I imagine as we come to the very middle of the Book of Hebrews it might be legitimate for any of you to ask if I’m ever tempted to quit, to just blow off the Christian life, to abandon Christ.
And my answer is not so much that, though I must admit the thought has occurred to me, but always with the question where would else might I turn to resolve the issue of the emptiness of life without the true God.
What would be a greater temptation for me is the matter of quitting the ministry—quitting the love and service of the saints on Christ’s behalf.
Why? Because as only pastors and their wives might understand, ministry involves a lot of rejection, repeated rejections. Part of the typical landscape of ministry is that people are always coming and going. You give your heart to those who come; they often take it with you as they leave. And like it or not, if you’ve really loved someone, there is often an element of the personal, as in a personal rejection. I know that I have been entrusted with a message which is unalterable, if I alter it I risk God’s displeasure, and if I don’t alter I risk man’s displeasure and man’s rejection. However, after the guillotine drops, I’m often left wondering if something about me was what resulted in the rejection, or if in fact, it was something about the uncompromising message of Jesus Christ.
And that is often a painful evaluation, one that forces me to admit that I am beset with personal weaknesses and foibles that I am sometimes blind to and could well be valid reasons for rejection.
And I was there again this past week. It was reported to me that a certain young lady attended my Wednesday night Bible study had sent a letter to the church office that was heart-felt. Then she did not show up for the study, and she didn’t explain her absence as she often had before. So I felt anxious much of that night, expecting the guillotine to once again drop upon my emotions, and perhaps this relationship, again the next day, when the letter might be read to me.
And so I asked myself again, why in the world do you keep exposing yourself to these sorts of hurts and struggles. You know you’re shy. You know you will never be the life of the party. It’s the last thing you ever wanted to do to expose yourself publicly week after week to people’s acceptance or rejection, because you’re not exactly the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.
And this morning we come to a passage that largely answers that question. And the answer is this: I persevere. I am faithful to Jesus because He is ever-so and forever faithful to those who persevere.
That’s the message of Hebrews 6:9-20. But for me, it’s not merely words. It is after more than 30 years of pastoring, the voice of experience. God has repeatedly come through for me when the struggles brought me to the brink, even beyond the brink of persevering in ministry. Because as Psalm 34:18 puts it, God promises to be close to the broken-hearted.
The writer to the Hebrews as we come to verse 9 has just issued the sternest warning we find in the Book of Hebrews in the first eight verses. He warns the believers that if they abandon Christ, they may find themselves in a place of irreversible apostasy—that it may well be impossible to renew them to repentance after they again crucified Christ to themselves and exposed Him to open shame.
But he has a pastor’s heart, Christ’s heart, tender to those he has just severely warned, determined to assure them of His great love for them, and that because of this great love, he has warned them, even though He is convinced of better things concerning them.
And so now, out of his love, he begins to comfort them, assuring them that God will never forget their loving service if they never forget Him.
Our first point this morning from verses nine and 10: Know God will never forget your loving service if you don’t forget Him.
Remember those that He’s speaking to. They have likely been believers for a long time, even for decades. They have experienced decades of persecution in Judea at the hands of the unbelieving Jewish community. We see how they have suffered described in Hebrews 10:32-34 when the writer recounts for them this: “But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.”
So these apparent believers had been through the mill, so to speak because of their identification with Christ. That is worth mentioning at this point, with the added encouragement that all their ministry and suffering will not be forgotten, if they endure. So the writer, representing the Lord Himself tenderly addresses them in this fashion in verse 9: “But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you—”the better things being something other than the abandonment of Christ—“and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.” In other words, I don’t really believe for the most of you that this warning applies. I expect that you will demonstrate that my confidence in your willingness to persevere will be rewarded. And that your salvation will be demonstrated by your willingness to persevere in the same sorts of service and love that have characterized you in the past.
And then a vital encouragement in verse 10, one that I have often found on pastor’s appreciation cards that so many of you have given me: “For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.”
Again, this is a hope, or a confident expectation, which has not yet been fully realized. It’s a promise from God that if we don’t forget Jesus, He most definitely will not forget us and the loving sacrifices we have made for Him in having ministered to, and the author is careful to include this, continuing to minister to the saints.
Now it’s important to note the precise words chosen here. Notice he says that God is not so unjust so as to forget their work and the love which you have shown toward His name.
In other words, the motive for the work of having ministered to and continuing to minister to other believers is clear—it’s out of a love for the name of Jesus Christ. It’s out of a love for Christ. And the promise is reminiscent of Jesus’ own words found in Matthew 25 about the judgment of the sheep and the goats at the end of this age. To the sheep, you and I who have ministered to the saints in his name, He will say, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it—fed the hungry, visited the sick and imprisoned, clothed the poor, etc., etc., to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”
Whatever we do, or as he said to the goats, or fail to do, it will be counted as though we have done it for Jesus Christ Himself. So it is very personal and will be counted as personal by Jesus Himself how we continue to follow Him, or how we don’t. The promise from Jesus, and from this word here, is Jesus will not forget, we will be rewarded for even a cup of water given to one in need in His name.
