The Book of Hebrews: Week 4

Well, you know, I don't know if you ever see

those memes of churches that preach through books of the Bible,

or they preach through the Bible. What they often the

mean goes like this, Hey, happy Mother's Day or hey,

happy Father's Day. Now let's turn to Leviticus, you know,

and that's kind of us today. We're having fun. And

now I'm like, now turn to Hebrews chapter five, and

funny enough, we're gonna talk about probably the most controversial

passage in Hebrews. This passage has split Protestantism in half

over the centuries because there's a group that have taken

this to say, this is what it means that you know,

once saved, always saved is true or not true, and

they both use this passage. And so here's what we

do when we come to these passages that have a

lot of denominational and background and have some theology behind it.

You know what we do here, we just look at

the text and let the text speak for the text,

and then we could just clearly look at it and

make decisions for ourselves. And so today's passage, though, is

one I'm praying that God will grab a hold of

your heart through let's pray, Father, God, we give you

pray saying we thank you for our fathers. We thank

you for the encouragement today and the fund and the

laughter we can have. God. We just pray now that

you will speak to us, prepare our hearts so that

we will adjust our lives to your word in Jesus name. Amen.

I'd be willing to bet that probably everybody in this room,

at one point or another you were sat down by

somebody older than you and they wanted to have a

discussion with you about either your attitude, your behavior, are

some of the choices that you've been making. And for

a lot of us, those were wonderful, gentle loving conversations

that really helped shape us through the rest of our

adult life. And then there's another type of talk, and

I like to call these talks a come to Jesus conversation, okay,

And it's basically a conversation. It says, if you don't change,

some things around here are going to change, whether you

like it or not. And a come to Jesus conversation

is a it is a conversation that is a confrontation

about your behavior, and it's basically saying, time to wake up.

Time to make a change. Now, if you've had one

of these conversations in life, you either remember every single

word or you have repressed it and you have forgotten

everything that was said to you. I want to take

you back to my big come to Jesus conversation that

my dad had with me as I was going from

eighth grade into ninth grade during that summer. Now, let

me tell you a little bit about my eighth grade year.

My eighth grade year was a year that I kind

of leaned into the juvenile delinquent stage of my life.

And during the school year. Now this is I am

being generous and saying that I only only had around

forty detensions that year. I got kicked out of detension

a bunch. I had Saturday schools. Do you guys remember those?

I mean, you were so bad you had to go

to school on Saturday. I got suspended once for ten days.

Another time, I'm a police officer brought me home from school.

And at another time I got kicked off the bus

for ten days. And so I was really pushing my

parents' patience with me. And then we entered into summer.

So those juvenile delinquent days were outside of school, and

I remember coming home one evening, we all came home together,

my dad went to go check the answer machine. For

those of you who don't know, the answer machine is

a little box that used to be somewhere in the

house and people will leave messages for the whole family

to hear. And this one said, mister Roberts, your son

James blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

blah blah blah. And this person basically told my dad

what me and my friends have been doing all around

the neighborhood and all the dumb stuff we've been doing.

And so my family always disciplined with whippings, and so

I listened to that message, and I thought, I'm getting

a whipping, and so as I prepared for my whipping,

my dad actually changed the game and he had a

come to Jesus talk with me. And now I remember

every word of this talk. I've shared it with my

friends multiple times because it's funny in hindsight, and I

typed it out word for word on my computer, but

then my computer flagged it as not safe for church.

And so, but what I can tell you is the

things he warned me of Well, it straightened me out.

My dad was just crazy enough to follow through with

these things, and so the talk worked on me. By

the way, I didn't stop sinning. He knew that he

wasn't gonna stop me from sinning. But my juvenile delinquent

days were pretty much over. And I didn't judge my

friends because my friends continued to do dumb things. But

when my friends would ask me to do something stupid

with them, I would always say, sorry, guys, I can't

do this. You go ahead, but I'm gonna leave. My

dad told me if I did anything else, he was

going to introduce me to Jesus that day. And I

wasn't ready to meet Jesus that day in heaven. And

so the warning worked on me. My first come to

Jesus conversation brought It did bring some change.

Now, why did my dad have that conversation with me?

