Amen. I am so excited about being here this morning
and hearing you sing and knowing that God has met with us
already and that he's gonna do something incredible
in the next few moments.
I read this quote this week that made me think
from Orson Welles, he's a writer and actor of old.
He said, if you want a happy ending,
that depends of course on where you stop your story.
And I think it could be taken as somewhat cynical,
that's quote, right?
Some may think that living happily ever after
is just unrealistic.
How many of you have heard that at the end of a story?
And they lived happily ever after, you've heard that before.
And so some think, yeah, that's just because you ended
the story there, there's probably more bad that's coming.
And if you're like that, the glass is half empty,
you know, is anybody in here pessimists?
There's no pessimists in here?
They're like, something bad will happen to me
if I raise my hand.
I'm not doing it.
In a sense though, it is right,
but it depends on who you are.
A story of course is a segment of time
with a beginning and an ending, right?
When you tell a story, usually when I tell a story,
I try to have a point.
Some of you may tend to disagree, you pessimists.
But of course it has a beginning and an ending
and they all lived happily ever after,
it is a beautiful sentiment, right?
But life isn't always like that.
We have our ups and we have our downs.
But the truth is that the world can be divided
into two groups of people.
There are two groups of people.
There are people who are in Christ, people who are saved,
people for whom the eternity is sure,
and there are people who are lost, people who are not saved.
There are those who are in Christ, the redeemed,
they live forever, those who don't know Christ,
and if they die without Christ,
they're separated from Christ forever.
And I want you to know that glorifying God
and being obedient to Him with those two realities
animate everything we do as a church.
There is a lost world that needs Jesus.
And there are believers that need to be equipped
to go reach the lost world for Jesus.
That's why we're doing what we're doing.
But that means something in relation to that,
beginning and ending thing, happily ever after thing.
If you're a believer, if you know Christ as your Savior,
living on this earth is the worst you'll ever experience
because to be absent from the body
is to be present with the Lord.
But if you do not know Christ as Savior,
I hate to tell you this, but the truth of the matter is,
this is the best it'll ever be for you.
This is the best it will ever be.
But the good news is this,
if you're breathing, there's still hope for you.
If you're breathing, there's still hope for you.
And last week we started in Hebrews chapter 10,
starting, we started last week, and I think it was verse 26,
and that 26 till the end of the chapter in chapter 10
is a warning.
And the warning continues, it went from 26 to verse 31,
and that was what I covered last week.
It was a warning that if they didn't understand the gospel,
these people that the preacher was writing to,
this preacher and author of Hebrews
gave this warning to his readers,
and he was basically saying to them
that they understand the gospel,
if they understand the gospel,
but they don't fully trust in the gospel,
it's one thing to know that a chair can hold me up.
You know it's harder to do simple things in public,
have you noticed that?
Yeah.
It's one thing to know that,
who believes that this chair can hold me up?
Some of you guys are wanting a fat joke, really bad right now.
Happened to be the pessimists that won't read the gospel,
happened to be the pessimists that won't raise their hands.
Okay, thank you Dave for the vote of confidence.
We, believing that is different than trusting in.
How awful would have been if this thing collapsed?
It would have been really bad.
Believing that the chair could hold me up
is different than trusting in the chair to hold me up.
There's a whole lot of people that believe
that Jesus came and that he died on the cross,
and they have an understanding of that sentiment,
but they haven't put their trust in him.
The plane's going down, I said last week,
there's a parachute.
Don't know everything about the parachute and not put it on.
Jesus is our parachute, are you with me?
And so what the preacher here is telling a group of people
who are saved and a group of people who may not be saved,
he's talking to everybody, is he saying,
if you abandon the sacrifice for sins,
if you abandon Christ's sacrifice for sins,
and you go back to the old ceremonial law,
you go back to the old ways of thinking,
you go back to really anything else
that you put your trust in other than Jesus,
but there's no other sacrifice for you
and you're yet in your sins.
And he's saying, don't go so far as to know that Jesus came
and that Jesus died and that Jesus rose again
and that his suffering for your sin could give you salvation
and not put your trust in it.
That make sense?
That's what he's warning them about.
Don't go back, don't draw back.
