"Can Christians Fall Away" - Hebrews 6:1-8

All right, again, if you have a Bible, we're going to be in Hebrews 6.

If you don't have a Bible, there's some blue Bibles on those tables.

Page 1105, 1105, however you'd like to say that.

I would encourage you today specifically, maybe even more than others,

if you don't have a Bible you're looking at, I would be looking at one.

It's interesting when most of the time when I bring up the word doctrine,

I get two responses. I get one response that's kind of like,

hey, man, like I'm not really into studying doctrine, quote unquote,

like that sounds kind of over my head.

Or number two, you see someone eyes light up and you're like,

I just got into a four hour conversation that I didn't really know I was about to get into.

But I think it needs to be said that the doctrine is important.

What you believe about God is important.

And this morning we're going to talk about a doctrine that is incredibly important

to understand and to know.

One of my favorite people I know I've said a bunch in here is R.C.

Sproul. He wrote a book called Everyone is a Theologian.

He says this, no Christian can avoid doctrine and theology.

Every Christian is a theologian. So if you didn't know that,

you can add that to your resume.

You're a theologian, perhaps not a theologian in the technical or professional

sense, but a theologian nevertheless.

The issue for Christians is not whether we are going to be theologians,

but whether we are going to be good theologians or bad ones.

And so I think that's really important to remind ourselves of that every single

one of us is going to be a theologian.

You're a theologian as you sit there right now. You have views about God.

You think certain things about God.

There's certain things you believe that other people don't believe,

right? You have a view on who God is and what he's like.

You are a theologian and it changes the way you live your life.

It changes the way you act. It changes the way you think. How you think about

God dictates everything else in your life.

And you may say, what about the people that don't ever think about God?

I would say that dictates every single part of their life.

And so last week we had a warning, a beginning of a warning,

which was grow up, right? Grow up in the faith. Don't stay children.

He says in chapter five, verse 12, for though by this time you ought to be teachers,

you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles or the word of God.

You need milk, not solid food.

That was the beginning of this warning. Just a reminder,

this is written to a group of Christians who were Jewish Christians,

Hebrew Christians, and their biggest struggle that we've seen is that they want

to go back to kind of a hybrid system of Jewish Christianity,

where we're Christians and we believe in Jesus, but we also want to be Jews.

And we want to go to the temple and we want to worship Moses and we want to

worship Abraham and we want to worship angels.

We want to have all these things in our worldview, but Christ has supplanted those things.

He's taken those things over. He's fulfilled all those things.

He's better than all of those things.

The writer of Hebrews have made this case at this point, hey,

don't turn back. Don't turn back to those silly things.

A modern version of this would be don't try and mix your Christianity with the world around you.

Don't think that you can just keep living the way that you were living and add

Jesus to that and just bring him wherever you want to go. That's not how Christianity works.

Jesus is better than all of those things and every single thing that we might hold to.

So again, doctrinally this week, we're going to talk about what would be referred

to as perseverance of the saints.

And I want to say this is a little different than when you hear someone say,

once saved, always saved. There is some nuances here that I think are really important.

Usually when we say once saved, always saved, what we mean is,

what you hear people saying is, well, if you've prayed the prayer and you've

walked the aisle or you've gotten baptized, if you've done the thing that you

were supposed to do, you're always saved.

Perseverance of the saints is a little different in that it takes the focus

off of us and puts it on God, where it's not what we've done to earn God's approval

so that we'll never lose it.

Perseverance is what has God done for us so that he'll preserve us till the

end, so that he'll keep us to the end, so that he'll be the one that receives the glory.

I think an easy way to think about this is when you stand before the judgment

seat of Christ, what you won't say is, well, I should get in because I walked the eye.

I should get in because of what I did.

That tends to be the way we think of once saved, always saved.

