Living by Faith (Hebrews 10:19–39)

Introduction

We're continuing our series in Hebrews. Today, we'll be in Hebrews 10:19-39, talking about living by faith. What does it mean to live by faith?

When I was newer in my faith, I thought living by faith and taking a leap of faith was the same. Taking a leap of faith means trusting God even when it makes no rational sense.

It sounds spiritual, but it's not.

Taking a leap of faith is like jumping out of a plane with a backpack full of laundry, praying it will form into a parachute when it opens. "I just believe it will work out!"

Biblical faith is not reckless. Biblical faith is living your life grounded in God's promises in Jesus. That is living by faith.

How can we be grounded in God's promises in Jesus and live by faith? We'll see that today in Hebrews 10:19-39.

Scripture Reading

Hebrews 10:19–39 CSB

19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus— 20 he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh)— 21 and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. 23 Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, 25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching. 26 For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who disregarded the law of Moses died without mercy, based on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve who has trampled on the Son of God, who has regarded as profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know the one who has said, Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, and again, The Lord will judge his people. 31 It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 32 Remember the earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings. 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to taunts and afflictions, and at other times you were companions of those who were treated that way. 34 For you sympathized with the prisoners and accepted with joy the confiscation of your possessions, because you know that you yourselves have a better and enduring possession. 35 So don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised. 37 For yet in a very little while, the Coming One will come and not delay. 38 But my righteous one will live by faith; and if he draws back, I have no pleasure in him. 39 But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and are saved.

Pray

We're entering into a turning point in Hebrews, leaving the doctrinal section of the letter and entering into the application section.

So far, the writer of Hebrews has laid down a case for the supremacy of Jesus Christ. Jesus, our superior high priest, the perfect sacrifice, brought the New Covenant to Israel. Hebrews connects the Old Testament and the New Testament in profound ways. Jesus Christ has fulfilled the Law of the Old Covenant and brought in the New Covenant.

In Hebrews 10:19, we are going from doctrine to discipleship. We are moving from what Christ has done for us to how we should respond to the finished work of Christ.

The first word of Hebrews 10:19 is the word "therefore." That word matters. It's the preacher's way of taking you from "In light of everything I've told you about Jesus," to "this is how you should respond to the gospel."

From here on out, the theme of Hebrews is faith. He will describe a faith that endures, a faith that shapes how we approach God, and a faith that tells us how to finish our lives well in Jesus Christ.

How should we respond to the greatness of Jesus Christ and the gift of the New Covenant in his blood? The first and most essential response is this:

I. Draw Near to God in Faith

The first section of today’s text is from Hebrews 10:19-25. This section will tell us that we should be people who draw near to God. You’ll see this in Hebrews 10:22, where he says,

Hebrews 10:22 CSB

22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.

What does it mean to draw near to God in faith? The writer will explain that to us. He will start by reminding us why we can draw near to God in the first place.

The reason why we should draw near to God is,

A. Because we have full access through the blood of Jesus

Full access is a powerful thing.

Many years ago, my wife and I visited the White House, but we only saw a few areas. Most rooms in the White House are entirely off-limits to the public.

Some staff members in the White House have more unrestricted access, but only a handful of people can go anywhere at any time. They don't have to stop and ask permission. They belong there.

That’s the difference between being cut off and being welcomed.

Under the Old Covenant, Israel had limited access to God. The people brought sacrifices to the priests. The priests had access to the temple, but not the Most Holy Place. Only one person, the high priest, could enter that inner sanctuary only once a year, with a sacrifice.

And even then, he entered with fear. He had to purify himself, wear sacred garments, and offer sacrifices for his sins first. Tradition says they tied a rope around his ankle in case he died in God’s presence because no one else could enter to retrieve him.

There was no boldness in approaching God.

But Hebrews 10:19 says we now have boldness to enter the sanctuary, not because of anything we’ve done, but through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Think of the contrast:

Under the Old Covenant, the high priest entered with fear. Under the New Covenant, Jesus invites you to draw near to God with boldness.

