The Blessings of Spiritual Diligence (Hebrews 6:11-12)

We turn your Bibles to Hebrews chapter six, please. Hebrews chapter six.

And when you find your place, let's bow our heads in prayer before we begin. Father, it is a great gift of your mercy that you give us your word and that you reveal so clearly your intentions in our salvation, your redemptive plan, your purposes and reasons behind all that transpires in this world.

We thank you that we can place our confidence in your word, which is true, and know you through it, and know you through your son, the

Lord Jesus Christ, in whom our great God is revealed. And we pray that as we look into your word today, that you would confirm our hearts in the truth, grant us the assurance that is the gift of all those who are yours in Christ, and encourage our hearts together in your word.

We ask your blessing upon this time and the power of your Holy Spirit in the name of Christ our Lord, we pray, amen.

Well, we are reaching the end of the warning passage in Hebrews chapter six, and that is verse 11 and 12.

And not everybody would say that that's the end of the warning passage. Some people would say that this warning passage goes through the end of verse 20, the end of chapter six.

And I wouldn't argue with that too much, only to point out that we are past, when we get to the end of verse 12, we are really past the solemn and severe wording of the warning passage for certain.

We are past the reproof from chapter five, verse 11, through chapter six, verse three, that strong reproof for their spiritual immaturity.

And then we get into the very stern warning, the solemn words describing the apostates and the danger of them falling away from the faith, those who are never saved to begin with, in verses four through eight.

And having passed those two major sections of chapter six, now we come to kind of the encouragement that the author wants to give to his readers concerning their own salvation and their own assurance of their salvation based upon the promises of God and the goodness of God.

And there is some value for us as Christians in knowing something about apostates. And some who argue that this passage teaches that a believer can lose their salvation, one of the arguments that they offer is why, if it's impossible for a believer to lose their salvation, why does the author warn these

Christians about the danger of losing their salvation? That's a form of question begging. It's actually kind of a circular argument that they're offering because they're assuming that those described in verses four through eight are actually believers.

And I have argued extensively in the series of messages that we've been doing that that is not describing believers but those who are very close to believers, those who looked and sounded a lot like believers for a long period of time.

But they would say, what is the benefit of warning the audience about apostates? And there are a number of benefits of warning the audience about apostates.

So that we might know what apostates look like. And so that we might be aware that there will be apostates among us who will hear the truth and be very close to the truth and mimic the truth and even appear to be

Christians, but then over a course of time, time will be their enemy and they will fall away. And it's good for us to be warned of this reality so that when we see it, we are not shaken by it.

So that when we see people, even prominent people, who abandon their faith after a period of time and walk away from Christianity, that we might not be shaken and then wonder, is it really possible for a

Christian to lose their salvation? We want the assurance that no, that is not possible for a Christian to lose their salvation.

And so the author wants to encourage them, having warned them about apostates, the author wants to encourage them to stand strong and to hold fast to their faith.

There were some in the early church that fit the description of verses four through eight. They had been enlightened, they had tasted the heavenly gift, they had been made partakers of the

Holy Spirit, they had tasted the good word of God, and they had tasted the powers of the age to come. All of those things they had experienced.

The one thing that they had not experienced was the new birth. And then when difficult times come, they fall away or they drift away or they give up their faith.

And in recent days, we have had an example of this very thing broadcast on every major news media outlet in the

United States, because in recent weeks, you probably read, unless you're living in a foxhole somewhere or you're off social media, or you've been asleep for the last month, you probably read that Joshua Harris formally abandoned his faith in Christ.

Or that's how he would phrase it, at least. Joshua Harris, for those of you who might not know, and this sermon is not about Joshua Harris, but in the providence of God, we're given a very real, very public example of the very thing we've been looking at in Hebrews 6.

And so I'm going to simply use him as an example here just briefly. Joshua Harris, back in the 1990s, wrote the book

I Kissed Dating Goodbye. And it was kind of the launch of what has been officially called the

Purity Movement or the Courtship Movement. And Joshua Harris comes from a prominent Christian homeschooling family, and they have been prominent and in the sight of evangelicals for probably almost three decades.

That book sold between 1 .2 and two million copies, depending on which publisher is trying to promote it.

But it sold a lot, and it has made its mark on a whole generation of Christians, and it's been highly influential. And he is the oldest son of among a group of children in the

Harris family, many of whom have been authors. Brett Harris and Alex Harris wrote Do Hard Things. Joshua Harris wrote a number of books talking about purity and marriage and all of the things related to being a

Christian in today's culture. He was also the pastor, and I bring this up because this is significant.

He was the pastor of Covenant Life Church until 2014. Now, Covenant Life Church is not a leftward -leaning denomination.

That church was founded by C .J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries. We sing a lot of their Sovereign Grace songs.

So all of that just simply to say that that church that he pastored for a number of years is well within the pale of orthodoxy.

It is within our theological camp, broadly speaking, that we wouldn't agree on everything. We'd certainly agree with the basic doctrines of soteriology and salvation.

And that is to say that he would not believe that you can lose your salvation, at least that's what he would have preached, being consistent with their theology.

So we would have agreement with that church. So he kissed the Covenant Life Church goodbye in 2014.

He also kissed the Gospel Coalition goodbye in 2014 as he resigned from that.

And then in 2018, he began to kiss I Kiss Dating Goodbye goodbye as he began to renege on some of his principles in his book and actually backed away from it and participated in a documentary that it was intended to criticize what he taught in that book regarding purity and dating and sexual culture within the church, et cetera.

