Hebrews 6:9-12 | The Assurance of Salvation

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Covenant Reformed Baptist Church October 10, 2021 Pastor Jeff Rice

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If you have your Bibles, please join me in Hebrews chapter 6, verses 9 through 12.
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Hebrews chapter 6, verses 9 through 12. Let's pray. O gracious God and Father of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, You who sent
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Your Spirit to dwell in us, Lord, we come to You asking
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You to meet with us. Lord, we pray right now that You will use
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Your Word to feed us. We come here today to feast on the manna that came from heaven.
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O Lord, please use me this day in Christ's name. Amen. So, this is my first sermon since we got back from the
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G3 conference. Though I was only able to personally attend one speaker, we were able to, by way of video, hear most of the speakers who got up.
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I can tell you that the man there who spoke was very, very edifying.
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And we understand that these men, they gather together to speak, and they bring their very best, and it shows.
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They bring their very best. Even my friend James White, who would confess that he's not a preacher, knew that he had to bring his very best that day because following him was
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Votie Bauckham and Paul Washer. And I thought he did very well.
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Really good sermon. And yet today, as I stand before you today and I acknowledge my ignorance, my inability,
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I have a task before me to preach to you the Word of God. And our theme today is the assurance of salvation.
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The assurance of our salvation. You say, how do you get assurance of salvation from Hebrews 6?
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Hebrews 6 is about losing your salvation. But you, the preacher, are telling me that our theme is about the assurance of salvation.
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The writer, the preacher of this book, is wanting his hearers to have assurance of their salvation.
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That's my timeless truth. I believe that. The writer is wanting them to understand and to have assurance, just as today
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I want you to understand and to have assurance. Even as Christians, we can doubt our salvation, especially so when we take our eyes off of the
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Messiah, when we take our eyes off of Christ, when we focus our attention upon ourselves.
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It's so easy, so easy to doubt our salvation.
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Has Christ truly began a good work in us? Because if he has, he will carry it out.
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But when we look at ourselves, if we're honest, when we truly look at the man in the mirror, the woman in the mirror, whenever we truly examine ourselves, we see fault.
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We see that we're not, it's not adding up. I heard it said one time that there's this place for golfers to go to, and they video them as they swing the golf club.
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And then they put on video, they let them see their swing, their swing as they swing the golf club side by side with Tiger Woods swinging the golf club.
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And they're able to see the difference. And I'm telling you that if you are trying to live this
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Christian life, focusing on your life here and the life that Christ lives side by side with you, and you're busy looking at your flaws and you're not looking at his perfection, you are not going to see assurance of salvation.
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Because we can't even measure up.
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Listen, I've probably swung a golf club once or twice in my life and it was with a left -handed club.
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So I was swinging left -handed. And I think that my swing, left -handed, measured up to, who did
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I say? Tiger Woods. It ain't as bad as my
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Christian life measured up to the life that Jesus Christ has lived. And I'm not a golfer, but I am a
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Christian. But I'm telling you, if I live my life focusing on looking on me,
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I will not have assurance of salvation. I know that's kind of contradictory to what we hear in churches today.
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My plan for this Lord's Day is to show you Christ. And by doing so, you can be enriched with faith, hope, and love.
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So if you would join me in our text, Hebrews 6, we'll be in verses 9 through 12.
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Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation.
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For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for His name and serving the saints as you still do.
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And we desire each of you, each one of you, to show the same earnestness to have 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 promise.
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In our outline today, the writer slash preacher acknowledges four truths from the text.
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Salvation, ministry, maturity, and immaturity.
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So I see four truths that the writer slash preacher acknowledges.
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Salvation, ministry, maturity, and immaturity. And as we transition,
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I want to assure you that your assurance of salvation does not come from your performance, from your living that life, swinging that golf club.
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Your Christian life does not come, your assurance of salvation does not come, does not,
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I repeat, does not come from your performance, but it comes from the promises of God.
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For those who have received Christ, that is, by faith, He has given the right to become children of God.
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This is not faith in your faith. You're not putting faith in how much faith you have in Christ.
