Confidence and Endurance (Hebrews 10:35-36)

Kootenai Church

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Let's turn in your copy of God's Word to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10, and we're gonna read together verses 32 through the end of the chapter, verse 39,

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Hebrews 10, beginning of verse 32.

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But remember the former days, when after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

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For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

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Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward, for you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

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For yet in a very little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith.

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And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

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Let's pray together. Our Father, we pray that you would use your word today to strengthen us in our hearts and in our minds, and to give us courage and boldness.

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Help us today to be encouraged by your word and to be strengthened and equipped to live faithfully in this age and this time, that we may be faithful servants, that we may receive the reward for enduring the reproach of faith.

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We pray that you would be honored through your word as we study it together, as we reflect upon it, we think about how these things apply to us and what you have commanded us to do.

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We pray that you would encourage our hearts together in these things and that you would be glorified through us. Grant us that understanding and illuminating work of the spirit, we pray, that can only come by your grace and by your work in us through your word.

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We pray this in Christ's name, amen. I wanna open up with a question for you to consider. What role does our future and eternal reward play in motivating, encouraging, strengthening us in our service and our obedience and our endurance?

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Just in case you couldn't hear that, let me give it to you again. What role does our future and eternal reward play in motivating, encouraging, and strengthening us in our service, obedience, sacrifice, and endurance, ultimately our perseverance?

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What is the connection between our eternal reward and our perseverance in the faith? How much of a role does our eternal rewards, what we are promised in scripture, how much does that play in encouraging, how much of a role does that play in encouraging us and strengthening us to be faithful?

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Is it okay for us to fix our hearts and our minds and our meditation upon our eternal reward and the blessings that are going to come to us in the future?

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Is it okay for us to be reminded of and to remind others of what yet awaits us and allow that to motivate us?

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It's a good question because there are some in Christianity who would teach and suggest that those eternal rewards should never be a motivation for us.

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They would say that we should serve without ever thinking about what we might get in return for that.

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In other words, the Lord has done enough for us that that should be motivation enough for us to serve faithfully and obediently and to endure without ever really looking at what is to come.

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Isn't what he has done enough of a motivation? Shouldn't our service and our love and our perseverance be motivated by just a pure affection and love in our hearts for the

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Lord? And if we are looking for what we are going to get at the end, doesn't that pollute in some way or distort our motive?

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Is that really a pure motive if we're looking at the reward? There are some who would suggest that it is. Shouldn't you sacrifice without any thought to the reward and endure without any reward, any motivation other than just a pure love for the

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Lord? Shouldn't your faithfulness be out of love for him and not hope for what you might get in the future?

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Hasn't he really already done enough for you? Isn't what he has done enough that you would be motivated by something that is to come?

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That's a good question. People that raise that question and suggest that looking to the future for our reward or for some hope of what we might get in the future, they would suggest that that pollutes our motive, that we should just be motivated out of a pure heart of nothing but love for the

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Lord and affection for him and no anticipation of what is to come. I would like to answer that question.

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I wish you had a week to go home and think about that. Maybe some of you already know what the answer to this is.

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But I would like to answer that question with another question. I love answering questions with questions. Here's the other question.

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Why can't it be both? I mean, we are complex creatures, are we not? Is there anything you have ever done in your entire life that is motivated, that has just one motivation?

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Can you think of anything? The ladies, when you cook a meal for your husband or you do something nice for somebody else, is it just one motivation that you have or are there all kinds of things that play into that?

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Isn't it possible for us as complex creatures to have more than one motive for what we do? Why would we think that just because I'm looking forward to and anticipating a future reward, that there is not at the very same time a love and affection and gratitude for what he has already done?

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And really, can we even divide these things? Can these things be separated? Is it even possible for you and I to reflect just upon what

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God has already done without at the very same time connecting that to what he is also going to do?

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Can you really contemplate the glories of your justification? You're being declared righteous in him because of his death on the cross by virtue of your faith in him.

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Is it possible for you to contemplate your justification without also at the same time recognizing, as Romans 8 says, that all of those who are justified will be sanctified and all of those who will be sanctified will be what?

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Glorified. You cannot even contemplate the glories of justification without following that golden chain of redemption all the way through to your glorification and ultimately your final reward.

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Is it possible for you and can you even really separate the meditation on the forgiveness of your sins while ignoring what the forgiveness of your sins means for you in eternity?

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You cannot really even think about forgiveness of sins without at the same time thinking, because I am forgiven, there is therefore no condemnation in Christ and because that is true,

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I will be able to stand in God's presence completely righteous and completely forgiven with no condemnation and be glorified on that day.

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See, it is almost impossible to think of present realities without connecting them to future promises because they are all tied together, they all go together.

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My love for the Lord, I do love the Lord and I desire to be with him and I desire to have that future reward because guess what?

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The future reward is him. So I look to the future reward, how can I look to the future reward without reflecting upon the fact that my reward is him?

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It's being with him and enjoying pleasures at his right hand forevermore. It is being in the courts of God forever and ever and ever and enjoying his glory and being with the people that he has redeemed and when we are with the people that he has redeemed and having received our eternal reward, guess what we're going to see in the people that he has redeemed?