When we think of perseverance of the saints, what we're saying is the only reason

that I should be in your kingdom with God is because of what you've done for me, because of the life,

death, and resurrection of your son, Jesus Christ, because the Holy Spirit indwelling

my life, because you You have kept me and preserved me.

Or as we said earlier this morning from Philippians, you began a good work in me.

You did that and you have completed it because you are good and gracious and

kind and you keep your promises.

So that's a really important distinction before we get into this warning that

I think you gotta have a category for.

Because if you don't, the warning is gonna be real hard to understand.

If we put this on ourselves and we think salvation is about me and what I'm

gonna do and not on God and what he's done for me.

And when we hear a warning like this, we should rightly be concerned.

Well, if it's about me, I got problems.

I'm in danger here. There's something that could really go wrong in my life.

I could really shipwreck everything about who I am.

And that's not at all, I believe, the purpose of this warning here.

So again, as we get started, let me just read Hebrews 6, one through eight, and we'll jump in.

It says, therefore, so as always, because we don't want to be children,

because we're asked to grow up.

Let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity,

not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works of faith toward

God and of instruction about washings and laying on of hands,

the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

And this we will do if God permits. Let me just stop there. This begins in a

way that I remember the first time I ever read this, I thought,

man, that seems counter to every single thing that I've been told.

Let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity.

Well, I thought this was all about Christ. In fact, if you read Hebrews,

you're thinking, brother, all you've done is tell us about Christ.

All you've done is tell us how Christ is better than the angels and the high priest and Moses.

And all you're going to do is tell us how Christ is better than all these other

things. And so how are we going to leave behind the elementary doctrine of Christ?

Well, I don't think he's saying to leave Christ behind.

I think he's saying, if you know Christ, there's more to do.

And so imagine if you told me, whoever you want to be, that you were building your dream house.

And I said, man, that's great. That's great. I need to see it. Oh man, come out.

Come out. I need to see it. And I come out and you're in the middle of building

that dream house and the foundation has been laid and we go out there and you

got a piece of chalk and you're drawing out all the things that you want to

have in there, whatever you would

want to have in there. This is my master bedroom. This is the balcony.

This is the wine cellar. This is the cigar lounge, right? This is my dedicated

football viewing space.

Whatever your thing would be, okay, this is my hydroponics garden.

I don't know. Whatever your thing would be, don't do that. Okay.

She said no to that. Yeah.

Whatever you think your dream house would be, and you walk me around and you

show me all these wonderful things. I said, man, that's great.

I can't wait to see it done.

And years go by and we don't talk for a while and I see you again and I say,

man, how's that house going? You say, oh man, you've got to come out and see it.

And so I go out there again, and sure enough, all that's there is the foundation still.

Nothing's changed. And you walk me around, you tell me all of the plans that

you have, all the things that you want to do.

And I'm sitting here thinking, we've already done this.

And at the end of that, you go, man, don't you think this is going to be great?

And I said, yeah, I think this was going to be great three years ago when you showed it to me.

This is what the writer of Hebrews is trying to get them to see,

is the elementary doctrines of Christ,

these things that we learn from the very beginning, the things that we teach

our kids in VBS and teach our kids in children's church, all of these things

we want to raise our kids to know, these elementary doctrines,

he's saying they are incredibly important.

They are foundational. Without a good foundation, the house doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter how great the house is. If you've got a bad foundation, it will always fail.

But to lay a foundation and not build a house on it is a problem.

And that's what the writer of Hebrews is saying. He's saying,

I feel like I'm talking to people who have this foundation, but no intention

of building a house on it. They're completely content.

They're completely okay with having a foundation, but nothing to show for that foundation.

And years and years go by and nothing happens and nothing changes.

So he uses some examples. He says.

To go on to maturity, not laying, again, a foundation of repentance from dead

works and faith toward God.

So again, in the book of Acts, we see repentance and faith preached about 15 times.

It's probably preached more than that, but that's the exact phrase.

Repentance and faith is used almost 15 times.