And he's even saying to believers,
people who would believe in him,
don't stop growing in Christ,
don't put your trust or your time or your investment
in anything other than that.
For those of his readers who had heard the gospel
and not fully put their trust in it,
he's telling them not to draw back
from the only hope they have.
For those of his readers who know Christ's Savior
and who are saved, today's text is telling them not to stop.
Move to living, move on to living by faith in Christ.
The just shall live by faith.
That's what he's telling them to do.
So the name of my sermon today is this, keep going.
Keep going, keep going.
The just shall live by faith.
We take steps towards God both in salvation
before we're saved, once we get saved
and then in sanctification.
This is God's will for us.
And in today's text, we are given really great instruction,
really great instruction and encouragement
on how to keep moving forward in our relationship with Christ.
Who wants to keep moving forward?
Don't stop, don't go back, keep going forward.
Do you want to move forward in your relationship
with Christ through salvation and through sanctification?
Of course, if you do, then here's the big idea
for this day's sermon and here's what I want to tell you.
We must identify and take our next step of faith
by employing three deterrents to going backwards.
I believe you're either moving towards Jesus
or you're moving away from Him.
I'm not saying you can lose your salvation.
We covered that last week.
I'm not saying you can do that.
But in terms of your own spiritual growth,
that's where we're at.
So how do we do that?
Here's three deterrents that He brings up
that help us not go backwards.
Let's keep moving forward.
Who wants to move forward?
All right, let's do that.
Look, number one, here's the first deterrent.
Remembering God's faithfulness in the past.
Look at what He says in verse 32.
But call to remembrance the former days in which,
after you were illuminated,
you endured a great flight of afflictions.
And partly whilst you were made of a gaveting stock
both by reproaches and afflictions,
and partly whilst you became companions
of them that were so used.
Like I said in the introduction,
the preacher passionately tells those who were listening
to him in that previous passage,
Jews who understood the gospel
but may have been tempted to go back
to trusting in something other than Christ.
He spoke of them about fiery judgment,
the vengeance of God and falling into the hands
of the living God.
And because he doesn't know the hearts
of the individuals he's talking about,
but knows that there may be some who are saved
and some who are unsaved that he gave this warning,
his tone becomes warmer and starting in verse 32.
He cares about these people
and how he lives.
And he must have known them well
because he was bringing to their minds
specifics about their past.
He knew something about what they had gone through
and what they had experienced.
And so when he starts out by giving this command,
he says, remember, go back and remember the former days.
He's calling to their remembrance
what it was like after they heard the gospel
and began to understand it.
The people he's writing to,
even some of them who had not been believers,
they were connected closely enough to believers
that they had even endured with those believers,
yet many of them had not been believers,
but they understood the gospel.
In verse 33, we get the why of their afflictions.
He says in verse 33,
partly whilst you were made a gazing stock
both by reproaches and afflictions,
and partly whilst you became companions
of them that were so used.
He's saying to this group of people,
some of you endured suffering
because you became a gazing stock
both through reproaches and afflictions.
You were so living out the word of God and faith.
You were so living out your faith
that you were being persecuted.
Some of you were being persecuted
because you were at least connected to those same people.
And I think he includes himself in that later.
They suffered themselves.
They suffered for others.
They had grown to know and love people
who were illuminated like them.
And so doing hurt when those people were persecuted as well.
God's grace had been good to them
in all of this circumstance.
They had been used by God to be a blessing.
In fact, it says here that in verse,
look at verse number 34,
for ye had compassion of me in my, what?
Bonds, I had been in jail.
Apparently whoever had wrote this,
and some people think it's Paul,
I had been in jail and you had compassion on me
and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods.
Talking about, he took joyfully, he says,
you are excited to give stuff away,
knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven
a better and enduring substance.
You know what he's saying is?
You guys believe that by helping me,
you are storing up treasure in heaven.
He says you are willing to give it away
because you were there.
Now I wanna just say from this text,
something to apply it to our lives.
One of the ways you can endure through suffering.
One of the ways you can endure
through temptation to stop.
I deter it to you, not going backward,
but continuing to move forward.
Is remembering how faithful God has been in the past.
Great is thy faithfulness, right?