You remain faithful Jesus, not only in profession, but in loving service to other believers, the guarantee is that God absolutely will not forget. You will receive an incredible reward in the Kingdom to come as though did whatever you did for Jesus and Jesus Himself.
The question for some of us is whether we are serving and loving the saints in this way. For others, it’s have we grown weary. For both, the answer is to get on with it, get on with serving one another faithfully and diligently because there will be great reward!
In addition to the reward comes something else, and something not to be trifled with in this life. It’s the matter of assurance—assurance of salvation, assurance of God’s pleasure, assurance that God is pleased with us and hears our prayers. And believe it or not, the uniform testimony of the New Testament is that that assurance also comes because of our works of obedience. The more faithful we are to Christ even to the end, the more assured we are that we are right with Him, and that heaven is assured to us.
Second point, faithfully and diligently serve Jesus to the end to experience full assurance.
Now where does it say this? In the next two verses! Verses 11 and 12: “And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
Did you notice that? It says continuing to show the same diligence in loving service to the saints is a means to realizing the full assurance of hope until the end. Hope here refers to the confident expectation of the salvation that Jesus Christ offers—the confident expectation that we will ultimately share in the eternal Kingdom of God and Christ. And God’s Word is saying that our continued persevering love and service demonstrated toward the saints will result in our having that assurance that heaven is our ultimate possession and end.
Are your surprised by that? We are often taught that your assurance of heaven is based on the trustworthiness of God Himself and His Word, and that is absolutely true. It’s the very next thing that the writer to the Hebrews is going to talk about. But it is also true that our works, our service, our obedience to Christ, is also an assurance to us that we are truly saved.
Where else do we find such an exhortation: Well, take a look at II Peter 1:10-11, where the Apostle Peter says much the same thing: “Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; 11 for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.” And the Apostle John chimes in with this simple statement found in I John 2:3: “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.”
So assurance of our salvation also comes by our diligence in serving and loving the saints, and in this way keeping Christ’s commandments.
And the writer finalizes his thoughts on the issue of assurance by again exhorting his readers “not to be sluggish.”--not to be dull of hearing, the same words in Greek are used here as we’re used in Hebrews 5:11 about the reason for the lack of spiritual maturity. He’s saying you’ve got to move beyond that. And you move beyond that so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
In other words, there are others whom they observed, probably the apostles themselves, who have demonstrated how you inherit and obtain God’s promises. It is through a faith characterized by loving and enduring obedience.
Do you struggle with doubt about your salvation? A possible solution is to get serious about serving Christ. Begin to do something with your faith; let your faith produce works that are in keeping with being a follower of Jesus Christ. Repent of living selfishly, live for others and in that way you will live for Christ. Volunteer this morning to serve in some way in our body. Believe me, we have opportunities.
After all, the assurance of our salvation is the source of joy for the true believer. It’s hard to be excited about your relationship with God and whether you’re at peace with Him, whether you’re right with Him, whether you’re headed to heaven or not is in serious doubt. Showing your faith by what you do, according to God’s promise here, is helpful in gaining that assurance if you have any doubt.
And so are the promises of God. And that’s the next point. It’s the point of verses 9-20. Our next point; Trust God’s promises—He’s proven Himself absolutely trustworthy. He’s proven Himself absolutely trustworthy through salvation and biblical history.
Having mentioned examples of faith and endurance, he now provides one, one revered by all Jews, Christians and non-Christians alike, the very progenitor of all Jews and of all who have the faith that saves, according to the Bible, Abraham himself.
Verse 13: “For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.”
Now we need to think of Abraham’s walk with God. God made a promise to Abraham that if he left His people and went to the Promised Land that He would make Abraham into a great nation, and through Him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. It’s significant that at the point this promise was made Abraham was already 75 years old, and his wife Sarah, 65, was barren—they had no children. Abraham immediately filled his part of the deal—he moved to the Promised Land. But he had to wait a full 25 years before his wife would bear him a son—when he was fully 100 years old and she was 90 years old and had been barren all that time. In other words, for a long time, circumstances weren’t encouraging about this matter of God fulfilling His promise—there were decades of childlessness, even as these believers had experienced decades of discouraging circumstances, continued persecution, for following Christ. However, Abraham continued to demonstrate obedient faith all this time, though there were some struggles and mistakes, but ultimately He trusted God all this time, and obeyed Him, and eventually, when Abraham was a 100, he had his first child by Sarah.
However, what’s most interesting here is that the promise and the oath spoken of here is found in Genesis 22:17, about 15 years after the birth of Isaac his son. It comes on the occasion, what we might find as the strange occasion when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son on Mt. Moriah—the son who was the object of all the promises of God and who was the apple of Abraham’s eye. The New Testament tells us that Abraham reckoned that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead, if necessary, to fulfill His promises, and so based on that kind of incredible faith, He obeyed, and even came to the point of raising his hand against Isaac on Mt. Moriah in order to obey God’s command. God stopped him, of course, and provided instead for the sacrifice through a ram whose horns were caught in the nearby brush. And by Abraham’s obedient faith in the face of the most unimaginable of all tasks—sacrificing His son—God made this declaration, this promise, that now He would surely bless Abraham abundantly, that surely he would while multiplying Him, multiply Him abundantly.