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It's not just we see each other as we are here but we see each other as we are glorified so what we see in each other then is the glory of God.

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So even my longing to be with the saints of God in eternity is a longing to be with a

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God who is reflected through the saints that he has redeemed for all of eternity so it is really impossible for me to be motivated just by present realities without also seeing how they're connected to future realities and it is impossible for me to be motivated by just future realities without also being motivated by a love for Christ.

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So I really don't think that these two things can be separated at all and for those who would suggest that having our eye fixed and being aware of and contemplating the rewards that are to come, that that is an illicit motivation,

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I would suggest to you that somebody should have told the author of Hebrews that that was an illicit motivation because in Hebrews chapter 10, he holds out the promise of a great reward.

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He says in verse 34, we have a better possession and a lasting one. Verse 35, a great reward. Verse 36, we are going to receive what is promised and verse 39, we have faith to the preserving of the soul.

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These are the rewards that are held out for us and all the way through chapter 11 by the way, it is a chronicle of those under the old covenant in the

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Old Testament who obeyed and who were faithful and who had faith and trusted what God promised even though they did not see the fulfillment of those promises in their present but they looked forward to the future fulfillment of those promises and persevered in light of what they would receive at the end, motivated by a proper faith.

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Paul focused upon his reward, didn't he? When he said, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the

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Lord, the righteous judge will give to me on that day and not only to me but also to all those who have loved his appearing. Paul said,

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I fought the good fight, I've finished the race, I've kept the faith all the way to the end and guess what? There is laid up for me a heavenly reward.

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Peter encouraged his readers by reminding them that you have an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and will not fade away, preserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God.

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There's an inheritance all the way through the book of 1 Peter, that inheritance, that reward is held out as a motivation for endurance and faithfulness all the way to the end.

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John described in Revelation our eternal home and the glories that follow it and Jesus himself described the reward and the giving to those who are on his right hand saying to them, enter into the glory and the joy prepared for you.

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He described the blessings and the rewards and the joys that he is going to give to those who are his own.

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So Jesus, Peter, Paul, John and the author of Hebrews all held out rewards for faithful service as a motivating factor.

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So if that is an illicit motivation, somebody should have instructed the authors of scripture and you know that I'm being somewhat sarcastic and snarky when

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I say that. Rewards are featured prominently in scripture, aren't they? All the way through.

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We look forward to something that we have not yet received and that is not an illicit motivation because we know that our service in the faith is not in vain, that God will accomplish what he has promised, he will fulfill his every promise, he will reward adequately and so no matter what it is that happens in this world and in this life, whatever it is that God has called us to endure, to persevere through, to face and to be faithful in, he will adequately and abundantly reward us at the end for that faithfulness and it is not wrong to look forward to that because in looking forward to that, we are glorying in what he has done and we are looking to him to make us faithful in that so that us in being faithful then will receive the reward that he has promised to us.

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And we're in this warning chapter in Hebrews chapter 10 and the idea of reward and promise and blessing in this future hardly sounds like a warning, doesn't it?

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But it's actually part of this larger passage that started back in verse 26. In verses 26 through 31, he described those who would not bear the reproach of faith but instead would turn away, ultimately he says to the destruction of their soul.

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They would receive the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries, verse 31, being unwilling to bear the scorn of the world or to face the hostility and opposition of the world.

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There is a group of people who profess faith in Christ but then when the going gets rough, they get going and they're not the rough ones or the tough ones, they're the weak ones who have no true and genuine faith.

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So they go on sinning, continuing in their sin, their rebellion, turning away from the Lord, ultimately are destroyed in that for that decision.

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But then there is the second group whom he is convinced to have faith to the preserving of the soul, that's the end of verse 39.

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This second group is really addressed in verses 32 through 39. We've seen in verses 32 through 34 that he is encouraging them to look back to the reproach of faith, what they had endured and being reproached in the tribulations, enduring this great conflict of sufferings because of their faith, they're to reflect upon that.

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Then in verses 35 through 39, he encourages them to look forward to the reward of faith, that those who endure the reproach receive the reward.

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Endure the reproach of faith and be faithful in it, do the will of God and you receive the reward that comes to those who are faithful.

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It's a real simple statement, those who endure the reproach of faith receive the reward of faith. And we're looking today at verses 35 and 36.

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Verses 35 and 36, we're gonna see in verse 35 an exhortation and in verse 36 an encouragement. The exhortation is this, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

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The encouragement is this, you will receive what was promised, that's the end of verse 36. There's an exhortation that we are not to throw away our confidence, but that we instead, we are to be faithful and to do the will of God knowing that we will receive the reward.

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You'll notice that verse 35 begins with a therefore, indicating that he's in the concluding thoughts of this warning passage that goes from verse 26 to the end of the passage.

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He's wrapping this up, he's bringing this to a conclusion. He is saying therefore, since these things are true, now remember he has built a case beginning in verse 26, since you have endured a great conflict of sufferings, since you have suffered reproach, since you have endured tribulations, since you have become sharers with those who are so treated, since some of you have become prisoners, since some of you have had the seizure of your property, suffered through the seizure of your property, since these things are true and since it is true that you have a lasting and a better possession.

