Persisting Faith

0:00Well, good morning to you all again. Go ahead and open to Hebrews. Do I even need to say it? I um we read in a Bible study this morning uh First Peter chapter one, or actually all of most of chapter one, and I feel like honestly, I could I could just stand up here and this sermon, I could just read again first Peter chapter one, and we'd be okay. Um I won't though, since I already have something prepared, I'll go ahead and read what I've what I've written. But there's a lot of similarities in the providence of God, he continues to reinforce his truth for us. Uh we're going to be in chapter 6, verses 9 through 12. So chapter 6 of Hebrews, verses 9 through 12. Um, fearing our salvation is pretty easy. Right? Can I get an amen? Fearing our salvation is a pretty easy thing to do for us. Um I feel pretty confident in saying that no one had to teach you how to worry if you were going to go to heaven or not. That fear comes quite naturally to us. Further, Scripture gives us verses and truths like 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9, for instance. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Further, we live in a world that is constantly assaulting our faith and certainly our assurance of salvation. We very often feel, as the writer of Hebrews has already described, like a ship that has been drifted off course and we're being lost at sea, or that that is inevitable for us. What are we to do? Are we to be saved? Or are we forever lost at sea? I can't take such realities of life away or pretend like they don't exist. But from our text this morning, I can encourage you and us all towards a persisting faith. The Apostle Peter makes certain in his epistle, which we've read, we've talked about chapter one, but this is chapter five, and Peter makes certain in his epistle that we understand the reality of life on earth and the spiritual battle that we constantly face. And in 1 Peter 5, verse 8, he says this be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. All of these spiritual and worldly forces that are ever attacking us, coupled with our own lingering sinfulness, in conjunction with these warning passages in Scripture, they leave us overwhelmed at times. So the main idea I want to pull from our text this morning is that assurance of faith is possible. And while ultimate salvation is purely dependent upon the sovereign work of God, our feelings in connection with assurance are always driven by our actions and our responses. J.C. Ryle says this quote, I bless God that our salvation is no wise, in no wise depends on our own works. But I would never have any believer for a moment forget that our sense of salvation depends much on the manner of our living. That is to say that our salvation comes from Christ. Amen. But experiencing the joy of our salvation comes from living a life of godliness as a result of our relationship with Christ. And they say actions speak louder than words, and in many ways that's true. If we say we are a Christian, and we want to have the full assurance that we truly are a Christian, we must necessarily act like one. Those loud-speaking actions, that persisting faith, will not only justify Christians before men, that's the point that James is making, but they will give us the joy and the assurance that we desperately need to maintain our hope to the end. So that's what we're going to be talking about this morning. Stand with me. Once more, as we read our text, this is Hebrews 6, 9 to 12. 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 in 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, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. This is the word of the Lord. Lord, as always, we thank you for your word. Lord, please speak now to us. In the name and for the sake of Christ, it's in his name that I pray. Amen. This may be a disputed statement today. I don't think it should be. But the best and the most effective way to discipline a child is to act swiftly, to act firmly, right? Cutting to the quick with stern and hard words at times, with decisive action, and then immediately following that with deep and tender love. This is the best way to discipline a child. And I say that from experience of not having done that nearly as well as I should. Often I have been too harsh and then not loving enough. But that model is laid out so clearly for us over the past couple weeks of texts. The author of Hebrews has taken a very parental tone in chapter six, hasn't he? He's essentially calling his readers spiritual infants, right? He told his readers that they need to grow up to be more mature. He follows that with some very hard words last week about the dangers of their immaturity, namely the danger of apostasy. And in context, he is warning that the immature Christian who doesn't grow up, who doesn't mature and bear fruit, is in real danger of apostasy, whose end is to be burned, he says. And not unlike a parent who sternly tells their child in the midst of some foolish or childish act, if you don't grow up and quit doing that, you're going to end up living on the streets. Have anybody said that? Because I'll probably have. Usually when we do that, though, it's kind of a hyperbolic, silly hyperbolic warning. But for the writer of Hebrews, we can say that he is dead serious about this. And after those harsh words, though, that he gave us last week, he does for the reader something so wonderful, so encouraging, and so instructive for us. He pulls us in close. He takes us by the hand. He tells us he loves us. And he assures us that he is confident of better things for us. Though I speak in this way, he says, though my words may be harsh, though they may be difficult to hear at times, though they may sting and cause a bit of internal strife. In your case, I'm sure of better things. Of better things. What is so effective about his assurance here in our passage is that his confidence or he grounds his confidence in love. Not love as an action, or not love inaction first. We'll get to that in a second, but love as an identity. Beloved, he says. This is the Greek word agapeos, a deep binding kind of love. Distinct and different from the phileo, right? The brotherly kind of love or friendship love. This is abiding forever love. Same love that Paul mentions in Colossians 3, verse 12. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience. And Paul goes on. The author's confidence, then, in the better things for his readers is grounded first in their identity as ones who are eternally loved. Loved by whom? Loved by the triune God, of course. How can any of us be sure of better things for us and for one another? Things that belong to salvation. As the writer of Hebrews did, I will pull you in close this morning and say that I can be sure of these things only because you are beloved by God. Our confidence must first and always come from our identity as chosen ones, holy and beloved of God. Though the word and life is often hard and harsh, let me assure you this morning that in Christ you are beloved. And only because you are in Christ and loved by Christ am I confident of better things for you. These better things belonging to salvation are all principally from the love of Christ. I want to make sure we're clear to start with that. The next verse, though, he points them to their works as further assurance of their salvation and the reality of their salvation in Christ. This is verse 10. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints as you still do. We know and we've we've talked about at length, bless you, about the fruits of the spirit that are necessarily or necessarily accompany salvation. We've talked about that at length. Those fruits that necessarily accompany salvation. I'm going to quote Dr. Phillips here. He says this quote, do you find hatred giving way to love and peace? Is envy being conquered by joy? Insatiable craving by gentleness and self-control? These are things we can discern about our own lives and which gauge our spiritual condition, end quote. So just from that internal, initial internal perspective, we should be able to evaluate our progress in those fruits of the Spirit. But what about our external relationships? And this is where the writer points us in our further assuring us of our salvation and our union in Christ. Look at how much you have loved and cared for one another, he says. Look at how much you've ministered to one another, especially when things were difficult. Later in Hebrews, the author says this from Hebrews 10, verse 32, but I recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison. What we see then is that because the Father, in and through Christ, loves us, we love him. And we prove our love to him by loving others. And this goes completely against this silly notion that your spouse or your family can become an idol, or that loving your friends and caring for them can become an idol, or that even diligence to be involved in the life and the ministry of the church is somehow less important than other things. Maybe this sounds crazy to you. I hope not. But the best way to love and serve God is to love your spouse, your family, and serve them. To love your church family and serve them. To love your friends and serve them. And if we're splitting hairs, probably in that order. If you are doing that, you can be assured that God is not overlooking your work. What I think I'm getting at is that you don't have to, this is just an example, you don't have to jet set to Africa to minister to strangers in order to prove yourself to God. Praise God that He does call people to do that. But so often our assurance is shaken because we aren't doing all of the things. But God's word very simply tells us to love each other, to love and serve the saints. Our assurance comes not from how much we do then, but how much we love. It is our overflow or outflow of love for one another by which we may be assured that we are in Christ. I think that's what Paul is really getting at in 1 Corinthians 13, right? 1 Corinthians 13, 1 to 3. If I speak in tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and have all faith, so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing. And if I give away all I have, and I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. And Paul argues from the negative there, but I'll argue from the positive, as that's really what our passage is doing this morning. And I'll say this. Because in Christ you have gained everything, love others. As though you are loving Christ. And by this you will surely know that his love is in you. This is the confidence that you can have in and through love. And the heart and the desire of the writer here is that we may live our lives in the joy of that full assurance of hope. Not that we be Christians who go through life cowering under the weight of eternal judgment, right, or looking over our shoulders every day for the apostasy monster. That kind of attitude makes Christians who serve and who love only out of fear. And whose Christian walk can best be defined by the word grudgingly or begrudgingly, one of the two. We know these people. Maybe you are these people. But we want something more for us. We want the heart that Paul describes in Ephesians. Ephesians 1, 18 to 19, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward those who believe according to the working of his great might. Have the full assurance, our text says, or my translation. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness, to have the full assurance. There in the text it literally means to fill up, having the full, to fill up. So we are earnest, right? Or we're diligent in the outworking of our faith so that we may be filled up with hope. So that we may be filled up with hope. And that's exactly what Paul says in Ephesians. Diligence in faith gives us an ever-increasing awareness of the riches of the glorious inheritance that we have been given. And necessarily produces joy in our service to God and to one another. Assurance of salvation, then, and the joy that comes from it, they don't require some magic formula or some secret knowledge. It is available to you that assurance. And my desire is that we all experience that increasing assurance of salvation. To receive it, though, we must love and serve one another. We must love and serve the church. We must love and serve our God. We may be tempted to say, hey, that's law. Don't put law on me. Don't tell me I must do something. And again, to think about that is to think about it in the negative and not in the positive. And to do that, I'll quote A. W. Pink. He says this what God rewards is only what He Himself has wrought in us. It is the Father's recognition of the Spirit's fruit. It may look now as though God places little value on sincere obedience to him, that in this world the man who lives for self gains more than he who lives for Christ, yet in a soon coming day it shall appear far otherwise. Consider also Jeremiah 31, verse 34. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. So what we see then is that in the grace of God, he doesn't remember our sins anymore. He forgets them. But in Hebrews, we see that he remembers all of our good works. So he forgets our sins and he remembers our good works. Every act of service you do for your family, for your friends, for your church, every ounce of love and compassion you show to others, every sacrifice you make for someone else's good is forever etched into the mind of God. Those things he remembers. And there is soon coming a day when you will stand before him, and I trust we will see the full extent of what God used our fruit and our works for his glory such that we will say, Oh Lord, if I had known you were doing all of that with a wretch like me, perhaps I would have been a little more earnest in my efforts. He is doing far more through you. And is not only transforming you and caring for you, but he is transforming and caring for others through you. God is loving others, he is calling others, he is saving others through you. What a joy it is then to serve Him and to have our hope filled up to the end. So we don't see the law then as a burden, but a delight that affords us not condemnation, but rather the means by which we can serve God. We can love others, and ultimately assure ourselves that we are His and He is ours. So finally, the author begins a point that he doesn't fully finish really until the fullness of chapter 11, which we'll get to at some point in the future, Lord willing. When in chapter 11 he describes that hall of faith as we kind of call it. He points, his point in here now is that our diligence is a defense against sluggishness. Our diligence, our earnestness is a defense against sluggishness. And that we have such a great company of biblical support for us on overcoming the temptations of life and persevering to the end. So often we feel like we're alone in all of our struggles, right? That simply isn't true. It is such a comforting and wonderful thing to realize that you're not the first person to ever plod your way to glory. In reality, you are standing on the shoulders of countless men and women who have faced all of life and whose anchors held to the end? Know and imitate then the endurance and the faithfulness of those biblical giants and historical giants given to us. Know your history, church. Imitate those men and women who did it, who ran the race, who finished well. Why do we think that we have to reinvent the wheel when the models are there for us? This one might sting a little. But almost certainly the reason why you aren't imitating those faithful saints is because you have become sluggish and lazy. In chapter 13, later in Hebrews, we will have affirmed to us once again that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And while this certainly speaks to the immutability of Christ, it also tells us that faith in Christ, obedience to him, is also the same from generation to generation to generation. Yes, our present generation faces some slightly different challenges, but then again, there is nothing new under the sun. And I read this in a commentary, and I tried to figure out how I could say this better, but I'm just like, no, I'm just gonna read this. So this is a little bit of a quote, but here, read this. I'll read this to you. Quote: If you have long been a student of the Bible, then you know the fellowship you have with its heroes. You find yourself struggling to leave behind the pleasures and treasures of this sinful world. And then as a result, encounter the reproach of God's people. Then you realize this is just what Moses endured. And you enter into fellowship with him. You engage in lonely service, unnoticed by those around you. And you recall David's young experience tending his father Jesse's flocks in the fields. And you find yourself surrounded by a pagan cultural, struggling to be useful in the world while not becoming of it. And you think of Daniel. You read his account in the Bible, and your heart draws close to him with thanks for the example that he has set. You come to a trial of sort, perhaps a thorn in the flesh, and you cry out to God time and time again, and he tells you, My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in your weakness. Then you realize you are sharing the very experience of the Apostle Paul. Or God has not left us alone without support and guidance. He sees and he knows your every situation. He has a word and example for you to keep you going, to keep you fighting, to keep you persevering. So don't become sluggish and neglect these examples and fail to imitate them. You don't have to forge a new path when there are already trails to glory worn out for you. This is what Paul means when he says Philippians 3, 10, 11, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Paul wanted to make it his chief ambition, he says there, to walk the same path that Christ walked, so that he would arrive at the same end as Christ. So to walk on the heels of the saints is to ensure that your path will end in glory, to inherit the promises. We then must be imitators of the faithful saints who have come before us. Not for our sake only, but also for the sake of all of those who will come after us. Maybe our calling is that simple, then. Diligently walk in the path of faith that others have walked, imitating them in love and obedience and service, so that we keep the road to glory well worn for all of those who will come after to see it clearly. What better or more important calling is there than to continue the work that Christ started for us? Going ahead of us, showing those walking behind the way to glory. And when you look at it that way, maybe you will be a little more averse to becoming sluggish in your call. When you realize that together we are keeping the road paved to glory, perhaps then we can keep going. Maybe persisting faith looks like keeping your heart and your mind on that final destination and loving those in your life enough to just keep showing them where you are going. It's really not complicated. But it does take diligence, persistence, one step at a time. This is the faith and the patience that will surely inherit the promises. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, as always, we love you and we thank you for your word. We pray and we ask that you would help us, Lord, to be diligent, to be persistent in the faith that you have so graciously given us, Lord. Help us to work out our salvation in fear and in trembling. Help us to make our calling and our election sure, Lord. Help us to be obedient to your word, not out of obligation, Lord, but out of a joy that we wish to serve you, Lord, and to love you by loving and serving others and by being obedient to you, Lord. Help us continually show those in our life the way to glory, Lord. Help us keep that path well worn. Those who come after us would know you and would know how to get to you, Lord. We love you and we thank you. We ask all these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.