This is the gospel being preached. This is preaching to people who do not know who Christ is.

This is preaching to the nations who have no idea what Christ is.

And so it begins with repentance and faith.

And then he has these references to washing and the laying on of hands.

Now, depending on which commentary you read, a lot of people will say,

well, this is a harken back to their Jewish kind of ceremonies,

things they would do as Jews.

I don't think that's true. I think this is a Christian letter written to Christians.

I think what the writer of Hebrews is really trying to draw to their mind is

baptism and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

When you read Acts again, when you read the epistles, we see in multiple occasions,

of course, baptism following salvation, but also the laying of hands for the

coming of the Holy Spirit.

See that in Acts 2, see that in Acts, I think, 7, 8, right?

This is language they would have known. And what he's trying to say is,

hey, listen, repentance and faith are incredibly important.

Incredibly important. Baptism, incredibly important. foundational.

The Holy Spirit entering your heart when you receive salvation, incredibly important.

All of these things have incredible importance, but to say, well,

I'm a Christian, I've done all that, but then not want to build a house on that

foundation, the writer of Hebrews says, that's immaturity. That's immaturity.

Again, to use a modern example, to go to church year after year,

month after month, decade after decade, to read the same things,

to listen to Christian, whatever it is you want to do, to do the same things over and over again.

Last week we read from Proverbs, we said the sloth of the lazy person is like

a person who sticks his hands in the food, but doesn't bring it to his mouth.

To continue to do that, but to not have any intention of building a house,

to moving forward, to God working in your life, to doing things for the Lord,

to expanding past just the foundation is a marker of immaturity.

You may say, well, that sounds harsh. Well, the flip side of this is the warning,

right? The flip side of this is the warning.

For him not to say what he's saying would mean he's giving them up to this warning, right?

I think we're always in danger of that because whether you think this about

yourself or not, there is people in your life that you want to make happy.

Now, for certain people, that's a very small group of people.

You don't care if you make everybody else mad, but you only make these people

happy. For other people, you want to make everybody happy.

Now, you're a habitual people pleaser.

And I don't think pastors are any different. I know I'm not.

There's hard things that you have to say to certain people at certain times.

And it's a lot easier if I can just say, you know, it's fine. God will work it out.

It's a lot easier for me to see someone in sin, to see someone in habitual sin

and just go to them and say like, hey man, you know, that's not good for you,

but Jesus loves you, right?

Hey man, I think the path you're on is a path to destruction, but got to work it out.

Don't you worry about it. Jesus loves you. I've seen the foundation in your

life. I know it's going to be okay.

That's so much easier than saying what the writer of Hebrews is about to say.

I would argue, though, that the writer of Hebrews is being incredibly loving

and kind with the warning he's about to give them.

But before we get into the warning, I think one of the key verses in this whole

passage to understanding what I said earlier is verse 3.

Verse 3 says, And this we will do if God permits.

So there's two realities that this pastor will say is trying to work through.

Number one, it's yours and mine reality. We have a reality that we live in,

decisions that we make, things that we have to do.

When you woke up this morning, you made a decision to come to church here.

That was a decision you made. For some of you, that was a really hard decision.

You had to get kids ready. People were tired. People were complaining.

But you made a decision. When you wake up tomorrow, you'll have to make decisions,

how you're going to treat people, how you're going to act, how you're going

to talk to people, right? These are all decisions we have to make.

Ultimately, the decision of, will you follow Christ? Will you trust him?

Will you believe him? Will you trust his promises or will you trust the world's promises?

Those are decisions that you have to make. And that is our reality that we live in.

But this writer of this letter is not numb to the greater reality that is God's reality.

And he does not wake up and make decisions based on how he feels or what his

life is going on or what's happening in Africa or Asia or United States. He doesn't do that.

Again, the pastor is like a good brother in Christ or even like a father to

a child. He is giving them a warning.

He's saying, listen, I can't see the future. I don't know whether or not you're going to make it.

