Will you persevere?

For who heard and rebelled? Wasn’t it all who came out of Egypt under Moses? With whom was God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Today’s sermon may seem controversial. There are some topics in theology that can be hard to understand because there is a lot of nuance in trying to understand the topic. Theologians may be taking stances on the topic and be sure of their stance, but there are vague passages in Scriptrue that could seemingly go many ways in how to interpret it.

Some topics in theology are hard to understand because they go against how our finite human minds think things should go.

It could be argued that today’s sermon fits into both of these categories: Can someone lose their salvation? Can someone submit their lives to Jesus, and then turn around and choose not to serve God anymore, walking away from the faith?

No matter what you believe about this topic today, I hope that all of us will allow the Scriptures to open our eyes to what God has to say.

Big Idea: Constant disobedience is unbelief.

Hebrews 3:14

For we have become participants in Christ if we hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start.

The author continues with why Christians should encourage each other in the faith. Last week, we saw the warnings that the author of Hebrews was giving to his readers not to harden their hearts in unbelief as the Israelites did coming out of Egypt. Our passage finished off by stating that Christians should encourage one another so that the deceitfulness of sin does not harden our hearts.

We see here in verse 14 that Christians are participants in Christ. There are a couple of different ways that we can look at how we are “participants” in Christ. One way is that we are Christ’s companions who share new life with him. The other way to view this is that we “share in Christ”, as the ESV translates this verse, indicating that Jesus is the benefit we share in through our intimate union with him.

Both of these translations are completely valid, as there are no contextual indications that one is better than the other. This is one of those places that we see in Scripture where the answer is “both/and.” Too often, we get caught up in a particular translation of a passage of Scripture, especially when two variations are equally valid.

When we become Christians, we become a part of God’s family. We saw this earlier in Hebrews. Jesus calls us his brothers and sisters. Jesus is also the benefit that we share together with others through our union with Christ.

In his book, Union with Christ: The Blessings of Being in Him, pastor and theologian Sinclair Ferguson says this:

“...untold blessings are the birthright of Christian believers. But the exclusive source and conduit of them is our Lord Jesus Christ. This explains why masters of the spiritual life have always urged us to look nowhere else for blessing, but only to Christ and to the privilege we have of being united to Him.”

Sinclair Ferguson, In Union With Christ

When we have been united with Christ through our submission to him, we become his family, and we also take part in the blessings that Christ has given us that can only come through him. But that is only the case if we hold on firmly, from beginning to end, the reality (or the confidence) of Christ’s work in us.

Now, this verse gets into the theological topic that I mentioned in my introduction that has been debated across the church since Jesus ascended into heaven. Its the question as to whether or not you can lose your salvation. Can someone who has submitted their lives to Christ, turn their back on that, and leave the faith? I believe that the answer to that question is, “no.” You may disagree with me. That is okay. I hope to show you through the Word of God that those who have truly submitted to Christ, will never be lost.

There are some who will read verse 14 of chapter 3 and believe that it says that those who fall away and whose hearts are hardened by sin will lose their salvation. I want to read this verse again, but with the context of verse 13 right before it.

Hebrews 3:13-14

But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception. For we have become participants in Christ if we hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start.

How does the author say that we can know that we are participants in Christ? We can know our salvation is real IF we hold firm from the beginning to the end. Enduring hardship, pain, and strife in this world and staying steadfast in your conviction to follow after Christ, no matter what, is a sign of true salvation.

If you remember when you first submitted your life to Christ, the excitement of wanting to tell everyone you knew about how God had changed you and freed you from your sin. Remember the joy you had. Nothing would stop you from sharing the joy of your salvation!

But after a while, you would feel worn down by the worries of life. Your friends are not as receptive to the gospel as you thought they might be. You start to feel alone. This is why Hebrews 3:13 told us to encourage each other daily! When we have brothers and sisters in Christ encouraging us and pointing us back to Christ, getting our eyes off of ourselves, we can see the glory of a God that loves us, calling us to repent and return to him.

Earlier this year, as we were going through Philippians, we went through the “sticky” passage of Philippians 2:12-13.

Philippians 2:12-13

Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose.