And then a few weeks ago, he announced that he and his wife were separating. And a couple days after that, he announced that they were getting a divorce.

So now he's kissed his wife goodbye. And a couple of days after he kissed his wife goodbye, he kissed Christianity goodbye in a very public statement on Instagram accompanied by a picture of him looking pensively and thoughtfully out over a mountain lake and the mountains and everything posted on social media.

And nothing will gain you interviews in almost every venue in the country faster than publicly renouncing the faith that you say you once held to profess.

The Huffington Post and USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, everybody wants to interview somebody who was once a Christian supposedly and then has renounced that faith that they once possessed.

So I'm gonna read you his statement because I think it is instructive. And here's what he wrote in full. It's just four brief paragraphs.

My heart is full of gratitude. Quote, my heart is full of gratitude. I wish you could see all the messages people sent me after the announcement of my divorce.

They are expressions of love, though they are saddened or even strongly disapprove of the decision. I am learning that no group has the market cornered on grace.

This week, I've received grace from Christians, atheists, evangelicals, straight people, LGBTQ people, and everyone in between.

Of course, there have also been strong words of rebuke from religious people. While not always pleasant,

I know that they are seeking to love me. There have also been spiteful, hateful comments that angered and hurt me. The information that was left out of our announcement is that I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus.

The popular phrase for this is deconstruction. The biblical phrase is falling away.

Now listen carefully. By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a

Christian. Many people tell me that there is a different way to practice faith, and I want to remain open to this, but I'm not there now.

Martin Luther said that the entire life of believers should be repentance. There's beauty in that sentiment regardless of your view of God.

I have lived in repentance for the past several years, repenting of my self -righteousness, my fear -based approach to life, the teaching of my books, my views on women in the church, and my approach to parenting, to name a few.

But I specifically want to add to this list now to the LGBTQ plus community.

I want to say that I am sorry for the views that I have taught in my books, and as a pastor regarding sexuality,

I regret standing against marriage equality for not affirming you and your place in the church, and for any ways that my writing and speaking contributed to a culture of exclusion and bigotry.

I hope you can forgive me, close quote. Now that's not just I'm questioning some things about my

Christian faith. That is a wholesale abandonment of biblical truth.

Lock, stock, and barrel, A to Z, soup to nuts, the whole thing, throwing it all down the river and walking away from all of it.

He says that this is popularly called deconstructing your faith, and then he says the biblical view of this is falling away, and that is exactly right.

That is the biblical language of falling away. Now, I do want to note one thing. He says at the beginning of that paragraph, that last paragraph,

Martin Luther said that the entire life of believers should be that of repentance. That's a true statement. Martin Luther did say that, and that is a true sentiment that our life is a life of repentance for believers, but what

Martin Luther did not mean by that was that you repent from your biblical views of marriage and human sexuality and orthodoxy.

That's what Martin Luther did not believe by that, but he says that, so I'm repenting, and following Martin Luther's advice,

I'm going to now abandon all the truth that I once held and all my views that I once held in my books.

So he went from, and now, just this last week, less than two weeks ago, about a week ago now, he went and celebrated a

LGBTQ pride event in Vancouver, British Columbia, and posted that to his Instagram. So Christian, what do you do with that?

What do you do with that? Does that shake you? I mean, that should just, in one sense, you could say that it's shocking, and it should shake us to the core, and in one sense, it does, and we're surprised by that.

In another sense, we shouldn't be surprised by that. Anybody who's been watching him for the last half of a decade can see a slow drift, walking away from his church, backing away from his books, backing away from his views on theology and kind of questioning some things.

If you've been watching him closely, you can see that drift. Now, to us, when it comes out in the headlines, it seems rather sudden, but does that shake us, and should that shake us?

We might look at that and say, well, here was a guy who was obviously a leader in Christianity. He was obviously part of an orthodox, biblical, religious movement.

He was a trusted speaker and a trusted teacher. He was so used by God in so many ways and so many venues and so many platforms, and so many people were blessed by his teachings and what he did, and nobody ever suspected that he would betray his faith and walk away like that.

But couldn't you say all of those same things about Judas Iscariot? You could. Do you think any of the disciples thought that Judas would be the one to betray the

Lord? Because when they were gathered around at the final supper and Jesus said, one of you will betray me, Peter and John questioned themselves before they thought it might be

Judas. Peter and John said, is it us, Lord? Nobody suspected Judas. Here was a guy who was part of an orthodox

Christian movement. He was with the Lord. He had been used by God in various ways. He had been very helpful.

Nobody suspected him, and yet he walked away. And Hebrews warns us about this very thing, doesn't it? This is the very thing,

Joshua Harris, Judas Iscariot, this is the very thing that we've been looking at in recent weeks in Hebrews chapter six. Here was a man who had been enlightened.

He knows the truth. He grew up in a Christian home. He went to a Christian church. He was very close to C .J. Mahaney, Sovereign Grace Ministries.

He knew the truth. He preached the truth. He pastored a solid, orthodox, biblically -reformed church.

He pastored that. And he was helpful and used by God in so many venues, and now he is completely apostatized from the faith.

So one of two things is true. Either he was merely enlightened and had tasted and partaken of those things, or he was a true believer.

And Scripture says that he could not have been a true believer because a true believer is held fast by Christ and holds fast to Christ, and that is the evidence of true and saving faith.