I don't know whether or not things are going to be okay. I don't know what your

life is going to look like, but like a loving father, again,

a loving brother, that he's calling them back.

Don't fall for this.

Don't go back to being a half-hearted Christian because there is no such thing.

Don't do that. But this is not God's reality. A few verses just for you to consider.

God does not beg or barter. He calls and commands. Proverbs 19,

21, many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

Isaiah 14, 24, the Lord of hosts has sworn as I have planned, so it shall be.

And as I have purposed, so shall it stand.

A pretty famous one, Isaiah 46, 10, declaring the end from the beginning and

from ancient times, things not yet done saying my counsel shall stand and I

will accomplish all of my purpose.

Job 23, 13, but he is unchangeable. And who can turn him back? That's the Lord.

What he desires that he does.

Then you could go into the salvation passages, the more personal ones, Ephesians 1, 11.

In him, we have obtained an inheritance, right? He's given us an inheritance.

Having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things

according to the counsel of his will.

Jesus says in John 6, 44, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me

draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

The writer of Hebrews is just really quoting John 6, 44.

He's saying, listen, no one can come to Christ unless the father draws him.

And if the father draws him and he comes to Christ, he will raise him up on the last day.

And that's interpreted in Hebrews 6, chapter, sorry, chapter 6, verse 3.

And this we will do if God permits.

We often try to make God's will, his election, his grace, his mercy on our life,

an enemy with our will and say, well, you gotta have it one way or the other.

You gotta say that God is in control and we're just robots or we have absolute

free will to do whatever we want. And the problem is the Bible doesn't give

you either of those options.

It holds you completely accountable for your actions.

This is why he can give a warning. This is why over and over again in the Bible,

you can see Jesus tell people what they need to be doing, what he calls them to, what he calls us to.

He's calling us to those things because he offers his life and grace and mercy

again, but they are commands and they are things that we are supposed to be doing.

Well, at the same time, there's an understanding that whatever God wants to happen will happen.

Whatever God wants you to do, you will do. You will make that decision of your

own absolute free volition, and it will be exactly what God wanted you to do.

One of the verses that I was told early on that when I was first given this

kind of worldview that really wrecked me was Genesis 50, 20.

When Joseph's brothers approach him and they think he's going to kill him because their dad has died.

And Joseph says to him, am I in the place of God?

What an incredible thing for someone to say. Am I in the place of God?

He goes on to tell them, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

Do the Hebrew study on it. Do the Hebrew word say, I invite you to do that.

When it says you meant it for evil, he means that.

That his brothers, when they sold Joseph into slavery, hoping that he would

die, they meant to do that.

And then Joseph says, but God meant it for good.

You mean to do things. It's just whatever you mean to do will never thwart what God means to do.

You say, well, that sounds contradictory. Yeah. I'm not asking you to completely

understand everything I'm saying.

What I'm telling you is this is the testament of the scriptures and who God is and who you are.

You say, well, what's the point of doing anything if God's going to do what

God's going to do, if he's going to go where he's going to go and I'm going

to do whatever God ultimately wants me to do. What's the point?

The point is you're held accountable for your decisions.

You're held accountable for what you do. You're called to live a certain way.

Again, this isn't a beating you over the head to say, man, you better get your act together.

This is to say, man, God is sovereign over all things. And he has invited you into his kingdom.

Why would you live any other way?

Again, as we read the warning, It's tempting to say, well, this just isn't for me.

I know God saved me. I know I'm good. I know I've done everything I'm supposed to do.

It's also tempting to say, well, I believe in election. I believe in predestination.

So I know that I'm going to heaven. What's the matter to me?

What I'm telling you is the writer of Hebrews is fully aware of both of those

realities. And yet he still gives the warning. He still gives the warning.

So let's read the warning verses four through eight. For it is impossible in

the case of those who have once been enlightened,

who have tasted the heavenly gift and who have shared in the Holy Spirit and

who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to

come, and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance.

