John Piper preached a sermon in December of 1996 titled, "Jesus, from Melchizedek to Eternal Savior." In that sermon, John Piper explained the glorious ramifications of Hebrews chapter 7 verse 25, which reads this, "Consequently, he, Jesus, is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them." Here's what John Piper said.

Salvation is not static. As though I did something once to get saved, I believed. And God did something once to save me. He sent Jesus to die and rise from the dead. And that's all there is to it. Now, this verse is one screaming announcement. That is not all there is to it.

And what I want to try to do in these last moments is take a Sunday school understanding that's true, that simple past, "I believed, he died, I'm saved," period, and grow it into biblical proportions with a verse like Hebrews 7, 25. Because Hebrews 7, 25 says, "There is not only more that Jesus did, there is more that you do as well." What Jesus does is go on praying for you, interceding for you, coming between you and the Father and making a case for you and standing up for you.

I'm going to stick in a parenthesis here to try to avoid a misunderstanding. Parenthesis. "Do not conclude from my first implication that Jesus loves me and God hates me." Okay, let's get this straight now. The reason that would be a false conclusion is because the priesthood is God's idea, not Jesus' idea.

And Jesus accepted the Father's mandate to come save me from his wrath. You got that? The love of God for me, sinner, interposes his priestly son to save me from his wrath against me. You got to handle that or you can't make sense out of the Bible. The love of God for this worthless sinner interposes his most precious possession, his son whom he loves, in order that he might save me from his wrath against me.

All the while vindicating his justice and upholding his glory in the cross. That's the beauty of the cross. It is the love of God rescuing sinners from the wrath of God by vindicating the justice of God and upholding the glory of God. You got to get that. Otherwise you will sentimentalize God.

And people are sentimentalizing God everywhere because they say, "Oh, in order to have a God of love, you got to get rid of wrath." You don't. You don't have a God of love in biblical proportions if there's no wrath from which to save and no son to offer up to his wrath to show his love.

Close parenthesis. The second implication that we're working on now is that salvation is not static. Don't just say, "I believed and I was saved." Say, "Also," that's true, "also Jesus is saving me. He's going to save me forever." First half of verse 25. I'm not making this up. It's there.

Read it. "Jesus goes on saving me by going on praying for me." And what I do is don't just look back and say, "I believed. I believed. I remember. I walked the aisle or I signed the card or I knelt with my mother in Fort Lauderdale, Florida when I was six years old," which I did.

You don't just say that. You say, "I today and for all of my life will draw near to God through Jesus," because that's the person and the only person for whom Jesus prays and whom he saves. If we are born of God, we will draw near to God through Jesus.

This tense of this verb, "draw near to God," there is a tense in Greek for a single act, not repeated, and there is a tense for ongoing, repeated, continuous action. And that's what's here. Those who keep on drawing near to God are the ones that enjoy the priestly work of Jesus.

You're going through Jesus, and as long as you're going through Jesus, he's praying for you. He's moving on the Father. He's your advocate. I write these things to you, little children, that you might not sin, but if you sin, you have a what with the Father? An advocate, an intercessor, a lawyer in the court who wins every case against you.

10 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;00;00 Amen. And how easily we forget this glorious soul-sustaining truth. Thank you to podcast listener Cody Hunter for the clip. It's taken from John Pepper's sermon titled "Jesus, From Melchizedek to Eternal Savior," preached on December 1st, 1996. It's available online to listen to in its entirety.

Please send your clips to us via email at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. Send us the name of the sermon and the timestamp of when and where the clip appears in the audio recording, and we will give you credit for the find, of course. Well, tomorrow, John Piper returns to talk about copyright and intellectual property rights, an important issue for artists and writers and creators of content.

I'm your host, Tony Reinhke. We'll see you tomorrow.