And the fact that he walked away reveals what was true all along. And so all of the headlines that came out after his statement, all of those headlines said something like,

Joshua Harris leaves Christianity, or Joshua Harris kisses Christianity goodbye, or Joshua Harris gives up his faith and says he's no longer a

Christian. Let me correct all of the headlines for you. Joshua Harris finally reveals what he has been all along.

That's what the headlines should have read, because that's what he did. For years he pretended, for years he was close, and now things do not bode well for him if, according to Hebrews chapter six, it is impossible to renew him again to repentance.

Because what has he done now? He has walked away from a faith he knows to be true, he has seen it, he has partaken of it, he has experienced it, he has tasted it, he's been enlightened by it, he's participated in all the blessings that fell upon Sovereign Grace Ministries, he's been there to enjoy all of that, and he has turned away and repudiated all of that.

So now, in the words of Hebrews six, he is crucified to himself again the Son of God, meaning that he would cast his lot in with those who would call for the blood of Jesus and his crucifixion, declaring him to be a fraud and a fake and a phony.

Joshua Harris would call out for the blood of Jesus. And how do we know that? Because he marched with those same people in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Those are people who need the truth, not love the truth. They're people opposed to the truth, who need the truth, but don't let that lessen the reality of their spiritual allegiance.

He has now publicly blasphemed a Christ that he once preached and proclaimed. According to Hebrews chapter six, it is impossible to renew him again to repentance.

So, the message is not about Joshua Harris, but it is a perfect example of what we've been talking about in Hebrews chapter six, and so as we wrap up this morning passage, it was probably good to put that out there, and other things, good things have been written about his statement and about what he has done and the implications of it, and I'm not gonna rehash any of that.

The readers of Hebrews would have had their own Joshua Harrises in the first century. That's the reality. They would have. There were people who, in the face of persecution, had once jumped onto the

Jesus bandwagon, the Jesus train, as it were, and enjoyed some of the blessings of that community, but then, as persecution and suffering begin to come and draw near to those people, they start to back away, they start to slide away, and pretty soon, they walk out and leave the faith that they once professed.

It's not that they ever had that faith and were regenerated by that faith, but they were very close to that faith, enlightened, partaking, and experiencing those things, but never having and knowing true regeneration and truly the new birth.

So we're looking today at verses 11 and 12. Let's read them together, 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.

Now, we've looked at verses nine through 10. We've kind of been looking at this concluding paragraph. In recent weeks, we saw that the author expresses his assurance that those to whom he is writing are largely, he is assured, believers, verse nine.

We're convinced of better things concerning you, things that accompany salvation. What are those things? They had works that accompanied their faith, verse 10.

They had deeds that they had done in their love for the name of God, and ministering, and having ministered, and still ministering to the saints.

It was the evidences and the fruits of genuine faith that gave the author assurance that though they were immature in their faith, and though they needed to be taught again, and though they needed to have some more foundational stuff built into them, that they were indeed believers, because these basic elements were true.

And he's also assured because of the nature and character of God, that God is not unjust, and God will not forget their good deeds, that God will reward those who are his, and he is not unjust so as to punish his people in hell.

So based upon the nature and character of God, and based upon the persistence of their fruit in the faith, and the fruits that accompany their faith, he is assured that they are genuine believers.

But he wants to encourage them to do something. What is it he wants to encourage them to do? To be diligent, spiritually diligent, so that they may continue to produce fruit, so that they may have assurance all the way to the end, and so that they may, as he says in verse 12, that they will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

So today we're looking at spiritual diligence, and what the author says about that, and there are two fruits of it. First, spiritual diligence, that is being diligent in our faith, and being diligent to apply the truth, does two things.

It provides us assurance. We have assurance of our faith all the way to the very end, and second, it is an antidote for sluggishness, and we'll look at both of those today, and we'll finish up verse 12 today.

Spiritual diligence provides assurance, and is an antidote for sluggishness. Let's look first of all how it provides assurance.

Look again at verse 11. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end.

His pastoral concern for his congregation was that they would apply diligently all that they had learned, that they would pursue in their faith diligence, that they would pursue maturity with diligence.

And that word diligence is a word that speaks of an eagerness, a diligence, a devotion to do one's best, to make every haste and to be zealous to accomplish a deed.

So it describes not just to, sometimes we use the term diligence to refer to somebody who is methodical in what they do, he's very diligent in what he does.

He's quiet, he's methodical, he just gets in there and he just works quietly and just kinda does his deed, he's diligent.

This word for diligent actually describes a zealousness, an earnestness, an eagerness of spirit to accomplish or to do something.

The author wants them to be spiritually diligent and eager, to actively, to be active and zealous concerning something.

You can see how the word is used in other places where it's used in the New Testament. Second Timothy chapter four verse nine,

Paul says, make every effort to come to me soon. What was he saying? Just kinda come when you can?

No, make every effort to come to me soon. Why? Well, because he was sitting in a prison and expected his head to be severed from his body at any moment.

Some of the last words that Paul wrote to Timothy is make every effort, be diligent to come soon, right? Be eager, be hasty to get this done and to get here as soon as you can.

Second Timothy four verse 21, make every effort to come before winter. It's used in Hebrews chapter four verse 11, the previous warning passage that we looked at when the author says, let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience, right?

After warning them of the possibility that they might not actually enter into salvation even though they knew fully the truth, the author says you are to be diligent to enter into that rest.

Be diligent to be saved. Be diligent to step into Christ and embrace him fully. Make every effort, be hasty about it, be eager, zealous to get this done.

Come to me, come to me before winter. Enter into the rest that is in Jesus Christ. That is the kind of diligence that is being described here.

And what is this diligent, what is he supposed to be diligent to do? Notice that the author says, I would want you to show the same diligence, the same as what?

This is kind of a confusing thing because it's not specifically described what exactly the diligence is that you're supposed to emit.

Just verse nine or verse 11, we desire that each of you show the same diligence. The same as to what? What type of diligence is he describing?

And just compare it to what in the passage. It's not explicitly stated what it is being compared to, what the same type of diligence is supposed to be.

It is possible, someone suggested that he is saying the same diligence in pursuing salvation or ensuring that you are saved as you show in the works that you do.

This would be referencing verse 10. The works that you do and your love for the name of God and the diligence that you have for your deeds that accompany your faith and the love that you have for the name of God.

Show the same diligence in making sure that you are saved that you do in those two things. That kind of doesn't wash with me.

I don't know that that makes a lot of sense. Someone suggested that it means to show the same diligence in proving your faith as you do in serving others and administering to others.

And that makes the diligence connected really closely in the context that it would be between verses 10 and 11.

I would suggest to you the fact that the author kind of leaves this generic and blank which should cause us to sort of zoom out of the passage a little bit and remind us of what he is describing in the entire warning passage.

What was the purpose of warning them to begin with? Chapter five, verse 11. Read but look back there if you forget it.

Concerning him we have much to say and it's hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. I remember the laziness in listening.

That's what started the whole warning passage to begin with. I think he is describing a diligence to counteract everything that he has been warning them about in the entire warning passage.

So that would be then they are to be diligent in hearing and to obeying rather than being lazy listeners described in chapter five, verse 11.

They are to be diligent in pursuing maturity so that they are not immature and needing teachers. They ought to be diligent to be growing in their faith, growing in their ability to discern between good and evil.

That's the last phrase of chapter five. They are to be diligent in moving beyond the elementary teachings, chapter six, verses one to three.

They are to be diligent in pressing into the meat and loving and moving into the word of God and the substance of the word of God rather than just shallow and superficial

Christian sounding teachings. They are to be diligent in their good works and their love for the name of God and their love for those good works and their ministry to the saints.

They are to be spiritually diligent in every way so that what? So that they have full assurance of their faith all the way to the very end and so that they might not be sluggish but have be imitators of those who have faith to the inheriting of the promises.

So this diligence applies to everything he's been warning about. You're to be diligent in hearing and obeying and pursuing maturity and diving in deep and pursuing sanctification and holiness without which no one can see the

Lord. We are to be diligent in pursuing the deep and spiritual truths of scripture and rather than just shallow things, diligent in our service, diligent in our obedience, diligent in our hearing, diligent in every spiritual activity and every spiritual discipline.

We're to be diligent in all of it. We're to apply an eagerness and a haste and a zeal to that. Why? This is the path to assurance.

Notice what he says. We are to do this so that we might realize the full assurance of hope all the way to the very end.

What does it mean to realize the full assurance of hope? Some take this objectively that the realizing means that you actually apprehend or grab onto something.

So some would interpret this realization as we have this hope of something that we're gonna have in the end, be it the glory of the kingdom or the fulfillment of God's promises or the enjoyment of heaven and eternal life and we are to have this assurance of that hope all the way until we realize it or obtain that assurance at the very end.

In other words, the thing that I am assured of is the thing that I finally realize or actually possess when it's finally given to me.

That would be sort of an objective realization. There's another way of understanding it and it would be more subjective. Subjective meaning that it is something that I experience or feel.

And I think that that is what the author is after. He's not suggesting that our assurance is until we realize our hope.

The author is suggesting that our assurance is something that we have, it is our own confidence and boldness that we actually have this hope.

So you can see it in how that word full assurance is used elsewhere in scripture. First Thessalonians chapter one verse five.

Paul says our gospel did not come to you in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction, that's the word, same word, with full assurance.

In other words, when the gospel came to the Thessalonians, they were fully convinced and settled in their own mind that this was the truth.

It was not just words from another traveling preacher but something that when Paul came through and preached the gospel, it hit them with full conviction, absolute boldness, absolute confidence.

They heard it and they knew it was true and they believed it. Colossians chapter two verse two. Paul says that their hearts may be encouraged having been knit together in love, attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding.

That was something Paul wanted them to have. It's also used later by the same writer in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 22.

Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. See, these are things that the

New Testament wants us to have now because we're to draw near to God now with the full assurance of faith that we have in our hearts.

It describes a confidence and a boldness and being convinced of something. You see, we're not to just say in our own minds that Christianity might be true for me and it's sort of a true thing and that's where I place my faith but there are a lot of things that could be true and sort of in a postmodern sense, we just drift back and forth into whether we're confident or not.

We're kind of banking on Christianity. No, the New Testament tells us that we can have boldness and confidence and full assurance that we know the truth and that we understand the truth and that is what we ought to pursue with diligence is that full confidence, that full understanding that we know the truth.

This word is used of something that we can possess now, not something we will eventually possess but something we can possess now.

Absolute assurance, absolute confidence that not only do we know the truth but that we are in the truth and that we are walking in truth.

Those are things that believers can know now and the author wants us to approach our high priest with confidence and with boldness because we have full assurance of faith.

We're absolutely convinced and we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that what we believe is absolutely true.

We can know that. Not only can we know that, we can boldly proclaim that and it is not arrogant, it is not prideful to do so.

