Grace Baptist Church, Nokomis, IL.

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The people we surround ourselves with greatly impact who we are and who we become. There have been many people in my life who have made a huge impact on who I am today. It’s hard to name them all since they’ve all contributed in different ways. My parents, of course, provided for me and and taught me the importance of hard work. Abby is always a great support for me and helps me to sharpen my ax in ministry. But I want to give some credit to my youth minister when I was a teenager.

His name’s Jeff. It was under his ministry that I became a Christian. It was under his ministry when I felt the call to become a pastor. He took me under his wing and helped me to understand ministry. He showed me a heart truly passionate for evangelism. He was genuine. Eventually he became not just a mentor, but a friend and colleague in ministry. We all need people like Jeff in our lives. People who will challenge us. Who we can follow as they follow Christ. And all this ought to be rooted not in our desire to be better people, but as we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Read Hebrews 6:9-12

Leading up to this passage, the writer had addressed the possibility of falling away from Christ. If we’re not careful, we may slowly drift away from fruitfulness, the church, and even our faith. The results of falling away are that we lose many rewards that we could have gained in Heaven, we miss out on much of the joy we could have had with Christ, and, if our faith proves to have never been true faith, we fall short of having Heaven as our home. So we must be diligent to stay in the faith.

Having given that warning, the writer then goes on to express his confidence that his readers would not fall away (v. 9). He acknowledge that there are many cases in which people may fall away, but he felt sure that in their case, they would not fall away. He felt sure of better things for them. He felt sure of things that belong to salvation for them. Meaning, not only was he sure that they were saved, but also that they would experience the things that saved persons ought to experience. And he was sure they would live the lives that saved persons ought to live. Saved people experience the love, and joy, and peace that only God can give.

How could he be confident of this? I mean, can we really know someone else is saved? Can we really know if someone else will continue to be faithful? It could be that he wasn’t really confident, just hopeful. Have you ever just felt something good around the corner? You didn’t really know something good was coming, you were just hopeful. So the writer might simply be being encouraging and hopeful of the Hebrews. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. Notice the reason why he was confident of better things for them (v. 10).

He’s confident because God is not unjust. This is such a great understatement! God is surely just! He is the Great Judge. He is righteous. He will not let the guilty go unpunished. There will come a day when all people will be judged for the things they’ve done. And He is even greater than just, from our perspective. Because He is also merciful. He took the punishment for our sin upon Himself, so that all who put their faith in Jesus would experience His grace. So since God is not unjust, what does that mean for us? (v. 10) It means He does not overlook our work.

What’s going on here? It’s not saying that we need to be good, because God’s watching, and if you don’t do more good than bad, then God’s going to get you, but as long as you do enough good, you’re okay. The Bible is clear we can’t do enough good to be acceptable to God. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) “They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.” (Psalm 14:3) In fact, anything not done through faith in Christ is sin, so even when we think we’re doing good, if it’s not done while having faith in Christ, is still sin. We simply need to admit to God we’ve sinned, believe in Christ, and confess Him as Savior and Lord. So when it says that God will not overlook our work, it’s not saying that God will notice our good deeds and reward us with salvation.

Rather, it’s saying that when already know Christ, every good thing we do, every act of service, every kind word is noticed by God. But this is only true for those who know Jesus Christ as Savior. Notice how our works and acts of love are primarily about our love for God (v. 10). We need to be so in love with God that everything we do is about loving Him. Even as believers, if we do good things apart from our love and faith in Him, those are still sins, because we’re doing them by our strength, for our goals, for our benefit or the benefit of those who receive our help. But if the goal of our service ends with helping people, then we’ve fallen short of the glory of God. We’ve fallen short of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

But if we love God that way, and serve people as a way of serving Him, then that testifies to our genuine faith in Christ. Our works are things that belong to salvation. We don’t work because we’re reaching for salvation. We work because we love God, and have felt the love of God. It’s a love for God’s name that fuels our service. We want to see God’s name glorified wherever we go, so we serve people. We serve people in the church, and we serve people outside of it. We do good to all people, especially to the household of the faith.

So the writer of Hebrews was confident of things belonging to salvation for them because they confessed a love for God and they were living consistently with that love. And as we live the lives that believers ought to live, God sees us doing that. And God gives us immeasurable blessings as we work.

One of the greatest blessings we have from God in this life is assurance (v. 11). In one sense, our works have nothing to do with our assurance of salvation in Christ. Salvation rests completely on what Christ has done. And if we trust in Him, we can know that we have eternal life. But how do we we know if we’ve truly embraced Christ as Savior? We go on to work! We serve each other. We sacrifice. We show the love that God has shown us to others. And as we work, we become more confident, not in ourselves, but in Christ. We become more confident that Christ’s work of redemption has been applied to us. We become more joyful in our work, because we know it’s Christ who is working through us (v. 12).

I thought about calling this sermon, “Don’t be a Slug.” Slugs are these disgusting creatures. They eat rotten vegetation. They’re moist and slimy. They leave a trail of slime wherever they go. They do this so they can find their way home. And they’re just slow. We don’t want to be sluggish. We want to run the race with perseverance! We want to run and not grow weary! But sometimes we just don’t know what to do. We desire to be faithful, but how do we do that? (v. 12)

Follow the faithful. Imitate those who have a strong faith. Imitate them in their attitudes. Imitate them in how they spend their time. Imitate them in how they raise their families. Because these things aren’t arbitrary things. They live the way they live because of what they believe about Christ. We should be intentional in the way that we live. By being intentional, we display our faith, we show our love for God, and we wait patiently and purposefully for the promise of eternal life.