Oh God, sing it with me.
Oh God, my father.
Is he been faithful to you?
He's been so faithful.
The preacher calls to remembrance,
the original audience treatment of him
when they were in my bonds.
He could have been in prison
and they were beginning to speculate
that there would be, that he was there
because of their faithfulness in Christ.
And what was their attitude toward him?
It's been compassion, joyful generosity
and an eternal perspective.
They believe that their generosity
would help the preacher in this short term
and give them a reward in heaven.
And so here's my question for you.
How has God been good to you in the past?
Has God been good to you in the past?
Everybody take a deep breath.
We have mints in the back.
No, I'm joking.
How good has God been to you?
For you to even breathe is God's goodness
and grace in your life.
Every good gift comes from above,
from the Father of lights,
in whom is no variable to see the shadow of turning.
How has God blessed you?
Is there some valley that God's brought you through?
Has he helped you in suffering and difficulty?
You know, God uses difficulty often to grow us.
When you went through the difficulty
that I just had you bring to mind,
did you find that God used that season to grow you?
God often uses difficulty to grow us.
We grow a whole lot more, I think,
in the valley than we do in the mountaintop.
There's a song I like by a group.
Thank you for the heartache.
Thank you for the pain.
Thank you for the dark days, the dreary days of rain.
Thank you that the hard times have a reason and rhyme.
Thank you that the difficulties makes your beauty shine.
Something like that.
God uses difficulty to grow us.
He often uses difficulty to direct us.
Direct us. I want to tell you about 2014 Ben.
2014 Ben thought he had it all together.
I had been working at a great church
down in Port Charlotte, Florida.
2014 Ben thought he knew exactly what God wanted him to do.
The pastor that I worked under at that time
was nearing retirement.
He had been pastoring that church
as if after he retired that I would be the person
that would be the most viable candidate to take that pastor.
Some things happened and to his surprise as well as mine,
God changed his heart.
That was really abrupt.
It was like getting hit by a train.
It went from all one way one day
to going all way the next, a different way the next day.
And for like a week, every time I came to the office,
both of us would sit and weep together
because we didn't understand what was happening.
I didn't understand what God was doing.
And he said he didn't really understand it either.
Now that I've had the benefit of years between then and now,
there's still some things I don't understand about that experience,
but there are some things I can tell you.
I don't think I was as prepared as I thought I was.
You ever have that happen in your life?
There were definite gaps in my leadership abilities,
preaching abilities and understanding of ministry that I needed.
These were things that 2014 Ben could not see in the mirror.
So I left the church not knowing where I was going.
Those were difficult times and I didn't know where I would end up.
God brought us to Ohio and to a church where I learned a ton.
I learned so much.
I could give you specifics, but I'm not going to do that.
The point is God had a plan.
And when I was in the church,
I had a plan and when I was coming out of the moving truck,
going to the hotel room the night that my dad and I piled in a moving van
to go north and I didn't know where I was headed
other than a storage unit in my parents' bedroom, not their bedroom.
A separate bedroom and another bedroom.
With my family, I had no idea what was going on.
I remember laying there crying because of dream had died.
You ever been there?
I'm not a victim.
I'm just telling you it was difficult and God used that difficulty.
God was faithful in that season in a way that was very personal to me.
I remember him being faithful to our family during my mom's sickness and her death.
God has been so faithful.
And I can deal with the present difficulty now in a way that I couldn't before
because I've been through the valley.
The valley I go into now, I'm like, this looks a lot like the valley I've been through before.
And God was faithful in that valley and so he'll be faithful in this valley.
God is so faithful.
Have you had that?
If we had time today, I'm sure we could pass the microphone around
and hear similar stories from people in the stream.
Test him and see how God has been faithful in the past.
And the biggest way that God has been faithful to you in the past
is that he sent his son to die for you.
He was faithful to you when you didn't even know he existed.
Before you were born, he didn't know you existed.
Before you were born, he'd already had you in mind.
Romans 8.31 says this,
What shall we say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us?
He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all.
How shall he not with him also freely give us all good things?
We must identify and take our next step of faith by employing three deterrents.
The first deterrent to me going back today is to remember how God's faithfulness
has been for me in the past.