The reason I called this a sticky passage is because of where people stand theologically when it comes to man’s free will and God’s sovereignty. Those who stand completely on man’s free will as the arbiter of how our lives will turn out will say that God has no say in whether I will choose to follow after him or not. It is completely by my choice. Those who stand completely on God’s sovereignty as the arbiter of all things could argue that they don’t need to talk to anyone about Jesus because God is going to save people anyway by his own choice and there is nothing I can do to alter that.

I believe that both of these stances are unbiblical, based on what we read here in Philippians 2. Paul tells his readers that they are to work out their salvation with fear and trembling. Christians should read the Bible, pray, ask for help from others in understanding what Scripture says and how to apply that to our lives, and then move forward by teaching others how to do the same thing.

But then Paul tells his readers in the very next verse that the reason they are able to work out their salvation with fear and trembling is because God is working in them to will and work according to God’s good purposes.

These two statements seem logically incompatible according to our finite minds. It is what we call a paradox. We are beings that are told to make right choices, to serve God, to praise him, and glorify him. At the same time, God is working in our hearts and minds so that we can make right choices, serve him, praise him, and glorify him.

Some theologians call it a “convergence” of man’s will and God’s will. One cannot work without the other. The 19th Century pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon once preached a sermon on the reconciling of these two “opposing view points” saying this:

I see, in one place, God in providence presiding over all, and yet I see, and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions, in a great measure, to his own free will. Now, if I were to declare that man was so free to act that there was no control of God over his actions, I should be driven very near to atheism; and if, on the other hand, I should declare that God so over-rules all things that man is not free enough to be responsible, I should be driven at once to Antinomianism or fatalism.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

What Spurgeon is saying here is that if we believe so much that man’s free will dictates everything and that God has no control over anything, but leaves us completely to our own devices, we might as well be atheists. But if we believe so much on the other side that God is completely in control of all things to the point that we do not have any agency, that we are not responsible for our actions, we become fatalistic, believing that nothing we do actually matters because it is all predetermined anyway.

We have to hold these two truths together: that we are responsible for our actions, and at the same time, God is sovereign over all things, holding everything together, as Romans 8 says, working out all things for the good of those who love him. This is why we also saw in our first sermon from Philippians this verse:

Philippians 1:6

I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Though we are responsible for submitting our lives to Christ, this verse points to God working in our lives, holding us and caring for us until the day he returns. We can be assured of our salvation, that those who are truly God’s people will endure until the end, because, as Philippians 1:6 says, God started the work in us and will finish the work he started. God does not grow tired of projects. God does not run out of resources so as to not be able to finish his work. When you have submitted to Christ, you can be assured that God will work in you until the day you leave this world or Jesus returns.

If that is the case for those who have submitted to Christ, what does that mean for those who seem to fall away from Christ?

Hebrews 3:15-16

As it is said:

Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.

For who heard and rebelled? Wasn’t it all who came out of Egypt under Moses?

The author repeats Psalm 95:7-8 and starts to ask questions about the rebellion of the Israelites after the exodus, which is referred to in the second half of Psalm 95.

The first question he asks is

“Who heard and rebelled?”

The nation of Israel as a whole rebelled against God, forgetting his faithfulness and claiming that God had forgotten about them. Last week, we saw how the Israelites rebelled against God by complaining over and over about God’s provision. But we did not even get to what many consider to be the biggest rebellion against God.

Exodus 32:1-6

When the people saw that Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come, make gods for us who will go before us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!”

Aaron replied to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings that were on their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from them, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it into an image of a calf.

Then they said, “Israel, these are your gods, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!”

When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of it and made an announcement: “There will be a festival to the Lord tomorrow.” Early the next morning they arose, offered burnt offerings, and presented fellowship offerings. The people sat down to eat and drink, and got up to party.

The Israelites got tired of waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain, as he was getting the Law from God himself. Did they tell Aaron to ask God what had happened to Moses? No! They tell Aaron to “make” gods for them to worship. How quickly the Israelites were ready to walk away from God and to ask for anything else to worship. They are asking Aaron to create something for them to worship. Someone who does that is a servant of self, not a servant of God.

The Israelites had seen God move in their favor, seen him provide water, provide daily food, seen him part the sea so that they could cross on dry land, and seen him bring 10 plagues upon Egypt to provide their freedom from slavery. God’s chosen people saw God move in so many ways, but it wasn’t enough for them to believe that God would deliver them again. They would rather have something created for them to worship than to give honor and glory to the God who they had seen deliver them over and over and over again.

