Those Who Inherit The Promises
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Some background first.
As we saw our last time in Hebrews, contains a strong warning against apostasy. The text describes a series of experiences people can have without every being born again: being enlightened, tasting the heavenly gift, partaking of the work of the Holy Spirit, tasting the good Word of God, and tasting the powers of the age to come. There are very strong parallels with the Israelites who wandered in the wilderness for a generation.
They, too, were enlightened, because Yahweh gave the Law to Moses.
They, too, tasted of the heavenly gift of God, getting a sense of life under God’s leadership.
They, too, were partakers of the Holy Spirit, who performed countless miracles among them.
They, too, tasted of the good Word of God, as the Law was applied to their lives.
They, too, tasted the powers of the age to come, with Yahweh as their King, providing for them, defending them, and leading them according to His good pleasure.
But while they were delivered OUT of Egypt, they were not delivered INTO the promised land. With the exceptions of Joshua and Caleb, the entire generation died because of their unbelief.
The Jewish Christians who were the recipients of the letter to the Hebrews were faced with all sorts of opposition, persecution, and struggles, and were tempted to return to the Old Covenant practices of the Temple.
Some were genuine believers who were finding life in Christ hard; they needed loving encouragement.
Some were false believers, like those who were delivered OUT of Egypt but not INTO the promised land. They needed a clear, blunt warning about the judgment coming against those who fall into unbelief.
Oddly enough, false converts seem to rarely question their salvation. They might begin with great passion, but when the passion cools, and other things catch their eye, they are happy to turn away from Jesus Christ. No wonder it’s impossible to renew them to repentance: they simply don’t care.
One man, who had posed as a Christian for years, deceiving his truly saved wife, only to fall into criminal behavior and imprisonment, said to his truly saved wife after their divorce, “Sooner or later, you have to grow up.” That is, everyone gets excited about Jesus, and then falls into apathy. That’s natural; that’s normal. And for him, and other false converts, it is true.
But it is not true about genuine believers. Those who are truly in Christ persevere in their faith, even through hard times and suffering.
Of course, that’s a lie from the pit of hell. Those who are truly in Christ persevere in their faith, even through hard times and suffering.
Still, the genuine Christians who heard this letter must have been shocked by the severity of the warning. Is salvation so uncertain, so unsteady, that we must live in constant fear and anxiety? Or is there a reason for peace and joy?
Let’s look at .
Better Things
Better Things
But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.
That warning must have shocked those who were genuinely in Christ. Is salvation so uncertain, so unsteady, that we must live in constant fear and anxiety?
If you compare and , you’ll see that verse 4 speaks in the third person of “those who have” had some specific experiences, while verse 9 speaks in the second person, directly to Christians, calling them Beloved, meaning the Beloved of God. There are better things to be said about the Beloved, “things which accompany salvation.”
The Word regularly reminds us that salvation is by grace and through faith, and not by works. We see these regular reminders because we need them; we can easily start to think that we are saved because WE did something, or that we stay saved because WE do something.
So is very important. It speaks of things that “accompany salvation,” that result from our conversion in Christ.
He was convinced of “better things” than that, “things that accompany salvation.”
The author and his companions were convinced of better things concerned the “beloved” than of “those” who had experiences. That’s because the lives Beloved demonstraed
He was convinced of “better things” than that, “things that accompany salvation.”
They were enlightened because of the giving of the Law through Moses. They literally tasted of the heavenly gift when they ate the manna. They were partakers in the Holy Spirit, who protected them and guided them, and manifested the presence of God in the tabernacle, who caused Moses’ face to shine with the glory of God, who caused lightning to flash and thunder to rumble from the mountain, who covered the entrance to the tabernacle with a thick cloud of glory, and judged the rebellious among the people on multiple occasions. They tasted the good Word of God as Moses brought the ten commandments and the rest of the Law to them. They tasted the powers of the age to come when the Lord defeated their enemies, provided for their food and water, prevented their clothes from wearing out, and blessed them in many ways.
But the writer turns a corner in our passage.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t enough to be delivered OUT of Egypt. They also needed to be delivered INTO the promised land. That whole generation died in the wilderness because of their lack of faith.
No one is ever saved by their good works, or kept in Christ by their good works.
Even worse were those, and are those, who find some experiential blessings in identifying as Christians, and yet who never truly believe in Christ. Their religion is external and superficial. They have no problem living as unbelievers in most of their daily lives, and simply taking a dose of religious medicine on Sundays.