Under the Old Covenant, the high priest only came to God once a year. Under the New Covenant, you can come to God’s presence every single day.

Under the Old Covenant, the curtain said, “Stay out.” Under the New Covenant, Jesus says “Come into the presence of God.”

He doesn’t just tell us why we should draw near to God. He also tells us how. He says to draw near to God,

B. With a sincere heart and full assurance of faith

Hebrews 10:22 teaches us how to draw near to God. It says, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” Those phrases, "with a true heart," and "full assurance of faith," are connected phrases that represent how to draw near to God.

The heart within Scripture represents the whole inner person, the soul inside of our physical being. It is a person's mind, will, and emotions.

A true heart describes our genuineness on the inside. You draw near to God through the genuineness of the soul, a soul fully committed to a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

I have several artificial plants in my office. They look fine, but they’re not alive. My wife has some real plants in the house, and they are much better. You can tell the phony from the real thing.

There are no phony believers in God's kingdom, because God knows your soul and wants a soul that truly believes in him. We draw near to God through a soul that confidently believes in God's promises to us in Jesus.

The rest of Hebrews 10:22 speaks about what God has done for us. God has cleansed our souls from an evil conscience. Our whole person, body and soul, has been consecrated to God.

These actions are complete and finished. We can draw near to God in sincere faith because God has already made us clean through Jesus Christ.

Living by faith means having a sincere heart of trust in Jesus. When you draw near to God in faith, you also,

C. Hold fast to our hope without wavering

The second thing we should do in response to the superiority of Jesus Christ is in Hebrews 10:23, where it says,

Hebrews 10:23 CSB

23 Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful.

The word "confession" means to agree with or to say the same thing.

When I was in the police force, we would try to get you to confess something so we could use it in court. If I saw you run a red light, I would pull you over and ask, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" The person would say, "I'm sorry, I ran the red light back there." I saw you drive through the red light, and you confessed by agreeing with me about the same thing.

In the positive sense for the Christian, the confession of our hope refers to our agreement with God about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our confession is the allegiance we have declared to Jesus Christ in our lives.

Our belief in the gospel is a confession of hope in God's promises. We see this also in Romans 8:24-25,

Romans 8:24–25 CSB

24 Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? 25 Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.

Hope is faith in God's promises that we physically cannot see now but will see in the future. This kind of faith is what Jesus tells Thomas in John 20:29, where he says. "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe."

Our faith is a confident hope in God's promises. Peter describes it as a living hope in 1 Peter 1:3, where God has given us a,

1 Peter 1:3 CSB

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead

Since we have a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, Hebrews 10:23 tells us to hold fast to our hope without wavering, and we cling to the gospel, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, because he who promised is faithful.

We cling to the gospel in suffering,

We cling to the gospel in trials,

We cling to the gospel in sickness,

We cling to the gospel in every season of life,

Because he who promised is faithful.

You can hold on to faith without wavering because faith is not about your abilities, intellect, or determination. Faith is grounded in the faithfulness of God to keep his promises to us in Jesus Christ.

Faith is not simply a personal experience to have in isolation from others. God has not designed you to go through faith alone. We build up our faith through community. The writer of Hebrews will tell us as people living by faith,

D. Encourage one another in love as we gather together

He’ll tell us this in Hebrews 10:24-25, where he says,

Hebrews 10:24–25 CSB

24 And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, 25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

There is a verb in Hebrews 10:24 that guides everything else, which the CSB translates as, "Let us consider."

We use the word "consider" in a lot of different ways. It can be casual, like "I'm considering whether I want ham or bacon for breakfast." You may be thinking for a few seconds, but it's nothing urgent.

We can also use the word "consider" for bigger things, like "The doctor asked us to consider whether to have surgery or not." When you use the word "consider" that way, you think carefully, with intention, love, and consequences in mind.