The other issue that we see here is Moses’ brother Aaron. Aaron, who would soon be appointed by God as the High Priest of all Israel, listens to the people and makes a golden calf for them to worship. Aaron fell to the peer pressure of doing what the people wanted him to. This is a perfect example of what not to do as a spiritual leader.

As your pastor, I cannot yield to the pressures of what this church, or of what the community around us, wants me to teach or do when it comes to the things of God. A better example of how to stand for God’s word is Martin Luther. When the reformer was brought before the princes and magistrates of the Catholic church as they were trying to get him to recant his teachings and calls to reform the teachings of the church, this is how Luther responded:

“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason – for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves – I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus, I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me.”

Martin Luther

Like Luther, I must be held captive by the Word of God and not let anything pressure me to speak anything counter to God’s revealed word in Scripture.

Galatians 1:10

For am I now trying to persuade people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

This past week, we lost another titan of the faith. Voddie Baucham, a theologian, preacher, and bold proclaimer of the gospel, went to be with the Lord. I have shared some of his quotes in my sermons. Though I never met Voddie, his conviction in preaching has imprinted itself into my faith and preaching.

The best way to honor Voddie Baucham is not to admire him, but to imitate his courage. Families must be shepherded. Fathers must lead. Churches must resist compromise. And Christians must speak truth in a world drowning in lies.

Virgil Walker

In the last 2+ months, I believe the church has lost 4 incredible men who were willing to stand for the gospel of Jesus Christ, against a world and culture that is diametrically opposed to the truth of Scripture: John MacArthur (Grace to You, Grace Community Church), James Dobson (Focus on the Family), Charlie Kirk (Turning Point USA), and now Voddie Baucham (African Christian University, Founders Seminary). The church must continue in clarity, truth, and grace; men must be willing to stand up and point this world to the One who actually is truth, who is love, and who is life, no matter what cost may come!

Hebrews 3:17-18

With whom was God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed?

God was angry with the people of Israel because they sinned against him. This is why they died in the wilderness. God has anger toward sin and punishes disobedience. The common misconception that God is loving and so he has no anger toward anyone has plagued the church for a very long time. God can be loving and also be angry at sin and can punish sin.

As the late theologian RC Sproul said, “Sin is cosmic treason.” It is breaking the rules of the God of the universe because we think that what we want is more important than what God says is most important. And that sin separates us from God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom.

We can also look at Galatians 5 to see another list of sins and sinful behaviors that Paul says practicing such things will keep you from entering the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19-21

“Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I am warning you about these things—as I warned you before—that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. ”

‭‭If these are the things that describe your life, you have no place with God in heaven. These things separate us from God. These are directly opposed to the will and law of God. These desires of the flesh are opposed to the Spirit of God that indwells those who have submitted their lives to Christ.

Please notice that Paul says that those who practice such things. Practicing involves intention, determination, and consistency. If you are practicing these things, if you are setting your time and intentions to such things, you are surrendering to your fleshly desires and not to Christ.

However, if you find yourself in a continual struggle against these things, but immediately feel the guilt and shame, you repent, ask for God’s forgiveness, you have people that you can confess these things to you who will pray for you and help to hold you accountable, that is a reflection of the work of God in you.

I have heard many people, even pastors, whom I deeply respect and value their insight into God’s Word, I have heard them say, “Some days I wonder if I am even a Christian.” They have such a deep sorrow over their own sin that they weep over the ways they have disobeyed God.

We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners.

But that does not need to be the end of the story. See what Paul says after he listed all those sins in 1 Corinthians 6:

1 Corinthians 6:11

And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Yes, we are all sinners. I am a sinner. But I am a redeemed sinner. I am a sinner saved by the grace of God who sent his Son to die in my place for my sins. If you have not repented of your sins, asking God’s forgiveness for all the ways you have disobeyed him, today is the day. Don’t wait. You can be washed clean just as Paul described those in the church at Corinth. And so I am not going to wait to call you to follow Jesus.

Next Step: I will submit my life to Christ.

If that is you….I normally wait until the end of the sermon, but there is no better time than now to submit yourself to Christ.

Hebrews 3:19

So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

The author finished off these questions by stating that unbelief is why the disobedient Israelites were not allowed to enter the Promised Land. The author is using an argument, much like a logical syllogism, to say that the sinful Israelites who heard God and still rebelled against God, whose sin angered God, who were not allowed to enter Canaan but instead died in the wilderness, those people never believed God or believed in him.