Those who have come so close, and then turn away from genuine faith in the Lord, reach a point where it is impossible to bring them to a place of genuine repentance.
This doesn’t mean that good works have no role in the life of Christians. Salvation is not merely making a reservation in heaven for when you die. It’s about conversion and transformation now. Even the thief on the cross, who died mere hours after conversion to faith in Jesus Christ, gave evidence of his salvation by confessing Jesus openly.
But the writer turns a corner in our passage.
But good works are secondary to the character of God …
At the same time, confidence in salvation is not first because of someone’s life …
9 But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. ()
Confidence in God
Confidence in God
For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.
The warning we see in is very important for us to understand. There are those who count on the experiences that they’ve had, and perhaps continue to have. But the writer of Hebrews was convinced that his readers were not at risk of falling into apostasy, or faithlessness.
The author’s confidence is not only based on the evidence of conversion in lives of the Beloved, but primarily on the nature and character of God.
Will God keep His promise? says He will,
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
says He will,
for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
says He will,
Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.
Our confidence in the salvation of another, or our own, for that matter, is first in the promise of God. IF God has chosen you for salvation, IF He has given you faith to believe, IF He has transformed your life, then HE will be faithful to bring His work in you to a perfect completion. HE is at work in you constantly so that you desire His will and grow in your ability to obey Him. HE will bring to pass what HE has determined for your good.
And a huge part of God’s work in His people is actual transformation, which provides concrete evidence of their conversion …
Evidence of Conversion
Evidence of Conversion
In we read,
We could summarize by saying, “We are convinced of better things concerning you, for God is just and will not forget you.”
He was convinced of “better things” than that, “things that accompany salvation.”
For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.
Good works never cause someone to be saved. For one thing, as far as God is concerned – and only His opinion matters – the unsaved are incapable of doing good works. The very best works they can do are unacceptable to Him, an insult to His holiness.
These are the things that accompany salvation.
His first reason is the character of God.
But salvation always brings about a change in heart and behavior. Even the thief on the cross, who died just hours after his conversion, gave evidence of his new birth by expressing his faith in Jesus, and confessing Christ in front of his companion who mocked the Lord.
This isn’t wishful thinking on the part of the author. He didn’t talk about the deadly judgment faced by other, anonymous people, and then excuse his friends and loved ones. He tells them that he has two reasons for his confidence in their salvation.
10 For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. ()
Work accompanies salvation
Work accompanies salvation
His first reason is the character of God.
“We are convinced of better things concerning you … for God.” God will not unjustly forget the reality of your salvation. The Lord can always be trusted to do what is holy and just and good in His own sight.
His second reason is the evidence of their salvation.
These are part of the “things that accompany salvation.”
Their work.
This is not simply a reference to specific good works, but to their energy and devotion in following Christ. It speaks of all that they have done in Christ, of their obedience and submission to Jesus Christ as Lord of their lives.
They have actually been transformed by the Spirit of God, as the new covenant promises:
“I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.
Have you ever joined something that you immediately forgot about? Have you ever signed up for some event or project, and then let it utterly slip your mind? Maybe someone said to you, “Hey, what if we got together to do this thing,” and you said, “Sure, sounds good,” but it never happened, and you didn’t even realize it didn’t happen.
This is how false Christians live their lives. The only time they say they believe is in repeating some confession. The only time they ever think about God is during a sermon. If a crisis struck, the LAST thing they would do is actually call on the Lord for strength.
True salvation changes the heart and the behavior both, not by convincing people to take God more seriously, but because the Holy Spirit is a constant presence to remind us and convict us of the will of God, and to empower us to live accordingly.
Love accompanies salvation
Love accompanies salvation
25 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. [forgiveness of sin] 26 Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. [new birth] 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. [transformation] ()
This is the work of the Trinity. The Father chose whom He would save, and promised to make their salvation complete. The Son’s crucifixion satisfied the Father’s wrath toward sin, and the righteousness of His perfect life is credited to those who believe. And the Holy Spirit applies the will of the Father and the work of the Son to the lives of those whom the Father chose and for whom the Son died, to bring salvation to a perfect conclusion.
Salvation is not merely the forgiveness of sin, or the imputation of righteousness. It is transformation – receiving a new heart and new spirit, and learning to live according to the holiness of God.