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In light of all of that, therefore, what are you to do? Do not throw away your confidence.

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Now what does that mean? What does it mean to throw away your confidence? Probably if you're like me, when you first read that, you think of confidence in the sense of assurity or a certainty, an assurance or certainty of something.

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I am confident of something. I'm standing before you today, I'm exceedingly warm and I'm sweating prolifically.

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I'm absolutely confident of that, I am assured of that, I know this for certain, I know this for certain as much as I know that I am living and breathing and here today,

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I'm certain of these things. I have a certain confidence there about that these things are true. That is typically how we think of confidence, right?

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It's something that we are sure of or certain of. Or we use confidence to describe a certainty of conviction, a belief that something is true, a belief that something is certain.

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Is the author then saying, don't lose your assurance? Or is he saying, don't cast off or throw away your certainty regarding these things.

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Don't start to doubt what you know to be true because these things have a great reward. Actually, that's not what he's describing.

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It's not what he's describing at all. Before I tell you what the word translated confidence means, the word cast off is used three times in scripture.

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It means to throw off, to leave, to throw aside, to lose, to do away with or to reject. As the idea of setting something aside, turning away from it, walking away from it, throwing it away from yourself, losing it entirely.

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That's the idea. It's used three times in the New Testament. Once here, once in the Gospels, Mark chapter 10, verse 50. It describes blind

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Bartimaeus when he heard Jesus walking alongside the road. You remember what blind Bartimaeus did? He cast aside his cloak, threw his cloak away from him.

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That's the word that's used to describe Bartimaeus throwing off his robe and running through the crowd trying to get to Jesus.

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It's also used in Romans chapter 13 when Paul says, lay aside, that's the word, lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

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Those deeds of sin and darkness and corruption and wickedness, you cast those off, you throw them aside. You have nothing more to do with them, that's the idea.

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Don't lose, don't throw away, cast off, toss away your confidence. What does the word confidence mean?

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The word confidence means a freedom of speech, a free -spokenness, an openness, frankness, license of tongue, a boldness or a courage.

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That's what the word confidence means. It is used a number of times in Scripture to describe something other than speech, but it is used an abundant number of times in Scripture to describe speaking and how we are to speak.

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Do not cast off your freedom of speech, your free -spokenness, your openness and frankness, your boldness, your courage, your bluntness, your publicness about your confession.

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That's what it is. You say, what does the word confidence have to do with that? There's a connection there between what you say and what you are assured of and believe in your heart.

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If you're assured of something and believe something in your heart firmly, then you will be confident in the way that you say this.

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Just as today, I said quite confidently a few minutes ago that I was sweating profusely and it's warm in here and that I'm standing before you today because I know these things to be true, so I would say this openly and publicly before you, even though it paints a rather grotesque picture in your mind probably, but I can say these things openly and publicly to you because I am confident and assured of them in my heart.

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So there is a connection between what I know to be true, what I am assured of and certain of, and how

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I would describe what it is that I am assured of and certain of. That's the connection here in this context.

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So he is not talking about, in our context, assurance or certainty regarding something, though that is connected.

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But he is rather describing our speech and how we are to speak, how we are to proclaim the truth.

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I'm gonna give you a list of verses in Scripture where you see how this word is used to describe people speaking.

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First, it's used three other times here in Hebrews. I'm gonna give these to you so you can see how the author is using this idea, and then you'll see exactly what

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I think he means here in this context. Hebrews chapter three, verse six, says Christ was faithful as a son over his house, whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.

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We are to hold fast our boldness, our confidence, our publicness, our declaration of these things, and our boast firm until the end.

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You can see, even in that context, it's describing something of our proclamation of these things, our boldness in these things, our confidence and our openness regarding these things.

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We're Christ if we hold fast to these things. Then it's used in Hebrews 4, 16, and this paints a picture,

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I think, for you. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. That's the word, confidence to the throne of grace.

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See, that's the word for boldness, courageousness, openness, unhinderedness, a plainspokenness.

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He's saying in chapter four, because these things are true of Christ and his priesthood and what he has done, he has given us, therefore, access to the throne of grace, and we are to walk in with boldness, plainness of speech, frankness, and openness right to the very throne of grace.

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Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19, therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place, there it is again, a boldness and a frankness, an outspokenness, a bluntness, courage, freeness, plainness in speaking.

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And it's used over and over again in the New Testament to describe speech, and I'm making the case that I think that that is what it is describing here as well.

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Acts 4, verse 13, it's translated confidence. Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and began to recognize as having been with Jesus.

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Now what did they observe about Peter and John? The fact that Peter and John were just kind of walking through the marketplace with their chin held high, they seemed to have an air of assurance about them.

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It wasn't what they were just saw. When Peter and John got up and preached the gospel plainly, boldly, openly, unhindered, with a freedom of speech, they said, man, those guys are bold.

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They must have been with Jesus. That's what they saw. Acts 4, verse 29, and they pray, oh, now,

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Lord, take note of their threats and grant that your bondservants may speak your word with all confidence, boldness, plainness.

