Sermon Tone Analysis

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and Lord Jesus Christ.

It is always a privilege to bring the Word of God to the saints of Durbin Memorial Baptist Church.

Today we are coming up on the end of chapter 3 from the book of Hebrews.

Throughout this look at the first three chapters of Hebrews we have seen how the Author presents Jesus as being Superior in ability, nature, and worth than anything else.

It has been a wonderful apologetic for the deity of Jesus that some groups would like to deny.

There has also been much given to prove the humanity of Jesus.

He became flesh and blood to save a creature of flesh and blood, namely us, humans.

Hebrews gives us these deep doctrinal truths like Jesus being fully God and Fully Man.

But we have also been challenged to look work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

We have been called to realize that if we truly believe that Jesus is the Christ and we have been saved than we must also realize that we are a holy and separate people.

We exist in the world but not of the world.

Through Christ’s atoning work on the cross, He has brought many sons to glory.

We only experience lasting, eternal glory, through what Christ has done and given to us.

I understand that the kind of teaching presented here is challenging.

It can be challenging intellectually, it can be challenging emotionally, it can be challenging spiritually.

But that is because it must be challenging.

I’ve said many times, the gospel is very simple, but it is not easy.

Pursuing holiness for the glory of God is a joyful endeavor, but it is an endeavor nonetheless.

If you are visiting here with us today or somehow coming across this message online and you are not regularly challenged by the teaching you are receiving, then you better begin to question if that teaching is one truly biblical, and two if it is of any real benefit to you!

Our verses of the month, Colossians 3:16-17, remind us that our lives should be saturated with the Word of Christ and we should be teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.

Please run from sources of apathetic “teaching” and pleasing words that are given for the sake of comfortability.

To paraphrase Spurgeon, “Do you choose the type of doctor who never tells you the truth about your health?! Do you trust the doctor who falsely assures you that nothing is wrong with you when the whole time a terrible disease was spreading inside you?

The doctor who prescribes maybe just a little aspirin and you’ll be alright?

He tells you to skip the painful operation that the surgeon suggested for you?

Church it would be a waste of time, no, more than that, a crime like murder, to teach easy things that do not challenge the soul.

When we think about teaching, the question is not ‘is it pleasant’ but ‘is it true?’”

So today, as we continue through Hebrews, it is my prayer that you are challenged and more than challenged, convicted and moved to act.

Not by the clever presentation of the preacher, but by the truth of the Word of God that pierces to the division of soul and of spirit, between joint and marrow, and discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

If you would, open your Bibles to Hebrews 3.

When we left off last week, we had been looking at the urgency there is in responding to the gospel.

None of us know how long we have left.

Just this past week I was scrolling through social media and saw former students of mine, lamenting because a kid they went to school with, couldn’t have been more than 19 or 20, was a victim of street violence.

None of us truly know how long we have left.

Today is the day to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus!

Today, we are going to be using more of the life of Moses, as we have for the last few weeks, to spot the difference between true and false salvation.

To reiterate what I’ve been circling around, repent and believe is an easy formula, you may think it is just two steps that are really two sides of the same coin, and that’s true!

But also understand that coming to Christ is not something that can be taken flippantly.

Look with me at verse 14:

This morning we are coming right out the gate by confronting one of the most difficult doctrines in all of Christian theology.

Perseverance.

We briefly touched upon this when we looked at Hebrews 3:6 just a couple of weeks ago, but we will give it a bit of a longer look now.

The Spirit says through the writer of Hebrews that we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

But it is here that we find the great, uncomfortable, challenging tension we must explore.

The Baptist Faith and Message references Ephesians 4:30 when it makes the statement: “[The Holy Spirit] seals the believer unto the day of final redemption.”

So if the believer is sealed and their salvation is secure, then how is it possible for one of the recipients of this letter to NOT be sharing in Christ by not holding their original confidence firm to the end?

When we are saved, when we repent and believe, are we sealed or not?

What we have to understand is that this letter, the book of Hebrews, was written to group of Hebrew believers, a church.

The church had been presented the gospel.

Many believed.

Many made public professions.

But much like churches today, there were those within the group who had some knowledge of the truths of Scripture and became a part of this movement, they identified with the group, without ever really submitting to Jesus.

In our modern context it may be something like, “Yeah, sure, Jesus is cool.

But when’s the next potluck.”

“Yeah, yeah, He died for sins, but like let me sing a solo!” There’s nothing wrong with potlucks or singing, but to truly share in Christ is for Him to be the first and primary love of your life.

Jesus is not the doorman who gives us access to a social club for us to use for our own enjoyment.

Jesus IS the club.

Jesus said you are truly my disciple if you abide, if you dwell, if you remain, if you continue in His Word.

Through faith and submission to Jesus we are not given a better life for our glory, we are given the best of lives for His glory!

So to understand eternal security and perserverance is to understand that through faith in Christ you have been made into a new creature.

And that new creature is shaped by and belongs to Jesus! Jesus puts it like this in the gospel of John:

The sheep in this image are followers of Christ.

Those who are Christ’s sheep, know His voice.

They follow Him.

No one can ever snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

They are secure.

Once you’re a sheep you don’t then become a goat.

Once you’re in the hand there isn’t anything that can pull you out.

You are secure.

But here is something to keep in mind.

Sheep are stupid.

Sheep wander.

But Christ’s sheep, though they may wander and fall into sin and temptation will always hear the voice of their master and return to Him.

The London Baptist Confession of 1689 puts it like this, “And though they may…fall into grievous sins, and for a time continue therein,… they shall renew their repentance and be preserved through faith in Christ Jesus to the end.”

I’m not the Holy Spirit.

God has not given me the ability to assess who has backslidden in their faith and who it is that has made a false profession for the purpose of personal religion.

But God has given me His Word and it tells me that those who know Him know are His sheep and know His voice and thus I am calling every single one of us to repent of the sin in our lives and put all our hope in the wonderful Savior Jesus Christ.

If you would, return with me to Hebrews 3:14

Look at the everything this tells us about the glorious salvation there is in Christ alone.

First, we see that we are not naturally, by birth in union with Christ.

“For we HAVE COME to share in Christ.”

We were not naturally sharing in Christ.

We were born naturally into despicable sin.

All of us fall so short of the glory of God.

All of us are nothing more than sinners in the hand of a Holy God.

But thanks be to God that Christ died on the cross to be the propitiation for our sins.

He took the sins of all those who so ever believe in Him, all of His sheep, He took their sins upon Him and died to pay their price.

He took the wrath of God owed for every transgression of every believer upon Himself.

So that we may share in Christ.

Do you understand what Christ has done?

Do you understand why He has done it?

He has through His blood reconciled believers to a holy God.

He has brought us together to be His people to work together for God’s glory.

Not only has He united us to God, He has united us together as a church, as a body of believers.

We see that by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, we now SHARE IN CHRIST.

What a grace it is that we share in Christ!

I have heard many people talk about the sense of love and unity that there is in this church.

And I have seen it myself.

I truly believe it is rooted in a common sharing in Christ.

And it absolutely must be!

When we talk about the body of Christ, the church, being unified, we must not forget what it is unified in!