Safe From Apostasy (Hebrews 6:1-12- Jeff Kliewer)

Move to seek a deeper relationship with you. Time in your word, Lord. Father, we ask that you bless this time in worship of your word, Lord, and in song, Lord, that it just be a pleasing sound to you, Lord.

And again, Lord, stir our hearts, Lord, to seek after you more and more every day, Lord, to seek your will and just to be strengthened and encouraged during this time, Lord, that we just be moved to continue in your word, Lord.

Thank you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. I saw the Lord entered me And delivered from every fear To look on this poor man cryin' This poor man cryin'

God, thank you so much for salvation in Jesus Christ. Thank you for the new birth. Thank you, God, that no one and nothing can snatch us out of your hand. We thank you that you set your seal upon us, a seal of ownership, guaranteeing our redemption until you take possession of all that belong to you, your inheritance.

Thank you, God, that those that you predestine, you also call, and those that you call, you also justify, and those justified are also glorified. There's nothing that can break this, and there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, neither height, nor depth, nor angels, nor demons, things present, things to come.

Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Thank you for this, God, that you will complete the good work that you began, and so we are secure in you because of your finished work.

Thank you for that, and now, Lord, as we open your word to what is one of the most dire warnings in all of scripture, we pray that we would be comforted by your love and yet spurred on to maturity, that we would take this warning to heart and not think ourselves above it, not take it flippantly, but recognize how serious it is so that we would both rest in Christ but also grow toward maturity.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So there have been many attempts to stop the gospel from its progress, many threats from the outside to the Christian faith. In the writing of the book of Hebrews, we are about in the 60s AD, and at that time, the emperor of Rome is Nero, and Nero is an enemy to the Christian faith.

In fact, there will come a point in time where he will burn the city of Rome because he wants to rebuild it, and he will blame it on the Christians. Of course, Paul and Peter are both martyred in Rome at this time, and so many Christians are departing from the faith because of the threat of persecution.

Persecution didn't stop with Nero. After him, there was one named Trajan in the 100s. He's famous for having martyred Ignatius of Antioch, threw him to the lions, but before dying, Ignatius said, Christianity is greatest when it is hated by the world.

The threats from the outside were not able to extinguish the flame of the gospel. In the 300s, Diocletian was the emperor of Rome, and he set off the worst persecution of the Christians of all. There were 10 waves of Roman persecution, and the Diocletian one in the 300s was absolutely the worst.

They would burn all the Bibles, destroy all the churches, and kill those who preached the gospel. His aim was to completely eradicate the Roman empire of Christianity. Of course, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, and they were unable to stop the progress of the gospel.

It's just like Daniel foresaw. Do you remember Daniel's vision? When he saw the kingdoms of the earth pictured as a statue, and there were clay feet and bronze legs, and different kingdoms were represented in this statue.

Well, at the end of Daniel's vision, chapter two, he sees a stone, a rolling stone. Maybe that's where that band got its name. But this rolling stone comes down, and smashes that statue to pieces, to powder, and the wind blows it away, and then the stone becomes a mountain and fills the whole earth.

The kingdom of Christ will conquer the kingdoms of this world. Jesus pictured it as a mustard seed. When Jesus began gathering disciples to himself, even in the upper room, there were only 120. But look today, where over two billion people name the name of Christ.

The mustard seed would grow to become a tree, and the birds of the air will find rest under its branches. The threats from the outside could not stop the progress of the gospel. In the 600s, Muhammad came and led the Muslim religion, which really advanced over the Christian world by the sword.

It even overtook Spain at one point in the 800s. Al-Anduza or something, Andalusia, Spain, was run by Muslims. So there was a great threat coming from Muhammadan religion and there were other kinds of threats.

In the 1300s, there was a plague that wiped out 50 to 60 of Christendom. Now, can you imagine what that would do to somebody's faith? You've trusted in God, and yet sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, were killed by this plague.

