Unbelief and The Gospel

0:02Morning. Morning, preacher. Good to see you. Go ahead and open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 3 this morning. We're going to finish the third chapter of Hebrews, picking up where we left off last time in verse 12. Before we begin, though, I've got to give you a heads up on the next couple weeks. Because it is Christmas week next week, or the week after next, next Sunday, we're going to take a little break from Hebrews to be refreshed once again in the glorious news of the incarnation and the hope and joy that the birth of our Savior gives to us. So that'll be next Sunday. I'm also working on a somewhat of a topical sermon on rest. The week following that, which I hope, Lord willing, will be completely opposite of every other message that you hear leading up to the new year. By now you know I do try my best to be as explicitly counter-cultural as possible when the culture is running counter to the gospel. So there are going to be some resolutions that week, for sure, but they won't be ones that you are perhaps used to hearing. So that's the following week, December 29th, and then we'll be back in Hebrews again on January 5th, 2025. Can you believe it's 2025 already? But our God does have something for us this morning, so let's introduce our focus for this morning and jump into it. In many ways, uh this morning is really a part two of where we started last week with the call to not harden our hearts or to be found with an unbelieving heart that leads us to fall away, right? This was the second little part in chapter three. The remedy to those things is gospel-empowered faith and dependence upon Him. That's what we talked about last week. And so often when we are struggling with obedience, specifically, right, and especially obedience to God, we come up with all manner of things to fix those issues. When the deceitfulness of sin takes root, we often turn to religion, religious practices, as the corrective action against such things, but that always does really one of two things. It will create dejected, overwhelm, and worn-out people, or just running on a hamster wheel and not getting anywhere, or it will create Pharisees, whitewashed tombs. People who on the outside have the appearance of godliness, but inside they are rotting away. As we will see this morning, our text ties disobedience or ungodliness to one thing, unbelief. So by the grace of God, may we see this morning that the remedy for our sin is not to do all the right things, but to believe the right things. More specifically, the right person, God incarnate Jesus Christ. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. He goes on to say that it was from that original and undefiled affection that burst forth all manner of good works. That is to say, that belief, faith, trust, breeds affection, love, and love spurs on good works, obedience. So from that chain we must confess that if obedience is off in our life, this is because the affection is off, which is because our belief is off. I might even go so far as to say that it is the gospel alone that has the power to transform our affections and conform us to his image. Crazy, I know, right? But God willing, I hope we are able, he is able to do just that. So please stand with me once more as we read Hebrews chapter 3, starting in verse 12. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. For who will those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Lord, thank you again for this word. Please now speak on behalf of Christ. It is in his name that I pray. Amen. So I want to begin where we left off at verse 12 of last week. Uh so that that warning is fresh on your mind. Uh let me say from the beginning, though, I am going to get to the good news. But we have to climb the mountain a bit to get there, so just hang with me through the ups and the downs of this message. And may God open our hearts then to receive this. The author of Hebrews begins with a command to exhort one another daily. Exhort one another daily. The word uh exhort or exhortation is from the Greek paracaleo. Para meaning to come alongside of or to help. Think of para-legal. We've talked about this before, um legal help or a parachurch ministry, right? A ministry that comes alongside and helps the church, right? This is para-help. And kalia, which means to call out. The essence of the word is to encouragingly or pleadingly call out to someone to do something as a means of help. Okay? And often we misinterpret the Greek word kalio here, especially when it applies to exhortation as though it means primarily to call out or to expose. Like I'm going to call that person out. This is the idea that we think of. And I will say that biblical exhortation is certainly more complex than simply encouraging against sin, which we're going to talk about a little bit. But in context of our passage this morning, we are addressing exhortation as it relates to unbelief leading to sin. Okay, so I just want you to know where we're going. Exhortation as it relates to unbelief leading to sin. Okay, and I need to make sure that I emphasize more generally how exhortation is used in Scripture than and apply that specifically to our text. How the Greek word kale or to call is used in the New Testament is much more a call to something as opposed to a call from something. Galatians 1, 6, Paul says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. And this is certainly the beginning of what Paul will fervently call out, right? The church in Galatia, in the midst of the Galatians deserting the gospel, but the Kaleo there, the call, is a call, is a reminder of the call into the grace of Christ, right? A little later in Galatians, Paul says in verse 15, but when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles. Again, the call was by grace, into grace, to preach him Christ among the Gentiles. This is important. Because the command to exhort one another, that is, to come alongside of, to call out, to encourage one another, is at least as much about calling one another into the grace of Christ as it is about calling people out from their sins. And we're really good at one, we're not so good at the other. Far too often the church has spent an inordinate amount of time calling out sin, and not doing it in a proper biblical way, that the whole concept of exhortation is a bit marred. We use the Bible, specifically