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It's faith in Christ. John 1, you can turn there if you want, but verse 11 says that He, speaking of Christ, the
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Word that became flesh, as we see in verse 14, came to His own, and His own people did not receive
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Him. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name,
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He gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.
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And if you have received Christ by faith, you are
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God's child. To our first point, salvation.
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This is going to be taken from verse 9 of Hebrews 6. Let's read that one more time.
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The writer says, Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, listen, things that belong to salvation.
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The question is, speak in what ways? Last week, our theme was,
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Jesus, is Jesus, not last week, but the week before last, when
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I last got to speak, is Jesus enough? That was my theme.
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That was the proposition that I brought to us. Is Jesus Christ enough?
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In the outline that we looked at, we saw three things.
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We saw the two levels of doctrine concerning Christ, which was found in Hebrews 6, verses 1 and 2.
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Let's look at that. Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith toward God.
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And the instructions about washings, which is speaking of baptism, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of dead, and eternal judgments, verse 3.
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And this we will do if God permits. And then the second point was the sin of apostasy, 4 through 6.
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For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gifts and shared in the
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Holy Spirit, who 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 crucified, and once again, the
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Son of God to their own harm, holding Him up to contempt. And the third point of my last message was the passing away of the
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Old Covenant, verses 7 and 8. For the land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and it produces a crop useful for those whose sake is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.
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But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
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It's as though we speak this way to the mature and to the immature, to the mature and to the immature, to those that are in Christ, who are following Him faithfully, and to those who are wanting to go back.
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We speak to you this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation.
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He calls them beloved. This is a word that's normally used when the father speaks of his son,
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Jesus Christ. He calls him his beloved. It's a word that's normally used speaking about other
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Christians. This is the only time the writer uses this word. He is speaking to them as Christians.
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He says, in your case, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation.
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Now, the antecedent to the things that belong to salvation are found in verses 4 and 5, and we looked at it last week.
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He says, for it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the
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Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the power of the ages to come.
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He says, these things accompany salvation.
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These things are not salvation, but these things accompany salvation.
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You can be in a church and experience every one of those things that the writer is explaining.
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And though the person who is saved has experienced these things, these are experiences that he has, they are not salvation.
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Every baptized member of the church has this experience. You don't even have to be a baptized member to experience some of these things.
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But he says, yet in your case, as we transition, yet in your case, you who this letter is preached to.
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Now, who is this letter preached to? We know, yes, it's the Hebrews, but more specifically, the
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Hebrews who have been added to the visible church by baptism.
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Now to our second point, ministry. Hebrews 6 .10. Now, I believe in verse 10 here is directed to the mature believers, not the immature.
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Verse 10 is directed to the mature believers, those who understand the doctrine of Christ and who have turned from self -righteousness and dead works to a living faith in God.
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That's who he's speaking to in verse 10. These are those who have entered the Sabbath.
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They are resting in Christ, the finished work of God, and not in the temple.
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These are not the ones who are confused about where they should be in life.
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They're not thinking about going to temple and committing a sacrifice by crucifying once again the
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Son of God. These are those who have their mind, their mind is firm, they're set, they know where their salvation comes from.
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They know that they have entered that rest by faith alone and not by works of the law, not by sacrificing lambs.
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And I explained last week on how when the high priest, the earthly high priest, when he would make that sacrifice at Yom Kippur, that there were ritual days throughout the year that each individual
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Jew would have to bring a sacrifice to the temple. Or if the Jew himself was to commit a serious sin, whether it would be against his neighbor or against God, he would bring a sacrifice for the priest to sacrifice on his behalf.
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But this is what's going on. These Hebrew church members are a part of a church.
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Their sins have, I mean, they're being told that Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice, and yet they're still sinning.
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They're looking at their life and saying, I don't match up. I am committing sins.
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I must take this lamb. I must take this pigeon, and I must give it to the priest to sacrifice for myself.
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And by doing so, they're crucifying once again the Son of God. So verse 10 here, he's not speaking to them people.
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He's speaking to those who know, who understand that when
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Jesus made that sacrifice, that it was once and for all. It does not have to be repeated.