Number two, looking to God's hope in the future.
Looking to God's hope in the future.
Look at verse 35.
Here's what he says,
Cast not away therefore your confidence.
Which has great recompense of reward.
He's saying, you had confidence before in God.
Don't throw that away.
Don't give it up by going back to all that old ceremony
and the old ways of doing things and the lambs and the sheep and the goats.
The blood sack.
We have a new sacrifice.
We have a priesthood of the believer where we can go to God in our own.
If you've been given all this, don't go back to the old sisters.
That was a shadow of what's coming.
Don't throw that away by going back.
By turning back to the old ceremonial laws and the traditions that would take them away from Christ
and not fully and finally taking the next step in their relationship with God,
they would be losing big time.
If they kept that trust in God and that responsive faith that they had in the past now,
they would put their trust in Christ and walk by faith.
That's why he goes on to say in verse 36,
for ye have need of patience.
When you say patience, don't think merely about that thing that you need when your kids say,
Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad.
Patience as in, keep me from slapping this kid.
That's not the patience it's talking about.
Here the idea of patience is endurance.
It's endurance.
Some of you guys laugh way too hard at that.
Like, right.
Endurance.
It's you need to be able to keep going.
How do you keep going?
Well, one, you remember what he's done for you in the past.
But you need to have patience that after you've done the will of God,
you might receive the promise.
It's pretty exciting.
It's salvation in the present and it's heaven and Jesus and the redemption of our body
and everything that God wants to do in the future.
That's what he's talking about.
They needed the ability to endure.
They don't need to lose their confidence, their endurance, the ability to fight temptation.
Don't give up that position, the preacher says.
Here's how.
If you move to full trust in Christ, you receive what has been promised.
Why?
Reward is coming to those who endure.
Don't lose hope.
Don't lose confidence.
It's what you need to live a life of faith and difficulty.
You must live out God's will and you will receive the reward for doing so.
Christ has made a promise.
Not only did he promise heaven,
he promised himself.
Remember what the Jesus said he would come back?
Do you remember that?
Well, here's what he says in verse 37.
Look at it.
For yet a little, how long?
How long?
A great while?
No, for yet a little while.
And he that shall come will come and will not tarry.
What are the choir sing today?
That day is coming.
I love those words.
Yet a little while.
It may seem long, but it won't be long.
In the grand scheme of eternity, our time on earth here will be short.
If we look to the future and promise coming of Jesus, we can endure.
We can move forward and trust Christ and live by faith.
Jesus said it this way, let not your hearts be troubled.
You believe in God, believe in also in me.
In my father's house are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I'll come again.
Did he leave?
Is he here?
Where two or three witnesses are for sure.
But he ascended.
He's at the right hand of the Father.
He says if I go, I'll come again.
And what's he going to do?
And receive you unto myself that where I am, there you may be also.
He's coming back, folks.
He's coming back.
I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep.
That you sorrow not.
Even as others who have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain,
under the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout,
with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God and the dead, and Christ shall rise first.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds,
to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
He's coming back.
He's taking us with him.
Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.
Man, it's a lot easier in that 23rd and 24th and 25th mile of the marathon to keep going when I know there's a finish line.
It's a whole lot easier when I know it's, that day is coming.
That day is coming.
We don't grieve like those who have no hope.
We can keep going.
Even though this life may seem difficult and temptation may seem strong, it will be just yet a little while.
And he who will come shall come and will not tarry.
Until then, don't cast off your confidence.
Remember God's faithfulness in the past and look to God's promise in the future.
Living by faith acknowledges both of these realities.
Number one, that eternal reward is more valuable and more lasting than present earthly substance.
The scripture says that our works will be tried by fire.
The analogy of comparison is wood, hay, and stubble versus gold and silver and precious stone.
When it's tried by fire, what lasts?
The wood, hay, or stubble or the gold, silver and precious stone?
The gold does.
And so when we live and do in light of eternity, we will invest in a heavenly place where rust and moth do not corrupt and where thieves don't break their steel.
And so we ought to put our trust and our investment into those things.
And number two, the other thing that's sure is that Jesus is coming back.
Jesus is coming back.
You're like, Pastor, but you literally believe that Jesus is coming back anytime.
