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dart4lod
  • 7/21/2025
Transcript
00:00The Power of Christian Encouragement
00:09In Jesus you stand in a new place with God.
00:13It's a higher plane altogether than what Old Testament saints experienced.
00:18For instance, God wants to bring joy into your life.
00:22The law never promised joy.
00:24God never wanted the blood of animals to be shed and offered on the altar.
00:30He wanted a relationship of love and trust between himself and his people.
00:35He desires that for you, too.
00:38But our sin is always a barrier between us and God.
00:42So, Jesus came to this earth, grew to manhood, and at thirty years of age,
00:47he began his earthly ministry.
00:49He lived a holy, harmless, undefiled, and blameless life.
00:54He finally offered his own body to pay the price for our sin.
00:59In Jesus, God ushered in the new covenant,
01:02the promise that would reside in the minds and hearts of all
01:05who would trust his Son for their salvation.
01:08It is through the blood of Jesus that you can come into God's presence.
01:13And you can come to him boldly, with great confidence that he will hear and respond to you
01:18in all his love, grace, mercy, and power.
01:21Because of Jesus, you have a standing invitation to come to God now that you have been made holy
01:28by his blood.
01:29Your conscience is clean, and you have been made new.
01:33But others need his grace, too.
01:35We all know life can be hard.
01:37In Jesus, you can serve others as a priest of encouragement.
01:42God is pleased when we seek out ways to encourage others, especially those who struggle in their
01:48faith.
01:49That encouragement becomes a lifeline and safeguards against falling back into sin.
01:55Continuing to live a life marked by sin and rebellion against God after receiving the grace
02:01of Jesus carries grave consequences.
02:04That's why the writer of Hebrews made such a startling statement.
02:08It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
02:12So our encouragement can help keep someone from going down that dangerous path.
02:17The believers to whom Hebrews was written had apparently suffered intense persecution
02:22and likely deep personal loss because of their faith in Jesus.
02:26But they refused to shrink from their faith because they had focused their
02:30hearts on the finished work of Jesus.
02:33Some faced imprisonment and others lost their homes and were forced to surrender all their
02:38possessions because they refused to renounce their faith.
02:42But in return, they received the blessings of his grace and the joy of suffering with Jesus.
02:48Your faith in Jesus rests on the promise of God's word.
02:52Now you have everything you need to stand firm in your faith, even when facing mounting pressure
02:58to go back to your former life.
02:59And when others struggle, you can throw them a lifeline of encouragement, too.
03:05You can go on with God because Jesus gives you the grace to trust, the strength to keep going,
03:11and the patience to endure even the most painful of life's circumstances.
03:16So, keep the faith and let the encouragement flow.