That's the kind of "consider" that Hebrews 10:24 is talking about. He says, "Christian, think carefully, with a deliberate focus, reflecting on how you can encourage others in the church."

He has the church in mind. When he says, "not neglecting to gather together," the church is the gathering of believers in Jesus. We gather to worship God together as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Today, when people think of church, they think of church as content. We're so used to sitting down and watching or listening to something. People think the church is only about singing songs and listening to a preacher preach.

When you approach church as simply a worship service on Sunday where you come and go, never engaging with the lives of others, you rob the church of the value of your faith in the community.

Hebrews 10:24 says you have a specific role in the community of God. What is your role? As you invest your faith in the community of God, you are looking for two outcomes.

Your first role is to provoke love in others. Love refers to the relationship you have with the community. You provoke love in others by showing love. We should think carefully about how to love our brothers and sisters in Christ in the church.

Your second role is to provoke good works in others. You have a role in the community of God to stir up your brothers and sisters in Christ toward visible acts of faith. God calls Christians not only to believe the right things but also to live them out.

God calls us to:

Serve with joy

Give with generosity

Forgive freely

Live boldly for Jesus

Your faith will grow as you invest your life into God's community of believers in the church.

The need for the church in the world is not diminishing. It is growing! He says in Hebrews 10:24, "encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching."

Every day, the church is one day closer to the return of Jesus Christ to earth, and when Jesus returns, the window of opportunity for salvation will close. In speaking about the return of Christ, Peter says in 2 Peter 3:9,

2 Peter 3:9 CSB

9 The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.

As the window of opportunity for salvation closes, the need for the church is greater than ever.

We need greater encouragement from each other. We need greater visible fruit among each other. We need greater love in our community among each other.

God is calling us to live by faith in the church. He's calling us to be the community he designed us to be, so when he returns, the church is on fire for Jesus Christ, in love with him, and producing the visible fruit of good works for our Savior.

The sad truth is that many will not respond to the gospel. So, the writer of Hebrews gives a warning. He says,

II. Do Not Turn Away from the Only Sacrifice for Sin

The warning section of this text is in Hebrews 10:26-31. The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 10:26-27,

Hebrews 10:26–27 CSB

26 For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries.

Hebrews 10:26 is a challenging verse, particularly because the writer includes himself in the warning: "For if we deliberately go on sinning…"

Including himself in the warning creates tension because, just a few verses earlier, in Hebrews 10:14, he said that believers in Christ have been "perfected forever." So which is it? Are believers perfected forever, or can they lose their perfection if they continue sinning deliberately?

Christ has not perfected us forever if a believer can lose salvation. He's only perfected us as long as we don't continue to mess up. But that's not what the gospel teaches. If that were true, salvation would require the cross plus your ability to avoid continual sin.

But Scripture is clear: the cross is enough. Hebrews 10:22 says our hearts have already been "sprinkled clean from an evil conscience." Our cleansing is not partial. It's complete.

Something else must be going on. Note that what the writer is saying in this verse is,

A. Only Jesus offers the once-for-all sacrifice for sin

He makes the point in Hebrews 10:26 that "there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins." He's emphasizing that humanity only has one path of salvation.

The writer has argued in the book of Hebrews that Jesus Christ is superior to everything, even the Jewish system. If there were another way to salvation, then Jesus would not be superior to that path. His exclusivity is part of his superiority. There is no way for salvation apart from Jesus.

Also, note that the people he talks about in Hebrews 10:26 have received "the knowledge of the truth." He's talking about individuals who have heard the gospel, understood that Jesus died for our sins and rose again from the grave, but still refuse to believe the gospel.

These individuals are in a continual pattern of rebellion against the gospel. These are individuals who are the opposite of what we described earlier. They have no sincerity in their soul toward the gospel and do not have a confident belief in God's promises in Jesus.