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So they have entered that Sabbath, and they are resting in Christ, the finished work, and not looking to the temple.
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And what are they doing? It says that they're serving the saints.
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They're serving the saints. One of the podcasts that I listen to,
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I won't name them, but if you want to ask me later, I'll let you know. I heard this from them this past week.
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They said, God doesn't need our good works, but our neighbors do.
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God does not need your good works. We're going through good works in our
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Sunday school, going through our Baptist 1689 Confession of Faith.
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God does not need your good works. Your neighbors and your brothers and sisters in Christ do.
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This verse directed towards them, but applied to us, is telling us that God will not overlook our works and love that we show for His name in serving the saints.
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And I would add in serving our neighbors. What we do for the sake of Christ, for the name of Jesus, God will not overlook.
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But as we saw in Sunday school, if you're not in Christ, that work is a polluted garment.
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It's filthy rags. It's grotesque in God's sight. But if you're in Christ, God will not overlook your work,
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Saint. And one of the things that we try to drive home as a
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Reformed church is that faith is the root and works are the fruit.
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So if you can imagine a tree, does the fruit grow the tree or does the root grow the tree that produces the fruit?
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And I know we've, we spoke on this several times, whether it be in a passing question, but James chapter 2.
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James chapter 2 verse 14. Listen to this. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says that he has faith but does not have works?
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Can that faith save him? If a brother or a sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warm and filled without giving him the things needed for his body, what good is that?
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So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
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Did you hear that? It's dead. But someone will say,
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I have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works.
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I also point it to Galatians.
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Galatians chapter 2, beginning in verse 9.
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We have Paul going up to the council in Jerusalem to present to them the gospel.
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And after hearing the gospel, this is what is said. And when James and Cephas and John seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me they gave me the right hand fellowship to Barnabas and me.
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That we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. Only they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing we were eager to do.
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For God is not unjust as to overlook the work and the love that we have shown for his name and serve in the saints as you still do.
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This is not telling us that our work saves us. It's telling us that those who are saved produces works.
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We serve the brothers and sisters. We serve the saints.
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We serve our community. The root of the tree will produce fruit.
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Jesus seeing a fig tree from far away was hungry and when he got close to the fig tree, this is speaking of Jerusalem, he got there expecting to receive food, receive figs and he saw that they were none and he cursed that fig tree.
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Ladies and gentlemen, that's what happens to the individual who professes faith in Christ but they have no works.
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They have no works ultimately because they are not saved. They are not saved.
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The root will produce fruit. Jesus Christ being the root, our faith in him will produce fruit to serve the saints and that's what he's doing right now.
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He's acknowledging the works. He's saying that the mature, they have works, they are serving the saints.
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That the life of a Christian should be one of ministry. The mature serving the immature.
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We are the ones who are supposed to fear, at least the immature fail to reach that rest.
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Isn't that what the scripture says? Chapter 4 verses 1 and 2. Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, that is talking about receiving
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Christ by faith, let us fear, at least any of you, at least any of you should fail to reach it.
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It says, for the good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listen.
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The mature are the ones who are to fear, at least the immature should fail to reach that rest.
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And so I ask myself and I ask you, is your life marked for ministry?
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The ministry is multifaceted. It's like a diamond cut for many sides and yet it's one diamond.
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The church has been given the message of hope, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and yet there's many ways to present this wonderful message.
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We have mothers and fathers catechizing their children.
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That is ministry. That is ministry. You are raising up Christians in your home.
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We have men and women going out to abortion clinics, proclaiming the gospel. Men and women going out on the streets, proclaiming the gospel.
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Men standing up, heralding the gospel on street corners with a speaker. We've got men going fishing and women going fishing with other men and women and talking to them about Christ.
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I cannot outline to you and say this is what ministry is, but you as a believer need to live a life that is of ministry.
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There is no book that tells you exactly what that is.
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It's multifaceted. We are not like the watchtowers or the
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Mormons who give you a booklet of things that you have to do in order to fulfill your mission.
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Love your neighbor. Believe in Christ. Ask Christ to open up ways for him for you to serve.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I am not even coming down on this church because I feel that most of y 'all have a better heart for serving than I do.
