All right, if you'll take your
Bibles and turn with me to Hebrews chapter 6. Hebrews chapter 6. This morning we'll be looking
at verses 9 to verse 15. The title of the message is,
Full Assurance of Hope. Full Assurance of Hope. The last time we were studying,
we were studying concerning this matter of falling away. What
is it to fall away into apostasy? Well, we know this, that falling
away into apostasy is nothing less than blasphemy of the Holy
Ghost. It's not necessarily one direct
sin, but it is a going away from the gospel of Jesus Christ, going
away from the hearing, the worshiping of the gospel, willingly going
away and turning your back on the gospel of Christ. But Paul
gives these here comfort. In verse 9, he says, But, beloved,
we have persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany
salvation, though we thus speak. Though he had to deliver a heavy
warning, though he had to deliver such a burdenous thing, it's
not easy for God's messengers to give such a hard saying. But it is necessary. It is necessary
so that we are charged with the whole Word of God, with giving
you the whole counsel of God. And this is part of it. And even
though this is true, we know this, that Paul was of these
believers persuaded better things than that. Why? They were there.
They were there. That's always good to see when
you see someone still here, still worshiping. He said, I'm persuaded
of better things. Things that accompany salvation.
In other words, when a person is a true believer, There will
always be evidence. Always. There's always evidence of true
faith in Christ. There will always be works that
come with faith. Now, works never produce faith. But faith always produces good
works. Works in no way contribute to
our salvation, which is by the grace of God alone. And we know
that even our faith itself is not a work, but it is a grace. It is a gift of God. Ephesians
2, verse 8 says, For by grace you are saved through faith,
and that... What is that? That's faith. That
faith is not of yourself. It, faith, is a gift of God,
not of works. Why? lest any man should boast."
You see, God will not have men to boast in any part of salvation. If you have any part in salvation
to boast in, you are not saved. You are not saved. You're still
trusting in something you're doing, rather than trusting in
what Christ has already accomplished. But true faith in Christ Not
produced by works or will, although the will is involved. I'm willing
to serve Christ, aren't you? I am. I was made willing in the
day of His power, when He came and gave me life. It cannot be gotten by merit
or religious deeds. True faith is the work of God,
the Holy Spirit in the new birth. You remember in John chapter
6, when those people said, what is it that we might do the works
of God? And Jesus said, this is the work
of God, that you believe on Him who He has sent. That's the work
of God. You believe? That's the work
of God. That's not your work. That's
the work of God. And in John we know this, that
Scripture says, As many as received Him, to them gave He the right
to be called the sons of God, which were born, not of the will
of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. You see, our new birth is of
God. God gives us life. He brings
something to being that was not there before. He gives us a new
life, a new heart. And this life is evidenced by
faith. Whose faith? Whose faith is it? Well, it is my faith, but truly
my faith is Christ's faith. How wonderful is that? How wonderful
is that? Paul said this, I am crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by
the faith of who? The faith of the Son of God who
loved me and gave Himself for me. I live by His faith. Oh, praise God for His faith.
Because of my old man, because of my sin, my faith is to be
counted as unbelief. But my faith is not in my face.
My faith is in the object of my faith, Jesus Christ. He, the
scripture says, is the author and the finisher. Wait a second,
we're not finished believing, are we? Oh, yes we are. He's finished it. And so then
all through this time of grace, we who believe shall believe
until the coming of Christ. It's sure. Friends, as breath is to life,
so is faith to spiritual life. You know, I don't look very much
different than a recently dead corpse. The only difference is
I'm breathing. I'm breathing. That's evidence
that I'm alive. Jesus Christ has accomplished
all that is necessary for me to live. He has accomplished
righteousness. He has accomplished the atonement
of all my sins. How then could God ever demand
my death? He can't. He won't. I've already died. I've already
died. and I'm alive in Christ by faith. So then, as we believe in Christ,
we are given spiritual life, and this will always produce
evidence or good works, things that accompany salvation. Now,
faith is not something necessarily that can be easily seen. Is that right? I mean, anyone
can say, I believe in whatever. You know, you say, I believe
in Jesus. Okay. Well, a man says he has
faith. Well, how will we know if a man
has faith? By his fruits. By their fruits
you shall know them. By their fruits you shall know
them. Anyone can say he has faith.