What we can say here is by Abraham persevering and incredibly obedient faith that He hit the jackpot in terms of loving and pleasing God. It was through an obedient and incredibly persevering faith in God, against all appearances that Abraham heard God exclaim, with incredible excitement and devotion, that He would surely—that’s the oath, bless and multiply Abraham beyond measure.
Now many of you know that I was called to minister to Jewish people supernaturally about a decade ago, a call that caused me to seriously wonder why it is still God’s priority that the Gospel go to the Jews first, and then the Gentiles, as reflected in Romans 1:16-17. What I concluded ultimately is that it was because of this very thing—this very promise made to Abraham. When you are faithful to God, He is ever so faithful and devoted to His promises toward you. God is still devoted to the descendants of Abraham, the Jews, today, despite the fact that they have been ungrateful in large part, and disobedient, even though they were vitally involved in crucifying the Messiah who was sent to save them, and so He is even now devoted to saving them even when they aren’t very interested in being saved.
And what the writer to the Hebrews is saying is if you are in like manner perseveringly faithful to Jesus is that He will be forever faithful to you in the same way He was to Abraham.
And then he explains how sure God’s promise was to Abraham, because in a sense, we are all Abraham’s children because we are of the same obedient kind of faith that characterized Abraham.
Verse 15: “And so having patiently waited (as you should), He obtained the promise. For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath,” that is a covenant or a contract is “given as confirmation is an end to every dispute.”
An oath or a covenant by men was a swearing, typically toward God, that if one of the parties to any agreement did not keep his part of the agreement that then God was called upon to judge that party for his failure to comply with His promises. The oath often invoked death as the judgment. The greater entity, God was involved in the oath, as a means of assuring or guaranteeing that there would be substantial consequences for the offender who broke the agreement. And so in this way, an oath, the equivalent of a covenant made with God, was the end, or settled, every dispute that might take place between men who had made an agreement or a contract with each other. An oath was a solemn declaration before God, inviting His judgment, if either party failed to keep his part of the bargain.
So, the writer here is saying that God not only made a promise to Abraham, in Genesis 22:17 by saying “I will surely,” He was swearing by Himself, since there was no one greater to swear by, that He would bless and multiply Abraham according to His previous promise.
Verse 16: “For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of very dispute. In the same way God, desiring to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God toile, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.”
What are the two things in which it is impossible for God to lie? Because of God’s character, he automatically keeps all His promises. His word is absolutely sure and reliable. And when God makes an oath, a covenant on top of a promise, we can be doubly assured that God will not lie since He has solemnized His promise. Either one we can rely one, His promise or His oath, but He gives both to assure us of His guarantee to fulfill the promises He has given us.
Now it doesn’t matter that what was promised to Abraham was a bit different from what has been promised to us. God is faithful, and He will do it, but in His time, if we patiently endure and persevere.
So count on God’s word. As Jesus said, it cannot be broken, and it promises heaven to those who persevere.
And it is also an anchor to the souls of all of us who depend on it.
Depend on God’s promises as a firm anchor to the soul as you experience the storms of life.
The writer goes on to express this in verse 19: “This hope, of God’s fulfillment of His Word, we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil.
The writer mixes metaphors effectively here. Are you tossed to and fro by the difficulties of life, especially the struggles to continue to follow Christ? It is hope that will cause you to endure, a hope guaranteed by God’s unchanging Word. It’s a hope that is firmly anchored and will keep us from being driven away from the Lord by the storms of life. It is sure and steadfast, that anchor, and it is that hope, that anchor that enable us to live lives that sure and steadfast in our faith and obedience to the Lord.
And it is that anchor, that promise, that enters within the veil.
What in the world is the writer talking about here? Well it’s something that any good Jew was familiar with. It was the veil of the temple that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple, that separated the manifest presence of God and was too holy for anyone but the high priest to enter, and then only once a year. And now we’re being told that our great High Priest Jesus is the one who has entered within the veil with that anchor of our hope, into the very presence of God on our behalf.
Verse 20: “where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”
In other words, Jesus Himself is that anchor, the assurance of our hope, the anchor that now stands in the very presence of God, interceding on our behalf, already making sure that we will one day also enter into the manifest presence of God in the Kingdom of God to come.
And here he introduces us again to that meaty teaching about the fact that Jesus is our ultimate High priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, a teaching that will occupy his book for the next three chapters.
So I’ve told my story some. I’ve told Abraham story some. What about you? Have you thought about quitting, slowing down, taking it easy, or abandoning Christ altogether?
Ultimately, it comes down to who or what you’re going to believe. Are you going to believe the lies and deceptions of sin, Satan, and this world, that there is a better and lasting way apart from Christ?
Or are you going to trust the most trustworthy man in all of history, the only man to predict His own resurrection and fulfill it, who has demonstrated His power over sin and death like no one else in all of history.
I’ve made my choice. I’m trusting Jesus and His Word. Because He has demonstrated Himself to me, as He has many saints through history, that when we persevere, when we are enduringly faithful to Jesus, He is forever faithful to us.
Let’s pray.