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I mean, I could go around the room and talk about the things that the Peace family has done, what the Cairns haven't been here long, what they have done, what all of us have done for one another.
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Like, I can just go around the room and name all families. This is what our text is saying.
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If you're a mature believer, is your life one of ministry?
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Because if it is, I can assure you by what God's Word is saying that your work in love that you have shown towards the saints,
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God will not overlook. He will not overlook.
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And as we transition, the good news of the gospel, it's the good news of the gospel that brings each and every one of us to maturity.
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Look at Romans 4. Romans 4.
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We'll look at verses 1 through 8. It says, What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh?
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For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
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For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
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Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.
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And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
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So David also spoke of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.
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Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
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Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.
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Ladies and gentlemen, this is the gospel. Our works, our greatest works, deserve death because they are polluted.
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They are filthy rags. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life.
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That God, Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 talks about that God looks down from heaven and he says that no one seeks him.
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That God sits, stands on his throne and he looks down from heaven on earth and he says that no one seeks me.
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So what does he do? He steps down from the throne.
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He became a man and the person of Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, suffered under the hands of Pontius Pilate, lived the life that we could not live.
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He fulfilled the covenant of works. He fulfilled the law that was added to the covenant.
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The covenant of grace is the covenant of works fulfilled in Christ. And so I ask you, because I know y 'all are
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Christocentric. Y 'all have been enriched over the past months with the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
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And I come to this verse and I ask myself, are they not enriched with faith, with hope, and with love?
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After walking through Hebrews with me, they have to be enriched with faith, with hope, and with love.
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And listen, this is not a feeling. This is not goosebumps. This is not gas. This is knowledge.
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This is knowing what Christ has done for us. This is not a burning in the bosom.
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This is worshiping God in spirit and truth. It's having His Spirit that you receive by faith and knowing who
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He is, the God in Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, knowing Him through Christ.
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And knowing how holy, holy, holy He is and what His law requires from us and knowing that we have failed
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Him miserably, that we do not seek Him, but He became a man and that through His suffering death,
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He conquered the world. He has already conquered the world, and we are called to believe in Him and to love one another.
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Point number three, maturity, verse 11, chapter 6.
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And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have this full assurance of hope to the end.
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I believe here He is calling the immature to be mature. He is calling those who are immature to be mature, to have the same earnestness and full assurance and of hope as the mature.
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Verse 10 speaks of the mature who are serving the saints, who are serving the saints, who are working in love, who are doing this for the name of Jesus Christ.
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And He's calling the immature to do the same thing. The preacher here is wanting them to, he is wanting to feed them solid food.
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Remember weeks ago, we spoke about the solid food being Jesus as the high priest.
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And as we enter verses 13 forward, that's what He's going to be doing.
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He is preparing them right now to feast on Jesus being the high priest.
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This was the second level doctrine concerning Christ. First level would have been the gospel message that Christ died for our sins according to the
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Scripture, was buried on the third day, rose according to the Scripture, faith and repentance. This doctrine of Christ, which is not something that you sweep under a rug, verse 3 says, and this we will do if God permits.
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He wants them to understand that they've heard this, but this message had become dull to them.
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They became dull of hearing. They were hearing, but they were not listening. The preacher is wanting to feed them solid food.
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So he is challenging them to grow, to listen, to pay attention, to be like those who are serving you.
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But the preacher here is not displaying pietism.
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He's not displaying pietism here, but he is wanting them to understand true piety.
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So pietism is when you look into yourself to see if you're godly.
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Piety is being godly by looking to Christ. There's nothing wrong with piety, but everything is wrong with pietism.
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We have looking within oneself for salvation versus looking to Christ for salvation.
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One is pietism, which does not produce godly living. It produces works based righteousness.
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On the other hand, we have piety, which is looking to Christ, growing in Christ.
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I gave that illustration many times of driving your car and looking out the back glass, but I used it as looking at your past life, and I said that you will wreck your car.
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The only way for any of us to get to the destination is to look out the front glass.