Since they are crucifying once

again, the son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

So here's this picture of a person who has had many touch points with Jesus.

They've been around Christians. They know what it's like to be in a Christian

world, a Christian family, a Christian church. It says they've been enlightened.

They know the gospel. They understand it even.

They can tell you what the gospel is. They can quote John 3.16.

They can do all they can do, Romans Road. They know what that is.

It says they've tasted the heavenly gift. Again, they've experienced the blessings

of being a Christian, of trusting the Lord, of doing what he's asked them to

do. they've even shared in the Holy Spirit.

They've been blessed in some ways by the Spirit of God. We see this in the Old

Testament over and over again, right?

The Spirit of God comes upon people and blesses people around them.

It doesn't mean that they're saved forever and ever.

It means that people can experience the blessing of God and yet not know who God is.

It says they know the goodness of the word and of the age to come,

right? They know their Bibles.

They may even believe that their Bibles are true.

And then he gives us an example here.

Verse 7, for the lamb that has drunk the rain that often falls on it,

it produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated,

receives a blessing from God.

In other words, rain falls, a crop grows, and it's useful, right?

That's what we want to do. If you had land and you were growing crops,

you wouldn't want the rain to fall and nothing to happen.

We want crops to come up, to be cultivated.

Verse eight, but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to

being cursed and its end is to be burned.

I think what the writer of Hebrews here is doing is simply re-quoting what Jesus

has already told us in Matthew 13.

So if you have your Bibles, hop over to Matthew 13.

This is a parable that is familiar to probably many of you, the parable of the soils.

I won't read all of this for the sake of time, but what I need you to see is

Jesus tells this parable about a man who goes and sows seed.

The seed is the word of God, and he throws it onto different soils.

The first soil is hard, and the seed doesn't do anything, and the birds come

and they eat it up. The last soil is fertile.

The seed goes down, it grows and grows and produces fruit, but the two middle

soils are what I really want to focus on.

So if you hop to Matthew 13, 20 through 22, this is Jesus explaining his parable to his disciples.

And speaking of the two middle soils, he says this,

as for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and

immediately receives it with joy, that he has no root in himself, but endures for a while.

And when tribulation and persecution arises on account of the word,

he immediately falls away.

That sounds like Hebrews 6 to me.

You receive the word, you begin to grow.

You're excited about who Jesus is. You're excited about this opportunity that

God has given you. You love all of those things. You're even blessed by them.

But when tribulation comes on account of the word, in other words,

when people start saying things like, do you really believe that?

Do you really think that way? Do you really think Jesus is the only way to heaven?

Do you really think that? I've got a sweet old lady down the street.

I mow her yard. I'm not saying personally, I'm just saying you might hear this.

She's a Buddhist. You really think that this sweet old lady isn't going to heaven

because she doesn't believe in Jesus.

And we have to go, yes, yes, we believe what the Bible says.

Think about the people in Hebrews that he's writing to. They're saying,

you mean my uncle who's been a Jew his whole life, who's sacrificed everything

that the Jews have said to do?

He's followed the high priest. He follows all the laws, but just because he's

not super on board with this Jesus guy, that's going to be a problem.

And the Christians, the Hebrew Christians have to say, yes, yes.

Even if he believes in Moses and Abraham and the high priest and the sacrifice,

even if he does all those things, Jesus is greater than those things.

And if he rejects Jesus, he rejects everlasting life. That's what the Bible says.

And we stand by that. And this parable is saying there will be people who the

first time they hear about Jesus, they take him in and they grow just a little

bit, But then all of a sudden people start saying, well, do you really believe what the word says?

And they'll go, well, I don't want to be one of those Christians.

I don't really want to be one of those Christians. I don't want to be intolerant.

I don't want to say that people are bad.

I don't want to say that people are making mistakes. People should live however they want to live.