60 of the Christian world killed in the Black Death. In the 1500s, after the Reformation began, the counter-Reformation became bloody and violent and threats to the gospel came from the outside. Even in our country, which was founded on the gospel in a sense that even if many of the founders of our country were either deists or at least theists of some nature, many were Christian, the ideas of the gospel were underneath the founding of America.

But wasn't America also founded in a time of war? The Revolutionary War. And then on American soil in the 1800s, the Civil War. Can you imagine what that did to the faith of some? And yet Christianity continued to prosper.

The gospel then in the 1800s really made progress to the ends of the earth. David Livingston to Africa, and how many missionaries laid down their lives on African soil? Hudson Taylor to China, and Niram Judson to Burma.

Missionaries going to the ends of the earth, and now the gospel has penetrated to almost every country on the planet. In fact, there are Christians in every country on the planet. In the 1900s, because of higher criticism, European countries began to reject the worldview of the Bible, and accepted some kind of militaristic nationalism precipitating World War I.

The war to end all wars. Can you imagine what that did to the faith of some? Then World War II, many other wars, and today I think the biggest threat that we're facing here in America from the outside is not an invading power, it's not even physical war, but an ideological war against the Christian faith.

What happened last week with big tech censoring the voices of the people that they don't like, that's really concerning. That will result in an attack on the Christian message, because what we preach from the Bible and the full counsel of God is not popular to big tech.

And so if they can silence some, it could be that others will be silenced before long. And Christians will be made to feel like we're on an island, that there's not very many of us, because our voices won't be heard in the public square.

But true pulpits will still be ablaze with the gospel, and true Christians will still be preaching Christ and him crucified. And even if it doesn't look like it in the media, the gospel will be speeding forward, because threats from the outside can never extinguish the flame of the gospel.

Greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. The gospel will continue to run, but I tell you, there is a greater threat than the external ones that come against the gospel. And that is the internal threat of becoming lethargic.

It is the threat of gathering in the name of Christ, feeling that you've done your religious duty and going off to live like the devil. It is the threat of drifting away from God in your heart, the threat that's inside of each of us, the tendency to sin.

Do you feel it?

The old psalmist did, remember? Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Take my heart, Lord, and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. All of us are sinners. And the danger of falling away from Christ, now that is a danger that we need to talk about.

We're gonna look at it now in Hebrews chapter six, verses one to 12. It's a passage about apostasy, falling away from the faith. It is one of the most debated passages in the history of the church for 2 ,000 years.

And for that reason, nowadays, it's something that most preachers won't touch with a 10-foot pole. But I love our church because you want the meat, right? We talked about this last week. We don't wanna just live on milk.

We want the meat of God's word. We want to dive deeply into the text because some of you, as we read these words, will say, I'm not exactly sure what it's saying. Isn't that exciting? That today, you can come to a deeper understanding of God's word and you can leave understanding words of scripture that you did not understand when you came in.

Let's pray toward that end. Let's read God's word and pray that he opens our eyes. So picking up on the thought from last week, we can't just be slow to hear. We've gotta press on in our doctrine. Otherwise, we could fall away.

Verse one of chapter six. Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith toward God and instruction about washings and laying on of hands the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

And this we will do if God permits, for it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit and 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.

For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed and its end is to be burned.

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.

It's difficult, isn't it?

There are really three paths through this passage of scripture that have been taken for 2 ,000 years. One of them is the Arminian position, the idea that someone can lose their salvation. Those taking this interpretation would say that the picture of verses three to six is believers who have genuinely been born again, but they fall away and they lose their salvation and they go to hell.

That's one view. A second view is a modern Calvinistic variant of Calvinism that really came out of Dallas Seminary and the Dispensationalists. If you read the BKC, the Bible Knowledge Commentary, the person who writes the book of Hebrews commentary in that takes the second view.

And this is that it is a saved person who falls away in the sense of drifting from the faith, no longer gathering, maybe not even naming the name of Christ anymore, but the end is not hell. This is only like a disciplinary kind of judgment that falls upon them, get it?