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And ladies and gentlemen, the only way to reach spiritual maturity is to be looking to Christ.
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Stop focusing on yourself. You, today, are going to mess up.
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And if you focus on your messing up, you are not looking to Christ. I believe it was
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Paul Bunyan that said that his greatest prayer had enough sin in it to cast the whole world into hell and for God to be just for sinning them.
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Ladies and gentlemen, your life as a Christian and your prayer life as a Christian will probably match up better with the
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Tiger Woods swinging the golf club beside you swinging the golf club as it does with Paul Bunyan.
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The life that he lived. And he was just the man who was a sinner, who felled
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God miserably. We have come to a point in Christianity where there seems to be a sanctification deism.
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If you don't know what deism is, deism believes that there is an ultimate creator, a theist, a
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God that created the world, but after creation he left us to ourselves, wants nothing to do with us.
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Church today seems to teach a sanctification deism that yes, you are saved by grace through faith.
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Now live the life that Christ lived. Ladies and gentlemen, it's impossible.
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It's impossible, especially if your focus is on pietism, looking within yourself.
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You are going to wreck the car and kill everyone with you. He is not trying to tear them down, but instead he is trying to bring them to the light that Christ has revealed assurance of salvation is in him.
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The assurance of our salvation can only be found in Jesus Christ. It's not faith in your faith.
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That is pietism, but faith in Christ.
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And that salvation is not only by, excuse me, and that salvation is only by trusting in the finished work of Christ.
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The more I read through Hebrews, I didn't have this knowledge at first, is what
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I'm about to tell you. The more
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I read through this book, the more sermons that I pray about and study and walk through, the more
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I am convinced that the book of Hebrews is an expositional sermon on Psalm 95.
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That all of Hebrews is an expositional sermon on Psalm 95.
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I am convinced. I am fully convinced of this. Go back to chapter 3 where the writer is talking about it, beginning in verse 7.
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He says, Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says today, this is talking about immediately, right now, as I speak, if you hear
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His voice, the voice of God, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness.
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When your Father, speaking of the church in the wilderness, put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years.
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We have Israelite in the wilderness. We have God feeding them with bread that came down from heaven, giving them water from a rock to drink.
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Their clothing would not wear out. Same outfit, same shoes for 40 years.
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By day, they're being given a cloud that was the glory of God that would block the sun from scorching them.
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And by night, the glory of God came by fire to warm them. They're seeing these things and they're putting
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Him to a test. And on their way entering,
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God parts the sea. They pass through it as a baptism. And then their enemy gets drowned in that water after chasing after them.
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And they put God to a test. He says,
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Therefore, I was provoked with that generation and said, They always go astray in their heart.
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They have not known my ways. And as I swore my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.
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Speaking of the land of Canaan, Jerusalem today. Take care, brothers.
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Listen to me. Speaking to them, the Christians, these
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Hebrew Christians, take care, brothers, lest there be an evil and unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living
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God. And I say that to you who are in this church today, who are under the preaching of God's Word, who have seen
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God's providence in your life. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil and unbelieving heart that leads you to fall away from the living
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God. But right here, but exhort. Isn't that what we do?
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As a family, we exhort one another. But exhort one another every day as long as it is called today that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
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That none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. You're going to sin.
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And it will harden you. If you focus on your sin, it will harden you.
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For we have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold to the original confidence firm to the end.
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As it is said today, right now, immediately, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.
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For who were those who heard and yet rebelled were not those who left Egypt led by Moses?
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And with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned and whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
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Right here it tells you why. And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest but those who are disobedient.
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So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
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The command given in Hebrews for us to obey is to believe in God.
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To believe what God has said. And Hebrews chapter 1 tells us that long ago in many ways and many times
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God spoke to the fathers by prophets. Moses was a prophet. But in these last days he has spoken to us by his son.
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He wants us to believe what he has spoken about his son. And we are to enter that rest by faith.
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And that's what the book of Hebrews is about. It's about highlighting the glory of Christ.
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That Jesus Christ is greater than everything. Jesus Christ is greater than everything.