This is love shown toward the name of God – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. It is not love FELT, but love SHOWN, love DEMONSTRATED, love made VISIBLE and MEASURABLE.
Their love.
Biblical love is never an attitude or feeling; it is always an action. It is not what we feel, but what we do. The example of true love is God’s own love:
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
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Likewise, true love toward God is shown, demonstrated, visible.
How did they show their love for God?
Service accompanies salvation
Service accompanies salvation
Their love toward GOD was demonstrated by their “having ministered and still ministering to the saints.”
The word “ministry” means service. It doesn’t mean religious things in particular. It is used to describe serving food, meeting the needs of others, giving financially, or exercising our gifts for the benefit of the church. It simply means meeting the needs of the moment.
The Beloved readers of this letter had a history of serving Christians, the saints: “in having ministered.”
They also had a habit of serving the saints: “and in still ministering to the saints.”
Christians have priority
Christians have priority
It’s worth emphasizing here is that the church is to have priority in our service. The Scripture says,
So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.
Should we do good to all? Absolutely. But, the church – the household of the faith – has priority. If you have lots of ability and lots of opportunity, serve as you are able. But if you have limited ability or limited opportunity, then serve the church first. Is that the right thing to do? Yes, it is. That’s what says.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone. We all prioritize our lives. In my life, MY wife comes before anyone else’s wife. MY children come before anyone else’s children. MY family comes before anyone else’s family.
And as a Christian, the CHURCH comes before the world, and MY CHURCH comes before other churches.
So we see that the author doesn’t hesitate to say, Beloved saints of God, I know that the Lord has saved you because of the evidence of conversion I have seen in your lives, and I am confident because God would not have brought you to faith in Christ, and transformed your lives, only to abandon you partway through.”
But there’s more to say about assurance …
Be Diligent
Be Diligent
And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Let me point out that these words are written to each one; to every Christian, not to “professional” Christians like pastors, or super-Christians. They apply to each and every one of us who calls upon the name of the Lord.
Each of us is to be diligent in our faith and walk in Christ. The word diligence means eagerness or enthusiasm. Diligence in the faith means eagerness to know Christ better, enthusiasm to be more like Him, hunger to be with Him at last.
Look, we all have struggles and battles and difficulties. We all face hardships and pain. Opposition and conflict seem to be never-ending. It can seem that nothing is easy or simple or straightforward. This is because the Christian life is NOT easy or simple or straightforward. As long as we are in this sinful flesh, the natural way of things will be toward sin and faithlessness.
Why should we be diligent if it’s such an uphill struggle?
Because faithfulness and diligence increase our assurance, and the Lord wants us to have the FULL assurance of our hope until the end.
The end, by the way, is not something dark and dismal, like death or destruction. The message of the Gospel is not “Life is hard and then you die.” The message of the Gospel is “God is faithful, and will complete His perfect work in you.”
Without question, if we fail to be diligent we will not simply stay where we are for the rest of our lives.
Diligence is not like education. Some of you adults have a high school education, some of you have gone to college, or perhaps graduate school. Whatever your last level of education, whenever you completed that level, remains your level of education.
But diligence is not like education. It’s more like breathing. Some of you have been breathing for twenty or thirty years, some of you for fifty or sixty years, and some of you longer than that. But breathing isn’t the kind of thing that you can stop, and it will stay with you. Breathing has to continue, right?
Diligence – eagerness for Christ, enthusiasm for the things of God – is like breathing. If we cease being diligent, we will become complacent and apathetic, or sluggish, as the text here says. We will become like those who says could not enter the promised land because of unbelief. They certainly believed when Moses led them out of Egypt, and across the Red Sea on dry land, and when he came down from the mountain with the Law. But their belief gave way to unbelief, because belief turned out to be hard.
These are not people for us to imitate.
No, we are to imitate “those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” Who are they? Abraham is one; he comes up in the very next verse. And lists many more. A few of them are “heroes of the faith,” men and women who are named because of their faith. But the majority of the “heroes of the faith” are unnamed, anonymous, men and women of whom the world was not worthy.
Their love was shown toward the name of the Lord, which means that it was demonstrated according to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Satan has managed to convince people that love is a feeling, that love can’t be commanded, that love means letting someone follow their own desires and dreams.