So it's not someone who loses their salvation, it's somebody who drifts and backslides from the faith and therefore God's gonna have to discipline them. The fire is the fire of refining, that ultimately they're gonna come back or else they'll die and they'll be okay when they get to heaven.

And then there's the third view, which is the right one, which is the view that I take. It's not what makes it right, but this is kind of the Reformation view of the text and what I think is consistent with all of scripture.

And this is the view that what you have in verses three to six is someone who comes very, very near to salvation. In fact, each description that you have is written the way it is to make the point that they are in the congregation, they are gathering, they are tasting, they are experiencing and they in every way, shape and form look the part of a Christian.

You would have no way of knowing that they would be among the apostates, but one day they deny the Lord Jesus Christ. They walk away from the faith. So this is not the picture of someone who stumbles in sin because everybody here will stumble and sin.

This is the picture of an apostate who only looked the part and their end is to be burned. It is a picture of eternal damnation when we see that word burned at the end of verse eight. So this third view, I would say the key to unlocking this passage is verse nine.

Go with me there. Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things. Notice this phrase, things that belong to salvation, things that accompany salvation, things that go with salvation, which begs the question, what is salvation?

To be saved is to be rescued by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is when a sinner is forgiven and God proclaims over them to tell us die. That God's wrath toward a sinner like me has been satisfied in the blood of Christ's cross.

And there is no more wrath remaining for the sinner because Christ has stood in my stead, borne the penalty in his body on the tree. This is to be born again. It is a gift from God, an irreversible gift because God himself accomplishes the work in the heart of the believer.

There are those who are born of the flesh, meaning you're born, you come into the world. But there are also those who have a second birth. The second birth, the new birth from heaven is transformational.

The Holy Spirit himself begins to reside in the heart of the believer. And so Ephesians 1, 13 says, having believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. The new birth is a supernatural work, not of man, but it is to be born from above, John 1, 12.

Now, if this is the case, that God gives a new birth, there will be evidence that you have been born again. Your life will be transformed. When God comes and saves a sinner, God's work of salvation is noticeable.

In other words, it bears fruit. You will see that this person is different. And one of the fruits of salvation is perseverance in the faith. Accompanying the supernatural work of God is his preserving work.

He preserves those who belong to him. He keeps us, Jude 1, 23. He holds on to those that he has saved.

It is a fruit.

And so I say the key here, look at chapter six, verse nine. That last phrase, things that belong to salvation is set over and against those who fall away. Falling away indicates that the person was not saved because what accompanies salvation did not happen in their case.

So let's look at it now from verse one and following. Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.

Instruction about washings, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. So we're told we need to move beyond basic doctrines. So why does the author of Hebrews pick these six things?

He picks these six things because the temptation of the Hebrew believers was to fall back to Judaism. The book is called Hebrews. So what he's writing to is a group of people who came out of Judaism. They still have that Hebrew ethnic identity.

And the temptation is to go back to the temple, which by the way is gonna be destroyed in 70 AD. They only have a couple of years left.

They don't know that.

The temptation is to go back to Judaism. So you have basically the conversion experience beginning to end pictured here. Repentance and faith, that's how somebody gets saved. That's a basic starting point.

Washings and laying on of hands, that picture's the laying on of hands from priestly ordination. Or in the temple, we're told in Leviticus 1 .4, he shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for sin.

In Judaism, you bring your sacrificial animal, you lay your hand on its head, and that animal stands in your place. In Christianity, the work is finished. No laying on of hands except to commission preachers of the gospel for ordination and things of that nature.

Last week, we asked Tim Robinson to come up and myself and Eric laid hands on him in second service and prayed for him in his role as youth director. That's laying on of hands in the New Testament sense.

And then there is resurrection and eternal judgment. So we're looking at last things. So from beginning to end, these are basic.

How is it basic?

Well, either you're going to go with the Christian belief, salvation through repentance and faith,.

Laying on of hands,.