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And as we transition, the other day my daughter Trinity said to me something. She said, if we go to heaven will we see
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God? I said, quote, baby girl with me, there is no if.
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I am going to heaven when I die. And I know this because Jesus Christ is my only hope.
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And I explained to her that if, I explained to her that if you are a child of God, you're always a child of God.
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This takes us back to John chapter 1. For all those who receive
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Christ, he gave the right to become children of God. And I was telling
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Trinity that there's nothing she could do that would make her not my child.
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Right? I don't care how mad I get at her. Yesterday I was furious. She would not listen.
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My kids would not listen to me yesterday. But they were still my kids.
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They're still my children. And they could do nothing.
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Nothing at all. Nothing that would make them not my kids.
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Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She cannot escape my hand. She is my daughter and I have several others.
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I feel like I have a litter. They can do nothing. I'm going to always be their father.
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And when your faith is in Jesus Christ, he gives us the right to become children of God.
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And you can do nothing. And the reason why is because you're given the
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Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit changes your life.
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And though there will be ebbs and flows, when you ebb, you will not flow.
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You will not escape God's love. You will not escape God's hand because he will leave the 99 and he will find the one.
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Now to our last point, this will go quickly. Point number four, immaturity.
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Verse 12. So that you may not be sluggish but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promise.
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The word here for sluggish is the same Greek word that I find in chapter 5, verse 11 concerning the word dull.
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For dull of hearing. Look back at that text, it says, verse 11, about this we have much to say.
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Talking about Jesus being the high priest. And it's hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing.
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For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.
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You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child, but solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers and discernments trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
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He is telling the immature, he is telling them to be imitators of those who through faith and practice and patience have entered the promises.
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The promises here have to be two things because he is speaking to one group of people about another group of people.
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And the promises were given were land, Canaan, and Sabbath being
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Jesus, our rest. He says, learn for the ones who did enter that land because after that generation died, that next generation entered that land.
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Learn from them who did believe and learn from those who have trusted in Christ and have not went back to the temple and sacrificed.
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Be imitators of those who believe. He seems to be calling the immature to maturity by entering that rest that is provided by faith in Jesus Christ.
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And I would add that this is not by works for by grace you have been saved through faith, not of works.
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He tells them to not be sluggish, to not be dull of hearing, but to grow up and be teachers of the faith.
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This is your ministry. It's not telling you, I'm not telling you to come up here and be a teacher behind a pulpit.
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But you are to be a teacher of the faith of those who are around you. And I conclude with this.
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The only thing that should give you full assurance of faith is the finished work of Christ, not look what
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I can do, not that you go out and you do a good work for Christ, not that you're serving the saints, which you need to be doing, which
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I know that we do. These things do not give you assurance. These are good things to do.
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These things accompany salvation. But that is not what your assurance is in.
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Your assurance should be found only in the finished work of Christ. And I'll ask you this.
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Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God? That Jesus lived the life that you could not live and died the death that you should die and in dying this death that God has raised him from the dead?
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Do you believe this? If you have, you have entered that rest by faith.
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I want to share with you a quick paragraph from our confession.
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Chapter 8, chapter 8, paragraph 5, says this.
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The Lord Jesus has fully satisfied the justice of God, attained reconciliation and purchased an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for all those given to him by the
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Father. He has, listen, he has accomplished these things by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he once offered up, which he once for all offered up to God through the eternal spirit.
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If you believe this, like if you truly believe this, like if this is my hope, you have entered that rest.
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And I hope every one of us in here have. I'm available if anyone needs to talk. Please pray with me.
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Father, Lord, I ask your blessings upon this congregation. Your blessings upon the word that was just preached.
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Lord, I pray I did my due diligence. Lord, I thank you for this congregation.
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I thank you that your hand has been on them and I pray that it will remain on them. And if there's any here today,
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Lord, that has not entered that rest by faith, Lord, that you will grant to them faith and repentance from dead works and they will turn to the living and true
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God. Lord, we thank you for the Lord's Supper, this bread and wine, which you have given as a gift of grace for us to grow in holiness.
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I pray that you will bless it and that you will use it, Lord, to make us the immature, more mature.