give to you this morning is a blood bought privilege. So we give because you've enabled us to.

And may you multiply. May you multiply the money that is given to serve your kingdom purposes. And we give ourselves to you, Lord, in the name of Jesus. And all God's people said,