Future Rewards Lead to Present Rewards (Hebrews 10:32-39)
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When I was in school, I used to love to procrastinate. If a paper was due Monday morning at 8, I’d start on it Sunday night at 10. I reasoned that while it took other student weeks or even months to complete a paper, it only took me a few hours! Don’t shake your heads at me, you know you did it too!
We love to put off things that we don’t enjoy! So why do we sometimes put off living the Christian life? Like Paul, we know the good we ought to do, but we don’t do it. As Paul pointed out, it’s because we still sin. But, if you’re like me, you long to be done with sin and get motivated to live more boldly for Christ! You want to take a step of faith, but you get scared. You want to serve Him in bold news ways, but you lack the motivation to even get started. I think sometimes we give up before we even get started because we’re focusing on the wrong aspects of the Christian life.
Instead of focusing on all the things we need to do, we need to focus on Christ. Instead of focusing on earthly things, we need to be reminded of the things in store for us because of what Christ accomplished for us on the cross.
Read Hebrews 10:32-39
In thinking about how to encourage us to live out our Christian lives, the writer calls us to remember the good old days (v. 32). If you know Christ as Savior, you can probably look back on the time you came to know Christ with fond memories. We had such a passion! It’s because we had just been enlightened! Our eyes were opened for the first time! Because of that passion, we gladly endured any and all persecution (v. 33).
Being enlightened by Christ leads to boldness to suffer for Him. It was true when we first became Christians, and it’s true for us today. The more Christ opens our eyes, the more we serve Him, and the more we possibly suffer for serving Him. But we’re glad to do so! When we realize how great Christ is, we’re like the man who found treasure in a field and then sold everything to buy that field. We gladly give up our reputation. We gladly endure anything the world throws at us. We gladly give up our wealth, spending and being spent for Christ.
Why do we do all this? It doesn’t make sense to live like this! We’re supposed to be sorrowful and depressed when experiencing trials, right? Can we really have joy when we’re mistreated and abused? (v. 34) We can have joy because we know that we have a better and abiding possession! Our possession, or reward, is Heaven, and it’s in Heaven. And Christ is our possession! We get to spend eternity with Him!
And we can have a sure hope about Heaven because of what Christ has done for us (v. 35). We might miss the impact of this verse if we run by it took quickly. We know we have a reward in Heaven (v. 34), but that’s not the reward this verse is talking about. The verses leading up to this one make the case that we endure in the present because of our confidence of a future reward. So the first part of this verse tells us not to throw away that confidence of Heaven. And our confidence of Heaven has a great reward. What is this great reward we have if we have confidence of Heaven? (v. 36) We’re rewarded with endurance! Working hard for Jesus doesn’t lead to the reward of Heaven. The knowledge of the free gift of Heaven leads to us working hard for Jesus.
And then working hard for Jesus, in turn, gives us even more confidence in Christ and our future reward (v. 37-38). If we aren’t working hard for Jesus, we have little hope in Christ. We find ourselves more like the people the writer just previously wrote about (v. 26-27). But if we are working hard for Jesus, then we eagerly await His return, so that we might receive the full reward of Heaven and Himself. Christ is coming back soon! (v. 37) The verse says, ?the coming one will come!? And it says Christ will come without delay.
Like I said, I’m the master of procrastination. If something comes up on my to-do list, and it can wait, I put it off. But if something has a due date, and it’s important, I do everything I can to get it done on time. J. Vernon McGee says it like this. The second coming of Christ is on God’s calendar. We don’t know the day that Christ will return, but God does. It’s scheduled at just the right time, and God isn’t going to put the day off. Christ will not delay in coming back, but will come back exactly when He intends to do so.
And until Christ returns, we are to live by faith (v. 38). We’ll talk about it more in the next sermon in this series, but Hebrews 11:1 gives the biblical definition of faith. We’re to live by the conviction of things hoped for. We’re to be convinced of the reality of the things that Christ has promised and earned for us on the cross. And if we live by faith, we’ll endure (v. 39). Those who shrink back and are destroyed are the opposite of those who have faith and persevere. We can’t be both!
Are you the believer who is working with endurance, or shrinking back in fear?
Pastor Chris Huff has been with us since July 2009. He and his wife, Abby, have four children. Chris is originally from St. Louis, MO and even though he was raised as a city boy, he has a small town heart. Chris is all over the internet, so you can find him on Facebook, Twitter,… (read more)