To suggest that you know the truth and that you have confidence in the truth and that you are assured in the truth, that is not an arrogant position because it would be arrogant if you suggested that you were the one who determines truth and therefore you know truth, that's arrogant but it's not arrogant to say the truth has been revealed and I have found it or have been led to it and therefore

I know it and I have confidence that it is true. That is not arrogant. That is the type of confidence that we are to have. The opposite of that is apathy.

To say, eh, Christianity, my Christian walk, when it's convenient, eh. To have that kind of an attitude.

Listen, if that's your attitude towards your spiritual walk, today you say, nah. Five years from now, you're deconstructing right alongside of Joshua Harris.

That's the path that that enters you on. That is why the author wants us to be diligent. Not to have an apathetic view toward our faith, not to have an apathetic view toward our confidence or our maturity or our spiritual growth but to be diligent in it.

Maturity brings confidence and conviction, it brings an assurance that we have when you pursue the truth and you are diligent to pursue the truth and to mature in your

Christian faith and understanding, reading the truth, obeying the truth, applying the truth. When you are diligent to do those things, there is an assurance that comes.

A boldness and a confidence in the word of God and in your service to others and that assurance is part of the fruit of genuine and true salvation.

You think the martyrs died in ancient times because they had an apathetic view of their faith?

Dave Rich and I were talking about this this morning with Jan Hus, he was reading a biography of Jan Hus. And Dave, quickly, what was the name of the guy that recanted?

Jerome, one of Hus' friends. He recanted his Christianity and then after he recanted his

Christianity, he was so ashamed that he recanted his recantation and ended up dying at the stake and they lit the fires at his feet.

He was happy to go to the martyr's stake, why? Because he knew that what he believed was absolutely true. You want to face death at the very end with the absolute confidence that when you close your eyes for the last time, you're gonna look in the face of Jesus Christ?

Be diligent. You're not diligent, you never have that kind of assurance. That kind of assurance and confidence and boldness comes only and solely to those who are diligent to apply these truths and to press on into maturity.

That's where the assurance comes. You may have faith and confidence assurance all the way to the very end that you can lie on your deathbed and look your loved ones in the eye and say without any hesitation,

I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him against that day.

That kind of assurance only comes to the diligent, not to those who waver back and forth.

Martyrs don't die because they like ease and comfort. Martyrs don't die because they have an apathetic view to their spiritual disciplines and the pursuing of godliness.

Martyrs don't die with confidence in those things because they have approached life with kind of a, well, whatever, it's easy,

I can do it. We just gather together on a Sunday morning. That's not how martyrs die. Martyrs die with confidence because they have been diligent and pursued with earnestness and eagerness the faith that they have professed.

That is how you have assurance. I look at the second thing, that you will not be sluggish. This is the antidote to being sluggish.

Now, the interesting thing about this word sluggish is that it's the very same word that began this whole theme back in chapter five, verse 11.

And this was months ago that we mentioned this, chapter five, verse 11. So I have to remind you of it when he says in chapter five, verse 11, concerning him we have much to say, but it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing.

It's that word dull of hearing that is translated here sluggish. It's the exact same word. So he begins, he ends this with this conclusion with the same word that he started at the beginning of the warning passage.

What was the danger? What was the thing that he was exercised so much so that he would reprove them and rebuke them for their spiritual immaturity?

It was their sluggishness, their laziness. What is the antidote to being spiritually sluggish? It's diligence. And you know what it is.

We can no longer say that, you know, I'm just kind of meh, I'm kind of apathetic, I'm just a little sluggish and lazy in my

Christianity. I wonder what I could do to overcome that. There's no magic pill, you just be diligent. Diligence is the answer to apathy.

You apply diligence and you approach it with diligence, earnestness and zeal. Pursue him, pursue holiness, cling to Christ.

Be diligent about these things. The same diligence that you apply to your work, the same diligence that you apply to your family, the same diligence that you apply to whatever your favorite hobby is, to football season which is coming up, whatever diligence.

Look, when it comes to watching football and observing football, I'm the most diligent person that I know in all things pertaining to that.

You take the same diligence that you apply to other things that you are passionate about and you pursue Christ with that same eagerness and zeal.

You do that, you have assurance of your hope all the way to the very end and that itself is the antidote to sluggishness.

The sluggishness had resulted in a spiritual immaturity and the answer to that was diligence. There is no quick solution to this, there's no easy out.

There's no one verse you memorize, there's no one pill that you take, there's no one thing that you know, there's no one sermon that you hear that all of a sudden gives you the easy way.

You can't sit back and say, give me something, isn't there something easy that you can give me that will just give me this assurance of my salvation and produce fruit in me and give me hope all the way to the end and confidence and boldness.

There's no easy path. The answer to that is no, there is no quick. There's no quick and easy way to achieve this. It's diligence.

And this is what scripture over and over again encourages us to. There are no heroes of the faith who are apathetic in their view to their

Christian walk. None. There's nobody that you will read about in the annals of church history who approached their

Christian faith and their walk with God with an apathy and a lack of diligence that have made the Hebrews Hall of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11.

All of those men that he describes in Hebrews chapter 11 are men whose faith was accompanied by works and who pursued those things with diligence, with an eagerness and a zeal to fulfill the calling that God had given to them.

And so there are no heroes of the church who were apathetic. There were no heroes of the church who lacked diligence.

Show me somebody who was worthy of being a role model and whose faith is worth emulating, and I will show you somebody who was diligent.