He loved me. You know. My dad took the time

to talk to me and give me these warnings because

he knew the path I was going down was gonna

damage my life. Hebrews is one big come to Jesus

conversation with the group of believers who want to go

back to Judaism. They want to go back to their

old way of living. Their experiencing persecution's real life is tough,

it's painful, and some of them are thinking, you know,

if I just go back to Judaism, I won't lose

my job, I won't lose my house. I you know,

I don't have to worry about being picked on ostracized

in the community. So they're actually thinking about going back

to Judaism. And just like my father, the author of

Hebrews goal is to help them see through this temporary

time in their life to see the big picture before

they mess up their future. So let's just recap the

last couple of weeks. What does Hebrews do. Hebrews starts

out first three chapters like a summing up, very simple.

Jesus is awesome. Nothing is greater than Jesus. Jesus is

the greatest. Chapters one through three. Chapter four that we

talked about last week. It talked about how Jesus became

our ultimate high priest, that we were once separated from God,

but because of Christ and what he did on the cross.

He tore the veil, he tore the curtain, and now

he ushers us into the holy presence of God, where

there is a throne of grace and a throne of mercy.

So the first four chapters are God and Jesus are awesome.

Chapter five he switches to a come to Jesus conversation

and he shifts from the greatness of Jesus to the

reality of what will happen if we walk away from Jesus.

This text that we're going to look at today has

three encouragements. Now, I believe that this passage today, as

I was praying and thinking all through the message, I

think there's gonna be two groups that this might hit

especially hard today. If you have a high sinful nature

and you know that you can easily just blow your

life up, this is a good warning passage for you.

Number two, if you grew up in church, or if

you've been in a church for decades and you know

how hard it is sometimes to not just go through

the motions and to keep your passion flowing. This passage

is especially for you who've been in a church for

a while today. And so let's look at this come

to Jesus talk together and remember again, persecution's happening in

life is tough. Trials are here. They want to go

back to Judaism. But and it's come to Jesus talk.

He has three things to say. The first thing he

wants to say is that some of you you need

to grow up. Some of you need to grow up.

Let's look at this passage together. It says, we have

much more to say about this. And he's talking about

Jesus being the high priest and all these things. But

we can't go deeper with you because it's hard to

make it clear to you. Because and then pay attention

to this phrase here, because this phrase actually is one word.

No longer try to understand in fact, though by this

time some of you ought to be teachers. You need

someone to teach you the elementary truth of God's word

all over again. Some of you need milk, not solid food.

Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is

not acquainted with a teaching about righteousness. But what's solid

food for, okay, is for the mature, who, by constant

use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Therefore,

let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and

be taken forward to maturity. Now at the beginning of

this Come to Jesus conversation, he addresses a problem that

is deeper than most people even realize. Was to say,

we have much to say about to you about this,

but it's hard to make it clear to you because

you no longer try to understand. Now that phrase that

you no longer try to understand when we translate that,

you need to understand that he's not talking about lack

of intelligence. You're not talking about you didn't have access

to the truth or the Christianity was too intellectual and

it's too difficult for you. No, no, no, no, no,

that's not what he's saying. Okay, what he's saying is

that you become spiritually sluggish. The actual word for that

phrase in a Greek no longer try to understand is sluggish.

And I'm gonna take that Greek word sluggish and I'm

gonna translate it into English for you lazy. And what

he's saying is, some of you who have been following Christ,

you've become lazy in your pursuit of Christ. You're not

pressing into the Word of God. You're not seeking Jesus

the way you're supposed to seek Jesus. You become spiritually comfortable.

Matter of fact, the first thing I want you to

know today is that spiritual comfort is often the first

step towards spiritual danger. Comfort leads a danger, he says.

Though by this time, you ought to be teachers. You

need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's

word all over again. You need milk, not solid food. Now,

pay attention to the phrase here. By this time the

issue is not their age, lack of progress, he said.

By the time you've been walking to Christ for all

these years, you should have grown deeper. But instead we're

starting to feed you like a little infant. We're having

to stay on the ground level of things. We can't

teach you the deeper things, the deeper mysteries of Christ.

This reminds me a little bit of what happened to

Kaitlin when she was little. Fridays were my day off

and Gina worked, and often my day off was either

bast pro Shop day or experiments with Caitlin day. And

so Caitlyn's a little infant, she's on milk, and I

go to McDonald's this day and I get some breakfast burritos,

I give her a sausage she looks at me like, Dad,

you're the best, dad. This is amazing. She loved it,

and so I kept giving her more McDonald's sausages. Then

I thought to myself, she's ready for solid food and

Gina is going to be so pumped when she gets home.