God loves everybody. Everything's great.

Jesus says those are not true believers. They fall away.

Okay, verse 22, the third soil says, "'As for what was sown among the thorns,

"'this is the one who hears the word, "'but the cares of the world "'and the

deceitfulness of riches choke the word,

"'and it proves unfruitful.'" So in one sense, there's persecution.

There's not one to be that kind of person, that kind of Christian that people

point the finger at and say, you're the intolerant ones, you hate people. I don't know.

Latter is, the world is just too appealing.

What the world offers, what the world gives us, what the world provides for

us, we just find it more appealing than what Christ offers us,

which is ultimately suffering for the cause of Christ.

He says, the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word.

And the cares of the world can be anything. And I think what's dangerous about

the cares of the world is they can look like really good things to get caught

up in a career or a lot of education or a job, right?

They can look like, man, you're really doing everything you're supposed to be doing.

You're, man, you're killing it. You're, you're really making waves in the way

that you should be making waves.

And the world will pat you on the back and say, man, look how great your life is going.

You've got all the things that

you want and you still go to church on Sundays, how do you find the time?

So there's dangers on both ends, first from persecution, secondarily from what the world offers us.

And I think in Hebrews 6, that's what you see, is a man who cares deeply about

the people that he's writing to, a man who cares deeply about this church and

who wants them to know, hey, listen, you are not exempt.

You are not exempt from the warnings.

Now, obviously, he's writing to a group of people that are in the middle of a struggle.

The whole reason this book is written is because these Hebrews are struggling

with Jesus and Judaism and what can we keep and what can we get rid of?

And where does Jesus really sit on the pecking order of spiritual things?

Is he really greater than Moses?

Is he really greater than the high priest? Is he really greater than all of those things?

What's it mean that he's a priest in the order of Melchizedek?

We'll get to that in chapter seven. What does all those things mean?

And they're struggling with these things.

And this writer stops right in the middle of his book to say,

hey, listen, I know you're struggling with these things, but don't think these are small things.

Think these are things you can put on the back burner of your life and say,

I'll figure this stuff out later. I got a lot going on in my life right now.

I've got a lot of pressure going on right now. And I just can't think about all that right now.

He says, listen, that's a dangerous place to be. It's a dangerous place to be.

He's already given the example of the Israelites in the wilderness who saw all

the plagues in Egypt, who saw the Red Sea parted, who saw Mount Sinai,

who were given the 10 commandments, who saw manna in the wilderness,

who saw all these things.

And yet did not trust the Lord.

One of my favorite examples of this in the Bible is a character named Demas, D-E-M-A-S.

If you don't know who that is, I encourage you, write that name down,

go look it up. But Demas is one of Paul's closest companions.

Paul says of him on multiple occasions that Demas is my closest friend, my confidant.

He stands strong with me in the Lord. But the last mention we have of Demas

is, and Demas has departed from me because he loved the world more than Christ.

And of course, maybe the ultimate example would be Judas, who sees all of the

miracles that Jesus does, who hears all of Jesus' sermons, who even cast out

demons in Jesus' name and yet falls away.

And so like the writer here in Hebrews, I don't know what your heart looks like. I have no clue.

Now I can look at your lives and I can get to know you and you can get to know

me and we can really get a good picture of what's going on.

And what we're really called to be is fruit inspectors. We're not heart inspectors.

We're not good heart inspectors. We assume motives and we assume things and

we think we understand someone's heart.

And the second we think we understand it, then they do something and we go,

I don't really know if that's really what they meant. I don't really know if

that's really how it works.

It's true even of our own hearts, right? There are times where I think I know

everything that's going on inside of me, and then I get six months down the

road and I think, oh, that's why I did that.

I had a little something going on inside of me that I didn't even realize,

and I lashed out that way, or I talked that way, or I treated people a certain

way because I had some things going on in my own heart that I didn't know.