Diligent at the beginning and diligent all the way to the very end. We have to do this in order to be imitators of those who have faith.

Look at verse 11 or verse 12. So that we will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

There are certain men and women who are worth our imitation. And we want to imitate those who are worth imitating, and we want to imitate those whose faith and patience gave them the promises of God, made them inherit the promises of God.

The opposite of sluggishness and dull of hearing is a diligence just like is displayed and modeled by other men and women who are worthy of our imitation.

Spurgeon was a diligent man. Luther was a diligent man. There are heroes of the faith. Perfect? No, they're not perfect.

Nobody in Hebrews chapter 11 was perfect, but we are called to imitate men and women like those listed in Hebrews chapter 11.

And you can kind of see here where the author, he tips his hand a little bit as to where he's going in the book, because he says here that we are to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

And where's he going with that? He's going to exegete or expand verse 12 in full glory for two chapters,

Hebrews 11 and 12. He's going to explain what he means by that. He's going to get to that. He's going to give us a whole list of people whose faith is worthy of being imitated.

Men and women who never saw the promises in their own day, but who through faith and patience eventually inherited those promises.

Those are the men and women who are worthy of our modeling. So do you want to inherit the promises of God?

Receive the glory and the kingdom and the benefits and the blessings of eternal life?

Let's come through faith and patience. And I appreciate the fact that the author here mentions patience, and you know why?

Because it reminds us that the inheriting of the promises that we have believed in, the inheriting of those promises does not come quickly.

Christianity is not a flash in the pan faith. Anybody can put on errors for a period of time.

Anybody can come here and pretend to be one of us for a period of time, even a long period of time. Judas did it for three years, and he did it perfectly.

He was the perfect hypocrite. He was the perfect fraud. Judas could have done it for longer than three years, but Judas saw something on the horizon, the death of the one that he thought he was gonna profit off of, and he cashed out when he had the chance for 30 pieces of silver.

Judas could have been a fake for years longer than he did. He was pulling it off well, but he knew he couldn't profit off it any longer.

So he cashed in, betrayed the Lord, took his money, and ran. John MacArthur likes to say that time and truth go hand in hand.

There's so much wisdom in that statement. Time and truth go hand in hand. Time reveals frauds.

And in the wake of the recent apostasy of Joshua Harris, you and I should realize and be warned that we ought to prepare.

Listen, I'm not a prophet or the son of a prophet. You don't need to be a prophet or the son of a prophet to know that there is a tsunami of apostasies coming in the years ahead, a lot of them.

As the heat is turned up on the church for what we believe and the stand that we take in the culture, you ought to be prepared for dozens upon dozens of high -profile leaders, teachers, preachers to quickly abandon the faith because the spirit of our age is capitulation, and people are capitulating right and left to the spirit of our age.

They don't want to stand. They don't want to be truthful. They don't want to be bold. It's gonna be easier and cheaper to abandon those things than it is to stand for those things because standing for those things is gonna cost us.

You want to have firm assurance, solid assurance of your faith all the way to the very end. It's gonna require diligence.

If you are going to avoid turning away, it's gonna require diligence, diligence to make sure that you enter that rest and that having entered that rest, that you pursue holiness and maturity as quickly as you possibly can because without that, you're gonna be blown every way by every wind of doctrine in the days and months and years ahead.

A major evangelical denomination just recently voted 51 to 49 to not ordain women as pastors, 51 to 49.

You know what that vote tells you? They have already apostatized. It's just a matter of time, two, three years maybe, and that's gone over the edge.

The Southern Baptist Convention, which was once brought back from the brink of apostasy, that Southern, the entire

Southern Baptist Convention right now is teetering on the edge of apostasy as they are not just drifting, but they are sliding leftward liberal in their theology with the whole social justice movement.

People are capitulating all around us, everywhere. You gonna stand? You gonna be diligent?

You pay that price? You gonna pay that price? It's only gonna come one way, and that is that you be diligent, spiritually diligent so that you avoid this apostasy.

The left -leaning denominations that have leaned left for 50 years and that have just been drifting leftward in that current toward theological liberalism, they've now put all their sails up and said full speed ahead, everything right toward absolute apostasy, and you see all of the mainline denominations that are doing that.

That is the spirit of our age, that is the way that everything is going. If you want to avoid that kind of apostasy, if you want to avoid that kind of unfaithfulness, it comes one way, it's a hard way, it's diligence.

Diligence in everything the scripture commands of us. We have to be on guard, diligent to enter that rest, and having entered that rest, diligent to make our calling and our election sure.

I'd remind you of what we talked about in the scripture reading that I gave at the beginning. It's worth your further consideration, 2

Peter chapter one. I'm gonna read it to you again, and I want you to listen closely and carefully to the parts of this passage that I'm gonna emphasize.

2 Peter chapter one, verse four. For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises. We've been talking about promises, right?

So that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self -control, and in your self -control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.

That is a lot of work. Self -control, diligence, brotherly kindness, love, all of those things, that's effort.

It is effort. But Peter says, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our

Lord Jesus Christ. He who lacks these things is blind or short -sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.

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, for in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you. Be diligent, Peter says. If these things are yours, you will be fruitful.

You know what the path is to the eternal kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ? What I've just described to you, being diligent to supply with your faith all of these other virtues.

And when these virtues are yours and you have these things in increasing measure, that is the fruit and evidence of salvation.