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It's also translated plainly or plainness in Scripture. Mark 8, 32, and he was stating the matter plainly.

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John 10, verse 24, the Jews were gathered around him and they were saying to him, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you're the

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Christ, tell us plainly. John 11, verse 14, then Jesus said to them plainly,

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Lazarus is dead. His disciples said in John 16, 29, lo, now you're speaking plainly and are not using a figure of speech.

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See how it's used to describe just an openness, a frankness, a clarity there? You're speaking with confidence, a plainness or a plainspokenness about them.

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It's translated as boldness in Acts 4, verse 31, and when they had prayed, the place where they were gathered together was shaken and they were all filled with the

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Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness. 2 Corinthians 3, verse 12, therefore having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech.

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Ephesians 6, verse 19, and pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.

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It's translated openly or openness. John 7, verse 13, yet no one was speaking openly of him for fear of the

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Jews. And see there it's contrasted with kind of a quietness, a real gentleness.

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We'll talk one on one about it, but nobody would stand out in the marketplace and just speak openly of Jesus because they feared the

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Jews. Nobody wanted to have any kind of opinion about him publicly, openly, boldly, out in front of everybody.

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They didn't want that. Instead, it was very quiet. John 7, verse 26, look, he's speaking publicly and they're saying nothing to him.

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There it's translated as publicly, out in the open. John 18, verse 20, Jesus answered him, I've spoken openly to the world.

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I've always taught in the synagogues and the temple where all the Jews come together and I have spoken nothing in secret.

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Acts 28, verse 31, describes Paul preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness and unhindered.

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That's a lot of references, isn't it? It is translated as confidence, plainness, plainly, openly, boldly, publicly.

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It can describe something other than speech. I'm standing before you quite publicly, openly, confidently, right?

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Even if I were to stand up here confidently and not say anything, I can stand here confidently and openly and publicly.

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So you can do things other than speak openly and publicly, but in scripture so often this word is used to describe the preaching or the speaking.

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It means a boldness, a plainness, a bluntness. It describes a manner of courage and openness and confidence in the open and public and blunt and frank and I am running out of words in the thesaurus to describe how it is that we speak the truth of the gospel.

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Don't lose your boldness, your frankness, your openness about the truth. He is saying you have plainly spoken, you have openly spoken, you have boldly spoken and courageously and frankly spoken.

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Do not toss that aside. Don't stop doing that. Now why is that command so necessary and so fitting for the context?

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What is the unique temptation that we face when we endure a great conflict of suffering, hostility, persecution, tribulations, reproaches, imprisonment and the seizure of our property?

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What is the unique temptation that you face at that moment? It's to just be quiet.

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It's to think to yourself if this thing that I am teaching and believing and communicating and that I'm standing for this, if this is causing all of the fire and the heat of opposition, persecution, the tribulations and the reproach, if that's the cause of that, my believing that and teaching that and holding fast to that causes all of this, then maybe the best thing for me to do is to simply step back and be quiet and not do

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X. Or at least if I'm going to do X and believe X, to do it quietly and privately and maybe just with people who also affirm

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X. Maybe we could just get together and have these discussions with people who agree with me on this and not do it publicly, openly or plainly.

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That is the unique temptation, to pull back at the very point where we are rubbing the culture raw with our testimony.

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At the very point where they hate us because we are faithful to some truth, it is there that we are tempted to pull back on that truth.

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And we do this in a number of ways and you see it happening in pulpits all across the country. There is an attempt to sometimes soften the message and make it less offensive to the culture or to the world.

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This was on public display recently when the current president of the

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Southern Baptist denomination, in a message said that God shouts about sins like gluttony and greed and selfishness and idolatry, but he whispers about sexual sin.

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Whispers about sexual sin. No, God does not whisper about sexual sins. God doesn't whisper. I read that somewhere.

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He doesn't whisper at all. About anything, particularly sexual sin. And I don't know where I read that and I don't mean to plagiarize.

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Speaking of plagiarism, that message that Ed Linton preached in which he said that God whispers about sexual sin, it wasn't the statement that God whispers about sexual sin that caught the national headlines.

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It was the fact that he plagiarized the entire message from the previous president of the Southern Baptist denomination, J .D.

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Greer, and he did so taking the illustrations, the introductions, the quotes, the outline and the points of the message, point for point, all the way through the thing, preached it as if it were his own, telling nobody that he'd actually plagiarized the entire message.

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Now, that got everybody up in a tizzy about it. Everybody got upset about that. And I sat back and wondered, why are you upset about that?

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That's been a cottage industry in the Southern Baptist denomination for decades. That's been going on for 40 years, people plagiarizing one another, encouraging plagiarizing one another, selling your plagiarism, buying plagiarism.

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This is all part of that whole culture and has been for decades. And yet, if the Southern Baptist denomination were not on the quick slide into apostasy, then even the most uneducated

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Christian in every Southern Baptist church in the country would have been able to say that the real issue here is that statement that God whispers about sexual sin, because that is nothing more, and there's nothing less,

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I should say, than an attempt to soften the message of the church and of Scripture concerning moral issues at the very point that right now is rubbing our culture raw with the church.