This is why Jeremiah chapter 17 says famously, the heart is deceitful above

Jeremiah 17 · chapter mention

all things and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? Right.

About that in terms of other people, but we rarely think about that in terms of ourselves.

My heart, Brady's heart is deceptively wicked. Who can know it, including myself?

I don't know my heart. I think I do, but I don't know it as well as God would know it.

Again, to use our earlier example, you know what kind of building you're putting

on the foundation of your spiritual life, but only really you do.

Again, we can all look at things. We can all see things just like Paul looked

at Demas and said, man, this guy is building a spiritual mansion on top of this foundation.

I've used the example a ton and I'm going to keep using it because I think it's incredibly stark.

But when they're in the upper room, Jesus tells Judas, what you must do,

do quickly. And he leaves.

None of the other disciples realize that Judas is the bad guy.

That's an incredible thing. They have walked with him and talked with him for years.

And yet when Jesus makes it clear, Judas is the one that's going to betray him.

Judas walks out the door and all the disciples turn around and go,

okay, Judas is gone, but which one of us is going to do it?

Which one of us is going to be the one that betrays you? You know,

everyone's looking at Peter, but it's neither here nor there.

So it can be incredibly hard to know what's going on in someone's heart.

In fact, I would say impossible.

And so the writer of Hebrews here says, this warning is for all of you.

Do not get complacent. Do not think that you can coast.

Do not think that I'm once saved, always saved. Doesn't matter what I do.

Doesn't matter where I go.

Doesn't matter how I act. Doesn't matter how I live my life.

Doesn't matter what I want to do.

God loves me. And I'm just going to do whatever I want to do because God loves

me and he wants me to be happy.

Instead, know that as you work to build your spiritual house,

that God is working in you.

As you do the things that God calls you to do, as you do the things that God

has laid out for you to do, as you do the hard things and stand up for the word

and preach the word, as you do the hard things and get up for church and commit

your life to godly things,

know that God will complete the work that he started in you.

That he will do it. that he will do things for you and in your life that you

can't even imagine, not because of who you are, what you've done,

but because of who he is and what he's done.

He has, by his grace and the blood of his son and the power of his spirit,

brought you from death to life.

And he is working in you day by day, moment by moment, brick by brick,

building a spiritual house and producing fruit out of your life that he has given you.

The truth is, if it was all up to you and me, there would be no point in trying. We would blow it.

We would blow it. Any Christian I know that's been a Christian very long does

not balk at that statement.

Now, when I was 20 and I was going to DBU and I was going to be the next Charles

Spurgeon and I was awesome and I would read books and I was learning Greek and I was so cool.

I didn't think, I thought, man, I am going to make it. I am going to do this.

I've got everything going for me. I know exactly what I'm going to do.

I know exactly how I'm going to do it. I've got these great plans,

but it doesn't take being a Christian long to realize, man, God is carrying me.

He is carrying me.

If it was up to me, man, I would have left long ago.

This would have been too hard. I would not have made it.

Again, I think if you talk to any person who's been a Christian very long,

they know that to be true, whether they could articulate that or not.

Point of encouragement before we close, this is not a house building competition.

In other words, don't compare your spiritual house to someone else's.

Don't try and compare the fruit that you're producing to someone else's, right?

God will produce the fruit in you. He will build the house for you that he is

destined to build for you, right? That's what God will do.

But the worst thing people can do, and I think the reason a lot of Christians,

especially young Christians or struggling Christians get discouraged as they

start looking around and going, man, their house is bigger than mine.

They've got twice as many rooms. Their house is twice as big, twice as nice.

They've got better floors. They've got better ceilings. They've got better appliances

in their house, man. I wish my spiritual house looked like their spiritual.

I wish my spiritual fruit looked like their spiritual fruit.

And the worst thing and the last thing that I think the writer of Hebrews and

Christ were trying to do when they gave these examples is to look at Christians

who are beat up and go, you're not doing enough.

That's not at all what is going on here.

And if you're working towards Christ, if you're doing the things that he's called

you to do, if you're trying your very best to build the house that God has called

you to build on the foundation that he has given you in Christ,

praise God for that. Praise God for that.

Don't look around and try and figure out what God's doing elsewhere.

You have no idea. You have no idea what God's doing.

The same way that I'm sure a lot of people looked at Demas and thought,

man, this guy, I wish my house was like his.

Best friends with Paul, running around planting churches, right?

Seeing Paul do all these incredible things. Friends with the apostles,

man, I wish my house looked like Demas' house. And then Demas bails.

And maybe all you're left with is a little Christian shanty on a foundation,

but that's so much better than nothing.

So much better than nothing. I'm going to close just by reading these next three

verses, this encouragement that he closes with.

We'll cover this a little bit next week, but I just want to close here.

Though we speak in this verse nine, though we speak in this way,

yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation.

For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have

shown for his name and serving the saints as you still do.

And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full

assurance of hope until the end.

Warning is not meant to make you sit here and doubt your salvation.

It's not. It's not meant to scare you. It's meant to warn you.

And he doubles down there to say, listen, our hope is that you have full assurance

until the end. How do you have full assurance until the end?

Walk with Christ. Walk with Christ.

Man, some of the hardest conversations I've had in ministry where people say,

man, I just don't know if I'm saved anymore.

And people want me to answer that question for them.

Let me give you this information and you tell me what you think as if I'm God

and I can be like, yeah, dude, looks good to me.

I tell you what, when you stand before Christ, I'll vouch for you.

Let me give you a pastoral note, give that to Jesus. I think we'll be good.

I have no ability to do that. None.

But what each and every one of us has to do, and what each and every person

who's reading this letter has the ability to do is to go to Christ today.

Go to Christ today. You say, Lord, I want to build a house on this foundation

that you give me. Would you help me do that?

I want to be a fruit producing plant for you in the kingdom.

Would you work in me to do that? God, I can't do that on my own.

Would you help me do that?

I believe God answers that prayer in one way or another. Usually not the way

you want, but he will answer.

How do you have assurance and hope? You walk with the Lord.

You walk with the Lord. He finishes like this.

Why does he want them to have full assurance of hope? So that you may not be

sluggish or lazy, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises of God.

What does it look like for someone to have hope in Christ, to walk with Christ? They're not lazy.

As he said at the end of chapter five, right? He's bookending this warning.

Don't be a child. Do you want to not be a child? Take this warning.

What is that warning supposed to do in you? produce hope in you that Christ

will complete what he started in you and not be lazy.

Don't be spiritually lazy, but be imitators of those who through faith and patience

inherit the promise of God.

So receive the warning. That warning in here is just as much for me as it is for you.

It's as much for the greatest Christian you know as it is for the lowest Christian

you know, because no one is exempt from what is seen here on this side of heaven.

But know that if you trust in Christ,

if you walk with him, if you began to trust him to work in you,

to build a house and to create fruit in you, that he will complete it to the

end, that you can have hope and you can have peace and you will not,

you will not stay like a child. Let's pray.

Thank you for today, as always. Thank you for Trinity. Thank you for your word.

God, I thank you for the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints,

that those whom you call to your Father, that Christ seals and delivers to you by your spirit.

God, we will be with you in the end, not because of something we've done,

but because of something you've done in us and for us.

But God, will we not get lazy? Will we not become sluggish?

Will we be reminded of passages like today that warn us, hey,

you don't know your own heart.

You don't know what you're capable of.

So be on guard. God, as Peter tells us, make every effort to make your calling and election sure.

In other words, let's get to work, God. Help us to do that.

Help us to be people that are motivated by grace,

motivated by what's been done for us, motivated by the fact that no matter how

meager our work seems, that you will use it in your kingdom and that you will

help us to persevere till the end. In his name I pray, amen.