In an article from the Ligonier Ministries website on Hebrews 2:18-19, the article says this:

The most important thing to notice in 3:18–19 is the close connection between disobedience and unbelief. In verse 18 we are told that God barred the disobedient from the Promised Land. Verse 19 tells us that the first generation did not enter the Promised Land because of disobedience. This tells us that disobedience and unbelief are ultimately synonymous. If a person professes to believe in the Lord but lives a life of continual disobedience to Him, that person is in danger of being counted among the reprobate.

Ligonier Ministries (https://learn.ligonier.org/devotionals/promised-land-denied)

Earlier in the article, it mentioned that only Caleb and Joshua were among the first generation of Israelites out of Egypt who were allowed to enter the Promised Land. Similarly, not everyone who goes to church on Sunday is actually a Christian. Being a Christian involves self-denial, submission to God, and an emptying of ourselves to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

We see the same thing with Jesus and how the people responded to him, compared to how the Israelites responded to God in the desert. On Palm Sunday, the people were celebrating Jesus as he came into the city. They were waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna!”

However, just 5 days later, on a Friday morning, many of those same people were shouting, “Crucify him!” While they were excited that the messiah had come and that Jesus was there to rescue them, it did not take long for them to turn on Jesus. They allowed themselves to get caught up in the emotional waves instead of being grounded in truth.

There is a difference between letting emotion and emotionalism tell you what is true, and knowing the truth and getting emotional about how that truth is being distorted or neglected. We can be singing these amazing songs about how God has worked in our lives, about how he is to be praised above anything and everything else, and we can feel this surge of emotion and joy and love as we do so.

But if we go home from here and immediately fly right back into our sins (gossiping about others, letting our anger control us, sexual sins like looking at porn or full-on adultery, drowning our emotions in drugs or alcohol, being cynical about the motives of every person around you) if we go right back to those without thinking a thing about it, you more than likely got caught up in the emotion and emotionalism of the service and not the God who calls us to lay down our sins. We should leave church, our Bible reading, our prayer times, feeling or noticing a change within us that can only be explained by God’s working within us.

There is also the example of Judas. He was one of the 12 apostles, given power from God to heal the sick and the lame, and to proclaim the greatness of God to a people who desperately needed hope. Judas thought he was one of the special people, called by Christ, to help usher in the kingdom of God. The other eleven thought the same thing of Judas. And yet, the name Judas is synonymous to this day with betrayal because he gave Jesus over to the authorities to be killed. He was never actually a true believer in Jesus.

Jesus told his followers near the end of the Sermon on the Mount, he said this:

Matthew 7:21-23

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’”

You can fool yourself into thinking you are a part of God’s family. You can fool others into thinking you are a part of God’s family. But God knows your heart. He knows if you have truly submitted to him.

Today, examine your heart. Ask God to reveal to you your standing before him. Call on the name of Jesus to work in your heart and mind that you may be called a son or daughter of God.

Next Step: I will regularly examine my relationship with God.

We do this through prayer, through reading the Word of God, and through the encouragement of others who will build us up in the faith, pointing us to Christ, and calling us out on our sin.

We all need this. Even me. Especially me. I need to examine my own heart that my motivations for preaching the word of God are for God’s glory and not my own. I implore you to examine your relationship with Christ.

Finally, if you know you are not right with God, if you know that you have not served him but only been trying to serve yourself, today is the day to submit to the Lord. There is no amount of serving your family or people around you, there is no amount of doing good for others that can make up for the sins that separate you from the love of God.

You must go directly to the source. Repent of your sins. Ask God to forgive you, to take out your dead heart of stone and give you a living heart of flesh.

I do not care how long you have attended church. I don’t. Whether today is your first Sunday ever attending a church or you have been attending church since you were born, examine your heart. Ask God to reveal to you your standing before him. If you know you are not his child, you need to fall on your face before him today, right now, even. If you need to hit your knees right now, bowing before the king of the universe, not bowing before me or anyone else in this room, and submit your life to Christ, you will not get stares of judgment, you will not be made fun of. You will hear the rejoicing of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ praising God for the work he is doing in your heart. If that is you today, I will repeat this next step from earlier:

Next Step: I will repent of my sins and submit my life to Christ.

Today is the day. (Paul Washer and the apple tree analogy)

Let us pray.

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