certain doctrines in the Bible, as a club to run around and beat people with and spend all available time calling out this and calling out that. I'm not calling out, though, I'm just exhorting, right? That's what we say. This is the present state of evangelical social media, really. Far too many churches. This coupled with the fact that the quickest way to lose friends is to misapply or to harshly apply this principle of exhortation and practice it. Because no one likes to have their idols poked, right? Sins addressed. Even proper application causes issues at times. As a result, many turn away from it completely. We just live and let live, right? While others dig their heels in and commit to passionately exhorting the sin out of everyone. Even if it means emptying the church of every soul in need of real exhortation. This must not be for us, church. We must be balanced, as we have used that word quite frequently. We must be obedient, though, to this clear command in Scripture to exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. So the command is not so much then to call out a person, as much as it is to call out or exhort against the sin. Paul says in Romans 7, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that is good. So it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Those who have been saved by grace through faith have been called out of that body of sin and death and into a new life in Christ. So to exhort someone to come alongside them and say, this is not who you are anymore. As we said last week, there is an urgency to this. Something that must be done today. And every day. Sin is deceitful. And because it still lingers in us, we're so prone to be deceived by it. But this must not be. Because that's not who you are anymore. Dear Christian. You have been called into something far greater than that which this deceitfulness of sin has to offer. So put off the old self. Not because I or anyone else is guilting you into it or shaming you or your sin. But because putting off sin means we get the blessed opportunity to put on Christ. Yes, we have been called from sin. But more importantly, we have been called into righteousness. Into holiness. And righteousness and holiness of the same kind as the righteous one. The holy one. I must not let you become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Not because I enjoy calling out sin. I promise I don't. But because I know there is something so much better for you. So much better for us all. We have come to share in Christ. To share in his blessings. To share in his holiness. To share in his eternal life. To share in his blessed mercy. I hope your response is then, oh, tell me how I may continue to share in all of that. Hold our original confidence firm to the end. The same faith through the same gospel that united you to Christ is the same faith through the same gospel that will keep you in him. If you have fallen into sin, it's not because some pastor in a pulpit or your friend didn't beat you over the head hard enough with his Bible. It's because your original confidence has slipped. You have forgotten, even for a day, how incredible the love of God is for you. How incredible the love of God is for you in Christ Jesus, that he would look upon a miserable wretch and say, of all those in the world, that one is mine. That he has not left you in your sin, but saved you from it. The deceitfulness of sin would be so diminished if by the grace of God we could be reminded every day, as many days as are called to today, that God, being rich in his mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our sins and trespasses, has made us alive together in Christ. By grace you have been saved. And raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. So let me come alongside you this morning and say, won't you hear the good news of the gospel? Won't you hear his voice calling you to new life? And not just any life, abundant life. A life that is not running away from everything, but is running towards the goodness and the grace of our Savior. Don't let sin take hold in you. Because our gospel hope promises us something so much better. And that message and that exhortation is something that doesn't just come from the pulpit. The call is for each of us to exhort one another daily, to strongly urge one another to break free from sin and to walk in the glorious light of the gospel. Next have to give the same warning that our text gives with respect to Israel, and that is that unbelief leading to sin will ruin your life. Again, a reference is given to Israel and the tragic reality that they did not enter the rest that God had prepared for them. And take a close look then at that text. The reason why they did not enter rest. Was it because they were disobedient? That wasn't the root cause. Their disobedience was only a symptom of a greater problem, and that greater problem was unbelief. So many thousands of people's lives who should have entered into the promised land, they should have entered into the blessed paradise that was offered to them, but instead they fell in the wilderness apart from that blessing. I could principalize this and say that the problem here was disobedience of the Israelites, and if you would only just obey God, you will not meet their equal end. But that would be missing the point. Certainly the point that the author of Hebrews is making. It was unbelief. They didn't believe. And whether or not some of those Israelites they repented in the wilderness from their unbelief and they trusted the promises of God, this is something that we will never know. But what we do know is that unbelief ruined their life. They found themselves in this vicious cycle that so many of us find ourselves in. We don't believe, rest in the gospel of Christ, nor stand on his promises. We doubt his provisions, and we fail to trust his sovereign and guiding hand, so we disobey. We sin. We take matters into our own hands, as they did in Israel, and then we grumble. When our sin increases, we doubt more and we believe less and we press harder in our own strength and according to our own will, and this spiral continues until we are wandering in the wilderness. When we get to that point, we often wonder, how did I even get here? Answer is always the same. You didn't believe. Show me a life that is marred by sin, and I will show you a person who doesn't believe in the