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Our culture, every cultural institution, every academic institution, every entertainment venue, all has the same message.

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They all walk in lockstep. And whenever an alternative morality or the biblical truth about any of the issues of human sexuality or gender are even proclaimed from the church or from a

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Christian, the world hates it. They jeer it, they mock it, they reject it, and they pour out their hostility upon us for it.

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And it's at that very point then that somebody of the president of the largest denomination in our country, the

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Southern Baptist denomination, stands up and says, no, but God really whispers about sexual sin. That is an attempt to soften the message.

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And it makes people think, well, maybe then God really isn't concerned about my sexual sin. I mean, if he's not concerned to really be clear about it or bold about it, if God's not gonna be bold about it, why should

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I really be concerned? I should probably be more bold about the things that God is bold about. And so then they would do what?

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They make a list of all the things that God is bold about, and guess where sexual sin is on there? It's so far down the list that they're never gonna get to it in this lifetime.

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That's how that works. Or people not just attempt to soften the message, but attempt to be coy about the message.

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This is a really clever way of just trying to get around the truth by using different language. So you hear this sometimes, they won't talk about sin and unrighteousness, transgression against God's law.

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Instead, they use words like we've all made boo -boos. We've all made mistakes.

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We all wish we could go back and get a mulligan in life. You've done a few things that you regret.

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You've done a few things that might be ill -advised. Maybe they were unwise in your past. You regret them, wish you could go back and do them over again.

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Instead of talking about God's wrath, they talk about a broken relationship. Don't you feel estranged from God right now?

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You're kind of lonely? You feel isolated? You feel this need to belong to somebody?

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Well, just take a step back toward God because that comes from a God -shaped hole in your heart, and God has a you -shaped hole in his heart, and if you could just come together, you would fill the you -shaped hole in God's heart, and God would fill the

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God -shaped hole in your heart, and like the little lockets that go together, you just come together, and everything will be full and right again, and they won't use language like repent, turn from your sin, walk away from your sin.

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They won't talk about the wrath of God. Instead, they talk about giving Jesus a try, coming back to the

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Lord. Just take a step toward God. He'll take 10 steps toward you. It's the kind of language that is used.

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It's just another way of being coy about the message, or they will try to attempt to avoid the offense altogether and never talk about controversial issues, never talk about controversial doctrines, never speak in exclusivistic terms.

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They'll say, well, we're just preaching the positive things right now. We're really trying to emphasize the things that Scripture emphasizes, like love, and justice, and belonging, and community, and our meta -narrative, and the story of our life, and the story of your life, and a whole bunch of stories, and the

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Bible's just a story about stories, and we can all just fit together into God's story, and God fits into our story, and we're all just storytellers.

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This is just so beautiful and loving. You say, well, what about the hard things? What about the controversial things? What about the things that divide people and make people angry and would make the world mad at you?

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What about those things? They say, I mean, those things, sure, there are things like that in Scripture. We're not sure exactly how they fit with the overall message and the whole theme of Scripture, but we'll get around to those, and by that they mean we'll never get around to those.

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That's what they mean by that, because they never end up, do getting around to it. They want to avoid at all costs the offense of the cross and the offense of Scripture, or if you want another example of it, they will change the message altogether and give the world exactly what it wants, and this is your

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Joel Osteen's of the world. Give the world exactly what it wants, a self -help message, an easy -believe -ism, a message that is really about you and how you can become fulfilled, how you can be a better this or a better that, how you can receive these blessings.

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That is the message that the world wants, or to change it in another way, to present to the world a message of social justice, political ideologies, liberal philosophies, a non -judgmental and non -confrontational self -help

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Christianity. That's how the message is changed. So soften the message, avoid the hard topics, be coy about the message, or even outright change the message.

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And all of these ways of not being bold, not being open, public, and forthright about the truth, all of that is brought to you by the seeker -sensitive movement.

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Seeker -sensitive movement today doesn't want to say these things because it is unpopular in the culture. The seeker -sensitive movement is probably 40 years ahead of its time because they started this back in the 70s when some of these truths that we would proclaim and we see as essential and confrontational actually were part of the zeitgeist of our country for the most part.

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The seeker -sensitive movement was 40 years ahead of their time, so they started compromising on this a long time ago, and I would actually lay a lot of the societal and cultural degradation of the church and of our culture at the feet of the seeker -sensitive movement because if they had been preaching the truth like they should have been preaching the truth instead of 90 % of the churches in our country not doing that for the last half of a century,

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I would suggest to you that the church in America would look a lot different. If every man was a John MacArthur, things would be different.

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Let's put it that way. Things would be a lot different in the culture and in the church. These compromises brought to you by the seeker -sensitive movement, the church marketing and PR campaigns, and there are a plethora of those, cowardly pastors and worldly hirelings and a

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Christian media that is all too happy to take a dollar in exchange for compromise. And what is the motivation of this?

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Why is it that people step back and toss aside their confidence, their boldness in the face of hostility and opposition?

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It is never actually stated. The motivation is never actually stated for what it really is.

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You see, unfaithfulness is never marketed as unfaithfulness. It's always marketed by a desire to reach the lost.