So I pulled out all my sausages. It's about twenty

of them, and I fed them to this girl. She's like, oh,

she's loving it. She's having a great time. But then

all of a sudden, her face changed and it was

as if her stomach started asking some questions, is this milk?

Who approved this? Where is your mommy? And the next thing,

I know why because she wasn't ready for solid food yet.

Going from milk to a pile of McDonald's sausage is

a pretty aggressive transition, and the writer of Hebrews is

using a similar illustration here. He's saying, you should be

on solid food by now, you should be growing, you

should be maturing, but instead you're still an infant. Spiritually,

it says, though by this time you ought to be teachers,

and so people still need to feed you. You come

to fellowship, but you have to be fed when really,

at this moment and time in your life you should

be feeding other people. See, there should be evidence of maturity.

Now there should be evidence of growth, evidence of depth,

and you should be helping other people grow. See. A

sign of spiritual maturity is that you are no longer

only living for your own growth, but now you're helping

other people to grow. Now, if you're a new Christian

within your first two, three, four years, listen, I'm not.

I'm talking about those who have been following Christ.

For a while. See a mature believer disciples people, They

teach people, they invest in people. And actually the word

mature in the Greek language, actually it comes with this

idea of practice, a habit, a repetition. See a mature

believer in Christ, they read God's word for years. For

you are obeying God. They're learning to recognize right and wrong.

And see, just as the athlete trains their body, a

mature believer is going to train their hearts. You don't

become mature overnight. No. Maturity come through thousands of small

acts of faithfulness. And that's why verse fourteen says that

you know some of you you're mature ones. You've trained

yourself to distinguish good and evil. You've exercised your spiritual muscles,

but unfortunately some of you stop training. And the author

is concerned because spiritual immaturity is not just inconvenience. No,

it's dangerous. See spiritual stagnation. What does it do at

least a spiritual drifting. Stagnation leads to drifted and that

leads us from the call to hey, you need some

of you need to grow up to maybe the strongest

warning in the whole New Testament. The author is essentially saying,

if you stop pursuing Christ, there's a good chance you're

gonna drift from Christ. And so the warning is simple,

you need to grow up. Now. Before I go on

to the next part, let me ask you this question.

Might God be calling some of you today to grow up?

It's time. It's time for you to grow up, start

taking your walk with Christ. Seriously, the author continues, just

coming to Jesus talk with a call for some people

to wake up. Let's look at this together. Now, this

passage is this is a big one, okay. It says

it is impossible for those who have once been paying

attention here, enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who

have shared with the Holy Spirit, tasted, the goodness of

the Word of God, experienced the powers of the coming age,

who have fallen away to be brought back to repentance

to their loss. What are they doing. They're crucifying the

Son of God all over again as subjecting him to

public disgrace. Heavy, heavy passage. It's one of the most

sober and passages in the whole Bible. And what he's

saying is this text basically is spiritual stagnation can eventually

lead to spiritual apostasy. Now, what is apostsey? Okay, Apostasy,

by the way, is not that you're struggling with some doubts,

you got some hard questions, or man, you're just blown

up for a season. Who hasn't blown up for a season? No, no, no,

no no. Apostacy is a deliberate abandonment of Christ. It's

a decision to reject, to renounce, to walk away from Jesus.

The you know, readers of Hebrews are growing weary. Following

Christ of the heart has become hard. They're experiencing persecution,

and some of them thought, you know what if I

just go back to Judaism. All this pain, all these trials,

will stop. And the author sees these people standing at

a crossroads, and he understands something that they may not

grasp yet. If they go back to Judaism, they're not

merely changing their swapping churches. They're not changing denominations. You're

not changing your religious affiliation. No no, no, no, no no.

If you go back to Judaism, you're making a statement

about Jesus. You're saying he's not the Messiah, his death

was not sufficient, and you're gonna side with those who

rejected him. You're gonna agree that jesus crucifixion was justified.

And that's why the author says that you are crucifying

the Son of God all over again and subjected him

to public disgrace. He's not saying that Jesus is actually

gonna be crucified again. He said, no, no, no, here's what

you're gonna do. You're gonna join with the crowd who

condemned him and rejected him as a messiah. You would

be effectively saying we were wrong about Jesus. Now, if

someone reaches that point where they don't believe that Jesus

is the Messiah, why would they turn and repent? Why

would you go back to a savior that you now

believed deserved his death. And that's the author's concern. And

now pay attention to who he's writing to. A lot

of people say, well, he's writing to pagans. Are the

people who are not Christians? No, no, no, no, no, look

at it. Those who are enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift.