Therefore, the "we" he is speaking of are individuals sitting in a church, saying one thing on Sunday, and living like hell the rest of the week. If you can hear the gospel and not be convicted of it, shown through your continued and deliberate sin, you must ask yourself, "Am I saved?"

It’s a reminder that,

B. Rejecting Jesus is rejecting our only hope of mercy

He brings this point home in Hebrews 10:29, where he says,

Hebrews 10:29 CSB

29 How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve who has trampled on the Son of God, who has regarded as profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

Notice that he describes someone who "has insulted the Spirit of grace." Hebrews 10:29 directly connects to what our Lord speaks about when describing the unpardonable sin. In Matthew 12:31-32,

Matthew 12:31–32 CSB

31 Therefore, I tell you, people will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the one to come.

Insulting the Spirit of Grace in Hebrews 10:29 is the same as what Jesus describes in Matthew 12. This is important: A sincere believer in Jesus Christ cannot commit the unpardonable sin.

The Holy Spirit uses the presentation of the gospel to an individual to convict the soul of sin and bring that person to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. The only unforgivable sin is the sin of rejecting the gospel. Rejecting the gospel is blaspheming the Holy Spirit's work that would bring you to faith.

If you're sitting here today and worried that you may have blasphemed the Holy Spirit, I have good news. If you had, you wouldn't be worried because you wouldn't be responding to the Holy Spirit's conviction in your life. Repent and believe!

It's also good that the writer of Hebrews doesn't leave us with the warning. Like a good pastor, he encourages us with this last point,

III. Endure in Faith Because God Will Keep His Promises

Faith doesn't just look forward. It also looks backward.

When you get some distance from an event or a season in your life, you can see with more clarity how God worked in your life during that time. It's a little fuzzy when you're in the middle of something. It's hard to see exactly how it will play out.

Once you have some distance to see God's incredible work to bring you from where you were to where you are today, remembering God's faithfulness is huge. That's why it says,

A. Remember how God strengthened you before

He says this in Hebrews 10:32,

Hebrews 10:32 CSB

32 Remember the earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings.

He’s telling them to look back, to remember how God was faithful before.

Remember how God brought you through your struggles.

Remember how he brought you through uncertain times.

God is always faithful, and his faithfulness should drive you to endure in him because you know God will keep his promises.

That's why, in the middle of one of the worst times for the people of Israel, the prophet Jeremiah could say in Lamentations 3:21-23,

Lamentations 3:21–23 CSB

21 Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!

We build up our faith in challenging times by remembering the faithfulness of God, so,

B. Hold on to your confidence in Christ and live by faith

Hebrews 10:35 says,

Hebrews 10:35 CSB

35 So don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

He's telling them, "God has brought you this far by faith. Remember what he has done, and don't let go."

You need endurance because the promises of God in Christ are worth holding on to. Jesus Christ is coming, and the rewards in him are real.

Scripture teaches that God will not forget our faithful endurance in Christ. God, in his grace, promises eternal rewards when we live our lives for the kingdom of God now.

Jesus spoke of future rewards in the Sermon on the Mount when he said in Matthew 5:11-12,

Matthew 5:11–12 CSB

11 “You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. 12 Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Living by faith is worth every minute because our Lord is worthy, heaven is real, and we will live for eternity in his presence.

Conclusion

Are you living by faith? Draw near God, hold fast to Jesus, encourage one another, and endure in Christ.

Why should we live in faith?

Because Jesus made a way.

Because the cross is enough.

Because the rewards in him are real.

Because God is faithful to his promises.

Therefore, until Jesus returns, let us be people who live by faith.

Prayer

Last Song

Doxology

Numbers 6:24–26 CSB

24 “May the Lord bless you and protect you; 25 may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.” ’

Jude 24–25 CSB

24 Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.

You are dismissed. Have a great week in the Lord!

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Sermon Reflection Questions

How can we draw near to God?

What role does community play in living by faith?

How can we encourage one another to love and good works?

Why is it important to remember God's faithfulness?

In what ways can we hold fast to our faith and hope?