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Compromise is never just openly called compromise. There's not a seeker -sensitive pastor in this country who is standing behind their pulpit right now today saying, look, for the last 20 years,

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I've been compromising the message, capitulating to the spirit of the age, and I've been faithful to Christ, and I want you to know I'm gonna continue to do that as long as I possibly can.

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There's not a seeker -sensitive pastor in the country that would say that. The cowardice never goes under the banner of cowardice.

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Unfaithfulness never goes under the banner of unfaithfulness. It always markets itself as something different. Instead, they will say, well, we need to do this if we want more people to hear the gospel.

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We wouldn't want everybody in the community to be upset with us and think that we are an irrelevant church that is caught in that morality of a bygone era and believes those archaic truths.

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We wouldn't want the community to think that. We want the community to think that we are on the cutting edge of societal evolution, that we are on the cutting edge of cultural progress, and so we wanna be just like the culture in order to draw people in from the culture so that we can give the truth to them in slow, little segments, and by slow,

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I mean a frozen sloth in tar, slow progress toward the truth.

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We wanna give it to them in these tiny, little pieces, which is a little bit at a time, and just sort of inoculate them to the truth.

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No, sorry, not inoculate them to the truth. We want them to come around to the truth. What they're actually doing is inoculating people to the truth.

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See, that is really what they want. They want people to, they say that they want people to hear. They say that they want more people to receive the message, and so they try and make the message palatable to the audience so that the audience will embrace it, because most pastors view themselves as a salesman, and the gospel as a product, and the audience as the market, and they do everything they can to package the product in such a way that it will receive the widest acceptance amongst their audience, rather than seeing the gospel as a message that must necessarily offend the sinner so that when it is proclaimed, the sinner is left guiltless or guilty and speechless before the throne of God, naked and bare and exposed before God's law, and then seeing his need for a savior.

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They think that the role of the gospel is to somehow creep its way into people's lives if we can just sort of camouflage it enough that people will accept it, and what they end up doing is camouflaging it enough that the non -elect don't even know what they're rejecting, because it is no longer the gospel at all.

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What we don't need, and I know that everybody here would agree with this, at least I think most of you would, what we do not need is more cowards, more compromise, and more concession.

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The church is full of that. The church in America is full of that. Cowards, compromise, concession, and capitulation to the spirit of the age.

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That's the trend. This is what apostasy looks like, and so the author, in light of the hostility that they would face, says do not throw off your boldness, your bluntness, and your openness about the gospel.

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That confident, clear, bold, public, unapologetic, blunt, and frank, plain -spokenness about the truth of the gospel is what got you into this mess of public spectacle, reproaches, tribulations, imprisonment, and the seizure of your property, and the author says double down, keep going.

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Do not throw aside your boldness, your confidence. Now this does not mean that we should be unloving, and uncharitable, and bitter, and angry, and acerbic, and acidic in our personality, and our demeanor, and our approach to people.

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That's not what I'm saying at all. We are ambassadors for Christ, so we ought to be the most winsome, charitable, loving, engaging, encouraging, and joyful people on the face of the planet, and when we present the gospel to people, we can do so with a sobriety, and a joyfulness that is evident at the same time.

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So I'm not suggesting that we be acid in everybody's eyes, but I am suggesting that we lovingly pour the acid of the gospel in everybody's eyes, that we do this, and we make sure that the offense is with the gospel, and not with us.

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We can be loving, and endearing, and charitable in our character, and our demeanor, without ever compromising the truth.

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So we are to be these things, and at the same time, bold, and uncompromising, and plain spoken, and clear about the truth of the gospel.

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Not in any way attempting to soften the message, to be coy about the message, to change the message, to market the message, or do anything else that might in any way alter the truth of scripture.

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We can be loving, and we can be bold at the same time. That is what the author is encouraging. The very thing that we are tempted to do, he is telling us not to do, and so you can see how just counterintuitive this is.

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You would think at this point in the epistle, after talking about their being made a public spectacle, the great conflict of sufferings, the tribulations, the reproaches, the imprisonment, the seizure of the property.

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You would think that at this point, he would say, now look, here's my advice to you. Just dial it back a bit.

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This has made people really angry. Just pull back, just be silent about it. Get together and meet, talk about it amongst yourselves.

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Let the fires of opposition die down out there a little bit, and then when everything calms down, then we can all go back to it again, and maybe see if they'll be more receptive next time around.

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He doesn't say that. He doesn't tell them to find a better way of saying it, to cool off a little bit till things get better. Do not cast aside your boldness, your plainness, your frankness.

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Don't stop being blunt about the gospel. It is what it is, and it is not your job to make it palatable in any way at all.

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And we don't apologize for the unpalatableness of the gospel either. We don't present the gospel and then say, ah, really hate to tell you this.

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No, it is the truth. And we ought to, with joy and gladness, speak the truth without trying to make it palatable for the folks of our age, times in which we live.

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We have this confidence that if we do not throw away our boldness, that it has a great reward. That's the end of verse 35.

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It has a great reward. There is an immediate reward and an eschatological reward. And I am well aware that our time has gone.

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We're not gonna get to verse 36, but it actually goes better with verses 37 and 38. We speak about the encouragement of the reward that is to come.

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He describes or states the reward here in verse 35. Do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. In verse 36, he describes again that we will receive what was promised, having done the will of God, if we endure.

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When we endure, we receive what is promised. When we've done the will of God and been faithful. In verse 35, he just says you have a great reward.

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There's two senses in which we can speak of the reward for the very confidence and boldness that he is describing here. The first is an immediate reward.

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There is a sense in which when we are bold and straightforward about the truth of the gospel, it is true that in that moment and at that time, we can expect and enjoy the blessings of God's power and his presence in the proclamation of truth.

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We can know that we have an immediate reward when we understand that obedience is really its own reward.

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When you are faithful about the truth and you say what needs to be said at the time that it needs to be said, and you say it with a love and a grace and a charitableness and a kindness and gentleness that is appropriate at the time, and yet you are straightforward about the truth of the gospel, you can lay your head on your pillow at night and sleep quite soundly, knowing that you have been faithful to do what

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God has called you to do. That you took the opportunity that the Lord presented and you carried it through in obedience and you said what had to be said at that moment.

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There is an immediate satisfaction of reward as well as the confidence that God is with me in this,

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God strengthens me in this, and I know that his blessing rests upon me because he, by his grace, gave me not only the opportunity but also the boldness and the character and the faithfulness.

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God gave me the grace and the faithfulness to do what he gave me the opportunity to do. And then you can walk away from that with your heart filled with joy, knowing that I have done what

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God has called me to do. And even if I am hated for what I just did, there is an eternal reward that is sure and certain that I know that I shall receive.

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That's an immediate blessing. But there's also an eschatological or end time blessing.

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And this is what I think is described in verse 36 when he says you will receive what was promised. And this eschatological blessing that we are going to receive is described in verses 37 and 38 when he talks about the one who is coming will come and he will not delay and his reward is with him to give to every man.

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We know that there is a reward that is coming and we're gonna have to look at that next week. There is no reward for cowardice, for compromise or for concession or for unfaithfulness.

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Let me say it again, there is no reward for cowardice. You cannot, we are gonna have as a church, as a people,

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I speak this about all Christians, in the times in which we live, we are going to have to get out of our minds and out of our hearts any thought, any consideration that we are going to be able to navigate life in this world and be faithful to the truth and avoid the hatred of the world.

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You will not be able to do it. If the world loves you, the world loves its own.

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If you're chosen by Christ, you're chosen out of this world and the world is going to hate you because it hated him first. You cannot love

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God and this world. If you are a lover of this world, you are an enemy of God. You cannot be double -minded.

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You cannot have one foot in both kingdoms. You cannot play your cards in such a way as to avoid the hatred of the world if you are going to also be faithful to do what

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God has called you to do. And the pressure is going to be ratcheted up in every segment of our culture to the point where this conflict is unavoidable.

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This conflict is unavoidable because there must be a conflict between the kingdom of men and the kingdom of God.

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It must happen. This cannot be otherwise. There has to be a response of hatred from the world if we are gonna be faithful to the truth.

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So you can't compromise the message or change the message, be coy about the message and still expect a reward from the king of kings.

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Do not lose your boldness, your plain -spokenness, or your openness about the truth. I think a perfect example of this is the

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Apostle Paul. When Paul got to the end of his life, he said, I have kept the faith, I have finished my course, I've run my race,

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I've done all of this. He describes the faithfulness with which he has lived and the reward of stepping into that heavenly kingdom.

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In writing to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter four, Paul described in somewhat enigmatic terms his first defense before Caesar.

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Now you remember Paul in the book of Acts, he appealed to Caesar when he sensed that the Jews, that Festus or Felix was trying to throw him under the bus and turn him over to the

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Jews so the Jews would kill him. Paul, as a Roman citizen, had every right to appeal to Caesar, which he did. He said, fine, then

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I appeal to Caesar. And so Festus said to Caesar, you shall go. And Luke ends the book of Acts with Paul in prison in Rome.

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Well, after that, Paul was released and then rearrested. At the end of his life, while in prison, he writes 2

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Timothy chapter four, and he describes here his first defense before Nero. Now keep in mind, the

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Apostle Paul, the most well -known Christian of the era, bar none, there was no close second, the

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Apostle Paul stood before Nero, the Roman emperor, and presented his case, the gospel.

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And here's how Paul says it. At my first defense, no one supported me, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them.

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But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that through me, the proclamation might be fully accomplished, and that all the

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Gentiles might hear. And I was rescued out of the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and listen, here's the reward, and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.

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To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Stood before Caesar, preached the gospel.

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And then he said, the proclamation for which God had called him has been fully accomplished, that all the

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Gentiles might hear. He preached to Nero, and then he said, I know that the

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Lord will gather me safely into his kingdom. If you're standing before Nero, and your life is on the line, then you know the stakes are high.

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And Paul at that moment, did not cast off his confidence or his boldness. He accomplished the proclamation that God had called him to, and set his eyes firmly on the prize of being brought safely into God's heavenly kingdom.