You've shared in the Holy Spirit, You've tasted the goodness

of God's word, You've experienced the powers of the coming age. No,

he's talking to church attenders. No, he's not just talking

to alsier's. He's talking to Christians, the people of God. See,

the most natural reading of this passage is that the

author is describing people who have gen genuinely experienced the

realities of the Christian faith. He's not warning pagans. He's

warning us, people sitting in the church, people who know

the truth, people who have experienced the truth. He says,

even if you've experienced the truth, and you know the truth,

you can still be in danger of walking away. I've

watched it many times, many times, and that danger still

exists today. And let me tell you, I've never seen

somebody just wake up one morning and say I'm done,

but I do have a list for you of what

I've seen as the steps towards walking away from Christ.

He usually begins with prayer becoming occasional. Your Bible reading

becomes rare. Church attendance is optional only when you don't

have other engagements. Your spiritual passion begins to cool, your

conviction grows weaker, the things of God become less important.

In other words, this world becomes more attractive, and over time,

any person can drift away from Christ. And that's why

this warning immediately follows a conversation about spiritual im maturity.

He said, if you are not growing in Christ, there's

a good chance you are drifting from Christ. Believers who

stop growing are the same people who are gonna start drifting.

And people can drift into the point where they go

where they go to a place they didn't intend to go.

That's why perseverance matters. That's why seeking the Lord matters.

That's why keeping your heart soft matters. You know, I'm

gonna share a story that I've shared here before, and

I've read this story over and over again. I'm fascinated

with this story because I take it as a personal warning.

In my own life. This story scares me sometimes. A

lot of us know who Billy Graham was. A lot

of people don't know who Chuck Templeton was. Chuck Templeton

was a more gifted evangelist. He and Billy Graham together

in the forties started the Youth for Christ organization and

they were preaching revivals all over America internationally. But Chuck Templeton,

according to some news outlets, they would say, he's the guy.

He's a better preacher, he's better looking, he's got drawing

bigger crowds than Billy Graham. I mean, this guy was

the man. Even had a nationally televised show. He was

a big, big deal. And then he started to doubt scripture.

He started to doubt whether Christ was truly the son

of God, started to struggle with the deity of Christ,

and eventually, over time he left ministry and by the

end of his life he said, I do not believe

that Jesus is the son of God. And he was

a full blown atheist. My friend, if you can go

from being an evangelist who is preaching the Word of

God all throughout the world to an atheist, how can

any of us be arrogant enough to say that won't

happen to me. That would be a foolish thing to think.

If you're not pursuing Christ, I'm telling you right now,

you're probably drifting. And so that's why Hebrews gives us

this warning, and not to make us afraid, but to

wake us up and say wake up, grow up. And

then you know Hebrews as a sermon, and so he

does my work for me. Right here, he actually gives

an illustration. I appreciate it. He says, land that drinks

in rain, often falling on it, that produces a crop

useful for those for whom it was farm, receives a

blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles

is worthless and is in danger of being cursed, and

it will be burned. So the author now switches to

an illustration. He says, all right, we got two pieces

of property here, two fields. Both get rain, both get sunshine,

both have a great opportunity. But when it comes time

to harvest, one has fruit and the other has thorns

and thistles. And the point is very simple. A life

connected to Christ should produce fruit. So here's what I'm

gonna do For the next thirty seconds, We're gonna pause

and I'm going to let you ask God this question. God,

am I producing the fruit that you have called me

to produce?

Let's pray ask.

I trust that the Holy Spirit has spoken to you,

and you can continue that conversation here a little bit

at the end. Again, a life connected the Christ produces fruit.

Now I'm not talking about perfection, sinless perfection. I'm talking

about fruit again. He said, the rain came, the opportunity

was there, but no useful crop appeared. And so we

asked again, what is my life producing? Because the evidence

of genuine faith is not a decision you might have

made years ago. Okay, you hear me, my church friends,

I grew up in church. Two. The evidence of your

faith is not a decision you made one week are

on one service. The evidence of your faith is the

fruit that your life bears. See, the evidence of genuine

faith is a continuing relationship with Christ that bears fruit

over time. And that's why the warning is some of

you need to grow up and some of you need

to wake up. But then at the end of our

passes today, the author, because there's so much grace in

the word of God switches and he says, for those

of you who've been persecuted, those of you who've been

having a hard time, those of you who are going

through some stuff, hold on, hold on. One of the

strongest warnings and encouragements in the Bible. The author now

shifts and he says this, we have this hope as

an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. I love this.