But where life and breath is, there's also action. Is that
not right? I mean, if you're living, if
you're breathing, at the minimum, you have some kind of brain activity
in a heartbeat. At the minimum. You still have
some action going on in there. You're still breathing. When a baby is born and he doesn't
cry, When a baby is born and he doesn't
move, that baby's dead. But when a live baby is born,
what does he do? He cries and kicks. He can't
do much. He can't go wash your car. He
can't do the driveway. He can't do all those things.
He's weak. He's small and helpless. But yet he's moving. He's kicking. And that's the
way it is with us who believe in Christ. I'm persuaded better
things of you because I see not only hear your faith. I see it. I see it. Have you ever done something
for somebody and nobody really noticed? I know that gets to our flesh,
but it should make our inner man rejoice. I know it does when
we do things and not necessarily to be seen of men. But I know this. Look at this. This is this speaks wonderful
things of our God. Look at verse 10. For God is
not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love." Is that
not something that God remembers what we do? Is that not gracious and merciful
to remember the works that He Himself performs inside of us,
working in us both the will and do of His good pleasure, and
yet He still remembers them? He's not unrighteous to forget
these things. Even though our works, I know
this, we see them as not worthy to be mentioned. And if we do mention them, they're
definitely not worthy to be mentioned. We've just ruined whatever it
is we did. But God takes notice of us. Although
our work is weak, riddled with sin and self-righteousness, God
will not forget our works because our works are done in righteousness
in Christ. Does that not take faith to believe
that? You bet. Have you seen anything
good that you've done? By faith in Christ, all that
we do is accepted. All that we do in faith and love
to God and His people is accepted as righteous. God won't forget this because
He'll never forget His Son. Now, what are these works that
accompany salvation? Well, look at that in verse 10.
It says, He won't forget your work and labor of love, which
you have showed toward his name, in that you have ministered to
the saints and do ministry." Labor of love. The works of God's
people are labors of love. The true believer in Christ has
affection. The natural man has passion.
Passion moves up and down. It's always hot or cold. You can have passion for someone,
and then that passion will go away. But affection is different. Affection is a steady love. That's how God's love is for
us. It's a constant, steady affection. It's not always that bursting
over with emotion, but it's a faithfulness, a steadiness in our love. Believers, our affection is to
be set on things above. Our affection, our love is to
be set on things above and not on the things of this earth.
Let me ask you this. What is your desire? What is
the one thing that you love the most? Is there anything, if we honestly
look at our life, is there anything that we could see that shows
our affections are set on heaven? If we honestly look at our actions
and our works, would this prove our faith and love for Christ,
or would this cause us to blush? Truly, it is a labor to mortify
the deeds of the body. This flesh wants what it wants
when it wants it. And this is not a one-time thing. This is a constant thing. The
flesh is never satisfied. Always demanding. Always demanding. And to cease from trying to merit
God's favor. I'll tell you what, we fall so
quickly. I'm so glad God doesn't reveal
every sin that I do every second of every day. I would die. I
would die. But I know this, the sins that
He does reveal to me, I know what the natural man immediately
tries to do is he immediately tries to do something good to
cover up something bad. Cut that off. Cut that out. We cannot merit God's love, God's
favor by our working. It is a labor to rest in the
person and work of Christ alone. Labor to enter into rest. Now,
the flesh is lazy. And he considers that resting. He considers if he's sleeping
or he's not working somewhere, he's resting. Resting in this body is not resting
in Christ. Just because you have everybody
seems to like you and everything's going well for you, doesn't mean
that you're resting in Christ. We can rest in Christ anytime.
And we should rest in Christ most when we're in trouble. We
should be able to rest and find peace in Him. God's saints truly do set our
affections on Him. Our hearts are continually casting
off the old man and continually desiring to set our affections
on Christ. A labor of love. A labor of love
to Christ. We desire to love Him because
He first loved us. Because He gave Himself to die
for us. That's why we love Him. The only
reason. I want to love Him more. Do you
desire to love Him more? He's worthy of it. He's worthy
of more love than I could ever give Him. Well, how do we show
this labor of love? How is it that this labor of
love is manifest? If we believe on Christ, we will
love Christ, But how does one see our labor
of love to Christ? Well, let me tell you, it's not
just a confession with your mouth. Saying you love Christ is not
loving Christ. That's not how we manifest we
love Christ. Again, that's easy to say. Anyone
can say that. It's not by overwhelming emotion. You can be overwhelmed with emotion
and cry and chant and shout Praise God. Praise God. Bless you. God bless you. That doesn't show
me anything. That shows me you're a very emotional
person. Our love for Christ is not seen
in our knowledge of doctrine. You remember the church of Ephesus.