Baptism is the corresponding initiation rite, and then believing in the resurrection of the dead and eternal life through Christ, that's basic. Whereas in Judaism, you have all the ritualistic things that are standing in juxtaposition.

So that's why those things are listed. But I digress because what are we supposed to do?

Move on.

This is where we're not supposed to get stuck. We got to get beyond this. So let's look at verse three. This we will do if God permits. Evidently he's permitting right now because I'm about to do this.

And you guys are here. And wow, there's a lot of you here. Praise the Lord. God is doing something. It's him permitting you to be here. His preserving power that has you still gathering in his name. So if he permits, well, what would be the counter to that?

For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, shared in the Holy Spirit, tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, and then have fallen away.

A six-fold description of a particular identity group. Now our culture is obsessed with identity groups. Only the things over which they obsess are meaningless. How much melanin do you have in your skin?

Meaningless. Not an important identity group. How much money do you have? Economic class, meaningless. Here is an identity group that matters. Are you saved or are you not? Do you belong to Christ or are you still in your sin?

Those are the two big identity groups, saved and unsaved. But there's a third identity group pictured here. And that is people who look like they're saved, they say they believe even, and in some sense they do believe,.

But they're not saved.

And this should be a check on our spirits right now. I try to take the same tone in my preaching as the text. If the text is very somber and serious, I try not to joke a lot.

This is serious.

It could be that some are gathered here today and you look like a Christian, look the same as everybody else. You think you're a Christian, but in the end you will be burned. Jesus dealt with a group like this.

Turn back with me to John chapter eight, verse 30. This is fascinating right here. John 8, 30. As Jesus is speaking, catch this, many believed in him. Many believed in him. And in our context, growing up in American evangelicalism, they believed, and they can quote John 3, 16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. They can quote that verse. There's many who believe in him in this sense.

So this is an open and shut case, right? According to John 3, 16, they believe, where are they going?

Heaven. Wrong.

Just keep reading. Verse 31.

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, do you guys feel the force of that? Especially because John's context, his whole reason why he writes, I write these things so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and by believing have life in his name.

John's whole point is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who believe will be saved and others will not. But notice verse 31. Those who had believed him, he says these words, follow it. If you abide in my word, you are truly saved.

You are truly my disciples. Now he doesn't say you have to earn salvation by abiding. He says the abiding, the continuing, the persevering in the faith will prove forth that you've truly been saved. Now notice, these who believed in the small sense of believed, notice what happens to them.

They like what he's saying right here. He's telling them good things.

But notice what happened.

He tells them you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. And something about them, something about that, poked them the wrong way. Look how they respond. They answered him, we're offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.

That was a sore spot. He touched a sore, you do not tell them that they're enslaved because they are. They're still enslaved by Rome but they don't really want to admit it. It's a false political allegiance.

Not only that, they're enslaved to sin and they don't know it. How is it that you say you will become free? Something just turned in the text, didn't it?

Did you see that?

Now they're questioning Jesus. They liked what he had to say up until a point. As a preacher of the gospel, most of the culture likes most of what I have to say. Most people can come in and love the morality and how you raise your children to be respectful.

And they love the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love your enemies, judge not lest you may be judged. People love much of what the Bible has to say. But there comes a point where something that Jesus says cuts them the wrong way.

They reach this point. If we had time to spend in this text because we need to get back to Hebrews, you would see that this only escalates from this point forward. By the end of chapter eight, Jesus is saying, John 8, 58, before Abraham was even born, I am.

They are so offended that they pick up stones to stone him. The same people that the text says believed him now are trying to kill him. That's important. It means that there's a sense in which someone can be enlightened and yet not have the new birth.

It's only an intellectual enlightenment. There's some belief, something they like,.

They're attracted to it.

They're in some sense believing they're here and they like what the preacher's saying, but they're not born again. They have tasted the heavenly gift, but they have not drunk and received that fountain of living water into them.

They have tasted the goodness of the word of God. That's why they like to come to church. Something they like about it. They don't gather at the mosque or the synagogue.

They gather where?