In Jesus made love one of His primary topics of discussion on the night of His arrest. He said that loving Him means obeying Him. The one who obeys Jesus is the one who loves Him. The one who doesn’t obey Jesus doesn’t love Him. Jesus proved HIS love for the Father by obeying the Father exactly. Just as Jesus remained in the Father’s love because He obeyed Him, we remain in Jesus’ love when we obey Him. He says that we are His friends IF we do what He commands. And He makes it clear that loving Him also means loving other believers:
12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” ()
17 “This I command you, that you love one another.” ()
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And so also says that their love toward God was manifested in their service to other believers.
It was their history: “in having ministered … to the saints.”
It was their habit: “and in still ministering to the saints.”
This little phrase “to the saints” is important. The Bible says,
10 So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and ESPECIALLY to those who are of the household of the faith. ()
Do good when you have the opportunity, and give preference to Christians, to those of the household of faith. If you have the opportunity to bless an unbeliever, do so. But the Bible says that you have limited opportunity, then your brothers and sisters in Christ are to take precedence.
The author doesn’t hesitate to say to his readers, “I know you and your lives. I know that your lives show evidence of true conversion. Much of that evidence is your work of love toward one another as Christians. This is not your own doing; it is the work of God in your lives. If He had not changed you, your lives would not bear evidence of salvation. And I know that He has not saved you and transformed you only to abandon you partway through.”
The author doesn’t hesitate to say to his readers, “I know you and your lives. I know that your lives show evidence of true conversion. Much of that evidence is your work of love toward one another as Christians. This is not your own doing; it is the work of God in your lives. If He had not changed you, your lives would not bear evidence of salvation. And I know that He has not saved you and transformed you only to abandon you partway through.”
What a blessing for the writer of Hebrews to have that kind of confidence in other believers. It’s a blessing for me to see the evidence of salvation in those around me.
There is a personal application to the readers.
Remember, the letter to the Hebrews was being written to Christian men and women who were being tempted to return to the old religion. Some of them simply missed the spectacle. Many of them were suffering persecution and oppression, sometimes from the Gentiles, and sometimes from the Jews.
The call to faithfulness was not to super-Christians, but to every Christian; to each man and woman who had looked Jesus Christ as Savior and followed Him as Lord.
And so the author goes on,
11 And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, 12 so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. ()
The apostle Paul says this, and I pray that it is your aim in Christ:
It’s wonderful that the author of Hebrews – and ultimately God the Father who SPOKE the Word, God the Son who IS the Word, and God the Holy Spirit who breathed the Word through human authors – was so confident in the salvation of these precious saints.
But the author wanted more for them, and the Lord wanted more for them, and He wants more for us.
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
He wants US to have assurance of our own salvation.
He closely ties our assurance to our diligence. “We desire that each one of you show the same diligence” – that is, eagerness, or enthusiasm – that you have shown, “so as to realize the FULL assurance of hope until the end.” The word “end” here doesn’t mean destruction or death, but God finishing His work of conforming us to the image of Jesus Christ. Be diligent, stay eager, stay enthusiastic about your life in Christ, so that your assurance grows.
Without eagerness and enthusiasm for Jesus Christ, we will become sluggish, complacent, apathetic.
This life in Christ can be hard, but let’s remember the promise of God to bring us all the way home, even as our trials are producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.
Our diligence is crucial because of what we’ve already seen in Hebrews. If we refuse to be imitators of men like Abraham and women like Sarah, if we refuse to be diligent, then we will become imitators of those who fell short, and could not enter the promised land because of their hard, unbelieving, disobedient hearts (, ). They had been delivered OUT of slavery, but refused to be delivered INTO the promised land. In the same way, describes those who are exposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but because of unbelief are never saved.
Instead, our aim should be to imitate “those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” of God. In the very next verse he talks about Abraham; we’ll get there next week. And in he speaks about a number of men and women, some of whom are well known to us, so-called “heroes of the faith,” but the majority of whom were just plain, ordinary, believers.
Let’s pray.
The apostle Paul puts it this way:
Bringing it Home
Bringing it Home
Assurance of salvation and peace with God is no small thing. People become depressed and disillusioned without assurance. The few out there who are “super Christians” seem to never struggle a moment, and perhaps they don’t. But I’m no super-Christian, and neither are you. Our battles and struggles and difficulties differ, but the core issue is the same: will we be diligent or grow sluggish? Will we press on in faith, or give it up because it isn’t worth it?