And it is by the diligent pursuit of all of those virtues that the eternal kingdom of the

Lord Jesus Christ is abundantly supplied to you. It's not through apathy. You don't get there that way.

This is a lot of work that Peter describes here. You're right, it is a lot of work. But here's Peter's promise. This is how we make our calling and election sure.

Do you notice how Peter combines there the human responsibility of ensuring that all of these virtues are ours and that we are pursuing them with diligence, along with God's sovereignty and salvation, his election and calling of us.

It's God's election and calling of us that produces these virtues. And these virtues are the evidence of his election and calling of us.

How do I know if I am chosen and called by God and in his kingdom? These virtues will be mine and I will be diligent to pursue them.

A true genuine Christian does not say to himself, now that I am a Christian and I am secure and I am held fast by Christ, I can just coast.

It's all a downhill ride from here. Well, part of that's true. It is downhill, but it's not a ride. It's a slide right into apostasy because that's not what a true

Christian says. A true Christian doesn't look at his security and say that I don't have to do anything. It's all done for me.

I have no effort, no responsibility, no diligence, no work, no labor, no striving.

A true believer does not think that way. A true believer says, you know what? Because I am elect and because I am called, I am going to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling.

I am going to examine myself to see if I be in the faith. I am gonna hold fast to Christ and his confidence all the way to the very end.

I am going to be diligent to present myself approved to workmen that needeth not be ashamed. I'm gonna make my calling and election sure.

I'm gonna work and strive and labor and be diligent, pursue holiness, mortify sin, and with faith and patience,

I will be diligent to inherit the promises. That's how a true believer thinks because a true believer will say, I will run my race,

I will fight my fight, I will finish my course, I will keep the faith because there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the

Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day and not only to me, but to everybody who loves his appearing. That's the promise.

You wanna inherit that promise? You're gonna have to be diligent. We are not saved by our spiritual diligence.

I don't think I have to make this clear. Spiritual diligence is the evidence of our salvation. There's a helpful way of sort of understanding the purpose of these warning passages in terms of the categories of what the

Holy Spirit does with the warning passages to those who hear them. And I was having this conversation with Justin Peters several weeks ago about this warning passage and he came up with sort of three categories that we can think of.

And I'm gonna share this with you though. I'm gonna do it in my own words because if I use his words, then I have to do the whole Southern drawl thing and I don't wanna do that.

I don't feel like trying to imitate Gomer Pyle. So I'm just gonna, in fairness to Justin, he would probably prefer to be compared with Bo or Luke Duke.

But we all know it's Gomer Pyle. So Justin suggested that there are three possible audiences for the warning passages.

And here they are. First, genuine believers. Second, were you laughing at that?

Second, professing believers who think they are believers but are not. And then third, professing believers who know that they are not believers but are pretending to be believers.

Those three categories, genuine believers and then two kinds of professing believers. Those who think they're Christians but are not and those who know they are not

Christians but they are pretending. Now, those would have been present in the first century church.

Those have been present in basically every church age. Since the first century, it is present in probably any church that is our size.

I would be willing to bet that, I know there are genuine believers here. I know that the majority of you are genuine believers. But I would be willing to bet that there are people here who are not believers that think they are because you've prayed a prayer or done something but you've never really experienced true regeneration.

And there are probably people here who are not believers and you know you're not a believer but you're putting on a really good show for your family and your friends right now, sitting amongst us.

There is that mixture of people in nearly every congregation that has ever existed. By the providence of God and the power of God, the

Holy Spirit will use a warning passage like what we've just gone through to say and to speak and to accomplish something different to each of these groups of people.

Let me show you how that works. To those who are true believers, the true believer will read through the warning passage and he will do what scripture says to do.

Examine himself to see if he is in the faith, look and see the fruit, and then be diligent to pursue Christ and hold fast and cling to him.

That's how a believer responds to the warning passage. He will say, not that I'm worried about falling away and losing my salvation, but because I am secure,

I'm gonna hold fast to Christ. And the command and the warning passage itself and the command to hold fast is accompanied by the power of God with the ability to hold fast to Christ.

He gives the power to accomplish that to his people through the command to do that. So the warning passages are like guardrails, not that there's ever any danger, that we're gonna go up and over top of them, but the guardrails keep us in the faith.

So we read the warning passages, believers, we heed the call, we hold fast and cling to our confidence assurance firm until the very end, because that's the evidence of salvation.

So the warning passage accomplishes the purpose of causing us to hold fast to Christ so that we will persevere all the way to the very end.

And the Spirit of God uses the Word of God to do that in the hearts of believers. But then there was a second group of people, those who think they are saved, but are not really saved and they just don't know it.

You prayed a prayer, you went forward, you checked a box, you uttered something after your mom and dad and I'm not even sure what it was, you were four years old, but you've never really truly been born again.

Your affections have never been changed, your heart has never been changed, you're not truly saved. Though you would say that you are and you probably think you are.

To those people, when they read the warning passage, it should cause them, if the Spirit of God is working in that way, it should cause them to stop and to pause and say, man, am

I really saved? Does that really apply to me? Do I see the evidences and fruits of my own life? Do I really have confidence and assurance for Him until the end?

Will I be diligent to do that? And then there is an evangelistic aim there that that person may then hopefully realize, man,

I'm one who has been enlightened and partaken and tasted, I'm not really one who has experienced the new birth. So I will come to Christ and then cling to Him.

So there's an evangelistic aspect to the warning passage. And then there was a third group of people, those who profess to be believers, they know they are not, and they're playing a good game.