It says it enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain.

Isn't that unique language? Our hope enters the inner sanctuary

behind the curtain.

It's a beautiful picture. Think about all the things.

That we can live without. We can live without food

for weeks, water for days, a few minutes without air.

But how long can somebody live without hope.

People can survive incredible pain if they have hope. People

can survive incredible trials if they have hope. And that's

exactly what believers need in order to mature and grow

for the long run. And see, life could be difficult,

Pressure mounts, temptations real.

And the author points us to hope. Now, what is hope.

Our hope is a confident expectation that God is who,

he says, he is that God keeps his promises, that

God is faithful. That's what my hope is in. That

God is who he says he is, and He's gonna

be faithful to you. And that's what my hope is in.

All right. Now, the Bible says that hope, that God

is who he says he is, is our anchor. Okay,

it's the anchor of our soul. And what does our

anchor do? Oh? I love it? I love it. First

of all, our anchor doesn't remove a storm. It doesn't

stop the wind, it doesn't calm the waves. No, it

simply keeps us from drifting away. That is what hope

in Christ does. And then the author again says something

absolutely remarkable. Our hope is anchored into It enters the

inner sanctuary behind the curtain. All right, let's go back

for a little review here. Okay, remember last week we

talked about how the Old Testament system was very simple.

The people, because they were sinful, cannot enter into the

presence of God. They could have a relations of God

when they sin. They couldnot go into the presence of

a God and ask God for forget this. There was

no relationship of God in between them. Was a mediator.

This mediator was the priest. And this went on for generation,

for generation, thousands of years. And so what people would

do when they sin, they would go find this perfect

animal and then they would sacrifice the animal. They would

lean their hand on the head to transfer their sins.

Then they would bring that animal to the priests. The

priests would then take the blood of the animal and

sprinkle it on the altar as a sacrifice. But then

once a year, once a year, there would be an

all free made by the high priest for the whole nation.

And so the whole nation would bring a bull, and

then the high priest would sacrifice this pool, and then

he would take this blood. And once a year, this

high priest would go into the Holy of Holies, into

the very presence of God and make atonement for people's sins.

But what did we learn last week? That Jesus being

the high priest, because he was the perfect sacrifice, because

he was the Messiah, because he was the King of

kings and the Lord of lords, the Alpha and the Omega,

because Jesus lived a sinless life, he became the ultimate sacrifice.

He became the atonement. And when Jesus became our high priest.

He did something unique. He tore the curtain in half.

He goes to the people, he grabs a hold of

people of God. He walks him into the presence of God,

which is what throne of grace, throne of mercy. And

now we have this relationship with God. And it says

that those of us, when we're struggling, when we have temptations,

when we're persecuted, when we lose our money, when we

lose our spouse, when we lose our jobs, when we

lose everything, it says that we still have this hope

that is anchored where not to something on this earth,

but our hope is anchored to the very throne room

of God. That is our hope. So we hold on.

I don't know what you need to do today, but

I know that Father's Day week, I think back to

my dad that day. That was a horrible conversation for me.

But now that I look back, that was one of

the most loving conversations. He loved me enough to warn me.

Hebrews the author love you enough to warn you.

And so today here's the question we're going to enter

into some time of prayer.

Do some of you need to grow up. Some of

you who have been following Christ for a long time,

do you need to wake up? Or for those of

you who are going through it right now, life's tough. Oh,

I know a lot of your stories, a lot of

pain in this room.

Hold on.

And for those of you today that we're going to

take some time to pray, and you're gonna pray one

of those three things. For those of you who your

prayer today is God, help me to hold on. Here's

what I want you to imagine. I want you to

imagine taking your pain, your trial, your temptation, you're hurt,

your needs, and I want you to imagine taking them

the Jesus, You're great high priest. And then I want

you to imagine walking into the presence of God and

trusting God with your needs. Father, God, we come to

you now, maybe today again, maybe you need to grow up,

Maybe you need to wake up, Maybe you need to

hold on. We're going to take a couple of minutes

for you to have a conversation with Jesus. But I

want you to remember that when we go to Jesus,

we could be confident that we are approaching a throne

of grace and mercy,