They had all the doctrine, but they had left their first love. No, the only way that our love
and service to Christ is evidenced is by this. Your love for each other. How much do you love Christ is
only manifest by how much you love the brethren. Your service to Christ is only
measured by how much you serve the brethren. Read that in your text again.
Look at this in verse 10. He said, God is not unrighteous
to forget your work and labor of love which you showed toward
His name. How? In that you ministered to
the saints and do minister. In that you become a slave to
the saints and you are still a slave to the saints. Service to each other. This is the evident token of
true faith, is love. Jesus tells us plainly, by this
shall all men know that you are my disciples. How? By your excellent
knowledge of theology. Is that how men know you're his
disciples? By your overwhelming emotion.
By your zeal? No. All men shall know that you
are my disciples if you have love one for another. That's how men know. Friends, if we don't have love
for one another, how in the world is anyone going to see the love
of Christ? You can tell them all day long,
but if you're not exhibiting it, what good is it? We must
love and serve each other. Just acting religious or making
some decision or giving lip service is no evidence of life. But true
faith is always a labor of love to Christ. And we desire to follow
His commandment. And what is that? Love one another. This labor of love to the brethren
must be seen as it is in truth, service to Christ. If you love me and you serve
me because of me, that's not going to last long. Just not. But I'll tell you this, if you
love and serve me because of Christ, then you've got a good
reason. You have a great reason, don't
you? to serve the brethren. Because when we serve the brethren,
we serve Christ Himself. Is that not wonderful? Serve Christ Himself. Look at verse 11 in your text. It says, for we desire that every
one of you should show the same diligence to the full assurance
of hope unto the end. The same diligence of what? Serving
the brethren. Because serving the brethren
is serving Christ. Because loving the brethren is
loving Christ. He said you should do that with
great diligence. Diligence. And not be slothful,
as he says in verse 12, that you be not slothful. I have, by the grace of God,
known believers in Jesus Christ who have spent their lives preaching
the gospel and loving the brethren. Have you known men like that? If we are to have full assurance
of hope to the end and not to be slothful, he says, but followers
of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Be ye followers of God's people God has given us such great examples. And one of these, the apostle
here gives is Abraham, the father of the faithful. Abraham was
given a promise of God. God says, in thy seed shall all
the nations of the earth be blessed. And God, when he could swear
by none higher, he swore by himself. He promised. And Abraham, through faith and
patience, waited until it was time to receive the promise.
No matter what he saw. No matter what the evidence pointed
to. He was old. His wife was barren. They had no children. The days
were rolling. How in the world could God make
me the father of many nations? How is that possible? Humanly
speaking, it was not possible. Everything seemed to point against
it. But friends, we're not to look at the things of this life to see if God's going to fulfill
His promise. Friend, God does not fail. God's not like we are. God's
promises are sure. They're sure and steadfast, and
we should have full assurance in them, and we should be diligent
to love and serve one another as it is the mind of Christ in
us to do so. Jesus, who was God manifest in
the flesh, washed the feet of His disciples, not as an ordinance, but as a testimony to how we're
to serve one another. And friends, God has promised
that when we do this for each other, we do this for Christ.
Isn't that what Jesus said? He said, if you have done this
unto the least of these, my brethren, you have done this unto me. who believe are the body of Christ. I'm the body of Christ and He's
our head. If your hand does something for
your arm, you do it for your head. You do it for your head. Your
mind keeps saying, it hurts, it hurts. You put your hand over
there and you hold on to it. We serve Christ when we serve
each other, when we love each other. And we should be followers
of those examples of people who endured many different troubles
and trials and tribulations. Is it hard to love one another?
Is it going to cost you something to love one another? You bet
it is. You bet it is. So then when we love one another
and serve each other, we should do it with faith and patience. Why? Because God has promised. God has promised it's accepted. God has promised us eternal life. God has promised us Himself. And He won't fail. He doesn't
fail. It's important for us to know
that these are the evidences of grace. These are the labors
of our love to Christ is service to one another. And this is the
assurance of hope that we have. Anything else less than love
and service to each other and faith in Christ, there's no other
way to know. There's no other way to know.
If we're his or if we're not his. I pray that God would bless this
to your hearts. We're dismissed. I know. That's all right. I know it's there. We got it. Don't play the piano.