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May God grant to us that same boldness, an uncompromising, unhindered, open declaration of the truth and the gospel.

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Let's pray. Father, we are so grateful to you for the strength that you give to those who are yours.

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We're thankful that the gospel that we preach and proclaim is worthy of our lives, all of them.

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The gospel that we proclaim and preach is the truth, and we have no reason to be ashamed of it, for it is the power of God unto salvation to any and all who will believe.

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We thank you that you are accomplishing your purposes in this world. We know that every amount of opposition that the world is throwing at the church right now, today, not only in our own country, but also in all the countries around this world where your people reside, the truth is hated nearly universally by unbelievers.

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We pray that you would strengthen the church and strengthen us, and we know that you are accomplishing your purposes and bringing all of this to an end.

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You are going to gather us all safely into your heavenly kingdom and give to us the crown of righteousness, which belongs not only to us, but to all those who love your appearing.

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We wait for that day, we long for that day, and we pray that you would grant us the strength to be confident and bold and open and blunt about the truth until you call us home, however it is that you would do so.

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Keep us faithful, make us faithful, and keep us faithful. For the glory of your great name, we pray in Christ's name.

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The aspect that we've been talking about here at the end was the faithfulness, or sorry, the eschatological promise of a faithful God who has promised to gather us into his heavenly kingdom and to come again, and it is described in verse 37, for in a very little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.

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This ties into our communion meal, because one thing that we do in communion is we remember the death of the

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Lord Jesus Christ until he comes. So there is an aspect of celebration of the

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Lord's Supper where we look forward to the consummation of all things when he comes, and we look back to what he has done for us.

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And as I said at the beginning, these two things are inseparably connected. We cannot separate what he has done for us on the cross with the reality that he is coming again and his reward is with him, and he will give to every man exactly what he has earned.

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And so we anticipate that future and heavenly reward, that eschatological blessing, the coming at the end times, his coming, and with him all the saints in glory, we anticipate that and look forward to that because of what he has done.

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So in communion, when we are praying, we confess our sin, but we are doing this recognizing that there is going to come a time when we will have no more sin to confess to the

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Lord. We'll have no more sin to repent of, to turn from, to be meditating about, because we will be finally delivered from the very presence of sin, ultimately.

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Being delivered now from the power of sin, delivered in the past from the penalty of sin, in the future we are delivered from the presence of sin.

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And we will be made righteous and we will stand before him and we will eat and drink with him and rejoice with him. That is our future hope, that is a future blessing that belongs to all those who are in Jesus Christ.

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If you are here today and you have never trusted Christ for salvation, I would encourage you not to partake of communion because in doing so, you're just eating and drinking judgment to yourself.

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Scripture describes that. If you've never trusted Christ for salvation, this is not for you. You need to recognize that you are a sinner, repent, turn from your sin, and be born again before you partake of the elements, because you do not want to eat and drink judgment.

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You are basically saying this was done for me when you are not bowing the knee to Christ at all, not embracing him or trusting him as Savior at all.

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This is not for those who are outside of the faith. For Christians who are here, we want to make sure that when we partake of communion that we have examined ourselves.

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We've looked at our own hearts, confessed our sins, acknowledged our sins, confessed them to the Lord, and that we are turning from those sins.

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So if you are a believer here and you're living in unrepentant sin, I would first call you to repentance for that sin and encourage you not to partake of communion if you are not turning from your sin.

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The Christian life is a life of repentance. We are always turning from sin, as often as we see it, turning from it to God, to his righteousness and to his grace, seeking his grace continually because of what he has done for us on the cross.

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So I will bow my heads. We'll have a couple moments of prayer. I would ask the ushers to come forward at this time and stand with me up here.

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We'll bow our head and have a couple moments of silent prayer, and then I'll lead us in prayer. Let's bow our heads.

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Our great Father, we recognize our sinfulness. We are thankful that you have justified us even though we are in a sinning state, even though we continually struggle with sin and wrestle against sin.

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We hate it and we long to be righteous and to be made righteous in practice entirely. We thank you that there is forgiveness in Christ because of what he has done for us on the cross.

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And so without focusing too much on ourselves and our own sin, we always then turn our eyes and our hearts to the

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Lord Jesus Christ who offers forgiveness and righteousness no matter what our sin, no matter how abundant our sin, no matter how powerful our sin remains.

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We thank you that you wash us from all our sin and our stains. We thank you for our positional righteousness in Jesus Christ, for our justification, and we know that that is inseparably tied to us progressing in holiness and growing in sanctification.

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So as we acknowledge our sin, we turn from it and pray for grace to live in holiness and righteousness before you, thanking you for your provision of righteousness in Jesus Christ and your provision of forgiveness because he has borne the shame and the sin and the reproach that our sin deserves.

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We thank you that he has died in our stead and taken all of that away on behalf of all who will trust in him.

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And we pray that if there are any here who have never trusted Christ for salvation, that they would see their sin and their waywardness and their need for that Savior and turn in believing, trusting, and abiding faith to him so that they may have their sins forgiven and be made righteous forevermore.

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honored through our time here as we reflect upon your goodness and your grace, we pray in Christ's name, amen.