In the assembly of the saints. They've tasted the powers of the coming age. They've seen miracles. They felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. There was some feeling in them. Wow, something is happening in this building when singing how great thou art.

They saw how the people sung and they realized that's not how they sing Frozen or some other song. There's something different about the way these Christians sing and they felt it and they wanted to be a part of it.

Do you see?

So go back to Hebrews six. This is the identity group. The reason that there's six points of references, the first five all positive because it's trying to underscore the point of how close they came, tasting but not drinking.

And here's the essential point in verse six, then have fallen away. So that's the identity group. Next, what's the assertion? Second point, second big point. The assertion is that it's impossible to renew them again to repentance.

Now that is scary. Look at the beginning of verse four. The sentence actually begins there. For it is impossible. And then you have the six-fold description of who we're talking about. But continue the sentence.

For it is impossible to restore them again to repentance. That's the point. Does that mean that someone who apostatizes, who leaves the Christian faith cannot come back? Impossible. The word impossible is adunaton.

And what you'll discover as you study that through the New Testament is that what is impossible cannot in any way, shape, or form be done. By man, it is possible with God. Notice the passivity of verse six.

To restore them. Meaning the person who's gone apostate, they once gathered in the church, now they curse, and I know people like this, people who curse the name of Christ that I baptized. It's amazing, and it breaks your heart.

The passivity here is they are the ones being acted upon. It's impossible for you to do anything to restore them. In other words, when you brought them the gospel, you preached Christ and Him crucified.

You used the scripture as your sword. You prayed in the spirit.

And they came.

Now, they leave all of that behind. Preacher, evangelist, father, mother, sister, what do you have left to win them? Answer, nothing. It's like they've been inoculated to the gospel. They grew up with it.

They heard it all the while.

They seem to be getting it.

You thought they had it.

But now they've gone off and decided it's a sin, they want nothing to do with it. What can you do? Answer, nothing. With man, this is impossible. This is a dreadful state. We're being warned of the condition of an apostate, someone who's been there, done that, and now wants nothing to do with it.

It's a very dire warning, but keep reading. Here's the rationale. Since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm, you notice what they are doing? They're the active ones here. And so the idea is they are responsible.

This has become a very personal thing to God. In rejecting the Son of God, they stand condemned before God, they stand before the one with whom they have to do. Nobody can help them. Even the word doesn't seem to touch them at all.

It's them and God.

They're responsible. It's a scary place to stand before the hands of the living God. That's the rationale. What are they doing? Well, they gathered with the Christians, they looked the part. Guys, there are so many people in your life right now that watch you all the time.

They know you're a Christian. They've seen you post verses on Facebook. They know that you go to church, and they watch you. And those who have not come to Christ, they would love nothing more than for you to stop worshiping Christ.

And if you begin to attack the very faith you once preached, you then are subjecting Christ to open shame. He was put to shame on the cross once for the sins of the world. If you reject that offering for sin, there is no other.

There's no other sacrifice to be made. He's never coming again.

He died once.

He is coming again to judge, but never coming again to die again. See, this is the horror. This is what's so despicable about this crime. They're subjecting him to open shame. The world now is mocking.

Huh, it didn't work for him, did it? Oh, he got into that Christian thing for a while. But now look at him. He's back in the world. And that mockery is a very serious thing. That's what's in view here.

Now at the end, we're gonna close by praying. Because remember, here's the point. What is impossible for man is possible for God. He does bring the prodigal home. Remember the book of Luke, chapter 15?

The prodigals do come home. And when they do, it's the father that runs and welcomes. So we're gonna pray for prodigals as we close in prayer. But just the big idea here, let's keep going with the flow of the text.

We're on to verse seven now. This is the analogy to the ordinary. This is how Christianity should ordinarily progress. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated receives a blessing from God.

This is how we gather in the church. We believe what's written every single word, which is in harmony with itself.

And we grow.

The ordinary course is that our kids will come to church and they will grow up hearing the gospel. And that will be like water to them. And their life will bring forth fruit. This is the ordinary course.