At any time.
This book has an incredible, incredible track record of getting it right.
If he got his first coming right, I'm telling you he's going to get his second coming right.
So let's live as those who have that kind of hope.
We must identify and take our next step by employing three deterrents to going backwards.
Number one, remembering God's faithfulness in the past. Number two, looking to God's hope in the future.
Number three, living by faith in God in the present.
Living by faith in God in the present.
Here's what he says.
Verse 38.
Now the just, those who are justified, those who have been declared righteous.
Not those who are like really good and therefore God gave them some, no you can't do that.
People who have been justified, declared righteous based on the obedience of another, Jesus Christ.
The just shall live by faith.
How do people who have been justified live by faith?
We're saved by faith.
We're sanctified by faith.
You don't stop exercising your faith once you get saved.
You keep believing.
You keep believing based on what he's done in the past.
You keep believing based on what he's going to do in the future.
And then this moment you take the next step in front of you.
If God said it, I'll do it. It doesn't always make sense.
I don't know what's happening. What are you going to do?
God, just take the next step.
Some of you are like, I don't know what God wants me to do in the future.
You're not doing what you know to do in the present.
He's not going to give you instruction for the future potentially.
If you're not being obedient to instruction, you have in the present.
Some of you are like, I never hear from God.
It's a meme. Okay, look it up.
He's written to us. He wants to give us direction.
The just shall live by faith.
Here's what it says though.
But if any man draw back, this is a quote,
my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
Those who have been justified are now being called to live by faith now.
In the previous verses, the preacher pleads with his readers to remember the past.
He told them to put their confidence in the future return of Christ.
Now he's saying, look at the present.
Those without saving faith do not live out any consistent, godly faith in their life.
They draw back.
It could be said that people like this went out from us because they were not of us.
The preacher quotes in the second half of verse 38,
if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
And then he says this, verse 39,
but we are not of them who draw back unto perdition,
but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
Those that draw back unto perdition without any repentance may be demonstrating their true spiritual,
their true degenerate position and condition.
I believe when he says, we are not of them that draw back,
he's not saying everybody I'm talking to here now is a believer.
I think he's saying what's the name of the book?
What's the name of the book?
Hebrews.
They're Jewish.
Jewish people have an incredible heritage of faith.
In fact, you know what comes after Hebrews chapter 10?
Hebrews chapter 11.
Has anybody studied Hebrews chapter 11?
We're about to.
What is it?
It's a hall of faith.
By faith Abraham and by faith Moses and by faith.
By faith, by faith.
He's like, that's who we are.
We Hebrews are people who have been putting their faith in God for a long time.
You're not a people who are faithless, you're of a people who are full of faith.
So don't draw back now that God had done all this work to help you understand the shadow and point to the real.
And now that you finally understand the real, don't draw back.
Don't only have faith in what he was doing to get you to understand the real.
Believe the whole thing.
Don't just believe Moses.
Don't just believe Abraham.
Believe Jesus.
Do you get it?
Don't draw back.
To those who believe, this was an encouragement to live by faith now.
Keep demonstrating who you already are.
You are of them that believe.
The preacher is saying that they are people whose faith shows up in the present.
If you're a believer, if you know Christ as your savior, it's not just enough.
It's not just for you to be saved.
It's for you to be sanctified to live it out.
He's saying that you live the way justified people are called to live.
And that is the just shall live by faith.
You've been saved.
This is justification.
I'm telling you today, if you're saved, that's justification.
If you're being saved, that's sealing.
That's sanctification.
That's eternal security.
And one day you will be saved.
That's glorification.
That's future hope.
We are of them that believe.
We do not draw back to sin.
We move forward.
We endure.
We live by faith today.
Right now.
We remember the people who were saved.
We remember the past.
We hope for the future.
We live by faith in the present.
You know the song?
We will remember.
We will remember the works of your hands.
We will stop.
And give you praise for great is your faithfulness.
Do you believe that?
Sing that again.
We will remember.
We will remember the works of your hands.
We will stop.
And give you praise for great is your faithfulness.
The God who has been faithful to us in the past.
Has a future that's incredible.
So what do we do in the present?
The just shall live by faith.