The warning passage and the work of the Spirit of God in the heart of those people, if it is not evangelistic, is to harden them in their sin because they will hear the truth and they will resist it and they will hate it and eventually it will drive them away and they will do an about face and they will fall away.

The warning passage is a scripture accomplished that in each of these groups of people. And by the

Spirit of God and the power of the Word, He does this for each and every one of us in some way. You're either warned of the danger that you have in falling away unless you repent and believe truly and are regenerated, or you're encouraged to cling further to Christ and solely to Him.

But it is the Word of God that accomplishes this and the work of the Spirit of God that accomplishes this in each and every individual person.

The Spirit does the work through that word. So here in my encouragement to you, Christian, here's the application of the warning passage.

Let this motivate you to diligence in your spiritual life so that you will hold and cling firmly to Jesus Christ.

The heart of every one of His sheep is to cling to Him to the very end.

That is the desire of His sheep. And here's what happens. The Word of God, the Spirit of God, the

Lord Jesus Christ puts that in the heart of His redeemed ones so that they cling to Him and our clinging to Him is the very way that He clings to us.

So we are held and we are kept and we cling to Him. His giving us the power and the energy and the ability to hold fast and to obey that command to hold fast to Him and to the very end, that is the very means of His preserving

His people. Christ has promised to preserve every last one of those who are His.

He has not promised to preserve anyone who will not come to Him in repentance and faith. But His promise is all that the

Father has given to me will come to me and I will gather them in and I will give them eternal life and I will raise them up at the last day.

Joshua Harris is not the exception to that statement. He's not the one sheep that Christ lost.

I gathered in 99 but I lost the one. He's not that one. We are preserved and we are kept by the sovereign work of God in Jesus Christ who has promised to keep us firm until the very end.

And the way that He accomplishes that preservation is by giving us the power and the strength to obey these commands to cling to Him.

It's both. It is the sovereignty of God, it is the responsibility of man in our preservation.

We persevere to the end because He keeps us. And He keeps us by our persevering to the very end. And He has promised

He will not lose any. That's His promise to us. Cling fast to Christ, be diligent in every way so that you may have confidence and assurance firm until the end and that you may not be sluggish but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Let's pray together. Father, we thank You for Your great mercy and Your tremendous goodness to us in saving us and redeeming us for Yourself by Your own power and glory, providence, sovereignty.

Thank You that You are not unjust so as to forget Your promises to us. We thank You that we can rest and trust in Your justice and Your goodness and in the promises of Christ who

Himself has promised to keep us firm to the end and to raise up every last one who has trusted in Him. It is because of that confidence that we have that we are able to cling fast to You.

And we pray that You would encourage us and make us diligent, that You would do a work in our hearts so that we are diligent to apply all that we learn, to pursue holiness, to mortify sin, to make our calling and election sure, and to provide along with our faith every virtue and every fruit that is the product of the

Spirit of God and the work in our lives. We thank You and we love You for all of Your graces to us. And we pray that Your word may accomplish its purpose in our hearts, in Christ's name, amen.

Amen. Before we partake of communion, I just want to offer a single warning that I always do.

We're gonna observe the Lord's Supper, and this Lord's Supper is not for the communion, it's not for unbelievers. We're Christians who are living with unrepentant sin in your life.

It doesn't mean you're perfect, but it does mean that you are confessing your sin and repenting before the Lord, that your life is marked by repentance.

And before we partake of communion, we're gonna have an opportunity to examine ourselves. We'll pray quietly and then I will lead us in prayer.

This is an opportunity to remember and to symbolize the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and what

He has purchased for us on the cross. We who are His, who are His by faith, our faith has been purchased by the blood of Christ, our salvation, our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins, our adoption, our election, all of it has been purchased by the blood of the

Lord Jesus Christ. All that pertains to His people, every spiritual blessing has been given to us in Christ by His death in obedience to the

Father's will on the cross in the stead and in the place of those who are His. He's made full atonement for our sin and given us the righteousness that we can only have by faith in Him, the righteousness that comes from God through Christ by faith.

So we have righteousness and we have forgiveness because of what Christ has done on the cross. If you have not repented of your sin and believed on Christ for salvation, you have neither righteousness nor forgiveness and this is not for you.

So just out of quietness and respect, let the cup pass from before you because scripture warns that you're eating and drinking judgment to yourself.

But for those of you who are Christ and are His, I would encourage you to confess your sin to the

Lord and let us partake together. So let us bow our heads and when I've closed in prayer, I'll ask the ushers to come forward. Let's pray.

Our Father, we can stand with confidence and assurance before You because of what Christ has done, not by our own righteousness or our own merit do we come before You.

We would not even be able to dare to do so. For You are holy and righteous. We thank You that by the death of Christ, You make holy and You make righteous those who must approach

You. So we can have boldness and confidence to approach Your throne because Christ has paid the price for our sin and given us the righteousness that we could never earn and certainly could never merit.

And so we thank You for the forgiveness that we have of our sins. By common confession, we are Your people and though we have sinned,

You have treated us with grace and though we deserve justice, You have given us mercy and we thank

You that though we deserved hell, You have promised us heaven all because of what Christ has done. And so we thank

You for this forgiveness. We confess our iniquities to You. We pray for grace to mortify our sin and to trust in the atoning blood and the righteousness of Jesus Christ still more and more with greater and greater confidence with each passing day.

May You be glorified as we remember the death of Christ and all that it means for us, Your people. We ask this in His name, amen.