Now the special case of apostasy, which is what the passage is about, verse eight. If it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed and its end is to be burned. That's scary. And we can't water it down by saying, well, this is only a burning, which is refining.

No, it in fact deliberately says, its end is to be burned. This is final condemnation. And these are people who gathered in the church and thought that they were saved. It is a dangerous thing to toy with sin.

Many people abuse grace. Many people mistake the Christian message for a prayer that you pray and signing a decision card. Walking an aisle at the Greg Laurie Festival, not to pick on Greg, but any kind of evangelistic festival.

And assume that because I did that, I'm going to heaven. Many people will be lost because of that deception. You see, genuine conversion results in perseverance in the faith, growing in godliness. You will never be perfect, but you're striving to be like him and he's conforming you to his image and you're continuing in the faith.

Those who reject Christ, even if they were baptized, even if they looked the part to everybody else, they will be lost. That's the point of the text. I like the analogy of the buzzard and the fox. There was a buzzard that saw a dead fox on an iceberg, a small iceberg on a river.

And that river was progressing towards a waterfall. And so seeing that it was easy game, the buzzard flew down and landed on that iceberg and began to feast on the dead carcass of the fox.

A free meal.

What could go wrong? And delighted himself in that. And he could see the waterfall in the distance, but he had plenty of time. So he continued to feast on the carcass of the fox. As he heard the roar of the waterfall approaching, he started to think I better go soon, but not quite ready.

Eat as much as I can, after all, I have wings.

What's the big deal about a waterfall?

I can just fly. And so the buzzard waited to the last second. But when he tried to jump, he found that his feet were frozen by the ice. And he was stuck and he went over to his doom. Parents, don't tell that one right before bed.

One doesn't end well. But that's the point of the passage, isn't it? So many Christians abusing grace thinking, you know what, I am gonna live however I want for the course of my life. I'm going to indulge the flesh, feed on that dead carcass of sin.

And that's where I'll find my delight. And right before I die, I'm gonna say sorry because Jesus died for my sins. Sadly, many of these will find out that before they ever get to the point of repentance, their feet have frozen and they have no more place for repentance.

Esau found that out. We'll learn later in Hebrews, when he sought repentance, but it was too late. They won't even want to repent when they're 85 years old and they've begun to hate Christ. They've turned away from the teachings of the Bible.

They'll never come back. That's the danger of apostasy. It's a slow drift. It's a moral drift too. Here, what's in view here is not so much a doctrinal turning, it's a drifting in the heart, not progressing in the doctrine, being slow to hear, not interested in things like this.

I'm noticing everybody is really into the text today. Not seeing a lot of yawning. That's a good sign. It's because last week's warning, remember? Don't be slow to hear. You've gotta pay attention. If you continue like that, you're safe from apostasy as you continue to grow in the faith, grow in the doctrine.

But the verse eight person is burned and worthless and cursed. Cursed is hell. That's a strong warning. So we finish here. We talked about the key to the text, nine and 10, things that belong to salvation.

And by the way, in verse nine, I love how the author turns and reminds the congregation.

That he loves them.

And this is beloved. I expect better things of you. The expectation is that all of us will continue in the faith. This is loving to give this warning. Sometimes people think it's hateful to say the things that the Bible, hate speech.

No, it's loving to speak what the Bible says, beloved. Then it says in verse 11 and 12, this is the charge. 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.

So the charge is to be earnest. That word sluggish in verse 12, it's the same Greek word as chapter five, verse 11. Remember the rebuke, not to be dull of hearing, not to be sluggish of hearing. That's the charge, to be earnest in continuing to pursue Christ.

Not to think that you've arrived and that you've kind of mastered this whole Christian thing, been there, done that. That is the path to destruction. But the humble path where you beat your chest and say, Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner.

Recognize that you're not worthy. You bring nothing to the table and you continue to look to him. Now, quick warning. If you turn too inward and you just look at yourself,.