gospel, who doesn't trust in Christ. On the flip side, show me someone who is faithfully walking in Christ. And you will find one who, above all things, has staked their life on the gospel of Christ. One who will not be moved from the reality that Christ gave himself up for them. And do you believe that today? That before the foundation of the world Christ knew you. Not just knew of you, but he knew you. Down to every hair on your head, he knew you and he knows you. If you are in Christ, he went to the cross and he suffered that brutal death because he loves you. He now sits at the right hand of the Father and He prays for you. Can you imagine? The one who spoke the world into existence with that same voice lifts up your name to the Father and says, keep him, her. Oh, that we would believe that this morning. Surely the deceitfulness of sin would lose a measure of strength against us. That we would know that our Lord is so attentive to every detail of our lives that He has meticulously planned all things for our good and for our salvation. Won't you believe that today? Won't you believe it? And then from that belief, not let sin have a say in you as much as you are able by the power of the Spirit, because a lost wanderer in the wilderness is not who you are anymore. You are a rescued child of God. You are Christ's. And He is yours. So then, what then is the full purpose or full application of exhortation? I think looking at these systematically, I'm confident we can say that exhortation is an agricultural endeavor. I'll explain what I mean by that. We know from the parable of the sower, or the parable of the soils, Matthew 13, that there are four different kinds of soil. There is no soil, right? This is the path. And when the word falls upon this, no soil, path, it is immediately snatched up. There is the rocky soil, where the word springs up quickly, but because there is no root, it does not endure. There is the soil full of thorns, and when the seed springs up, it's choked out by the cares of the world. And then there is the good soil, where the seed flourishes on account of right hearing and understanding. The problem in our revivalistic kind of evangelicalism, that's a tough one. We think that if we want to see more fruit, all we need to do is just sow more seed. The problem is often not the sower, but the soil. We assume that the role of the gospel is evangelistic only. But if it is the gospel that saves us, why would we assume that something else keeps us? Or that something else grows us? The gospel is the seed that is sown, sure. But it is also the tiller, it's the fertilizer, it's the shade cloth, or anything else you need to promote growth. The gospel kicks away the rocks, keeps the thorns away. Exhortation, then, is the work of soil cultivation. And the tool we use is the gospel. And it's called to believe in and trust in Christ, who has saved you apart from works, purely according to his grace. Switching metaphors, allegories, I guess, just a second, but there's a few better examples than in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Apart from the near constant exhortation, if you've read Pilgrim's Progress, is constant exhortation and gospel reminders that Christian and faithful and Christian and hopeful give to one another. When they are tempted to fall into sin, there is one particular instance where they find themselves at Doubting Castle, if you remember this. Doubting Castle, for those who've read it. You could say that their unbelief had caused them to fall prey to their deceitfulness of sin. Okay, they're trapped in this dark dungeon of this castle. They're near death, they're in utter despair. And Christian realizes that he's holding a key the whole time that offered them the freedom from doubting castle. Do you remember the name of that key? Don't look at your notes. Christian breaks out in a passionate exclamation, the text says, What a fool I have been lying in this stinking dungeon like this when I could have just as well walked free. So often our unbelief, which leads to wondering, traps us in these dungeons of despair, but we have on each of us something to free us from those rotting places. And that is the key called promise. It is the gospel. And all the hope and promise that it provides us, that's what frees us from our doubts and keeps us from the deceitfulness of sin. The gospel is not a one-time thing. It's not a one-time message. It is the power of God unto salvation and a constant reminder of the great promises offered to us in Christ Jesus. So let me exhort you then, with the power of the gospel, to believe in Christ. To believe in Christ who loved you and gave himself for you. Believe that he has promised to keep you and to lead you home. To live with him in paradise forever. Let me exhort you in the light of the gospel to pursue holiness and to walk in obedience with everything that is in you. And such a pursuit is impossible if you just focus on your own obedience and your own holiness. But when you trust in the incredible power of what Christ has already done for you, you can and you will persevere. When you believe in Him, you can have life. And you can have life more abundantly. So believe then. Receive this morning the words from John that we've already read. For God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. May our God work in you faith to believe in him today and every day. And in that belief may you walk in obedience according to your new life. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, as always, we thank you for your word. We pray and ask, Lord, as we asked last week, Lord, we believe, but please help our unbelief. Lord, help us to know you more. Help us to trust and believe in you more, Lord. Grow our faith. Grow our dependence upon you, Lord, that we may cling to you every day. Give us the remembrance and the courage to exhort one another, Lord, to come alongside one another, to get to know one another, to encourage one another. And to help us remember, as you have reminded us through John Bunyan, that this Christian walk is long, sometimes difficult. But you have given us a blessed people to do it with, Lord. So please help us to exhort one another and encourage one another. Keep one another from sin, Lord, that we may ultimately walk in your glorious light and into your paradise. I ask all these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.