Enduring Faithfulness

Introduction:

What is to be Our Primary Focus - Serving the Saints:

In our passage today, the author of Hebrews provides us with a primary focus that Christians should put on, namely of serving the saints.

Hebrews 6:10 “For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.”

This idea of serving throughout the NT describes the Church’s faithful service in response to God’s grace. The grace of God serves as our foundation for faithful activity in the household of God.

We are encouraged on this path in 1 Peter 4:10 “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:”

The world that we live in builds life and society on the foundation of man being the center of existence. But the life of the Christian, let alone the Christian Pastor is to be fully founded upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our passage this morning says, Hebrews 6:10 “For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.”

The service we provide in to one another is an outflowing from the transformed life. Since we have been regenerated by the power of the Gospel unto life. All that we do now is driven by the new found love for God.

Therefore, we serve the saints because the Lord Jesus Christ has served us, by taking on flesh, living a life pleasing to God the Father in our place, and dying upon the Cross to propitiate the wrath of God so that we may have life.

This is why Paul says in Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

Therefore, what is to be our primary focus as new creations in Christ? The faithful serving of one another. That is to be our focus. Therefore, Calvary Mission, as you look forward to the years to come, may you go with a focus of serving. Knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ, left his throne to serve humanity by bring redemption.

Leave the world behind and all its trappings and give yourselves to the mission of serving the people of Ireland with the Gospel. For this is the greatest service that you can render to them. They first and foremost do not need your charity, your social action or activism. They need the truth of the Gospel.

There is only one thing that can transform Ireland and that is men and women dedicated to the proclaiming the Gospel.

Jesus says to Peter in that great passage of reconciliation in the Gospel of John 21:15-17, where Jesus asks Peter 3 times, do you love me, and Peter in the agony of his sin, says yes Lord you know I do. To which Jesus says in response, the feed my sheep.

Paul exhorting Timothy says in 2 Timothy 4:2 “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.”

Give them the word, faithfully week after week. That is your primary way of serving them, by giving them what they need most, even when they do not realize it or want it. For the word of God, is that which brings life.

Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

If your people are to grow, if you are to plant more churches, change culture and push the darkness back, then you must use the word of God as it was intended. It is a sword that was specially designed to kill the sinful flesh. You must pierce the hearts of men and women with the word, you must hammer their hard hearts with the word, and you must shatter their false beliefs with the word. For without this they will not live and they will not worship the King.

Oh pastor, would you dedicate your life to preaching the word, to teaching your people to be faithful men and women of Christ, teaching them to tremble at the word of God. Oh, Christian, would you dedicate your life, to being a beacon of light in the darkness by taking the Gospel with as you go.

The world doesn’t need more hip and culturally relevant pastors and Christians. The world needs faithful Pastors and Christians, who are not ashamed of the Gospel.

What is to be Our Primary Attitude - Enduring Faithfulness:

Now that we have the focus, what is to be our attitude? We read in our passage Hebrews 6:11–12 “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

The encouragement from our passage is that of cultivating enduring faithfulness. The desire of the author and by extension the Holy Spirit, is that each and every Christian is to display an eagerness for serving one another until the end.

The task of life long faithful service is hard, for we grow tired of the daily grind. The author of Hebrews knows this; listen to several exhortations;

Hebrews 10:36 “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.”

Hebrews 10:23 “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

Hebrews 12:1–2“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

It’s easy to grow sluggish, its easy to put down the mantle and find something else to do. But brothers is hard to keep going week after week in preaching, teaching, and seeking to advance the church. Especially when you church plant or church has the appearance of not doing well. Therefore, it is essential that you cultivate a mindset of enduring faithfulness, founded on the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the continued work of the Holy Spirit in you.

The missionary Adoniram Judson spent 6 years of Gospel ministry in Burma, between 1812 and 1818 before he had one convert to Christianity. The years of daily preaching and teaching the word of God without visible fruit, is hard work, and often discouraging work. Therefore, as you seek to plant churches in a proudly post-Christian country your hope must be fully assured in the Lord Jesus Christ.

For it is only through the long endurance and faithful service of the people of God that the world is changed and this endurance is impossible if your hope is on anything but the Lord Jesus Christ.

Don’t fall for the quick and easy path or softening the Gospel message thinking that by it you will achieve success. Rather rest in the truth that God has called you to preach the fully Gospel, serve the people of God, and trust Him to build his church.

We read in, Matthew 16:18 “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Pastor your task is not to build the church, that is Jesus’s task, yours is to be faithful in all seasons of ministry. Do not give up, do not give, for you serve not yourself but the Lord Jesus Christ. Stand firm therefore, act like men, and accomplish the mission God has given you.

Conclusion - God is not unjust so as to overlook your work:

Because as our passage states at the beginning, Hebrews 6:10 “For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.”

He sees, and knows what you are doing, and it is by his power that your work has any fruit. Therefore, as you work, as you plant, as you water and till the ground in gospel ministry, place your hope on Him alone.

For he is the only one who can bring about life in the dead, and it is he who has said that his word does not return void.

Isaiah 55:11 “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

Therefore, dear brothers serve the saints, preach and teach the Gospel of the King of Glory, using the word of God as it was intended, a sword to kill the flesh and raise the dead.

Having firmly established your hope not on your skills, but on the faithfulness of the King, who does not overlook your work and love that you have displayed by your faithful service to the saints.

And seek to be imitators of those who through faith and patience have already going before you and inherited the promises of eternal life.

Ephesians 6:13–14“Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,”

Prayer: